I was unaware that monkeypox was an issue for the White House. However, today the Biden administration is proud to present a team of government officials tasked for the purpose of handling the whole of government response to the U.S. outbreak of monkeypox.

Additionally, I’m not exactly sure what a “stakeholder in monkeypox” is, but this team is in charge of making sure they have “health equity.”

WHITE HOUSE – “Today, President Biden named FEMA’s Robert Fenton as the White House National Monkeypox Response Coordinator and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis as the White House National Monkeypox Response Deputy Coordinator. Fenton and Daskalakis will lead the Administration’s strategy and operations to combat the current monkeypox outbreak, including equitably increasing the availability of tests, vaccinations and treatments.

[…]  “Bob Fenton and Dr. Daskalakis are proven, effective leaders that will lead a whole of government effort to implement President Biden’s comprehensive monkeypox response strategy with the urgency that this outbreak warrants,” said Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the President. “From Bob’s work at FEMA leading COVID-19 mass vaccination efforts and getting vaccines to underserved communities to Demetre’s extensive experience and leadership on health equity and STD and HIV prevention, this team will allow the Biden Administration to further accelerate and strengthen its monkeypox response.”

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Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake discusses primary election day today in Arizona.  {Direct Rumble Link} Most polls show Trump endorsed Kari Lake with a significant lead over the establishment candidate Karrin Taylor Robson; however, the GOPe apparatus (including Brett Baier) has been promoting push-polls that show a much closer race.

Ms. Lake appears on Steve Bannon’s war room podcast to discuss.  WATCH:

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) produces a monthly report of available job openings.  The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary (JOLTS report) shows the number of available jobs at a captured moment in time.  This JOLTS report [DATA HERE] is a summary of the last day in June.

As you can see within modified Table-1, the number of available jobs dropped by 605,000 in this report.

Hires and separations were little changed, so too was the number of people who quit their jobs.  The big change in this JOLTS survey was the removal of available jobs.  Employers cancelling job openings.

BLS – “On the last business day of June, the number and rate of job openings decreased to 10.7 million (-605,000) and 6.6 percent, respectively. The largest decreases in job openings were in retail trade (-343,000), wholesale trade (-82,000), and in state and local government education (-62,000).”

If we monitor the JOLTS report as an indicator of employment strength reflecting the general pattern of consumers, we can see a pullback in both the goods and service sector.

Retail job openings dropping 343,000 as consumer spending tightens even more due to inflation, and now we see the service side with leisure and hospitality dropping 91,000 openings.

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There was a lot of back-and-forth hostility between the government of China and the administration of Joe Biden in advance of Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.  Some Chinese state media even suggested a possibility that Pelosi’s plane could be shot down.  However, none of the threats materialized.

Yesterday it was obvious the White House was attempting to diffuse the aggressive grievances of Beijing when spokesperson John Kirby, technically the NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications, made a specific statement:

“The world has seen the United States government be very clear that nothing has changed — nothing has changed — about our One China policy, which is of course guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint U.S.-PRC Communiqués, and the Six Assurances.  We have said — and we have repeatedly said — that we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side.  We have said that we do not support Taiwan independence.  And we have said that we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.”

Those six words, “we do not support Taiwan independence,” was a very deliberate and public assurance to China.  Essentially, the United States will not do anything to support the independence of Taiwan, do whatever you want.  Joe Biden took a knee to Chairman Xi.  As a result, Beijing dropped back their tone to traditional rhetoric saying in a statement Tuesday morning, the visit “seriously infringes upon China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

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Today is a very consequential primary election day for the states of Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. There are high profile senate races in Arizona and Missouri, and an abortion ballot measure is going to be decided in Kansas.

Additionally, a key contest between the MAGA base and establishment republicans will be determined in the Arizona governor race between Trump endorsed Kari Lake and Pence endorsed Karrin Taylor Robson. All of the manipulative media has been working in that Arizona contest, including Fox News trying to tip the scales for the professional cocktail class of republicans.

As if all that wasn’t enough, three of the House DeceptiCons who voted to impeach President Trump are being confronted in Washington State and Michigan. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutler and Representative Dan Newhouse of Washington state along with Representative Peter Meijer in Michigan are facing strong primary challenges.

Kinzinger, Kato, Gonzalez and Upton all decided to quit their seats rather than face defeat.  Tom Rice tried to get reelected but was defeated in South Carolina by MAGA republican Russell Fry.  Today, Newhouse, Beutler and Meijer are facing the voters, and then next week Liz Cheney will be on the block.  Ms Cheney is desperately pleading with Democrats to switch parties in Wyoming and save her from republican voters.

President Trump endorsed Joe Kent to face Jamie Beutler (WA, CD-03). President Trump endorsed Loren Culp to challenge Dan Newhouse (WA, CD-04), and in Michigan, President Trump endorsed John Gibbs to squish wormy Pete Meijer (MI, CD-06).  It will be interesting to watch the results tonight.

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As he outlines the controversial trip by Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, Tucker Carlson asks many questions that people are thinking. {Direct Rumble Link} WATCH:

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Everything about the supposed killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri is suspect, weird and fishy.

♦First, Al Zawahiri has been reported as killed or dead at least a half dozen times in the last 10 years; including by natural causes.  ♦Second, Ayman Zawahiri was very old. Western citations put his age at 71 (born 1951), however, that is suspect (sounds like his younger brother’s age).  ♦Third, the location of his reported killing in Kabul is odd.  Zawahiri was known to avoid large populations, and even with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan the tribal conflicts with factions of the Taliban would have been an issue.

♦Fourth, somehow the Taliban waited until after the U.S. intelligence community leaked the strike to the media before they issued a statement condemning the drone attack.  Since when does al-Qaeda wait 48+ hours to denounce hostile action in their territory?   Coordinating and timed joint press releases between the White House and ‘Taliban‘ to western media outlets is seriously sketchy.

♦Fifth, absolutely no official outline from the Pentagon or White House on this “successful counterterrorism strike“?  Despite a primetime presidential address, the White House has no announcement, no official statement, nothing, on their website.  Additionally, Biden leads off saying the attack was on Saturday, the Taliban waited 48-hours to denounce a U.S. drone strike?  Think about it.  Doesn’t add up.  More sketchy.

♦Sixth, and seemingly just an oddball addendum, Fox News breaks the story using Jennifer Griffin as lead reporter.  As I noted several days ago, Griffin had been missing from Fox News since she went bonzo in March attacking Tucker Carlson over his cynicism of the official State Dept and Pentagon narrative in Ukraine.

May, June, July, nothing from pentagon deep state promoter Jenn Griffin at all.  Then, suddenly, on the same day Griffin resurfaces, after months of nothing, there’s a major terrorism strike in Afghanistan, killing Zawahiri and she’s leading the coverage?…. With Brett Baier cheerleading?  C’mon man.  Sketchy, all of it.

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This is weird.  Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was always hiding in the same Afghanistan-Pakistan area where Osama Bin Laden was hiding out, was very old ten years ago in 2012 when he established the Libyan branch of al-Qaeda.  [SEE CTH Archives] This guy is ancient by now.

Ayman al-Zawahiri was #2 to Bin Laden and elevated to #1 after his death.  Ayman has a younger brother named Mohammed al-Zawahiri who was the Muslim Brotherhood organizer of the uprising in Egypt, and very likely the person who helped coordinate the 9/11/2012 protest on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that happened on the same day as the attack in Benghazi.

According to media reporting, the CIA is claiming to have killed Ayman al-Zawahiri last weekend and Joe Biden is going to give a congratulatory speech about it tonight at 7:30pm ET.   Something about this is odd, he was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan?  Ayman al-Zawahiri was seriously old if he was still actually alive.

WASHINGTON DC – The United States killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike over the weekend, two people briefed on the operation told POLITICO.

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In addition to the contraction in South Korean manufacturing announced last night, European manufacturing and factory activity is also contracting with less output, higher buildup of inventory and fewer orders for finished goods.  The global recession is being measured fast and furious.

Every economic outcome is connected to a purposeful decision by the leaders of western industrialized nations to follow the Build Back Better climate change agenda.  Higher energy costs, an outcome of the collective policy to stop new production of coal, oil and gas, which has transferred into higher food prices, farm prices, gasoline prices, heating and cooling prices as well as electricity rates, is forcing consumers to stop purchasing non-essential products.

The sale of durable goods collapsed in the first half of this year; however, no policymakers or bankers wanted to admit it and they kept saying there was an excess of demand.  Now, with fewer customers for durable goods in the market, global manufacturing and factory outputs are dropping fast.  Eventually the central planners are going to have to admit their pretended demand does not exist.

While there is a natural lag in the activity, the rate of factory contraction will be proportionate to rate of the drop in demand.  Meaning we have only just begun to see the manufacturing decline that lags a few months behind consumer activity.

LONDON, Aug 1 (Reuters) – Manufacturing activity across the euro zone contracted last month with factories forced to stockpile unsold goods due to weak demand, a survey showed on Monday, adding to concerns the bloc could fall into a recession.

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West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin was on every Sunday talk show today (CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox) responding to his reversal of position on the Build Back Better legislative package (Green New Deal spending) that is part of the senate budget reconciliation bill.  There is something very interesting in his justification. [Do not skim read this, all citations included]

Fox News Brett Bair does the best job challenging Manchin on his prior statements saying there would be no spending deal without first seeing the August inflation data. [LINK].  Manchin never answered that hypocrisy directly but says there are two components of the deal, two parts of a new future legislative bill, that brought him to the agreement on the $370 billion current spend.

The current Senate bill is a reconciliation bill, meaning it involves taxes and spending – AND ONLY taxes and spending, because the bill originated in the House.

The constitutional framework for taxes & spending requires the House to originate all spending bills.  If a desired additional measure does not involve taxes and spending (a budgetary impact) it cannot be added to a reconciliation bill.  The senate must originate a new bill and then send it to the House.

According to Manchin the deal between himself, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden includes his support for the current green energy spending, in exchange for two new items in future legislation: 1) Streamlined energy permitting/regulation; and 2) Increased development of Oil, Coal, Gas.  Both of these pieces of legislation have to be handled in a separate Senate bill.

According to Manchin, his agreement to the current spending bill was contingent upon a promise that: (A) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will generate a new bill for streamlined energy permitting and increased oil, gas and coal development; (B) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will take up the Senate bill and whip enough of her House Democrat membership to join with Republicans in support of that Senate bill; and (C) Joe Biden will sign that increased energy production bill.

Here’s the important part.  Senator Manchin claims he has leverage over Biden, Pelosi and Schumer to ensure a new bill with those priorities is created and advanced.  Manchin further claims there are “consequences” for Biden, Pelosi and Schumer if they were to renege on the deal.  He is quite emphatic about that point if you listen to the NBC interview.

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