NASA’s historic uncrewed Artemis 1 mission to the moon and back will conclude on Sunday with the Orion spacecraft returning to Earth. 

On Sunday afternoon, the Orion spacecraft will slam through Earth’s atmosphere at 25,000 mph, or about 32 times the speed of sound. It will heat up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit before splashing into the Pacific Ocean off the western coast of Baja California at 12:40 pm EST. 

Orion’s descent operations begin around 12 pm EST. Forty minutes later, the spacecraft should be in the ocean if everything runs on schedule. Here’s the splashdown schedule for tomorrow (courtesy of Space.com): 

“At present, we are on track to have a fully successful mission with some bonus objectives that we’ve achieved along the way,” Mike Sarafin, Artemis I mission manager, told reporters Thursday evening.

One of the most crucial parts of the mission will be testing the heat shield as Orion enters Earth’s atmosphere. If all goes well, this could indicate NASA is ready to fly astronauts around the moon in 2024 and then put them on the lunar surface by 2025. 

A live broadcast of the re-entry process will begin around 11 am EST. Watch Live here:

Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s SpaceX just announced a privately-funded moon mission with DJ Steve Aoki and a Japanese billionaire that could occur soon. 

Authored by Leticia Gonzales via NaturalGasIntel.com,

Against a backdrop of mostly mild weather across the Lower 48, winter unleashed its fury on the West Coast a bit early this season. The frigid temperatures and unusually heavy precipitation have fueled natural gas demand at a time when storage inventories are low, a drought has reduced hydro-electric power supplies and regional utilities are having trouble receiving coal deliveries.

The result: historically high natural gas prices that have surged to levels not seen since the summer of 2018. The surge in prices has spread across the Pacific Northwest, farther south throughout California and inland across the Rockies.

On Thursday, Northern California’s PG&E Citygate recorded spot natural gas prices as high as $36.00/MMBtu. SoCal Citygate cash reached a $33.00 high, while Malin hit $32.00. And that only proved to be batting practice.

On Friday, the highest price on the West Coast hit $55.00, with offers up to $60.00.

“I’ve seen prices spike before, but over a short period of time,” said Michael Wiliamson. His consulting firm Williamson Energy purchases wholesale natural gas for end-use customers in California.

“This sustained period of high prices has never happened before. There’s a lot of different things going on, and they’re all falling at the same time.”

Is It Really That Cold In California?

Bitter winter weather has slammed the West Coast this month, driving up heating consumption in a region that normally sees its highest energy needs in the summer.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said widespread heavy precipitation would begin to blanket the Pacific Northwest and Northern California on Friday and further over the weekend into the Northern Rockies, Great Basin and the rest of California. Anomalously high moisture associated with an atmospheric river was expected to usher in heavy mountain snow, as well as strong rains for lower elevations along the West Coast.

Snow totals should generally range between six inches and a foot for the higher elevations, according to NWS forecasters. Lighter accumulations of up to three inches were forecast for the interior valleys.

In the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California, several feet of snow were expected, while excessive rainfall was possible along the coast of southern Oregon and Northern California. Rainfall totals could reach up to four inches, NWS said.

Even still, with temperatures forecast to climb into the 60s in Los Angeles and into the mid-50s in San Francisco, “it’s not really that cold,” said Fuel and Purchased Power’s Marlon Santa Cruz, manager for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). The executive said a key issue facing the region was that storage inventories are lagging behind.

Supplies Reclassified, Not Refilled

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. (PG&E) in the summer of 2021 reclassified 51 Bcf of storage inventories to cushion gas, rather than working gas. It marked the largest reclassification in any one region, with some market observers calling the scale of the change “preposterous.”

Williamson said the problem wasn’t with the reclassification. It was that PG&E hasn’t rebuilt working gas inventories.

As of Dec. 2, Pacific stocks stood at only 217 Bcf, which is more than 18% below year-earlier levels and nearly 24% below the five-year average, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The Pacific is the only region that continues to fall significantly short of historical levels. After a string of above-average injections in the late fall, Mountain stocks sit about 6% below the five-year average. East inventories sit around 2% below that level. The South Central region, meanwhile, is now at a modest surplus.

“That’s the head of the nail,” Williamson said.

“If we had plenty of gas in storage, this wouldn’t be happening. Now, everyone is a hostage.”

With a client base that include commercial greenhouses and other small customers, the exorbitant prices are concerning, according to Williamson. He worries that if prices were to remain elevated – or climb even higher as the winter progresses – customers may be unable to pay their bills.

What’s more, the higher prices are not limited to California. In the Desert Southwest, spot gas prices at El Paso S. Mainline/N. Baja surged to $35.75 on Thursday, while the KRGT Del Pool rose to $32.85. By Friday, cash prices in the region also had rocketed to $55.00.

“At what point in time does a number get so high that people go bankrupt and stop paying their bills? I think we’re getting close to that point,” Williamson said.

He likened the situation to the fallout of Winter Storm Uri, where utilities filed for bankruptcy and spawned lawsuits and investigations into market manipulation. “People are going to grab lawyers instead of their pocketbooks.”

Other Issues

LADWP’s Santa Cruz agreed the storage situation in the West is a concern.

However, while stockpiles in Northern California remain short of what the market sees as comfortable through the winter, Aliso Canyon storage in Southern California has been “a savior” for the region as it copes with the heightened demand, he said. The storage facility, operating at a reduced capacity following a major leak in 2015, has often had to serve as a buffer during periods of strong demand.

In November 2021, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to increase the amount of gas stored at Aliso Canyon ito boost winter supplies for gas and electric customers. The decision was seen as an effort to ensure reliability for the region.

California may not be the friendliest state to the natural gas industry. Several municipalities have banned the use of new natural gas hook ups, including Los Angeles. Santa Cruz, though, said the municipal utility is relying on natural gas more because coal deliveries also are falling short.

President Biden earlier this month averted a strike among railroad workers that could have put a stop to coal deliveries. Still, the strike was only one issue plaguing the railroad industry.

Santa Cruz said following the Covid-19 pandemic, Union Pacific and other railroad companies were forced to lay off workers. Many of the laid off employees never returned as the economy recovered. Now there aren’t enough engineers to drive the trains, he said.

“There is an endemic supply chain issue impacting the coal industry,” Santa Cruz said.

“Despite the mines producing, it’s the railroad that can’t deliver the contractual volumes. We find ourselves unable to ramp those coal-fired units up as we normally would. So we make up that generation with natural gas.”

Meanwhile, West Coast customers find themselves battling for limited supplies.

Wood Mackenzie notified clients of maintenance on Gas Transmission Northwest’s system between Dec. 6 and 8 that had the potential to impact up to around 300,000 MMBtu/d of volumes flowing through Kingsgate.

In the Permian Basin, pipeline work on El Paso Natural Gas and the Permian Highway Pipeline also cut into gas deliveries. Ironically, these curtailments have sent prices in that region plunging below zero.

“All these constraints, and the market is fighting for stagnant supply,” Santa Cruz said. “This is unprecedented.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Friday comments weighed in on the state of Russia’s vast nuclear arsenal, saying that President Vladimir Putin is in the midst of undertaking the modernization and expansion of his nuclear capabilities. 

He further repeated the charge which has been coming from Western officials of late that Putin is making nuclear threats, despite the Kremlin’s insistence that critics are misinterpreting the Russian leader’s remarks, including the latest which came days ago.

Austin said at an event inaugurating the new head of US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), Anthony Cotton, that even as it struggles in enact its military objectives in Ukraine, Russia is “modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal.”

“And as the Kremlin continues its cruel and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine, the whole world has seen Putin engage in deeply irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling,” he said. 

“So make no mistake. Nuclear powers have a profound responsibility to avoid provocative behavior, and to lower the risk of proliferation, and to prevent escalation and nuclear war,” he stressed.

The Pentagon chief hailed STRATCOM (US Strategic Command) as providing the “ultimate backstop” against attacks against the US and its allies, given its chief mission is strategic nuclear deterrence and overseeing global strikes.

Below: Number of nuclear warheads stockpiled by NATO and Russia as of 2022, by type

You will find more infographics at Statista

Austin appeared to be responding to the latest remarks by Putin to the press days ago, wherein he once again addressed the threat of nuclear war, a risk which he said is “rising” in relation to the Ukraine situation.

Putin further took the opportunity to restate Russia’s ‘defensive’ nuclear doctrine, stressing that nuclear weapons would be considered as a response to an attack on Russian territory, while also stating that he stands ready to defend Russian territory “using all available means”. 

According to a translation of Putin’s remarks in Sky News:

“We didn’t speak about usage of nuclear weapons.” Then, he said: “Russia has not gone mad.”

“We have the most advanced weapons, but we do not want to wave it around.”

“‘We have not gone mad,’ [Putin] said, adding that Moscow would only deploy its nuclear arsenal, the largest in the world, in the event of a nuclear attack on Russia.”https://t.co/Lz7jiNKdDr

— Michael Weiss 🌻🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@michaeldweiss) December 7, 2022

Despite the thrust of Putin’s comments actually going in the direction of firmly asserting that Russia does not want to use nuclear weapons, he was widely accused in Western press and among officials of making nuclear “threats” – and it wasn’t the first time his words were misconstrued, and likely won’t be the last.

Authored by Rep. Matt Gaetz via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The administration is aiding and abetting an invasion of the Southern border. Our rights are being stripped away. We are at war and the enemy is within.

In response to this existential threat, we’re told that we need to entrust a congressman previously recognized as the “tech industry’s best friend” as our leader.

That’s boneheaded. Kevin McCarthy is not the right leader for the moment. Fortunately, enough Republicans recognize that to stop him from being the next Speaker of the House. Five House Republicans, including myself, have announced that we will not vote for McCarthy during the January 3^rd speaker election. Many have privately also informed McCarthy of their plans to vote for someone else.

McCarthy’s allies are fretting and are pushing out a false narrative that opposition to the Paul Ryan endorsed McCarthy will embolden Democrats to elect a squish Republican as Speaker. It turns out that spin is right, just not the way the McCarthy camp sold it.

Semafor is reporting that “Leader-designate Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. waved off the suggestion Democrats would help elect an alternative for speaker, while Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C. all but volunteered Democrats’ support to help get McCarthy over the threshold of votes needed for speaker.”

This is the uniparty in action and should let you know that McCarthy is not a threat to the system destroying America. How could he be? His closest adviser has represented Pfizer, Amazon, and a firm dedicated to giving out a path to American citizenship to wealthy Chinese. His roommate counts Google among his clients.

This is the moment for a fight and McCarthy’s instinct is flight. In the days after January 6, McCarthy asked in a call with Liz Cheney whether Twitter can take away Conservative Congressman Barry Moore’s Twitter account because Rep. Moore pointed out that the shooting of Ashli Babbit doesn’t fit the left’s narrative of January 6.

McCarthy, likewise, said I was endangering the safety of Rep. Cheney by criticizing her.

The defense of McCarthy is that he isn’t an ideologue. He just wants to get along, they say, and moves with the times.

Rep. Matt Rosendale, one of the five Republicans standing athwart McCarthy, put it well when he said, “We don’t need a weatherman, we need a leader.” A leader would stand up to the Biden administration’s demands to send tens of billions of dollars to protect Ukraine’s border instead of ours.

A leader wouldn’t wait until thousands of military service members have been kicked out due to a mandate to end it. That’s the problem with living with Frank Luntz and making all of your decisions based on polling data. You will always be late.

But enough about Rep. McCarthy, now is the time for conservatives to come to terms with the fact that the Speakership is up for grabs. Five Republicans are enough to stop Kevin McCarthy from becoming Speaker.

In order to avoid chaos on January 3^rd, Republicans need to embrace reality.

Rep. Andy Biggs has thrown his hat into the ring. He is a true conservative and would be a much better choice than McCarthy. I recognize, though, that five House Republicans might step up and say that they won’t vote for Biggs under any circumstances.

There are likely dozens or even hundreds of House Republicans that I would love to support as Speaker. It’s time for them to prove their case. McCarthy has lost his.

Congressman Matt Gaetz (R) represents the 1st Congressional District of Florida. He is a member of the 117th Congress currently serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Silicon Valley employees who have turned ‘work from home’ into ‘drink wine and watch Netflix with your cat in between emails – from home’ have been put on notice.

Management at several tech companies have told employees they’ll be required to come into the office at least three days a week if they want to keep their jobs, MarketWatch reports.

The latest salvo came from Snap Inc. SNAP last month, which expects employees to spend at least 80% of their time in the office, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. Snap Chief Executive Evan Spiegel says the policy, which starts in February, will help the company achieve “full potential” and allow workers to reach “our collective success.”

According to market research firm IDC, large companies that “deploy reactive and tactical hybrid work models” will suffer an estimated 20% revenue loss in 2024 due to job attrition and underperforming teams.

Perhaps the most notable case is Twitter, whose employees Elon Musk put on notice in early November that the company’s ‘work-from-anywhere’ arrangement wasn’t going to cut it, and employees would be required to spend at least 40 hours per week in the office.

Company C3.ai wasn’t having the ‘work from home’ at all – and now has employees filling three floors of a Redwood City, California office building.

“Everyone is here. Have been for a year,” said CEO Tom Siebel. “Look at that packed parking lot. People need to interact in person to effectively collaborate.“

Box Inc. CEO Aaron Levie told MarketWatch “It is super important to have people work side by side and in person,” adding “You will see more momentum.“

And Adds Paul Friesen, chief marketing officer of Rapid – which has advocated for workers to spend at least three days per week in the office, said: “We value having employees come together, collaborate and drive productive outcomes in person while also understanding the new world work environment and the need to balance in-office with work from home and remote experiences.”

Authored by Michael Ryan via RealClear Wire,

A school district that gave preschoolers a book on cross-dressing has changed its procedures for giving out books after news of the incident surfaced last week.

As first reported exclusively by The Lion and The Heartlander news sites, a 4-year-old preschooler in the Turner School District in Kansas City, Kansas, took home the book Jacob’s New Dress. It’s a picture book in which a little boy wears girls’ clothes and even competes with his friend Emily to be a princess.

“I don’t think this should be, obviously, any kind of a subject for a school to be speaking about,” Jim Clay, the 4-year-old’s grandfather, told The Lion. “The sexualization of our children in society today is just disgusting. The grooming that’s taking place is disgusting.”

At the end of the week, Clay reported the Turner district had explained what happened and what changes will be made to prevent such a sexually provocative book being tendered to young children there again.

The district’s statement to Clay, and apparently others, says its early-childhood program began accepting once-weekly donated books last year from local nonprofit LiteracyKC. Such partnerships, the district said, help it expand resources and community outreach.

“Please be assured that these books were not a part of district curriculum, were not required reading, and were sent home to be read at the discretion of parents,” the district wrote without naming the book in question or explaining how it escaped the district’s notice.

“Moving forward, our district staff will be pre-approving all books and activities provided by Literacy KC to ensure they are age-appropriate and align with our district curriculum and educational mission,” the statement concluded – notably, without apology to offended parents and guardians.

Case closed? Maybe, maybe not.

“This past spring we learned State Farm was distributing transgender books in Florida,” says Mary Miller, an Oregon-based parents’ rights advocate who spoke about the cultural divide between parents and schools in Kansas City at a community forum in June.

“Now Literacy KC is doing the same thing in Kansas City preschool classrooms, after having received a multimillion-dollar grant from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. There is a coordinated effort by trans rights activist groups such as GLSEN (formerly the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) and the Human Rights Campaign to push transgender ideology on schoolchildren nationwide.

“Literacy KC will need to clean up its act to regain the trust of parents and grandparents in the Kansas City community.”

Moreover, as Turner has just done, other school districts may need to reconsider the wisdom of outsourcing the approval of classroom materials to even well-intentioned outside organizations.

The incident also raises questions about Literacy KC’s vetting process, and how many other school districts in the Kansas City region have handed out books such as Jacob’s New Dress to the youngest of students – and whether parents have been made aware of it.

The Lion on Monday sent questions to both the Turner district and Literacy KC. Among other things, we asked Literacy KC if this book is being given out to other districts in the area, and if so, which ones; if Literacy KC continues to consider a cross-dressing book to be appropriate for such young children – or, if not, whether it will suspend the book’s distribution; and whether it is fair for such sexually and gender-identity suggestive books to be given to such young children without pre-approval by parents?

The Lion also has requested copies of any correspondence between the Turner district and Literacy KC about the incident.

The Turner district is not the only one that has been roiled by controversy over this and other gender-fluidity books in early grades. The book was noted as objectionable to parents in a news report last month about outrage over transgender policies in Lawrence Township Public Schools in New Jersey.

“Can we just get back to teaching?” one New Jersey parent was quoted.

Jacob’s New Dress also was pulled from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools system in North Carolina in 2017.

The media portray such actions as right-wing book banning rather than a matter of discretion, and Jacob’s New Dress as “part of a first-grade lesson on what to do when someone is bullied.” Critics counter that anti-bullying messages can be transmitted outside of a cross-dressing context.

Moreover, in making the issue one of “book banning,” the media overlook the role and rights of parents in bringing up children. The media don’t, for instance, call it “banning” when the Motion Picture Association warns parents about age-inappropriate materials in films, with its PG, PG-13, R, and NC-17 (adults only) ratings.

Yet, with books, it’s anything goes?

Not for Clay, nor many other parents and grandparents like him.

“My kids used to dress up like Power Rangers when they were kids, and we’d pretend that they were a Power Ranger with them,” Clay said. “I’m not interested in pretending that guys are girls and girls are guys. 

“All three of my kids grew up in the Turner district. If there was any questionable material, they always allowed us to opt-out or keep our kid home that day, and they would keep us informed. But apparently not with this.”

American journalist Grant Wahl collapsed and died while covering the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He was 48 years old.

Wahl was reportedly stricken in the press area of the Argentina-Netherlands match at the Lusail Iconic Stadium.

Officials said he received immediate medical attention and was subsequently transferred to Hamad General Hospital prior to his death. 

The U.S. Soccer federation posted on its Twitter account that it was “heartbroken” to learn of Wahl’s passing. 

“Grant made soccer his life’s work, and we are devastated that he and his brilliant writing will no longer be with us,” the league said.

His agent, Tim Scanlan, told the New York Times that Wahl had gone into acute distress in the final minutes of a quarterfinal match, which he was covering from the press tribune.

US media seated near him said Wahl fell back in his seat in the media tribune at Lusail Iconic Stadium during extra time and reporters adjacent to him called for assistance.

The night before the quarterfinal match at which Wahl passed away, he posted his daily report from the event, which was critical of Qatari officials’ apathy toward migrant workers who had died building the stadiums used for the World Cup.

Wahl, grabbed headlines in the early days of the tournament when he showed up to a match wearing a t-shirt expressing support for LGBT rights, according to NPR. He was not allowed to enter and was detained by Qatari authorities before later being released. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and there have been reports of “abuse” and “ill-treatment” against LGBT individuals in the country, according to Human Rights Watch.

Free to read: What happened when Qatar World Cup security detained me for 25 minutes for wearing a t-shirt supporting LGBTQ rights, forcibly took my phone and angrily demanded that I remove my t-shirt to enter the stadium. (I refused.) Story: https://t.co/JKpXXETDkH pic.twitter.com/HEjr0xzxU5

— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) November 21, 2022

His brother Eric, who is gay, said through tears that he believes his brother may have been killed:

“I am the reason he wore the rainbow shirt to the world cup. I do not believe my brother just died, I believe he was killed.”

Grant Wahl’s brother, Eric Wahl, is asking for help.

Eric, who is gay, said he believes his brother may have been killed. Grant was arrested in Qatar for wearing a rainbow while covering the 2022 World Cup. pic.twitter.com/TTWmOtvmlK

— Catch Up (@CatchUpNetwork) December 10, 2022

Speaking on the podcast Futbol with Grant Wahl days before his death, he described feeling a “tightness” and a “pressure” in his chest, but indicated he had received treatment for it and had begun feeling better.

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

For the first time in decades, the cost of food has become a major issue in America.  If rapidly rising food prices are not a problem for you, then you should be very thankful, because most of the country is really hurting right now.  The cost of food has been going up much faster than our paychecks have throughout 2022, and this week Walmart CEO Doug McMillion publicly admitted that double-digit price increases for packaged foods “are going to be with us for a while”.  This is a crisis that isn’t going away, and as you will see below, it appears that things will get even worse in 2023.

But even though I am constantly writing about our deteriorating economic conditions, even I was absolutely stunned by the results of a new survey that was just released…

More than two-thirds of Americans are having a hard time affording groceries as food costs continue to soar, according to new data.

Retail technology platform Swiftly reported Wednesday that 69% of shoppers say they are struggling to pay their grocery bills after months of persistently sky-high inflation, and 83% currently rely on some form of coupons or loyalty program to put food on the table, according to its True Cost of a Grocery Shop survey.

If this poll is accurate, that means that almost 70 percent of all Americans are having trouble paying their grocery bills right now.

That is crazy!

Unfortunately, food prices are only going to go higher because global food supplies just keep getting tighter and tighter.

For example, the USDA is projecting that the upcoming orange harvest in Florida will be the smallest since 1943…

Orange juice futures squeezed to a near-record high ahead of another US Department of Agriculture’s crop report on Friday that will likely show tight global supplies will persist well into the new year.

USDA’s next report will provide an estimate for Florida’s 2022-23 harvest. Figures will add to October’s downbeat report, which showed that Florida would only produce 28 million boxes (each box is 90 pounds) for the current season, down 32% from the prior year. This season is expected to be the lowest harvest since 1943.

Meanwhile, Fox Business is reporting that our endless national baby formula shortage “keeps getting worse”…

The baby formula shortage keeps getting worse.

One parent from Keystone, Florida, said it’s been “crazy” – especially for parents in need of a popular hypoallergenic and lactose-free formula.

“We have been getting less powder, Nutramigen. So, whatever I have, I’m kind of like, can I just feed him less? But then it’s like, you can’t feed a child less because that’s not fair to them,” mother Ellie Johnston told FOX Business.

On my website, The Economic Collapse Blog, I have been documenting countless other reasons why global food supplies will keep getting tighter in the months ahead.  Make sure to bookmark the site and check it several times a week for the latest updates.

As Americans on the bottom levels of the economic pyramid become increasingly desperate, we are seeing a very alarming spike in retail theft.

During a recent appearance on CNBC, Walmart CEO Doug McMillion was asked about what his stores are seeing…

Walmart stores across the U.S. are grappling with an uptick in shoplifting that could lead to higher prices and closed stores if the problem persists, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said Tuesday.

“Theft is an issue. It’s higher than what it has historically been,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

“We’ve got safety measures, security measures that we’ve put in place by store location. I think local law enforcement being staffed and being a good partner is part of that equation, and that’s normally how we approach it,” McMillon said.

That certainly doesn’t sound good.

And McMillion went on to say that some Walmart stores could eventually be closed if high levels of retail theft persist…

“If that’s not corrected over time, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close,” McMillon said.

I have bad news for him.

This isn’t going to be corrected.

In fact, things are only going to get worse in this country.

For years, I have been warning that food would become such a target for thieves that armed guards would be needed.

Unfortunately, that time has now arrived…

A Philadelphia gas station owner fed up with incessant crime threatening his employees and customers hired heavily armed security guards to watch over his business.

Neil Patel, operator of a Karco gas station at Broad and Clearfield streets in North Philadelphia, recruited Pennsylvania S.I.T.E Agents clad with Kevlar vest and AR-15s or shotguns.

In many parts of Philadelphia, the criminals are the ones that are in control, and so that is why this gas station owner feels compelled to hire his own private security force…

“They are forcing us to hire the security, high-level security, state level,” Patel told FOX 29. “We are tired of this nonsense; robbery, drug trafficking, hanging around, gangs.”

The final straw for Patel came after he said his business was vandalized by young people and an ATM machine was stolen. His car was also a casualty of crime around the area.

Of course this sort of environment can now be found in major urban areas all over the nation.

Organized retail crime has become a multi-billion dollar business, and if it is far worse this year than it was last year.

In an article that he just posted, Mike Adams did a great job of summarizing where things currently stand…

The key phrase in all this is organized retail crime. This isn’t merely spontaneous, simple shoplifting, it’s a whole new type of large-scale theft where teams of thieves are prepped and coordinated to hit a retail establishment and clean out its most valuable items in seconds. The stolen goods are then sold on Ebay, Amazon and other online marketplaces, or delivered to local buyers in exchange for cash.

According to the National Retail Federation, organized retail crime has skyrocketed by 26.5% in 2022, year over year. It now costs retailers over $100 billion per year in losses.

Our country is starting to come apart at the seams all around us.

I am sorry if that statement offends you, but it is true.

Crime is out of control, predators are roaming the streets, and the population is becoming increasingly desperate as the cost of living spirals out of control.

Sadly, things are only going to get worse during the months that are ahead of us.

*  *  *

It is finally here! Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

On Thursday, three members of Twitter’s Trusty & Safety Council quit the company in a huff, claiming in a tweeted screed that the “safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline” since Elon Musk took over.

The individuals in question – Anne Collier, Eirliani Abdul Rahman, and Lesley Podesta (niece of John Podesta) – wrote about how they’ve worked tirelessly on ‘digital safety’ – with Rahman proudly serving on the Council’s “Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Prevention advisory group.”

Three of us resigned from Twitter’s Trust & Safety Council today: @eirliani @podesta_lesley and me. Here’s why https://t.co/h05TblfGIO pic.twitter.com/iqcHvhbgms

— annecollier (@annecollier) December 8, 2022

Except – these three beacons of virtue apparently didn’t do much when it came to pedophiles running rampant on the platform – which led several major brands to pull campaigns with the company shortly before Musk’s acquisition.

“You all belong in jail,” tweeted commentator Mike Cernovich, linking to a New York Post article outlining how Twitter refused to remove child porn because it “didn’t find a violation.”

To which Elon Musk replied: “It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!“

It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2022

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded to Musk, saying “This is false,” to which Cernovich replied “How did this slip through?” – linking to yet another example of Twitter’s failures, in which a judge ruled the company could be sued for failing to take down child porn videos.

How did this slip through? What did Yoel et all do internally for accountability? Who was fired?https://t.co/EwRW1gSTtU

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 9, 2022

While you sat on that council, children were being trafficked & you knew it & – at best – did nothing. You should not just be able to walk away – you should be held accountable. @elonmusk https://t.co/lahTcGgBCK

— Lara Logan (@laralogan) December 9, 2022

“Yoel et all were very focused on censorship of viewpoints they don’t agree with,” Cernovich continued, referring to Twitter’s former head of “Trust and Safety,” Yoel Roth. “Is there a way to internally audit how “safety team” people spent their time?”

Yoel et all were very focused on censorship of viewpoints they don’t agree with. Is there a way to internally audit how “safety team” people spent their time? How many employees were on CSAM desk vs how many were monitoring Libsoftiktok? That would provide objective answers.

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) December 9, 2022

Roth notably wrote his PhD dissertation on the gay sex app Grindr, in which he downplayed safety concerns about minors being exposed to sexual content online.

And part of his dissertation (called “Gay Data”). pic.twitter.com/cpr34EqIhO

— faayete (@faayete) November 20, 2022

After Roth left, Musk began cleaning up child pornography on the platform.

Why was child pornography permitted on Twitter for years under your watch, but stamped out within 48 hrs after you left?

— tantum (@QuasLacrimas) November 20, 2022

To those who aren’t aware yet, last week Twitter did add a direct reporting option for child sexual exploitation. (ONLY on tweets with content images/videos) this was not previously available and was a separate form that wasn’t easy to find.

I’m grateful to see these changes. pic.twitter.com/AI88XdX9HW

— Eliza (@elizableu) November 20, 2022

In September, Twitter’s lack of action against child porn caused major brands –  including Dyson, Mazda, Forbes and PBS Kids – to suspended their marketing campaigns or remove ads from ‘parts of Twitter’ because their promotions were featured next to tweets soliciting child pornography, Reuters reported at the time.

DIRECTV and Thoughtworks also told Reuters late on Wednesday they have paused their advertising on Twitter.

Brands ranging from Walt Disney Co, NBCUniversal and Coca-Cola Co to a children’s hospital were among more than 30 advertisers that appeared on the profile pages of Twitter accounts peddling links to the exploitative material, according to a Reuters review of accounts identified in new research about child sex abuse online from cybersecurity group Ghost Data. -Reuters

Easily filtered keywords including “rape” and “teens” were featured alongside promoted tweets from corporate advertisers, a Reuters review found.

In one case, a Cole Haan ad appeared next to a tweet in which a user solicited “trading teen/child” content.

“We’re horrified,” said Cole Haan brand president, David Maddocks. “Either Twitter is going to fix this, or we’ll fix it by any means we can, which includes not buying Twitter ads.”

In another example, a user tweeted searching for content of “Yung girls ONLY, NO Boys,” which was immediately followed by a promoted tweet for Texas-based Scottish Rite Children’s Hospital. Scottish Rite did not return multiple requests for comment. -Reuters

Twitter offered a boilerplate response, telling Reuters that the company “has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation,” and is investing more resources dedicated to child safety, adding that the company is working closely with advertisers and partners to investigate and avoid embarrassing corporate clients in the future.

Twitter’s child porn issues were noted by The Verge in late August, causing pushback from advertisers that are critical to the company’s revenue stream.

After Reuters presented Twitter with a sample of 20 accounts promoting child porn last Thursday, the company removed around 300 additional accounts from the network, but over 100 remained on the platform the following day, according to Ghost Data and Reuters.

And while child porn ran rampant at Twitter, the well-connected Leslie Podesta was militant about vaccination and absolutely hated Donald Trump.

$PFE https://t.co/kg03wpQIkr

— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) December 9, 2022

As ZeroHedge contributor Portfolio Armor wrote last month,

What Was Twitter’s Staff Doing Before?

That Twitter has reportedly been able to crack down on child porn with its current skeleton staff (following Elon Musk’s layoffs and the subsequent resignations) raises the question of what Twitter’s thousands of employees , including its “Trust & Safety” department, were doing before. They might say they protected the world from Donald Trump using Twitter to incite violence. Except now that Elon Musk has reinstated Trump’s account, everyone can see that Trump had used the platform to call for peace on January 6th, 2021.

I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2021

It appears that, when they weren’t deplatforming political opponents, most of Twitter’s former employees weren’t doing much productive at all. A few weeks ago, the once-deplatformed account @LibsofTiktok shared a TikTok video by a Twitter employee sharing her “day in the life” at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco. It started with her drinking an iced matcha tea on the house, and ended with her drinking free wine on the roof.

This is “a day in the life of a Twitter employee.” No wonder @elonmusk is firing 75% of them pic.twitter.com/cAHOuni765

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 26, 2022

Speaking of child porn, did Paul Krugman ever get to the bottom of this?

Paul Krugman Says Someone Using His IP Address To Download Child Porn https://t.co/H3vf2q4EyD

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) January 8, 2020

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

The EU and the US went forward with their long-debated, long-telegraphed move to put a price cap on Russian oil at $60 per barrel.

By believing they can pressure suppliers into not hauling Russian oil lest they run afoul of the sanctions that support the price cap, they believe they can take only Russian oil off the market for the long run.

Because of the way oil is actually traded in the real world, versus the way it trades in Janet Yellen’s head, this policy is actually much harder to implement than it actually looks. You don’t buy oil at the crude oil counter at Target or Wal-Mart.

There isn’t a price tag you can look at and say yes or no too. As Tsvetana Paraskova at Oilprice points out, crude contracts are written based on a discount or premium to a benchmark price at a particular moment in time.

“Physical traders rarely trade on a fixed price,” John Driscoll, chief strategist at JTD Energy Services Pte Ltd, told Bloomberg. 

“It’s a much more complex space where they trade on formulas and spot differentials to a benchmark crude for the trading of actual cargoes as well as for hedging that follows,” said Driscoll, who has more than 30 years of trading oil in Singapore.

To complicate things further, the EU wants to remain flexible to change the cap at its discretion.

“The price cap is not set in stone – it “is fixed for now but adjustable over time,” the EU said last week.  

If this sounds like a recipe for complete disaster, it is.

No matter what happens here, the quantity of oil to be produced under this cap, even if it isn’t successful, will go down. Period. See chart below. If you disagree with this then you might just qualify to replace Yellen as Treasury Secretary of the US.

That said, Janet Yellen may be stupid, but she’s not that stupid. She knows what this price cap she’s championed will do. So, as always, with these people the question you shouldn’t be asking isn’t, “Will this work?” or “How will Russia respond?” but rather, “Is this the point of the exercise?”

I was contacted by Sputnik News for my comments on this (article here) and this is the tact I took in answering their questions.

If everyone involved knows that price floors and price ceilings always and without fail create production shortages, then why did they do this when the world clearly need more oil?

Because this is a feature of the policy, not a bug.

By doing this, like every other intervention into oil delivery since the start of the war in Ukraine, the goal was to take Russia’s supply offline and hope that other producers would see the opportunity to take market share from the evil Russians while simultaneously trying to push capital investment into competing energy technologies — like nuclear, hydrogen and unicorn farts.

It hasn’t worked. Russia happily sells their oil at a major discount to Brent Crude, but will it remain the $30 China and India have been paying below Brent? Only if Brent stays at $90+ per barrel. With Brent now trading in the high $70’s those discounts will attenuate.

And with Vanguard following Blackrock’s lead in ditching ESG as a policy driver for investment flows, we’ve likely reached the limit of this stupidity, because despite the protestations of commies the world over, capital flows to where it is treated best.

That flow is now distinctly around Europe rather than the intended target, Russia.

There are many goals of this price cap, some stated, some implied, my comments are in italics afterwards.

1. Limit Russia’s oil revenue enough to bleed out their budget. Not likely as the discount to Brent will rise and fall with futures. Russia’s cost of production is the lowest in the world with the highest spare capacity to bring online or take offline.

2. Spur other OPEC+ members to pump beyond their quotas and break the cartel. Again, not likely, as the only ones who have spare capacity are also under heavy sanctions, Venezuela, Iran, etc. To crib from Planet of the Apes, “OPEC together strong.”

3. Make the Saudis an offer they can’t refuse, to lead OPEC without Russia. This has fully failed as KSA has just signed a Strategic Partnership with China during Xi’s first visit to a foreign power since COVID faster than you can say, “multi-polar world.”

4. Bring the price of oil down to allow “Biden” to refill the SPR at a big discount. Only so long as they can manipulate futures prices down and keep demand off the market.

5. Cause further chaos in oil shipping to freeze investment capital in an industry trillions behind the curve in exploration because of ESG and “US/EU policy” This is what the real goal is. It’s why I think Liz Truss was taken out as UK Prime Minister and why Germany happily went along with the Nordstream bombing and closing off the Druzbha Pipeline.

6. Force Putin to sell Europe oil below market prices to fund the upcoming war effort against Russia, now clearly on the table for 2023. They want you to believe oil flows to Europe have already cratered, while bookings (as Sputnik pointed out) for Sovcomflot’s tanker fleet are up. The only numbers that matter are Russia’s exports, not whether oil flows through western tracking data.

I’ve maintained for years that Europe feels they have some kind of monopsony (single buyer) power over Russian energy. And all they have to do is hold their nose and refuse to buy Russia’s products and this will force them to sell to them at whatever price they demand.

What I’m still trying to figure out, however, is how much better a deal do they want than the one they had pre-Ukraine War, a war they did nothing substantial to stop?

To believe that the EU only pursued this antagonistic relationship with Russia because it is a colony of the US Empire is simply delusional at this point. At no point did Europe try to make peace with Russia financially, economically or diplomatically.

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated recently in an interview with Die Zeit that the Minsk Accords were designed as a delaying tactic to arm Ukraine for the future war against Russia.

This admission blows up that entire coping narrative of ideological leftists who hate the US (and all that it supposedly still stands for, i.e. capitalism) so much they can’t accept the reality of their insanity.

Europe chose this path. They chose freely to freeze Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, decline to buy their oil and gas, and sanction Russia to the point of destabilizing not just their own food and energy security, but also everyone else’s in the process.

Davos hates the freedom that oil and gas represent. Their strategy is to starve the entire oil complex of needed capital and hope it collapses. What it’s doing is accelerating the creation of parallel markets for shipping, insurance, payment clearance and investment banking for base commodities in markets outside of their control.

They’ve interfered in elections/governments the world over in key pockets of resistance — the US, Brazil, now Peru, the UK, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, — to disrupt any further integration of Asia.

Most of these have failed, but have succeeded in making the world less safe, less predictable.

The price cap is a stupid policy implemented by people with a clear animus against humanity itself that they would drive the world to the brink of nuclear war. It’s nothing more than the same scorched earth policy that’s been on display for years now.

If we can’t rule the world, we will burn it down. All it’s really doing is accelerating the split between East and West. Russia is done with Europe. They have turned East and will wait for Europeans to come to their senses and find common ground. Both they and the Chinese realize now there is no return to normalcy without the West collapsing in a fit of rage.

All over a few miserable dollars per barrel.

As always, my full replies to Sputnik are below the line.

As the price cap on Russian oil comes into force, how will the global market react? What long-term consequences do you expect?

The price cap is simply moronic from a price perspective.  Any 1st semester student of economics understands that price caps/floors create shortages.  So, we shouldn’t look at price directly.  Price is a consequence of supply and demand, in this case a deliberate attempt to create a shortage by introducing unnecessary friction all throughout the oil supply chain to create a global shortage of energy.

Oil prices will rise in the short term because of this and investment in new oil sources will now accelerate but outside of the West who have turned completely hostile to new sources of oil entering the market.

The price cap was conceived with the objective of punishing Russia over its special military operation in Ukraine – what are traps and pitfalls of energy supply politicization?

As always with moves like this, there is the story we’re told and then there is the real story. This cap will not deter Russia in any significant way from exporting oil.  What will happen is the map of oil delivery worldwide will change.  Energy that flowed west will now flow east and south.  The ESPO pipeline will see full utilization as demand from SE Asia rises.

Projects that previous to the divorce between Russia and the EU were uneconomic are now economic as a price floor has now been put on the market.  That’s what is so funny about this ‘price cap’ on Russian oil, it’s actually a ‘price floor,’ ensuring that Russia, the country with the lowest cost per barrel of any major producer, has guaranteed minimum income going forward.

I believe the goal of Janet Yellen, the person most responsible for this idiocy, is to both raise the price of oil to accelerate investment into renewables but limit the amount of money Russia gets, starving them, and other oil producers of capital.

In short, it’s nothing new.  These are the same people who put sanctions on Russia to make the ruble weak while the price of oil rose.

How can the move backfire on G7 countries and the EU in particular?

It already has.  As I said, this is just an extension of the same policy that’s always been in place.  What will (and is) happening is that the investment they are trying to retard into replacement oil and gas reserves will now occur outside of the western financial system and western currencies, i.e. the US dollar and the euro. 

Capital flows both to where it’s needed and where it’s treated best.  What’s happening in the West is one big policy to freeze capital where it is currently trapped and beat it with the ESG stick.  I could write a book here about why this is dumb and counterproductive, but I’ll just state that, in short, it won’t work. 

This price cap is the beginning of the major shift towards the East becoming the center for global capital investment.

The price cap had sown discord within the EU and resulted in months of bickering – do you expect further split within the EU members now, as the measure came into force?

Yes.  But the European Commission isn’t listening and is continuing to play hardball with every EU member state and Russia on every issue.  At the same time, they also support NATO expansion, which is tantamount to an open war declaration against Russia. Now it’s War Crimes Tribunals against Russia for a war it won’t fight or can even win.

The internal politics of gas delivery within the EU is now facing a shift with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni clearly angling to replace Germany as the port of entry for most piped gas into Europe.  France and Germany are hopping mad about this.

This energy crisis in the EU is designed to break the spirit of Europe’s people to accept full totalitarian/centralized control over everything.  The outward face of the EU is one of inevitability, while masking the deep divisions that are tearing it apart at the seams.

What kind of problems will the EU face given that Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak specified earlier that if the cap came into effect, Russia would either redirect its crude supply or slash production?

China and India are already filling the gaps.  Russian oil will be blended in the Bahamas or other storage ports and then sent back to EU refineries.  It’s all shadow play and theater. The main goal, as I said, was to make the oil markets less efficient, raising costs while starving it of capital at the same time. 

The EU will face continued high energy prices, a net outflow of capital from lack of investment and a falling currency as their competitiveness on the global market collapses.  Considering that they are also an unreliable trade partner who constantly changes the terms of contracts while they are still active, will see trade that used to be done with it go somewhere else.

All they are doing is ensuring no one will want to do business with them after 2030, hence their full-throated support of further war with Russia over Ukraine…. If the EU will suffer, then so will the whole world.  It’s the ultimate game of brinksmanship.  And they are the ones driving this bus, along with certain old money connected players in the US, while simultaneously using those players in the US, like Yellen, as a smokescreen for their preferred outcomes.

The clear story now is that the EU is blaming the US for all of its ills, exactly like I said they would do over a year ago.  EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen just did this, complaining about the US subsidies for green energy projects. French President Emmanuel Macron complained that the US was making too much money off selling the EU natural gas.

Are they serious? Putin offered them a way out of this but, as always, the Eurocrats want their cake and eat it too… they want to punish Putin and get their energy at subsidized rates.  Seriously, why does anyone take these apparatchiks seriously? 

Everything they do is the equivalent of pointing a gun to their head, pulling the trigger but only grazing the skull and then blaming everyone else for letting them do it and telling the Americans to go kick Russia out of Ukraine. 

It’s pathological.

What will be the market’s reaction in the event of Russia curbing its production?

Clearly oil prices will rise.  China and India will still buy Russian oil, refine it and sell it back to the EU at value-added prices.  The money Europe used to make refining cheap Russian oil will now go to China and India, who paid for it at a discount, using their own currencies or rubles, and Europeans get stuck with the bill.

So, in 2023, expect another major wave of inflation based on rising energy prices, China re-opening its economy putting upward pressure on metals prices and food shortages from the EU’s war on the periodic table of elements.