Do you know what it’s technically called when “government takes control of the means of production?”  Yeah, that.

This afternoon Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act (DPA) giving Health and Human Services (HHS) the legal authority to control the supplies needed for the creation of baby formula (how it is made), and the authority to determine distribution equity (who gets it).  Emphasis mine:

White House [DPA Sec. 2] – “[T]he authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act to require performance of contracts or orders … is delegated to the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to all health resources, including the ingredients necessary to manufacture infant formula.”

“(b)  The Secretary of Health and Human Services may use the authority under section 101 of the Act to determine, in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture and the heads of other executive departments and agencies as appropriate, the proper nationwide priorities and allocation of all ingredients necessary to manufacture infant formula, including controlling the distribution of such materials (including applicable services) in the civilian market, for responding to the shortage of infant formula within the United States.” (read more)

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, an über-leftist who ironically self-describes as an abortion absolutist, is now in charge of infant formula manufacture and distribution. You do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to predict which “at risk” group will get priority distribution of limited resources.

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The stock market is dropping, Wall Street analysts are flummoxed, but it just isn’t rocket science folks.  It’s Main Street economics 101.

The price to produce, manufacture and transport goods has skyrocketed, that’s the Producer Price Index (PPI).  Arriving goods at retail are significantly higher in price.  Simultaneously, consumer spending is being squeezed by unavoidable inflation in housing, energy, food and gasoline; so consumer spending is tight, that’s the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

Higher costs to retail that cannot be passed on as higher prices to customers, means lower profit margins for the sellers.  That’s it.  That’s the majority of it.  Major retail companies like Target and Wal Mart are reporting the impacts from the squeeze in higher costs that cannot be passed to consumers in higher retail prices.   Checkbook economics.

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Businesses are seeing higher costs in the unavoidable goods they need to sell, the fixed price of goods.  What comes next?  Businesses, knowing they cannot raise prices too much, look at lowering the costs of operations in an effort to remain competitive, stay profitable, and stay in business.

How do businesses lower operational costs?  Increase expectations of employee productivity and/or lower employment costs.  That leads to layoffs.

I guarantee you…. YOU know more about the basic principles of Main Street economics than a room full of these Wall Street analysts.   I like El-Erian, but sheesh, talk about pretending not to know things.

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Zero Hedge published a good article yesterday with some solid internal data showing a strong likelihood that national gasoline prices are likely to rise another 40% from current levels by mid-late summer.  That would put the national average for a gallon of gasoline around $6.20 by August.

The data behind the prediction is solid and essentially boils down to the U.S. refineries not having the expanded capacity needed to keep up with an increased summer demand, particularly as they need to keep generating high volumes of diesel fuel due to current critical shortages.

The issues are created by the Biden administration and the regulatory stranglehold they put on the oil and gas industry last year.  Obviously, all of this is a feature of the administration plan, not a flaw.  The Green New Deal agenda necessarily requires that gasoline rise in price to $7/gal this year in order to force the change in profit dynamic for alternative fueled transportation.

Unfortunately, we the consumers will be the ones punished as the progressive, communist and far-left policy makers chase their climate change agenda.  Cheap and cost-effective energy has to be made ‘not cheap’ and ‘not cost-effective’ in order to create the energy crisis their agenda requires.

Massive increases in gasoline prices are a feature, not a flaw.

Remember, Biden is disposable.  The people behind Biden purposefully selected him in order to generate a kamikaze ‘fundamental change’ mission within a single 4-year presidential term.  Getting crushed on the political outcomes is irrelevant, they just need to push the agenda fast enough, far enough, and destructive enough, so that all energy policies become irreversible.

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Interesting background discussions today, very interesting.  There are some aspects to the Washington Post story about DHS abandoning, at least temporarily, the Dept of Homeland Security Disinformation Governance Board.

WaPo represents the CIA public relations/narrative engineers, so it doesn’t come as a surprise they would be the announcing outlet for the leaked information.  There’s also an interesting aspect in who was selected to write the article, Taylor Lorenz, the conscripted narrative engineer and lead on-line counterintelligence/propaganda pusher.  [LINK]

However, beyond the background intelligence motive; and accepting the expressed intent of the DHS ministry of truth effort; notice the picture Lorenz published to accompany the notification (see above). “Nina Jankowicz … works in a press room at Volodymyr Zelensky’s campaign headquarters in 2019 in Kyiv, Ukraine.”  Quite telling.

The takeaway from the above data points, outlines how long the DHS has been planning to use the conflict in Ukraine to advance the agenda of the State Dept and intelligence apparatus (CIA).  When combined with the rapid response from big tech search engine notifications about removing on-line content that contradicted the official position of the U.S. government toward the Ukraine conflict (Google and DuckDuckGo), what we see is a very fulsome picture of how the U.S. government advanced propaganda was being constructed.

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…We call it ‘World War Reddit‘ for a reason.

In February the White House said strategic victory in Ukraine would be dependent on who can win the cultural war of social likeability {link}.  In March the White House and State Dept recruited a battalion of TikTok influencers so they could dance and sing about Ukraine and Russia for their audiences in social media {link}.  In April USAID announced they would coordinate entertainment resources to keep the public interested in Ukraine and Bono was recruited to sing in Kyiv {link}.

Following along with the coordinated scheduling, Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats took turns rotating through Kyiv with Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans.   Boris Johnson from the U.K and Justin from Canada also took their entourages into Kyiv to hold media events and photo ops with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

All of the U.S. propaganda efforts originate from within the strategy teams at the U.S. State Dept.  It is the Dept of State who coordinates with U.S. intelligence, Hollywood and big tech social media to frame the overall narrative.  Big Tech and social media assist by blocking any platform content that does not fit the narrative created by the State Dept.

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New York Times narrative engineer Charlie Savage is tweeting from within a packed media center at the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington DC for the government case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann. [TWEET THREAD]  The mentions and notations, while skewed toward the self interest of media, give us a good insight into what is taking place in the courtroom.

First things first. All media reporting of this case will be done through the prism of their own cooperation in the perpetration of the fraud.  The MSM knew along with everyone else inside and outside of government, that their efforts to create the Trump-Russia conspiracy and collusion narrative were based on fraudulent pretext manufactured by the Clinton campaign.  They all knew it. They all acted collaboratively and they all engaged purposefully.

As noted by Charlie Savage, prosecutor Deborah Shaw, a member of the Durham team, delivered the opening remarks to frame the government position in the case.

The telling remarks came early: “Shaw addresses “the elephant in the room” – tells jury their feelings about Russia, Trump, Clinton can’t play a role in the case. This is about “our FBI” which should not be used as a tool by anyone, Republicans or Democrats.”  In essence, prosecutor Shaw is telling the jury the FBI were duped into the Trump-Russia conspiracy investigation by outsiders connected to the Clinton campaign.

That’s a critical baseline from the government we must understand and accept.  That baseline now indicates that none of the DOJ and FBI operatives involved in the fraudulent scheme will be held accountable by the Durham team.  “Our FBI should not be used as a tool by anyone,” yet they were, so sayeth the United States Government.

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The Elon Musk appearance on the All-In podcast has generated a lot of news.  Below is the entire interview.

The first 20 minutes is worth watching if you do not have the time for the entire broadcast.  WATCH:

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In the second segment of the interview with Maria Bartiromo, Devin Nunes and Kash Patel discuss the trial of Michael Sussmann which begins tomorrow. {Direct Rumble Link}

Ultimately the issue in the Michael Sussmann trial is quite simple:

Did the DOJ and FBI know the material Michael Sussmann was giving them came from the Hillary Clinton campaign?

We all know the answer to that question, of course they did.  However, there has been –and continues to be– a game of grand pretense from the DOJ/FBI group where they pretend not to have known.

Two groups: the “insider group” (DOJ/FBI) and the “outsider group” (Perkins Coie, Fusion GPS, Clinton campaign, Sussmann, Elias, Mook, etc).

Claiming the DOJ and FBI were duped, is the government firewall that protects the inside group.  However, this claim is now against the interest of Michael Sussmann who has been accused of false representation and lying to the FBI about the provenance of the information he provided.

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BASELINE – Boil all international and geopolitical issues down to their common denominator and everything, E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G., every issue, every discussion, every policy, every position, everything -all of it- circles around economics. Everything is secondary to the underlying economics of every single issue. Power or weakness, famine or war, peace or conflict, master or servant, culture or crisis, growth or collapse, the entirety of everything -including the foundation of freedom- centers around the economics.  There are trillions at stake.

In this interview Finland’s President Sauli Niinistö made some very interesting remarks when asked about his decision to reverse the long-established geopolitical position of Finland and join the “western alliance,” vis-a-vis NATO.

Listen carefully [01:44] when President Niinistö explains why.  Niinistö explains he did not, and does not, consider Russia a threat; however, “what we see now, Europe, the world, is more divided. There’s not very much room for ‘non-aligned,’ in-between. So that was also what we are thinking.”  WATCH:

In March of this year CTH noted, “this intentional global cleaving, using the opportunity created by the Ukraine crisis, is going to be the major story of this year.  This global splitting can be looked at in multiple ways, but the overarching story is the ramifications of two global trade relationships.”

Two world groupings.  One group, oil-based energy (traditional, grey on map below), and one group GREEN energy (the build back better plan, yellow on map).  It is not accidental these two groups hold similar internal geopolitical views and perspectives, hence, their alignment or lack thereof with the sanctions against Russia.

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As more data leading to increased scrutiny surfaces, Neil Oliver (U.K.) and Mark Steyn (Canada) discuss the continued suppression and censorship of any COVID discussion that is antithetical to the official position of western government.

The suppression/censorship of reasonable discussion is a unique element of the COVID framework that has been maintained for well over two years.  As the danger and fear have subsided, one must reasonably ask why the continued need for this level of control?

What is it they fear, and who are ‘they‘?

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