This is the big one.  The Economic Policy is the distinct and singular policy at the core of Make America Great Again.  The MAGA coalition is centered around the principles of America First economics, and Ron DeSantis has just admitted he does not support them.

CTH has long warned about Ron DeSantis’ economic policy being driven by the donors who fund him.  When he was in congress, DeSantis voted in support of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) for President Obama, and DeSantis voted in support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement (TPP).

These are the trade policies supported by the Club for Growth who was congressman DeSantis’ biggest funder.  The Club for Growth also held the pre-announcement donor fundraiser in February of this year in support of DeSantis ’24.

The Wall Street billionaire, hedge fund, multinational corporate alliance, that assembles at Sea Island and funds Ron DeSantis, are fully against America First trade and economic policies.  DeSantis has just made an admission of his alignment with that corporate “globalist” outlook to a private confab of donors in California.

The DeSantis campaign is in full panic and retreat mode now that his establishment position is exposed.  The statements during the secret meeting were leaked.

[CALIFORNIA] […] The Republican snuck in and out of the Coalinga landmark undetected by the public nor the media, by design. He flew in and out of the nearby Coalinga airport, ushered to the back loading docks by unmarked Fresno County Sheriff’s vehicles.

The Central Valley lunch stop for 60 donors — paying $3,300 — was in between a breakfast event in Sacramento, and an evening in southern California.  The only indication that something special was going on was a “private event” sign. Most of the questions for the security guard related to the location of the restrooms.

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GBNews has made some changes to their content distribution; changes that appear specifically intended to diminish the voice of GBNews pundit Neil Oliver. The network still puts Oliver on their YouTube Channel, but for the past month+ they have removed his content from their website page. As a result, the transcripts are now very difficult to locate – if at all.

Neil Oliver does a great monologue this week, generally following the arc of our current situation as constructed by a network of political elites. Oliver takes the continuum to its logical conclusion and then asks, what then? The political people and corporate institutions, those protecting themselves inside compounds and behind walls, cannot self-sustain. What happens when they need the proles they have diminished? WATCH:

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I don’t know how early you guys want me to start breaking down the 2024 GOPe roadmap (Sea Island meeting stuff).  It’s still early in the entire nomination process, and there’s still some stuff that needs to trigger; but here’s the general Establishment map that is awaiting some detail fillers:

♦ In Iowa the SEA ISLAND DeSantis crew have funded and planted Asa Hutchinson and Mike Pence to camp out.  They are supported by Governor Kim Reynolds.  The goal is to use the Jeff Roe Cruz Crew, and roughly 1,000 paid Never Back Down (NBD) conscripts to do the Astroturf.

♦In New Hampshire they have funded Chris Sununu Inc (his state machine) along with Chris Christie, and the pair will camp out similar to Asa and Mike in Iowa.  Another roughly 500 to 1,000 NBD conscripts.

♦In South Carolina they do not have the Governor (McMaster) but they have funded Nikki Haley and Tim Scott.  Yes, they are doing pairs this time because the singles didn’t work in 2016.  The NBD conscripts will shift from Iowa to South Carolina along with the calendar.  Not as much state party purchase, so look for Haley and Scott to do something like endorse DeSantis during the SC debate.  The Bush machinery is thick in SC.

♦ In Nevada team DeSantis is following the RGA plan and will be going there soon to spend quite a bit of time and make the necessary funding and political promises.  Watch who endorses from there; it’s a caucus system so the RGA will drive the buss.  The NBD conscripts will come in as supportive filler to do the groundwork.

♦In Florida the SEA ISLAND crews are funding and deploying Suarez (launched today) along with never-Trump Jeanette Nuñez partnered with Team Jeb and the party apparatus.  However, the legislative assembly is in a little bit of a flux, as many of the members are not happy with being forced to do the legislative roadmap in order to get DeFunding.  House and Senate not happy with the pressure, and RdS has abandoned them now, so that might be problematic.

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Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is locked in a contract dispute with his former network who took him off the air, but continues to enforce the contract he signed with them.  As the contract battle wages, and while litigation with the network continues, Carlson is limited in his options for platform broadcast.

As a result, Tucker Carlson’s personal Twitter account which existed prior to his Fox contract and is not subject to the terms and agreements, remains an outlet for him to use while not violating his non-compete clause.  Almost all other platforms represent what would be considered online competition to Fox Digital, so broadcasting a new show on any of those digital platforms would represent a potential legal issue and not an option. {Direct Rumble Link}

Tonight, Tucker Carlson aired a 10-minute monologue, what he calls “episode 1” from his Twitter account. While Tucker does not financially benefit from the Twitter platform, for the social media owner Elon Musk the broadcast represents much needed content oxygen. Tucker states at the end of his monologue that if Twitter suppresses or uses their internal fact-check mechanism known as ‘Community Notes‘ to control his content, he will exit the platform. WATCH: 

(Reuters) […] Ukraine and Russia blame each other for the collapse of the massive dam on Tuesday, which sent floodwaters across a swathe of the war zone and forced thousands to flee.  Ukraine said Russia committed a deliberate war crime in blowing up the Soviet-era Nova Kakhovka dam, which powered a hydroelectric station. The Kremlin blamed Ukraine, saying it was trying to distract from the launch of a major counteroffensive Moscow says is faltering. (more)

Elon Musk, who not coincidentally entered an ideological alignment with Fox News CEO Rupert Murdoch on behalf of Ron DeSantis, has a vested financial interest in making sure his Community Notes police do not attach warnings and citations to the “controversial” dialogue of Carlson.  While there appears to be an ongoing CN notes war in the background, so far the Musk administrators have been able to keep the platform control agents from impeding the broadcast.

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The New York Times has gained insider information on the current advertising revenue for the social media platform Twitter. [Article Here]  Ignoring the nonsense narrative engineering and just focusing on the data itself, the revenue side for Twitter is half what we previously estimated.  This makes the overlay for decisions on platform content even more stark.

According to the data, ad revenue for the month of April was a lackluster $88 million.  That’s a pace of just over $1 billion a year.  With a pre-Musk operating expense of $4.5 billion, and pre-Musk revenue at $4 billion cited by the Twitter owner as the backdrop, here’s the outlook.

Assuming post Musk labor cost reductions saved $500 million, a decline in revenue to $1 billion/yr would be a $3.0 billion deficit, to wit you would need to add the $1.5 billion in debt service as part of the investor buyout structure.

That puts Twitter into a $4.5 billion loss ballpark per year.

This is the high end of what Musk previously estimated in public statements.  Now we see why.

(New York Times) – Twitter’s U.S. advertising revenue for the five weeks from April 1 to the first week of May was $88 million, down 59 percent from a year earlier, according to an internal presentation obtained by The New York Times.  (read more)

$1 billion per year in advertising revenue is a whopping 75% loss from the claimed $4 billion in revenue before the Musk purchase.  Perhaps the Fidelity estimate of company value at $15 billion is closer to reality.

If the value of Twitter has dropped to the $15 billion level, that means almost all of the $30 billion in personal equity Musk put into the company has been lost.

Current investor debt is $12.5 billion, with $1.5 billion in debt service/yr. A valuation of $15 billion would only leave Musk with around $2.5 billion in equity position.  If the valuation is accurate, Musk personally would have lost around $27.5 billion in this Twitter platform purchase.

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Former DeSantis Press Secretary Christina Pushaw came directly to the Florida Governor’s office after working in Ukraine on behalf of Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  There is a clear commonality of interest in the actions of Pushaw both in Ukraine and in Florida.

Once the national DeSantis operation was fully constructed and funded, in August 2022 Pushaw left the governor’s office to assemble and coordinate the previously solicited social media influencers for the 2024 operation.

After organizing the operatives, Pushaw is now spearheading a U.S. online influence campaign.

In essence, a registered foreign agent is now working on the social media platform Twitter to construct disinformation on behalf of Ron DeSantis. Elon Musk is apparently a partner in the effort, as the details of the operation begin to surface.

Their intelligence community method is to use operatives within Twitter “community notes” to control any negative opinion of DeSantis.  If anything is identified that undermines the DeSantis operation, Pushaw triggers a specific account “@NoteNeeded” which contains embed operatives who swarm to her commands and affix labels to Tweets designated as harmful to the interests of the DeSantis regime.

The DeSantis election influence operation is similar to what the U.S. State Dept (Nuland) and USAID (S Power) do in foreign countries; only in this example, Ms. Pushaw is working to influence domestic U.S. politics through the social media platform Twitter.

The various accounts all carry the same alligator emoji as an identifying characteristic. Here’s an example of the operation at work, as well as an explanation from Twitter that just doesn’t reconcile with the claims.

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People often ask me why I seem to highlight datapoints and background events that do not trend to the media-driven narrative priority of the moment.  The answer is simple; everything is connected to the next thing that happens. If you do not outline the originating point, the accurate reference is missed when needed.

This approach is why I have focused significant research on Elon Musk’s financial situation with Twitter {GO DEEP}.

The issue of Twitter’s financial status speaks to the motives of Musk that later surface – like his relationship with Fox News billionaire Rupert Murdoch.  Once you see the connections, suddenly everything makes sense.  Musk and Murdoch have intersecting interests.

Elon Musk is in desperate need of revenue for his social media platform Twitter.  By his own admissions, Twitter is currently in the red on an annual basis between $1.5 to $4.0 billion; that may go as high as $5 billion, depending on what happens over the next six months.  Currently losing $100 million/mo, Musk is limited on how much he can pull from his other companies to support Twitter, and with $1.5 billion in debt service alone on the $12.5 billion borrowed for the Twitter purchase, Musk needs an income stream quickly.

Advertising revenue has dropped 50%. This is the motive for Musk to hire Linda Jaccarino, the former head of NBC Universal advertising, to bring urgently needed revenue to a platform currently considered too extreme for the DEI-minded corporate advertising executives.  Musk is also captive to contracts with Bezos’ Amazon (AWS) and Google cloud services for platform data processing support.  Those very expensive contracts – $1 billion and $2 billion respectively – do not expire until 2025.

In short, Musk needs revenue. For Twitter, this reality drives his decision-making.  Enter, Rupert Murdoch.

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Boy, is there ever a loaded dump truck of potential discussion points in this subject area.

First, Google via YouTube is reversing its position and allowing content that challenges the results of the 2020 election.

[Per Axios] “In a reversal of its election integrity policy, YouTube will leave up content that says fraud, errors or glitches occurred in the 2020 presidential election and other U.S. elections, the company confirmed to Axios Friday.”

After removing “tens of thousands of videos” (their admission) previously containing content that challenged the 2020 election results, suddenly that conversation is permitted.

“Two years, tens of thousands of video removals, and one election cycle later, we recognized it was time to reevaluate the effects of this policy in today’s changed landscape,” YouTube said in a statement.

So, according to the script, the “threat to democracy” has suddenly diminished as the 2024 election cycle starts to become a topic of increased discussion? Yeah, right.

I read this Google change two ways: (1) This reads like a “mission accomplished and we don’t need this anymore” kind of policy switch; and (2) There’s that probability of Donald Trump winning the 2024 election and they need to be able to question election results again.

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Twitter CEO Elon Musk has provided some convincing commentary about his willingness to forgo revenue in order to retain “free speech.” However, more recently he has qualified that outlook by saying, “Freedom of speech is not the same as freedom of reach.”  Musk noting Twitter will block, remove, censor, shadow ban, deboost, downrank and stop content from amplifying based on the determination of those in charge of Twitter content.

This controlled “freedom of reach” perspective, which is really shadow-banning in practice, is generally accepted and now admitted.  Against this backdrop, it becomes important to understand the priorities of the platform to understand the guidelines of the platform.  Within this context the financials are key to understanding what elements are included within “approved content.” {GO DEEP}

Twitter is now a private company, therefore understanding the financials of Twitter is a little more challenging than when they were required to post their financial statements publicly.  However, Elon Musk gave an interview with the Babylon Bee yesterday and revealed some of the internal financial challenges. [VIDEO HERE]  I am going to summarize the status of the Twitter financial position according to what Musk himself revealed.

♦ Twitter was initially purchased by Musk and his investors for around $44 billion.  The company now estimates its value around $20 billion.  Musk overpaid.

♦ Musk put roughly $30 billions of his own net worth into the purchase and financed the rest.

♦ Current outstanding debt on the financing for the purchase is around $12.5 billion. Per Musk statement.

♦ Current debt service, interest on the loans (from investors), is roughly $1.5 billion/yr.  $120.5 million per month for debt service.  Per Musk statement.

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Everything I have outlined about Twitter is going to surface as accurate over time.  There are two major elements: (1) DHS govt influence, now evidenced in the Twitter Files, and (2) the Twitter financial issues, which explain the recent hiring of Linda Yaccarino, which are soon to surface.

Yesterday, Elon Musk responded to criticism of Twitter censorship, vis-a-vis government demands, with this Tweet: “Please point out where we had an actual choice and we will reverse it.”

The Musk supporters are saying Musk has to comply with government demands if their national laws require it. However, that angle doesn’t take into consideration the choice that Musk/Twitter always have.

If the platform content is not approved by a government, and that govt then demands removal or censorship of that content, Twitter always has two options. One, to comply with the demand and block or restrict the user content (which is the direction they have taken) – or two, stop allowing the platform to operate in the country demanding the censorship. It is the latter option that everyone always avoids mentioning.

However, the issue appears to be bigger and goes to the heart of the second aspect of Twitter we have noted.

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