Sir Spitsalot was not having a good day today when asked to join a panel discussion of how Democrats have responded to the first 100 days of President Trump’s administration.

The gist of the discussion centered around the Democrat party’s decision to focus on social and environmental justice issues.  Spittles was asked if dancing naked around a campfire chanting anti-Russian rainbow memes while selling sustainable algae cakes was an effective strategy to reach most American voters.  The video is below:

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During a February interview which broadcast just before the Superbowl, President Trump recalled riding with former President Barack Obama to the Inauguration on Jan. 20 when he asked Obama to list the three greatest issues America was facing.

[…] “I asked him what you think our biggest problem is and he told me,” Trump said, recalling the limousine ride to the U.S. Capitol with Obama.

“I can’t tell you,” Trump said after O’Reilly interrupted to ask about specifics. “But it’s a problem, its a military problem with a certain place. No, it’s not China. But it is – he did mention, cause I did ask him what would you say our number one, two, three problems are and the number one problem that he felt – I was a little bit surprised, but I fully understand.” (link)

Almost every mainstream political pundit and political observer believes the concerning country within that conversation was North Korea. Indeed, if you were to evaluate the comment in isolation, against the backdrop of world media headlines, N-Korea seemingly becomes a natural conclusion.

However, CTH does not believe North Korea was the country of concern. President Obama viewed and acted upon all foreign affairs through the prism of ideological belief. Every action taken by the Obama administration was in furtherance of an ideological world-view that was personal to the small circle of like-minded fellow travelers.

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President Trump has expressed support for the continuation of the Import/Export bank. This has seemingly shocked a few people from conservative circles because the modern conservative doctrine has been to oppose the I/E bank.

However, Trump’s position hopefully does not come as a surprise to CTH readers because we identified a year ago how President Trump’s economic policies would seek to refocus the original intent of the Import Export Bank.

The key aspect is to return the IE to its “original intent“; not the bastardized Wall Street construct that exists today as a result of corrupt DC economic policies driven by the Wall Street’s legislative priorities purchased by multinational banks and corporations.

For more than three decades Wall Street has corrupted the economic policies emanating from DC.  The corrupted economic policy created the two economies previously discussed and the disconnected the engine of Main Street from Wall Street.  Yes, we originally shared this discussion in April of 2016, a year ago:

In 2009 the popular conservative opinion was to declare the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision a win for “our side“. Of course, the decision ultimately opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate spending in elections via the new Super-PAC approach.

In 2016 90% of all American’s polled believe there is too much special interest money in politics, and both political parties no longer need the financial support of the electorate. Corporate lobbyists were always problematic, but now in a post CU world they control almost every aspect of electoral politics – including who wins elections. Citizens United wasn’t a win, its consequence was a major fail.

Within that reality you find one of the synergies between candidate Donald Trump and former candidate Bernie Sanders. The popular insurgencies supporting each candidate rail against the corrupting corporate financial influence. Party leadership? Meh, not-so-much.

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According to ADP payroll processing U.S. private employers are estimated to have added 263,000 jobs in March.  This is likely more than the number employers hired in February and well above economists’ expectations.  This is the largest anticipated job growth in the past two years.

The earlier forecast by ADP National Employment Report estimated growth of 187,000 jobs, with median-range economic estimates spanning 110,000 to 225,000.  The current report is jointly developed with Moody’s Analytics.

The U.S. Labor Department’s more comprehensive non-farm payrolls report comes out on Friday and will include both public and private-sector employment.  Economists polled by Reuters were looking for U.S. private payroll employment to have grown by 175,000 jobs in March, less than the 227,000 in February – so the 263,000 estimate has caught them off guard.  The ADP results are much stronger (100,000 more) than anticipated.

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Yesterday President Trump met with the National Association of Manufacturers group in the White House to discuss the outlook for manufacturing jobs gains and the larger increase in actual manufacturing sector gains.

The results of surveys conducted with current manufacturing companies is stunning with 93% holding an optimistic outlook.

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Once political Democrat leadership recognize the only controversy created by their opposition boils down to: the friend of a second-cousin of a third-grade classmate who once lived in the same city as the opposed target hearing rumors of a mattress tag being removed, well, the autonomic trigger becomes: the opposition is Mao reincarnated as the spawn of Hitler…
For today’s example the opposition is Supreme Court nominee Judge Neil Gorsuch.
Apparently Gorsuch has outlasted the insufferable mattress tag gauntlet. Enter Chuck Schumer to strategize the next steps.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, announces today that he cannot support Gorsuch and “urges his colleagues to vote no”; where “urging colleagues” means get in line, or else. Thus setting the stage for a filibuster, well, that would be, if all 48 Democrat Senators follow the compliance demand.
Therein lies the outline of the very tenuous Democrat strategy against Gorsuch: Force Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to use the nuclear option to pass Altar Boy Gorsuch to the Supreme Court with 51 votes instead of 60.
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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes conducts a press conference following his debrief with President Trump discussing the surveillance of the Trump transition team by former President Obama’s intelligence community.
[Alternate Video Backup HERE]

[…]  I briefed the president on the concerns that I had about incidental collection and how it relates to President-Elect Trump and his transition team; and the concerns that I have. As I said earlier, there will be more information hopefully by Friday.  The NSA is cooperating very very well; and lastly, I’ll say that the reports that I was able to see did not have anything to do with Russia or the Russian investigation or any tie to the Trump team.

Question: Why is it appropriate for you to brief President Trump?
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A series of recent headline articles about traditional economic analysts, government and private, perplexed by financial and consumer trends – highlights the disconnect inherent amid those who cannot reset their frame of economic reference.
For 30+ years U.S. economic political policy has been driven by Wall Street interests. STOP. Main Street, the middle-class and the American worker have suffered. STOP. The successful election of Donald Trump, and the execution of his “main street” economic policy agenda, has sledgehammered the prior economic machine into a full seizure an halt. FULL STOP.

(WSJ Article Link)

It was Albert Einstein who aptly stated:

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.”

The same basic principle applies to those who are trying to understand and evaluate current economic activity yet failing to disengage themselves from their historic economic frames of reference. (more…)

According to a report in the Seattle Times, Howard Schultz, the current CEO of Starbucks, will step down from his role at the coffee chain next month.  This comes following the collapsing brand image as a direct result of Schultz’s political virtue signaling to hire 10,000 refugees and avoid hiring Americans.

The refugee announcement followed the first President Trump temporary travel-ban and many Trump supporters boycotted the coffee chain.  In a letter to employees Schultz claimed the promise of the American Dream was ‘being called into question’ and ‘the civility and human rights we have all taken for granted for so long are under attack.’

However, with the successful installment of Tom Perez as head of the DNC – the timing and political transparency indicate Howard Schultz could also be  positioning himself for a 2020 White House run.

Schultz has long been a favorite candidate for the professional political donor class within the DNC and was a top-tier contender for Clinton’s VP in 2016.   The DNC will always position the winning candidate as one they are able to control. (more…)

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…)