The absolute #1 tell highlighting this as a nonsense exercise, a delay tactic on behalf of the swamp, is the venue for Tulsi Gabbard’s “new task force” announcement, Sean Hannity.

In order to pass DC approvals for confirmation, Gabbard had to join the ‘FISA is awesome’ club.  Now, she aligns her DNI silo with the foolishness of the Sean Hannity ‘tick-tock’ club.  Sorry, but we’ve seen this performance so many times it is now blood boiling to watch them try and repeat it.

DNI Gabbard claims she is creating a new “transparency task force” to analyze information for potential declassification and public release.  However, the task force will now have to “dig” until they have every document discovered, before they can release it, because releasing information as it is discovered is against the operational mission of the people who control the silo process.  But she swears, if you wait for it, it will come. “Trust the plan.”

Oh, it’s so complicated.

Oh, it’s so big and hard to do.

Oh, the evidence is so hard to find.

This is the same nonsense story from Bill Barr, John Durham, Michael Horowitz and the other previous members of the Sean Hannity ‘tick-tock club,’ including John Solomon (controlled releases) and other “conservatively aligned” tradecraft media.  Barr is now Bondi, Wray is now Kash, Durham is now Bongino, the audience is the same.  It’s nonsense.

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When President Trump announced the 90-day pause in combination with the increase in tariffs against China, there was a background element missed by many.

At the moment President Trump triggered the public announcement, U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer was testifying to congress.

President Trump is not a jerk.  Donald Trump would not put a top executive Greer in that optically vulnerable position if USTR Greer was the tip of the spear, it’s just bad business form.

The timing and background indicate something more substantial.  For what we are calling ‘the BIG UGLY’ Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is the point, Greer is a functionary.  It’s a shift from the Term-1 approach, because the global trade reset is magnitudes bigger and more substantive.

This approach would also explain why Robert Lighthizer was not reenlisted in Term-2.  If Lighthizer was in Greer’s chair in front of congress at the moment of the public announcement, he would have been furious and rightly so.  Lighthizer and Wilbur Ross were the tip of the spear in term-1, Lighthizer facing the region of Asia and Ross facing Europe; but the same strategy is not present in term-2.

In the Term-2 trade reset, the entire globe is being targeted simultaneously.  Enter, the U.S. Treasury Secretary in a bigger, more substantive, and much more prominent role due to the scale of the trade reset.

This trade approach is much bigger, obviously. As the nuclear-level trade detonation takes place, Secretary Bessent is in control of both the financial market response and the core finances of the USA as it relates to the reverberations.

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“Shark Tank” star and investor Kevin O’Leary says President Trump’s tariffs on China aren’t high enough and calls for a 400% tariff on the country. “It’s time to squeeze Chinese heads into the wall.”

O’Leary wants President Trump to go full wolverine. Awesome.  WATCH:

Full Segment Below:

My thoughts: Replace the Tech Bro regiment with union Democrats.  We were always destined to lose Silicon Valley, lets control the timeline of departure. The self-interest dynamic has now shifted. Ship the Tech Bros to China, then invite Vladimir Putin to a State Dinner.

We are at a very important inflection point. If we are going to face The Big Ugly with China, we cannot afford divided loyalties. We cannot afford conflicted interests.

Pull in the knuckle-draggers, the pipefitters, the hardcore unions and even the sketchy elements of the criminal underground who at least love America more than all else.  The core weapons we now need are brutal power, economic nationalism and industrial patriotism.

We are now at the moment when we need Whiskey to replace Soy. It’s time to get mean, brutally, harshly mean. Delicate sensibilities must be dispatched like a feather in a hurricane.

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This is an excellent example of what Attorney General Pam Bondi should be focused on instead of her appearances on Fox News.

The Federal Housing and Finance Agency has released a public statement highlighting an internal review and investigation of conduct within Fannie Mae that has resulted in the termination of over 100 employees for “unethical conduct” including the “facilitation of fraud.”

If the FHMA is finding intentional fraud within the housing loan offices, those federal employees should be arrested and legally prosecuted for their conduct.  It is not enough to just fire people, there has to be legal accountability.  These are the government regulators for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Washington, D.C. — Today, the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency (U.S. Federal Housing FHFA) and Fannie Mae issued the following statement:

“In President Trump’s housing market, there is no room for fraud, mortgage fraud, or any other deceitful act that can jeopardize the safety and soundness of the housing industry,” said William J. Pulte, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fannie Mae. “Since my swearing-in, we fired over 100 employees from Fannie Mae who we caught engaging in unethical conduct, including facilitating fraud, against our great company.  Anyone who commits fraud against Fannie Mae does so against the American people.”

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Full dragon, no panda mask.  Beijing begins using war terminology to discuss the trade conflict with the United States.

Through a series of cumulative trade tariffs, President Trump has now placed Chinese imports into the USA in a position of 104% tariffs.

104%!

In response Beijing has devalued their currency and dumped treasuries, but no amount of subsidy, devaluation or use of their sovereign wealth fund is going to compensate for 104% taxes on Chinese products.  Very soon all purchase orders from the USA for Chinese manufactured products will stop.

The Beijing dragon is looking at the future through a zero-sum position.  Now, they vow to fight to the death.

BEIJING, April 9 (Xinhua) — With firm will and abundant means, China will resolutely take countermeasures and fight till the end if the United States insists on further escalating economic and trade restrictive measures, China’s Ministry of Commerce said Wednesday.

“I want to emphasize that there is no winner in a trade war, and China does not want a trade war, but the Chinese government will by no means sit by when the legitimate rights and interests of its people are being hurt and deprived,” said an official with the ministry.

The official made the remarks when responding to media questions regarding a white paper released Wednesday by the State Council Information Office on China’s position on some issues concerning China-U.S. economic and trade relations.

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Appearing 4/8/25 on CNBC, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent outlined some of the specifics within the negotiation strategy of President Trump as it pertains to the ongoing global trade reset.

Bessent notes at the request of President Trump, all administration officials were to pull back from commentary following the “liberation day” tariff announcement.  The objective was to give all nations’ time to absorb the impact while reducing the reverberation noise.

After a few days, President Trump then began to assess the inbound communication from various country leaders and their request for renegotiation.  The priority schedule permits the honest trade allies to come first in the que to the office of U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer, as approved by President Trump.

Japan and South Korean delegations and trade representatives will be the first trade teams engaged; not coincidently both of those ASEAN nations have pre-positioned manufacturing investment in the USA, the truest measure of a trade partnership.  The outcome of these first agreements will form the baseline for every nation thereafter.

Both Japan and South Korea have North American manufacturing systems in place; however, it is likely more investment in U.S jobs and products being created in mainland USA will remain a top priority.  Additionally, for these nations the largest element of their “reciprocity” will come from a commitment to reduce the trade deficit with better terms and bigger contracts for U.S. product imports.

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President Donald Trump attended the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dinner in Washington DC.

The main topic of President Trump’s remarks is the global trade reset, which includes a cumulative 104% tariff on China, as Beijing attempts to devalue currency and retain economic status.  President Trump is in full wolverine mode on the issue of trade.  There is no other issue that commands this level of intensity and deliberate effort.

MAGAnomics, American Main Street and economic security as national security priority, is the core issue to define President Trump’s doctrine. He is bringing the thunder, which we have referenced as “The Big Ugly.”  WATCH:

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Many pundits and apoplectic Lawfare leftists are noting a set of four recent Supreme Court rulings favorable to the Trump administration.

The most recent ruling [pdf here] said nonprofit groups lacked legal standing to bring lawsuits challenging the firings of probationary workers at the departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs.  As a consequence, the accompanying Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) is defeated.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court also ruled -generally favorable- to the Trump administration [pdf here] on the issue of Venezuelans in the United States labeled by President Donald Trump as “alien enemies.”  The justices ruled (5-4) to vacate a lower judge’s order that imposed a block on all deportations under Trump’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act.

However, the court ruled to remove the TRO under auspices of the wrong venue for challenge; saying the deportees must challenge their status in the district court where jurisdiction of detainment takes place.

That split court ruling follows on the heels of Chief Justice John Roberts issuing an administrative order indefinitely lifting a lower court injunction [pdf here] that demanded the return of previously deported Abrego Garcia set by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis.

In short, the Supreme Court, at least a narrow majority therein, appears to be knocking down the process of federal judge shopping to issue nationwide restraining orders against the Trump administration.  Twitter account Unseen1 has a solid and brief outline of what the court appears to be doing:

“The big win for Trump in the scotus today was not the resumption of deportations under the AEA (alien enemies act) (but that was big also). The major win was the court narrowing the federal district judges’ jurisdiction They once again narrowed the ability of the APA (administrative procedure act) which is the main law the vast majority of these unconditional judicial rulings have been made under.

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Attorney General Pam Bondi makes her 75th appearance on Fox News this year to discuss the recent Supreme Court ruling generally supporting President Trump’s deportation policy.  WATCH:

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Performative.  Oh, and Boasberg did cancel the 3:00pm hearing.

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Timing his visit with a stock market “pump and dump”, executed by his friend Bill Ackman and intended to create domestic political turmoil, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits President Trump in the White House.

Smartly, the strategic team in the White House saw the Ackman ‘pump and dump’ as it was triggered and cancelled the formal bilateral press conference in favor of a sit-down open presser in the Oval Office. Recovering from the failure of the strategic headline narrative effort (irrelevant questions about the fake news 90-day tariff pause), Netanyahu was then forced to retreat and outline his remarks unscripted.

President Trump then sat back (semi-detached) and watched Netanyahu discuss tariffs, “the subject of great interest today.” Netanyahu proclaimed that Israel agrees with President Trump about the exploitative use of tariffs against American interests, and President Trump wondered if the viewing audience noticed that if one-way Israeli tariffs were so bad for the “good friend of Israel” then why were they in place? WATCH:

President Trump noted his administration was having direct talks with Iran about their nuclear ambitions.  Stating “we cannot be the stupid people anymore,” the coded messages of geopolitical gamesmanship were very visible from President Trump.

The media questions come at the 9:00 minute mark.  This is the Big Leagues folks.  This is where the major league geopolitical power moves and counter-moves take place, trillions are at stake and generational change is afoot.  As President Trump rightly says, “we have one shot at this folks,” and I believe he is the great American leader to do it.

Bring the thunder!

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