There are many new commentators at CTH, and even more new people taking notice of politics for perhaps the first time in their lives.   There is also some confusion noticed between two distinct groups who appear to be talking above and around each other.  Two groups trying to communicate from two entirely divergent sets of understanding.

Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity.

Many, heck, most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past.

There is not a single congress person who writes legislation or laws.

In 2017 not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct.  This simply doesn’t happen.

Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body.  Here’s how it works.

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President Trump has a simple economic platform: “Buy American and Hire American“; toward that goal all economic and fiscal policies are now directed to assist U.S. manufacturing companies and retain U.S. workers.  Period.

Two days ago Commerce Secretary Wilbur “Wilburine” Ross announced a 20% tariff, countervailing duties, on imported Canadian soft wood lumber.  Today, Pleasant River Lumber Co. in Jackman Maine announces their wood mills will now expand as a direct result of the beneficial impacts of even trade practices.

This is a big deal for this community.

MAINE – The Dover-Foxcroft-based Pleasant River Lumber company is expanding its Jackman sawmill in anticipation of increased demand for American lumber amid the U.S. government’s plans to levy tariffs on Canadian softwood.

In a media release Tuesday, Pleasant River Lumber said it is expanding its Moose River spruce mill in Jackman to add drying capacity this summer and hire up to 20 new workers for a second shift starting this fall.

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On March 14th Judge Andrew Napolitano said:

“Three intelligence sources have informed Fox News that President Obama went outside the chain of command. He didn’t use the NSA. He didn’t use the CIA. He didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use Department of Justice. He used GCHQ. What the heck is GCHQ? That’s the initials for the British spying agency. They have 24/7 access to the NSA database. So by simply having two people go to them saying, ‘President Obama needs transcripts of conversations involving candidate Trump, conversations involving president-elect Trump,’ he’s able to get it, and there’s no American fingerprints on this.”

~ Judge Andrew Napolitano

On March 20th Fox News suspended Napolitano for making those remarks.  The British government and British intelligence community was furious at Napolitano and Fox News.  At the time Rupert Murdoch was attempting to purchase SkyNews, which might have aided in the severity of his response to Napolitano.

However, today CNN is confirming much of the construct for what Napolitano was previously saying:  (more…)

Before Donald Trump won the presidency we accepted his approach. Trump enters a battle-space, any battle-space, with adversaries 360° around him; and yet somehow he has them surrounded. As President Trump, this approach continues.

On a scale of 1 to 10 the average person has a sense of internal purpose around level four. People of intense historic consequence generally exhibit a stronger personal drive which pushes their scaled sense of purpose to around a seven.  However, Donald Trump, now President Trump, as exhibited throughout his life’s accomplishments, carries a sense of purpose considerably higher – perhaps the highest in our life time.

During the phase of the industrial revolution the highest captains of Main Street industry were known as “Titans”. The economic Titans accomplished incredible achievements in building and industry.

These giants moved the nation forward. Relentless forward progress. They never stopped moving forward and they carried a resolve so severe they never allowed anything to stand in the way of their purpose driven objectives. National politicians knelt at the desks of these nationalist Titans.

With that established, Wolfmoon1776 provides an explainer:

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The launch of Tomahawk missiles by President Trump has displaced the gravitational center of twitter purists, litmus nuts, conspiracy loons and the even creepier goons that orbit the remnants of the Ted Cruz #NeverTrump camp.

Their latest anti-Trumpism du jour targets Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and spouse of Ivanka Trump.   Every loon campaign needs a hashtag, and their chosen identifying moonbattery is scribed under #FireKushner.

The concern, as it is openly expressed by those pushing the hashtag, is that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will sneak into President Trump’s bedroom and place a pod under his bed which will envelop the elder Trump overnight, replicate him, and simultaneously turn him into a left-wing liberal globalist.  Yes, that appears to be the general concern.

To validate this concern the current consensus conspiracy theory evidence points to Steve Bannon being dispatched from the White House (which he’s not) in combination with Jared Kushner sitting at a table and Steven Miller’s physical proximity to the corner of the room as reflected in a photograph taken during the aftermath of the Syrian missile launch.

Uh huh.

Like all similar ideological moonbattery that has come before (primary race 2015/16), there is an echo-chamber of more than tinged antisemitism, combined with a dash of Cruzian litmus testing of all activity.   In essence, this is yet another outcropping of the continuing evolution of #NeverTrump.   It’s silly, but, alas people take this stuff seriously.

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President Donald Trump was well inside his comfort zone today at the Hilton in Washington DC during a speech to the North America’s Building Trades Unions National Legislative Conference.  An epic speech, well worth watching.

For the first time ever a president who actually understand the building, trade and construction industry delivered a speech to the men and women who build America’s highways, roads, bridges, buildings and national infrastructure.   President Trump called out many of the trade union members by name.  Lots of fun:

…The era of economic surrender has come to an end.  It’s come to an end.  We have surrendered as a country to outside interests.  The era of economic victory for our country has just begun.  You will see.. Oh, you will see..

[Transcript] 12:25 P.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT:  I know these people well, you wouldn’t believe it.  I know them too well.  (Applause.)  I know them too well.  They cost me a lot of money.  (Laughter.)  I spent a lot of money, but I love them, and they’re great, and their people are fantastic.  And nobody does it like you people, right?  Nobody.  We talked about that — incredible.  Incredible people.

So it’s great to be back with America’s builders.  (Applause.)  So did you ever think you’d see a President who knows how much concrete and rebar you can lay down in a single day?  Believe me, I know.  I know.  (Applause.)  We’re a nation of builders, and it was about time we had a builder in the White House, right?  (Applause.)  We have a builder.

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Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice only needed to confirm one aspect of the intelligence unmasking story for all of the dots to connect.  She made that confirmation within two minutes of her interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.

From the MSNBC transcript, emphasis mine:

Susan Rice @00:51 – …”Let me explain how this works.  I was a National Security Adviser, my job is to protect the American people and the security of our country.  That’s the same as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.; and every morning, to enable us to do that, we receive – from the intelligence community – a compilation of intelligence reports that the IC, the intelligence community, has selected for us –on a daily basis– to give us the best information as to what’s going on around the world.”

Note, right there.  STOP. No need to go any further.  There it is – Susan Rice is describing the Presidents’ Daily Briefing, aka the “PDB”.  She continues:

“I received those reports, as did other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which, uh, a ‘U.S Person’ was referred to.  Name, uh, not provided, just ‘U.S. Person’.

And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and assess it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.”

This is the important detail.  Susan Rice was requesting unmasking of U.S. person’s names, which she moments later describes as “U.S. official[s]”, to understand the context and importance for the intelligence being given within the Presidents’ Daily Brief.

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With a general set of narrative ‘talking points’ in hand President Obama’s Former National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, appeared this morning on MSNBC for an interview with Andrea Mitchell.  This is the ‘We-Have-To-Respond-phase‘,  which necessitates the optic.

Andrea Mitchell is considered a trustworthy ally of the Clinton/Obama political networks; as such, it is not a surprise to see Mitchell selected as the interviewer.  Mitchell’s use of wording carefully guides Susan Rice through the narrow path of self-incrimination by providing plausible deniability for verbal missteps.

You already know the routine.  MSNBC is the favorable proprietary venue. Mitchell plays the role of media-legal-adviser, her client is Susan Rice.  Live interviews are always the greatest risk (see: Evelyn Farkas)  The full interview is below:

However, that said, there are some interesting aspects to the interview:

Susan Rice @00:51 – …”Let me explain how this works.  I was a National Security Adviser, my job is to protect the American people and the security of our country.  That’s the same as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.; and every morning, to enable us to do that, we receive – from the intelligence community – a compilation of intelligence reports that the IC, the intelligence community, has selected for us –on a daily basis– to give us the best information as to what’s going on around the world.”

[Note, Susan Rice is describing the PDB]

“I received those reports, as did other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which, uh, a ‘U.S Person’ was referred to.  Name, uh, not provided, just ‘U.S. Person’.

And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and assess it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.”

OK, so right there, in the very beginning of the forward narrative, Susan Rice is confirming the “unmasking” request(s) which can be pinned upon her, are directly related to her need to understand -on behalf of President Obama- intelligence for the President’s Daily Briefing (the PDB).  This was a previous question now answered.

This is EXPLOSIVE, and here’s why.

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Fox News, The Daily Mail and Bloomberg News are all reporting the unmaking requests of collected surveillance activity was made by President Obama’s former National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

However, it remains unclear if Rice just made the unmasking requests, or if she herself did the unmasking.  Additionally, reporting by all three media outlets claims the surveillance of the Trump campaign encompassed more than a year.

(Via Fox News) Multiple sources tell Fox News that Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President Barack Obama, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in surveillance.

The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan – essentially, the officials at the top, including former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes.

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Despite a ridiculously false narrative of President Trump refusing to discuss Judge Gorsuch with Democrats in advance of his nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 11-9 to advance the nomination to the full Senate.

Throughout the last morning of Judiciary Committee statements, several Senators used the talking point that President Trump never consulted their party.  As you can see from this January 24th tweet below, that assertion is demonstrably false:

President Trump met with Senator Dianne Feinstein and Senator Chuck Schumer on January 24th, 2017, to hear their concerns and opinions prior to nominating Judge Gorsuch a week later on January 31st.

Today the judiciary committee voted along party lines.  All 11 Republicans voting for Gorsuch and all 9 Democrats voting against him.   Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is expected to schedule a vote on Thursday to end a Democratic filibuster of Gorsuch, which would require 60 votes.