The Washington Post reports today that Ruth Guerra, RNC Hispanic Media Director, has resigned and will be replaced by Jeb Bush GOPe operative and campaign adviser Helen Aguirre Ferre.
Leaving the RNC Ruth Guerra will now go to American Action Network an organization that aides enlistment of, and protection for, Republican House members.  Helen Ferre will take up the Media Director position in DC and work with GOPe/RNC leadership including Paul Ryan.

Understanding The Shift –  To understand what’s going on, a person must first remind themselves of the RNC position regarding Latino outreach and advocacy.
Take yourself mentally all the way back to the original 17 candidates for the Republican Nomination and you’ll note sixteen of them all aligned with the Official RNC Position, as outlined in the 2013 “autopsy”, regarding immigration.
Only one candidate, the vulgarian Donald Trump, defied Republican party orthodoxy and changed the entire conversation about the RNC immigration position.
Donald Trump came out strong mid-June on a central focus of ¹stopping illegal immigration, ²building a border wall, and ³officially deporting illegal immigrants.
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President Obama is visiting Vietnam today and paused for a picture with communist party President Tran Dai Quang in front of a bust of Ho Chi Minh.
Perhaps it’s just me, but given the nature of the diplomatic relationship this specific optic seems rather inappropriate.

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Against the backlash from Facebook being exposed for controlling content based on ideological views, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced he was going to meet with “conservative voices” to discuss their concerns.
Glenn Beck subsequently announced his participation in this upcoming meeting. –SEE HERE –
It’s all smoke and mirrors folks.  This PR ruse is about the most insufferable damage control amid years of behind-the-scenes political consultation is, well, silly.
The control of Facebook and other social media platforms to push political narratives is well documented, and extends far beyond non-traditional social media.  Matt Drudge was talking about it last year (see here).  And we’ve been following it since 2010.
Consider this picture:

Yes, that’s the leadership within the House of representatives in the spring of 2014 (Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy) meeting with Facebook’s CEO, Zuckerberg, and COO Sheryl Sandberg, to outline how Facebook could help the House of Representative pass comprehensive immigration reform by removing oppositional viewpoint from the social media feeds. (more…)

In the continuing saga showcasing the mountain of evidence exemplifying the insufferable disconnect from the elites who control the legislative agenda of DC, the head weasel stands up to opine. 
During a U.S. Chamber of Commerce meeting in Washington DC, President Tom Donohue outlines how his constituency is flummoxed by this Trump person they keep hearing of.  Who is he? and what does this mean for the $300+ million they have paid congress for passage of the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal, they ask…..

[…]  U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said that his members are scratching their heads and searching for answers about how the billionaire businessman would operate if he wins the White House in November.
“I hear mostly concern from our members,” Donohue told reporters during a trade briefing at the Chamber in Washington.
Donohue said he hears questions like, “Who is this guy? What do we know about him? How will he behave?”
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Listed below the video from Jeff Sessions you will find two pdf outlines which detail some of the more concerning aspects of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Deal. Feel free to share those pdf formats with your friends, family and social circles who are not familiar with the inherent issues.

This is a modified and updated repost from an early January ’16 outline which collected data from all of the various Donald Trump interviews, position papers, and historical outlines. Candidate Trump has been speaking about broad U.S. economic issues for decades. Trump approaches the challenges by focusing on “Main Street”, not Wall Street.
For the sake of brevity, I’m going to accept that most readers here are familiar with who is funding and directing Jeb Bush, and in larger, more consequential measures, the DC apparatchik in charge of U.S. Policy, ie. Wall street.
During the January 2016 South Carolina debate, and in response to Trump pointing out a necessary shift in trade position (a shift to put American interests first – a shift to stop the dependency on cheap import goods – a shift to use China’s dependency on access to our market to OUR advantage), Jeb Bush came back with an example of Boeing manufacturing.
Donald Trump, responding to Jeb’s Boeing example, and pointed out China is forcing Boeing to open a manufacturing plant in China.  As would be typical from a candidate who is unfamiliar and unbriefed on the issue, Jeb looked back incredulously and said:

“C’mon man”…

There you have it. (more…)

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 candidate Bernie Sanders.  The popular insurgencies supporting each candidate rail against the corrupting corporate financial influence. Party leadership? Meh, not-so-much.
Of course it would only take RNC and DNC rules changes, ie. self-regulation, to stop the problem of unlimited corporate funding; but when the political party leadership has that much access to money, well, they have no interest in regulating it away.  Ergo, legislation becomes the only option and the legislators would be writing law against their own financial interests…. Yeah, FUBAR.
To wit, one of the shifts amid the “common sense” electorate is the general perception that Citizens United is no longer viewed as a win.  However, with all the discussions on bad Trade Deals there’s also another shift coming into focus, the Import/Export bank.
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As a general principle no conversations have involved more varied opinions than discussions about the supposed “conservative” media and their seeming cognitive dissonance when it comes to issues surrounding Senator Ted Cruz.
Some people think these voices were just hoodwinked by Cruz and now their ego won’t permit them to admit the falsehood.  Others think the pundits are too close to the candidate to see the inherent issues and contradictions; some propose their punditry is connected to financial motives.  Perhaps it’s a combination therein, but many people just can’t figure it out.

Whatever the reason, and personally I don’t care one way or the other, one of the realities is their collective influence is marginalized – common sense people, former viewers and listeners, just laugh at them now.
However, historically pundits don’t care so much about influence as they do about affluence.  When the money lessens or dries up, that’s when the opinion shifts…. just watch – it’s a guaranteed truism. (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…)

It really is quite stunning to see the voices who support Ted Cruz try and reconcile his prior support for the Trans-Pacific Trade issue.  Their obtuse position is fraught with intellectual dishonesty, and, quite frankly, a necessary head-in-the-sand approach.
We’ve previously outlined the issue HERE.   Senator Cruz supported the legislative trade-passage vehicle of TPA (Trade Promotion Authority) because ultimately the trade bill itself (TPP) benefits Wall Street’s interests.
However, the best way to understand the issue of his support is to actually listen to Ted Cruz explain in 2015 why he supported, then stopped supporting TPA:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE6HLbaAL0A
You can clearly see, in his own words, Senator Cruz stating he stopped supporting TPA because Senator Mitch McConnell lied to him about buying votes for a later re-authorization of the Import-Export bank, which Ted Cruz does not support.
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