Tucker Carlson did a pretty decent job tonight outlining the current issues with shortages of baby formula and why it is specifically galling for the Joe Biden administration to claim they don’t know anything about the problem they helped create. WATCH:
Just a brief reminder as you review the decisions in the pre-trial motions for the case against Clinton Lawyer Michael Sussmann.
It is worth remembering that Judge Christopher Cooper is married to Amy Jeffries, Lisa Page’s lawyer.
(Foreground left) Lisa Page, FBI Lawyer, (Foreground right) Amy Jeffries (Judge Cooper’s wife)
Additionally, Judge Cooper and Michael Sussmann both worked in the DOJ together. When he was selected as judge in the Sussmann trial, Cooper revealed the potential conflict of interest in the event the Durham prosecution wanted him to recuse himself from the case. Special Prosecutor John Durham did not ask Judge Cooper to recuse himself.
September 2021 – The judge in the case of recently indicted Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann is married to the lawyer who represented a disgraced former FBI official that worked on the Donald Trump Russia probe that Sussmann played some role in advancing.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of the District of Columbia, who is presiding over the Sussmann case, is married to lawyer Amy Jeffress, who represented FBI lawyer Lisa Page in a civil case.
Cooper, an Obama-appointee, and Jeffress, a former top aide to Attorney General Eric Holder, are well connected in the Democratic party. Current Attorney General Merrick Garland even presided over their 1999 wedding. (read more)
Fake News CNN’s Jake Tapper asks White House Chief Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci why the White House is sending out false information, aka ‘disinformation’, about when the COVID vaccines were available. Fauci giggles, laughs and says “I have no idea.” WATCH:
U.S. politics has devolved into a grand pretense of a theatrical performance keeping everyone distracted from the severe damage being inflicted by the political ideologues within the Biden administration.
I guarantee you if someone were just to ask Joe Biden at a presser who his Interior Secretary or EPA Administrator were, he’d have absolutely no idea. Biden is purposefully and completely isolated from the policies being carried out by the people running the administration. Biden has no idea what they are doing. None.
Clueless and disconnected Joe Biden is a shallow, empty and at times explosively angry vessel of nothingness. The entire world can see it.
The club reaction appears to have been triggered by a GOP Trafalgar poll showing Kathy Barnette in a close second place (23.2%), surging ahead of David McCormick (21.6%) and right on the heels of Mehmet Oz (24.5%). [Bartos 7.2%, Sands 6.5%]
In this outline I will explain the easily visible GOPe club moves without trying to support any particular candidate, that’s for Pennsylvania voters to decide. However, once you understand the background play, it might help clarify what the Keystone state voters are witnessing.
BACKGROUND. President Trump has endorsed Mehmet Oz. However, many people in the MAGA base are stuggling with that endorsement because they just don’t like the guy and question the bonafides of his sudden, seemingly convenient, MAGA-mindedness.
Meanwhile, David McCormick is the GOPe candidate from the mold of the typically Wall Street Mitch McConnell tribe.
McCormick is the quintessential corporate republican, or what might be described as the ‘establishment’ party choice. I would call McCormick the club candidate.
Kathy Barnette is the alternative favorite in the race for the MAGA base who just cannot bring themselves to support Oz. Barnette is the outsider and carries a fierce independent streak that appeals to frustrated voters who have had enough of the nonsense.
As a result, the top three in the race break down into McCormick as the Club candidate, while Barnette and Oz are splitting the MAGA vote. By my estimation the MAGA support looks like 60%(ish) Barnette and 40%(ish) Oz. What is happening now in this race is very Karl Rove-ian.
The entire premise of the J6 committee is a farce. The overwhelming majority of Americans fully understand it is a political exercise between Democrats in congress and their hired Lawfare allies. The goal is to label their political opposition as extremists, block and/or tarnish President Trump and manufacture a false premise to advance the Democrat 2022 election goals.
Despite this reality the effort continues in order to fuel their far-left base and media allies.
Today, the House committee triggered subpoenas against House republican members. The subpoenas were sent to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (U-DC), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), Rep Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Mo Brooks (R-Ala.). All five of the house members had previously rejected investigators’ requests for voluntarily testimony.
The subpoena authority is likely, hopefully, to be challenged in court. The premise of a House committee issuing subpoena’s to the political opposition of the same House membership appears to violate the function of government on many levels.
WASHINGTON DC – […] The Republican leader indicated he might not comply with the subpoena.
“My view on the committee has not changed,” said McCarthy, who added he had not yet seen the subpoena. “They’re not conducting a legitimate investigation. It seems as though they just want to go after their political opponents.”
The select committee demanded testimony from the five lawmakers in the final week of May.
The “Producer Price Index” (PPI) is essentially the tracking of wholesale prices at three stages: Origination (commodity), Intermediate (processing), and then Final (to wholesale). Today, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released April price data [Available Here] showing another 11.0% increase year-over-year in Final Demand products at the wholesale level.
Last month when looking at internal economic activity that showed a contraction in consumer purchases of goods, we said pay attention to the service side of the ledger now. Knowing people have stopped buying ‘stuff’, if people are starting to run out of money, they will cut back in the service sector (dining out, etc).
While the PPI focuses on prices, the PPI data for April shows exactly that service side contraction now taking place. Wholesale inflation in goods is determined heavily by higher costs for raw materials and processing. However, the rate of inflation within the service sector is more connected to what consumers can afford. Modified Table-A, look at the April difference between goods (1.3%) and services (0.0%):
[Ex. The lawn company might pay 50% more for oil and gasoline (goods side), but they may not be able to increase the rate they charge you by 50% to mow the grass (service side).]
The major current production inflation in both goods and services is directly connected to the cost of energy. Energy prices are embedded in every sector of the economy. For “goods” higher electricity, heating/cooling and petroleum costs (packaging, materials, transportation, etc) are unavoidable and passed on to consumers. For “services,” individuals and companies raise their prices to compensate for increases in their own costs. It is a cumulative inflation snowball.
It has often been said that if you chase the global climate change ideology to its natural conclusion, we end up in communal groups sitting around a tepid campfire eating some form of sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off each other… Prior to Joe Biden that prediction might have seemed like hyperbole. Now, not so much.
Indeed, the Green New Deal energy policy of Joe Biden creates massive downstream consequences. Unfortunately, the White House doesn’t seem to care. The high prices and scarcity of critical goods are a feature, not a flaw, as they chase their climate friendly Build Back Better agenda.
Following the continuum of intended consequence, now we have diesel fuel shortages beginning to hit the U.S. economy; and with scarcity comes higher prices of an almost astronomical scale. “The national average price of diesel is now $5.54 per gallon, which is an increase of 22 cents from last week, which was when the most recent record was set. Data shows there’s no state that’s currently seeing diesel prices below $5.12 per gallon.” (LINK)
Making matters even worse is a drop in available inventory of diesel fuel which is about to become a crisis for the east coast of the U.S. Some Truck Stop operators like Love’s and Pilot are already warning their big rig customers they may not have fuel for truckers.
[…] “Love’s is monitoring the fluid situation on the East Coast, we have experienced minimal outages during low traffic hours,” Oklahoma-based Love’s Travel Stops said in an emailed statement. “The company has no plans to restrict purchases of diesel.”
[…] Earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration said total inventories of distillates, which is mainly diesel fuel but also heating oil, fell last week to a 17-year low of 104 million barrels, which is 23% below normal.
I’ve been pondering this disconnect for several weeks as the messaging from inside the beltway, including their expressed priorities, seem even more disconnected than before. The DC bubble has always been present; however, lately the disconnect is even more profound.
Perhaps the increased distance in priorities can be explained by federal politicians cancelling townhall meetings and constituent engagement due to the pandemic. Perhaps politicians are holding party positions disconnected from the population they are supposed to represent because they have spent two years physically distancing from the voters. Whatever the cause, the disconnect is now more severe.
The contrast is even more significant when it comes to the far-left politicians, because they travel amid a very closed communal tribe where outside opinions are considered toxic to their sense of identity. The term “safe spaces” was literally coined because leftists cannot handle differences of opinion.
The professional leftist arguments are generally flawed, illogical, antithetical to common values and historically weak. As an outcome their advocate policy positions are weak and easy to deconstruct when challenged. To avoid being challenged they rarely hold open discussions with constituents in their districts without extreme vetting measures to avoid confrontation.
Regardless of root cause, most Democrats are severely disconnected from the economic reality of their district citizens. This is evidenced in a Politico report today discussing the example of Democrat House member Katie Porter of California.
As the article notes, Ms. Porter told the House Democrat Caucus of her experience in the ‘real world’ with people who are grocery shopping. The perplexed Democrats sat quietly listening to the stories of how price increases for food and gasoline are seriously hurting something called ‘working-class‘ people.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the inflation data from April today [DATA HERE] showing 0.3% increased inflation in April and a continued 8.3% ‘sticky’ inflation year-over-year.
CTH is going to say something slightly unusual, this data is actually worse than expected. The hidden canary in the mine is within this BLS sentence which shows in the statistics, “the index for gasoline fell 6.1 percent over the month, offsetting increases in the indexes for natural gas and electricity.” Remember, these are backwards reflections of price captured in early/mid-April.
The actual price of gasoline dropped 1% in April during the timeframe captured. Yes, there was an actual 18 days in April when gasoline prices moderated and slightly ticked down; however, those prices immediately jumped again late April through today.
Because the BLS puts a 5x weight on the importance of gas [Table A], the 1% temporary drop in gasoline led to 6.1% downward “seasonally adjusted” price pressure.
All of that said, and with the heavy weighting of the gasoline prices considered, the net inflation results barely moved from March (8.5%) to April (8.3%). I modified Table-A to take out the noise. You can see the downward pressure from gasoline and simultaneously the upward price pressure from food, specifically food at home.
This outcome is a reflection of what we have been seeing in the supermarkets and grocery stores.
The republican senate leadership team held a press conference today announcing their support for the priority agenda of Joe Biden and the White House.
As Leader Mitch McConnell noted at the beginning of his remarks, “we all agree, the most important thing going on in the world right now is the war in Ukraine,” and with that statement McConnell announced he and Joe Biden have agreed to advance a massive package of $40 billion to pay the salaries and retirement benefits of the Ukrainian government.
Comrades, you must put aside any stress about how to afford groceries and still fill your gas tank, there are people in the government of Ukraine who need your tax dollars more. WATCH (45 seconds):
No gas money, no grocery money, no infant formula, no voting integrity…. Meh, no problem. We’ve got Ukrainians to support.