While the gas shortage is a marginal annoyance, which should be solved logistically soon, it may be a harbinger of much worse news to come. This is not Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. You are witnessing a controlled demolition of America. The Biden Administration is waging war on American energy and small business while printing $trillions without any backing, which is causing massive inflation.

US inflation continues to soar. The highest rise in consumer prices CPI inflation since 2008 sends Dow and Nasdaq futures down. It’s actually pretty impressive just how quickly Joe “Applesauce” Biden managed to mess everything up.

The economic news Friday, as we’ve seen all this month, is really bad. Retail, IP, etc. is tanking. Right now, we’re headed for a deep, prolonged recession — a real one, not a policy-induced one we were already recovering from — and it’s going to entail massive inflation, and worse.

Consumer sentiment has “tumbled” to 82.8, driven by “the highest expected year-ahead inflation rate as well as the highest long term inflation rate in the past decade.” “Rising inflation also meant that real income expectations were the weakest in five years.” That’s with all the government $dollars.

Much of this is (mostly) due to the supply chain issues that began with lockdowns in early ’20. Price increases now in things like meat, steel, and plastics are part lagging indicators of raw material dollar increases months ago, part displaced demand and logistics constraints now.

Most of the issues we face are largely a result of our basic command-and-control systems not being able to fully calculate the whole range of potential threats or even comprehend their inability to do so. Our enemies ruthlessly exploit this so-called “Dunning-Kruger” tactic, which occurs when a person’s lack of knowledge and skills in a certain area causes them to overestimate their own competence. The result is an epic fail, which seems to sum up every policy coming out of the Biden White House.

Ocean freight could very well hit $20,000 per 40′ to the US East Coast from Asia in the coming weeks. Larger importers have offered a monthly fixed rate through mid-June at $19,500 per 40′ to the USEC for a small allocation of guaranteed space from China. For comparison, it was between $2,700 to $3,000 this time last year. If the pandemic taught us anything, it should have been that the concentration of supply chains can lead to major breakdowns when they are disrupted.

An ominous note, though the Mississippi River has been re-opened, this brings up a darker second-order thought: Are we prepared for a severe-to-catastrophic Gulf hurricane this year?

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — River traffic has reopened on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee, three days after it was closed when a crack was discovered in the Interstate 40 bridge that connects Tennessee and Arkansas, the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday. The Arkansas Department of Transportation, meanwhile, said a video taken by an inspector two years ago found “significant rust and the beginning of a crack” in the same area as the fracture that prompted the bridge’s shutdown this week. Economic development officials had been concerned that an extended closure of river traffic could hurt the region’s economy and have ripple effects on the nation’s supply chain.

US export rail and container congestion (normal alternatives) will not be clear for the duration of hurricane season. A whole lot of people won’t see the impact here: >50% of all US grain and oilseed exports are via NOLA ~20% of US oil refining capacity is in Louisiana ~55% of all natural gas exported from the US leaves via two terminals in Louisiana There are no good contingency options this year.

In other news of the dumb, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) successfully kills a crude oil pipeline that has been in operation for over 50 years. Whitmer has ordered Enbridge to cease operating Line 5 by May 12, a pipeline that runs from Canada through Michigan.

The volume of crude oil that moves through Line 5 is the equivalent of 40 percent of the crude capacity of regional refiners. That’s not going to come from anywhere else. The crude is shipped from Canada to one of PBF Energy’s refineries in Toledo, Ohio, and then provides gasoline, diesel, and propane to significant portions of the Great Lakes region.

The Toledo area refineries alone supply:

• 30 percent of Ohio’s gasoline,
• 42 percent of southeastern Michigan’s gasoline,
• 35 percent of Ohio’s diesel,
• 14 percent of southeastern Michigan’s diesel, and
• 100 percent of Detroit Metro airport jet fuel.

If you are in the midwest, and you think that the gas lines and the pictures you saw from Colonial were bad, you’ll have that on steroids with the shut down of Line 5.

The region would need 2,000 trucks a day continuously to make up for the severe shortage created by a voluntary shutdown of the pipeline.

Our State Senator from the Eastern Shore, Lynwood Lewis was in Cape Charles Tuesday to brief citizens on what to expect as the next General Assembly is set to begin in Richmond. As always, the budget is the key focus, but Lewis also noted that there are many other critical issues on the agenda.

“I serve on the Agriculture and Chesapeake Natural Resources Committee, the Local Government Committee, and on the Health and Education Committee which in addition I serve on the Recurrent Flooding Study Committee which deals with issues dealing around sea level rise. What’s going on in this session, the budget is always the big concern…we have had some issues with revenue flow and we have had to make some cuts, over 2 billion dollars from Virginia’s budget…when we go into session, that is going to be the big issue. The Governor’s budget reflects a significant investment in K-12 education, including 2500 new teachers to replace some that we are losing. There are some SOL reforms embedded in the budget, No Child Left Behind has been replaced by Every Child Succeeds, and that will hopefully give us more flexibility in what we do with SOL testing,” Lewis said.

Community College

“There is also a bond issue associated with this budget, which will be used for new buildings on campuses, a new community college, a $21 million dollar facility which is very exciting for us on the Eastern Shore. Also, $350 million to improve our port facilities, to help with our New Economy, to pull in some of these huge cargo ships that are flowing in here. The port is a tremendous spinoff for our economy,” Lewis said.

Wallops, Spaceport and High Tech

“We’re also trying to build on technology, or research and development, in our institutions of higher ed…we’re looking at technology, we’re looking at R&D, cybersecurity which is going to be one of the next big waves of economic activity. We want to be on the forefront of this, to help alleviate some of our DoD(Department of Defense) dependency. The Navy base in Norfolk is probably not going anywhere anytime soon, but we have to be proactive about this. When we talk about diversifying Virginia’s economy, we are very excited about the activity up at Wallops Island. I’m a little concerned about aggressive we are not being as far as luring businesses to be up there, but we’ll be having discussions in Richmond on how we can build on the Spaceport up there. That has spillover effect for the entire commonwealth and certainly for the Eastern Shore,” Lewis said.

Healthcare

“We are going to talk about Medicaid expansion, it’s in the Governor’s budget. Given the politics of it, we’ll probably talk about fifteen minutes and then it’s just going to fade away. The politics of it at this time and place is prohibitive. The Certificate of Public Need is going to be a huge issue; it is a system by which a state, it is how you allocate your healthcare resources. For those that have rural hospitals like Northampton and Accomack, let me just assure that wherever it is, you are lucky to have it. Given the economics of small rural hospitals. There is a school thought that says we need to dramatically reform Certificate of Public Need, which will inject competition and will drive down healthcare costs. There is a competing school of thought that says that healthcare economies are different and given the stress that small rural hospitals are under, those that serve economically challenged folks, that serve large numbers of Medicaid folks, and if we allow other providers to come in and cherry pick the services that do generate money for those hospitals, if you adopt a strip mall model it could be disastrous for rural hospitals,” Lewis said.

Environment and Sea Level Rise

“We are going to talk about sea level rise issues, which is going to have a huge impact, not tomorrow, but gradually over time; the Navy is planning for significant rise in sea level, in Norfolk, they have no political axe to grind, they are just looking at data, and are going to make choices based on what that data tells them. Trying to figure out how to deal with that, and it is a combination of many things, some of which are expensive, some of which are just tough choices, which will be made at the local level with land use and planning,” Lewis said.

Menhaden

“We’re going to be talking about Menhaden again this year. There will be bills in to transfer the oversight of the Menhaden fishery over to the Virginia Marine Resources Committee. This is a frequently occurring discussion, but I believe there is a head of steam to now maybe shift the management of menhaden to the VMRC, we’ll see. I’m on the AG committee, and this is where these bills will be first discussed and where they will pass. It is usually a fairly contentious discussion,” Lewis said.

(ACCOMAC, Va.)— The Eastern Shore Health District in partnership with Eastern Shore Veterinarians announce low cost ($5) rabies vaccination clinics for pets each year in effort to assure that all dogs and cats on the Eastern Shore of Virginia are properly vaccinated and protected against the deadly rabies virus that is now endemic in the wild raccoon population (with spill over into other mammalian species).

Since 1994 when the Mid Atlantic Raccoon Rabies Epidemic reached Accomack County and 1996 when it reached Northampton County, there have been 563 laboratory confirmed rabid animals tested by the Eastern Shore Health District. The total includes 486 raccoons, 43 foxes, 17 cats, 10 skunks, 4 bats, 1 dog, 1 otter, and 1 groundhog (only those animals that exposed persons or pets were tested). The most recent cases of rabies on the Eastern Shore of Virginia occurred December 31, 2015 when 1 raccoon from the Locustville area of Accomack County and 1 raccoon from the Exmore area of Northampton County were laboratory confirmed.

In order to protect yourself, your family and your pets from getting rabies, the Eastern Shore Health District recommends the following:

1.) Keep all pets current on their rabies vaccinations (dogs, cats, ferrets, and livestock).
2.) Keep all pets confined to your own property.
3.) Report all animal bites to humans and pets to the health department and/or the sheriff’s department within 24 hours, as required by law.
4.) Avoid contact with wild animals, stray animals and unfamiliar pets, and teach your
children to do the same.
5.) Report all stray dogs and cats to your local sheriff’s department.
For more information, please visit the Virginia Department of Health website Rabies page: http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/Epidemiology/DEE/Rabies/

Contact:
Keith Privett, Environmental Health Supervisor
757-787-5880

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – Effective January 1, 2016, Riverside Health System and Hospice & Palliative Care of the Eastern Shore (HPCES) have combined resources in order to deliver the most comprehensive, coordinated network of hospice care to families on the Shore. This alliance joins the assets of HPCES with Riverside’s 30+ years of hospice experience enabling both organizations to deliver the highest quality of resources and services.

Riverside employs a team approach to hospice care—with doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and home health aides, all working together with patients and their families to enhance each person’s quality of life.

“Medicare defines hospice care as having a prognosis of six months or less,” said Dr. James McDaniel, Medical Director for Shore Hospice. “Riverside defines hospice care by asking the question: how do we give you the best life today? Our philosophy is based on honoring patients’ choices for care, dignity, and comfort in a place of their choosing.”

This arrangement will provide better continuity of care for all hospice patients on the Eastern Shore. In addition, this positioning will expand all of the programs and services Riverside has to offer, such as home health and the compassionate care network, thereby delivering more effective and more complete services for each patient. Patients and families will experience enhanced safety, quality, service and respect.

“The Board, staff and volunteers of Hospice and Palliative Care of the Eastern Shore are proud of the excellent standard of care provided to thousands of patients and family members over many years,” shared Sandra Fox, President of HPCES. “This included medical services, caregiver and bereavement care and services. We are certain that this high standard of comprehensive care will continue under the leadership of Riverside and we would like to thank the community for their support.”

Riverside will continue to run the thrift stores, support groups and Fragile Hearts Camp offered by HPCES.

ABOUT RIVERSIDE HEALTH SYSTEM:

A regional leader in providing healthcare since 1915, Riverside Health System seeks to deliver care and services – as a team- by putting patients and residents at the center. Riverside delivers a variety of health care services and programs in the areas of prevention, acute care, aging-related services, rehabilitation, ambulatory care, diagnostic care, education, and home care.

Riverside is also the largest provider of aging-related services in Virginia. Its Lifelong Health Division handles the development and operation of continuing care retirement communities, assisted living apartments, skilled nursing and rehab centers, residential memory support, wellness centers, and the fastest growing element, community based services such as the Program for All Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE), Home Health & Hospice, and home-enabling technology.

ABOUT HOSPICE AND PALLIATIVE CARE OF THE EASTERN SHORE (HPCES):

The mission of Hospice of the Eastern Shore is to support individuals and their families who reside in Accomack and Northampton Counties in coping with the dying process; to enhance quality of life through comfort measures rather than curative measures; to sustain one’s dignity; to offer bereavement care to family prior to and following the death, and to provide education to the community regarding end-of-life care and issues.

Sally Schreiber
Marketing Business Partner
Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital
(757) 414-8050