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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No current events have as much impact on the lives of ordinary paycheck-to-paycheck Americans as the NAFTA trade negotiations.  Every person in the U.S., our children and the lives of following generations, are impacted by the ongoing economic battle. The consequences are epic in proportion, yet the MSM insufferably avoids discussion.
Against the backdrop of NAFTA Round #2 renegotiations beginning in Mexico, the massive Multinational Corporations fight back to retain their market exploitation.  Decades-long established masks are dropping; the grand usurpation’s are being exposed; there are trillions of dollars at stake.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Trade negotiators from Canada and the United States gathered under rainy skies in Mexico City on Friday to discuss the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the mood darkened by U.S. President Donald Trump’s persistent threats to pull out.
Teams from the three countries were due to kick off a second round of talks on 25 areas of discussion, with subjects such as digital commerce and small businesses seen as areas where consensus was possible, Mexican officials said.
The Sept. 1-5 round will also touch on more thorny topics such as rules governing local content in products made in North America, Mexico’s economy ministry said in a statement. Mexican officials believe Trump wants to include rules that some content must be made in the United States.

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Hypocrisy, thy name is….  German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an election challenge.  In 2014 German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the world that German’s borders were open and welcoming to Islamic refugees from the Middle East.  Hundreds of thousands of Muslim males aged 18 to 34 took her up on her offer.
Terrorism necessarily skyrocketed throughout Germany and Western Europe in 2015, 2016 and 2017.  Today German Chancellor Angela Merkel is saying Germany’s borders must be protected.

(Via Irish Times) With a month to election day, German chancellor Angela Merkel has ramped up her refugee-critical rhetoric in a bid to pull back far-right voters, boost her Bavarian allies and win over a record number of undecideds.

The chancellor used weekend interviews and rallies to stand by her 2015 decision that saw almost one million asylum seekers arrive in the country. She said she would decide the same way again, but insisted that events of 2015 “must not be repeated”. Aware of huge public unease over the refugee crisis, and related terror attacks since, she signalled Germany would demand an extension of border checks on the border with Austria, a Schengen suspension requiring EU approval.

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It is being reported by multiple media outlets and their sources that Dr. Sebastian Gorka has parted ways with the White House.  Some reports say ‘forced out‘, others say ‘resigned’; it matters not.  Gorka was staff; simply staff, nothing more than staff; he and Bannon can go make cucumber sandwiches now.
Dr. Gorka was essentially a Steve Bannon employee in the administration; Gorka reported to Bannon, and Gorka took instructions from Bannon.  With General Kelly creating a formal chain of contact and message discipline within the White House; and with Gorka’s boss having resigned a week ago; it was entirely predictable that Gorka would leave.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka had been on a semi-hiatus since a week prior to Bannon’s departure when Gorka appeared on national television and did a big stupid.  Gorka asserting he held influence over Defense Secretary General Mattis and claiming Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “nonsensical” and did not know the Administration’s military agenda toward North Korea.

“The idea that Secretary Tillerson is going to discuss military matters is simply nonsensical,” Gorka said at the time. “It is the job of [Defense] Secretary [Jim] Mattis, the secretary of defense, to talk about the military options, and he has done so unequivocally.” (link)

Anyone noticing a pattern here?
Yup, just like Steve Bannon claiming only he was skilled enough to direct U.S. foreign policy engagement from the State Department, Sebastian Gorka was way out of line with is “nonsensical” Tillerson statement. It’s not accidental that Bannon’s statements and Gorka’s statements were similarly framed.
To the extent you can know anyone from watching them, I like Bannon and Gorka. But, c’mon, I mean seriously… what level of stupid arrogance is needed for Bannon and Gorka to think they held free reign to undermine Cabinet Officers?  Have neither of these guys worked in a large corporate and/or institutional system where you understand your role and the number one rule: “never compromise your leadership.”
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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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If ever you doubted that ESPN was the sporting epicenter of liberalism, well, consider this the day you can put those doubts to rest.
In what can only be considered the most ridiculous, over-the-top, example of political correctness running amok ESPN has pulled a college football announcer from the game between William & Mary -vs- the University of Virginia because his name is Robert Lee.
Seriously, you just can’t make this stuff up.  Oh, and Robert Lee is Asian (pictured left) but even his ethnicity couldn’t save him from the executive level stupidity and delicate sensibilities of ESPN.
The executives in charge of programming and broadcasting actually had a meeting to decide that an Asian guy named Robert Lee was just too triggering.  Here’s the statement from ESPN:

“We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play by play for a football game has become an issue.” (link)

The New York Post is reporting an evolution into the investigation of the indicted Awan family and colleagues who worked as Democrat staffers within the House Intelligence Committee and aides within the Super-Classified Congressional Intelligence Gang-of-Eight.  It’s jaw-dropping how much intelligence this crew would have access to.
In an alarming development the Post writes: “Investigators now suspect that sensitive US government data — possibly including classified information — could have been compromised and may have been sold to hostile foreign governments that could use it to blackmail members of Congress or even put their lives at risk.”

(Via New York Post) […] Alarm bells went off in April 2016 when computer security officials in the House reported “irregularities” in computer equipment purchasing. An internal investigation revealed the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in government property, and evidence pointed to five IT staffers and the Democratic Congress members’ offices that employed them.

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Angela Merkel is essentially the de-facto global head of modern political liberalism.  The central tenet, almost religious-based in its importance, is the lunacy within “climate change”.  However, as most reasonable people have concluded, the ‘climate discussions’ are more about controlled global economics than any actual concerns about planetary climatology.   Bottom line, it’s the economics that really matter beyond all else.
Backdrop – The day after President Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty, the German auto-sector immediately responded with a statement.  We see the immediate admission that ‘climate’ is simply a tool to shape global economics within that reactionary auto industry statement (emphasis mine):

(Via Reuters) […] “The regrettable announcement by the USA makes it inevitable that Europe must facilitate a cost efficient and economically feasible climate policy to remain internationally competitive,” Matthias Wissmann, president of the German auto industry lobby group VDA, said in a statement on Friday.

“The preservation of our competitive position is the precondition for successful climate protection. This correlation is often underestimated,” Wissmann said, adding that the decision by the Unites States was disappointing. (link)

As clearly stated, when push comes to shove German sensibilities are connected more to their economics than to any do-gooder need to save the planet.  This reality, in combination with upcoming German elections, sets the stage for Angela Merkel’s statement today, three months later: (more…)

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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(Via Fox News) Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was indicted Thursday on four counts including bank fraud and making false statements. The indictment also includes his wife Hina Alvi.

The grand jury decision in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comes roughly a month after Awan was arrested at Dulles airport in Virginia trying to board a plane to Pakistan, where his family is from.
Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats have been on investigators’ radar for months over concerns of possible double-billing, alleged equipment theft, and access to sensitive computer systems. Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Schultz had kept him on until his arrest in July.
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