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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The Missouri primary election is tomorrow.  President Trump announced on Truth Social, that he will be making an endorsement today.

Republican Senator Roy Blunt is retiring and the top three candidates to replace him are former Governor Eric Greitens, Attorney General Eric Schmitt and U.S. Representative Vicky Hartzler.

The field of candidates also includes Congressman Billy Long, attorney Mark McCloskey and state Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz.  However, Schmitt, Greitens and Hartzler are considered the frontrunners.   It’s late in the race, but the endorsement from the great MAGA king will likely determine the winner.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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We are seeing the cascading impacts of the energy-driven inflation starting to ripple throughout the globe, specifically worsening economies who are dependent on the export of non-essential durable goods.  South Korea manufacturing is the latest example.

The first quarter of 2022 started with a drop in U.S. consumer spending on non-essential durable goods like electronics.  The net result of contracted consumer spending was a 1.6% negative GDP.

Inventories of goods started to build and by April/May of 2022 the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed negative inflation in those sectors as discounts to move inventory were offered.

In June major manufacturer Samsung, headquartered in South Korea, announced they had told suppliers to stop sending component manufacturing parts for finished goods. (link)

By the end of July, the second quarter GDP in the U.S. again showed a contraction of 0.9%. Energy inflation was now creating a consumer spending recession, demand for non-essential goods dropped fast over the first half of the year.

Today, South Korea announces July manufacturing output contracted for the first time in two years, matching the prior announcement by Samsung:

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The primary race in Wyoming is August 16th, just about two weeks away.  CNN traveled to Wyoming to review the possibility that Republican House Member might lose her primary race.  All signs point to “yes”, she’s going to lose her seat.  However, CNN was able to find two republicans who said they supported Cheney.  WATCH:

https://youtu.be/bX5ChF96eLU

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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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The pretending from the federal reserve chairs continues.  In this interview, Neel Kashkari, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says “we keep getting surprised” by data on inflation, which continues to be “higher than we expect, across the broad range of the economy.”  Yet, notice that Kashkari refuses to outline the single cause of the broad inflation is the intentional lack of energy production. [Transcript]

Kashkari continues the selling point that demand side inflation is being targeted because demand still exceeds supply.  That’s essentially true, however, it is the supply of energy that is fundamentally disrupted by Joe Biden energy policy.  It is not consumer demand for goods and services, it is the structural need for consumers to have consistent, affordable energy resources.

The collapse of energy production from domestic coal, oil and gas development is the problem.  Everything else is ancillary to the origination problem.  However, in order to support the climate agenda, the Federal Reserve must pretend not to know this. WATCH:

Kashkari notes a serious problem can arise when wage inflation starts to catch up with inflation overall.  THAT just happened last month.  The combination of wage inflation to match the high consumer inflation then drives an even higher cost for goods and services.  This is the inflation storm that leads to hyper-inflation, structurally high inflation that cannot be controlled by any monetary measure, and unfortunately, we just entered the first outer bands of this inflation hurricane last month.

A personal sidenote: when we were going through the pandemic crisis and response in 2020/2021, CTH took heat for saying the real objective at the end of the pandemic path was the global climate change agenda.  Well, here we are.  At the end of this climate change path is full control over human activity using digital currency.  Hunger games.

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