The House of Representative have passed the ObamaCare Repeal/Replacement bill by a final vote of 217-213.

Over the next few weeks/months the bill will work through the Senate and then return to the House to reconcile any differences.  The House bill takes the increasing, costly IRS tax/penalties on ObamaCare down to $0 – effectively crippling the individual mandate and the employer mandate.

President Trump will hold a 3:30pm EDT celebratory news conference at the White House, and GOP lawmakers are expected to take buses from Capitol Hill to attend. Mitch McConnell and 52 republican senators now have the challenge of passage.

WH Live Stream Link – Alternate Live Stream

The various media pundits and news stories are calling H.R. 1180 a “new overtime bill”.  However, in reality the ‘take pay or take time off’ concept is more than 50 years old; we used to call it “compensatory time” or “comp time”.

WASHINGTON – […] Voting along party lines, the House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that would allow private-sector employers to compensate their overtime-working employees with paid time off instead of paying them time-and-a-half as currently required.

The bill, H.R. 1180, would tweak the Fair Labor Standards Act, which mandates employers that require hourly-paid employees to work more than 40 hours a week to pay time-and-a-half, or 1.5 times their usual hourly rate. The bill also prohibits employers from coercing or intimidating employees to choose time off instead of overtime pay.

House Republicans passed the bill, sponsored by Rep. Martha Roby (R-Ala.), with no Democrats voting in favor. The bill will now go to the Senate, where it will require 60 votes to avoid a filibuster by Democrats. (read more)

The professionally Democrat hate the concept, but most Democrat politicians have zero experience in understanding how incredibly beneficial compensatory time can be.

Many of us came from an era when “compensatory time” was a fantastic way for people to utilize it to make their lives much easier.

The basic principle can be awesome for employees for a variety of reasons.  However, few young workers today have an understanding of how it works.

Say you work 60 hours in a week.  If ‘compensatory time’ options are available you can take your standard 40 hour paycheck and defer the 20 overtime hours to future time off at the OT rate of time-and-a-half (20 x 1.5), gaining you 30 hours of comp time.

Historically this was an excellent way for middle-class young people to attend college and still get a consistent paycheck.   You work five weeks at 70 hours per week and the 150 overtime hours convert to 225 paid comp time hours.  That’s six weeks off and you are still getting a paycheck.

I know dozens of people who worked long hours in the summer, and Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday breaks, building up enough comp-time so they received a paycheck throughout their entire college terms when they were not working.

Even more people used comp-time as a bank to save up time off for childbirth or other family plans where they could take big chunks of time off work and still get paid consistently.

Additionally, even more people used partial ‘comp-time’ as way to work periods of only part-time (2 days a week etc.) but still be paid for the entire week filling in the other 3 days with comp-time.  This was the preferred practice for working students during college semesters; there was never a downside.

Nothing was ever forced it was simply an option.  Take the overtime pay, or bank the overtime as paid time off.  It was a great system and provided numerous benefits while simultaneously allowing the business to control payroll and labor cost efficiencies.

Season businesses really liked comp-time because it meant they could ramp up hours worked during peak business periods, and not have to lay-off workers in the slower periods because the workers converted the previous work hours into time-off with pay.  It really was a win/win.

Against the backdrop of an anticipated exploding Trump economy hopefully this bill will pass the Senate and a new generation of young people and middle-class workers will be able to see the benefits such a system of pay options can provide.

Senator Elizabeth Warren is absolutely clueless on this issue.  I’ll bet she doesn’t even know a single person in her life who ever used “compensatory time” because she’s surrounded by limo-liberals who are detached from common sense workers.

The UniParty is sly, I would say professionally and expertly so, and before readers feel the need to point out the obvious – when it comes to legislation, yes, I am professionally cynical.

The reason is simple, having trained ourselves to see when the pea is never under the shell, the legislative conversations that really matter are always behind a Potemkin Village called K-Street.

You have to know the unwritten legislative rules of the UniParty as they have been evidenced for almost 15 years to understand the ruse.

♦ First, the reason a vote, any vote, is “announced”, and just doesn’t take place, is because it provides the controlled opposition time to frame their anti-(fill_in_the-blank) talking points.  This is by design.  When a legislative vote is “announced” it is a dog-whistle call out to the institutional lobbyists that the legislation will be rail-roaded and ultimately fail.

♦ Second, notice how “announced” legislation (remember ObamaCare is a tax) has not been “scored” by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).   A vote without a score is a vote that again is intentionally set up to fail.  Meaning – the vote itself is an exercise for political consumption only.  Potemkin Village legislation, designed to give the illusion of doing something the electorate demand, while intentionally actually doing ‘the thing’ that K-street demands.

♦ Third, the legislation is sold by a system of Machiavellian-minded “leadership”, as a good thing optically for Allies.  Meaning – legislative leadership tell liaisons for vested interests, in this case both the White House and lobbyists are “interests”, to consider the vote a “win”.

Put another way, the vote itself is the “political ends”.  The vote is not the means to a legislative outcome that would customarily be considered the actual end goal.

This ObamaCare repeal and replace vote is a nothing-burger. It is 100% phoney legislation which will go no-where from here.

The UniParty is really good at this vote in-name-only which helps them retain optics with the viewing/voting electorate.  ‘Hey we voted’, yea us.

It’s all a legislative ruse.  Hundreds of millions have been poured into congress to purchase the original ObamaCare bill and all of the subsequent down-stream consequences therein.  The people who paid that money will not allow removal.  It’s really that simple.

Why does K-Street want ObamaCare to remain?  Because it was designed to fail and lead to an eventual bi-partisan (UniParty created) single-payer system.   What the Health Industry lobbyists -who sold the construct- do not want is private market healthcare.  [Substantive Aid for Comprehension Here]  Remember, lobbyists write the legislation, not congress:

Quarter One DC Lobbying: “The pharmaceutical and health products industry spent the most at $78 million, about $10 million more than it did during the same period in 2016 for a 14 percent increase.

(Graphic and Analysis Link)

Put it another way: If congress did not want ObamaCare to fail what would they be doing differently?

Everything is a well choreographed shell game designed to keep your eye on the fast moving legislative hands (shells), but there’s no pea underneath.  This is a vote for public consumption designed for political benefit.  ONLY.

The Trump White House doesn’t have a really strong legislative team, and their communications group is too weak to call out this issue to the larger electorate.  The scheme is too complex, by design, to be explained to voters.

Go to DC, or follow the participants very closely, and look behind the constructed Potemkin village and you’ll see there’s nothing there.   Think about the old con-artists who would seed gold flakes into mineral deposits in order to gain investors.  Same basic ruse.

Tomorrow the Democrat Party gets their turn at playing controlled opposition.  Today, tonight and tomorrow morning the previously written talking-points are distributed and the pantomime begins.   The goal of the legislative play, as in all the goals of all recent legislative plays, is to give you the impression there are two political parties.

If the bill advances, and only Trump’s bully pulpit will be the determining factor (upon McConnell) if it goes through the Senate, the bill will run through congress (from house through senate) and return to the origin looking identical to the original ObamaCare legislation it was intended to replace. Sometime mid-June.

Remember, the UniParty (paid by K-Street) in congress wants ObamaCare to remain, because the longer-term goal, by design, is for ObamaCare to strategically fail.

Unfortunately, there is no external guiding force behind the current legislation to create a different path or outcome.

BLOOMBERG – House Republicans plan to vote Thursday on their long-stalled Obamacare repeal measure, setting up a high-stakes test given the continuing doubts about whether they have enough votes to guarantee passage.

“We’re going to pass it,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told reporters Wednesday evening, adding that “we have enough votes.”

The decision comes after several weeks of agonizing over how Republicans would deliver on seven years of promises to repeal Obamacare, as well as intense pressure from the White House to hold the vote. Even so, a number of GOP moderates remain opposed or undecided, adding significant suspense to the Thursday vote.

A key momentum shift came Wednesday morning, when Representative Fred Upton reversed his earlier opposition and embraced the bill after a meeting with President Donald Trump. He told reporters that he would vote for the measure once a new amendment he helped devise is added that would boost funding for people with pre-existing conditions. (link)

Several people have requested thoughts and analysis on the decision by South Carolina (former) Police Officer Michael Slager to plead guilty to civil rights violations.

From the outset this case was unique, stunningly so.  Our research into this case was necessarily fact-driven because any emotional review of the shooting is fraught with over simplistic reaction.  This is one of those cases where logic battles with emotion and the outcome, as it stands today, is even more evidence toward that end.

Michael Slager pleading guilty to federal charges against the State’s inability to gain any criminal charges shows how the dynamic of law can run parallel to justice but not necessarily merge.  This is the framework for my perspective on this case.

It’s important to note what Slager’s plea isn’t.  There is no admission of violation of statutory state law.  Slager is not pleading guilty to any form of manslaughter, and most certainly isn’t guilty of level of statutory murder.  The unusual nature of this dynamic is why the State of South Carolina has withdrawn any/all criminal charges now that Slager has plead guilty to a federal violation of Scott’s civil rights.

Important Back Story

There is a lot about this case where the dynamics of justice have failed on both sides.  The fact that the case was highly-charged politically created part of the issue.  From the media’s perspective the trial jury was “hung” and a mistrial was declared; but that’s not the real story.

The trial jury were hung on the ‘voluntary manslaughter’ (lesser charge), not the murder charge. Oddly the failure of the defense team to demand a polling of the jury on the manslaughter charge to drive home that aspect, and the political decision by Judge Clifton Newman not to draw that distinction on his own, must have ultimately contributed to the decision today.

The State overcharged Slager to appease a political mob.  There was no way, with the facts sure to come out in court, that a murder conviction was ever possible.  Every intellectually honest person knew that; and that’s what the jury also confirmed.

Yes, Slager shot and killed Walter Scott.  However, there was less than 1.5 seconds between the end of Walter Scott’s two minute physical fight with Slager and the first shot from Slager’s pistol.  Ultimately the question becomes was the shooting legal?

The answer to that question is yes, and no.  Yes, under the SC legal statutes the action Slager took was legal in all aspects.  However, it is also true that Slager’s less than 1.5 second decision to shoot a felon fleeing custody, in the back, after an almost 2 minute physical struggle, multiple times, was not a good decision.

If the jury had stated in court they were hung on the ‘voluntary manslaughter’ aspect, the federal civil rights violation charges would have frozen, perhaps disappeared.  The State and Feds were lucky Judge Newman didn’t poll the jury.  If Solicitor General Scarlett Wilson re-tried the case for just ‘voluntary manslaughter’, the result could go either way.  If not guilty, well, how can an officer act lawfully, and still be in violation of law.

The family of Walter Scott already received a payout over $6 million.  Michael Slager is not admitting to violation of any state law.  The state is dropping all charges.  Slager has entered a deal to plea guilty to federal civil rights charges.

Weird, but not necessarily unexpected.

The Trump Justice Department did not, as was once rumored, actually dismiss the federal case. But it does seem to have engineered a deal that includes the dropping of state charges. Federal judge David C. Norton, a George W. Bush appointee, could sentence Slager to 20 years in prison, but he could also sentence him to no prison time at all—and should: Slager has already spent a savage eight months in solitary confinement, not allowed to hold or even see his first son, born during his incarceration.

It’s very hard to tell from reading the Main Stream Media, but lead defense attorney Andy Savage actually used the argument developed by The Conservative Treehouse/ Last Refuge website that Scott had shot Office Slager with his own taser before fleeing—totally discrediting the Unprovoked-Atrocity-By-Brutal-Cop Narrative that took in even American Renaissance’s famously finicky Jared Taylor.[Officer Michael Slager, White Man, April 9, 2015]  (read more)

Michael Slager has already spent more than a year-and-a-half in jail before trial.  Eight months of the time in jail was in solitary confinement.  Sentencing on the civil rights plea should be interesting.

All Slager/Scott Research available HERE

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sat down for a comprehensive discussion on trade, education and commerce policies with Bloomberg’s David Gura at the Bloomberg Breakaway Summit in New York.

In his direct and often humorous style Wilburine describes some of the current economic trade challenges and presents an outline of U.S. forward policy.  Secretary Ross spends quite a bit of time explaining how the NAFTA trade agreement is obsolescent in the modern era and how many of the products and industries in 2017 are not part of the agreement.

Wilburine also discusses how the business community is interacting with the Trump administration to deliver on specific aspects to the larger economic policy goals. A very good and substantive discussion segment:

.

Additionally, COMMERCE – Earlier today, U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin held a phone conversation with Vice Premier Wang Yang of China. Commerce Secretary Ross, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and Vice Premier Wang discussed bilateral issues related to the U.S.- China Comprehensive Dialogue and the overall economic and trade relationship between the two countries. (link)

As an outcome of the systemic corruption and administrative malfeasance uncovered by whistleblowers in the Veterans Affairs healthcare system, on April 27th President Trump and Vice-President Pence participate in an Executive Order signing to enhance the accountability and whistleblower protections within federal government.

President Trump created the VA Accountability Office.  This was a major campaign promise to veterans fulfilled.  You could tell by the intensity of delivery this was a very important reform objective to President Trump personally.  Now today…

(Via Fox News) The director of the beleaguered Shreveport VA hospital in Louisiana has been fired following a three-year tenure filled with scandal — including accusations of covering up a secret wait-list, creating severe staffing shortages and refusing to buy essentials like vital signs machines, linens or mattresses.

Toby Mathew, who became director of Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in June 2014, was fired on April 13 due to “charges related to general misconduct, and failure to follow policy and provide effective oversight of the Center’s credentialing and privileging program,” said an internal VA memo obtained by Fox News.

This is the highest-profile employee removal since Secretary Eric Shinseki left in May 2014 following news of the massive wait-list scandal at the Phoenix VA hospital. Last week, President Trump signed an executive order creating an office within the VA to make it easier to fire bad employees – an issue that Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., had championed for several years. Trump also fired two employees in the Caribbean on his second day in office.

Mathew could not be reached for comment.

The VA confirmed his removal in a brief statement: “Toby Mathew was removed from employment as director of the Overton Brooks VA Medical Center in Shreveport, La., effective April 13, and he is no longer at VA.”  (read more)

Creating the Office of Accountability

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice has reversed her position and is now refusing to testify to a Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee investigating Russia’s interference with the 2016 election.   The key risk to Susan Rice is public discussion and discovery of her requests to unmask names within NSA intelligence and surveillance reports on political opponents.

Against revelations that pointed to Susan Rice as the epicenter of the political surveillance programs, her testimony was a risk to herself, the Obama administration and the entire democrat apparatus.  Her appearance at a Senate Committee where questions would sure to be raised was a significant risk.

The cover for Rice’s retreat from sunlight is brutally obvious.  Kathryn Ruemmler, Rice’s attorney delivers a letter to CNN so the media outlet can push a narrative that Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse -ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee- has told Rice her attendance would not be needed.

“Senator Whitehouse has informed us by letter that he did not agree to Chairman Graham’s invitation to Ambassador Rice, a significant departure from the bipartisan invitations extended to other witnesses,” Ruemmler wrote. “Under these circumstances, Ambassador Rice respectfully declines Senator Graham’s invitation to testify.”

CNN is the preferred outlet for Obama defense narratives stemming from the Obama White House and State Department.  The Washington Post is the preferred media outlet for Obama defense from the White House and intelligence community.  The transparent motive of Rice’s attorney sending a letter to CNN is obvious.

The political games continue, and, as usual, the republican wing of the UniParty will now play-out their pearl clutching controlled opposition role.