The time-frame was 2011 – the Tea Party had just crushed a republican Utah senator named Bob Bennett a year earlier.   Massive push-back against growth of government including TARP, Auto Bailouts and now ObamaCare was fueling the grassroots movement; the Professional Republican Party hierarchy, the GOPe, was furious; the Tea Party represented a risk to the establishment republican authority.

The GOPe were in the midst of formulating a push-back plan against the Tea Party through the use of the SCOTUS decision “Citizens United”.  Establishment Republicans were organizing tens of millions into Super-PAC constructs to crush Tea Party insurgents.

The time-frame was 2011 –  Utah Senator Orrin Hatch was up for reelection in ’12 and the Tea Party wave was pushing House Republican Jason Chaffetz to challenge Hatch for the Senate seat. The GOPe knew if Chaffetz challenged Hatch their tenured statesman would be lost (just like Bennett before him).

GOPe corrupt Senate leadership (McConnell, Portman, Cornyn, Corker, Blunt, Burr, Crapo et al) were assembling all resources to kill the Tea Party uprising. They reached out to like-minded colleague John Boehner, Speaker of the House for support. Hatch must be protected from the challenge.

Speaker Boehner, Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy (influence agents) told Jason Chaffetz to back away from the primary challenge and he would be rewarded with a bigger office, cushy career advancement, and the Chairmanship of an important and powerful committee.

The GOPe warned Chaffetz it would be in his long-term best interests to turn away from the Tea Party because the GOPe were going to go nuclear against the rebellion.  There was also a 2012 Presidential race on the horizon and all efforts would be expended to destroy the opposition to their previously selected candidate, Mitt Romney.   (more…)

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer delivers the Press Briefing for April 19th 2017:

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This is really quite incredible and I’m not sure if I can do justice to the significance of it.  Earlier today President Trump directly called out President Obama for the explosion of MS13 gang violence.

President Trump is 100% correct in doing this.

It was President Obama’s Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program that created the policy vehicle for Central American gang members to deliver their MS13 foot soldiers into the U.S.

Take a close look at the following three graphics.  The first is a graphic of the ICE offices with multiple arrests of MS13 gang members: (more…)

Oh what a tangled web is weaved…. Apparently, the FBI used the Jeb Bush/DNC Commissioned opposition research dossier on candidate Trump as evidence to the FISA court to gain a warrant for surveillance.   Things just got more interesting.

If this report via CNN is factual in its baseline accuracy, methinks the motive for the stuttering obfuscation of FBI Director James Comey just gained some sunlight.

Washington (CNN) – The FBI last year used a dossier of allegations of Russian ties to Donald Trump’s campaign as part of the justification to win approval to secretly monitor a Trump associate, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.

The dossier has also been cited by FBI Director James Comey in some of his briefings to members of Congress in recent weeks, as one of the sources of information the bureau has used to bolster its investigation, according to US officials briefed on the probe.

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If you read the USA Today report of Juan Manuel Montes being deported you might believe their headline: “First Protected Dreamer Deported Under Trump“:

(Via USA Today) Federal agents ignored President Trump’s pledge to protect from deportation undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children by sending a young man back to his native Mexico, the first such documented case, a USA TODAY examination of the new administration’s immigration policies shows.

After spending an evening with his girlfriend in Calexico, Calif., on Feb. 17, Juan Manuel Montes, 23, who has lived in the U.S. since age 9, grabbed a bite and was waiting for a ride when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer approached and started asking questions. (read more)

However, the U.S. Border Patrol presents an entire divergent set of facts to the Daily Caller:

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During a flight to Saudi Arabia Defense Secretary James Mattis answered some current events questions about strategic policy objectives:

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Noting President Trump’s Asian Strategy. [High Profile, but Under-reported] •A firm open hand •leveraging new policy •structured around personal trust •building modern alliances:

♦February 10th – President Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Abe at the White House and at Mar-a-Lago, w/both spouses, to discuss regional issues (including N-Korea).

♦February 27th – President Trump and Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi meet in the White House Oval Office to discuss regional issues (including N-Korea).

♦March 15th – Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visits Japan, South Korea and China to follow up on February’s conversations and discuss the forward path (including N-Korea).

♦April 6th and 7th – President Trump hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping in Mar-a-Lago where they discussed all of the critical bilateral and regional issues (including N-Korea).

♦April 15th – Vice President Pence arrives in Asia for a ten day visit; positioned as the steady, stable and reliable administration policy closer (including N-Korea).

The White House (Trump) approach and results so far have been stunningly effective.

There have been more consequential Asia-Pacific/U.S. results (trade, economics and security) in the past two months than in the prior ten years. The stunningly successful and deliberate strategy continues today with Vice President Mike Pence in Japan.

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It’s not on the official public press release page yet, however several media are reporting a call between President Trump and President Erdogan.

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Taken in the abstract it’s disconcerting for President Trump to be congratulating Erdogan on the controversial referendum. However, I had a sense this was going to happen because Press Secretary Sean Spicer really FUBAR’d a diplomatic protocol earlier in the day when questioned about yesterday’s election result in Turkey.

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HatTip Newsbusters – Generation Z continues to highlight their rebellious tendencies. During a live CNN report in the 11 am ET hour, a young chap photobombed CNN correspondent Jim Acosta and appeared to mouth “fake news” at the camera, twice.

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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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