The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest consumer price information today which shows overall low inflation at 1.6 percent (with energy price deflation, and flat food prices).
Excluding food and energy costs the total CPI remains low at 2.2%.   This low inflation is the exact opposite of what financial media were predicting when President Trump began the series of import tariffs in 2017, which continued throughout last year.

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When President Trump began the tariffs against global Steel and Aluminum imports; and when President Trump began the first set of tariffs against Chinese imports; almost all financial media went into fits of apoplexy claiming we would see massive increases in prices.   Reality shows their doomsday predictions were completely over-hyped.
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The usual suspects within the Decepticon Caucus (McConnell, Cornyn, Thune, Barasso, Crapo, Portman, Blunt, Gardner, Burr, Romney) and Richard Shelby held a press conference to announce the outcome of their DHS border security funding negotiations.
There are massive numbers of Republicans who view Senate Majority Mitch McConnell as a brilliant strategist and staunch supporter of President Trump.  Unfortunately, those voices once again have to reconcile McConnell’s comprehensive failure on a Trump priority.   Yes, McConnell and Shelby successfully negotiated for less border security funding than before the shutdown.

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Fortunately, POTUS Trump planned for the intentional failure of McConnell and his veto-proof construct. [Rest assured, thankfully, President Trump knows exactly who McConnell is.] President Trump had anticipated the result and dispatched Mulvaney to review the granular DHS, DoD and DoS programs throughout fiscal year 2019 appropriations to assemble secondary funding.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced today that he will move forward on a plan to allow a senate vote on the far-left platform called “The Green New Deal”.
Now, McConnell obviously doesn’t support the GND because: (a) his benefactor, Tom Donohue, doesn’t want anything to do with it; and (b) the entire premise behind it is stunningly stupid.  As such, those who don’t fully understand how McConnell operates think that McConnell is toying with the Democrats and forcing them to take a position of support that is toxic to their interests…. But that’s not Mitch.  Beware.

Yes, McConnell knows the Green New Deal is toxic to the central political aspirations of the Democrats amid his chamber; and he knows many of the 2020 candidates would be forced to put-up their support, or shut-up their moonbat-wing.  However, that’s not his motive for supporting a vote.  The UniParty Mitch-move is to remove the sword of Damocles the GND represents from his UniParty alliance (both Democrats and Republicans).
McConnell absorbs all power. McConnell views himself as more powerful than all other political elements within Washington DC, including the office of the president. McConnell is the self-annointed emperor of the dark swamp forces.  To understand McConnell you have to reset traditional reference points.
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ABC conducted an extremely interesting interview with former Trump Attorney John Dowd that the media outlet will likely keep far away from their mainstream broadcast and print reporting.
The interview is exceptionally interesting because Dowd outlines how incredibly false all prior reporting has been surrounding the Mueller investigation and the background of the contacts and discussions between Trump’s legal team, Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein.
Additionally, within the interview itself, when you stand back and absorb the details of what he discusses, you can clearly see why there came a point when the Trump legal team needed to shift strategies and accept that Mueller and Rosenstein had allowed the politics of the ‘investigation’ to shape their direction. It’s quite a remarkable conversation.
The entire transcript is HERE.  I would strongly suggest listening to the podcast. I’m pulling some excerpts.
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Mark the calendars; today is an important date.  CTH has noted, repeatedly, how extremely difficult it would be for the media to walk-back over three years of false reporting on the insufferable and manufactured “Muh Russia” collusion narrative.
However, remarkably, today that process actually begins.  WATCH:

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There’s way more to this shift. WAY more. ABC News, home of the resistance insider operative George Stephanopoulos, is also starting to use an atypical process to control distribution of the let-down as they back toward the ‘muh Russia’ exits.
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A lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch has unearthed an email [full pdf below] from Clinton Lawyer David Kendall to FBI chief legal counsel James Baker on the day the FBI was forced to re-open the Clinton email investigation due to the Weiner laptop.
With the passage of time the inherent issues have become somewhat clouded, and most people have forgotten many of the inherent issues that showcased how the FBI and DOJ had decided in advance not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. However, the key takeaway from this latest FOIA finding is that Clinton lawyers directly contacted the FBI team that was investigating the Weiner laptop.  (Note: read email chain bottom to top)
[scribd id=399428924 key=key-yny559IL4sxvY3wIFNUv mode=scroll]
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The Weiner laptop emails were originally discovered by New York investigators and reported to the FBI office in Washington DC on September 28th, 2016. However, the FBI never took action to review the emails until a month later on October 28th.
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According to Rasmussen reporting President Donald Trump is at a nearly two-year high of 52 percent approval. The latest poll shows 52% approve and 47% disapprove of Trump’s job performance.

Despite the scale and scope of media opposition this approval rating is the highest since March 6, 2017 and highlights two recent aspects: (1) The popularity of policy as outlined in the recent State of the Union Address; and (2) The democrats going over-the-top in their opposition to mostly pragmatic proposals.
Additionally, both CBS [poll here] and CNN [see here] reported broad support for President Trump’s policy initiatives as polled immediately after the State of the Union speech.  [Nancy Pelosi, notsomuch]
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President Trump met with Homeland Security officials and national law enforcement earlier today prior to departing the White House for a speech in El Paso, Texas.
The president paused to discuss the issues surrounding the need for border security. Additionally, President Trump outlined the scale of criminal aliens being held in detention prior to deportation, and gave examples of some of the criminal actions as outlined by the DHS.

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The Michael Cohen testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), headed by Chairman Richard Burr and Vice-Chair Mark Warner [A Sketchy Couple], has been cancelled citing the medical condition of Mr. Cohen:

WASHINGTON – Michael Cohen has postponed his third scheduled congressional testimony, his lawyer said Monday, casting further doubt on the prospect of the former fixer for President Trump returning to Capitol Hill before reporting to prison next month.
“The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has accepted Mr. Cohen’s request for postponement of tomorrow’s hearing due to post-surgery medical needs,” his lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in a statement on Monday. Details of Cohen’s surgery were not immediately clear.

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The campaign of Amy Klobuchar is the latest in a string of 2020 presidential candidates who claim they will not take corporate PAC money for their 2020 presidential bid.
However, all of them (Klobuchar, Warren, Harris, Gillibrand et al) are fibbers, who are “grubering” ie. relying on the stupidity of the American voter. They will all take corporate donations, they will just obscure the funding therein.  [Klobuchar example from 2018]:

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That’s just a sample of the most recent Klobuchar corporate contributions, there are thousands more.
Dark Money is how most campaigns are financed [SEE HERE].  Democrats just do a better job than most of hiding it behind plausible deniability.   To be fair, there were a few candidates in 2016 who genuinely didn’t rely on corporate funding: ex. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders had the best track record of small group donations. However, for the vast majority of all other candidates, they rely on corporate funding and specifically the funding through corporate political action committees (PACs).
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