Tucked away from the attention of almost all of the Western media has been the quiet forward, front, visible and back channel communications playing out amid a very narrow pathway.   CTH continues to monitor these precarious -albeit optimistic- quiet steps because they are converging to form a very specific picture.  [Tweet Link]

(The Hill) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met with an envoy from President Trump on Tuesday and told him that a peace deal is possible under the new president.
The meeting between Abbas and Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations, took place in Ramallah.
“President Abbas told Mr. Greenblatt that he believes that under President Trump’s leadership a historic peace deal is possible, and that it will enhance security throughout the region,” according to a statement from the U.S. Consulate General in Jerusalem.  (read more)

We have continued to express optimism for a confluence of events, people and activity that is happening quietly, and could stun the geo-political world.  The timing is right, because we view these activities through a different prism.  We review against the backdrop of President Obama’s mid-east failure, equitable misery.
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Together with her family, Seema Verma accepted her commission today as head of  the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  Vice-President Mike Pence delivered remarks during the official swearing in ceremony.

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Seema Verma comes to the CMS job with extensive Medicaid experience. Her consulting firm, SVC, Inc., worked closely with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to design Indiana’s Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.
The expansion, known as the Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0, went into effect in 2015, and Verma’s involvement in it may prove important as Congress and the Trump administration make decisions on the future of Obamacare.
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Against the backdrop of intelligence reports pointing toward the U.K. as the source of President Obama’s covert surveillance over Candidate and President-Elect Trump; a claim  from U.K. London resident (Ecuadorian embassy captive) Julian Assange takes on additional dimension.
Assange is essentially claiming the Pro-Clinton Deep State institutional systems are working toward the elimination of President Trump (via congressional action), and then replacing Trump with Vice-President Pence:
While it might be disconcerting to see, on its face this is not a revelation.  There is no surprise within a claim that various DC based interests would be much better positioned if a more traditional politician was occupying the White House.
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Well, it would appear our hunch was correct.

If Trump was going to pull off a “reverse Castellano’s“, Caesar needed Brutus to feel comfortable enough to come close…

The problem for Speaker Ryan was a lack of muti-dimensional situational awareness, and the abject inability to escape President Trump’s political gravity.  Breitbart Media, with transparent coordination between Matthew Boyle, Steve Bannon and President Trump delivers the shiv right on cue.

(Breitbart) On a never-before-released private October conference call with House Republican members, House Speaker Paul Ryan told his members in the U.S. House of Representatives he was abandoning then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump forever and would never defend him ever again. (read more)

Here’s what everyone needs to understand about this play: (more…)

Earlier today President Trump met with his cabinet members and outlined the administrations’ expectation they immediately conduct a wholesale review of each department in order to lower costs, shrink the size of their departments and utilize their leadership and executive skills to remove cost redundancy with extreme urgency.

To accomplish this goal, President Trump signed an Executive Order initiating an immediate reorganization of the executive branch –SEE HERE–   Including the elimination of “unnecessary agencies” as identified in the review.

Section 1.  Purpose.  This order is intended to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability of the executive branch by directing the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (Director) to propose a plan to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies (as defined in section 551(1) of title 5, United States Code), components of agencies, and agency programs.

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[Transcript] 3:07 P.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  I’m proud to welcome everyone to our first official Cabinet meeting. (more…)

Tomorrow President Trump will be meeting with members of the House Freedom Caucus to discuss their concerns with the ongoing Tom Price and Paul Ryan healthcare bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Today President Trump and Vice President Pence held a listening session with those affected by the current insurance market.
In this video President Trump listening to those who purchase health insurance on the individual market. Each of the people participating in the discussion shared their experience with the collapsing system.  Many of the stories are heart breaking.

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Hopefully the intransigent Freedom Caucus members will be listening to the voices of the average Americans who are being crushed by the ‘status quo’.
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Representative Jim Jordan lays out a forceful case to destroy the RyanCare healthcare proposal.  Jordan makes a lot of good points; however, the unnerving aspect is Jordan’s response to the long-term ramifications of blowing up the Senate process:  “I don’t care” if we lose elections and end up with single-payer healthcare.
Jim Jordan is scheduled to meet again with President Trump this coming Tuesday.

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Earlier on Fox Business News, House Majority Whip, Representative Steve Scalise, defended the current three-step proposal and extended the conversation into the budget ramifications and the Trump tax reform proposal.
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As more people begin seeing through the fog of political “talking points”, the next response from those suffering from battered conservative syndrome is to say: well, do nothing, and allow ObamaCare to simply self-destruct.
Unfortunately, this is not an option.  At least it’s not a reasonable option.  To understand how battered conservatives are being lead around, used and abused, it is very important to understand the abusers.  There are many.

Last week Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin informed congress it will soon be necessary to raise the debt ceiling.   Immediately, crony-constitutional conservative types, like many who assemble in the House Freedom Caucus, shouted “no way”; apparently, according to their pearl-clutching political position – it unnerves their fiscally conservative sensibilities.
Interesting.
On October 21st, 2015, the Freedom Caucus itself backed Paul Ryan for Speaker of the House of Representatives. (LINK)  A week later, October 28th, 2015, members of the same Freedom Caucus voted to approve a $2+ trillion dollar Omnibus spending bill, a massive continuing resolution, and removed the debt ceiling restrictions (link).  Two days later, October 30th, 2015, at 3:00am in the morning, the Omnibus CR bill passed the Senate (link).
This was yet another year without a federal budget, and a specific decision to fund all of Obama’s spending priorities for 2015 and 2016.  (more…)

On Saturday in Louisville, Ky., Vice President Mike Pence spoke about President Donald Trump’s plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare.  Anyone else notice Kentucky Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul were not present?

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“The ObamaCare nightmare is about to end. … Virtually every promise with ObamaCare has been broken,” Pence said, adding Kentucky is one of the many states negatively affected by the Affordable Care Act.
Pence promised that ObamaCare would not continue, since it has been a top priority of the Trump administration to repeal and replace the program.
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In the largest measure, the basic problem is in 2009 Harry Reid passed the ObamaCare legislation in the Senate with 60 votes.  The House then passed the exact same bill, and the Democrats moved to immediate reconciliation to remove the House concerns (Gator-Aid, Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase etc.).
In 2017 the Republican congress are attempting to repeal and replace that ObamaCare legislation with only 52 Senate votes available, well, maybe.
Unfortunately for the GOP there are not even 52 votes for repeal.  Portman, Thune, Collins, Murkowski, Graham, McCain, Blunt, Cochran, Cornyn, Hatch, McConnell and others, are not necessarily on board; that’s 11. (Leaving only 41).
No amount of byzantine rule changes surrounding “reconciliation” are going to overcome that factual vote hurdle.  In 2009 Senator Reid started with 60 votes.  In 2017 Senator McConnell starts with 52.

So anything coming from the House of Representatives has to keep this reality in mind.  Even if support or opposition is based on ideological principle, it still has to pass – or it’s moot.
There’s no doubt the Paul Ryan proposal holds the worst U.S. CoC aspects demanded by Tom Donohue.  Heck, Donohue poured a lot of lobbying money into the entire architecture in ’09/’10 and he’s paid republicans in congress hundreds of millions to make sure his interests in keeping ObamaCare around are protected.  Ryan is big GOPe and he’s supported by the Big Club.
And, as much as Paul Ryan is beholden to Donohue to retain some form of ObamaCare, so too are the Rand Paul / Ted Cruz types paid by billionaires like Cary Katz (Conservative Review); who want an abject repeal without compromise. (more…)