Short version: The Obama admin. lied about the economy(again),

and Christmas sales were what people who actually live in the real world expected: bad.
I hate to wear out a theme, but faulty data coming out of Washington led people to believe Christmas sales would go gangbusters. Even the National Retail Federation said in October that the holiday season would see a strong 3.6 percent in sale gains.
... Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell consumers, who are still struggling with small pay increases, no hikes in Social Security payments, little interest income on their savings, poor job growth and gains in stock prices that are hard to liquidate to buy Christmas presents.
...
I told you last month about two government surveys that were misleading the experts — including, apparently, retailers — into thinking Americans were flush.

One showed a surge in household income. But if you looked closely enough — which I did — you noticed that income was up strong mainly because the government was counting withdrawals from retirement accounts as if they were wages.

People don’t usually withdraw money from retirement accounts to buy Christmas presents.
No, they do that when they've got bills to pay and no other money to use. 


Colorado appears to be following the Californicated idea of "Screw the roads, all those peasants don't need to be driving anyway."  Yeah, that'll work.


Yes, the NYeffingTimes lies; anybody surprised?


Another socialist politician is corrupt.  Hey, I thought that was part of the job description.