Kamala and Pete have been in a contest to see who can use the most words without actually saying anything.  Previously, Pete set the record during his presidential bid of 2020. However, in 2021 Kamala got serious about the contest.  Harris fired her communications team and brought in new brand image consultants to help her finally achieve that first-place status which was so elusive.

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show with Savannah Guthrie, the additional training paid off.   Kamala Harris was asked about the U.S. economic impact of sanctions on Russia and whether stopping purchases of Russian oil was possible.  This was the opening Harris had been looking for to highlight her sharpened linguistics.

Using the communication team notes for reference (watch her eyes), for almost a minute Kamala Harris assembled 247 various words in a random sequence. The result is remarkable. WATCH: (prompted):

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Everything including oil, natural gas, wheat, and fertilizer is skyrocketing in price right now.  Ten- and twenty-year records are being eclipsed, as energy prices are soaring on the back of oil flirting with $114 a barrel.  Unfortunately, here comes more inflationary pain, and everything is being blamed on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Toward the end of last year, we warned that fertilizer costs were going to harvest costs in 2022 (field to fork, go deep), long before Ukraine came into the picture.  Unfortunately, future wheat prices reached $10.59 a bushel today, the highest since March 2008.  Additionally, corn prices have passed their highest rate since December 2012.

It may seem like those crops are not that important.  However, keep in mind that corn, wheat and soybeans represent the baseline for not only grain production in the U.S, but they are also the primary feed products for proteins: chicken, pork and beef.  We are going to feel this second wave surge at the grocery store.  Hopefully everyone has prepped.

Additionally, oil prices have jumped to near eight-year highs. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose as high as $113.94 a barrel, the highest since June 2014, and has been trading around $111 for most of the day.  If you were paying $4/gal for gas, these oil rates add around another .50¢ today alone.  Yes, you read that correctly, inbound tankers of gasoline will offload at your convenience store at a rate ten percent higher than yesterday.

Making matters worse, the Joe Biden energy policy -focused almost exclusively on green energy- is making any investment in domestic oil production tenuous at best.   The major oil companies are wary of spending money for U.S. energy development in a climate where the U.S. government is specifically against that effort.

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Col Douglas Macgregor appeared for a sit-down interview with Tucker Carlson tonight to discuss the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

So far, Macgregor is the one who has been the most accurate in his assessments when compared to the results on the ground in Ukraine.  If what Macgregor outlines in this interview is correct, and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t, then President Putin has been planning this operation for a long time.

As the multinational corporations, multinational banks, collective corporate and political west along with the EU, NATO and media, tell Ukraine to keep fighting, it appears Russia is moving through a methodical plan they have no hope of stopping.  This would explain why the Russian convoys are pausing before going hardcore on the cities and population centers. WATCH:

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Tonight at 9:00pm ET the installed occupant in the White House will whisper, shout and mutter out loud as he reads words written by others.  The executive is required to deliver an annual ‘state of the union’ notification to the legislative branch.

The script reading begins at 9:00pm ET and will be broadcast on all major television networks.  Consider this an open discussion thread for your thoughts and comments if you are listening to the reading.

CSPAN Livestream Link – PBS Livestream Link

The Republican Response will be delivered by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds after the president concludes his address.

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House Republican Victoria Spartz (Indiana CD-05) is originally from Nosivka in eastern Ukraine.  Mrs. Spartz emigrated to the United States in 2000 after meeting her husband who is from Indiana.

During the Republican House press conference today, Representative Spartz delivered passionate remarks about her homeland and the regional war between Russia and Ukraine that is impacting her distant family.

The region in Ukraine outlined by Representative Spartz, is the eastern Ukraine region that has been in a state of constant conflict over the past eight years.  The Russian aligned separatists in eastern Ukraine have been fighting the western Ukraine military.  The Russian military forces are now supporting the separatists and tilting the outcome of the fight.

WASHINGTON DC – […] “This is not a war, this is a genocide of the Ukrainian people by a crazy man who cannot get over the Ukrainian people do not want socialism, Soviet Union, communism,” Spartz, who represents Indiana, told reporters during a GOP news conference about President Biden’s State of the Union address. “They want to be with the United States of America. They want to be free people. They want to be with the West.” (read more)

Mrs. Spartz also answered questions from media attendees (video below).

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We remember…

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Senate Republicans produced a video today announcing their position toward Ukraine.  WATCH:

Accept things as they are, not as you would wish them to be.

Place your bets on whether blue and yellow ribbons will be deployed for all State of the Union attendees?

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There comes a time in every performance of the United Nations production when the arch villain bombs the milk factories.  Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin takes his turn.

As we return to our seats from the lobby during commercial interlude, we discover the model U.N. interns have left the blue and yellow ribbons on our seats. We know exactly what segment of the melodrama comes next; the children are suffering.

The well attired gentlemen in the mezzanine know this is the moment when they must position their freshly pressed pocket kerchief for quick access.  Heart strings will be pulled, and silk gowns do not fare well as the tears begin to flow. Well educated chivalry, passed down from father to son, has prepared them for this moment.  It’s not quite time for the checkbooks yet; first they must feel the sound of the violins.

Surprisingly, Bono and Geldorf have not yet made their appearance.  However, with the speed of modern social media, and knowing the technology of our time means we cannot wait, the EU assembly must lay the groundwork for the great American oration that is center stage from the Capitol later tonight.

New York – Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky urged the EU to “prove you are with us” in a defiant speech on Tuesday.

Mr Zelenesky, who has become a symbol of defiance for his country, issued an impassioned speech via video link, where he called on the EU to stand with Ukraine as Russia continues its deadly advance on the country.

During his speech, Mr Zelensky described the missile strikes on Kharkiv, as an act of terror against the city, and indeed Ukraine.

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Remember that fourth quarter GDP result that seemed manipulated?  Well, I suspect the record setting trade deficit now being reported for January is an outcome of those pesky fourth quarter trade results being intentionally skewed by the withholding of December 2021 import data.

Additionally, methinks we are likely to get some increased economic clarity about why the White House needed Ukraine to become the big shiny thing with such urgency.

Just like everything else, geopolitical dynamics –especially those surrounding entrenched ideology– are always about the economics.  Someone, eventually, always has to pay.  Follow the money; there are trillions at stake.

First, keep in mind that missing Port of Los Angeles result from December as you review the import/export details:

(REUTERS) […]  The goods trade deficit jumped 7.1% to an all-time high of $107.6 billion last month. Imports of goods increased 1.7%, led by food and motor vehicles. There were also large increases in imports of industrial supplies, capital and consumer goods. Imports of other goods, however, tumbled 15.3%.

Exports dropped 1.8%, weighed down by consumer goods, motor vehicles, food and other goods. But exports of capital goods and industrial supplies increased. Trade has been a drag on gross domestic product for six straight quarters. (read more)

That missing Port of LA December import data, now being introduced into the month of January, might just be the cause of the “all time high” noted above.  I will bet one sustainable rice cake on it.

Next up, inflation.

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A fantastic piece by Peter Beinart on substack {SEE HERE} puts excellent clarity on the people around Joe Biden baiting Russian President Vladimir Putin to enter Ukraine.

Current CIA Director William “Bill” Burns was the former ambassador to Russia and Jordan.  Bill Burns had a 33-year career at the State Department under both Republican and Democratic presidents and speaks fluent Russian. If the people in the background of Joe Biden wanted an intelligence operative to trigger a specific result from Russia, there’s no one more strategically perfect for the job than CIA Director Bill Burns.

The article by Beinart is mainly focused on pointing out the irreconcilable nature of Joe Biden implying Ukraine could join NATO, while his own CIA Director has a history of giving serious warnings emphasizing the “brightest of all red lines” about that specific point.

[…]  “Two years ago, Burns wrote a memoir entitled, The Back Channel. It directly contradicts the argument being proffered by the administration he now serves. In his book, Burns says over and over that Russians of all ideological stripes—not just Putin—loathed and feared NATO expansion. He quotes a memo he wrote while serving as counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Moscow in 1995. ‘Hostility to early NATO expansion,” it declares, “is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.”

On the question of extending NATO membership to Ukraine, Burns’ warnings about the breadth of Russian opposition are even more emphatic. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” he wrote in a 2008 memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” (read more)

Against this backdrop of Bill Burns, the details about the lead up to the Russia-Ukraine crisis gain quite a bit of clarity.

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