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December Retail Sales Drop -1.1%, November Sales Data Revised Lower to -1.0%

There is something predictable about Main Street economics, eventually what you see around you overwhelms the great pretending.  CTH has been outlining the state of the consumer economy in great detail for quite a while, and though it is difficult to note when the outcomes will surface, eventually they do surface. [Reminder Here]

CONTEXT. CTH outlined the moment when the purchasing power of the U.S. middle class actually began contracting.  It was March and April of 2021 when that Rubicon was crossed.  We saw it in the second and third quarter data from 2021, but few were willing to admit.

What changed in those two months back in ’21 was a dramatic drop in the “unit sales” of stuff within the consumer economy.  The drop in unit sales was hidden because it happened simultaneously with the first wave of massive spike in prices.  Prices rose so fast the sales data was giving an artificial impression of sales growth, but in the background the actual unit sales dropped.   Those analysts correcting and adjusting historic data to ‘inflation adjusted terms’ are now noticing.

Additionally, and not coincidentally – because the metrics are connected, you will note this line from the Wall Street Journal review of the producer price index. “The producer-price index, which generally reflects supply conditions in the economy, rose 6.2% in December from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Wednesday, the slowest annual pace since March 2021.”  In essence, the current rate of wholesale price increase on materials is now returning to the rate of price increase that happened in the period when prices spiked.  Again, this is predictable.

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Subsidy Wars – EU Promises to Match Joe Biden Green New Deal Subsidies with Even Bigger Govt Spending

The European Union is hopping mad that Joe Biden was able to pass the “Green New Deal” (aka Inflation Reduction Act) and generate hundreds of billions in government subsidies for climate friendly initiatives.   Essentially, this is an economic war over who can do socialism better.

Fearing the EU may lose their green position, the European Union is now promising to fight back by spending even more, bigger, sums of taxpayer funds to subsidize their green ‘climate change’ energy economy.

If Biden plans to transfer hundreds of billions to corporations as structural enhancements for permanent energy changes, the EU will meet or beat that subsidy scheme. So sayeth, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

(Via Reuters) – The European Union responded on Tuesday to U.S. moves to boost its energy transition with its own plans to make life easier for green industry, saying it would mobilize state aid and a sovereignty fund to keep firms from moving to the United States.

European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos that the moves would be part of the EU’s Green Deal industrial plan to make Europe a centre for clean technology and innovation.

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John Kerry Pontificates About the Extraordinary Ability of a “Select Group of Humans” at the World Economic Forum, Who Will Save The Planet for the Eaters and Serfs

During a sidebar conversation with those rare elites who wax philosophically about their magnanimous ability to protect the vulgarian eaters, former Secretary of State and current Climate Czar John Kerry, praises the audience for their unique traits and gifted high-mindedness that will protect all humanity.

While the lizard tongue darts, the grand pontifications are espoused.  The audience oohs and ahhs, at the nature of their entitled superiority. They are so good, so magnanimous, so altruistic in their disposition, according to Kerry they are literally “extraterrestrial,” which is to say out of this world.  WATCH:

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Go ahead and tell me how CTH was wrong 12 years ago….  Their worldview:

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Tucker Carlson Outlines How the National Security State is Superseding Elections by Controlling Politicians

During his opening monologue last night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson hit on an important aspect to the classified document saga. The professional bureaucracy within Washington DC is now the superseding agency controlling the outcomes of elections.

Unnamed and opaque officials within the DHS and FBI manipulated the 2020 election by controlling the public conversation. Then, after the election takes place, the similarly mined administrative state employees, then begin using their control systems to manipulate the policy outcomes of the politicians. In essence, the desires of the voters are irrelevant to the permanent bureaucratic state in Washington DC. WATCH:

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White House Says No Visitor Logs Available for Biden’s Classified Document Stash House

According to the White House, there are no visitor logs for the Biden stash house in Wilmington, Delaware where three sets of classified documents were discovered.

The Delaware residence is considered Biden’s private residence and no logs of visitors are maintained.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -No visitor logs exist for President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, where classified documents from his vice presidential days were found, as it is a private residence, the White House Counsel and Secret Service said on Monday.

“Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” the White House Counsel’s office said in a statement.

The Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting current and past presidents and their families, does not “independently maintain our own visitor logs because it’s a private residence,” agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee, James Comer, on Sunday demanded visitor logs for Democrat Biden’s house in Wilmington after classified documents were found in his office and garage there. (read more)

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Sunday Talks, Rod Rosenstein Rises to Defend Honor and Apolitical Integrity of DOJ Special Counsel Appointments

There’s no politics here.  Washington DC is comprised of magnanimous institutions filled with exceptionally moral people who commit their lives to a career of public service on behalf of this nation.  So sayeth Rod Rosenstein as he takes up a defensive position against the vulgarian horde who do not cherish their rulers with enough reverence, or something like that.

As the story is told, there are only honorable and altruistic officials within the institutions of the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation.  The examples of Robert Mueller, Christopher Wray, Merrick Garland and both special counsels Smith and Hur are presented as evidence to highlight the great fortune of an ungrateful nation.

If Washington DC is a bubble, the great pretending Bubble Boy is Rod Rosenstein.  WATCH (or, transcript Below):

[Transcript] – CHUCK TODD:  And joining me now is the former Deputy Attorney General under President Trump, Rod Rosenstein. The newly-appointed special counsel looking into Biden, Robert Hur, served as Rosenstein’s top aide in the Justice Department, overseeing the special counsel investigation into the Russian election interference. Mr. Rosenstein, welcome to Meet the Press.

ROD ROSENSTEIN:  Thank you. Glad to be here, Chuck.

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Sunday Talks, Former DNI John Ratcliffe Gives Perspective on Biden Classified Document Issue

Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe appeared on Fox News to discuss his perspective on the classified document scandal now making headlines.

Within his remarks, Ratcliffe gives perspective to the issue of classified documents and then contrasts the issue against the previous DOJ position against former President Donald Trump.  However, in the bigger picture the perspective is somewhat askew.

As we have noted from the outset of the Biden term, the installation always appeared to be a ‘one-term’ strategy. Meaning the people behind the installation were using Biden as a single term disposable front man to advance a rapid set of ideological policies.  The controversy of the classified documents facilitates the one term design.

With that approach in mind, the issue of contrast between the Biden documents and the Trump documents is a moot point.  What is done, or not done, regarding Joe Biden has no bearing on the roadmap of continued Trump targeting.  Biden is and was always disposable.  WATCH:

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Remove the pretending and what you discover is a replay of DC political manipulation and the continuation of the two-party system around the illusion of choice.  The DNC wing is heading toward Gavin Newsom ’24, while the RNC wing is headed toward Ron DeSantis ’24.   Essentially a replay of 2016’s Hillary vs Jeb.

The UniParty vulture is predictable.   The RNC wing cares about money. The DNC wing cares about ideological power.

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Well, Lookie There, Another Batch of Biden Classified Documents Found and Announced Today

Back in the Wilmington, Delaware, stash house where Hunter Biden used to bring his hookers and dope dealing friends; what is also described as the home of Joe Biden, where the alarm system was so dysfunctional the Secret Service apparently turned it off; according to the Biden lawyers today, they have found a fourth set of classified documents.

This brings the total in the Delaware stash house to three sets.  One batch in the garage, next to the corvette; another set in an adjacent room; and apparently in yet a third location in the same home where needles, bongs and useful heroine tools were customary tableware, they have found more.

Go figure.

Wall Street Journal – Additional pages marked as classified were found at President Biden’s Wilmington, Del., residence and have been given to the Justice Department, the White House counsel said Saturday, the latest revelation over the handling of classified information that has emerged this week.

The documents were discovered after Mr. Biden’s attorneys said earlier that some classified material, likely dating from his time as vice president, had been found in his garage at the residence in December.

One document marked as classified also was found at his residence earlier this week, the White House had said. In addition, documents marked as classified were found at his office at a Washington think tank in November.

In a statement Saturday, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said he accompanied Justice Department officials to Wilmington on Thursday to retrieve the initial document from the residence—and during that process “five additional pages with classification markings” were found among the material, bringing the total to six pages discovered this week.

All material was immediately taken into possession by the Justice Department, Mr. Sauber said. The Justice Department declined to comment Saturday. (read more)

It sure seems odd that the FBI were tasked with investigating everything back on November 9, 2022, according to AG Merrick Garland; yet here we are two months later, and it is not the FBI finding these documents, it’s Biden’s legal housekeeping crew.  Odd that.

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The COVID-19 Debate and Conversation We Were Denied

This article is intended toward a specific set of interests.

♦First, the larger media apparatus needs to comprehend the scale of the current situation.

Second, the medical establishment need to come to grips with the situation they pretend doesn’t exist.

Lastly, to the alternative media forums writ large, with my challenge to you to open up every format you control, ask simple questions and then just shut up and listen to readers and viewers.

I can well imagine a Rush Limbaugh show (the man had instincts) that would last for a week where he just lets listeners explain why they did not take the COVID-19 vaccine.  Tens of millions of unregulated and unthrottled voices tuned-in to listen and nod their affirming heads.  God, we miss Rush.

What is overwhelmingly clear right now [SEE BACKGROUND] is the need to have an honest national conversation about the entire dynamic that surrounded the COVID-19 vaccination push. Indeed, if anyone in the media, government or medical system are wondering why only one-in-five people are taking the current COVID-19 booster shots, then just READ HERE.

One aspect, now brutally obvious and anger inducing, is connected to the Twitter File revelations about how various government interests and the medical establishment were intentionally censoring anyone who questioned the early vaccine narrative.

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Tucker Carlson Asks Why are Biden People Telling the DOJ About Biden Classified Documents?

Fox News host Tucker Carlson asks the obvious question, why are Joe Biden people telling the DOJ about Biden having classified documents?  Under normal corrupt and easy to handle circumstances the documents would be destroyed, hidden and never revealed; yet here they are being exposed by people in the Biden orbit.

In corrupt DC circles, the Biden revelations show there is some entity and motive behind the discoveries.  Tucker Carlson ponders what that agenda is all about. WATCH:

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