There was a widely read Chicago Tribune op-ed written a few days ago outlining an approach to dissolve the entire state and apportion the geography to Wisconsin, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri and Iowa. –SEE HERE–  It was written tongue-in-cheek, but with an uncomfortable level of reality behind it.

Illinois has been struggling with its finances for a long, long time.

The Illinois long-term labor pension liabilities are ridiculous in the extreme.  However, things just went from bad to jaw-droppingly, gobsmackingly, unbelievably worse.

According to the latest financial media reports, Standard and Poors Global Ratings agency has positioned Illinois bonds to drop below “investment” grade; that would make Illinois the first state in the nation to achieve “junk bond” status.

(Via ABC) Illinois is on track to become the first U.S. state to have its credit rating downgraded to “junk” status, which would deepen its multibillion-dollar deficit and cost taxpayers more for years to come.

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According to multiple media reports Ms. Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr. will cash-in on the death of their son, Michael Brown, with a total settlement against all parties of $1.5 million.  [Ferguson, essentially, paid off a nuisance lawsuit.]

(VIA ABC NEWS) The family of Michael Brown, an African American teen whose fatal shooting by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked large-scale protests, has settled its lawsuit against the city for $1.5 million, said Apollo Carey, the city attorney for Ferguson.

The settlement amount was paid by the city’s insurance company “on behalf of multiple defendants,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

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President Trump, First Lady Melania Trump and lots of family and friends will be attending Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s wedding tonight to his long-time fiancee Louise Linton.

Secretary Wilbur Ross let the secret out last week when he was introducing Secretary Mnuchin at a conference in Washington. Wilburine said he and his wife “extend our congratulations and look forward to seeing you wed your dear fiancee, Louise Linton, on Saturday.”

Secretary Mnuchin, 54, has been engaged to Ms. Linton, a 36-year-old Scottish model/actress, since 2015.  Ms. Linton and Secretary Mnuchin were both involved in movie production companies.

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The Washington Examiner points out data released Friday showing a significant drop in refugee admissions in the first calendar quarter of the Trump administration.

*Worth noting that Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, UAE, Jordan and Oman have also initiated an “immigration ban” as part of the political sanctions against Qatar.

WASHINGTON – Data released Friday by the Department of Homeland Security shows that the number of refugees allowed into the United States fell by half shortly after President Trump took office. The decline was in large part due to a sharp upsurge in admissions under former President Barack Obama in the final three months of his administration.

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Modernizing government might not sound sexy as a political agenda item, and definitely doesn’t carry the interest of MSM headlines, however it’s actually a key tenet to reducing the size, scope and expense of government.  The utilization of modern technology to downsize government is a policy initiative.

The Trump administration is quietly putting private sector operational efficiencies into place within the federal government, as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross outlines:

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“The core allies were certainly encouraged by the clear narrative by President Trump in Riyadh, and thus decided to address the Qatar-Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] problem. The speech changed the narrative.” ~ Walid Phares

According to a Fox News Exclusive report, the President Trump administration is considering a Camp-David style Arab peace summit.   Those who have followed the administration’s structural activity all year will see this as a natural progression of events within the alliance formed by President Trump and the Mid-East coalition.

The four major allies within the growing alliance, Egypt, Saudi, UAE and Bahrain, as well as other moderates supportive of the larger objectives to restore stability, are currently engaged in a campaign to change the outlook of Qatar and stop their support for the Muslim Brotherhood.  A peace summit around their united efforts, with the support of President Trump, would follow a logical path.

The media will go bananas at the thought of such a consequential accomplishment.

(Via Fox News) President Trump is considering calling a Camp David-style summit to address growing tensions among long-established U.S. allies in the Arab world and renew his call for those nations to confront the “crisis of Islamic extremism,” Fox News has learned.

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Details are beginning to surface of a fraud investigation that began in 2016 as a result of complaints about Jane Sanders and her role in obtaining multi-million-dollar loans for a now defunct (closed in May ’16) Burlington University.  Many people might remember the origins of this story which began long before the presidential primary season last year.

BACKSTORY – At the end of 2010, Mrs. Jane Sanders took out $10 million in loans on behalf of Burlington College to purchase a 32-acre swathe of land from the Roman Catholic diocese, which put the land up for sale to help cover the costs of a $17 million sexual-abuse settlement

As Ms. Sanders pursued financing for the land acquisition, she repeatedly said that Burlington College had received more than $2 million in fundraising commitments and pledges, according to numerous records. However, in fiscal year 2011, Burlington College raised only $279,000, though the college had earlier claimed to have secured $1.2 million in confirmed pledges.

The college almost immediately fell short on its financial obligations as the fundraising pledges and commitments Ms. Sanders cited in loan agreements never materialized. Less than a year after leading Burlington College into massive debt, Ms. Sanders resigned, taking with her a $200,000 severance package.  The college was forced to close in 2016.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sean Spicer Twitter @PressSec

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.

For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

When people react to questions from a perspective of individual self-preservation they tend to forget their professional obligation to the bigger institutional picture.

Reference Evelyn Farkas on MSNBC for one very visible and specific recent example.

Today we have another unintentional admission thanks to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and CNN.

Currently, the DNC and left-wing media apparatus writ large, are trying desperately to regain footing on the ‘vast Russian conspiracy narrative’, as specifically evidenced by the Washington Post article published early on Friday.

Included within the exhaustive Post article, and specifically as foundational evidence to support the overall conspiracy, the Washington Post highlights Russian “hacking” of the DNC servers.  Here’s an excerpt:

(WaPo) […] Meanwhile, the FBI was tracking a flurry of hacking activity against U.S. political parties, think tanks and other targets. Russia had gained entry to DNC systems in the summer of 2015 and spring of 2016, but the breaches did not become public until they were disclosed in a June 2016 report by The Post. (link)

However, almost simultaneously, in another media format, former head of the DNC, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz, was being questioned about this very issue in the context of former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson’s recent congressional testimony.

What happens next is almost too funny for words. (see video below)

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