Tag Archives: UniParty

May 1 2018

Trade Update: Wilbur Ross Joins China Delegation, Trump Extends EU, NAFTA Steel Tariff Exemption 30 Days…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 30, 2018 by

President Trump’s MAGAnomic team have announced a 30-day extension for the Steel (25%) and Aluminum (10%) tariffs for the European Union, Canada and Mexico.

Also, after a prior agreement with South-Korea, the “KORUS” deal, team U.S.A. has also reached an agreement in principle with Australia, Argentina and Brazil which will be finalized in next 30 days.

Via Wall Street Journal – President Donald Trump has decided to postpone decisions about imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union and other U.S. allies until June 1, a senior administration official said.

In addition to announcing the delay, the White House is expected to say Monday evening that it has finalized a deal to exempt South Korea from the tariffs, mirroring details that have been previously released by the U.S. Trade Representative’s office.

The remaining decisions on tariffs will be decided later, the official said. A White House spokeswoman declined to comment.

The U.S. initially imposed world-wide tariffs of 25% on U.S. steel imports and 10% on aluminum in March, but it temporarily exempted several U.S. allies from the tariffs. Monday’s decisions extend that delay.  (read more)

Additionally, to showcase the importance previously outlined, the team has added ‘big timber’, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, to the trade delegation heading to China.

So the entire MAGAnomic “killers” team appears to be heading to Beijing.  Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Chairman of National Economic Council Larry Kudlow, WH Trade Adviser Peter Navarro and U.S. Ambassador to China, Terry Branstad.

[Side-Note: hopefully they take AF2]

This diplomatic and strategic geopolitical trade line-up further solidifies the importance of the trip.  As “dufrst” shared earlier:

NAFTA and the trade tariffs on steel and aluminum (major components of cars) are about credibility against China, Japan and the EU. The bulk of the US trade deficit comes from China, Japan, and the EU. China, Japan and the EU all exploit NAFTA to get around US trade barriers that should have balanced trade among these countries.

Trump has signaled that he wants trade renegotiated but the major trade entities- China, Japan and the EU- didn’t take him seriously until he slapped tariffs globally on steel and aluminum. That was a direct strike at their automobile industries that make up the bulk of the US trade deficit between the EU and Japan. The intellectual property tariffs got the attention of China because not only did Trump place them on China but he mobilized support in the EU and Japan for action on intellectual property theft.

So where does the North Korean (NK) negotiations come into play in all of this?

Aside from the possibility that the US sabotaged the last Korean nuclear tests, I believe this Korean peace initiative is more about Japan and South Korea than China. I believe Japan and South Korea will agree to more favorable terms with the US on trade pending the denuclearization and potential reunification of Korea. I believe Japan and Korea will be very grateful to the US when the prisoners are released and will find ways to buy more product (agricultural, energy, military and aerospace) from the US.

China is simply trying to stay on the good side of the US because the intellectual property tariffs are a significant threat to its future. Xi has imagined China dominating industries that primarily rely on intellectual property.

In addition, Xi is trying to build a major trade corridor to the EU to diversity his exports away from the US so that he’s not so dependent on the US but Trump is threatening to bite into the funds he will have to complete OBOR. So China is cooperating on Korea but Korea is not a chip it can bargain with anymore because Trump has already taken that away with the sabotage of the last Korean nuclear test.

Trump is a genius. He knows his leverage very well. He knows that any reduction in the trade deficit is a major win for the US. He is not looking for the immediate balance of the trade deficits with the EU, China and Japan (and Korea). He’s looking for key concessions that will enhance his legacy such as increasing NATO contributions by EU countries in exchange for smaller reduction of the trade deficit. Chinese ending their assault on US technology industries in exchange for a smaller reduction of trade deficit. Japan buying more US autos or opening more car plants in US for a smaller reduction of trade deficit and so on.

NAFTA is all about credibility. Canada and Mexico will agree to terms. Mexico will pay for the Wall and Trump will win his noble prize!

BTW, don’t think Russia escapes this equation or Iran. Trump has all of them wrapped up in this. For Russia, Trump will make EU buy even more American energy and will get EU to fully fund NATO. As we speak, Pompeo is in the Middle East to rally up an Arab force to replace US troops in Syria and Iraq (and pay!). This is not good for Russia. It guarantees Syria will be split unless Russia agrees to a political settlement that has Assad gone from Syria. A stronger NATO and a EU now buying even more US gas and oil means less money for Putin’s military in Ukraine and Syria. And there’s no outlet to China because Trump is putting the squeeze on Xi. Multidimensional chess?

Iran is now in trouble too. That Arab force plus Israel is ready to strike. Trump has put the squeeze on EU (steel/aluminum), China (intellectual prop), and Russia (energy). The Iran deal will be redone and tougher sanctions will be enacted by US and EU for any violations of new terms. And military actions looms over their heads just as it did over North Korea. And BTW, the end of the NK nuclear program is a major blow for Iran since it essentially was continuing work on nukes through NK (Pakistan needs to be watched but it seems Trump is on top of them too).

That Trump has been able to wield this much power in so short of a time is mind blowing. If he’s able to pull all of this off in two years, he’ll already be a top 5 POTUS! MAGA!!

(LINK)

May 1 2018

Poll: Reuters/IPSOS Survey Shows Millennial Support For Democrats Dropped Nine Percent Since 2016…


Re-Posted on The Conservative Tree House on April 30, 2018 by

In an interesting survey of over 16,000 millennial respondents (graphic here) via  Reuters-IPSOS the narrative of a midterm ‘blue wave” evaporates.

According to the large-sample polling, support for Democrats has dropped from 55% in 2016 to 46% now.  That’s a significant decline over 9% from prior surveys, and could be a strong indication the current favored narrative amid DNC media is entirely false.

(Reuters) MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) – Enthusiasm for the Democratic Party is waning among millennials as its candidates head into the crucial midterm congressional elections, according to the Reuters/Ipsos national opinion poll.

The online survey of more than 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34 shows their support for Democrats over Republicans for Congress slipped by about 9 percentage points over the past two years, to 46 percent overall. And they increasingly say the Republican Party is a better steward of the economy.

That presents a potential problem for Democrats who have come to count on millennials as a core constituency – and will need all the loyalty they can get to achieve a net gain of 23 seats to capture control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November.

Young voters represent an opportunity and a risk for both parties, said Donald Green, a political science professor at Columbia University in New York City.

“They’re not as wedded to one party,” Green said. “They’re easier to convince than, say, your 50- or 60-year-olds who don’t really change their minds very often.”

Terry Hood, 34, an African-American who works at a Dollar General store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and took this year’s poll, said he voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

But he will consider a Republican for Congress because he believes the party is making it easier to find jobs and he applauds the recent Republican-led tax cut.

“It sounds strange to me to say this about the Republicans, but they’re helping with even the small things,” Hood said in a phone interview. “They’re taking less taxes out of my paycheck. I notice that.”  (read more)

This is especially bad news for the DNC considering the new era of “Generation Z” is right on the heels of the millennials and Gen-Z is exponentially more in alignment with the MAGA movement as a counter-culture.   More winning…

May 1 2018

South Korea President Moon Jae-in: “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize”…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 30, 2018 by

‘Splodey Head Alert !!…

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Moon Jae-in said U.S. President Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the standoff with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, a South Korean official said on Monday.

“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. What we need is only peace,” Moon told a meeting of senior secretaries, according to a presidential Blue House official who briefed media.

Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday pledged at a summit to end hostilities between their countries and work toward the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula.

Trump is preparing for his own summit with Kim, which he said would take place in the next three to four weeks.

The Trump administration has led a global effort to impose ever stricter sanctions on North Korea and the U.S. president exchanged bellicose threats with Kim in the past year over North Korea’s development of nuclear missiles capable of reaching the United States.

In January, Moon said Trump “deserves big credit for bringing about the inter-Korean talks. It could be a resulting work of the U.S.-led sanctions and pressure”.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize just months into his presidency, an award many thought was premature, given that he had little to show for his peace efforts beyond rhetoric.

Even Obama said he was surprised and by the time he collected the prize in Oslo at the end of that year, he had ordered the tripling of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. (read more)

“Complicated business folks… complicated business”...

[Via Gunny66] Our President:

He’s a builder at heart. He speaks to people so that they understand. You can’t speak to construction workers like you are in a tea room / meeting room, with platitudes and statements where they are left with a blank look saying and thinking…..Huh….?

And not just construction workers. His business required him to speak to the truck drivers, the cooks, the designers, the maids, taxi cab drivers, golfers…the entire gamut of individuals who were involved in building his empire. He had to understand their problems and their needs in order to “build” quality hotels and golf courses. And he had to talk to them in the way they understood…talk like us…Americans..

And, he was from Queens….where there is a language all it’s own…Queens…and even from where I’m from…where you gave everyone a name…everyone…you wore glasses you were “four eyes”, you were overweight, you were “Wimpy”, you were smart you were Professor” if you were Polish you were Ski….and if you lied your were Lyin, or Crooked, or Lazy, you were Lazy, or whatever….it comes natural to him..it is were he is from.

And he did not only learn from speaking with other people but by doing himself. His father taught him to get down with them, get down with the workers, and do it himself. As he has stated. His father had him counting nails, driving fork lifts, cooking meals.

And then as he grew to be a billionaire, he was in the meetings, the parties, the society of the high minded and powerful. He heard their conversations…their plans for the world…in the back rooms…he heard the names of the powerful who controled everything. all he had to do was listen…

And he did not like what he heard…

So here we are …with a President who is one of us…did you see any of the video today of him speaking with the Olympians who won medals? Just touched your heart…he gave almost everyone one of them a chance to speak and say whatever they wanted. Joked with them like one of the guys and made them all feel special…from Bronze to Gold.

You can truly say he is one of us. The left hates him because he is just one of us…and…

He saved us…..he saved us all…….We should thank God every moment….

And to be quite honest, he is now also saving the world one country at a time….

God Bless our President and his family.

(LINK)

May 1 2018

CNN Neither the Most Watched nor the Most Trusted News


Armstrong Economics Blog/Media

Re-Posted May 1, 2018 by Martin Armstrong

I was on a rather high-level phone call to Asia. The commentary turned to Trump and CNN. Here the opinion from outside the country was that Trump was doing a very good job. He has started a renegotiation of trade and he is the first president to take a hardline position against North Korea which has brought results for the first time. The comment on CNN, which is the primary news source outside the USA about the USA, was that they were degrading themselves and are no longer regarded as actual newsworthy. They said all CNN does is bashes Trump and they are worthy of the label “FAKE NEWS” and this is coming from non-political sources in Asia who were skeptical about Trump, to begin with.

The CNN slogan has been “Most Watched. Most Trusted” which is now clearly false. Fox News in the USA has more viewers than CNN and internationally it has destroyed its reputation as a “news” channel by turning it into a giant propaganda machine. Yet the most serious damage CNN has ushered in is demonstrating that you have to be out of your mind to dare to want public office going forward. CNN has lowered the standard so far that there is not a human being alive who could withstand some scrutiny of their past and have it distorted for the headlines.

This entire process of any lack of respect that CNN has adopted because they prefer Hillary is destroying politics forever. Who will want to come to an office to help the country if you have to go through their news gauntlet? CNN has really destroyed our future because they are now the greatest deterrent to good people coming in to save the day, which is not a statement that Trump is a good or bad person, but a reflection of the future litmus test for any public leader.

Apr 30 2018

Under The Radar: Mnuchin, Lighthizer and Kudlow Head To China – Korea, NAFTA and China Trade Deal all Merge…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 30, 2018 by

There is a geopolitical strategy happening this week that is essentially under the radar.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, USTR Robert Lighthizer, Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow, and the U.S. trade team are heading to China.

The outcome of their discussions connects the initiatives behind North Korea, China and NAFTA.  The steel and aluminum tariffs are part of the toolbox.  Only one media personality, our favorite suspicious cat, appears to understand the larger economic play and how it is being deployed.

From the U.S. perspective, NAFTA has a fatal flaw. Mexico and Canada admitted the flaw for the first time a few weeks ago. The flaw is Mexico and Canada’s exploitation of NAFTA as a backdoor into the U.S. market for Asian, mostly Chinese, manufactured products. Multinational corporations who have invested Canada and Mexico are determined to retain the flaw.

President Trump understands that as long as Canada and Mexico can unilaterally make trade agreements with the EU and ASEAN nations, any NAFTA agreement between the U.S., Canada and Mexico is moot. The NAFTA talks are paused.

The U.S. Team now heads to China. There’s no doubt part of the objective is to begin a structural discussion that must happen for the U.S. trade team to approach closing the fatal NAFTA flaw from the source of origin. [*note* on the EU side of this issue, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is leading a similar discussion. Mnuchin and Lighthizer are focused on Asia, Ross has responsibility for Europe]

The North Korean nuclear denuclearization agreement, and substantive peace treaty between North and South Korea, is part of the geopolitical trade negotiation with the U.S. (President Trump) and Beijing (Chairman Xi).

All three issues: •NAFTA, •China Trade Deal, and •North Korea all become part of the larger dynamic. These economic initiatives and Korean strategic peace initiatives are connected by President Trump’s unique use of economic leverage.

I have no idea how Team U.S.A. plans to frame a deal with China that simultaneously solves NAFTA (fatal flaw) and North Korea; however, there’s no doubt -due to the sequencing and timing- that this objective is well underway.

Here’s Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. Listen carefully:

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Part II:

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Apr 30 2018

President Trump Notes Changes Needed To White House Correspondents Dinner…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 29, 2018 by

A few minutes ago President Trump tweeted his disappointment at the White House Correspondents Dinner, and speculates that changes might be needed; or potentially to just eliminate it:

Facing strong public criticism throughout the day about the performers’ poor taste in humor, ridicule, belittling and generally inappropriate comments about White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the WHCA released a statement:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not respond to the comedian who was hired by the White House Correspondents Association to belittle her in public.

Mrs. Sanders took the high road.

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Apr 30 2018

The Transparent Positioning of Brennan, Clapper and Comey…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 29, 2018 by

Just a quick note on the current tone and confrontational content coming from former FBI Director James Comey, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan.

There is a great deal of discussion about the combative and hate-riddled language coming from Comey, Clapper and particularly Brennan.  Be aware their combative posture as an actual risk avoidance strategy.

Each of the three heavily corrupt officials engaged in the most substantive abuse of their intelligence positions for political purposes.  Each of them weaponized their offices against their political opposition.  The scope and severity therein is a story yet to surface; and unlike prior examples of weaponizing the DOJ and IRS, there is no administration in place to protect them from investigative sunlight.

Therefore the Comey, Clapper and Brennan defense strategy is to position themselves politically and lean on their like-minded media allies for support.  Their adversarial posture is intended to draw the Trump administration into political combat, thereby  diminishing any investigative outcomes behind a false shield of political prosecution.

In short this crew needs to frame any element of accountability -based on their prior behavior- as simple political retribution.  According to their playbook, the more aggressive, nasty, hate-filled and oppositional they are in their public displays; the greater likelihood they can call any indictments political retaliation.  This is a historic approach.

In order for the approach to work, the public must be very well aware of their collective antagonisms and attacks against the current administration.  This is why their media allies emphasize each occurrence so much.

If the larger American public see the Comey, Clapper and Brennan attacks as commonplace, the more likely a larger segment of that same public will see any corresponding DOJ legal proceeding as retaliation for those attacks.

Once this defense strategy is deployed, do not expect to see it diminish.  Quite the contrary; the strategy is contingent upon ever-increasing and more outlandish attacks.

Historically this approach has a proven track record of success amid Democrats because the media (writ large) generally aligns with it.  [See Bob Menendez for a recent example]

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Apr 29 2018

Lindsey Graham Discusses North Korea, Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize and James Comey…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 29, 2018 by

There are those times when Senator Lindsey Graham carefully weighs the politics of the moment and seems to align with the policies of President Trump and the MAGA movement.  This is one of those times.

The tender senator hits the quadruple-lindy… Agreeing with President Trump on: North Korea, Iran, China and FBI Director James Comey’s insufferable nonsense.  As winged pigs seemingly aviate in our blind spot, here’s a full 17 minutes of the tender senator praising President Donald J Trump:

Apr 29 2018

Sunday Talks: Maria Bartiromo Interviews James Kallstrom…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on April 29, 2018 by

You can call it a soft-coup, or you can call it politicization of the DOJ and FBI, but the end result is the same – the intentional effort to manipulate, influence, and ultimately subvert an election for the presidency of the United States.

A disgusted former FBI Deputy Director, James Kallstrom, appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the nonsense and James Comey’s insufferable conduct. Mr. Kallstrom also discusses the bigger picture and the corruption within the intelligence apparatus.

Apr 29 2018

The Prequel – Understanding Lisa Page and Peter Strzok…


Re-Posted From The Conservative Tree House on April 29, 2018 by

As many people are aware, CTH has decided to go back through two years of documents, releases, reports, testimony and media interviews; including interviews with fired FBI Director James Comey; question all prior assumptions; re-examine the entire framework within all the known granular DOJ and FBI activity; and finally contrast it all against the full scope of released messaging between FBI Counterintelligence Agent Peter Strzok and DOJ Special Counsel assigned to Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, Lisa Page.

Suffice to say, this project was no small task; reading the messages in a chronological order takes a minimum of four to six hours.  It is understandable why so much mystery and confusion circles the rather complex storyline. However, before going into the deep weeds – two distinct issues must frame what will soon follow:

♦First, notice a catch-phrase by fired FBI Director James Comey in every interview: “that was not my understanding.”  That phrase is Mr. Comey’s  ‘go-to’ lead-in at the beginning of every explanation, amid challenging questions presented to him, on his current book tour.  That phrase is also a highly legalized linguistics and deployed for a specific reason.

♦Second, if you are going to endeavor to read through all of the released messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok; and/or review an outline of content that utilizes their communication as the background to understand events within the FBI and DOJ-NSD; it helps to have a familiarity from their perspective.

Having said that, this encapsulation of the Page and Strzok outlook by “Newhere” is both fair and accurate:

The nature and tone sound like a couple of earnest, self-important, professional bureaucrats who see themselves as high-achieving stand-outs among their peers, doing the “right thing” or at least the “best” thing among some ugly office politics and broader forces.

Among the two of them, they unquestionably believe themselves “the good guys,” with appropriate motives and judgment.

They are preoccupied with their professional reputations, ambitions and positioning. They spend lots of time dissecting the minutiae of day-to-day interactions and orchestrating mundane office dynamics, and often reassure each other on their respective “excellence” and superiority. All to a degree that pegs their maturity and self-awareness at a level of maybe adolescent. They interpret events and decisions around them in insular terms, like teenagers passing notes in homeroom about high school social cliques.

Takeaways?

— They weren’t driven by specifically by partisan bias. Viewing it as simple bias only minimizes the bigger problem. They were consummate professional bureaucrats, intuiting, anticipating, and expanding upon the goals of leadership, both spoken and implied. Contempt for the implicated political actors was a given; all politicians are intellectually and morally inferior, and (in their minds) the country needs professionals like them having the tools to stand watch and “protect” the country when necessary.

— Trump was viewed as so obviously “dangerous” that extreme measures were necessary. This wasn’t a *partisan* sentiment — it was (again, in their minds) a professional judgment. Which is how they managed the cognitive dissonance of behaving as they did while seeing themselves as moral actors.

These aren’t sociopaths with no consciences. They have the conscience of a common, professional technocrat. Self-delusion and self-importance that warps the moral compass (e.g., they feel aggrieved by things like being left out of a meeting, and they hyper-focus on their own “credit-seeking” vs. “team player” motivations, as if THESE are the pressing moral issues at stake . . ). They are professional technocrats like a lot of professional technocrats, who believe their jobs are singularly important, that they face pressures that are uniquely complicated — who know they hold replaceable jobs, but secretly believe themselves irreplaceable.

Professionalism becomes its own ethic, from which perspective actual ethics are quaint, a luxury for academics or simpletons. This isn’t spoken or acknowledged.

— The scariest part: conduct in the the Clinton/Trump investigations wasn’t anomalous. The fact that these “professionals” behaved this way with only a faint notion of the significance of what they were doing suggests it was more business-as-usual than the biggest scandal of our lifetimes. Meaning it’s even a bigger scandal.

— They did have at least a faint notion that they had ventured well outside of “by the book” territory, but were again deluded by feeling indispensable, hand-picked by the highest echelons of bureau hierarchy, to which they aspired. Page, in particular, felt special because she was chosen by McCabe. Their moral compasses were aimed at pleasing those whose favor they sought.

— They seemed to see the FBI as white hats vis a vis DOJ. I think they truly believed that any corruption/politicization came from DOJ, and FBI jockeying/mischief was trying to set things right against all these other corrupting [political] forces.

–Page’s final “never write to me again” doesn’t seem like a hostile snub. Seems more like a signal/coded message to a friend: “We’re scr*wed. Every (wo)man for himself. I’m looking out for myself. You should too.”