90 Miles From Tyranny

Friday, January 29, 2021

FNC’s Carlson: GameStop Saga Shows System Is ‘Not the Capitalism We Were Promised — Not Even Close’

Thursday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson opened his program with his thoughts on the fallout of the GameStop short-squeeze situation unfolding that has caused financial elites to question the retail investor’s role in financial markets.

Carlson said the backlash showed the U.S. economic system was not living up to its intended billing.

Transcript as follows:

CARLSON: Quite a day in financial markets, not a phrase we use a lot on this show, but a lot happened today and there are massive implications for all of us. Dave Portnoy joins us in a moment to explain what those are, but first some context of what we’re watching right now.

Last March, as the country began to panic about the arrival of a strange new coronavirus from China, a billionaire called Bill Ackman went on television in an attempt to make America even more afraid than it already was. “Our economy may be done at this point,” he said, over, dead, not coming back.

Bill Ackman went on like this for 28 full minutes, terrified CNBC viewers watched slack-jawed as he ranted. Here’s part of his performance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL ACKMAN, CEO, PERSHING SQUARE CAPITAL: Hell is coming. This was a feeling like I’ve never had like there’s a tsunami coming, right? The tsunami is coming in and you feel it in the air, right? The tide starts to roll out. Okay. And on the beach, people are playing and having fun, like there’s nothing going on. And that is the feeling I’ve had for the last two months. Okay. And my colleagues at work, okay, thought I was a lunatic.

We need to shut it down now. America will end as we know it, okay, I’m sorry to say so. Okay, unless we take this option.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARLSON: Bill Ackman was afraid, and he wanted you to be afraid. Ackman was especially frightened for the future of Hilton Hotels. Hilton Hotels, Ackman proclaimed quote: “Is going to zero along with every other hotel company in the world.” Every hotel is going to be shut down in the country — everyone. Talk about scary.

But in the end, not for Bill Ackman. Not long after that appearance, we learned that Ackman’s firm had made more than $2 billion from trading in the stocks that many people believed he had pushed down with the hysterically dire predictions you just saw, including Hilton Hotels.

So, it was Ackman’s rant on CNBC part of a very dishonest investment strategy? It seemed pretty obvious, so we said so on the air. Ackman’s lawyers immediately threatened to...

It's Missing Terrorists...

How CIA Created Signal Messenger App

Recently, after WhatsApp threatened to change its privacy policy, people were nuged to the alternate Signal messenger app. However, serious discussion of Signal’s history, and funding sources, has been entirely absent from the puff pieces by media. This investigation reveals how CIA created the Signal app, funded by the US government to protect communications of its agents deployed for regime change.

Open Whisper Systems

Signal was launched by now-defunct Open Whisper Systems (OWS) in 2013, brainchild of shadowy tech guru ‘Moxie Marlinspike’ – real name Matthew Rosenfeld.

In February 2018, responsibility for managing the app passed to the nonprofit Signal Foundation, launched with $50 million in startup capital provided by billionaire former Facebook higher-up Brian Acton, the Foundation’s executive chair.

OWS never published financial statements or disclosed the identities of its funders at any point during its operation, although the sums involved in launching and maintaining a messaging platform used by a vast number of people internationally over several years were surely significant.

Open Technology Fund

Rosenfeld alleges the app “never [took] VC funding or sought investment” at any point during that time, and quite how much money was involved in total is a...

McCarthy met with Trump as the former president mulls backing challengers to GOP incumbents

Rep. Matt Gaetz traveled to Wyoming on Thursday to call for the ouster of House Republican Caucus Chair Liz Cheney over her vote to impeach former President Trump, underscoring the divisions in the GOP at grapples with its identity in the wake of Trump's presidency.

Gaetz during the rally railed against "neocons," "forever wars" and Cheney's impeachment vote while accusing Cheney, R-Wyo., of having blood on her hands. The event could be considered the first closely-watched campaign rally of the 2022 congressional primaries.

"Now Liz Cheney taunts me for wearing makeup in my television appearances. Now, make up only hides the slightest imperfections of the skin. It does very little to conceal the soulless corruption of Washington D.C.," Gaetz said. He was referencing a comment a Cheney, R-Wyo., spokesperson made to The Hill in response to Gaetz's rally plans, that "In Wyoming, men don't wear make-up."

"It's pretty easy for me to get a little makeup off my shirt," Gaetz continued. "Far more difficult for Liz Cheney to get the blood off her hands after sending America's best to foreign lands to die for unknowable gain and personal profit."

Meanwhile in Florida, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was meeting with Trump in Mar-a-Lago, aiming to mend fences after the former president reportedly took...