Earlier today President Donald Trump left the White House for an unannounced trip to Dover Air Force Base where he met with the families of four Americans killed in a suicide bombing in Syria last week.
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President Trump described this trip to the Delaware base as the most difficult task of a commander in chief. “When I’m going to meet relatives of some of our great great heroes that have fallen, I think it might be the toughest thing I have to do as president,” he said. “We’ve been hitting ISIS very hard over the last three weeks, in particular over the last three weeks, and it’s moving along very well. But when I took over it was a total mess,” President Trump added. “You do have to ask yourself — we’re killing ISIS for Russia, for Iran, for Syria, for Iraq, for a lot of other places. At some point, we want to bring our people back home.”
Axios reports that President Trump frustrates advisors by rejecting efforts to create strategic plans. Bill Whittle sees this as a strength. See more at http://BillWhittle.com
The trauma President Trump causes on the Left reaches its peak when he invites football players to the White House and feeds them cheeseburgers and the like. Bill Whittle guides Stephen Green and Scott Ott to explore why Trump’s common touch so devastates Progressives.
The Washington Post floods the zone, fact-checking President Trump’s cheeseburger-palooza to celebrate the Clemson Tigers national championship. Stephen Green leads Scott Ott and Bill Whittle to analyze the analysis. More at http://BillWhittle.com
Earlier today President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korean Minister Kim Yong Chol held a 90 minute meeting at the White House discussing ongoing talks and negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea.
Following the meeting the White House announced there would be a second summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-un:
“President Donald J. Trump met with Kim Yong Chol for an hour and half, to discuss denuclearization and a second summit, which will take place near the end of February. The President looks forward to meeting with Chairman Kim at a place to be announced at a later date.” (link)
(Via Fox News) […] The face-to-face came after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Kim Yong-chol, North Korea’s lead negotiator, in the nation’s capital early Friday morning to negotiate terms that could lead to a second nuclear summit between Trump and Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-un.
Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol didn’t shake hands or respond to reporters’ questions but did smile during a photo opportunity ahead of their meeting at a hotel in Northwest Washington. (more)
Secretary Pompeo noted earlier in the week that substantive progress in discussions between the U.S. and DPRK had stalled.
The surface explanation for the slow-down in progress between the U.S and North Korea is generally attributed to a lack of follow-through on the North Korea side to deliver a full list and detailed accounting of its nuclear and missile facilities that would be used by inspectors for verification. However, the deeper explanation goes toward the ongoing U.S.-China trade discussions and how Beijing, the driver of all activity within the DPRK, uses North Korea as a foil to gain leverage.
Two weeks ago Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping called Chairman Kim to Beijing for talks. The influence of China over the DPRK nuclear issues is unmistakable. As an outcome the denuclearization process is inherently linked to the U.S-China trade talks.
Chairman Xi is simply controlling and using North Korea as a proxy province to achieve a better economic outcome over President Trump. This is the cunning dance behind the dragon mask of China that is not completely visible unless you follow and watch closely. President Trump has been strategically winning this geopolitical contest for more than a year; however, the biggest challenges continue.
President Trump is leveraging many geopolitical tools simultaneously.
Europe, particularly Germany, wants a favorable trade deal with the U.S. where they will not face tariffs on exported autos (BMW, Mercedes, VW, etc.). The EU sees the U.S. China contest as an opportunity for a quid-pro-quo.
Yesterday the EU announced they would make tariffs on Chinese steel permanent. This mutually aligned tariff position helps President Trump in the Chinese trade conflict by putting more pressure on the Chinese economy.
However, in exchange for that favorable position, today the EU announced their requestedterms for a U.S. and Europe trade agreement:
(Bloomberg) The European Union unveiled a blueprint for a free-trade deal with the U.S. that would cut tariffs on a wide range of industrial goods including cars in a bid to heal commercial ties.
European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom asked EU governments on Friday in Brussels for the go-ahead to start negotiations on lowering trans-Atlantic commercial barriers, prodding U.S. President Donald Trump to reverse his protectionist stance.
Her draft mandate includes the politically sensitive — and economically important — question of autos even though the U.S. has signaled resistance to having them covered by market-opening talks. Washington is investigating whether foreign vehicles pose a national-security threat and should face higher American duties.
[…] The current trans-Atlantic trade truce has held as U.S. commercial tensions with China have grown. Nonetheless, the cease-fire has appeared fragile because the Trump-Juncker accord includes ambiguities that have led to contradictory statements by officials on each side and signaled the underlying risk of a sudden escalation.
Trump administration representatives have pushed to include agriculture in the scope of any agreement — a stance rejected by the EU. Meanwhile, the European side has made the case for an accord that would cover cars.
“When Juncker and Trump met, they said there is no scope to discuss agricultural goods and even at the time the talk was regarding industrial products,” commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen told reporters on Friday in Helsinki. “We’re also OK with negotiating over auto tariffs.” (continue reading)
The starting point for the EU request outlined above is not going to win favor with President Trump. As the global trade alliances are being reset, it is the strength and scale of the U.S. market, and unfettered access to that market, that is the pot-of-gold. President Trump is not going to give the EU such an economic advantage; it would be against his fundamental goal of reciprocity.
If you remove China from global analysis, the U.S. economy is the only economy with significant growth. This global economic status is not accidental, and is completely connected to the policies behind Trump’s ‘America First’ program. It is helpful to President Trump for the EU to collaborate on trade issues against China, but he’s not going to take back economic benefit from China only to give it away to the EU.
That EU demand is not going to go anywhere with Trump, Ross and Lighthizer.
Help with China is good; however, in addition to market access (and a strong economy) President Trump holds other tools in the deal with the European Union: ♦NATO (funding and participation); ♦the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline; ♦treasury sanctions against Iran; and ♦deepened trade relations with the Baltic alliance. Add to this the Steel and Aluminum tariffs and auto tariffs that Trump *did not* take away when he met with Junker.
The dance continues…
Have you ever seen that guy on television who spins plates on sticks?….
Dozens of simultaneous plates?
President Trump is a geopolitical equivalent.
His ability to locate leverage in the most unsuspecting locations is truly remarkable.
President Trump is one guy, but he consistently shows how he has them surrounded.
All day the left-wing media have been breathlessly reporting on a Buzzfeed claim citing reports from Michael Cohen. In a story published Thursday, BuzzFeed cited two unnamed federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation on the matter who said Cohen acknowledged to Mueller’s office that he was instructed by Trump in 2017 to lie to Congress about the now-abandoned real estate deal to build a Trump Tower in Russia.
Except there’s a problem…. well, it never happened. The claim was so ridiculous the Special Counsel spokesperson Peter Carr just made a statement: #FakeNews.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office on Friday issued a rare statement disputing a bombshell news report claiming President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie about the timing of discussions over a proposed Trump Tower project in Moscow.
“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller’s office, said Friday. (read more)
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There’s a pattern…. This could also have been “black hat hunting” again.
While the media banter relentlessly about their latest resistance angle du jour; it is perhaps a more beneficial discussion to remind and outline the larger strategy at play. Honing the political skills.
The baseline here is that everything the institutional-left does, is sequential and planned. This is what they do. This is all they do. None of the characters within the institutions of professional leftism create anything; build anything; have a life purpose for anything, other than organizing their efforts to exploit control of others via politics. This is all they know how to do. When you develop your skills to see their patterns you can then see the predictability behind it.
Prior Example: Former FBI Director James Comey briefs president-elect Trump on the two-page salacious dossier aspect; Former DNI James Clapper, knowing the briefing, then discusses the dossier briefing with CNN… this opens the door for the media who are waiting. Once the narrative door is opened, Buzzfeed enters and transmits the story of the unfounded and uncorroborated Steele Dossier. The key point to understand is that everything from the briefing, to Clapper, to CNN, to Buzzfeed, was scripted and planned. This is the pattern. As we have mentioned the pattern becomes predictable.
This predictability is how CTH was able to state in December 2018 that Michael Cohen would most likely be the centerpiece of the first ‘impeachment’ block; and from knowing how the script rolls, CTH was able to predict the exact timing (Thursday after Superbowl, 2/7/19); and the exact committee (Cummings, House Oversight); for the first hearing that will exploit Michael Cohen.
The current Buzzfeed claims being widely promoted today are all part of that pre-scheduled ‘impeachment’ process. When we approach the term “impeachment” we are not discussing it as the technical and legal approach for removal of a President; but rather the political use of the process to damage President Donald Trump.
Professional political Democrats would not be using “impeachment” in the constitutional sense of the process; but rather weaponizing the process –as a tool itself– to: •target the executive office; •diminish the presidency (“isolate”/”marginalize”, Alinsky rules); •and position themselves for 2020.
Optics and innuendo are key elements, tools per se’, in the Alinsky narrative engineering process. That’s why Pelosi, Schumer and the democrat machine are going bananas about getting a raw Mueller report and not a version from AG Barr {explained here}.
From Pelosi’s rules, we now know Elijah Cummings will deliver the schedule for impeachment hearings before his deadline on April 15th. We also know from the outline of the process they are following, the next likely witness to be subpoenaed, and to grab the media headlines will be Donald Trump Jr.
That’s where Adam Schiff (HPSCI) and Jerry Nadler (Judiciary) come in with the technical hearings to begin the ‘impeachment’ specifics. However, they need a predicate to get from Michael Cohen to Donald Trump Jr.
So, knowing they need a baseline predicate…. How do you get from Michael Cohen to Donald Trump Jr? A = You use the Trump Tower Moscow narrative…. See the map?
Elijah Cummings needs a reference point to take Cohen toward DT-Jr, that’s where Buzzfeed comes in. Is there any factual basis for the claims within the Buzzfeed report? No, but that’s not what they need… they need “innuendo” to investigate.
“President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.” (link)
The article is fraught with flawed assumptions and flat-out nonsense; even claiming emails and documents (unseen by the authors) to support the foundation of the article. Note that no-one else in media is validating this claim. However, that doesn’t matter…. what matters is the ‘claim that needs to be investigated’. Did President Trump direct Michael Cohen to lie to congress; no, that’s silly.
In the aftermath of the SSCI (Mark Warner) drum-beating a false story about Trump Tower Moscow as evidence of ‘possible’ influence over Trump….. Did Cohen participate in writing a brief set of talking points for the Trump organization to clear up this false and malicious political narrative? Probably. Most large organizations do that to share with top executives so everyone has the same set of facts to deal with….
Is that document the electronic evidence (emails) inferred, skewed, and manipulated within the Buzzfeed report?… I’d wager B.I.N.G.O.
All of it is a nothing-burger, but that doesn’t technically matter for the needs of the ‘resistance’; what they need is a tenuously valid innuendo trail they can exploit with Michael Cohen on February 7th, that will allow Elijah Cummings to pass that specific aspect to Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler.
Post Election – […] “If they go down the presidential harassment track, if they want go and harass the president and the administration, I think that would be the best thing that would happen to me. I’m a counter-puncher and I will hit them so hard they’d never been hit like that,” he said during a 36-minute Oval Office sitdown.
The commander-in-chief said he could declassify FISA warrant applications and other documents from Robert Mueller’s probe — and predicted the disclosure would expose the FBI, the Justice Department and the Clinton campaign as being in cahoots to set him up.
“I think that would help my campaign. If they want to play tough, I will do it. They will see how devastating those pages are.”
But Trump told The Post he wanted to save the documents until they were needed.
“It’s much more powerful if I do it then,” Trump said, “because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday’s news.”
Trump revealed his playbook just as Democrats are set to take over House committees in January where they are poised to investigate his potential business conflicts of interests, tax returns, Russia dealings and more.
With the GOP losing power in January, its congressional investigations into alleged Department of Justice misconduct in launching the Russia probe is expected to fizzle out.
In September, a group of Trump allies in the House – led by Rep. Lee Zeldin of New York – called on Trump to declassify scores of Justice Department documents they believe undercut the start of the Russia investigation and show bias against Trump.
The documents include Justice officials’ request to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and memos on DOJ official Bruce Ohr’s interactions with Christopher Steele, the author of a controversial dossier that alleged Trump ties with Russia.
Trump initially agreed to declassify the documents, including text messages sent by former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew G. McCabe as well as Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Ohr. Trump allies believe the revelations will show favoritism toward Hillary Clinton and a plot to take down Trump.
Trump then reversed course, citing the need for further review and concern of US allies.
Trump added Wednesday that his lawyer Emmet Flood thought it would be better politically to wait.
“He didn’t want me to do it yet, because I can save it,” Trump said. (read more)
Yesterday legislative Democrats ran out of Washington DC for an eleven day recess. Part of the reason for their pre-scheduled exit was their desire to avoid being surrounded by tens-of-thousands of faith-based Americans who show up annually for the March for Life.
March for Life is a cause that celebrates and defends the ultimate right; the first right; the most human of all inherent human rights,… the right to live.
Vice President Mike Pence, Second Lady Karen Pence and United States President Donald Trump deliver a strong testimonial of support for our First Right:
Kevin McCarthy
✔@GOPLeader
We march for the marginalized. We march for the voiceless. We march for the unborn. #MarchForLife
Gillette wants it customers to stop displaying, and tolerating, “toxic masculinity.” Bill Whittle says the shaving-products company’s new campaign — The Best a Man Can Be — might produce the opposite result.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
