Big Apple comrades, CONGRATULATIONS, the New York City requirement to show your vaccine papers begins today. Those who violate the requirement, or those who give false papers in order to participate in polite society, will be given a $1,000 fine for the first offense; $2,000 for the second non-compliant occurrence, and all subsequent infractions will cost $5,000.

Your proof of vaccination status will grant you access to indoor dining, fitness clubs and shows at indoor entertainment venues, including night clubs, concert halls, movie theaters and adult entertainment. If you wish to enter any of the following business sectors (listed below), both NYC residents and visitors will be required to show their vaccination identification or vaccine passport:

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The ministry of COVID compliance has been kind enough to provide one month of “social training” between when venues must require proof of vaccine from patrons (today) and when Comrade de Blasio has instructed the ministry to begin enforcement (mid-Sept). This grace period for social training is provided by the magnanimity of Dear Leader highlighting his compassion and understanding as these private venues get used to the system.

During this first month, the Ministry of COVID compliance will educate businesses in best practices for how to demand the vaccination papers Dear Leader de Blasio previously announced.

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How would you like to be one of the 15,000+ American citizens in Kabul, or surrounding region, and getting this notice from the United States State Department:

“A congressional aide tells CBS News we have no partners left in Afghanistan to safely get Americans in-country to Kabul.” (link)

…. But they planned for every contingency right?

The U.S. Census Department releases retail sales data today showing a strong contraction in consumer spending for July [MSM LINK].  The out-of-touch financial pundits were looking for a 0.3% decline; however, the drop was four times greater with a contraction of 1.1% in spending.

“The slide in retail sales comes after Friday’s preliminary consumer sentiment report from the University of Michigan showed one of the largest drops on record, leading some strategists and economists to warn of downside risk to the sales data.” (link)

This should not be unexpected for those who read here.  Massive price inflation on essential goods is eating up wages.  Food, fuel and energy price increases are changing consumer spending habits.  Non-essential purchases have stopped….. they haven’t slowed, they have stopped. ←Emphasize this because it is not showing up yet in the data lag.

The data reflects that auto sales were the primary contributor to the decline in spending (-4.3%).  This should make sense to people because auto purchases are the largest general consumer purchase outside of home purchasing.

When purchase decisions are made by families; and food and fuel prices are skyrocketing; replacing a vehicle is not essential.  Auto sales are a key indicator of consumer confidence and income.

Overall inflation is the primary driver.  Real wages are declining (wages – inflation), and disposable income is dropping quickly.  Americans need to start talking very deliberately about what is about to happen.  CTH predicted this and has been walking through the visible outcomes as each set of new data surfaces {SEARCH BOX}.  Nothing happening right now is unforeseen or not easily understandable.

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Facing domestic and international ridicule for his abject failure to plan, organize and successfully withdraw a U.S. military presence from Afghanistan without creating a massive international crisis and humanitarian nightmare, the installed occupant of the White House has announced he will address the nation today at 3:45pm ET.

The diplomatic and humanitarian crisis the Biden team have created is so bad, even CNN cannot cover for them. As a consequence, Joe Biden is being pulled from his bunker at Camp David and pushed to read the teleprompter from the White House. WATCH:

Four decades on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee….Eight years as Vice-President of the United States…. Eight months as acting President…. and the mess Biden has created is stunning.  Even the water-carrying media is having a hard time with it.

Biden’s key national security handler Jake Sullivan attempted to deflect earlier today, and even he made more of a hot mess over everything.

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The crisis unfolding at the international airport in Kabul has reached horrific levels.  Afghan nationals are swarming the airport in an effort to escape the onslaught, as Taliban fighters go door-to-door looking for people who have assisted the United States during the 20 year war.

At least seven people were killed at the airport, many fell to their deaths as they clung to the outside of U.S. C-17 transport planes.  Horrific videos have surfaced showing desperation amid the humanitarian crisis. The AFP is reporting:

KABUL – […] Residents raced to Kabul’s international airport, where the “civilian side” was closed until further notice, according to Afghanistan’s Civil Aviation Authority. The U.S. military and other Western forces continued to organize evacuations.

Videos circulating on social media showed hundreds of people running across the tarmac as U.S. troops fired warning shots in the air. One showed a crowd pushing and shoving its way up a staircase, trying to board a plane, with some people hanging off the railings.

In another video, hundreds of people could be seen running alongside a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane as it moved down a runway. Some clung to the side of the jet just before takeoff. Another video showed several falling through the air as the airplane rapidly gained altitude over the city.

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During our previous discussion on historic, predictable and purposeful food inflation, on August 13th CTH noted “BigAg has likely already made deals for increases in government welfare payments (EBT and Foodstamps, WIC etc.). BigAg lobbies congress for higher reimbursement rates so they can raise the prices of food and export domestic product to other nations. Food assistance payments increase, and BigAg benefits. In essence, BigAg takes the fed food subsidies and fattens their profit margin. Then, they payback the politicians. It’s a circle of money.“….

If you know how the game is rigged, it’s actually easy to predict the background.  Today, exactly on cue, several media outlets are now reporting that Joe Biden is going to increase the amount of food stamp assistance by 25% per recipient, and expand the program.

New York Times – WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has revised the nutrition standards of the food stamp program and prompted the largest permanent increase to benefits in the program’s history, a move that will give poor people more power to fill their grocery carts but add billions of dollars to the cost of a program that feeds one in eight Americans.

Under rules to be announced on Monday and put in place in October, average benefits will rise more than 25 percent from prepandemic levels. All 42 million people in the program will receive additional aid. The move does not require congressional approval, and unlike the large pandemic-era expansions, which are starting to expire, the changes are intended to last. (read more)

This announcement is actually revealing in more ways than just the predictability of it.

♦ First, the 25% permanent increase is an admission by the Biden administration that food price inflation is here to stay.  The massive scale of the increase also highlights the actual reality of how much food prices are rising.   This massive and permanent increase directly undercuts the previous White House and Biden claims that inflation was “temporary”, “transitional” and likely to end soon.

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This is a painful interview between furrowed brow Jake Tapper, painfully wanting to defend the administration and yet the total failure is too insurmountable to defend, and an abjectly overwhelmed and clueless Secretary of State Anthony Blinken – who is trying to explain the complete mess they have created.

The background here is the history of foreign policy failures and boondoggles by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton…. and the transferring of those same geopolitical outlooks into the Biden administration.  Blinken talks in platitudes of diplomacy that are irrelevant today.  The Chinese, Russians and Afghanistan Taliban don’t give a tinkers-damn what the dementia nurses around Biden are talking about.

The pearl-clutching Biden/Blinken approach is just as irrelevant as the bomb-dropping Obama/Clinton approach.  Team Biden act as if the Taliban cares about what Facebook, Twitter and Instagram voices say about them; it’s nuts.  The single-minded totalitarian Taliban don’t care about the United States or United Nations any more than they care about Tik Tok or CNN opinions.

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I’m left wondering where Ayman al-Zawahiri is in all of this?

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CNN is reporting that the White House is contemplating pulling Joe Biden from the bunker in Camp David to give a national address “over the next few days”, in an effort to try and reset his transparent foreign policy failures.   Meanwhile, President Trump is calling upon Biden to resign:

(VIA CNN) President Biden is expected to address the nation in the next few days about the crisis in Afghanistan, according to a senior administration official.

One option under discussion is to have Biden return to the White House, though the official cautioned that they had not completely ruled out making the remarks from Camp David.

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Random and related stuff that might help make sense of the next few days, weeks and months as the Taliban retake control of Afghanistan.

(1) The Muslim Brotherhood.  Already reports from Qatar that MB leadership is heading back into Afghanistan.  This is predictable.  The Muslim Brotherhood is the political umbrella for authentic Islam (ie. extremists).  The Brotherhood supports the al-Qaeda regional affiliates including the Taliban, al-Nusra, and others.  Qatar is the financial center of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood is political Islam.

(2) China.  Most people don’t realize that China shares a common border with Afghanistan and has issues with Islamic extremists and sympathizers.  China has benefited from the U.S. in Afghanistan keeping the Taliban in check.  A U.S. retreat now means China needs to engage with the Taliban to bolster their national security interests.  China will establish diplomatic ties with the Taliban partly because Beijing uses duplicitous diplomacy as a strategy.  [It ain’t because China likes the Taliban]

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Throughout the night and today U.S. personnel were evacuated from the embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.  The U.S. flag has been removed.  The airport in Kabul is no longer safe and flights have been suspended.  Afghanistan President Ghani has fled the country.  The Taliban are on the streets of Kabul as fighting around the airport continues.

U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken is a stuttering and stammering mess as he appears on television attempting to obfuscate the complete FUBAR that is unfolding.  Joe Biden is being kept hidden in his bunker.  U.S. personnel who did not make it to the airport have been told to shelter in place and await rescue.  Some reports of negotiations with Taliban leadership for safe passage for Americans.  The embassy is being abandoned.

Why the rapid collapse? “In the wake of President Biden’s withdrawal decision, the U.S. pulled its air support, intelligence and contractors servicing Afghanistan’s planes and helicopters. That meant the Afghan military simply couldn’t operate anymore. The same happened with another failed American effort, the South Vietnamese army in the 1970s, said retired Lt. Gen. Daniel Bolger, who commanded the U.S.-led coalition’s mission to train Afghan forces in 2011-2013.” (WSJ link)

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