President Donald J Trump has done a remarkable job creating a seismic political shift that has gone far beyond drawing a line in the republican sand.  Heck, Donald Trump openly dug a trench on his pre-selected battle space within all political encampments.

Without any apology or hidden motive, President Trump filled the trench with a highly explosive electorate fuel (the result from years of Republican lies and deceit), and boldly stood behind his formation twirling a Zippo while looking toward the deceivers.

Today, it sounds like President Trump hands off the Zippo to Steve Bannon:

“If there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents — on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America.”  ~ Stephen K Bannon

(Via Bloomberg) […] According to a person close to Bannon, he met Wednesday with conservative billionaire Robert Mercer, co-chief executive of Renaissance Technologies and a major financial supporter of both Trump and Bannon’s efforts. The two mapped out a path ahead for Bannon’s post-White House career and discussed how Trump could get his agenda back on track.

The following evening, Mercer and several other major Republican donors had dinner with Trump to share their thinking, and Mercer also had a private meeting with Trump to pledge to redouble his efforts to support Bannon and advance Trump’s agenda.  (read more)

Oh boy.

There is an expression:

“I will leave you naked before your enemies”…

…a proactive assertion essentially stating: if you chose to engage in war with me – not only do I promise your defeat against my interests, but I will lay you open to exposure from all adversaries who will then take advantage of your new vulnerability.

This Trump, Mercer and Bannon agreement definitely sounds like “The Big Ugly” is coming.

President Trump, through policy proposals, forced sunshine upon our enemies inside the wire; he made them expose themselves.  As a result, the various “opposition voices” are put into a precarious position of attacking Trump in a vain effort to retain their necessary and self-interested position. Consequently, the republican wing of the UniParty exposed their alignment with usurping powers of Machiavellian intent.

This could will definitely be fun; as Menagerie noted earlier:

One of the notifications I got in the email today from Twitter included a Jonah Goldberg tweet that President Trump’s next step was to get single payer.

I’m not Twitter wise, and thought he might be linking an interesting article so I clicked. Spent a few minutes reading a bunch of comments from counting their chickens before they are hatched Trump haters who went off on a tangent that Trump is next going to declare all out war on Congress and then they joyously slapped each others backs at the thought of him being so stupid as to do that to the very people who are waiting to impeach him because they have the real power.

These fruit fly maniacs are seriously deluding each other in their country clubs and on their golf carts. Frankly, in my business I have worked with just a few of them, and many are insufferably ignorant, just exactly as they seem.

Never have I seen so many people who live their lives in a tiny little bubble think they know so much about what is going on in the world. For God’s sake, they live in a gold plated petri dish.

I believe that the American people who elected President Trump are more committed than ever. After the election, seeing the putridity is even more deep and wide than we thought, and we knew it was bad, I happen to believe we have been validated, and that my fellow citizens do too.

Those of us who struggle every day, who work for a living, who either experience ourselves, or watch loved ones slowly sinking, knowing they are going under soon, from the final burden of Obamacare on a budget that had maybe a couple hundred extra dollars on a good month, those of us who lost good jobs during the Obama reign of terror, those of us who are watching the hordes of migrants kill and steal, drain and demand, and many of whom pay more in taxes than the median wage, we aren’t backing down. They will face a total rage sweeping across this land if they dare to try to take away the leader we chose. I will NOT be denied. I am not alone, not by a long shot.

The trouble is, they believe their own shit. Jonah Goldberg and all that crowd have not once looked around and said “Damn, we ain’t been right about anything for two years now. Maybe we should look around and see what’s going on.” No, they just keep believing in themselves because they still have their money, their select medical plans, their country clubs, and their isolated gated lifestyle.

Talking heads like Goldberg, and insert about twenty more here, are truthfully only pissed because we the unwashed people are not listening to them. They still cannot believe we have dared to not bow to the thinking of our betters. Then, we dared to not believe the lies of our political overlords. Then, we dared to ask them to make good on their rallying cries. We dared. How dare we.

I think that the election of President Trump might be a result of the changes they missed while drinking martinis and screwing us over again and again. People loathe Obamacare. We are fed up with paying for illegal immigrants to get care we can’t afford. We are watching every single development in Europe and seeing the writing they can’t read.

We really are almost at the point of nothing to lose.

I voted not for Republicans but for Trump. I swore never to vote Republican again. Now I face the age old dupe from them again. Can I bear to turn Congress over to the Democrats again with Trump in office? I don’t know, but what the hell are they giving me? I am probably going to violate my own oath and vote for Republicans while Trump remains in office, but the minute he is out, I want them dead. I want to see the party destroyed and I believe with all my heart and my pretty damned intelligent head that it has got to happen for us to win.

We are on the Republican plantation just like the poor inner city people who live in the projects are on the Democrat one. Same same. And they are getting a better fricking deal.

This country is boiling and they cannot see it. I want the blood of the Republican oligarchs.

~ Menagerie.

If you are only listening to corporate media presentations you would be left thinking the political strategy of Democrats against President Trump is working.

Except you would be wrong.

VERY wrong.

While the overwhelming majority of corporate media punditry and opinion broadcasts paint a picture of President Trump and the larger republican/deplorable party in retreat, the actual data, outside the influence of media, shows a completely divergent truth.

The Democrats are in serious trouble; and it’s only getting worse.

The latest self-admissions by the larger American electorate on Party Affiliation show the number of people identifying as Democrat has slipped to 28%.  That matches the lowest number of registered democrats recorded in the past decade.

For comparison, in November 2016, just before the presidential election, the number of registered voters identifying as Democrat was 31%.  Conversely the number of registered voters identifying as Republican is also 28%.  However, that’s actually an increase of one point from November when the number was 27%.

However, party affiliation only represents one small part of the data dynamic.

A larger, and significantly more consequential data point, is the amount of money being raised by Democrats and Republicans.  One would think, against the backdrop of the narrative pushed by the media, that Democrats would be swimming in anti-Trump cash.

Except they are not.

Not even close.

Politico recently sounded the alarm noting that contributions to the Democrat party are half of the amount taken in by the Republican party:

[…] The party has a serious fundraising crisis.

Over the first six months of 2017, the Republican National Committee pulled in $75 million—nearly twice as much money as the Democratic National Committee, which raised $38 million.

The predicament isn’t simply that there is a funding gap between the parties; it’s what kind of money they attract. Republicans have quietly taken a decisive edge over Democrats when it comes to small-dollar fundraising.

During that same six-month time span, the RNC raised $33 million in small contributions—money from people who donate $200 or less over an election cycle—while that same class of donors gave the DNC just $21 million.

This isn’t just about money. Small-dollar donors are an important measure of how much grass-roots enthusiasm a campaign or organization has.

They are the supporters who will show up to knock on doors, make phone calls and get out the vote. And since they don’t donate enough to reach campaigns’ individual contribution limits, you can return to ask them for money time and again—which frees campaigns from continually being on the hunt for new, deep-pocketed donors who can max out.

The lack of their support threatens to prevent major gains by the party in 2018 and beyond. (link)

Additionally, the significance of the “small donor” contribution disparity is much more consequential than the semi-white-washed Politico analysis.

You might remember our calling attention to the “Record Breaking” small donor fundraising that Candidate Donald Trump achieved in the 2016 election.

The number of the small donors was so seismic in shift to the history of the RNC it actually became the inflection point where Chairman Reince Priebus and Communications Head Sean Spicer realized candidate Trump was the future.  The majority future.

Data is power; and the scale of the small donor list generated by candidate Trump was like nothing the Republican party had seen in the entire history of the Republican party.  And, even more stunningly, Donald Trump had achieved this feat in only a few short months.

As an example, in June 2016 Presidential Candidate Donald Trump had over 400,000 SMALL DONOR contributions IN A SINGLE MONTH.  That’s 400,000 people each giving under $200.  Bigly.  Candidate Trump, now President Trump, gained more small donors in a few short months than the entire Republican party had assembled in the past eight years (four election cycles) COMBINED.

According to the latest financial data as provided by Politico, not exactly a right-wing-spin-machine, despite the constant, daily, 24/7 barrage of attacks against President Trump, the scale of support is still just as strong.

Trump Strong.

How does that factual data square against the media narrative?  Short answer, it doesn’t. It doesn’t because the media narrative is what’s false.  The narrative is what’s subjective and therefore subjective to the corporate media spin.

A way to explain to your friends and family.

Think of yourself taking your small circle of friends to an empty football stadium.  While they take a seat you walk out to the middle of the field and place a dime on the 50-yard-line.  Upon return to your seat you turn to your friends and say:

“you see that dime on the fifty yard line?  That represents the entirety of the corporate media who tell you what is going on.”

“You see the scale of the rest of the field in comparison to that dime?  Well, that’s the scale of the consuming pubic who have access to alternate media resources, beyond those espoused by voices represented under the media’s dime.”

“Now can you see how perspectives from under the media dime can be so out of touch with the reality of the geography?”

“Dear Mitch and Paul,”…

This was not unanticipated.  Those who have read CTH in the past two months will have noted the writing was clearly on the wall.  Especially in the aftermath of the American Prospect article and the downstream consequence that Secretary of State Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Mattis were fielding questions from media about why Bannon was undermining them -and President Trump- on national security policy via North Korea.

In the American Prospect article Steve Bannon also undermined U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson directly, and was far out of line with this:

“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.” ~ Steve Bannon

This type of statement was so over-the-top arrogant, and exhibits a ridiculous level of power-lust and expressed self-importance, I asked the question: ” Who exactly is Steve Bannon to think that he can marginalize the cabinet? And against the division narrative within the White House why the heck would he push that opinion publicly? Is he trying to push the envelope and get fired?“.

Well, the White House Press Office has confirmed that political strategist Steve Bannon is no longer working at the White House.

On timing, it makes sense Mr. Bannon would exit today given the full national security meeting in Camp David attendance by: President Trump, VP Pence, General John Kelly, HR McMaster, Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis, Secretary Mnuchin, ODNI Dan Coats, CIA Director Pompeo, AG Jeff Sessions, Ambassador Haley, Joint Chief Chairman General Dunford, etc.

Can you imagine the awkwardness of Steve Bannon being in the room, amid the administration team, given the nature of his public outline?  No way.

(Via Reuters) A source close to Bannon said he was not expected to resign on his own. “Bannon is going to make them fire him,” the source said. “He’s not going to officially resign. He’s still been doing the work. He’s been working on projects.”

The New York Times, however, cited a person close to Bannon as saying he had submitted his resignation on Aug. 7 and that it was to be announced this week, but had been delayed by the fallout from a rally by white nationalists in Virginia over the weekend.

Bannon damaged his standing by giving an interview to the liberal American Prospect this week in which he was seen to be undercutting Trump’s position on North Korea.

Bannon told associates he thought he was talking to an academic and thought he was off the record.  He has told friends he could go back to Breitbart News outlet if he were to leave the White House.  (link)

Both Steve Bannon, and Kellyanne Conway came into the Donald Trump campaign as an outcome of billionaire Robert Mercer and his politically active daughter, Rebekkah Mercer, switching support from Senator Ted Cruz to Donald Trump after the GOP Primary.  Bannon and Conway joined team MAGA mid-August for the final two months of the 2016 campaign.

Most of the predictable angst toward President Trump for Bannon’s release will most likely come from Breitbart and Bannon allies within the “conservative” sphere of Ted Cruz media and associated support groups.

In the final analysis, Steve Bannon was staff, always staff; simply staff.

Political Strategist Bannon did not create any of President Trump’s policies or platform issues.  The political policy from President Trump is directly from President Trump.

As I said before:

President Trump is the wave, the Tsunami wave. Steve Bannon is the surfer…. you already know how this story ends:

In direct contradiction to the current media narrative, most Americans support keeping historic confederate monuments and memorials in place.

NPR and PBS teamed up with Marist to poll Americans on their views of historic confederate monuments. [Full pdf below].  Despite the severe bias as presented within the Alt-Left poll the vast majority of Americans support keeping the monuments.

Obviously polling should never be used to determine whether historic monuments are removed; however, the intent here appears to be measuring the national sentiment against the backdrop of a heavily pushed media narrative.  Republican support for keeping confederate monuments is 86%, Independents 61% and Democrat 44%.

However, in order to facilitate the agenda of the narrative, Marist skewed the poll with a political sample of: Dem 36, Rep 26, Ind 37.  The national current party registration is Dem 28, Rep 28 and Ind 41.  As typical for polls intended to deliver specific ideological results, the Maris poll over samples Democrats by 8 points.

If the accurate national party registration numbers were used, obviously the support for the monuments would be significantly higher than NPR/PBS presented conclusion.

You can see the level of support from this screen-shot:

The full polling results are below:

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/356641106/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-is75tPkLt7rr7OOxaz3l

.

The bottom line is that by a wide margin, despite the media-driven controversy, the vast majority of Americans polled support keeping history intact and retaining the monuments to our united U.S. history.

Stephen K. Bannon

Political Strategist Steve Bannon gives an exclusive interview to a far-left progressive media outlet where he asserts the big picture issue that matters above all other current policy issues, is the economic war between China and the U.S.

(Via Prospect) […] To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we’re five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we’ll never be able to recover.”

Bannon’s plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. “We’re going to run the tables on these guys. We’ve come to the conclusion that they’re in an economic war and they’re crushing us.”

But what about his internal adversaries, at the departments of State and Defense, who think the United States can enlist Beijing’s aid on the North Korean standoff, and at Treasury and the National Economic Council who don’t want to mess with the trading system?

“Oh, they’re wetting themselves,” he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which was put on hold when the war of threats with North Korea broke out, was shelved only temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon has big plans to marginalize their influence. (read more)

It would appear, at least on its face, that CTH and Steve Bannon are in agreement on this issue.  It is a little odd to see expressed within the format of the interview itself, and the interviewer most definitely attempts to inflate the scope of Bannon’s ability to influence the entire administration; but regardless of context on this issue Bannon is hitting the bulls-eye.

However, there’s something about the timing of this in addition to the outlet Mr. Bannon has selected that strikes a note of caution in reading.

First, other than CTH, this is the first time the issue of China -VS- the U.S. has been appropriately outlined and weighted in the geopolitical realm.  Is it surreptitious timing, or is Bannon striking a finely-tuned note of economic nationalism because there’s an ulterior motive involved?

Is Mr. Bannon trying to drag his ideologues toward an understanding that is antithetical to the perspectives many of them carry?  Who exactly is Steve Bannon – to think that he can “marginalize the cabinet”?  And against the division narrative within the White House why the heck would he push that opinion publicly?  Is he trying to push the envelope and get fired?….  weird.

There’s just something, well, actually a lot of somethings, about this interview that doesn’t quite add up.  I’m not sure what it is, but it’s a little odd to select a far-left liberal outlet to discuss the issue.

Regardless, with an abundance of caution as to the motives and intents, on this issue Steve Bannon’s perspective on China as an adversary is accurate.

Based entirely on what can be pulled from Government Accounts and media interviews of the participants involved in NAFTA negotiations, I’m going to try and summarize each day as it can be determined through those sources.

Additionally, for those who might be interested in a perspective I’m going to give a rating of my confidence that a tri-national agreement is possible.

On a scale of zero to 10 – where zero is NAFTA will dissolve and parties will be at irreconcilable differences, and 10 is confidence an agreement will be reached, at the end of Day #1, today, I’d asses the likelihood of an agreement at “3”.

Outlook not too good.

Canada, as expressed by foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, appears determined to use NAFTA as a tool for Justin Trudeau’s social justice endeavors.  Gay rights, transgender rights, cultural sensitivity and climate change are at the very top of their priority list.  Further down the scale are rules on conflict resolution, and rules of origin.

Mexico’s position appears to be a ‘unity move‘ to align with Canada on mutual ideology in an effort to leverage the “status quo”; also the default position of Canada.  Mexican trade officials are exceptionally complimentary toward Canada’s Chrystia Freeland and openly divisive toward U.S.T.R. Robert Lighthizer.

Given the history here, Mexico appears to have no intention on complying with a trade agreement even if one is determined.  Mexico appears intent to simply factor the cost of compliance litigation into their economic and manufacturing equations. Go figure.

Combined Mexico and Canada are putting up a united front, and the U.S. trade team is presenting optical and verbal cues akin to ‘eye-rolls‘.

It would appear Canada and Mexico also understand the U.S./Trump no-lose position is to scrap the deal; and so CanaMex are leveraging themselves politically to try and force responsibility for fracture and failure onto Team U.S.A.

[NOTE: The full pdf of USTR Lighthizer’s goals is included at the bottom.]

The first round (of six) negotiations are scheduled to last 5 days, ending Sunday.

However, if day 2 through 4 are anything like Day #1, I wouldn’t bet on seeing round #2.

♦One of the more germane points of difference, something that actually has to do with trade, encompasses the “rules of origin” specifically within the Auto sector.

Currently, China ships a massive amount of Chinese manufactured component parts into both Canada and Mexico.  Those parts are then assembled and shipped into the U.S.  This process subverts the intent of NAFTA in that the agreement for manufacturing is supposed to encompass products actually manufactured within North America; as in manufactured within Canada, Mexico and The U.S.

The entire premise for “free trade” among the three North American nations is that products generated by, and manufactured by, the NAFTA partners would be “duty free”.

China has essentially subverted U.S. trade tariffs within the Auto Sector by using Mexico (mainly) as a destination for auto parts that are then merely assembled and shipped into the U.S. “duty free”.   If the end product came from China directly they would have to potentially pay an import tax as part of the U.S. China trade agreement.

Inside Canada and Mexico the assembly of Chinese parts to deliver a finished ‘end product’ destined to the U.S. market is a sector of their jobs and economy they wish to retain.  The U.S. is seeking to close the “rules of origin” loophole to ensure that only products actually manufactured within Mexico and Canada are part of the process.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and team, has a goal to end this “3rd party (China) dumping” of goods via this backdoor exploitation.  Canada and Mexico obviously want to retain it.

The current “rules of origin” are generally being discussed around the “Auto Sector”, but the same basic premise pertains to other products.  China can ship unassembled appliances into Mexico and Canada, or furniture etc., and gain the same NAFTA benefit with the Northern and Southern U.S. neighbors simply doing the assembly work.

In these examples Mexico and Canada workers benefit from the jobs, but there’s no economic value within the United States.  The U.S. looses the tariff, or duties, and U.S. businesses, both in parts and complete finished goods, are undercut and subsequently lose the manufacturing jobs to either China, Mexico or Canada.

Therefore the “rules of origin” specify how much of a finished product must be made entirely in North America in order to qualify for NAFTA “free trade”.

(Via CNBC) Without rules of origin, non-member countries [China] can skirt around tariffs and other trade barriers by exporting goods through the lowest-tariff member country [Canada or Mexico] and into the other member nations [U.S.A.].

To avoid this form of arbitrage, origin rules establish that at least a fraction of goods covered by a free trade agreement have to be produced within the NAFTA region.

Among the administration’s goals is to “update and strengthen the rules of origin, as necessary, to ensure that the benefits of NAFTA go to products genuinely made in the United States and North America.”

Adjusting rules of origin holds particular significance for the auto industry. Currently, 62.5 percent of a vehicle’s content must be made within the NAFTA region to avoid tariffs. (link)

https://www.scribd.com/embeds/354012812/content?start_page=1&view_mode=&access_key=key-UjJU0jseruQTRvCJqQt8