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.

(more…)

The number of Americans trapped in Afghanistan is actually unknown.  According to Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby,  somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000 are known, but the number could be 20,000.  Those U.S. citizens are not at the airport in Kabul, and need to reach the airport in order to be evacuated.

Several media reports outline that the Taliban have checkpoints around the airport presumably looking for people who were aligned with the former government.  Unfortunately, given the nature of media bias and previous propaganda, it is challenging to determine the level of risk or threat to any American.  There have been no reports of Americans killed or taken hostage.  Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby outlines the current priority is to secure the airport, that’s what the additional troops are intended to do. WATCH:

…”Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f**k things up“… ~ Barack Obama

There is no such thing as “idiot proof.”  As soon as you think you’ve developed an “idiot proof” system, you will discover Joe Biden.

(more…)

Many people have wondered how the Biden administration could get the collapse of Afghanistan so horribly wrong and botched completely the withdrawal of U.S. forces. To that point there is a little known Question and Answer session by Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn (CO, CD05) that deserves some attention.

Approximately 7 weeks ago, June 23rd, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley testified in front of the House Armed Services Committee about their budget requests. Rep Doug Lamborn took this opportunity, he only had 4 minutes, to ask some very specific questions about Afghanistan and his concerns for early reports of the Taliban surging back into control.

Lamborn asked about the hazard of closing Bagrham AFB given the tenuous nature of reliance on one airport in Kabul. Lamborn also asked about the evacuation of U.S-Afghan allies and the risk to women and girls if the Taliban were successful. What Def Sec Austin and General Milley said in response totally explains why the White House was blind-sided by the Taliban in the past week. [WATCH Video at 01:06:56, Prompted]

Given the nature of what has happened in Afghanistan, those totally wrong estimations of the situation in the region should be enough to see both Secretary Austin and General Milley fired.  At the very least reliance on this inept and totally wrong outlook explains why the Biden administration had no idea what was about to happen.

Congressman Doug Lamborn’s questioning was directly on point and in hindsight, stunningly prescient.   Great job by Lamborn!

Hopefully Austin was wrong when he said that any defense of women and girls in Afghanistan will be contingent upon the U.S. embassy in Kabul.  The U.S. embassy in Kabul is no longer there, the Taliban have it.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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.

.

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

(more…)

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]

(more…)

People keep sending me emails about a Wall St Journal article [SEE HERE] highlighting John Durham and a grand jury receiving evidence.  According to the article: “Special Counsel John Durham, appointed during the Trump administration to examine the origins of the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe, is presenting evidence to a grand jury and preparing a lengthy report expected to be completed in the coming months, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The article goes on to say Durham is looking into whether any informant or tipster to the FBI intentionally gave false information, ergo they have committed a crime:

…“Mr. Durham has been examining potential criminal charges against several lower-level Federal Bureau of Investigation employees, and people who aren’t in government, according to people familiar with the matter.” (link)

…”Prosecutors working for Mr. Durham have focused on people outside the FBI who provided information that helped fuel the 2016 investigation, the people familiar with the matter said.”

It gets a little frustrating reading these articles, yes I said plural – because the New York Times ran an almost identical article in April {See Here} –  because NOTHING is going to come of Durham except for the possibility of another obtuse report that will look almost identical to the report issued by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

How can we be so certain?… Because of Robert Mueller, that’s why.

(more…)

In July, Biden said Kabul would never fall.  Four days ago Biden said it would take more than 90 days for Taliban to reach Kabul, if at all.  Today, Biden sends 1,000 more additional troops to Kabul as it is expected to fall within 72 hrs.   That is correct.  By Monday the Taliban could control all of Afghanistan.

The AP is reporting that emergency evacuations have sped up the timeline to avoid the most embarrassing optics for the Biden administration.  An additional 1,000 troops from the 82nd Airborne are en-route to support the previously announced 3,000 U.S. troops handling the evacuation.  That is a total of 4,000 new military troops sent to Kabul to support the previous 1,000.  Keep in mind the original Afghan withdrawal was 2,500 troops in total.

(VIA AP) – The Latest developments on Afghanistan, where a weeklong Taliban offensive is now approaching the outskirts of the capital, Kabul, after the insurgents captured most of the north, west and south of the country, just weeks ahead of the final pullout of all U.S. and NATO troops:  “WASHINGTON — A defense official says President Joe Biden has authorized an additional 1,000 U.S. troops for deployment to Afghanistan.

That raises to roughly 5,000 the number of U.S. troops to ensure what Biden calls an “orderly and safe drawdown” of American and allied personnel. U.S. troops will also help evacuate Afghans who worked with the military during the nearly two-decade war.

The Pentagon said earlier that 3,000 troops are being sent to Kabul to join the nearly 1,000 already there. Biden’s statement on Saturday didn’t explain the breakdown of the 5,000 troops he said had been deployed.

(more…)

The United States Department of Homeland Security made a quiet and alarming announcement yesterday, creating the official position of the United States Government under the Joe Biden regime. [SEE DHS STATEMENT HERE]  According to the statement, if you question the orthodoxy, mandates, or COVID-19 response from the U.S. government, you are now considered a “terrorist”, specifically a “Domestic Violent Extremist” (DVE).

This is quite a remarkable development and seems to underpin the tenuous, unstable and fragile disposition of the current regime.  The Department of Homeland Security seems rather paranoid in their need to label anyone who would question the COVID-19 response.  More than half the country would now be defined as dissidents and domestic terrorists within their our homeland.  Think about that.

DHS – The Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a new National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin regarding the current heightened threat environment across the United States. […] These threats include those posed by domestic terrorists, individuals and groups engaged in grievance-based violence. […] Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions. (read more)

Notice the wording of that introduction.  The government imposed mandates, mask and vaccination requirements are only “perceived government restrictions.”  The chains that bind your expressions of liberty and freedom are merely figments of your imagination.  The rules and denials of activity that we are forced to live by, under the auspices of “public health and safety measures“, are only perceived demands.

The needle being forced into the arm of federal workers by the Federal Government is only the perception of a forced medical treatment, your perception of what they are doing is the problem.  You must correct your wrong-thoughts to eliminate the wrong perception.  Dear leader appreciates your compliance.

Comrade dissidents, that statement is full blown Stazi-level propaganda.  The bulletin continues:

(more…)