Aug 9 2024

Kinda Funny…

August 8, 2024 | Sundance

When reviewing the conversation, I note a lot of this sentiment…

KT Says – “Trump staffing? He hasn’t even won. Harris polls are rising as long as she’s kept on teleprompter (like Biden in the basement) is working. The assassination attempt on Trumps life is already waning and will be forgotten by election date. Wisconsin’s road map to steal ballots in counties will work unless”….

Second similar:

MimiNP56 says – ...”As informative and fun as these posts have been, we cannot be distracted by them. Trump has not been elected, yet. We need a gameplan to get him elected. The post on the ballot issue in Wisconsin is a great example of the beginnings of such”…

You guys know I really respect, cherish and appreciate Treepers. CTH is a website about a conversation. I consider myself a steward and host for the topics. The point, the purpose, the entire reason for CTH to exist, is the ¹conversation.

That said, did you ever consider that these Trump-2025 posts are not only about the intent of staffing a second term with a much more effective strategy. Perhaps, just perhaps, the primary takeaway from reading each role, responsibility and challenge, is to understand just how f**ked up it is.

Every outline is the honest scenario of what exists in Washington, DC. There is not a single pretense being retained. No one knows the scale of corruption that exists by both intent and stupidity. I can count on two hands the number of people inside Washington DC who understand the scale and scope of the problem at the root cause. That’s not a disposable talking point just for emphasis. That’s the truth of it.

Every what I would call “solid” elected representative that I have talked to; those who look carefully at the evidence, details, documents and citations; resigns their job – generally within a year of our conversation.

The point of telling you this? These representatives exist and operate within a system they do not even understand.

If the people in DC don’t fathom the context of the problem that is literally outside their door, then how do you think the American people can grasp the skills needed to defeat the problem? Think about it.

Whether Donald Trump wins or loses the November 2024 election, the reality of what needs to be done remains. The reality of the corruption within each DC silo and the Intelligence Community manipulation that flows into all three branches of government exists with or without any Presidential election.

These outlines are not about Trump staffing 2025; that is a small part of the purpose. The overwhelming intent is to put a detailed, granular level context, on every single position within the system.

¹Many years ago, when the U.S. Government started using social media to expand online influence operation (2012 Arab Spring), I saw where this was going. All of the public conversation on the internet would need to be controlled. Everyone would be funneled to the control mechanisms of Social Media.

Go look at the arc-of-history for all online activity by DHS.

(Q) What are they doing? (A) DHS is controlling the public conversation.

Now you know why I always say, “the conversation is the point.” Perhaps, slow down a little and understand how much effort is put into keeping that conversation possible.

This complicated communication stuff; the stuff that is critical for people to comprehensively understand, just isn’t easy to understand.

Love to all,

Sundance

Aug 9 2024

State Dept and CIA – Trump Staffing 2025

Posted originally on the CTH on August 8, 2024 | Sundance

Only a small number of Americans understand the relationship between the U.S. State Dept (DoS) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). However, as more people understand how these two agencies operate, then people have a much more accurate context for how both agencies are viewed by the rest of the world.

Almost every deployed CIA operative has a cover profile within the State Dept. The foreign service missions of the DoS and CIA are so enmeshed there is literally no way to separate the functions of their agencies. [Go back to the Benghazi Attack for an operational reference] CIA/DoS have to be viewed through the prism of connection.

To better understand this concept, I use the following metaphor:

♦ The U.S State Dept and CIA operation is like a restaurant. The Dept of State is the front of the restaurant, with the Secretary as the Maitre D’. The CIA is the back of the restaurant, the kitchen. The Director is the Chef. The consulates are the wait staff. USAID are the food runners. The Dept of Defense are the bus boys.

The tables and chairs are assigned by the Maitre D’ according to their value. Countries viewed as more important get the best tables. The menus offered to each nation are completely different. Israel has a table in the kitchen. To get the best experience, tips (bribes) are required for everyone, from the parking valets outside, to the sommelier, to the server. Currently, Ukraine is the biggest tipper.

On the oversight aspect the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is the control mechanism to approve/install the Secretary of State. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is the control mechanism to approve/install the CIA Director. Everything therein and thereafter is a system of pretending it is something else.

The Dept of State (DoS) is so large there’s no way of addressing the inherent institutional corruption. The Secretary of State can control a small portion of DoS operations, but that’s usually only the geopolitical stuff we see discussed on television, in print media or in press conferences. The business functions of the DoS take place within a network of carefully guarded silos.

Perhaps, the first step in advancing an American-First policy, is to just stop the various administrative offices within the Dept of State from doing anything, literally anything. The challenge within DoS is massive, complex and complicated. I’m genuinely not sure what the Executive Branch mechanism is to do it, but we need to close the restaurant for a few months and do a deep cleaning.

On the back of the operation is the kitchen, the CIA.

It is a popular DC sentiment to say the CIA Director is the most powerful person within the intelligence apparatus. As the viewpoint is shared, it is the established secrecy within the mandate of the institution that gives them power.

Essentially, the CIA was created to be a place where dark arts (lying, spying, manipulation, tradecraft) would be approved and used at the discretion of the institutional leadership. As a consequence, there is no check on the CIA operational agenda. They are permitted by function and mandate, to lie to everyone about what they are doing; this includes the Office of the President.

Because they are essentially an unchecked intelligence silo within a government that has allowed the institution to hold unilateral power and self-policing, the CIA has a power within the apparatus unlike any other member. Inside the business model of foreign policy as a restaurant, the CIA are in control of the kitchen.

Together the DoS/CIA operate a shadow government, looking out for their best interest while generating power through large multinational institutions (corporations), spy agencies (5-eyes), banks, non-governmental agencies (NGAs) and various influence operations.

The activity of the CIA/DoS construct takes place regardless of who is president. Any hope of busting up this corrupt system is going to take a lot of strategic pounding while confronting the supportive element within the Senate at the same time. [Note this is why repealing the 17th amendment would make the work infinitely easier – and also why the 17th amendment was created by banking interests.]

When you stand back and look at the challenge of confronting the DoS and CIA, you can easily see why the Emissary was the first most important person I noted. If you are going to confront the domestic corruption within the DoS, you need the Emissary as a contact for specific foreign government leaders.

Under my sketch, the foreign policy of the USA shifts away from Foggy Bottom and directly back to the White House. This provides space to destroy the system through domestic confrontation. A new State Dept Secretary is going to have to push intensely and forcefully to support the goals of President Trump while understanding the internal effort is going to be much less glamorous, but historically far more important.

♦ The Secretary of State needs to have an understanding of the scale of the system underneath them, a comprehensive understanding of the opposition they will face from within that system, and the fortitude to keep playing whac-a-mole until the heads of the sub-silos are slowly removed. The person in this role needs to be a ‘high energy, smart, multitasker.’ The odds are all against them.

♦ The CIA Director needs the same type of understanding, and an impenetrable ability to put the USA interests above the interests of anyone else who has a table in the kitchen. Given the relationships within the aligned Western Intelligence Services, this is going to be a nerve-wracking challenge. As much as I want the CIA candidate to know the scale of the problem they will face, in one important way it might be more beneficial if the person didn’t know the scale of opposition they will face. This is a dark place.

This is a four-year plunge into one of the most corrupt enterprises at the heart of the DC swamp. The DoS/CIA are the guards of the drain. The drain is underneath decades of bile, silt, muck, scum, filth and horrible stuff.

Our candidates for these jobs need to be high-energy and full of equal parts determination, fortitude, piss and vinegar.

My recommendation below:

RESOURCES:

Understand The Fourth Branch

Understand The Trump Doctrine

Introduction to the 2025 Series

The Emissary – First Position

NatSec Advisor – Second Position

White House Counsel – Third Position

ODNI – Fourth Position

Aug 8 2024

President Trump Telephone Interview August 7, 2024, – Fox and Friends

Posted originally on the CTH on August 7, 2024 | Sundance

President Trump calls-in to Fox and Friends for an interview discussing Kamala Harris VP selection in Tim Walz. WATCH:

President Trump also answered questions from the audience attending the Sturgis Motorcycle rally.

During his time on “FOX & Friends,” President Trump explained how he’d handle the housing market, rising prices and Social Security to voters as the state of the economy continues to weigh on Americans.

“Drill, baby, drill — we’re going to bring down the cost of energy,” Trump said in response to a question about how he would make the economy better so “kids can survive without their parents’ help.”

“I think in the history of our country, food prices are up 50%, sometimes more. You look at bacon, bacon has quadrupled. You can’t order bacon, you can’t order anything. We’re living horribly,” he continued. (link)

Aug 6 2024

President Trump Does a Livestream Podcast with Adin Ross

Posted originally on the CTH on August 5, 2024 | Sundance

Barron Trump likes to watch Adin Ross and the audience Ross creates with his podcast is very unique and young. Old media is dead for the majority of young people and younger voters, instead it’s podcasting and live-stream content that catches their attention.

President Trump knows the value of connecting to the audience on their terms and their platforms. This is a really cool interview that covers a lot of subjects. There is a segment where President Trump plays the “one word” game with people Adin Ross puts on screen [44:00 mark]: it’s quite funny.

Aug 5 2024

End Taxes on Social Security

Posted originally on Aug 5, 2024 By Martin Armstrong

The MAGA Republicans do not want to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, rather, they would like to eliminate the government’s double dipping through taxation. Donald Trump is now declaring that he would work to eliminate tax on Social Security for seniors.

It was Ronald Reagan who first introduced tax on Social Security in March of 1983 as taxation is a bipartisan power grab, but the Democrats are more overt with their desire to steal personal funds.

The 1983 amendment reads as follows:

“If the taxpayer’s combined income (total of adjusted gross income, interest on tax-exempt bonds, and 50% of Social Security benefits and Tier I Railroad Retirement Benefits) exceeds a threshold amount ($25,000 for an individual, $32,000 for a married couple filing a joint return, and zero for a married person filing separately), the amount of benefits subject to income tax is the lesser of 50% of benefits or 50% of the excess of the taxpayer’s combined income over the threshold amount. The additional income tax revenues resulting from this provision are transferred to the trust funds from which the corresponding benefits were paid. Effective for taxable years beginning after 1983.”

The Senate Finance Committee in 1983 stated that taxing a portion of Social Security could prevent the fund from insolvency – wrong. They claimed low-income individuals would not face higher taxes, which is another common lie. The House Ways & Means Committee in 1983 claimed that the tax would improve tax equity. “Your Committee believes that social security benefits are in the nature of benefits received under other retirement systems, which are subject to taxation to the extent they exceed a worker’s after-tax contributions and that taxing a portion of social security benefits will improve tax equity by treating more nearly equally all forms of retirement and other income that are designed to replace lost wages,” the committee stated.

Then in 1993, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act sought to modify the 1983 amendment by adding a secondary threshold of taxation for individuals earning over $34,000 and individuals filing a joint return over $44,000. The taxable percentage was proposed to be raised to 85% for “high-income” beneficiaries. The Senate wanted the funds to go the Medicare HI Trust Fund while the House wanted the additional taxes to go to the General Fund of the Treasury, but the Senate prevailed over the House.

The government claimed it would help the slush fund that is Social Security operate more akin to a private pension.

As the House Budget Report stated in 1993:

“The committee desires to more closely conform the income tax treatment of Social Security benefits and private pension benefits by increasing the maximum amount of Social Security benefits included in gross income for certain higher-income beneficiaries. Reducing the exclusion for Social Security benefits for these beneficiaries will enhance both the horizontal and vertical equity of the individual income tax system by treating all income in a more similar manner.”

I should add that Joe Biden was in government and voted in favor of taxing Social Security in both 1983 and 1993.

The Congressional Budget Office believes that Social Security will run dry within the next few years. The US national debt surpassed $35 trillion this July and the government is STILL spending with no end sight. The majority of the people currently paying into Social Security by force will not receive anything in return. Social Security itself is already a tax upon the people that they cannot opt out of. They would receive a FAR GREATER RETURN if permitted to invest that money. The government steals a portion of your pay that they claim will benefit you in retirement. Then the government fails to give you back any compounded interest, tells you that they’ll safely hold onto that money until you’re close to death, and then pay you back pennies in comparison to what you could have made AND they’ll tax you again from cashing your own Social Security checks. Best of all Congress has been raiding Social Security to fund their own initiatives for many years. The entire nation needs an absolute overhaul on taxation in general as the government is STEALING from the people.

Aug 5 2024

White House Counsel – Trump Staffing 2025

Posted originally on the CTH on August 5, 2024 | Sundance

There are many very important positions related to the expectations we hold for President Trump. Having spent years deep inside the actual workings of the current professional DC silos, I can tell you most of those expectations are very challenging to achieve.

In one 4-year term President Trump can set the cornerstone for a reconstruction effort that will take at least 15 years. [Reference, Team Obama used 18+ years to create it (January 2007 to present)].

In this series my goal is more to describe the needs of some critical positions from a very practical, non-pretending, perspective of what happens within specific offices. I already discussed two critical positions that do not require IC approval (Emissary and NatSec Advisor) today I outline a third, the White House Counsel.

The Office of White House Counsel does not need IC/Senate approval.

The Office of the White House Counsel (WHC) is the gatekeeper to the Office of the President. The White House Counsel does not represent Donald Trump; the WHC represents the office of the presidency and the person fulfilling the duty of the presidency. For the interests of an effective White House Counsel, who is president is irrelevant; they are guarding the office.

The WHC is critical because it is the advice and opinion of the lawyer in this role who can completely hamstring a President, block a President and ultimately control a President. The WHC also party controls access to the Office of the President, if the person seeking access is determined detrimental to the “office of the president.”

Essentially a legal gatekeeper, with the job to protect the office of the President (not Donald Trump the person), the White House Counsel is very critical. Understanding that lawyers in general are averse to risk, and understanding a White House primary lawyer would be exceptionally averse to risk, most White House counsel office holders are predisposed to create the concentric circles of protection around the office.

The WHC coordinates the collapse of the concentric circles when major crisis unfolds. Starting on the perimeter the WHC organizes the people who will take responsibility for a major problem, with the goal in mind to keep the collateral damage as far away from the office as possible. Like a mob lawyer, the consigliere will tell a person when they must take the blame -self immolate- and exit the White House for the good of the office etc.

That said, there was a very important facet to the White House Counsel’s office that failed in Trump’s first term. This failure cannot be repeated.

In Term-1 the opinion of the White House Counsel was to block all declassification efforts that did NOT have the full support of the Intelligence Community (IC). The IC always knows the White House is averse to risk and the IC weaponize the fear of the WHC against the office of the President.

The declassification process is a request by an agency, including a superior agency like the President of the United States, to the Intelligence Branch asking for them to release the information. The Intelligence Branch again holds full unilateral control. If the head of the CIA refuses to comply with the declassification instruction of the President, what can the president do except fire him/her? {Again, GO DEEP} How does the President replace the non-compliant cabinet member? They have to go through the SSCI confirmation. See the problem?

In Term-1 the IC message to the WH Counsel was that if Donald Trump declassified any documents, they would use the DOJ (special counsel weapon) to attack the office of the president for “obstructing justice.” The WHC was fraught with fear over what would happen and demanded that POTUS Trump stop trying to declassify information/documents the IC didn’t support.

The IC was trying to take out Donald Trump and the WHC in essence supported their objective because the WHC is only focused on threat mitigation. In term-2 these threats are going to be of even greater significance. The IC is now in a zero-sum game.

If Trump wins, they are potentially going to be removed. Ergo, the IC will do anything to stay in power. It is exceptionally critical the next term Trump White House Counsel understand this. The next WHC needs to be as brave as they are legally smart and strategic.

The next WHC needs to be brave for the office, empowering for President Trump, and stand as a flea against a furnace created by the IC and Lawfare system if that’s what they need.

The next WHC needs to look carefully at the recent SCOTUS decision about the unilateral power of the President within the Executive Branch and lean heavily into that decision; fully extending the power and influence of the Office of the President against the full system of every Executive Branch agency. Each silo needs to be confronted, and it is going to take a very bold WHC to support this effort.

The recent Supreme Court decision gives tremendous power, ABSOLUTE POWER within the Executive Branch, to the office of the President. This is not a time for the WHC to be timid, afraid or risk averse. This is a time for the WHC to spread the wings of the Eagle and sharpen the talons for use against corrupt and weaponized agencies. In short, go on the attack.

Strategic support for the goals and objectives of the President and National Security Advisor, should be the primary filter of consideration for the White House gatekeeper. They must be smart, killer smart; brutally strategic; cunning and fully versed in how the dark arts will come against them. Prior experience as a target by the same system they now confront should be considered an asset.

The person filling the role of WHC must have exceptional constitutional knowledge and capabilities to guide and counsel the key people in/around the office of the President. Not with the intent to stop the objective, but with the intent to support the objective by telling the scouts and strategic weapons “what” they will face and “where.”

There are some really good lawyers who can fill this role; however, every top-tier candidate must be filtered through the prism of stability, background, the lack of attack vectors against them and keen judgement in all facets of prior political experience. They must also have a disposition of attack, not defense. The WHC needs to push forward, not guard as much.

For this reason, I would love to see a brilliant and snarky lawyer like Eric Dublier take the job; but, I doubt he would take it. Another strong possibility would be John Eastman.

John Eastman has been the target of the weaponized IC and Lawfare. He has a brilliant mind, strong constitutional understanding, and, well, perhaps most importantly, he has a personal reason to be pissed off about the current status of our Executive Branch agencies. In the position of White House Counsel, John Eastman esq would trigger spontaneous ‘splodey heads just from the announcement itself.

A collaboration between John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark would be good strategic positioning. However, President Trump needs to be keenly aware that a team of “professionally republican advisors” will try to steer his options toward lawyers they know will retain the statu quo.

Next position will be the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the first position that needs Senate Confirmation.

RESOURCES:

Understand The Fourth Branch

Understand The Trump Doctrine

Introduction to the 2025 Series

The Emissary – First Position

NatSec Advisor – Second Position

Aug 5 2024

Sunday Talks – President Trump Speaks to Maria Bartiromo

Posted originally on the CTH on August 4, 2024 | Sundance

Today on Sunday Morning Futures, President Trump sat down for an economic discussion with Maria Bartiromo.

President Trump focuses correctly on inflation and the root cause, The Green New Deal. Joe Biden’s energy policy was the biggest trigger on consumer price increases. The energy policy fueled inflation caused by monetary policy. President Trump correctly notes the first step in dealing with the inflation dynamic is to lower the energy prices. WATCH:

Aug 1 2024

President Trump MAGA Rally – Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – 6:00pm ET Livestream

Posted originally on the CTH on July 31, 2024 | Sundance

After visiting Chicago to speak to the NABJ convention, President Trump heads back to Pennsylvania for a rally in Harrisburg. Pennsylvania is one of the biggest battleground states amid the 2024 contest. Removing ballot fraud from Philadelphia County election operations, would be the state level outcome equivalent of removing the ballot fraud from Broward County, Florida.