Tucker Carlson used his monologue tonight to give a big picture review of how the White House is using the Ukraine-Russia conflict to hide the economic outcomes created by their policy.

Massive inflation on basic necessities, combined with rising gas, fuel and energy costs are crippling the working class.  The White House is now using the Russia-Ukraine conflict as an excuse to hide their responsibility.   It’s an accurate outline. WATCH:

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If you remember this very important quote from two weeks ago, what follows will make a lot more sense:

…”Strategic success in the 21st century is not about a physical land grab of territory; that’s what Putin has done.  In this century, strategic power is increasingly measured and exercised by economic strength, by technological sophistication and your story – who you are, what your values are; can you attract ideas and talent and goodwill? And on each of those measures, this will be a failure for Russia.”

~ Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh

White House Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh boiled down geopolitical power to a cultural issue of social likeability.  This is genuinely what the people running the Biden administration believe.

Everyone in the Biden administration is, after all, spawned in the petri-dish of community activism. When they successfully installed Barack Obama, the premise of their strategy proved accurate.   Within this political and cultural strategy, pop icons are used as influencers and policy ambassadors.

This report today from the Washington Post is directly aligned:

(Washington Post) – On Thursday afternoon, 30 top TikTok stars gathered on a Zoom call to receive key information about the war unfolding in Ukraine. National Security Council staffers and White House press secretary Jen Psaki briefed the influencers about the United States’ strategic goals in the region and answered questions on distributing aid to Ukrainians, working with NATO and how the United States would react to a Russian use of nuclear weapons.  (read more)

It is very easy to snark or ridicule this approach from the position of being an intelligent adult in a world of childishness.  However, we dismiss it at our own peril.

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The nationwide average for regular gas is now $4.32 a gallon, according to AAA. Just yesterday it was $4.25. In just a few days gasoline has eclipsed the highest price ever recorded by 20¢.  The previous record was $4.11 in July 2008.  Unfortunately, there is no end in sight.  Anecdotally, my neighborhood gas station went up 75¢/gal in just three days and is now $4.95.

Nationally, Diesel prices are also at record highs, with the average cost at $5.06 a gallon, up almost twenty cents overnight from Wednesday to Thursday.  This will increase transportation costs for all goods being delivered.   The speed of the current rate of increase is very troublesome.

(Current gas price in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA)

USA today has an estimate of gasoline prices by state – SEE HERE

What is the current price near you?

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The Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) has released the February capture of the current inflation situation {DATA HERE} – the results are alarming and unfortunately will get worse.

The February rate of inflation was 0.8% (adjusted), an increase from the prior month (Jan 0.6%), and the calculated year-over-year inflation rate is now 7.9 percent and climbing fast.   There are some important indicators and aspects that need to be emphasized.  [Modified table-1 graphic]

First, the capture of the current February data was BEFORE the Russia-Ukraine crisis came into play.  Despite the White House attempting to justify the release data today by blaming it on Russia-Ukraine influence on oil and gas prices, the data itself was assembled before the recent spikes in oil and gasoline.  This is an important distinction, because that means what is coming next is even higher.

Second, what is surfacing now in the data is what we previously outlined in October and November as the inflation hurricane heading our way.  All of this was predictable, given the nature of the inflation, at all three stages of the supply chain (raw material, intermediate and wholesale).

The price of goods is still rising inside the supply chain, and the rate of petroleum price increases (energy and transportation) is making the final products even more expensive.

Third, the forward-looking rate of annualized inflation is higher in almost every category than the year-over-year backward looking data. This means future price increases will be even higher than previous price increases.  The rate of inflation monthly (in almost every category) is exceeding the previous rate of inflation.

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First things first, there is no need for panic, and it is important to remember the United States is a net food exporter.  The U.S. is blessed with a food production and capacity industry that leads the world.  We have fertile land, abundant harvests and the strong advantage of food independence.

That said, the influence of multinational corporations in our agriculture industry over the past three decades has ramifications, and we have outlined exhaustively, on these pages, what the real-world consequences are. As we head into a chapter of global food crisis, the food production capacity of the United States can be viewed as an asset, but only insofar as we are willing to secure a national food supply for our own America-First interests.

What we have talked about prudently on these pages is now coming into greater focus, as global leaders are beginning to prepare their own citizens for the long-term consequences of their disruption to the food supply chain.

The meteor of government intervention hit the ocean back in the spring of 2020, when government intervened in the food supply process, the tsunami -the ripple effect from that intervention- is now within sight of shore.

I’m not going to repeat the history here. CTH readers already know the details {Go Deep} – for everyone else, use the site search function.  As a result of intervention, global COVID intervention, food stocks were depleted.  Combined with increased energy costs, driven by the ideological chase for climate change under the guise of ‘Build Back Better,’ we end up with higher fertilizer costs for this year.

The ripple effect becomes a tsunami, and the next round of global food harvests becomes more critically important and simultaneously more expensive. For the past three months, the sound of the alarms have grown louder.  Now, people are really starting to pay attention.

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Gasoline is now at the highest price ever recorded. The average cost of a retail gallon of unleaded gasoline hit $4.173, according to the American Automobile Association, with many regions now far exceeding that price.  It is not uncommon to see $5/gal gasoline in many areas.

Against this backdrop, Joe Biden announced today that his administration is banning the import of oil, liquified natural gas (LNG) and coal from Russia.  [We do not import LNG or coal from Russia, so that political point is moot.]  You can read the executive order HERE.

The executive order also bans any U.S. entity from investing or facilitating the investment of Russian energy development.  That section explains why there were earlier reports of Oil companies withdrawing from Russia.  They were obviously given a heads up.

The way the order is currently written, and a lot of it has to do with extremely generous interpretations by the U.S. Treasury Dept., it would appear that any energy company currently operating in the U.S. cannot simultaneously be operating in Russia (or be part of the subsidizing and insurance network that supports energy development in Russia).  The Treasury interpretations here are fraught with complexity.

The part that matters is boiled down in this section:

(i)    the importation into the United States of the following products of Russian Federation origin:  crude oil; petroleum; petroleum fuels, oils, and products of their distillation; liquefied natural gas; coal; and coal products;

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During his lengthy opening monologue tonight, Fox News host Tucker Carlson outlines the increased DC effort around Ukraine as we have witnessed in the past several days.

Using tape from the past several years of DC politicians, Tucker outlines how the DC system was continually trying to position the U.S. against Russia for a direct conflict.  Why were they doing this?  WATCH:

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White House Press Secretary Jennifer Psaki said today the Biden administration will try to reduce the impact of rising oil prices for American consumers but will not do anything to allow increased production of U.S. energy resources.

Oh, and it’s all Vladimir Putin’s fault, WATCH:

I’ll keep repeating it, because many people just don’t understand the unique nature of our North American position.  Energy resources are nation specific.  Ireland, the U.K, Europe, or Australia, do not have abundant oil and natural gas deposits like the U.S. does.  ANWAR has more oil than Saudi Arabia.

A U.S. president can and does control the price of gasoline.  What can a U.S. President and administration specifically do?  We have abundant U.S. energy resources.  Quite literally the strongest in the entire world.

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The propaganda effort by western media, specifically but not exclusively U.S. media, to shift blame for massive economic damage from Joe Biden to Russia is reaching a stunning level of coordinated intent.

The cognitive dissonance (fancy words for telling lies under the cloud of economic analysis) is not only happening in the U.S; a similar level of blame-shifting is happening in Europe, Australia, Canada and most western media outlets.

The global economic contraction, which was specifically and intentionally created by the collective ‘Build Back Better‘ promoters, is now being blamed on Russia; and, quite frankly, the motive behind the corporate media shifting the blame is because the underlying ideology (western policy) was/is supported by the leftist media tribe.

Throughout 2021, it is well documented how government COVID policies of lockdowns, economic consequences and insane spending, created the baseline problem behind inflation.  Simultaneously, the western approach toward energy development and the “opportunity” the EU and U.S. sought to exploit within the BBB agenda to radically transform energy use, was simply pouring super-volatile fuel on an already burning fire.

In 2021, gasoline prices increased 60 to 80 percent.  Food prices jumped 15 to 40 percent, with some sectors even higher.  By the time the EU central bankers and U.S. Federal reserve finally admitted inflation was no longer “transitory,” we were facing next harvest fertilizer prices that tripled in price from 2020, and oil prices that had doubled in the span of 12 months.

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This is not good for working class Americans, not good at all.  With gas prices already jumping, oil futures have now eclipsed a 15-year high and the outlook does not look good.

(MSM) – […] West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the U.S. oil benchmark, traded 8% higher to above $125 a barrel, the highest since July 2008. At one point the price rose to $130.50 Sunday evening before retreating.

The international benchmark, Brent crude, traded 9% higher to $128.60, also the highest price seen since 2008. Brent hit a high of $139.13 at one point overnight.

“Oil is rising on the prospect for a full embargo of Russian oil and products,” said John Kilduff of Again Capital. “Already high gasoline prices are going to keep going up in a jarring fashion. Prices in some states will be pushing $5 pretty quickly.” (read more)

What was the last gas price in your neighborhood?

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