This likely will not come as a surprise to most CTH readers, but a recent poll from Rasmussen shows the nation is split on whether Joe Biden is actually fulfilling the role of the presidency.  Forty-seven percent of those polled believe there are people behind Biden that are really in control.

(Via Rasmussen) –  Voters are evenly divided about President Joe Biden’s ability to perform the duties of his office, and nearly half believe others are really in charge at the White House.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 47% of Likely U.S. Voters believe Biden is really doing the job of president. The same number (47%) say others are making decisions for Biden behind the scenes. (read more)

Even die-hard democrats will admit privately that someone else seems to be running the White House.  The inability of the press secretary to outline who is actually in control of the cabinet-level staff is quite remarkable.  When posed with questions Jen Psaki rarely answers about executive level decisions and instead defers to the institutional agents who are in position to talk to reporters.

I’m not sure which article the statement refers to, possibly THIS ONE, but one thing is clear – discussion of the 2020 election fraud issue is a subject the New York Times spends an awful lot of time attempting to diminish.

The relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang has been obvious since President Trump took office in 2017 and began a series of sunlight diplomacy drops.  What President Trump exposed was the level of control China holds over North Korea.  Essentially, Kim Jong-Un is a hostage to Chairman Xi Jinping with little control over the military aspects of the DPRK.

When this baseline forms the forward analysis, the paradigm of historic western engagement with North Korea takes on an entire new dimension.

If China controls North Korea, specifically the functional leadership within the military, then all military action is essentially not from North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, but rather controlled and positioned by Chairman Xi.

As a downstream consequence the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons is essentially moot.  Of course the DPRK has nuclear weapon capability, those weapons would come from China and be controlled by Beijing.

Accept the DPRK as a proxy province to China and the issues look completely different.  We can debate the level of Beijing’s control, but it is certainly evident the military -which is essentially the important part of the DPRK government- receives instructions from China, not from Kim.  Chairman Kim Jong-un is essentially riding a dragon he does not control.  That was the subtle diplomacy visible inside the relationship as expressed between President Trump and Chairman Kim.

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To say the first major diplomatic summit between the United States and China was an unmitigated mess would be an understatement.  Apparently U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken thought it would be of value for the domestic audience if he was to lambast the Beijing delegation in public and on camera.  His efforts were a complete fail as the Chinese knew everything was presented for domestic consumption… so, the Red Dragon threw fire right back onto the purple hair and obviously stunned an unsettled U.S. Secretary.

The train wreck was started by challenging China publicly, in front of the international press, likely believing such an aggressive posture would weaken Republican criticism about the Job Biden administration being soft/weak on China. However, using a joint press conference as the forum only provided insult to the Beijing delegation.

Public insults are expressions of weakness, not strength.

It was visibly obvious that Secretary Blinken stupidly did not anticipate the Chinese officials would retaliate in their remarks responding to him.

The Chinese diplomatic team is exceptionally skilled at verbal combat; they use facts and evident weakness to their advantage. Blinken’s foolish decision gave the Chinese officials a rare opportunity to dress down the Secretary of State very publicly in front of the international media.

Secretary Blinken was visibly shocked and destabilized by the strength of the returning words from the Chinese team. His response was extremely defensive; ‘he doth protest too much’, and he was incoherent. Blinken also repeated JoeBama’s ridiculous catch-phrase “America is back.”

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In this exchange between Senator Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci the senator from Kentucky confronts Fauci about the irrelevance of wearing a mask after either infection/recovery or vaccination. As Senator Paul notes there is not a single study that shows reinfection after COVID recovery, so why the “theater” of wearing a mask when the immunity is present?

Fauci has no scientific response except to say “variants” of the COVID virus are potentially possible for reinfection.  The lead advocate for national policy then takes exception to being called out for the political “theater” of his mask wearing dictates. WATCH:

https://youtu.be/meYaOs0Nvuk

There is a larger segment of the American population now catching-on to the political ruse that underlines the COVID fear.  With Florida as an example of how COVID is not the threat the U.S. federal government claims it to be, more people are starting to ask common sense questions.

Fauci is a  political operative within the bureaucracy.  This was evident from his first entry into the public spotlight. Fauci claims masks may be needed into some unknown future, again because of some fearful determinations that have absolutely no basis in science or research.  This is propaganda.

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Katherine Tai was confirmed by a unanimous senate vote today to become the United States Trade Representative.  The vote was 98-0.  Ambassador Tai has family connections in both Taiwan and China and replaces former USTR Robert Lighthizer.

The doctrine of President Trump was to use trade and economics to achieve diplomatic results on foreign policy and national security issues. It will be interesting to watch what happens now as the Biden Administration returns to using ideological diplomacy as the baseline… then providing economic benefits to support leftist objectives.

The rustbelt was created, and China rose to economic influence, on the political outlook once again in power in the United States.  Ideology comes first, all other things changed, modified and or considered downstream in lesser importance than the ideology.  This was how the alignment of Wall Street, Globalists and Beijing exploited Bush, Clinton-Clinton, Bush-Bush and Obama-Obama terms.  The U.S. middle-class economy suffered greatly, while Wall Street multinationals thrived.

On the positive side there will be pressure from the Bernie Sanders wing to defend American jobs.  However, that faction’s political leadership, like Bernie Sanders himself and AOC, will compromise the long-term interests of the American worker when the opportunity surfaces for personal and familial wealth.  The Sanders types, just like the union leadership, can all be bought for the right price.

Ambassador Tai has not yet made statements about whether she will advocate for steel and aluminum tariff removal, but she is a big supporter of environmental justice as it pertains to trade and economic justice.  The climate and trade issue here specifically is the potential for carbon taxes to be part of JoeBama trade policy.  How?  Well, that might look like the U.S. re-entering the Trans Pacific Partnership with a carbon trading system in place.

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The same thing happened in 2014 when Obama blocked the media from reporting on the escalating border crisis.  Breitbart news then came under attack for independently talking to border patrol and documenting the crisis.  In the 2021 version the JoeBama administration is back to their old tricks.

Journalists are not being allowed to review or document the escalating crisis at the southern U.S. border.  No pictures are allowed, and the Biden crew has instructed all government officials not to talk to reporters or journalists.  They are hiding their motives behind the justification of COVID.  NBC carefully attempts to call them out.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is restricting the information Border Patrol agents and sector chiefs can share with the media as a surge of migrants tests the agency’s capacity at the southern border, according to four current and two former Customs and Border Protection officials.

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Friend of the Treehouse John Spiropoulos shares a ground report from the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles where concerned parents and grandparents are protesting against the school district policy to keep in-class education stopped.   As noted in the interviews, the COVID school shutdowns are hurting everyone, particularly those communities where education was already a challenge.

The “progressive” policies and regulations around COVID in California are impacting minority neighborhoods at an alarming rate.  In essence, the democrat shut-down policies create racist outcomes.  As John Spiropoulos notes: ” The year long shutdown of live, in-class instruction in Los Angeles public schools has had an adverse effect on children’s academics, particularly those in low income areas. This report focuses on a back-to-school rally organized by the Women of Watts organization.”

The proportion of child mental health visits to Emergency Rooms dramatically increased from March through October 2020 over the same period in 2019.

• The share of mental health-related hospital emergency department visits rose 24% for children 5-11 compared to the same time period the previous year.
• The share of mental health-related hospital emergency department visits increased 31% for adolescents age 12 to 17 compared to the same time period the previous year.
• While there were increases for both males and females, female cases were far higher than male cases.
(Source: CDC November 13, 2020)

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Mitch McConnell gave an anticipated speech in the Senate today positioning himself against the end of the Senate filibuster.  Unfortunately for those who understand how McConnell operates, methinks he doth protest too much.  Watch:

Let me be perfectly clear… every word in those prepared remarks was/is an act.  This is what Mitch McConnell does.  CTH has pointed out for several months how McConnell is personally preparing for the end of the filibuster.  [Here and Here] He knows it will likely end, because he has seeded the framework for the end of the process.  What McConnell is doing now is pure positioning.

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Perhaps a concerted and consistent effort will produce results?  Let us pray for a return of judicial common sense and continued sunlight upon any deception.

Remember, the Fulton County election board fired their director as an outcome of multiple voting and ballot counting issues that surfaced following the 2020 election.

Now a judge in Georgia has given a vote integrity group access to the physical ballots in Fulton County amid sworn affidavits that many of those ballots were sketchy and seemed to be generated by automation.

GEORGIA – Henry County Judge Brian Amero on Monday conditionally granted members of a Georgia-based coalition the right to unseal ballots from last November’s presidential election in Fulton County.  Members of that group, VOTER GA, may now inspect those ballots for evidence of voter fraud.

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