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Fifteen Years

We recently passed the fifteen-year anniversary of our assembly here at The Conservative Treehouse. Fifteen years of a conversation that continues; a conversation that questions; a journey upon the road less travelled. This odd little band of misfits, carrying on a conversation in the corner of a vast internet where pretenses drop and ordinary labels used to retain comfortability just don’t seem to stick.

Factually and embarrassingly, amid the whirlwind of sand through life’s hourglass I would not have noticed the date if site admin Wee-Weed didn’t draw attention to it, and I thank her for creating the pause.

Ad Rem, Stella, Menagerie and Wee-Weed are incredible moderators, always finding a way to guide the ship through fog, with a gentle nudge when needed. As a community we are blessed and thankful for their stewardship.

Two website platforms. 15 years. 48,349 articles. 5,128,351 voices in the comments.  Visits from every country on the globe. These are the simple statistics of our assembly, yet the value of the conversation cannot be quantified. A loving God has a voice here. We listen. We are all vessels.

There are a lot of different things that can be said when anniversaries are celebrated; however, for our assembly my thoughts are about God and you. All of you, the commonality of you, us, all of us together in this discussion – no pretenses. The journey is the discussion, and the conversation is the point.

You see things differently than most. If you did not, you would not be here. You accept things as they are, not as the crowd would pretend them to be. If you did not, you would not be here. You see the deeper stuff and together we understand that perspective can lead to isolation when the truth cuts against the popularity of the thing.  If it didn’t, you would not be here.

You value the truth in all its discomfort, and you have developed a keen perception that leads to articulate questions. If you did not you would not be here. You see the dots and yet you retain a perspective distance, permitting you to see the full picture instead of an image of random pixels. If you did not carry this inherent skill, you would not have found your way here.

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February 8th – 2026 Presidential Politics – Trump Administration Day 385

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.

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Sunday February 8th – Open Thread

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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The IC Nut is Cracking – Washington Post CEO, Will Lewis Quits

I said a few days ago, “with DNI Tulsi Gabbard putting strategic pressure from the inside, and We The People putting accountability pressure from the outside, this Deep State intelligence nut just might begin to crack. In fact, I might even argue that cracking is exactly what we are starting to see.

Today, we see evidence of just that; perhaps even the first signs that John Ratcliffe is on board. Perhaps.

The context here is important.  Within the larger administrative state network: CNN is the preferred PR firm of the State Dept.; the CIA use The Washington Post; the FBI use Politico and the New York Times; the DOJ use the New York Times and Wall Street Journal; while the control lawfare embeds within the domestic IC spread their narrative distribution to the NYT, WSJ and Politico depending on the context.

When we see the Washington Post contracting, shrinking or otherwise limited in their activity, we can be confident the feeder system from the CIA is subsequently diminishing. If the CIA was operating at full narrative weapon capacity, the Washington Post newsroom would be bustling. The opposite is also true, although we have not seen much of that until recently.  So, that’s the context:

WASHINGTON – Washington Post CEO Will Lewis stepped down from his position on Saturday — throwing the prestigious Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper into further turmoil just days after the publication laid off some 300 staffers. The Washington Post announced that Lewis would be resigning effective immediately.

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“We will pay”: NBC’s Savannah Guthrie Begs Kidnappers to Release Their Mother

Apparently, the mother of NBC reporter Savannah Guthrie has been kidnapped by someone or some group.  The strange, weird, and rather odd events surrounding the issue have been unfolding for several days.  Tonight, Savannah Guthrie and her siblings released a weird video saying, “we will pay,” in what appears to be a statement about a ransom.

The internet has been ablaze with this story for the past four days.  I have no idea what is going on, but the entire thing seems sketchy.  Maybe that’s what happens when someone is kidnapped and the communication takes place in public.  It’s all weird.

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Many people suspect Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped and taken to Mexico, where she is being held for ransom.

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The Underlying NSA Intercept – Whistleblower Claims Against Tulsi Gabbard Get More Absurd in Context

You know the IC narrative is falling apart quickly when even the New York Times paints the background as gossip.

Within the New York Times reporting we discover more of the underlying context for the NSA intercept.

According to the Times, the NSA intercept was of “two foreign nationals” discussing an American person with some relationship to President Trump.  The underlying concern was about the conversation they intercepted.

Just pulling out the pertinent:

“a whistle-blower report about an intelligence intercept of a call between two foreign nationals discussing a person close to President Trump” … “It is not clear what country the two foreign nationals were from, but the discussion involved Iran.” … “The identity of the person close to Mr. Trump could not be immediately determined.”

[…] “One official said there was no other intelligence that led officials to think the two officials had been speaking truthfully. Some intelligence analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were either gossiping or deliberately spreading misinformation.  As a result of those doubts, Ms. Gabbard moved to restrict the report’s visibility. She also provided the information to Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, according to people briefed on the events.

The acting intelligence community’s inspector general [a Biden appointee] cleared Ms. Gabbard of wrongdoing after she responded to questions about her actions.” {source}

Summary: The NSA intercepted two foreign nationals talking about Iran and gossiping about someone close to Trump. The NSA snooper documented the conversation. Intel analysts concluded the two foreign nationals were just gossiping.  DNI Gabbard did not put credibility on the issue, but to be safe informed Susie Wiles of the intercept.  That’s it.

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Lyndon LaRouche Team Very Excited About Epstein File Release Creating Chaos in British Circles

The reenergized Lyndon LaRouche team is very excited to see the Epstein file information creating great problems for Great Britian, British politicians, the London financial network and all of the people in the financial power structures of the United Kingdom.

LaRouche/Promethean’s Barbara Boyd outlines the delicious controversy surrounding British Prime Minister Keir Starmer against the background of his appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador with all the ties to Jeffrey Epstein now in the headlines.  Boyd reviews the links between Epstein and the U.K financial scandals, while President Trump continues promoting a revitalized American industrial economy.

Mrs Boyd then highlights the actions of the London elites calling upon U.K intelligence operative Christopher Steele who tries to cloud the British problem with Epstein by tying it all to Russia.   Finally, Boyd underscores the significance of the President Trump’s economic policy in countering decades of financial abuses from the U.K and European Union.

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Senator Mark Warner and/or His Collaborator, NSA Whistleblower Lawyer Andrew Bakaj, Enlist British Intel and UK Media to Promote Impeachment Effort Against DNI Gabbard

The attempted framing of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard continues with senate intelligence committee Mark Warner and/or his collaborating whistleblower attorney Andrew Bakaj (also Ciaramella’s attorney) leaking details to the British intelligence services and their preferred media outlet The Guardian.

DNI Tulsi Gabbard has responded to the ongoing nonsense but first let’s review the newly disclosed details for some interesting information.

The UK Guardian now shares the agency for the “whistleblower” as the NSA, likely an NSA contractor, and the basic details of an intercepted phone call which the contractor deemed “unusual”. I’ll pull citations from the article.

SUMMARY VERSION: In/around March of 2025 an NSA contractor “detected evidence of an unusual phone call between an individual associated with foreign intelligence and a person close to Donald Trump, according to Whistleblower attorney, Andrew Bakaj.” The NSA contractor then wrote up a report and gave it to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. DNI Gabbard then took the report to Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles.

One day after meeting Wiles, Gabbard told the NSA not to publish the intelligence report. Instead, she instructed NSA officials to transmit the highly classified details directly to her office. (Guardian citation)

The NSA whistleblower was upset that DNI Gabbard didn’t share the report with others and filed a whistleblower complaint on April 17, 2025, with the Intelligence Community Inspector General.  Within the complaint the NSA whistleblower included the details of the phone call leading to the complaint being labeled Top Secret Compartmented Information (TSCI classification).  This format of including TSCI material complicates how the complaint can be reviewed. This looks like it was done on purpose.

Because the complaint contained TSCI material, it could not follow ordinary whistleblower pathways toward congress.

(Guardian) […] Acting inspector general Tamara A Johnson dismissed the complaint at the end of a 14-day review period, writing in a 6 June letter addressed to the whistleblower that “the Inspector General could not determine if the allegations appear credible”. The letter stipulated that the whistleblower could take their concerns to Congress, only after receiving DNI guidance on how to proceed, given the highly sensitive nature of the complaint. (citation)

The inclusion of the TSCI material, the ‘highly sensitive‘ part, creates a conflict within the process.  [The TSCI material is the name of the individual associated with foreign intelligence, and the name of the person close to President Trump.]

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Europe Furious as U.S. Subsidy Ends – President Trump’s Demand for Lower Rx Prices Means Immediate European Price Increases

Europe is not happy with President Trump’s demand that drug manufacturers provide U.S. consumers with equitable pricing.

If President Trump will no longer permit Americans to pay the research production costs for pharmaceutical companies through high prices, essentially subsiding pharmaceutical costs for the world, then Rx companies will have to increase their prices throughout Europe. This is making the Europeans very unhappy.

(Bloomberg Businessweek) — For the past few years, Swiss oncologist Christoph Renner has treated blood cancer patients with Lunsumio, a new drug that helps the immune system recognize and destroy malignant cells. Then, last summer, Renner got an email from Roche Holding AG, Lunsumio’s manufacturer, informing him the treatment would no longer be available in Switzerland because health insurers there wouldn’t pay for the infusions. “You see what’s possible,” says Renner, a professor at the University of Basel, “and then you’re told you can’t use it.”

The move was a response to rules President Donald Trump introduced that force drugmakers to reduce their prices in the US to the lowest level paid in other developed countries. In Switzerland, new medications typically cost far less than in the US, so in theory Americans should benefit from the change. The problem is, instead of bringing prices down in the US, pharmaceutical companies are raising them elsewhere.

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February 7th – 2026 Presidential Politics – Trump Administration Day 384

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.

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