Move along, move along folks… please do not pay attention to the fire raging downtown, the suburbs are so nice this time of year… move along folks, look shiny Ukraine thing over there…

When retail sales are calculated, they are calculated in dollars.  Any recorded increase in retail sales that does not exceed the price increases in those items is factually reflecting a drop in units sold.

Ex. – if you sell 300 items at $1.00 each, you have $300 in sales.  If you sell 250 items at $1.25 each, you have $312.50 in sales.  Technically, you have a 4.1% increase in sales.  However, you have sold 17% less items (50 units).

When you are selling less stuff, your business (economy) is contracting, not expanding.  We have been in this contracting cycle (an actual production recession) since May/June of last year; however, the contraction has not been recognized because massive inflation is hiding it.  That, my friends, is the painful truth and it spells big trouble ahead.

(AP) […] Retail sales increased 0.3% after registering a revised 4.9% jump from December to January, fueled by wage gains, solid hiring and more money in banking accounts, according to the Commerce Department. January’s increase was the biggest jump in spending since last March, when American households received a final federal stimulus check of $1,400.

Business at furniture and home furnishing stores fell 1% in February, while sales at consumer electronics and appliance stores slipped 0.6%. General merchandise stores saw business down 0.2%, while online sales fell 3.7%. Restaurant sales rose 2.5% as shoppers shift more of their spending to services as the threat of COVID-19 fades. (read more)

Take the figures above and compare them to the sector inflation in February (Table-2, BLS Report)  – Just sticking to what is above:

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This is really weird folks, and not just the part I am highlighting here.   In a very creepy public presentation today by Joe Biden highlighting the extension of the ‘violence against women act‘, Biden went through the stages of shouting then whispering as he delivered remarks about abuse and exploitation based on gender.

In part of his remarks, and trust me, the entire remarks were seriously disturbing, Joe Biden said, “I’ll bet everybody knows someone, somewhere along the line, that in an intimate relationship what happened was the guy takes a revealing picture of a naked friend, or whatever, in a compromising position, and then literally in a sense blackmails them or mortifies them.”  WATCH: 26:55 prompted:

Maybe it’s my own naiveté, but I don’t know a single person this would relate to.

Perhaps this says something about the culture in/around Washington DC that sexploitation is such a familiar topic.  Regardless, if these comments were in his teleprompter, that tells us a lot about the people surrounding the office of the president, and it is not good.

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There is so much that needs to be said about this.  It is almost impossible to put into an appropriate context, knowing that history will look upon this moment as the inflection point of no return.

Here is what took place in Washington DC, earlier today, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of congress. WATCH:

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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Trying to provide alternate perspectives on the status of the conflict in Ukraine, Aaron Mate of the Grayzone asks Col Douglas Macgregor his take on the dominate narrative in the US that militarily this is a disaster for Russia.  Colonel Macgregor outlines that western media has a specific narrative diminishing reality and filled with wishful thinking. Max Blumenthal follows up with a question on the military situation.

Col Macgregor’s take is the entire Russian Operation is focused on the Military Destruction of the Ukrainian Army. The Russian Army is largely successful in this goal, but it is going slow, because of the Russian intent to maintain critical infrastructure. The Azov Battalion’s operations Mariupol also comes up as point of discussion as one of the dynamics of the conflict.  WATCH:

The Full Two Hour Podcast Interview is HERE

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As the international media fawn over their latest social media star, the “Churchill in a T-shirt”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the former darling of EU media, French President Emmanuel Macron is apparently feeling slighted.

Western PR teams have been working diligently to maintain the “better story,” as they advance the beatification of pop star Zelenskyy.  The producers and directors for Volodymyr’s scruff and edgy leadership have kept his fans updated on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, as Ride of The Valkyries echos as a background theme while team-Z dodge cruise missiles on their way to the local Starbucks.

However, all of this unilaterally focused adoration does not sit well with King Macron of Paris.  In an effort to combat the rugged warlike appeal of St. Zelenskyy of Kyiv, the thirsty French president called for immediate poses of him in a series of similarly scruffy press shots:

Thanks to social media adoration, Zelenskyy, the modern EU trendsetter, is making beatnik great again. There are already rumors of a run on vintage jeans, sneakers and T-shirts within Brussels, as several NATO leaders dispatch their aides looking for the hot, new and modern authentic war look.

A daily series of live-streamed war summits are likely in the works as NATO leadership start catching up to the pop-optics by organizing burning barrels of diesel fuel in the background of their zoom calls.  With resources allocated, thirsty Macron is going to climb back on top.

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The BRICS trade and economic partnership group is made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa {GO DEEP}.  The alliance was originated in part to explore alternatives to the dollar as a global trade currency.  They discussed several options in their prior meetings long before Russia took action into Ukraine.

With western sanctions against Russia now in place, there are increasing reports that China and India have developed alternatives.  This is one such example:

(Via LiveMint) – Russia, many of whose banks have been cut off from the Swift financial network, is exploring opening alternative payment channels with India, including linking Unified Payments Interface (UPI) with the Faster Payments System (FPS) of the Bank of Russia, to continue cross-border trade.

According to Dmitry A. Solodov, a spokesperson for the Russian embassy in New Delhi, his government has also asked Indian lenders to connect to the financial messaging system of the Bank of Russia to facilitate interbank transactions. In addition, the two sides are discussing accepting RuPay and MIR Cards within national payment infrastructures, Solodov said in an emailed statement.

“All these options are on the table and are being discussed by the two governments, the Reserve Bank of India and the Bank of Russia,” said a senior Indian government official, requesting anonymity. (read more)

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Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, made it clear today that she has Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategery all figured out.

According to her press conference remarks, Speaker Pelosi says the Russian president is trying to bait her into attacking his forces in Ukraine so that he can start World War III against her.  Although, Pelosi did say she’s not a well experienced military strategist, but she knows his trickery and stuff.  WATCH:

Speaker Pelosi has delusions of grandeur.

… or syphilis.

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It is pathetic and laughable, and it would be more pathetic and laughable if the ancillary issues represented by the idiocy were not so serious.

Former FBI lead Counterintelligence Agent Peter Strzok, the person who investigated the vast Trump-Russia conspiracy theory for two years and spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds in the process, has found another Russian conspiracy theory to promote.

Stand back and look at this from an intellectual and reasonable standard for a moment and just accept the insanity of it all.  Peter Strzok is claiming that Fox News Host Tucker Carlson and former Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard are actual Russian operatives working for the Kremlin.

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Mr. Strzok has appeared on MSNBC and various other platforms to make his claim that Carlson and Gabbard are actually controlled operatives of the Russian government.  Ordinarily this would be silly, and we would laugh at him for these ridiculous political games.  But there’s something else…

What does Strzok’s outlook tell us about the current state of competency within the FBI?  This is the same guy who accused CIA asset Carter Page of being an agent of a foreign power in a fraudulent FISA application, that eventually was granted by the court to permit Title-1 surveillance on Mr. Page by Agent Strzok and his colleagues.

This is the type of person working at the top of the FBI counterintelligence operation?  It is pathetic, but unfortunately, not funny.

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