Looking Backwards …
LB #1
About ten days ago in the beach town of Sevastopol, Crimea sun worshippers were catching some rays on their beach loungers before a mysterious thing happened. This from ZeroHedge, “Unbelievable new footage has emerged of the Sunday Ukrainian missile strike on a busy Sevastopol, Crimea beach as tourists were lounging in the sun.
Russian authorities said that a missile launched from a US-supplied MGM-140 ATACMS system by Ukrainian forces exploded overhead and released bomblets across the area – in the water and on land – killing five and injuring 124 people, including children. The CCTV footage captures the moment when the missile’s submunitions rain down over the crowded beach, appearing to confirm Russia’s allegation that a cluster bomb warhead was used. Hundreds of people can be seen fleeing for their lives, and some are still in the water, when the bomblets start to impact both the water and the beach. One bomblet is seen almost scoring a direct hit on the lifeguard stand.” I encourage you to take a look at the link if you want to be horrified. This is due to the change in policy coming from the White House about being able to use USA provided bombs on the territory of Russia. We are bombing Russia without bombing Russia. This is the same disingenuous nature that allowed NATO to expand eastward to the border of Russia and then wondering why Russia is such a monster for invading Ukraine. The British have a good word for this, bollocks. Innocent women and children running off a picturesque beach is not the image that America wants to portray to the rest of the world. Here is a response from the Kremlin, “A Kremlin spokesman subsequently laid blame squarely on Washington: “The involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences.” And even Ron Paul chimed in, “What’s Russia going to do about this?” Paul asked in his latest Liberty Report. “Are they going to twiddle their thumbs and walk away? They might – for a day or two – ponder it, but there will be something that they’re going to do.”
Matt Murphy from the BBC writes, “Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the strike “barbaric” and accused the US of “killing Russian children”. And also “Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated the claim during a meeting in Minsk on Monday, saying that the system “cannot be used without the direct participation of the American military, including satellite capabilities”, but here is the worst part But Mr Peskov told reporters in Moscow on Monday that the “involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences”.
“Time will tell what these will be,” he added.
You see folks, for too long America has been the bully and we think that we are untouchable. It has been 23 long years since America had to deal with 9/11 and if you don’t hink we have another moment coming you would be mistaken. This is what Vladimir Putin said, “If someone thinks it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same class to regions of the world where there will be strikes on sensitive facilities of those (Western) countries?” he said.
“That is, the response can be asymmetric. We will think about it,” he added.”
Now having the leader of the world’s largest nuclear stockpile said that they would retaliate should be enough to give Americans pause, but I believe that our leaders are hell bent into running us into military conflict to disguise the mess that they have made here at home. We are escalating things rapidly now as the economy falls apart here at home.
This situation isn’t good but there is this from ZeroHedge, “A huge and deadly fire is raging at a defense technology research center outside of Moscow, which has so far reportedly taken the lives of at least eight people (per BBC citing state media updates, though the casualty count is conflicting).
A building of the Platan Research Institute has been engulfed in flames, widespread social media videos show. It is located in the town of Fryazino in the Moscow region. Importantly, Platan develops radio-electronic systems for Russia’s Defense Ministry, raising suspicion that this could be the result of sabotage or covert attack connected to the war in Ukraine.”
We have pipelines being blown up, oil refining facilities being blown up, and now we have huge fires at defense research buildings. How many weird things do we have to have happen before we realize we are in a cold war again. The question that I would like to pose is this? Did Russia just strike back for the first time? What do you mean C Thomas?
On July 3rd just south of Little Rock, AR there was an explosion at a weapons facility. Zero Hedge reports via the Camden News, “An early Wednesday morning explosion rocked the General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems facility in Camden, Arkansas, injuring at least two people and leaving one person missing… The 880,000-square-foot weapons factory, located about 86 miles south of Little Rock, is a “leader in the high-rate production” of weapons, including “Hydra-70 2.75-inch rocket, Hellfire and Javelin missiles, the Modular Artillery Charge System and various mortar munitions,” according to the defense firm’s website.” Do you believe in random? Do you believe in revenge? Or do you believe in Santa Claus? This is a hidden war, fought out of the main stream for now, and it will continue to be clandestine. No one wants to bring this into the light, but only one nation has their borders completely open to whomever or whatever they want to bring in and cause chaos with. This story is just starting in my opinion. Watch out for more accidents…
LB#2
It seems that I am not the only one with a clock and a map. As in I can go back in time and see where NATO has pushed closer to Russian borders and seen how threatening that must appear to them. Nigel Farage went on a BBC interview and basically said the same thing and people got pissed. The media wants no part of reading history or being held responsible for the narrative that they are a) being forced to spin or b) spinning a narrative of their own creation. The media demanded an apology from the Reform leader, but instead he told the Telegraph, “if you poke Russia with a stick, don’t be surprised if he responds.” Farage stopped short of apologizing for Putin simply saying in the Telegraph via ZeroHedge, “What I have been saying for the past 10 years is that the West has played into Putin’s hands, giving him the excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.
Back in 2014, when the EU first offered Ukraine an accession agreement, I said in a speech in the European Parliament that “there will be a war in Ukraine”. Why? Because the expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving Putin a pretext he would not ignore.
He then stressed, “Don’t blame me for telling the truth about Putin’s war in Ukraine,” and declared that he wants to “set the record straight.”
This is where I and Nigel disagree as I think it is the West that is behind the escalation, and it was Putin who took the bait although he had to. It is worth mentioning that Farage got elected in the huge power shift in the UK as the Labour party won huge gains versus the conservative party and Farage’s reform party was also a winner. The status quo is out in the UK, on July 9 we will see how out the Fench status quo might be, and that leaves us with November to see how America chooses. Any guesses?
LB #3
We just concluded June which is pride month which means companies fly the flag that looks like a rainbow in hopes of appealing to a small minority of society or maybe they do it to avoid being socially blackmailed. The problem with appealing to small minorities is that sometimes the majority get pissed. We saw that at Bud Light where they went woke and then hope that its customers forget. I have not forgotten, and I also haven’t had a Bud Light and will never do so. Most will gradually act like nothing happened. The UFC happily got in bed with the penis laden girls at Bud Light with a huge sponsorship deal to promote the product. The Trump loving fans of UFC didn’t protest this sponsorship which tells me all I need to know about the backbone of conservatism today.
Well one company that made a u-turn even quicker than Bud Light was Tractor Supply. This company actually has real conservatives as customers. As Sarah Nassauer writes for the Wall Street Journal they needed to act and act quickly. The beginning of the end of Tractor Supply’s diversity efforts started on June 6.
That afternoon, Robby Starbuck, a former Hollywood director turned conservative activist, posted a message on the social-media platform X saying, “It’s time to expose Tractor Supply.”
He laid out a string of complaints about stances taken by the company and its leaders, from a warehouse displaying pride flags to the CEO promoting the Covid-19 vaccine.
The company has conservative shoppers who don’t agree, he said. “Let’s start buying what we can at other places,” said Starbuck, who has about half a million followers on X.
The post spread quickly, and within hours executives at the Tennessee retailer began discussing how to quash criticism before the controversy was seized on by conservative media.
Three weeks later, Tractor Supply delivered its decision: Diversity, equity and inclusion at the rural chain were over, including related job roles, and so were some of its environmental initiatives and other causes frequently championed by social progressives.”
Adam Smith and the invisible hand of the market still works. Social media might be the delivery platform, but there are people that are simply more activist today and their presence is being felt on the right and the left.
Looking Forwards…
LF#1
The housing market makes up a huge part of the American economy and it has largely been frozen for the past 18 months as interest rates have spiked and home prices like inflation seem to be sticky at these higher levels making affordability simply out of reach for most buyers. That leads to more and more inventory as people can’t purchase homes, but builders continue to build and now second homeowners and investors are starting to release some inventory into the market. The leading edge of this shift is in Florida. Giulia Carbonaro writes for Newsweek “On Wednesday, Raymond James downgraded its outlook for Lennar from “outperform” to “market perform,” saying that one of the main issues weighing on the decision was the builder’s overexposure in Florida, as reported by Yahoo Finance. According to Raymond James, Lennar’s projected annual revenue is now $30,164,000, down 13.95 percent from their previous expectations for the company. The difficult situation currently facing the Sunshine State’s housing market, including skyrocketing home insurance premiums, the addition of resale inventory, and relatively high property taxes, has contributed to the sluggishness cited as a source of concerns in the coming months by both Citi and Raymond James.”
Much of America’s feeling of wealth is concentrated in two locations: their homes which have inflated with the inflated dollar and the stock market which rests on the laurels of the AI boom for the last 14 months. Should either falter, the economy will shift with surprising swiftness.
LF#2
Enough with gloom and doom C Thomas, how about some good old fashioned dumb assery? That’s right, Waymo is back in the news. This from ZeroHedge via AZ Central, you can’t make this up “Phoenix Police bodycam footage, published online by AZCentral, captures the moment when an officer pulls over a Waymo autonomous Jaguar I-Pace SUV that had recklessly veered into oncoming traffic on a busy Phoenix street.
AZCentral said the incident occurred on June 19. Phoenix police pulled over the driverless taxi with no occupants inside for driving in an oncoming traffic lane near Seventh Avenue and Osborn Road.
Just after 11 am on June 19, a Phoenix police officer initiated a traffic stop on the Waymo, according to police dispatch records. The vehicle drove into oncoming traffic, ran a red light and “FREAKED OUT,” said the dispatch records, which are typed in all capital letters. -AZCentral”
This is great. We have a bunch of driverless cars driving like they are on mushrooms. Can we drug test cars?
LF#3
Lastly, we go to the substack of Robert Bryce with data, real data that shows how silly the damn green revolution really has become. I have attached the link which is a rollicking good time not just discussing Indian power generation and terawatt hours production levels but about a certain Rasheed Wallace. He wrote this article with the former NBA player in mind because when Rasheed would get called for a foul that he felt he didn’t commit, and his opponent would go to the free throw line and miss a foul shot Rasheed would yell “ball don’t lie.” Mr. Bryce has cleverly used “ball don’t lie” to describe the state of the energy market. He has nine charts but the first one shows that spending on wind and solar totaled $4.7 trillion yet hydrocarbon use increased 3.2x faster. Chart two shows how hydrocarbons grew 51% faster than wind and solar combined. Oil almost grew as fast by itself. You forget that the United States is now pumping more oil per day than any country in history? I didn’t and Mr. Bryce didn’t either. What about coal? Chart 7 shows how coal use was up 1.6% to set a new record. What about natural gas. Use of natural gas in the US grew 5x faster than wind and solar combined. These numbers all came from the Statistical Review of World Energy published by the Energy Institute, KPMG, and Kearney. Don’t believe the media, his woke spokespersons, or celebrities that fly on private jets. Just believe the invisible hand.
Sincerely Yours,
C Thomas Printer
The Dow Jones finished trading …at 39,375.
The 10-year Treasury bond is at …at 4.277%
The price of Brent Crude is … at $86.54 per barrel.
The price of gold is … at $2,399/oz.
The price of silver is … at a $31.52 /oz.
Thank you for listening today and you can find all of our articles and more on our website cthomasprinter.com.