Call it a Shame of Thrones or a Game of Showns, but Mueller has shown his game to his own shame. By waiting as long as he has, Trump possesses the “political currency” to order the DOJ to investigate the Obama FBI. He couldn’t have done that a year ago. But, by letting Mueller “mull” on, as it were, the Russianewsgategate “thing” has irritated everyone, even the Anti-Trumpists, for its lack of results, yet continued pursuit in what looks more and more like a ghost chase every day—now every hour.
Roger Stone says Trump might not run in the next term—if he gets his [twelve years worth of] work done in only four. With Democrats requiring 84 days to approve each of 300 Trump appointees, it’s unlikely Trump will finish in four years, as Stone’s hypothetical went. Michael Jordan said the same thing about himself year after year, that he might not play the following season—encouraging his opponents to get lazy. It’s a ruse Trump opponents would be foolish to buy into. If the Democrats really wanted Trump to not run again, they would approve all his Senate appointees and build his wall in one vote. Then, it would be difficult for Trump to argue any need to stay, even with such “huge” results.
The Senate’s vote on net neutrality is a necessary step. Internet needs some kind of regulation, even if to say that it needs no regulation, even if to protect it from anti-Capitalist corptocrats who donate to “Blue Dog Republicans”. If Facebook and Google want to provide faster Internet then they can become their own Internet service providers. If Verizon wants to say which big, fat companies can “pay for lane” in the website rat race, then Verizon should provide that Internet service free of charge. But, as long as customers pay, those customers should get to decide the lanes. This is not to be decided by Verizon, AT&T, Facebook, Google, Apple, and other big, fat companies that have more money than many governments of the world. Capitalism does not infer that private companies should overrule human rights.
Disassembling nuke sites prior to meeting Trump may seem like a “save of face” for Kim Jong-Un, but it’s actually a statement of Trump’s influence. If Trump wasn’t an influence, then Kim wouldn’t be doing what Trump has been demanding for a long time. No doubt, North Korea and its pro-Communist supporters in the Liberal media will twist this into “Trump not making a difference” from Trump getting what he wanted even before a meeting.
The comparison from history would be a feudal lord quickly accomplishing everything his king asked before his next royal visit. To say the king didn’t make a difference would be just plain ignorant. We should expect as much.
But, Trump wants it that way. The more Trump has his name on the Korean reunification, the more China’s desperate thirst for “respect” will sting. China wants everything to look like everything everywhere was China’s idea, or else throw a temper tantrum. Trump’s low-key silence will deny the “fight fix” and the semi-centennial tantrum will have to wait a little longer.
Trump rescinding the so-called “Iran deal” will improve his position with other nations, North Korea only being one of them. Actually, it wasn’t a “deal” because Iran never signed anything.
Any “reputation” lost would be on Iran’s side for entering into a “deal” that even they didn’t commit to. Now the non-committal “deal” is off. Iran shouldn’t have expected anything. Now, at the bargaining table, Trump will be in a better position because nations know that he will actually follow through and only make deals that are real and binding.
This goes back to Obama’s great failure of his own base: He didn’t make laws that would last, he only made policies that depend on him being president in order to last, in this he exploited his voters by giving them high hopes and letting them get angry—the whole time Obama never told his own supporters the truth that everything he accomplished after Obamacare was designed to be blown away with the wind.
Iranians weren’t the only party with “gullible” written their foreheads; Obama voters were too, and Obama conned all of them.
The disturbing thing about the Iran “deal” is the reaction. Russia is very protective of that “deal”. That should be enough to call the “deal” off—and to prove that there was no substance in the Russianewsgategate “collusion” myth. But, where are all the stories in the press about how the “deal” was bad for the US? Having given $1.7B in cash to Iran should at least receive mention from a supposed “non-biased” media.
This was week of talk. A delegation from Washington went to talk with China. Trump talked about talking nice while talking. Economic talking heads are talking about the talks and everybody’s talking about it. Once the delegation that went to Beijing to talk gets back, they will talk with Trump. Warren Buffet even had some things to talk about.
Trump’s delegation to Beijing was indeed an olive branch. It spelled out “the line” in the sand, toured it, explained, it, discussed it, explored it, and made that line very, very clear. To quote Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox, “Mr. Wayne didn’t want you to think that he was deliberately wasting your time.” But, the line is not the least bit likely to be respected.
China will ignore everything the US delegation explained and forewarned, but they will never be surprised when Trump does exactly what the delegation said he would, though they may act like it. More importantly, the list of expectations shows how well Trump knows China and Chinese methods of doing “business”.
Words like “retaliate” and “oppose” often surface with disfavor, as well as the US clearly being wise to the tactic of unofficially using backdoor channels to unofficially impose other restrictions to get what one wants. And, the US maintains its position on the “301” trade notice that China is non-market economy, specifically that China is to drop the matter completely and withdraw its appeals on the matter with the WTO.
There is no wiggle room in the US demands and those demands strongly demonstrate that Trump knows exactly the kinds of things Chins is likely to do. In essence the list of demands forbids exactly what China is most likely to do in the near future.
By contrast, China’s demands are mainly that the US back off on its recent action; that’s all. Consider the argument going around from pro-China stories about the trade “imbalance”—especially that US’s service and consulting help to narrow the “trade deficit”. The list of Chinese demands don’t account for this or ask that they be calculated in the “trade deficit”.
The mere demands, in themselves, tell us that China does not know what is about to happen in Washington and that Trump knows all to well—probably better than any of his advisers in the White House—what will happen in Beijing. China is in great danger.
Surprises are coming, somewhere. That’s how history always plays out. No war ends without the unexpected and there’s always a joker or two hiding in the deck. The surprises will likely include special and disputed territories, such as Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, as well as international public opinion and some sector of trade or international protocol not yet considered or discussed by anyone—they will surprise everyone. That “surprise sector” could include ocean boundaries or specific products often traded. It could also be an act of God, such as an earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami. But, we have no idea except that any intermediate history student should anticipate at least two surprises before the current cloud passes in the greater storm.
China looks at the US the way the poor working class looked at the aristocracy in Russia. Beijing thinks they are demanding “what is their right”. Remember, this is akin to “Opium War III”, started by a trade imbalance. China demands that the money and “tax payable by way of free technology” continue to flow net into China; the US demands things like “equal” and “fair” in the flow. That is rhetoric from the Opium War prelude. If that war resurfaces, the “English” speaking country won’t be Britain, though Britain still has a dog in the fight: Hong Kong is not to be changed for fifty years, yet this week Hong Kong military youth groups—comparable to Boy Scouts—rejected Chinese requests that they march according to PLA marching steps—meaning that China tried to make a change and Hong Kong could become a target for punitive action from China. Hence, Hong Kong is “fair play” in everyone’s opinion, including public opinion about everyone in the game.
If China had any kind of conflict with the West—whether militarily or over trade—the conclusion could require complete surrender of Hong Kong back to British rule—and Hong Kongers wouldn’t mind.
In the territorial disputes, Taiwan declaring independence would certainly rock the boat. Research says Taiwanese overwhelmingly view China as unfriendly. So, Taiwanese certainly wouldn’t mind making their contribution to making a few waves.
China is already on the bench with the Korean issue. Pyongyang just updated the North clocks to no longer be thirty minutes off, but back in time with the South. Where’s China?—exchanging trade demands with the country whose trade blockade preceded the Korean talks.
In all this, Warren Buffet’s advice is that China is a good place for the West to invest. We’ll see.
The leaked questions Mueller would ask Trump should raise eyebrows about how deep the Russianewsgategate theatrics go. Contrary to propaganda, the grammatical errors don’t indicate that the list came from Trump because Trump uses very accurate grammar. For example, when most people would say, “They did bad,” Trump often says this correctly, “They did badly.” Interestingly, the “bad grammar” notion about Trump is a pop culture superstition stirred by the press among people who actually do have bad grammar. This coupled with the “bad grammar” argument coming from Mueller’s side of this lynch attempt indicates that the same people promoting the “bad grammar” view of Trump could also likely be behind this framing. Moreover, a “bad grammar” list makes the list more likely authentic, as if it is a collection of small notes of incomplete sentences that an interviewer would refer to when asking the real questions, of course with correct grammar.
Trump’s nonchalant disappointment in the Russianewsgategate investigation indicates that Trump has turned this into a war of legs rather than a war of arms; he intends to let it drag on until it loses all steam and the nation is tired of it—both his supporters tired from the pettiness and his opponents tired from results not delivered.
The Leftist arm of the mass media is certainly helping Trump. The most recent fake news about Cohen’s phone having been tapped—reported by NBC, reiterated by CNBC—is just the latest example. It’s almost as if they are trying to give Trump easy excuses to discredit them.
Another strange aspect of the Russianewsgategate “collusion” myth is the gross contradiction: With all the love and adoration that the Leftist arm of the media has held for Russia, with the Clintons having warm relations with Russia, the same media should be glad if they believe that Trump is working with their Russian role models of economics and leadership. But, they aren’t happy about the prospect of Trump cooperating with Russia because they don’t believe it’s true. This is just a ruse to connect Trump to the Hollywood myth of the “usual RAVs”—”Russians, Arabs, and Villans”. They were hoping that the American public would buy it.
Or were they? If we interpret the actions of the Leftist arm of the media, it seems they throw one slow ball after another so Trump can keep whacking it out of the park. Anti-Trumpists have no reason to be pleased with the Anti-Trump effort from the Leftists media sources they occasionally watch. It looks more and more like the Symphony opinion was right: 2018 could see an uptick in Republican victories—not that the Republican establishment can be trusted, but that times are certainly changing, something uncreative leaders in entrenched establishments loath.
Immigration is at the top of everything—news, speeches, law enforcement…
Building contractors hoping to get the contract for the Trump wall should be very pleased with this caravan of immigrants just arriving at the border, as should the Republican Party. With the failing Russianewsgategate investigation from Mueller, this immigrant caravan has almost guaranteed a contrary-to-the-norm Republican pickup in the 2018 election. Trump even knows that he can threaten to shut down the government to build the wall just before an election.
The interesting part of this caravan—as well as other illegal immigrant crackdown new stories—is that the caravan may actually believe that their journey will have the reverse affect that it’s having. And, the news media also seems to think that reporting on illegal immigration crackdowns will make the public think that immigration is less of a problem. Perhaps the media and the marchers live in the same world. It makes sense since experience in one subculture can cause the reality of another subculture to become counterintuitive.
