In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

In the past few weeks, thanks to some revealing information amid the various investigators of the DC swamp, we have been introduced to some previously unknown people.
Names like FBI Agent Peter Strzok; his mistress FBI Attorney Lisa Page; their ideological comrade Asst FBI Director Andrew McCabe; along with DOJ Deputy Bruce Ohr; and his wife, Fusion-GPS contract employee Nellie Ohr.  These are a few of the recent names that have hit the headlines as a result of ongoing investigations into the politicization of the FBI and DOJ.
But there’s one name conspicuously absent, FBI Director of Counterintelligence, Bill Priestap.

When you understand how central Bill Priestap is to the entire 2016/2017 ‘Russian Conspiracy Operation‘, the absence of his name, amid all others, creates a curiosity.  I wrote a twitter thread about him recently because it seems rather unfathomable his name has not been a part of any of the recent story-lines.
Bill Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation.  He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss.  If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the guy who would know.
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Earlier today President Donald Trump visited the Marine Corps Air Facility in Quantico, Virginia, home of Marine Helicopter Squadron One.  There is no immediate full video available (some snippets below), however, there is a transcript of the event.

[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: So they gave me this hat. It says: “Presidential Helicopter Squadron.” Would you wear it? Now, no other President would do this. But I will, because I’m proud of you. (Applause.) I’m proud of you. What the hell.
Oh, you are nice. I can’t see you in this. (Laughter.) You are — you mean, so you’re the ones taking care of my helicopter, right? (Applause.) I better be nice to you. (Laughter.) I better be nice to you.
I want to congratulate — I know the talent. I’ve had many helicopters. You know, I’m very spoiled; I’ve had helicopters. (Laughter.) And we ordered a couple of big, beautiful new ones. You know about that, right? They paid a lot more than I would have paid, and I would have had them even better, but we won’t talk about that. They paid a lot of money. (Laughter.)
But I want to thank Colonel Hoffman very much. The job you do is incredible. The job that this group of people do is incredible. Colonel, how many presidents have come out to see them? Who was that?
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Today Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went to the United Nations to deliver a strong diplomatic message to the North Korean regime about their ongoing nuclear ambitions.
President Trump and Secretary of State Tillerson are asking Chinese Chairman/President Xi Jinping to cut off the oil supply to the DPRK.
If you have not watched the prior ‘deep weeds discussion‘ by T-Rex on the specific reason why the U.S. cannot, ever, accept a DPRK with nuclear weapons, you should.  Two very specific reasons why also explain why traditional state adversaries China and Russia are willing to put aside their differences with the U.S. and work to denuclearize N-Korea:

• #1) The DPRK have stated, through actions and words, they intend to use nuclear weapons as a larger strategy, a shield per se’, toward advanced conventional military action in the region.  And more importantly…
• #2) The DPRK have stated, through actions and words, they intend to commercialize nuclear weapon manufacturing and distribution, thereby selling completed nuclear weaponry on the global market.

Given the unconscionable risk of having terror state actors gaining nuclear weapons for use against any nation, the threat of such a stunning and dangerous possibility can never be accepted.  Which leads to three important videos from today:

(TRANSCRIPT AVAILABLE HERE)

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Attorney Lisa Bloom is the daughter of Gloria Allred.  The apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the poisonous tree.  Both Gloria Allred and Lisa Bloom have a history of planned and strategic attacks against candidate Donald Trump and President Donald Trump.

According to research and documents provided to John Solomon, Lisa Bloom organized payments for the accusations against presidential candidate Donald Trump and coordinated financial benefits, through the larger Democrat apparatus, for the accusers:

(Via The Hill) A well-known women’s rights lawyer sought to arrange compensation from donors and tabloid media outlets for women who made or considered making sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump during the final months of the 2016 presidential race, according to documents and interviews.
California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill.

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President Trump traveled to Quantico Virginia to deliver a speech to the FBI National Academy graduates.  President Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray all delivered remarks to the graduating class and their families.
[POTUS Speech Begins @26:45 and Transcript Below]

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Quantico, Virginia – 10:35 A.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Wow. (Applause.) Thank you very much, everybody. That’s a lot of years since the last President, and we’ll be back. (Laughter.) And thank you to Attorney General Sessions; thank you, Director Wray; Assistant Director Resch for hosting me here at the FBI National Academy to address our wonderful local police and sheriffs from all over America. A very special honor.
And it’s an honor to stand here today with the incredible men and women of law enforcement. Thank you. (Applause.)
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Yesterday President Trump met with all prior leadership of the Secret Service in the Oval Office. Today President Trump heads to FBI HQ to give them attaboys. Tonight President Trump heads to Camp David for the weekend.
President Trump paused on the South Lawn for an impromptu presser while headed to Marine-One, prior to his departure to the FBI HQ at Quantico Virginia, to talk to the media pool.  Strong comments about FBI’s prior leadership. Video and Transcript:

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[Transcript] THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI. But we’re going to rebuild the FBI. It will be bigger and better than ever. But it is very sad when you look at those documents. And how they’ve done that is really, really disgraceful, and you have a lot of very angry people that are seeing it. It’s a very sad thing to watch, I will tell you that.
And I’m going today, on behalf of the FBI, their new building. But when everybody — not me — when everybody — the level of anger at what they’ve been witnessing with respect to the FBI is certainly very sad.
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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

We are so fortunate to have Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.  Stunning mastery of global events, policy, strategy, and diplomatic nuance at both the big and granular levels.
During a keynote address, “Meeting the Foreign Policy Challenges of 2017 and Beyond” at the 2017 Atlantic Council – Korea Foundation Forum, Secretary Tillerson takes the opportunity to provide another eloquent “walk around the globe” outline of current foreign engagements and ongoing U.S. policy therein.  If you watched the first one, you’ll also enjoy this one.
The first 38 minutes consist of T-Rex taking a “jog”, as he put it, around the globe to help everyone understand “what’s going on”.   With simple note cards for reference Tillerson walks through the most important challenges in foreign policy.  The last 20 minutes of the video is also well worth watching because T-Rex goes into great detail on the subject of North Korea and how each angle of nuance plays a part of the larger dynamic.WATCH:

(FULL Transcipt is Available HERE)

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