The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to bypass normal procedures and decide quickly about the status of a 2020 citizenship question on the Census.

Citing an emergency rule, Solicitor General Noel Francisco stated “the case is of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require immediate determination in this Court.”

(WaPo) Last week, U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman of New York ordered the administration to stop its plans to add the question to the survey. Furman said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross broke a “veritable smorgasbord” of federal rules by overriding the advice of career officials who said including the citizenship question was likely to cut down the response rate and make the census less accurate. (more)

The administration is informing the court the decision is needed by the end of June in order to meet the deadlines for printing the census reports.  The solicitor general is proposing arguments for April if the court accepts the urgency request.

Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow responded to a fake news story the U.S. has canceled a trade meeting with China; never happened – there was no meeting scheduled.  Mr. Kudlow discusses some of the granular issues within the ongoing trade discussion with the Chinese.
Additionally, Chairman Kudlow discusses his outlook for the economy in light of the government shutdown.

.
There are some political observers who believe an extended government shutdown, that can impact the overall U.S. economy, is actually the goal behind the Pelosi strategy.  There is a plausible basis for this perspective.  Tom Donohue (et al) and Wall Street (writ large) would be the primary beneficiaries if Pelosi can break the “America First” economic focus.  It would not surprise me to find out the Big Club people behind the Pelosi/Schumer strategy hold this K-Street intent.  We’ll have to keep watching.
(more…)

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have come to a UniParty agreement to advance two simultaneous bills to end the government shutdown.
The first bill contains the Trump priority agenda; the second bill contains the Pelosi, Schumer, McConnell priority agenda.  The senate will get to vote on both bills individually.  It is possible, perhaps likely, both will fail. However, watch the defectors. If history is a guide, any defectors will come from the GOPe side of the equation.

(Washington DC) […]  The first vote will be on President Trump‘s proposal to to reopen the government, provide $5.7 billion in funding for the border wall and extend legal protections to some immigrants for three years. If that fails, the Senate would then vote on a three-week continuing resolution (CR).

(more…)

It looks like Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi has no intention of allowing the House chamber to be used for a State of the Union address.
Speaker Pelosi has informed the House Sergeant at Arms that no executive branch official will be permitted entry into the Capitol building.
Earlier Fox News reported Pelosi cancelled a walkthrough last week, and a second request for reconsideration from the White House is expected to meet the same fate. The House Speaker controls who is, and who is not, permitted entry to the House floor. Until Speaker Pelosi calls for a vote to support a joint session of congress, the President cannot enter the chamber.
Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley discusses the status of the current shutdown negotiations and the likelihood a SOU address will have to take place outside Washington DC.

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes appears on Fox News and focuses attention to the primary point most overlook.  The Buzzfeed narrative on Michael Cohen is directly connected to the political endeavors of Democrats in congress.
Buzzfeed pushes a false conspiracy involving President Trump and Michael Cohen, HPSCI Chairman Adam Schiff then outlines his intent to “investigate” that claim through the use of the committee.  Again, not meaning to be too repetitious, but this is coordinated. Nothing is happenstance.  Resistance allies within congress are working in concert with resistance allies in media and Lawfare to create the baseline for the ‘impeachment’ agenda.

.
Speaker Pelosi publishes new rules for Democrat committees. The new rules tell Elijah Cummings to target the White House. The Thursday after the Superbowl, February 7th, Michael Cohen will testify publicly to Cummings’ House Oversight Committee. The script for the questions have already been written. The goal of the hearing will be to create the baseline for HPSCI (Schiff) and Judiciary (Nadler) to move to the next phase: a subpoena for Donald Trump Jr.
Everything is pre-planned, pre-scripted, and building to a specific focus point.
(more…)

During his opening monologue today Tucker Carlson brilliantly outlined the madness that took over media surrounding a completely manufactured falsehood.
It was not a ‘rush-to-judgement’ decision by the media; it was not a mistake by media; it was an intentional and purposeful decision by the media to isolate, ridicule and marginalize their opposition.

.
The mainstream media are the enemy of We The People.
(more…)

There is a generation of people new to the nuance of politics. There is also a generation of people familiar to things political, but new to the severe constructs within the industry.
Nothing the institutional or professionally political-left does is organic. Everything is pre-planned, pre-scripted and pre-organized.
All major events, even those that seem oddly organic (George Stephanopoulos asking Romney about constitutionality of birth control ’12), are highly scripted – while various elements within allied media await the triggering moments.
Like a political iceberg, two-thirds of the activity is below the surface; only one-third is visible. If we focus on the surface events, and not on the constructs under the surface, its easy to get caught up in the latest shiny thing.
Professional leftists plan everything.
This is all they do; this is all they know to do.  From birth to maturity, within the machine, every moment of the day is spent planning optimum utilization. Every event is sequential.
This is not to say there are no grassroots elements within leftist designs. However, grassroots leftists (former Bernie Sanders supporters) are so blindly connected to the indoctrination that creates them, they cannot see the machinery.
(more…)

The baseline when reviewing economic data from China is to remember the entire economy is controlled by the communist central government.  If they say the economy is “less strong” than previously expected, generally we can anticipate the truth is much worse.
The second aspect to remember is that many U.S. manufacturers made anticipatory advanced purchases, building up inventory ahead of possible tariffs, in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2018.  Those advance purchases can amplify any manufacturing slow down.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China is expected to report on Monday that economic growth cooled to its slowest in 28 years in 2018 amid weakening domestic demand and bruising U.S. tariffs, adding pressure on Beijing to roll out more support measures to avert a sharper slowdown.
Growing signs of weakness in China — which has generated nearly a third of global growth in the past decade — are stoking worries about risks to the world economy and are weighing on profits for firms ranging from Apple to big carmakers.

(more…)

An important interview between Judiciary Committee member John Ratcliffe (R – TX) as he discusses the likely motive behind why Mueller decided to talk out against the Buzzfeed report.  Representative Ratcliffe points to the testimony of AG nominee William Barr as the annoying pebble that made Mueller’s team stop to shake out their shoe.
Additionally, in an outline to highlight the corrupt abuse of the Rosenstein/Mueller probe, Ratcliffe outlines Bruce Ohr’s testimony and exposes a larger issue: if Mueller was honorable, when he became aware of the scheme he would have dropped his inquiry.

.
Fox News did not post the second part of that interview. However, we located a secondary source below:
(more…)

Understanding that Michael Cohen is the first pre-planned Democrat House interview, first step, within a longer ‘impeachment’ strategy, it becomes easier to see why MSM are all-in to help build the false basis for the initial obstruction snowball.
In 2015/2016 Michael Cohen working for the Trump organization and exploring a business deal within Russia is nothing.  Democrats did not kick-off the public “Muh Russia” conspiracy narrative until October 2016.   In the aftermath of two years of creating the ‘Muh Russia’ planetary election conspiracy theory, a nothing-burger contact within Russia becomes a focus-point. [Ah-ha!, you were talking to Russians… ‘IMPEACH’! ]
However, for the impeachment cornerstone to take footing, Cummings, Schiff and Nadler need to present the optics of obstruction. House investigations need a plausible premise to justify the work. Media are working overtime to frame/support the ‘plausible premise’.

.
It’s annoying as heck because the baseline (Russian Conspiracy) is nonsense; but creating the plausible premise is the goal of the media. This is how media help the resistance effort.
(more…)