Tag Archives: Michael Sherwin

May 16 2023

Biden Nominates First Hispanic Woman to Fed Board – Who is She?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Central Banks Re-Posted May 16, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The headlines praise Biden for nominating the first Latina woman to the Federal Reserve’s board. None of the current headlines list her qualifications, which is a given since this administration favors diversity over experience. I, for one, would like to know more about the people being placed in positions of power since their nationality has no relation to their responsibilities. Yet Sen. Robert Menendez (D, NJ) continually criticized the Fed for not having any Latino members. Let us look into Adriana Kugler, who may become very influential in the financial world.

Kugler, 53, was an executive director for the World Bank. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from McGill University in 1991, graduating with first-class honors in economics and political science. She was awarded her Ph.D. in Economics by the University of California at Berkeley in 1997. She worked as the chief economist for the Labor Department under Obama from September 2011 to January 2013 as well.

A recent article from the Wall Street Journal actually shines some light on Kugler and her policies. The picture they used of her was taken at a World Economic Forum event. She fought for the US government to provide families with $26,400 in funding during the pandemic and proposed three separate pilot programs to raise unemployment benefits. “For every one dollar that we put into the pockets of the unemployed working Americans, two dollars ripple throughout the economy, and it’s actually a win-win—it helps everybody,” she said. Well, that line is troublesome for obvious reasons since inflation should be the top priority for the Fed.

She is a proponent of closing the wage gap and eliminating income inequality. She penned an article about “income redistribution in the form of tax and transfer programs” to offer social insurance for the poor.

“Income redistribution in the form of tax and transfer programs provide social insurance and protection against many types of risks over a person’s lifetime and over his or her career that are not always provided through private insurance. Thus, social insurance in the form of transfer programs—such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program; Medicaid; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps; and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, more commonly referred to as WIC—allows individuals to make decisions that involve higher risk, while at the same time affording them greater mobility than they would otherwise undertake.”

She argues that America needs a “more progressive tax system” in addition to “transfer programs” to redistribute wealth. “[P]rogressive taxation and transfer to the poor is not only the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do,” the new Fed appointee stated.

The World Bank executive is also a big proponent of open immigration policies and climate change initiatives. “It is the biggest existential threat of our time, and I do believe that we need domestic action to go hand in hand with global leadership on climate change,” she claimed.

Biden has also elevated Philip Jefferson to be the Fed’s vice chair, making him the #2 guy at the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is intended to be separate from the government, but Biden is installing people who openly hold partisan views regarding economics. Kugler supports Biden and the Build Back Better globalists in terms of her views on wealth redistribution, combining climate change with fiscal policy, government aid, increased social programs, and more. But hey, at least she is Hispanic and female.

May 16 2023

Devin Nunes Gives His First Assessment of Durham Report


May 15, 2023 | Sundance 

Appearing on Newsmax, former Republican Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Devin Nunes, gives his first assessment of the Durham report as it was released mid-day Monday. {Direct Rumble Link}

Devin Nunes was one of the first people in congress to realize the FBI, DOJ and Obama-era intelligence community were conducting full surveillance of candidate Donald Trump in 2016.  Nunes statements in March 2017 preceded the counter offensive narrative launched by Senator Mark Warner in collaboration with then FBI Director James Comey. WATCH:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has reportedly invited John Durham to testify before the committee May 25th.

May 16 2023

U.S. Virgin Islands Issues Subpoena to Elon Musk Questioning Connection to Jeffrey Epstein


May 15, 2023 | Sundance 

People have been gobsmacked by a seemingly 180° change in the ideological outlook of Twitter owner Elon Musk.  The hiring of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) czar Linda Yaccarino as CEO caught everyone by surprise. {link} A Day later he conceded a free speech position to the government of Turkey, agreeing to silence the political opposition of Recep Erdogan. {link}  Perhaps some clarity can be found in a recent Bloomberg article:

Pay attention to DATES:

(Bloomberg) Elon Musk was issued a subpoena by the US Virgin Islands in its lawsuit accusing JPMorgan Chase & Co. of knowingly benefiting from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking.

The US territory said in court papers it had reason to believe Epstein may have referred or attempted to refer Musk to JPMorgan as a client. Several other billionaires, including the Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, have also been issued subpoenas by the USVI.

The USVI on Monday asked the judge overseeing the case to authorize alternative means of serving the April 28 subpoena on Musk. The territory said it made good-faith efforts to obtain an address for Musk, including hiring private investigators, but had been unable to locate one. 

[…] The USVI subpoena seeks documents reflecting communications or meetings between Musk and JPMorgan or Musk and Epstein relating to the two men’s accounts at the bank. It also seeks from Musk any documents “regarding Epstein’s involvement in human trafficking” or concerning fees the Tesla CEO paid to Epstein or JPMorgan in connection with his accounts at the bank. (more) 

On April 18, 2023, Elon Musk meets Linda Yaccarino for the first time.

April 26, Elon Musk meets Chuck ‘six-ways-to-sunday’ Schumer.
“We talked about the future,” Musk told reporters after exiting the meeting that lasted about an hour. {link}

April 28, Attorney General of USVI triggers subpoena to Musk about Epstein.

First weeks of May, USVI investigators trying to serve Epstein subpoena on Musk.

May 12, Musk hires DEI advocate Linda Yaccarino as Twitter CEO.

A curious sequence of events that preceded Musk’s recent actions.

All probably just a coincidence.

However, Suspicious Cat remains, well, suspicious…

May 16 2023

John Durham Releases 316 Page Report About FBI, DOJ, Intelligence Community and U.S. Govt Targeting Donald Trump


May 15, 2023 | Sundance 

Special Counsel John Durham has released a highly anticipated 316-page report outlining corrupt U.S. activity during the targeting of presidential candidate, president elect, and subsequent President, Donald J Trump.

[FULL REPORT pdf HERE]

I have completed my first review of the report, and suffice to say the details within it are not new.  The majority of the reaction so far has been centered around how Special Counsel Durham is not prosecuting anyone for their corrupt conduct outlined within the report.  However, for the sake of this first review, I will draw attention to a few aspects you will likely not see discussed anywhere else.

Please note this detail found at the bottom of page 3 and top two lines of page #4:

[…] “The Office exercised its judgment regarding what to investigate but did not investigate every public report of an alleged violation of law in connection with the intelligence and law enforcement activities directed at the 2016 presidential campaigns.”

As perhaps the only person who tracked down and subsequently interviewed the investigators on the Durham team, and as a person who subsequently came away with a full understanding of how the silo operation inside this investigation was going to play out, I can reasonably assure you that notation and reference by team Durham is entirely directed to us.

That statement above tells us why none of the DC politicians who engaged in specific violations of law were criminally charged. This is part of the silo effect within government, which I will explain later.  As a good friend said, “Yeah great, but we don’t have badges.”  So, we went to the badges with the evidence, but the badges did not want to act upon the evidence, because it would have been, in their estimation, too damaging to the framework of our government.

First a positive note about the report.  Unlike all other reports of similar internal investigation, I will give the Durham team credit for not using the ‘executive summary’ of the report to cloud, positively shape or disguise the corruption outlined within the body of the report.  This is the first such report where the executive summary actually summarizes the scale of the corruption within the details.

Perhaps the parting message was considered, “If you are going to whitewash this s**t [ie entire govt operation], at least be intellectually honest with the American people, and not whitewash the investigation in the ‘executive summary’ of it.”  I’m pretty sure that was the exact parting phrase.  It was after that conversation [Aug 2020] when CTH then said, do not anticipate anything from Durham.  Bill Barr was the bondo, John Durham is the spray paint.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfdGltZWxpbmVfbGlzdCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOltdLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2ZvbGxvd2VyX2NvdW50X3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9iYWNrZW5kIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19yZWZzcmNfc2Vzc2lvbiI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZm9zbnJfc29mdF9pbnRlcnZlbnRpb25zX2VuYWJsZWQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib24iLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X21peGVkX21lZGlhXzE1ODk3Ijp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRyZWF0bWVudCIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3Nob3dfYmlyZHdhdGNoX3Bpdm90c19lbmFibGVkIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6Im9uIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH0sInRmd19kdXBsaWNhdGVfc2NyaWJlc190b19zZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdXNlX3Byb2ZpbGVfaW1hZ2Vfc2hhcGVfZW5hYmxlZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdmlkZW9faGxzX2R5bmFtaWNfbWFuaWZlc3RzXzE1MDgyIjp7ImJ1Y2tldCI6InRydWVfYml0cmF0ZSIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfbGVnYWN5X3RpbWVsaW5lX3N1bnNldCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOnRydWUsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9LCJ0ZndfdHdlZXRfZWRpdF9mcm9udGVuZCI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJvbiIsInZlcnNpb24iOm51bGx9fQ%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1293790806113955840&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Ftheconservativetreehouse.com%2Fblog%2F2023%2F05%2F15%2Fjohn-durham-releases-316-page-report-about-fbi-doj-intelligence-community-and-u-s-govt-targeting-donald-trump%2F&sessionId=8c7c164b4308a5cd8478173bb30093abdc851a18&theme=light&widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&width=500px

The “Report on Matters Related to Intelligence Activities and Investigations Arising Out of the 2016 Presidential Campaigns” is a full uncovering of just how politically corrupt the DOJ, FBI and larger Intelligence Community were/are as it relates to the 2016 election.

Team Durham, while not indicting anyone for ancillary crimes – of which there are many – does lay naked the motives and intentions of the people at the top of the FBI, DOJ, CIA and ODNI. The full weight of government was weaponized against Donald Trump and the Durham report lays out all the details.

It is the background of this report that stands as the current motive for those same institutions to remove Donald Trump in 2023. Quite simply, they fear retaliation.

[…] “If this report and the outcome of the Special Counsel’s investigation leave some with the impression that injustices or misconduct have gone unaddressed, it is not because the Office concluded that no such injustices or misconduct occurred. It is, rather, because not every injustice or transgression amounts to a criminal offense, and criminal prosecutors are tasked exclusively with investigating and prosecuting violations of U.S. criminal laws. And even where prosecutors believe a crime occurred based on all of the facts and information they have gathered, it is their duty only to bring criminal charges when the evidence that the government reasonably believes is admissible in court proves the offense beyond a reasonable doubt.” [Page #6]

Durham walks through the missing predicate that initiated the Trump-Russia investigation.  Essentially, as the Durham team noted, there was nothing ever to trigger the authority of the FBI to investigate Donald Trump or his campaign in the first place.

The Obama FBI and DOJ justified full physical and electronic surveillance of their political opposition, through false justifications manufactured by the FBI.  As Durham notes, “Our findings and conclusions regarding these and related questions are sobering.” Really, “sobering”?  Nice choice of understatement.

Everything was predicated on The Big Lie:

[…] As set forth in greater detail in Section IV.A.3 .b, before the initial receipt by FBI Headquarters of information from Australia on July 28, 2016 concerning comments reportedly made in a tavern on May 6, 2016 by George Papadopoulos, an unpaid foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign, the government possessed no verified intelligence reflecting that Trump or the Trump campaign was involved in a conspiracy or collaborative relationship with officials of the Russian government. 

Indeed, based on the evidence gathered in the multiple exhaustive and costly federal investigations of these matters, including the instant investigation, neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

[…] As set forth in greater detail in Section IV, the record in this matter reflects that upon receipt of unevaluated intelligence information from Australia, the FBI swiftly opened the Crossfire Hurricane investigation. In particular, at the direction of Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Deputy Assistant Director for Counterintelligence Peter Strzok opened Crossfire Hurricane immediately. Strzok, at a minimum, had pronounced hostile feelings toward Trump. The matter was opened as a full investigation without ever having spoken to the persons who provided the information.

Further, the FBI did so without (i) any significant review of its own intelligence databases, (ii) collection and examination of any relevant intelligence from other U.S. intelligence entities, (iii) interviews of witnesses essential to understand the raw information it had received or (iv) using any of the standard analytical tools typically employed by the FBI in evaluating raw intelligence.

Had it done so, again as set out in Sections IV.A.3.b and c, the FBI would have learned that their own experienced Russia analysts had no information about Trump being involved with Russian leadership officials, nor were others in sensitive positions at the CIA, the NSA, and the Department of State aware of such evidence concerning the subject.

In addition, FBI records prepared by Strzok in February and March 2017 show that at the time of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI had no information in its holdings indicating that at any time during the campaign anyone in the Trump campaign had been in contact with any Russian intelligence officials.

The speed and manner in which the FBI opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign. [Page 10]

I’ll have more on the substance of the report, as well as share the details of others following their review.  However, in the interim, it is important to understand how the investigative silos, created by DC administrators, impact the investigative outcomes as displayed in this report.

Former FBI Director James Comey is a criminal.  Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe is a criminal. Former FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok is a criminal.  Current Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman, Senator Mark Warner, is a criminal.

Any criminal conduct that is discovered by a person who is not the direct victim of the criminal conduct does not penetrate the DC system.  Meaning, just because you can show criminal activity in Washington DC, that doesn’t mean anyone has a responsibility to investigate it.

If the criminal conduct is not identified by the investigators inside the DC system, the criminal conduct essentially does not exist – unless the evidence of criminal conduct in DC, is provided by a specific victim of the crime being reported.

There is a silo effect in place within the DC system that permits the investigative authorities to dismiss claims of institutional or administrative criminal conduct from outside entities, including ‘whistleblowers.’  The DOJ/FBI arbiters of what constitutes crime are the same DOJ/FBI arbiters in charge of protecting the institutional system.

If the DC system is threatened by the conduct of an outside entity, a crime may have been committed.  However, if an agent, operator, official or politician representing the DC system is the one threatening, there is no crime.  The justice system in DC is designed to protect itself.

Holding DC officials accountable for criminal conduct first requires the deconstruction of the silos that protect them.  Deconstructing those silos requires strategy and legislative willpower….

[ Support CTH Efforts Here ]

May 12 2023

Can Socrates find new solutions to Crises?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Socrates Re-Posted May 12, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: Allison Schrager at Bloomberg claimed that AI does a great job finding solutions based on existing rules and information. But it’s less suited for finding novel solutions to new problems. Somehow, this does not seem to apply to Socrates for there are no new problems anyway. Am I correct that Socrates will find new solutions?

GU

ANSWER: Yes, you are correct. However, Socrates has a database that is unprecedented and cost tens of millions of dollars to assemble. It can find solutions that are certainly not mainstream and may appear to be revolutionary but in fact, may have taken place even 2,000 years ago.

Socrates is NOT a Neutral Net. This is something I created from scratch. I put myself into this system. I had to teach Socrates how to analyze. I did not create some open AI and let it develop in some unknown manner. This is not Chat GPT where it is searching the net to come up with answers to what is the name of Lady GaGa’s dog.

Socrates has the largest financial database in the world. It has a money supply recreated from the coinage of thousands of years. It has correlated that with wars and plagues and it makes the connections. It has a database of 6,000 years which is unsurpassable. If I even tried to recreate this at today’s prices, it would be more than $1 billion.

Just on Forex Exchange, I had staff recording all the currencies back hundreds of years taking down quotes for all the world newspapers stored at the Royal Newspaper Library in London for years. Without that, we would never have been able to forecast that the pound would drop to par in 1985 when it was trading at $2.40.

What Socrates will do is it will test what attempts were made to solve crises in the past and what worked and what failed. Diocletian (284-305AD) imposed wage and price controls to try to stop inflation the same as Richard Nixon.

There was a major earthquake in Turkey that devastated the region. Emperor Tiberius issued coins to provide relief and suspended all taxes in the region to help rebuild. There have been so many different solutions that people today would never consider, but Socrates will.

May 12 2023

Here is a Larger Video of Socrates’ Solution


Armstrong Economics Blog/Socrates Re-Posted May 12, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

This was the Question asked:

Socrates, how do I solve a debt crisis without a default that is fair to both sides?

May 4 2023

Second Biden Removal Leverage Deployed and Timed to Coincide with First – Prosecutors Near Decision on Hunter Biden Indictment


Posted originally on the CTH on May 3, 2023 | Sundance | 

If you think about Joe Biden’s 4-year term in office as an intentionally constructed single term with no limits or consequences to the cascading damage inflicted; and if you think about the ideologues behind the plan to use cognitively challenged Biden as a tool to achieve their agenda; then everything from the way he was selected in 2020, to the disconnected and fragmented policy and Biden’s interpretation of them, just makes sense.

As our friend Lee Smith summed up in early 2021, “Joe Biden is an avatar for Barack Obama’s third term.”  That is what we have been witnessing.  A term in office where every policy wish list and far-left agenda item could be triggered without any care or consequence of political damage.

The people behind Biden are ideologues using this unique opportunity to further the “fundamental change.”  From that perspective every single granular move during the Biden term makes sense.  However, this also means there’s no term two in the design.   The damage will be so great, there’s no way for a second term.

Again, if you accept that background, and ignore the puppet presentations, everything currently underway that seemingly makes Biden look vulnerable and disposable makes sense.  It’s not Republicans trying to take him down, it’s Democrats – who will use republicans to assist them.

Into this landscape comes the second leverage point for the removal.  The vulnerability represented by Hunter Biden.  This approach also explains why the Hunter Biden investigation was completed long ago, and the Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco/Obama-minds were simply waiting for the timing of the election calendar.  Earlier today a Main Justice whistleblower provided the triggering mechanism for one removal approach.  Here is another:

WASHINGTON DC – Prosecutors are nearing a decision on whether to charge President Biden’s son Hunter with tax– and gun-related violations, according to people familiar with the matter, the culmination of a four-year investigation that Republicans have sought to portray as evidence the Biden family is corrupt.

Biden’s attorneys met at Justice Department headquarters in downtown Washington last week to discuss the case with U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, according to the people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. Typically, that sort of meeting — in which defense lawyers urge prosecutors not to seek an indictment of their client, or to seek reduced charges —comes toward the end of an investigation.

The people familiar with the matter said Weiss is nearing the end of his decision-making process, although they offered no specific timetable. They cautioned that the probe has taken longer than some officials thought it would, frustrating some law enforcement officials, and conceivably could slow down again before a decision has been reached. (read more)

Every single conflicting point reconciles, if you accept the Biden program was a one-term disposable effort.

The timing is up, now the removal leverage is deployed with enough time to present the branding needed for the Biden replacement.

Assets like Susan Rice are pulled from the White House.  The Obama embeds position to avoid damage, and the circumstances for Biden’s removal are created by the same people who control the collection of the evidence against him.

There isn’t going to be a Joe Biden DNC nominating convention in Chicago.  There isn’t going to be another presidential race by Biden; it was never the intention from the outset in the 2020 plan to use him.  Biden is in the process of being excommunicated from the party.  His usefulness exhausted, this is the disposal phase.

The only thing left to negotiate are the terms of the exit.

Apr 12 2023

Pentagon Confirms Document Leak


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Apr 12, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

There is a mole within the Pentagon and officials are eagerly seeking to find the source. Someone has been leaking classified documents to the public that include plans to involve the international community in the Ukrainian conflict. Someone in the intelligence community wants the public to know about America’s increasing involvement in the Russia-Ukraine proxy war.

A source close to Zelensky has said that Ukraine has scrapped previous war strategies due to the leaked information. The documents actually mention that the US has been spying on Zelensky himself, which comes as no surprise. Chris Meagher, the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, said the leak is under investigation and that they do not know how much information has been leaked. Meagher claims some of the documents have been altered in an attempt to cover up the truth. He is reassuring allies “of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence and fidelity to our security partnerships.”

The documents were highly classified and contained information on how the US spies on its allies and enemies alike. The documents began appearing on Discord servers, 4Chan, and other platforms about a month ago, with over 50 sensitive documents now revealed to the public. The Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, are now urging the US to rectify the situation immediately. Time will only tell what secrets these documents reveal.

They could not deny that the papers were real. We have seen how the intelligence community treats those who expose the truth like Edward Snowden who must live out his existence in fear. The source knows the risks and will likely risk their life to expose the truth.

United States Code at 18 U.S.C. § 2381

Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and …

Jan 21 2023

DOJ Tells Republican Congress Not to Expect Cooperation and Thank You


Posted originally on the CTH on January 20, 2023 | Sundance | 200 Comments

The U.S. Dept of Justice (DOJ) has sent a five-page letter to congress, copying Politico for the public distribution therein.  [SEE pdf HERE]

The snarky and passive aggressive Lawfare tone inside the letter is rather remarkable in its sanctimony and condescension.  Essentially, Main Justice is telling congressional oversight, specifically House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, not to expect any timely responses because there’s a lot going on.

Additionally, as the letter directly implies, Republican oversight is not in the favor of the current administration or DOJ and, well, in general terms, get over it – they aren’t complying.  However, feel free to initiate the formal negotiation process that will likely take several years.

From the letter to Jim Jordan, “Your January 17 requests—made now in your position as Chairman—initiate the constitutionally mandated accommodation process. Under this process, the Legislative and Executive Branches have a constitutional obligation to negotiate in good faith to meet the informational needs of Congress while protecting the institutional interests of the Executive Branch. We look forward to beginning this process in response to your January 17 letters.” (link)

(Via Politico) – […] The letter, addressed to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), acknowledges the GOP’s multiple requests for information during the last Congress but doesn’t divulge any new information. Instead, Uriarte outlines how he hopes DOJ could have a “productive relationship” with Republicans in the new Congress, as Jordan had in previous letters accused the DOJ of “stonewalling” their requests, raised the possibility of a subpoena and said the committee could resort to “compulsory practices” to obtain the requested information and documents.

It’s an early marker of DOJ’s position as Republicans pledge to probe President Joe Biden’s administration over a laundry list of issues, including with a select subpanel that has a broad mandate to investigate the federal government. Conservatives have hinted they would use that panel to try to look into certain ongoing law enforcement investigations. (read more)

I think at this point everyone outside the professional political class in the Legislative Branch knew this was going to happen.  However, the Republicans in Congress will likely pretend to be stunned by this development, Fox News Sean Hannity will be outraged by it, and then the RNC and RCCC will dispatch fundraising campaigns citing the refusal of the DOJ.   Win, win, win… wash – rinse – repeat.

Predicting this approach was exactly why CTH said the House Subcommittee on Weaponized Government should not waste time looking for assistance, documents and or internal support from the various DC silos.  Instead, the oversight committees need to go through the formal request process (blah, blah, blah) but focus their efforts at getting documents from the private sector collaborators outside the DC silo system.

If it seems like the Democrats always know how to use power more effectively than Republicans, you would be absolutely correct.  However, few people really understand the reason for it.  So, I will repeat.

The Republicans want money.  The Democrats want power.  The Republicans use power to get money. The Democrats use money to get power.  The ideology of the Democrats drives their donor funding.  The donor funding of the Republicans drives their ideology.

This core truism carries forward beyond electoral politics and into the realm of legislative battles and oversight conflicts.  Republicans want money as their primary objective.  If the Biden administration wants to get an ideological bill passed, the Democrats simply buy the votes of Republicans (especially Senators).

As an additional outcome, Republicans in congress have no core values, no core objectives, no goals to achieve.  After all, their structural goal is money.

Give Republicans power and they don’t know what to do with it, because the voters essentially boosted the dog to catch the car… now what?

What you see in the outcome of elections is that Republicans do not have any plan for power, because it’s not the issue that takes up their intellectual time.  That’s reserved for deep analytical thoughts about how to make money from (XXX).

The Democrats know this, they know the main mission of Republicans.  Ergo, the Lawfare DOJ pats the Republicans on the head and waits for the frustrated voters to get sick of the GOP doing nothing again, and the Democrats simply wait them out.

We have been in this repetitious abuse cycle for about two decades.

Battered Conservative Syndrome is a very real thing.

There are an enormous amount of codependent enabling voters in this process.  I call them Seagull Republicans because they are voters who will fly down and shit over anyone who complains about this reality – then they fly up to their high perches and look down their noses.

In case you missed it, the Seagull Republicans are currently aligned to support Harmeet Dhillon and Ron DeSantis.

One UniParty consisting of two wings, the RNC and the DNC.  One bird, two wings.

The GOPe priority around money is the one constant on the right wing.  But don’t worry, because the Seagulls are promising that Ron DeSantis will protect us from teh geys.

Apr 20 2022

Too Dangerous to Allow Elon Musk Control Over So Much Data Says Washington Post


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 19, 2022 | sundance

The latest developments in the effort to purchase the unsustainable magic coffee shop are quite revealing.

According to the New York Post, “Musk himself is willing to invest between $10 billion and $15 billion of his own cash to take Twitter private, two sources close to the situation said. That’s up from the current 9.1% stake in the company he revealed on April 4, which is worth about $3.4 billion.”

However, more revealing about the overall issue are the comments from the PR firm of the U.S. Intelligence Community, The Washington Post:

(WaPo) […] “Putting so much power in the hands of one company is bad enough, but putting it in the hands of one person, as is largely the case with Facebook shareholder Mark Zuckerberg and would be the case if Twitter were owned by Musk, would be incompatible with democracy.” 

“There are simply no checks and balances from any internal or external force,” … “It would leave Musk, like Zuckerberg, with an amount of assembled data about people and the ability to use it to manipulate them “that cannot be compared to anything that has ever existed, and allows intervention into the integrity of individual behavior and also the integrity of collective behavior.” (read more)

People are starting to catch on to the reality that costs for data processing on many social media platforms (the free coffee), exceeds the ability of the platform to generate revenue.  People are starting to understand that behind the scenes of the Big Tech consortium, there is something else, some other operational construct and mechanism, that subsidizes & facilitates their existence.

It is very revealing how the intelligence apparatus of the United States had no issue with Twitter data and influence, until the potential for private ownership, perhaps uncontrolled private ownership, surfaced.  Do not be naïve in pretending not to know how The Washington Post represents the interests of the intelligence apparatus.

In the long arc of history, I truly believe we will discover the inflection moment for the merge of U.S. Deep State (intel community) and U.S. Social Media, will be identified in the early moments of the Arab Spring of 2010/2011.  That was when Facebook and Twitter became tools for the State Dept operation in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Syria, Bahrain and beyond.  That was the beta-test of synergy.

“Arab Social Media Report by the Dubai School of Government give empirical heft to the conventional wisdom that Facebook and Twitter abetted if not enabled the historic region-wide uprisings of early 2011.” (LINK)

It was from that original, albeit misguided and manipulative partnership, when the actual details about how to create the social surveillance state was first tested.   Everything after those events more than a decade ago, has been this rapidly evolving blend of social media technology and the capacity of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to create and fund the underlying structures.

Daily, we see numerous examples of the ideological control that surfaces as a direct result of this public-private partnership, the closed-conversations between deep government interests (the Fourth Branch) and social media companies which are dependent on the subsidized technology for them to exist.

Perhaps 2022 represents the first time the commonsense of the American electorate begins to recognize the fallacy of the ‘free coffee’ business model.  Personally, I am very optimistic people will soon recognize what many have suspected for a long time.

Ultimately the question becomes, how far will the U.S. Fourth Branch of Government go to stop people from understanding?

Marc Andreessen believes Govt and Big Tech will double, triple and quadruple down to keep their public-private partnership, the backbone of the Free Coffee Shop, hidden.  I cannot say I disagree, because ultimately it is still only the minority of people who understand the stakes.  However, on the upside, the number of people who are starting to understand it, is growing almost exponentially thanks to Elon Musk.

(Source Link)

This is one of those situations where we should all welcome being called ‘conspiracy theorists’, because no matter how big the crowd is that refuses to believe it, ultimately the impossible business model of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop will reveal everything.

That’s why the public-private partnership must stop Elon Musk.  As the Washington Post noted, this level of revelation “cannot be compared to anything that has ever existed.”

“Very shadowy” indeed.