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[snip] Joey Cook is back! Check out what we did with Cage The Elephant's "Ain't No Rest For The Wicked" from Borderland, also starring clarinetist Jacob Scesney doing a bit of decorating. [/snip]Ain't No Rest For The WickedVintage Jazz | Cage The Elephant Cover ft. Joey CookPostmodernJukebox | 5.86M subscribers7,366,351 views | January 12, 2017

A fifteen year argument is finally over…. We win. Most CTH readers probably don’t even remember the reason for the name: “The Last Refuge” upon this little corner of the internet. However, for well over a decade we have tried to share the truth behind the financial mechanisms that run Washington DC; and the primary machine has always been a completely corrupt, deceptive and anti-American U.S. Chamber of Commerce. <snip> WASHINGTON DC – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is poised to endorse nearly two dozen freshmen House Democrats for reelection, triggering a revolt within the right-leaning organization and drawing fierce...

Tonight, I'd like to share a few thoughts with you....about what I fear is a new direction for President Trump Opens a New Window. and his administration....and very likely a catastrophe for working men and women, small business and entrepreneurs, our middle class, and the American family. I try not to overstate, let alone indulge in hyperbole, but what we watched unfold today at the White House Opens a New Window. was, to me, a disastrous policy turn for the country....and heartbreaking. What the White House billed as a meeting of major corporate ceo's who will serve on the president's...

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announces he is “especially proud” of passage for his amendments requiring the U.S. military to continue operations in Afghanistan and Syria:   (Tweet Link) The bill passed 77-yea, 23-nea.  [Vote Tally Here] The only Republican who voted against perpetual war in the middle east and supported President Trump was Rand Paul. Every time this happens victims of battered conservative syndrome start a process of reconciling the reason for their abuse by excusing and justifying their abuser, Mitch McConnell. Let’s be clear, CTH has watched this process, on a very granular level, for well over a decade; specifically about...

Many people supported candidate Trump for his fierce economic policy independence and willingness to call out the political Decepticons. You can put CTH support near the top of that list. At the financial heart of the UniParty in Washington DC is President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Tom Donohue, and his like-minded billionaire funders the Koch Brothers: “The globalist Koch Brothers, who have become a total joke in real Republican circles, are against Strong Borders and Powerful Trade. I never sought their support because I don’t need their money or bad ideas. They love my Tax & Regulation Cuts,...

Rush Limbaugh had an interesting segment on his radio show yesterday. Mr. Limbaugh is beginning to connect the dots to the origin of the GOPe road map, constructed between October ’13 and April ’14, which we tried to bring attention to prior to the mid-term 2014 primary races. Limbaugh’s overall analysis is solid, except he’s missing some of the substantive dot connections which stem around what he calls “a seminal event“, Cantor’s defeat.

The TPP Trade Deal is looming closer to becoming a finalized reality. Current negotiations center around Auto Manufacturing, and Japanese negotiators have constructed an outline that would devastate what remains of the U.S. Auto industry. Unfortunately the K-Street lobbyists, funded by Wall Street through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have already greased the legislative skids to all but guarantee the elimination of thousands of jobs. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue gave Senators $18 million in bribe money to insure passage. The TPP deal encompasses approximately 40% of total global manufacturing. Trillions of dollars are at stake.

First, an admission: I have seriously underestimated Donald Trump. After spending more than three years tracking the construct of the GOPe strategy to elect Jeb Bush, and having lost the most single important battle in May 2014 to stop it, I was deflated and disenfranchised. Few were willing to accept the road-map and sheer level of Machiavellian strategy deployed by the professional political class. Every single prediction (tripwire) which stems from understanding the construct was triggered in the exact sequence. We resigned ourselves to the outlook that Tom Donohue, Mitch McConnell and their team were going to pull it off....

Think of every area where the GOP has strayed from its conservative roots. The bailouts. TARP. Out-of-control government spying. Job-killing corporate cronyism. There is one man in Congress consistently saying “no” to making government bigger and less accountable. His name is Justin Amash, and the establishment has taken notice. Big business wants to ensure voters elect Republicans who will keep the perks flowing -- from taxpayers’ bank accounts and right to their pockets. They’ve even created a feel-good way to describe such a Republican: Pro-business. And that’s exactly the kind of guy they’ve found in Amash’s primary challenger. Amash goes...

The plot to save Thad Cochran was hatched at Off The Record, the subterranean bar inside the Hay-Adams hotel in downtown Washington. In mid-June, just days before the Mississippi Senate runoff election, Tom Donohue, the hard-nosed CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was commiserating over drinks with Scott Reed, his senior political strategist, and Chip Pickering, a former Mississippi congressman-turned-telecom lobbyist. The trio were smarting. After racking up an enviable 10-0 winning streak in midterm races, Mississippi voters dealt the powerful business lobby a major blow: Cochran, a Senate stalwart supported by the Chamber and its allies in the...

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue suggested Monday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) should reconsider his role as congressional troublemaker. … A reporter followed up by noting that the conventional wisdom is that the business community wants the Texas senator “to sit down and shut up.” “Well, that might be one thing we can work on,” Donohue quipped. …

It looks like George Soros will be the target of investigations on his role as a behind the scenes funder. From the current issue of Business Week magazine's cover story on Tom Donohue, head of the US Chamber of Commerce (titled, " Tom Donohue: Obama's Tormenter") comes this snippet:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned the U.S. faces a double-dip recession because of the taxes and regulations under consideration by the Democratic Congress and President Barack Obama. “Congress, the administration and states must recognize that our weak economy simply could not sustain all the new taxes, regulations and mandates now under consideration. Donohue said the lawmakers should not let former President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of year and lambasted Democratic efforts on healthcare and financial regulatory reform as well as climate change. If the tax cuts are allowed to expire, “we will...

"One thing I can tell you: They can go out and chase me and chase the Chamber and put stuff in the newspaper. It only . . . drives more and more support. . . . You think we are going to blink because a couple of people are out shooting at us? Tell 'em to put their damn helmets on." Them's fighting words, all the more so when delivered in the feisty, New York accent of U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue. The 71-year-old was recruited 12 years ago in order to revitalize a drifting business lobby. And...

Thursday, July 08, 2004 WHAT THEY'RE SAYING: Business Leaders On John Kerry's Vice Presidential Pick U.S. Chamber of Commerce May "Break With Tradition" And Endorse President Bush. "The business community, long a Republican supporter, is leaning more toward defeating John Kerry after his choice of John Edwards as running mate. U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue says the group, for the first time, might break with tradition and endorse a candidate: President Bush." (Jim Hopkins and Del Jones, "Kerry Sees Little Backing From Business," USA Today, 7/8/04) The National Federation Of Independent Business Has Vowed To Remind Members That...

Kerry picks Edwards as his running mate, July 6, 2004. MANUFACTURERS DON'T LIKE EDWARDS [07/06 11:30 PM] “Senator John Kerry has chosen a running mate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, whose voting record in Congress demonstrates conspicuous hostility to manufacturing and business,” said Jerry Jasinowski, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. “As a trial lawyer, Edwards brings to his job an inherent bias against innovation and the American entrepreneurial spirit that is essential to compete and create jobs.” NAM Executive Vice President Michael Baroody said the NAM does not endorse candidates, but publishes a voting record of how...

Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has made a public vow: If John Edwards is chosen as John Kerry's running mate, the chamber will abandon its traditional stance of neutrality in the presidential race and work feverishly to defeat the Democratic ticket. "We'd get the best people and the greatest assets we can rally" to the cause, he says. Other business leaders in Washington have been less public and less precise, but no less passionate. Reviewing the candidates in the Democratic primaries earlier this year, a Fortune 100 chief executive who is active in Washington told me...