This is just too rich. Seriously.

From the insufferable Iran deal… to the appeasement “Russian Reset”… to the Libya fiasco… to the rise of ISIS… to installing the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt… to the explosion of terrorism in Yemen… to civil war in Syria… to the crisis in Ukraine… to the 2010 State Department apology tour (WikiLeaks cables scandal)… to their inability to stop North Korean nuclear ambitions and the rise of China as an influential power… there were/are zero foreign policy successes in eight years of the Obama administration.

There was not a single Obama foreign policy initiative that had any success. Every single place where the prior administration put their attention, the results were complete failure, crisis, chaos and worse conditions in the aftermath. That’s the 2009-2017 reality.

Today it is discovered that fifty of the most well known Obama foreign policy officials  have come together to form a think-tank group called “National Security Now“. Their singular mission is to be the “resistance” to the Trump administration’s foreign policy. You have to see the names to recognize how bad these people were at policy:

♦Ben Rhodes ♦Susan Rice ♦Samantha Power ♦Denis McDonough ♦Tom Donilon ♦Tony Blinken ♦Jen Psaki and more. The list is a veritable ‘who’s-who’ of short-sighted foreign policy, ineptitude and diplomatic failure. There’s literally not a success between them, and they are uniting together to advocate against President Trump.

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During a press availability with Djiboutian Foreign Minister Mahamoud Ali Youssouf U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was asked about the recent stunning developments between the U.S. and North Korea. The Q&A segment is outlined below:

QUESTION: Thank you so much. Mr. Secretary, for months you’ve been saying that conditions are not yet right for talks with North Korea, and that you would know it when you saw it. Less than 24 hours ago, that was still your position. What changed in the last 24 hours that gave the Trump administration confidence that now is the right time? Can you explain the logic behind starting this process, talks about talks, as you’ve described it at the level of the leaders of the country? And did you know when you made those comments yesterday that this meeting was in the works?

SECRETARY TILLERSON: With respect to talks with North Korea versus negotiations – and I think this seems to be something that people continue to struggle with the difference. My comments have been that we’re – the conditions are not right for negotiations, but we’ve been saying for some time we are open to talks.

President Trump has said for some time that he was open to talks and he would willingly meet with Kim Jong-un when conditions were right and the time was right. And I think in the President’s judgment, that time has arrived now. So there’s no – in my comments yesterday, I was indicating comments about negotiations, but we’ve been open for talks for some time.

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson cancelled all engagements in Kenya today after falling ill during his tour of several African nations.  A spokesman of the State Department told Reuters that “he is not feeling well”.

“The secretary is not feeling well after a long couple days working on major issues back home such as North Korea and has canceled his events for the day,” spokesman Steve Goldstein said.

Inside Kenya there were some immediate notes of irony; highlighted by media reports of colorful remarks by U.S. President Trump toward less sanitary and developed nations.

According to the Daily Beast: “[Secretary] Tillerson is expected to resume his schedule on Sunday, with visits to Chad and Nigeria planned for Monday and Tuesday. Several events planned for Saturday had to go on without him, however, including one for PEPFAR, the U.S. program to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. His visit to the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi was canceled.”

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Very cautious optimism because Red Dragon has history of using the Panda Mask to cloud intents as a strategy.   North Korea is a proxy state to their enabler, China.  DPRK Kim Jong-un is little stompy-feet panda to the big panda/red dragon, Chairman Xi Jinping.

The one constant in an ever-changing universe is the gravity of China; it only goes one-way.  China allows and directs what is in China’s best interests.  Period.

Chinese Chairman-for-life Xi Jinping (all he represents) view smiling panda economics as modern intercontinental nuclear weapons.

Chairman Xi and President Trump have been deep inside a geopolitical smiling contest for over a year.  Xi and Trump are playing grandmaster level geopolitical economics.  Their most consequential moves are well beyond the horizon; far away from the gaze of the crowd; the media is oblivious to them.

•Japan (Shinzo Abe) has stated they have “great confidence” in President Trump’s Asian national security approach. •South Korea (President Moon Jae-in) stated they are “confident there will not be war again on the Korean peninsula“; •and they are willing to send a special envoy to North Korea to begin talks. •In addition, China quietly removed the 71-year-old veteran diplomat, Wu Dawei, from the position of negotiator toward the DPRK, and replaced him with 58-year-old Kong Xuanyou. Kong is a long time Chinese diplomat in charge of Asian affairs and he speaks Korean.

All of this was generally under-reported and took place months before President Trump arrived in Asia last year.  The U.S. media was busy pushing racism and Charlottesville narratives.  More importantly this quiet activity took place while President Trump directed US Trade Rep Robert Lighthizer to begin a section 301 trade investigation (Intellectual Property theft) into China.

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[06:25 of Video] SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I’m delighted to be in Cairo, my first trip to Egypt as Secretary of State, and to really have very comprehensive discussions about this almost one-half-century relationship between the U.S. and Egypt and our commitment to strengthening this partnership in the years to come.

I’m also very pleased to be with Foreign Minister Shoukry, who has become a friend as we have engaged on a number of challenges in the region and to address those jointly and with a great deal of agreement between us as to how those issues need to be addressed. I look forward to my meeting with President al-Sisi and appreciate his receiving me as well.

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It’s always an interesting exercise to take new and confirmed information and go back to see the claims from the key stakeholders when the initial trail of the information was discovered.  This is one such example from July 2017.

Now that Chairman Devin Nunes, Chuck Grassley and the key players themselves, have discovered and admitted the U.S. State Department was heavily involved in passing along Clinton opposition research to Chris Steele to create the “Clinton-Steele Dossier”, it’s interesting to look at how the former State Department spokesperson -in place during all the events- responded last year when the Clinton-Steele Dossier was thought to be part of the underlying evidence for the DOJ/FBI FISA application.

Former State Department spokesperson Marie Harf, a person in direct and continuous contact with all the principle agents during the 2016 information flow, was confronted in July 2017 and adamantly denied the dossier was part of the FISA application. WATCH:

Looking beyond the transparent lying and subsequent collapse of credibility, the key takeaway here is how State Department officials knew what was going on in 2016, recognized the risk presented by that action in 2017, and were willing to walk the plank because they were certain none of it would ever come to light.

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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes appears on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo for an extensive interview discussing the ongoing investigation into the DOJ, FBI and State Department; and their collaboration with the Hillary Clinton campaign to weaponize political opposition research in the 2016 election.

Chairman Nunes describes how the Democrats on the HPSCI put classified information into their memo intentionally in an effort to create political benefit; and now refuse to redact and release their own work product.

Chairman Devin Nunes keeps a big picture focus while also describing how corrupt officials within the DOJ and FBI continued to use the “Title-1” surveillance warrant in 2017 to monitor and track all of the communication between Carter Page and congress. In essence, the ‘small group’ within the DOJ and FBI were likely spying on the congressional investigation into their own unlawful activity.  WATCH:

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Don’t forget the batting order. Last Friday Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray formally demanding a Mandatory Declassification Review of the classified criminal referral Chairman Lindsey Graham and Chairman Grassley sent to the FBI and Justice Department regarding Christopher Steele’s potential violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1001.  The response date is tomorrow, February 6th, 2018.

WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation signed off on an unclassified version of the criminal referral by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Lindsey Graham only after the White House declassified a House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) Majority memo largely based on the same underlying documents. Grassley is now calling on the FBI to update the classification of the referral to allow complete disclosure of important context from the documents on which it is based.

“Seeking transparency and cooperation should not be this challenging. The government should not be blotting out information that it admits isn’t secret, and it should not take dramatic steps by Congress and the White House to get answers that the American people are demanding. There are still many questions that can only be answered by complete transparency. That means declassifying as much of the underlying documents as possible,” Grassley said.

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Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) initiated a massive anti-corruption operation last year.  Today, just as a Qatari delegation arrives in DC and concedes to the terms of the alliance, Reuters is reporting the resulting Saudi asset seizures total more than $106 billion.

RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s government has arranged to seize more than $100 billion through financial settlements with businessmen and officials detained in its crackdown on corruption, the attorney general said on Tuesday.
The announcement appeared to represent a political victory for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who launched the purge last November and predicted at the time that it would net about $100 billion in settlements.

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Since Thursday night we’ve been combing the FBI files to figure out exactly what FBI Agent Peter Strzok was referencing in one of the most recently released text messages.  We have discovered the context and the text is now damning.
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte read this specific text message on Thursday night during an interview with Sean Hannity:

At first, the context behind the September 10th, 2016, message was elusive, however it is now clear.
On September 2nd, 2016, during the (pre-election) apex of the FBI providing the documents behind their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of her personal email, and the subsequent decision by FBI Director James Comey not to pursue criminal charges therein, the FBI released their investigative files:
September 2nd, 2016 FBI Press Release:

“Today the FBI is releasing a summary of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s July 2, 2016 interview with the FBI concerning allegations that classified information was improperly stored or transmitted on a personal e-mail server she used during her tenure. We also are releasing a factual summary of the FBI’s investigation into this matter.
We are making these materials available to the public in the interest of transparency and in response to numerous Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Appropriate redactions have been made for classified information or other material exempt from disclosure under FOIA. Additional information related to this investigation that the FBI releases in the future will be placed on The Vault, the FBI’s electronic FOIA library.” (link)

The FBI was under pressure to release their investigative documents.  On Sept 2nd, 2016 the release included the FBI investigative notes (FD-302’s) from the questions and answers during Hillary Clinton’s interview.  This investigative release was big news at the time.
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