Briefly Noted: Speaker, Fed Notes, Ukraine Update
Today has been another busy day, as tomorrow will also be. Today we had the first doctor’s appointment since surgery, and everything was fine.
Last night, in a comment, I indicated that I—and I’m far from alone—do not regard the the Speaker impasse as the real story in US politics. The real story remains the Omnibus Spending bill, by which McConnell stabbed the Republican Party in the back. I don’t know what the full story is here, but I’m convinced that this move was part of the war for a Global Reset that will defeat the MAGA agenda, which is nationalist in spirit. McConnell has declared himself, openly throwing in with the Globalist Elite. He has funded the Zhou regime until October, which they hope will be time enough. That should suggest major moves coming up.
This war started with the Russia Hoax and the linked Ukraine Hoax (first impeachment), continued with the Covid Hoax and the attendant wild spending (to which Trump was foolish party), the Sanctions war and the proxy war now in Ukraine. All this is what’s behind the wild spending, which—unopposed—could collapse the collective West into a Great Reset with the US providing the backstopping, militarily and economically, but at the cost of a crushed middle class. Listen to the MSM. They’re trying to revive the Covid Hoax, which was pushed to the background for the election. Climate Change remains in the background as well.
For all those reasons I like this move by Matt Gaetz very much:
Now, as readers will know, I believe Tom Luongo is on to something very deep with his Theory of Everything—which is, briefly, that the Fed is engaged in a war with the ruling globalist elite of the collective West—”Davos”—fronted by the World Economic Forum. It’s not a question of whether the Fed and its backers (the big NY commercial banks led by JPMorgan Chase) are on our side in all important matters, but they are opposed to the Great Reset as they see it developing. McConnell’s move makes best sense as part of the Globalist effort to force the Fed to knuckle under—the interest rate rises, if maintained in the face of the Omnibus bill, threaten economic catastrophe for the US. The Omnibus bill is, among other things, a move to force the Fed to back down and return to QE, along with the EU. Thus, Luongo tweeted this today:
I’d like to add Karl Denninger’s voice to this mix. He’s not into geopolitics, but he has consistently insisted that the Fed will not “pivot”. Since his post today was uncharacteristically brief, but joins several major themes—Sanctions, the Fed, and the Omnibus (the reference to September 30), I want to quote it in full:
Don't kid yourself -- the minutes yesterday made clear The Fed will not be cutting rates in the back half of 2023, and in fact likely won't be done raising them. It does not matter if you like it or not. In fact I do not expect any material change in their outlook until after September 30th of this year, and then it will be six months to a year before inflation can back off.
Why?
Omnibus.
Simply put Powell sees that rising labor costs are driving the bus now, which is the second impulse and wage-push inflation is very hard to knock down. Congress did this with the Russian Sanctions plus the continued deficit spending which is now locked in through September as a result of what Congress did in the last days of 2022.
That was stupid on the part of Congress but they did it and they can't take it back because to repeal that you'd need the House, Senate and Biden's signature to do so and you won't get either the Senate or Biden. So we're stuck with it through the end of the fiscal year which is September 30th.
This is McConnell’s Great Betrayal. This is why “the market is trying to browbeat the Fed”, it’s part of the plan to force the Fed to back down:
Everyone is trying to evade this fact, but you can't and The Fed knows it.
The market is trying to browbeat The Fed on this, particularly on the longer end of the curve. They've got it wrong here folks; even a release of the Russian sanctions, which are highly unlikely, won't restore the trade sequestration those sanctions destroyed. The Omnibus can't be reversed as there's no political path to do so.
If you're bullish on anything but rates IMHO you're due for a serious problem in your account balance.
Luongo and KD are in agreement on this. Yes, Powell went along with QE in order to get himself reelected, but it’s a different ball game now. And this is the game to be watching. More than ever, it’s all related.
So, let’s turn to Ukraine. This hour long video is well worth listening to. It’s all good, but picks up substantially half way through, when Scott Ritter asserts—in response to the question, Will NATO escalate?—that NATO already has escalated, and that escalation was defeated. There is little to nothing left with which to escalate:
Btw, I see that Macgregor’s Youtube Channel has been canceled.
I’ll end up on that question of escalation, quoting from M. K. Bhadrakumar’s latest article:
…
Now, the New Year attack comes as the Biden administration is trying to provide billions in weaponry to Ukraine while also claiming that avoiding a direct clash with Russia has been a top US priority.
At any rate, although Russian intelligence would have a fair idea of the location of NATO officers conducting the Ukrainian operations, they have not been so far targeted. That is why, the Russian MOD’s decision on Monday to highlight that US-supplied Himars missiles have killed scores of Russian soldiers on Sunday night would have caused some uneasiness in Washington.
…
Of course, any killing of American military personnel in Ukraine will make very damaging headlines in the US news cycle for the Biden Administration. ...
The Russian reports often mention publicly that the highly advanced HIMARS missile systems supplied to Ukraine are in reality operated by the US personnel. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told Tass news agency as recently as last week:
“The Kiev regime is deliberately flooded with the most advanced weapons, including samples that have not yet been put into service in the Western armies, apparently in order to see how they will do in combat conditions… Meanwhile, Westerners are saying they prefer to remain ‘above the fray’ and find a direct face-off between NATO and Russia unacceptable, which is unadulterated hypocrisy. Already now, NATO members have de facto become parties to the conflict: Western private military companies and military instructors are fighting on the side of the Ukrainian forces. The Americans transmit satellite and other reconnaissance data to the Ukrainian command almost in real time and participate in planning and carrying out military operations.”
Neither Washington nor Brussels ever endeavoured to refute these damning Russian allegations. Instead, they choose to tread warily since a public discussion may jeopardise the delicate “strategic deconfliction” arrangement / understanding worked out with the Russian general staff.
It comes as no surprise if Washington distances itself from the dastardly attack on New Year Day in Donetsk, which drew Russian blood. Quoting an unnamed Israeli diplomat, the Times of Israel reported that the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a call with the newly appointed Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen on Monday and asked him “to pass messages on to Lavrov but did not say what they were.”
The Russian readout of Cohen’s phone conversation with Lavrov on Tuesday mentioned that the latter “informed his Israeli counterpart about certain aspects of the situation in Ukraine in the context of Russia’s special military operation.”
Lavrov probably had his say on Blinken’s charade that the US had nothing to do with the killing of 89 Russian soldiers. The fact that as many was six deadly HIMARS missiles were fired in rapid sequence at a single target at 12.02 am shows a high level of certainty on the part of the Ukrainian side and/or their western mentors that maximum damage would be inflicted.
The intelligence inputs in real time show direct American participation in the horrific operation targeting the Russian conscripts’ New Year party just when the toasts began. Of course, whipping up public sentiments in Russia against Putin is a core American objective in the war.
We are entering a grey zone. Expect “surgical strikes” by the Russian forces, too. After all, at some point soon enough, it will emerge that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
For additional reading on Ukraine:
In fact, it is consistent with what your humble blogger predicted weeks ago: as Ukraine is increasingly incapable of scoring meaningful victories on the battlefield, will increasingly resort to terrorism as a way of looking like it can still cause meaningful pain to Russia. Technically this attack was not terrorism but spending 6 of Ukraine’s scarce HIMARS to achieve a mere PR blip looks an awful lot like desperation to score any type of “win” appearance, as opposed to strategy.
I’m out of adjectives to describe the contempt that I have for Mitch McConnell and the rest of his ilk! That revolting display with Biden in Kentucky was a final raised middle finger to all patriotic Americans, “Yeh, I got your MAGA agenda right here! If you don’t like, TOUGH!” What a traitorous piece of……….! Told you I had run out of adjectives.
As far as Ukraine, I don’t think it’s a question of “if” somebody on the neo-con globalist side makes a disastrous and irreversible miscalculation, I think it’s a question of when and how dire the consequences of that act will prove to be for the world.
Superb summary of our present situation, all caused by the government in Washington. They have alienated the citizenry, provoked Russia and with the Omnibus bill demonstrated the height of fiscal irresponsibility. The New Years eve attack will if anything unite the Russian people behind Putin, and will be perceived as the act of an unprincipled enemy who cannot win on the battlefield. Powell is now forced to take away the credit card from these imbeciles in Washington before they crash the dollar and the economy, and the rest of the world will just have to deal with it.