Larry Schweikart On The Commercialization Of Christmas And Original Traditions From Colonial Times


Posted originally on Rumble By Steve Bannons War Room on Dec 23 2023

BREAKING: Rumble No Longer in Brazil Following Censorship Demands


Posted originally on Rumble By Gen Greenwald on Dec 23 2023

Klaus – Soviet Style Christmas


Posted originally on Dec 24, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

Santa Klaus Schwab

Lenin Was Right – He Knew Best

Report: RNC Corporation Has Lowest On Hand Bank Funds Since 2016


Posted originally on the CTH on December 23, 2023 | Sundance

As the story is told, the “republicans” have the lowest amount of reserve cash on hand in the past seven years. However, as readers here are well aware, it’s not the republicans that are “running out of money,” it is the RNC Corporation that is running low on funds. These are two distinctly different things.

In the era of the great political awakening, the term “uniparty” has now become a well-known in conservative lexicon to describe our national political situation. The RNC and DNC are two private corporations that form each wing of the Uniparty vulture.

The RNC and DNC are private entities, private corporations, that manage the illusion of the two-party political system in the United States. The reality is that both corporations are funded by the same multinational donors.

The RNC and DNC are essentially private clubs, business entities that exist within a political system they create and control. In the era of Donald J Trump, this stark reality is now clear to almost every voter.

As a result, the RNC corporation does not receive most of its funding from the American electorate. The people have switched from funding the republican corporation, the RNC, to directly funding the individual republican candidates.

The people who control the RNC keep the illusion in place because they have no option; their entire business model is dependent on retaining a false premise. However, the people have moved on. The RNC is irrelevant to grassroots, small donors. Only the multinationals continue funding the RNC, which makes the candidate funding from the RNC an outcome of who the multinationals, hedge funds, and Wall Street billionaires choose to select.

The MAGA base does not fund the RNC, and in most instances the RNC funded candidates are antithetical to the objectives of the America-First movement. This inherent reality creates two types of Republicans, the RNC/Corporate republicans – beholden to the multinationals and millionaires, and the MAGA republicans who must serve the interests of the MAGA voters.

We are currently in this transitional phase, which is why we see the constant battle between the two distinct groups of republicans in DC.

Candidate President Donald Trump often is in a position of trying to connect the two disparate groups; however, recently there has been a more confrontational approach toward the corporate controlled republican politicians. This dynamic, conflict and inherent battle is what we call “The Big Ugly” and it must be waged in order to stop the historic illusion of choice being gamed by the RNC.

[Newsweek] – The amount of money that the Republican National Committee (RNC) had on hand for spending at the end of November was the lowest bank balance it has had at that point in any year since 2016, disclosures to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show.

In a filing on Wednesday, the GOP governing body revealed it had $9.96 million to spend as of November 30, which is less than half what it had to work with when Donald Trump was contesting his first presidential election.

By comparison, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) reported cash on hand of over $20 million for the same day. Both parties’ committees have seen downward trends in funds they can draw upon since 2021, but the RNC’s balance has been around half that of its counterpart in the past two reporting periods.

[…] Oscar Brock, an RNC member from Tennessee, told the Post: “We’re going through the same efforts we always go through to raise money: the same donor meetings, retreats, digital advertising, direct mail. But the return is much lower this year. If you know the answer, I’d love to know it.” (read more)

Given the nature of corporate political structures, I suspect Kevin McCarthy will eventually replace Ronna McDaniel…

….And so it goes, and so it goes. 

Illegal migration into the United States is supported, no Demanded, by Biden


Have you ever boiled milk?  It happens slowly at first, then suddenly all at once….  Slowly AT First (SAF)!

Currently the influx of illegal, unvetted, unchecked and undocumented migrant arrivals into our country is happening at the rate of more than 200,000 every month.  That’s three college football stadiums of unknown characters arriving and disbursing each month.   These statistics are just the recorded intercepts and releases, this statistic does not include those who found a way through without presentation at the border.

This scale of influx has been happening for almost three years now.

We are beyond the point then the unsecured border is the issue…. With tens-of-millions of unknown migrants seeded throughout the nation, we are now in the consequence phase.   We are now in the consequence phase.  Repeated, intentionally because so many people just don’t understand what those consequences will mean.

The “fundamental transformation” is proceeding without any impediment.  However, now we see various voices in the uniparty politic starting to position themselves, their statements, their expressions, in such a manner as to avoid blame for a situation that is about to explode.

51 Days Later, Tucker Carlson Releases Interview With Julian Assange


Posted originally on the CTH on December 22, 2023 | Sundance 

Using his Twitter/X platform to promote the 5-minute-long teaser, Tucker Carlson has finally released the interview with Julian Assange that took place on November 2, 2023. Why wait 51 days?  Your guess is as good as mine. {Direct Rumble Link Here}

Within the prologue, and after interviewing Julian Assange, Tucker Carlson references the extremely important DNC email issue and states unequivocally, “democrats claim the emails had been hacked by the Russian government. But they hadn’t been, that was a lie.  The emails had been leaked from within the DNC itself, almost certainly by a disgruntled employee.”    WATCH:

It is an exceptionally good teaser, and the only way to see the full Julian Assange interview is through THIS LINK (TuckerCarlson.com).

[Source Link]

A WALK IN THE VERY DEEP WEEDS….

The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election.  This DNC hack claim is the fulcrum issue structurally underpinning the Russian election interference narrative pushed by the Weissmann and Muller Special Counsel.  However, this essential claim is directly disputed by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, as outlined during a Dana Rohrabacher interview and by Julian Assange’s own on-the-record statements.

Assange was arrested at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London immediately after the Weissmann/Muller report was released to Bill Barr.  Despite investigating the background of the Trump-Russia nonsense, John Durham never touched the DNC hacking claim – the core of the Mueller report.  Why? Because Durham knew the U.S. Government threw a bag over Assange to protect the fraudulent Trump-Russia and Russian interference claims.

Again, this reality speaks to the corruption within the John Durham investigation.  Durham was protecting Weissmann, Mueller and the core of their justification for a 2-year investigation.   Durham knows why Assange was arrested.  Durham stayed away from it, intentionally.

The Russians HAD TO have made efforts to interfere in the election, or else the factual basis for the surveillance operation against candidate Donald Trump is naked to the world.

That’s why so much DOJ, FBI and Mueller special counsel energy was exhausted framing the predicate.

“Seventeen intelligence agencies,” the December 29th Joint Analysis Report, the expulsion of the Russian diplomats which was an outcropping of the JAR, the rushed January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment, shoving microphones in everyone’s faces and demanding they answer if they believed Russia interfered – all of it, and I do mean every bit of it, is predicated on an absolute DC need to establish that Russia Attempted to Interfere in the 2016 election.

The “Russian Malicious Cyber Activity – Joint Analysis Report” (full pdf) is pure nonsense.  It outlines nothing more than vague and disingenuous typical hacking activity that is no more substantive than any other hacking report on any other foreign actor. However, it was needed to help frame the Russian interference narrative.

There were no Russian diplomats involved; there was no Russian election interference; there was no Russian hacking of the DNC; it was all a fraud created by the intelligence community (IC), FBI and Main Justice to support Hillary Clinton’s lies and then cover their own targeting tracks.

On September 26, 2021, Yahoo News published an extensive article about the CIA targeting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2017 and the extreme conversations that were taking place at the highest levels of the U.S. government about how to control him.

There is a much bigger story transparently obvious when overlapped with CTH research files on the Mueller investigation and the U.S. intelligence community.  Specifically, the motive intentionally not outlined by Yahoo News.

What I am going to share is a deep dive using the resources and timeline from within that Yahoo article and the specific details we have assembled that paints a clear picture about what interests existed for the Deep State, the Intelligence apparatus and the Mueller-Weissmann special counsel.

This fully cited review is not for the faint of heart. This is a journey that could shock many; it could alarm more and will likely force more than a few to reevaluate just what the purpose was for Mike Pompeo within the Donald Trump administration.

As the Yahoo News article begins, they outline how those within the Trump administration viewed Assange as a risk in 2017.

Here it is critical to accept that many people inside the Trump administration were there to control events, not to facilitate a policy agenda from a political outsider.   In the example of Assange, the information he carried was a risk to those who attempted and failed to stop Trump from winning the 2016 election.

Julian Assange was not a threat to Donald Trump, but he was a threat to those who attempted to stop Donald Trump.  In 2017, the DC system was reacting to a presidency they did not control.  As an outcome, the Office of the President was being managed and influenced by some with ulterior motives.

Yahoo, via Michael Isikoff, puts it this way: “Some senior officials inside the CIA and the Trump administration even discussed killing Assange, going so far as to request “sketches” or “options” for how to assassinate him. Discussions over kidnapping or killing Assange occurred “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, said a former senior counterintelligence official. “There seemed to be no boundaries.”

As we overlay the timeline, it is prudent to pause and remember some hindsight details.  According to reports in November of 2019, U.S. Attorney John Durham and U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr were spending time looking carefully at CIA activity in the 2016 presidential election. One quote from a media-voice increasingly sympathetic to a political deep-state noted:

One British official with knowledge of Barr’s wish list presented to London commented that, “It is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services”“. (Link)

It is interesting that quote came from a British intelligence official, as there was extensive pre-2016 election evidence of an FBI/CIA counterintelligence operation that also involved U.K. intelligence services. There was an aspect to the FBI/CIA operation that overlaps with both a U.S. and U.K. need to keep Wikileaks founder Julian Assange under tight control.

To understand the risk that Julian Assange represented to FBI/CIA interests, and effectively the Mueller special counsel, it is important to understand just how extensive the operations of the FBI/CIA were in 2016. It is within this network of foreign and domestic operations where FBI Agent Peter Strzok was clearly working as a bridge between the CIA and FBI operations.

By now, people are familiar with the construct of CIA operations involving Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor generally identified as a western intelligence operative who was tasked by the FBI/CIA to run an operation against Trump campaign official George Papadopoulos in both Italy (Rome) and London. {Go Deep}  John Durham ignored him.

In a similar fashion, the FBI tasked U.S. intelligence asset Stefan Halper to target another Trump campaign official, Carter Page. Under the auspices of being a Cambridge Professor, Stefan Halper also targeted General Michael Flynn. Additionally, using assistance from a female FBI agent, under the false name Azra Turk, Halper also targeted Papadopoulos.  Again, John Durham ignored it.

The initial operations to target Flynn, Papadopoulos and Page were all based overseas. This seemingly makes the CIA exploitation of the assets and the targets legal and much easier.  If Durham went into this intelligence rabbit hole, there would be a paper trail that leads back to Robert Mueller.  Durham didn’t go there.

John Durham and IG Michael Horowitz both outlined how very specific exculpatory evidence was known to the FBI and Main Justice, yet that evidence was withheld from the FISA application used against Carter Page and/or it was ignored.  The FBI fabricated information in the FISA and removed evidence that Carter Page was previously working for the CIA.  This is what FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith was indicted and convicted for doing.

One week after the FBI and DOJ filed the second renewal for the Carter Page FISA [April 7, 2017], Yahoo News notes how Mike Pompeo delivered his first remarks as CIA Director:

[…] On April 13, 2017, wearing a U.S. flag pin on the left lapel of his dark gray suit, Pompeo strode to the podium at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank, to deliver to a standing-room-only crowd his first public remarks as Trump’s CIA director.

Rather than use the platform to give an overview of global challenges or to lay out any bureaucratic changes he was planning to make at the agency, Pompeo devoted much of his speech to the threat posed by WikiLeaks. (link)

Why would CIA Director Mike Pompeo be so concerned about Julian Assange and Wikileaks in April 2017?

In April of 2017 Pompeo’s boss, President Donald Trump, was under assault from the intelligence community writ large, and every deep state actor was leaking to the media in a frenzied effort to continue the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.

The Trump-Russia effort was so all consuming that FBI Director James Comey was even keeping a diary of engagement with President Trump in order to support an ongoing investigation built on fraud – yet, Mike Pompeo is worried about Julian Assange.

Again, here it is important to put yourself back into the time of reference.  Remember, it’s clear in the text messages between FBI Agent Strzok and Lisa Page that Peter Strzok had a working relationship with what he called their “sister agency”, the CIA.

♦ Former CIA Director John Brennan admitted Peter Strzok helped write the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which outlines the Russia narrative; and it was also Peter Strzok who authored the July 31st, 2016, “Electronic Communication” from the CIA to the FBI that originated FBI operation “Crossfire Hurricane.”  Strzok immediately used that EC to travel to London to debrief intelligence officials around Australian Ambassador to the U.K. Alexander Downer.

In short, Peter Strzok was a profoundly overzealous James Bond wannabe who acted as a bridge between the CIA and the FBI. The perfect type of FBI career agent for 2016’s CIA Director John Brennan to utilize.

Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson hired CIA Open-Source analyst Nellie Ohr toward the end of 2015, at appropriately the same time as “FBI Contractors” were identified exploiting the NSA database and extracting information on a specific set of U.S. persons.  One, if not the primary extractors, has now been identified as Rodney Joffe at Neustar.   “The campaign plot was outlined by Durham in a 27-page indictment charging former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false report to the FBI.  The plot was also outlined in the finished Durham report.  Eight individuals who allegedly conspired with Sussmann but does not identify them by name. The sources familiar with the probe confirmed that the leader of the team of contractors was Rodney L. Joffe.” {Go Deep}

It was also Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson who was domestically tasked with a Russian lobbyist named Natalia Veselnitskaya. A little reported Russian Deputy Attorney General named Saak Albertovich Karapetyan was working as a double agent for the CIA and Kremlin. Karapetyan was directing the foreign operations of Natalia Veselnitskaya, and Glenn Simpson was organizing her inside the U.S as part of his Trump-Russia creation.

Glenn Simpson managed Veselnitskaya through the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. However, once the CIA/Fusion GPS operation using Veselnitskaya started to unravel with public reporting, back in Russia Deputy AG Karapetyan died in a helicopter crash.

Simultaneously timed in late 2015 through mid 2016, there was a domestic FBI operation using a young Russian named Maria Butina tasked to run up against Republican presidential candidates. According to Patrick Byrne, Butina’s handler, was FBI agent Peter Strzok who was giving Byrne the instructions on where to send her. {Go Deep}

All of this context outlines the extent to which the FBI/CIA was openly involved in constructing a political operation that settled upon anyone in candidate Donald Trump’s orbit.  A large international operation directed by the FBI/CIA and domestic operations seemingly directed by Peter Strzok operating with a foot in both agencies. [Strzok gets CIA service coin]  Durham eviscerated the predicate for all of this in his report, yet stayed away from the part that leads to Robert Mueller in 2017.

Recap: ♦Mifsud tasked against Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Halper tasked against Flynn (CIA), Page (CIA) and Papadopoulos (CIA). ♦Azra Turk, pretending to be Halper asst, tasked against Papadopoulos (FBI). ♦Veselnitskaya tasked against Donald Trump Jr. (CIA, Fusion GPS). ♦Butina tasked against Trump and Donald Trump Jr (FBI).

Additionally, Christopher Steele was a British intelligence officer hired by Fusion GPS to assemble and launder fraudulent intelligence information within his dossier. And we cannot forget Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, who was recruited by Asst. FBI Director Andrew McCabe to participate in running an operation against the Trump campaign and create the impression of Russian involvement. Deripaska refused to participate.

All of this engagement directly controlled by U.S. intelligence, and all of this intended to give a specific Russia impression. This predicate was what John Durham was reviewing in November of 2019, and then released in his final report – while whitewashing the parts that led to the Mueller silo.

The key point of all that contextual background is to see how committed the CIA and FBI were to the constructed narrative of Russia interfering with the 2016 election. The CIA, FBI, and by extension the DOJ and a multitude of political operatives, put a hell of a lot of work into it.

We know John Durham looked at the construct of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA); and talking to CIA analysts who participated in the construct of the January 2017 report that bolstered the false appearance of Russian interference in the 2016 election. This context is important, because it ties in to the next part that involves Julian Assange and Wikileaks.  This is where the motives of Mike Pompeo in mid/late 2017 come into play.

[…] By the summer of 2017, the CIA’s proposals were setting off alarm bells at the National Security Council. “WikiLeaks was a complete obsession of Pompeo’s,” said a former Trump administration national security official. (link)

On April 11th, 2019, the Julian Assange indictment was unsealed in the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA). From the indictment we discover it was under seal since March 6th, 2018:

(Link to pdf)

On Tuesday April 15, 2019, more investigative material was released. Again, note the dates: Grand Jury, *December of 2017* This means FBI investigation prior to….

The FBI investigation took place prior to December 2017, it was coordinated through the Eastern District of Virginia (EDVA) where Dana Boente was U.S. Attorney at the time. The grand jury indictment was sealed from March of 2018 until after Mueller completed his investigation, April 2019.

Why the delay?

What exactly was the DOJ waiting for from March 2018 to April 2019?

This timeframe is the peak of the Robert Mueller/Andrew Weissmann special counsel investigation.

Here’s where it gets interesting….

The Yahoo article outlines, “There was an inappropriate level of attention to Assange“, by the CIA according to a national security council official.  However, if you consider the larger ramifications of what Julian Assange represented to all of those people inside and outside government interests who created the Trump-Russia collusion/conspiracy, well, there was actually a serious risk.

Remember, in May 2017 Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann effectively took over the DOJ.  The purpose of the Mueller investigation was to cover up the illegal operation that took place in the preceding year.   The people exposed in the Trump-Russia targeting operation included all of those intelligence operatives previously outlined in the CIA, FBI and DOJ operations.  These are the people John Durham did not indict.

The FBI submission to the Eastern District of Virginia Grand Jury in December of 2017 was four months after congressman Dana Rohrabacher talked to Julian Assange in August of 2017: “Assange told a U.S. congressman … he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents … did not come from Russia.”

(August 2017, The Hill Via John Solomon) Julian Assange told a U.S. congressman on Tuesday he can prove the leaked Democratic Party documents he published during last year’s election did not come from Russia and promised additional helpful information about the leaks in the near future.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is friendly to Russia and chairs an important House subcommittee on Eurasia policy, became the first American congressman to meet with Assange during a three-hour private gathering at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where the WikiLeaks founder has been holed up for years.

Rohrabacher recounted his conversation with Assange to The Hill.

“Our three-hour meeting covered a wide array of issues, including the WikiLeaks exposure of the DNC [Democratic National Committee] emails during last year’s presidential election,” Rohrabacher said, “Julian emphatically stated that the Russians were not involved in the hacking or disclosure of those emails.”

Pressed for more detail on the source of the documents, Rohrabacher said he had information to share privately with President Trump. (read more)

Dana Rohrabacher later published this account of the events:

Knowing how much effort the CIA and FBI put into the Russia collusion-conspiracy narrative; and knowing that Assange could essentially destroy the baseline predicate for the entire Trump-Russia investigation – which included the use of Robert Mueller; it would make sense for corrupt government officials to take keen interest after this August 2017 meeting between Rohrabacher and Assange.

That contact between Rohrabacher and Assange explains why those same government officials would quickly gather specific evidence (related to Wikileaks and Bradley Manning) for a grand jury by December 2017.

Within three months of the grand jury seating (Nov/Dec 2017), the DOJ generated an indictment and sealed it in March 2018.

The EDVA then sat on the Julian Assange indictment while the Mueller/Weissman probe was ongoing.

As soon as the Mueller probe ended, on April 11th, 2019, a planned and coordinated effort between the U.K. and U.S. was executed; Julian Assange was forcibly arrested and removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and the EDVA indictment was unsealed (link).

As a person who researched this fiasco, including the ridiculously false 2016 Russian hacking/interference narrative: “17 intelligence agencies”, Joint Analysis Report (JAR) needed for Obama’s anti-Russia narrative in December ’16, and then a month later the ridiculously political Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) in January ’17, this timing against Assange is not coincidental.

It doesn’t take a deep researcher to see the aligned Deep State motive to control Julian Assange, because the Mueller report was dependent on Russia cybercrimes, and that narrative is contingent on the Russia DNC hack story which Julian Assange disputes.  Again, John Durham stayed away from it!

♦ This is critical. The Weissmann/Mueller report contains claims that Russia hacked the DNC servers as the central element to the Russia interference narrative in the U.S. election.

This claim is the fulcrum underpinning the Russia election interference narrative.  However, this core and essential claim is directly disputed by Julian Assange, as outlined during the Dana Rohrabacher interview, and by Julian Assange’s on-the-record statements.

The predicate for Robert Mueller’s investigation was specifically due to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The fulcrum for this Russia interference claim is the intelligence community assessment (Peter Strzok); and the only factual evidence claimed within the ICA is that Russia hacked the DNC servers; a claim only made possible by relying on forensic computer analysis from another Michael Sussmann partner, Shawn Henry at Crowdstrike, yes another DNC contractor and collaborator with the Clinton campaign.

The CIA held a massive conflict of self-interest problem surrounding the Russian hacking claim as it pertained to their own activity in 2016. The FBI and DOJ always held a massive interest in maintaining the Russian hacking claim.  Robert Mueller and Andrew Weismann did everything they could to support that predicate; and all of those foreign countries whose intelligence apparatus participated with Brennan and Strzok also carried a self-interest in maintaining that Russia hacking and interference narrative.

Julian Assange was/is the only person with direct knowledge of how Wikileaks gained custody of the DNC emails; and Assange claimed he has evidence it was from an inside DNC leak, not from a DNC hack.

The Russian “hacking” claim was ultimately so important to the CIA, FBI, DOJ, ODNI and U.K Intelligence apparatus.  Well, right there is the obvious motive to shut Assange down as soon as intelligence officials knew the Mueller report was going to be public.  And that is exactly what Main Justice and the U.S. intelligence community did.

This is why John Durham never touched it.

All of them know what happened.

All of them know why Julian Assange was taken from the Embassy in London.  A bag had to be thrown over Assange in order to retain the justification for the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel and the larger Russian election interference claims.  None of them do not know this.  They all know.

Start asking the right questions about the timeline of Assange being arrested.  Ask about the DNC hack and Russian provenance according to Crowdstrike.  Ask key and specific questions about the FBI working with Crowdstrike and about the DOJ and EDVA case against Assange.

The people around the Deep State all know what happened.  SO DO WE!

Civilian Always Die in War – War is Hell


Posted originally on Dec 22, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

9 year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc Naked Girl

COMMENT: You overlook all the civilians being killed in Ukraine and in Palestine.

LS

ANSWER: As they say, history is written by the victor. I do not know what planet you are from, but I have said MANY times that typically, an equal amount or more civilians die in war than soldiers. It does not matter what war you want to talk about. How many millions of Vietnamese died? How many Iraqis died to get one man? The American Civil War using census data, the demographic historian Dr. J. David Hacker published “A Census-Based Count of Civil War Dead” in the scholarly quarterly Civil War History, reported a more accurate estimate of Civil War deaths is about 750,000, with as many as 850,000 dead. This is based on the census data – not death on the battlefield. The civilian deaths were most likely in the neighborhood of 200,000+ dead.

Hiroshima Nagasaki 1945

Civilians ALWAYS die in war. It is estimated that over 200,000 died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Starting a war with Russia will result in countless civilian deaths and the destruction of most of the monuments of Europe. All of this for what?

Dresden Feb 1945

The Dresden Massacre – February 1945

I am sure you have never heard of the Dresden Massacre carried out by the Allies that killed an estimated 250,000 German civilians. Japan overshadowed Dresden in August 1945. Some accounts claimed 500,000 civilians died in Dresden. About 600,000 refugees from the had hidden in Dresen, joining an estimated 600,000 inhabitants. After the waves of bombers had passed in the night, they dropped phosphorus bombs on Dresden, which burned people alive.

Then, in daylight, low-flying aircraft mowed down visible survivors running in the streets. The Western press did not report the civilian massacre, just that 8,000 aircraft flew to destroy Dresden with 3,000 bombers. The phosphorus bombs were dropped on Dresden without any regard for civilians since they were Germans who deserved death for being born German. It was akin to the dropping of Napalm (liquid fire) on Vietnam, burning civilians alive then as well.

During the American Civil War, General Sherman told his Troops at Vicksburg – War is hell.

Dresden

A Political Disaster – 2024 will be Worse


Posted originally on Dec 21, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

Sieg Heil

COMMENT #1: This is in regards to your blog labeled “Homelessness at All-Time High in World’s Wealthiest Nation.” My wife tried to get her Aunt, who has nothing but the clothes on her back, government assistant housing in South Carolina. They told us they haven’t been accepting applications for over a year. You can see for yourself on their SC assistance website.
So I’m not sure what HUD means when they praise the Biden/Harris administration….

Kevin

COMMENT #2: I never voted for Trump and thought he was arrogant. But after watching how hard these people are trying to stop him, it is obvious that they are scared to death of what happens if he wins. I have two sons, 18 and 20. I do not want to see them drafted to help Ukraine. This time, I am voting for Trump to save my children.

NS

REPLY: The mainstream press has abandoned the people. All we get is nonsense and propaganda that comes from Washington; they click their heels and say Sieg Heil! So many emails are coming in that say they never voted for or liked Trump, but now they will vote for him to shake up Washington. These people in DC have to stop destroying this country. Trump is rising in the polls, NOT because he is some saint. It is all becoming so obvious that it is a vote against Washington.

It seems like a lot of people are coming to the conclusion that a vote for Trump is a vote against Washington and, certainly, the Neocons. A Trump victory would transform Washington into a sitcom.

Deep State

Nevertheless, I think they would assassinate Trump before his hand hits the book. They cannot allow him to take office because they won’t get World War III. My concern is they intend to start war ASAP to box in Trump where he cannot exit a war they have already begun. Pay attention. NATO will be deploying more Troops on the border of Russia in Estonia and Lithuania, where they can launch an attack against Russia, whereas Ukraine is not a member of NATO.

The crisis would be the exposure of the FBI, NSA, and CIA and whether they would follow Trump’s orders. I seriously doubt that would happen. This is the Deep State fighting for its life. Maybe this is the time. We will have to see. The USA will not stand anyhow, and we are looking at the collapse of the country we grew up in because of the deep-seated corruption at every level. What the Biden Administration has pulled off in Colorado is just shocking – an absolute direct attack on the foundation of Democracy. Bideneconomics has been a disaster, and it will get a lot worse in 2024.

Half of All U.S. Buick Dealerships Take GM Buyout Instead of Spending Millions Retooling to Meet EV Needs


Posted originally on the CTH on December 21, 2023 | Sundance

Half of All U.S. Buick Dealerships Take GM Buyout Instead of Spending Millions Retooling to Meet EV Needs

December 21, 2023 | Sundance | 299 Comments

This is somewhat of a predictably tragic outcome all things considered. I remember a previous conversation on these pages when GM moved massive investment into China to build their mid-size SUV brand, Encore.

Continuing the U.S. decline of the brand, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that approximately half of all Buick dealership in the U.S. have opted to take a buyout from GM, as opposed to spending millions in retooling, restructuring and retraining their staff to accommodate the EV influx.

Most of the EV’s shoved onto the dealer lots sit idle without customers to purchase them.

Wall Street Journal – General Motors (GM) has bought out about half of its 2,000 Buick dealers nationwide, based on their decision to not sell electric vehicles, according to a company spokesman Wednesday.

Dealers who are taking the buyout would give up the Buick franchise and no longer sell the brand, he said. The dealer can continue to sell other GM models, such as Chevrolet or GMC, that often account for a higher percentage of sales.

The Wall Street Journal reported in late 2022 that the automaker planned to offer buyouts to its U.S. Buick dealer network. The move came after the Detroit automaker gave the dealers a choice: Invest at least $300,000 to sell and service electric vehicles, or exit the Buick franchise. The investments would cover EV chargers and worker training, among other initiatives. (read more)

The Joe Biden EPA mandates for Electric Vehicles are going to crush the U.S. auto industry and consumers.  On the upside, regular, well-maintained gasoline powered used vehicles will hold their value longer.  Overall new car prices are already ridiculous and the prices of the EV’s are substantially higher.

Along with higher entry prices, the insurance is higher, maintenance costs are higher and the replacement parts for EV’s are insanely high.  In some models the replacement batteries cost more than the vehicle is worth.  How the auto industry thinks these mandates are sustainable is beyond logic, then again maybe that’s the feature, not the flaw.

If the overall goal is to reduce the number of vehicles on the road and control the transportation choices of the American public, then the EV mandate policy is designed well.

It’s all madness, and only one commonsense businessman seems to understand the issue.

Central Banks & Complexity


Posted originally on Dec 21, 2023 By Martin Armstrong 

Federal Reserve Text

QUESTION: Why do you seem to be the only analyst who understands central banking? My son got an internship at one of the major banks in New York during the summer. I won’t say which bank, but he asked a senior-level guy there about you and the interest rates, explaining I had been following you for years. He said you were the only one with international experience and who has ever advised multiple central banks. Is that the answer?

PK

ANSWER: Perhaps in part. But there is a massive gap between the experience of those of us who have dealt at high levels internationally and domestic analysts who always seem wrong calling the shots based on the headlines they read.

Understanding Currency capital flows

The number one problem is this fiction that the dollar is a fiat currency when, in fact, currency from the beginning of time has ALWAYS been valued NOT by its pure metal content but by who issued it. There has historically always been a premium to the currency of the dominant economy.

Lydia Debasement
Tiberius Aureus Genuine India Imitation

When Cyrus the Great conquered Lydia, he continued to strike coins of their design because they were highly regarded in international trade. We see the same with Roman coinage imitated in India when they, too, could have issued their own designs, but the Roman coinage carried a premium.

Valens AR Siliqua Genuine Gothic Imitation

Even when the Barbarians were on the Northern frontier of Rome, they too took silver and struck imitations of Roman coins because they were worth more than the metal content. In 260AD, when emperor Valerian the Persians captured me,  there was a Financial Panic of 260AD where bankers suddenly did not know if Roman coins would still be worth anything when there was no emperor.

QE MMT
Rain Money QE

While everyone claimed hyperinflation would engulf the world because of Quantitative Easing (QE), I warned there would be no such inflation. Indeed, with QE, there was no inflation, and people then developed the Modern Monetary Theory, claiming that they could increase the money supply and it would not result in inflation.

The entire problem rests with the fact that these people not only did not understand the role of money but also failed to grasp international capital flows and how they play into the world economy. Because you can now buy US TBills and place them as collateral to trade with at a brokerage house, the debt is simply money that pays interest. BEFORE 1971, it was illegal to borrow against government bonds. For you see, if you could borrow against the bonds, that meant the bonds were part of the REAL money supply.

Once debt became cash that paid interest, that changed economics forever. I have said over and over again the Fed is NOT the problem, and it can not stop inflation with interest rates. The REAL money supply if the national debt, so if the Fed buys-in 30-year bonds and creates cash to do so, it is NOT increasing the money supply; it is increasing the liquidity – that is all. Swapping cash for bonds does not change the balance sheet. If you buy a house for $100,000 and pay cash, then you have merely converted your cash into an asset.

Now, it all depends upon the buyer. If I have a building and sell it to a fellow American for $10 million, it does NOT alter the domestic money supply. However, if I sell it to Brit, he brings in cash to buy the property, and that DOES INCREASE the money supply BECAUSE he has imported $10 million that did not previously exist within the domestic system.

This is a very complex topic that only those of us in international finance ever encountered. I helped the Japanese reduce their trade surplus for political reasons. I had them buy gold in New York, export it to London, and sell it there. The trade statistics only count dollars in and dollars out – not the product. Buying gold and exporting it reduced the trade deficit, and nobody understood anything.

Dow Jones Earnings Book Value 1937 1982
Martin Armstrong Margaret Thatcher

I handled a lot of the takeover boys during the 1980s when they made the move about Wall Street. They never understood what I was doing. The stocker was way undervalued when you could buy a company, sell its assets, and double your money. I took it to another level. I ran the model on currencies, and we would then buy like all the Courage Pubs in England but borrow in Swiss in a currency that would decline against the asset. We were making 20% on the currency moves besides the asset values. I was restructuring companies selling assets in one currency to buy assets in another to create balance hedge portfolios. That’s how I became friends with Maggie Thatcher. She wanted to know who this guy was sending companies into Britain.

Maggie was one of the few world leaders who grasped what I was doing. She kept Britain out of the EU because she understood what and how I was restructuring multinational companies. They staged a coup against here to take the pound into the Euro, then Soros attacked the overvalued pound in the ERM, and John Major had to reverse the entire mess, making Soros very rich in the process.

I will get around to doing my memoirs. I understand what I was doing set the stage for the world economy post-1971 Bretton Woods. That’s why Milton Friedman bothered to listen to my lecture about currencies in Chicago.