For those who follow the deep weeds of politics, this is brutally transparent.  For the remaining 97% of the voting electorate, they still don’t understand how the UniParty works. Decepticon leader McConnell doesn’t want the American electorate to see purchased senate republicans voting NO on border security.
Mitch McConnell refuses to call up an appropriations vote on the bill that passed the House of Representatives (includes border funding); nor will Mitch McConnell bring up an independent bill that could then be reconciled with the House bill.  The motives here are brutally transparent.

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Think carefully about what Mitch McConnell is doing here.  It’s not President Trump’s job to write legislation.  McConnell is desperately trying to retain a UniParty ruse, by passing the buck to the White House.   McConnell doesn’t want the American people to see republican senators supporting a bill against voter interests.
Wall Street, corporate and special interest lobbyists own the legislative process. Lobbyists actually write the laws.  Lobbyists pay congress to sell laws they write. Lobbyists funding both left and right wings of the UniParty do not want border security. This is ultimately what McConnell is trying to hide.
Look at what he’s doing.  Senate Leader McConnell is telling the executive branch (President Trump) if they want an appropriations bill, the President must write the legislation with his democrat colleagues.   Please – Think About This.
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Brilliant.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the DC Decepticons are concerned about the Kurdish groups in Syria as the President Trump withdraws U.S. forces.  The concern stems from a possibility of Turkey taking hostile action toward our Kurdish allies.  However, a new report from the region highlights Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is sending his forces to replace the U.S. troops.

SAUDI ARABIA – Saudi Arabia and the UAE have sent military forces to areas controlled by the Kurdish YPG group in north-east Syria, Turkey’s Yenisafak newspaper reported.

The paper said the forces will be stationed with US-led coalition troops and will support its tasks with huge military enforcements as well as heavy and light weapons.

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The House of Representatives voted tonight to include $5.7 billion for border security in a spending bill after President Trump warned them he would veto the spending bill without it.  Despite prior claims by Democrats the bill passed 217-185.

The bill now goes to the senate where Mitch McConnell, the GOP Decepticon caucus, and Chuck Schumer previously refused to consider border security.  If Schumer, McConnell and the Decepticons reject the bill it will likely lead to a partial government shutdown.

Oh snap, grab my belt, we’re going deep.
This move is not unexpected; especially for those who have followed the Trump Doctrine for the past two years. President Trump has announced reception of a notification from Defense Secretary James Mattis that he intends to retire.

The move makes sense on multiple levels.  President Trump has been executing a policy, a clear doctrine of sorts, where national security is achieved by leveraging U.S. economic power.  It is a fundamental shift in approach.
Initially, the traditional military interventionist approach couldn’t just be reversed or dispatched; and James Mattis was the bridge to a path forward.  Toward that end President Trump removed military constraints, allowed rules of engagement that were much stronger, and let Mattis work on confronting and stamping out terror threats.  In essence, an aggressive “let’s get this over with” approach.
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The sentencing guideline for the single count of lying to federal investigators was: 0 to 6 months. After a rather sketchy plea deal, DOJ Prosecutors had requested an upward revision to two-years incarceration based on the severity of the conduct.

Moments ago US District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sentenced James Wolfe to a two-month prison term.

The judge rejected the request for an upward revision of sentencing; and she rejected a victim impact statement from Carter Page outlining the damage to him caused by James Wolfe’s leaking…   In essence, James Wolfe became the benefactor of a corrupt FBI/DOJ trying to protect the Senate Intelligence Committee from scrutiny.

Backstory Below

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Sticking to his prior statements about omnibus spending, President Donald Trump called republican leaders to the White House and informed them he will NOT sign a short-term resolution that does not provide funding for border security.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy hold a quick presser following their visit with President Trump:

CTH has some new readers, so against the backdrop of the UniParty in Washington DC jumping into action to criticize President Trump’s decision to withdraw from Syria; perhaps a little factual historic refresher is in order….

On September 30th 2016 the New York Times quietly released a leaked audio recording of Secretary John Kerry meeting with multiple factions associated within Syria.
The 40-minute discussion took place on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly in New York. The meeting took place at the Dutch Mission to the United Nations on Sept. 22nd 2016:

[…] Kerry’s off-record conversation was apparently with two dozen ‘Syrian civilians’, all from US backed opposition-linked NGO’s in education and medical groups supposedly working in ‘rebel-held’ (aka terrorist-held) areas in Syria.
This opposition conclave also included ‘rescue workers’ which can only be ambassadors from the White Helmets, a pseudo NGO which serves as Washington and London’s primary PR front in pursuit of a “No Fly Zone’ in Syria, and it’s being bankrolled by the US, UK, EU and other coalition states to the tune of well over $100 million (so far). (link)

When you listen to the audio recording (embedded below) it becomes immediately obvious what was going on in 2014, 2015 and 2016 as an outcome of policy from the White House. In addition, you discover why this jaw-dropping 2016 leak/story was buried by the U.S. media and how it connects to the prior 4 years of perplexing U.S. mid-east policy.
This evidence within this single story would/should forever remove any credibility toward the U.S. foreign policy under President Obama. It also destroys the credibility of a large number of well known republicans, and explains how the prior action placed President Trump into a precarious position requiring a careful approach.
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From research we know what is known as the “Steele Dossier” was a collaborative effort between Fusion-GPS contract employee Nellie Ohr, and a British intelligence asset named Chris Steele; also hired by Fusion.  According to inferred congressional testimony, Nellie Ohr’s co-author, Chris Steele, was also an employee of Russian influence agent Oleg Deripaska.
Within a court filing today (full pdf below) there’s an outline of a network of NeverTrump republican allies who received the dossier directly from Christopher Steele. Including: David Kramer (for John McCain), Representative Adam Kinzinger, Paul Ryan’s chief-of-staff John Burks, and various British and U.S. intelligence officials.

It was David Kramer, on behalf of Senator John McCain, who gave the Dossier to Buzzfeed to publish.  The first 10-pages of the filing outline the distribution network.
Considering the relationship between Oleg Deripaska and Christopher Steele, ultimately what the dossier and distribution reflects is a Russian propaganda document created by Fusion-GPS Nellie Ohr (herself an expert on Russia) and Chris Steele – then funneled to the U.S. intelligence apparatus for use against an American presidential candidate.
Rather ironic eh?
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Former FBI Director James Comey appeared December 17th, 2018, for a second round of questions by a joint House committee oversight probe into the DOJ and FBI conduct during the 2016 presidential election and incoming Trump administration.
The Joint House Committee just released the transcript (full pdf below):
[scribd id=395972408 key=key-VowRINMl7U6kF9efRfAx mode=scroll]
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This was just released.  Analysis to follow.

Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack filed a cover letter attempting to explain the reason for the Flynn interview on January 24th, and the official filing of the interview notes (FD-302) on February 15th, and then again on May 31st.  To explain the delay, he claims the report “inadvertently” had a header saying “DRAFT DOCUMENT/DELIBERATIVE MATERIAL”  (screen grab)

What the special counsel appears to be obfuscating to the court is that there was factually a process of deliberation within the investigative unit, headed by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, surrounding the specific wording of the 302 report on the interview.
Prosecutor Brandon Van Grack is attempting to hide the length of the small group deliberations. It seems he doesn’t want the court to know Andrew McCabe was involved in shaping how the fd-302 was written.
We know there was a deliberative process in place, seemingly all about how to best position the narrative, because we can see the deliberations in text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok:  See below (note the dates):

The text message conversation above is February 14th, 2017.   The Michael Flynn FD-302 was officially entered into the record on February 15th, 2017, per the report:
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