Unfortunately, we really cannot rely on BLS data, Commerce data or general information from the mainstream media to get a pulse on what’s really going on with products and prices on Main Street USA.  Factually, your ground reports have consistently been the accurate reflection of what’s happening in the various states and regions around the country.

With that in mind, what’s the latest situation in your area with COVID rules, prices on stuff you buy every day, and the availability of products and/or services in your community?

Specifically, people would be interested to know what the climate is toward the COVID rules, regulations, masks etc. in your city, town, hamlet or local community?   How are things overall?

What’s the impact of inflation and supply chain disruptions like around you?  Gas prices, grocery prices, home heating or energy prices etc.?  Also, if you are having any difficulties finding products that you normally purchase?  What are your family, friends and neighbors saying about it.

In short, how are things around you this holiday season?   Use the comment section to provide an update on your general area.   Your ground reports are always insightful and provide a good & accurate sense of how things are going on Main Street.

#FJB

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Joe Biden went back to the White House stage set today (always weird) to read from his script and hold a broadcast zoom meeting with the supply chain and inflation ‘task force’ led by Brian Deese.  [Read Transcript Here]

The occupant of the White House proclaimed that gas prices have dropped ten cents, the port container backlog was almost fixed, and all the retail sales shelves are stocked for Christmas purchasing.   Smiles everyone, smiles.  [Excerpt Below]

♦ A couple of overall notes.  Biden is proclaiming a massive improvement in the port backlog in California.  However, a more careful review of the specifics from the ports themselves, via John Porcari, reveals this nuance: “The percentage of — the number of long-dwelling containers — the ones that have been there eight days or more — has been cut in half.”  The percentage of, the number of, 8+ day delayed containers has been reduced by 50% in the past two months.

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The White House occupant cannot afford to lose the little support he has left from the fractured sheeple masses and special interest groups.

With polling collapsing Biden’s influence on an almost daily basis, Chief of Staff Ron Klain deployed the puppy strategy. Not surprisingly that fell flatter than curling ice, and making matters worse, people realized to the Biden family dogs are politically disposable tools for optics only.  Add on the rebuke of the Build Back Better spending boondoggle and, well, there’s panic in the corps.

According to the White House, the U.S. economy is doing great, things are perfect and getting better.  The economy is doing so well, students can’t afford or find jobs to pay back their loans.  Wait a min.., wha… huh?

WHITE HOUSE – […] “today my Administration is extending the pause on federal student loan repayments for an additional 90 days — through May 1, 2022 — as we manage the ongoing pandemic and further strengthen our economic recovery. Meanwhile, the Department of Education will continue working with borrowers to ensure they have the support they need to transition smoothly back into repayment and advance economic stability for their own households and for our nation.” (read more)

Pay no attention to the conflicted messaging.  You are not allowed to ask the question: if the economy is so great, then why do former college students need even more time to start paying back their loans?   Remember, in order for moonbat Democats to continue advancing their insane ideology, they must pretend not to know things.

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Joe Biden makes no sense, and unfortunately Joe Biden doesn’t know he makes no sense.  Instead, the current installed occupant in the White House just shouts about talking points the champagne socialists bring up at their cocktail parties.

Overall inflation is crushing the middle class on a cross-sectional scale I have never before witnessed in my lifetime.  Every sector of the economy on Main Street is simultaneously under fire from unavoidable massive increases in prices on all types of goods.

Food, fuel, energy, gasoline, transportation, raw materials, every single sector is under massive inflationary pressure.  Biden believes that he can offset these massive costs to the average American worker by providing subsidies for some childcare, some education and some prescription costs.  He really believes this, yet everything about this subsidized cost approach is wrong.   Listen to the longer version of his explanation (3 minutes):

Despite the popularity of these leftist talking points, there’s no truth to them.

The government cannot subsidize its way to prosperity by redistributing the wealth of workers.  The government cannot stop inflation and simultaneously print money. The high cost of childcare is not keeping women out of the workforce.  Nothing is free from the federal government.  The federal government earns no income, it confiscates the income of workers.

The “17 Nobel Laureate” economists he proclaims support his Build Back Better deal to reduce costs for the middle class are the same “17 Nobel Laureate” economists who claimed, wrongly, inflation was “transitory” six months ago.  They have since retracted their prior claims, because it was all based on nonsensical Wall Street propaganda.

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Just when you think the merge of medical science and technology couldn’t get more dangerous, a Swedish company called Epicenter steps forward to take electronic tracking to new heights of alarm.

You might think the concept of rice-sized microchip implants, for COVID vaccination passports, would be met with a resounding nope.   Unfortunately, it seems there are many who are willing to embrace the idea.  The Daily Mail has an article about the process {link}, which includes the following:

(Daily Mail) – […] Epicenter, a Stockholm-based startup, unveiled a new way of carrying around a COVID vaccine passport – in a microchip implanted under your skin. The implant can be read by any device using the near-field communication (NFC) protocol – technology used for contactless payments and keyless entry systems.

In a video shared by Epicenter, Hannes Sjöblad, chief distribution officer, has the chip in his arm and simply waves a smartphone over it to pull up his vaccination status. (read more)

From the perspective of personal liberty and privacy, there is no part of this that could possibly have a good long-term outcome.   The vaccine passport concept alone is a massive intrusion into privacy and freedom.  An implant to facilitate or streamline the process?  Heck no!

As we previously noted, the architects of the Build Back Better society (WEF) are guiding various governments on ways to create efficient registration and compliance systems, ie. ways that permit citizens to prove their vaccinated and compliant status.  However, as these discussions are taking place, perhaps it is prudent to pause and think very carefully.

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Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), the powerful chair of an Appropriations subcommittee overseeing immigration issues, becomes the 23rd House Democrat to announce she will not seek reelection in 2022.  Roybal-Allard was first elected to the House in 1993 and was going to have a redistricting battle.  Additionally:

Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), a leader of the moderate Blue Dog Democrats, announced earlier Monday that she was retiring in 2022 to spend more time with her young children. Over the weekend, there were also reports Rep. Albio Sires (D-N.J.) plans to retire.

The southern border is a mess, and border state Latino Democrats are switching to the Republican Party. Inflation is skyrocketing and will likely continue getting worse through 2022 due to fiscal and monetary policy. Wage growth (3%) is nowhere near enough to keep up with food inflation (15%+).  Making things worse, gas prices have doubled in most areas and will continue to increase into 2022 due to Biden energy policy.

The Democrat regulatory environmental programs in coastal areas and ports are continuing to create massive supply chain issues.  Home heating costs this winter will be 60 to 70 percent higher due to Biden energy policy. The Joe Biden vaccination mandate is creating a workforce crisis and escalating backlash created by toxic federal overreach.

Several blue states (CA, NY, IL) are losing congressional seats due to population losses, while red states are gaining congressional districts due to population growth.  Insane spending by Democrats continues without pause or consideration for the inflation they are creating.  The great ideological cleaving between Democrat communists and middle-class Americans continues.

Polling indicates there is a major storm on the horizon for Democrats, as their ideological thirst for power is transparent {link} and being rejected. Every single policy the Biden administration touches creates a crap storm of anxiety for the ‘Main Street’ American worker.

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A series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) filings into the Dutch government has resulted in rather revealing letters showing the motive of the World Economic Forum, an assembly of multinational banks and corporations, summoning government leaders.

[SOURCE]

Notice how they are using the words “shaping policies for the post-COVID-19 era“?

The World Economic Forum, a collection of corporations, “shaping” government “policies.”

Why does this matter?  Well, fascism was traditionally defined as an authoritarian government working hand-in-glove with corporations to achieve objectives. A centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, using severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

That system of government didn’t work in the long-term, because the underlying principles of free people reject government authoritarianism.  Fascist governments collapsed, and the corporate beneficiaries were nulled and scorned for participating.  Then, along came a new approach to achieve the same objective.

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The apoplectic response to Joe Manchin’s rebuke of Biden’s Build Back Better deal in general, and specifically, their reaction to losing the climate change agenda within it, points toward the original intent of COVID-19 in the first place.

In this tweet, communist stenographer and narrative engineer Sam Stein (Politico/MSNBC) says the quiet part out loud:

Point One – The “Build Back Better” agenda was never about anything except radical climate change legislation.  Once you accept that, now admitted, baseline, things start to become much clearer.

Point Two – The “Build Back Better” phrase came from the World Economic Forum and was promoted by a multitude of international leaders and left-wing organizations.   That reality then brings up the most important point.  To get to “building back better”, you first need to destroy something.  That thing they needed to destroy was how the global economic dependency on carbon-based fuel supplies (oil, gas, coal, etc.).

Point Three – In order to destroy the ‘something of that scale’, the energy program for the entire world, something massive is needed to fundamentally change the entire world approach toward energy production.  Something is needed to create the crisis that provides the origin for the process to initiate.

Point Four – That triggering mechanism was/is SARS-CoV-2, or what we now call COVID-19 and all variants therein.

There you have it.  That’s the summary soup to nuts explanation of why a virus was created, and the subsequent panic pushing to create social structures that would facilitate the global acceptance of an entire new economic system that would be designed around saving the planet.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been a thorn in the side of the federal offices of COVID compliance for the entire year.  Florida has almost no restrictions on any activity and yet has no negative COVOD impacts.  There are 22 to 25 million people living in Florida.

Governor DeSantis’ approach has been to protect the most vulnerable, make treatments and therapeutics readily available, and keep all systems of society and the economy functioning as normal.  His approach has been very successful.

In this interview, Governor DeSantis contrasts his experiences leading a massive state through the pandemic, against what he sees as hysteria and nonsensical approaches by some blue states and the federal government. WATCH: 

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Immediately following the statements by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, earlier today, which effectively ends the Senate Build Back Better bill, the White House releases a lengthy statement [READ HERE] blasting Senator Manchin and releasing the leftist hounds from Hell upon him.

This reaction from the White House is exactly what the communist Democrats do whenever they are rebuked.  We should anticipate the extremely angry Biden administration will retaliate with even stronger economic punishment against all Americans this Tuesday.

WHITE HOUSE – “Senator Manchin’s comments this morning on FOX are at odds with his discussions this week with the President, with White House staff, and with his own public utterances. Weeks ago, Senator Manchin committed to the President, at his home in Wilmington, to support the Build Back Better framework that the President then subsequently announced. Senator Manchin pledged repeatedly to negotiate on finalizing that framework “in good faith.”

On Tuesday of this week, Senator Manchin came to the White House and submitted—to the President, in person, directly—a written outline for a Build Back Better bill that was the same size and scope as the President’s framework, and covered many of the same priorities. While that framework was missing key priorities, we believed it could lead to a compromise acceptable to all. Senator Manchin promised to continue conversations in the days ahead, and to work with us to reach that common ground. If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.

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