Within the same 30-day cycle Joe Biden asked Venezuela to produce and deliver more oil in order to help him politically.  The Venezuelan government, having been the subject of an attempted coup and sanctions driven by the DC interventionist mindset, refused to assist.  Joe Biden then refused to invite Venezuela to his Latin-America summit scheduled for this week.

Latin-America leaders are not stupid.  It doesn’t matter whether the self-interested bully comes from the east or the west, they are not blind to the parasitic self-interest contained within the blackmail of any larger nations on the geopolitical stage; especially as the cleaving of the west and east is taking place with increased ferocity.

Today Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador announced he will not attend Joe Biden’s Latin-America summit.

AMLO joins the leaders of Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras and the tiny Caribbean state of St. Vincent in refusing to attend the summit because Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were blocked from attending by the Biden administration.

(Via Wall Street Journal) – […] After weeks of wrangling over the issue amid threats of country boycotts, the administration excluded the three autocracies due to U.S. concerns over human rights and lack of democratic institutions in those countries, the officials said. The regional summit, scheduled for June 6-10 in Los Angeles, is expected to focus on migration and economic issues.

“I’m not going because not all the countries of America are invited,” said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador Monday at his daily press conference. The Mexican leader said he had a good relationship with Mr. Biden and that he planned to visit the White House in July.

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In a letter filed with the SEC [SEE HERE], Tesla CEO Elon Musk is threatening to walk away from the agreement to purchase the social media platform Twitter, if the company does not provide transparency on their internal analysis surrounding fake Twitter accounts.

The letter was sent to Twitter and filed with the SEC after Twitter seemingly refused to provide details about how they can verify the accurate number of active user accounts. There is a strong possibility the purchase is now less likely.  The full transcript of the letter is below:

[SEC Filing] – Dear Ms. Gadde: We are in receipt of correspondence sent on Twitter’s behalf dated June 1, 2022, responding to Mr. Musk’s request for the data and information described in my letters dated May 25, 2022 and May 31, 2022.

Mr. Musk does not agree with the characterizations in Twitter’s June 1 letter. Twitter has, in fact, refused to provide the information that Mr. Musk has repeatedly requested since May 9, 2022 to facilitate his evaluation of spam and fake accounts on the company’s platform.

Twitter’s latest offer to simply provide additional details regarding the company’s own testing methodologies, whether through written materials or verbal explanations, is tantamount to refusing Mr. Musk’s data requests. Twitter’s effort to characterize it otherwise is merely an attempt to obfuscate and confuse the issue. Mr. Musk has made it clear that he does not believe the company’s lax testing methodologies are adequate so he must conduct his own analysis. The data he has requested is necessary to do so.

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Last Friday the Biden administration raised the mandatory amount of biofuel, specifically ethanol, that must be blended within the U.S. gasoline supply.  The previous amount of 10% (summer blend) was raised to a year-round 15% (waiver) by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  This is likely to lead to two sets of bigger issues, less food and higher gas prices.

♦ First issue. – The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a government mandate, passed in 2005 and expanded in 2007, that requires growing volumes of biofuels to be blended into U.S. transportation fuels like gasoline and diesel every year.  Approximately 40 percent of corn grown in the U.S. is used for ethanol.  Raising the amount of ethanol required in gasoline will result in the need for more biofuel (corn).  With farming costs and outputs already under pressure this could be problematic.

♦ Second issue – The EPA enforces the biofuel standard by requiring refineries to submit purchase credits (known as Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs) to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proving the purchases.  This enforcement requirement sets up a system where the RIN credits are bought and sold by small refineries who do not have the infrastructure to do the blending process.  They purchase second-hand RIN credits from parties that blended or imported biofuels directly. This sets up a secondary income stream, a trading market for the larger oil companies, refineries and importers.

The RIN credit trading platform is similar to what we might expect to see if the ‘Carbon Trading’ scheme was ever put into place.   However, now that summer biofuel requirements for blended gasoline have gone from 10% to 15%, the price of the RIN credits will likely jump.  This will cost refineries billions in additional expenses,…. which will mean the cost of the gasoline from the refineries will increase,….. which will mean the cost of the gasoline at the pump will go higher.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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Republicans in Washington DC, the right wing of the UniParty vulture, play the game of Chaff and Countermeasures whenever it comes to the investigation of lawbreaking that targets people outside the system.  If you are an ‘ordinary’ American with no connection to the insider’s club, the best you can hope for is a strongly worded message of support from the GOP.  Prior examples of Chaff and Countermeasures have included: Fast and Furious, IRS Targeting, Benghazi, Spygate, Trump-Russia Collusion, and the 2020 election fraud.

STEPS: 1) The electorate become aware of a political issue or action; often illegal. 2) The electorate becomes angry. 3) DC needs to protect itself. 4) Countermeasures are assigned and deployed to delay, obfuscate and create the illusion of investigation of the illegal governmental action. 5) Electorate watch. 6) Investigation goes nowhere. 7) Countermeasure deployment successful. 8) Pause-Wait-Repeat.

John Ratcliffe appears on Fox News with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the outcome of the Michael Sussmann not-guilty verdict.  Ratcliffe waxes poetically noting the evidence at trial looks very badly upon the Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann investigation.  Ratcliffe says justice is going to have to come at the ballot box.   WATCH:

In response to the arrest of Trump advisor Peter Navarro, which included handcuffs and leg-irons for a perp walk, Mr. Ratcliffe notes that FBI Director Christopher Wray should probably look into that…. As if Direct Chris Wray wasn’t an active participant in the decision-making.  Mr. Ratcliffe does a great job pretending not to know things.

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Here is one succinct interview containing the smorgasbord of far-left policies the people behind Joe Biden are proposing as the solution to the inflation crisis they have created. It is remarkable to see it all packed into one 8-minute segment.  There is so much crazy in here it would take a week of articles to unpack it.

The ultra-leftist Biden Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, appears on ABC with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the solutions to the massive economic collapse that looms all around us.  Within the interview Buttigieg states the Biden administration goal is to use the high cost of living (policy driven inflation) as an opportunity for the government to take over household expenses and create equity via government distribution.

If reasonable people do not intervene quickly, the executive branch and legislative branch will move to begin subsidizing and controlling medicine, childcare, housing and food costs by diverting tax dollars into the social equity system.  Depending on income, the Biden administration plans to offset higher prices for Americans by providing the essential services and products they need.  In essence, Democrat-Socialism with a filter of equity in distribution, ie “enhanced dependency.”  WATCH:

Remarkably, Stephanopoulos references one of the most insane New York Times op-ed’s ever written around economics {ARTICLE HERE}.  Within the reference, the Democrat legislative proposal is for the government to take over the purchasing of essential products like food, fuel, gasoline and medicine.  The government would then distribute those products.  The entire premise is based on some academic leftist theory of economics that is just nuts. It looks nothing like capitalism.

The baseline for the approach contains the premise that inflation is driven by too many people chasing scarce goods. Thus prices are rising.  This is how the Democrats look at inflation and explain the problem.  Their solution is for government to buy the food at the prices they claim people cannot afford, and then sell the food at prices they claim the people can afford.  [Replace ‘food’ with any item they determine]

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Republican Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Democrat Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) appear on Sunday broadcasts to discuss the most likely framework the Senate group is putting together for new gun control legislation.

The general convergence appears to surround: •a possible raising of the age to purchase a semi-automatic rifle (definition to be determined) from 18 to 21; •new federal red flag laws and/or financing to state government to construct ‘red flag’ laws; •increased federal funding for mental health screenings and facilities; and •new federal background check requirements for gun purchases.

Pat Toomey appeared on Face the Nation, while Chris Murphy appeared on CNN with Jake Tapper.  Both interviews below, starting with Pat Toomey on CBS [Transcript Link Here] WATCH:

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The first round of public J6 Committee hearings is scheduled to begin this upcoming week on Thursday, June 9th.  To highlight the intent of the committee hearings, they will not be held during regular congressional business hours, instead the committee has decided to hold the hearings at 8:00pm ET each day; an effort to reach a prime-time television audience.  Yup, that tells us how insufferably scripted, produced and directed the DNC fiasco has become.

To help set the stage for the performance, the advanced J6 marketing team scheduled Adam “Shifty” Schiff, the likely candidate to replace House leader Nancy Pelosi in the minority after she announces her retirement post November 2022 shellacking, to appear with the bubble-headed propagandist for the regime, Margaret Brennan on CBS Face the Nation. [The Transcript is Here]   WATCH:

Shifty Schiff calls the 2020 election, “the first non peaceful transfer of power in our history,” pretending not to know that President Trump’s inauguration day in Washington DC, January 20 2017, consisted of a full-scale riot of DNC and Democrat activists; including looting, arson and destroyed property.  Meanwhile while Hollyweird/DNC activists put genitalia on their heads and screamed around town.

Then again, Democrats must pretend in order to retain the false premise of their ideological arguments.  Of course, the DC Democrats also know their subservient media stenographers will never call them out on their nonsense, so they do it more openly.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

(more…)