Ed Buck is a major donor to the Democrat party.  Buck’s list of close political associations extends from Adam Schiff (pictured below left) to Hillary Clinton (pictured below right).  Two black males were previously killed in Mr. Buck’s apartment by drug overdoses.  Last week the third overdose victim barely survived after fleeing the apartment and calling police for help.  Tuesday Ed Buck was arrested.

LOS ANGELES – Prominent Democratic donor and LGBTQ political activist Ed Buck was arrested Tuesday and charged with operating a drug house, with prosecutors calling him a violent sexual predator who preys on men struggling with addiction and homelessness.
Buck was charged with one count each of battery causing serious injury, administering methamphetamine and maintaining a drug house, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Buck is accused of injecting a 37-year-old man, who overdosed but survived, with methamphetamine on Sept. 11.

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Promises made – Promises Kept…

President Donald Trump delivers remarks to the media today while touring border wall construction in Otay Mesa, California.   As a builder himself, the president outlined some of the more particular details of the construction project including the difference between compressive strength and tensile strength of 5,000/lb concrete.  There is apparently some additional aspects to the wall that are kept secret (they’re wired for sound).

The President was briefed on the project by Douglas Harrison (Acting San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent, United States Customs & Border Protection); Kathleen Scudder (San Diego Sector Deputy Chief Patrol Agent, United States Customs & Border Protection); Scott Garrett (San Diego Sector Division Chief, United States Customs & Border Protection); James O’Loughlin (Border Wall Program Lead, Emergency Action Programs, Department of Defense), and various local officials.
[Video Below, Transcript Will Follow]

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DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz testified before congress today on matters relating to the overall IG office.  However, with Democrat majority chairs refusing to call Horowitz for testimony on the recent Comey Report, republicans on the House Oversight Committee took advantage of the opportunity to ask questions about the FISA investigation and the prior IG reports on James Comey and Andrew McCabe.
The full hearing is below. However, to save time the key parts of the discussion are time sequenced and identified (each prompted, just hit play):
[@59:55] IG questioning by Rep. Hice begins to center on issues related to the IG report on FISA.  Mr. Horowitz discusses the current status of the FISA IG report as under rough draft review by AG Bill Barr, where decisions on classification are taking place.

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Chopper pressers are the best pressers; even when they are from the tarmac at LAX in California.  Moments ago President Donald Trump talked to the press pool with his newly named national security adviser, Robert O’Brien.  [Video below Transcript ADDED]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. We’re with Robert O’Brien, who, as you know, is the new National Security Advisor. He’s worked with me for quite a while now on hostages, and we’ve had a tremendous track record with respect to hostages. Robert can tell you about it.
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Housing starts (and permits) have been a long-term key performance indicator for the economic stability and strength of Main Street USA for generations. Across all key metrics, the economics of middle-class America is defined by confidence in housing. A strong housing market reflects worker/purchaser confidence in their economic position.

The U.S. Commerce Department reports today that U.S. housing starts and permits has reached a 12-year-high. [data here] This is a key point because it cuts to the heart of the difference between a thriving Main Street economy and the disconnect surrounding issues with Wall Street (multinational) financial markets.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. homebuilding surged to more than a 12-year high in August as both single- and multi-family housing construction accelerated, suggesting that lower mortgage rates were finally providing a boost to the struggling housing market.

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House Judiciary committee members Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows appear on Fox News this morning to discuss the ridiculous committee hearing yesterday where former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski delivered testimony.

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Robert C O’Brien (pictured left) is currently the State Department’s special presidential envoy for hostage affairs.  A founding partner of the Los Angeles-based law firm Larson O’Brien.

NYT – Mr. O’Brien served with Mr. Bolton when he was President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations and has advised Republican candidates like Mitt Romney, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz. In both the Bush and Obama administrations, Mr. O’Brien worked on an initiative to train lawyers and judges in Afghanistan.  (link)

People describe O’Brien as similar to his friend John Bolton without the virulent twitchy trigger finger. In his capacity as special envoy for hostage affairs, O’Brien wrote a letter to Swedish prosecutors urging them to release A$AP Rocky.  According to CBS O’Brien’s work “on Rocky’s case endeared him to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and one of his top advisers.”
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This is a topic we have previously discussed.  The current status is unfortunately what CTH previously predicted….  The consequences here are very serious.

Representative Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, claims a significant number of House Democrats are ready to vote to approve the USMCA trade deal.  However, Nancy Pelosi is holding back the vote.

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Everyone agrees that passage of the USMCA would provide leverage for the U.S. position in both China and EU trade negotiations.  Representative Andy Barr says despite a likely 300+ vote of support, he believes Pelosi is stalling to block that exact leverage.
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Mercedes Stephenson from Global News has done some excellent follow-up coverage on the arrest of RCMP Intelligence Director Cameron Ortis.  Mr. Ortis is facing seven serious charges of intelligence violations including obtaining information to pass to a “foreign entity.”  The intelligence compromise is the biggest scandal in “a generation”.
New evidence shows the arrest was a result of a 2018 international intelligence operation that targeted the encrypted communications service known as “Phantom Secure”.
A man named Victor Ramos was the CEO of Phantom Secure, an enterprise that provided encrypted communication devices to criminal agents involved in drug smuggling, money laundering and human trafficking.
Ramos was arrested by United States FBI officials in Washington State.  Ramos gave the FBI information about intelligence for sale that was coming from a source deep inside the Five-Eyes intelligence apparatus.  That information led to RCMP Director Cameron Ortis.
The scale of the compromise is still being analyzed. Ortis was director general of the National Intelligence Coordination Centre in Canada. In essence, Ortis was the Canadian equivalent of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (James Clapper/Dan Coats); and had access to the most sensitive intelligence information amid the entire Five-Eyes network that includes: Canada, The United States, The U.K. Australia and New Zealand.
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On February 8th, 2018, Senator Lindsey Graham first revealed an inauguration day email from Susan Rice to herself. That’s 585 days ago and yet we still don’t know what is behind the removed and classified paragraph.  Why is this being kept hidden?

(L-R) Ruemmler, Obama, Monaco and Rice

At 12:15pm on January 20th, 2017, Obama’s outgoing National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote a memo-to-self. Many people have called this her “CYA” (cover your ass) memo, from the position that Susan Rice was protecting herself from consequences if the scheme against President Trump was discovered. Here’s the email:

On January 5, following a briefing by IC leadership on Russian hacking during the 2016 Presidential election, President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Jim Corney and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office. Vice President Biden and I were also present.
President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book“.

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