The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article [SEE HERE] outlining inter-connected data points for various state economies in a post-pandemic environment.

The topline takeaways are: (1) Employment in red states has fully recovered, and now exceeds the number of jobs as before the pandemic. (2) Employment in blue states remains below the pandemic numbers; meaning they have not recovered. (3) Net migration still shows people fleeing blue states like New York, California and Illinois; while (4) Net migration into red states like Florida, Texas, North/South Carolina and Tennessee is continuing.

(Wall Street Journal) – […] Forty-six million people moved to a different ZIP Code in the year through February 2022, the most in any 12-month period in records going back to 2010, according to a Moody’s analysis of Equifax Inc. consumer-credit reports. The states that gained the most, led by Florida, Texas and North Carolina, are almost all red, as defined by the Cook Political Report based on how states voted in the past two presidential elections. The states that lost the most residents are almost all blue, led by California, New York and Illinois. (read more)

The professional business class analysts (eyeroll) at the WSJ attribute the demographic shifts to the worker disconnect from the office.  Meaning workers can now work from home and are moving to environments where the quality of life is better.  White collar workers no longer bound to the geographic limitations of central office locations.

While some of that is likely accurate, there is no consideration for the lockdown effect.  The results of the pandemic showcased a very brutal acceptance, more people now seemingly realizing the politics of their regional leadership has a direct and consequential impact to the quality of their life.  The blue state leaders, ideologically disposed to dismissing the opinion of citizens, generally dispatched any consideration for the quality-of-life impact they created.  The people were irrelevant.

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UPDATE: Suspect Captured. The suspect in the Highland Park, Illinois, mass shooting has been identified as 22-year-old Robert “Bobby” E Crimo III.  An active manhunt is underway for his capture.  Crimo is reportedly driving a silver 2010 Honda Fit (pictured below).

Update – A person of interest has been identified in Monday’s deadly mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade outside Chicago, authorities said.

Officials said he was 22-year-old Robert “Bobby” E. Crimo III and is believed to be driving a 2010 silver Honda Fit.

The gunman opened fire with a “high-powered rifle” while standing on a roof just minutes after the parade began in the tony suburb of Highland Park, where six people were left dead and 24 others injured.

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John Kirby is the former Pentagon spokesperson who is now the National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications.  The people in/around the White House have shifted Kirby, a very good spinner of parseltongue, into a place where he can give the media an impression of White House competency.

The LGBTQ, racially inclusive and woke checkbox hires are not up to the task of their positions.  Incompetence is running amok.  As a result, it is somewhat ironic and representative the Biden hypocrisy, that Kirby is needed to take the pressure away from administration checkbox hires.  In this interview Kirby defends the White House policy on the Russia-Ukraine war, interventionist and dependent foreign policy, and the energy policy that has resulted in high gas prices.

Video prompted to 04:05, where the topic of Biden’s upcoming visit to Saudi Arabia is discussed.  WATCH:

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This week Neil Oliver talks about the new Utopia we are being instructed to accept.  A world in which there are no rights, only permissions.

Everything including the modification of diets and the eating of bugs and fake meat; to the type of carbon footprint home we are permitted, to the energy we may use or the acceptable car we must drive; permissions, assuming of course, our social media profile and accompanying score is in line with regulatory inspection.

Nope.  Not happening.  There are more of us than them.  We will not eat the bugs.  WATCH: 

[Transcript] – What’s being done to us, or tried on us at least, isn’t working … and it isn’t working and won’t work because what we’re being pushed to accept as the new world makes no sense. The supposed utopia we’re being promised – or, rather, having rammed down our throats – is one in which there is no universal truth, no absolute and trusted truth, but only personal truth that trumps all else.

There are to be no facts like those observed by biologists, just as a for instance, and only feelings based on personal preferences that change from day to day. It will be a world in which we might have no inalienable rights, rights we are born with – just permissions granted one by one by the state … and then only if we do as we are told and do without cars and warm homes and eat our bugs and fake meat and take our medicine on demand. It is a world in which 2+2 might equal 5 if some faceless, unelected bureaucrat says it does – and if any of us says no, 2+2 always and only equals 4, then our bank accounts won’t give us any money until we accept our arithmetical and moral error.

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New York Governor Kathy Hochul called a special session of the state legislature after the Supreme Court knocked down their firearm restrictions.  The new law, which passed both chambers of democrat-controlled government, takes effect Sept 1st and is unlikely to hold up once challenged in court.  The new law is stunningly over the top.

Keep in mind, when writing the majority decision Justice Clarence Thomas concluded there was no historical requirement that law-abiding citizens show the kind of special need for self-defense required by the New York law to carry a gun in public. Indeed, as Thomas wrote, there is “no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need.”

The latest effort from the New York assembly is outlined in an Associated Press report which includes:

(Via AP) […] Among other things, the state’s new rules will require people applying for a handgun license to turn over a list of their social media accounts so officials could verify their “character and conduct.”

Applicants will have to show they have “the essential character, temperament and judgment necessary to be entrusted with a weapon and to use it only in a manner that does not endanger oneself and others.”  As part of that assessment, applicants have to turn over a list of social media accounts they’ve maintained in the past three years.

[…]  The bill approved by lawmakers doesn’t specify whether applicants will be required to provide licensing officers with access to private social media accounts not visible to the general public.

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It is interesting to remember the recent comments from Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank, who outlined the EU energy crisis as the heart of the current inflation rate in the eurozone.  Lagarde discussed inflation in Europe while drawing a distinction in COVID-19 spending between the EU and U.S.

Essentially, according to Legarde, the EU subsidized businesses to maintain employment; the EU covered payroll expenses during lockdowns, while the U.S. sent direct payments to the American people who were impacted by the lack of work (basically everyone).

Lagarde outlined this difference in spending approach to explain why the Eurozone inflation was less than U.S. inflation.

How long did that EU Central Bank explanation hold up? Approximately two months.

The U.S. inflation rate is currently estimated at 8.6%, and today the eurozone inflation rate just reached,…. wait for it,…  Yep, an exact match at 8.6%.

LONDON (AP) — Inflation in countries using the euro set another eye-watering record, pushed higher by a huge increase in energy costs fueled partly by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Annual inflation in the eurozone’s 19 countries hit 8.6% in June, surging past the 8.1% recorded in May, according to the latest numbers published Friday by the European Union statistics agency, Eurostat. Inflation is at its highest level since recordkeeping for the euro began in 1997.

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Keep in mind as you review this article from the Wall Street Journal that every corporate (think Wall St) media outlet, has claimed for well over a year, that inflation was predominantly a demand side issue.  In essence, consumer demand was so strong that prices were rising because of it.

The demand side argument/justification for inflation was always false.  However, it was/is still the claim made by members of the Biden administration and almost every board member of the federal reserve.

All of them, almost universally, dismissed the supply side inflation argument which is the reality at the epicenter of inflation causation.

Inflation was/is an exclusive outcome of three supply side aspects which merged simultaneously: (1) the Joe Biden energy policy, (2) the Joe Biden promoted covid response via legislative spending, and (3) the promoted Biden administration monetary policy.

While the legislative spending did create artificial economic activity, all of these inflationary sources are supply side impacts.

The demand side claim for the origin of inflation was always a ruse, a con, a complete farce intended to backstop the claim that inflation would be “transitory” once consumer spending moderated.   From that perspective every approach from government toward controlling inflation was wrong.  Not wrong by accident, wrong as a matter of deceit and purposeful media manipulation in order to maintain the “Build Back Better” or “Green New Deal” agenda….. which, I might add, benefitted from the advanced Wall Street investment in both constructs, globally and domestically.

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There it is folks.  I hope people can see the natural arc of this self-fulfilling prophecy now.  This also is why you should make sure you have potassium iodide tablets in your prep kit.

During a NATO press conference in Madrid [Transcript Here], today Joe Biden specifically attributed the upcoming global food shortage to Russian President Vladimir Putin.  Biden was emphatic when responding to a question about oil costs, western nation energy development and the pending food shortage.

BIDEN…”I think there’s a lot of things we can do and we will do.  But the bottom line is: Ultimately, the reason why gas prices are up is because of Russia.  Russia, Russia, Russia. The reason why the food crisis exist is because of Russia — Russia not allowing grain to get out of Ukraine.”  WATCH:

[Full Video Here – Prompted, if Needed]

Please understand… The food shortage is a done deal. We are beyond the point where current action could impact what is coming.  The timeframe to mitigate any global food shortage is in the rear-view.  Efforts to mitigate the food crisis should have been done months ago.  Nothing was or is being done.

The Western Alliance now needs a scapegoat, a justification for a food crisis that is almost certain to surface.  We do not know the scale of the shortage, but we do know global food supplies are going to be less than needed to feed the world population.

The direct cause of the food shortage is the Western government decision to prioritize climate change over food production.  The Build Back Better climate change agenda has created massive disruption with energy products (biofuel, fertilizer, diesel, natural gas etc) which are critical for the efficient production of food.  However, the western alliance cannot and will not take responsibility for the food crisis.  Instead, as you are seeing above, their plan is to blame Russia.

Stopping Russia from starving the world will be the justification for a physical escalation of conflict between NATO and Russia.  All of the signs and indicators point in this direction. None of the geopolitical or global economic signs point away from this direction.  A NATO led war with Russia is not a matter of “if”, it is a question of “when?”

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In exactly 22 seconds during a late-night television appearance, Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showcased her lack of understanding how the United States government works.  Ms. AOC literally gets the construct of our government reversed.

According to AOC it is “the responsibility of the president and congress to put the Supreme Court in check.”

Exactly the opposite is true.

It is the literal role and responsibility of the Supreme Court to check the constitutional validity of the legislative and executive branch.   The supreme court exists, almost exclusively, to keep the president and congress in check.  WATCH:

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Ms. AOC could not be more wrong if she tried.  However, this is a great example of how basic civics are unknown to some of the people in congress.   Quite remarkable.

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The death toll in the human smuggling operation involving a tractor trailer filled with illegal aliens has risen to 51 people. Mexican Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon said on Twitter that among the victims were 22 Mexican nationals, seven Guatemalans and two Hondurans.

TEXAS – […] Bexar County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores said the death toll has risen to 51 people during a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Initially, 46 people were found dead in the trailer Monday and 16 people were hospitalized, authorities said.

The death count was the highest ever from a smuggling incident in the United States, according to Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio.

“This is a horror that surpasses anything we’ve experienced before,” said San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “And it’s sadly a preventable tragedy.”

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