Saudi Arabia and Russia announced on Wednesday the extension of their voluntary oil output and export cuts until the end of the year, as tightening supply and rising demand drive oil prices up.  

The two countries, which are the leaders of the OPEC+ group of major oil producers, made announcements in separate official statements hours before a ministerial monitoring panel of the group was due to convene online.  

Riyadh said it would continue to cut its crude output by 1 million barrels per day (bpd). Production for November and December will amount to approximately 9 million bpd, the Saudi Ministry of Energy said in a statement.  

“This voluntary cut decision will be reviewed next month to consider deepening the cut or increasing production,” the ministry said.   

Webmaster addition: I am already missing that Keystone XL pipeline!

US Senator Dianne Feinstein, the longest-serving female senator in American history, passed away on September 29 after a long, trailblazing career in politics. With her death, California Governor Gavin Newsom was entitled to make yet another political appointment, this time promising to fill the role with a black woman.

Indeed, the governor delivered – and big time. He appointed a gay black woman named Laphonza Butler. But read the fine print because Newsom never said he would appoint a Californian, as Butler actually resides in Maryland. And what are her credentials? Well, she’s apparently a “veteran organizer” who, after years of union work, was co-opted by Uber to help manage the company’s labor relations at a time when its partners sought full-employment status. She basically helped screw over a bunch of gig workers.

Since 2021, Butler has also served as the president of Emily’s List, a major Democratic Party donor network that helps raise money for women candidates who support abortion rights. The new California senator is a union-buster: check. She can raise money: check. She’s a black lesbian: check, check. (But she’s not from California, as if that matters.)

In the Southern United States, we have an endearing term for a politician who settles in a place that they’re not originally from to seek office – “carpetbagger.” While this is a regional term that doesn’t apply with its historical usage, the way people use it today applies. Elected representatives are supposed to have a connection to the locality or state from which they are elected and vote on behalf of that region’s citizens. Having no connection to a place, or never having lived there, necessarily means one has no familiarity with important local issues.

Thousands of protesters and pressure groups marched in Ghana’s capital, Accra, on Tuesday to demand the resignation of central bank governor Ernest Addison and his deputies, whose financial policies they blame for the country’s economic problems.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its allies, who organized the “OccupyBoGProtest” demonstrations, accused the Bank of Ghana (BoG) leadership of supervising the loss of funds, poor management, and causing inflation to soar to 40%.

“If the whole country needs 1 billion [dollars] from the IMF every year for three years to fix our problem and Addison in one year can superintend the loss of 5 billion, who’s our problem?” Samuel Nartey George, a member of the minority in parliament, told reporters during the protest.

The Russian ruble weakened past the symbolic threshold of 100 to the US dollar on Tuesday, as foreign currency outflows and a changing trade balance continue to weigh on the currency. The last time the ruble was trading at 100 to the greenback was August 14.

The Russian currency recovered slightly through the morning to trade just above 99 to the dollar. It also made a slight gain against the euro, after dropping to a low of 104.6.

The ruble’s weakness has been attributed to soaring demand for and insufficient supply of foreign currency in the country (including demand from importers), as well as changes in the country’s trade balance.

“At the moment, the end of the tax period, speculative issues, as well as a decrease in the liquidity of the already ‘thin market’ due to the holidays in China from October 2 to 6 are additionally playing against the national currency,” investment strategist at BKS Mir Investment Aleksandr Bakhtin told Prime News.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced 18,000 jobs with almost 400 employers in the state for Venezuelan migrants.

“Migrants and asylum seekers came here to work — so let’s put them to work,” said Hochul. “Right now, we have a migrant crisis and a workforce crisis. By connecting work-eligible individuals with jobs and opportunity in New York, we can solve them both and secure a brighter future for all New Yorkers.”

The Biden administration granted Venezuelans Temporary Protected Services, which allows them to receive legal work status within 30 days.

New York City has at least half of the jobs available for the migrants:

Seemingly coordinating with Mayor Eric Adams’ controversial decompression strategy to lessen the burden on New York City, the identified job openings are also spread across the Capital Region, central region, Finger Lakes, Hudson Valley, Long Island, Mohawk Valley, North Country, Southern Tier, Western Region.

New York City has the most job openings for eligible asylum seekers with 9,801 positions.

Webmaster addition: And how many jobs are waiting for homeless AMERICANS?

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has spoken out in support of President Donald Trump being nominated to replace Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.

As Slay News reported, several Republicans have expressed support for Trump serving as speaker.

Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) announced Tuesday night that McCarthy will not be running for the job again.

In the announcement, Nehls also stated that he is nominating Trump.

Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy grilled White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre over the out-of-control crime in Democrat-run cities.

On Tuesday afternoon, Doocy specifically asked about the shocking armed carjacking of Dem Rep. Henry Cuellar.

Doocy asked, “So if President Biden’s policies are helping bring crime down, would he be comfortable with somebody borrowing his Corvette and parking it on the street overnight in Southeast D.C.?”

“I’m not going to get into hypotheticals. I’m just going to get into the facts about what this president has done in this presidency,” Jean-Pierre said fumbling for an answer.

But Doocy wasn’t going anywhere. He fired back:

“The first follow-up would be, how are you going to blame Republicans for this?

“Isn’t D.C. run by a bunch of Democrats?”

Karine came up empty and babbled something about Biden.

Drew Weissman, one of the winners of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine, previously warned of the risks of vaccine-acquired immune deficiency syndrome (VAIDS) posed by mRNA shots.

This week, Weissman, along with fellow scientist Katalin Karikó, were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their role in developing the mRNA technology used by pharmaceutical companies.

Their work specifically underlies the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

The mRNA shots were rolled out for public use in late 2020.

However, Weissman has previously warned about the “non-trivial” side effects linked to the injections.

In a paper published as recently as 2018, Weissman warned that prior clinical trials of mRNA vaccines had produced results that were “more modest in humans than was expected based on animal models… and the side effects were not trivial.”

Those “side effects” include “moderate and in rare cases severe injection site or systemic reactions”.

Weissman’s paper in the peer-reviewed Nature Reviews Drug Discovery highlighted the health risk that the shots posed.

They warned that can cause VAIDS – a form of AIDS-like immunodeficiency.

 The New York judge in former President Donald Trump’s non-jury civil fraud trial imposed a limited gag order after Trump shared the name and image of the judge’s clerk on social media.

 Rep. Garret Graves (R-FL) exploded on Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) during a House floor speech on Tuesday afternoon where he pulled out his phone and showed that Gaetz was fundraising off his efforts to remove House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the speakership.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador made the remarks Monday, saying the thousands of migrants making their way north through his country often hail from other countries, the Associated Press reported.

 Laphonza Butler became California‘s newest U.S. Senator on Tuesday, succeeding the late Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

What you saw and heard with your own eyes and your own ears, the government denied and demanded you cast it aside and not believe it.

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

Through the Ministry of Truth, the government (referred to in the book as “Big Brother” or “the Party”) engages in endless propaganda, intense surveillance, and the open and obvious negating of historical fact. Individual thought, and questioning of authority led to immediate persecution. Why deny facts and rewrite history? Well, as Orwell says in the book, 

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

Now let’s fast-forward to the present day. I will begin with this profound statement that keeps churning over in my head:

They must really think we are stupid!

The “they” is our government (federal and state). The “we” is you and me, and the other 300+ million Americans across our country.

Alas, here we are, entering the final quarter of 2023, and we have the United States government, and many state governments (including New York’s former Governor Andrew Cuomo, current left-wing Governor Kathy Hochul, and the super-majority Dem legislature) proclaiming for all to hear that they did not force anyone to do anything detrimental these past 3.5 years. UNBELIEVABLE! Did you hear this? They are actually saying with straight faces that they didn’t force you to wear a mask, or lock down and shutter your businesses, or choose between taking an experimental drug or losing your job… Nope! They did none of that. And you – well, you are flat out crazy if you think they did. You are lying. You are exaggerating and totally overreacting. 

Immigration has emerged as a key wedge issue that may cost the Democrats the White House and their U.S. Senate Majority next fall.

According to a Harvard-Harris poll published earlier this month, 71% of registered voters think illegal immigration is getting worse. Democrats made up 37% of respondents to that poll, which means that a critical mass of President Biden’s base is dissatisfied with how his administration has handled the issue. Republicans comprised 36% of poll respondents, and 23% identified as independents. Of those who think illegal immigration is getting worse,12% did not identify as Republicans or independents. Even more damning, however, is the number of Democrats who said illegal immigration is getting worse, which was over half at 53%. 

Biden’s first term has been full of border blunders, from permitting the end of Title 42 to halting the construction of the wall on America’s southern border – even attacking Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for both trying to create physical barriers along the border as well as shipping migrants out of his state.

The number of monthly encounters reported by Customs and Border Protection has steadily increased throughout the Biden presidency, to the extent that the Center for Immigration Studies stated that the most recently available August 2023 border numbers revealed a border in freefall.

Just this week, one Eagle Pass, Texas, processing facility which has a capacity of 1,000 people reported “4,600 people inside waiting to be allowed into the U.S.”

With debt levels reaching all-time highs in major developed and developing economies, and with debt-to-GDP ratios also in record territory (not including contingent liabilities such as Social Security, health care and other entitlements, which make matters worse), it seems time to consider just how nations will deal with this problem.

The debt crisis may not be imminent, but it is unavoidable. When it happens, it may present the greatest financial disaster of all time. It’s never too soon for investors to consider the fallout.

When you issue debt in a currency you print, there’s no need for default in the sense of non-payment.

You can just have the central bank buy the debt (by printing money). This is the situation today in the U.S., Japan, the U.K. and the European Monetary Union (the countries that use the euro). They all have huge debt burdens, but they all have central banks that can simply buy the debt by printing money to avoid default.

WHAT WE FOUND IN GEORGIA

Six sworn affidavits of Fulton counterfeit ballots; (10s of thousands est.)

17,724 more votes than in person recount ballot images required to tabulate votes in Fulton

Drop box video surveillance representing 181,507 ballots destroyed in 102 counties

Improper Chain of Custody forms for 107,000 ballots statewide

Estimated Chain of Custody forms missing for 355,000 ballots statewide  (Georgia Star)

86,860 voters in 2020 have false registration date prior to 2017 but were not on 2017 history file

Over 1.7 million original ballot images are lost or destroyed in 70 counties despite state, federal law

Numerous defense attorneys representing January 6 defendants are perplexed in discovering that potential jurors are being recalled or “recycled.”

On Sept. 5, a day after Labor Day, defense attorneys discovered their potential jury pool consisted of jurors who were excused the week before.

“I have never seen this in all my years of practicing law.” defense attorney Steven Metcalf fumed while exiting the federal courthouse after jury selection of Zachary Alam’s trial.”Are there any jurors left in DC? What is going on here?”

The Gateway Pundit sat as the lone observer in the courtroom for nearly the entire duration of Alam’s 8-day trial and spent hours talking with Metcalf about this peculiar jury selection.

Some 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers, who say understaffing is hurting patient care, walked off the job Wednesday in multiple states, kicking off a major health care strike amid an extraordinary year for U.S. labor organizing and work stoppages.

Kaiser Permanente is one of the country’s larger insurers and health care system operators, with 39 hospitals nationwide. The nonprofit company, based in Oakland, California, provides health coverage for nearly 13 million people, sending customers to clinics and hospitals it runs or contracts with to provide care.

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, representing about 85,000 of the health system’s employees nationally, approved a strike for three days in California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, and for one day in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

In the pre-dawn hours outside Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, workers cheered as the strike deadline arrived.

 A well-known Democratic strategist is worried about her party’s struggle to achieve diversity for the 2o24 convention that will pick a presidential nominee.

The Chinese PLA Navy submarine “093-417,” which is 351 feet long and armed with torpedoes, was traveling in the Yellow Sea near China’s Shandong Province when it encountered a chain and anchor obstacle.

Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the American people that “a third major party is needed.” This represents a seven-percentage-point increase from a year ago and is the highest since Gallup first asked the question in 2003. However, the current measure is not meaningfully different from the prior highs of 61% in 2017 and 62% in 2021, shortly after the January 2021 Capitol Hill riots.

Webmaster addition:

 Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), no longer burdened by trying to keep the entire Republican Conference together after being removed as Speaker of the House on Wednesday, gave blunt answers to reporters during a press conference following the historic vote in the House.

 Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who is the temporary Speaker of the House, has ordered Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi to vacate her Capitol hideaway office by tomorrow.

Two weeks ago, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman told CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour there is a peculiar disconnect between how the economy is doing and how the public is feeling about it.

Amanpour pressed him on why people weren’t understanding that they are living in a “sunny economy.”

He had asserted that “the economy’s rebound has been surreally good,” yet people keep saying it is terrible.

Krugman pointed to surveys and even some people’s behavior, noting robust discretionary spending on travel with hotels and restaurants, and was perplexed as to why people, as if all people were traveling, thought there was a problem.

“We don’t really understand why this is happening ... (but) there is a real profound disconnect going on,” Krugman said.

A few days earlier, “The View” co-host Joy Behar was strident in her assertion that everything was fine for all in our economy:

“The economy is booming, inflation is down, the stock market is doing well, people are having an easier time putting bread on the table, etc. (Biden) doesn’t seem to be getting the credit for that.”

She then asked if people think because Biden is old that the economy is bad.

Huh?