After President Trump met with North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un to stop a region headed toward military crisis, the President was asked about the Nobel peace prize for his efforts with South Korean Moon Jae-in. President Trump responded: “Peace is the prize“.
Yesterday U.S. President Donald Trump secretly flew to Afghanistan to spend time with U.S. troops on Thanksgiving day.   While he was there President Trump met with Afghanistan President Ghani to discuss the groundwork for renewed discussions with Taliban leadership in an effort to construct a peace agreement in the highly tribal nation. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. It’s great to be in Afghanistan with our troops. And we had a wonderful Thanksgiving lunch. It was abbreviated a little bit, but we served lunch and had lunch. And these are great people, and it’s also wonderful to be with the President of Afghanistan. And, President Ghani, thank you very much. It’s an honor.
We have a lot of things to talk about — many, many things. We’ve had tremendous success in the last few months with our military, as you know. ISIS has been very — very badly hit, very severely hit. We had al-Baghdadi down in a different part to the world, and we took him out. That was the father of ISIS — the founder. And he was trying to rebuild it, and that didn’t work out too well for him.
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During his short-lived media appearances former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne claims he had spoken to the DOJ April 5th, 2019, and again April 30th, 2019. Mr. Byrne stated he told the DOJ all of the information he was aware of during those two interviews covering approximately seven hours of questioning from officials in the Department of Justice.

During interviews Mr. Byrne highlighted the May 13th DOJ appointment of John Durham to look into the origination of the Russia investigation events. Byrne surmised this was likely, at least in part, a direct result of his two DOJ sessions April 5th and 30th, 2019.
Ms. Maria Butina, a young Russian idealist, was caught up in the 2016 vast Russian conspiracy agenda and had strong connections to high powered Russian oligarchs.
Originally the purpose of Butina coming to the U.S. in 2015, as explained by Patrick Byrne, was for her to engage with influential Americans for political contacts that could provide geopolitical value to the oligarchs.
Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne was seen as important to Ms. Butina due to his connections to the emerging financial structures of crypto-currency and block-chain. Mr. Byrne is a libertarian who believes in small government, and is somewhat of a disruptor in the business world. Ms. Butina wanted to introduce Byrne to her friends in Russia.
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Bill O’reilly had an extensive and semi-casual interview with President Trump a few days ago. Mr. O’Reilly released the full interview for Thanksgiving.  They cover a lot of ground.
O’Reilly is a decent interviewer, but doesn’t understand the complexity of the President Trump’s strategy in the geopolitical realm.  The underestimation is not an O’Reilly weakness; the apparatus of ‘media’ do not grasp the full context of the background work POTUS has put into a global trade reset.  The global reset is a massive and ongoing plan.
Specifically as it pertains to China, O’Reilly is stuck in the traditional financial perspective that no U.S. President could ever walk away from China; which is exactly what President Trump is doing. So at 19:00 of the video below, O’Reilly asks: “what’s holding up the China deal?”  To wit, President Trump pauses and matter-of-factually says:

….”ahhhhhh, ME!”

It’s a hilariously Trumpy moment. LISTEN:

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On May 23rd, 2019, President Donald Trump gave U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr full authority to review and release all of the classified material hidden by the DOJ, FBI, State Department, CIA, FISA Court, and aggregate intelligence apparatus; 200 days ago.

It has been 200 days since President Trump empowered AG Bill Barr to release the original authorizing framework of the Mueller investigation which began on May 17, 2017. A Mueller investigation that concluded nine months ago, and yet we are not allowed to know what the authorizing 2017 framework was?…. Nor the 2nd DOJ scope memo of August 2nd, 2017?… Nor the 3rd DOJ scope memo of October 20th, 2017?….
The released Weissmann/Mueller report showed after the origination authorization in May 2017 there were two additional scope memos authorizing specific targeting of the Mueller probe. The second scope memo was August 2nd, 2017, OUTLINED HERE, and is an important part of the puzzle that helps explain the corrupt original purpose of the special counsel. [Now Confirmed Here]  Generally, the second scope memo (Aug ’17) authorized Robert Mueller to investigate the claims within the Steele Dossier.
The second scope memo came a month after the third renewal of the Carter Page FISA warrant.  We now know that FISA warrant was renewed using falsified documents by FBI Lawyer Kevin Clinesmith.  That means special counsel team requested the second expanded scope memo from Rosenstein in August after the DOJ was aware Kevin Clinesmith held political bias, and he along with four members of the original Crossfire Hurricane team were removed. (K Clinesmith, P Strzok, L Page, S Moyer and unknown).
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Presidential historian Doug Wead was given unprecedented access to the White House and people associated with the Trump presidency for his book “Inside Trump’s White House: The Real Story of His Presidency.”  Mr. Wead discusses the experience.  This is a must watch interview:

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The act that President Trump signed today is a law that requires the U.S. to review all of the democracy issues within Hong Kong to assess whether any Chinese violations to Hong Kong autonomy are happening.  If so, the U.S. can take remedial steps to punish China.

The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act would require the State Department annually re-certify Hong Kong’s autonomous nature, in order for the so-called “special treatment” the U.S. affords Hong Kong to continue. (more)

Keep in mind a dual purpose to this latest move:  Hong Kong holds a special trade status with the U.S. and is exempt from tariffs placed on China.  Part of the punitive action President Trump could take against China involves tariffs against Hong Kong.

Today, I have signed into law S. 1838, the “Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019” (the “Act”). The Act reaffirms and amends the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, specifies United States policy towards Hong Kong, and directs assessment of the political developments in Hong Kong.
Certain provisions of the Act would interfere with the exercise of the President’s constitutional authority to state the foreign policy of the United States. My Administration will treat each of the provisions of the Act consistently with the President’s constitutional authorities with respect to foreign relations.
~  President Donald J Trump

Again, back to the big picture, is this an action that would indicate President Trump is actually looking for a U.S-China trade agreement?   Of course not.  So why now, what changed?…  The USMCA!   It’s all connected folks.

Following the IG report draft review by the principals within the DOJ/FBI small group under investigation more leaks are submitted to the New York Times in an effort to get out ahead of the scheduled publication of the final report on December 9th.

One note before content review:  The highly structured obfuscation within how these leaks are being released, in combination with the lawyers representing the principals, explains why there was such a lengthy delay after the principal review phase.
Each principal can provide feedback for inclusion in the report; however, all feedback added to the report generates an IG rebuttal.  Keep this in mind because these leaks are the “feedback” and the leakers have no idea what the IG “rebuttal” will be.  The more the principals’ obfuscate and justify conduct to the IG in their feedback, the stronger the rebuttal to that feedback will be in the final report.
The New York Times latest narrative effort is intentionally obtuse with the word “spy”:

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s inspector general found no evidence that the F.B.I. attempted to place undercover agents or informants inside Donald J. Trump’s campaign in 2016 as agents investigated whether his associates conspired with Russia’s election interference operation, people familiar with a draft of the inspector general’s report said.

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The New York Federal Reserve made a quiet admission two days ago that was missed by almost all financial media.  In the NY Fed economic blog they admitted everyone was wrong, President Trump’s 2017 tariffs against China did not lead to increased U.S. consumer prices [Read Here].  The Fed also said imports of the Chinese products affected by U.S. tariffs have fallen by an annualized $75 billion. That’s a huge chunk of business U.S. purchasers have shifted to Japan and other Southeast Asian countries.

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Within this dynamic lays the real reason why Beijing cannot wait for a 2020 election hoping that Biden or Bloomberg can stop their bleeding.  Before going into more depth, this brief explainer from Charles Payne will help establish a framework.  WATCH:
What Payne outlines is correct; however, the internal Chinese ‘tariff-offset’ dynamic is actually even a little deeper.  Overlaying the NY Fed research we can see that Beijing has attempted to offset the Trump tariffs in four majority ways:
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More signs the U.S. economy is very strong show up today as several key economic indicators defy prior economist predictions.   Staring with a significant upward revision by the Bureau of Economic Analysis for the third quarter GDP growth from 1.9% to 2.1%:

The revision to GDP reflected upward revisions to inventory investment, business investment, and consumer spending.
The increase in consumer spending reflected increases in both goods (notably recreational goods and vehicles as well as food and beverages) and in services (led by housing and utilities as well as food services). (link)

Additionally, the commerce department released data showing U.S. core capital goods orders increased 1.2% in November, the largest gain since January; and more data on home sales shows a whopping 31.6% increase year-over-year. 
U.S. consumers and home buyers are benefiting from low inflation and significant blue collar wage gains that are an outcome of a growing economy and a very strong jobs market.  The most significant wage growth is in non-supervisory positions.   The economic strength is broad-based and the U.S. middle-class is confident.
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Well, well, well….  FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo announced this morning that her sources are saying a USMCA vote is possible next week.   This DC source reporting would align with our CTH spidey senses from the visible DC trade twitches.

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