U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and the trade ministers from Canada and Mexico are not in Washington DC this weekend; however the trade staff from all three nations stayed in DC working to finalize agreement on NAFTA with increased urgency.

The nation pushing hardest to complete an agreement quickly is Mexico.  The Mexican national election is July 1st and the soft-Marxist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AM LO) has increased his lead.  AM LO is now 22 points ahead of his next closest competitor. Lopez Obrador, a self-described Hugo Chavez ideologue, is guaranteed to win – and Mexico will become Venezuela 2.0 within five years.

The looming Mexican election, and the radical political departure therein, means if a deal is not made soon, there will be no deal.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will likely nationalize large segments of the Mexican economy for more progressive wealth distribution…. Enter, quickly, and with a transparency in their desperation, the multinational corporations who have already invested hundreds of billions into Mexican ports, transportation infrastructure, raw material procurement contracts, manufacturing/processing and assembly facilities, and all around exploitation of NAFTA as a tariff-free, profit-driven, back-door to the U.S market…

Yes, as oft repeated, there are trillions at stake.

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Law Professor Alan Dershowitz appeared on Fox News weekend to discuss the DNC lawsuit, Robert Mueller, and the ongoing FBI issues with James Comey.

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You can always tell when President Trump hits upon a subject the media is desperate to avoid covering.  Yesterday President Trump tweeted about the “Pakistani Mystery Man” and the transparent media avoid the story like political Ebola.

Learn About Pakistani Mystery Man HERE

Two months ago Andrew McCarthy wrote an article in National Review discussing the email President Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice sent to herself on inauguration day 2017.  With the latest discoveries from James Comey’s admissions amid the headlines, the February article by McCarthy is very prescient. {see here}

Susan Rice emailed herself to create a record surrounding a January 5th, 2017, meeting between top White House officials and senior intelligence members.  It was the next day, January 6th, when FBI Director James Comey briefed President-Elect Trump on part of the Clinton-Steele dossier.  With hindsight, the White House meeting (1/5/17) and the Trump Tower briefing (1/6/17) take on additional meaning.

The departing administration’s highly-politicized intelligence apparatus, Comey (FBI), Brennan (CIA) and Clapper (DNI), conspired -strategically- to weaponize false intelligence in order to create a media narrative that would damage, and hopefully eliminate, the incoming president and his administration.  With full measure of context, contrast against the identifiable behavior that followed; and accepting the FBI team was working diligently on an “insurance policy” agenda; there is no other way to look at these events.

In his article, McCarthy rightly sets the stage:

[…] Let’s think about what was going on at that moment. It had been just a few days since Obama imposed sanctions on Russia. In that connection, the Kremlin’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, had contacted Trump’s designated national-security adviser, Michael Flynn. Obama-administration leadership despised Flynn, who (a) had been fired by Obama from his post as Defense Intelligence Agency chief; (b) had become a key Trump supporter and an intense critic of Obama foreign and national-security policy; and (c) was regarded by Yates and Comey as a possible criminal suspect — on the wayward theories that Flynn’s contacts with Kislyak could smack of a corrupt quid pro quo deal to drop the sanctions and might violate the never invoked, constitutionally dubious Logan Act.

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Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-PA) appeared on Fox Business to discuss the release of the sketchy Comey memos and the questions surfacing from the continuing book tour.

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In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

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 †

In the past 48 hours South Korea (Moon Jae-in) and North Korea (Kim Jong-un) have been working out the details of their upcoming summit.  Within the discussions between North and South Korea some stunning news has surfaced.

♦ Yesterday Moon Jae-in announced that North Korea had agreed to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula without any preconditions or expectations of changes in the relationship between the U.S. and South Korea:

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has expressed its commitment to “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula and is not seeking conditions, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday, as the United States vowed to maintain “maximum pressure” on Pyongyang.

[…] “I don’t think denuclearization has different meanings for South and North Korea,” Moon said during a lunch with chief executives of Korean media companies. “The North is expressing a will for a complete denuclearization.”

“They have not attached any conditions that the U.S. cannot accept, such as the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea,” he continued. “All they are talking about is the end of hostile policies against North Korea, followed by a guarantee of security.”  (read more)

As the summit discussions continued today; and to assure the previous U.S. envoy CIA Director Mike Pompeto; and in affirmation of direct talks with President Trump; North Korea made an even more stunning statement from the Korean Central News Agency:

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Trade Representatives from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are in the deepest weeds within NAFTA negotiations, and some of the current proposals are flat out nuts.

Within the auto-sector the “Rules of Origin” continue to be one of the biggest sticking points.  The U.S. position is that 80% or more of a vehicle made in the U.S., Mexico or Canada should be made from parts from the U.S., Mexico or Canada, ie. North America.  Canada and Mexico are trying to argue for lower North American content because they want more Asian/Chinese parts in American automobiles. [Reuters Link]

On its face their position is ridiculous.  Canada and Mexico are not arguing for more Canadian and Mexican content; they are arguing for more Chinese content.  The U.S. is arguing for more North American content.  Canada and Mexico want to support China’s economy; the U.S. wants to support Canada, Mexico and the U.S. economy.   Let that sink in for a moment.

In an effort to enhance their ridiculous position, Canada and Mexico have come up with a proposal that is, well, bananas. Can/Mex want the United States to tax vehicles made in Canada and Mexico.  Stop. Re-read that.  Yes, that is correct.  Canada and Mexico want Chinese parts so badly, they are arguing for the U.S. to tax American (NAFTA) automobiles.

Nuts.

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In a pathetic attempt to keep pushing the vast Russian conspiracy narrative; and trying to get out in front of growing evidence that former Obama administration, government officials, DNC and weaponized government conspired to assist Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid; the DNC has filed a lawsuit against the Trump campaign accusing their opposition of what they are transparently guilty of.

New York – The Democratic National Committee on Friday filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Russia, the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks that alleges a massive conspiracy to swing the 2016 election in favor of the president.

The complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, alleges that top Trump campaign officials conspired with the Kremlin to damage Hillary Clinton and help Trump by hacking the DNC’s computers and publishing stolen emails on WikiLeaks.

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