President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will be traveling to France on Thursday at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bastille Day.
Given the nature of the people, corporations and global interests, behind the installation of French President Macron, the planned events in Paris on the Champs-Élysées represent the largest security risk to date for U.S. President Trump.  Macron is a useful idiot, the exemplification of a disposable puppet.  Macron’s dispatch, post-catastrophic international security embarrassment, would not be seen as a significant problem.
Today the White House conducted a press availability to discuss the trip and answer media questions in advance of the President and First Lady’s departure into hostile territory.

[Transcript] 3:32 P.M. EDT – AIDE: Good afternoon. For your recording purposes, this background briefing on the President’s upcoming foreign travel is off-camera and not for broadcast. Attribution for your briefing is senior administration official. This information will be embargoed until the conclusion of the briefing and we’ll release a transcript afterwards.
Okay, so open remarks and when my colleague calls on you, please identify who you are, and your outlet, so he knows who he’s speaking with. Thanks.
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Nuance and subtlety is everything in China.  Culturally harsh tones are seen as a sign of weakness and considered intensely impolite in public displays between officials; especially within approved and released statements by officials representing the government.
Historic Chinese cultural policy, the totalitarian control over expressed political sentiment and diplomacy through silence, is evident in the strategic use of the space between carefully chosen words, not just the words themselves.
China has no cultural or political space between peace and war; they are a historic nation based on two points of polarity.  They see peace and war as coexisting with each other. China accepts and believes opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.  Flowing between these polar states is a natural dynamic to be used -with serious contemplation- in advancing objectives as needed.
Peace or war. Win or lose. Yin and Yang. Culturally there is no middle position in dealings with China; they are not constitutionally capable of understanding or valuing the western philosophy of mutual benefit where concession of terms gains a larger outcome.  If it does not benefit China, it is not done. The outlook is simply, a polarity of peace or war.  In politics or economics the same perspective is true.  It is a zero-sum outlook.
Therefore, when you see China publicly use strong language – it indicates a level of internal disposition beyond the defined western angst.  Big Panda becomes Red Dragon; there is no mid-status or evolutionary phase.  Every American associated with investment, economics and China would be well advised to put their business affairs in order accordingly.
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Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Deputy Assistant to President Trump, appeared today on MSNBC and CNN to discuss the liberation of Mosul Iraq from ISIS. During both interviews the networks began by questioning Gorka about the latest information surrounding Donald Trump Jr. and the contacts by a Russian business associate to facilitate delivery of opposition research on Hillary Clinton.
MNSBC’s Stephanie Ruhle begins her questioning on the controversy surrounding Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian attorney. Dr. Gorka describes the underlying story as a “massive nothing burger.”

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Earlier this morning Sebastian Gorka appeared on CNN with Alisyn Camerota for her New Day program.
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Today Donald Trump Jr. released a chain of emails detailing his 2016 communication  after being contacted by a music producer expert from The Box Tiger Music (acquaintance) to set up a meeting with a Russian lawyer named Natalia Veselnitskaya who claimed to have political opposition research information on Hillary Clinton.

Rob Goldstone is a music producer who represents a Russian pop star named Emin Agalarov.  Emin Agalarov’s father was a business contact who coordinated bringing the Miss Universe pageant to Russia in 2013.  Goldstone contacted Donald Trump Jr. to set up a meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya. The email chain is below:
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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

Sean Spicer Twitter @PressSec

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 †

Those of you following along at home might be having a remarkable feeling of Deja-Vu with the similarity between Hillary Clinton’s approach to her emails containing classified information, and James Comey’s approach today to reports of his leaked memos containing “classified” intelligence.
The defensive narrative ‘fact pattern’ appears identical in sequencing:
Step 1 – The emails/memos were not classified. √
Step 2 – The emails/memos were not ‘marked’ classified. √
Step 3 – The emails/memos were ‘retroactively classified‘. √

(Politico Link – Lastest)

Next up in the logical sequence:

Step 4 –  Missing/deleted = Wiped Comey memos: “what, like with a cloth or something?”
Step 5 –  Robert Mueller (filling the role of Comey circa 2016) will hold a 2017 presser to say: James Comey didn’t intentionally violate the law with sharing classified information within his leaked memos in 2017.  Adding: “we could find no intent” by him to do so.
Step 6 – Mueller will conclude his presser by saying: “no reasonable special counsel would recommend charges“.
Bets?
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and White House Legislative Affairs Director Marc Short deliver information to the media during today’s press briefing:

[Transcript] 2:28 P.M. EDT – MS. SANDERS: Good afternoon. Before we get started, I’d like to bring up Marc Short, the Director of Legislative Affairs, to give an update on how we’re moving the President’s agenda through Congress, particularly on the historic obstruction from Senate Democrats on confirming the President’s incredibly qualified nominees to posts across the federal government.
After his statement, Marc will take a few of your questions on that topic; and after that, I will be back to answer your other questions.
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In addition to Hawaii being the origin of Barack Obama’s worldview and the epicenter of currently failing leftist judicial attempts to block President Trump from implementing a temporary travel ban from known terrorist and extremist nations, now Hawaii has the distinction of being home to an active duty soldier arrested while attempting join ISIS.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) –  An active duty Hawaii soldier has been arrested for allegedly trying to provide material support and training to the Islamic State.
FBI special agents and SWAT arrested Ikaika Erik Kang, 34, on Saturday evening at his Waipahu apartment.
Authorities said they believe Kang was a “lone actor,” and “not associated with others who present a threat to Hawaii.”

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You just can’t make this stuff up.  Yesterday it was revealed that several of fired FBI Director James Comey memos contained classified information:
(Via The Hill) More than half of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents.
This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton over in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election. (link)
This latest report is contrary to James Comey’s prior assertion that he specifically wrote the memos about his contact and communication with President Trump to avoid containing classified information.
Today, the recipient of at least one of the leaked memos, Daniel Richman, claims the memo leaked to him by FBI Director Comey, with the specific intention to leak to the New York Times, did not contain markings designating the memo as “classified”:
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