As CTH anticipated the first tabulated holiday sales report via Mastercard® shows the results of a very strong consumer confidence level.  The first report highlights a very strong 5.1% increase in holiday purchases:

“Wall Street is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, while Mr. and Mrs. Main Street are happy with their jobs, enjoying their best wage increases in a decade”…
~ Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners

(Via Wall Street Journal)  Shoppers delivered the strongest holiday sales increase for U.S. retailers in six years, according to early data.

Total U.S. retail sales, excluding automobiles, rose 5.1% between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24 from a year earlier, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which tracks both online and in-store spending with all forms of payment. Overall, U.S. consumers spent over $850 billion this holiday season, according to Mastercard.

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Arguably the biggest story of 2018 is how much we have learned about institutional political corruption within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).  With that level of new knowledge in mind, some earlier stories about the DOJ and FBI take on an entirely different light.
Here’s one from late 2016 – You might not know the name Marc Turi but if you are familiar with the Benghazi Brief, or more specifically with Operation Zero Footprint, you’ll likely know the issues.

U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump deliver their Christmas holiday message from the White House.

Earlier today President Donald Trump participated in a Christmas call to service members stationed at remote sites worldwide thanking them for their service to our Nation.
The participants were units from all five branches of the Armed Forces: •Army – Task Force Talon, Anderson Air Force Base, Guam; •Marine Corps – Marine Attack Squadron 223, Sheik Isa Airbase, Bahrain; •Navy – Naval Forces Central Command, Manama, Bahrain; •Air Force – 379th Air Expeditionary Wing, Al Udied Air Base, Qatar; •Coast Guard – Coast Guard District 7, Juneau, Alaska.

IS 9:1-6

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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 Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

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

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

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 †

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the White House… President Trump and First Lady Melania help take calls from kids tracking Santa’s progress via NORAD’s annual Santa tracking celebration.

This is one of those instances where if CTH doesn’t write it down, our spidey senses tell us we shall regret it…  There is a mysterious case in Washington DC that has perplexed almost everyone; and now Chief Justice Roberts has injected an administrative stay against lower court punitive damages upon the defendant (likely a company).

The case is being heavily guarded by the DOJ and administrative state.  The case revolves around activity by state-owned company (unknown country); with a triggering illegal action external to the U.S.A; but harm to the U.S. was incurred.

… […] the matter “‘is based upon … an act outside the territory of the United States in connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere’ and that the ‘act cause[d] a direct effect in the United States.'”  (link)

The case is also related in some manner to Robert Mueller’s team.
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The announcement of The United States drawing down troop deployment from Northern Syria – with the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia sending in replacements to bolster the region, highlights a much larger backstory.

President Obama’s February ’09 Cairo speech began a sequence of events that led to what was called the “Arab Spring“; factually an extremist uprising.  Bolstered by the resulting chaos the Muslim Brotherhood rose to power in Egypt behind Mohammed Morsi.
However, a majority of the Egyptian people rejected President Morsi’s sharia governance, and asked a well respected General Fattah al-Sisi to step in.  Accepting the request of a desperate people Sisi removed Morsi, disbanded the Muslim Brotherhood and went on to win a landslide election in 2014.   The leadership of the Brotherhood fled to Qatar.
President Obama and his policy team was not happy with this outcome.  Obama supported Morsi, not al-Sisi.  Another person who was not happy, was Turkish President Recep Erdogan, who also supported Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Undeterred, and understanding the need for urgency, Egyptian President al-Sisi then began a long process of confronting extremism.  Sisi destroyed the Hamas terror tunnels on the border between Egypt and Israel; and, despite the anxiety expressed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Sisi brokered an interim peace agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israelis.
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