Interestingly, anyone who has followed Turkish geopolitics closely will likely note a confrontation on ideology was bound to happen.  The triggering event has become the Turkish imprisonment of American Pastor Andrew Brunson.
Turkey has always been a tenuous NATO ally.  The totalitarian behavior of Turksih President Recep Erdogan has generally been antithetical to freedom and U.S. interests.  There have been many examples of sketchy Turkish interests in the past decade – SEE HERE – including Erdogan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and providing safe-harbor for the exiled Brotherhood leadership.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey on Friday “implored” U.S. President Donald Trump to return to the negotiating table on tariffs, saying the trade rift between the NATO allies should be resolved through dialogue.

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Curious legal developments in the case against the former Director of Security for the Senate Intelligence Committee, James Wolfe, are beginning to become quite troublesome.
In a noted bit of research timing, Jeff at MarketsWork [SEE HERE] and CTH are following the same curious trail.  SEE HERE.

First, we know from overwhelming circumstantial evidence, conveniently overlooked by media, that one of Wolfe’s specific leaks involved sending his concubine Ali Watkins a copy of the 82-page FISA application used to gain a Title-1 surveillance warrant against U.S. person Carter Page.   {Full Backstory Here}  Some key things about this leak:

1. It is highly likely there were no redactions in the copy Wolfe leaked to the media.
2. It is highly likely Wolfe was caught in a leak hunt, and the copy given to him included a specific, and intentionally wrong, internal date using October 19th as the origination date for FISA application approval.  (The actual date was Oct 21st).
3. The October 19th date then shows up in subsequent media reports which were based on the leak.  The New York Times and Washington Post used the wrong date; the concentric reporting of the NYT and WaPo spread the wrong date like a virus.
4. However, despite overwhelming and easy to prove evidence against him, Wolfe was never charged with the Carter Page FISA leak.  The DOJ/FBI have him dead-to-rights on that leak, but he was charged with the more disingenuous crime of lying to the FBI.

These explosive details have been largely ignored by media, and two recent legal filings add even more layers of intrigue.  Last week a federal judge denied a request by Wolfe’s lawyers to put a gag order on the entire U.S. government; to include President Trump:
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Against the backdrop of U.S. withdrawing from the ill-fated Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA); and against the backdrop of looming U.S. sanctions therein; there has been an ongoing geopolitical simmering/positioning between allies and adversaries surrounding the current and future disposition of Iran.
Recently China, likely responding to economic trade leverage from the U.S., made a deal with Saudi Arabia for petroleum purchases weakening their alliance with Iran.  At the same time Turkey, a tenuous NATO ally, began positioning in advance of U.S. sanctions and removing Iran oil purchases.  Collectively, and with President Trump putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin via Syria and Iranian influence, this has led to Iran feeling an economic squeeze similar to the previous Trump Doctrine leverage as witnessed in N-Korea.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is feeling the heat.  On Sunday he said “war with Iran is the mother of all wars.” That led to the tweet reply from President Donald Trump:

This follows on the immediate heels of a speech given by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo yesterday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library in Simi Valley, CA.
There is a clearly coordinated and unified message:
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If you are old enough to remember the Soviet-era propaganda approximately five years prior to the Polish solidarity movement, you are old enough to have a solid frame of reference for today’s announcement from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
Truthfully, I never thought a constitutionally protected U.S. government apparatus would ever be able to pull-off propaganda so easily and readily consumed by an American electorate…. Alas, lesson learned.   So here’s my take:
Setting aside the transparent timing of the declaration today; which is entirely based upon the reality of interlopers within our current government remaining focused on undermining President Trump policy and objectives; and accepting the anti-Russia propaganda narrative is a political weapon intended to elevate the interests of deep state officials and undermine any effort that might be adverse to their interests; a basic question about the indictment evidence is being avoided by all who are reviewing the content therein….
While the DOJ document is full of detailed accusations; which has given the narrative engineers a great deal of fuel; there’s a specific aspect missing.  The entire indictment (full pdf below) is based on the premise of the FBI conducting some -unexplained and unsubstantiated- form of forensic data-analysis to formulate their detailed conclusions.
However, can anyone explain how this FBI forensic data-analysis was possible when the FBI was never allowed access to the DCCC, DNC and Clinton Campaign servers?
Anyone?…. Anyone?
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Another democrat was arrested earlier today after following the advice of Maxine Waters and threatening political violence against a member of congress.   The target was the campaign staff and office of republican lawmaker Lee Zeldin (NY-1).

New York – Suffolk County Police today arrested a Nesconset man for making a terroristic threat against a campaign worker at Lee Zeldin’s Congressional Campaign Headquarters in Nesconset this morning.
Martin Astrof was arrested after he threatened to kill supporters of Congressman Lee Zeldin and President Donald Trump. Astrof went to the campaign headquarters of Congressman Zeldin and became irate with a campaign worker at approximately 11:15 a.m. After threatening to kill the campaign worker and other supporters, Astrof backed his car up in an aggressive manner nearly striking the worker.

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A police report has been filed after a sixteen year old was eating at a Whataburger in San Antonio Texas and an unhinged man attacked him at the restaurant because he was wearing a Make America Great Again hat.
Video of the assault went viral along with several media outlets reporting on the incident:

(News4SanAntonio Link)

The victim is 16-year-old Hunter Richard. The man assaulting the teen was identified quickly through social media as 30-year-old Kino Jimenez. According to follow-up reports Jimenez worked as a bartender in the area. He has been fired from his job.
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Way back when CTH first began the deep dive into the systems and processes that were deployed in the 2015/2016 election cycle we eventually came to the conclusion that everything of substance, within the larger intelligence abuses, revolved around DOJ and FBI abuses of the FISA process.
As an outcome of multiple research deep-dives we then focused on a specific foundational block of that usurpation, the fraudulent application presented to the FISA Court by officials within the FBI and DOJ-NSD (National Security Division).  The October 21st, 2016, application to the FISA Court for surveillance authority upon U.S. person Carter Page; and by extension the Donald Trump campaign.
Throughout all further inquiries this central component remains at the center of the issue.  Unlawful surveillance is the originating principal behind Operation Crossfire Hurricane; it is also the originating issue within the Peter Strzok “insurance policy”; additionally, it is the originating aspect to the Clinton/Steele dossier; etc. etc. the list is long.  Chase any of the corrupt threads back to their source of origin and you eventually come back to the surveillance authority within the FISA processes.

As an outcome of those concentric circles CTH continued to say: stay focused on the FISA fraud, and by extension the FISA application, and by extension the dossier.  Every outbound surveillance ripple can be traced back to the use of FBI and NSA databases to conduct unlawful surveillance of political opposition.  Not a scintilla of discovery within the past two years modifies that reality.
Why is that important?  Here’s where things get FUBAR.   FISA is a process, and when used appropriately, within all guidelines, is essentially a surveillance tool.  However, it is a tool that is entirely subject to the honor of the user.  If the user is corrupt, or holds corrupt intent, the tool easily becomes a weapon.  That’s what happened in 2015, 2016 and likely long before that.  The weaponization is so easy to initiate that NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers admitted the intelligence community could not adequately prevent it.  So Rogers went about eliminating massive aspects to it, completely.
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The BBC’s condescending Emily Maitlis demands support for the European Union and challenges the sovereign authority of Hungary to self-determination.   Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó was having none of that nonsense, and pushed back against little Miss feelings.

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This occurs on the heels of Italy rebuking the EU immigration platform; and a weakened German Chancellor Angela Merkel having to beg political allies in Bavaria for support:

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s political future rests in the hands of the Christian Social Union (CSU) on Sunday, when the Bavarian party’s leadership meets to decide whether to accept migration deals she brought back from Brussels.

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Retiring ICE Director Thomas Homan had a message for congress, politicians and media on his last day in office.   Namely all need to get their facts straight.

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Yikes, looks like someone following through on Congresswoman Maxine Waters approach toward political violence was just arrested.  From the Eastern District of VA:

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A California man was arrested today in Los Angeles on charges of threatening to kill the family of Ajit Pai, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, for Pai’s role in repealing regulations relating to net neutrality.

According to court documents, on or about Dec. 19 and 20, 2017, Markara Man, 33, of Norwalk, allegedly sent three emails to Chairman Pai’s email accounts. The first email accused Chairman Pai of being responsible for a child who allegedly had committed suicide because of the repeal of net neutrality regulations. The second email listed three locations in or around Arlington, and threatened to kill the Chairman’s family members.

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