There’s several ways you can look at the carefully scripted use of Khizr Muazzam Kahn by the media today in an all out effort to aid Hillary Clinton in her campaign efforts.  However, perhaps the most analogous approach is to consider the similarity to Ahmed Mohamed, aka: “Clock Boy”.

Unfortunately for the U.S. media, the transparency of narrative use becomes more obvious the more they coordinate the pile-on.   Putting the narrative front and center of every single talking point for the Sunday shows was just a little too transparent:

However, beyond the insufferable talking points, it’s worth noting there is a positive aspect behind the media need to drum up such ridiculous controversies; Hillary Clinton is a horribly weak, ineffective, and inauthentic candidate.  If she was not, the media wouldn’t need such coordinated distraction efforts.

But first, to Mr. Kahn. (more…)

Some opinion writers have surmised a possibility that Recep Erdogan created the coup in Turkey as a method to smoke out his opposition and exert even more dictatorial power.  Having watched the events closely (5 years) which lead up to the coup attempt, we disagree.
All indications are the coup was genuine, albeit a long-shot, driven by the younger military leadership who remained guardians of the state after two years of Erdogan purging the top level generals.

Ideologically, Recep Erdogan has been working earnestly over the past 5+ years to extend his power and control.  Erdogan has grandiose plans of rebuilding a modern Ottoman Empire with himself as the figurehead in control.
The fortuitous crisis in Syria evolved into a tool for Erdogan to expand his constituency, and the influx of 3 million non-secular conservative Muslims as refugees into Turkey was part of that dynamic.
Erdogan’s ideological outlook can be captured when you look at the 2015 decision to give safe refuge to five Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leaders who were living in exile in Qatar and evicted after the Gulf States pressured Qatar to stop supporting extremist terrorists.  Erdogan promised the Muslim Brotherhood safe harbor in Turkey and he gave it to them.
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There is only one party in Washington DC, the UniParty.  The professional political class support themselves beyond all other ideological factors. These are modern realities.

President Obama is in a very tenuous position this week as a nation has been stunned by the targeting of police officers.  Indeed, there is a solid argument to be made that President Obama created the antagonism toward law enforcement with various speeches and cursory accusations of unequal treatment.
As a modern social justice president who embraces radical extremist groups like Black Lives Matter, and as an executive community activist who has used the cabinet offices of his administration to leverage social change, President Obama has embraced many divisive entities and expressed ideological alignment with their cause.
The gunman in Dallas who targeted white police officers, specifically because of the color of their skin, is just one visible consequence from a President who rails against a system of law and order.  Obama’s ideology is more comfortable amid the chaos.  (more…)

We have avoided much of the debate and curiosity behind who will Donald Trump pick as a Vice-President candidate. In essence, for us -Big Picture- it just doesn’t matter that much; and regardless of the various pro and con checklists, we’re confident Mr. Trump will select the best candidate he views as most necessary for the ‘America First’ objective at hand.
However, that said, today perhaps some mental sorbet might cleanse an emotionally charged pallet. So we present our guess for a VP candidate.
Remember, it’s a guess, just a guess, and our guess carries no more independent weight or validity than any other voice who would also have their own guess.
If we were going to go personal, with the heart and head guess, someone like Senator Jeff Sessions would probably be high on our swoon list.
But CTH doesn’t just look at things as we want them to be, we look at things as they are  and as they present themselves to be.  That approach necessitates disengaging emotion, personal preferences, and applying a more comprehensive review of all possible angles.
When reviewing the possibilities we need to look carefully at factual behavior; known and identified action in the past year, and consider more than our own selfish litmus test.
We also need to consider altruistic voices that Donald Trump has a history of listening to (ie. trusting).  Altruism is a scarce commodity in the world of national politics.  As a consequence, those who exhibit it (and have an opinion) gain an exponential weighting factor for possible influence on the selection.
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After the Orlando terrorist attack Hillary Clinton went into a modified sub surface communication status called “radio infrequent”.  Tenuous times require those who communicate via poll-tested and political wind-driven soundbites to move carefully amid unfamiliar terrain.
Now, as predicted, after the “anti-globalist” Brexit result, Hillary Clinton goes further into the status of “radio-silent”.   Full Stop (stay quiet, stay deep), and stay away from visibility until the consultants can gauge the best course.  Status = Deep Sweat, Anxious.

The professional media political class, who are still trying to come to grips with the ramifications of a stunning geopolitical push back, are also in a reassessment mode.  The polling releases today from Washington Post/ABC and from Wall Street Journal/NBC also highlight their modified deep-pause position.
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Remember who:

• ….passed Trade Promotion Authority
• ….funded DAPA
• ….passed the Iran Deal.
• ….passed the Corker/Cardin amendment
• ….didn’t bother with a budget
• ….passed a $2+ trillion Omnibus spending package

Rat Fink Paul ‘Omnibus’ Ryan quickly scampers out of view after strategically timing the Puerto Rico Rescue bill to occur on a heavy news days containing White House endorsement and presidential election politics. (more…)

When contemplating the “inevitability threshold” we anticipated last year the Wall Street power brokers would switch to supporting Hillary Clinton if Donald Trump became inevitable. 

[…]  The Tripwire we identified back in July 2015 remains today.  If Wall Street (writ large) views Donald Trump as inevitable, they will re-evaluate –QUICKLY– the opposite side of their controllable coin.  Meaning they will evaluate Hillary Clinton.
Wall Street (The U.S. CoC, Tom Donohue, and all varied interests, DNC/RNC et al) set this up as a win/win. A Clinton/Bush strategy.  If Trump is believed to be inevitable in victory over Bush, they need to re-evaluate the Clinton side STAT.

Today that outcome begins:

(Via The Observer) Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund founded by billionaire James Simons, donated over $13 million to Sen. Ted Cruz’s failed presidential campaign. For a guy who’s supposed to be pretty smart with his money, the ROI on that one has got to sting. (more…)

In 2014 when we first wrote about the GOPe road map, the prediction of 15 republican candidates and the “splitter strategy”, many political followers said we were engaged in speculative nuttery.
In 2015 when we first wrote about the roles of each of the “splitter strategy” participants, many more political followers said we were engaged in conspiracy theory.
In hindsight, both of those previous sets of predictions were entirely accurate.
However, in December ’15, and January ’16 we predicted something else, something even more radical.  We predicted record-breaking voter turnout in the primary and general election of 2016.
In November 2015 a blogger named Citizen Dale coined the phrase “The Monster Vote“.  We agreed with the underlying premise, and we predicted specific statistics that, if achieved, would prove if the Monster Vote was real.
However, because there are so many naysayers, we asked for independent review of our predictions and analysis.  Many of you will remember – Nick H, a statistician by trade, took on the challenge and expanded on our theory.   In February, we developed a few simple predictions for the primary and general election.
We can now look at the 2016 voter results and compare them to our tripwire predictions. (more…)

Several years ago we first began pointing to the presidential election of 2016 as a grandly constructed enterprise of financial global entities.  Toward that end point we began to outline the strategic global players who were spending tens of millions lobbying congress for Wall Street’s global financial interests.
The conversation is vastly to expansive in scope for any reasonable encapsulation. Indeed our archives from the past four years are filled with reports and warnings about how all of the Wall Street financial interests -as they relate to the 2016 election- would ultimately boil down to global trade and commerce pacts like the Trans-Pacific Trade deal (TPP), and the Trans-Atlantic Trade deal (TTIP).

Globally, the economic wealth of massive corporate financial banks and financial institutions is dependent on the continual nudging toward the ratification of these trade pacts.  There are trillions at stake as the derivative markets are also tied to hedged bets on the outcomes.
Global trade is approximately $75 trillion annually.  However, the Wall Street derivatives market, which are essentially bets placed within this entire financial construct, now account for more than $500 trillion. (more…)

Um, yeah, good luck with that.
According to the latest Reuters Polling snapshot Senator Cruz has dropped another 5 points this week –LINK .   This comes on the heels of several weeks of polling data outlining how Ted Cruz has a significant problem with “authenticity”.
Readers will note we have discussed this several times.   The more the general electorate get to see and know Ted Cruz, the more his support drops.  There is a direct correlation.

The Associated Press now reports the Cruz Camp is making an effort to train Senator Cruz to become more likable: (more…)