Posted originally on CTH on August 13, 2025 | Sundance
Today the leaders from Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Poland, Finland, the E.U. and NATO will be holding a conference call with President Trump and Vice President Vance to give instructions in advance of the Trump-Putin summit.
None of the European leaders were invited to the Alaska summit, yet all of the European leaders want to tell President Trump what to do at the summit with President Vladimir Putin. Because, of course they do…
EUROPE – […] The Europeans recognize that they can only do so much to influence a president who often veers off-script and likes nothing more than to declare a deal.
But on Ukraine recently they have met with some success, for example, by persuading Trump to allow them to transfer U.S. weapons to Ukraine and purchase replacements for themselves.
And in recent days, especially after a meeting with Vice President JD Vance in Britain over the weekend, they have found the U.S. administration receptive to some of their red lines.
After that meeting, Vance, in a television interview, endorsed at least one European position — that the current line of contact and positioning of Ukrainian and Russian troops should be the starting point of any talks — rejecting a Russian demand that Ukraine first surrender its entire eastern Donbas area.
Ahead of Wednesday’s call some Europeans expressed guarded optimism, especially with Trump seeming to lower expectations of securing a deal in Alaska.
[…] Wednesday’s call with Trump caps a flurry of meetings and statements organized by the Europeans since the Alaska summit was announced, all of which have provided a strong endorsement of Kyiv’s position.
Wednesday’s virtual summit hosted by Germany will include the leaders of France, Britain, Italy, Poland, Finland, the E.U. and NATO. The Europeans will meet first with Zelensky before Trump and Vance are expected to join the call.
[…] NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has suggested a deal could involve acknowledging de facto Russian control of some of Ukraine’s regions, without Kyiv officially ceding them.
If Trump’s meeting with Putin advances to “full-scale negotiations,” Rutte said Sunday, territory would “have to be on the table,” as would security guarantees for Ukraine. Rutte said talks should recognize “that Ukraine decides on its own future,” with “no limitations” on its military or on NATO’s posture in Eastern Europe.
Freezing the current front lines would leave about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory in Russian hands. Ukraine, meanwhile, has little leverage for a land swap, holding a small toehold in Russia’s western Kursk region since a faltering offensive last year.
“Europeans can say what they want, but in the end, Ukraine and Russia will have to agree,” said a third European official. “It’s unlikely there’s a peace deal now where Putin says, okay, I’m going to withdraw from all of Ukraine.” (read more)
Posted originally on Aug 13, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
2026
The ONLY way to resolve this war with Russia is to REMOVE Zelensky. He should be arrested when he sets foot in the USA. He has been wiring out $50 million per month for him and his cronies to secret accounts, I am told, in the UAE. The Ukrainian people should be allowed to vote on the fate of their own country. Ukraine should have been split along ethnic lines as was the case with Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. This has been a war that our NEOCONS instigated, and they do not care about the Ukrainian people, only about killing Russians.
Lindsey Graham even came out and stated that very bluntly: the best money he ever manipulated the American press into supporting and Congress into waging another endless war. They will be trying their best to get Zelensky into that Alaska meeting to prevent peace, just as Boris Johnson flew to Kiev and instructed him not to sign any mineral deal in Kiev and demand he do so to the White House to embarrass Trump into continuing the funding for this endless war.
Our Western Media has been bought and paid for by the Neocon/Nazi Movement. Any journalist who starts calling this Putin’s War, and how he is a dictator when neither Ursula has ever run for any election, yet is the head of the EU. Zelensky has suspended all elections during war, as no leader ever did in the US or UK during World Wars I or II. Any journalist who makes those assertions is indoctrinated by the Neocons and/or is outright paid bribes to create war as they did to start the Spanish-American War.
I have explained that our Neocons deliberately orchestrated this war. How can three people, all claiming that Russia persecuted their families, end up in the same Biden Administration? This was no coincidence. It was Garland who, I believe, was covertly behind all the criminal cases against Trump to try to prevent him from running for President. A Trump victory, they saw as a threat to the ultimate conquest of Russia.
Here is the godfather of American Neocons – John McCain. I never encountered someone I believe was so revolting. What he said there was a lie. This was a revolution to start a war, not promote peace. These people have ZERO regard for human life. It is only about their personal hatred. I believe the computer is always right because wars come only when there is economic stress. When everyone is fat and happy, you do not find war.
Here, this war kicked off back in 2014, and the interim government that our Neocons installed followed their orders and launched the civil war against the Russian population that lived in Crimea and the Donbas. Russians had their language made illegal, and this was all staged to create World War III and the conquest of Russia. They labeled everyone in the Donbas TERRORISTS because they wanted to separate from the Ukrainians who hate them and had been Nazis protected by the CIA only because they were also engaging in ethnic cleansing of Russians with Jews, Poles, and anyone else who did not have Ukrainian blood.
When Poroshenko was elected, he declared Russian a banned language, waged an all-out war on the people of the Donbas into a war zone by bombing ethnic Russians to dust, and cut off water and electricity to the people of Crimea.
The USA must declare it will NO LONGER be a part of the Neocon Retirement Home – NATO, which is a terrorist organization dominated by the Neocons and hell-bent on creating WWIII with Russia. They wanted to open an office in Japan to ensure that they generate war against China as well. China is NOT stupid. They know that if Russia fell to NATO, they would be next.
Neoconservatives push for NATO expansion (e.g., advocating for Ukraine’s membership) and support arming proxy forces (like in Syria or Ukraine) to roll back Russian influence. They view this as a means to solidify U.S. global hegemony. They have promoted NATO expansion to Asia and have wanted to open NATO headquarters in Japan.
China will support Russia, and Europe will burn. To prevent this, the US must take action against Zelensky and demand that Ukraine have a free and public election and that the Ukrainian people should be allowed to vote, not Zelensky, who takes his orders from MI6 and NATO. The Ukrainian people have a right to decide their fate, and all the polls from reliable sources inside Ukraine say they want peace. They are tired of being the pawns on this chessboard of NATO.
Zelensky, I believe, is a war criminal and should be dragged out of there in chains and put on trial. Further, I believe he was a Neo-Nazi who pretended to be Christian and had his children baptized. He joked about confiscating assets from the people the Neo-Nazis hate – Jews and Russians.
Here is Zelensky calling for Americans to be sent to kill Russians.
I have said many times that I had two employees in Ukraine. One lived in Kiev and the other in Donetsk. They hated each other and would never speak to each other. There is no reasoning with them. Facts and history mean absolutely nothing.
The hatred in the Balkans is legendary. The former Chancellor of Germany, Bismarck, predicted World War I would start in the Balkans back in 1888. That was the Serb who assassinated the Archduke of Austria.
Ukrainians have staged many false flags to try to get the West to attack Russia. The Bucha was a false flag where they killed their people and claimed the Russians did it. They shot a missile into Poland and said it was Russia to get NATO to invoke Article 5. The serial numbers were from an old Russian missile fired by Ukraine and were no longer in use by Russia.
Let’s use the shooting down of a passenger aircraft by pro-Russian forces in Ukraine as a ploy to start a war. If this is the case, then it is entirely possible that (1) this was a deliberate act by the West to provoke war with Russia, (2) was a mistake and then transformed into justification to wage war, (2) pro-Russian forces made a mistake and shot down the wrong plane, or (4) pro-Russian forces intended to shoot down a passenger plane.
Before there was any evidence or investigation, Obama came out and accused the pro-Russian forces. But the wreckage ofMalaysian Airlines MH 17 is curious. It shows bullet holes not a missile.
It is known that there were two Ukrainian jets in the area. The next curiosity is that the air traffic controller who was tracking the incident has disappeared. The bullet holes appear to be in the cockpit. That would make sense if you were deliberately trying to ensure no distress calls or hero tactics.
The West’s so-called investigation was rigged and directed by the Neocons to blame pro-Russians, not Ukrainians, even though they reversed the motive. If pro-Russian forces shot MH17 down, then the West would be against Russia. The motive was for Ukraine to create the war to outrage the West into attacking Russia.
The NY Times exposed how the Ukrainian Nazis were exterminating Jews. Here they photographed shooting a Jewish family in Miropol, Ukraine, in 1941. They did not shoot the small children. That would be a waste of a bullet. They threw the children into the pits and buried them alive with their dead mother. These are the people the EU, NATO, Neocons, and Zelensky, who now claims he is Jewish, are defending. We have chosen the wrong side and are now supporting the very acts of Adolf Hitler.
Reports from mercenaries who believe the propaganda that Russia was the evil wearing the black hat and Ukraine was the one with the white hat, volunteered to help. Many have returned horrified at the war crimes being carried out by Ukrainians.
Many Ukrainians are still Neo-Nazis and hate Russians. They still march with images of the ethnic cleanser Bandara who had Polish, Russians, and Jewish pregnant women cut open, removed their babies, and sewn in like cats. This has all been documented, and they were so horrible, they even shocked the German Nazis.
If you did your research, the extent of the cruelty of the Ukrainian Nazis even shocked the German Nazis. They would cut out a baby of a pregnant woman, and so in a live cat. They killed countless people from Poland and the Russians, as well as Jews.
They do not teach what the Ukrainian Nazis did in Ukraine because it was too horrible. One report stated:
“Some Ukrainian educators believe the Holocaust is not an appropriate topic for teaching because in a Holocaust course a professor would need to let Ukrainian students know that some Jews were betrayed to the Nazis by Ukrainian neighbors. In addition, the OUN and UPA took part in the annihilation of Jews in western Ukraine, and this knowledge can shock young Ukrainians. ” id/pg 205
The Ukrainians were unprecedented in their war crimes during WWII and the sheer outright cruelty one would expect only exists in some B-Rated horror movies. This included:
Running children through with stakes
Cutting a person’s throat and pulling their tongue out through the hole
Sawing a person’s torso in half with a carpenter’s saw
Cutting open the belly of a woman in an advanced stage of pregnancy, removing the fetus, and replacing it with a live cat, before sewing up her abdomen.
Cutting open a pregnant women’s abdomen and pouring in broken glass
Nailing a small child to a door.
I have videos that are too horrible to show of Ukrainians torturing Russian soldiers today, nailing them to a cross, and then setting them on fire. Numerous foreign soldiers are returning who are totally disgusted by what they have witnessed in Ukraine. One reported that they simply shot all the Russian soldiers they captured. Nobody will tell the truth because as long as they hate Russia, then Russia’s enemy is the West’s friend. The Ukrainian Neo-Nazis have been the most ruthless people I have ever encountered in history. Add to that, Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe, even declared by the IMF. They may be the most corrupt in the world.
You should watch the film Ukraine on Fire by Oliver Stone before you make assumptions. People are clueless as to the real story of Ukraine. They too joined the German Nazis and also engaged in the genocide of Poles, Jews, and Russians.
The media loves to increase revenues with readership. CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War marked a significant evolution in wartime journalism, characterized by real-time reporting and a unique perspective from within Baghdad. Their readership soared. War was transformed into an online real-time video game. They love war and confrontation. They lament how Hearst & Pulitzer made their fortunes on creating the Spanish-American War. They need to create WWIII to survive, just as the EU needs war to divert attention from the economic collapse by 2030.
The NEOCONS have tried to undermine Trump with the diversion to Epstein. Google searches for Epstein are down 89% from just 3 weeks ago. Trump’s approval rating is holding steady & much higher than it was in any other at this point in his presidency. Less than 1% say it’s the nation’s top issue. This is good, so perhaps the NEOCON diversion tactic is slowing using Epstein.
Posted originally on CTH on August 12, 2025 | Sundance
I have been asked to recap some of my research into cited formats of what I believe to be criminal conduct, with specific statutes against them. This is the third.
DNI Tulsi Gabbard is not a lawyer. While I may be wrong, I find Tulsi Gabbard to be a patriot. Mrs. Gabbard is focused on providing evidence to the DOJ that essentially forces action. I support Tulsi Gabbard’s efforts.
In 2022, the legal case brought by prosecutor John Durham against Chris Steele’s primary sub source, Igor Danchenko, was predicated on the notion that Christopher Steele’s primary source for his dossier willfully and intentionally lied to the FBI. Therefore, according to Durham’s legal theory, Danchenko was guilty of purposefully misleading FBI investigators assigned to the Trump-Russia/”Crossfire Hurricane” investigation.
Every intellectually honest person knew the FBI were not duped by Danchenko, and later records proved Danchenko told them the Steele dossier was full of fabricated nonsense. However, to keep the revelation of the dossier presented “as nonsense” hidden, the FBI then hired Danchenko as a confidential human source, technically shielding him from being questioned or exposed.
The FBI decision to hire Danchenko was to keep the fraudulent Steele Dossier useful for their Trump targeting operation. After all, the Trump surveillance warrants were dependent on it.
The pretending by Durham highlighted two things: (1) Durham was protecting the corrupt DOJ and FBI institutions by not investigating any government action; and yet, (2) Durham was simultaneously exposing corrupt FBI and DOJ action through his Danchenko court filings.
FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified in court that Hillary Clinton’s contracted opposition researcher, Christopher Steele – hired by Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Donald Trump, was offered up to $1 million by the FBI in early October 2016, if Chris Steele could prove the claims within the Trump dirt dossier he authored.
Steele was never paid the money, because he could not prove the claims within the dossier, nor would he originally give up the name of the primary source for the information, Igor Danchenko.
However, despite the FBI knowing the dossier could not be proved, validated or verified, later that same month, October 21, 2016, they used the dossier as evidence to support a Title-1 FISA surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign aide, Carter Page.
The FBI offered Chris Steele $1 million to ‘prove it.’ Chris Steele could not ‘prove it.’ The FBI used the dossier anyway to get the warrant.
The details provided by Durham proved the researched outline we delivered in 2018.
The FBI knew the Steele dossier was junk, yet they used it in lieu of the mandatory ‘Woods File’ to seek an all-inclusive secret search warrant against the Trump campaign. Carter Page was a tool for the fraudulent search warrant, the FBI knew Carter Page from previous work he had done for them as an informant. However, to get the warrant they needed to accuse Page of being an asset of a foreign government – so they did. The Steele Dossier was used as manufactured evidence to support the FISA application.
The FBI goal was to create a legal mechanism putting everyone in/around Donald Trump under surveillance. This was the “insurance policy” as described by FBI agent Peter Strzok.
The FBI had been conducting unlawful political surveillance against Donald Trump throughout the 2016 campaign, the FISA warrant was used as the legal basis to make the previous and future surveillance legal.
The FBI knew the dossier was junk, the FBI didn’t care – they needed it to create a fraudulent search warrant.
The FBI knew Carter Page was not a Russian asset, the FBI didn’t care – they needed him to get to Trump.
The FBI goal was always to conduct political surveillance against Donald Trump.
(Via CNN) – Shortly before the 2016 election, the FBI offered retired British spy Christopher Steele “up to $1 million” to prove the explosive allegations in his dossier about Donald Trump, a senior FBI analyst testified Tuesday.
The cash offer was made during an October 2016 meeting between Steele and several top FBI officials who were trying to corroborate Steele’s claims that the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia to win the election.
FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified that Steele never got the money because he could not “prove the allegations.”
Auten also said Steele refused to provide the names of any of his sources during that meeting, and that Steele didn’t give the FBI anything during that meeting that corroborated the claims in his explosive dossier.
Auten was testifying at the criminal trial of Igor Danchenko, a primary source for Steele’s dossier, who is being prosecuted by special counsel John Durham. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty to lying to the FBI.
CNN previously reported that the FBI reimbursed some expenses for Steele, who had been an FBI informant.
Durham, a Trump-era prosecutor who is looking for misconduct in the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, has used some of the proceedings Tuesday to criticize the FBI’s handling of some of the early steps in the Russia probe. Durham handled many of the in-court arguments on Tuesday and personally questioned Auten on the witness stand – a rare move for a special counsel and former US attorney. (read more)
Offering $1 million to a source to provide evidence is not a decision made by a supervisory special agent.
The authorization to spend up to $1 million for evidence is a decision made by the Director or Deputy Director of the FBI.
October 2016: FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe
Follow the timeline:
Steele offered $1 million to prove the dossier in early October 2016. He cannot.
FBI uses dossier in late October for a FISA warrant against Trump campaign.
Dossier source Igor Danchenko interviewed by FBI in January 2017. Tells FBI dossier is junk.
The FBI then interviews Carter Page five times, March 9, 10, 16, 30 and 31, 2017.
The FBI then hired Danchenko in March 2017, just before renewing the FISA they now know is based on junk.
April 2, 2017, the FBI renew the FISA warrant for the 2nd time.
May 2017 Robert Mueller appointed to cover up all of the DOJ/FBI corruption that existed in the Trump targeting.
June 2017 Robert Mueller interviews Danchenko, then Mueller renews the FISA.
February 2019, Bill Barr enters as Attorney General.
April 2019 Robert Mueller completes investigation.
May 2019, Bill Barr appoints Durham just to look into things. Immediately then begs Trump not to declassify any documents. Trump writes executive order giving Bill Barr ability to review and declassify documents.
October 2020, Bill Barr officially (and quietly), makes John Durham a special counsel. We don’t find out until December (after the Nov. election).
October 2020, FBI drops Igor Danchenko as paid informant.
Put it all together and you see the continuum.
(1) Donald Trump was being targeted by a corrupt DOJ and FBI. (2) Robert Mueller was installed in May 2017 to cover up the targeting. (3) When Mueller is nearing his completion, Bill Barr steps in to mitigate institutional damage from 1 and 2. (4) Barr maintains damage control and installs Durham. (5) Durham takes over the coverup operation from October 2020 (Danchenko safe to exit) through today.
Main Justice kept a bag over Danchenko until they needed a scapegoat, created by Durham, to sell a narrative that Main Justice was duped.
John Durham charged Danchenko (working outside govt) with lying to the FBI while simultaneously avoiding drawing attention to the FBI/DOJ officials (inside govt) who knew Danchenko was lying and were willfully blind to it in order to continue attacking and investigating President Donald Trump.
James Comey, Robert Mueller, Bill Barr, John Durham, the Mar-a-Lago raid… it’s all one long continuum of the same targeting and coverup operation.
Bill Barr was the Bondo application, and John Durham was the spray paint.
FBI Director Kash Patel sends John Solomon a declassified whistleblower report, showing how a prior House Intelligence Committee staffer blew the whistle on then HPSCI ranking member Adam Schiff, who was giving the staff instructions to leak fabricated intelligence reports on Trump-Russia to smear President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018.
According to the release {SEE HERE}, the FBI eventually received and investigated the whistleblower claims; then in 2023, sent the information to the Merrick Garland/Lisa Monaco DOJ, who took no action because the claim was now beyond the statute of limitations.
Read those dates carefully, because what this report from Kash Patel and John Solomon actually outlines is something we have all been very frustrated with.
As Solomon now notes, … “The alleged leaks fall outside the statute of limitations for prosecution on most legal theories, but the revelations nevertheless come at a sensitive time for Schiff“.. At the time of the Whistleblower report, the information to the FBI and DOJ would have been evidence that could have prosecuted Adam Schiff. However, now the information is limited to just providing I-told-you-so’s.
There are a couple of really frustrating aspects to this, and the pattern is transparently obvious.
The FBI and DOJ from 2017 to 2023, under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s administration, played the silo game of control of evidence. They did nothing with the evidence until the statute of limitations had tolled, which then provides Main Justice with the justification for doing nothing.
In 2025, understanding the public is insanely frustrated with the lack of accountability, the pretending game is now deployed by the FBI under Kash Patel, through John Solomon, to the broadcast venue of Sean Hannity. At the end of this clickbait circle-jerk is nothing. Again, no accountability, but a bunch of controlled information operatives saying, “Well, let’s see what the DOJ does with this now.”
A pox on all their houses.
There is no doubt in my mind this is a clear example of why the DC system uses special counsels (Mueller, Durham, et al) purposefully to create “ongoing investigations” as capture nets for information/evidence control.
“It’s under investigation, and we don’t speak about ongoing investigations.”
In real time, from 2019 to 2020, I was providing this type of evidence from within the silo system to John Durham and Bill Aldenberg who were designated information managers.
In my naiveté’, as I initially opened these doors, I thought some form of accountability would be possible, because the evidence was direct, irrefutable and without denial. However, once Aldenberg and Durham clearly said they could only act on evidence they ‘discovered’ themselves, and they could not act on evidence provided by “others” because that would make the “evidence political,” I quickly realized this was all going to amount to nothing.
Now, we are looking in hindsight at evidence from inside the system, provided to these investigators by participants inside the system, yet they also did nothing with it at the time it held value.
So, here’s the basic construct of how the DC game is played.
Evidence delivered from outside DC cannot be used by those who are charged with investigating corruption within DC. Evidence delivered from inside DC, goes into the system of “ongoing investigations” (special counsels) until its usefulness is exhausted by the clock-ticking. If the risk of accountability remains, the special counsels are extended until that accountability clock has expired.
Once the accountability clock has expired, if another party comes along (Kash) and releases that evidence (Solomon), the value only exists insofar as it generates clickbait income (Just News), column inches and punditry talking points (Sean Hannity) for the DC proletariat.
The Patel’s, Bondi’s, Solomon’s and Hannity’s then play this game of pretend. Packaging the corruption evidence as accountability hopium and selling it to the addicted battered conservatives.
Insert vote. Pull lever. Get hopium pellet.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Who is continuing to buy this game?
FBI Director Kash Patel sends John Solomon a declassified whistleblower report, showing how a prior House Intelligence Committee staffer blew the whistle on then HPSCI ranking member Adam Schiff, who was giving the staff instructions to leak fabricated intelligence reports on Trump-Russia to smear President Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018.
According to the release {SEE HERE}, the FBI eventually received and investigated the whistleblower claims; then in 2023, sent the information to the Merrick Garland/Lisa Monaco DOJ, who took no action because the claim was now beyond the statute of limitations.
Read those dates carefully, because what this report from Kash Patel and John Solomon actually outlines is something we have all been very frustrated with.
As Solomon now notes, … “The alleged leaks fall outside the statute of limitations for prosecution on most legal theories, but the revelations nevertheless come at a sensitive time for Schiff“.. At the time of the Whistleblower report, the information to the FBI and DOJ would have been evidence that could have prosecuted Adam Schiff. However, now the information is limited to just providing I-told-you-so’s.
There are a couple of really frustrating aspects to this, and the pattern is transparently obvious.
The FBI and DOJ from 2017 to 2023, under both Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s administration, played the silo game of control of evidence. They did nothing with the evidence until the statute of limitations had tolled, which then provides Main Justice with the justification for doing nothing.
In 2025, understanding the public is insanely frustrated with the lack of accountability, the pretending game is now deployed by the FBI under Kash Patel, through John Solomon, to the broadcast venue of Sean Hannity. At the end of this clickbait circle-jerk is nothing. Again, no accountability, but a bunch of controlled information operatives saying, “Well, let’s see what the DOJ does with this now.”
A pox on all their houses.
There is no doubt in my mind this is a clear example of why the DC system uses special counsels (Mueller, Durham, et al) purposefully to create “ongoing investigations” as capture nets for information/evidence control.
“It’s under investigation, and we don’t speak about ongoing investigations.”
In real time, from 2019 to 2020, I was providing this type of evidence from within the silo system to John Durham and Bill Aldenberg who were designated information managers.
In my naiveté’, as I initially opened these doors, I thought some form of accountability would be possible, because the evidence was direct, irrefutable and without denial. However, once Aldenberg and Durham clearly said they could only act on evidence they ‘discovered’ themselves, and they could not act on evidence provided by “others” because that would make the “evidence political,” I quickly realized this was all going to amount to nothing.
Now, we are looking in hindsight at evidence from inside the system, provided to these investigators by participants inside the system, yet they also did nothing with it at the time it held value.
So, here’s the basic construct of how the DC game is played.
Evidence delivered from outside DC cannot be used by those who are charged with investigating corruption within DC. Evidence delivered from inside DC, goes into the system of “ongoing investigations” (special counsels) until its usefulness is exhausted by the clock-ticking. If the risk of accountability remains, the special counsels are extended until that accountability clock has expired.
Once the accountability clock has expired, if another party comes along (Kash) and releases that evidence (Solomon), the value only exists insofar as it generates clickbait income (Just News), column inches and punditry talking points (Sean Hannity) for the DC proletariat.
The Patel’s, Bondi’s, Solomon’s and Hannity’s then play this game of pretend. Packaging the corruption evidence as accountability hopium and selling it to the addicted battered conservatives.
Posted originally on Aug 11, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
QUESTION: Your model has projected a recession into 2028. ZeroHedge publishes “If everything is going to be just fine, why are thousands of stores closing all over the country? So far this year, the total amount of retail space that has been permanently closed has surpassed 120 million square feet. We have never seen anything like this before. Store closings spiked during the early days of the pandemic, but in 2025, stores are being permanently shuttered at an even faster pace.”
Do you agree with this? You have also written that in part this is a paradigm shift like Schumpet’s waves of Creative Destruction. Could you address this paradox?
Ronnie
ANSWER: Zero Hedge’s statement is a little misleading, but certainly not intentional. Yes, we have a recessionary trend globally into 2028, which has also been set in motion within the EU by the pounding of war drums. The EU is more likely to experience a DEPRESSION, whereas the USA will have a recessionary atmosphere with STAGFLATION, more like the 1970s, with inflation outpacing GDP growth primarily due to rising costs and wars globally.
Our computer is demonstrating that volatility in Unemployment will rise from 2026, peaking first in 2028 with a Panic Cycle in 2029. This also confirms our War Cycles for 2026. What we MUST come to grips with is that there is far more to understanding the economy from a single statistic perspective. However, we are also undergoing two significant factors that the classic economic models fail to incorporate, aside from the fact that 99% of the rhetoric and the economic models overlook the leverage in the banking system that creates money outside of the Federal Reserve through lending:
TWO SIGNIFICANT FACTORS OMITTED IN CLASSIC ECONOMIC MODELS
(1) a shift to independent contractors/freelancers thanks to COVID, and (2) a wave of Creative Destruction.
(1) INDEPENDENT CONTRACT:
I stumbled into this issue when the Florida Revenue Department wanted to audit our company. Florida has no income tax, so I was a bit befuddled. I discovered they were auditing to see if we had independent contractors or freelancers who would qualify as a full-time employee, and as such, we were not collecting unemployment taxes, etc. I have NEVER had such an audit – EVER!. So I began to investigate why I was being audited for such an issue. It turned out that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly contributed to the rise in independent contractors and freelancers.
1. Job Losses & Economic Uncertainty
Many traditional employees were laid off or furloughed during lockdowns, pushing them into gig work or freelancing to make ends meet. Companies downsized and relied more on contract workers to reduce long-term labor costs.
2. Remote Work & Digital Acceleration
The shift to remote work made location-independent freelance roles more viable. Platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, and TaskRabbit saw increased demand for freelance services (e.g., digital marketing, programming, consulting).
3. Business Adaptations
Small businesses and startups turned to freelancers for flexibility instead of hiring full-time staff. The “Great Resignation” led many workers to seek autonomy, choosing self-employment over traditional jobs.
4. Government & Policy Influences
Stimulus checks and unemployment benefits (e.g., PPP loans, CARES Act) provided temporary support, allowing some to transition into freelancing.
In some states, labor laws evolved to accommodate gig workers (e.g., California’s Prop 22 for ride-share drivers).
Upwork (2021) reported that 59% of freelancers started during or after COVID. MBO Partners (2021) found a 34% increase in independent contractors in the U.S. compared to pre-pandemic levels. OECD data showed a global rise in gig economy participation, especially in delivery (e.g., Uber Eats, DoorDash) and remote freelance roles.
Long-Term Impact:
While some workers returned to traditional jobs post-pandemic, many stayed independent due to flexibility, higher earnings potential, and hybrid work trends. The shift toward a more contract-based workforce is likely here to stay.
States with Higher Unemployment Than Pre-COVID (Feb 2020)
Nevada
Pre-COVID (Feb 2020): 3.7% Mid-2024: 5.2% (fluctuating due to slower tourism recovery) Reason: Heavy reliance on hospitality and leisure sectors.
California
Pre-COVID: 3.9% Mid-2024: 4.8% Reason: Tech layoffs, high cost of living, and slower rebound in entertainment/hospitality, illegal aliens, and the highest income tax in the nation.
California Income Tax – 13.3% (on income over $1,000,000)
New York
Pre-COVID: 3.7% Mid-2024: 4.5% Reason: Slow office sector recovery (NYC), reduced business travel, and Wall Street moving to Florida.
New York Income Tax – 10.9% (on income over $25,000,000)
Pre-COVID: 2.4% Mid-2024: 3.8% Reason: The economy is highly dependent on Tourism and high taxation
Hawaii Income Tax – 11.0% (on income over $200,000)
States with No Income Tax:
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee (repealed investment income tax in 2021), Texas, Washington (but has a capital gains tax over $250,000), Wyoming
States That Have Recovered or Improved
Texas, Florida, Utah, Idaho, and South Carolina have unemployment rates at or below pre-pandemic levels due to strong job growth in tech, manufacturing, and migration trends.
Remote Work Trends: NYC and San Francisco, more than the Sun Belt states, have lost office work. This, in part, has also resulted in the commercial real estate crisis that was part of the objective of the COVID Scam to force people to work from home and stop commuting to save the planet.
Migration Shifts: States like Texas and Florida gained workers, while some Northeast/Midwest states lost population. This is the Great Migration from the BLUE to the RED states. I met people who moved to Florida because their children were becoming suicidal in the Blue States as they shut down sports, and many children thought their dreams in life were over.
Because of that strange audit that still costs you $25,000 in legal and accounting fees for something we did not owe, I began to dig. I found that the rise in independent contractors and freelancers was a side-effect of COVID, in addition to the Great Migration. States were looking for spare change. I would not have been surprised if they didn’t start searching cars for coins left in the ashtrays.
(2) Waves of Creative Destruction:
Simultaneously, the plot behind COVID was to create 15-minute cities and have people work from home, virtually ending commuting. What also took place was that people were locked down, and instead of shopping or even going out for dinner, they ordered from Amazon and took out from restaurants. COVID set in motion a new dynamic that the economic models are failing to comprehend. Unemployment can rise while commerce expands. Just look at the sale of Amazon. In the past 10 years, Amazon has expanded by 625%. I know a guy who had a camera shop. I closed after 30 years because he could no longer compete with online sales from Amazon. This is the story nationwide. But COVID was clever. The goal was to save the planet, and that has resulted in a cascade of small stores and even some chains closing stores. Now you have UBER.EATS, Door Dash, etc, to facilitate food being delivered to you within minutes. People closed offices and employees shifted to home, and commercial real estate is going into crisis liquidation. This is not all part of a normal recession – it is a Creative Destruction Wave where unemployment rises, but commerce can expand.
My firm became the highest-paid analyst ever, and we were an institutional advisor with some individuals who had a ton of money. Our reports used to go out by telex, and the cost could be up to $75 in telex fees per report, which would go out 3 times a day per currency. That was why I began opening offices around the world so we could reduce costs for clients by sending one set of reports to our London, Geneva, or Asian offices, and they would then redistribute it to the clients in that region. This would reduce costs from $200,000-$300,000 per client just in communication costs. We were Western Union’s biggest client.
In 1983, the Wall Street Journal wrote a piece that I was charging $2,000 an hour for phone advice. The journalist, after talking to our clients who agreed to participate in their review, told him that if I charged $10,000 an hour, they would pay it. He called me back and was stunned. I was advising on a billion-dollar transaction in 1983. $2,000 or $20,000 did not make much difference.
By the mid-to-late 1980s, fax machines were a standard office appliance, peaking in the 1990s before email and digital scanning began replacing them. We started sending reports out by FAX, and that reduced the communication costs dramatically. So personally, I have lived through the technology cycle of Creative Destruction and saw the price of transmitting a report from $75 to email, which is now basically free. That took the business away from Western Union, and has been a wave as Schumpeter envisioned.
When the East and West Coasts were connected by train in 1869, the Railroad era put out of business the wagon train industry. The United States expanded, and as train tracts were laid around the country, it was first the Railroad Boom which really came to an end with the Panic of 1907.
The Industrial Revolution expanded, and the Industrialists, led by the auto stocks, drove the 1929 bull market. The invention of the combustion engine led to tractors for farmers, disproving the theories of Malthus that humanity would starve as population increased. He never understood the cycles of technology, yet he influenced Gates and the Rockefellers. As farmers had tractors, production increased while employment declined.
The horse & buggy was replaced with automobiles. As they expanded, so did the suburbs come alive. Suddenly, people could live in places without trains. The town I grew up in flourished because we had a train station, which enabled people to buy land and move out of the cities. The town I grew up in expanded further from the train station with the automobile.
The first commercial airline was the St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line, which began operations on January 1st, 1914. They flew a Benoist XIV, a small flying boat (seaplane). The distance was only 23 miles (37KM). It reduced the travel time from 2+ hours by boat or car to just 23 minutes.
Therefore, while the ECM has turned down, such forecasts that focus on ONLY one aspect or statistic are always wrong and/or lead to misinterpretations and confusion. Economists omitted from their models not only the creation of money by the banking sector through lending money, thereby leveraging the money supply. Those who believe shutting down the Fed and handing money creation to the Treasury will cure inflation do not know their monetary history.
Even a gold standard did not prevent inflation. The discovery of gold in the New World flooded Europe and resulted in massive inflation. during the 15th-16th centuries. The gold-silver ratio has always fluctuated because the discovery of silver relative to gold has never been confined simultaneously.
The vast gold discoveries in California, Australia, and Alaska created waves of inflation, as did wars. Just because gold is money does NOT eliminate inflation. All the nonsense about paper currency is FIAT, and that is the problem, it is just stupid sophistry. It has NEVER mattered what the money is from gold, cowrie shells in China, to sheep skins, Bronze, or cattle.
Assets rise in value regardless of what the money might be, and the purchasing power of money declines even when it is gold. This is the business cycle that DID NOT simply appear when paper money started in the USA.
The economic models are DOMESTIC because economists want a job to advise governments that they are all-powerful if they listen to them. I am sorry. As a trader, you lose your shirt, pants, your house, and your family if you trade based on economic theories. They are entirely useless. They never consider external factors.
(1) All banks create money with loans (I deposit $100 and they lend you $100, and both our accounts reflect a money supply of $100) (2) They have never been able to account for sudden increases in the money supply that have been caused by: (a) new gold or silver discovery (b) A war in another region diverted capital seeking shelter as European money flowed to the US for WWI & WWII (c) Capital concentration where foreign capital sees a profit in another economy driven by currency values (d) Capital flight from your economy based upon a sudden collapse in confidence, be it mismanagement or war (3) Economic technological evolution (trains, cars, airplanes, internet, etc…)
This is not even a complete list. I only met one academic who thought outside the box, and that was Milton Friedman. Milton came to listen to me at a trading convention in Chicago. I was explaining capital flows and currencies. When I was finished, Milton stepped forward to shake my hand and said I was doing what he had only dreamed about. We became friends, and then I understood what he was talking about. He had theories that a floating exchange rate system would impose checks and balances upon the fiscal policies of the government. He had written that theory down in 1953.
While I explained the Great Depression and the Sovereign Debt Defaults in 1931 in Europe, even Canada suspended debt payments, you can see the capital was taken back to its home countries, ending the Roaring ’20s. Everyone politically blamed Hoover and then tariffs, but nobody understood international capital flows.
I explained HOW the G5 intentionally lowered the value of the dollar by 40% to reduce the trade deficit. As idiots, they never understood that doing that means you were devaluing everything held by a foreigner. Japan owned up to 30% of the US National Debt, and they dumped it as the capital flows revealed.
It was World War I and World War II that made the US the financial capital of the world because all the gold fled to the USA during the wars. There was ABSOLUTELY no political decision made by any domestic politician that stood up and proposed making the US become the new capital for finance, taking that title from Britain.
There is absolutely no historical evidence that repeated wars have ever benefited any country. Britain got into World War I when it was not threatened, all based on treaties, as NATO is doing right now. Those treaties shifted the financial capital from London to New York, and World War II led to Britain’s full displacement of the British pound with the dollar. Even Canada rejected the British monetary system and shifted to the Canadian dollar.
War destroys the economy, as evidenced by Lydia, which invented coinage and fought Persia. Athens became the financial capital of the world after the Battle of Marathon, and they were compelled to debase their coinage and lost in the Peloponnesian War to Sparta.
The favorite phase in economics is: “Assuming all things remain equal.” Of course, that never happens.
We have the socialists always claiming the problem is wealth disparity. They hate people who have more than they do – that’s all. Both China and Russia tried Marxism’s wealth disparity solution – confiscate all private wealth to create material equality. The people learned that you had no right to be individual. When everyone was equal, and they needed a floor swept, you were next in line – here is your broom.
All things NEVER remain equal, and the wildcards always come from external sources. Just as no US politicians set out to make the dollar the reserve currency, that only took place at Bretton Woods after two World Wars.
My old PA used to have a man figure on her desk, which said – Shit Happens!
Larry Sanger, one of the founders of Wikipedia, states plainly that it is now all propaganda.
PS: That is why the government (Bankers & Neocons) work hard to try to keep people away from reading this site because they want to rule the world and expect to manipulate markets for their guaranteed trades and never want people to understand the truth. Just as they called the media and were directing them to cancel anyone who told the truth about COVID and were debanking people who told the truth, sold guns, or gold, the government has seized control of Wikipedia and ensured their fake news is always at the top of the list.
NEVER DONATE TO WIKIPEDIA – YOU ARE SUPPORTING THEIR PROJECTS TO UNDERMINE OUR FREEDOM
Posted originally on Aug 10, 2025 by Martin Armstrong |
I am getting an increasing number of questions about how in the world our model forecasts war in advance and targets specific weeks like August 18th, 2025, a year in advance, and then Trump picks that Friday 15th for his peace conference with Putin in Alaska. You NEVER make such a forecast using a single model. There is a battery of models, and in those arrays, there are 72 models. That top line we call the aggregate because that is the sum of all turning models that align for that target – it is NEVER just one. The computer is monitoring the entire world. You can see all the reports that Socrates is writing every day. There are not enough analysts in the world to cover so many instruments and statistics. On December 3rd, 2013, I formally posted that the tensions would erupt in Ukraine.
Ukraine Maybe The Most Important Country To Watch
Posted Dec 3, 2013 by Martin Armstrong
“We will have the Cycle of War ready shortly updating this development as this cycle turns next year as well and we can see the rising tensions are brewing everywhere. Ukraine may become the focal point with Russia smelling the blood of a weak Europe and United States. This is like the barbarians smelling the weakness of Rome and knew it was time to strike. Russia is all about restoring its national honor. The USA has weakened itself like Rome by fiscal mismanagement.”
This is a model specificly between Russia and the United States. It starts with the 1962 target of the Cuban Missile Crisis set in motion by Nikita Khrushchev, who was overthrown on October 14, 1964, (1964.786) during a Politburo coup orchestrated by his political opponents, including Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin, because of his reckless desire to spread communism to the world (We Will Bury You). That was 1.978 years from the Cuban Missile Crisis (721.97 days, 103.13 weeks, or about 24 months later).
Here you can see this separate model targeted 2014.408, which was May 4th, 2014. This was the Odessa Genocide when Ukrainians killed Russians on the street and then burned them alive, and then ran into the Trade Union Building for shelter. This was what began the separation movement by the Russians in the Donbas because they were being hunted like animals, and the Western press had no problem with the resumption of Nazi Ethnic Cleansing because they were Russian. Neocons dominate the EU with personal hatred of Russians from generations before. They love to imprison people who just have words against migrants. Still, they have no problem advocating genocide of an entire ethnicity, following in the footsteps of Hitler all over again.
May 2: Deadly clashes in Odessa between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian groups resulted in over 40 deaths, mainly in a building fire.
May 11: Pro-Russian separatists held disputed independence referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
May 25: Presidential elections were held in Ukraine, with Petro Poroshenko winning decisively. Separatist-controlled areas largely boycotted or disrupted voting.
Direct talks between Ukraine and Russia took place in Istanbul, Türkiye, on May 15, 2025, precisely on the turning point, marking the first potential face-to-face negotiations since 2022. However, there is conflicting information about whether the meeting occurred as planned. My sources informed me that both Russian and Ukrainian delegations were present in Istanbul, with the Russian delegation led by Vladimir Medinsky and the Ukrainian delegation headed by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov. The next major turning point is June 13th, 2026.
We are now starting to see a Panic Cycle forming at this next Major Target of June 2026. Keep in mind that this ECM is NOT included in the arrays. The more separate models we have, the better the correlation, and we can then rely on these forecasts with more confidence.
Russia also now occupies Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, in the Eastern region, which Putin may ask for. So far, Ukraine’s leadership has opposed ceding any territory to Russia. Zelenskyy wrote on X, “Ukraine is not afraid of meetings and expects the same brave approach from the Russian side. It is time we ended the war.”
The NY Post wrote: “European officials rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calls that Ukraine give up territories annexed during the war — instead demanding Saturday an immediate ceasefire from Moscow and NATO membership for Kyiv.” This merely confirms my sources that warn the EU, NATO, and Zelensky want war and they are conspiring to create a false flag to invoke Article % to embarrass Trump into sending troops to Ukraine to annihilate Russia completely. They want to conquer Russia entirely, and they seek to steal all its wealth so that the EU, desperate to survive, will become the next Roman Empire, subordinating the United States once again to a mere colony.
I do have contact with people close to Trump who I at least trust are NOT Neocons, which I cannot say for everyone surrounding him. Will they get Trump to listen? Probably not. The frustrating part is I tend to get called in when they F-up everything that I warned would take place, and then they expect me to be like Merlin the Sorcerer, wave my magic wand, and it’s all gone.
If the EU had honored the peace deal that they signed and allowed the Donbas to vote and separate as took place in Chechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, which both split along ethnic lines, this war would NEVER have taken place. The EU has conspired from day one to sacrifice the Ukrainian people on the NEOCON altar of hatred for Russians who are no longer communists, and their hated leader, Stalin, was not even a Russian. He was from Georgia.
It was all the cross-treaties that compelled nations to join World War I. NATO was established to result in the very same mistake that caused that war, and they are licking their lips, drooling over the thought of finally defeating and obliterating their enemy Russia, even though communism fell all by itself.
NATO’s intervention in Bosnia in 1995 was part of Operation Deliberate Force, a sustained air campaign conducted from August 30 to September 20, 1995, to pressure Bosnian Serb forces to comply with UN resolutions and end the siege of Sarajevo. NATO has routinely sought to bomb Serbia because it has been pro-Russian.
NATO entered Kosovo on June 12th, 1999 (1999.446), following the end of the Kosovo War. This marked the beginning of the Kosovo Force (KFOR), a NATO-led pretend international peacekeeping mission. NATO’s Air Campaign (March–June 1999) was conducted over a 78-day (1999.660) bombing campaign (Operation Allied Force) against Yugoslavia (then including Serbia and Montenegro) to stop the repression of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. They had no problem bombing Serbs because they were pro-Russia. This is why NATO never came to the rescue of the Russians in the Donbas when it was the Ukrainians carrying out the same genocide as Hitler, because the target was Russians—the first 51.6-year wave from the start of NATO ended on November 14th, 2000. Since there was grave concern that NATO was intervening in the Yugoslav War against pro-Russians when there were no NATO members, this forced the EU to establish a 60,000-strong rapid reaction force for peacekeeping and crisis management, marking a step toward greater European defense autonomy outside of NATO, so the US could not object.
NATO pushed to get Finland and Sweden, which had always been neutral, to surrender that neutrality and join NATO, thereby placing the Swedes under Article 5 to supply troops for NATO at the expense of their people and nation. NATO is using the precedent of Bosnia and Kosovo, where there was no NATO membership, to argue that they can now invade any country they desire using a humanitarian excuse.
ALL of my sources are saying that no matter what Trump agrees to with Putin, they will not honor it. Letting Russia retain the Donbas is what the dishonest EU signed as the Minsk Agreement and NEVER intended to allow peace at any time. The EU is crumbling from within. It will fragment and is being starkly divided as many see it as a UNDEMOCRATIC dictatorship where the Parliament is elected, but he has NO POWER even to make laws. It is a facade to pretend the people have a say when they do not.
The EU will split and may become a relic of history and a failed globalist-dictatorship experiment by 2030. When it was formed, the promise was no dictatorship without 100% consensus. But Hungary is fighting back against this pro-WWIII drive and for the migrants. The EU seeks to strip Hungary of its vote to ensure the EU will remain a dictatorship. They say you can vote your way into Socialism, but you must shoot your way out. In this case, the German people were not even allowed to vote to join the Euro, as some others. Kohl did not allow the people to vote in any referendum to join the Eurozone. Other countries that did not allow their people to vote in a referendum specifically on adopting the euro are:
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
Subscribe to alerts for each new postEmail *
Centinel2012 