On November 8th of this year Lawfare founder Benjamin Wittes sent a rather curious tweet proclaiming his undying devotion to former FBI lawyer Lisa Page.  At the time it seemed rather odd and out of no-where; but today it makes sense.
At the time of Witte’s tweet Lisa Page would have been scheduling her coming out narrative, and consulting with the DOJ/FBI “beach friend” community for PR advice.  After several weeks of planning and careful roll-out organization, noted by several weeks of contact with mutually aligned journalists, today Ms. Page steps into the spotlight with her introductory article in the Daily Beast, aptly titled: “Lisa Page Speaks“.
Yes, yes, of course Lisa Page says she’s a victim to the horrible President Trump and the exposure of “private affair”, and the exposure of her “political texts and biases” etc. etc.  However, that’s not what is really interesting….
Within the article there’s a very specific and very familiar type of victim narrative construct.
When you read the article it jumps out at you. The victim narrative is from the exact same acting coaches hired by the FBI and used by Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford; it’s a little spooky how both Ms. Ford and Ms. Page could sound so identical, until you realize the same FBI and media people have constructed both victim storyboards.
Ms. Page decries what she has seen happen to her beloved FBI, that as she said “she grew up in“.  Now, if that institutional attachment sounds a little over-the-top considering a grown woman started at the FBI in 2013 and resigned in 2018, well, it helps to remember this is the Public Relations advice from the DC-based FBI committee.
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The White House was given an arbitrary deadline of 5pm tonight (without any background information) for a participation response to a House Judiciary Committee December 4th hearing; at a time when President Trump is attending a NATO summit; for a hearing with unspecified witnesses; and for a hearing with unspecified purposes; and for a hearing with unspecified rules.
The White House responds accordingly (pdf here):

The full five-page letter is below:
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According to multiple media report U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr was already planning a visit to Mexico prior to a massive cartel gun battle near the U.S. border that has left 21 people dead. .
MEXICO – More than a dozen armored trucks filled with Los Zetas cartel gunmen rolled into a small rural town in the border state of Coahuila. The gunmen spread terror as they attacked the city hall building. The incursion turned into a fierce shootout and several chases where at least 14 cartel gunmen, three civilians, and four police officers died. Preliminary reports point to six additional people sustaining gunshot injuries.

The violence began on Saturday morning. More than a dozen armored trucks, some with machine guns mounted on top, left the border city of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas driving towards the state of Coahuila. The gunmen are members of a faction of Los Zetas called Cartel Del Noreste.
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House Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins appears on Fox News to debate the insufferable gatekeeper of the swamp, Chris Wallace.
Despite the necessary obfuscation by Wallace, who is professionally trained to pretend not to know things, Collins points out the ridiculous proposition that republicans and the White House are required to respond to participation demands when the HPSCI impeachment report hasn’t even been produced.  The process construct therein highlights the purely political motive of the partisan Democrat agenda.  At this point it’s transparent.

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There has been a great deal of discussion about the pending release of the DOJ Inspector General report on potential FISA abuses on December 9th, but no word on the declassification material since AG Bill Barr was granted authority on May 23rd, 2019.

Amid the twists and turns many people have forgotten about the material congress asked President Trump to declassify a year-and-a-half ago.  Additionally there has been some material cited that just seemingly slipped away without follow-up.  Consider:

• Whatever happened to the forty pages of Lisa Page and Andrew McCabe text messages that Catherine Herridge noted nine months ago?  Herridge only published four of the pages in March 2019.
• Why are the Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages still redacted two years after their original release (December 1st, 2017)?
• Where’s the release of the Susan Rice inauguration day memo to the file?
• Why didn’t the DOJ/FBI release all of the Bruce Ohr 302’s without redaction?  Will those fully unredacted 302’s be part of the IG report release?
• Where’s the unredacted David Archey FBI declarations that were previously ordered to be released by a DC judge?
• The Mueller investigation ended 9 months ago.  Why are we still not able to see the  unredacted three authorization memos that Rosenstein gave to the special counsel on May 17th, August 2nd and October 20th, 2017?

Those simple questions (and releases) are in addition to the original list that congress provided to President Trump back in the summer of 2018.  A declassification list that DAG Rod Rosenstein asked President Trump not to release until after the Mueller investigation. Again, the Mueller investigation ended nine months ago; President Trump authorized AG Bill Barr to declassify the material six months ago on May 23rd.
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Given the background activity last week between USTR Robert Lighthizer and Mexican Trade Minister Jesus Seade, and their agreement to set up a trilateral trade and labor dispute panel, President Trump now puts Speaker Pelosi in “check”….

(Tweet Link)

Having lost her labor defense shield (well played by Lighthizer/Seade), Pelosi is now either going to stand her party against the majority of Americans as President Trump pummels them over it… Or she puts the USMCA up for ratification (Trump wins) and it looks like she takes a knee….  Well played by President Trump.
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There was a considerable buzz when the Rasmussen poll showed 34 percent support for President Trump amid black ‘likely voters’…. but the political media dismissed it.  Then came a more recent Emerson University poll showing 34.5% support from black voters.  With two polls showing a very similar result it was less likely to be an outlier…. But again, the political media dismissed them both.
However, a third poll, this time from NPR/PBS and Marist, confirms the prior two almost identically.  The latest Marist Poll shows 33% non-white support for President Trump:

(Poll Link – pdf)

To be clear these are just polls; however, quite remarkably the Marist poll was 1,224 voters with a 26 percent minority (black and Hispanic) share of the poll – so that’s a significant poll of minority voters.  If President Trump holds anywhere near this level of minority approval going into next years November election there is functionally and statistically  no-way for any Democrat presidential candidate to win in 2020.
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Candidate Trump was framed for stealing a horse; President Trump was subsequently accused of trying too hard to avoid hanging for it. Prosecutor Mueller eventually conceded that Trump didn’t steal the horse; however, by then the focus was on Trump’s efforts to avoid the hanging.  Eventually Mueller testified; it surfaced there was never a horse to begin with… Impeachment was stalled.   Prosecutor Jerry Nadler is attempting to resurrect a legal theory that President Trump can still be hung for attempting to avoid the hanging, even if there was no horse theft.   Yup, that’s were we’re at.
Earlier Friday House Judiciary Committee (HJC) Chairman Jerry Nadler sent another letter to the White House outlining a December 6th deadline for executive participation in the coup by impeachment.  The chairman also sent ranking member Doug Collins a similar letter asking for rebuttal witnesses by December 6th.  In anticipation of Nadler denying the republican rebuttal witnesses he has scheduled a committee hearing on the republican complaints for December 9th [yes, same day as IG Horowitz report release].

Both of these requests, along with the prior “groundwork hearing” request, come from the HJC before the judiciary committee has received the House Impeachment Inquiry report from Adam Schiff’s HPSCI partisan impeachment committee.  Apparently the HJC knows the report content from Schiff’s committee; which means there will be no full committee review by any republican members of the bunker basement impeachment group.
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President Trump has said he is close to a decision that would designate Mexican drug cartels as officially recognized terrorist networks by the United States.

Remember, within the geopolitical dynamic that benefits all three North American countries, Mexico needs to start taking clear and decisive actions toward all levels of internal corruption if the ultimate economic objective of the USMCA is going to work.

Mexican President Lopez-Obrador is concerned this designation could lead to U.S. military engagement against the cartels.  The Democrats are concerned this designation would mean they could no longer accept campaign donations from the drug cartels; and into this mix of interests, U.S. Attorney Bill Barr is going to Mexico.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that his government was committed to fighting organized crime, seeking to dispel fears that the United States could take matters in its own hands in the fight against drug cartels.
U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier this week that he plans to designate the Mexican cartels as terrorist groups, a move aimed at disrupting their finances by imposing sanctions.
While this does not directly give the United States authority for military operations in Mexico, many Mexicans are nervous their northern neighbor could use it as a pretext for a unilateral invention.

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The leaders of the twenty-nine NATO member nations are scheduled to meet next week in London, England.  Amid consistent pressure on the member states for increased defense spending to live up to their prior 2014 promises (Wales summit); and with NATO economies in a stalled geopolitical stasis due to their attachment to China (5G telecom), Russia (Nordstream II), and Iran; this summit holds increased possible ramifications.
This NATO summit could very well expose the duplicity and hypocrisy of the EU depending on how far U.S. President Donald Trump is willing to call them out.
There are going to be a lot of nervous snake handlers around the table(s), and with the U.K. elections in the near future there is a great deal at stake. The summit is Tuesday and Wednesday.  Here’s the White House background briefing:
[Transcript] – SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I just want to thank everyone for being here today, Friday after Thanksgiving.
Just up front, this call is going to be on background, attribution to a senior administration official, and there will be an embargo on the contents of this call until it’s completed.
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