Always keep in mind that retails sales from the Dept of Commerce [DATA HERE pdf] are always calculated in dollars.  Inflation can artificially skewer retail sales if prices increase, and yet consumer purchases decline at a rate lower than the increase in price.  Fewer units sold at higher prices can give the false impression of increased sales.

During an inflationary environment, when prices increase yet retail sales drop, there are substantially fewer units being purchased.  Overall purchases at stores, restaurants and online declined a seasonally adjusted 1% in March from the prior month.

During the time measured gasoline was less expensive, so that led the drop in fuel sales; however, drops in dept stores (-2.5%), General Merchandise (-3.0%), electronics (-2.1%), and building supplies (-2.1%), shows another broad-based pullback of Main Street consumer spending. (pdf here)

These outcomes are in general alignment with what many people have shared via regional ground reports.  Grocery store sales are flat despite major increases in grocery store prices (+10 to +20%).  People are buying fewer grocery store units and making their food budget stretch as far as possible.

Durable goods are not considered essential, and sales of cars, electronics and department store products are much lower.

I am actually a little (pleasantly) surprised to see restaurant sales holding (+0.1%), despite the massive increase in fresh food costs.   I thought people would eat out less, but the total decline in restaurant foot traffic seems to be in the single digits.  I guess people can afford it more than I anticipated.

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In an era of universal deceit, it should not be a surprise for the suspicious cats to be more accurate.

Semi-related context for scope of fraud:  We know with demonstrable certainty that Hillary Clinton, the DNC, Fusion GPS, Chris Steele, DOJ, FBI and SSCI collaborated to create the fictitious premise called broadly “Trump-Russia collusion and interference in the 2016 election.”  The entire thing was bogus soup-to-nuts, all of it… make believe; none of it real.  So, how the hell did Mueller, Rosenstein and Weissmann indict Russians?

Now… Fast forward to the current classified intelligence leaks with the scale, scope and background of everything above in mind.  WATCH:

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In the next segment Douglas Macgregor gives his view, and makes some really good emphatic points about the facts within the intelligence leaks proving the United States government, OUR GOVERNMENT, is completely lying about Ukraine and other matters.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the JoeBama Administration and Presidency.

“This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can’t be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won’t be done. The Founders’ Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.”

“But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.”

~ Mike Vanderboegh

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

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There are times when CTH and the perspective of Glenn Greenwald do not align. This is not one of those times. {Direct Rumble Link Here}

In this segment with Tucker Carlson, Glenn Greenwald nails the agenda, motives and outcomes of the U.S. media as they relate to the recent classified intelligence leaks. This is a solid three-minute encapsulation of the problem. WATCH:

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During his opening monologue tonight, Tucker Carlson outlined the latest developments on the U.S. classified information leaks and the media effort to avoid talking about the government lies within them.

It really is quite a remarkable development to witness in real time.  Corporate media, a completely collapsed fourth-estate, playing the distracting role on behalf of the intelligence apparatus they are supposed to keep in check.  WATCH:

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Never letting a crisis go to waste is very useful tool, especially when the government creates the crisis.  As CTH has said from the first discussion of the classified intelligence leaks, the “leak is the op.”

The intel leak is the operation created by the Intelligence Community to support new expanded powers for the Fourth Branch of Government.  It should not be a surprise to discover the institution now leading the charge to give more power for U.S. intel agencies, is…. wait for it….. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The SSCI is the organizational institution that supports the Fourth Branch of Government, the intelligence branch.  The SSCI previously created a bipartisan Restrict Act, to deal with dangerous information on the internet.

According to SSCI Chairman Mark Warner, ‘The Restrict Act’ will give more power and authorities to the Executive Branch to deal with internet danger.  Now the SSCI sees the classified intel leaks as evidence for the importance of the Restrict Act.

Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit, surprise-surprise!  Funny how that happens.

(Via NBC) – The Biden administration is looking at expanding how it monitors social media sites and chatrooms after U.S. intelligence agencies failed to spot classified Pentagon documents circulating online for weeks, according to a senior administration official and a congressional official briefed on the matter. 

The possible change in the intelligence-gathering process is just one potential shift as officials scramble to determine not only how the documents leaked but also how to prevent another damaging incident.

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Several people have asked about a motive for the DNC to sever ties with long-time lead lawfare litigant Marc Elias.   [Story Here]

Remember, Elias proactively departed from Perkins Coie to carry out independent contractor operations and draw distance during his defense from indictment by John Durham.  Elias left Perkins Coie because the Elias’s relationship with the FBI was enmeshed within the Durham probe.  Perkins Coie needed to retain the FBI relationship, while it was in their best interest for the FBI silo to distance from the Elias litigation.

Marc Elias then went on to continue being lead lawfare for the Clinton elements of the DNC, while former AG Eric Holder is lead lawfare for the Obama elements of the DNC.  This internecine relationship inside the DNC club is important to remember.  There are two factions in the DNC, the Clinton aligned subset, less power, and the Obama aligned subset, more power.

Outside the club the downstream community organizations are similarly aligned.  We have the African Methodist Episcopal church (AME) and the similarly motivated Black Lives Matter network.  Then there’s the organized labor network consisting of the SEIU, AFSCME, AFL-CIO and UFCW.   Both networks provide foot soldiers and opportunity leadership for the DNC objectives.  There is always crossover, but Team Clinton and Team Obama are separate groups.

Barack Obama organized the merger between AME/BLM (James Clyburn) with Big Labor communists for 2020. That was the baseline for Obama/Clyburn picking Joe Biden to maintain Obama’s 3rd term interests and instruct all the other candidates to fall in line until they could get rid of Bernie Sanders.

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Sometimes the obvious answers are in the reality of the part that few pay attention to.

According to the original outline, as presented by the Washington Post last night [Original Story Here], the full surveillance and intelligence power of the United States government was unable to locate the source of the largest leak of U.S. classified intelligence in a decade, but some journalists found a teenager in his mom’s basement with all the answers.   This is the story, and they are sticking to it.

I’ve been in enough rabbit holes created by the silos of the intelligence community to know when not to enter one.   First things first, what silo uses the Washington Post?

We all should know by now the same three-letter operators in charge of the Amazon Cloud Service, are the same three-letter operators who use the PR firm known as the Washington Post.

Why the intelligence people from inside the CIA/NSA silo wanted to exploit the teenage gamer with a connection to an intelligence leaker, as the preferred narrative is unknown.  However, the DHS details provided in the intelligence community follow-up through the New York Times does provide some clues.

New York Times – The leader of a small online gaming chat group where a trove of classified U.S. intelligence documents leaked over the last few months is a 21-year-old member of the intelligence wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The national guardsman, whose name is Jack Teixeira, oversaw a private online group named Thug Shaker Central, where about 20 to 30 people, mostly young men and teenagers, came together over a shared love of guns, racist online memes and video games.

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Prior to the 2012 election and the rise of the Sandra Fluke free birth control narrative, we used to call them social issues; however, the usefulness of cultural wars has morphed into the larger war of wokeism.

In the big picture, keeping the base GOPe voter distracted from the economic expansion of multinational globalism, the corporate ‘masters of the universe’ (ie. the Big Club), need to keep pushing anti-wokeism as a political strategy.

The cultural issues are useful tools to keep control of an alignment of voters.  It has always been thus, and even more important now that people are starting to realize the expansion of the rust belt.

The rust belt, the diminishment of the U.S. economic manufacturing base, was an outcome of corporate control over politics.  Corporations and banks seek profit, those profits are inflated by a U.S. service driven economic model.  Skilled jobs require higher wages.

If the skilled jobs can be outsourced to lower cost labor nations, the subsequent lowered labor costs drive bigger margins.  Again, it has always been thus.

At the core of the U.S. political issue, you discover that both wings of the DC UniParty agree with this basic economic model.  Republicans and Democrats now use the catchphrase ‘service driven economy‘ with bipartisan frequency.

Many voters no longer have any reference to an economic system that is anything except a ‘service driven economy’, yet nothing about that system provides long-term value for U.S. voters or workers.

Within this very specific dynamic, you find the root of the support for Donald J. Trump.  A larger, formerly considered silent majority who comprise the baseline middle class workforce, find common understanding with President Trump because he sees the flaws in the economic model.

Not coincidentally, it is only Donald Trump who has ever discussed these economic issues. Factually, no national politician in the modern era prior to Donald Trump ever dared broach the subject of economic nationalism, economic globalism and the negative consequences therein.  Republican candidates who would disagree on economic policy would find themselves in the target field of the corporations who fund the political system.

A general platform more akin to a code of omerta covered the entire subject of republican economic policy.

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