Today is the primary voting day in Idaho, Kentucky, North Carolina, Oregon, & Pennsylvania. Results will begin coming out tonight. Consider this an open discussion and results thread (will remain atop site throughout).
Polls close in Kentucky at 6:00pm (EDT) / 7:00pm for counties using Central time, North Carolina at 7:30pm (EDT), Pennsylvania at 8:00 pm (EDT), Idaho at 8:00 p.m. (MDT) / 9:00pm for counties using Pacific time, and finally Oregon at 8 pm (PDT) Oregon primary is mostly by mail.
The most watched race tonight will likely be the republican Pennsylvania Senate primary race between Kathy Barnette, David McCormick and Mehmet Oz. Pennsylvania polls close at 8:00pm EST.
The republican primary race in Pennsylvania is essentially a three-way tie going in to voting day tomorrow. All three of the top candidates are carrying approximately 25 percent of the vote with around 15 percent still undecided. It really is anyone’s race.
President Trump has sent robocalls into Pennsylvania to support Mehmet Oz as a last-minute effort to push his endorsement over the line. “I’ve just spent a lot of time with him. I did endorse him, and the reason is he’s tough, he’s smart and he really loves our country and he wants to do a great job for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
Fox News Sean Hannity also hosted Mehmet Oz on his evening broadcast to deliver his closing arguments, while Fox News Laura Ingraham provided the same opportunity for David McCormick. In the counterbalancing effort, Steve Bannon hosted Kathy Barnette for an interview Monday providing her the opportunity to speak to the Bannon audience.
The wild aspect to this race is the still high number of undecided voters as the final hours count down. McCormick representing the party candidate, with both Oz and Barnette splitting the MAGA base. Pennsylvania undecideds have a tough decision.
Mehmet Oz is not trusted by the base despite President Trump’s endorsement. Kathy Barnette is the landing place for many base voters who do not want to support the establishment McCormick and cannot bring themselves to vote for Oz. However, democrats and left-wing media are already showing their intent to weaponize Barnette’s attendance at the J6 rally in Washington DC, if she should win the primary {Video Here}.
A senior engineer working for the Twitter social media platform is captured on undercover video explaining the culture and ideology of the people who work within the organization.
In the video Twitter Sr. Engineer, Siru Murugesan, a self-described communist, explains why most of his colleagues are freaked out about Twitter being purchased by Elon Musk and operating as a capitalistic company. Many might have to work more than 4 hours a week to earn their salary. WATCH:
[NEW YORK – May 16, 2022] Project Veritas published explosive undercover footage on Monday night featuring one of Twitter’s senior engineers discussing the dynamics behind internal reactions to the acquisition of the tech company by business magnate, Elon Musk.
In the video, Twitter Sr. Engineer, Siru Murugesan, says many of his colleagues have voiced “this would be my last day if it happens,” referring to Musk’s high publicized intended purchase of Twitter. He also says employees at Twitter are “stress-eating” and “worried for our jobs.”
More significant than those soundbites are the reasons he says employees at Twitter feel this way. (read more)
The ramifications for Twitter surrounding fake users or algorithmic bots are considerable. One issue is overcharging advertisers for ad impressions based on mDAU’s, which are “monetized Daily Active Users.” The second issue is an outcome of the first and relates to the valuation of Twitter. If Twitter bots are higher than Twitter estimates, then the mDAU rate is overstated.
Elon Musk is indicating there may need to be a lowering of the purchase price unless Twitter becomes transparent with how they are calculating the number of bot users at less than 5%. All outside reviews attempting to estimate the number of fake accounts, or bots, puts the estimations considerably higher than the claims by Twitter. Elon Musk tweeted:
At “The All In Summit 2022,” Elon Musk gave the impression the purchase price of Twitter may be tenuous. He said that a deal with a lower price tag is not “out of the question,” Bloomberg reported. “Currently, what I’m being told is that there’s just no way to know the number of bots… It’s like, as unknowable as the human soul,” Musk said at the Miami conference, per a social media video, Bloomberg added.
Pennsylvania Senate Candidate Kathy Barnette appeared on Fox News Sunday with Shannon Bream to answer questions about her prior positions, statements and current candidacy. Barnette has climbed in the polls and is in a tight race for the PA senate seat.
There has been an onslaught of criticism and critique in opposition to Kathy Barnette. Many political followers are concerned she might win the primary but then get crushed in the general election due to inflammatory statements in her past. This interview was a great opportunity for her to calm the nerves of republican primary voters and instill confidence. Unfortunately, Barnette did not do well in this interview. WATCH:
Shannon Bream was fair and gave Barnette plenty of time to explain her positions. Pennsylvania voters will need to make their own decisions. Trust your instincts; if you sense sketchy, it is likely because sketchy exists.
Fox News Maria Bartiromo interviewed Devin Nunes and Kash Patel ahead of the trial for Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann which begins tomorrow. The interview breaks down into two segments, the first segment outlines the discussion of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter. {Direct Rumble Link} WATCH, Part I
The issue of ‘bots’ operating on the Twitter platform is an interesting aspect when you consider the cost of platform operation.
On one hand, extensive auto-generated ‘bots’ would be an issue of cost and data-processing, a net negative. On the other hand, the use of bots would be a manipulative practice for the creation of false impressions to generate advertising revenue.
If the scale of data-processing was subsidized, an outcome of a network of data processing centers -clouds- linked to government resources, the bots would not be an issue for the operation. Despite the false impressions generated, bots would, however, under this weird situation, be useful for the manipulation of the conversation. At the root of Elon Musk’s line of inquiry is the need to discover if this suspicion is true.
NBC is promoting their contracted poll today [pdf HERE] around the lesser-important voting issue of abortion. However, before getting to the poll it is worth noting again who they contracted with. Inside the article you will note this sentence, “[…] who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.” If that name sounds familiar, that’s because it is the same ideologically aligned polling outfit who spent six months creating the ultra-MAGA branding campaign for Anita Dunn and the White House {link}.
The abortion polling is irrelevant to the issue of larger public opinions of the Biden administration. On abortion, 10% of polled respondents say they are single issue voters [respondents = 790 RV’s, (79 single issue)]. Out of 79 single issue voters, 22% list abortion as their top priority. So, out of 790 registered voters, 17 view abortion as their single issue to vote on. That’s the scale being overemphasized.
On the larger issues of voter priorities, the economy dominates with 40% responses. Additionally, the polling identifies 39 percent of Americans approving of President Biden’s job as president, versus 56 percent who say they disapprove. 75% say the country is heading in the wrong direction, and only 16% saying the country is on the right track. That’s the bigger headline. WATCH:
Appearing on Face the Nation (FtN) Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein discussed his views and perspectives on the economy overall and U.S. inflation specifically. Undoubtedly Blankfein has access to resources and analysis far beyond CTH scope; however, despite a statistically factual contracting GDP, Blankfein is claiming to see overall demand side inflation remaining in the macro economy.
Perhaps that view might still be true domestically on the service side (it certainly isn’t on the trade side), but demand driven inflation does not appear visible on the goods side of the economic ledger. What is clearly present as the price driver is “production side inflation,” the costs to create goods and bring them to market. If you look at economic activity in units instead of dollars, the units are contracting.
The demand for goods is now focused almost entirely on priority or essential purchases like housing, energy, fuel and food. The price for those essential products is driven by production costs, which are a direct outcome of the energy policy, environmental policy, regulatory policy, and to a lesser extent trade policy, of the Biden administration. Blankfein is pretending not to know things… WATCH:
Putting housing aside due to investment purchasing of real estate, if Blankfein was correct, and demand was still driving inflation, then a massive deflationary cycle would be coming as a result of lowered consumer purchasing of goods. There isn’t any chance we are going to see “deflation” in the next several years. [We will likely see housing prices collapse, but not consumer goods.]
Inflation is being driven by production costs, and there is no end in sight to the production cost increases as long as the crew behind Joe Biden keeps strangling the U.S. energy sector…. and then compounding the domestic price issue by creating incentives for energy exports (vis-a-vis EU sanctions). The production inflation is a purposefully inflicted wound on our economy. Production inflation is avoidable.
That interview is Wall Street gaslighting to a Main Street audience. I don’t like it one bit.
As we contemplate the massive $40 billion transfer of U.S. taxpayer funds to Ukraine, a few things need to be emphasized.
First, congress has decided to pay the salaries, benefits and pensions of Ukraine political officials and citizens. As U.S. citizens try and figure out how to afford housing, gasoline, food and basic goods, congress has decided to subsidize another country. That’s the first point.
Second, as to the pragmatic question of “to what end?” There was a critical point made last week by Defense Intel Agency (DIA) Director Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, that not a single media outlet or politician discussed. During his briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Berrier was asked “can Ukraine win” the conflict against Russia?
Lt. General Berrier replied: “That is a difficult predication to make. I think where the assessment is at, is a prolonged stalemate should no factor change on either side. In other words, the Russians continue to do what they’re doing, and we continue to do what we are doing for the Ukranians.” WATCH:
The Pentagon assessment is the best that can be achieved is a stalemate. Billions of billions of dollars being poured into Ukraine, and the most likely outcome is a stalemate. More people killed, an endless need for continued money to be poured into the ‘war’, and the best possible outcome is a stalemate.
So, riddle me this, why isn’t the U.S. policy position advocating for Zelenskyy and Putin to enter negotiations for a resolution?
What possible U.S. interest can be advanced, knowing the only outcome is a stalemate, where people are killed on either side and money spent on a proxy conflict that ends in loggerheads at some distant point months from now?
Also, why has no U.S. media outlet or pundit played the remarks and assessment from the Defense Intelligence Agency, so that the American people can understand the intent of U.S. policy?
Additionally, Judge Cooper and Michael Sussmann both worked in the DOJ together. When he was selected as judge in the Sussmann trial, Cooper revealed the potential conflict of interest in the event the Durham prosecution wanted him to recuse himself from the case. Special Prosecutor John Durham did not ask Judge Cooper to recuse himself.
September 2021 – The judge in the case of recently indicted Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann is married to the lawyer who represented a disgraced former FBI official that worked on the Donald Trump Russia probe that Sussmann played some role in advancing.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of the District of Columbia, who is presiding over the Sussmann case, is married to lawyer Amy Jeffress, who represented FBI lawyer Lisa Page in a civil case.
Cooper, an Obama-appointee, and Jeffress, a former top aide to Attorney General Eric Holder, are well connected in the Democratic party. Current Attorney General Merrick Garland even presided over their 1999 wedding. (read more)
