Whooo-doggies, middle-class Americans spent more this holiday shopping season than any year before it.  Despite losing a week due to the late Thanksgiving holiday, total Christmas sales growth was +3.4 percent year-over-year.

(Reuters) […] The holiday shopping season is a crucial period for retailers and can account for up to 40% of annual sales. But this year, Thanksgiving, which traditionally starts the U.S. holiday shopping period, was on Nov. 28, nearly a week later than last year’s Nov. 22, leaving retailers with six fewer days to drive sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
E-commerce sales this year made up 14.6% of total retail and rose 18.8% from the 2018 period, according to Mastercard’s data tracking retail sales from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve. Overall holiday retail sales, excluding autos, rose 3.4%.
“E-commerce sales hit a record high this year with more people doing their holiday shopping online,” said Steve Sadove, senior adviser for Mastercard.

Now watch the Reuters spin…
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To understand why there’s no-one in the administrative mid-tier of the FBI acting in a whistle-blowing capacity requires a background perspective looking at the totality of corruption.  The institutions are protecting themselves; and yes, that protection applies to the internal dynamics.
Former DAG Rod Rosenstein was dirty.  He might not have started out dirty, but his actions in office created a dirty mess.  Rosenstein facilitated the McCabe operation against Trump during the May 16th, 2017, White House FBI sting against Trump with Mueller.  Rosenstein also facilitated the special counsel (writ large), and provided three scope memos to expand the corrupt investigation of President Trump.  According to the inaction of AG Bill Barr, we’re not allowed to see those authorizing scope memos.

Additionally, despite knowing the Trump investigation held a false predicate, Rosenstein signed the 3rd renewal of a fraudulent FISA application.  Worse yet, even if Rosenstein was caught up by corruption around him, he did nothing to stop the fraud once identified.
Why is Rosenstein a key inflection point?  Because Rod Rosenstein recommended current FBI Director Christopher Wray to President Trump.  POTUS then allowed Wray, as he does all department heads, to select his deputy – Wray chose David Bowditch.
♦Keep in mind the National Security Division of the DOJ (DOJ-NSD) was/is the epicenter of many corrupt activities, including filing the fraudulent FISA application, manipulating interpretations of law for FARA (§901) violations, and doing all of this while denying any inspector general oversight. As FISA Judge Rosemary Collyer recently noted, the DOJ-NSD is positioned as a rogue legal arm of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.
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Following a Christmas eve call to U.S. service members, President Trump answers questions on a variety of topics from the press pool.  [Video Below]

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Joe diGenova radio interview discussing his perspective on revelations that former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers has been working with U.S. Attorney John Durham:

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BACKGROUND – With research files on the ’15, ’16 and ’17 political surveillance program; including information from the Mueller report and information from the IG Horowitz report; in combination with the Obama-era DOJ “secret research project” (their words, not mine); we are able to overlay the Obama-era domestic IC operations and gain a full understanding of how political surveillance was conducted over a period of approximately four to six years.
Working with a timeline, but also referencing origination material in 2015/2016 – CTH hopes to show how the program(s) interacted and operated. A full review explains an evolution from The IRS Files in 2010 to the FISA Files in 2016.
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Senator John Kennedy has many good quotes, his responses about constituent questions around impeachment are quite funny.
The impeachment issues are serious, but the way Kennedy encapsulates the nuttery of it all is actually representative of how/why President Trump’s polling continues to improve as more Americans are absorbing just how ridiculously political this has been.

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on Fox Morning broadcast to discuss the current status of the House impeachment and his perspective on why Speaker Nancy Pelosi is not sending the written articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial.

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House Leader Kevin McCarthy stated yesterday he would recommend John Ratcliffe, Jim Jordan and Doug Collins as House members who would represent the interests of President Trump if any Senate impeachment trial was to begin.  All three are exceptional legal orators who have displayed their skills during the House hearings.
Today Representative Doug Collins discussed the possibility:

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Tax cuts and regulatory reform; USMCA trade agreement negotiated and passed; Mexico halting illegal migration flows; new central American amnesty agreements; border wall under construction; lower energy costs; lower and stabilized fuel costs; highest blue collar wage gains in decades; largest resurgence of manufacturing jobs in 50 years; Korea-US trade agreement (KORUS); U.S-Japan trade agreement; U.S-China trade agreement (phase-1); withdrawal from Trans-Pacific multinationals (TPP); dissolution of Paris climate treaty; approval for ANWR energy development; five new gasoline refineries; U.S. energy independence; U.S. worlds largest producer of energy; LNG energy exports; elimination of excessive federal regulations; SNAP reforms; 3.5% unemployment; largest employed U.S. workforce in history; 150,000 employer registrations to U.S. trade-skills apprenticeship; seven new industrial steel manufacturing plants; low and stable 1.5% inflation; highest GDP growth amid industrial nations; highest consumer confidence in decades; highest small business confidence in decades; 7.3 million jobs available (JOLTS); one year net employment gain 2.4 million workers; two supreme court justices; no new wars; NATO countries stepping up defense financing; troops coming home; pay raises for military; VA Choice created; right-to-try legislation passed; U.S. embassy in Jerusalem; North Korean hostages released; ISIS destroyed, caliphate dismantled; al-Bagdadi dead.  These are just a few of President Trump’s recent accomplishments off the top of my head:

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Maria Bartiromo shares an earlier interview with Senator Ted Cruz after the House passed two impeachment articles.   Senator Cruz is questioned about the impeachment fraud and the latest revelations in the 2016 election surveillance known as “spygate”.
LOL… “Welcome to the party pal“… Wait til Cruz finds out he too was a campaign target as outlined by the FBI instructions to Patrick Byrne; I digress.   Within the interview Cruz actually does a good job of outlining a brief cocktail party-length explanation of corrupt FBI conduct toward the FISA court.  WATCH:

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Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham appears on SMF with Maria Bartiromo to discuss House Speaker Nancy Pelosi withholding articles of impeachment from the Senate.
Senator Graham does a good job explaining the fraudulent visible reasons, purposes and strategy for establishing the House obstruction article; however, Graham completely overlooks the hidden motive for withholding it/them.
Moving to “spygate” Bartiromo points out Special Counsel Mueller never investigated the “dossier”; however, Bartiromo misses that Rosensteins’ second scope memo in August 2017 specifically empowered the research of (ie. use of) the dossier for his probe.
*POINT: In my opinion, this is the reason why the DOJ (AG Bill Barr) will not release the scope memos…. Barr is protecting DAG Rosenstein and his good friend Robert Mueller.

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Lindsey Graham goes on to discuss the background surveillance on the Trump campaign; and outlines questions he has and potential witnesses before his committee.  Pause for a moment in this part of Graham’s interview, and notice how the answer to every question is within the declassification documents we have discussed. We know where the answers are.
Amid the twists and turns many people have forgotten about the material congress asked President Trump to declassify a year-and-a-half ago.  Additionally there has been some material cited that just seemingly slipped away without follow-up.  Consider:
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