It’s all connected.  The “Big Ugly” is underway.  Intellectually honest people know the CEO boards and advisory council members were on the White House team to shape and protect their collective stakes in the upcoming America First economic trade reset.  Nothing more.
The intents of the prior participants were to protect their interests, period. There was no ideological American altruism within any of the motives.   Globalists, multinationals and the participating leaders, who make their livelihoods on globalist economic expansion, were simply protecting their interests.  Fortunately for the livelihood of the American middle-class they ran into economic granite, the Monolith that is Donald Trump.  Faced with the futility of their self-interested endeavor, they exit under false pretense.  C-Ya.
With NAFTA ongoing, and freed from the original concern about undermining America-First MAGAnomics by domestic industrial leadership, which was the entire premise of assembling them in the first place; in conjunction with Big Panda telling their bag-man in the DPRK to stand down, President Trump now positioned to fire-at-will:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Friday formally launched an investigation into China’s alleged theft of U.S. intellectual property, a widely expected move following a call from President Donald Trump earlier this week to determine whether a probe was needed.
The probe is the administration’s first direct measure against Chinese trade practices, which the White House and U.S. business groups say are bruising American industry.

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Obviously there’s an awakening happening throughout the U.S. body politic.  Proof of that awakening is President Donald Trump.  CTH has long held the belief that with information, simple information, the awakening will continue.  However, the MSM have a vested interest in keeping ‘simple truth’s‘ wrapped up on complicated linguistics.
Complication serves their interests.

That said, and against the backdrop of the Atlanta Federal Reserve saying the U.S. GDP is on pace for third quarter growth at 4.0 percent. Here’s a reference point to showcase how much the American electorate have been subjected to economic gaslighting by the media.
The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is simply the sum total of all goods and services made, manufactured and delivered in the U.S.A. minus the total value of our imported goods.
When considering economic growth, you may have heard that 4.0 percent or higher GDP growth is impossible.  Allow me to remove the gaslighting from that claim.
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NAFTA negotiations enter day #4 today.  The final Round 1 summary day is tomorrow, Sunday.   Information as to specifics is hard to find.  Much of the ongoing negotiation is clouded in secrecy.
However, that said, one of CTH mouses (with wolverine teeth) shares a negotiation aspect that drew a great deal of conseternation from the Mexico and Canada side.
The issue revolves around government contracts, specifically U.S. federal contracts for goods and services.  President Trump has initiated a “Buy American, Hire American” policy for government contracts; meaning if the U.S. government has to spend money for a product or service, it should be spent on acquisition of American products made by American workers.
Mexico and Canada want access to these lucrative contracts.  President Trump’s “America First” procurement process is against their interest.  Canada is especially upset about this dynamic.  Canada wants to be able to bid on U.S. Federal Government contracts; and Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland referred to the buy-local rules as “poor public policy.”
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This is one of those paradigm shift CTH predictions that many people scoffed at back in 2015/2016 when we discussed a Trump federal budget, and how Washington DC politicians would respond to a president who actually planned to cut spending.  Back in February we warned:

[…] The UniParty is going to fight hard, very hard, to retain their spending. Don’t be surprised to see GOPe “conservatives” demanding President Trump spend more money. We have been repeating this warning since he announced his bid for the presidency in 2015. (link)

Today’s headline reads “Fears Grow That Trump Could Ignore Congress on Spending“. Traditional thinking, at first glance of the headline, would be the President might ignore budgetary levels and spend more than he should. However, in reality, the paradigm shift is the exact opposite.  DC is worried that President Trump won’t spend enough money.
Let that sink in for a minute.
THAT’S a prime example of: A.) evidence of the DC UniParty; and, B.) how ridiculously dysfunctional and broken the federal budgetary and spending process has become.  DC lawmakers are now consulting attorneys and planning to sue the President and force him to spend money.

WASHINGTON – Lawmakers and activists are preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump’s administration, in its zeal to slash the federal budget, will take the rare step of deliberately not spending all the money Congress gives it — a move sure to trigger legal and political battles.

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“It can’t be done”, they said. “There’s no way Trump can achieve 4.0% economic growth” they said.  The Congressional Budget Office said economic projections were “improbable”, they said….  “Impossible”, they said.
Yeah, well, Donald Trump said: “Impossible is just the starting point“.  And now:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. economy is on track to expand at a 4.0 percent annualized pace in the third quarter with inventory investment contributing 1.12 percentage points to growth, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDP Now forecast model showed on Thursday. (read more)

How is this possible?  Well, if you’ve never had to wash your hands with Lava – it might seem impossible.  For those who have washed with Lava, it’s simple common sense.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, is the growth in value of all goods and services produced within the economy over a specified period of time.  A key part of that equation is the sum total of exported goods minus imported goods is part of the measure.  Only the stuff created in the U.S. increases the growth dynamic.  If you import more, the GDP shrinks.  It’s simple arithmetic.
If you grow exports, and maintain a constant on imported products, the net lowering of the trade deficit adds to GDP growth. It’s not a hard equation.  If our economy is making more stuff, our economy is growing.
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President Donald J Trump has done a remarkable job creating a seismic political shift that has gone far beyond drawing a line in the republican sand.  Heck, Donald Trump openly dug a trench on his pre-selected battle space within all political encampments.

Without any apology or hidden motive, President Trump filled the trench with a highly explosive electorate fuel (the result from years of Republican lies and deceit), and boldly stood behind his formation twirling a Zippo while looking toward the deceivers.
Today, it sounds like President Trump hands off the Zippo to Steve Bannon:

“If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America.”  ~ Stephen K Bannon

(Via Bloomberg) […] According to a person close to Bannon, he met Wednesday with conservative billionaire Robert Mercer, co-chief executive of Renaissance Technologies and a major financial supporter of both Trump and Bannon’s efforts. The two mapped out a path ahead for Bannon’s post-White House career and discussed how Trump could get his agenda back on track.

The following evening, Mercer and several other major Republican donors had dinner with Trump to share their thinking, and Mercer also had a private meeting with Trump to pledge to redouble his efforts to support Bannon and advance Trump’s agenda.  (read more)

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If you are only listening to corporate media presentations you would be left thinking the political strategy of Democrats against President Trump is working.
Except you would be wrong.
VERY wrong.

While the overwhelming majority of corporate media punditry and opinion broadcasts paint a picture of President Trump and the larger republican/deplorable party in retreat, the actual data, outside the influence of media, shows a completely divergent truth.
The Democrats are in serious trouble; and it’s only getting worse.
The latest self-admissions by the larger American electorate on Party Affiliation show the number of people identifying as Democrat has slipped to 28%.  That matches the lowest number of registered democrats recorded in the past decade.
For comparison, in November 2016, just before the presidential election, the number of registered voters identifying as Democrat was 31%.  Conversely the number of registered voters identifying as Republican is also 28%.  However, that’s actually an increase of one point from November when the number was 27%.
However, party affiliation only represents one small part of the data dynamic.
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In direct contradiction to the current media narrative, most Americans support keeping historic confederate monuments and memorials in place.

NPR and PBS teamed up with Marist to poll Americans on their views of historic confederate monuments. [Full pdf below].  Despite the severe bias as presented within the Alt-Left poll the vast majority of Americans support keeping the monuments.

Obviously polling should never be used to determine whether historic monuments are removed; however, the intent here appears to be measuring the national sentiment against the backdrop of a heavily pushed media narrative.  Republican support for keeping confederate monuments is 86%, Independents 61% and Democrat 44%.
However, in order to facilitate the agenda of the narrative, Marist skewed the poll with a political sample of: Dem 36, Rep 26, Ind 37.  The national current party registration is Dem 28, Rep 28 and Ind 41.  As typical for polls intended to deliver specific ideological results, the Maris poll over samples Democrats by 8 points.
If the accurate national party registration numbers were used, obviously the support for the monuments would be significantly higher than NPR/PBS presented conclusion.
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This was not unanticipated.  Those who have read CTH in the past two months will have noted the writing was clearly on the wall.  Especially in the aftermath of the American Prospect article and the downstream consequence that Secretary of State Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Mattis were fielding questions from media about why Bannon was undermining them -and President Trump- on national security policy via North Korea.
In the American Prospect article Steve Bannon also undermined U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directly, and was far out of line with this:

“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.” ~ Steve Bannon

This type of statement was so over-the-top arrogant, and exhibits a ridiculous level of power-lust and expressed self-importance, I asked the question: ” Who exactly is Steve Bannon to think that he can marginalize the cabinet? And against the division narrative within the White House why the heck would he push that opinion publicly? Is he trying to push the envelope and get fired?“.
Well, the White House Press Office has confirmed that political strategist Steve Bannon is no longer working at the White House.

On timing, it makes sense Mr. Bannon would exit today given the full national security meeting in Camp David attendance by: President Trump, VP Pence, General John Kelly, HR McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis, Secretary Mnuchin, ODNI Dan Coats, CIA Director Pompeo, AG Jeff Sessions, Ambassador Haley, Joint Chief Chairman General Dunford, etc.
Can you imagine the awkwardness of Steve Bannon being in the room, amid the administration team, given the nature of his public outline?  No way.

(Via Reuters) A source close to Bannon said he was not expected to resign on his own. “Bannon is going to make them fire him,” the source said. “He’s not going to officially resign. He’s still been doing the work. He’s been working on projects.”
The New York Times, however, cited a person close to Bannon as saying he had submitted his resignation on Aug. 7 and that it was to be announced this week, but had been delayed by the fallout from a rally by white nationalists in Virginia over the weekend.

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If you were to review how CNN and corporate mainstream media talk politics, well, according to their echo-chambered versions of President Trump, each week that passes is the worst week ever in presidential history.  Seriously, no joke. President Trump has been in office for 30 weeks, and 20 of those weeks have been called “the worst” by media.
However, if you actually engage with people living their lives and not focused on who the media blame for the latest round of horrid offenses; well, then you might recognize the scope of how over-emphasized and out-of-touch the media perspective really is.
CBS and The Associated Press each found themselves picking their corporate media jaws off the floor when they actually did ask people.  You know, ordinary people.  Folks like you and me.  The media didn’t anticipate the power of common sense to see through their BS.
With the president under fire voters have some things to say, and it’s not what the media thought. CBS Mark Strassmann begins by speaking to three women who voted for President Trump. Watch:

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But it’s not just three random republican women that support President Trump. The media pile-on is so gobsmackingly over-the-top, it is only making Godzilla Trump stronger; as The Associated Press found out:
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