[Hat Tip Mailroom] This is a very interesting little bureaucratic energy issue with big downstream ramifications.

Almost every transportation and manufacturing company uses the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) “weekly publication of average diesel prices” in order to calculate shipping costs.  According to people in the industry, “this national average is what almost every trucking and logistics company bases their fuel surcharges on.”

However, on June 13th the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, stopped reporting the average weekly diesel price.  For almost a month companies have been using an outdated average price in order to calculate shipping costs and fuel surcharges. [See Screengrab]

Originally the EIA said, “We are implementing new methodology to estimate weekly on-highway diesel fuel prices. On June 13, we started conducting the On-Highway Diesel Fuel Price Survey using new statistical methodologies.” {LINK} However, the EIA has not updated anything since that announcement.

As a result, all of the transportation charges and fuel surcharges have been underestimated and priced for almost a full month.  The political motive for this move is transparent, it stops higher diesel prices from being passed along in the supply chain… which gives an artificial pause on inflation that comes as an outcome of higher diesel transportation costs (specifically trucking).  As explained to CTH:

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Things are escalating quicky in the Netherlands [Backstory Here].  Video has surfaced of Dutch police opening fire with real bullets on an unarmed protesting farmer who drove his tractor around a police roadblock.  [Source and Source]

Several reports from the Netherlands highlight government efforts to stop Dutch farmers from protesting and blocking transit points.  As a result, Dutch farmers have been taking rural routes to their protest destinations and local law enforcement have been trying to stop them with police roadblocks.

Two videos appear to show large farming tractors, easily able to overcome traditional street curbs, driving around the one of the police roadblocks as a police officer opens fire and shoots twice at the second tractor.  An image of a bullet hole in the cab of the tractor appears to confirm live rounds are being fired at the farmers.  WATCH:

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The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article [SEE HERE] outlining inter-connected data points for various state economies in a post-pandemic environment.

The topline takeaways are: (1) Employment in red states has fully recovered, and now exceeds the number of jobs as before the pandemic. (2) Employment in blue states remains below the pandemic numbers; meaning they have not recovered. (3) Net migration still shows people fleeing blue states like New York, California and Illinois; while (4) Net migration into red states like Florida, Texas, North/South Carolina and Tennessee is continuing.

(Wall Street Journal) – […] Forty-six million people moved to a different ZIP Code in the year through February 2022, the most in any 12-month period in records going back to 2010, according to a Moody’s analysis of Equifax Inc. consumer-credit reports. The states that gained the most, led by Florida, Texas and North Carolina, are almost all red, as defined by the Cook Political Report based on how states voted in the past two presidential elections. The states that lost the most residents are almost all blue, led by California, New York and Illinois. (read more)

The professional business class analysts (eyeroll) at the WSJ attribute the demographic shifts to the worker disconnect from the office.  Meaning workers can now work from home and are moving to environments where the quality of life is better.  White collar workers no longer bound to the geographic limitations of central office locations.

While some of that is likely accurate, there is no consideration for the lockdown effect.  The results of the pandemic showcased a very brutal acceptance, more people now seemingly realizing the politics of their regional leadership has a direct and consequential impact to the quality of their life.  The blue state leaders, ideologically disposed to dismissing the opinion of citizens, generally dispatched any consideration for the quality-of-life impact they created.  The people were irrelevant.

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Gallup has conducted a survey of American confidence in several institutions [DATA HERE].  Overall confidence in institutions has dropped significantly in the last year, which is not a surprise given the turmoil now seemingly all around us.

The survey measures and compares American confidence from 2021 to 2022.  It is worth noting, confidence in the office of the presidency is the #1 drop in the survey.

GALLUP – “This year’s poll marks new lows in confidence for all three branches of the federal government — the Supreme Court (25%), the presidency (23%) and Congress. Five other institutions are at their lowest points in at least three decades of measurement, including the church or organized religion (31%), newspapers (16%), the criminal justice system (14%), big business (14%) and the police.” (link)

This survey reflects and increasingly dangerous position for government and institutions of society.  We are a nation, a representative republic, that is held together with a common understanding of basic adherence to values, principles and lawfulness.

Take away confidence, and what this survey really starts to outline is institutions losing legitimacy in the eyes of We The People.  Dangerous things can happen when unease and distrust exist.

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The government in the Netherlands is taking a playbook directly from Canada. Keep in mind that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte are two top-tier government influencers of the World Economic Forum, Davos crowd.

Trudeau and Rutte have a close and personal relationship, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to see the Dutch government trying to stop farmer protests following the same approach as the Canadian government toward the trucker protests.

In a short video resurfacing today, the farmers caught Dutch police units disguising themselves as farmers and infiltrating the protest. According to independent journalists who were recording the events, the plain clothes units were agitating for violence, a tactic to initiate a heavy-handed government response.

When the Dutch people realized they were police the undercover ‘Agent Provocateurs’ pulled batons to protect themselves and desperately retreated to a nearby police van. WATCH:

https://youtu.be/XorUUl4xQsk

Background on Farmer Protests Here

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Senator Lindsey Graham (U-DC) was apparently in Turkey around the same time as the NATO summit.  According to a Twitter announcement by Graham he has returned to the U.S. hopeful to close the deal on selling F-16”s to Turkey now that Turkish President Recep Erdogan has removed opposition to Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

“I will do all in my power to support the Biden Administration’s decision to sell F-16s to the Turkish Air Force,” Graham writes.

Also adding, “These fighter jets, in the hands of our NATO allies, will create a sense of stability and provide capability to the Turkish military that is most definitely in America’s national security interests.” {link}

On Tuesday of last week Turkey removed their block of Sweden and Finland from joining NATO, and on Wednesday Joe Biden agreed to sell Turkey 40 Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes:

Newsmax – The Biden administration threw its support on Wednesday behind the potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, a day after Ankara lifted a veto of NATO membership for Finland and Sweden.

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John Kirby is the former Pentagon spokesperson who is now the National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications.  The people in/around the White House have shifted Kirby, a very good spinner of parseltongue, into a place where he can give the media an impression of White House competency.

The LGBTQ, racially inclusive and woke checkbox hires are not up to the task of their positions.  Incompetence is running amok.  As a result, it is somewhat ironic and representative the Biden hypocrisy, that Kirby is needed to take the pressure away from administration checkbox hires.  In this interview Kirby defends the White House policy on the Russia-Ukraine war, interventionist and dependent foreign policy, and the energy policy that has resulted in high gas prices.

Video prompted to 04:05, where the topic of Biden’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia is discussed.  WATCH:

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The G7 plan to create another economic sanction against Russia by capping the price anyone could pay for Russian oil has a serious downside.  If Russia slows down the export of oil, global oil prices will jump dramatically.   That policy outcome would mean a massive increase in the price of gasoline for U.S. consumers.

Because the consequences are horrible, that’s precisely the reason Joe Biden might push to have the Russian price cap.  Every policy Joe Biden has historically supported, has been the exact opposite of what should have been done.  Biden has a profound and innate ability to screw up anything.

[Bloomberg] – Global oil prices could reach a “stratospheric” $380 a barrel if US and European penalties prompt Russia to inflict retaliatory crude-output cuts, JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts warned.

The Group of Seven nations are hammering out a complicated mechanism to cap the price fetched by Russian oil in a bid to tighten the screws on Vladimir Putin’s war machine in Ukraine. But given Moscow’s robust fiscal position, the nation can afford to slash daily crude production by 5 million barrels without excessively damaging the economy, JPMorgan analysts including Natasha Kaneva wrote in a note to clients.

For much of the rest of the world, however, the results could be disastrous. A 3 million-barrel cut to daily supplies would push benchmark London crude prices to $190, while the worst-case scenario of 5 million could mean “stratospheric” $380 crude, the analysts wrote.

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If you look beyond the condescending, sanctimonious and unintelligent questioning and pantomime from CBS News Margaret Brennan, there are some very interesting aspects outlined by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.  [Transcript Here] I was looking for how CBS would inject the pending global food shortage into the interview, and what narrative angle they would use.  The coordinated media political talking point, ‘Russia starving the world‘, comes up in the last third of the interview.

Germany is the largest and most heavily industrialized economy in the European Union (EU). As a result, Germany makes most of the decisions about how the EU operates. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel always played the role of supporting NATO; however, her approach to government was one of the most closed, controlling and nationalist hypocrisies within the European Union.  If it was in Germany’s interest it was done. If it was not directly beneficial to Germany, it was never done.

Merkel’s replacement, Olaf Scholz, is not that different from his predecessor in regard to the economics of nationalism, the predominant view for any German leader. However, Scholz is more of a collaborator, an outward looking Chancellor; seemingly more globally and communally minded than Merkel. Scholz is more accepting of Biden (USA) influence than Angela Merkel was.  Scholz is also spending more on German military than Merkel would ever consider.

In this interview, Scholz outlines the conflict in Ukraine while overlaying his perspective of Russian President Vladimir Putin as an outcome of their discussions.  WATCH:

[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: Mr. Chancellor, thank you so much for making time in your busy schedule for us.

OLAF SCHOLZ: Good morning.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So I read your biographer says you don’t often answer directly, but I’m going to try my best today. You speak with Vladimir Putin. Do you think that Russia is a terrorist state as president Zelenskyy says?

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This administration is a lesson in abject silliness.  Everyone knows that Joe Biden has no clue who or what is being done in the energy policy of his administration; heck, he could not even name his Interior Secretary.   That said, whoever controls his Twitter account is now just making him look even more stupid as Biden blames the gas stations.

[Tweet Source]

I would draw attention to the most overlooked quote from Joe Biden as it pertains to gas prices.  This statement was made May 23, 2022, and it proves he knows the gas price is directly related to his choice to implement the Green New Deal by executive policy:

…”Here’s the situation.  And when it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”…  [source]

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