As an outcome of the systemic corruption and administrative malfeasance uncovered by whistleblowers in the Veterans Affairs healthcare system, President Trump and Vice-President Pence participate in an Executive Order signing to enhance the accountability and whistleblower protections within federal government.

President Trump creates the VA Accountability Office.  This is a major campaign promise to veterans fulfilled.  You can tell by the intensity of delivery this is a very important reform objective to President Trump personally.

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[TRANSCRIPT] 4:44 P.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And, Mike, you’ve been so magnificent as our Vice President that we very much appreciate it. Thank you very much.

I’m pleased to be here. And we’re joined by so many members of Congress. It’s been really a fantastic period of time for me. And I’m honored also to be at the Department of Veterans Affairs, because I will tell you this has been something, right from the beginning of the campaign — does not get any more important for me than making life really great for our phenomenal veterans. That I can say.

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There are many new commentators at CTH, and even more new people taking notice of politics for perhaps the first time in their lives.   There is also some confusion noticed between two distinct groups who appear to be talking above and around each other.  Two groups trying to communicate from two entirely divergent sets of understanding.

Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity.

Many, heck, most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past.

There is not a single congress person who writes legislation or laws.

In 2017 not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct.  This simply doesn’t happen.

Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body.  Here’s how it works.

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Earlier today President Trump and first lady Melania welcomed the President of Argentina Mauricio Macri and his wife Juliana Awada to the White House.

One of the key topics on the agenda for President Macri is trade with the U.S., specifically the Argentinian export of lemons into the U.S.  Understandably California, and to a lesser extent Florida, citrus growers are opposed to large scale imports of competing crops.

Additionally, during the customary Oval Office photo-op President Trump remarks about the ongoing NAFTA trade issues, and the phone calls yesterday between Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Mexico’s President Peña Nieto:

“If I’m unable to make a fair deal for the United States–meaning a fair deal for our workers and our companies, I will terminate NAFTA.”

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The U.S. media are considerably invested in framing NAFTA trade issues around their ever-present need to oppose the White House (Trump Derangement Syndrome); and many of the recent media narratives around NAFTA are entirely false.

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It was only a few months ago when congressional democrat leadership were clutching their pearls because President-elect Trump held a phone call with the political leadership of Taiwan.  House and Senate Democrats rose to defend the honor of China around the precept of the Obama administrations’ acquiescence to the “one china” policy, and Trump’s audacity to call it into question.

Then something weird happened.

President Trump took office January 20th, and after many diplomatic contacts within the administration and their Chinese counterparts, President Trump and President Xi Jinping began to formulate a friendship.

April 5th/6th President Trump and President Xi Jinping met in Mar-a-lago for two days and the outcome has been historic and stunning cooperation between the U.S. and China.  China began pressuring North Korea to stop the military drum-beating. (more…)

In conjunction with the Trump administration releasing a tax reform outline, White House OMB Director Mick Mulvaney gives an interview to PBS to discuss the president’s goal of driving economic growth.

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Contrary to our initial reservations, Mick Mulvaney continues to be a considerable asset to the administration in communicating “big concepts” into portions that are easily digestible and understandable. Transferring big issues to easier points of comprehension is tough, and Mulvaney does a surprisingly good job.

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Hours before the Trump administration briefed 100 senators today on the issues surrounding North Korea, a more consequential announcement was made.

The jaw dropping announcement (hidden by U.S. media) appears to show just how long President Trump has been putting the North Korea strategy together.  However, before discussing that aspect, we review the Senate Briefing at the White House:

Today Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presided over a meeting meeting to brief Senators.

The details of that meeting have not been made public because of their classification and sensitivity.  The meeting lasted about one hour and discussed various financial and military options available for pressuring North Korea to end its nuclear program. (link)

Here’s where it gets really interesting.

For months the media have, at random, ridiculed President Trump for not distancing himself from Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.  President Duterte has been cracking down on Filipino drug gangs in his country and his approach has been severe and extremely tough.  Indeed Duterte’s zero tolerance approach has been brutal.

However, shortly after his election, December 3rd 2016, President Trump chose not to refute Duterte for his approach toward confronting the Filipino drug gangs and drug epidemic.  The media were apoplectic.   Duterte responded by calling President Trump “a deep thinker“. Duterte said he was greatly pleased with the “rapport” he has established with the newly elected U.S. president. (more…)

Today Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Economic Director Gary Cohn held a briefing to outline the tax proposal of President Trump.  The overall plan is essentially the same as the plan he proposed in the campaign with some slight modifications on rates etc.

The biggest structural change is political and regional in the current proposal because the rates are lowered, but deductions are removed – including deductions for state and local taxes.  People who live in states/municipalities with income taxes, and who earn enough to carry a tax liability, would see their ability to deduct those state taxes removed.

Because of the UniParty nature of congress; and specifically because special interest lobbyists will write the final tax plan (if one ever surfaces) CTH is not going to spend much time in the analytics of this.  Personally I highly doubt there will EVER be a comprehensive tax reform package even created; the UniParty [lobbyists/Big Club] will not allow their control over taxation to be diminished.

Tax reform is a noisy issue sure to fill lots of media stories, but the end result will be no action.  If a legislative bill is ever created we’ll discuss then.  More than likely we will see small, individual tax bills targeting specific aspects of current tax policy.

Here’s two articles explaining the possibilities against the backdrop of this proposal:

Zerohedge analysis and CNN Money analysis.

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Earlier today President Trump signed an executive order directing Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to consult with local governments and tribes in order to review national monuments created by the Antiquities Act since January 1, 1996 – that are greater than 100,000 acres in footprint – and report back to the President on suggested legislative or executive action, if applicable, within 120 days.

The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes the president to declare federal lands of historic or scientific value to be national monuments by designating the “smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.”

Since the 1900s, when the Act was first used, the average size of national monuments exploded from an average of 422 acres per monument. Now it’s not uncommon for a monument to be more than a million acres.

The designations of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996 and the Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 are considered the book-ends of modern Antiquities Act overreach. Each monument is more than 1.3 million acres.

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This is more than a little funny.  Senator Ted Cruz must not be having much success fundraising for his re-election campaign, as his latest publicity stunt outlines:

In essence, the architect of Obama’s Fast Track Trade Promotion Authority bill is using the border wall, which he is paid to oppose, as a tool to “gruber” his sheeple followers.  Judging by the number of people responding to the tweet, he’s found a goldmine.

As many people are aware, Senator Cruz is part of the ‘controlled opposition’ ploy.  As a dedicated UniParty benefactor of the U.S. CoC lobbying expenditures Ted’s role is to plow through the political field giving a crony-constitutional impression of one thing while loyally working to deliver the end result of the thing he optically rails against, like TPP or TPA.

The El Chapo/wall angle as a narrative and fundraising mechanism, is similar to the dead-end ploy previously exhibited by Senator Rand Paul in last month’s ObamaCare repeal narrative used as his fundraising tool.   Both are fallacies of false choice.  Both have no foundation in actual goal or intention.  Both are ruses.

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