Thursday, January 19, 2023

Watch Out for the WEF


As long as I can remember, there have been conspiracy theories about organizations bent on "taking over the world" — The John Birch Society...the Council on Foreign Relations...The Trilateral Commission.  After a tour in Vietnam and two subsequent years privy to top-secret information working for the Naval Security Group (a military arm of the NSA) opened my naïve eyes (I had enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 17 to "fight the communists"), I was angry enough that my government had lied to the American people (repeatedly) to spend much of my college study in discovering how they could get away with such a betrayal.  So I spent a lot of my college studies on government, political psychology, and philosophy in an attempt to understand how governments can so easily and often dupe their loyal populations.  

Fast-forward to the 21st century, where yet another entity is apparently "trying to take over the world."  The World Economic Forum, headed by Klaus Schwab (he of the shaved head, heavy Teutonic accent, and penchant for space movie attire), could be considered just another object of the conspiracy nuts...but that would be a serious mistake.  Schwab and his minions have been working at this for over 50 years and, as far-fetched as it sounds, they're very near achieving their globalist fantasies.  Schwab is now 84 years old, so he and his fellow aging comrades (George Soros is 92) must realize that their time on Earth is getting short.  I believe that's why the "sudden" aggressiveness of the "woke," progressive agenda, with the Critical Race Theory push and the claptrap about gender fluidity, transhumanism, etc.  But this movement for global control is anything but sudden.

In 1967, German socialist agitator Rudi Dutschke, building on Italian communist Antonio Gramsci's cultural Marxism, coined the concept "the long march through the institutions" as a way for Marxists to capture Western societies without recourse to arms.  It called for socialists and their fellow travelers to infiltrate all of society's institutions: politics, education, entertainment, the church, the military, etc.

Today, over 50 years hence, we're seeing the inevitable result of that infiltration in the sexualization of our children; the refusal of attorneys general at the state and city level to enforce the law; the mocking of traditional Judeo-Christian values in books, movies, and TV shows; the destruction of capitalism by the Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) and "stakeholder capitalism" takeover of the financial institutions of the West; the undisguised support of media and Big Tech communication tools like Twitter, Facebook, Google, et al., for this socialist and globalist approach, and their endless assault on our foundational values and principles like truth, honesty, freedom of speech, and property rights.  And above all, in their frantic warnings of global apocalypse due to "climate change," the totally fabricated, absolutely un-scientific mania that requires us to give up fossil fuels as the lifeblood of society, destroying the most prosperous economies of the world.  These are all part of the effort by WEF to destroy the one thing that stands in the way of their perverse globalist dreams: the (once-free) constitutional republic of the United States of America.

Don't buy it?  You shouldn't, at least not just on my word.  So please go to the World Economic Forum website and view the list of their "partners" in their globalist schemes.  That will get your attention.  Almost every major world bank, most car manufacturers, Hewlett Packard, Apple, Walmart...it's a Who's Who list of world manufacturers and retailers.  You need to see that list because you're buying their products (i.e., supporting their globalist scheme).

While you're at it, take a gander at the list of notables from this country at the annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland (where the Swiss Army is providing security).  Yes, it's the usual suspects like Democrat Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker, Senators Chris Coons of Delaware, Joe Manchin of West Virginia,, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, et al.  But it's not just leftist, progressive Democrats.  There's the panel with Republican governor Brian Kemp of Georgia and GOP representative Maria Elvira Salazar regarding "the reshaped legislative landscape in the United States as it relates to domestic and foreign policy."  And there are Republican representatives Darrell Issa of California and Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, and GOP senator James Risch of Idaho.  

It's worth noting here that during the COVID pandemic, Schwab suggested that the lockdown-induced global recession presents an "opportunity" for the WEF elites to bring about a "Great Reset" of the planet's economic and social systems.  The three parts of the plan are (1) governments promoting "fairer outcomes" in the marketplace, (2) channeling investments toward "equality and sustainability" efforts such as "stakeholder capitalism" and the ESG movement, and (3) using medical technology to address "health and social challenges."

Not free and open markets (i.e., capitalism), but "fairer outcomes" (i.e., equity...the enforced equal outcomes for all, regardless of individual effort or investment) — in other words, the managed economy that led, after 70 years of deprivation, suffering, and shortages, to the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The "sustainability" part of investments has seen WEF champion and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink use the trillions under his control to force American companies to implement Schwab's stakeholder capitalism and ESG restrictions to damage the U.S. fossil fuel industry in the name of "saving the climate" (aided, of course, by the Biden administration).  And surely I don't need to comment on the "using medical technology" part, given the two-year and counting government oppression we've just experienced due to a "pandemic" that was no more dangerous than the seasonal flu.  

Of course such globalists conspiracies existed long before Schwab, Soros, et al. were even born.  There were "socialist" before the term was even coined: vain, talentless, resentful little men hiding in shadows, bitter that the world didn't recognize how special they were, willing to destroy it all just to achieve their dreams of recognition and power.  Always "for the benefit of mankind," of course, which is Schwab's arrogant mantra.  Such were Marx, Lenin, and Mao; so, too, are Klaus Schwab, John Kerry, Justin Trudeau, new U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak, and the rest of the WEF's Young Global Leaders behind this evil drive for "the great reset," which entails the destruction of Western civilization, just to assuage their petty egos and realize their self-serving fantasies.

What has been happening in the U.S. the past two years is the result of that "long march through the institutions" that started decades ago.  The WEF is very near to achieving all its goals, and at the expense of our freedom and prosperity.  President Biden and the Democrats are just the useful idiots who happen to be in charge at the moment the WEF's plans finally came to fruition.  The RINOs are just as much to blame as the Democrats.  When they haven't actively cooperated with the globalist schemes, they've stood by and done nothing to thwart their destruction of America's foundations, a destruction we're now witnessing daily.

The devil's greatest lie was convincing people that he doesn't exist.  Laura Hollis recently wrote a brilliant essay for the Patriot Post, "'Save the World' Is a Racket; Stop Falling for It."  The WEF's fantastical vision of the future is just such a racket, every bit as foul and putrid as the now-disproven communist myth of equality and freedom was.  But the WEF "solution" is on the verge of becoming reality.


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And we Know, On the Fringe, and more- Jan 19

 



Long day of living in memories. Here's tonight's news:


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Mexico Is Not Really an American Friend ~ VDH

One sure sign of historic national decline is the collective inability of a government and its people to defend their own borders and national sovereignty.


Left-wing Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador recently praised a visiting Joe Biden: “Just imagine: There are 40 million Mexicans in the United States—40 million who were born here in Mexico, [or] who are the children of people who were born in Mexico!” 

Why wouldn’t Obrador be delighted? Since Biden took office in January 2021, America has allowed some 5-6 million illegal entries across its southern border. 

Obrador further congratulated the malleable Biden whom he apparently sees as a kindred but complacent left-wing spirit: “You are the first president of the United States in a very long time that has not built even one meter of wall.” 

Translated that means Mexico is delighted the United States now cares little about the security of its own border, the disappearance of which apparently is wonderful news for Mexico. 

Note that Mexico itself facilitates illegal transits across its own southern border—as long as such Central American and other global migrants keep heading northward into the United States. 

But when or if they pause, try to stay in Mexico, commit crimes, or expect Mexican social services, then almost immediately Mexico City sends thousands of troops to close its border with Guatemala, deports the illegal crossers, and revives talk of building a border wall of its own.

Biden has demolished America’s southern border. His illegal nullification of U.S. immigration law is music to Obrador’s ears. 

But it is a nightmare to Americans who poll overwhelming disapproval of the subversion of their own border security. They are exhausted by the influx of death-dealing drugs. And they are furious over the hundreds of billions of dollars diverted from their own strapped social services to attend to the needs of foreign nationals who have broken their laws. 

Even overwhelmed blue sanctuary cities that once boasted of nullifying federal immigration law are now beginning to object to Biden’s complicity in Mexico’s manipulation of the border.

Obrador clearly is delighted that Biden is the first White House occupant who in matters of the shared southern border grants all of Mexico’s wishes, but almost none of his own citizens’. 

That reality raises the question that if Mexico were a declared enemy of the United States, how would it behave any differently than it is now?

Take drugs, for example. American overdoses due to fentanyl and other opioids are nearing 100,000 deaths per year. 

Almost all such lethal opiates are manufactured in factories operated by drug cartels in Mexico that enjoy de facto immunity from prosecution. The Mexican opioid industry was designed solely for lucrative export to the United States—with zero concern over the death and destruction its products cause here. 

Well aside from human trafficking and smuggling, cartel drugs indirectly earn the Mexican economy somewhere between $35-45 billion each year.

A hostile China profits by selling Mexicans the raw product. Beijing gains satisfaction that at the present death rate, more Americans will perish this decade alone from imported Mexican drugs than all the combat deaths in all the wars since America’s founding. 

In that sense Mexico is doing more damage to America than all our prior enemies combined.

Obrador is equally callous in bragging that he exports his own poor. Left unsaid is that a  naturally rich Mexico either will not, or cannot, adequately employ, feed, shelter, and protect its own impoverished citizens. 

So instead, it cynically sees its own people as a lucrative export commodity while holding U.S. laws in veritable contempt. 

Currently, Mexican nationals are sending nearly $60 billion a year in remittances from the United States to Mexico to aid friends and families who do not find enough succor from their own government in Mexico City. Untaxed remittances far and away constitute the largest source of Mexico’s foreign exchange income. 

Much of that gifting is made possible by generous American state and federal subsidies to illegal aliens. Frequent subsidized housing, healthcare, legal assistance, education, and food in the United States are often used to free up cash for illegals, who then send it to Mexico. 

Mexico sees this export of its own people as a win-win-win-win proposition.

Illegal immigration to America exempts Mexico from covering the social welfare costs of its poorest. 

In safety-valve fashion, it exports the volatility of social inequality rather than spending large sums to address it. 

Mexico sees its huge and growing expatriate community as a valuable lobbying lever inside America, given the longer Mexican nationals are absent from Mexico, the more they romanticize the country they fled. 

Finally, Mexico is a left-wing nation. The more it sends its poor to the United States, the more it feels Democratic politicians who grant concessions to Mexico will gain valuable new political constituents—ensuring still further concessions.

One sure sign of historic national decline is the collective inability of a government and its people to defend their own borders and national sovereignty.

Mexico would happily agree.





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'Students Demand Action' Demonstrates Why We Have More Gun Violence


Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

When I watch leftists provide “solutions” for various societal problems, it often looks like a horrendous doctor focusing more on treating symptoms than attacking the disease. The problem never goes away. In fact, it only gets worse, and yet, despite the fact that their methods obviously aren’t working, they continue to push them and declare that any attempt to change it is racist, bigoted, hateful, or something along those lines.

Gun violence is one of these issues. When gun violence happens, the left and the right react in completely different ways.

The right will see a mass shooting and analyze the who, what, when, where, and why of the situation. Usually, these always look the exact same. A disturbed individual with a need to do violence premeditates a shooting in a place where people typically can’t shoot back. The right will immediately recognize a few things right off the bat. For instance, the individual who did the shooting gave plenty of warning signs he was going to do it, and authorities did nothing. Moreover, the place where the shooter did the killing wouldn’t have been vulnerable if they had allowed people to carry firearms within or, at the very least, provided armed security.

The answer was more firearms carried by good guys–and more good judgment calls by local authorities.

The left will look at the same situation and ignore pretty much every detail and nuance. They only care about one thing; the gun. Then all the left’s horses and all the left’s gender-neutral persons will launch into an anti-gun tirade with marches, media reports, and organizations, all dedicated to making this a gun-free America.

It’s really all just an elaborate way for Democrats and their activist friends to fundraise, but I digress.

You’ll catch both sides throwing arguments at one another, but only one side carries the facts. At some point, the left gets tired of trying to push a false narrative and does what most people do when they can’t win through legitimate debate; they begin relying on emotional arguments.

For the left, the more sensational the emotions, the better.

Case in point, Shot Show 2023 is currently happening in Las Vegas and sure enough, anti-gun activists are voicing their concern. The group “Students Demand Action” decided to make a video with all the dramatics one could ask for, including the claim that “we’re dying,” while people are “partying at Shot Show.” This includes a list of demands to gun manufacturers.

Are students out there dying?

That’s pretty dramatic. While atrocities have been committed in schools, including relatively recently, to pretend that American kids are out there being slaughtered like undersupplied soldiers in a warzone stops the issue from being conveyed well and thus, makes it harder to find the right solutions.

If she really wants students to stop being shot in schools, then the answer is simple. Arm teachers who are willing to be trained and carry, teach students shooter drills, and staff the school with resource officers who understand that their job is to protect these children or die in the attempt. Moreover, stop making schools gun-free zones, which only serve to disarm good people.

There. Problem solved.

But this group isn’t out to solve the problem. As any leftist knows, you never let a crisis go to waste, and continuing to make it possible for mass shooters to shoot masses of people, especially in schools, creates a massive crisis that can attract a lot of outrage-born loyalty to a party.

The day guns stop killing innocent people is a really bad day for the left, and that really should really make people think long and hard about who really is the group facilitating gun violence in America.

It certainly isn’t the people “partying at Shot Show.”



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Young Americans Are Losing Their Minds.

Young Americans Are Losing Their Minds. The Social Left Is to Blame.

Ben Shapiro12:00 AM on February 15, 2023
Young Americans Are Losing Their Minds. The Social Left Is to Blame.
(AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data showing that our nation’s young girls are in a state of absolute emotional and mental crisis. According to the CDC, 57% of high school girls said they were depressed in 2021, compared with 36% in 2011; 30% said they had considered suicide, compared with 19% in 2011. The numbers had also increased markedly for high school boys: 29% of high school boys reported depressive symptoms, up from 21% in 2011; 14% of high school boys had considered suicide, up from 13% a decade before.

Naturally, our nation’s pseudoscientific experts blame societal intolerance and lack of sexual sensitivity. Never mind the fact that more kids than ever are declaring themselves members of nonexistent identity groups (Demisexual! Gender nonbinary!), mistakenly self-diagnosing with Tourette’s syndrome or gender dysphoria, and claiming victimhood at the hands of a cruel society — a society that rewards and cheers all such claims. Never mind that we’ve now undergone a gender revolution in which we’ve declared biological sex itself passe, treated heterosexual norms as taboo and misogynistic and attempted to wipe away — along with actual sexual predation — much normal behavior in the name of #MeToo.

No, says the CDC, the problem — as always — is with society’s demands. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the CDC recommends “teaching kids about sexual consent, managing emotions, and asking for what they need”; furthermore, “Schools should encourage gender and sexuality alliances, provide safe spaces and people for LGBTQ+ students to go to for support, and ensure enforcement of antiharassment policies.”

Yes, the answer to five decades of social Leftism resulting in two generations unmoored from mental health is… more social Leftism!

Or, alternatively, any society that attempts to destroy all rules, roles and intermediate institutions laden with traditional values will end up abandoning its children — all in the name of tolerance and diversity. We have robbed young men of a sense of meaning: we’ve told them that they need not be providers, protectors or defenders, and that even aspiring to do so makes them bigoted remnants of the past. Instead, young men are told that they ought to relegate themselves to the role of “male feminists,” condemning their own “toxic masculinity” while shying away from the commitments that turn boys into men.

We have robbed young women of any sense of place, time or purpose: we’ve told them that they need not seek out a husband, aspire to bear and rear children or make preparations to build a home. Instead, we’ve told them that they can run from their own biology, declaring themselves boys rather than girls, delaying childbearing indefinitely, pursuing the things that are supposedly truly important: sexual license, more work hours, sipping wine at brunch with single friends.

We have done all of this because children do not lie at the top of our civilizational hierarchy: the interests of adults do. Increasingly, adults in the West see children as either a burden and thus avoid having them, or as validators of their own sense of subjective self-identity, requiring indoctrination into more liberal forms of social organization.

And now children are paying the price.

The social Left has been in control of virtually all levers of culture and policy for decades. Now they demand more control in order to alleviate the consequences of the chaos they have created. The answer, of course, is precisely the opposite: the reinvigoration of traditional sources of wisdom and values, the re-inculcation of morality and obligation. If our society does not quickly reverse field, the consequences for our young people will be utterly disastrous. 


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When Idiocy and Lies Collide: Whoopi and Swalwell Dismiss Biden's Classified Docs Scandal With Ridiculous Theory

When Idiocy and Lies Collide: Whoopi and Swalwell Dismiss Biden's Classified Docs Scandal With Ridiculous Theory

Mike Miller reporting for RedState 

As a political pundit, it’s one thing to write an article featuring one target-rich environment, but when you get an opportunity to hit two target-rich environments in the same article, it’s often comedy gold and almost always more fun than a writer should be allowed to have — with almost being the operative word.

With Joe Biden’s classified documents scandal continuing to deepen and the Democrat Party desperately standing in the breach, hyper-partisan geniuses Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of “The View,” and California Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell on Wednesday combined their wits [rolling-eyes emoji] to concoct the most ridiculous take yet on the classified documents scandal.

Swalwell kicked off the clown show by doing what he does best: pushing a debunked lie. The often-ridiculed congressman began by surprisingly suggesting a special counsel should be named, before spewing a complete crock of crap, as reported by NewsBusters:

So, I think this case – and special counsel, I think, is absolutely appropriate. This case will hinge on his knowledge and intent. It looks like once he was aware of this, he did what I hope everyone would do which was get the documents back to the government, cooperate in every meaningful way.

I know it’s natural to compare this to what the former President has done where it looks like he wanted to keep the documents and is litigating that and fighting it in the courts. What worries me with President Trump is someone who was willing to leverage $350 million of taxpayer money to get dirt on his opponent, as he did with the Ukrainians. If he has top secret documents in his possession, that he could leverage that for his own benefit.

Let’s summarize, as Swalwell sees it: Trump kept classified documents at Mar-a-Lago with the intent of selling them to America’s enemies.

Just one problem.

As even the Washington Post reported in November, federal agents and prosecutors believe Trump’s motive for allegedly taking and keeping classified documents was largely his ego — and a desire to keep the documents as trophies or mementos, according to people familiar with the matter.

In other words, Swally, your lie was debunked by federal agents two months or more ago.

No matter. Whoopi then waxed idiotic about her take on the scandal which, as she sees it, really isn’t a scandal at all. Why not? Because she believes (she claims, anyway) that Joe’s classified documents weren’t classified at all. What were they, instead? Baking or cooking recipes. No, really.

Emphasis, mine:

[T]his idea that the law is going to look and see — because we talk about it like we know that the documents are classified. We don’t know what’s in those boxes.

We have no idea what’s in those boxes and I want the law to look and say, ‘Man, this is recipes from some stuff he was trying to do with her,” and, you know.

Because I believe that every president has boxes full of stuff that at one point might have been, you know, classified, but you don’t take the stuff where it’s still hot.

Idiocy aside, none of the above makes a lick of sense.

Recipes that Joe and “Dr.” Jill might have made might have been classified at one point, but then declassified? Really? Besides, every president has “boxes full of stuff” he indiscriminately takes without the materials in those boxes first being inventoried? Sure, Whoopi — sounds legit.

The best part of nonsense like this is Democrats like Whoopi Goldberg, Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff, Joe Biden, and other left-wing liars who spew it are completely clueless about how idiotic they look. That, or they don’t give a damn. And in Swalwell’s case, he twisted himself into a ridiculous pretzel as the hypocrisy meter exploded.

The left’s total lack of self-awareness is breathtaking. Let’s hope it continues.



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White House Press Corps Do Their Jobs (For a Minute)


It’s rare when a Democrat White House faces serious questions about anything, especially for any sustained length of time. While it hasn’t been that long, it is nice to see reporters questioning the official party line on Joe Biden’s theft of top secret government documents and his tossing them around like confetti around his various domiciles. But don’t get used to a skeptical press pushing back against the obvious lies of a Democrat administration, it’s not who the press corps are, they’ll be back to “Weekend at Bernie’s”-ing this entitled, senile old threat to national security before you know it.

The media has always been on the side of Democrats, the only change over the last few years is just how much of the left’s jersey they let show under their “professional” attire. Now they basically don’t even wear a jersey, they paint their faces and bare chests like David Puddy with the logo of the DNC. 

But every once in a while, if only out of embarrassment or accident, they do their jobs…for a short while. 

The first time I noticed this was in the 90s, back when Bill Clinton was caught having sex with an intern, and committing perjury and suborning it, thereby obstructing justice in the Paul Jones lawsuit. There really wasn’t much doubt about what Clinton was accused of doing, the previous sentence sums it up perfectly. And that’s how the original reporting went. Then it changed.

Originally, journalists reported that Monica was a White House intern, which she was. The affair started during the government shutdown, which meant anyone deemed non-essential in the White House wasn’t allowed to work because they weren’t going to be paid (though they’d be paid retroactively). Making non-essentials work without pay is illegal. Monica was NOT an essential employee, but she was an intern – and since interns weren’t paid, they could work. That’s how she ended up being around Bill and able to show him her underwear. The rest, as they say, is history.

Soon after servicing Clinton, Monica got a real government job and was moved out of the White House. That’s when Clinton Inc. wants you to think the affair started. And over the course of months of denying anything had ever happened, that’s how it started to be reported. The intern part disappeared, she just became a young government employee. Still, a massive power discrepancy, but not as bad as an intern. 

Were it not for Bill’s DNA on a dress there is no way the Democrat establishment wouldn’t have completely destroyed Monica. (Just imagine the brainstorming sessions about how to try to explain away how THAT bit of DNA got on her dress, only opting for admitting the truth once every conceivable alternative had been discussed.)

Once they could no longer deny it, they dismissed it as “old news.” In the meantime, the White House and their agents in media shifted the conversation – it had gone from the President of the United States having sex with an intern to a consensual relationship between two adults; a completely private matter. All the forms of perjury and obstruction of justice melted away.

The media, which had done a good job in uncovering the original story, got back on the team and spread the spin. When the truth finally had come out, the left-wing establishment made it so the truth didn’t matter. Not one single Democrat was bothered by any of it – the power dynamic of a President and an intern, the pressure brought on her to perjure herself or the President doing the same, or even a President getting his girlfriend a government job – and none voted to impeach or convict Clinton.

This current Biden scandal is in the early stages, but the White House is already playing the delaying game. And while the press has some questions, they’re mostly being asked from a place of hurt. “Why did you lie to us about having found all the documents already?” is the current common theme. There isn’t a whole lot of “Why did Joe steal these documents in the first place?” questions, nor any concern about why they appear to have been tossed around his house for 6 years (If Joe read them during the Trump administration, how did he not know they were there? If he didn’t, how did they get out of the boxes in the garage?)

Right now, the press is doing a fairly decent job, do not count on it lasting. This story will soon become “old news” too. Rather than establishing and working sources, the Biden administration has been covered by stenographers for whom conducting real journalism is a foreign concept. That they have spent a couple of days asking semi-good questions is not really cause for celebration. If they don’t follow it up with actual journalism, which I suspect they won’t, it’ll just be another glitch in the Matrix where conservatives mistakenly think things are changing for the better. They aren’t. The press is still on the other team, don’t be fooled by the fact that they put their clothes back on for a few minutes. 



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Steven Crowder Goes to the Mattresses Against Big Con


Steven Crowder is a smart and witty voice, generally a happy warrior who has been in the battle against the cultural and political progressive movement for over a decade.  He’s been in the fight for quite a while and deserves a great deal of praise for bringing a generation of younger people into the fold.  I respect his long-established time in the trenches of the cultural war, and we are helping him deliver his message.

Crowder’s audience, the “Mug Club”, is likely a mix of Gen-Z and Gen-X rebels throwing sand into the machinery. He does a great job producing content that deconstructs the insanity of the political left in a way that works and expands his audience.  Crowder has almost 6 million YouTube subscribers and while I don’t follow him closely, the message he delivered yesterday is very pertinent.

The problem he outlines is an inside baseball dynamic taking place in the background of the conservative media.  It essentially boils down to a financial issue CTH raised a long time ago when the first signals of this troubling trend started.  Most of the “well known” conservative media outlets have been purchased and co-opted by a financial system that ultimately controls their content.  If you have the time, WATCH:


What Crowder is discussing is the reason why Michelle Malkin dropped out of the fight.  The “BigCon” Crowder notes is essentially like the Fox News of alternative media. They offer incentives to monetize the content provider (broadcaster, website, pod caster etc.) then lock the content providers into extremely controlling contracts that control the outcomes.

Ultimately, what the audience ends up seeing is an approved finished product that is acceptable to BigCon and Big Tech.  In essence they are in bed together to stop bold and alternative conversation and filtrate the message to shades of soft pastels.

Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA (TPUSA), Posobiec, Tim Poole, Conservative Review, CRTV (Glenn Beck, Blaze), Mark Levin, Dave Rubin, Salem Media [Townhall, Hot Air, Twitchy, Red State, PJ Media], The Daily Wire with Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, the list of names and outlets who participate in this overall system is very long.   Upstream you will find the same financial underwriters, and all of them have a commonality.

Crowder is at an inflection point and obviously he is unwilling to capitulate to the guiding hands in control that no one is allowed to discuss.

Good for him.  I hope he can leverage his influence to break the control mechanism, give startups an alternative, and continue the rebellion.



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Ukraine war: German tanks for Ukraine depend on US approval

 

Germany will only send battle tanks to Ukraine if the US does the same, multiple reports suggest.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is under increasing international and domestic pressure to supply German-built Leopard 2 tanks or at least approve their delivery by third countries.

Poland and Finland have both promised to send their Leopards - but need Germany's permission to do so.

But Berlin is still in talks with the US about its official position.

Many expect an announcement to follow a meeting of Ukraine's Western allies at the American military base of Ramstein in southwestern Germany tomorrow.

Reports suggest that Mr Scholz will only give the green light to the Leopards if the US President Joe Biden agrees to supply American Abrams tanks.

However, the Pentagon's top security adviser, Colin Kahl, said late on Thursday that the US wasn't prepared to meet Kyiv's demands for the tanks.

"The Abrams tank is a very complicated piece of equipment. It's expensive. It's hard to train on. It has a jet engine," Mr Kahl said.

A senior German government source told the BBC that reports of a deadlock between Berlin and Washington over tanks were overstated, but they're causing concern amongst Ukraine's Western allies.  


The provision of Western battle tanks - in sufficient numbers - is widely seen as crucial if Ukraine is to defeat Russia or, at the very least, defend itself against Russian President Vladimir Putin's anticipated spring offensive.

Yet, to date, only Britain has promised to supply them. Other countries, including Germany, France and the US, have sent or pledged to send armoured vehicles as well as air defence systems and other heavy equipment. Meanwhile, Kyiv's demands for tanks are growing increasingly urgent.  


So why is Mr Scholz dithering over their delivery?

All indications are that he will allow third countries to supply their Leopards - the German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck said so a week or so ago.

But Mr Scholz has not yet committed. He's cautious for several reasons.

Germany worries - albeit less so than it did in the past - about escalation and how Russia's Vladimir Putin would react to the supply of offensive weapons. It's a reasoning which many experts perceive to be unjustified.

And the concept of German tanks on Ukrainian soil still resonates uncomfortably in Berlin, where the country's World War Two history still casts a long shadow.

Mr Scholz may have declared a "Zeitenwende" (sea-change) in Germany's stance on defence and military policy following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but he's still mindful that, less than a year ago, the idea of the German government supplying arms to a conflict would have been unthinkable.  



The Chancellor has his eye on the domestic opinion polls. As one senior government source put it to me, surveys suggest the public are broadly satisfied with his reaction to Ukraine - unlike his policies and performance in many other areas.

A recent survey for the national broadcaster found that 41% of the public thought Germany was supplying the right amount of weapons, 26% thought its support went too far and 25% that Germany wasn't sending enough.

Mr Scholz has promised that Germany will play a greater military role on the world stage, but years of underinvestment have left its armed forces in a parlous state.

Even if the Chancellor gives the green light to sending Leopards, the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has warned that renovation and preparation requirements would delay their delivery by months.

Mr Scholz doesn't want to risk the perception that he's acting alone, hence the desire to co-ordinate with allies and, in particular, the US. And it's why there's unlikely to be an announcement ahead of the Ramstein meeting tomorrow.

But his position has triggered frustration and condemnation in international political and security circles.

They say Germany - still a political heavyweight - must step up to its military responsibilities.   


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64329059   




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December Retail Sales Drop -1.1%, November Sales Data Revised Lower to -1.0%


There is something predictable about Main Street economics, eventually what you see around you overwhelms the great pretending.  CTH has been outlining the state of the consumer economy in great detail for quite a while, and though it is difficult to note when the outcomes will surface, eventually they do surface. [Reminder Here]

CONTEXT. CTH outlined the moment when the purchasing power of the U.S. middle class actually began contracting.  It was March and April of 2021 when that Rubicon was crossed.  We saw it in the second and third quarter data from 2021, but few were willing to admit.

What changed in those two months back in ’21 was a dramatic drop in the “unit sales” of stuff within the consumer economy.  The drop in unit sales was hidden because it happened simultaneously with the first wave of massive spike in prices.  Prices rose so fast the sales data was giving an artificial impression of sales growth, but in the background the actual unit sales dropped.   Those analysts correcting and adjusting historic data to ‘inflation adjusted terms’ are now noticing.

Additionally, and not coincidentally – because the metrics are connected, you will note this line from the Wall Street Journal review of the producer price index. “The producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions in the economy, rose 6.2% in December from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, the slowest annual pace since March 2021.”  In essence, the current rate of wholesale price increase on materials is now returning to the rate of price increase that happened in the period when prices spiked.  Again, this is predictable.

Inflation is the measure of the ‘rate’ of price increase over time.  March and April of 2021 were the beginning of the first inflationary spike.  Driven almost entirely by the supply side shock from Biden energy policy, in the subsequent 20 months the rate of price increase skyrocketed, peaked August 2022, and now the rate of increase starts returning.  This does not mean price declines; this means the rate of growth in the price increase is lessening.  This is a cyclical outcome.

After 20 months of dropping unit sales, a result of massive price increases; and as the rate of inflation now starts to moderate created by the cyclical nature of it; what we now see is the inability of the price increases to continue hiding the drop in unit sales.   [Background pdf Data] Total retail sales data is now exposed and that’s why we will see this increasing story about negative sales data as the inflation cycle plateaus.

(Via Wall Street Journal) – Retail spending fell in December at the sharpest pace of 2022, marking a dismal end to the holiday shopping season as rising interest rates, still-high inflation and concerns about a slowing economy pinched American consumers.

Purchases at stores, restaurants and online, declined a seasonally adjusted 1.1% in December from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Sales were also revised lower in November and have fallen three of the past four months.

The decline in retail spending late last year adds to signs that the U.S. economy is slowing. Hiring and wage growth eased in December, U.S. commerce with the rest of the world declined significantly in November, and existing-home sales have fallen for 10 straight months. The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that industrial production slumped in December, led by weakness in the manufacturing industry.

S&P Global downgraded its estimate for fourth-quarter economic growth by a half percentage point to a 2.3% annual rate after Wednesday’s data releases. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal this month expect higher interest rates to tip the U.S. economy into a recession in the coming year.

“The lag impact of elevated inflation weighs heavily on U.S. households, it’s very clear that the median American consumer is still reeling from the loss of wages in inflation-adjusted terms,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US LLP. “We’re moving towards what I would expect to be a mild recession in 2023,” he added. (read more)

When the Baghdad Bob economic pretenders say, “mild recession,” anticipate something more akin to a mild nuclear meltdown, something with breadlines and soup kitchens.

Now, you must keep in mind that almost every financial media outlet used the same Retail Federation talking point about anticipating an 8% increase in holiday sales last year.  [Reminder] Apparently, collective pretenses must be maintained.  Meanwhile, news crews and camera crews were having a desperate time finding any holiday shopping to use as background footage for the claims that sales were strong.  Here we are in January and the pretending has hit reality.

Negative retail sales in November and December when prices are roughly +10% over the prior year, means the unit sales collapse was far more dramatic…. Far more.

Trying to survive policy driven price increases in housing costs, energy costs, electricity costs, home heating, food and fuel costs has forced consumers to reevaluate purchasing decisions.  Consumer demand for non-essential items has collapsed, and Americans are dig deep into their savings just to sustain unavoidable expenses.  Eventually, pretending this is not happening is going to run into the wall of reality.

On one hand the leaders of large multinationals must pretend everything is splendid; after all, the only acceptable position they can articulate is to support interest rates being raised because demand is just too darned high….  pretending.  But on the other hand – those same suppliers and multinationals are furiously trying to calculate how to avoid being stuck with billions worth of unsold inventory and idle industrial equipment.


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