Video – For The Professional Republicans Who Say “Candidate Quality” Matters, John Fetterman Returned to the Senate Today


Posted originally on the CTH on April 17, 2023 | Sundance

Watching Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman return to work in the Senate reminded me today of all those professional republican voices who shout about ‘candidate quality’ when explaining GOP election losses.

Here’s the video as an audio/visual exclamation point about the irrelevance of “candidate quality.” WATCH (30 secs)

It’s the Envelopes, Stupid!

Nothing, not one single thing….  about candidates, debates, endorsements, media support, branding, imaging, leadership, effectiveness, policy, polling, communications, digital outreach, social media platforms, rallies or love of country matters in the 2024 election.  None of it matters.  The outcome of the 2024 presidential contest will be determined by ONLY ONE THING…. ….ENVELOPES!

Book sales, TV ads, legislative accomplishments, cultural wokeism, school choice, education policy, fiscal policy, foreign policy, debates, political experience, candidate qualifications, polls, rallies, crowd sizes, endorsements, not one single part of any of that matters in this electoral combat.

There is only one thing that matters,…. collecting the most envelopes.

Tucker Carlson Interview With Elon Musk – Tonight 8:00pm ET


Posted originally on the CTH on April 17, 2023 | Sundance 

Consider this an open thread on this interview which will broadcast tonight at 8:00pm ET, along with a good preview by Tucker Carlson below.

The topic of Musk is interesting from multiple perspectives, particularly in an era of universal deceit, pretending and openly exposed manipulation of information by government and govt stakeholders.   I have my own keen reasons to watch the Musk dynamic closely, one of them pertains to the Twitter situation and what it means in the bigger sphere of communication.

Readers here will long remember my outline of the Twitter/Govt dynamic.  However, lesser focused is my empirical belief that a collaborative financial relationship, a subsidy of sorts, had to exist given the nature of both public and private enterprises.  The lesser discussed aspect to social media is the scale and cost of operations in proportion to the revenue the platforms can create.

Musk has essentially confirmed the basic premise I always believed about this public-private partnership; however, what has never been discussed is the financial subsidy for the data processing -and hardware- at scale.  People shrug off this part of the equation, but if you look at the financial moves Mr. Musk is making through the prism of trying to break free of a background financial dependency/subsidy, while simultaneously maintaining viable platform operations, then suddenly some of his moves make sense.

If you are watching the interview tonight, use this thread to share opinion, and I will update with video after broadcast.

PS. We have already peered into the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a decade ago presented the image of what it looks like.

If you think about it to context, everything comes together in this very predictable dynamic.

As we shared more than a decade ago, pictures are worth a multitude of words.

The Truth of the Thing


Posted originally on the CTH on April 17, 2023 | Sundance 

Two quick juxtapositions to contemplate:

Just accepting things as they are presented to be, without laying opinion on the table.

♦ Mr. Elon Musk is saying he spent $44 billion to purchase a platform without any prior knowledge the U.S. Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) was operating on the backbone of the communication platform he was purchasing.

Additionally, all due diligence that may have been conducted before the biggest expenditure in the history of social media networks, did not reveal this intelligence community operation, to him, until after the sale was complete.

Everything thereafter is based on this predicate.

♦ Mr. Ron DeSantis is saying he had no idea the apparatus of political constructs was creating a presidential campaign process over a period of two years that would require his ultimate approval and participation, during the period when he genuinely claimed to be running for reelection to be the 2022 Florida Governor.

Everything thereafter is based on this predicate.

Whether you believe these assertions to be true or not is entirely up to you.

However, with these two points in mind, what does that say about the current state of our national pretense?

Expand the discussion. I am very interested in how intellectually honest people view these assertions.

Sunday Talks, NBC’s Chuck Todd Discovers That Black Teenagers Are Shooting Each Other


Posted originally on the CTH on April 16, 2023 

Delivering statistics on gun deaths among teenagers, NBC News Chuck Todd discovers that black teenagers are killing each other at a much higher rate than white and asian kids.   Todd is shocked, shocked, at the outcome.  WATCH:

The rumors of cultural violence have Chuck Todd perplexed….

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin Takes a Pass on 2024


Posted originally on the CTH on April 15, 2023 | Sundance

Given the nature of the club plan, we can probably expect to see the field thin much faster as it gets closer to Ron DeSantis launch date.

The South Carolina folks (Haley and Scott) will remain, and Asa Hutchinson is likely to hang out as the club player for Iowa, but pulling the other noise away from DeSantis will be a priority.  Also, no one will enter the contest after DeSantis.

With Trump surging, Team RdS needs every part of their 20% to remain as the floor.  The Big Club handlers can’t afford the optics of Ron DeSantis polling dropping further because it will make his pre-planned entry look weak and more transparent.   As such, Youngkin taps out before he reaches the ring.

(Via New York Times) –  Virginia’s governor is putting the presidential hoopla on ice.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, the Republican whose surprising election in a blue-trending state set off instant talk of a presidential run, has tapped the brakes on 2024, telling advisers and donors that his sole focus is on Virginia’s legislative elections in the fall.

[…] “Listen, I didn’t write a book, and I’m not in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina.” Instead, he said, he is putting his full focus on November’s statewide Virginia election, when all 140 seats in both chambers of the General Assembly are on the ballot. A decision to enter the 2024 campaign in November would be historically late, well past the first Republican debate in August.

[…] “I am wholly focused on the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I’m looking forward to these elections,’’ Mr. Youngkin said during an appearance to promote Virginia’s agricultural exports. [T]he governor, 56, said that gaining majorities in the legislature “is what this year is all about.”  (read more)

It’s likely the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) helped influence this decision.

“Envelopes” – Quint’s Message


Posted originally on the CTH on April 15, 2023 | Sundance 

I am a reasonably intelligent person, generally of mild and polite disposition; perhaps blessed by the grace of a loving God and brutally practical outlook therein, and with the acuity to look at things from a slightly less complicated perspective.

I have watched, viewed, read and consumed the Potemkin Village discussion across a broad spectrum of platforms for several weeks.  I have watched the news, read the headlines, researched the general promotions from a wide variety of sources and personalities.  Heck, yesterday, I even forced myself to watch a painful podcast [LINK], which included the insufferable pontifications of Buck Sexton and Clay Travis as they discussed the Trump -vs- DeSantis popular genre of domestic 2024 politics.

The world is full of small voices shouting the exact same shiny things in unison.  However, one thing is abundantly clear… everyone in conservative and republican politics is consumed by the 2024 puppet show and focused, to the exclusion of all other intelligent review, on the Potemkin Village of federal political constructs.

Let me be clear….  Nothing, not one single thing….  about candidates, debates, endorsements, media support, branding, imaging, leadership, effectiveness, policy, polling, communications, digital outreach, social media platforms, rallies or love of country matters in the 2024 election.  None of it matters.  The outcome of the 2024 presidential contest will be determined by ONLY ONE THING….

….ENVELOPES!

That’s it.

That’s the sum total of what matters.

Envelopes containing ballots.

Red envelopes -vs- Blue envelopes, and who can gather the most envelopes.   That’s it folks.  That’s the only thing that matters.

When Team Obama watch their opposition deciding on who is the best person to reach the “independent”, “middle”, or “swing voters”… as if voters really mattered, the David Axelrod’s, Marc Elias’s, David Plouffe and Barack Obama’s of the world laugh.  I mean straight up hysterically belly laugh.

…”the RNC is still conducting ‘voter outreach‘!”….

More than half the country is still focused on a political pretense that is akin to using a flip phone in a smart phone world.

When the DNC sees the RNC focused on selecting the best congressional candidates who can be the best representatives for a district in Virginia… the entire mechanism of the donor class behind the DNC orders another round of drinks.

Debates don’t matter…. Did you forget Arizona 2022?   Katie Hobbs giggled when asked about why no debates.

Candidates don’t matter….  Did you forget Pennsylvania 2022?  When grunge clad, hoodie-wearing, John Fetterman promoted pancake syrup as the best solution to the Medicare crisis (or something equally as bat-shit crazy from his compromised mental state).

Rally size doesn’t matter….  Did you forget the Biden campaign audiences that could fit into one mid-sized SUV?

Qualifications do not matter.  Intelligence, policy, legislative accomplishments, executive experience, success or lack thereof in any life endeavor… NONE of this matters.

All of these former aspects of the political industry are gone, they have absolutely no bearing on the outcome of federal elections.

The only reason these insufferable discussions still exist is to maintain the illusion of a political business that generates money.   The business they are pretending to still exist is like Blockbuster video being subsidized by corporations who sell streaming services.  The media pretend the traditional business model of elections is still viable because without it, there is no need for them.

There is only one function of modern political industry that matters…  Collecting envelopes.  That’s it!

It doesn’t even matter whose name is on the paper inside the envelope.   The people who switched from Flip Phones to Smart Phones don’t even pay attention to the candidate names on the ballots any longer.  We elect dead people now.

The entire mechanism of American political outcomes is now one really simple process. There are Blue envelopes to locate, and there are Red envelopes to locate.  Tune in to the news in November of 2024 and find out which team collected the most envelopes.

♦ Dear President Donald Trump, go ahead and hold the rallies…. continue putting out the platform…. continue using your podium to promote vision, excitement and direction in the largest scale possible to save the nation.  Continue providing fuel for the cultural battle and primary battle being waged in the social media sphere by warriors for the MAGA movement….  However, in the totality of the 2024 presidential contest, this effort should be -at most- 20% of the industrial political campaign.

80% of the entirety of the money spent, the effort exhausted, the assembly constructed, the people and supporters assembled, should be focused – to the exclusion of all other things – on the process of maximizing envelope collection.

Make that paradigm shift, and 2024 is easily within reach.  Ignore it, and you might as well use a carrier pigeon to send your next email.

The RNC is no help.  The RNC is focused on EVERYTHING that doesn’t matter.

You cannot win an election if you rely on the RNC to make this adjustment.  You are going to have to organize this assembly on your own while enlisting the resources of the MAGA army.

The DNC already has the network of thousands of community activist organizations and business units at work in preparation for the 2024 envelope gathering operation.  They do not care about voters; the wants and needs of the people on the front of the envelope are an arcane annoyance, irrelevant to the DNC objective.

For the Republican presidential primary, whoever contracts Catherine Engelbrecht and the coast-to-coast organization of True The Vote first, will likely win.

Book sales, TV ads, legislative accomplishments, cultural wokeism, school choice, education policy, fiscal policy, foreign policy, debates, political experience, candidate qualifications, polls, rallies, crowd sizes, endorsements, not one single part of any of that matters in this electoral combat.  There is only one thing that matters,…. collecting the most envelopes.

… And with that message clearly stated, here’s the metaphor for a brutally honest visit to the next national RNC meeting, along with a prediction for exactly what their reaction would be…..

…Enjoy your day!

“Here lies the career of Hill-a-ree;
forgotten in twenty twenty-three.
For fifteen years she ran for president;
not a bad record for a New York resident.”

Quint…


Posted originally on the CTH on April 15, 2023 | Sundance 

There is a scene in the movie Jaws when the town is arguing about a shark that is eating people and the best way to deal with it. Suddenly, from the back of the room there is the ear-piercing sound of fingernails being dragged slowly down a chalkboard.  As the sound travels, the room grimaces and then goes quiet….

Consider this my version of Quint’s approach…

The second most asked question when talking about national political corruption is the question, “who’s they?”   We often hear the opaque term “they”, but no one seems to give accurate context to it, so I will.

However, before getting to that point, allow me to begin with the end in mind.

If you want to know the most important thing you can do to save Our Republic, then first – get right with God.  Get right with the purpose of the mission, before you even think about packing a bag to begin the effort.  You ain’t got to be perfect, far from it, scruffy and messy works well; but you have got to be dead-plumb raw in admitting and accepting your fallible disposition. In many ways this is what “living your best life” is all about.  As eloquently shared:

…”There is nothing more powerful in the universe than being connected and aligned with power of infinite truth, infinite strength, infinite well-being, infinite love, infinite joy, and all the other positive emotional feelings and desires that we humans desire.”

If you want to harness that power for your own life and purpose, get right.

Now, having read the responses to the previous question, it’s obvious we have a lot of new friends here.  As I dive into sharing the details of our current national political construct, a baseline about party politics is needed.

If you think “Republicans” are the solution, then you don’t understand the construct of the ‘Big Club.’

Political parties were created to present you with: (1) a controlled outlet for your focus (pro-tip the Big Club “they” control it); and (2) the illusion of choice.

Now there are some differences between the two political parties – between the two wings of the same DC vulture.

• The DNC wants power. The RNC wants money.
• The DNC uses money to get power. The RNC use power to get money.
• The ideology of the DNC drives their donor activity. The ideology of the donors drives the RNC.

This is the essential difference in their business models.  This is also how the system works when you think about ‘money’ and raw ‘ideological power’.

Let me give you an example in current culture, around “wokeism“.

The social and cultural ideology of the left-wing is clear; they are pushing ideology.  However, when you look at the right-wing corporate response, notice the focus is on money.  The left is pushing a cultural revolution; the right is seeking to gain money in (a) corporate alignment, or (b) velvet-gloved combat against it.

The leftist ideology advances. Notice there is no ideological pushback against the cultural revolution from Congress.  Why?… Money

Democrats know if they want to advance ideology, simply find a mechanism to pay Republicans.  Easy peasy.

♦ Ukraine.  IDEOLOGY: The agenda of the left-wing (Dems) is clear; they are pushing for an expanded totalitarian globalist agenda.  MONEY: The right-wing response to the Ukraine ideology, is money.  Congress funds the industrial military machine, the military contractors.  The contractors repay politicians.

The globalist ideology advances.  Notice, there is no ideological pushback against the White House and U.S. State Dept foreign policy from Congress.

Why?… money.

If you are an institution (or individual) and your enterprise needs power to advance your interests (think Big Tech), you align with Democrats.   If you are an institution (or individual) and your enterprise needs money to advance your interests (think Wall St), you align with Republicans.

The left-wing wants power to advance ideology. The right-wing wants money.  That’s why the Republicans never stop any of the Democrats’ ideological gains.

♦ Elections. IDEOLOGY: The ballot-harvesting agenda of the left-wing (DNC/dems) is clear; they have thousands of networked groups funded by donor activity (Zuckerbucks etc.), organized in every community to assemble ballots.  MONEY: The right-wing response is to see the opportunity for fundraising…. Meanwhile, a massive network known as True The Vote, Catherine Englebrecht, with an army of skilled voter integrity grassroots operations, easily retooled to a ballot collection network, sits untapped.

This is the nature of the system that distracts us.  Two wings of the same vulture. This is the inherent nature of U.S. politics in the big picture, and I can get as granular and specific as anyone might need – including the propositions for why club candidates are selected within the ‘illusion of choice’ game.

Back to the question: “Who’s they?

♦ Consider the scale.  Donald Trump is falsely prosecuted for a non-existent crime and tens of thousands of Americans send money to his campaign to show support.  According to media outlets, Trump raised over $10 million in a few days from the average MAGA American.   There are also claims that Ron DeSantis raised $30 million in the last few months from billionaires, hedge funds, Wall Street and multinational corporations during his not-a-campaign book tour.

Sounds good right?  Well….

For scale, former Dianne Feinstein staffer Dan Jones, left the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in order to work as the liaison between private interests, contractors and government officials in the stop-Trump campaign. Within a week, Dan Jones created the Penn Quarter Group and raised $50 million to spend on the effort….

…. “They” gave it to him.

There are various “theys” within the system.   One set of ‘theys” are the multinationals and billionaire donors who control the levers of power behind the Potemkin village we call Washington DC.   George Carlin called them ‘the big club.’

The other set of “theys”, that few people talk about, are the operatives who work as the guards for the system.   This is where the United States intelligence community, various opaque government agencies, and federal intelligence contractors come into play.   I have met the participants.

The guards are paid to run domestic surveillance operations that are then funneled into the U.S. Justice System for official targeting operations conducted by the DOJ and FBI.  These are tradecraft agents within quasi government agencies, most federal contract agencies, that target politicians and influential people with the specific intent on gaining leverage, blackmail, information etc, for use by those who retain and protect the system.

You could call these the “seven ways to Sunday crowd”, as defined by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.   Or you could call these people the “FBI contractors” who have access to the NSA database as part of their operational mission to conduct surveillance and create the files that ultimately end up with the “seven ways to Sunday crowd.”

It matters not what you call them, these men and women conduct targeting operations against U.S. citizens and U.S. businesses.  They also create the files that are used by political operatives like Dan Jones.  That’s why $50,000,000.00 was/is needed for the Trump operation.

All of the puppets, players and politicians within the Potemkin village are under this network of surveillance, and at any time they can be targeted by a host of tradecraft operations to ensnare them.

If you start digging into the actual corruption, schemes or a specific granular episode that highlights risk to the DC operation, you end up like former CBS news investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson, with “TSCI” material in a hidden file within your computer for the FBI to randomly find.

Former DAG Rod Rosenstein and FBI official Shawn Henry ran that specific operation against Attkisson.  Shawn Henry went on to work for Crowdstrike in their “proactive and incident response services” division.  That’s the intel security company that investigated the DNC “hack” and told the FBI it was Russians who did it…. at least that’s the claim from the FBI who never investigated the “hack”, a claim later denied by Crowdstrike.   See how that works?

Yesterday you might have read that 40 intelligence and law enforcement “confidential human sources” were in the J6 Proud Boy’s operation at the DC capitol.  That’s another example of the “theys” that function as contractors to the system within the larger intelligence apparatus.  It all falls under the Director of National Intelligence and Dept of Homeland Security (DHS).

Another example of the “theys” in the system are the FBI and various “Intelligence Community” officials and contractors you see exposed in the Twitter files.  Essentially, embeds in the Big Tech social media system.  It sure makes datamining operations easier when the federally contracted ‘miners’ are inside the communication platforms, able to review all the private discussions and report that information back to the DHS central command.  Things making sense now?

I have met these people.  I know exactly who they are.

This is the reality of our situation.   So, when you respond to my initial question about, “What do you want me to do?…. use this context.

And believe me, I’ll do it.  I’m right with what matters!

A Message from the Lost Generation


Armstrong Economics Blog/Opinion Re-Posted Apr 15, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: I am a Millennial, a demographic that never had an opportunity to succeed in America. The existential trauma began in middle school when our teachers huddled us into a room to watch the Twin Towers burn down in real time. We do not remember life before the Patriot Act or school shooter drills. The war in the Middle East progressed over the years, and I attended the funerals of former classmates who died in Afghanistan and Iraq. The military seemed like a valid alternative considering the once-in-a-lifetime economic collapse.

The Great Recession hit when we were in college, but most of us did not fully grasp what was happening. Many families suffered immensely, and some in the middle class experienced poverty for the first time, which instilled a permanent sense of scarcity. We piled on student debt for a degree that was nothing more than an expensive piece of paper. There were no jobs available once we graduated. We accepted what we could for pennies on the dollar as they fired the more experienced employees, our parents’ peers.

This caused older generations to have misplaced anger toward Millennials. They called us lazy and shouted how we could have a better life if we stopped buying Starbucks or avocado toast. No one realized that we were experiencing a different economic reality.

The pandemic hit once we settled into our careers after clawing up the corporate ladder. Another once-in-a-lifetime financial crash. We stayed in our apartments while the government sent insulting stimulus checks and businesses closed. Uncertainty and economic volatility engulfed our collective experience. Those who missed their chance to buy a home when prices were digestible are stuck as perpetual renters, as most of our income goes toward rent. We cannot save for an increasingly uncertain future due to shelter costs and overall inflation.

There is no financial nest egg for those not born into wealth. We have never felt financially secure. Our parents were established by the time they reached our age but we are the first generation to experience a lower quality of life than the last. People question why my generation is not having children or starting families. We can hardly support ourselves even with decent jobs. We are accustomed to these once-in-a-lifetime tragedies happening every few years. The future looks bleak and we expect the rug to be pulled out from us again. As you say, it is a matter of time.

Thank you for speaking out against the people who contributed to these events and providing guidance for the future. I do not want the war in Ukraine to spark another economic tragedy, as we are barely hanging on. We were fed a lie that you could work hard and succeed but life is far different for us than what we were promised. I feel more prepared for the upcoming downturn after reading your work and seeing that everything has a cycle. There are no once-in-a-lifetime events.

REPLY: Thank you. If we all understand that government cannot create a perfect linear world with only booms, and never a bust, and that when it comes to government, there is no need to follow science – just follow the money. The founding Fathers intended no salaries for politicians and the terms were just 2 years. In that manner, it would be a government of We the People. When they began paying themselves salaries, they became permanent fixtures in Washington and then came the plague of lobbyists like locusts that eat the entire crop.

Anheuser-Busch CEO Issues Statement Following Rebranding of Bud Light Backlash


Posted originally on the CTH on April 14, 2023 | Sundance | 530 Comments

There have been rumors of serious drops in customer purchasing after Anheuser Bush rebranded Bud Light as the beer for transvestites & transgenders.

The stock value of the company has dropped, but the Main Street (consumer-driven) financial outcomes are not clarified in data yet, and everything is nonempirical.  However, with the CEO of Anheuser Bush now stepping into the discussion [see statement here], it is safe to anticipate the impacts at a retail level have reached the executive suites.

Unfortunately, the milquetoast statement from the company is exceptionally weak and shows a heavily influenced group and board filter which ends up creating a very white-washed corporate statement from CEO Brendan Whitworth.  Saying, “we never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people,” is a long way from saying something akin to, ‘hey guys, we really screwed up, and have fired everyone associated with this visit into the world of brand image stupidity.’

[Company Statement Link]

The way I read between the lines of this statement is that Mr. Brendan Whitworth was well aware of the branding effort and marketing plan.  He approved it.  CEO Whitworth cannot fire Budweiser Light Vice President of Marketing, Alissa Heinerscheid, because Whitworth himself approved the marketing strategy.  That’s the way the weasel-words read to me.

Bottom line, this is very weak… pathetically weak… and Budweiser brands deserve to be publicly shunned.  Give them a few weeks with zero sales and let’s see what happens.

Suspicious Cat’s Correct – Johnson and MacGregor Give Details


Posted originally on the CTH on April 14, 2023 | Sundance

In an era of universal deceit, it should not be a surprise for the suspicious cats to be more accurate.

Semi-related context for scope of fraud:  We know with demonstrable certainty that Hillary Clinton, the DNC, Fusion GPS, Chris Steele, DOJ, FBI and SSCI collaborated to create the fictitious premise called broadly “Trump-Russia collusion and interference in the 2016 election.”  The entire thing was bogus soup-to-nuts, all of it… make believe; none of it real.  So, how the hell did Mueller, Rosenstein and Weissmann indict Russians?

Now… Fast forward to the current classified intelligence leaks with the scale, scope and background of everything above in mind.  WATCH:

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In the next segment Douglas Macgregor gives his view, and makes some really good emphatic points about the facts within the intelligence leaks proving the United States government, OUR GOVERNMENT, is completely lying about Ukraine and other matters.

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What we think of as Washington DC is a Potemkin village.

All of it is a fabrication.

The real seat of power controlling government is the part we do not see.  The Fourth Branch of Government!