Many years ago we accepted the UniParty.  Shortly thereafter CTH broke away from political identity framed around arguments of party and personality; we chose to focus on policy and outcomes.  Washington DC is a singular party, a UniParty. We have been explaining, countering and fighting “The Big Club” in DC for years; always following the money.
President Trump is the first political entity in our lifetime that not only comprehends the faces of the false arguments (the personalities of false choice and controlled opposition), but more importantly sees the architects behind the Potemkin villages represented by those faces. When it comes to domestic economic policy, the architects are the BIG CLUB.
So, what is “The Big Club“?  …What “Deep State” is to intelligence, military intervention and foreign policy – the “BIG CLUB” is to matters of domestic economics…
Politicians do not write laws. Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer do not sit in their offices writing out scripts of laws and legislation; no politician does. Politicians are the faces who sell legislation that unseen hands create. The Big Club represents the hands that actually create legislation; lobbyist hands.
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Various senators deliver remarks following the collapse of their ability to reform and replace ObamaCare with any alternative.  Beginning with the controlled opposition position of Rand Paul and continuing with Mitch McConnell and the Senate GOP leadership (at 15:00 of video).

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What these insufferable politicians well understand is that any substantive tax reform will necessarily also be compromised by the flawed dynamics inside ObamaCare. That will have a negative downstream impact on any hope for economic growth. However, they are not stupid – they know this – that is their unified UniParty goal.
The increasing taxpayer costs to keep big government ObamaCare operational, for non-taxpaying medicaid recipients, means the middle-class is once again sacrificed at the altar of the Big Club.
American workers on the individual market will not only see increased insurance rates, but their income tax rates will also be higher as the need to subsidize the lower-income non-working group (medicaid) remains.
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President Donald Trump expresses strong “disappointment” in the GOP healthcare bill failure:

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As we have said since before last year, the senate will not vote on a ‘repeal only’ bill because: A.) repeal takes 60 votes, and B) there are not even 50 republican votes for a repeal.
Again, as we have said from the beginning, changing the senate rules to a 51 vote threshold for legislative passage is not workable because: A.) it takes 67 senators to agree to change the rule (eliminate the Byrd Rule), and B.) The senate doesn’t want to change the rules.
The GOP have never voted to repeal Obamacare because the GOP doesn’t want to repeal Obamacare.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has announced the senate version of the ObamaCare repeal and replace bill is no longer viable due to party conflicts.
Instead the Senate will vote on the House Bill with a primary Senate amendment for a full repeal of ObamaCare with a two year delay providing time to construct the replacement.

I’m not sure what McConnell’s strategy is here because a “repeal only” amendment on the bill would need 60 votes for passage.  It is beyond doubtful that eight democrats are going to vote for a “repeal only” bill.  Correction, I just noticed McConnell’s trickery, the 2015 bill was a defunding bill, not a repeal.  McConnell is just tricking people into thinking this was going in the direction of a repeal. It’s not.
The GOP have never, ever, voted for a repeal. That would take 60 votes. They voted in 2015 to defund it using the 51 vote threshold of ‘reconciliation’.  They’ve never once had a repeal vote on Obamacare.
Therefore, if this actually goes to a vote, this appears to be constructed simply as an exercise to prove a vote was taken.  ObamaCare remains and the implosion continues.  McConnell’s political calculation here is trickery.  Nothing more. O-Care remains.
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President Trump is the first political entity in our lifetime that not only comprehends the faces of the false arguments (the fallacies of false choice), but more importantly sees the administrative architects behind the Potemkin villages represented by those faces. When it comes to domestic economic policies, the architects are the BIG CLUB.
So, what is “The Big Club“?

..What “Deep State” is to intelligence, military intervention and foreign policy – The “BIG CLUB” is to matters of domestic economics…

Politicians do not write laws. Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer do not sit in their offices writing out scripts of laws and legislation; no politician does.  Politicians are faces who sell legislation that unseen hands create. The Big Club are the administrators creating the legislation.
As such, it makes no sense to argue about the salesmanship of Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Ted Cruz or Elizabeth Warren when none are originating the legislative constructs they are selling and branding in the media.
It simply makes much more sense to focus attention on the unseen hands that are never discussed, the administrative state.   These are the roots of the issues, the politicians are merely the expendable and interchangeable sales force.
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HHS Secretary Dr. Tom Price appears on CNN State of The Union to discuss the legislative repair efforts for an ObamaCare overhaul, and overall healthcare reform efforts.

Notice how the various “concerns”, amid all of the politically charged discussion, are always centered around medicaid – or the state run, taxpayer-funded, low income, healthcare coverage. Not a single oppositional argument is ever made about negative impacts for those who actually pay for their own healthcare coverage. The opposition arguments are entirely framed around benefits toward those who pay little to nothing.

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There is a parallel, comparative and representative example of what President Trump’s smart policy team is trying to do with healthcare.  the comparison actually lies within another set of economic policy objectives. However, it takes elevation in thinking to understand the approach and see the similarity.

The comparative reform example is within the banking and finance industry.

For those who have read all the statements, watched the hearings, listened intently to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, you might have already noted their approach to working around the ridiculously burdensome Dodd Frank regulations within the banking and finance sector. – OUTLINED HERE –

Essentially, instead of trying to untangle all the complexities of decades long DC constructs enmeshing and enlarging the bureaucracy around banking, Trump’s team is constructing a parallel system. Cliff Noted for Brevity: (more…)

After Democrats announced they wanted nothing to do with the Obamacare reform efforts, the Democrat leadership and their water-carrying media counterparts cried foul because they feel they were not consulted on a current Senate bill to reform Obamacare.  Go figure.

The original (’09/’10) ObamaCare bill was 2,700 pages and most of the toxic takeover construct was intentionally and ambiguously deferred to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius where she added an initial 74,000 pages of regulatory and compliance rules and procedures. [Those HHS regulations now total 673,448+ pages and growing.]

Today, the Senate releases their version of a bill to reform the collapsing Obamacare construct.  It is only 142 pages (full pdf below), and essentially tracks along the three-stage repeal and replace road map previously outlined by HHS Secretary Tom Price.

Despite their pearl-clutching pontifications, all of the whining politicians and media-gnats can read the bill in a few hours.  Here’s the TOP-LINE basics:

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The Director of the Office of Management and Budgets, Mick Mulvaney, gave testimony today before congress and outlined the Mother Of All Budget Battles (MOABB).

Behind the scenes the financial class are putting full pressure on congress to attack the Trump administration’s budget proposals which would significantly enhance the speed of the swamp draining.   Lobbyists are out in force protecting their spending priorities, as the taxpayers watch the pantomime play out through the media’s preferred narrative.

The Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve will work earnestly to block President Trump’s economic policy.  There are trillions of dollars at stake.

The ‘system‘, the vested financial interests who fund politicians, are apoplectic at the thought of any reductions in government spending – and the advanced ideology of financial upward mobility and independence is adverse to their interest.

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All positions have some bearing on the average American; however, some confirmation votes are more directly tied to the well-being of ordinary people than others.  This confirmation will directly and specifically make the lives of middle-class workers, and ordinary American people, improve.

Thank you to those who contacted their Senator and applied the pressure.  There was a great deal of feedback received by the senate in the past 24 hours.  There are those within the swamp lobbying community who are beginning to understand that WE KNOW far more than they ever thought we know.  Change is a direct consequence of that reality.

In a strong showing of bi-partisan support for Trump’s ‘America First’ trade platform the nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, was confirmed by the Senate with a vote of 82-14.  The U.S. Trade Representative is a critical position ahead of renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico.

Three Republicans voted NO: ♦Cory Gardner (Colorado), ♦John McCain (Arizona), and ♦Ben Sasse (Nebraska).

For the past 30 years Lighthizer has been a trade lawyer representing American steel companies in their efforts to fight dumping of foreign-made steel below costs and unfair steel subsidies from foreign governments. He has pledged to strengthen enforcement of existing trade deals and to find new legal tools to combat unfair trade practices.

Lighthizer has criticized some Republicans for being too pro-free trade. He told a Senate panel this year that the U.S. should have an “America first trade policy.”  “We can do better in negotiating our trade agreements and stronger in enforcing our trade laws,” he said.

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Everyone is so caught up with their discussion of President Trump around the firing of FBI Director James Comey that they are completely overlooking the most explosive scandal in the history of congress.

This scandal, if exposed, should remove, or at least censure: Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, Richard Burr, Devin Nunes, Adam Schiff and Mark Warner.

The absence of their accountability shows the depth of corruption within Washington DC.

First, understand their job – Each of the aforementioned was/is part of the congressional intelligence oversight called the “Gang of Eight“. The Go8 are exclusively responsible for overseeing all intelligence community activity as it relates to intelligence gathering and corresponding investigations.

In short these eight elected representatives are in charge of all oversight of all U.S. intelligence operations and investigations.  As elected representatives, they represent one of the most important checks within the system of government overseeing non-elected officials. (more…)