Posted originally on the CTH on January 25, 2025 | Sundance
For 20-years we have called out the Machievellian nature of Mitch McConnell and his duplicitous agenda to support the UniParty apparatus in Washington DC. Heck, even the name of this site, “The Last Refuge” came from our non-pretending association as to the nature of the root cause of our problems within the Republican apparatus. Mitch McConnell has always been working for the other side.
Last night in the confirmation vote for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Mitch McConnell voted no. In an almost identical way to former Senator John McCain refusing to repeal Obamacare, Mitch McConnell ends his time in the senate with a very planned, purposeful and public rebuke of President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the military.
Do not overlook that Senator McConnell intentionally waited, just like McCain, to cast his ‘nay’ vote until the end of the vote call. McConnell did this with purpose and public intent, just like McCain. Vice-President JD Vance then steps-in to a 50/50 vote to cast the tie-breaking vote.
Mitch McConnell now exits the chamber as Pete Hegseth is now confirmed despite him.
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President Trump was asked about Mitch McConnell’s vote as he departed California for the return to DC. Video Below:
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WATCH:
NEW: Mitch McConnell seen waddling over to go shake hands with the Democrats after voting ‘NO’ for Pete Hegseth’s confirmation.
The move forced JD Vance to cast the final tie breaking vote.
Posted originally on Jan 16, 2025 by Martin Armstrong
Educators throughout the nation have been pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Rarely has the system stopped to consider how the students feel about such measures. College Rover conducted a study that found DEI measures are influencing students’ political leanings and sometimes increasing racial bias in the classroom.
We can expect the study to be skewed as students aim to please educators with the “right” answers; therefore, they must be left. Around 30% of college students who participated said that DEI measures influenced their voting preferences and political views. Around 15% said DEI was shoved down their throats as early as middle school, a number that certainly increased in recent years as a result of divisive politics. Nearly half (49%) said they are more open to “diverse perspectives” after undergoing DEI education.
From pre-teen to young adult, two in five students in the US have taken a class that specifically focuses on gender, race, or identity. About 57% said the training or indoctrination made them more aware of systemic barriers or inequalities. Another 54% said that the programming has shaped their perspective on equality and social justice. Another 53% understood the message that they were either privileged or discriminated against.
Not everyone is receptive. One in 10 students reported feeling uncomfortable discussing gender, sexual identity, or race in the classroom. Those students reported that they feared being misunderstood. The fact of the matter is that one could not have a dissenting opinion without backlash. Grades are at risk if they disagree. One of my employees who attended university 10 years ago told me that she was forced to hand in reports from the perspective of a liberal to avoid having her grades lowered, and that was before the whole gender identity issue or DEI measures came into play.
Rutgers University conducted a study that found that sound DEI initiatives can increase hostility and division among students. “The prominent ‘anti-oppressive pedagogy’ in DEI programming can carry perceived rhetorical threats for those whose politics or other beliefs run counter to the fundamental premises of the critical paradigm from which the pedagogy derives,” the report found. Anyone who holds a dissenting belief is labeled “oppressive, racist, or fascist” in front of their peers.
“Across all groupings, instead of reducing bias, [DEI trainings] engendered a hostile attribution bias (Epps & Kendall, 1995), amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice,” the scholars stated.
Lee Jussim, a Rutgers psychology professor and one of the report’s authors, stated to Campus Reform that even those when academia were “met by academic outrage mobs” if they questioned DEI programs. They explained that journals would refuse to publish any articles or studies critical of DEI, or they would be pressured to retract any published studies that were not in alignment with the agenda.
Teachers spend a semester or a year insisting, causing discord between students. These students are privileged and should feel ashamed for their race or gender, but these students should fall into a victim mentality and feel anger toward their peers. Take tests and submit reports reaffirming the school’s belief on DEI throughout the entirety of your education. Public education has become an indoctrination center for the left to shape young minds as they see fit.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 4, 2025 | Sundance
With the full support of President Trump working the members, House Speaker Mike Johnson won the speakership again on the first round of voting with only Republican Thomas Massie voting against Johnson. This was the first test of Republican resistance to President Trump and the DeSantis House coalition, aka the Freedom Caucus, conceded their first defeat.
President Trump called Texas opposition member Chip Roy personally, to put pressure on him to stop opposing the MAGA movement. It appears the pressure campaign was successful.
(Washington DC) – In a surprising move, Mike Johnson managed to tamp down a conservative rebellion and secured the support to remain speaker on the first ballot Friday, after two Republicans who initially opposed him flipped their votes.
After a long break, Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas) switched their votes to Johnson after initially backing others for the top House job. (more)
There’s a good background article on some of the discussions HERE. This is also a significant loss for the House Democrats and the left-wing of the UniParty apparatus. A prolonged speaker battle would have been good for their interests; however, President Trump intercepted the issue quickly and pulled Mike Johnson over the line in order to keep momentum moving forward.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 28, 2024 | Sundance
The central argument is this. “Whether the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (“the Act”), as applied to petitioners, violates the First Amendment.”
Congress enacted a law that effectively bans the social media app TikTok, or at the very least, forces the sale of the company to a non-foreign owned entity. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on the First Amendment aspect. Biden signed the law that requires TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance to divest from the app or face a ban on U.S. networks and app stores.
Mitch McConnell [SEE HERE] and Mike Pence [See Here] are asking the Supreme Court to support the law and support the forced sale or ban. However, President Trump is urging the Supreme Court to be very careful. [SEE HERE]
John Sauer, President Trump’s nominee to be solicitor general, has penned an amicus brief saying, “The power of a Western government to ban an entire social-media platform with more than 100 million users, at the very least, should be considered and exercised with the most extreme care—not reviewed on a ‘highly expedited basis.”
After initially supporting the ban on Tik Tok in 2020, President Trump changed his opinion and now contemplates whether a ban against the popular platform is in America’s best interest.
“Consistent with his commanding presence in this area, President Trump currently has 14.7 million followers on TikTok with whom he actively communicates, allowing him to evaluate TikTok’s importance as a unique medium for freedom of expression, including core political speech. Indeed, President Trump and his rival both used TikTok to connect with voters during the recent Presidential election campaign, with President Trump doing so much more effectively. As this Court instructs, the First Amendment’s ‘constitutional guarantee has its fullest and most urgent application precisely to the conduct of campaigns for political office.’” (source)
Many people have wondered what changed President Trump’s mind, with some pointing to President Trump’s meeting with TikTok CEO Shou Chew at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month. Additionally, Elon Musk and the Silicon Valley tech team, including JD Vance, are opposed to Tik Tok. However, the shift in Trump’s thinking since 2020 makes sense if you look at the timeline.
TikTok is a content and information platform that presents a significant issue from an American perspective. It is a Chinese platform available in the USA, but American platforms are banned in China. As a consequence, there is a particular conflict on geopolitical interests. Thus, in 2020 President Trump was against TikTok as an equity/fairness issue.
However, if most or all of the USA social media platforms are under the influence and control of government, which they are. And when President Trump became a victim from that influence and control, which he did. And when the only counterpoint for pushback against the Mis-Dis-Mal information scheme of the U.S. Govt., is to use an external platform to deliver information…. Then the relative issues in the platform discrimination argument take on a different context.
If you look at the timeline, after he was silenced by the U.S government’s influence in Big Tech, President Trump changed his position on Tik Tok.
If USG control the public conversation, and the overwhelming evidence is that they do; then you can argue the merit of allowing a foreign platform to exist as a domestic vehicle for information uncontrolled by the USG. This is also the essential argument that exists within communication platforms like Telegram; not coincidentally another platform targeted by the same USG.
TikTok may be garbage, I think it likely is. However, in the era where we have a documented history of our government controlling the content on social media platforms, I can make an argument that their lack of control within TikTok is really the bigger part of the USG opposition to it.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 13, 2024 | Sundance
The “No Labels” group is the modern spin on the term “UniParty.” These are the professionally political minds that see everything good about a singular ideological perspective in Washington DC that grows the administrative state and lives in a stratum far above the sheeple voters.
Perhaps the most transparently obvious part of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski holding this mindset, is the moment at 4:26 when she talks about being responsible to the voters, “what’s this all about,” Murkowski notes with contempt.
“I think we are getting a little bit of a preview now, of what it means to be allegiant to party,” Murkowski continues. Where “allegiant to party” actually means accountable to the voters’ expectations.
How is this supposed to help the institutional operation of Washington DC, if the politicians are suddenly accountable to the voters, instead of the bureaucracy that provides the political influence and affluence. Murkowski is genuinely puzzled by this new era of political expectation represented by President Donald Trump. WATCH (prompted):
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What Murkowski fails to understand is that President Trump is not a cause of her republican party failure, President Trump is our response to her republican party failure. President Trump represents our weapon, her last chance, her choice.
“Get in line” accurately interpreted means do what needs to be done to support the vessel, President Trump, that we have overwhelmingly elected to address our issues. No apologies, get in line -get right- is exactly correct.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 9, 2024 | Sundance
It’s not AI per se’ that poses the problem, rather it is the ability of AI software to connect, filter and process multiple databases of stored information in real time, creating a tracking and tracing system, that can be weaponized and poses a problem for those who do not want the USA to turn into a full surveillance state.
When you combine government required “Real ID” with, enhanced facial recognition software, then connect the identity to a metadata library of all the public and private electronic information of a person, what you end up with is the ability to conduct total surveillance of a targeted individual without constitutional limits and privacy protections. This is the larger problem with Palantir’s partnership with government systems.
It is a conversation no one is having before the capability is reached.
That said, Palantir CEO Alex Karp appeared at the Reagan National Defense forum, and does a great job advocating for the U.S. to win the artificial intelligence race. Karp believes it is possible to insert “values” into the software at strategic places of connection, and thereby control the outputs. The question within the AI race then becomes, whose values? Ours or our enemies?
🚨 $PLTR CEO Dr. Alex Karp at the Reagan National Defense Forum 2024 thread!🧵🔮
“I probably shouldn’t say this, this is why I thought the democrats were going to lose the election, why they did, because people want to live in peace. They want to go home. They do not want to… pic.twitter.com/Q4j0hjlh7Y
In a series of video segments placed onto a Twitter Thread, you get a good sense for what Palantir, Karp, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and newly appointed White House Czar of AI, David Sacks, are trying to do inside this global race toward artificial intelligence as applied to government systems.
“Palantir is the largest by market cap defense startup in the world. Many of the people in this room are former Palantirians. Basically, your future is powered by us. We were the most hated, most pariah, most disliked. We used to do meetings in the backyard of the backyard because you couldn’t be seen with Palantir.
“The DOGE… this is crucial stuff. We have to measure- what is it being spent on, what is the output. Is the input more than the output? The only thing that will cure a legitimacy crisis I s measurement. Anything else is a platitude.
“No one’s listening. Everyone’s thinking you have an agenda. Everyone thinks you’re working back from who you like. My favorite example of this are analysts on Wall Street. The whole methodology they have is just a way of telling you if they like you.
“In a legitimation crisis, you’ve got about 6 months… we need to prove there is no one who can stand up- we don’t have Ronald Reagan now.
$PLTR CEO Alex Karp at Reagan National Defense Forum on @elonmusk’s @DOGE and rips analysts🔮‼️
“Palantir is the largest by market cap defense startup in the world. Many of the people in this room are former Palantirians. We just did an announcement with @anduriltech. Basically,… pic.twitter.com/eMxD9YMd1G
. “The rubber meets the road for the West and you’re attacked and massacred, you have to fight, and you have to fight to win.
“My sometimes former party, you know it’s like- Israel’s done very well. My version is- that’s how you roll. Why don’t we learn from that? We don’t learn from it because we have way too many people in this culture who are living in the faculty lab of their own ideology.
“Business 101- what worked? We’re not allowed to learn from what worked because a lot of people are committed to an ideology that will not allow them to win. The American people notice that. A lot of this comes down to legitimation.
“We want to know that Americans are being put first. If you’re getting in the way of that, the American people are not happy.
🚨 $PLTR CEO Dr. Alex Karp at the Reagan National Defense Forum calls democrats his “former party” 👀 and speaks on Israel 🇮🇱🔮
“The rubber meets the road for the West and you’re attacked and massacred, you have to fight, and you have to fight to win🔥
“America is in the very beginning of a revolution that we own- the AI revolution. We own it. It should basically be called the “US AI revolution.”
“Every single relevant company in the world, is in this country. The second tier of those companies are in this country. The JV of these companies are in this country.
“There is no other place to do technology really at scale besides America. Europe has basically decided to regulate its basically anemic and nonexistent tech scene out of production. All of those people want to come to America. The American tech community is booming”
$PLTR CEO Dr. Alex Karp at the Reagan National Defense Forum🔮
"America is in the very beginning of a revolution that we own- the AI revolution. We own it. It should basically be called the "US AI revolution."🇺🇸
“These are very dangerous technologies. If we didn’t have the world’s worst enemies, I’d be up here saying we should regulate this, charge energy, slow this down. And we do have to have a conversation about who controls these technologies.
“People didn’t adopt American values because they thought inherently, they were superior, they adopted them because they worked.
“We have to win. We have to be ahead of our adversaries. We can’t have rules that are only for us and not for our China. Because then, we will get rules- their rules. And we will not like those rules.
These are going to be hard conversations. But do not forget, we need to win so we can dominate the conservations. Because we could lose.
$PLTR CEO Dr. Alex Karp at the Reagan National Defense Forum on AI fears🔮
"You can be happy we're asking this question, because the question they're asking in Europe is, "why is this not real."
“I suspect our GDP is going to grow in a very different way from our allies. That’s going to adjust a lot of perceptions about us, for good and bad.
“One of the things we’re going to end up having to do in Europe is- how do we do a tech transfer so that they can have GDP growth?
“Between ’61 – ’92, France’s GDP growth was significantly better than the US’. 85% of the top 50 companies by market cap are American. I would bet that’s going to be above 90% by this time next year.
“You can imagine America healthy and strong in 200 years… but you can’t really imagine that in a lot of other western cultures.
“Palantir… we reduce everything to the core principle.
$PLTR CEO Dr. Alex Karp at the Reagan National Defense Forum on American growth and player haters🇺🇸🔮
"I suspect our GDP is going to grow in a very different way from our allies. That's going to adjust a lot of perceptions about us, for good and bad.
“We have a splendor of riches in this country. We have the most successful builder looking at our institutions. Americans want to know that the institutions are efficient, safe, and correspond to their purpose.
“I’m sure there will be some rough patches, but I don’t know how you do better than Elon looking at these things. I’m pretty supportive.
$PLTR CEO Dr. Alex Karp at the Reagan National Defense Forum in huge support of @elonmusk and @DOGE‼️🔮
"We have a splendor of riches in this country. We have the most successful builder looking at our institutions. Americans want to know that the institutions are efficient,… pic.twitter.com/Og3jidkxyZ
“The difference between A+ in tech and B-, is the difference between a helicopter that flies, and doesn’t. This compounds into every area.
“For the sake of our country, I think we should expose policymakers to Maven. This stuff is determinative for life and death. It’s not a playtoy. It’s going to change everything. Just because the LLM on your desk kind of is, that’s like uranium in the ground. Processed correctly, it changes the world!
“We’re really really focused on the best of the best of the best of the best of the best in building things.
$PLTR CEO Dr. Alex Karp at the Reagan National Defense Forum on the gap between policy makers and Americans🔮
"The difference between A+ in tech and B-, is the difference between a helicopter that flies, and doesn't. This compounds into every area.
Dr Alex Karp also joined Liz Claman on Fox Business to talk software’s role in government efficiency: “Palantir exists to serve this nation. We need to know what’s working and what’s not… Software is enormously efficient. The underlying economics are ‘Both sides get more’… Transparency will not only be cheaper, the output will be better.”
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Bottom Line: It is possible to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the risks and benefits to AI when combined with government surveillance interfaces (DHS) and government-controlled databases (NSA). It is possible to understand the risks and walk into the future with eyes wide open.
However, on the issue of how this makes the surveillance state far more likely, the conversation is not happening.
As Palantir CEO Alex Karp outlines repeatedly there are indeed great risks, and we need to have this conversation as a nation.
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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
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