Reports on the beginning of the Christmas holiday shopping season do not look good for retailers.  CNBC is reporting the Black Friday sales were down a significant 28.3% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019 [link].  The difference was not made up inside on-line sales as Cyber Monday had the first drop in sales in the history of tracking on-line sales [link].

The financial pundit spin, intended to protect the Biden administration, includes a talking point that U.S. consumers decided to make their holiday purchases early this year, therefore the holiday spending metric no longer applies.

As the narrative is built, people were concerned about shortages of products so they purchased them early in the year.  While part of that is likely true, early shopping is not that unusual and cannot account for such a massive drop in purchasing.

The same narrative was used to explain the drop in Cyber Monday sales: “Shoppers nationwide spent nearly $11 billion on digital sales on Cyber Monday, a tracking firm said — a decrease of 1.4% from last year and the first decline ever for a major shopping holiday.” […] “It spread out e-commerce spending across the months of October and November.”  There’s virtually no limit to how the financial media will avoid identifying the real motive for declining sales, inflation and the lack of disposable income.

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I hate to say I toldyaso, but…. well, {Go Deep}.  The Washington Post is writing a story today about federal prosecutors using grand juries to subpoena the financial records of individuals and groups who were associated with the 2020 election audit efforts.  The motives here are very predictable.

Remember, when the political agencies under the umbrella of the Fourth Branch of Government (CIA, FBI and DOJ) use their aligned media they follow a particular pattern of using New York Times, Politico and the Washington Post to build the framework of their investigative narratives.

The specifics of this first report surround attorney Sidney Powell and her ‘Defend The Republic‘ organization, one of several individuals and groups who were raising money to support 2020 election audits. The Sidney Powell, Mike Flynn, and Patrick Byrne network are under review.

As you review the article it is important to note few key elements: (1) The subpoena document’s were leaked to the Washington Post by someone inside the investigation; that speaks toward the larger motive of the DOJ/FBI effort itself. (2) The specific DOJ prosecutors are the same ones working hand-in-glove with the J6 committee.

WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors have demanded the financial records of multiple fundraising organizations launched by attorney Sidney Powell after the 2020 election as part of a criminal investigation, according to a subpoena reviewed by The Washington Post.

The grand jury subpoena, issued in September by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, sought communications and other records related to fundraising and accounting by groups including Defending the Republic, a Texas-based organization claiming 501(c) 4 nonprofit status, and a PAC by the same name, according to the documents and a person familiar with the investigation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the probe.

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Lara Logan hit Dr. Anthony Fauci and the cabal of science manipulators with the atomic sledgehammer during her remarks today about the latest COVID variant omicron and the political crew who manipulate the public through fear.  {Direct Rumble Link}

In this segment, Ms. Logan is subtle as a brick through a window as she compares Dr. Fauci and his beagle killing narcissism to the ideological efforts of Dr. Josef Mengele.  She’s not the first person to make that comparison.  WATCH:

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Earlier today, Joe Biden met with a roundtable group of retail executives and CEO’s.  The topics of the discussion were supply chain issues and current impacts to businesses that are causing rapid inflation.

At the conclusion of the meeting there was supposed to be a press conference where Biden was going to outline what his administration is doing to combat the ever-increasing problem of inflation.   However, moments before the public remarks were scheduled to begin, the White House cancelled them.  Instead, the people managing Joe Biden sent out the following tweet:

According to the White House messaging, everything is wonderful – there is no cause for concern, the supply chain crisis has been handled, shortages are no longer present, shelves are full, the clouds have parted and Santa is enjoying his time preparing for Christmas by watching unicorns play with the reindeer.  Baghdad Bob would be proud.

If the narrative is true, if there is so much good news to share, then why cancel the remarks and press conference about inflation?

One likely scenario is the retail CEO’s told the White House about: (1) upcoming additional price increases due to energy policy; and (2) the latest news from China where the shipment of goods is going to go from bad (slow) to much worse (a virtual halt):

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A federal judge in the Eastern District of Missouri has blocked the federal vaccine mandate contained in the medicare and medicaid rules for healthcare workers.  [pdf ruling available here] Previously the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMMS) issued a regulation requiring healthcare workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid to get vaccinated. This ruling is even more influential, as the workers protected in the ten states are specifically inside the healthcare industry.

(Business Insider) […] Judge Matthew Schelp of the Eastern District of Missouri issued the preliminary injunction for workers at Medicare- and Medicaid-certified medical facilities in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota, court documents said.

The 10 states had sued the Biden administration, saying the vaccine mandate was unconstitutional.

Schelp — whom President Donald Trump nominated to the bench in 2019 — said the public would benefit from the ruling “because it would ensure that federal agencies do not extend their power beyond the express delegation from Congress.”  […] The Medicare and Medicaid regulation is what Monday’s ruling was about. The agency has said that rule affects 17 million workers at 76,000 healthcare facilities nationwide. (read more)

Hopefully the judicial commonsense becomes, well, more common.

JP Morgan is emphasizing that U.S. energy policy is likely to end up with $150-$200 per barrel oil costs in next year ($10/gal gasoline).  [LINK] Whether that dire prediction comes true is anyone’s guess.  However, consensus review makes nearing $100/barrel costs by the end of this year just as unnerving. ($6/gal gasoline).  That outcome is the centerpiece for why Biden needs the Omicron variant to impact the demand side urgently.

New York – […] “We believe the evolution of coal prices might reflect supply, demand, cost of capital and energy transitioning issues for all fossil fuels, and it would certainly be possible that oil prices will follow the same pattern (inflation adjusted for oil, that would be in a $150-200/bbl range),” wrote a team of JPMorgan Chase & Co. strategists led by Marko Kolanovic. (read more)

This analysis essentially aligns with CTH outlooks and complements what Allianz Group chief economic advisor, Mohamed El-Erian, was saying yesterday [LINK]  The Biden energy policy is specifically to blame for the current price increases across the entire energy sector.

All of Biden energy policy, and all of Biden spending around the Build Back Better agenda, is designed to take us from where we are now into some distant place where fossil fuels are not the energy mechanism; that’s the Green New Deal component of this.  However, there is no policy for their transition – they stopped all current energy policy around oil and coal.

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There has always been strong cynicism amid those who accept the intellectual argument that everything around COVID-19 is political.  From that viewpoint, the federal vaccine mandate was always just a Biden talking point, a way to weaponize a fear they created and create controlled division.  A memorandum circulating today lends evidence to that perspective.

WASHINGTON DC – The White House’s Office of Management and Budget is telling federal agencies they should hold off on suspending or firing federal workers for not complying with the vaccine mandate until after the holidays, according to a memo obtained by ABC News.

This change, which has not yet been publicly announced, comes as President Joe Biden is putting pressure on private employers to embrace their own vaccine mandates.

Ninety-two percent of federal workers have already had at least one vaccine dose, according to the Office of Management and Budget. The federal workforce’s compliance rate stands at 96.5%, meaning employees have had at least one vaccine dose or have a pending or approved exception or extension request. (link)

If the latest Omicron variant was factually all that Biden is claiming it to be, this contradiction would not be evident – but it is.  However, the exponentially and rapidly climbing list of contradictions and hypocrisies from officials, institutions and agencies can all be reconciled with one simple acceptance: It’s all political. All of it. Every element, no matter how granular or big picture, is all political.

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National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins appeared on Fox News today to push the panic button around the latest COVID variant, Omicron.  Dr. Collins was pushing the vaccine hard as he explained why Americans need to be concerned about the latest variant.

Vaccines, and now double and triple booster shots, are the acceptable scientific approach to combating the arriving Omicron variant, which Collins’ protege Dr. Fauci has warned could lead to a new round of lockdowns, mask mandates and social distancing requirements from federal and state officials.

However, in the face of all the panic promotion, NIH Director Collins was asked to reconcile why Florida, the most open and free state in the nation – that does not have any COVID mandates in place, would also have the lowest infection rate in the country.   Dr. Collins refused to answer the question, and instead repeated his rehearsed talking points.

It is very telling -in a weird way- how the NIH Director would not answer the question. In fact, he avoided it completely.  WATCH (Prompted):

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The fabulously fraudulent fear mongering fiend known as Anthony Fauci was all over television today proclaiming the pending horribleness from Omicron, the latest and greatest of Fauci’s variants.

In this soundbite the vertically challenged little fellas are talking shop about new lockdowns.

More Fauci appearances below, if you can stomach them.

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