On one hand, Joe Biden needs to appease the base of his Covidians who identify themselves through the prism of COVID. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of Americans are done with the COVID fear mongering.  What to do, what to do?

Trying to split the baby, Biden’s DOJ announces [SEE HERE] it will appeal the federal court ruling that overturned the federal Transporation covid mask mandate, but only if the CDC tells them to.

DOJ PRESS RELEASE – […] “The Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) disagree with the district court’s decision and will appeal, subject to CDC’s conclusion that the order remains necessary for public health.”

“If CDC concludes that a mandatory order remains necessary for the public’s health after that assessment, the Department of Justice will appeal the district court’s decision.” (link)

Keep in mind, the federal court ruling specifically centered around the arbitrary nature of the original mandate, which exceeded the scope of CDC legal authority, compounded by the CDC breaking its own rules for public feedback in the implementation.

The mandate created by Joe Biden did not have legal structure.  It was a dictatorial fiat that exceeded the capacity of the executive branch to create.

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Lots of people talk about an inflation driven recession.  Essentially, that’s a total economic contraction in the value of goods and services produced, sold and purchased, due to rising prices.   However, as CTH has been pointing out for more than six months, if you subtract the federal COVID infusion money from the overall economy, we have been in a contracting demand economy for almost nine months.

A negative GDP outcome is quite possible, perhaps likely, when the first quarter GDP figures are released on the last Friday of this month.  The most recent sales and economic data shows that U.S. consumers are prioritizing spending and high priced durable good sales are negative.

Now, Fannie Mae is delivering a rather stunning shift in their economic forecast.  In addition to projecting a recession for 2023, these revised home purchase figures are remarkable:

...”We have downgraded our total home sales forecast for 2022 to a decline of 7.4 percent (previously a 4.1 percent decline) followed by a decrease of 9.7 percent in 2023 (previously a 2.7 percent decline).” (link)

That is a very significant change in home sales forecast to the negative position.

We already have serious energy inflation to contend with and low wage growth.  We already know a third inflation wave on highly consumable goods is coming this summer, likely around 30% or more in food prices at the grocery store.

The professional forecasts are always tilted toward the positive for this administration, so this new statement by Fannie Mae should be considered accordingly.  Remember, Boy Scouts motto.

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The latest developments in the effort to purchase the unsustainable magic coffee shop are quite revealing.

According to the New York Post, “Musk himself is willing to invest between $10 billion and $15 billion of his own cash to take Twitter private, two sources close to the situation said. That’s up from the current 9.1% stake in the company he revealed on April 4, which is worth about $3.4 billion.”

However, more revealing about the overall issue are the comments from the PR firm of the U.S. Intelligence Community, The Washington Post:

(WaPo) […] “Putting so much power in the hands of one company is bad enough, but putting it in the hands of one person, as is largely the case with Facebook shareholder Mark Zuckerberg and would be the case if Twitter were owned by Musk, would be incompatible with democracy.” 

“There are simply no checks and balances from any internal or external force,” … “It would leave Musk, like Zuckerberg, with an amount of assembled data about people and the ability to use it to manipulate them “that cannot be compared to anything that has ever existed, and allows intervention into the integrity of individual behavior and also the integrity of collective behavior.” (read more)

People are starting to catch on to the reality that costs for data processing on many social media platforms (the free coffee), exceeds the ability of the platform to generate revenue.  People are starting to understand that behind the scenes of the Big Tech consortium, there is something else, some other operational construct and mechanism, that subsidizes & facilitates their existence.

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Put this in the tracking file for ratios and such.  Axios is reporting that CNN+ is likely to collapse as Warner Bros has suspended all external marketing and product development and fired the Chief Financial Officer.  The network has spent $300 million, and only generated 150,000 subscribers.  A major fail by any measure.

(Via Axios) Warner Bros. Discovery has suspended all external marketing spend for CNN+ and has laid off CNN’s longtime chief financial officer as it weighs what to do with the subscription streaming service moving forward, five sources tell Axios.

• Why it matters: Inside CNN, executives think the launch has been successful. Discovery executives disagree.

• CNN+ has roughly 150,000 subscribers so far.

• Warner Bros. Discovery wants to eventually build one giant service around HBO Max.

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Following a federal judge vacating the federal mask mandate on transportation, the TSA responded, “TSA (Transportation Security Administration) will not enforce its Security Directives and Emergency Amendment requiring mask use on public transportation and transportation hubs at this time.”

Within hours, various airlines began notifying customers the mask mandate is gone:

♦ American Airlines – “In accordance with the Transportation Security Administration no longer enforcing the federal face mask mandate, face masks will no longer be required for our customers and team members at U.S. airports and on domestic flights.” (link)

♦ Southwest Airlines – “As a result of this development, effectively immediately, Southwest Employees and Customers will be able to choose whether they would like to wear a mask, and we encourage individuals to make the best decision to support their personal wellbeing.” (link)

♦ Delta Airlines – “Effective immediately, masks are optional for all airport employees, crew members and customers inside U.S. airports and on board all aircraft domestically, as well as on most international flights.” (link)

♦ Alaska Airlines – “Effective immediately, all Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air guests and employees have the option to wear a mask while traveling in the U.S. and at work. Masks are no longer required for travel and will be optional.” (link)

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Moments after a Florida federal judge vacated the CDC federal mask mandate for transportation, White House spokesperson Jen Psaki was asked the obvious question about airline travelers right now.  What does this mean for passengers in the immediate future?

Psaki noted she was unsure about what steps could be or would be taken, and she deferred to the FAA and Dept of Homeland Security who will need to make immediate decisions. The most substantive aspect at 11:49 of video, prompted:

The White House is very committed to all their mandates around COVID-19, the mask mandate is no different.  From the perspective of the professional political left, the theater of forced mask wearing represents the visible power and authority of government to rule the lives of the irrelevant proles.

Any pesky legal rulings, that seek to reduce or remove the power of government, are viewed by the left as arbitrary and insignificant efforts to block their almighty power of government.  They can choose to wear a mask if they want, but that’s not really the issue behind the mask mandate.  The true power of the left is in the ability to force everyone to comply to their whims regardless of individual freedom.

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A federal judge in Tampa, Florida has vacated the federal transportation mask mandate for planes, trains, buses and public Transporation.  [PDF Ruling Available Here]

In essence, U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle found the CDC exceeded its statutory authority with the mask mandate and violated the rules that guide CDC regulations.   After Joe Biden arbitrarily announced the federal transportation mandate, the CDC triggered enforcement of the mask mandate without any required time for public feedback on a new regulation.

(SEE FULL RULING HERE)

Within the ruling, one of the commonsense arguments against the federal mandate was noted.  Prior to Joe Biden taking office there was no mask mandate.  At the time Joe Biden took office and invoked the mask mandate, there was nothing substantively different in/around the spread of COVID-19 and the mitigation efforts underway.

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This Sunday segment from CBS’s Margaret Brennan allows us to watch narrative engineering in real time.  During a segment outlining the reasons behind the major economic issues American’s are feeling, CBS notes everything except the reason the economy is struggling.  It really is quite a remarkable example of professional gaslighting.

Watch the segment, note the inflation crisis has been underway for more than 18 months, and notice how many justifications are made-up illusions. (1) A Texas-Mexico cargo checkpoint issue that started less than a week ago; (2) Trucker shortages; (3) Ukraine-Russia which started only 6 weeks ago; and (4) Pandemic lockdowns, now causing an excess in demand.  None of these issues are even close to the source of the issue.

The two major drivers of inflation are both Biden policy issues.  (1) Extreme federal government spending and the Fed purchasing debt. (2) The shutting down of U.S. energy development (pipelines closed or blocked, oil leases cancelled, permits pulled and refinery permits cancelled).  All of this is Joe Biden policy.

On the restaurant pricing side, and likely restaurants soon to close, I would note the CTH outline from a few days ago:

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The metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business.  Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.

It didn’t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn’t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there.  Few people thought about such things.  Curiously, it didn’t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack’s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.

Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter.  Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers. A debate began.

Alternative coffee shops opened around town.  It was entirely possible to duplicate Jacks Coffee Shop, yet no one could duplicate the business model for the free coffee.  Indeed, there was something very unique about Jack’s Coffee Shop.  Thus, some underlying suspicions were raised:

The only way Twitter, with 217 million users, could exist as a viable platform is if they had access to tech systems of incredible scale and performance, and those systems were essentially free or very cheap.  The only entity that could possibly provide that level of capacity and scale is the United States Government – combined with a bottomless bank account.  A public-private partnership.

If my hunch is correct, Elon Musk is poised to expose the well-kept secret that most social media platforms are operating on U.S. government tech infrastructure and indirect subsidy.  Let that sink in.

The U.S. technology system, the assembled massive system of connected databases and server networks, is the operating infrastructure that offsets the cost of Twitter to run their own servers and database.  The backbone of Twitter is the United States government.

FREE COFFEE:

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CTH begins every outline of the ongoing Durham investigation with the following disclaimer:  How is John Durham going to reveal everything that is possible about the deep state Trump targeting operation, and simultaneously handle the involvement of Robert Mueller, Andrew Weissmann and the Special Counsel team who were specifically appointed to cover it up?

Thanks to a more detailed filing by John Durham last night {pdf here, h/t Techno}, we can now see the guardrails, rules and general direction the prosecution is taking.

In essence, the underlying Trump-Russia conspiracy theory material from the Clinton campaign, via Rodney Joffe to Michael Sussmann, was fabricated – likely for a dual purpose:

(A) to coverup and make excuses for the stunningly embarrassing, potentially unlawful and politically terrible April 2016 DNC email leaks, which showed the DNC Club internally working to secure the nomination for Hillary Clinton, while trying to destroy her primary opponent, Bernie Sanders.

and

(B) to create the political Russia narrative against Trump, to be deployed later in the general election.

Within the general direction Durham is following, the FBI was duped by a purposeful and manipulative intent from the Clinton campaign.  Meanwhile, the CIA [Agency-2] did not buy into the technological evidence saying it was not “technically plausible” and was “user created and not machine/tool generated.”   (more…)