Gasoline prices have risen, on average, 40% in the past 11 months.  This leads to higher consumer costs across the board.  Oil, currently $90/barrel, is going to go even higher as a merge of Biden economic, regulatory, energy and foreign policies are going to make things worse.

As the Obama-Biden administration previously said when they achieved their last historic increase in gas prices, “U.S. energy prices will necessarily skyrocket“, in order to achieve their ideological climate change objectives.

(VIA CNBC) Gas prices rose to the highest level in more than seven years Friday, on the heels of the U.S. oil benchmark topping $90 per barrel for the first time since 2014. 

The national average for a gallon of gas stood at $3.423 on Friday, according to AAA, slightly surpassing the prior high-water mark of $3.422 from Nov. 8.  Friday’s price means consumers are now paying the most at the pump since Sept. 10, 2014, AAA data shows.

The national average stood at $2.44 a year ago.  The rapid rise in prices is contributing to inflationary fears across the economy and is creating a headache for the Biden administration. (read more)

Yes, a president can and does control the price of gasoline.  What can a U.S. President and administration specifically do?  We have abundant U.S. energy resources.  Quite literally the strongest in the entire world.

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If you watch anything today, this is it.  AP Journalist Matt Lee has been around for a long time. He’s the consistent person in the State Department briefing room who understands the deep state institutional games, and he knows how to spot narrative engineering.

Earlier today State Department Spokesman Ned Price said, “The United States has information that Russia is planning to stage fabricated attacks by Ukrainian military or intelligence forces as a pretext for a further invasion of Ukraine.”

Journalist Matt Lee then asked Ned Price what the declassified evidence was that the state dept was referring to.  Price responded that he just gave it to the audience; meaning his word was the evidence.  Matt Lee calls bullshit on Price, and things got really interesting. WATCH:

Folks, the intelligence state, the Fourth Branch of Government, is making it all up.  Everything about this Russian looming attack narrative has been manufactured out of whole cloth by the Intelligence Community and Biden administration.

The statements and position by Ned Price are transparently absurd.  Ridiculously so.  Matt Lee calling the bluff on the U.S. State Department, and comparing them to Alex Jones conspiracy theorists, is peak insanity.  No one trusts the U.S. government institutions any longer.  Everyone knows the “intelligence state” makes stuff up to steer and control events.  It’s a joke.

Russia is likely not doing anything, likely doesn’t even have a threatening posture, but yet, inside the DC bubble we are on the precipice of a thermonuclear war. We have passed through the looking glass, and now we are in bizarro world.

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Senator Ray Lujan from New Mexico suffered a stroke recently.  Thankfully, despite the seriousness of his medical situation, he is expected to make a recovery.  However, he will likely miss all U.S. Senate work for at least a month.  Lujan’s absence creates a significant issue for Senate Democrats in an upper chamber with a 50/50 split.

Lujan suffered the stroke last Thursday, on the same day Joe Biden announced the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.  The news of Senator Lujan’s major medical condition has been essentially quiet.

With Joe Biden expecting to nominate a Supreme Court justice very soon, the senator’s absence could be problematic.

However, not to worry, creepy Joe’s recent praise of Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham will likely assist.

WASHINGTON DC – […] While the 49-year-old New Mexico Democrat is expected to make a full recovery, no one knew when he would return to the evenly divided Senate, or what it means for the immediate agenda.

Luján’s unexpected medical condition comes at a moment when Senate Democrats simply don’t have any votes to spare to pass party priorities, including reviving their social spending bill and now confirming a Supreme Court justice. The latest news could leave Democrats reliant on Republican votes to move forward on nominees and other priorities.

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According to the White House, 50 special forces operators attacked the leadership compound of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the ISIS replacement head for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who was killed in 2019.  According to the White House occupant, after a lengthy engagement with U.S. forces, al-Qurayshi killed himself the same way al-Baghdadi did, by exploding a bomb.  There were no U.S. casualties.

(Via ABC) First responders reported that 13 people had been killed, including six children and four women. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said U.S. officials believe al-Qurayshi’s explosive killed himself, his wife, and three children. She added that U.S. officials were conducting an assessment to determine whether American action resulted in any civilian deaths. (more)

The White House background briefing on the strike IS HERE.  The remarks by Joe Biden ARE HERE.

Sending 50 special operators for one building engagement is a little heavy; however, obviously the White House was petrified that something would go wrong, and the last thing Ron Klain wants would be another boondoggle to add to the pile of disasters this administration has created.

That said, rather than debate the mission, I would draw attention to the location and bigger picture.  Northern Syria is part of the Muslim Brotherhood territory under the influence of Turkish President Recep Erdogan.  ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and all extremist Islamic factions therein are all just various shades of authentic Islam as promoted by The Muslim Brotherhood.

Turkey is a member of NATO.  Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and all of the various offshoots of ISIS could not operate in Northern Syria without the assistance of Turkey.  But we are not allowed to talk about that.  Notice how none of the media ask the White House or Pentagon if we discussed the attack with Turkey in advance?

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At this point in our nation’s history, certain acceptances are needed in order to accurately identify the current status of our situation.

• • The Legislative Branch (SSCI) created the Intelligence State, the Fourth Branch of superseding government.
  • The Executive Branch (FBI, DOJ, NSA) control the Fourth Branch of superseding government.
  • The Judicial Branch (FISA Court) is the facilitating approval apparatus for the Fourth Branch.

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With that empirical and well documented reality in place, all three branches of U.S. government work in unison.  Who or what can intervene to stop the Fourth Branch of government from operating unilaterally?

This is the serious question that no one ever discusses.

The FISA Court is the private, secret, unchecked judicial system authorizing the power for the Intelligence State.

As a result, we continue to see NSA reports showing the unconstitutional surveillance of the American people continuing without consequence [NSA Release Here].

This is the 5th straight year where the National Security Agency (NSA) produces a document admitting their metadata capturing system, the system that captures all electronic communication of every single American and puts it into a stored database, is continually used as a research library for unnamed federal agents to scour (without search warrants) for the private documents of American citizens.

At this point, the NSA admission without consequence is simply just another Tuesday, it literally doesn’t even make the headlines anymore.

The executive summary does, however, include the NSA introducing the latest admissions about violating the 4th amendment right of Americans, while bragging about how their diversity hiring efforts have paid off.

So, there’s that.

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An interesting study from Johns Hopkins University [DATA HERE] shows the 2021 government lockdown did virtually nothing to stem death from the pandemic, but likely created more adverse “social ills” and long-term negative health outcomes.

WASHINGTON – […] The lockdowns during the early phase of the pandemic in 2020 reduced COVID-19 mortality by about 0.2%, said the broad review of multiple scientific studies.

“We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on COVID-19 mortality,” the researchers wrote. But the research paper said lockdowns did have “devastating effects” on the economy and contributed to numerous social ills.

“They have contributed to reducing economic activity, raising unemployment, reducing schooling, causing political unrest, contributing to domestic violence, and undermining liberal democracy,” the report said.

“Such a standard benefit-cost calculation leads to a strong conclusion: lockdowns should be rejected out of hand as a pandemic policy instrument,” the paper concluded. (read more)

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The latest BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLT) report [DATA HERE] reflects a headline of 4.3 million U.S. workers quitting in December.  However, that number is 161,000 fewer quits than November. The job openings are starting to fill up.

While there is evidence the mandatory vaccine requirements are still working through the job market, we are still about another month away before the fog clears from the private sector employment data.

This Friday we will see the unemployment data from December, but in the interim this JOLT’s report is tracking with CTH expectations.

The primary driver of the quits rate has been inflation.  Workers seeking higher wages in an effort to deal with inflation can get faster paycheck results by switching jobs rather than asking current employers for more money.

We have been watching this trend for several months.  However, the rate of job-jumping is slowing down as the available jobs to jump into are fewer, and the vaccine mandate impact is settling down.

Despite the number of job openings, blue collar workers are starting to see job vacancies decreasing.  The service industries around accommodation, food services and basic dirty fingernail positions still have many vacancies; this is the epicenter of where the job jumping takes place. Employment in durable goods manufacturing is at that phase where things are about to get sketchy for tradespeople and union workers.

The white collar jobs are static and/or slightly downsizing.  The total number of hires was 6.3 million for December, a drop of 333,000 from prior month.  The number of people hired in professional and business services dropped by 159,000.

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One of the lesser discussed BIG PICTURE stories being missed within the people’s revolt against totalitarian government under the guise of this pandemic, is the abject void of pragmatic conservative leadership in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

As the working class Canadians rally behind their blue collar truck drivers, the invisibility of strong, opposing voices to the leftist government they are challenging is brutally obvious.

It is almost painful to watch this play out.

Where are the men of courage?  And, that question has nothing to do with gender.

I generally try to stay out of the issue of questioning representative government in other nations; however, when you see the people of Canada crying for freedom, trying desperately to take back their individual liberty, there comes a time when all the free people of the world have no more tongue to bite.

The voice of Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre is what many people point toward when identifying a “conservative‘ within the parliamentary system of Canada.  Forgive my criticisms, but if this is the strongest representative voice of middle Canada, this too is pathetic.  WATCH:

What the hell kind of high school nonsense is this?  A debate about tone, sensibilities, portrayals?  If the goal was to miss the entire moment, skip the point, talk in circles as if the media was the audience, and put on a performance focused on the totally irrelevant; then, mission accomplished.

As a patient and frustrated pragmatist would say, (deep breath) … “When you’re done with all that, can you please address the central need of the voices assembled a few meters away shouting at you?”  Good grief, and this guy is presumably ‘strong‘ compared to Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole.

There comes a time when you need to channel the raw frustration of your constituents – put them into articulate voice and focus – not pontificate about their delicate humanism in your arguments.

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CTH continues to be cautious with measured expectations around this story, because a thoroughly corrupt and politically compromised DOJ has possessed all of this information for almost a year. {GO DEEP} There will be a response.  Likely a massive, coordinated and weaponized response from the totality of the most politically corrupt DC system in our nation’s history, every branch, and their aligned ideologues outside government.

First, the preview {Direct Rumble Link}:

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No one wants to join Michael Hastings, and yet that is the scale and scope of the risk inherent within this story.  The good news is that more Americans are awake to the issues now than ever existed.  We have Donald J. Trump to thank for that.

Catherine Engelbrecht is a genuine national hero, and her organization True The Vote (TTV) will be known in history long after these decades are passed.  Long-term readers of CTH also know we fully support Englebrecht and her team, we always have.

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Always remember, CNN is the official “fake news” narrative engineering effort of the U.S. State Department.   The Washington Post pushes the Intelligence Community effort (CIA, etc.), and the New York Times push the FBI/DOJ (state police) effort.

Today in an effort to use Ukraine as a proxy state for war against Russia, the State Dept and CIA are claiming the Russians are amassing massive stockpiles of blood at the Ukraine border as they prepare for a protracted war.   In response the Ukraine government tells the Biden crew to knock it off with the nonsense.  This puts CNN journalists in Ukraine telling CNN journalists in the U.S. to stop telling ‘fake news’.

(CNN) – The US has seen indications that Russia has positioned supplies of blood near Ukraine’s borders, two senior US defense officials told CNN Saturday, as part of its accumulation of medical supplies, troops and military equipment in the area that US officials have said could signal plans for an invasion.

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