Multinational corporations and foreign governments spend hundreds of millions in Washington DC lobbying House and Senate politicians to retain trade positions.  It’s generally a legal bribery business where congressional representatives get rich by selling their votes to corporations and foreign governments.
Most of you already know the game: It’s a big club, and we -the working class- ain’t in it.
Fortunately for us, President Trump won the election without funding from the big corporations and lobbyists within the U.S. political system.  As such they cannot influence Trump’s decisions on economic policy matters and trade; and President Trump rarely invites them into the White House for policy meetings.
Specifically because the lobbyists don’t have access to the White House they rely on their purchased politicians in the House and Senate to influence the administration.

The multinational corporations and multinational banks are against the U.S. removing ourselves from multilateral trade agreements.  Those institutions rely on being able to manipulate the U.S. consumer market – EXPLAINED HERE.  The biggest influence agent, and by far the biggest lobbyist spender, is Tom Donohue, President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who represents the interests of the multinational corporations and Wall St.
So when you see these letters, knowing they are written by K-Street and transcribed onto legislative letterhead by political staffers, all you need to do is look at the signatures of the politicians and you can quickly identify who has been purchased by Tom Donohue:
(more…)

Reid Wilson via The Hill provides a list of “Congressional Office of Compliance releases year-by-year breakdown of congressional harassment settlements and awards”:

(LINK)

*Note* Democrats took over Congress via elections in November ’06 for congressional year 2007.  Republicans retook Congress via elections in November ’10 for congressional year beginning 2011.

According to the general legal outline that surfaced in the trial of Senator Bob Menendez, quid-pro-quo agreements between “abiding friends” can never be considered corruption or defined as ‘bribes’ because,.. just like non-public officials or business associates, close friends would do favors to help and repay each other.
In essence the legal definition of bribery for public officials now comes down to how long the two parties have known each other, and if they can show an abiding friendship. If two parties can show an “abiding friendship“, of undefined duration, no action taken by one party -to the benefit of the other party- can ever be considered bribery, regardless of the scope of the action.
You can bet a social networking strategy and Christmas Card lists of a whole bunch of politicians and public officials will be much longer this year. Everyone involved in paying-off public officials will now begin creating evidence of a much deeper friendship – which is now a proven legal defense.

(Reuters) – The corruption trial of New Jersey’s Democratic U.S. Senator Bob Menendez ended in a mistrial on Thursday, after the jury said it was hopelessly deadlocked on bribery, fraud and other charges.

Menendez, 63, a longtime fixture in the state’s political circles who first joined the Senate in 2006, was accused of accepting private flights, campaign contributions and other bribes from a wealthy patron, Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen, in exchange for official favors.

(more…)

The attorney for Alabama Republican Senate Candidate Roy Moore appeared today for a brief press statement and provided material that strongly suggests the documents provided by the accusers attorney, Gloria Allred, were forged.  In a subsequent follow-up interview with Allred she refused to say the documents were not forged.
Apparently Judge Roy Moore was the presiding judge in the divorce case of Beverly Young Nelson.  The signature on the yearbook Mrs. Nelson provides as evidence, via Gloria Allred, looks like it was taken from the judge’s signature on her previously undisclosed divorce documents.
Roy Moore’s attorney Phillip L. Jauregui says Judge Roy Moore has been falsely accused, and wants Gloria Allred to release Beverly Nelson’s yearbook for handwriting analysis and inspection.  The key points to defend Roy Moore from the larger accusations are found within the motive of Allred and Mrs. Young falsifying documents.

.
Additionally, Gloria Allred appeared on CNN (Wolf Blitzer) and twice refused to state the signature was authentic.  She sounds very sketchy and evasive (video below). (more…)

The Usual Suspects – Senator John McCain joins Senator Bob Corker demanding that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spend more money or face being hauled up to congress for Senate investigative hearings on his excessive streamlining and productivity efforts.
According to their arguments, Secretary Tillerson has the audacity to think he is allowed to run the state department. Exactly who does he think he is?
If he doesn’t start spending more money, the Republicans in the Senate might just impeach him.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two senior U.S. senators asked Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday to explain “questionable management practices” at his department that they believe are weakening the country’s diplomatic power, adding to a chorus of concern in Congress.
Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen delivered a letter to Tillerson asking him to begin consulting with lawmakers on decisions that have an impact on recruiting, retaining and staffing the State Department, removing a hiring freeze and resuming promotions.

(more…)

CTH has attempted to stay away from talking about the Alabama ‘clown show‘, all of it, since we made our position clear long before the primary run-off race.  Play stupid games, win stupid prizes etc.
My concern with the Alabama mess was a very simple MAGA issue: riding horses to polling stations does not establish a connection to the man or woman who hit the necessary alarm clock at 5:15am to pay the bills.  Those are MAGA people. That’s the essence of the Trump coalition.
The MAGA coalition I know has never been predisposed to racism, sexism, nativism, or any other kind of “ism” or “ist”, because we’ve never been not busy. It takes time to give a rats-ass about bathroom police, social justice etc. Time and energy for that, who has it?

The current position of the epic fiasco was/is entirely predictable…. warnings, deaf ears, blah-blah-blah; water under the bridge.  That said, the current race to the exits by all of the fly-by-nights (populist wallflowers) is embarrassing to see play out.
Factually, I feel sorry for Mr. and Mrs. Roy Moore… However, I don’t have a smidgen of sympathy for the noob-right financial opportunists: Steve Bannon, Laura Ingraham, Sebastian Gorka et al, or the political Roberts-The-Bruce: Ted Cruz, Mike Lee etc. Heck, I’m still waiting for the ‘Use El Chappo Money to Build The Wall‘ bill…  I digress.
So why engage now?  Well, today Rush Limbaugh weighs in in using the customary (passive aggressive/mamet principle) approach to frame the argument as: “The Roy Moore Soap Opera is Really About McConnell -vs- Bannon”.   No, no it’s not.
I understand the frame of reference, why Limbaugh views it that way, but that’s not an accurate assessment.
(more…)

Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) frustratingly questions his good friend Attorney General Jeff Sessions about the standard for the DOJ to appoint a special counsel and/or investigate the brutally obvious legal issues/implications surrounding the “Steele Dossier”, the Clinton campaign and the weaponization of the intelligence community (FBI) to undermine political opposition (Trump).

.
As you can see above, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is reluctant to investigate based on appearances. The end result of Sessions’ position is to extend the investigative responsibility to congress. The end result of congress conducting investigations is the road to nowhere, See: Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS, VA Scandal etc….
Sessions is advocating for the familiar; for the swamp retainment system, or as I prefer to call it: Flak and Countermeasures.
(more…)

When Senator Blunt rises from the darkest and deepest part of the swamp to talk about senate Tax legislation (always written by the biggest K-St donors) you know the sausage is rotten.  Decepticon Blunt is only visible when the little people are conscripted to wash the cigar residue from the Senate’s Corinthian leather.
Senators: Blunt, Cornyn, McConnell, Hatch, Portman, Thune, McCain, Cochran, Murkowski, Graham and Corker will NEVER allow the income tax position of common-folk to supersede their corporate porkulous-minded financial interests.
CTH needed to be patient to see the architecture, and see if they retained their traditional approach at swamp constructs,… Now it’s visible, I can guarantee you this bill is destined to fail.  Maria Bartiromo knows it… she knows, and she’s playing the game; but you can see it behind her eyes… she knows.

.
Accepting that Donald Trump has exceptionally keen instincts, he had to know -in advance- where this was headed. The only purpose this bill serves is ammunition within the ‘big ugly’ to showcase, yet again, the corruption and ineptitude of the GOPe wing of the UniParty and how they are mere salespeople for their financiers on Wall Street/K-Street.
Forget tax reform; like the budget and O-care, it’s a moot point to discuss now.
(more…)

The role of Fusion GPS as an active participant in the 2016 election is growing in scale amid yet another report showing the scope of their involvement.
Two weeks ago the DNC and Clinton Campaign teams were forced to admit they hired Fusion GPS to engage in political activity and research against presidential candidate Trump.  That’s sketchy. Then last week we discovered that Fusion GPS head, Glenn Simpson, actually met with Russian operative Natalia Veselnitskaya immediately prior to her visit to Trump Tower and immediately after. That’s beyond sketchy.  Now we discover Glenn Simpson actually wrote the material that Natalia Veselnitskava used to pitch herself into a meeting with Don Trump Jr.  Wait,… what…

Yes, we are now in “ludicrous mode“.  It’s no longer a surprise why Glenn Simpson’s lawyers are trying desperately to keep him from a congressional subpoena. Clinton Lawyers, Perkins Coie, acknowledged they paid $1.02 million to Fusion for research related to candidate Donald Trump. However, the entire story now looks like the DNC and Clinton camp hired Fusion GPS to construct negative material, not “discover” it.
(more…)

If you haven’t followed the entirety of how the “Freedom Alliance” was assembled in the very early months shortly after the election of President Donald Trump, it’s hard to understand the scope of what is taking place in the middle-east.
The nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), led by Saudi Arabia, are on the cusp of transforming themselves into a modern and engaged era. The goals of the GCC allies, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) are to remove the influence agents who have supported extremism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and stimulated and/or enabled crisis for personal and ideological gains.
Because of the financial reach within the parties involved, the downstream consequences are being felt within the political bodies of most nations including our own. Specifically within Washington DC’s deep-state institutions, career politicians on foreign affairs committees, and within the upper and lower tiers of the aggregate U.S. State Dept.  A great realignment is taking place.

Caption: There will come a time when you will need to choose a side. Think wisely…

French President Emmanuel Macron said today he will make an unexpected trip to Saudi Arabia after leaving the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to see Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and discuss crises in Lebanon, Yemen and the wider region.  This happens simultaneous to the UAE announcing they too are examining bank accounts for their own officials, officers and leaders within their nation.

DUBAI (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron is making a previously unscheduled trip to Saudi Arabia on Thursday to see Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman amid rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, notably over Lebanon and Yemen.

(more…)