Tag Archives: Lobbyists make the law and go find politician(s) to support it

Jun 1 2023

Republicans 2024


Posted originally on the CTH on May 31, 2023 | Sundance 

A person who was a teenager when Obamacare was debated and passed is now around 30 years old.  Put another way, if you were 15 years old when We The People defeated Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley with Scott Brown and took the Kennedy senate seat, you are about to turn 30.  Think about the context of modern Republican politics and time.

This context reminds us that a large portion of the generally distracted population has no foundational understanding of modern Republican politics.

This context is also the baseline behind ‘battered conservative syndrome‘.

You will never, not ever, see a professional Republican politician attack a Democrat with the same level of vitriol, hatred, bitterness and anger as they do toward their own base voter.

The Democrat party fears their base; the Republican party despises their base.  The truth of this very visible reality will never change. Professional Republican politicians are not ideologues to principle or policy; they are interested in one thing, money.  That’s it.

If you peel the core of any issue involving conflict with the Republican Party, you will find money at the center of it.  Current Democrat politicians focus on advancing an ideological agenda; they swing for the fences in an effort to maximize control and power.  Current Republican politicians are focused, to the detriment of all other facets, on their personal wealth.

When you introduce a newly elected ‘conservative‘ to the DC world of republicanism, it is like sending a new guy/gal into the room to talk policy, only to be met with every face around the table staring back quizzically and dismissively while replying, “We don’t do that here – we are talking about money.”

Once you reset the Schoolhouse Rocks mindset and accept this is the truth of the thing, then everything else that puzzled you about Republican politics reconciles.

Ballot harvesting doesn’t generate money, so why do it?  We can make just as much money in the minority railing against ‘them’, so why be focused on a majority?  Donald Trump is threatening the financial position of our benefactors, so we hate him.  These are the simple truths of modern Republicans.

This is also the context to look at the institutions of professional Republican politics (RNC, RGA, NRSCC, etc) as well as the politicians who operate inside the business of professional republicanism.   Defending the trough is the goal – nothing is more important.  Removing any threat to the billionaires and multinationals who feed the trough, is a priority.  If defending the money means eliminating a pesky conservative thinker, so be it – destroy them.  That’s where the bitterness and anger come from.

If we do not accept this reality, we are doomed to repeat the cycle of abuse.

We can never make a professional Republican a perfect sandwich that will stop him/her from abusing us. Quit trying.

With this in mind, and understanding the nature of our corrupt two-party system controlled by two private corporations, the DNC and RNC, Donald Trump selected the RNC as the best available option to bring a new set of economic priorities back to the forefront.

Making America Great Again is a threat to modern republicanism, because MAGA has a core America-First economic agenda that runs counter to the priorities of the Republican party. {Go Deep}

Every professional Republican politician who enters the 2024 race for the Republican nomination is working toward this goal.  None of them are working on any other goal.  The removal of MAGA from mechanics of the Republican Party is their mission priority.  There is no other higher priority, including election outcomes.

Monmouth has a new poll released yesterday [article here – data pdf here] that was taken just before and during the time Ron DeSantis launched his candidacy.

When you look at the results, you can see why the people managing the Florida governor pulled the trigger a little earlier than anticipated.

DeSantis was scheduled in a very clear and strategic roadmap to launch as the ‘last’ candidate in the 2024 race.  However, despite his national politicking and “book tour”, his support was dropping every week.  They couldn’t wait any longer out of fear the principal would lose all support and the 2024 effort would be useless before they even got out of the gate.

The background managers pushed DeSantis into the race, and now we will see the last set of professional Republicans follow.  Each candidate will have a role and responsibility on behalf of the party.

Chris Christie and Nikki Haley will team up to play the lead role in the party attack against Donald Trump.

Notice how we are not seeing any post-DeSantis announcement polling?   Ron DeSantis launched on May 23rd and May 24th.  Sometimes it is the absence of the thing that tells you a lot about the substance of the thing.

[Monmouth Article Here]

Why would a candidate at 1%, 2%, 3% etc., stay or even launch into the race?  Stop pretending.  They do not have any chance of winning and they are not in the race to win.  They are in the race to defend the interests of the professional Republican apparatus.

They are in the race to destroy MAGA and the American First agenda.

Yet pundits and battered conservatives demand the non-pretending people stop talking about the truth of it and maintain their illusion.

It is all nonsense.

Battered Conservative No More!

May 31 2023

Mexico’s President v Ron DeSantis


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted May 31, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) of Mexico is asking people to vote for a candidate who turns a blind eye to the US-Mexico border crisis. It is out of character for a world leader to dictate to his constituents how to vote in a foreign election, but migrants will be voting in the upcoming election whether we like it or not.

AMLO previously had a cordial relationship with former President Trump. However, he is accusing the GOP of being “very hypocritical” for condemning illegal immigration. “[T]hose who persecute migrants, for those who don’t respect migrants, because a migrant – as it says in the Bible – deserves respect,” Mexico’s president stated. More specifically, he does not want people to vote for Ron DeSantis. DeSantis has promised to deliver on Trump’s promise to build a border wall, stating he will declare a national emergency on his first day in office if elected. “I hope that Florida Hispanics wake up and don’t give him a single vote,” said the Mexican president.

Cartels are bringing fentanyl into America, but AMLO insists they are not using the Mexican border as their Silk Road. “(DeSantis) also came out with the same thing, about fentanyl, thinking that he’d get votes with it,” AMLO declared. “Let him start to see, because fentanyl is arriving via Florida (which does not border on Mexico) and we have to be informing people so that they don’t offend Mexico, so that they learn to respect us.” Wishing for a deadly drug to plague your neighbor does not sound like something we would see in the Bible either.

Former President Vicente Fox famously told reporters, “I’m not going to pay for that f—ing wall!” and it seems AMLO agrees. Florida currently has one of the strictest laws in the US to prevent illegal immigration under S.B. 1718, which many call the “anti-immigration bill.” Yet there is a distinctive difference between legal immigration and breaking federal laws by illegally entering a foreign land.

May 31 2023

Byron Donalds and Chip Roy Are Furious About McCarthy Debt Ceiling Deal – House Freedom Caucus Says “NO”!


Posted originally on the CTH on May 30, 2023 | Sundance 

As details begin to emerge, many of the House Republicans are furious at Kevin McCarthy for the deal to lift the debt ceiling he has brokered with Joe Biden.

Suddenly, the prior battle and construct of the House Rules Committee is becoming important.   While Kevin McCarthy may have the 218 votes on the floor of the House to pass the deal, he first has to get it out of the House Rules Committee (HRC).  If three Republicans oppose it in the HRC, McCarthy cannot get it to the floor.  Chip Roy and Ralph Norman are on the HRC and oppose the bill.   Thomas Massie is also on the HRC but appears to be supporting Kevin McCarthy (lol, because muh principles).

Byron Donalds also delivered a strong rebuke of the McCarthy deal, as outlined below:

WASHINGTON DC – […] The powerful House Rules Committee will spend Tuesday afternoon debating and — ultimately working to pass — the bipartisan debt deal, requiring a simple majority of at least seven votes on the panel to come to the floor. But some conservatives, including Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a committee member, have signaled they may use their power on that panel to block the debt plan from receiving a full House vote.

“I’m going to do what’s in the best interest and this bill is not in the best interest of the country. That is why Democrats are voting for it,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), another conservative who sits on the Rules panel and has suggested he will oppose the bill during the panel’s meeting.

[…] Under the panel’s current makeup, Rules Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) can lose two GOP votes — along with all four Democratic votes — and still advance the bill.

Senior Republicans believe that’s exactly what’s going to happen, according to three people familiar with the discussions. Norman and Roy haven’t explicitly said they will oppose, though Massie is expected to vote in support of the measure going to the floor.

GOP Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said that he is “confident” that the bill will hit the floor on Wednesday, noting that Rules would be considering amendments. Members submitted more than 55 amendments to the debt deal, most of them from Republicans but some from Democrats as well. (read more)

Rep Dan Bishop: The bill is bad

May 31 2023

Porkulous – Ernst Rides with Ron


Posted originally on the CTH on May 30, 2023 | Sundance 

In the annals of Freudian graphic design, this apropos logo is one for the history books.

As one of the qualified Diversity Equity and Inclusion spokepeople for Mitch McConnell’s DeceptiCon group, Joni Ernst has always had a very specific role to play.  Today she announces Ron DeSantis is joining the porkulous parade, an apropos name for a pork-filled United States budgetary process that has replaced regular order since fiscal year 2008.

That is correct folks.  All of these debt ceiling arguments, continuing resolutions, stop-gap spending bills, and generally corrupt UniParty spending outcomes, are the result of congress dropping the budget process after fiscal year 2008.  For the past fifteen years in a row, specifically as part of the Obama ‘fundamental change’ process, the budgetary order in the U.S. government has been eliminated.

[SOURCE]

Everything associated with federal spending is a corrupt and arguably unconstitutional system of base-line budget growth, continuing resolutions, no budget constraints and debt ceiling increases.  The media like to play the budget narrative game without ever mentioning the source of the issue.

Can you think of a more apropos logo to represent the interests of Washington DC and the right-wing of the UniParty agenda?

Quite a remarkable and Freudian optic.

We are in an abusive relationship with our government.

I digress…

May 31 2023

Sea Island


Posted originally on the CTH on May 30, 2023 | Sundance 

Sea Island, GA, is a go-to place for those who operate in the background of U.S. politics. Similar in purpose to Jackson Hole, WY.  Sea Island serves as an East Coast meeting place where the globalists strategize and the paid for performance politicians are given instructions.

We do not have details. However, even for the exclusive Sea Island high security protocols, this notice is unusual. 

Given the timing, watch for news that follows.

May 30 2023

The Odd Questions Never Asked About the DeSantis Operation – And a Florida Grassroots Activist Explains the Sense in the Sunshine State


Posted originally on the CTH on May 29, 2023 | Sundance 

It always puzzles me when I come across an obscure data point that comes directly from the mouths of people who follow politics, and yet watch them not ask the obvious question.  In this video segment, the first 20 seconds by podcaster Patrick Bet-David are interesting.

The video was recorded on Monday May 22nd, two days before Ron DeSantis officially launched his campaign (May 24).  The meeting being described by Bet-David is on Thursday May 18, approximately four days before the interview, and six days before the campaign launch.

PBD notes he was invited with 10 to 15 other people to “watch Governor Ron DeSantis, work” in the governor’s mansion.  In essence, it seems like someone from the DeSantis campaign was continuing to reach out to ‘influencers’ in advance of the announcement the following week.

QUESTION:  Why do none of these influencers ask why they are being invited to “watch” DeSantis?  It just seems odd.   The podcast segment is a pretty good discussion with Sebastian Gorka, but watch the first 20 seconds.

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What PBD outlines rather casually is exactly what I drew attention to last year.  The DeSantis operation was clearly working in the latter part of 2021 to seed the landscape for the 2024 election, including the January 6, 2022, influencer meetup.  Yet for some odd reason, none of the participants questioned what the purpose of the unsolicited engagement request was.

I first wrote about this last July and August, it’s all just weird.

If you have followed the management and branding efforts of the team around Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the protestations today by campaign official and registered foreign agent Christina Pushaw are quite bizarre.

In early January of 2023, the Daily Beast wrote an article [SEE HERE] about how Ms. Pushaw organized an astroturf campaign of support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, which included the recruitment of several conservative influencers.  The substance of the article is generally well known.

In late 2021, early 2022, Ms. Pushaw invited a group of “influencers” to spend time with Governor DeSantis.

It’s not a debatable event. Factually, the collective group took gleeful pictures of their first visit on January 6, 2022, and continued to post frequent pictures on their social media of events throughout last year.  The group went to the reelection celebration and inauguration of DeSantis in January before the Daily Beast article.

However, for some odd reason, likely more concerned about people realizing the ‘organized‘ nature of the creation, in a bizarre turn of events, Ms. Christina Pushaw was denying she ever organized the assembly.  Then she stated, without any documentary evidence proving she organized it, saying she organized it was a conspiracy theory. [Tweet Link]

If Ms. Pushaw is to be believed, the random group of Florida conservative “influencers” just happened to show up at the Governor’s office on January 6, 2022, without any invitation, organization or coordination on her part.

Even lacking the invitation details, hanging your defense on the absence of a paper trail under these circumstances seems like a very odd position to take.

Why does the DeSantis team fear sunlight on the origin of how this outreach and subsequent meetings took place?  Very odd.

I sincerely doubt this group just randomly showed up at Ron DeSantis’ office, on January 6, 2022, without an invitation or organizing.

The same group then continued meeting throughout the year….

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Nothing about their recruitment, continued meet-ups and aggressive promotion of Ron DeSantis for the GOP nomination in 2024, would be that interesting or even noteworthy if Ms. Christina Pushaw didn’t paint them all into a box by denying she ever organized their first assembly.

And there’s the rub…  Why was Christina Pushaw denying she first organized them on behalf of the political aspirations of her boss, Ron DeSantis?

The only logical reason to make such an outlandish and transparently false claim, was if original 2022 assembly was intended as seed material to use the “influencers” for another purpose, like a 2024 presidential bid.  This truth would cut through the pretense of the “book tour”, national branding launch and subsequent nonsense.

However, with Ron DeSantis announcing his candidacy for the GOP nomination, suddenly all these background moves look like proactive steps on behalf of the management team.  The January 6, 2022 meeting would then infer the presidential aspirations went as far back as December 2021.

In combination with the $200+ million in Wall Street money assembled by DeSantis, it certainly appears that hiding the long-constructed 2024 plan was the motive for the absurd denial.  To give you an idea of how Florida voters feel about this campaign fraud, watch this twitter video:

That Trump-supporting DeSantis organizer is exactly how the majority of Florida grassroot activists feel.   He’s 100% spot on.

May 29 2023

Sunday Talks, Kevin McCarthy Makes His Case for the Debt Ceiling Bill


Posted originally on the CTH house in May 28, 2023 | Sundance 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy appears on Fox News Sunday to defend his deal with Joe Biden for a debt ceiling increase.

In the past 24 hours many fiscal conservatives have criticized McCarthy for the terms of the agreement. In this interview, McCarthy walks through the details of the terms as he constructed them and pushes back against some of the criticism.  WATCH:

As soon as the bill is in written form, we will be able to make a better determination.  At this moment this is all hearsay based on what people think the legislation says.

May 29 2023

DeSantis 105 – Former Cruz Crew, Now Team DeSantis, Ken Cuccinelli and Jeff Roe Plan 2,600 Person Campaign Spend for Canvassers in First Four States


Posted originally on the CTH on May 28, 2023 | Sundance 

…. “There are Trillions at Stake!”

2,600 people at $15/hr is $39,000 per hour. Anticipating 1,000 hrs per campaign worker, that’s $39 million. At $25/hr that’s $65 million. At $40/hr that’s $104 million.

This is the scale of spending that Ken Cuccinelli and Jeff Roe have for the Never Back Down SuperPAC to support Governor Ron DeSantis in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada on behalf of the Sea Island billionaires who want to manipulate the 2024 election.  That’s just payroll for new hires.

Overall, the New York Times is reporting a campaign support spending plan of more than $200 million. Essentially, these are payments from the billionaire Wall Street donors and multinationals, funneled through the SuperPAC, to influence the ’24 election. The context of the New York Times report sounds accurate.

NYT – A key political group supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential run is preparing a $100 million voter-outreach push so big it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five times in the kickoff Iowa caucuses.

The effort is part of an on-the-ground organizing operation that intends to hire more than 2,600 field organizers by Labor Day, an extraordinary number of people for even the best-funded campaigns.

Top officials with the pro-DeSantis group, a super PAC called Never Back Down, provided their most detailed account yet of their battle plan to aid Mr. DeSantis, whom they believe they can sell as the only candidate to take on — and win — the cultural fights that are definitional for the Republican Party in 2024.

The group said it expected to have an overall budget of at least $200 million, including more than $80 million to be transferred from an old DeSantis state political account, for the daunting task of vaulting the Florida governor past former President Donald J. Trump, who has established himself as the dominant early front-runner.

[…] “No one has ever contemplated the scale of this organization or operation, let alone done it,” said Chris Jankowski, the group’s chief executive. “This has just never even been dreamed up.”

In Iowa, the group has opened a boot camp on the outskirts of Des Moines, giving the facility the code name “Fort Benning,” after the old Army training outpost, with 189 graduates of an eight-day training program the first wave of an organizing army to follow. Door knocking begins on Wednesday in New Hampshire.

The endeavor echoes the “Camp Cruz” that Senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign set up near Des Moines.

[…] At the helm of the DeSantis super PAC is Jeff Roe, a veteran Republican strategist who was Mr. Cruz’s campaign manager in 2016. In an interview, Mr. Roe described an ambitious political apparatus whose 2,600 field organizers by the fall would be roughly double the peak of Senator Bernie Sanders’s entire 2020 primary campaign staff. (read more)

When people ask about individuals, people, groups and media platforms that have joined the DeSantis effort…. Follow the money!

In deep Republican politics, ideology -the policy of politics- is a tool.  The end goal is always money.   Democrats want power, Republicans want money.   Democrats use money to gain power; Republicans use power to get money.  This is the core difference in their business model. This truism is also why there’s no pushback to the ideological policy of the Democrats.  Republicans can simply be paid off.

When your ideology is first and foremost about money, all of the policy and advocacy is subject to the financial prism.   Yes, it really is that simple.

The people paying for the Ron DeSantis campaign are investing in their future.  They need to control the policy outcome, and that means they need to get rid of the only thing that will interrupt their influence and affluence, Donald J. Trump.   Again, yes, it really is that simple.

The RNC doesn’t care about voter fraud, election integrity or other metrics inside the election system. The RNC ambivalence is directly because the two wings of the UniParty operate on this premise.  The ideology of the Democrats drives their donor activity (see Zuckerberg), whereas the donors of the Republicans drive the ideology.

DeSantis cannot win the nomination on issues of economic policy.  It is the economic policy that impacts the Billionaire Wall Street donors and multinationals. The donors are paying for an economic control outcome.  That is why we are seeing such an emphasis on cultural issues from the Sea Island strategy, as displayed in the policy emphasis of Ron DeSantis.

$200 million for four states is nothing when contrast against the scale of money at risk for the Sea Island donors.  It’s a Big Club, and we are only able to be in the fight because Donald J. Trump is in the battle.

The goal of the people who have traditionally controlled political outcomes is to remove Donald Trump.  The goal is not to win the ’24 election.  The goal is to remove the threat that Donald Trump represents.

There is only one force standing between Wall Street and the destruction of what remains of Main Street….  MAGA! 

May 28 2023

The Hunter Biden Tax Scandal


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted May 28, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

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May 28 2023

NO REFORM without the crash and burn


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted May 27, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: So you do not think anyone running for office in 2024 will succeed in making any difference?

HC

ANSWER: No. We have crossed the Rubicon on that score. Trump would at least fight hard against them, but our computer does not show that there is anyone coming in on a white horse to save the day. We simply have to crash and burn and then we get to redesign a new form of government. You get NO REFORM without the crash and burn.

Just look at the debt ceiling nonsense. All this is about is reducing the amount of deficit spending. It is IMPOSSIBLE to run a balanced budget or return to some gold standard. You would have to extinguish politics as we know it. There can be no running for office and promising all sorts of free stuff and the NEOCONS could wage their endless wars that never win. Politicians would not know how to even campaign. Anyone who believes the 2020 election was NOT rigged, is just a fool.

Getting rid of Trump was not a Democrat v Republican conspiracy theory, it was a strategic movement to seize control of the state. Why would they even push Biden to run again when his polls have collapsed to 30%? You will see, he will win and the entire world will see how corrupt it has all become. We are living in a Deep State coup of unelected bureaucrats ruling what your life will be. Digital currencies will control every aspect of how you spend. You will not even be allowed to donate to any reform party. Look at Trudeau and the Trucks.