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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
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While the government of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has inked a trade agreement with China to accept cheap imported vehicles in exchange for Beijing purchasing some agricultural products, President Trump has promised those cheap Chinese EVs will never cross the border into the USA.
The Canadian polling on the issue has done a remarkable chang in the past few years. Now, the majority of Canadians are willing to purchase cheap Chinese EVs. As outlined by Bloomberg, “More than half of Canadians, or 53%, say that knowing an EV was made in China would have no effect on their purchasing decision, according to a new poll by Nanos Research Group for Bloomberg News.”
Approximately 50,000 Chinese electric vehicles will enter the Canadian market in the first year. “The pact with China includes a provision that part of the quota will be reserved for electric vehicles priced at C$35,000 ($25,700) or less, the government has said.” {SOURCE}
The Canadian government wants a Chinese auto manufacturer, any Chinese auto manufacturer, to build factories in Canada to produce these electric vehicles. Canada wants the jobs and economic activity because Canada is currently bleeding jobs and economic activity due to the trade conflict with the U.S.
Building cheap Chinese EVs in Canada might help offset a few thousand job losses, but building Chinese EVs in Canada only further ensures there will not be a substantive trade agreement between the USA and Canada once the USMCA (CUSMA) is dissolved. [More on that coming]
Through the years I didn’t really have much of an opinion of Steve Bannon, I approached any story of interest that surrounded him by simply looking at the factual details of the current event in question.
CTH well understood that Bannon, and subsequently his expressed opinion and objective, was simply an outcome of his position – downstream from the billionaire of the moment who paid him.
In essence, Steve Bannon always seemed to be, much like Kellyanne Conway, an advocate for whoever was financing him. From Robert/Rebekah Mercer at Breitbart forward to any endeavor thereafter, it always just appeared the same.
That said, with the release of the Epstein files, the relationship between Steve Bannon and Jeffrey Epstein is something CTH did not expect. {HERE} Bannon and Epstein were very close and talked to each other about seemingly everything.
I can never unsee what I have read. Nor will CTH ever entertain the possibility that Bannon was ever a good element within the MAGA effort. There is a solid argument to be made that the Bannon War Room was funded, or organized in the funding mechanisms, by Jeffrey Epstein. {HERE}
The files of messages between them contain some shocking stuff happening in the background while Steve Bannon was in very close proximity to candidate and President Trump. The level of disdain Bannon had for Donald Trump’s family and for Donald Trump himself is really something CTH did not expect to see. {examples: HERE and HERE}
I am left to wonder now how much of the vitriol against Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, ie. “Javanka hatred”, actually originated from the Braintrust behind Bannon and the assembly of people in his immediate orbit. {HERE}
Initially, I saw some Twitter accounts attempt to defend Steve Bannon by saying Epstein did all the talking in their text exchanges and Bannon was less communicative. However, that only applied to the first batches of files reviewed. As a few days went along and people started citing files, reading them gives a much more fulsome picture of the relationship.
Steve Bannon may have been focused on the financial gains and perhaps networks of people in his association with Epstein; but he certainly got deep into it and expressed extreme praise for Epstein, even going so far as to call him a god. {LINK} These were two men in a very close friendship. There is no political or ideological distance between Bannon and Epstein.
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Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †
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Border Czar Tom Homan appears on CNN for a friendly discussion about Minnesota ICE operations, deporting illegals with the help of Democrat governors, the looming DHS shutdown and other matters.
CNN’s Jake Tapper dropped his customary combative technique during the interview and heaped praise upon Mr Homan for being a great DHS official and working collaboratively with Democrats. The polite nature of the questions and conversation seems odd coming from Tapper who heaped effusive praise on Mr Homan.
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Kentucky congressman Thomas Massie appears on ABC This Week with Martha Raddatz to assert his position as our nation’s ultimate judge of morality and righteousness and pass judgement upon any individual that does not meet his expectation or standard.
Against the backdrop of billionaire leftist Reid Hoffman who has financed most of the claims promoted by Epstein victims for use by Representative Massie, the congressman pledges to remain on task. Hoffman never called as a witness. Video and Transcript below.
[TRANSCRIPT] – RADDATZ: I’m joined now by Republican Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who helped lead the efforts to release the Epstein files.
Good morning to you, Congressman.
I would like your overall reaction to the hearing this week and Pam Bondi’s performance, combativeness.
REP. THOMAS MASSIE, (R) KENTUCKY & JUDICIARY COMMITTEE MEMBER: I don’t think she did very well. She came with a book full of insults, one for each congressperson. She obviously had one for me.
And, you know, I’ve been there when Merrick Garland was there. Obviously, politically, I don’t agree with him, but he performed much better in terms of at least not looking bad. And, unfortunately, we didn’t get the answers we wanted about the Epstein Files Transparency Act from her.
RADDATZ: You — did you get any of the answers you wanted?
MASSIE: No, but she did come off her script and engage with me about this production of documents where she admitted that 40 minutes after I pointed out to the DOJ that they had over-redacted some of the documents, they did unredacted documents. So, it’s clear they’ve made mistakes in the document production. At least she acknowledges that tacitly. And it’s clear that their work is not done here yet.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a different path on his European visit than Brussels wanted to see. After his time at the Munich Security Conference, Rubio headed to Slovakia and Hungary for conversations with the two nations who are not at all in alignment with Brussels leadership on the issue of Ukraine.
UPDATE: Better video and Transcript Added
Rubio speaks very bluntly on the topics that are of key concern to Prime Minister Robert Fico, including the topic of energy which is a major problem for both Slovakia and Hungary right now. Toward the end of the presser, the very last response by Fico [44:20 of video] is very interesting.
Prime Minister Fico directly claims that Ukraine is purposefully withholding oil and gas from pipelines that travel from Russia through Ukraine, into Slovakia. Fico notes he is not going to blame either Ukraine or Russia for previously detonations at the oil refinery and transport hub, but he is very sure Ukraine is purposefully withholding energy products from Hungary as blackmail until Hungary changes their position on Ukraine achieving status in the European Union.
You can tell from the way Fico presents the subject and from the prior points of Rubio this hot button issue is why Fico flew to Mar-a-Lago a few weeks ago for a talk with President Trump. WATCH:
MODERATOR: (Via interpreter) Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Please, welcome to our press conference after mutual meeting of the Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico and Secretary of State of the U.S. Marco Rubio. So, Prime Minister, please, you have the word.
PRIME MINISTER FICO: Thank you. (Via interpreter) Dear Secretary of State, dear Marco Rubio, please allow me to welcome you once again – you and your whole delegation – to Bratislava and our office of the Government of the Slovak Republic. Dear ladies, dear gentlemen, we had a shared, short tete-a-tete meeting with the Secretary of State, and then we had delegations’ discussion when we went into details, where we discussed topics that are the point of our today’s meeting. I’ll try to briefly sum up the conclusions of our discussions, be it in Four Eyes or, let’s say, in our meeting of delegations.
First of all, I deeply appreciate the fact that this visit comes quickly after our meeting in Florida, where I had a chance to speak with the President of the United States Donald Trump with Mr. Rubio being present. So, it’s a great follow-up and great country, nation. And after a short while when we met in Florida, we could discuss how much we achieved during those few weeks about topics we discussed.
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