There was a widely read Chicago Tribune op-ed written a few days ago outlining an approach to dissolve the entire state and apportion the geography to Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa. –SEE HERE–  It was written tongue-in-cheek, but with an uncomfortable level of reality behind it.

Illinois has been struggling with its finances for a long, long time.

The Illinois long-term labor pension liabilities are ridiculous in the extreme.  However, things just went from bad to jaw-droppingly, gobsmackingly, unbelievably worse.

 

According to the latest financial media reports, Standard and Poors Global Ratings agency has positioned Illinois bonds to drop below “investment” grade; that would make Illinois the first state in the nation to achieve “junk bond” status.

(Via ABC) Illinois is on track to become the first U.S. state to have its credit rating downgraded to “junk” status, which would deepen its multibillion-dollar deficit and cost taxpayers more for years to come.

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In a speech Friday at a Miami theater associated with Cuban exiles, Trump claimed his executive order would cancel the Obama administration’s “one-sided deal with Cuba.”

President Trump cancelled President Obama’s Cuba Policy and ordered tighter restrictions on traveling to Cuba and a clampdown on U.S. business dealings with the island’s military, saying “with God’s help a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve.”

As Trump laid out his new Cuba policy in a speech in Miami, the White House announced plans to roll back or eliminate much of former President Barack Obama’s 2014 deal between the U.S. and Cuba.  However, President Trump leaves the U.S. embassy in Havana.

“We will not be silent in the face of communist oppression any longer,” Trump told a cheering crowd in Miami’s Cuban-American enclave of Little Havana, including Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who helped forge the new restrictions on Cuba.

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The leaker of classified NSA documents, Reality Leigh Winner appeared in court today in Augusta Georgia.  She was denied bail as prosecutors provided the judge with evidence in the case including Ms. Winner writing about burning down the White House and a pre-planned intention to flee the country and head to Afghanistan or Mexico.

(Via ABC) […] Prosecutors said they seized handwritten notes — written in several languages — from her home during a raid, including one that said “I want to burn the White House down.” Other notes detailed how to get a burner email account and phones and travel details for a trip to Afghanistan Winner allegedly planned to make in the summer.  (read more)

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Solari said in court that Winner admitted she had leaked the top secret document “to a particular news agency she admired” — and said “she was underwhelmed with what Wikileaks had to offer.”

Attorney Solari stressed that Winner referred to “documents” in the plural, and that federal agents were looking to see whether she may have stolen other classified information; adding that Winner allegedly had access to the dark web and had set up burner email accounts. (more…)

Jordan’s King Abdullah III becomes the latest Arab leader to denounce Qatar and join the growing diplomatic boycott of the Islamic extremist sympathizers.

Jordan will downgrade its diplomatic representation with Qatar, it said on Tuesday, standing with several Arab powers that have cut ties with the tiny Gulf state.

The decision was made after Amman examined the “cause of the crisis” between Doha and the other Arab states, government spokesman Mohammed al Momani said.

He added that Jordan also revoked the TV license for Al Jazeera, Qatar’s influential state-owned satellite channel.  (link)

What we are seeing unfold is a seismic shift in Arab sentiment away from the extremist Muslim Brotherhood.  This action is 100% the result of months of careful diplomacy between the Trump Administration and members of the Gulf Cooperation Council in a modern coalition to confront political Islam and the extremist messaging that results in terrorism.

The U.S. and Western Media never reported on the frequency of high diplomatic engagement by President Trump in the lead-up to his historic visit to Saudi Arabia.  It is specifically because of this willfully blind and intentional void in prior diplomatic understanding that most media are missing how this approach was constructed.

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President Trump’s EU strategy is swimmingly effective. Truly, President Trump’s multinational approach is jaw-droppingly transparent (they’ve obviously never read any of Trump’s books), and today France’s Emmanuel Macron showed just how thoroughly disconnected he is from understanding his own position.

Wunderkind Emmanuel Macron, following the exact same advisory recommendations which planted egg on Obama’s face, threatens Vladimir Putin and Bashir Assad with a red-line of military action if chemical weapons are used in Syria:

“Any use of chemical weapons would results in reprisals and an immediate riposte, at least where France is concerned,” Macron said, standing next to Putin in the Versailles palace outside of Paris.  (link)

Emmanuel Macron threatening unilateral action if Syria’s Bashar Assad uses chemical weapons? Hilarious, if it wasn’t so substantively dangerous.

The orbit of influence surrounding the wunderkind (all caviar liberal socialists) have convinced Macron that now is the time to project a strong EU image to compensate for President Trump’s bold stance pointing out the EU need to step out from behind the skirt of NATO and provide for their own defense.  Politically, Macron’s yapping might play well with a domestic or EU centric audience…. (more…)

One of the reasons CTH writes about economic matters because constructing economic prediction theories based around political policy is a hobby of mine.  Within obscure data, raw and unfiltered up-stream activity, it is entirely possible to see over the horizon.

But newly engaged people also think I’m nuts; so therefore it is also fun conversation at parties to stand above the esoteric academic fray, smile and outline actual forecasts –very specific forecasts– that most would never consider possible from a linear perspective.

People pay a boat-load of money for proprietary ownership of very accurate forecasts.  However, CTH would rather do it open source and break the historic grip of the financial control class.

If you’ll permit me a little Funday indulgence; the other reason to share predictable consequences is so patriotic readers can take a pro-active and empowering position in their own decision-making.  That motive was one of the reasons for previously sharing:

[…]  Until the two economies gain parity – any fed activity, taken as a consequence to their familiar traditional measurements (interest rates etc.), will have minimal to negligible impact on Main Street.

• Regional areas which benefited from high yield and high rates of return from Wall Street, ie. investment benefactors, will begin economic contraction. The downstream effect on state finances, and the retail and high-end service industry will also be negatively impacted.

• However, industrial areas/middle-class areas, with affordable housing and reasonable infrastructure, which have suffered in the past 20+ years, will see home values increasing as the local economy expands.

National policy (Trump Policy) which benefits Main Street also benefits local economics which are founded in manufacturing, production, and ancillary services.  In essence, the Middle-Class.

Those who benefited from high-yield international investment income will see less income.  Those who live on savings will see a moderate benefit.  However, those living day-to-day and week-to-week on their paychecks will see much more income.  Believe it. (link)

Now check out this headline from AP today discussing Connecticut:

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Everyone should try to skip the shiny things embedded within the story of a laptop theft from a Secret Service Agent Marie Argentieri.   The theft appears to have nothing to do with Trump Tower or Trump Tower floor plans.  The theft appears to have everything to do with Argentieri as a supportive investigator for Hillary Clinton’s private email server.
Evidence of the specific targeting is transparent within the eye witness stories that a car pulled up, a passenger exited the vehicle – went directly to Agent Argentieri’s vehicle, broke in, took the back pack and walked away quickly.
The thief knew exactly what they were looking for, this wasn’t a random heist of convenience.

(New York) […]  The thief stepped out of a dark-colored car, possibly an Uber, and stole the laptop from Argentieri’s vehicle, a 2015 Bajaj, which was parked in the driveway of her Bath Beach home, sources said. Neighbors said the thief struck about 3 a.m.
The crook, a man dressed in black, didn’t get back in the car. He was seen on surveillance video walking away from the scene with a backpack holding the laptop, sources said.

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Not sure when the results will be announced, but here’s a general discussion thread for the election in Holland today:

In the last 72 hours the extreme Dutch liberal parties have been conducting an all out multi-platform social media campaign against Geert Wilders.
Their basic theme is to stop the dominoes of nationalism.  The participating globalist snowflakes all look and write like the crowd who was assembled at the Javitz center on the night HRC was crushed.  See #DutchElection  It seems heavily organized and scripted.

Put this in the ‘you-can’t-make-this-up‘ file.   Taking the concept of limo-liberalism to new stratospheric heights of modernity, Chaz Bono’s housekeeper has an illegal “helper”.
We have now reached a period of exponential Fabian Socialism where the carefully designed “underclass” are so enlightened they actually have their own secondary “underclass” of conscripted illegal alien assistants.
OK. I know, take a minute, let that sink in.

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Sorry, I cannot yet write an accurate context for the concentric circle of sub-headings necessary to frame the discussion.  Talk among yourselves.

For an administration that would parse every word and phrase used by their political opposition to infer a narrative of violence, the alarming message within this call to action released today, by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, is quite stunning.

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For those who would defend this I would simply suggest to reverse the agent of delivery. Keep the words exactly the same but transpose current Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the messenger; and now what do you think the media would claim was the intent of the message?
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