First, let’s be brutally honest –  This latest manipulation by Ryan is nothing but pure Machiavellian political maneuvering by the professional republican party in an effort to keep the unwashed masses from recognizing intentional usurpation.
This is professional political ‘gaslighting‘ folks, and it is beyond infuriating:

Filthy, lying CRAPWEASEL…
Remember: (more…)

Sometimes when you find yourself in a disconcerting and unfamiliar place, it can be beneficial to stop, look back and understand just how we ended up in this terrain.  The professional DC consultant class are benefiting from the current climate of chaos, and they certainly don’t want anyone to review the consequential and intentional steps it took to get here.
When the Tea Party rose up in opposition to President Obama’s indulgent spending programs in 2009 many were under the mistaken assumption the opposing party, the republicans, were against the progressive agenda based on principle.

However, there were a few voices on our side saying be wary of the UniParty nature of DC, the republican party is not our friend.  Money always fuels their motives; so long as there are millions available to the ‘loyal opposition’, the republican political intentions should not be regarded as altruistic.
At the time those concerns were dispatched by a louder voices demanding strategic unity and instructions to work within the DC-based GOPe system.  However, ultimately what benefit lies within unity if the end result is just a destructive?   The awakened electorate was just as much a risk to the republican side of the UniParty as it was the Democrat side.
It was from this basic framework of acceptance the Conservative Tree House was born. A “last refuge” where common sense approaches still mattered.
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An interesting article within the Washington Post outlines some of the challenges with unbound delegates and delegates available for purchase…
(Washington Post) West Virginia looks perfect for Donald Trump: a struggling working-class state filled with the types of voters who have backed him elsewhere and could deliver one of his biggest victories.
But a sweep there might not matter. That’s because as many as 34 delegates — the entire contingent — may be free to back whomever they want at the Republican National Convention.

Much the same is true in Pennsylvania, home to a hotly contested April 26 primary, where there are 54 uncommitted delegates. Other states and territories, from Colorado to Wyoming to Guam, will also send squads of unbound representatives.
These are the swing voters of the GOP nominating contest, nearly 200 activists and elected leaders beholden to nothing except their personal judgment and empowered to make or break candidacies. (more…)

Senator Ted Cruz has at least eight Super-PAC’s assisting his presidential campaign; and according to a recording obtained by Politico a Cruz’s campaign bundler was directing large donors toward one PAC specifically.  The “Stand for Truth” PAC.

However, the campaign appears to have, yet again, gone into the land of illegality with the following statement (via audio recording):

“If you hit your max then we have a table for you that is the unlimited table,” Keet Lewis, a bundler for the campaign and co-host of a Dec. 30 fundraiser in Dallas, says on the recording provided to POLITICO. “It can take corporate dollars, it can take partnership dollars, and that’s the super PAC, Stand for Truth, so pick up some of that information.” (link)

The politico article goes on to share how and why the fundraising instructions are illegal – read here– but that’s not the part that might stick out to anyone who has been following the 2015/2016 shady campaign finances.
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Having spent the larger amount of two years digging through innocuous reports, FOIA documents, and media reports (mostly foreign), the Gowdy announcement today is more than a little bit disingenuous.
We’ve previously predicted, long before the select committee was announced, that the Benghazi investigation would amount to all hat and no cattle.
The reasoning is very simple:
Both sides of the UniParty were charged with intelligence oversight of the joint CIA/State Department operations in Libya (2011) and Syria (2012) through the Congressional Intelligence Gang-of-Eight.
At the time the “Intelligence Gang-of-Eight” was:

♦ Speaker – John Boehner, ♦ Minority Leader – Nancy Pelosi; ♦ House Permanent Select Committee on Intel Chairman – Mike Rogers, and his ♦ Democrat counterpart Charles Ruppersberger; ♦ Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and ♦ Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid; along with ♦ Senate Intel Chair Diane Feinstein and her ♦ Republican counterpart, Saxby Chambliss.

Together with Hillary Clinton and President Obama the “Gang-of-Eight” was duplicitous in everything that took place.  Therefore there is no independent motive for the Gowdy committee to find any responsibility – the entire investigation is for public appearances only.
Further evidence therein can be found in this latest press release.  Note the specific wording and the specific emphasis we provide:  (more…)

Former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown interviewed candidate Donald Trump on the radio earlier today:

Actions Speak Louder Than Words – This is an older interview with Ivanka Trump from October of 2015.  However, within the interview you see why the progressive left (within Hillary Clinton Camp) is desperately afraid of Donald Trump.
Candidate Donald Trump has an actual history of empowering, advancing, and promoting strong women within his organization.  Everything about Ivanka Trump runs completely counter to the narrative the progressive left need to advance Clinton.
In this interview Ivanka absolutely destroys the archetype ‘sexism’ approach:

“You don’t lead by pointing and telling people some place to go. You lead by going to that place and making a case.” – Ken Kesey

(Via Foreign Policy) Donald Trump has spent much of his campaign deriding NATO allies for “ripping off” the American taxpayer and failing to contribute to the world’s most powerful military alliance. But on Wednesday, his fellow Republicans joined the chorus during a closed-door meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Capitol Hill, according to sources inside the room.
For under an hour, senators grilled Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, about why only five members of the 28-nation club spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, the official amount NATO recommends each nation set aside. Some expressed particular dissatisfaction with Germany, the fourth largest economy in the world, which does not meet the 2 percent threshold.
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Paul Manafort is Donald Trump’s delegate and convention manager.  He spoke to CNN today about the state of the race:

If you have ever looked deeply into what created the financial pension crisis in Puerto Rico you’d have to admit the potential for a federal bailout is beyond absurd.  But that won’t stop the insufferable liberals from proposing such a possibility – and watch closely as House Speaker Paul Ryan begins to discuss the “outcome for the bond-holders”.
Former presidential candidate Marco Rubio already stated he was in favor of a bailout, albeit with conditions; and we know the Democrats will always look to gain political leverage through the advocacy of the fiscally stupid…. 

NEW YORK — Over a dozen activists descended on a building where Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and her three living predecessors were speaking on Thursday to demand that the Fed bail out Puerto Rico’s cash-strapped government.
The demonstrators, who are affiliated with the progressive Fed Up coalition, distributed Puerto Rican flags and empanadas as Puerto Rican music played outside Manhattan’s International House, a student residence. Yellen was there for an extremely rare panel discussion alongside past Fed chairs Ben Bernanke, Paul Volcker and Alan Greenspan, who participated via videostream. (more…)