Theo Von Nails It

It was never Republicans vs Democrats, it was the war machine vs everyone:

Reaction to Trump's Speech

Interesting initial reaction, I'll check over the next few hours whether the markets react positively or negatively.

US Defeat?

The suggestion is that the US has used up its ordnance, especially its anti-missile defenses. That explains the sudden shift, from 'unconditional surrender' to now asking for diplomacy. Iran, for its part, seems to have more missiles and drones still. The drones are simple and cheap to make, and being made of balsa wood are very hard to detect with radar. 

Israel is vulnerable. They are small and present an easy target. Iran is not so vulnerable as they present a much larger target. I note that Iran's order of aerial attack is quite clever; to begin with they fired drones without warheads. Nevertheless, they had to be taken down at great expense. Then, gradually Iran ramped up, adding warheads to their drones, then increasing the size of warheads fired by missile. Thus, as Israel's defenses depleted, the weight delivered by Iran grew exponentially.

The uprising within Iran did not eventuate. There appears no groundswell of support for a revolution. 

The risk now is that the Persian Gulf may end up being Iran's lake. I read somewhere that the leaders of Kuwait and Bahrain have left their small principalities, with no immediate intention to return. It looks as if they know Iran has emerged the winner.

Trump at Davos 2026

Donald Trump will be speaking at Davos, Switzerland, this Wednesday. No doubt he'll put the cat among the pigeons, but this got me thinking; is Donald J Trump really in charge, and if not, who is running the US?

Consider December 3, 2019, the date Kamala Harris announced she was withdrawing from the 2020 presidential election. According to official figures, she raised more than $40 million toward her campaign. That's a lot of money, and easily enough to continue into the Democratic Party primaries held in 2020. Personally, I believe that date in 2019 is a signpost to the fix being in, Joe Biden was to be the next president, and the most likely challenger, Bernie Sanders, was derailed, marginalised, and dismissed at every turn. Despite that, Sanders did rather well in the primaries, winning the largest state, California. 

Then, with Joe Biden installed and his running mate announced, in the form of Kamala Harris no less, he campaigned from his basement and won a clearly rigged election to become the 46th President of the US. The following four years were chaotic, and it was clear that Joe Biden was not in charge. He couldn't be, as he was clearly suffering from dementia. 

Then, leading into the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump experienced several attempts on his life, one of which was nearly successful. This happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, and yet do you ever hear about this today? It is as if a cone of silence has descended over the issue; it is never to be discussed. However, Trump survived and became the 47th President. Is it clear that Donald J Trump is in charge? It isn't clear to me at all. Rather like Joe Biden, he appears to be managed too, with others making decisions on his behalf.

I'll cut to the chase: over the last few years, I believe we've been witnessing a power struggle between factions that actually run the US. The faction that now runs things was ultimately successful. What that means for the rest of the world is more disruption and change to the accepted rules. 

Donald Trump and Bubba?

Who is Bubba?

White House Ballroom

This is what the new White House ballroom will look like. What do you think, is it too big? 

(The ballroom about to be built following current demolition work is marked with a blue arrow)

Proposed White House Ballroom

Arrests Soon - Matt Taibbi

Matt Taibbi has proven to be a reliable reporter, and he says arrests are coming following the search warrant executed on John Bolton's house.

US Tariff Wall

I've been thinking about the effects resulting from the US wall of tariffs, and the following are the three most important points, in my opinion.

1. Wealth Transfer

Surely the brains in the White House must realise that industries such as garment and shoe manufacturing, shipbuilding, and even mid-size earthmoving equipment manufacturing are not going to be revived by the imposition of tariffs. The simple reasoning - who will work in these revived industries?

It just isn't going to happen.

The reason behind the tariffs must be something else; so how about wealth transfer? The peasants will pay higher prices resulting from the tariffs, and the Wall Street elites will carve off greater profits for themselves and receive windfalls from tax cuts and subsidies.

2. Competitors Benefit

With the US hiding behind a wall, competitors learn to change and diversify. Many suppliers to the US will have become complacent and will have just been doing business because of past practice or habit. Now, shaken from their slumber, they'll examine and reevaluate all supply arrangements and this may mean the US gets jettisoned. This would mean exporters not even bothering to price for US markets, and when it comes to their own inputs, not even bothering to give US companies a call. Likewise, governments may rewrite regulations to effectively shut out US products.

This process will make other countries leaner, more agile and ultimately move ahead of US operators.

3. Countries Trading Amongst One Another & De-Dollarization 

BRICS and other moves will accelerate whereby countries move away from using the US dollar as the default currency used to conduct trade. China has developed a system for direct country-to-country transactions, and this will gather pace. 

If we look at Brazil, they're the world's biggest beef exporter by far. Increasingly, they'll look for other countries to supply their equipment needs while continuing to export their protein worldwide. Also, China has moved away from buying Soy from the US, instead, they now prefer Brazil, Argentina and Australia. The tariff wall incentivises cutting out the US, in both the physical trade of goods and through the payments system.

Conclusion: The US leadership appear unaware of these effects or they don't care, as their own pockets will benefit.

Troubling times ahead indeed.

DOGE

Turns out that DOGE probably wasn't about spending cuts, as those cuts have been cancelled. What it may have been about is building a massive database for building a social credit system, basically monitoring and controlling everyone. 

It does make you wonder as US defense spending has increased. Where are the savings?

Trump, Vance, Zelenskyy and THAT Meeting

Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting the White House to meet Donald Trump and JD Vance. In the public segment while meeting with the media, question time turned into a cringeworthy free-for-all, with finger pointing, accusation and counter-accusation.

I never thought I'd live to see the day. Never before has such a thing been witnessed. We can imagine what is being said behind closed doors, but now we got to see it. 

I agree with Karl Rove, the only winner was Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin. He'll be laughing his tits off.

The way I see it; Trump and Vance displayed weakness. Allies will be concerned, they've had to deal with a leaderless Biden administration and now it appears the US is led by men unable to conduct themselves in a sober and measured manner.

White House Press Secretary - Karoline Leavitt

The new White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt did a good job on her first outing. Some may have missed what I believe was the most momentous event at the briefing. That was the unveiling of the new seats for independent journalists, podcasters, Vloggers, so long as they have news content. The first question of the day went to Mike Allen of Axios:

https://www.axios.com/authors/mikeallen

Then came Breitbart, the other independent:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/01/28/watch-live-trump-press-secretary-karoline-leavitt-holds-first-white-house-press-conference/

I don't even like Breitbart that much, but then I hate CNN, so is this a case of the lesser of two evils? I think this day will mark the start of the MSM's terminal decline. They're done, finito, they conspired to kill us all, and that will never be forgiven nor their betrayal forgotten.

Trump v Harris Electoral College Map

The race to the White House appears closer than many imagined. Below is a link to the RealClearPolitics Electoral College map:

https://www.realclearpolling.com/maps/president/2024/toss-up/electoral-college

You can select 'Create Your Own Map' and then play around based on your own assumptions and current polling. One interesting feature: you can select 'No Toss Ups' and by doing this you can see that Trump is ahead. However, if the result is close in those critical toss up states, then I say rigging comes into play and that may see Kamala Harris win the race.

I've speculated about why the 'powers-that-be' want Trump dead, and I still think it's because of his apparent instability. Trump's politics are not that out of step with those of the cabal running things, think Operation Warp Speed and Israel as examples.

Kamala Harris is not the left-wing person her critics claim, I cannot find any policies of hers, or anything in her past which may indicate that; she's quite conservative in fact, and I place her slightly to the right of New Zealand's Judith 'Crusher' Collins in terms of her personal political opinions. For those not familiar, 'Crusher' Collins was the former leader on the National Party in NZ. She earned the crusher tag when she threatened to crush boy racers cars. In recent years she's gone soft, and I will not be surprised if she soon says the sinking of the NZ Navy vessel after it hit a reef off Samoa, was a win/win, as the biodiversity of the reef has been strengthened, and who needs hydrographic anyway? I cannot see Kamala Harris going soft.

Cure for TDS

This product is amazing, I fully recommend it:

Choice: Kamala Harris vs Trump/RFK Jr

The 2024 election to decide who will be US President brings to the fore the stark choice: whether to vote for Big Tech censorship, Big Pharma profiteering and war after war, or with Trump, bluster, grandstanding, and a lot of golf being played. together with RFK Jr chasing Anthony Fauci around Washington DC.

I know which I'd prefer; jail time for Fauci and golf. 

Democratic Party voters need to ask themselves whose side they're on, do they stand for commonsense and right vs wrong, or the machine politics by the backers of Kamala Harris.

RFK Jr Deal With Trump

RFK Jr reveals to Fox News that he will step aside in the 10 swing states but stay off the ballot in states where his presence will not change the outcome. Furthermore, he mentions that he does not have a promise of any role within a Trump administration.

RFK Jr Appears at Trump Rally

Is Trump taking away the left from Kamala Harris?

RFK Jr Drops Out & MSM Cut Away

We are living is a dystopian world, the likes of which the West has not experienced before:

Megyn Kelly on Jill Biden

 Is Jill Biden standing in the way of a stable US Government?

The Absent President: Joe Biden

 There is a meme going round, have you seen Joe Biden? 

Well, on the television I've seen him climbing the steps to Air Force 1 and walking across the White House lawn to Marine 1. Those are what you may call public sightings. But the rest have all been all indoors, whether it's at the State Department, or one on one with a reporter. Why no press conference on the front lawn of the White House? Ever seen him waving from a limo as it passes by? 

We find ourselves in a very strange place here. Biden is meant to be more open, the bringer of peace and tranquillity, a new future. Seems instead he's the most exclusive, more like a king than a US president.

GameStop and Wall Street Activism

Commentators discussing what is happening with the market activism surrounding companies such as GameStop are missing the point. These investors punishing Wall Street aren't young tech savvy individuals trying to bring down the system. No, they're older investors, likely Trump supporters using the money they would otherwise have spent at casinos in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, to get even. They're going after all those companies that backed Biden and put him in the White House.

There are lists going around of which companies to support and which ones to sell. You may be aware that Twitter has shown volatility, especially right after they purged any active centre/right viewpoints. Well, I checked out a previous list to see if GameStop is listed and found it was, check out this list of companies to hurt for backing Antifa and the BLM organisation:

269 Companies Supporting Antifa and BLM

GameStop is at number 90 on the list. This can't be a coincidence. What is happening is that groups of investors are targeting any company they see as supporting 'the other side.' They may be small investors individually, but put a few million of them together and now you suddenly have real grunt. With GameStop they're actually buying its stock, knowing they'll blow their money, to hurt the institutions shorting the stock but also bringing GameStop into focus, which will eventually result in its failure. For these activists, a win/win.

Who is to blame for all this? Wall Street and Big Tech is of course, and all those who used their companies to police how people think. They got involved in politics - big mistake. The cost of all this will be monumental. We are talking trillions at stake. How so? Well, all those tracking funds are automated to follow the market and this new kind of volatility will result in financial carnage as these systems try to adjust to this kind of random investor activism. 2021 just became very interesting indeed.