Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Po sted Apr 23, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Steve was a very intelligent man who specialized in Russia. Steve knew a lot about history and I always found that very inspirational. Sadly, Steve is no longer with us.

Armstrong Economics Blog/France Re-Posted Apr 22, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

The French election this weekend really does hold the fate of the world in balance. The victory of Macron will set the fate of Europe on its course with destiny and the end of the West as we know it. Macron wants a European army and he really believes that the EU can defeat Russia. A Macron victory will indeed set Europe on course for war and 2023 will not look very bright. From a realistic model projection, Le Pen should win, but from a practical perspective, Macron will win because Europe must simply face its destiny.

A mere month-end close below 6385 on the CAC40 will signal that capital is indeed concerned and we can see the European markets decline into 2023. The CAC40 has penetrated into the broad uptrend channel but it has yet to closed back into that channel holding on for dear life.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 24, 2022 | Sundance

Several people have written to inquire about recent stories surrounding a wave of industrial accidents at food processing plants all over the U.S.  {Zero Hedge Article} {Twitter Questions, Suspicions} {List from Western Standard}

Indeed, there has been a significant increase in fires and explosions from furnaces, industrial fryers, boilers and some other rather odd incidents with aircraft hitting food processing.  The frequency even gathered attention from Fox News host Tucker Carlson.  WATCH:

Addressing the lesser frequent impact incidents from airplanes etc.  Keep in mind that major industrial food processing facilities are generally located around major transportation hubs – large arteries for commercial trucking and railway lines for inbound good deliveries.  These are the same zoned commercial regions where you find small regional airports.

So, let’s put those airplane ‘accidents” aside for a moment and look at the bigger picture.

Yes, there has been an increase in industrial accidents at some major and regional food processing plants.  However, this may be the cumulative effect of what CTH was warning about since early 2020 when the food processing supply chain was completely screwed up by govt intervention.

When the restaurant, hotel, cafeteria, school lunchroom, food trucks and hospitality venues were shut down by government COVID mitigation, they represented about 60% of all food consumption.  That pushed everyone into the retail side, grocery stores and supermarkets for food purchases.

When 60% of the demand shifted into the system that represents the other 40% of total food delivery, the processing side of the total food supply chain went into maximum stress and overdrive.   CTH warned about the limits and capacities of this sector and the potential future problems that would surface.

Commercial food operations, industrial kitchens and massive food processing organizations were forced to increase food production on a scale that is almost unimaginable.  Empty store shelves were the immediate result of massive increases in demand.  The entire supply chain was pushed beyond capacity and remained beyond operational capacity for well over 18 months.

Two shift processing operations added a third and fourth shift for workers.  Unlimited overtime with everyone working round the clock was the outcome. The food processing and distribution supply chain went into 24/7 emergency operations to try and compensate for the extreme demand.

What we are seeing now is likely, in large part, a downstream consequence from industrial kitchens putting preventative maintenance on the side in order to keep the processing going.

Boilers never turned off, furnaces running 24/7, exhaust fans and industrial turbines running all day and night along with all the attached equipment.  I suspect much of the equipment that keeps the industrial processing and kitchens operating were not given the appropriate amount of down-time and deep maintenance that would normally take place.

Think of it like your clothes dryer at home.  Instead of running two loads of laundry a day, now you are operating that dryer 24/7 to keep up with the mounting piles of soiled linens.  You generate several years’ worth of lint buildup in your exhaust vent each month you continue.  If you pause to clean out the vent, the linens pile up.  A similar scenario happens in industrial kitchens and food processing.

Suddenly, the 30-gal tub of oiled/soiled rags fills up faster, and the contract for pickup doesn’t compensate or arrive with a faster rotation schedule.

An old cloth filled with food grade mineral residue triggers a chemical reaction….

Industrial fryers that must be purged every 6-hr cycle of operation don’t get purged because the retention system for the old grease is full and not getting pumped as fast to keep up with the increased production cycles.

Stuff like this starts to happen when you run an industrial system beyond capacity.  Perhaps the grease is loaded into buckets or drums as an offset, but that needs to be stored somewhere…. where they are not used to storing it… etc.

Industrial vents don’t get cleaned more frequently to keep up with the new 24/7 operation.  Regular maintenance schedules are deferred for massive furnaces that need time to cool, clean and restart.

The same applies to boilers and HVAC systems that were not designed for the capacity now required.  In short, there’s a whole lot of maintenance that gets put down the priority list when everyone in the organization is shouting to keep everything running.

I’m not trying to justify the issue, excuse or blame the facility.  I’m just explaining how all kinds of industrial accidents can spike when the operational systems within a specific industry are running maximum throttle, month after month after month.

Then there’s the exhausted people; literally the workers who are physically and mentally drained from the overcapacity issues.  And don’t think the regulatory agencies (USDA, health inspectors, etc) wouldn’t also tell their compliance officers to give the industry a little slack.  I guarantee they did.

The added hours, the added shifts, the days off that can’t take place.  All of that leads to short cuts and things left undone that would normally be done under regular operations.  People burn out just like equipment, and tired people take shortcuts.

I’ll look closely to see if there is an uptick in workers comp claims within the industrial food processing sector, but I suspect there is.  Heck, why wouldn’t there be?  It would be natural to see more worker injuries along with industrial accidents under these conditions.

Does that explain all of the incidents?  Maybe not, but the fact that U.S. food processing has been running beyond capacity, might put a better context on why that same specific segment of U.S. industrial output would be seeing more industrial accidents.

Another downstream consequence could be an uptick in food recalls as an outcome of increased bacteria within the food processing equipment, because the break-down-time, sanitation and hygiene might be impacted by excessive operational run times.  There’s a myriad of issues from any industrial operation that goes from ordinary capacity to seriously over-stressed maximum capacity… and then remains in the emergency phase for months.

Like I said two years ago, the downstream ramifications of those decisions were going to be a major problem.

March 15, 2020 – […] “A government cannot just shut down 30 to 50 percent of the way civil society feeds themselves, without planning and advanced preparation for an alternative. Those who ARE the alternative, the processors and retail food grocers, need time to prepare themselves (and their entire logistical system) for the incredible impact.  Without preparation this is a man-made crisis about to get a lot worse. (LINK)

FUBAR…

… or it could be something nefarious.  Suspicious Cat always remains, well, suspicious.

[FBI WARNING]

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 23, 2022 | Sundance 

Robert Lighthizer was the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) under the Trump administration.  Lighthizer was exceptionally strong in developing and structuring the America First trade policy that included the effective use of tariffs to get fair trade outcomes.

In this video Ambassador Lighthizer discusses the current trade policy of the Biden administration with former National Economic Council Chair Larry Kudlow.  The discussion centers around U.S-China trade policy, the phase-1 trade deal that was interrupted by the pandemic, and the future of the existing trade tariffs against Beijing that Biden is reportedly going to remove.  WATCH:

As noted by Lighthizer, if Biden drops the Chinese tariffs, it will only make the trade imbalance worse and push the U.S. deeper into the cycle of lost jobs and economic contraction.  He’s correct.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 23, 2022 | Sundance

A stunning loss in company value is being reported by The Washington Examiner for the Disney Corporation.  On March 29th, they were valued at over $140.00 per share.  By April 22nd they had dropped to $120 per share.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER – “Disney’s stock has lost nearly $50 billion in value since the start of March, when it took a political gamble to oppose Florida’s controversial new education law.  Disney’s stock was down more than 2% on Friday and by more than 8.5% over the past few days as Florida lawmakers work to punish the company for wading into the state’s politics. The stock’s market cap has declined by about $46.6 billion since March 1, just days before the company came out against the legislation.” (read more)

A recent poll by conservative-leaning Trafalgar Group [DATA HERE] might explain why:

[Polling Here]

68% of the respondents would be less likely to do business with the Disney Corporation as a result of the company position on K-3 students participating in gender/sexuality discussions in Elementary Schools.   Considering the primary audience for Disney products would be families with children, it certainly looks like the results of the company politics will be financially painful for the corporation.

Disney has come out of the closet, not only as a corporation intent on the advancement of sexual identity, but also with a corporate mission to influence the sexualization of our children.  This March 29, 2022, open expression of their corporate mission is disturbing on many levels.

During a conference call to explain the corporate intents of the company, Disney entertainment president Karey Burke says, “As the mother [of] one transgender child and one pansexual child,” she supports having “many, many, many LGBTQIA characters in our stories” and wants a minimum of 50 percent of characters to be LGBTQIA and racial minorities.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 23, 2022 | Sundance

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised more weapons for Ukraine according to Reuters. “British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday to confirm Britain will supply fresh weaponry to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion.” (link)

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are heading to Kyiv tomorrow for talks with Zelenskyy. “[I]n what would be the highest-level visit by U.S. officials to Ukraine since the start of the war. The Defense Department and State Department declined to comment. Mr. Zelensky, speaking to reporters in a subway station in Kyiv on Saturday, said he would discuss military supplies and the pace of their delivery with the U.S. officials. The Ukrainian president has pressed Western countries for more weapons and support, and the U.S. and allies have raced to supply Ukraine with NATO-standard heavy weaponry.” (link)

Meanwhile Russia is reporting to have captured a massive Ukranian military weapons cache near Kharkiv (northeastern Ukraine).  The video is quite remarkable:

When you watch that video, it’s hard not to wonder where all that military hardware came from previously, and how long the buildup of that particular Kharkiv weapons depot had been happening.  There are thousands of tons of weapons and ammunition in that video.

Additionally, Russia’s defense ministry said on Saturday that its forces had shot down a Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet and destroyed three MI-8 helicopters at an airfield in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine regarding the Russian claims.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 23, 2022 | Sundance

Tonight, President Trump heads to Delaware, Ohio, to rally support for various political candidates.  The Venue is the Delaware County Fairgrounds, and the president is scheduled to deliver remarks at 7:00pm ET.  Rumble Livestream Links Below:

Trump Campaign Livestream – RSBN Livestream Link – Alternate Livestream

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Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 23, 2022 | Sundance

In a very late-night filing by Special Counsel John Durham {pdf HERE}, in the case against former Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann, the special counsel gives the most detailed construct of the “joint venture” between the Clinton team and allies to fabricate a Russian Collusion Conspiracy Theory against Donald Trump in 2016.

As we have noted, Durham is focused on the people outside government who fabricated information and triggered years of false accusations against Donald Trump, which ultimately included the creation of a special counsel, Robert Mueller.

John Durham has not touched any of the players inside government within any of his filings, with the exception of former FBI legal counsel James “Jim” Baker, who is a witness and gave testimony for three days to a grand jury. Durham will not touch anyone inside government [fn¹].

Durham is focused on who, how and why they originated the Trump-Russia lies, and whether any laws were broken as they pushed those lies into government institutions which created four years of crisis for the government and former President Trump.  Within this filing, Durham focuses on the “joint venture”, or what can be described as a conspiracy to manufacture and/or defraud the government.

I have tried to put clarity on the filing by outlining who/what the terms are. DETAILS:

As you can see, the filing speaks for itself in outlining the origination of the conspiracy. Durham continues….

{SOURCE DOCUMENTS}

These are essentially the players who fabricated the Trump-Russia narrative.

David Dagon (“Researcher-2”), a researcher tasked by Rodney Joffe to fabricate connections between Alfa Bank and Trump, was given immunity in exchange for his cooperation with the special counsel.  Fusion GPS employee Laura Seago was also granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her cooperation with the special counsel.

Suffice to say, Durham knows what they did and how they did it.  Now, he needs to prove it by using the evidence the conspirators have among their own documents and discussions.

The current court battle is circling around various lawyers and groups saying they have attorney-client privileges in order to attempt to avoid document production and/or testimony that will put them in legal jeopardy.   The Clinton Campaign is claiming communication with Fusion is privileged. Fusion is claiming communication with Perkins Coie is privileged.  Perkins Coie is claiming they hired Fusion GPS for legal services, etc. etc. etc.

It takes much more time, but John Durham is working through each of the privilege claims in court, and so far, he has been successful in compelling compliance.

♦ A frequent question:  Why didn’t Durham charge Rodney Joffe yet?   It’s a good question, and the answer is likely because he’s building that case around something else.  Here’s my suspicion.

You will remember, back in 2016, 2017 and 2018, when I said the Clinton team seem to have some kind of “direct portal” into government databases.  There was some process clearly evident where the Clinton campaign itself had access to government databases.

We speculated about all kinds of contractors helping her, etc.  This is entirely separate from what Fusion GPS and other participants were doing to data-mine information.  This is not the people inside government connected to spygate (NSA, Fusion, etc), this is a portal specific to the Clinton campaign itself.

I always called this network the “Clinton Portal“, and the fingerprints from it just kept surfacing as the media described Trump-Russia connections, and then campaign officials would amplify.  I’ve said that since mid 2016, and I retained that view throughout.  Clinton’s campaign operation was data mining some government database, somehow.  The question was who and how?

Rodney Joffe is the explanation that answers that question.  Joffe exploiting contractor access to government databases (GA Tech via DARPA), in combination with his access to data from Neustar, gave him a unique position.  Joffe was Clinton’s Portal.

My hunch is that Durham is holding back on Joffe because accessing government databases, via a government contract (DARPA) that was not given for that intent, is a bigger set of charges.

Creating intentional fraud is one aspect…. they are all busted. However, using federally contracted access to government databases to exploit information, then fraudulently manipulating that information for the expressed intent on defrauding the same government, is a much heavier charge.

And that’s exactly what Rodney Joffe did, on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

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fn¹ – No one in government will be touched. This entire article is talking about the people in/around the Clinton campaign. Only the Clinton campaign. Nothing else except the Clinton campaign.  I rely on readers to be intelligent enough to see the subject and draw a distinction from Govt and Non Govt.

This article, the entirety of it as it is written, is focused on OUTSIDE government.  JOHN DURHAM is only looking OUTSIDE GOVT.

If you want to discuss “INSIDE GOVT”, my position stands. Bill Barr was the Bondo, John Durham is the spray paint.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 22, 2022 | Sundance

Fox News host Tucker Carlson opened his broadcast today highlighting the background of the Disney Corporation weaponizing their corporate advocacy to target politicians in Florida.

Disney has said they wanted to advance sexuality lessons in their media empire and support sexualizing children in public schools K-3.  The Disney Corporation has now made it part of their corporate mission to sexualize children; there is quite a backlash taking place,and the value of Disney has dropped dramatically.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has taken a strong position against Disney’s expressed intent and appeared on Tucker Carlson to explain. WATCH:

The full opening monologue by Carlson is below.

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Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 22, 2022 | Sundance 

The issue would be insanely ridiculous, stupid and generally prone to ridicule if the judicial branch was not willing to engage this nonsense.

The far-left activists are attempting to use Lawfare tactics to block MAGA Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene from reelection using claims of “insurgency” as a justification to disqualify her from the ballot.  As unbelievable as it sounds, Representative Greene was forced to testify today in court as the Lawfare idiots test out the approach they intend to deploy against Donald Trump if they succeed in Georgia.

Andrew Celli, lawyer for the challengers, attempted to frame Greene as a leading insurrectionist in the J6 events in Washington DC.  To grasp how ridiculous this is, the lawyers even tried to use soundbites from a Hollywood movie, Independence Day, to give the impression of Greene trying to overthrow the government by saying, “We will not go quietly into that good night.” {Direct Rumble Link}  WATCH:

Apparently, lawyer Celli, has never read the poem “Do not go gentle into that good night,” as written by Dylan Thomas [1914-1953].  That poem is the original iteration of the phrase that has been used many times by various speakers for emphasizing grit, courage and determination.   Many public speakers have used various iterations of the sentiment in speeches and comments.

The Georgia case revolves around an archaic Civil War-era provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says any American official who takes an oath to uphold the Constitution is disqualified from holding any future office if they “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”   However, how this would possibly apply today is a silly legal question, which takes the court down the rabbit hole of questioning free speech and political discourse.

…But that’s how desperate the Democrats are.

Of course, all of these silly theatrics ignore the extreme efforts of the leftists in the Democrat Party to overthrow Donald Trump when he was in office.  You might remember the riots Democrats promoted on Inauguration Day 2017, and the tribes of Moonbat leftists who wore genitalia on their heads while threatening to bomb the White House.

The fact that Marjorie Taylor Greene even has to show up in a courtroom to defend herself only highlights the ridiculous efforts the Democrats will attempt in order to control political outcomes.  The courts even hearing these cases, let alone granting them some bizarre legitimacy, is beyond ridiculous.

Unfortunately, that’s where we are in 2022.

What I also find interesting is the silence from Ronna McDaniel and the RNC on these issues.  Where the heck is the Republican Party in ridiculing this stuff and pointing out how crazy the Democrat communists have become in their lust for power.

The silence from the RNC is only exceeded by the silence of the Republican politicians in leadership.