A key metric in the data released by Wal Mart is not their upfront sales and profit. The recessionary KPI (key performance indicator) is a significant increase in same store sales of 6% (excluding fuel), yet the outcome of that increase in customers is a decrease in profit because the purchases are food.

[Keep an eye on this and we will likely see a similar increase in foot traffic at Aldis]

(VIA NBC) […] Walmart, which is the biggest grocer in the U.S. and often considered a bellwether for the overall economy, said more customers are turning to its stores, which are known for low prices, to fill their pantries and fridges. But they are skipping over general merchandise that they can live without.

Walmart said it now expects same-store sales in the U.S. to rise by about 6% in the second quarter, excluding fuel, as customers buy more food at its stores. That’s higher than the 4% to 5% increase that the company previously expected.  However, that merchandise mix will weigh on the company. Groceries have lower profit margins than discretionary items, such as TVs and clothing.

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The non-democratic, socialist and totalitarian Ukraine government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has created a blacklist of western voices that are considered “Russian propagandists” for their criticism of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. [Details Here]

The overwhelming commonality of the people on the list is their advocacy for citizens of nations who are providing support for Ukraine to have a democratic voice on the issue. The Zelenskyy government has stated it will not permit any criticism of their country and demands that all western nations continue to send billions of dollars to provide an appropriate lifestyle for all Ukrainian government officials.

Currently the burden of financing the continuation of the Ukraine government has fallen upon U.S. taxpayers who have provided approximately $60 billion so far for the pay and pension benefits of Ukraine officials and their families. President Zelenskyy says we have a moral obligation to continue this funding, and any voice who would question the process is now blacklisted within Ukraine and labeled a Russian propagandist.

Tucker Carlson discussed the issue with two of the people targeted by Zelenskyy, former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and journalist Glenn Greenwald. WATCH:

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Senator Elizabeth “Fauxcahontus” Warren writes an op ed today [SEE HERE] that is fraught with a level of ideological pretending almost off the charts.

Essentially Liawatha is big mad because Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is raising interest rates into a contracting economy.

The duplicitous senator accurately notes what the fed chairman is doing is only going to deepen the recession and hurt main street worse.

American workers are going to suffer, and the middle-class is going to bear the majority of the pain inflicted by the Biden administration policy.

All of that is true, but Fauxcahontus is not stupid.  Instead, she attempts to distance herself with forked tongue while knowing the monetary policy is specifically designed to support the energy policy she demands.

A recession lowers energy use, and as a result lowers energy costs. Pushing the U.S. economy deeper into a recession in order to support the Green New Deal “economic transition” is exactly the intent of the rate hikes.  Liawatha knows this but does not want to be stuck on the USS Biden when it sinks.

“Rising costs are an urgent problem, and interest rates play a key role in maintaining price stability. But urgency is no excuse for doubling down on a dangerous treatment. As with any illness, the right medicine starts with the right diagnosis. Unfortunately, the Fed has seized on aggressive rate hikes—a big dose of the only medicine at its disposal—even though they are largely ineffective against many of the underlying causes of this inflationary spike.” (read more)

Senator Elizabeth Warren is the worst kind of liar.  She is a liar that convinces her followers of her virtue through forked tongue.  Turn over the Senator Elizabeth Warren UniParty medallion and on the opposite side you will find the image of Senator Ted Cruz.

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No credit to the CNN team for calling out the obvious; I mean, this is the same panel who redefined “insurrection” to fit their needs; however, the Biden administration’s efforts to redefine economics are so pathetic even the narrative engineers at CNN cannot support them.  WATCH:

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As oft repeated, in order for severe ideologues to retain their insufferably bad policy they must pretend not to know things.  However, in the case of food shortages, the pretending about the origin of the problem has severe consequences.

Vladimir Putin’s military action against eastern Ukraine had nothing to do with the severe food shortages and inflation in Sri Lanka {link}.  Nor does Putin have any influence over the Dutch government trying to stop food production {link}.  Additionally, Putin has no control over Justin Trudeau’s decision to limit harvest yields by blocking the use of nitrogen-based fertilizer {link}. More importantly, it was not Vladimir Putin who forced all the western politicians to sign up for a new ‘climate friendly’ energy program that is destroying the ability of western farms to generate higher yield crops.

You do not need to be a farmer to understand that nitrogen/phosphorus-based industrial fertilizer has been the reason why farm yields have generated massive amounts of food on a global basis.  The United States, Canada, the U.K. and places like the Netherlands have massively increased their ability to generate food for export, in large part due to the success of improved fertilizer and crop saving modern pesticides.  Take those farming advancements away under the guise of climate change and you get a global Sri Lanka.

Those western climate and energy policies create downstream consequences.  The decision to chase a new global energy policy under the name “Build Back Better,” in combination with short-sighted EU sanctions against Russia, and you get food shortages. And boy howdy are they trying to avoid taking responsibility for it.

It was not Vladimir Putin who told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz their proactive recommendation to switch from crop-based biofuels to human food would be blocked.  That G7 decision was made by Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden. {link} Even more significantly, it was not Russia who threatened the multinational energy companies about investing in Africa for expanded natural gas supplies for their fertilizer needs. That threat came from the same western government alliance, per their instructions from the World Economic Forum group {link}.

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The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is scheduled to deliver their calculation for the second quarter (Apr, May, June) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on July 28, next week.   The calculation is essentially the total value of all goods and services generated within the U.S. economy, minus the value of exports received.

CTH has predicted the people within the BEA research group [SEE HERE], ie those who make the determinations of GDP, will circle the statistical wagons and generate something akin to a positive 0.5% GDP figure for Q2.

The reason is simple… As with all other highly political institutions in U.S. government, the BEA is driven by political ideology.

With the Biden administration’s Green New Deal energy policy driving the U.S. economy into the ground; and with the BEA statisticians worshipping at the same governmental altar as all other climate change ideologues; they will do everything in their power to defend what the people behind Joe Biden are doing.

[For the greater good and all things that are associated with that line of elitist thinking.]

The BEA data team will first play with the statistics by underestimating the rate of inflation in their value calculations.  If that effort doesn’t yield the desired result, the BEA will likely move to avoid calculating import data from the West coast (Port of LA, Port of Long Beach, and/or Port of Oakland) for the month of June.  The current labor union and trucker issues within the ports will help create the noise to justify any interim data that is false.  [Whoops, we’ll catch it in the updates, etc]

That’s just how this BEA crew rolls.  If they can save the planet by fudging the statistics, well, they will have done their part.  This approach, the expression of ‘their truth‘, is just an outcome of this great new era of pretending in our modern ideological banana republic. Hey, Wall Street is built upon a foundation of lies, insider trades on proprietary information and manipulation of values, so why shouldn’t everything else – including govt economic data?  Fair’s fair, right?

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Neil Oliver uses his weekly monologue to challenge the originating precept of the Great Reset, Build Back Better or New World Order, agenda. Get beyond the talking points and every policy from within the World Economic Forum instructions boils down to the quackery behind anti-humanism.

“The so-called Green Agenda is predicated on the rape of the earth for rare minerals, lithium and cobalt and more,” he points out. “Also, metals like copper, silver and gold. The extraction of those commodities means wholesale destruction of environments,” he adds. “Before a single turbine is raised or solar panel set in place, the sites are cleared and sterilized of all life. The turbines held up by massive plunks of concrete and while in action they kill millions of birds. When they come to the end of their working lives there’s nothing to be done with the colossal blades but to bury them in vast landfill sites.”  As Oliver notes all of this is being done under the hypocrisy of calling it “green”. WATCH:

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Let me say from the outset, with a degree of specific assurance we generally reserve for other matters, Russia had nothing to do with the targeting of a grain facility in the port city of Odesa.  Geopolitically and strategically, such an action would be against their interests.  These events have the smell of the U.S. State Dept and CIA all over them.

Start by first reviewing the agreement between Russia and Ukraine that was announced yesterday. July 22 (Reuters) – Russia and Ukraine signed a landmark deal on Friday to reopen Ukrainian Black Sea ports for grain exports, raising hopes that an international food crisis … can be eased.”   NATO country Turkey, specifically Recep Erdogan, brokered the deal between Russia and Ukraine.  Ignore the narrative engineering and WATCH:

Russia was particularly a geopolitical beneficiary from the agreement itself.  No longer could NATO and the western alliance blame Russia for the void in gobal food markets associated with the conflict in Ukraine.

From the perspective of Russian President Putin, the grain movement through the port city of Odesa was a net benefit.  “Russia has taken on the obligations that are clearly spelled out in this document. We will not take advantage of the fact that the ports will be cleared and opened. We have made this commitment,” said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

However, from the perspective of the Western alliance, the agreement mooted one of their biggest justifications for the upcoming global food shortage.   If Ukraine and Russia are exporting food, and yet food costs are still rising…. well, the food shortage impact from western energy disruption, the Build Back Better agenda, starts to become increasingly visible.

Suddenly, within hours of the trade agreement, the grain transportation system and the port city of Odesa come under fire from mysterious cruise missiles.

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Former President Trump campaign and White House senior advisor, Steve Bannon, has been found guilty on two political charges of contempt of congress by a DC jury, for failing to appear for a deposition with the J6 committee, and failure to provide documents to the J6 committee. [Media Report]

It is worth noting that no one, until now, is ever charged by the U.S. Justice Dept in a “contempt of congress” issue, including former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder who was similarly found in contempt of congress.  The current DOJ and FBI are fully compromised political tools of a corrupt DC system of justice.

Steve Bannon and his legal team made a statement outside the court after the jury decision.  WATCH: 

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A dual justice system is the outcome of a banana republic form of government.  The Obama and Biden administrations have thoroughly corrupted the justice system.  The FBI and DOJ are institutionally corrupt.   Their Lawfare approaches can only function with the assistance of politically corrupt DC courts.

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From the CTH perspective, if we accept the scale of the approaching U.S. economic pain that is clearly visible on the horizon, this narrative shift from the Associated Press and NPR, about a balancing act for U.S. policy and a corrupt Ukraine government, seems very predictable.

The average U.S. worker, and the middle class in general, is in trouble.  The visible reference of bailing out the people of Ukraine to the tune of $60+ billion is legislative salt in an open economic wound caused by Biden policy.  A shift is needed.

Pivoting away from Ukraine to focus on financial subsidies for Americans requires using a particular arm-distancing toward Zelenskyy from the politicians.   Look, corruption.

Here we go:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dismissal of senior officials is casting an inconvenient light on an issue that the Biden administration has largely ignored since the outbreak of war with Russia: Ukraine’s history of rampant corruption and shaky governance.

As it presses ahead with providing tens of billions of dollars in military, economic and direct financial support aid to Ukraine and encourages its allies to do the same, the Biden administration is now once again grappling with longstanding worries about Ukraine’s suitability as a recipient of massive infusions of American aid.

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