Hindsight is not only 20/20, in this case it’s a little alarming. 

Last year, we were discussing the massive increases in food and farming costs associated with increased fertilizer prices.  By the time we got to late January, the World Bank (WB), United Nations (UN) and the Davos / World Economic Forum (WEF) group were discussing it.  At first the perspective was the potential for lower crop yields creating increased global famine.

However, if we apply a little hindsight from the geopolitical world surrounding the current issues in Europe, specifically Ukraine, and then consider the background of what the Biden team were doing, while Russia, Belarus and China were stockpiling, things look a little more concerning than just lower crop yields as an outcome of higher natural gas prices – vis-a-vis nitrogen fertilizer.

As noted by Forbes last month, “Russia and China have imposed export restrictions on fertilizer. Both are, or were, big exporters of plant food. The decline in exports makes getting the vital nutrients harder across the globe. China and Russia account for 29% of world exports for nitrogen-based plant food. The two countries also have significant, albeit, smaller shares of the phosphate and potash markets, respectively, the report states.”

Now, keep in mind how Belarus helped Russia with the current military operation.

In August of 2021 the United States, Canada and the EU hit Belarus with punitive sanctions on the one-year anniversary of what they called a fraudulent election.  As noted by Politico at the time, “The sanctions partially ban imports of potash fertilizer, petrol and petrol-based products from Belarus.”  […] Targeting Belarus’ potash sector was a strategic move insofar as the country is the second largest exporter of the fertilizer behind Canada, covering 21 percent of the world’s potash exports in 2019.

In September of 2021, at the same time as China was investing heavily in the purchase of U.S. farmland, Beijing simultaneously announced a ban of export for phosphates until June of 2022.  With China banning export of the source material, the global fertilizer market now needed to look elsewhere for future purchases.

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Kamala and Pete have been in a contest to see who can use the most words without actually saying anything.  Previously, Pete set the record during his presidential bid of 2020. However, in 2021 Kamala got serious about the contest.  Harris fired her communications team and brought in new brand image consultants to help her finally achieve that first-place status which was so elusive.

Appearing on NBC’s “Today” show with Savannah Guthrie, the additional training paid off.   Kamala Harris was asked about the U.S. economic impact of sanctions on Russia and whether stopping purchases of Russian oil was possible.  This was the opening Harris had been looking for to highlight her sharpened linguistics.

Using the communication team notes for reference (watch her eyes), for almost a minute Kamala Harris assembled 247 various words in a random sequence. The result is remarkable. WATCH: (prompted):

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Everything including oil, natural gas, wheat, and fertilizer is skyrocketing in price right now.  Ten- and twenty-year records are being eclipsed, as energy prices are soaring on the back of oil flirting with $114 a barrel.  Unfortunately, here comes more inflationary pain, and everything is being blamed on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Toward the end of last year, we warned that fertilizer costs were going to harvest costs in 2022 (field to fork, go deep), long before Ukraine came into the picture.  Unfortunately, future wheat prices reached $10.59 a bushel today, the highest since March 2008.  Additionally, corn prices have passed their highest rate since December 2012.

It may seem like those crops are not that important.  However, keep in mind that corn, wheat and soybeans represent the baseline for not only grain production in the U.S, but they are also the primary feed products for proteins: chicken, pork and beef.  We are going to feel this second wave surge at the grocery store.  Hopefully everyone has prepped.

Additionally, oil prices have jumped to near eight-year highs. Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, rose as high as $113.94 a barrel, the highest since June 2014, and has been trading around $111 for most of the day.  If you were paying $4/gal for gas, these oil rates add around another .50¢ today alone.  Yes, you read that correctly, inbound tankers of gasoline will offload at your convenience store at a rate ten percent higher than yesterday.

Making matters worse, the Joe Biden energy policy -focused almost exclusively on green energy- is making any investment in domestic oil production tenuous at best.   The major oil companies are wary of spending money for U.S. energy development in a climate where the U.S. government is specifically against that effort.

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There comes a time in every performance of the United Nations production when the arch villain bombs the milk factories.  Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin takes his turn.

As we return to our seats from the lobby during commercial interlude, we discover the model U.N. interns have left the blue and yellow ribbons on our seats. We know exactly what segment of the melodrama comes next; the children are suffering.

The well attired gentlemen in the mezzanine know this is the moment when they must position their freshly pressed pocket kerchief for quick access.  Heart strings will be pulled, and silk gowns do not fare well as the tears begin to flow. Well educated chivalry, passed down from father to son, has prepared them for this moment.  It’s not quite time for the checkbooks yet; first they must feel the sound of the violins.

Surprisingly, Bono and Geldorf have not yet made their appearance.  However, with the speed of modern social media, and knowing the technology of our time means we cannot wait, the EU assembly must lay the groundwork for the great American oration that is center stage from the Capitol later tonight.

New York – Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky urged the EU to “prove you are with us” in a defiant speech on Tuesday.

Mr Zelenesky, who has become a symbol of defiance for his country, issued an impassioned speech via video link, where he called on the EU to stand with Ukraine as Russia continues its deadly advance on the country.

During his speech, Mr Zelensky described the missile strikes on Kharkiv, as an act of terror against the city, and indeed Ukraine.

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A fantastic piece by Peter Beinart on substack {SEE HERE} puts excellent clarity on the people around Joe Biden baiting Russian President Vladimir Putin to enter Ukraine.

Current CIA Director William “Bill” Burns was the former ambassador to Russia and Jordan.  Bill Burns had a 33-year career at the State Department under both Republican and Democratic presidents and speaks fluent Russian. If the people in the background of Joe Biden wanted an intelligence operative to trigger a specific result from Russia, there’s no one more strategically perfect for the job than CIA Director Bill Burns.

The article by Beinart is mainly focused on pointing out the irreconcilable nature of Joe Biden implying Ukraine could join NATO, while his own CIA Director has a history of giving serious warnings emphasizing the “brightest of all red lines” about that specific point.

[…]  “Two years ago, Burns wrote a memoir entitled, The Back Channel. It directly contradicts the argument being proffered by the administration he now serves. In his book, Burns says over and over that Russians of all ideological stripes—not just Putin—loathed and feared NATO expansion. He quotes a memo he wrote while serving as counselor for political affairs at the US embassy in Moscow in 1995. ‘Hostility to early NATO expansion,” it declares, “is almost universally felt across the domestic political spectrum here.”

On the question of extending NATO membership to Ukraine, Burns’ warnings about the breadth of Russian opposition are even more emphatic. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” he wrote in a 2008 memo to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” (read more)

Against this backdrop of Bill Burns, the details about the lead up to the Russia-Ukraine crisis gain quite a bit of clarity.

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During an ABC interview today, White House Spokesperson Jennifer Psaki gave away the game for the Biden Administration’s intent on exploiting the Russia-Ukraine crisis.

Keep in mind, as the Biden team were getting pummeled for negative economic outcomes, massive inflation, skyrocketing energy costs and gas prices set to double, the White House worked to create an urgent defense by manufacturing the crisis.

While Joe Biden ate his pudding, the people behind the scenes told Zelenskyy and Putin that Ukraine was about to enter NATO {December 2021}.  The White House then seeded details through China knowing the intel would get back to Putin.  Russia took the bait and intervened.

The collective left (far more western leader beneficiaries on a global scale) now have a quick and strategic pivot point to go from COVID-19 as the excuse for all the economic ills, to Russia.   The Russia-Ukraine crisis transfers the cost of the Build Back Better climate change agenda from COVID-19 to Russia/Ukraine.  We can now watch COVID just disappear.

The BBB agenda, domestically known as the Green New Deal, intentionally makes energy costs skyrocket.  By creating the Ukraine crisis, gas prices specifically are no longer blamed on COVID-19 (the original fraudulent justification).  Gas prices are now rising because of Russia and the villainous Vladimir Putin.  Climate change policy outcomes are made palatable by blaming Putin.  Cue Jen Psaki, (Prompted):

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There’s a New York Times article getting attention today, as the article frames a narrative of the U.S. intelligence community and diplomatic offices trying to get China to influence Russia away from invading Ukraine.

However, as with all NYT reporting of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, the information within the article must be viewed through a different prism to understand the real motives being discussed.

Never ascribe to incompetence, that which can be explained by intent.

The Deep State narrative, what the NYT reports, begins thusly:

WASHINGTON — Over three months, senior Biden administration officials held half a dozen urgent meetings with top Chinese officials in which the Americans presented intelligence showing Russia’s troop buildup around Ukraine and beseeched the Chinese to tell Russia not to invade, according to U.S. officials.

Each time, the Chinese officials, including the foreign minister and the ambassador to the United States, rebuffed the Americans, saying they did not think an invasion was in the works. After one diplomatic exchange in December, U.S. officials got intelligence showing Beijing had shared the information with Moscow, telling the Russians that the United States was trying to sow discord — and that China would not try to impede Russian plans and actions, the officials said.

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Let us not forget the history of Egypt 2011, Libya 2012 and the original U.S. State Department Ukraine operations in 2014.

Everything we are seeing in U.S. media surrounding U.S. interests in Ukraine is a massive propaganda operation with the headquarters in the U.S. State Department and U.S. intelligence community.  The sense of sympathy you are feeling is part of an intentionally manipulative operation from within this DC matrix.

The images, pictures, videos, speeches, soundbites and the cinematography broadcast by U.S. corporate media are all purposefully intended to create a very specific outlook within the American people toward the issues in Ukraine.  The leftist United Nations, and the leftist U.S State Dept, will work together on this just like they have done in the prior examples (Ukraine 1.0, Libya, Egypt, etc.)

If you question any of their constructs, if you point out the puppet strings, if you notice the collective distribution of specifically repeated patterns, you are a labeled a Russian apologist.  However, it is critical to retain our reference points to recognize when we are being misled by this effort.

This is not to say that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a good actor in this scenario, he’s not.  This is also not to say that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a willful participant in this geopolitical scheme, he’s not.  Zelenskyy is stuck in a scenario that is not in his control. He is doing the best he can to avoid the worst outcome, which means he is aligning with the U.S. State Dept, because it is the least bad of the two current options.

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THIS video from the White House briefing today, you absolutely must watch to gain a fulsome understanding of how the modern political left views the world of geopolitical contests in 2022.

Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Daleep Singh, was presented at the podium today to explain the strategic policy of the Biden administration toward Russia.

Singh’s remarks outlining the view of the ‘west’ toward defeating Russia are eloquent yet batshit crazy in their ideological context.  Daleep Singh sounds like the senior head of a Google Human Resources operation telling the department heads how they need to convey their feelings in order to hire the talent for continued growth in the industry.  This is a direct quote:

…”Ultimately, the goal of our sanctions is to make this a strategic failure for Russia; and let’s define a little bit of what that means. 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.”

WATCH (14:31, prompted):

Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh boils down geopolitical power to a cultural issue of social likeability.

Let this sink in.

Realize that what he is saying is the strategy leading our foreign policy.

Even if what he was saying is reasonable, and it’s not, I’m thinking strong Russians with hot chicks, nice cars, fast boats and a culture of polite strength, loyalty and fierce protection are winning the “story” side of the argument.

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Earlier today the installed current occupant of the White House delivered remarks and held a brief press conference to discuss the latest Russian entrance into Ukraine.  Simultaneously, the White House also released their latest sanctions on Russia [SEE HERE]

For well over a month Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the White House and State Department have promoted the assembly of “harsh sanctions” as the deterrent that would keep Russia out of Ukraine.  However, when Biden was questioned by the media about the ineffectiveness of sanctions he declared, “no one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.”  WATCH (prompted):

[Transcript Available Here]

Russia knows from watching Biden execute his domestic energy and regulatory policy, that Joe Biden has no intention to do anything that would support U.S. energy development.  As a consequence, Putin knows the U.S. will remain dependent on OPEC where Russia is a member.

Additionally, Europe writ large, and Germany specifically, are dependent on Russia’s oil and natural gas.  Underneath all of the saber rattling from the U.S. and NATO allies this truth remains Putin’s biggest weapon.  In essence, Putin is leveraging the western ‘global climate change’ and energy initiatives as a weapon to do whatever he wants to do, while knowing his adversaries have no options.

As the proverbial ‘west’ chases the Build Back Better climate change agenda, it becomes a structural weakness that Vladimir Putin knows he can exploit.

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