Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted May 26, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

I remember going to see Donald Rickles (1926–2017)  at the Latin Casino back in the day. There wasn’t a race, gender, or religion he left untouched. But he always simply exploited the differences in a humorous manner. Back then, if you could not laugh at yourself, you were considered unsociable and something was wrong with you. Today, the left seems to have flipped everything upside-down for now if something is offensive to say, then you are not allowed to say it, and everything seems offensive to someone, even calling your parents father and mother.

To me, this cancel culture is the opposite side of the freedom in which I grew up. This has become the very antithesis of a free society, and to even say that now means the left has no problem hurling and attaching labels to anyone who disagrees since we are now all just the alt-right for believing in the basic fundamentals of free speech. The one industry with the freedom to say whatever you want in this country used to be the land of stand-up comedy. Comedy is now dead, and we are living in the midst of a Greek tragedy.

I have told the story of how I went behind the Berlin Wall to accompany a friend who was born there, and his family was trapped there the day the Wall went up. He happened to be with his grandmother walking in town, and he became an American. We met his cousin, and she took us on a tour of the city. When anyone came near, she would talk in a standard propaganda manner. When it was clear, she would return to normal.

The left has become like the East German Stasi. They may not be rounding us up yet and killing us, but perhaps that is the next phase to ensure their victory over humanity. Those of us remain horrified of these people and what they have ruined, which is perhaps best symbolized by the death of comedy. Over the last few weeks, we have witnessed a number of instances of comedians being targeted, and their jokes have been turned into hateful speech. Worse still, they are now scouring the past to find anything someone may have said decades ago to cancel them today.

I will never watch the Academy Awards again. Their viewership fell to under 10 million — the worst in their history. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has lost all credibility in my book. Some argue it was the lockdown, but it is the cancel culture. Kevin Hart was just removed as host of the Oscars due to outrage about his stand-up comedy from nearly a decade ago. Even Chris Rock was recently under fire for a conversation he had with fellow comedians Jerry Seinfeld, Ricky Gervais, and Louis C.K. almost 8 years ago about saying the n-word. In prison, blacks use the word “nigah,” which is not restricted to race but translates as a friend.

The problem with all of this is not a word, but the meaning of a word. The old saying it’s not over until the fat lady sings refers to the “robust” woman who has the last act in an opera, and it was not because of her weight, but large women and men tended to have a better voice. Indeed, Luciano Pavarotti, who sings “Nessun dorma“ from Turandot here back in 1994, was certainly not skinny. I was skinny when I was growing up and was always told to eat more. It did not make me want to commit suicide.

Comedy is dead. If we can no longer laugh at ourselves, then we are encroaching on the world I saw when I went behind the Berlin Wall. This is how Communism begins. This is not being respectful; it is being authoritarian. It is debatable if comedians like George Carlin (1937-2008) and Richard Pryor (1940-2005) would even be allowed to do stand-up comedy today. Stand-up comedy historically wasn’t just about making people laugh. It was also often a stage many comics took the opportunity to say something of value.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 26, 2021 | Sundance | 228 Comments

CTH says it often because it is critical to understanding the motives: “When the institutions need a public relations team to get out in front of sunlight upon their corrupt activity they follow a consistent pattern.  (1) The FBI leaks to the New York Times and Politico; (2) The CIA leaks to The Washington Post; and (3) The State Dept leaks to CNN.”  This pattern has been consistent for well over a decade.

As a result it does not come as a surprise to see the Biden State Department turn to their stenographers at CNN when they are worried the sunlight is getting too intense.

In this example it is because the “Wuhan Lab Leak Theory” is no longer a theory, and the origin of the COVID virus is again under intense scrutiny.  As the walls close in, the corrupt network within the Dept. of State (DoS) attempt to get in front of their duplicity.

Washington (CNN) – “President Joe Biden’s team shut down a closely-held State Department effort launched late in the Trump administration to prove the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab over concerns about the quality of its work, according to three sources familiar with the decision.

The existence of the State Department inquiry and its termination this spring by the Biden administration — neither of which has been previously reported — comes to light amid renewed interest in whether the virus could have leaked out of a Wuhan lab with links to the Chinese military. The Biden administration is also facing scrutiny of its own efforts to determine if the Chinese government was responsible for the virus.

Those involved in the previously undisclosed inquiry, which was launched last fall by allies of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, say it was an honest effort to probe what many initially dismissed: that China’s biological weapons program could have had a greater role in the pandemic’s origin in Wuhan, according to two additional sources.

[…] The decision to terminate the inquiry, which was run primarily out of the State Department’s arms control and verification bureau, was made after Biden officials were briefed on the team’s draft findings in February and March of this year, a State Department spokesperson said.”

And now comes the cover….

“On Wednesday, Biden issued a statement that he has directed the US intelligence community to redouble its efforts in investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic and report back to him in 90 days.” (LINK)

Obviously the State Dept knew someone from that prior task-force was going to leak the story about Biden shutting down the investigation into the Wuhan Bioweapons lab as an origin of the COVID outbreak.

Biden supporting the agenda of China and the WHO by shutting down the investigation is politically damaging; so here comes the spin, spin, spin….

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 26, 2021 | Sundance | 316 Comments

It’s a BIG CLUB and Patriotism Ain’t In It…

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was blocked from entry into the Republican Governors Association in Tennessee.  Apparently members of the RGA were concerned that Lindell would confront them over their election fraud inaction.

(Via Politico) Lindell said he had flown to Nashville on Monday to attend the three-day meeting starting on Tuesday, but that only a few minutes after he collected his credential at the JW Marriott Hotel, an event coordinator in the lobby told him he was not allowed at any of the official RGA events.

[…] Earlier on Tuesday, Lindell had gone on Steve Bannon’s radio show and promised to confront Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, RGA’s chair, about the election and allegations of fraud in their states. (read more)

It’s a BIG CLUB and he ain’t in it.

In other related DeceptiCon news, the professional political class within the RNC, led by Ronna McDaniel, are preparing for the 2022 mid-term elections by hiring allies in the DeceptiCon club.  Nathan Brand has been hired as Deputy Communications Director for the Republican National Committee.

[LINK to TWEET] – Previously Brand was Mitch McConnell’s stenographer as press secretary for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC); and Brand comes from the stable of DeceptiCon Senator Marco Rubio, now the Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).

It’s worth remembering the origin of the infamous “Steele Dossier” first gained its funding from the support network of Marco Rubio in the 2015/2016 GOP primary.  That specific network includes Billionaire Paul Singer who funds The Washington Free Beacon. The primary editor of WFB, Matthew Continetti, is married to the daughter of notorious NeverTrumper Bill Kristol.

As we have all witnessed in the era of “Trump the outsider”, this DeceptiCon club has many tentacles.  The DeceptiCon network is embedded deep inside the institution of the RNC, which is now chaired by Mitt Romney’s niece Ronna McDaniel. Essentially you can look at Ronna McDaniel’s curriculum vitae as a roadmap to the underlying agenda.

The larger goal of the current RNC network is to retain the club priority in similar fashion to what the Virginia GOP looks like.  Those who control the republican party in Virginia are purists in the establishment GOP outlook.  Pontificating Wall Street types, globalists in the form of UniParty members, who work openly to eliminate the threat of a true conservative base.  The Virginia GOP will change any rule, undermine any candidate and intentionally lose elections (if needed) in order to retain the DeceptiCon agenda.

The outlook amid these cocktail class republicans toward the MAGA movement is identical as their former outlook toward the Tea Party. They view populism and ‘America First’ as a threat to their ideological goals and globalist objectives.  This outlook is now being reinforced in several states by the party apparatus (see what happened to Mike Lindell). Ronna McDaniel facilitates the DeceptiCon club directly, indirectly and through a process of willful blindness.

The ¹top states currently infected by DeceptiCons at the party level include: Virginia, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky and Ohio.

[Note: ¹Florida used to be on this list but strong (sometimes confrontational and vulgar) action on the ground-level electing state representatives and taking back grassroot control has removed much of the DeceptiCon infection]

You might note that Ronna McDaniel spends almost no time recruiting MAGA-minded candidates to challenge Democrat seats.  Nor does/did McDaniel ever lift a finger to proactively create a network of legal assistance to counteract fraud in any election.  Any republican who lost any election -and fraud was evident- was completely on their own, including President Donald J Trump.  The RNC didn’t lift a finger.  Instead, the RNC Chairwoman prefers to spend time on the cocktail club circuit dining on white wine spritzers and eating crustless cucumber sandwiches cut into little triangles.

As a direct result, Ronna McDaniel hiring of one of Mitch McConnell’s network staffers; who originates from the stable of Marco Rubio, who was put into place in the SSCI to protect the DC system from sunlight created by the Trump administration; and who willfully installed Michael Atkinson as Intelligence Community Inspector General to facilitate the removal of the sunlight (via impeachment); is just one big continuum effort inside The Big Club.

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 26, 2021 | Sundance | 100 Comments

Officials in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, have unanimously approved the district attorney to investigate the recent primary election after on-screen ballots mislabeled Republican ballots as Democrat candidates.

(The Times Leader) – […] Dominion Voting Systems Inc., which supplied and programs the devices, said “human error” at the company caused the data entry typographical mistake that put a Democratic header at the top of Republican ballots. The county administration also acknowledged the county did not test the ballots after they were programmed into the machines, relying on the company to do that task.

Griffith’s resolution asks the DA’s office to investigate Dominion’s practices and procedures in programming and set-up of the primary ballot, the county election bureau’s review and testing and the election board’s role in election equipment oversight and security. (read more)

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 26, 2021 | Sundance | 17 Comments

President Trump sits down for a lengthy interview with Steve Cortes. The 45th President of the United States speaks to Newsmax about ‘big tech oligarchs’ and if he could ever return to any social platform, what he and certain states’ governments would do about ‘censorship,’ the border crisis, a creation of the Biden administration, issues with energy independence and gas prices, the former critics of his on vaccine rollout and early pandemic restrictions who have been proven wrong, and more…

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 25, 2021 | Sundance | 102 Comments

DONALD J TRUMP – “This is a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history. It began the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower, and it’s never stopped. They wasted two years and $48 million in taxpayer dollars on Mueller and Russia Russia Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, and it continues to this day, with illegally leaked confidential information.

No other President in history has had to put up with what I have had to, and on top of all that, I have done a great job for our Country, whether it’s taxes, regulations, our Military, Veterans, Space Force, our Borders, speedy creation of a great vaccine (said to be a miracle!), and protecting the Second Amendment.

This is purely political, and an affront to the almost 75 million voters who supported me in the Presidential Election, and it’s being driven by highly partisan Democrat prosecutors.

New York City and State are suffering the highest crime rates in their history, and instead of going after murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers, and others, they come after Donald Trump.

Interesting that today a poll came out indicating I’m far in the lead for the Republican Presidential Primary and the General Election in 2024.

Our Country is broken, our elections are rigged, corrupt, and stolen, our prosecutors are politicized, and I will just have to keep on fighting like I have been for the last five years!” (LINK)

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 25, 2021 | Sundance | 93 Comments

Perhaps this is one of the most important election audit videos to date.  Unfortunately the presenter and production quality are not as good as needed; however, the content is exceptionally important.  The video below needs to be watched in its entirety, perhaps a few times to digest the content.

BACKGROUND – In Windham, New Hampshire, folds in ballots are presumed to be the primary issue that generated disqualified ballots.  When the ballot fold runs near a blank oval space (where a vote would be registered) the ballot counting machine was counting the fold and crease as a vote.  This generates what’s called “overvotes“, meaning more voter selections made on the ballot than allowed.  The overvotes create disqualified ballots.

It appears many, if not all, folded ballots create overvote ballots, and those overvote ballots are disqualified.  This is why there is such a high percentage error rate between the electronic tabulation results and the hand recounts not using machines.

This outcome is also what creates the disparity in votes cast and actual voting percentages as identified in the tabulation results for specific machines.  The higher the number of overvoted ballots, ie (disqualified) ballots, through a machine, the more flawed the tabulation result as a comparison of all voter ballots through similar machines. This is what has been identified in Windham, New Hampshire.

The Windham election officials, and auditors with a vested interest in the position of the New Hampshire state officials, have said the ballot folding issue, aka “the overvote issue”, is isolated to just that one city, Windham.

However, the research teams have identified other counties in New Hampshire with the exact same “overvote” issue, which creates the exact same disqualified ballot issue, and matches the exact same statistical anomaly in the tabulation results as seen in counting machines in other counties.

The issue is far more widespread than just Windham. The exact same pattern of high “overvote” ballots resulting in skewed tabulation results from specific machines has been identified in neighboring counties.

Additionally, and perhaps more importantly, the folding issue impacts all of the races on the ballots (local, state and federal) because the “overvote” ballots were disqualified.

WATCH THIS VIDEO: (stay with it)https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZYqmvP__y5Q?feature=oembed

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[Note to YouTubers and researchers.  If you are going to cite documents and data that create spreadsheets, and you want to produce content that actually helps lead to action, please provide linkable citations to back-up your presentation.  Ex. links to Merimack (?) county election results and Claremont (?) county.]

NH Elections Law Chair- James Gray: 603-271-3479

NH Judiciary Chair- Sharon Carson: 603-271-1403

NH Senate President- Chuck Morse: 603-271-3479

Send letters to: “State House, Room 302, 107 North Main Street Concord NH 03301”

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 25, 2021 | Sundance | 116 Comments

Everything about a grand jury is supposed to be kept secret to protect the innocent (5th Amendment issue).  However, if the motives of the prosecutor are political, they want to exploit Lawfare by leaking information to media.  This is the process Nancy Pelosi called “the wrap-up smear“, only this time it is being coordinated with Lawfare.

Create a fraudulent accusation; then leak (or merchandise) the accusation to media; then “merchandise” the media report of the leak as evidence to support the fraudulent accusation.  This is precisely what Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance is doing with a leaked story about his grand jury against President Trump.  You can tell this is the political motive because grand jury secrecy is dismissed in favor of the media leak.

If the motive wasn’t political, the DA wouldn’t need the leak.

NEW YORK — Manhattan’s district attorney has convened the grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict former president Donald Trump, other executives at his company or the business itself should prosecutors present the panel with criminal charges, according to two people familiar with the development.

The panel was convened recently and will sit three days a week for six months. It is likely to hear several matters — not just the Trump case ­— during the duration of its term, which is longer than a traditional New York state grand-jury assignment, these people said. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. Generally, special grand juries such as this one are convened to participate in long-term matters rather than to hear evidence of crimes charged routinely.

The move indicates that District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s investigation of the former president and his business has reached an advanced stage after more than two years. (read more)

Posted originally on the conservative tree house on May 25, 2021 | Sundance | 57 Comments

The ballot audit for Maricopa County, Arizona, started back up yesterday.  In this interview Senate liaison Ken Bennett provides an update and discusses the ridiculous Board of Supervisors claim of voting machine compromise.

Keep in mind the Maricopa Board of Supervisors would not allow the auditors to use the tabulation center for the audit.  That decision forced the State Senate to seek another venue for the audit.  Now the Board of Supervisors is using the need to move the machines as a reason to question chain-of-custody for the machines they forced to be moved.   Yeah, you cannot make this stuff up.

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The Veterans Memorial Coliseum CCTV system remains active [SEE HERE]  as a public security and integrity issue.

Additionally, THIS is the official page of the Arizona Senate Liaison for the Maricopa County Election audit. “Under the direction of The Honorable Ken Bennett, former Arizona Secretary of State, an audit is underway to ensure transparency and integrity in the Maricopa County, AZ 2020 election audit.”