…”because I’m good enough; I’m strong enough; and doggone it, people like me.”

That’s the kitchen table sensibility as projected by FBI Director Christopher Wray in this interview. It’s a communication style blending the modern term “corporate responsibility” with the patronizing mannerisms of a dad discussing sixth grade peer pressure with his tender gender-neutral offspring.

This is actually a very revealing interview to understand why 50 FBI agents chased the Russian conspiracy for two years with Robert Mueller; and why 15 FBI agents excitedly responded to a garage door pull-down rope. The emphasis is on the wrong syllable, but golly we only have a 0.4 percent turnover ratio, so we must be doing something right.

I’ve actually met a Chris Wray clone in the past. While culling a tier of toxic executive management, the CEO voice in the organization said to me: “what if you fire all of them and later find out you’re wrong?” To which I replied: “what’s more dangerous to you, my firing them and being wrong, or you keeping them around and my being right?”…

Director Wray is the guy who doesn’t deal with the toxic infection, instead he uses words like: “we have an opportunity”, “they need to be supported more”; and “I challenge you to provide continuous coaching.” Note at 09:45 Wray says “I put in place an entire new leadership team”, without even realizing that Bill Barr just removed -by force- Wray’s hand-selected chief legal counsel, Dana Boente. It doesn’t even register with him.

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Chris Wray’s performance as FBI Director is akin to what would happen if you took a hotel manager and made him the captain of a cruise ship.

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Michael Flynn’s defense counsel, Sidney Powell, appears on Lou Dobbs tonight to discuss the defense victory in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals; and the next steps in the case.

Ms. Powell still has legal business in front of Judge Emmet Sullivan, so she obviously needs to be a little tempered at this inflection point.  That said, what an incredible job Ms. Powell has done on behalf of her client.  Remarkable legal counsel.  WATCH:

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In a court filing yesterday [pdf here] the DOJ provided -initially under seal- the Flynn defense team with more exculpatory evidence.  The filing includes hand-written notes taken by FBI agent Peter Strzok in/around key dates in early January 2017.

The filing was unsealed today, and the Peter Strzok notes are released.

One of the reasons CTH has been slow on discussing this release is specifically because I am trying to accurately determine the provenance of the notes (as below).  USAO Jeff Jensen is unsure of the exact date of the notes.  Either January 3rd, 4th, or 5th… and there’s a good reason for that confusing ambiguity; which I am attempting to filter.

The notes are written by Peter Strzok during a conversation with former FBI Director James Comey; that context is important.  What the notes contain are Peter Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with White House officials.

Repeat: The notes are Strzok writing down what Comey relays to him from conversations with the White House.   Comey is communicating to Strzok the status of opinion from various officials; those officials may include President Obama and Vice-President Biden.

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President Trump and President Duda of Poland hold a press availability in the oval office prior to a bilateral meeting.  [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s an honor to have President Duda, a friend. We’ve had many discussions, and we work very well with Poland. I don’t think we’ve ever been closer to Poland than we are right now. And we’re going to have a very important meeting on economic development, military, and other things. And that’ll start in about 10 minutes.

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Before NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace appeared on CNN with Don Lémon to discuss his now disproven racial “noose” targeting, he had a decision to make.  Wallace could accept the FBI/NASCAR finding and admit an honest mistake was made by an overly sensitive Richard Petty racing team; or he could make racism his new identity in NASCAR as Colin Kaepernick did with football in the NFL.  Bubba Wallace chose the latter.

As a result of Wallace’s new identity, and his announced career goals, NASCAR will now fragment in the same way as the National Football League. Social justice will now define Mr. Wallace’s professional effort; driving with NASCAR becomes a method to achieve his new career aspirations.  That inflection point, his identity choice, is clear in his interview.

However, before getting to the interview it is worth looking at how this entire fiasco was created, starting with the carefully obtuse explanation from Richard Petty Motorsports:

Obviously Richard Petty’s team are socially woke and enlightened to their obligations in a new era of racial sensitivity.  Notice the careful wording: “discovered a rope tied in the fashion of a noose”, key word “fashion.”  The careful wording allows the statement to skirt on the fringes of common sense truth because they don’t ‘technically’ say it’s a noose; quite simply, because it isn’t.   If it were a noose it would be useless as a garage door pull.

That brings up the second obtuse aspect of the sentence: “discovered a rope”, notice they don’t say it was attached to the garage door pull (which it was) because that would make their misinterpretation seem even more ridiculous.  Saying ‘we discovered a garage door pull-down rope that appeared to be fashioned as a noose’, would illicit eye-rolls.  So they carefully avoid noting their stupidity by ignoring common sense.

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Earlier today President Trump commemorated the 200th mile of border wall being built along the U.S-Mexico border. [Video and Transcript]

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[Transcript] – Q Can I ask question on the wall: How’s it looking?

THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s great. It’s great. It’s going to be — it’s really foolproof. It’s solid steel. It’s rebar and concrete inside the steel. So we have a very heavy concrete inside the steel. And inside the concrete, we have rebar. So you have everything you could have. It’s what they wanted, and that’s what we did.

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Earlier today President Trump attended a border security briefing in Arizona during an event to thank border enforcement and review the border wall.  [Video and Transcript]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. Great to be here. Beautiful runway. A little warmer than I’m used to, but that’s okay, Doug, right? We have a — I was just given a beautiful picture of the wall. That’s before and after. And that’s quite a difference: one area you walk over, you drive over, you do whatever you want, and other one you say, “Well, I guess we don’t get in.” Here’s another one — just given. That’s great. That’s a different section. Pretty amazing.

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It took a lot longer than it should have; and it created buckets more intentional controversy than it should have; but the FBI and NASCAR have finally admitted the “noose” claimed by Bubba Wallace was nothing more than a simple garage door rope tied in a loop and had been there since October 2019. EXACTLY as we outlined:

NASCAR STATEMENT:

FBI STATEMENT: (Insufferably the FBI keep calling it a “noose”, it wasn’t.) The FBI wasted “fifteen FBI special agents” on this investigation.  Good grief.

Not surprisingly, there has been no statement from NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace.

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Jumpin’ ju-ju bones… New home sales jumped a whopping 16.6% in May, blowing past the estimates of a 2.9% rise.  The May increase in sales is nearly 13 percent higher than the same month one year ago.

Home sales are a key indicator of economic health because purchases of homes requires (1) income, a stable job; and (2) an optimistic financial outlook from the buyer.

Sales of new single-family homes jumped 16.6% in May from April, to a seasonally adjusted annualized pace of 676,000, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday. The median economist estimate was for 640,000, according to Bloomberg data.

In addition to a larger-than-expected monthly surge, May sales were nearly 13% higher than a year ago. As the US economy reopens, people are flocking back to the housing market in droves — the rosy sales are a rebound from three months of declines ending in April. (LINK)

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There are a lot of racially motivated politicians who are using the NASCAR ‘fake noose‘ story to proclaim their woke credentials.  However, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is particularly interesting because in many ways she has staked her political future around her expressed racial sensitivities.  This bet, she believes, will advance her to the White House. [Background]

While governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley led a movement to remove all historic references and memorials to the southern confederacy.  It was a political calculation she viewed would help her career later on.  So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see this:

The problem is… as more and more politicians and well known pundits and media stake their reputation on this Bubba Wallace hoax it becomes more difficult for NASCAR and investigators to admit the truth.  An easily solved mystery that should have been explained to the public in a matter of hours has now dragged on for days.  [SEE HERE]

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