Over time, retired Col Douglas Macgregor has been shown to be quite accurate in his overall perspective of the war in Ukraine.  Appearing on OANN with Dan Ball, Macgregor gives another update on the current status that aligns with what little non-propaganda information is visible.

As Macgregor notes, Russia was always going to strategically win a war in eastern Ukraine for the same reason the United States would win a war in Mexico.  The scale of a determined military capability eventually wins, even with a strong resistance, specifically because: (a) Ukraine is connected to a common border with Russia, and (b) the citizens in the eastern part of the country are aligned with Russia.

Macgregor also identifies the financial motive for the government of Sweden to join NATO, even though the Swedish citizens would likely not support the effort if put to a referendum.  As the retired colonel also notes the lack of recent U.S. media talking positively about the status of Ukraine, is an indicator that Russia is solidifying the eastern part of the country with lessened resistance.  The segment with Macgregor starts at 04:00 (Direct Rumble Link) WATCH:

(more…)

Earlier today, the installed occupant of the White House, Joe Biden, flanked by Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, said the two countries would “make NATO stronger.”

With great enthusiasm Biden called their applications join the NATO pact a “victory for democracy,” as the proxy war in Ukraine continues.  The speech transcript – is here, and the White House readout of the meeting – is here.

“President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. met today with Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden and President Sauli Niinistö of Finland and warmly welcomed their applications for NATO membership, which will strengthen our collective security.  At this historic moment for both Finland and Sweden, the President underscored his commitment to support both countries as they seek formal NATO accession, including by working with NATO Allies and Congress to welcome them into the Alliance as quickly as possible.  The leaders also discussed their ongoing cooperation on shared global challenges, and their commitment to continued strong support for Ukraine.” (LINK)

Joe Biden also thanked Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell for their bipartisan support to affirm Sweden and Finland. “I greatly appreciate Senator Schumer and McConnell’s support, as well as Senator Menendez and Risch, to move this through the Senate as quickly as possible once the perspective of all Allies are addressed and NATO adopts the accession protocols,” he said.

Meanwhile, according to the same people, Russia putting a military base in Cuba is an existential threat to world peace.

(more…)

~ The Great Pretense of Biden ~

CTH has been preparing to write about this for a week. Today a serendipitous event took place which highlights the dynamic within the current Biden administration.

During a Senate Energy Committee hearing today, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, a woman specifically appointed for her progressive identity as a native American indian – with no skills to be interior secretary, was questioned by Senator Joe Manchin about a press release [LINK] from the interior department that took place in real time as Secretary Haaland was giving testimony.  Secretary Haaland had no idea what the press release was about. WATCH:

[The Press Release is Here]

The issue surrounds the U.S. Interior Department, which is filled to the brim with left-wing climate activists, pushing out a press release saying that any further oil and gas leases are not going to happen.  Secretary Haaland was telling congress the Interior Department was doing everything they can to allow oil and gas leases and expand drilling with additional permitting.

The press release from the dept says the proposal the Secretary was stating “is not a decision to issue specific leases or to authorize any drilling or development,” literally undercutting her testimony in real time, and reaffirming that no further oil drilling will be authorized.   Secretary Haaland was caught completely off-guard, stammered and admitted she had no idea what the bureaucrats in the dept were doing.

What this example reveals is something we have noticed and discussed but has become very clear in the past few weeks.

(more…)

Montana Senator Jon Tester is deeply connected to the corrupt and multinational Big Agricultural (BigAg) lobby.  As a democrat connected closer to Wall Street, he is not a supporter of American farmers overall as it pertains to America First food security and domestic food prices.  However, that said, what Senator Tester says in the first two minutes of this interview is correct.

As Tester notes, the food “supply” issue is not as big a deal in North America as it will certainly be in food dependent regions.  Between the U.S, Mexico and Canada we produce more food than we consume, and with excellence in industrial farming we export food products to the world, eastward and westward.  The issue for the U.S. population is going to be massive increases in food prices in later summer and fall as the cumulative increase in costs at the field reach the stores.  WATCH (2 mins):

My own back of the envelope calculations put the third-wave price increase in the 35 to 40% range overall.  Based on the input costs, energy and transportation, a current $4.00 item is going to cost around $5.50 later this year.  That is the approximate scale of price increase in foodstuff we should be anticipating.

Food insecurity, as an outcome of food pricing, is going to be the election issue that might supersede the gasoline price issue.  That’s going to be the crisis, and we are going to need to be very careful; because depending on the scale of the crisis there are going to be massive numbers of people demanding the government step in to solve it.   Our current government is being run by economic socialists; we do not want their equitable distribution solutions.

Conduct your affairs accordingly….

(more…)

The second day of witness testimony in the trial of Michael Sussmann for lying to the FBI was completed on Wednesday.  For a good recap of the granular aspects Techno Fog has a play-by-play SUMMARY HERE.

For CTH readers I want to focus on a point that is visible in the defense argument and challenging, insofar as it has not yet been revealed, in the prosecution position.   The issue surrounds why Rodney Joffe gave the Alfa-bank fraudulent information to Michael Sussmann instead of just giving it to the FBI himself.  {A Question Margot Cleveland posits here}

In the cross examination of the first set of prosecution witnesses the defense lawyers keep contending that Sussmann did not lie about the fraudulently created origin of the Alfa-Bank material and there was no reason for him not to tell the FBI he was a courier for the Clinton campaign.  The defense is essentially that Sussmann and the FBI knew he was working for the Clinton campaign when he delivered the fraudulent material.  Sussmann wasn’t trying to hide anything, ergo he didn’t lie.

Sussmann’s defensive point is essentially true.  The DOJ, FBI and everyone associated with the information knew they were receiving opposition research from the Clinton campaign.  However, the FBI had to pretend they didn’t know in order to use it to start an investigation.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

A senior engineer working for the Twitter social media platform is captured on undercover video explaining the culture and ideology of the people who work within the organization.

In the video Twitter Sr. Engineer, Siru Murugesan, a self-described communist, explains why most of his colleagues are freaked out about Twitter being purchased by Elon Musk and operating as a capitalistic company.  Many might have to work more than 4 hours a week to earn their salary. WATCH:

[NEW YORK – May 16, 2022] Project Veritas published explosive undercover footage on Monday night featuring one of Twitter’s senior engineers discussing the dynamics behind internal reactions to the acquisition of the tech company by business magnate, Elon Musk.

In the video, Twitter Sr. Engineer, Siru Murugesan, says many of his colleagues have voiced “this would be my last day if it happens,” referring to Musk’s high publicized intended purchase of Twitter. He also says employees at Twitter are “stress-eating” and “worried for our jobs.”

More significant than those soundbites are the reasons he says employees at Twitter feel this way. (read more)

(more…)

NBC is promoting their contracted poll today [pdf HERE] around the lesser-important voting issue of abortion.  However, before getting to the poll it is worth noting again who they contracted with.  Inside the article you will note this sentence, “[…] who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.”   If that name sounds familiar, that’s because it is the same ideologically aligned polling outfit who spent six months creating the ultra-MAGA branding campaign for Anita Dunn and the White House {link}.

The abortion polling is irrelevant to the issue of larger public opinions of the Biden administration.  On abortion, 10% of polled respondents say they are single issue voters [respondents = 790 RV’s, (79 single issue)].  Out of 79 single issue voters, 22% list abortion as their top priority. So, out of 790 registered voters, 17 view abortion as their single issue to vote on.  That’s the scale being overemphasized.

On the larger issues of voter priorities, the economy dominates with 40% responses.  Additionally, the polling identifies 39 percent of Americans approving of President Biden’s job as president, versus 56 percent who say they disapprove.  75% say the country is heading in the wrong direction, and only 16% saying the country is on the right track.   That’s the bigger headline.  WATCH:

[POLL pdf Here]

(more…)