Nope, it’s not the border crisis and millions of people unlawfully flowing into the United States.  Nope, it’s not the collapsing economy or massive inflation that crushing the working class.  Nope, it’s not the skyrocketing cost of fuel, energy, oil and gasoline as the direct result of catastrophic energy policy….

…”Providing assistance for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians, that’s the #1 priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans.  That’s sort of how we see the challenges confronting the country at the moment.”… 

Those are the direct words of Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell.  WATCH:

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Tell me again how the Republican party is salvageable?

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Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee used an arcane law, well over 100 years old that permits the Chairman Committee, Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.), to review the personal tax filings of any American, in order to obtain Donald Trump’s personal tax filings from the IRS.

However, even in the hands of the committee, strict privacy laws still applied to the tax filings unless the committee interceded and voted to make them public.  That’s exactly what the Democrats in the committee did today with a party-line vote.

The Democrats have set a new precedent in congress for any party in power to demand the tax filings of any individual American and then release them to the public.  When the Republicans take control of the committee in January 2023, will they demand the Tax returns of Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden, or Mark Zuckerberg, or Chuck Schumer, or Jeffrey Epstein, or Nancy & Paul Pelosi and then make them public?

WASHINGTON DC – House Democrats said they will release several years worth of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns in the coming days after a party-line vote Tuesday night to make the long-hidden filings public.

Lawmakers said it would take some time to first redact sensitive information from the documents, such as Trump’s Social Security number and address.

[…] Neal had sued for the filings under an arcane law allowing the heads of Congress’s tax committees to examine anyone’s returns.

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One might think the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act would be constructed in such a manner as to help Americans by reducing inflation.  However, not only does the Inflation Reduction Act not help reduce inflation, but the climate change bill carrying the name The Inflation Reduction Act is now the cause for complaints by Europe and Asia because the falsely named spending bill doesn’t help their economy.

The issue stems from the part of the climate change bill that provides a $7,5000 federal tax credit for electric vehicles.  As the bill was written the vehicles needed to be assembled in the USA with battery components mostly sourced from the U.S.A.   Europe and Asian automakers are not happy because they want their vehicles, made in Europe and Asia to benefit from the tax credit.

Of course, the first thing Joe Biden does is tell Europe and Asia he will modify the rules to permit vehicles made outside the USA to benefit.  The exact opposite of the intended construct of the bill in the first place.

But,… that’s multinational corporate globalism in action.

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration on Monday delayed proposing detailed rules for new tax incentives for electric vehicles, following strong pushback from European and Asian allies that the subsidy program discriminated against their companies.

The Treasury Department said details on the battery-sourcing requirements that electric vehicles must meet to qualify for up to $7,500 in tax credit will be released in March, instead of by the end of this year as earlier planned.

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Picking up checks from congress along with some supplemental Christmas shopping likely a high priority.  Because, why not.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be in Washington DC on Wednesday to deliver a speech to a joint session of congress and visit with Joe Biden at the White House.

WASHINGTON DC – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine intends to make a surprise visit to Washington on Wednesday, the first time the leader has left his war-torn country since Russia invaded 10 months ago.

Zelenskyy’s plans to address a joint session of Congress and at the White House as the Biden administration plans to announce the delivery of a Patriot missile battle system to help Ukraine with its air defenses, according to two people familiar with the plans but not authorized to publicly discuss them because of security concerns.

The trip is not certain to happen, the people cautioned. Zelenskyy was still in Ukraine on Tuesday evening, and there are concerns about his ability to leave his country and then return again.

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In addition to confirming more of the basic construct behind Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop, Twitter File Release #8 also reveals that Twitter officers are carefully curating information to protect their interests.  When information is curated to protect political interests, it puts a question mark behind all prior releases.

In release #8, the basic outline is showing how the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and U.S. State Department (DoS) work with the social media platforms to amplify messaging and create specifically anonymous government accounts intended to spread propaganda globally. [Twitter File Release #8 Here]  The government then asks the platform engineering side to boost the messaging of the government accounts and use the internal tools to promote government users.  Essentially, social media propaganda.

The United States intelligence apparatus was/is actively using and working with the Twitter platform to align with U.S. government interests.  The govt was coordinating, instructing, assisting and benefitting from the relationship.  Pro govt positions were amplified, and information adverse to the interests of the Pentagon and State Dept was removed, hidden, throttled.

Unfortunately, as admitted by Twitter File #8 Author Lee Fang, a writer for The intercept, “The searches were carried out by a Twitter attorney, so what I saw could be limited.” There is no ‘could be‘ in that statement.  The searches were limited, specifically time limited putting all of the scrutiny on the timeline when Donald Trump was in office.

CTH has no vested interest in this pretending nonsense.  We all know, hell, its public record, the use of Twitter and Facebook as a tool to advance U.S. foreign policy began during the Obama administration.  There are dozens of mainstream press accounts of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton reaching out to Twitter and Facebook for support during the ’11/’12 Arab Spring.   This is not controversial, it happened.

However, the current release uses a carefully applied time filter only showing DoD and DoS use of the platform (to assist foreign policy) starting in 2017, when President Trump took office.  This is intentional.  The origin of the practice starts with Barack Obama.

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In order to present an accurate record of events, it is important to remain focused on specifics.  During the period from May, 2017, through April of 2019, Main Justice in Washington DC was split into two divisions.

In one division there was the Special Counsel Robert Mueller team in control of everything related to DOJ and FBI activity around the 2016 election, with emphasis on the Trump-Russia headlines.  This division handled 100% of everything that was sucking up the oxygen in Washington DC.  Andrew Weissmann was in charge of this division.

In the second division, there was everything else the DOJ was doing, which is to say not much. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was heading this division.

The liaison between both divisions was Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who generally didn’t know what was going on inside the Mueller/Weissmann operation; but, as he later testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee [June 2020 link], Rosenstein had the job of signing off and authorizing everything Weissmann et al were doing.  Rosenstein authorized every request and not a single ‘ask’ from the Mueller team was ever denied – including expanding the scope of the Mueller investigation, twice.

Why does this matter?  It matters because everything happening in Main Justice from May ’17 to April ’19, activity that was grabbing every scintilla of media attention, was being done by the Mueller/Weissmann team.  Key word ‘everything.’

There was not a single action from Main Justice that was not controlled by Andrew Weissman and company.  This action includes the recent revelations of staff and congressional members from the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) having subpoenas for their private emails, phone records, text message and communication.

Andrew Weissmann sent over 2,800 subpoenas for records [See 156-Pages of Examples Here].  Some of those subpoenas were sent to various telecommunications and social media platforms so they could monitor what congress was doing.

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Eight of the ten claims made by Arizona gubernatorial Kari Lake were dismissed by the state judge.  The claims dismissed were for violations of freedom of speech, invalid signatures on mail-in ballots, equal protection, due process, secrecy clause, incorrect certification, inadequate remedy, and constitutional rights claims.

However, two claims were approved for trial, fraudulent tabulator configurations and violations pertaining to chain of custody for ballots.  Mrs. Lake faces a steep hill to climb as the election results were certified as accurate and correct by county and state officials.  Lake will have to prove any tabulation errors or ballot custody issues were the result of intentional wrongdoing by Maricopa County officials.

ARIZONA – Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is heading to trial after a judge allowed two out of 10 of her election lawsuit claims to move forward Monday.

Lake had brought forward a civil complaint earlier this month to overturn her 2022 midterm election loss against Democrat Katie Hobbs. Judge Peter Thompson decided that two claims, one regarding her allegations about illegal tabulator configurations and the other about violations pertaining to ballot chain of custody, can move forward.

“Our Election Case is going to trial. Katie Hobbs attempt to have our case thrown out FAILED. She will have to take the stand & testify. Buckle up, America. This is far from over,” Lake beamed on Twitter.

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The timing of stuff and the context of the historic reference points matter when looking at any story involving the DOJ.  Failing to understand the background context leads to mistaken impressions, false assumptions, corrupt hidden actors getting away with prior misconduct and generally flawed analysis.  That is the accurate takeaway from a story that seems to have gained attention amid the professionally republican class of punditry.

Here at CTH we have dropped the pretending, focus on the evidence and call the baby ugly when warranted.

Today’s outrage du jour surrounds Kash Patel sharing documents with John Solomon about a subpoena dated November 20, 2017, targeting investigative staff from the House Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  [Article Here] Dates matter. Redactions matter.

[Document Source]

Who redacted this document?…  Kash Patel?  John Solomon? or the DOJ?  It matters.

In November of 2017, everything related to the Trump-Russia operation was being handled at the Dept of Justice by lead DOJ Special Counsel official Andrew Weissmann under the auspices of what is commonly called the Mueller probe or ‘Mueller investigation‘.  On November 20, 2017, the main focus of Weissmann was the guilty plea of Michael Flynn which was at its apex and was later signed November 30, 2017.

The public battle on Capitol Hill November 2017, was between HPSCI and Main Justice.  Nunes -vs- Schiff -vs- FBI -vs- Main Justice -vs- White House -vs- Special Counsel.  Each entity competing for the public and political narrative.

In his later (June 2020) Senate testimony, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein testified that Weissmann/Mueller were in charge of everything at Main Justice and he was used as a go-between liaison between congress, the White House and the DOJ.  Rosenstein gave Weissmann/Mueller full autonomy, full authority, and never once questioned a request from them.  Put simply, Rosenstein said Mueller and Weissmann called every shot in the DOJ that had anything even remotely associated with Trump-Russia, which was essentially everything at Main Justice for two years.

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Twitter file release #7 comes from Michael Shellenberger and focuses on how the FBI specifically engaged with Twitter before, during and after the Hunter Biden Laptop story surfaced.  [RELEASE HERE]

There are some interesting facets to the Shellenberger outline including his naming of the communications method, “Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter, ” and Shellenberger’s identification of payments from the FBI to Twitter in order to cover the expenses related to the censorship they requested.

As Shellenberger notes on paragraph 46, “The FBI’s influence campaign may have been helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for its staff time. “I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021.”

[Twitter File #7 Release Here]

Overall, the Twitter file 7 release shows the FBI being well aware of the Hunter Biden laptop issue long before the fall of 2020 and taking specific action to mitigate any potential damage to the Biden campaign.   The FBI was aware of the laptop in December of 2019, and the engagements with the social media platform were transparently proactive measures with political intentions.

The story weaves in and out of Washington DC and transfers the action items from DC to the San Francisco field office of the FBI where Elvis Chan was in charge of coordinating control over the content of the Twitter platform.

Factually, a solid argument could be made that this specific release shows how the FBI Russiagate effort against Trump needed to exit Washington DC following the 2016 election, and so the majority of FBI’s anti-Trump activity for 2020 shifted to San Francisco.

Washington DC DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community efforts focused on protecting itself from discovery of their activity in 2015 and 2016, while San Francisco became the headquarters for FBI anti-Trump efforts targeting 2020.  This location shift aligns with the datapoint of Russiagate FBI Agent Joseph Pientka transferring from DC to San Francisco; with Elvis Chan taking the place of Pientka as the targeting focused on social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, etc).

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I have written so much about this dynamic, at this point it seems like I am continuing to repeat myself.  However, against the formal declaration of President Trump being labeled as an official “enemy of the state,” perhaps it’s worth a refresh.

The entire reason why CTH supported Donald J Trump in 2015 and forward was because he was a disruption to the DC system that few understood as deeply as an assembled bunch of politically homeless people right here on these pages and across America.  Since that original moment, Trump’s presence has done exactly what we always knew it would do, EXPOSE THE CORRUPTION.

Trump is the Rosetta Stone, the physical embodiment of a massive unrepresented middle-class assembly that despises Washington DC and the corrupt political establishment they represent.  Republicans and Democrats are two wings of the same vulture feeding on the carcass of the American worker, or what the FBI calls “domestic extremists,” people who just want to be left-the-f**k alone.

After I originally outlined my support for President Trump, along with the specific hope he would show up at the first GOP debate wearing a Carmen Miranda hat and start twerking on the podium of Jeb Bush, someone from the Trump campaign (don’t remember who, nor care to) wrote an email asking something about why the severity of that position. I never responded because, well, CTH never responds.

This site assembly is a rag tag bunch of political misfits existing in the corner of the internet space. A foxhole away from the chaotic stupidity of a corrupt political system we are told to regard as something special. Pro tip: it ain’t.

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