Oil prices fell back from new two-month highs early on as (supply) fears over the impact of Hurricane Beryl eased, but (demand) expectations for heavy travel around the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S. on Thursday, however, helped to limit losses for oil.

However, Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group, told MarketWatch:

“Even without the storm, the markets are starting to price in a global oil supply deficit as the spreads are suggesting that the markets are already starting to tighten significantly.”

And after last week’s surprise crude and gasoline build, all eyes are back on the API data for a sneak peek…

API

• Crude -9.16mm – biggest draw since mid-Jan 2024

• Cushing +404k

• Gasoline +2.47mm

• Distillates -740k

After last week’s surprise crude build, API reports a huge draw in crude inventories last week (possibly in preparation for ‘Beryl’), but another sizable gasoline build…

Source: Bloomberg

WTI was trading around $83 ahead of the API print and spiked higher (to unchanged on the day) after the surprising large draw…

Even if crude prices ease a little, pump-prices are set to rise further…

Source: Bloomberg

Pouring more salt in President Biden’s polling wounds.

Authored by Tho Bishop via The Mises Institute,

Following last week’s decisions, which represented a significant blow to the American administrative state, yesterday, the Supreme Court did what was widely expected: rule in favor of Donald Trump in a case related to federal prosecution over January 6. In a 6-3 decision, the court ruled that presidents have “presumptive immunity” for “official acts” while in office.

The decision does not necessarily kill the potential for federal prosecution, kicking the question to a lower district court about whether or not Trump’s actions constitute an “official act.”

In practice, however, it effectively delays any future decision until after the November election.

The unexceptional outcome has been met with predictable hysteria from critics of the former president, with rabid online fans suggesting that the Biden Administration would now have a green light to take extraordinary actions against a political opponent.

Of course, on this same day, a prominent Trump ally, Steve Bannon, has been ordered to turn himself into federal custody for failing to comply with a politicized Congressional probe illustrates the degree to which extraordinary action has already become commonplace in Washington.

Inane hysterics have not been limited to progressive keyboard warriors, however. Take, for example, a dissent opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

She concludes with the following:

Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop.”

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

Those who desire a society with equal protection under the law would likely agree that no president should be “above the law.”

The problem, of course, is that what Sotomayor is describing is not a modern abomination foisted by an out-of-control, partisan court determined to protect a political patron. Instead, presidential immunity from misconduct has been the operating status quo in this country for decades.

It is the current objection to its application here that it is driven by petty partisan animus, not an idealistic concern for the sacred nature of American democracy. 

As has been well documented at sites like Mises.org for quite some time, the executive branch’s tradition of criminal behavior has become ingrained in the office itself. Modern obvious examples include unilateral declaring war without the authorization of Congress, often with the deliberate use of bad intelligence. It includes ordering the death of American citizens abroad under the guise of these military adventures. President Biden has ignored concerns from the Supreme Court itself regarding action on student loans. 

If one reassesses the presidency further, one could find numerous other examples, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretive use of the loan-lease program to actively subsidize the Soviet Union before American involvement in World War II. Or the general erosion of the Bill of Rights by the gradual expansion of federal power dating back well over a century.

Still, reflexive defenders of the institution of the presidency may suggest that these official breaks of the rule of law should be considered separately from the more vulgar nature of what federal prosecutors are claiming Trump is guilty of: the exercise of the power of the presidency to serve his narrow self-interest. In the words of Sotomayor, “misuses [of] official power for personal gain.”

This, too, falls flat. After all, Bill Clinton was among those most effective at monetizing the office for him and his family. As he was on his way to the door, pardons were going for a few hundred thousand dollars. 

Once again, the regime’s critics of Donald Trump ring entirely hollow because his own actions, at their most condemnable, are all behaviors that they themselves have been comfortable enabling for those they consider their own.

The pearl-clutching of those who delude themselves as self-grandiose defenders of democracy has sowed the seeds for the growing disillusionment of American institutions. Though they are intellectually incapable of appreciating it, this absurd behavior has been their greatest contribution to American society. 

Despite the near-perfect track record of downward revisions over the last 17 months, the market seemed buoyed today by a better than expected JOLTS print – which was juiced almost entirely by government jobs

Source: Bloomberg

And that was enough to send rate-cut expectations (dovishly) higher

Source: Bloomberg

Which pulled stocks and bonds higher in price…

Source: Bloomberg

In equity land, Nasdaq was the biggest gainer while Small Caps lagged

…as the energy-tech/AI pair continued to flip-flop (today’s winner was tech over energy)…

Source: Bloomberg

TSLA had a big day, up almost 10% after beating expectations for deliveries (getting back towards unchanged for the year)…

Which helped lift the Mag7 to fresh record-er highs…

Source: Bloomberg

Treasury yields were lower across the curve with the belly outperforming (7Y -4bp[s, 2Y & 30Y -2bps)…

Source: Bloomberg

The dollar dived on the dovishness….

Source: Bloomberg

Gold traded sideways once again (despite the dollar weakness)…

Source: Bloomberg

Oil prices touched a new two-month highs before legging back down for the day with WTI holding around $83 into tonight’s API data…

Source: Bloomberg

Having rallied back up to the scene of the Mt.Gox headline crime, Bitcoin slipped back lower today…

Source: Bloomberg

…despite 5 straight days of ETF inflows leading into this…

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, for the first time on over a year, macro-economic surprises have turned negative across every major region in the world…

Source: Bloomberg

Tim for The Fed to save the world (from Tyrannical Trump… with Simple Joe?)

Several years ago we calculated that the cost to implement the “Green new deal”, and to fund the liberal crusade against “climate change” would cost no less than $150 trillion over 30 years, or about $5 trillion per year, a staggering amount, and one which would require constant QE by central banks in the trillions each and every year to have any chance of ever getting funded, a process which just incidentally would spark double (if not triple) digit inflation.

Which of course was the whole point: the bullshit “green” narrative was spewed by the top echelons of power not because these private jetsetters give a rat’s ass about the environment – if that was the case the CO2 footprint of the top 1% would not be greater than the bottom 90% – but because they always needed a palatable and “virtuous” justification to spend like drunken sailors, be it to destroy ideological enemy X in noble war Y (where the deep state is the biggest beneficiary of the flood in defense spending), or to destroy evil climate change.

Now, it is well-known that the framework for this gargantuan spending spree took place “before covid”, a world which was largely devoid of inflation and where there were tens of trillions in negative-yielding bonds – hardly the stuff that allows debt to be inflated away, in fact quite the opposite – and since the goal was precisely that, namely to inflate away the world’s hundreds of trillions in excess debt, the “unexpected but welcome arrival” of the covid crash and the runaway inflation that the resulting fiscal spendgasm unleashed, effectively obviated the green new deal. No longer would the world need to justify spending $150 trillion to “fix climate” in order to spark the runaway inflation that would inflate the world’s record debt.

But the presence of inflation eliminating the core need for the “climate change” crusade, also meant that suddenly there was a gaping hole for what the “next big thing” would be that would require trillions in (preferably taxpayer-funded, i.e. QE) spending, that would then by quietly transferred into the pockets of middlemen who took it upon themselves to “effectively” allocate said capital.

Enter the AI narrative.

Yes, just like Blu Rays, 3D TVs, 3D printers, the 5G revolution, and so many other gimmicks over the recent years, the true purpose of AI – which is nothing more than a glorified yet prone to catastrophic error and hallucination chatbot – is to force management teams (and taxpayers) to spend capex like drunken sailors, in the process creating a new order of ultra rich entrepreneurs, who return the favor and allocate purchase orders to the same management teams, while making the insurmountable moat separating the tech giants from the rest of the market even wider. In short: all AI does is create the illusion of some huge, unmet market (some idiots have even mentioned quadrillions in Total Addressable Market size) while in realty what it really does is allocate capital to a handful of soon to be super wealthy scam artists, while leaving the population – and gullible creditors – holding the bag when this latest ivory tower comes crashing down. But don’t take our word: here is Goldman expressing skepticism about the next big thing (full note available to pro subs in the usual place).

And while much of the equity has already been distributed to the lucky few, with Nvidia and OpenAI by far the biggest winners and with the “Next AI trade” – namely the energy infrastructure needed to keep all those thousands of electricity-guzzling data centers up and running – waiting in the wings for its day in the sun and your brokerage account, where the real bonanza will be is not equity at all but rather debt.

We touched upon this two weeks ago when we reported that according to Morgan Stanley, “The AI Revolution Will Unleash An Explosion In New Debt Issuance“.

Quoting the bank’s head of quantitative research, Vishwanath Tirupattur, we said that “It goes without saying that AI infrastructure will need substantial capex. Early on, much of the AI capex has been funded by a combination of venture capital and retained earnings from cash-rich technology companies, i.e., equity capital. As the focus shifts from early innovators and enablers to AI adopters, these needs are bound to grow significantly and will require more efficient forms of capital. We think that credit markets in various forms – unsecured, secured, securitized and asset-backed – will have a major role to play.“

In addition, we noted, “as the capex cycle broadens out from enablers to adopters, we note that most sectors are not as cash-rich as tech. While the median cash-to-debt ratio for the tech sector is over 50%, it stands at close to 15% for the remaining sectors. As capital needs driven by the AI infrastructure build-out increase, we expect reliance on credit markets to grow.”

Financing for AI infrastructure, particularly data centers, will not come from corporate credit markets alone. Data centers can be owned by the companies using them or by a data center operator that leases space to them. The data centers themselves and/or the tenant lease payments can be treated as the underlying collateral to access securitization markets. This is already happening. The first data center ABS was issued in 2018, and the market has now grown to over US$20 billion and is poised for rapid growth.”

The bottom line, we said, is that “as AI-driven technology diffusion takes center stage, credit markets, broadly defined, will likely play a growing role. As always, there will be winners and losers, but AI as a theme for credit investors is here to stay.“

This may have been an understatement, because fast-forwarding to today, Blackstone Credit and Insurance’s global chief investment officer, Michael Zawadzki, said on Bloomberg Television that the $1.7 trillion private-lending industry is still “in batting practice” before it swells to a $25 trillion market.

And what will drive this expansion? Take a wild guess: according to Zawadzki, the funding needs will be to finance the energy transition (he didn’t get the memo yet that the “Green” narrative is dead) and – of course – data centers (this is the narrative that is now stepping in to justify the coming debt tsunami, now that the “green new deal” is dead).

“You’re financing the real economy — you’re not waiting for M&A transactions to happen,” Zawadzki said. “You’re financing consumers, you’re financing data centers, you’re financing energy transition. Huge growth capital expenditures, that’s what’s really driving the growth.”

And that’s how, when you repeat the lie enough times, a hallucinating chatbot becomes “the real economy.”

Higher base rates, the shift from banks to private lenders and the proliferation of strategies to access private credit allow the market to grow larger, Zawadzki said. The private investment grade strategies like asset-backed finance and infrastructure credit are “really compelling” in today’s market, he said. The size of the asset-based finance market is about $5 trillion to $10 trillion, he said.

Naturally, having become the largest commercial and residential landlord in the US, Blackstone is now seeking to monopolize the next big thing: data centers in general, and the private debt to fund them in particular. Not surprisingly the private equity giant has been active in the asset-based finance markets, leading debt packages for cloud computing firm CoreWeave tied to assets including microchips. And as is well known, CoreWeave has been one of the first and biggest drivers of growth at Nvidia (and we aren’t even going into the conspiracy theories). So, if one is so inclined, one can directly trace the flow of money: from Blackstone debt to CoreWeave purchase orders, to Nvidia AI chip backlogs, to trillions in market cap gained for a handful of firms, to the S&P and Nasdaq at daily all time highs.

Talk about leverage, and that is just the start.

Of course, it’s not just AI: Zawadzki said that spreads in public markets have become “awfully tight” due to investors flowing into the asset class. So Blackstone has encouraged clients to enter private credit due to excess spread and the illiquidity premium it offers. But credit is nothing without the demand for it, and right now, nothing screams demand more than AI and the need to fund the tens of trillions in infrastructure growth over the next few years.

Just don’t call it the “Green Next Deal.”

More: “The AI Revolution Will Unleash An Explosion In New Debt Issuance.”

Submitted by QTR’s Fringe Finance

I had the wonderful pleasure of interviewing my friend Chris Martenson from Peak Prosperity this week. Martenson, PhD (Duke), MBA (Cornell) is an economic researcher and futurist specializing in energy and resource depletion, and founder of PeakProsperity.com.

He is one of a small list of favorites of mine that I am constantly reading and following on Twitter and on his site. He was also one of the first to sound the alarm about Covid in the U.S. while the mainstream media (and the rest of the nation) hadn’t figured out the obvious yet.

In our 75 minute audio interview, we discussed a wide range of topics, including the potential for World War 3, the immigration crisis, the state of the economy in the U.S., our nation’s response to Covid and looking back on the events of 9/11 more than 20 years later.

Chris told me right off the bat that he has significant concerns about the Russia/Ukraine war escalating due to the U.S. war machine making unilateral decisions: “So here’s the event that bothers me the most right now. A month ago, we hear that Ukraine has used some of their first long-range capabilities to attack Russia’s over-the-horizon nuclear early detection radar system. One of them, right?”

“A couple of weeks later, a second one. All right. Do you think anybody listening to this really believes that we voted for somebody who made that decision to target those things?”

He continued: “They didn’t consult any congressmen or senators. There’s like no presidential input involved. Somebody somewhere in the deep state said, you know what, let’s blind Russia right now for nuclear attacks and hope for the best. Or what? I don’t know what their plan is, but we can all feel it—that we have an out-of-control machine that makes decisions that have nothing to do with what’s best for you or me or anybody else.”

The conversation then look a hard turn into discussing the deep state, the U.S. war machine and the events of 9/11. Chris and I both shared our concerns with the details we were given about the events of September 11, 2001, specifically regarding Building 7.

Chris told me: “My PhD from Duke University is in a life science. But to get there, I took physics, I took chemistry, organic chemistry, all kinds of things, right? So I’m a big believer in chemistry. Physics and chemistry, okay? So with that said, there’s some laws out there. There are natural laws, like the law of gravity. You can not believe in it. You can decide that you can cross your legs, float, but nobody does it, right? It just doesn’t happen. It’s this thing. It’s like death. I’m gonna evade death. No, you’re not, right?”

He continued: “Second, there’s this law of the conservation of momentum, right? So if you’re standing on a pond that’s frozen over and I’m standing on a pond and you push on me, we’re both going in opposite directions, right? It’s just how it is. So when we look at Building Seven, if you were standing on the corner, any one of the four corners, it fell symmetrically like an imploding building, but leave that aside, that observation. If you were standing on the corner at the moment it let go, NIST itself had to finally admit that for two and a quarter seconds, that building fell at free fall.”

Chris explained why this is so concerning: “Meaning if you dropped a bowling ball into the air off the corner of the building at the same time that let go, it would track at the same pace. Like if you jumped off a bridge that was 88 feet high. Yes. If you jumped off that building, you and the corner of that building would be eye to eye staring at each other as it went down.”

“That building had 80,000 tons of structural steel in it. It doesn’t just go away. It can’t, but it did. For two and a quarter seconds, there was no resistance to downward momentum. That’s not… you can’t crumple that. There’s no possible way to begin progressively collapsing this thing. You can’t do that. So we have to then come up with an explanation for how 80,000 tons of structural steel stepped aside and provided no resistance for two and a quarter seconds.”

After hashing out our thoughts on 9/11, our conversation turned to the forthcoming election. Martenson expressed to me that the election either could “already be in the bag” or “not be happening”, two ideas I couldn’t help but be skeptical of.

Chris told me: “So what is the media not talking about? What’s not happening that really ought to be happening? And on that front, you know what’s really unnerving to me? Biden and Harris aren’t really campaigning. You know, they just sort of weakly started lately. I was starting to see a few ads here and there, but it’s lame. It’s like they don’t even care. And so how is it that you wouldn’t even campaign? Well, one of two reasons. You’re not worried about the election because it’s already in the bag, right? Or there’s not going to be one.”

Turing our attention to the problems the nation faces, we talked about the U.S. debt crisis and the nation’s immigration crisis.

“We clearly have a runaway monetary fiscal train at this point in time, and it’s just headed towards what I call the nuclear reactor critical mass runaway moment,” Chris told me. “Higher interest payments beget more borrowing, which begets higher interest rates, which begets higher interest payments. And you’re on that spiral. That’s the death spiral, which happens to companies, but it can happen to countries too.”

He continued: “We could have probably kicked the can another cycle or two, but now you have the rest of the world backing away, if not trotting away from the U.S. dollar, and people don’t get it yet. China’s negatively hoarding their treasuries, they’re dis-hoarding right now. So China’s selling. Japan’s in a world of hurt. I don’t know if you see, but the yen’s here banging around at the 160 level again. So they’re selling, and their big bank has to probably sell some treasuries. Russia, obviously not buying any of our crap—they kicked that habit in 2018. But Saudi Arabia now not buying treasuries, dis-hoarding.”

And he raised questions about where, exactly, treasury demand is coming from, telling me: “So who’s buying? Well, you go to the Treasury International Capital Report. You find out, oh good, the Cayman Islands stepped in. Dude, we need an audit of the Fed right away. I don’t think it’s always suspicious to see it, no, because every time we need the Cayman Islands and the UK to step up and buy just hand over fist treasuries, somehow they do.”

Finally, Chris — like most of us watching flawed policy unfold — says we’re definitely going back to QE: “But listen, here’s a prediction. It’s very easy to make for me. The Fed’s going to have to go back to QE. It’s not just lowering interest rates—that’s going to do dick all for us at this point. They’re going to go back to QE because we can’t risk a treasury failure. We have $9 trillion of debt, new and existing, rolling through the auction market this next calendar year. And so the Fed’s going to have to step in and start buying that stuff. Full stop. That’s inflation.”

Last, we discussed some alarming facts about the ongoing immigration crisis in the U.S., namely the idea that there are tons of military aged men coming from countries like China and entering the country.

Chris thinks its part of a larger plan: “Well, they’re letting in the teams that are going to attack us and dismantle us from within when the war starts. I mean, that sounds conspiratorial, but God damn, if I can’t help but think that. You know, military. It’s the data. You can’t exclude it out of hand. You just can’t. Maybe not all of them. Let’s say we had 20 million people come in over the last five, six years or whatever the number is now, right?”

“What if just 10% of them are nefarious? They’re MS-13 gang members who got disordered from a Nicaraguan jail, or they’re actual SEAL team equivalents coming from China, Afghanistan, wherever, right? That’s just 10%. Okay, well, there’s 2 million people inside our country now who are poised to cause damage if called upon, right? And no one knows where they are and they don’t have social security numbers. Nobody can track them. You know, it’s just, you’re a racist if you do.”

You can listen to the full 75 minute long audio discussion at this link. 

QTR’s Disclaimer: Please read my full legal disclaimer on my About page here. This post represents my opinions only. In addition, please understand I am an idiot and often get things wrong and lose money. I may own or transact in any names mentioned in this piece at any time without warning. Contributor posts and aggregated posts have been hand selected by me, have not been fact checked and are the opinions of their authors. They are either submitted to QTR by their author, reprinted under a Creative Commons license with my best effort to uphold what the license asks, or with the permission of the author. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell any stocks or securities, just my opinions. I often lose money on positions I trade/invest in. I may add any name mentioned in this article and sell any name mentioned in this piece at any time, without further warning. None of this is a solicitation to buy or sell securities. These positions can change immediately as soon as I publish this, with or without notice. You are on your own. Do not make decisions based on my blog. I exist on the fringe. The publisher does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided in this page. These are not the opinions of any of my employers, partners, or associates. I did my best to be honest about my disclosures but can’t guarantee I am right; I write these posts after a couple beers sometimes. I edit after my posts are published because I’m impatient and lazy, so if you see a typo, check back in a half hour. Also, I just straight up get shit wrong a lot. I mention it twice because it’s that important.

Update (1505ET): Donald Trump’s sentencing date has been kicked down the road more than two months – from July 11th to September 18th, ‘if such is still necessary.’

BREAKING🚨Judge Merchan has vacated Donald Trump’s July 11th sentencing date and will delay it until September 18th “if such is still necessary” pic.twitter.com/Nkf45Xdoj0

— James Jinnette (@james_jinnette1) July 2, 2024

Interestingly, New York prosecutors agreed to a delay.

*  *  *

Hours after the US Supreme Court granted Donald Trump immunity for official acts committed in office, the former president began an effort to toss his recent conviction in Manhattan and postpone his upcoming sentencing over 34 felony counts related to his cover-up of a sex scandal leading up to the 2016 US election.

In a letter to judge Juan Merchan just hours after the Supreme Court ruling – and 10 days before he’s set for sentencing, Trump’s lawyers sought permission to file a motion to set aside the verdict while Merchan considers whether the Supreme Court ruling affects the conviction.

That said, Trump’s attempt might be a long shot given the fact that the Manhattan case revolves around acts Trump took as a candidate, not as president.

As the NY Times notes, however, Trump’s lawyers are likely to argue that prosecutors partially built their case using evidence from his time in office. Under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, prosecutors may not charge a president for official acts, but also cannot cite evidence involving official acts that affect other accusations.

It is unclear how the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the case, will respond, or whether the judge will delay the first sentencing of an American president. But Mr. Trump’s effort appeared to cause at least a brief interruption: The district attorney’s office did not on Monday make a sentencing recommendation to the judge about whether to imprison Mr. Trump, as was expected.

Merchan may also punt on the request, as the deadline for filing post-trial motions ended last month. Instead, Merchan may instruct Trump’s attorneys to raise the issue when they appeal the conviction post-sentencing.

As the Times further notes, Merchan faces an ‘unprecedented conundrum’ with massive legal and political ramifications. Imprisoning Trump would drop-kick a hornet’s nest, while sparing Trump from prison would immediately draw the wrath of vengeful Democrats who say he gave Trump special treatment.

While there’s no requirement that Trump be sentenced to time behind bars, Merchan could sentence him to months or several years in prison – or he could be sentenced to home confinement or probation. He could also postpone any sentence until after the election, or after Trump serves another term in office, should be he reelected.

Meanwhile, Trump’s other criminal cases have been largely derailed or otherwise postponed – including his trial in Washington DC, where he stands accused of mishandling classified information while still in office.

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The Supreme Court declined on July 2 to take up several Second Amendment-based challenges to gun laws, including a lawsuit about an Illinois law that prohibits so-called assault weapons such as the AR-15 rifle.

The decision came in a long list of orders in ongoing cases that the court issued the day after it finished delivering opinions in all the argued cases for the 2023-2024 term.

The justices now head off to their summer recess. The Court will resume hearing cases on the first Monday in October.

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a statement saying he would have granted the petition for certiorari, or review, in the Illinois case known as Harrel v. Raoul.

No other justices dissented.

At least four of the nine justices must vote to grant a petition for it to advance.

The law in Illinois made it a felony-level offense to have “assault weapons,” including AR-15s.

Quoting from a previous court ruling, Justice Thomas noted that the AR-15 “is the most popular semi-automatic rifle” in the United States and is “in common use today.”

The petitioners in the case applied for a preliminary injunction to halt enforcement of the law, taking the position that it violated their right to “keep and bear Arms” under the Second Amendment.

Although the court “is rightly wary of taking cases” that are still before lower courts, Justice Thomas wrote he hoped the nation’s highest court “will consider the important issues presented by these petitions after the cases reach final judgment.”

The Supreme Court has “never squarely addressed what types of weapons are ‘Arms’ protected by the Second Amendment,” the justice wrote.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban is in Kiev for the first time since the Russian invasion, where he has urged Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky “to consider a quick ceasefire” in a private meeting.

Orban told a press briefing after: “I asked the president to think about whether we could approach this a little differently, to take a break, to cease fire, and then proceed with negotiations.”

So far, the assumption from Ukraine officials has been there has to be withdrawal of Russian forces from seized Ukrainian territory first, for negotiations leading to a truce to become reality. Orban is calling for an immediate ceasefire, which then creates conditions for serious negotiations toward permanent truce.

“A ceasefire connected to a deadline would give a chance to speed up peace talks. I explored this possibility with the president and I am grateful for his honest answers and negotiation,” Orban continued.

Zelensky’s office had earlier previewed the meeting by saying it will be a much-needed, important conversion “about the future of Europe, security, international law, and the Formula of Peace.” It comes after last month’s Swiss-hosted international Ukraine peace summit.

Orban agreed that “We would like to make the relationship between the two countries better,.” He explained in Tuesday’s press briefing, “We would like to make a broad bilateral agreement with Ukraine, similar to the ones we already made with our neighbors (in the past). We would be happy to take part in the modernization of Ukraine’s economy, we would like an ordered framework for this.”

Hungary has been a lone NATO voice blocking at different times various pro-Ukraine initiatives. Orban’s government has been especially vocal against Ukraine ever joining NATO, a policy which has resulted in Western press frequently calling the Hungarian leader a friend of Putin, or else “pro-Putin”.

Budapest has also from the start been a lone voice urging muscular diplomacy by the West to end the war instead of constant escalation through weapons shipments and deepening military involvement. The Hungarian prime minister is the only European leader to have met with Putin after the war began, on a trip which occurred in the spring of 2022. CNN has declared Orban to be “Putin’s greatest European ally”. 

Below: Zelensky said that he and Orban discussed “how to bring about a just and lasting peace.” In clip issued by the Presidential Office, Orban can be heard at the beginning of the meeting telling Zelensky that he wants to hear “your vision of the chances for peace.”

🇭🇺🇺🇦 Zelensky said that he and Orban discussed “how to bring about a just and lasting peace.”

In a video published by the Presidential Office, Orban can be heard at the beginning of the meeting telling Zelensky that he wants to hear “your vision of the chances for peace.”

After… pic.twitter.com/5ueFc9kGoO

— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) July 2, 2024

But if Orban is trying to convince Zelensky to agree to ceasefire, Zelensky is surely hard at work seeking to lobby Orban to his side, given Hungary just assumed the rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Hungary has often proven a final vote either blocking or approving billions in EU funding for Ukraine. For example in February, Orban finally relented and was the last EU member to agree to an additional 50-billion-euro ($54bn) aid package, previously blocked by the threat of a Hungarian veto.

By the close of this visit by Orban to Kiev, it is as yet unclear what Zelensky’s response to the Hungarian leader was in terms of his proposal to immediately speed up peace. At this moment, the whole world is keenly aware that Ukrainian forces are depleted and exhausted, and that the conflict will have to eventually end at the negotiating table. But Kiev has long said a ceasefire or pause in fighting would only be used by Russia to re-arm and solidify hold on territory.

Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

The federal government completed the sale of 1 million barrels of gasoline from the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve (NGSR), the White House said in a statement shared with The Epoch Times on Tuesday.

Last month, the government announced it would release 42 million gallons of gas from storage facilities in Maine and New Jersey to help lower pump prices heading into the typically busy summer driving season.

After receiving 19 proposals from five companies since May 21, the federal government awarded contracts to all the firms: BP (500,000 barrels), Vitol (200,000 barrels), Freepoint Commodities (100,000 barrels), George E. Warren (100,000 barrels), and Irving Oil (98,824 barrels).

Gas reserves were sold at an average $2.34 per gallon.

Senior administration officials touted the news as another victory for the federal government’s inflation-fighting efforts.

“The Biden-Harris Administration continues to take strategic action to lower prices for American consumers in every aspect of their lives—especially as summer driving season ramps up,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

“By releasing this reserve ahead of July 4th, we are ensuring sufficient supply flows to the northeast at a time hardworking Americans need it the most.”

But while gasoline prices have not rocketed this summer, the White House is trying to build on the plethora of measures to reduce energy costs, says National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard.

“Gas prices have come down nearly 20 cents in the last two months, but we know there is more to do,” said Ms. Brainard.

“This release will help lower prices at the pump, building on other actions by President Biden, including historic releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, record energy production, and the largest-ever investment in clean energy.”

[ZH: Yeah Ms. Brainard, but prices are surging again now.]

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), gas prices are around $3.49 per gallon, down 5 cents from a year ago.

The cost of gas could start ticking higher because of the jump in crude oil prices.

U.S. crude topped $83 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange during the July 1 trading session. Year-to-date, the West Texas Intermediate crude oil benchmark is up about 17 percent.

Oil prices had cooled since the end of April, but the revival of geopolitical tensions, investors bracing for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, an active hurricane season, and tight international energy markets have bolstered oil prices in recent sessions.

“Summer got off to a slow start last week with low gas demand,” said AAA spokesperson Andrew Gross.

“But with a record 60 million travelers forecast to hit the road for the July 4th holiday, that number could pop over the next 10 days. But will oil stay above $80 a barrel, or will it sag again? Stay tuned.”

The latest Energy Information Administration (EIA) data show that gasoline demand was 8.96 million barrels last week, down 240,000 barrels from the same period a year ago.

Since January 2021, gas prices have soared cumulatively 55 percent, and oil has surged 66 percent.

Tapping Into Reserves

In 2012, President Barack Obama created the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve following Hurricane Sandy, which destroyed refineries in the region.

Recent EIA figures revealed domestic gas inventories totaled 233.886 million barrels for the week ending June 21, down more than 3 percent from the same period three years ago.

Additionally, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, President Biden tapped into the nation’s emergency oil stockpiles to curb prices, drawing down 180 million barrels of oil. The White House estimates this trimmed gas prices by about 80 cents.

The SPR is approximately 40 percent lower than in January 2021. Since hitting a bottom of 346.758 million barrels in July 2023, the U.S. government has been gradually refilling reserves. As of June 21, the SPR was 372.197 million barrels, the highest since December 2022.

The White House has repeatedly shifted its position to replenish the SPR.

In April, the Department of Energy abruptly canceled a 2.8-million-barrel offer to refill a significant storage facility in Louisiana. This decision occurred one month after issuing a solicitation for August and September deliveries.

However, Ms. Granholm told Reuters in a June 28 interview that the administration could rush offers to replenish U.S. reserves beyond a 3-million-barrel-a-month pace.

“It could pick up more than that,” she said, adding that two SPR locations in Louisiana and Texas have been in maintenance.

“All four sites will be back up by the end of the year, so one could imagine that pace would pick up, depending on the market.”

The federal government established the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 1975 in response to the 1973–1974 oil embargo. The purpose was to limit the impact of disruptions in global petroleum markets. Officials could withdraw from the SPR during emergencies, energy interruptions, or supply troubles.

The world’s largest economy consumes about 20 million barrels of oil per day, meaning current reserves would be exhausted in 18 days if production ceased.

The President is fine.

Sharp as a tack.

Definitely leading the country.

What you saw last Thursday was simply a bad night from a titan of politics who’s literally ‘tiring out’ his younger aides with his extreme schedule, according to deputy press secretary Andrew Bates.

Yes, this is the official response from the White House following years of ZeroHedge reporting on Biden’s mental decline, which in recent months even MSM outlets have begun to admit, and has now spilled out into the open for the world to see following last week’s nursing home rec-room performance by the sitting president, who wants to continue as president for another four years when he’ll be 86 and surely even sharper.

After all, according to Nancy Pelosi it’s actually Trump who has dementia.

NEW: Nancy Pelosi claims ‘healthcare professionals’ say Trump is actually the candidate with dementia before having a senior moment of her own.

This gaslighting is crazy.

During an interview with CNN, Pelosi gaslit the American people before she was seen seizing up, appearing… pic.twitter.com/qm92OY1fL8

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) June 30, 2024

Speaking with Axios while the Biden family met at Camp David on Sunday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates insisted: “Not only does the President perform around the clock, but he maintains a schedule that tires younger aides, including foreign trips into active war zones, and he proves he has that capacity by delivering tangible results that pundits had declared impossible.”

Except (you know it’s bad when…) journalist Carl Bernstein told CNN on Monday that there have been at least 15 occasions in the last 18 months “where the president has appeared like he did at that horror show (his debate performance),” and that in the last six months, there have been a marked cognitive decline that has caused some of his sources to approach Chief of Staff Ron Klain to express concern.

According to Bernstein, in June of 2023 at the Four Seasons in New York, Biden became “Very stiff…almost like a kind of rigor mortis.”

Carl Bernstein on CNN right now:

Multiple sources tell him that there have been at least 15 occasions in the last year and a half “where the president has appeared like he did at that horror show (his debate performance).”

Bernstein reports that in the last six months sources… pic.twitter.com/VoSY8xDZpt

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) July 2, 2024

Bring out the clowns!

Meanwhile, the White House and the Biden campaign also told Axios that Biden’s awful debate performance ‘doesn’t tell the full story.’

1. Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, has worked closely with the past four presidents. He’s constantly in the Situation Room with Biden, and gets the president’s comments and questions back from his nightly prep packet.

•  “If what is being written now about President Biden were true, history would be very different,” McGurk told us in a half-hour phone interview. He said Biden’s “strategic empathy,” wisdom, experience and familiarity with the globe from his years as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are “an incredible national asset.”
• McGurk has seen Biden direct real-time operations for up to five hours at a stretch. And after the terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, McGurk was there for a conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when Biden was “reasoning in a Socratic way and talking them off the ledge.”
• Meeting with special forces commanders in 2022 before the U.S. killing of Hajji Abdullah, global leader of ISIS, Biden offered a prescient warning about suicide vests. “He has lived these issues,” McGurk said.

2. Molly Murphy — a pollster for the Biden campaign, and president of Impact Research — set up a focus group in a Midwest battleground with about 60 swing voters, who used dials to show their mid-debate reactions. She says that when it came to deciding who to vote for, participants showed they were more concerned about the candidates’ substance than style.

• “They did not think the president had a great performance,” Murphy conceded in a phone interview.
• But she said Biden came out ahead when voters were asked who should lead the country, and which candidate was more likable, knowledgeable and presidential. The voters panned Trump’s answers on Jan. 6 and Vladimir Putin.

Democrats urge Biden campaign to shift course

Extra meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers and strategists are scrambling, with some thinking that Biden’s best move is to pivot to the offense by ramping up attacks on Trump and the conservative Supreme Court following Monday’s ruling granting the former president substantial immunity from prosecution.

“There are days where Biden is the smartest person in the room, and I’m sure there are days where his age is slowing him down, but Biden needs to and the campaign needs to show more days where he is at the top of his game, where he is gregarious, where he is interacting, where he is quick on his feet. That’s how you turn this around,” one Senate Democratic strategist told The Hill. “They have to show the American people that what happened last Thursday was an anomaly,” the added.

According to the strategist, Biden is now the underdog.

“It’s no longer ‘could Biden do this or not.’ I think probably the prevailing sentiment is Biden is not up for the challenge. Whether that’s right or that’s wrong, I think that is now the prevailing sentiment,” they said, adding “Biden is definitely the underdog now, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion Trump wins this race.“

Right.