I am tired and weary of the bullshit from every side of the political continuum -particularly the professionally republican idiots- that continue to hide the reality of the situation.  We are adults, let us talk honestly in the framework of reality; that will allow prudent preparation for the massive crisis we are about to experience.

When the tenant realizes they have a leaking fish tank, they realize they are going to be financially responsible for the water damage.  The tenant concocts a plan to avoid responsibility. The tenant intentionally loosens a pipe in the bathroom creating water damage, thereby hiding the fish tank leak.

The owner is now on the hook for the repair. The tenant escapes liability.

The people behind Joe Biden knew their radical transformation of energy policy was going to create massive economic damage.

The people behind Biden used the opportunity of the Ukraine-Russia conflict to trigger economic sanctions they knew would worsen the global inflation damage they were creating through energy policy.

Economic sanctions against Russia were as used as the broken pipe in the bathroom to hide the energy policy fish tank leak.  All of the media discussing the situation are now pretending not to know this.  The conservative pundits are a combination of pretending and too stupid to actually see what is happening.

BLOOMBERG – […] There’s no sign that administration officials feel their sanctions policy was a mistake or that they want to dial back the pressure. If anything, officials have said a key US goal is to ensure Russia can’t do to other nations what it has done in Ukraine. 

But the collateral damage from the sanctions has been wider than expected. 

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The U.S. economy is 70% driven by consumer spending.  When consumers stop spending the economy shrinks, it is that simple.  The U.S. Dept of Commerce has released the May retail sales [pdf DATA HERE], showing a 0.3% drop in retail sales for the month.  If you are interested in details, look at Table-2.

The critical point to remember is this sentence extracted from CNBC, “the numbers are not adjusted for inflation, which increased 1% for the month on the headline number and 0.6% excluding food and energy.”  Everyone ignores this point, and every MSM economist pretends not to know it.

Retail sales -as measured in units purchased- have been in a contracting position since June of 2021.  When the current data shows a drop of -0.3% in May, the actual drop in retail sales is much, much greater.  The dept of commerce calculates retail sales in dollars.  When prices are 20% higher and sales are low, retailers are selling less stuff (less units) at higher prices.  This has been the reality of our economy for several months.  This is also why productivity has been declining for more than a year.

If you take the 8.6% inflation rate (far understated) and an aggregate drop in sales of 0.3% (again, far understated as a measure of inflation), that means consumers are spending limited incomes on critical or essential purchases like housing, food, fuel and energy.  Consumers are not purchasing durable goods; people are hunkering down.

Yearly retail sales (May ’21 compared to May ’22) are +8.1%.  However, yearly retail inflation for the same period is +8.6%.  Again, reflecting that less stuff is being purchased inside the economy at higher prices.  If the commerce dept was measuring actual units being purchased, we would be seeing massive drops in sales.

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Economic security is the foundation of national security.  When the government takes action that destabilizes our economy, every element of national security is put at risk.  We are experiencing that right now as we suffer through Joe Biden’s intentionally flawed energy policy that is destroying the U.S. economy and everyone within it.

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”

~ Niccolo Machiavelli

Never has that Machiavelli quote been more apropos than when considering the MAGA movement and the rise of Donald Trump.

Thankfully, we are now in an era when the largest coalition of American voters have awakened to the reality that, to quote the former president: “Economic Security is National Security.”

As we live through the economic mess of a Biden administration hell bent on eroding the middle class of the United States, there are numerous pundits contemplating 2024 Republican presidential candidates other than Donald Trump; consider this group the lukewarm defenders Machiavelli noted.

At the same time the leftist coalition, writ large, are apoplectic about the base of the Republican Party now belonging to Donald Trump.  This group consists of those affluent Wall Street agents and politicians set on retaining the profits derived from decades of institutional objectives.

Institutional Democrats hate Trump, and institutional Republicans are lukewarm, at best, in defending Trump.  Both wings of the DC UniParty fear Trump.  Extreme efforts at control are a reaction to fear.  In this outline, I rise to explain why Donald Trump is the only option for the America First MAGA coalition; and I make my case not on supposition, but on empirical reference points that most should understand.

Everything, is about the economics of it.

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Today there are primary elections in Nevada, South Carolina, Maine, North Dakota and Texas’ 34th congressional district.

South Carolina, polls close at 7pm ET. Maine polls close at 8pm ET. Texas’ 34th CD polls close at 8pm ET. North Dakota, polls close at 8pm and 9pm ET. Nevada, polls close at 10pm ET.

Many people will be watching South Carolina to see if anti-MAGA Nancy Mace and Tom Rice will be removed by primary challenge.

New York Times – Election Results Here

Politico – Election Results Here

CNN – Election Results Here

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The people who control Joe Biden held a background call today announcing details of the upcoming trip by Joe Biden to the middle-east.   The trip will start in Israel where Biden will meet Israeli leaders and Palestinian Authority leader Abbas.

White House – […] In meetings with Israeli leaders, the President will reaffirm the ironclad U.S. commitment to Israel’s security and new areas of deepening cooperation in technology, climate, commerce, trade, and other sectors.

[…] The President will also visit the West Bank to meet with President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders.  The President, of course, has known Abbas for decades, and he looks forward to reaffirming his lifelong commitment to a two-state solution and to discuss the ways in which we might rekindle a new political horizon that can ensure equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity, and dignity to Israelis and Palestinians alike. 

[…] Following the visits to Israel and the West Bank, the President will fly directly from Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he will participate in a summit of the Gulf Cooperation — GCC+3 — the GCC+3 — so the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar, plus Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. The President will also hold bilateral meetings with the Saudi hosts and other counterparts. 

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Earlier today, angry Joe was channeling his inner thug as he harkened back to the good old days when labor unions were cracking skulls on behalf of the communists and socialists.  Giving the pretense of connection to the working class is a performance technique Biden has used throughout his career, but it holds absolutely no basis in reality.

Appearing at the AFL-CIO convention today, Biden began yelling at the brotherhood.  In his mind anger, violence and conflict is what he believes organized labor is all about, so his performance is designed to convey that connection.  It’s more than a little weird, it’s creepy. WATCH:

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The “Producer Price Index” (PPI) is essentially the tracking of wholesale prices at three stages: Origination (commodity), Intermediate (processing), and then Final (to wholesale). Today, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) released the May 2022 price data [Available Here] showing another 10.8% increase year-over-year in Final Demand products at the wholesale level.

The inflation within the total goods supply chain continues to accumulate at a more significant rate than the finished goods on the store shelves.  This means replacement goods will continue arriving with higher prices than current.   Final demand goods in May were 1.4% higher than April (16.8% annualized).  And the May year-over-year prices show a 10.8% increase [See Table A].  However, there’s more trouble ahead:

More troubling than the final demand price increases (wholesale finished goods), are the price increases in the intermediate goods and unprocessed raw materials.

Intermediate processed goods increased 2.3% in May (27.6% annualized).  The intermediate unprocessed goods, raw materials, jumped even higher in price at 6.3% for May (that’s a whopping 75.6% annualized increase).   It would appear the raw materials coming into the goods sector are coming in with even higher built-in energy costs than most people anticipated.

Once those intermediate products reach the final demand stage (wholesale), the cumulative price increase will mean even higher consumer prices.

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Tucker Carlson used his opening monologue tonight to point out the serious problems with federal “red flag laws” as proposed.  WATCH:

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There is one big problem for the people inside the Biden administration executing the Green New Deal energy policy, the massive increases in energy cost including gasoline.

You see, everything is an academic estimate until the actual Green New Deal is transferred from theoretical policy into a set of actions that creates a major disruption in the economy.  As things in society start to collapse; and as people begin to really feel the inflationary consequences of the Biden energy policy in action; suddenly all of those ‘talking points’ about shutting down the fossil fuel industry take on a new meaning.   People didn’t realize the Green New Deal was going to mean $10/doz eggs, $15/gal milk, $20 happy meals at McDonalds, or $150/tank of gasoline…. Now they are paying attention.

For former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the current senior climate and energy policy advisor within the White House, all of these ‘in your face‘ surfacing Green New Deal consequences have become problematic for the Biden administration.  Her proposed solution, however, is rather remarkable.

In this interview discussing the skyrocketing inflation and consequences created by the Green New Deal policies, Gina McCarthy urgently begs all of the social media companies to start removing the content from American people who are giving real world examples of the pain and economic hardship they are feeling.  McCarthy says that if social media do not start to help Joe Biden hide the pain, the climate change agenda might be at risk.  WATCH [11:00 prompted]:

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The S&P 500 fell 151.23 points, or 3.9%, to 3749.63. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 876.05 points, or 2.8%, to 30516.74. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 530.80 points, or 4.7%, to 10809.23 (33% lower that the November record).

CNBC – […] U.S. stocks on Monday entered a bear market because the S&P 500 closed more than 21% below its all-time record close reached as recently as last January, S&P Global Dow Jones Indices senior index analyst Howard Silverblatt wrote.

Stocks had been flirting with a bear market for the past several weeks on an intraday basis, but had never actually closed below 3837, the level S&P Global needed to see in order to officially declare one.

S&P Global says a 20% decline in the S&P 500 on a closing basis from its previous peak is all it takes to define a bear market. Which means that this bear market is already more than five months old, since the S&P 500 all-time high came on January 3. (read more)

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