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:

.

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)

In many regards the transfer of the CIA Director to the Position of Secretary of State is a natural continuum.  Most career foreign office CIA operatives work under the auspices of being State Department personnel.  The CIA and State Department are inherently connected.

[A familiar reference would be, the synergy of Leon Panetta and Hillary Clinton during their Libya and Syria operations in 2010, 2011, 2012.]

Today Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives at Foggy Bottom (State HQ) in Washington DC to meet the diplomatic corps.  He delivered introductory remarks:

.

[Transcript] DEPUTY SECRETARY SULLIVAN: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for being here. It’s a great honor to be here to introduce our new Secretary of State. Before I do so, I wanted to thank all of you, each and every one of you, for your hard work over the last six weeks. The pace of world events doesn’t pause to allow the United States Government to change from one secretary of state to another, but it’s because of your dedication and professionalism that this department has continued to meet its mission for the American people. So thank you to all of you for all you’ve done the last six weeks. (Applause.)

And now it’s my great honor to introduce our new Secretary. You all know his bio; he’s a former three-term member of Congress, former-now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

I offer my own perspective as somebody who comes from the private practice of law; in looking at his bio, I looked at it through the lens of a former law firm partner, and I imagined how I would assess his bio if I were looking at our opposing counsel, and I had to advise my client on who we were going to be dealing with. And what stood out to me was we have a tank commander who then went to Harvard Law School and was elected to the Harvard Law Review, which is a pretty unusual combination.

So if I were advising my client about who we were going to be dealing with on the other side of the table if we’re in negotiation, or if it were in a court room, I’d say, “Wow. Well, ma’am, we’re dealing with a cross between George Patton and Oliver Wendell Holmes.” (Laughter.)

So that’s a pretty tough combination to face as an opponent, but the good news for us is he’s coming here to lead our team. It’s the adversaries of the United States who are going to be facing that formidable opponent across the table.

So without further ado, I’ll turn over the microphone to the 70th Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo. (Applause and cheers.)

SECRETARY POMPEO: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for those most gracious words, John. And thank you for your service and standing in the gap. You’ve done a remarkable job; the whole team has. I’ve had the chance to work alongside you as the CIA director when you were the acting secretary, and you have done this organization incredibly proud. America should be proud of you, and thank you for this amazing work. (Applause and cheers.)

So I think I have the record for the longest trip to the first day of work. (Laughter.) And I am humbled to be here. I tried to prepare myself for this moment, but to stand here and look at the most important diplomatic corps in the world is enormously humbling to me. I talked in my hearing about the fact that this nation is so exceptional and so incredibly blessed. And the facts that derive from that are that it also creates a responsibility, a duty for America all across the world. And I know for certain that America can’t execute that duty, can’t achieve its objectives absent you all, absent executing America’s foreign policy in every corner of the world with incredible vigor and incredible energy. And I am looking forward to helping you all achieve that. (Applause.)

My remarks today will be relatively brief. Tomorrow the President will be here to do my official swearing-in. I think much of the cabinet will be here as well. It’s an important day for the President’s first trip to this important place, and I’m looking forward to being there with many of you and having the honor to have the President of the United States do my formal swearing-in.

I then will, sometime either later this week or beginning of next, do more to develop my commander’s intent, what it is I hope to achieve with your help. I’ll speak to the entire work force, I’ll lay out for you my expectations and my hopes, and most importantly, share with you my leadership style. And this is very different. Like, one of the first rules is don’t talk down to people, right? (Laughter.) So I’ll speak to you all right up here, exactly.

But alongside that is that I feel like I know you. I’ve worked alongside you as a member of Congress when I traveled. I’ve had the chance to watch when I was traveling around the world and I would go into an embassy and I’d arrive late at night and there were the folks in the political section or the economic section toiling, doing great work on behalf of America.

So I have a great deal to learn about the State Department and how we perform our mission, but as people, I’m confident that I know who you are. I know that you came here. You chose to be a Foreign Service officer or a civil servant or to come work here in many other capacities and to do so because you’re patriots and great Americans and because you want to be an important part of America’s face to the world. My mission will be to lead you and allow you to do that, the very thing you came here to do. (Applause.)

I will get to as many parts of this organization as I can. I said in my testimony that I’ll spend as little time on the seventh floor – I think it’s the seventh floor, right? Yeah. (Laughter.) I’ll go up there in a minute. I’ll be – I’ll travel. I’m going to get out to USAID as quickly as I can to see their important part of our mission as well. I know that every task, every endeavor that each of you undertakes is a critical part of achieving that ultimate objective, which is to deliver President Trump and America’s foreign policy around the world, to be the diplomatic face that achieves the outcomes that America so desperately needs to achieve in the world.

I’ve told this story a couple of times, but it’s worth repeating: The best lesson I ever got was from a fellow named Sgt. 1st Class Petry. He was the first platoon sergeant in my first tank platoon when I was 22 or 23 years old. And I arrived there and he, when I hopped out of the jeep, he said, “Lieutenant, you’ll do well to just shut up for a while.” (Laughter.) And he – and actually, I think he meant that, but – (laughter) – but what I took him to be saying was that it’s important that we listen and learn, and I know that I have an enormous amount to listen to you about and to learn from you. I talked about getting back our swagger, and I’ll fill in what I mean by that, but it’s important. The United States diplomatic corps needs to be in every corner, every stretch of the world, executing missions on behalf of this country, and it is my humble, noble undertaking to help you achieve that.

So I look forward – (applause) – thank you. (Applause.) I look forward to meeting just as many of you as I can get a chance to do, to learning from just as many of you as I can, and to leading that team onto the field. I know that we will deliver for this President and for this country. Thank you. May the Good Lord bless each of you. I’ll see you all around the building. Thanks. (Applause.)

[End Transcript]