Alabama voters head to the polls today to pick a Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate. The GOP runoff is between former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore (Team Bannon) -vs- interim Senator Luther Strange (Team McConnell).
Tonight’s winner advances to face Democratic nominee Doug Jones on Dec. 12th to fill the Senate seat Jeff Sessions left to become President Trump’s attorney general.

Polls closed at 8:00pm EDT – Results announced shortly thereafter.

Update 9:45pm EDT.  Senator Luther Strange concedes. Judge Roy Moore Wins.  Approximately vote distribution: With 42 percent of the precincts reporting, Moore leads Strange 57 percent to 43 percent, a margin of just over 25,000 votes. State officials estimated a low turnout of between 12 and 15 percent of eligible voters.
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Hostage negotiations are bad ju-ju, until it’s Democrats holding the hostages.

You see,… today a  funny thing happened on the way to the ‘Trump holds Dreamers Hostage for Border Wall Funding’ party.  Apparently the ‘Democrats Held Hurricane Harvey Victims Hostage to a Debt Ceiling Deal’. Huh… funny that.

(VIA AP) Democratic leaders say President Donald Trump has agreed to a plan to fund the government and increase the nation’s debt limit for three months as part of a deal to rush disaster aid to Hurricane Harvey victims.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer announced the agreement Wednesday after meeting with Trump at the White House.

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Generally speaking, anticipatory media reports can often be subject to incorrect assumptions and false conclusions.  However, a Politico report on the outline of President Trump eliminating the DACA program passes the general sniff test of a process likely to be consistent with the actual outcome.
Encapsulated, the report states President Trump will announce the end to the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals on Tuesday, but will delay implementation of the enforcement therein for a period of six months allowing congress to debate legislative action prior to DACA designee’s receiving deportation notices.
This tracks with what most people have anticipated because President Obama’s DACA executive action is similar in unlawful executive overreach as the courts, including the Supreme court, upheld in the prior DAPA ruling.  Any state that challenges Obama’s DACA program will likely win, and it’s impossible for President Trump’s DOJ to legally defend it.
The delayed enforcement aspect will allow voters the ability to begin primary challenges against congressional Republicans who are guaranteed to drop their masks and work earnestly to deliver UniParty legislative amnesty to illegal aliens.
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President Trump travels to Springfield Missouri today to kick-off a speech promoting tas reform as a goal for the soon to return congress. The White House said that the address is not expected to delve into policy details, including specific tax rates. Instead, Trump is expected to make the case for why he believes changes to the tax code are needed to give people a better chance of achieving the American dream.
“The president is going to lay out his vision to bring back Main Street by reducing the crushing tax burden on our companies and our workers and also to restore our competitive advantage by repairing and reforming our badly broken tax code.”  The speech is anticipated for 2:30pm EDT:
UPDATE: Video Added

The media are so predictable it becomes a little funny after a while.  CNN specializes in the State Department and sells their narratives. Washington Post specializes in the CIA and sells their narratives.  NYT focuses on DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community overall.
Senator Bob Corker leaks a letter he received from Secretary of State Tillerson directly to CNN.  Secretary Tillerson is informing Senator Corker of State Department downsizing.  Republicans in congress have already threatened to sue Trump administration to force more spending on State Department.

(Via The Hill) Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is preparing to eliminate or downgrade special envoy positions at the State Department, CNN reported Monday.
The secretary, in a letter addressed to Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) obtained by CNN, proposed shaking up as many as three-dozen posts, by either letting go or transferring the envoys.

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The Alabama Senate Republican run-off to fill the vacant seat from AG Jeff Sessions has become a referendum on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.  This is a very valuable situation for voters who understand how individual races, at specific moments, can create inflection points and change political history.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s defeat in 2014 was an example of one such moment.  Cantor’s defeat by challenger Dave Brat actually killed comprehensive immigration legislation, which included amnesty, 48 hours before the vote was scheduled to take place.

Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is actively working to undermine the Make America Great Again legislative priorities of Republican President Donald Trump.  There is a grand list of McConnell’s activity showing direct and specific evidence in that regard:

•President Trump already gave congress a budget that reduces a trillion in spending; the Senate republicans balked and said reducing spending is not an acceptable goal. •Those same republicans and Democrats are suing President Trump trying to force the State Department to spend money on USAID and NGO’s. •Those same Senate republicans supported Omnibus spending bills. •Those same Senate republicans will not support removing ObamaCare. •Those same Senate republicans are fighting renegotiated trade deals including NAFTA. •Those same Senate republicans supported TPP. • Those same Senate republicans supported launching ridiculous Russian conspiracy investigations; and the list goes on, including •those same senate republicans using a strategic maneuver to block their own Republican President from recess appointments.

Well, you get the picture. There’s ample evidence of Senate Republicans opposing the President, and most of that opposition is fueled by Leader Mitch McConnell.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell delivered a speech today in Kentucky.  A speech which yet again personifies the disconnect between the insufferable professional republicans within the party and the MAGA insurgency that has taken it over.
WATCH SPEECH HERE
CTH has been transparent with our support for Donald Trump, and the specific reason for it.  We want the GOPe machine torn down, dispatched to earth orbit, and nuked while there regardless of consequence, because we’re sick of having to be brutalized and used by Republican liars hiding within it. Period.
If President Trump shows up to the next MAGA rally in a banana costume, 5″ stiletto heels and starts twerking a cardboard cutout of Mitch McConnell, he’d still have our full support.
Senate Majority Mitch McConnell is the personification of the intransigent GOPe.  He is quite simply that vindictive doddering fool down the road with the signs on his law forbidding anyone to dare touch the grass.  The entire neighborhood hates him.  Harsh? No, try reality. THAT is the face of the swamp. Mr. Mumbles.  Good grief, no wonder Democrats are always grinning.
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Prior to last nights intensely enjoyable MAGA rally in Phoenix Arizona CTH was wondering if President Trump would trigger “The Big Ugly“; the looming and necessary battle with the professional republican DC apparatus.
All the key ingredients were there: A challenger for Senator Jeff Flake; prior statements from both Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan in opposition to the President; the perfect geography to highlight the GOPe’s 800lb open-border agenda; the failure to repeal Obamacare because of an Arizona senator; the border wall, etc.
The righteous list is long and the timing looked about right.

The Arizona stage was almost perfect for President Trump to begin the final conflict, the direct battle against the corrupt decepticons within the republican party. The goal would be fulfillment of a destiny we all know has to happen: To destroy the Professional Republican Party apparatus and every non-MAGA Republican politician within it.
But he didn’t.
Oh sure, President Trump came closer to launching the Big Ugly political MOAB than ever before.  He walked right up to the line, flipped open the Zippo; with a glint in his eye Trump knelt down grinning at the fuse, winking at the audience…. but he didn’t ignite it.
Nope, the timing wasn’t just right yet.
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There are Trillions of Dollars at Stake. CTH has been highlighting the hidden motivation for years.  Opposition is all about the economics folks.
Against President Trump’s promise to renegotiate trade deals, withdraw from TPP and TTIP, walk away from the fraudulent economic scheme within the Paris Climate Treaty, and renegotiate or pull out of NAFTA.  Well,… it’s called a strategy session folks:

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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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