Jon McNaughton has just completed his latest artwork and it represents an incredible vision of the middle-class American family carefully nurturing a sprouting seedling.
(click to enlarge)
Visit McNaughton Fine Art HERE – Follow Jon McNaughton on Twitter HERE
Video below from Mr. McNaughton describing his perspective on the painting:
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It looks like the First Family’s review of the eclipse took place just before, during, or shortly after, a POTUS debriefing of last weeks NAFTA negotiations. That’s US Trade Representative Ambassador Robert Lighthizer and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross together with Attorney General Jeff Sesssions, Ivanka Trump, First-Lady Melania Trump and President Trump included in the video:
An interesting article in the Washington Times poses a possibility of President Trump holding a deconfliction summit with North Korea –SEE HERE– And that begs a question of whether or not it’s actually plausible. I would state unequivocally yes, and here’s why.
If you have followed the foreign policy pattern of President Trump you immediately recognize he does not restrain himself to DC political customs or DC political norms. Indeed as Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi optimistically noted, President Trump can accomplish many things because he brings a unique perspective to the world of policy and diplomatic engagement. Later repeating: “He Can Do The Impossible“.
Additionally since we originally outlined the likely scenario for a restart of the ‘six party talks‘ (China, South Korea, Russia, Japan and the U.S.), on August 13th, there has been some visible activity providing further evidence toward that end.
•Japan (Shinzo Abe) has stated they have “great confidence” in President Trump’s Asian national security approach. •South Korea (President Moon Jae-in) has stated they are “confident there will not be war again on the Korean peninsular“; •and they are willing to send a special envoy to North Korea to begin talks. •In addition, China has quietly removed the 71-year-old veteran diplomat, Wu Dawei, from the position of negotiator toward the DPRK, and replaced him with 58-year-old Kong Xuanyou. Kong is a long time Chinese diplomat in charge of Asian affairs and he speaks Korean.
All of this generally under-reported diplomatic activity has taken place within the past week while the American media was busy pushing Charlottesville narratives. But more importantly this activity took place while President Trump directed USTR Lighthizer to begin a section 301 trade investigation into China. POTUS Trump is ramping up the pressure on Chinese President Xi Jinping, but more specifically this action targets Beijing’s communist old guard who control both their economy and the DPRK behavior.
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President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and Barron Trump depart New Jersey and arrive back in Washington DC following a working vacation during renovations to the White House and Oval Office.
“It can’t be done”, they said. “There’s no way Trump can achieve 4.0% economic growth” they said. The Congressional Budget Office said economic projections were “improbable”, they said…. “Impossible”, they said.
Yeah, well, Donald Trump said: “Impossible is just the starting point“. And now:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is on track to expand at a 4.0 percent annualized pace in the third quarter with inventory investment contributing 1.12 percentage points to growth, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDP Now forecast model showed on Thursday. (read more)
How is this possible? Well, if you’ve never had to wash your hands with Lava – it might seem impossible. For those who have washed with Lava, it’s simple common sense.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, is the growth in value of all goods and services produced within the economy over a specified period of time. A key part of that equation is the sum total of exported goods minus imported goods is part of the measure. Only the stuff created in the U.S. increases the growth dynamic. If you import more, the GDP shrinks. It’s simple arithmetic.
If you grow exports, and maintain a constant on imported products, the net lowering of the trade deficit adds to GDP growth. It’s not a hard equation. If our economy is making more stuff, our economy is growing.
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President Donald J Trump has done a remarkable job creating a seismic political shift that has gone far beyond drawing a line in the republican sand. Heck, Donald Trump openly dug a trench on his pre-selected battle space within all political encampments.
Without any apology or hidden motive, President Trump filled the trench with a highly explosive electorate fuel (the result from years of Republican lies and deceit), and boldly stood behind his formation twirling a Zippo while looking toward the deceivers.
Today, it sounds like President Trump hands off the Zippo to Steve Bannon:
“If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America.” ~ Stephen K Bannon
(Via Bloomberg) […] According to a person close to Bannon, he met Wednesday with conservative billionaire Robert Mercer, co-chief executive of Renaissance Technologies and a major financial supporter of both Trump and Bannon’s efforts. The two mapped out a path ahead for Bannon’s post-White House career and discussed how Trump could get his agenda back on track.
The following evening, Mercer and several other major Republican donors had dinner with Trump to share their thinking, and Mercer also had a private meeting with Trump to pledge to redouble his efforts to support Bannon and advance Trump’s agenda. (read more)
If you are only listening to corporate media presentations you would be left thinking the political strategy of Democrats against President Trump is working.
Except you would be wrong.
VERY wrong.
While the overwhelming majority of corporate media punditry and opinion broadcasts paint a picture of President Trump and the larger republican/deplorable party in retreat, the actual data, outside the influence of media, shows a completely divergent truth.
The Democrats are in serious trouble; and it’s only getting worse.
The latest self-admissions by the larger American electorate on Party Affiliation show the number of people identifying as Democrat has slipped to 28%. That matches the lowest number of registered democrats recorded in the past decade.
For comparison, in November 2016, just before the presidential election, the number of registered voters identifying as Democrat was 31%. Conversely the number of registered voters identifying as Republican is also 28%. However, that’s actually an increase of one point from November when the number was 27%.
However, party affiliation only represents one small part of the data dynamic.
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This was not unanticipated. Those who have read CTH in the past two months will have noted the writing was clearly on the wall. Especially in the aftermath of the American Prospect article and the downstream consequence that Secretary of State Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Mattis were fielding questions from media about why Bannon was undermining them -and President Trump- on national security policy via North Korea.
In the American Prospect article Steve Bannon also undermined U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directly, and was far out of line with this:
“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.” ~ Steve Bannon
This type of statement was so over-the-top arrogant, and exhibits a ridiculous level of power-lust and expressed self-importance, I asked the question: ” Who exactly is Steve Bannon to think that he can marginalize the cabinet? And against the division narrative within the White House why the heck would he push that opinion publicly? Is he trying to push the envelope and get fired?“.
Well, the White House Press Office has confirmed that political strategist Steve Bannon is no longer working at the White House.
On timing, it makes sense Mr. Bannon would exit today given the full national security meeting in Camp David attendance by: President Trump, VP Pence, General John Kelly, HR McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis, Secretary Mnuchin, ODNI Dan Coats, CIA Director Pompeo, AG Jeff Sessions, Ambassador Haley, Joint Chief Chairman General Dunford, etc.
Can you imagine the awkwardness of Steve Bannon being in the room, amid the administration team, given the nature of his public outline? No way.
(Via Reuters) A source close to Bannon said he was not expected to resign on his own. “Bannon is going to make them fire him,” the source said. “He’s not going to officially resign. He’s still been doing the work. He’s been working on projects.”
The New York Times, however, cited a person close to Bannon as saying he had submitted his resignation on Aug. 7 and that it was to be announced this week, but had been delayed by the fallout from a rally by white nationalists in Virginia over the weekend.
If you were to review how CNN and corporate mainstream media talk politics, well, according to their echo-chambered versions of President Trump, each week that passes is the worst week ever in presidential history. Seriously, no joke. President Trump has been in office for 30 weeks, and 20 of those weeks have been called “the worst” by media.
However, if you actually engage with people living their lives and not focused on who the media blame for the latest round of horrid offenses; well, then you might recognize the scope of how over-emphasized and out-of-touch the media perspective really is.
CBS and The Associated Press each found themselves picking their corporate media jaws off the floor when they actually did ask people. You know, ordinary people. Folks like you and me. The media didn’t anticipate the power of common sense to see through their BS.
With the president under fire voters have some things to say, and it’s not what the media thought. CBS Mark Strassmann begins by speaking to three women who voted for President Trump. Watch:
The ‘big ugly’ is inevitable. We all know it. The only thing yet to be determined is the timing. My spidey hunch tells me there are multiple possible detonation moments depending on sequencing.
Today, President Trump violates Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer’s golden rule regarding incumbent Senators. President Trump tweeted support for a challenger:
Think about it. President Trump has quietly placed triggering policy around the base of several UniParty issues:
♦China Trade Imbalance and North Korea Denuclearization; ♦the ongoing NAFTA renegotiations and future trade deals; ♦the fiscal year 2018 budget and associated MAGAnomic policy; ♦the southern border wall and immigration enforcement; ♦infrastructure and prioritization of spending; ♦no more stupid wars; ♦the repeal of ObamaCare and tax reform to benefit the middle-class workforce.
These are not Bannonisms, these are core and central issues important to President Trump on an inherently personal and intrinsic level.
With some nuanced adjustments to reflect the current international challenges (ie. adding DPRK to the China objectives), these are essentially the fundamental reasons why candidate Trump came down the escalator in 2015.
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