It was 1962, 11th Grade US History class, and my teacher, Mr. Jerry Storvik (God rest his soul) said the following to me after I had given a lengthy answer to a question, “Be careful. Don’t mistake the props for the drama.” From that moment on my outlook on everything changed because I discovered how easily trapped I could become in the side issues (the props) and miss the real story (the drama). I’m 77 soon and I’ve always kept Mr. Storvik’s words in mind when I look at what’s happening around me.

Incidentally, besides being a history teacher, Mr. S was also a guidance counselor and took it upon himself to annually visit all the colleges/universities in our home state of WA. He would meet with our high school grads who were finishing the first year of college to find out how the high school had prepared them for college. Who does that today? During his meeting with me in my freshman year (1964-65) at the UW, he recommended a book for me to read: The Tyranny of Words by Stuart Chase. I have probably read/reread that book fifty times and still refer to it today.

The election of Jimmy Carter and the stinging embarrassment of his administration.

8 years ago

The Stock Market Drop In 2008 And The Bailouts For The “BigGuys”.Then The 2016 Elections.Hillary Was On Magazine Covers Like She Won, Before The Election

I am pretty sure it was 2010. I had always been politically agnostic but when the epiphany broke through it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks.

It had something to do with some action obama (SIC intentional) took concerning Iran and I do not recall what it was…but it dawned on me with the clarity of ships bell on a cold still morning….

“This guy ain’t on our side”.

I had noticed a shift in media and news, I didn’t know then about engineered narratives, but I had concluded a couple of years or so earlier that it wasn’t elected persons running our nation….just an instinctive creepy-crawly awareness idling just below the threshold of conscious thought or informed opinion.

As news sources became more and more manipulated I sensed that too…(I am naturally tuned to spot propaganda, maybe) and my feeling of despair was running pretty high as I had not discovered CTH or conservative sites and followed mainstream news daily.

I came to realize that Arab Spring was designed to topple secular governments and install radical fundamentalists, not to foster democracies.

It was the death of Jessica Chambers which led me to discover CTH and I cannot thank you enough, Sundance…you and the Treepers set me free of the dismal and dark forest of the controlled narratives and lies propagated by legacy news and our now leftist government.

Sorry so long and thank you for asking.

Prayers for our Republic….

MAGA

August, 1964: I was on a troop ship crossing the Pacific when President LBJ signed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

The scuttlebutt quickly raced below decks that the ship’s destination had been changed to Viet Nam.

I realized there are no coincidences.  A lesson I never forgot.

For me it was the younger George Bush years. I had always been an R as that’s what my father and grandfather were. I never understood why I was an R or paid any attention to politics other than maybe the Reagan shooting. I started a job right shortly after 9/11 and my boss said to me, “huh, a republican working for “us”, this ought to be good.” At about the same time, my mother in law was very vocal in her distaste for Bush and she continually ridiculed me for voting for him or supporting his after 9/11 actions. I did not understand either of these “criticisms of my choices” so, I started to listen to Rush and read all I could and I quickly got myself up to speed. I was 42 at the time. I am 62 now. I was a daily listener to Rush and Beck and Howie Carr. I was a junkie until 2016 and I have never tuned back into Fox and I banished Beck (with many posts telling him how I felt) and I only allowed Rush back into my life near the end of Trumps term, just before he announced his Cancer. I saw the strings on the marionettes like our Host has mentioned and I have never been unable to unsee them. I drive my family crazy pointing out the politics behind the happenings in our lives and they all mostly think I am mentally ill because I can’t/won’t look away. I joined CTH some months before Trayvon and George and have been a faithful follower since. Thanks for listening and Hello to All like minded souls.

When Pelosi surrounded by the other commies told the American people that Obama care must be passed before we can read the bill.

I knew right then and there that the masks had dropped and that corrupt bitch was the spokesperson for the government that declared war on the citizens.

John Roberts drove the point home when he twisted and contorted to allow the government the power to mandate anything going forward.
Now you see how this has gone.

They started the attacks on us with the patriot act. This is what gave them the courage to declare war on us.

Not until Trump arrived, the non-stop attacks that he could do nothing right…and then started digging…the whole Q stuff, I was not a “Q follower” but I did read a lot of the stuff on 4chan…. That’s where I learned about Benghazi, the Arab Spring, Fast & Furious.. I had NO IDEA.

and then after our leaders told us there was a pandemic, and “social distancing” and masks..but ignored that “pandemic” for the 2020 Summer of violence antifa and blm evildoers..

I felt worse and worse about about my beliefs over the decades..

When I watched the documentary about 9/11 (I think Pearl Harbor was in the title) and began to question that whole thing, and the Bush’s…

It’s been a horror, seeing the truth…

And then the Podesta art, the Epstein art of Bush playing with airplanes knocking down blocks, and Willy boy in Monica’s blue dress.. those paintings mocked all of us..

During all of this I landed here at The Conservative Treehouse and my mind blowing education is on-going, it never ceases, and that’s why I stay here daily..

It feels like I’ve been on the edge of my seat for 6 years. One can’t get to relaxed for the next catastrophe, the next shock, is imminent..

I am ever grateful to God for Trump, for I believe he was sent by Him, to awaken us.. it is God that woke us up.

Praise the Lord.

Sundance, I believe you also have been sent by Him…. Thank God for you & Ad REM, Menagerie, WeeWeed, and those whose names I’m less familiar with…I know I am not alone in praying for all of you, always. “no weapon formed against any of you, will prosper,” standing on that verse, declaring it in Jesus’ name.

And God bless America!

Probably when Congress quit compiling a budget when Obama took office. That was something I thought had to be done, it was dropped without barely a passing mention by republicans and MSM.

Trump.
Stopping the never ending wars. Building a great economy, with ease. Using trade as a weapon instead of bombs. Peace agreements that we were told could not happen. Trump exposed all. He showed all that the world was not what we were being told. The Biden administration then dismantled Trump’s work and put us back to where we were.
Too late. I have climbed the mountains and touched the sky.

Dan Rather, after it became public he lied to the U.S. public about the TET Offensive .. .. .. IMHO, he was a closet Communist in 1968.

Emerald Robinson had a piece a couple years ago on the JFK windshield that is cataloged in the National Archives (yep, that National Archives). The windshield logged into evidence is NOT the one that was on JFK’s car.

https://www.soonerpolitics.org/emerald/thomas-lipscomb-hidden-in-plain-sight

So In my logical mind: Government covered up the assassination of JFK and FBI/CIA involvement, used a Congressional ‘blue-ribbon’ committee to rubber stamp the governments sham report, and psy-opped American citizens to accept it. With an ‘unelected deep state’ system that can do that….the sky is the limit. They WILL DO ANYTHING to maintain their power. So then I started looking with a jaundiced eye at the moon landing, building #7, and rigged elections.

To me, it was reading Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind during my senior year of college. I attended one of the institutions mentioned in the book and thought he described students and professors with uncanny accuracy. I had long suspected that the hard work I did to save money, study the approved books, and please professors was a waste of time. Bloom’s book confirmed that suspicion. The “education” I paid for was in great part a liberal catechism, not an avenue to truth. But if the universities that formed the people who run the world were deeply flawed, how could we trust the institutions run by those people?

Evans-Pritchard’s The Secret Life of Bill Clinton was an eye-opener about the boomers who had received those relativistic educations and were now in government. The Clintons were a bit older than me, but exemplars in my age group were people like James Comey, Victoria Nuland, et al. The Clinton Chronicles with Larry Nichols and others was also eye-opening.

Those were the books and videos. Life experiences probably left a deeper impression. A stint in the Army and living in Central Europe after the Berlin Wall fell really opened my eyes. All this made me skeptical of the institutions that form peoples’ mind and souls in modern America (and the western world generally). It probably helped me resist the many pressures we have come under in the COVID era.

When the media turned to blatant PR for the Democrats during the Trump / Clinton election while the Obama regime was clearly turning the government into a weapon to be used against its own citizens and leaders…..

2007/8 when The Gay Kenyan was being sold as pure and clean as Jesus.

When Obama, who came out of nowhere, was elected President of this country

For me it was a series of things after Vietnam where I served. The first clue was the discussions about “hate” speech and crimes in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The second clue was a book published in 1997 The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe. and the third and final clue was Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth published in 2006.

As a Green Beret back in the 1960’s we were trained in the methods of taking down a Government as a guerrilla behind enemy lines like what was done by the OSS during WW II. Since i had an undergrad in Economics I under stood Marxism and since my dad taught me the skills of a designing and building thing I had the equivalent of an engineering degree. and lastly in college I studied geography and climate.

After Vietnam I researched the war and found the the US Government had no clue as to what they were doing there. a good book on the war was written by Tran Ngoc Chau titled Vietnam Labyrinth.

The last nail in the coffin was when I looked and Goes’ Climate garbage and talked with the people that really knew what was going on I found that “none of it was true.” And so I saw in the that Climate change was the tool that was being used to turn us into a Marxist system. I create a blog in 2012 to counter the false narrative and soon after that i found The Conservative Tree House and learned a lot more ever since.

By blog is https://centinel2012.com/

Just hearing the news as a kid and hearing one side continually attacked with the preface “critics say”, but not so much the other.

It wasn’t any one thing. Watching the older Bush prosecute a war against Iraq and then just walk away, only to see his son fight the same damn war a few years later. Our utterly nonsensical intervention in Bosnia. Having closely followed the second intifada and finding myself horrified, but completely unsurprised by 9/11. The invention of the TSA theater, and all the idiocy that followed in its wake.

The final two nails were McCain and Romney….two Democrats running as Republicans with an obvious intent to lose.

Coming from SE Asian, through my young adult years we saw when China went the way the Japanese did successfully. Japan, for many years, having failed militarily to conquer the world; obviously won their war with the West – economically. Cheaper Japanese cars and many other goods of comparable quality were everywhere. This article by Daniel Greenfield illustrates what we in Asia saw, dealt with and the military/economic beefing measures the smaller Asian countries took (especially Singapore) as a real deterrent for this day and age. My ancestors have always said that ‘if not for China, Russia would have taken over the world’. Likewise, if not for Russia, China would have taken over the world’

China’s economic warfare hollowed out our economy in the same dedicated fashion, just as they did, gradually taking over HongKong – aiming low to aim high, capturing industries from the bottom. Most laughed at all the ‘Made in China’ junk – moved domestic industries to China until it became impossible to find anything else. No aspect of our economy was too unimportant to outsource and no angle was overlooked. Our retail sector now consists of buying American brands that are made in China from Chinese third party sellers on Amazon.

Soon we’ll be buying Chinese brands on Chinese platforms like Alibaba. In fact, these are already well in operation – with many scam sites. Check out US UNGUE for one.

The same obsessive attention to detail that served China so well in its economic war is at play in its war plans. Having lost an economic war to China, we’re sleepwalking into a military defeat.

Even on our end, we’ve lost war games against China over and over again. China is serious, we’re not. Xi lives in a zero-sum world. So does the rest of the Communist regime. They are seriously preparing to fight and
win a battle that will establish them as the world power. All the while our leaders speak of China as our ‘competitor’ not our enemy. China’s intention is not only to compete, but to end the competition.

Like most of our opponents, it’s nationalistic while we have decayed into a globalist apathy that claims to care about the world, but without any particular attachment to any part of it including our own. China knew that it could stomp over Hong Kong and Taiwan; that it would excite no more opposition from most of the western world and its leaders. We have been deluded to view China’s advance through the dispassionate lens of human rights activism, OUTRAGED OVER EVERYTHING AND DEDICATED TO NOTHING. Making globalism as the
AXIS OF OUR FOREIGN POLICY (Clinton Administration) THE WORLD WAS DIVIDED BETWEEN PROGRESSIVE REGIMES, ABIDING BY INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INSTITUTIONS, AND REACTIONARY ONES OPPOSED TO THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER. INSTEAD OF RETURNING TO OUR NATIONAL INTERESTS, WE PUT OUR MILITARY AT THE DISPOSAL OF THE UN, WE FOUGHT TO BRING DEMOCRACY TO COUNTRIES UNITED ONLY BY THE DEMOCRATIC DESIRE TO KILL ALL INFIDELS.

Biden complained that China violated “international law” by flying spy balloons over our territory. China responded by accusing us of violating its territory. This tedious tit-for-tat legal wrangling, so familiar from the Cold War, is also entirely besides the point.

Do we object to China spying on us on the grounds of international law or national interest? Anti-American leftists and a few rightists excel at pointing out where America has violated international law. But nations that prioritize their interests view violations of international law as strategic, not moral.

Shouldn’t we have learned something? WE SHOULDN’T CARE THAT cHINA VIOLATED INTERNATIONAL LAW, BUT WE SHOULD CARE THAT IT VIOLATED OUR TERRITORY. And that it did so as PART OF A LARGER PROGRAM TO SPY ON US IN ORDER TO MILITARILY DEFEAT US.

THE MYTH OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IS DYING A SLOW DEATH IN UKRAINE. BUT IT’S
DIED MANY TIMES BEFORE, IN TWO WORLD WARS AND COUNTLESS MASSACRES, WARS
AND GENOCIDES SINCE, ESPECIALLY IN AFRICA. THE INTERNATIONAL CONCLAVES OF
“PEOPLE OF GOODWILL” HAVE ACCOMPLISHED NOTHING EXCEPT TO BUILD LIFETIME
CAREERS BEMOANING THE MILLIONS OF DEATHS THAT THEY HAVE UTTERLY FAILED
TO PREVENT WHILE CLAIMING THAT THOSE TRACK RECORDS OF FAILURE SOMEHOW
ENDOW THEM WITH MORAL AUTHORITY.

MORAL AUTHORITY CANNOT BE VESTED IN MULTILATERAL INSTITUTIONS, ONLY
NATIONAL ONES BECAUSE ONLY NATIONS CAN BE ANIMATED BY A CLEAR AND
DEFINING SENSE OF RIGHT AND WRONG ROOTED IN THEIR CULTURES THAT THEY
IMPLEMENT BY RISKING THE LIVES OF THEIR PEOPLE. THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT
NATIONS ARE NECESSARILY RIGHT, EITHER ALWAYS OR AT ALL, BUT, UNLIKE
GLOBALIST ONES, THEY ARE MEANINGFUL.

GLOBALISM CLAIMS TO REPRESENT EVERYONE WHILE REPRESENTING NO ONE. ITS
AMBITIONS ARE AS VAST IN SCOPE AS THEY ARE EMPTY. ITS WORLD GOVERNMENT OF
ABSTRACTIONS COMMANDS THE LOYALTY OF NO ONE EVEN WHILE BASING
EVERYTHING DISCREDITED THEORIES THAT HAVE NEVER WORKED IN THE REAL
WORLD.

CHINA’S AMBITIONS ARE EQUALLY GLOBAL, BUT IT IS NOT GLOBALIST. IT HAS A
CLEAR PLAN TO EXPAND ITS TERRITORIES LOCALLY AND ITS ECONOMIC EMPIRE
GLOBALLY. THE ONLY WAY WE CAN EVEN BEGIN TO FIGHT IT IS BY MAKING THE VITAL
NATIONALISTIC CALCULATION THAT WE MUST BE AT THE EPICENTER OF OUR
INTERESTS. CHINA IS NOT A THREAT TO THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER, BUT TO US, AND
IT HAS EFFECTIVELY USED THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER TO WEAKEN US, BLEEDING
OUR ECONOMY AND SHACKLING OUR MILITARY OPERATIONS.

NO ONE WANTS A WAR WITH CHINA, BUT, AS WWII SHOWED US, THE SUREST WAY TO
STUMBLE INTO ONE IS TO POMPOUSLY PROCLAIM THE DOGMA OF INTERNATIONAL
LAW THAT WE HAVE NO INTENTION OF DEFENDING, WHILE HAVING NO NOTION OF
HOW TO DEAL WITH AN ENEMY THAT ISN’T SEEKING A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE WERE CONVINCED UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE THAT HITLER
WANTED A DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION. THE FDR ADMINISTRATION BELIEVED THAT THE
JAPANESE DIPLOMATS WERE THERE TO NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH UNTIL THE BOMBS
FELL FROM THE SKY ON PEARL HARBOR. CHINA’S ATTACK, IF IT COMES, WILL BE
EQUALLY SUDDEN, RUTHLESS AND DECISIVE UNLESS WE WAKE UP FROM OUR DAZE
AND DEAL WITH REALITY.

(If COVID was deliberately released from a lab, it was a mere underpowered trial
run.)

AMERICA’S LEADERS, DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS, STILL LIVE IN A GLOBALIST FANTASY IN WHICH MOST ISSUES CAN BE WORKED OUT ACROSS CONFERENCE TABLES, AND IN THE WORST CASE SCENARIO, SANCTIONS CAN BE USED TO BRING RECALCITRANT REGIMES TO THE TABLE. NORTH KOREA, IRAN AND NOW THE UKRAINE WAR HAVE TAUGHT THEM NOTHING. THE GLOBALIST FALLACY IS THAT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE GLOBALISTS.

THEY DON’T. INSTEAD, SERIOUS NATIONS WANT TO BE GLOBAL WORLD POWERS.

INTERNATIONAL LAW WAS CREATED TO BIND US TO BE REACTIVE, TO APPEASE AND TO BRIBE OTHER NATIONS TO JOIN US IN THE GLOBALIST UTOPIA. AS A RESULT WE HAVE LOST OUR EDGE, BETRAYED OUR ALLIES, AND PUT OURSELVES ON A PATH TO DEFEAT. IF WE ARE GOING TO CONFRONT CHINA AND AVOID A WAR, WE NEED TO TAKE A LEAF FROM ITS PLAYBOOK AND REMEMBER THE LESSONS OF OUR OWN HISTORY. WEAKNESS AND EMPTY RHETORIC IMPRESS NO ONE. AMERICA SHOULD BE STRONG AND SILENT. WE SHOULD LET OUR ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS, MAKE FEW THREATS, BUT DEMONSTRATE THAT WE WOULD WIN ANY WAR.

CHINA, ITS GOODS AND SERVICES, ITS COMPANIES AND ITS SCIENTISTS, SHOULD HAVE NO PLACE IN THIS COUNTRY. THE ENTIRE QUESTION OF BEING OPEN TOCHINESE COMMERCE SHOULD NOT EVEN BE CONSIDERED UNTIL THE DAY THAT CHINA IS WILLING TO OPEN ITS BORDERS TO US THE WAY THAT WE HAVE TO IT. OUR
ENEMIES HAVE CLEARLY SHOWN US WHAT WE HAVE FORGOTTEN: A MILITARY RIDES ON THE ECONOMY.

We have a limited window in which China has out-competed us economically, but not militarily, unless we shift that balance of power soon, then we will be stuck in a weaker position. And we will need to retreat from Asia entirely while trying to maintain what’s left of our economy. By then, there will be negotiations, not over the status of Taiwan, but the status of Hawaii.

Either we will shed globalism and rediscover our national interests or, like much of Europe, the question of national interests will become irrelevant because we will have limited scope for asserting them. We will retreat into globalism, not to restrain our strength, but to protect our weakness, and then we will be a few generations away from total national extinction.

It’s not too late, but if we refuse to remember what makes nations great, it will be.

SOURCE : Daniel Greenfield

I am an Air Force Brat. Was a Career Civillian 30 yr. I have always been aware of the Propaganda in the press and how they report on Military Activity. I lived in Tripoli Libya while my Dad was Stationed there from 1959-62. For me it was Benghazi and the blatant lies of a YouTube video that had 300 views when Benghazi happened. Next was James Comey excusing Hillary for her Email changing the words of gross negligence to extreme carelessness to avoid prosecution of her Criminal activity.

My parents being politically aware, I have always had some sense of U.S. politics. Rush Limbaugh’s arrival on the scene increased my interest by an order of magnitude. Bill Clinton’s election for a second term motivated me to become more active in U.S. politics. That was when I first came to believe we had passed the tipping point.

When Slick Willie got away with lying under oath to a Grand Jury.

was a teen in the “make love, not war” , “do your own thing” 60’s. lived the hippie dream…saw friends go to war and come back different: saw friends od and not come back. Listened to the folks who put down America and held up leftists. Had my awakening in the 70″s under Carter. I was a single mom trying to survive and even tho i worked i couldnt afford food or gas.
When he left American hostages without help I started to think back about the republican leadership of America when i was a child, as opposed to the democrat way of government. When Ronald Regan was running, when I heard Rush for the first time…thats when the lightbulb came on. Rush educated me to look behind the curtain and I have been trying to live in a way that is good for America ever since. It is frightening how many uninformed and ignorant people there are in our country today…educated and uneducated. I am that crazy granny that tries to have conversations that might open some minds and hearts. Planning on getting involved at precinct level this year to work for change, but the dark side is very dark now. They don”t even try to hide their evil. Appreciate your sight so much…thank you.

I was mid 40+ yo, prob 1990s – I was working in Ft Lee, NJ and business was really slow (oil & gas ind).. I worked full time and being slow, I would go into the conference room and watched the televised confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas.

Appalling! Nothing further to say… Kennedy – Hill, were outrageous and It was at that time I really started paying attention.

Obama put me over the top and confirmed everything I had come to understand since the 1990s.

Thank you Sundance for all you do and thank you Treepers for all the additional info you add!! :):)

1970 went to a Heavy Contractors meeting with my Dad. Thought it was great that my father, boy from the country, got to join the big guys! Wrong, we were chump change, as it took something we did not have to actually join the group. A room divided.

Then again in the bidding process or invite to bid on special projects, the …… sets the bidders list.

If you get work you were not suppose to get, the amount of regulatory agencies and hoops to jump through to complete the project are unimaginable. It is a corrupt, “good ole boys club”, and you ain’t in it.

No different today, only more divisive, as the jobs are divided according to the persuasion invested to get the winning bids or invite to bid. There are always two sets of specs on a project as well as the amount and quantity of EXTRA work approved! Note the inspector is owned.

However, what a blessing to be able to sleep clammy.

For me it STARTED in 1968…the 6000 sheep that died in Utah….the news media (print and TV) reported on that event and EVERYTHING
said or written was wrong… I know because I was a first lieutenant in the Army and was there in the middle of it all and was counting and burying sheep…fast forward to summer of 69, news was written about Tay Ninh Vietnam being overrun…. wrong…I was there too. Fast forward to 1976, multiple horse deaths at Dugway Utah everything the news said about those deaths were wrong…I was there!
1990 I started listening to the EIB, Rush and he explained more and more to me everyday that solidified my conservative thinking.
so for the next 30 years of listening to Rush, it was constantly evolving.

But to this day I am bewildered as to how many democrats, AINO’s (Americans in name only) and RINOs are still in power, no one is being held accountable for the crap that is ruining this nation.  “Accountability” is such a meaningless word, just sound and fury – better words would be indicted, convicted, sentenced!

So apparently everything Ive learned over the years has not migrated to left side of the aisle…still to many democrats…I am at a personnel war with democrats and the republican party is not at war with anyone. It is all the same up there in DC there seems to be only one political party. The RINO’s in charge now are some extremely weak folks, McCarthy, Mc Connell, Cornyn, + about 50 more but maybe the 20 congressmen that kept the voting going on McCarthy are good guys/gals and there is a very little hope remaining for me.

Over the years I have dropped out of the political scene… I do not listen to the news nor take newspapers for the past 22 years..at least my blood pressure is low like 105/60.  

When Council On Foreign Relations former CIA Director George Bush Sr said “A New World Order”, which was 9/11/90. Note the date. I said to myself what kind of talk is that? Ironically 9/11/2001 ushered in great change and much loss to our personal freedoms and liberties aka the shredding of the Constitution the law of the land.

For me – it was when they went after Nixon. I knew they were out to get him. That is when I started to wake up. I woke up a little at a time from then. Next was Reagan, I knew the msm was out to get him. Then there was Bush the younger. I finally realized how bad things were when the deep state emerged from the closet with Trump – that is when I finally realized we were in serious trouble. From there I started watching closely the Ukraine war and that is when I started looking back to see how the industrial military complex has been pushing the USA into needless wars.

911 is my moment. Until then I only listened to sports radio. I also always watched junk on regular TV. 911 got my attention with the realization what Washington did or didn’t do DIRECTLY affected me and my family. I miss those days.
Since 911 my psyche has been bombarded daily with problems and concerns . The mounting of those concerns exhaust me but I cannot pull away . I have become involved. A good thing though not really enjoyed.
When I found the Treehouse, I found intelligence. Comments that made sense not just lambasted something (though always deserved.) Very enlightening., as was the Lords prayer. ( Repeated EVERY time I am on the site…daily)
I have found, in the Treehouse, people who are calm thinkers that are VERY informed. I really enjoy that.

My eye opening moments came early in the Obama presidency. I supported Busch in the Iraq war and was generally of a conservative mind set partially due to the early Trudeau years. I am one of the “lurkers” on this site even though I find it the most insightful blogs around. Fast and Furiace come to mind but it was more. The complete selling out of america by a sitting president was too much, yet I saw people swooning over him with ” a tingle going up their leg “. But it was trully president Trump that fully took my blinders off. He called out the news media for what they have become. Once you see the puppet strings you’ll never unsee them again. Sundance I want to give you my utmost thanks for your insight and spot on analysis. I can see the silos and the profound evil we have to fight. My most sincere gratitude.

I started taking notice back in the 70’s and we had to wait in gas lines. We could only get gas on certain days. It was crazy. Jimmy Carter was president and I have been a republican ever since.

Second tour in Iraq……My unit was one of the first into Baghdad…….we were welcomed as liberators. Second time back, everyone hated us. I started wondering why. Went down a rabbit hole that led to Woodrow Wilson and federal reserve act. Yeah, our country has been compromised that long IMHO.

’72-74. I was in the 5th grade in fall of ’72. My parents were Ivy league Republicans. My public school gymn teacher was a Democrat. I asked him about his upcoming vote.

“Nixon!”
“Aren’t you a democrat?”
“Yes. And Nixon is a crook.
But McGovern is an idiot. Idiots are much more dangerous than crooks. I have to vote for Nixon.”

I had already been reading history voraciously so this made sense.

Over the next two years I watched the country go mad over Watergate. Nixon won 49 states, and the establishment ran him out of office within 21 months.

Over BS that both parties had been doing to each other for generations.

[Victor Lasky: IT DIDN’T START WITH WATERGATE]

Then Democrats flushed flushed SE Asia AFTER Nixon had disengaged from it and was holding the line without American troops.

It was a long time after that I realized that Republicans were as corrupt as Democrats.

I was managing a political campaign for state delegate in Virginia and had occasion to do deep opposition research on my candidate’s opponent in the general election. I discovered that the two political parties in Fairfax County Virginia were hand in glove in corruption. [The tipoff for me was in 25 years of county board votes on zoning exceptions, property transfers from public to private hands and ridiculous bonds for uneconomic land and building purchases and leases.]They postured toward their bases and cooperated to loot the public. Almost every republican I had worked for over the last 15 years was a verifiable crook. None would be prosecuted because the apparatus to do that was controlled by the bipartisan machine.

Anybody honest making headway, however, was likely to be framed with scandal and prosecuted if necessary.

I got out of politics and started selling more honest products.

When Glenn Beck put up the whiteboard and started linking all the oblowme characters from the 1960’s that were now part of his social circle and even part of his campaign team and then cabinet.

The red phone on his desk connected to the Whitehouse and him mockingly telling them to “call him” was gutty too.

My awakening started in 1990. That’s when I first listened to talk radio and when I first heard of Rush Limbaugh. He started my journey. I’d say there have been many evolutions in each decade. At the time I lived in MN (had lived there all my life and was in my late 30’s at this time). There was a new local talk show host who was conservative by the name of Jason Lewis. He was a big tax guy and lord knows that MN loves to tax their citizens. I attended my first anti-tax rally in the mid 90’s. The funniest thing was my picture ended up on the front page of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. I didn’t get the paper but some in my family did. They were horrified. I thought it was hilarious. In the 2000 primary I was a Pat Buchanan supporter and plugged my nose and voted for GW.

By 2000 I had decided I had to get out of the state because of the hopeless GOP there and knew it was doomed. In 2005 I moved to TN. I joined the Republican Women of Williamson County and learned a lot from some of the older gals in the group. This is where I really got a good education in how the GOPe works. I was against the war in Iraq but was a huge supporter of the troops. My friends and I even attended CPAC in 2009, sat in an auditorium for like 7 hours to save a seat to be able to see Rush talk.

In 2009/2010 I joined the Tea Party in TN and went to many rallies. I saw how much the GOPe leadership and most GOP politicians hated the grassroots. I got involved in local/state politics. We gave TN a supermajority GOP and they are such a disappointment.

My journey to 2020 has ended with me not trusting anything coming out of our government. I believe the CIA/FBI/DOJ is behind almost every tragedy we have seen on a national stage. I believe that the CIA was behind 911, they recruited and paid the Jihadists who flew the planes. I believe the CIA has murdered JFK, RFK, MLK, and so many others. I’ve lost confidence in the military and the healthcare profession. I think that almost every agency in the federal government should be eliminated. They are all worthless and add nothing to our country except for authoritarian dictates.

I still believe that Pat Buchanan had it right with God, culture and borders.

This is a fascinating thread. Thank you Sundance

Well in high school 91 92 I started listening to Rush open phone Friday in a study hall.
I thought Bush was selling out the country doing those trade deals. Ross Perot was against the trade deals and NAFTA.
But in my first ever president vote I voted for Clinton. He stopped in my home town and promised to stop the hazardous waste incendiary plant.
Well within the first year he approved it and passed NAFTA.
So I didn’t pay attention to politics very much if something big was happening i would try and catch Rush on a Friday. I didn’t listen any other time.
In college I took a business class called service marketing. The theory was that we were evolving into a service economy leaving industry behind.
That didn’t sit right why would you want to send industry to other countries when that made us into a superpower and won wwii ?

Looked around Ron Paul made sense but lost primary so back to sell outs and lying democrats. That was his second run I think.

Never really paid attention again until Micheal Moore you tube video Trumpland.

I watched this and a light totally switched. I was agreeing with Moore all the way up until because of this Hillary was a better candidate? Wait what how did you get there?

Is Trump the Ross Perot Ron Paul that could win?

I started looking and found Trump Phil dounghu interview. My god this guy is real! He is saying same thing as in the 90’s. So I started reading everything i could. Then I came across Sundance article on mainstreet s Wall Street. And I been hooked ever since.

When my youngest brother told me to start to follow CTH in 2015.

My epiphany that everything was fake was during the Clinton Impeachment when we learned from the MSM that it was all about sex so it was OK to commit perjury, not about committing the proven crime of committing perjury.

Sundance woke me up in 2015. The Uniparty explanation really hit home with me. It was eye opening when I realized all DC politics was really the Harlem Globetrotters vs the Washington Generals. Everything is rigged, just a show for the people. That realization changed everything for me. I see it now as Team Government & Team Media vs We the People. I no longer believe there are democrats and republicans fighting to better our country, there is only Team Government fighting to rig elections and stay in power.

Self indictment:
How many countries has the US either invaded or plotted coups in my lifetime. And during my lifetime I believed every action she took was for the ‘good’ of others. Spreading democracy across the world.
I had idolized my country and put on pedestals those who served her. I looked at many of the things/people already listed in the comments as ‘one-offs’.  

Incidents accumulated over decades but I still thought there was a basic patriotic American goodness in the majority of the people who called the shots as well as in the goals of the institutions that govern us.

I listened to Rush daily when I began working from home around 2010. He acknowledged the rottenness all around while still being hopeful in America’s future. I believed ‘American Exceptionalism’ would win out. Good over evil.  

Like puzzle pieces coming together the final piece: the destruction of the Nordstream Pipeline has done it. It hit me HARD and caused me to flash back to every ‘one-off’ I can remember. I believe America did destroy the pipeline. I believe my country truly has committed terror(s) across the world (and carried out a coup against her own people).  

I am ashamed of what has been going on for so long and mostly ashamed of myself. Idol worship is wrong and I worshiped my country. She was above reproach and I’d fight people who dissed her.
I praise God for showing me that He is the only One to worship and fully trust. (goodness it took a long time to tear down that idol)

My father’s side of the family all served going back to Civil War and Revolutionary. America the Great is in my blood but her institutions of authority and learned wisdom have only the strength of weak and sinful human nature. I have been praying for people to open their hearts to God. I still love my homeland America, it’s the best in this world. I just see her differently now.

There were two key moments for me.

After the Iraqi invasion, America captured a bunch of Iranian special forces troops setting the IEDs that maimed and killed so many of our people. A simple look at a map of the Middle East showed we had Iran strategically enveloped. Surely the main goal of The War on Terror was taking out the terror masters of Tehran? Instead, George W. Bush let them go. The only sensible explanation is that Iran already had nuclear weapons.

The second moment came during the debt ceiling fight during the Obama administration. Despite Obama spending trillions, the debt clock remained stalled. Our debt was no longer being purchased by the Chinese. I started keeping an eye on a Fed metric called Excess Reserves of Depository Institutions. Before the crisis, there were none—-the point of banking is after all to charge for lending money. Now there was 2 trillion sitting in bank reserves and 1.5 in corporate reserves. Where did it come from? Our banks and corporations buying US government debt. This is why the occasional multibillion dollar fines the feds would throw out to make headlines didn’t impact the company bottom-lines much. It was a shell game which allowed Obama to print as much money as he liked without inflation. Well, until that timebomb went off.

The Fed inexplicably stopped reporting it during the Trump years. And now the inflationary dam has burst.

In tribute to my late father, I recall him trying to explain that the government was at the root of most problems. At the time, I thought I knew better. Time has demonstrated he was correct. It was after his passing in 1990 that I began taking in Rush Limbaugh on TV. I had a good science/engineering/Christian background, among other topics as well as the law. In my profession, I sought out evidence, physical and circumstantial, and evaluated the veracity of thousands. Perhaps many more.
The key to my rebirth came on or about 09/11/2001. I had to investigate the fundamentals of the religion of peace. Our then President GW Bush said some good strong things and then walked them back, hence the ROP label from his words. I remember the image of him and the Saudi king walking side by side in Texas and the king allowed GW to touch the end of his pinky finger. All was not as portrayed.
With the advent of the internet and my usage of it, it became increasingly easier togather information from a variety of sources. At the begining of the Iraq War, CNN made some seeminglly good reports. I watched them decay over the next decade. Talk radio was king and Rush used to play all of the makor media outlets all saying the exact same thing over and over. It was comical, and yet very serious. I also took in Michael Savage, and Mark Levin, among some others. I did not always agree, but they brought another perspective, and they were right most of the time. I still get alot of info from the net, and even view a few Left wing sources. Bannons’ War Room, Real America’ Voice, OANN, NewsMax, and so forth have been excellent, along with a critical analysis seeking the truth.
Rush Limbaugh is why I first came to CTH. He mentioned it during one of his broadcasts. The rest as they say, is history.

A) 1990’s- Why push the flu shot on me since I’m so healthy? Never made sense.
B) Whoa, why won’t the school district give me an outline of their curriculum for grades K-4? Spidey sense alert!
C) Why didn’t GHWBush stand up to the oil companies? A disappointing administration.
D) No good explanation for SIDS, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Autism, and Roundup lawsuits.
E) 2000’s-Why are people who haven’t missed a payment losing their homes to the banks? This feels evil.

When I looked into Obama. What I found shook me awake.

Started with Ross Perot and was solidified when I watched the Branch Dividians at WACO burn alive in real time. From there, I knew it was all BS. Trump, for his flaws woke a lot of people up. I can have a normal conversation now that 10 years ago I would be looked at like I had 2 heads. Yes, they are trying to destroy our country to bring us into a New World Order. Now I can answer who “they” are. It’s the same people that ran the COVID scam all at once in all of the Western Nations at the same time. Find out who did that, and we know who they are.

Bill Clinton said he did not inhale. Truth lost it’s meaning.

1972 as a Republican pole watcher in Chicago.