Move along, move along folks… please do not pay attention to the fire raging downtown, the suburbs are so nice this time of year… move along folks, look shiny Ukraine thing over there…

When retail sales are calculated, they are calculated in dollars.  Any recorded increase in retail sales that does not exceed the price increases in those items is factually reflecting a drop in units sold.

Ex. – if you sell 300 items at $1.00 each, you have $300 in sales.  If you sell 250 items at $1.25 each, you have $312.50 in sales.  Technically, you have a 4.1% increase in sales.  However, you have sold 17% less items (50 units).

When you are selling less stuff, your business (economy) is contracting, not expanding.  We have been in this contracting cycle (an actual production recession) since May/June of last year; however, the contraction has not been recognized because massive inflation is hiding it.  That, my friends, is the painful truth and it spells big trouble ahead.

(AP) […] Retail sales increased 0.3% after registering a revised 4.9% jump from December to January, fueled by wage gains, solid hiring and more money in banking accounts, according to the Commerce Department. January’s increase was the biggest jump in spending since last March, when American households received a final federal stimulus check of $1,400.

Business at furniture and home furnishing stores fell 1% in February, while sales at consumer electronics and appliance stores slipped 0.6%. General merchandise stores saw business down 0.2%, while online sales fell 3.7%. Restaurant sales rose 2.5% as shoppers shift more of their spending to services as the threat of COVID-19 fades. (read more)

Take the figures above and compare them to the sector inflation in February (Table-2, BLS Report)  – Just sticking to what is above:

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There is so much that needs to be said about this.  It is almost impossible to put into an appropriate context, knowing that history will look upon this moment as the inflection point of no return.

Here is what took place in Washington DC, earlier today, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of congress. WATCH:

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As the international media fawn over their latest social media star, the “Churchill in a T-shirt”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the former darling of EU media, French President Emmanuel Macron is apparently feeling slighted.

Western PR teams have been working diligently to maintain the “better story,” as they advance the beatification of pop star Zelenskyy.  The producers and directors for Volodymyr’s scruff and edgy leadership have kept his fans updated on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, as Ride of The Valkyries echos as a background theme while team-Z dodge cruise missiles on their way to the local Starbucks.

However, all of this unilaterally focused adoration does not sit well with King Macron of Paris.  In an effort to combat the rugged warlike appeal of St. Zelenskyy of Kyiv, the thirsty French president called for immediate poses of him in a series of similarly scruffy press shots:

Thanks to social media adoration, Zelenskyy, the modern EU trendsetter, is making beatnik great again. There are already rumors of a run on vintage jeans, sneakers and T-shirts within Brussels, as several NATO leaders dispatch their aides looking for the hot, new and modern authentic war look.

A daily series of live-streamed war summits are likely in the works as NATO leadership start catching up to the pop-optics by organizing burning barrels of diesel fuel in the background of their zoom calls.  With resources allocated, thirsty Macron is going to climb back on top.

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Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, made it clear today that she has Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategery all figured out.

According to her press conference remarks, Speaker Pelosi says the Russian president is trying to bait her into attacking his forces in Ukraine so that he can start World War III against her.  Although, Pelosi did say she’s not a well experienced military strategist, but she knows his trickery and stuff.  WATCH:

Speaker Pelosi has delusions of grandeur.

… or syphilis.

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It is pathetic and laughable, and it would be more pathetic and laughable if the ancillary issues represented by the idiocy were not so serious.

Former FBI lead Counterintelligence Agent Peter Strzok, the person who investigated the vast Trump-Russia conspiracy theory for two years and spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer funds in the process, has found another Russian conspiracy theory to promote.

Stand back and look at this from an intellectual and reasonable standard for a moment and just accept the insanity of it all.  Peter Strzok is claiming that Fox News Host Tucker Carlson and former Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard are actual Russian operatives working for the Kremlin.

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Mr. Strzok has appeared on MSNBC and various other platforms to make his claim that Carlson and Gabbard are actually controlled operatives of the Russian government.  Ordinarily this would be silly, and we would laugh at him for these ridiculous political games.  But there’s something else…

What does Strzok’s outlook tell us about the current state of competency within the FBI?  This is the same guy who accused CIA asset Carter Page of being an agent of a foreign power in a fraudulent FISA application, that eventually was granted by the court to permit Title-1 surveillance on Mr. Page by Agent Strzok and his colleagues.

This is the type of person working at the top of the FBI counterintelligence operation?  It is pathetic, but unfortunately, not funny.

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This is the state of our union….

In order for the two-winged UniParty vulture to continue devouring the host they must always do two things:

(1) Present the illusion of choice; and
(2) Pretend not to know things.

The frustration you feel is a feature of the controlled program, it is not a flaw.  We The People are in an abusive relationship with our own government. The only real divide in our nation is the division between two classes: rulers (with wealth) and the ruled (without).  All other divisions are purposefully created by those who operate the system.

Inflation serves their interests.  Inflation cheapens the debt burden they create, which allows them to keep spending and transferring taxpayer wealth to themselves and the club insiders.  We The People are in an abusive and subservient relationship with our own government.

Ukraine is a shiny thing that keeps us from watching them.   Do not be distracted.

Comrades, Tucker Carlson’s opening monologue outlined the insanity of our current situation tonight.

Washington DC and the media echo chamber all agree that Ukraine is the most important shiny thing everyone should pay attention to…  and if you don’t, you’re a Russian agent – because freedom.

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In September of 2019, Elizabeth Warren promised to do something on her first day in office that would rebuild the Russian economy, grow China’s influence and support the Maduro regime in Venezuela.  We immediately wrote about it HERE.

SEPT 7, 2019 – Democrat presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has made a campaign promise that was quite remarkable:

What Senator Elizabeth Warren promised in that tweet is EXACTLY what Joe Biden did on his first day in office.   Now, before going further, let me explain something about that relationship that will likely make a lot more sense.

You might remember when all the democrat candidates in the 2020 primary were told to drop out right before Super Tuesday, as part of the organized effort to stop Bernie Sanders from becoming the nominee.  The lone holdout was Senator Elizabeth Warren.  She was polling essentially even with Joe Biden while Bernie was leading.

It was very well documented at the time that Senator Warren was negotiating terms with the Biden team for her compliance and support.  Eventually, as the controlled party momentum grew, Warren agreed to drop out of the race, and she endorsed Joe Biden.  The terms of that agreement were never made public, but when we look at the priority of Warren (tweet), and compare it to the literal duplication of that pledge that was carried out by Joe Biden, well, the coincidence doesn’t look coincidental.   I digress…

Back to the original statement by Warren.  At the time she made this statement in 2019, we outlined a very specific series of consequences that would happen if she really did target fossil fuel on day one.  Now that Joe Biden has carried out exactly what Warren outlined, let’s go back to that 2019 outline of consequences and compare it to where we are today.

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As with all things Ukraine, when the initial reports of the Russian cruise missile attack against the military training facility located near the border with Poland, we said to be cautious about western reporting of no NATO military personnel present, killed or injured.

The reason is for the warning was simple – if NATO is providing weapons and training, they’ve got to be doing the distribution and training somewhere in Ukraine near the NATO border.  Conduct war operations in a war zone, and you run the risk of war outcomes.

Now the Daily Mail is beginning to report on ‘missing, feared dead’ former British special forces operators likely killed in the blast.  As the story evolves, how long will it be before U.S. headlines carry similar missing U.S. “contractor” stories?

Most of the U.S. and NATO warfighting is carried out by independent contractors or mercenary groups now.  Ukraine is the perfect battlespace for that unofficial type of war fighter engagement.

(Daily Mail) – Three British former special forces soldiers are feared to have been killed in a Russian airstrike near the Polish border. More than 30 Russian cruise missiles targeted the Yavoriv base yesterday, killing as many as 180 people.

Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for Russia’s ministry of defence, said the base was struck by ‘long-range, high-precision’ weapons because it was hosting ‘foreign mercenaries and a large shipment of foreign weapons’.

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Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have announced a private congressional teleconference between the exclusive confab of DC elites and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that will take place on Wednesday.   Congress has allocated $13.6 billion in “Ukraine-related” aid, with “10% for the big guy.”

The subject matter of the virtual meeting will likely surround the allocation of taxpayer indulgency fees to support Ukraine and the Non-Governmental Organizations run by the families of DC conference participants.  The meeting provides Zelenskyy the first opportunity to thank congress for deposits into his offshore holdings and celebrate his magnanimous money laundering operation.

Meanwhile, taxpayers who fund the congressional spending will be kept away from the private meeting by armed guards, fences and barbed wire constructed around the House of Representatives.  There is apparently and ongoing concern that the people who fund government might actually get too close to the government they are required to fund.

Yes, this is the ongoing state of our union, and our voices are irrelevant to their conduct.

WASHINGTON DC – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will speak virtually to members of Congress on Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced in a joint letter.

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