On the one-year anniversary of the September 26, 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage bombings under the Baltic Sea, legendary journalist Seymour Hersh has provided more context and color based on his intelligence sources. 

Hersh’s original bombshell reporting in his How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline said that it was a highly secret CIA operation with assistance from an elite US Navy dive team as well as Norwegian intelligence. 

Given Hersh’s significant charge that Washington conducted a ‘false flag’ – at a moment many Western officials were quick to blame Moscow for destroying its own pipelines, Russia had in the wake of Hersh’s reporting called for an urgent United Nations investigation into the sabotage. 

Instead of answering questions, for example when in March The Intercept approached the White House for answers, the Biden administration merely said it was supporting the separate investigations of individual countries like Sweden, Germany, and Denmark.

The heart of Hersh’s new article this week, which is entitled A Year of Lying About Nord Stream, deals with motive. What was the United States’ motive? – he asks, and his sources tell… The answer is somewhat surprising (or not), and relates to the all-important question of energy dependence. 

Below are key sections from the new Hersh investigative report, broken up by our own subheadings…

* * *

Completely ‘offline planning’ & plausible deniability

Deniability, as an option for President Joe Biden and his foreign policy advisers, was paramount. No significant information about the mission was put on a computer, but instead typed on a Royal or perhaps a Smith Corona typewriter with a carbon copy or two, as if the Internet and the rest of the online world had yet to be invented. The White House was isolated from the goings-on near Oslo; various reports and updates from the field were directly provided to CIA Director Bill Burns, who was the only link between the planners and the president who authorized the mission to take place on September 26, 2022. Once the mission was completed, the typed papers and carbons were destroyed, thus leaving no physical trace—no evidence to be dug up later by a special prosecutor or a presidential historian. You could call it the perfect crime.

The Germans possibly had foreknowledge

It was no surprise to the agency’s secret planning group when on January 27, 2022, the assured and confident Nuland, then undersecretary of state for political affairs, stridently warned Putin that if he invaded Ukraine, as he clearly was planning to, that “one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The line attracted enormous attention, but the words preceding the threat did not. The official State Department transcript shows that she preceded her threat by saying that with regard to the pipeline: “We continue to have very strong and clear conversations with our German allies.”

…The German leader was considered then—and now—by some members of the CIA team to be fully aware of the secret planning underway to destroy the pipelines.

* * *

Biden’s extraordinary public threat

What I did not know then, but was told recently, was that after Biden’s extraordinary public threat to blow up Nord Stream 2, with Scholz standing next to him, the CIA planning group was told by the White House that there would be no immediate attack on the two pipelines, but the group should arrange to plant the necessary bombs and be ready to trigger them “on demand”—after the war began. “It was then that we”—the small planning group that was working in Oslo with the Royal Norwegian Navy and special services on the project—“understood that the attack on the pipelines was not a deterrent because as the war went on we never got the command.”

After Biden’s order to trigger the explosives planted on the pipelines, it took only a short flight with a Norwegian fighter and the dropping of an altered off-the-shelf sonar device at the right spot in the Baltic Sea to get it done. By then the CIA group had long disbanded. By then, too, the official told me: “We realized that the destruction of the two Russian pipelines was not related to the Ukrainian war”—Putin was in the process of annexing the four Ukrainian oblasts he wanted—“but was part of a neocon political agenda to keep Scholz and Germany, with winter coming up and the pipelines shut down, from getting cold feet and opening up” the shuttered Nord Stream 2. “The White House fear was that Putin would get Germany under his thumb and then he was going to get Poland.”

Motive

All of this explains why a routine question I posed a month or so after the bombings to someone with many years in the American intelligence community led me to a truth that no one in America or Germany seems to want to pursue. My question was simple: “Who did it?”

The Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine. It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources. And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.

Read the full Hersh report and subscribe at Substack

Authored by Maggie MacFarland Phillips via RealClear Wire,

As worshippers gathered at the Calvary Chapel in 2020, they were being watched from above.  

The Center for Gun Violence Solutions (CGVS) at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is advocating for the utilization of “microstamping” technology on firearms. They believe a firing pin that imprints a unique serial number on the cartridge could be one solution to end gun violence. 

“Microstamping imprints a code on a bullet’s cartridge case each time a gun is fired—linked to the gun’s serial number—allowing law enforcement to quickly link cartridge cases found at crime scenes to the gun used in a crime,” CGVS posted on X. 

Microstamping imprints a code on a bullet’s cartridge case each time a gun is fired—linked to the gun’s serial number—allowing law enforcement to quickly link cartridge cases found at crime scenes to the gun used in a crime.

Learn more about this tech: https://t.co/OzhbL077tf pic.twitter.com/QtbHHIjTxO

— Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions (@JHU_CGVS) September 25, 2023

However, firing pins are easily removable and swappable in firearms. And what will stop criminals who have already filed down serial numbers on lower receivers from filing down firing pins with microstamping technology?

Gun advocacy group Firearms Policy Coalition responded to CGVS’ post: “Please keep wasting your time and money on this massive failure of bullshit.”

Please keep wasting your time and money on this massive failure of bullshit.

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 25, 2023

“So, you assume a firing pin can’t be easily changed out, the microstamp code won’t wear down, files must not exist in your dream world, or the basic fact the tech doesn’t work outside of a lab setting. Add in the fact that it can be easily defeated by simply using a brass catcher or scattering someone elses brass,” an X user said. 

So, you assume a firing pin can’t be easily changed out, the microstamp code won’t wear down, files must not exist in your dream world, or the basic fact the tech doesn’t work outside of a lab setting. Add in the fact that it can be easily defeated by simply using a brass catcher…

— Robb 🇺🇸 🇹🇼 🇵🇱 ✈️🛸 (@158912r) September 25, 2023

Maybe the microstamping technology is not entirely about actual gun safety prevention. Instead, as one X user pointed out:

“You’re forgetting that none of that is actually why they want this. It’s the beginning of making guns so expensive by having all of these added features that only rich people can have them. Eventually they’ll mandate fingerprint scan to operate and other “safety” features like this.” 

You’re forgetting that none of that is actually why they want this.

It’s the beginning of making guns so expensive by having all of these added features that only rich people can have them.

Eventually they’ll mandate fingerprint scan to operate and other “safety” features like…

— I am Riven (@MetalOfRiven) September 25, 2023

… and this. 

Also in Maryland, in 2016 the state scrapped its shell casing registry because across 16 years and 300,000 registered casings, the system never solved a single crime. https://t.co/V2suE31O1N pic.twitter.com/KZwPqVadTl

— Open Source Defense (@opensrcdefense) September 25, 2023

Remember, anti-gunner billionaire Mike Bloomberg has donated billions of dollars to ‘woke’ Johns Hopkins. Bloomberg also backs the anti-gun group Everytown. 

Billionaire elites like Bloomberg and the radical left have openly waged war on the Second Amendment. Law-abiding Americans have been panicking to purchase firearms as progressive policies in metro areas and on the southern border have failed, sparking the worst migrant and crime crisis this nation has ever experienced. 

It seems as if Democrats want to disarm law-abiding citizens via executive fiat while their failed policies only embolden criminals. 

This insanity must stop, and law and order must be revived — or risk a new crime explosion across suburbia (it’s already beginning). 

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A bevy of recent reports has indicated that some Americans are receiving demands from the Social Security Administration to repay the agency after they were overpaid on their benefits.

According to those published reports, the issue tends to arise when the agency overpays people who are receiving workers’ compensation payments. A recent Social Security Administration inspector general’s report (pdf) found that the administration collected about $4.7 billion in repayments in 2022, while about $22 billion remains outstanding.

For example, an Ohio nursing home worker told KFF News in a recent article that she has multiple health problems, including an artificial heart and cerebral palsy, and was getting about $862 a month and receiving about $1,065 in monthly Social Security disability benefits when she received a letter from the SSA saying she was being overpaid. What’s more, the agency said that it wanted the money back and told her to mail a check with the money in 30 days for about $60,000.

A Texas woman who spoke to Fox4 TV on Thursday said she received a similar demand from the SSA, saying she was overpaid and wanted the money back. The letter, according to the woman, wanted her to pay about $41,000, although she said an employee admitted to her that a mistake was made.

“She called me and told me, ‘Yeah, I made the mistake. I’m human,'” Danielle Prisock told Fox4. “I’m human as well, I said, and I didn’t make the mistake.”

“Social Security is required by law to adjust benefits or recover debts when we establish that someone received payments to which they are not entitled and an overpayment occurs. We must maintain our responsibilities to taxpayers to be good stewards of the trust funds,” the agency spokesperson told the outlet.

Adding that fewer than 0.5 percent of Social Security payments are overpayments, the spokesperson said that “each person’s situation is unique, and we handle overpayments on a case-by-case basis.”

Shocking scenes have been emerging from the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh this week, after last week an Azerbaijan military offensive targeting a breakaway region killed at least 200 people and wounded many more.

An exodus of tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians is underway from their 2,000-year ancient homeland of Artsakh, which in modern times has existed within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. 

Some observers have declared that this marks the final end of the Republic of Artsak, given long lines of cars have been observed exiting toward Armenia’s borders, on fears that Azeri troops are conducting an ethnic cleansing campaign. 

The Armenian foreign ministry has tallied that at least 13,500 people have fled into Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh by Tuesday.

That number was later revised to at least 19,000, and many more are expected, given blocked traffic in the direction of the Armenian border stretches for miles.

Footage showing mass exodus of Armenians now leaving Nagorno Karabakh for Armenia, normal travel time of 2 hours now taking 20 or more. Kids the hardest hit, with little food after months of blockade. Cars are literally halted, as vehicles checked one-by-one by Azeri officials. pic.twitter.com/3jzrLv2FnB

— Nagorno Karabakh Observer (@NKobserver) September 26, 2023

Making matters worse for fleeing civilians, there may have been a terror bombing, or else horrific accident, at a gas station which was fueling cars in the mass exodus: 

As many more were attempting to flee the enclave on Monday evening, a powerful explosion ripped through a gas station near Stepanakert, where people had been attempting to get fuel before driving to Armenia.

At least 20 people were killed and 290 wounded in the blast, Armenian state news agency Armenpress said. The wounded were taken to four hospitals across Nagorno-Karabakh, one of them being a Russian peacekeeping mission clinic.

An Artsakh official has explained that ethnic Armenians are refusing to enter the territory of Azerbaijan: “Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan. Ninety-nine point nine percent prefer to leave our historic lands,” the official said as quoted in Reuters.

Washington has urged restraint amid accusations that Azerbaijan is conducting genocide:

US Agency for International Development (USAID) chief Samantha Power, in the Armenian capital Yerevan, called on Azerbaijan “to maintain the ceasefire and take concrete steps to protect the rights of civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh”.

Power, who earlier handed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a letter of support from U.S. President Joe Biden, said Azerbaijan’s use of force was unacceptable and that Washington was looking at an appropriate response.

She called on Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to live up to his promise to protect ethnic Armenian rights, fully reopen the Lachin corridor that connects the region to Armenia and let in aid deliveries and an international monitoring mission.

Just a river of cars… from Stepanakert to Hakari…

We drove two meters, waited two hours…

Be patient, those who haven’t arrived yet… pic.twitter.com/8e95LotNru

— Marut Vanyan (@marutvanian) September 26, 2023

For Armenians, however, both the pleas and lack of action from both Washington and Moscow have been cause of frustration and anger. 

Videos have since emerged (unverified) showing Azerbaijan troops ransacking or also shooting into ethnic Armenian homes…

Videos are circulating online showing Azerbaijan troops shooting into civilian homes in Nagorno-Karabakh. pic.twitter.com/YYzy2Gkwuc

— Geopolitics.wiki (@GeopoliticsW) September 22, 2023

Local officials have warned that amid the armed Azeri advance, not a single ethnic Armenian family is going to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is home to dozens of ancient Christian monasteries and churches.

Russia has meanwhile issued a rare statement lambasting the Armenian government under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for failing to uphold agreements which helped lead to this unfolding disaster…

The Russian Foreign Ministry has released an extraordinary statement on what is happening in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Armenia.

What’s more, the Russian MFA has effectively confirmed that Nikol Pashinyan has treasonously colluded to undermine the sovereignty of Artsakh and… https://t.co/3GHIrZNygv

— William Bairamian (@Bairamian) September 26, 2023

Meanwhile, it’s become clear that Azerbaijan is ready to reunite the disputed territory by force. Those Karabakh Armenians who remain must accept Azerbaijani citizenship or else leave, statements from Baku have made clear.

Anna Ohanyan, a senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explained to CNN that “If the Armenian community will not leave, but also will not take up Azerbaijani passports, I think that basically would be suicidal.”

Authored by Randy Tatano via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

There’s an old saying about expensive restaurants that don’t put prices on the menu.

“If you have to ask how much things cost, you can’t afford to eat there.”

There’s a little restaurant in Brewton, Alabama, with no prices on the menu. Because you can pay whatever you can afford. And if you can’t spare a dime, no problem.

Food for the Needy

For the past five years, Drexell & Honeybee’s has been a shining beacon for those in need who could use a hot meal. The unique restaurant in this small town near the Alabama–Florida border has taken Southern hospitality to another level, offering traditional lunches three days a week. The customers number more than 100 on an average day. Some pay more than what the meal would normally cost, subsidizing those who can’t afford to leave anything in the donation box except a note of thanks.

It’s the brainchild of Lisa McMillan, a woman who got her inspiration to be a culinary guardian angel in a grocery store checkout line. While waiting behind an older woman who was digging loose change out of her purse, Ms. McMillan discovered that the lady could use a financial helping hand. She started cooking and delivering breakfast to her.

“Pretty soon, I had 27 other seniors on my route, bringing eggs, grits, and bacon while stopping at Burger King for 27 cups of coffee,” she said. Five years ago, Ms. McMillan and her husband, Freddie, took things to another level, spending more than six figures to turn an empty liquor store that was a major fixer-upper into a cheerful, welcoming restaurant complete with exposed brick walls and a gorgeous wood ceiling.

Now, it serves good old-fashioned Southern home cooking.

“I’m so happy God blessed me with the revelation. Money is only good when you can help other people,” Ms. McMillan said.

Kind Hearts, Gentle Hands

The McMillans generally start cooking at about 6 a.m. Mr. McMillan, a retired Marine master sergeant, is busy on this day making apple pies.

“My grandmother taught me how to cook. By the time I was 12, I could cook anything in the kitchen,” he said.

Mr. McMillan loved his wife’s original idea when she told him that she wanted to open a restaurant to help the needy. “I saw her motivation and said, ‘Let’s take it on.’ There’s great satisfaction in feeding people that really need a helping hand,” he said.

The restaurant could use some helping hands in the kitchen as well, since cooking for more than 100 customers is a ton of work for two people. Earlier this year, Ms. McMillan posted a note on social media asking for volunteers. Brittany Fuqua was the only person who showed up, donating her time every week. She does everything from washing dishes to helping serve the meals with a cheerful smile. “I love getting to know the people who come here. It’s really satisfying to help in the community,” she said.

Retail giant Target on Tuesday announced the closure of nine stores in major cities across the US, citing violence, theft and organized retail crime. The news comes on the heels of a warning from the company that lost or stolen inventory has created a $500 million dent in profitability this year.

“We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance,” the company said in a press statement. “We know that our stores serve an important role in their communities, but we can only be successful if the working and shopping environment is safe for all.”

According to CNBC, the company will close one store in Harlem, two stores in Seattle, three stores in the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area, and three more in Portland, Oregon.

According to CNBC, Target, which has nearly 2,000 stores in the U.S., has been outspoken about organized retail crime at its stores. It has said theft has driven higher levels of shrink, an industry term used to describe losses from goods that were damaged, misplaced or stolen.

With today’s announcement, Target also stands apart in its decision to both shutter stores and to explicitly blame that decision on retail crime. 

When asked in May if the company planned to close stores due to crime, CEO Brian Cornell said “We do not want to close stores. We know how important our stores are. They create local jobs, they generate taxes, they’re very important for those local shoppers, and they play a critical role in communities across the country.”

“We’ll continue to do everything in our power to keep our doors open,” he added. “At the same time, we’ll be closely monitoring the safety of our team and guests as well as the financial impact to our business as we determine the right path forward at Target.”

Target also noted in its Tuesday release that the company supports the passage of the ‘Combating Organized Retail Crime Act,’ which proposes stiffer penalties for theft offenses, and calls for a change in the threshold which must be met by prosecutors before bringing federal theft cases. The Act would also provide retailers with a formal venue to trade information with each other, and law enforcement, through a proposed Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center.

Nine states have passed similar laws since 2022 (six so far this year), which have been supported by retailers and trade associations.

This goes way beyond just crime…

Target’s plight uncovers more layers of operational decay. The company’s struggles, spanning over a year, include an alarming buildup of unsold inventory, backlash against its Pride merchandise collection, and an evident pullback in consumer expenditure on non-essential items such as apparel and home goods.

In an uncharacteristic admission during an earnings call in August of last year, the company – alongside other retailers, highlighted the unexpected blow to profits caused by higher markdowns, along with desperate attempts to offload unpopular merchandise. A surge in inventories predictably correlates with a rise in shrink, leaving a dent in the retail margins, a situation previously unmentioned by Target in the last two decades.

Meanwhile, the introduction of locked cases for merchandise, hiring of third-party guard services, extensive training for store leaders in de-escalation tactics, and considerable investment in cyber defense to counteract fraud and organized crime have failed to make a meaningful difference.

“Despite our efforts, unfortunately, we continue to face fundamental challenges to operating these stores safely and successfully,” the company said in the release.

Target’s announcement, aligning with the release of the National Retail Federation’s latest National Retail Security Survey, sheds light on the nebulous shrink data. Despite a surge to $112 billion in 2022 from $93.9 billion the previous year, the shrink impact on retail bottom lines mirrors past patterns, with an average annual increase from 1.44% in 2021 to 1.57% in 2022.

In the wake of store closures across major cities, Target joins the ranks of Walmart, Nordstrom, and Walgreens Boots Alliance, which are all experiencing similar pain.

Authored by Jim Rickards via DailyReckoning.com,

When I talk about the war on cash and a cashless society, some people think I’m exaggerating the threat or they don’t take it seriously.

But I’m not exaggerating the threat. It’s here, it’s growing and it’ll only get worse. Today I’ll show you the latest example.

The proponents of the cashless society cite convenience as a major benefit. Why bother having to tote a bunch of cumbersome cash and coins around when you can just swipe a card or pay with your smartphone?

Besides, they say, cash enables criminal activity on the black market. Cash is the money of crime. And in some respects, they’re right.

Swiping a card or scanning your smartphone is certainly easier than having to get cash from a bank or ATM and lugging it around in your wallet, dealing with change, etc.

If you eliminated cash and replaced it with digital money, it would impact the black market (though they’d figure out a workaround).

Meanwhile, cash is costlier to produce than digital money and unlike with cash, you don’t need to hire a Brinks truck to move digital money around. No more bank robberies! And all those truck drivers and security guards can now learn to code!

You get the point. And that’s why the war on cash has been so successful. Digital money is simply more convenient to use than cash.

And the surest way to lull someone into complacency is to offer a “convenience” that quickly becomes habit and impossible to do without.

The Digital Cattle Pen

But here’s what they won’t tell you, as I’ve warned time after time: You’re being herded into what I call a “digital cattle pen” from which there’s no escape.

The fact is, governments always use money laundering, drug dealing and terrorism as excuses to keep tabs on honest citizens and deprive them of the ability to use money alternatives such as physical cash, gold and, these days, cryptocurrencies.

The real burden of the war on cash falls on honest citizens who are made vulnerable to wealth confiscation through negative interest rates, loss of privacy, account freezes and limits on cash withdrawals or transfers.

In reality, the so-called “cashless society” is just a Trojan horse for a system in which all financial wealth is electronic and represented digitally in the records of a small number of megabanks and asset managers.

Once that is achieved, it will be easy for state power to seize and freeze the wealth, or subject it to constant surveillance, taxation and other forms of digital confiscation like negative interest rates.

They can’t do that as long as you can go to your bank and withdraw your cash. That’s the key. Cash prevents central banks from imposing negative interest rates because if they did, people would withdraw their cash from the banking system.

If they stuff their cash in a mattress, they don’t earn anything on it; that’s true. But at least they’re not losing anything on it. Once all money is digital, you won’t have the option of withdrawing your cash and avoiding negative rates. You will be trapped in a digital pen with no way out.

In other words, it’s much easier for them to control your money if they first herd you into a digital cattle pen. That’s their true objective and all the other reasons are just a smoke screen.

Again, that’s the part they won’t tell you.

The good news is that cash is still a dominant form of payment in many countries including the U.S. The bad news is that as digital payments grow and the use of cash diminishes, a “tipping point” is reached where suddenly it makes no sense to continue using cash because of the expense and logistics involved.

Once cash usage shrinks to a certain point, economies of scale are lost and usage can go to zero almost overnight. Remember how music CDs disappeared suddenly once MP3 and streaming formats became popular?

That’s how fast cash can disappear.

Once the war on cash gains that kind of momentum, and we’re really not that far from it, it will be practically impossible to stop.

Biden Bucks: the Trojan Horse

My regular readers are well-versed in the technical features and dangers of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), which I call Biden Bucks.

CBDCs are a form of money issued by central banks or the Treasury in digital-only form. It’s true that most payments today — credit cards, direct deposit, ATMs, online shopping, etc. — are already digital.

But there’s a difference.

All the digital payments we have today are private. They’re between you and your bank or the online store. The government does not see that information at the individual level unless they get a warrant. That’s not true for CBDCs.

With CBDCs, the government controls the ledger. They see everything you buy, your charitable contributions, your political donations, your entertainment choices, your travel and more.

When that information is combined with geospatial location (from the GPS data on your iPhone, E-ZPass toll transmitters and license plate scanners) and analyzed by artificial intelligence applications, it’s easy to develop a political profile of you.

Based on that profile, the government can decide you’re an “enemy of the people” or a “MAGA extremist” as Biden threatened in his infamous Philadelphia speech in September 2022 (the one with the military guards and blood-red lighting that visually resembled the Nuremberg rallies of the Nazi Party in the 1930s).

Once you’re on the enemies list, CBDCs can be used to freeze your bank accounts. This happened to the Freedom Convoy drivers in Canada in January 2022. It can easily happen here.

Some Americans have been relieved that CBDCs have not been fully implemented yet and members of Congress and some governors such as Ron DeSantis have stood up against them. That’s true.

“It’s Not Coming; It’s Already Here”

But the authoritarians never take no for an answer. When you close one channel, they find another. Here’s an example…

Citibank (which is entirely under the government’s thumb because of the many bailouts it has received) has announced what they call Citi Token Services (CTS).

With CTS, you convert your regular dollars into digital tokens. These tokens can be used to move money or make payments around the world. Citi calls this a “tokenized deposit.”

Notice the term “CBDC” is not used anywhere. But that’s what it is. Once you convert your dollars to digital tokens, you don’t have dollars anymore. Citi controls the ledger under the government’s thumb. They have complete information on all transactions.

This is a CBDC by another name. It’s not coming; it’s already here.

The time to protect yourself is yesterday — and if not yesterday, then today. The best way is to keep a portion of your wealth outside of the banking system.

That’s why I urge you to keep some of your liquidity in physical gold and silver.

Amid carnage across various markets today, oil prices ended notably higher (recovering strongly from an ugly overnight puke) as bearish risk appetites battled (and lost) to the effects of rapidly tightening supplies.

“It looks like nothing is going to get in the way of this oil price rally,” said Edward Moya, senior market analyst at OANDA, in emailed comments on Tuesday. “Energy traders know a bullish trend when they see one and it will take a lot more than a strong dollar, softer Russian ban, and weakening demand, to disrupt this rally.”

“Oil prices are in backwardation and probably will stay that way a while longer,” he added.

Tonight’s glimpse at inventories will provide more color…

API

• Crude +1.6mm (-600k exp)

• Cushing -828k

• Gasoline -70k (-200k exp)

• Distillates -1.7mm (-1mm exp)

With stocks at Cushing running near tank-bottoms (and overall crude stocks at lows of the year, ex-SPR), all eyes are on the ongoing draws we have seen recently. Crude stocks unexpectedly rose last week by 1.6mm barrels but stocks at the Cushing hub continued to fall, down 828k…

Source: Bloomberg

Tank bottoms looming at Cushing…

WTI was hovering just above $90.50 ahead of the API data and held those gains…

“Crude looks well supported, with today’s initial declines being short-lived as the market rebounded around the highs from earlier this month,” said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.

“We may still see more of a correction, but there’s no clear sign of sentiment turning bearish after such a strong rally over the summer.”

Traders continue to see signs of supply scarcity as the premium for near-term US oil barrels is hovering at the most expensive in over a year, indicating a market deficit.

But bear in mind that higher oil prices are also attracting added supply, Robert Yawger, executive director for energy futures at Mizuho, said in a note.

“Iranian barrels may come out of the shadows and return to the open market after diplomatic inroads. Plus, new barrels from Suriname, and Guyana, continue to hit the market,” he said.

For the Biden administration, rising oil prices are a known political problem: The president’s approval ratings swooned in the summer of 2022 when gas was creeping toward $5 a gallon and became a focus for Americans’ discontent over inflation.

Heading into next year’s election, the White House has few good options to appease motorists, having already whittled down the nation’s oil stockpile to about half its normal capacity.

By Mish Shedlock of MishTalk

I am pleased to report a global backlash against woke madness, climate change silliness, and immigration polices is underway in the US, Europe, and Australia.

The New Moral Order Is Crumbling

Globalism, climate-change alarmism, and cultural self-annihilation have all come under serious challenge. It’s a welcome start to a Well-Deserved Thrashing of the New World Order.

In Lampedusa, the Italian island midway between Europe and Africa, and at Eagle Pass, Texas, and elsewhere along the visible and increasingly invisible frontiers that separate the global North from the South, the idea of permissive migration in an economically unequal world is being tested to destruction. Lampedusa was inundated last week with another surge of migrants from Africa, larger than the population of the island itself. In Texas, the influx across the border with Mexico became a torrent.

The demographic tsunami from the global South as the North’s population shrinks is in its early stages, and most people can see clearly what happens when leaders insist on a moral code that suggests our obligations to indigent foreigners are as great as those to our own citizens. It won’t survive the political backlash now under way in both Europe and America, as even U.S. Democrats and Brussels Eurocrats are slowly starting to grasp.

The second pillar, the moral imperative of self-abasing action to combat climate change, is falling too—most interestingly again in Europe and the U.K., where it has long been the official religion of the secularist priesthood.

There is an air of surrealism around the climate-change debate in Britain and in much of Europe. The U.K. has dramatically reduced carbon emissions over the past 30 years, thanks in significant part to technological innovation. Its emissions per capita are now down to where they were in the mid-19th century. The British government could mandate tomorrow the elimination of all carbon emissions and a return to agrarian subsistence, and, given the massive and rapidly rising levels of emissions from China, India and elsewhere, it wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the climate.

The third pillar—cultural self-annihilation—is also wobbling.

The most interesting evidence of this is an electoral debate under way in Australia. The left-wing government there, eager to impress the world with its moral bona fides, has called for a reform to the constitution designed to redress the grievances of the Aboriginal population. Called the Voice to Parliament, the measures would create a constitutional body that Parliament would be required to consult on all legislative and other matters relating to indigenous peoples.

The referendum that was expected to approve this change takes place next month, but the campaign has run into fierce opposition. The most recent polls suggest Australians will reject the move by a large majority. It seems they—like many of us in the rest of the West—have had enough of leaders’ insistence on dividing us by race and other attributes rather than uniting us around our common national identity.

New York Mayor Eric Adams Says Migrant Crisis “Will Destroy New York City”

Adams wants Biden to do something. That something is the same as always. NYC wants a bailout of policies it put in place.

The City has a right-to-shelter mandate, which requires the city to provide a bed to anyone who asks for one.

Adams now says the city will ask judge to suspend right-to-shelter rules for migrants. There either is a right or there isn’t. Since the city was stupid enough to agree to the right, I suggest the city end that right instead of asking a judge for temporary help and Biden for more money.

The Gothamist notes “More than 110,000 migrants have come to the city over the last year, and around 60,000 are currently living in the city’s shelter system at a cost of billions of dollars annually, according to city officials.”

Check out this Irony

Adams has demanded more help from the state and federal governments, and has especially pressured the White House to expedite work permits for migrants so that they may eventually be able to leave the shelter system.

On Wednesday night, the Biden administration announced the U.S. would extend temporary protected status to some Venezuelans, allowing them to remain in the country legally and apply for work permits.

Adams thanked the president for his actions, which he estimated would help roughly 9,500 adult migrants who are currently in the city’s care.

Adams praises the president for “temporary” protected status to Venezuelans that will protect 9,500 in NYC while asking a judge to suspend rights to shelter.

Adams has lost his marbles.

Suing. Heckling. Cursing. N.Y.C. Protests Against Migrants Escalate

The New York Times reports Suing. Heckling. Cursing. N.Y.C. Protests Against Migrants Escalate

In August, after weeks of protests over the school being used as a shelter, Staten Island officials went to court to block the city’s plans, and secured a brief victory when a judge issued a temporary restraining order that prevented city officials from placing migrants at the St. John Villa Academy shelter, as reported by the Staten Island Advance.

But the city won its emergency appeal and the judge’s ruling was overturned. So residents turned to other measures — heckling migrants who came looking for shelter and protesting loudly.

Then the speaker appeared. Blasting a rotation of messages in five different languages,

The Children Win In North Carolina

I am pleased to report that The Children Win In North Carolina

North Carolina on Friday became the tenth state to approve universal school choice. Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper says he won’t veto the bill passed by the Legislature, no doubt because Republicans have enough votes to override.

The fight illustrated both the importance of Republican unity and the vulnerabilities of Democrats who take orders from the teachers union and ignore parents. In May, when legislators signaled their intentions, Gov. Cooper released a video declaring a “state of emergency.” “It’s clear,” he said, “that the Republican legislature is aiming to choke the life out of public education.”

The emergency stunt did nothing but make the Governor look weak. It also highlighted his double standard. Mr. Cooper was happy to choose private school for one of his daughters. But when the legislators were ready to give North Carolinians the same choice, suddenly it was an attack on public schools.

Backlash in Chicago

In Chicago, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) is facing backlash for choosing to send her child to a private school despite previously opposing school choice efforts.

A Step in the Right Direction: UK Prime Minister Trashes Climate Change Goals

On September 21, I cheered a A Step in the Right Direction: UK Prime Minister Trashes Climate Change Goals

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak  announced he will push back a ban on selling new petrol and diesel cars from 2030 to 2035, slow down plans to phase out gas boilers, and reject calls to regulate efficiency for homeowners.

Perhaps this is an election ploy. Regardless, it’s the right move. If the whole world switched to EVs it would not make a damn bit of difference for the climate in the long term.

In the short term, it’s inflationary madness because neither the infrastructure or supply chains are in place for a radical push.

EVs don’t do a damn thing for the environment. See Biden’s Solar Push Is Destroying the Desert and Releasing Stored Carbon

And to top it off, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has concluded Biden’s mileage standards have “Net benefits for passenger cars remain negative across alternatives” vs doing nothing at all.

See The Shocking Truth About Biden’s Proposed Energy Fuel Standards

Those are the right reasons to kill this insane push. And it’s safe to add inflation to the mix, not that additional reasons are needed.

Increasing Backlash Everywhere

There’s increasing backlash everywhere. It out to be a wakeup call for Progressives but I guarantee you they will sleep right through it.

The beneficiary is obvious, Republicans, especially Trump.