Reuters weekly polling reflected an upswing in support for President Donald Trump.  Which immediately caused them to issue an apology along with the release.

Washington, DC – The Reuters/Ipsos Core Political poll has a significant realignment this week across a number of metrics. Most pronounced is President Trump’s approval rating which currently sits at 48% with all Americans. His number with registered voters is essentially the same at 49%. Corresponding with Trump’s stronger approval rating, evaluations of his job performance across the board are stronger this week from 57% approving of his handling of the economy (read more)

(Full Poll Results Here)

Earlier today President Trump traveled to Cleveland, Ohio to deliver remarks at a business and community tax reform roundtable event.  President Trump begins his remarks by noting the importance of shifting focus within the trade discussion to bring a greater balance to the U.S. economy via America-First principles.

Three decades of economic policies benefiting Wall Street are now shifted to begin a new era where economic policies benefit Main Street.  That’s MAGAnomics in shorthand.

President Trump stopped to talk to the press corps en route to the NRA convention speech in Texas.  The president hit on a wide range of current topics:

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Additional comments at Joint Base Andrews, with Chief of Staff John Kelly.

It was originally reported on April 30th, 2018, that Kim Jong-un had moved three U.S. nationals (w/ South Korean ancestry) from labor camps to Pyongyang where they were undergoing medical treatment, rehabilitation and rest in advance of a plan to be released.

Those initial reports are now being confirmed by alternate media sources.  The original report from inside the DPRK stated they were “reportedly being prepared to be released to US authorities either prior to or on the day of the US-North Korea summit”; and the captives were being debriefed (“coached” or “indoctrinated”) to tell authorities their human rights were not violated during their stay in the DPRK.

(left to right) Kim Dong Chul, Kim Sang Duk, Kim Hak Soon

Kim Dong Chul, Kim Sang Duk, Kim Hak Soon are the names of the three hostages being released.  Two of the captives, Hak-Soon and Sang Duk, belong to the Pyongyang Univ of Science & Technology and were taken in in Apr & May 2017: they’ve been held for a year. The third, Kim Dong Chul, is an ordained minister taken in 2015 when he was commuting to Rason from China and and has been serving a 10-year sentence on espionage charges.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo specifically requested their release while visiting Pyongyang on Easter weekend. The three are US citizens with Korean heritage.  National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Fox News Sunday that North Korea could show its sincerity by releasing US hostages prior to the summit.

In March of this year Sweden was initially playing a large role and helping negotiate the terms of the North-South Korea summit as well as the release of three Americans held captive in North Korea.

“We believe that Mr. Trump can take them back on the day of the U.S.-North Korea summit, or he can send an envoy to take them back to the U.S. before the summit,” said Choi Sung-ryong, an activist pursuing release of North Korea’s political prisoners.

Yesterday Texas and six other states filed a lawsuit against the the Trump administration over the Presidents’ failure to terminate DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals); an Obama-era program created through ‘executive action’ that allowed work permits and legal status for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens brought to the U.S. as children.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Brownsville on Tuesday; asking the court to rule on whether President Obama’s 2012 decision to grant deportation protections and two-year work authorizations to young undocumented immigrants — without congressional approval — was lawful.

A similar program in 2014 known as DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans) was ruled unconstitutional in 2016.   However, the first executive action, ‘the DACA policy’, has never been challenged in court.

Today, a judge was assigned by random draw for the DACA case, and universal karma has come full circle with the outcome.  Federal Judge Andrew Hanen was drawn as the presiding judge for the DACA challenge.

It cannot be overstated how significantly damaging that judicial draw is to the activist groups who are trying to support the Obama Executive Action.  Judge Andrew Hanen was the original judge on the 2015 DAPA challenge.

Not only was Andrew Hanen the federal judge in the prior DAPA challenge, but Hanen was specifically furious at the gross misconduct by the Obama DOJ during the prior legal proceedings.  Hanen wasn’t a little bit angry at the DOJ, he was FURIOUS (see here).

During the 2015/2016 DAPA proceedings, the DOJ lied -numerous times- to Hanen’s court; and at the conclusion of the SCOTUS ruling (supporting the Hanen rulings), Judge Hanen demanded that all of the DOJ lawyers attend ethics classes – and lambasted Attorney General Loretta Lynch for allowing such gross ethical misconduct.

Additionally, Judge Hanen is an incredibly brilliant judge when it comes to writing opinions that cannot be rebuked by appellate courts or even SCOTUS.  In the 2015 DAPA case Hanen specifically waited to see how a Mississippi appeals court ruled on a tangential aspect to his case before writing his ruling.  As a result the 5th CCA could not overrule his decision.  –BACKSTORY HERE–

Texas -vs- DACA drawing Judge Hanen also means the immigration activists in congress will now have to work on legislating a solution.  Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer scored a big loss today:

WASHINGTON –  Texas has already caught its first break in its new lawsuit to stop the Obama-era DACA program, after the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen.

A Republican appointee to the bench, Judge Hanen has already ruled against a similar deportation amnesty in 2015. And during that case he expressed skepticism about DACA itself, saying it seemed to stray beyond the bounds of discretion then-President Obama had claimed in setting up the program.

Judge Hanen, whose courtroom is in southern Texas, was one of the first to spot to surge of illegal immigrant children headed to the border in 2013 — a surge which crested in 2014 with the UAC wave that overwhelmed the Obama administration, and whose repercussions are still being felt today with the latest caravan of illegal immigrants.

He will now oversee the latest in an ever-expanding and complicated legal battle over DACA, which Mr. Obama created in 2012 to grant tentative legal status to illegal immigrant “Dreamers.” DACA was controversial from the start, and President Trump attempted to phase it out.  (read more)

Ambassador Lighthizer comments on NAFTA prior to departing for China.  In the auto sector, Mexico and Canada are still arguing for more Asian/Chinese parts for U.S. automobiles.  The U.S. position is for higher North American content. Loggerheads.

I still find it stunning how many people cannot see the ridiculous side of the Mexican and Canadian position; and how that showcases the insanity of NAFTA. Can/Mex are not arguing for more Canada and Mexico content, they are holding out for more Asian content.  Their economic models are nothing more than brokering the assembly of cheap Asian goods through their NAFTA access to the U.S. market.  Ridiculous.

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Tuesday that if a deal to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement cannot be reached with Canada and Mexico in about three weeks, its approval by the U.S. Congress could be in jeopardy.

Lighthizer said at a U.S. Chamber of Commerce event that a deal to update NAFTA was needed quickly because of the lengthy notification process for congressional approval of trade deals.

If a deal takes too long, he said approval by the current Republican-controlled Congress may be on “thin ice” without sufficient time for a vote before November elections put a new Congress in control in January 2019.

Lighthizer is traveling to Beijing for trade talks with Chinese officials on Thursday and Friday, but will resume intensive negotiations with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo on May 7.

“We’re going to meet again on Monday, and we’ll see,” Lighthizer said. “If we can get a good agreement, I’d like to get it done a week or two after that. If not, then you start having a problem.”  (read more)

Regarding China, Lighthizer expanded his comments drawing attention to the inherent differences between a communist “controlled” state policies, and the free market:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump’s chief trade negotiator said on Tuesday he was not looking to negotiate changes to China’s state-driven economic system in trade talks in Beijing this week but would seek to expose it to more foreign competition.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce he viewed the talks with top Chinese officials on Thursday and Friday as the start of a long learning process for Washington and Beijing to better manage their trade differences.

“It is not my objective to change the Chinese system,” Lighthizer said. “It seems to work for them. … But I have to be in a position where the United States can deal with it, where the United States isn’t the victim of it; and that’s where our role is.”

Lighthizer will be part of a Trump administration delegation that includes U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, White House trade and manufacturing adviser Peter Navarro and new White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.

Ross said earlier on Tuesday that Trump was prepared to levy tariffs on China if the delegation did not reach a negotiated settlement to reduce trade imbalances.

Speaking to CNBC television before traveling to China for the talks, Ross said he had “some hope” agreements could be reached to resolve the trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

But Ross and Navarro, who spoke to steel company executives in Washington on Tuesday, both said any final decision would be made by Trump.  (read more)