After allowing the various state premiers to brutalize the citizens in each of the states with catastrophic COVID restrictions, mandates and compliance regulations, the conservative Prime Minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, has lost his feeble attempt to win reelection.

Australia has replaced Morrison with Labour party candidate Anthony Albanese.  The COVID dictator is out, and the Climate-Change dictator is now installed.  Good luck Australia.

(Via MSM)  […] “We hand over this country as a government in a stronger position than when we inherited it when we came to government (in 2013),” Morrison told a gathering of Liberal supporters in Sydney late Saturday night.  He said it had been a “privilege to lead this great party and lead this great nation” but that he, as leader, would “take responsibility for the wins and the losses”.

“As a result I will be handing over the leadership at the next party room meeting, to ensure that the party can be taken forward under new leadership,” he said.

“It’s a night of disappointment … but it’s also a time for coalition members and supporters all across the country to hold their heads high. We have been a strong government. We have been a good government. Australia is stronger as a result of our efforts over these last three terms.”  (read more)

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During a Senate Energy Committee hearing, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan gives a list of actions taken by the Biden administration in the past three weeks to block U.S. oil production.

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm stated during the hearing that the Biden administration was doing everything possible to increase oil production and supply in the United States.  Senator Sullivan quotes the actions of the Biden administration in the last three weeks which are exactly the opposite of the energy secretary claims.  WATCH (3 minutes):

This is, yet again, another example of the false pretense of the Biden administration {GO DEEP}.  The Interior Department is filled with radical climate change ideologues, and they are working earnestly to undermine U.S. energy policy.

The hypocrisies pointed out by Senator Sullivan are not hypocrisies, they are fraud.   The activist ideologues embedded within the bureaucracy of government are like terror cells activating to destroy the foundation of the country.   President Obama implanted them at all levels of the executive branch offices. They are self-aware and operating independently.  The example of the Interior Department, in charge of oil and gas development, is the easiest to see.

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~ 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.

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Make identity politics the primary qualifier for cabinet positions, and this is what you get.  WATCH (54 seconds):

For those who don’t know, the interior department is in control of domestic oil and gas resource development.

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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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…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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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]

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Appearing on Face the Nation (FtN) Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein discussed his views and perspectives on the economy overall and U.S. inflation specifically.  Undoubtedly Blankfein has access to resources and analysis far beyond CTH scope; however, despite a statistically factual contracting GDP, Blankfein is claiming to see overall demand side inflation remaining in the macro economy.

Perhaps that view might still be true domestically on the service side (it certainly isn’t on the trade side), but demand driven inflation does not appear visible on the goods side of the economic ledger.  What is clearly present as the price driver is “production side inflation,” the costs to create goods and bring them to market.   If you look at economic activity in units instead of dollars, the units are contracting.

The demand for goods is now focused almost entirely on priority or essential purchases like housing, energy, fuel and food.  The price for those essential products is driven by production costs, which are a direct outcome of the energy policy, environmental policy, regulatory policy, and to a lesser extent trade policy, of the Biden administration.  Blankfein is pretending not to know things… WATCH:

Putting housing aside due to investment purchasing of real estate, if Blankfein was correct, and demand was still driving inflation, then a massive deflationary cycle would be coming as a result of lowered consumer purchasing of goods.   There isn’t any chance we are going to see “deflation” in the next several years.  [We will likely see housing prices collapse, but not consumer goods.]

Inflation is being driven by production costs, and there is no end in sight to the production cost increases as long as the crew behind Joe Biden keeps strangling the U.S. energy sector…. and then compounding the domestic price issue by creating incentives for energy exports (vis-a-vis EU sanctions).  The production inflation is a purposefully inflicted wound on our economy.  Production inflation is avoidable.

That interview is Wall Street gaslighting to a Main Street audience.  I don’t like it one bit.

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