The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the First Quarter GDP figures today [DATA HERE] showing the U.S. economy contracted -1.4% in the first quarter.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the dollar value of all goods and services produced in the economy, minus the dollar value of goods and services we import.  The percentages discussed are percentages of change over time.

The first quarter result was an annualized rate of negative 1.4 percent, meaning the U.S. economy is shrinking.   However, this should not come as a surprise as the primary driver of our GDP is consumer spending.  With everything costing more, less stuff is purchased.  Less stuff purchased leads to less stuff generated.

While the first quarter result of -1.4% is not a surprise, in the commonsense perspective, the fact that BEA didn’t revise the fourth quarter result of +6.9% is a little eye opening.  There’s no way in an apples-to-apples valuation the U.S. economy goes from +6.9% to -1.4% in one quarter.  Instead, what we are seeing is the effect we mentioned when the Q4 result was announced.  The BEA is modifying their assumptions by increasing the inflation rate in their calculations of the value of goods and services.  They really didn’t have a choice.

You might remember my prior opinion that the Q4 numbers were very overinflated because of two factors: (1) they underestimated inflation; and (2) the December 2021 import data from the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) was missing [NOTE: remember, Buttigieg was there in November and POLA supervisors are on team Biden].  I said at the time that if my hunch was correct the first quarter 2022 import data would be magnified by the December POLA data being added.  Remember, imports are a deduction to the GDP equation.

Well, what shows up in Q1?  A massive increase in first quarter import data that surprised everyone.  Go figure… lol.

Let’s look at the data

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New York state democrats attempted to mitigate the bloodbath coming their way in the 2022 elections by drawing a redistricting map that eliminated three republican congressional seats.   Today a New York State appeals court ruled the maps were unconstitutional efforts to gerrymander the districts and now the primary races will likely be delayed.

The 78-page ruling is available here.  The state appeals court ruled 4-3 against the democrats. The June 28, 2022, primary will likely be moved to August because the state now needs to redraw the congressional districts.

(Via MSM) – […] The New York State Court of Appeals said the three maps violated the state’s Constitution by creating political bias. The maps were “procedurally unconstitutional, and the congressional map is also substantively unconstitutional as drawn with impermissible partisan purpose,” the court said.

[…] With no more appeals and time running out, the court ordered the adoption of a neutral map by an outside expert. The court also recommended the state’s June 28 primary be moved to August.

“We are confident that, in consultation with the Board of Elections, Supreme Court can swiftly develop a schedule to facilitate an August primary election, allowing time for the adoption of new constitutional maps,” the court said.  (read more)

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Fox News’ Tucker Carlson previewed a discussion with Glenn Greenwald that will appear in full tomorrow on Fox Nation.  In this segment {Direct Rumble Link Here} Greenwald gives his perspective on the motives of Elon Musk purchasing Twitter.

Greenwald does a good job encapsulating the essential support most feel for the Musk effort.  There are many people still uncertain about how this will all roll out, and Musk has been favorable to Big Govt in his two most famous endeavors, Tesla and SpaceX.   Elon Musk’s phase of pushing back against speech and internet control is more recent, and as a result has left many people wondering about it.

As Greenwald notes, there really isn’t a downside for people who are trying to break the totalitarian and monopoly control systems on the internet.  The upside benefits to on-line freedom, debate, discussion and the first real effort to stop internet censorship are well worth supporting.  Greenwald eloquently puts an appropriate context to the battle.  WATCH:

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Another significant filing by John Durham’s special counsel team to the court was made last night.  {READ HERE} Within the filing the staff accidentally did not seal the attachments which are emails between Fusion GPS and many major media outlets.  Whoops.

♦ First, the background.  In a previous liable lawsuit by Alfa Bank against Fusion GPS, the Russian bank was able to get the internal emails between Fusion GPS and major media outlets as part of the lawsuit discovery phase.  Despite the lawsuit failing to advance, those prior emails now become evidence for John Durham to use in the case against Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Michael Sussmann, a Perkins Coie lawyer, is accused of lying to the FBI about who he was working for when Sussmann was trying to push the Trump-Russia collusion story to trigger an investigation.  Former FBI legal counsel James Baker has said Sussmann told the FBI he was operating independently as a concerned citizen.  However, Sussmann is defending himself by saying: (a) he never said he was not working for Clinton at the time he brought the FBI the material, a demonstrable falsehood; and (b) he was motivated by altruism, unrelated to efforts to help Clinton, another demonstrable falsehood.

As the case has proceeded all of the parties are now claiming legal and work product ‘privileges’ to stop Durham from using their communication and networked conspiracy against Michael Sussmann, and by extension them, in court.  Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Marc Elias, Michael Sussmann, Hillary for America (Clinton campaign), Robby Mook (Campaign Manager), along with Tech-Executive-1 Rodney Joffe, are all claiming some form of privilege.

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The government of Ukraine is asking western nations to fund their budget.  Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked for $7 billion per month in financial assistance to retain their government obligations.  Yesterday, Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal reiterated that demand saying, “the cash, in sense of our budget, is very important for social and humanitarian responsibilities of our state to our people.”

l am not wanting to belabor a point that many have discussed here, but there really does come a time when the American people must draw a red line and ask, ‘to what end?‘  The United States government, both the white house and congress, have already pledged $14 billion dollars to Ukraine without a single representative asking the American people if they support it.

Certainly, there is an argument to be made that Ukraine needs the support of the world as they struggle with a conflict in their nation.  However, charity begins at home, and for too long our national leadership has been willing to use our income taxes as tools for their own political agenda.  The brazen expectation by leaders of Ukraine for the United States citizens to finance their government is, in my opinion, the last straw of a series of straws.

The issue would not be so significant if that request was not also accompanied by the visibility of western European nations, supposedly NATO allies, barely spending any money of their own wealth to assist their direct neighbor.  The U.S. financial support is ridiculous when compared to how Europe is responding to the Ukraine crisis.

Compounding this issue is our own American economy and the serious pain being felt by American workers and taxpayers as the spending creates even more massive inflation that we have to cope with.   We gained national independence around the premise of taxation without representation from England, and yet here we are again sending scarce income, without consultation or representation, to DC elites who send that money overseas.

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It’s not exactly a confidence builder when the Director of the International Monetary Fund answers the question about forward priorities by saying, “Perhaps we need to pay attention to the law of unintended consequences.”  You had one job Kristalina, one job.

During an International Monetary Fund (IMF) spring debate and discussion segment, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, outlined her perspective against the backdrop of massive inflation caused by the global financial institutions telling government to spend money and they will print it, during COVID.  [The video is prompted to 01:04:50] WATCH:

The discussion included EU Central Bank President Lagarde, US Fed Chair Powell, Indonesian Finance Minister Mulvani – when IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva admitted they channeled their COVID fear and emotions by unsustainably printing money without pausing to think through the consequences.

Now, the world is facing massive inflation, economic contraction, looming hunger, widespread famine and a pending global financial collapse.

Their response? “Whoops.”

Not to worry, they’ll have a little wine and chocolate and figure things out.  Swear.

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Colonel Douglas Macgregor appeared on Tucker Carlson to give a brutally honest assessment of the conflict in Ukraine. Regarding the transfer of heavy weapons and artillery, Macgregor notes something many have discussed.

The logistics of sending in those weapons from western Ukraine (Poland border) to the eastern Ukraine battle encompasses a thousand-mile trek. Russia can easily hit those convoys en route, negating the supply line. Additionally, the U.S. has sent $4.7 billion in military equipment and financial aid so far (see graphic below), and we have no idea who is in control of those weapons.  WATCH:

To give scale for the proxy war the U.S. government is waging in Ukraine, check out the extreme ratio of who in NATO is sending support, and how much.

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Keep in mind…. a more assertive, deliberate, strategic and determined MAGA movement is being noticed everywhere.  There are new combat rules in response to the leftist onslaught toward our children.  Cold anger has turned hot.  Some have called this ‘Dark MAGA‘!

Meanwhile…

Leftist favorite Netflix, is hemorrhaging users and just lost 30% of its value.  Spotify just refused to renew the leftist idols, the Obamas.  The ultra-leftist Disney Corp just lost their special district status in Orlando, and leftist Twitter is on the verge of a hostile ‘free speech’ takeover by Elon Musk.

The political culture wars are raging, Biden’s support amid the American people is collapsing even more, and Dark MAGA is not relenting.  Now this:

(SOURCE)

CNN spent $300 million to launch a subscriber-based platform that didn’t even survive a month:

“CNN+, the streaming service that was hyped as one of the most significant developments in the history of CNN, will shut down on April 30, just one month after it launched. CNN+ customers “will receive prorated refunds of subscription fees,” the company said.”

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Put this in the tab labeled ‘conclusive proof of prior suspicions.’

Former Obama era intelligence officials, those who helped construct, organize and assemble the public-private partnership between intelligence data networks and supported social media companies, have written a letter to congress warning that any effort to break up Big Tech (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Microsoft, etc.) would be catastrophic for the national security system they have created.

[READ LETTER HERE]

Citing the information control mechanisms they assembled, vis-a-vis the ability of social media networks to control and approve what is available for the public to read and review, the intelligence officials declare that any effort to break up the private side of the intel/tech partnership will only result in less ability of the intelligence apparatus to control public opinion.

They willfully admit that open and uncensored information is adverse to the interests of the intelligence state and therefore too dangerous to permit.   They specifically argue, if the modern system created by the partnership between the U.S. government and Big Tech is not retained, the national security of the United States is compromised.  Let that sink in for a moment.

One of their reference citations revolves around Ukraine and the Russia narrative:

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Jumpin’ ju-ju bones, Governor Ron DeSantis detonated a thermonuclear political bomb on the Disney Corporation today.

A special legislative session has been called to approve the new congressional districting map.  However, in an unexpected announcement, the Florida governor said that, in addition to a new congressional map they’re voting on, lawmakers “will be considering termination of all special districts that were enacted in Florida prior to 1968, and that includes the Reedy Creek Improvement District.”

As NBC notes, “The Reedy Creek Improvement District in the Orlando area shields Disney from local government regulations and from local property taxes, which could be worth as much as $200 million per year, by one lawmaker’s estimate.  Legislators in both chambers predicted the legislation — which could end the 55-year-old taxing district next summer — would pass by Friday.”  WATCH:

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DeSantis knows he has a sky-high approval rating in the state, and he is moving fast while the public still has the cultural antagonism and political weaponization by the Disney Corporation in the headlines.

The Disney Corporation previously announced they were going to fund political attacks against the Florida Legislature for creating laws that protect children from sex predators in schools.  Disney openly announced they support grooming efforts by teachers in K-3 education to sexualize children and discuss gender identity issues for children under 9-years-old without parental consent.

Ron DeSantis and the Florida Republican Legislature are about to deliver big revenge against Disney for that decision.  In the political, cultural and all things corporate business world inside Florida, the removal of Disney’s special district status is huge.

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