CTH often describes the background DC motives with the phrase: “There are Trillions at Stake.”  Here we take a look at what that really means, and how DC politics is not quite based on the ideas that frame many reference points.
With people taking notice of DC politics for the first time; and with people not as familiar with the purpose of DC politics; we end up within two different references. Perhaps it is valuable to reset the larger frames of reference and provide clarity.
Most people think when they vote for a federal politician -a House or Senate representative- they are voting for a person who will go to Washington DC and write or enact legislation. This is the old-fashioned “schoolhouse rock” perspective based on decades past.  There is not a single person in congress writing legislation or laws.
In modern politics not a single member of the House of Representatives or Senator writes a law, or puts pen to paper to write out a legislative construct. This simply doesn’t happen.
Over the past several decades a system of constructing legislation has taken over Washington DC that more resembles a business operation than a legislative body. Here’s how it works right now.
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The Nevada Caucuses are taking place today to select the Democrat presidential candidate. For the first time this year Nevada had early caucuses voting last week and there were a great deal of votes cast.
Caucuses begin at Noon local time, 3:00pm Eastern.  Due to early caucus voting we should start to see some results around 4:00pm to 4:30pm as precincts call-in their results.

♦ New York Times Nevada Results LINK

♦ CNN News Nevada Results Link

♦ Politico Nevada Results Link

♦ Reno Gazette Nevada Results Link

The White House has provided a great deal of background information on the upcoming trip to India by President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump.

WHITE HOUSE – SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks to everyone for joining this call. The topic of the call: This is a background briefing with senior administration officials on President Donald J. Trump’s travel to India.
The briefing is embargoed until 2:30 p.m. and it’s offered on background attributed to a “senior administration official.”
Now, for your information only, we have two senior administration officials with us today. We have [senior administration officials].
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National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow appears on CNBC for an extensive interview on upstream economic issues.  With China’s economy at a standstill; and with the troubles of the coronavirus spreading outward; what does that mean for us?
There’s some good questions in this interview.  Domestically, as we noted yesterday, the U.S. economy is strong and growing. However, the Wall Street multinationals are very exposed to the China issues. On the bright side the overall China issues are helping to push more corporate decisions toward domestic investment and away from Beijing.

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Given these lessons being learned, I sure wish we didn’t have China involved in making our medicines and medical products.  The administration needs to look at this more.
Director Kudlow also appeared on Fox Business with Lou Dobbs.
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House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI) ranking member Devin Nunes attended the intelligence briefing that has been the topic of so much recent fake news.  Nunes notes the leaking from Democrats to their media allies is entirely false.  WATCH:

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In 2017 SSCI Security Director James Wolfe was caught leaking Top Secret Classified information, the Page FISA application, to his journalist girlfriend. In late 2018 the SSCI intelligence breech was covered-up by DAG Rod Rosenstein and DC Attorney Jessie Liu.
In 2019 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) employee, Henry Kyle Frese, was caught leaking Top Secret classified intelligence to his journalist girlfriend.  In 2020 he pleads guilty to the charges:

[Via DOJ] – An employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) pleaded guilty today to charges related to his disclosure of classified national defense information (NDI) to two journalists in 2018 and 2019.
[…] According to court documents, Henry Kyle Frese, 31, of Alexandria, was employed by DIA as a counterterrorism analyst from February 2018 to October 2019, and held a Top Secret//Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance.

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More good signs.  Last week we noted Johnny McEntee (pictured right w/ Stephen Miller) was promoted to run the White House personnel office responsible for filling hundreds of top political jobs throughout various federal agencies. Mr. McEntee replaced Sean Doocey, who moved to the State Department.
The personnel office has been a key point of contention for the administration as several political appointments later became weak points with people not in alignment with the policies and objectives of President Trump.  The objective of McEntee would be to assist in finding and vetting the right MAGA person, with the right MAGA skillset, for the right job.
Today Axios is reporting:

Johnny McEntee called in White House liaisons from cabinet agencies for an introductory meeting Thursday, in which he asked them to identify political appointees across the U.S. government who are believed to be anti-Trump, three sources familiar with the meeting tell Axios.

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Kash Patel previously worked as Devin Nunes’ senior staffer on the House Intelligence Committee (HPSCI).  It was Patel who was the lead author of the Nunes memo exposing corrupt conduct of the FBI and DOJ officials during Crossfire Hurricane.

Patel joined the National Security Council’s International Organizations and Alliances directorate last February and was promoted to the senior counterterrorism role at the NSC mid-summer 2019.  According to recent reporting Patel is now joining Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell as a Senior Advisor and Catherine Herridge is reporting the objective is to ‘clean house‘.

The New York Times and a host of allied political narrative engineers attempted to spin up another Russia narrative yesterday.  The claim surrounds a briefing by DNI Joseph Maguire (pictured below) to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).  Adam Schiff and house Democrats in the briefing claim DNI Maguire stated Russians favored President Trump and would work to assist his re-election.

The Democrat spin was to claim President Trump replaced Maguire as an outcome of this briefing; and Trump wants to ignore Russia interference assistance. etc. etc.  The media ran with the framework of the Democrat narrative; and the political operatives piled-on.
However, in a surprise move Jake Tapper actually undercuts the narrative engineering through his own sources with information on the reality of the briefing:

(1) DNI Joseph Maguire never said Russia was, would, or is working to interfere in the election to help President Trump.  Rather the briefing nuance was that Russia has an understanding of Trump and would likely view him as a deal-maker they could work with and Sanders, Buttigieg et al were unknowns.

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Last night it was reported that President Trump was considering Doug Collins amid a group of four names for the Director of National Intelligence.    However, Collins is currently running for a Georgia senate seat.
Appearing on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo this morning Rep. Collins outlines he is appreciative of the consideration but not interested in the position.

The dynamic for the Georgia senate seat is another example of Mitch McConnell and the Club -vs- grassroots MAGA voters.  Georgia doesn’t have a Senate primary vote, so the November senate election will be a jungle ballot.
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