Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

California leads the nation in top gasoline prices, over double Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana…

Gas prices courtesy of AAA

According to the AAA, the National Average Gas Price on October 1, 2022 is $3.80.

California lead the nation in price at $6.358 per gallon. That’s more than double the price paid in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Its nearly double the price paid in eight other states.

Oregon has the second highest average price at $5.41 per gallon. That’s about 95 cents less than California pays.

Mono County California has the dubious distinction of the highest county in the highest state at $6.937 per gallon. 

Gavin Newsom’s Gas Price Premium

Please consider Gavin Newsom’s Gas Price Premium

Cash-strapped Americans have received relief from falling gas prices in recent weeks, but not Californians.

The average gas price in the Golden State this week surged to $6.29 a gallon—$2.50 more than the national average—and the reasons are worth distilling since Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to export the state’s energy policies nationwide.

Taxes add about 66 cents to the price of a gallon, about twice as much on average as other states. California’s cap-and-trade program and low-carbon fuel standard add roughly another 46 cents a gallon.

These climate regulations are causing refineries to shut down or convert to producing biofuels that are more profitable because of rich government subsidies. California lost 12% of refining capacity between 2017 and 2021 and is set to lose another 8% by the end of next year. Yet refineries outside of the state can’t produce its supposedly greener fuel blend.

So when California refineries experience problems, gasoline supply becomes tight and prices shoot up.

“If you’re a (refiner) on the Gulf Coast, your gross profit on gasoline is about $6.60 (per barrel of oil). If you’re in Los Angeles it’s about $101,” Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service told the Mercury News.

Expect California Governor Gavin Newsom to run for President in 2024. 

If you want to pay higher prices for everything, he’s the man to root for.

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Authored by Bill Rice Jr via Substack,

Biden must know he’s losing his mind

Staying in office is clearly more important than doing the right thing and resigning…

I normally feel great sympathy for any person battling the terrible disease of dementia. However, in the case of President Biden, who the whole world knows is battling this affliction, the sentiment I feel is closer to disgust.

The reason my normal empathy is lacking is that President Biden himself must know he has this condition … and he won’t acknowledge this and do what’s best for the country and resign.

Not only does Present Biden know this so too does his wife and children. So too does every person who works in the White House. Indeed, it now must be a 24-hour operation for White House aides to write the teleprompter scripts and stage directions they must produce for President Biden.

The best (dark) comedy bit proving my conjecture occurred when White House aides dressed up a volunteer as the Easter Bunny and said Easter Bunny performed his assigned task of keeping our president away from reporters and Easter egg hunters.

What motivated me to write this column is the cringe-inducing moment that happened yesterday when President Biden (going off script) asked if a deceased Congress person was in the room.

We’ve all known people who are obviously losing their mental sharpness. I know several friends who are struggling with this condition right now. (In fact, I wonder if this “brain fog,” at least in some people, might be an adverse reaction to the Covid “vaccines.”)

Regardless of the cause, most people going through this struggle actually admit this, either to themselves or others. When people start to suffer from this condition, they have plenty of moments where their brain functions as well as always. I’ve had people (all retired by the way) confide in me, “Bill, I’m losing my mind.”

So I have no doubt President Biden knows what’s happening to him.

My main point is that any person with an iota of genuine character would acknowledge what is occurring to him, and for the good of the country he’s supposed to be leading, step aside. Absent this happening, one would hope the people who love and care about this person would persuade him to do this.

But these aren’t the type people who are “leading” our country. Instead, they are the type people who care only about their position, status and power and have no qualms whatsoever about participating in a conspiracy to cover up the truth. (An even more sinister possibility is the Powers that Be behind the curtain actually like the fact they have a puppet this easy to control.)

The Real Scandal (the Same-Old Same-Old) …

The conspiracy to ignore Biden’s obvious dementia is almost as large as the conspiracy to conceal the fact the “vaccines” are dangerous and ineffective. Certainly every reporter who covers the president and the White House knows his condition. But just like all the “off-limits” Covid truths, it’s taboo to mention the emperor has no brain.

We’ve all probably known a loved one who had dementia. Knowing this, we all know this condition never improves. It gets worse, often in rapid fashion. So at some point, one assumes, one “adult in the room” will take President Biden aside and convince him he has to resign.

When this day happens, the press is going to HAVE to report the real reason our president decided to belatedly exit political stage left  …. probably after first wandering off toward stage right, which – bad joke or not – has actually happened several times.

I can’t wait for this day if only to see how the press spins the fact it covered up this story for  years.  (“Our President is suffering from dementia” is, in fact, a story). When this day arrives, I hope more than a few Americans ask our truth-seeking journalists one question: Why didn’t you cover this story? And then an even more important question: What other important stories have you refused to investigate and report?

Truth be told, the Biden-has-dementia unreported story ties into all the other unreported stories. The real scandal is that America is “served” by a watchdog press corp that seemingly exists to cover-up real scandals, especially when they involve politicians and leaders on “their team.”

The Biden dementia story also probably gives us one reason the press corps will never expose all the Covid scandals and lies. If the mainstream press did belatedly report this, they’d be admitting they covered up or ignored a massively-important story for years. Not going to happen.

Above, I predict that President Biden will resign before the end of his term. But this is probably a naive assumption. (I also once thought that if and when the “vaccines” were proven to be ineffective at preventing infection or spread our government couldn’t possibly mandate such an experimental shot).

My new maxim is that what shouldn’t happen … will happen (and vice versa).  So it’s very possible President Biden will still be president in January 2025. At that point, I can’t imagine the post-traumatic stress of White House handlers who got “Bernie” through not one weekend, but 208 weekends.

Every day will include more presidential “gaffes,” gaffes which once might have provided the nation much-needed comic relief but are now no longer funny.

It actually strikes me as cruel that so many people who ostensibly care about President Biden won’t do anything to help him. It’s also malfeasance or an abdication of some moral or ethical duty that these people allow a man who could start a nuclear war to remain in office.

One day someone will write the White House tell-all of all tell-alls and the public will belatedly learn how severe President Biden’s cognitive condition really was. Until that day, we’ll continue to live in the surreal world depicted in the Peter Sellers’ cult classic “Being There.”

In that movie, the simple-minded gardener hadn’t been elected president yet. So America did get there.