Chopper pressers are the best pressers; even when they are from the tarmac at LAX in California.  Moments ago President Donald Trump talked to the press pool with his newly named national security adviser, Robert O’Brien.  [Video below Transcript ADDED]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. We’re with Robert O’Brien, who, as you know, is the new National Security Advisor. He’s worked with me for quite a while now on hostages, and we’ve had a tremendous track record with respect to hostages. Robert can tell you about it.
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Housing starts (and permits) have been a long-term key performance indicator for the economic stability and strength of Main Street USA for generations. Across all key metrics, the economics of middle-class America is defined by confidence in housing. A strong housing market reflects worker/purchaser confidence in their economic position.

The U.S. Commerce Department reports today that U.S. housing starts and permits has reached a 12-year-high. [data here] This is a key point because it cuts to the heart of the difference between a thriving Main Street economy and the disconnect surrounding issues with Wall Street (multinational) financial markets.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. homebuilding surged to more than a 12-year high in August as both single- and multi-family housing construction accelerated, suggesting that lower mortgage rates were finally providing a boost to the struggling housing market.

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House Judiciary committee members Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows appear on Fox News this morning to discuss the ridiculous committee hearing yesterday where former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski delivered testimony.

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Robert C O’Brien (pictured left) is currently the State Department’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.  A founding partner of the Los Angeles-based law firm Larson O’Brien.

NYT – Mr. O’Brien served with Mr. Bolton when he was President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations and has advised Republican candidates like Mitt Romney, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz. In both the Bush and Obama administrations, Mr. O’Brien worked on an initiative to train lawyers and judges in Afghanistan.  (link)

People describe O’Brien as similar to his friend John Bolton without the virulent twitchy trigger finger. In his capacity as special envoy for hostage affairs, O’Brien wrote a letter to Swedish prosecutors urging them to release A$AP Rocky.  According to CBS O’Brien’s work “on Rocky’s case endeared him to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his top advisers.”
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This is a topic we have previously discussed.  The current status is unfortunately what CTH previously predicted….  The consequences here are very serious.

Representative Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, claims a significant number of House Democrats are ready to vote to approve the USMCA trade deal.  However, Nancy Pelosi is holding back the vote.

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Everyone agrees that passage of the USMCA would provide leverage for the U.S. position in both China and EU trade negotiations.  Representative Andy Barr says despite a likely 300+ vote of support, he believes Pelosi is stalling to block that exact leverage.
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Mercedes Stephenson from Global News has done some excellent follow-up coverage on the arrest of RCMP Intelligence Director Cameron Ortis.  Mr. Ortis is facing seven serious charges of intelligence violations including obtaining information to pass to a “foreign entity.”  The intelligence compromise is the biggest scandal in “a generation”.
New evidence shows the arrest was a result of a 2018 international intelligence operation that targeted the encrypted communications service known as “Phantom Secure”.
A man named Victor Ramos was the CEO of Phantom Secure, an enterprise that provided encrypted communication devices to criminal agents involved in drug smuggling, money laundering and human trafficking.
Ramos was arrested by United States FBI officials in Washington State.  Ramos gave the FBI information about intelligence for sale that was coming from a source deep inside the Five-Eyes intelligence apparatus.  That information led to RCMP Director Cameron Ortis.
The scale of the compromise is still being analyzed. Ortis was director general of the National Intelligence Coordination Centre in Canada. In essence, Ortis was the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (James Clapper/Dan Coats); and had access to the most sensitive intelligence information amid the entire Five-Eyes network that includes: Canada, The United States, The U.K. Australia and New Zealand.
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On February 8th, 2018, Senator Lindsey Graham first revealed an inauguration day email from Susan Rice to herself. That’s 585 days ago and yet we still don’t know what is behind the removed and classified paragraph.  Why is this being kept hidden?

(L-R) Ruemmler, Obama, Monaco and Rice

At 12:15pm on January 20th, 2017, Obama’s outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote a memo-to-self. Many people have called this her “CYA” (cover your ass) memo, from the position that Susan Rice was protecting herself from consequences if the scheme against President Trump was discovered. Here’s the email:

On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Corney and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.
President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book“.

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Against the backdrop of Iranian attacks on Saudi oil fields, earlier today President Trump delivered remarks with Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khaifa of Bahrain in the oval office; and held an impromptu press conference. [Video and Transcript below]

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[Transcript] PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be with the Crown Prince of Bahrain. He is a friend of mine, and the country is a friend of ours. We’re always going to be with them, and I know they’re always going to be with us. We have a tremendous relationship militarily, but we have also a tremendous economic relationship — trade. And we’re going to be discussing all of those things. We’ll certainly be discussing what took place over the last two days in Saudi Arabia.
CROWN PRINCE SALMAN: Absolutely.
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Representative Jim Jordan appeared for an interview this morning to discuss his expectation for the upcoming IG report on the FBI and DOJ manipulating a FISA application to create the predicate for an investigation against President Trump.

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To get impeachment, they needed obstruction. To get obstruction, they needed an investigation. To get the investigation, they needed evidence (the dossier). To change the dossier from oppo-research to evidence they needed a target. The target was Carter Page.
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The dance with the dragon is a complex geopolitical relationship between two large economies. China’s view within the dynamic is shaped by their own internal ideology and outlook.  The panda mask dynamic was/is strategic and has served them well for decades; but now President Trump -while engaging a structural confrontation- has used the panda strategy against Beiing’s interests.  China is flummoxed.

Each of President Trump’s trade team members have a specific role; each member also has a specific opponent within the dance:
♦Peter Navarro is the blue-collar hawk. He focuses on the the administration’s Wall Street adversaries; and the U.S. multinationals -American companies- who have aligned their interests with Beijing.  Navarro’s focus is internal to U.S. interests.  Navarro confronts  U.S. corporations, Wall Street interests, who are working against Main Street.
♦Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin carries the economic financial weapons (represents the dollar), and he faces toward global adversaries (IMF, World Bank, European Central Bank etc.) who have also aligned their interests with Beijing and the status quo.
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