Representative Jim Himes is the ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  During an interview on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, Himes looks forward to the political benefit he predicts following terrorist attacks inside the USA as soon as the FISA (702) program expires next Friday.

Elimination of FISA (702) authority is not a bad outcome; in fact, many of us want that outcome because FISA (702) is warrantless surveillance of American citizens.  However, watching Himes be gleeful at the possibility of terrorist attacks resulting from FISA (702) expiring, is, well, a little weird.

In the non-pretending world, we fully understand a terrorist attack is highly unlikely. However, if there was a terrorist attack, it would likely originate from our own intelligence community organizing it in an effort to get FISA (702) authorized again.  It’s far more likely the FBI would be motivated to create a false flag, than the odds of an actual terrorist attack.

[TRANSCRIPT] –  MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Representative Jim Himes, who joins us this morning from Greenwich, Connecticut. Welcome back to Face the Nation.

REP. JIM HIMES: Good to be with you, Margaret.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Congressman, President Trump appointed the Federal Housing Finance Agency head, Bill Pulte, to be the next Director of National Intelligence. The President said it is temporary, but even in that acting role, he could stay in it for over 200 days, and it would bypass Congressional approval. Pulte himself was Senate-confirmed for the housing job. Three Democrats voted for him. Do you know if he has a security clearance to do the intelligence work?

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Here’s the full interview between President Trump and NBC’s Kirsten Welker. The video and transcript:

[Transcript] – KIRSTEN WELKER:President Trump, welcome back to Meet the Press.

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

KRISTEN WELKER: Thank you so much for being here. We are going to talk about your visit, why you’re here in Wisconsin. But I’d like to start off by talking about the major issue that you are focused on every day which is Iran. Sunday will mark 100 days since the first strikes. Your secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said that the war had concluded. And yet, just this week, Iran attacked U.S. allies in the region, calling it retaliation for a set of U.S. air strikes. Is the United States at war with Iran?

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Well, they’ve been largely decapitated. And I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that. It’s not a big war for us. It’s not. We have the most powerful military in the world. I built it, frankly. I built it in my first four years. And I’m using it a little bit in my second four years. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their anti-aircraft is gone. They might’ve built it up a little bit over the last four weeks during this little ceasefire that we did at the request of some very good people, very, very fine people from — actually from numerous places, as you know. You know, there are a lot of people involved. But from Pakistan in particular, the field marshal and the prime minister. And we’re very close to having a deal. And if we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it one way or the other. Either way, we win.

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President Trump abruptly ended and walked out of a combative interview with NBC’s Kirsten Welker, who will now receive the praise and adulation that Margaret Brennan so emphatically wanted. Kirsten Welker is now the leading Democrat Presidential Candidate for 2028.

During an NBC interview, Welker continually interrupted President Trump and challenged his assertion of government weaponization against J6 protest attendees and voter fraud. President Trump was making the case that the current California vote counting of mail-in ballots, still taking place 5-days after election day, was representative of voter fraud within the U.S. election system.

Welker demanded President Trump provide the evidence. President Trump emphasized the evidence is in the process that is taking place in front of your eyes. Welker again demanded President Trump provide the evidence. Eventually Trump gave up in frustration. The Video and Transcript is Below:

I will post the full interview and transcript in a separate post.

[TRANSCRIPT] – KRISTEN WELKER: This $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund that’s going to compensate people who say the federal government weaponized the legal system against them. It’s been blocked by the courts, met with opposition from Republicans .

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: And Democrats.

KRISTEN WELKER: – in Congress, and Democrats.

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Most, excuse me, mostly Democrats.

KRISTEN WELKER: Mostly Democrats and some Republicans.

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: Some. Very few Republicans.

KRISTEN WELKER: Just to be very clear, are you backing off the fund completely as your acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has said, or are you looking for another avenue to revive the fund?

PRES. DONALD TRUMP: So let — let me explain what the fund is. People have been hurt so badly by radical left lunatics that worked for the Biden administration and Sleepy Joe. They’re vicious. They’re violent, what they did to people. And of course they went after me more than anybody else. They raided Mar-a-Lago and all the other things. But people have been badly hurt. They’ve committed suicide. They’ve lost their jobs. They’re lost their families. They’ve lost their wives. They’ve lost everything. They’ve lost everything over a fake weaponization of government. Now, let me just tell you –

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Several people have asked for opinion.  I’m being polite and kind. While the core of the storyline is accurate, the White House is not that strategic, insightful or competent to organize what is promoted in this video as a coordinated design, operation or plan.   There is no plan.

There are individual people within the administration doing what they can and trying to coordinate what they find with each other. That’s it.  There is no central command and control plan.  Nothing like what’s implied in the video.  However, the background storyline of what has taken place is accurate.

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
01:10 Tulsi Gabbard Opens the Case
02:45 The Rolling Coup Against Trump
04:10 Grand Juries, Subpoenas & Accountability
05:25 Election Security and the Georgia Investigation
06:15 Bill Pulte’s New Role
07:25 Senate Panic and the Intelligence Establishment
08:35 Following the Threads Back to Obama
09:45 Obama’s Legacy of Division
10:55 Covid, 2020 and the Permanent Resistance
11:55 Divide and Rule: Lessons from British India
12:40 Trump’s Vision of National Unity
13:00 Final Thoughts

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In 2015, even before President Trump came down the golden escalator, CTH was outlining a ‘new era and dimension’ in American economics that could be possible if a presidential candidate focused on specific Main Street policy. {Go Deep}

Throughout the next four years we watched carefully how Donald Trump was organizing that Main Street revival {Go Deep} and what specifically was creating the economic growth {Go Deep}.

One of the points emphasized in 2016 about Trump’s unique MAGAnomic policy, was how both Trump and Bernie Sanders agreed on the problem.  The difference between them was the solution.

Think of it like economic football.

Both Trump and Sanders identify the rigged game.  Bernie Sanders wanted to change the referees so that government controls the game. Donald Trump’s approach was different.  Trump wanted to change the rules of the game, not step in and try to play referee to a rigged game where the rules were flawed.

One of the examples of economic “rule changing” is trade tariffs.  You don’t need govt to regulate the corporations directly (ie. raise corporate income taxes). Instead, you can change trade policy to make the better corporate decision a return of production back to the USA (a fundamental rules change).

Both approaches involve a different govt policy, but Trump’s approach changes behavior.  That’s MAGAnomics.

One of the reasons Trump’s approaches are much more effective, is that his rule changes extend beyond the American corporate game.  Trump’s approach changes the behavior of foreign governments and foreign corporations, a win/win/win.

An example is the Japanese government investing in America to offset reciprocity tariffs; while Toyota, a corporation, invests in specific auto manufacturing expansion to avoid baseline tariffs.

You don’t get that kind of result through Bernie’s approach changing the American referee in an all-American game and raising corporate income taxes. And don’t forget, the corporation can just move offshore and avoid income taxes entirely.  Apple used to have their company incorporated in Ireland.  Trump’s rule changes brought them back.

The Promethean Action PAC is now highlighting the fundamentals of Trump’s MAGAnomics and how the policy is distinctly different from all U.S. economic policy before it.

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President Trump holds an impromptu press availability aboard Air Force One en route to Wisconsin.  Topics include, latest strong jobs numbers, the status of the economy and interest rates, the Acting DNI appointment of Bill Pulte (5 additional names under consideration for permanent replacement).

Additionally, President Trump discussed a new promenade addition to the Lincoln Memorial, the nomination of AG Todd Blanche as Attorney General and Senator Thom Tillis opposition, the NBA Final Championship, current AI advancement, alignment with Bernie Sanders on some economic issues, oil and gas prices along with the overall conflict in Iran.

Topics then quickly changed to arming Taiwan (under consideration), John Bolton taking a guilty plea to avoid trial, a salary cap in pro baseball and the Ukraine/Russia conflict.

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A rather ironic sequence of events as Canada formally requests to renew the USMCA (CUSMA) trade agreement for 16-years, followed a day later by the U.S. announcing additional tariffs toward 60 countries including Canada.

On Tuesday, Dominic LeBlanc, the trade minister from Canada assigned to USMCA negotiations, traveled to Washington DC for a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.

LeBlanc, reflecting the obtuse nature the Canadian trade delegation is now well known for, seemed oblivious to the friction points in the U.S. position and formally requested the trade deal be renewed for another 16 years. {Citation}

LeBlanc called the agreement “highly beneficial” to all three countries. From the Canadian position this may be true, but that’s not even remotely what the U.S. team has presented in private and public comments.

Additionally, over the past two weeks the shift in Canadian strategy has become clearer.   While Carney’s administration previously seemed to be targeting Democrats in the U.S. congress to support retaining a trade agreement with Canada, that approach ended abruptly after several key Democrat senators began taking the position of influential U.S. labor unions who want the deal scrapped.  Canada now seems to be relying on pressure from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and corporate republicans to support their position.

The day after news reports of Dominic LeBlanc’s expressed position, USTR Greer announced a new round of 301 tariffs against 60 countries who participate in third-party trade agreements with countries who use forced labor. {Citation} Suddenly, Canada’s embrace of China becomes even more serious.

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In a lengthy open letter addressed to “The President of the Russian Federation” Vladimir Putin [SEE HERE], Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proposes a ceasefire and direct negotiations between himself and President Putin.

Two thirds of the letter are background constructed snark and ridicule aimed toward Western audiences sympathetic to the Ukraine side of the conflict. The last third of the letter contains the details of the offer:

Open Letter – […] “We have seen intelligence reports showing that you are now considering plans to continue the war into 2027 and 2028. We also know that you hope ballistic missiles will achieve for you what everything else has failed to achieve. You want to draw Belarus even deeper into this war, and we are now forced to prepare for that as well. We see that you are trying to orchestrate something around Transnistria. Your propagandists threaten, in one way or another, every country neighboring Russia. Do you really want to go through all of this?

The choice is yours now.

Enough of war.

Ukraine proposes to end this war.

This must be done honestly, with dignity, and with guarantees that the war will not be reignited.

We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention.

Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us — and you.”

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During an oval office presser to highlight new clean coal initiatives, President Trump was asked about the interim appointment of Bill Pulte as Acting Director of National Intelligence.

The UniParty congress and DC stakeholder guardians in media have collectively been having fits about appointing Pulte as acting DNI.  One of the main reasons for the apoplexy is a little understood aspect to DC that many people do not fully appreciate.

The Intelligence Community is upstream from most visible political events, and the IC control the Lawfare operations (investigations and prosecutions) as well as the behavior of congressional representatives in both the House and the Senate.  The latter part of this reality was what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was referencing when he said, “the intelligence community has six ways from Sunday to get back at you,” should you question or challenge their power and control.

President Trump responded to the media question about the Pulte appointment by reminding everyone it is an interim appointment while ¹interviews for other candidates are taking place.  WATCH:

¹Positioning for potential placement in this critical position has likely taken on new levels of interest as the intelligence system -thanks to Gabbard- now sees just how powerful an actively engaged DNI could be.  There are multiple names likely in the mix, hopefully the white house advisors to President Trump remain disciplined, pragmatic and accept the value highlighted by the effectiveness of DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s approach.

[Unfortunately, history does not favor my optimism]

California State Assembly member James Gallagher (R) won a special election on Tuesday, adding one more Republican to the House. [Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R) died in January] This gives a slight boost to the Republican majority in the House and could provide a window for current HPSCI Chairman Rick Crawford to be considered.

IMHO with Aaron Lucas remaining as Deputy DNI, ideologically Crawford is probably the best replacement option.  Former HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes is also a possibility, but considerations there get a little more complicated.

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a major, coordinated federal and state crackdown on massive fraud schemes across Ohio. AAG Blanche detailed a 32-count indictment involving state employees, a scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid, the COVID-19 relief program PPP, and emphasized the administration’s relentless pursuit of law and order to protect American taxpayers.

Acting AG Blanche outlined a partnership with officials in the state of Ohio that has now identified thousands of individuals and groups that are under investigation and/or facing indictment as a result of the findings so far. [DOJ Press Release Here] Press Conference Below:

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DOJ – The Justice Department today announced unprecedented federal and state cooperation in Ohio in the fight against fraud, including partnerships and a data sharing agreement to enhance the detection and prosecution of fraud; federal and state charges against 9 defendants for their alleged participation in over $42 million in fraud; orders of detention this week for three defendants, with two additional defendants pending extradition in connection with an additional $15 million in fraud; and the creation of the FBI’s Most Wanted Fraudsters list.  The charges announced today involve numerous types of fraud, including health care fraud, government program fraud, and consumer fraud schemes.  

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