Credit Suisse is a stock rating entity which generates a sliding scale for future stock valuations based on evaluations of brand sentiment.  The scale runs from -100 to +100 with zero as a “hold” or “take no position” recommendation.
Back in January Starbucks announced they were going to stand in opposition to President Trump; and to display their virtuous immigration bona fides they announced their intention to hire 10,000 refugees as employees in lieu of current American applicants for employment.
An almost immediate backlash began as pro-USA consumers and President Trump supporters turned away from the Starbucks brand.   As a consequence the Starbucks business model has been severely impacted.
Prior to their virtue-signaling announcement, Starbucks held a +80 position with Credit Suisse.  Today that rating dropped to ZERO as analysts announced the latest brand rating against the back drop of significant drops in sales.
(more…)

Put this in the ‘things you won’t see on CNN’ file: Trying to retain their resistant bona fides Democrat Representatives Elijah Cummings and Peter Welch emerge from a meeting with, with, with the bad man, President Trump, seemingly infected with r-r-r-respect.
Aiieeeee… resist we much, and we much, about this, be committed.. Pelosi desperately shouting: “stay away from the light… don’t walk toward the light”… oh noes, the swamp, they’re, they’re walking the-wrong-way…  OMG.  “Curse You Villain !!”
Elijah Cummings obviously having a hard time shaking it off.  It took him a few minutes to gather back his oppositional composure:

(more…)

If, if, if, if… only Trump had a magic wand or something… well, then the, the, the, the…. the Okie doke Trump brand would be “skyrocketing“:

WASHINGTON DC – Contrary to reports that shoppers are avoiding the first daughter’s fashion line to protest her father’s policies, the president of the company says recent sales are among the best in the brand’s history.
Abigail Klem, a former lawyer who has worked at Ivanka Trump HQ since 2013 and took over the role of company president in January, insisted that the brand has experienced a major boost.
“Since the beginning of February, they were some of the best performing weeks in the history of the brand,” explained Klem to Refinery29.com. “For several different retailers Ivanka Trump was a top performer online, and in some of the categories it was the [brand’s] best performance ever.”
(more…)

FACT: ObamaCare was passed, using the original legislative vehicle, at 1:38am on 12/24/09 with 60 votes in the Senate (see below).  The House then approved that Senate Bill without changes; and in February 2010 created a secondary bill which created the opportunity for the Senate to modify ObamaCare using “reconciliation” for a lower vote threshold of 51 votes.
Literally under the cloak of darkness Democrats rammed their holy grail of a socialist construct down the throat of every American. We no longer needed to imagine having usurping representation that did not represent the will of the people – we saw it.
[Understand the full construct by reading HERE]  If you do not understand how legislation is created; if you do not understand the difference between the Senate and House; if you do not understand the way ObamaCare was created, you really need to read this first.
A clean repeal bill, meaning a law to repeal the entire ObamaCare construct only, would require another 60 vote hurdle in the Senate.
Republicans, while in the majority, only control 52 seats.  Without 8 Democrats voting to approve a “repeal bill”, any House (Or Senate) bill that repeals ObamaCare cannot pass the Senate.
This is why Mark Levin is a con-man; selling snake oil as outrage to keep a listening audience angry, yet clueless and hopeless.   That’s what I don’t like.
A complete repeal of ObamaCare is currently impossible.  The House Freedom Caucus can push all the repeal bills they want, but they cannot get a clean repeal bill through the Senate because they cannot get the 60 votes needed. Period.
Additionally, despite claims to the contrary, the GOP has never passed an Obamacare “repeal bill”. Ever.  What they did previously pass was a “defund bill” using the lower vote reconciliation process. President Obama vetoed it.  A defunding bill was possible because of the financial pathway which falls under reconciliation rules.  The current Ryan bill is almost identical to the 2016 defunding bill everyone is mistakenly calling a prior “repeal bill”.
(more…)

There are bazillions of opinions on the current ObamaCare repeal and replace efforts. Many people are rightly concerned their wants, wishes or needs do not seem addressed within the Price/Ryan bill announced last night.
CTH is far from a SME on the details.  However, we do know the legislative “process” and we followed the original construct closely.  Many people are missing the big picture challenges with “repeal and replace” – perhaps we can explain a little, and maybe it will settle some nerves.

The best way to explain what appears to be the Price/Ryan legislative road-map is to remind ourselves how a Dem legislature was able to enact ObamaCare with zero Republican support.   In 2017 the reversal of this process also lines up to be a Republican repeal with zero Democrat support.
Way back in 2009 when ObamaCare was being constructed, there were two procedural legislative constructs to create ObamaCare- one from the House (Pelosi) and one from the Senate (Reid).
(more…)

Former campaign manager and now Senior adviser to the President, Kellyanne Conway, appeared on Fox and Friends morning broadcast to discuss current administration efforts to cut through the media firestorm in the aftermath of a weekend filled with discussions of “wire tapping” and “FISA court” surveillance surrounding President Trump.

(more…)

For an administration that would parse every word and phrase used by their political opposition to infer a narrative of violence, the alarming message within this call to action released today, by former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, is quite stunning.

.
For those who would defend this I would simply suggest to reverse the agent of delivery. Keep the words exactly the same but transpose current Attorney General Jeff Sessions as the messenger; and now what do you think the media would claim was the intent of the message?
(more…)

March 5th, 2017 – Statement from the Press Secretary

“Reports concerning potentially politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of the 2016 election are troubling.

President Donald J Trump is requesting that as part of their investigations into Russian activity, the congressional intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority to determine whether executive brance investigative powers were abused in 2016.

Neither the White House nor the President will comment further until such oversight is conducted.” ~ Office of the President

John Hayward at Breitbart News accurately puts the intention of the President Trump administration into context.
(more…)

♦ The New York Times says the Obama administration DID wire tap Trump Tower.  ♦The former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper said they DID NOT wire tap Trump Tower.  ♦Mark Levin says Media Reports claim they DID wire tap Trump Tower.  ♦Former AG Mulkasey says it appears officials DID wire tap Trump Tower.

Now FBI Director James Comey says the FBI did NOT wire tap Trump Tower.

WASHINGTON DC – FBI Director James Comey reportedly asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s claims that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower before the election.
Senior American officials told The New York Times on Sunday that Comey has said the president’s wiretapping allegations are not true and asked the Justice Department on Saturday to publicly correct the record.

(more…)

The far-left Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said this morning there were no wire taps at Trump Tower.   The far-right Director of Non-Intelligence, Mark Levin, outlines all the media reports claiming there were wire taps at Trump Tower.
So were there wire taps, and surveillance at Trump Tower or not?
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey scratches the clay from his cleats, rares back, and hurls an atomic fastball right down the middle.  Saying: Trump was “right” that there was surveillance on Trump Tower for intelligence purposes.  WATCH:

.

“This is the difference between being correct and right. The president was not correct in saying President Obama ordered a tap on a server in Trump Tower. However, I think he’s right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general – at the Justice Department through the FISA court.”

Here’s what’s going on, that almost everyone seems to be missing. (more…)