I trust the Pentagon warned Israel not to launch cruise missiles from their submarines close to US surface fleet units.

For 8 years Sergei Skripal lived in England in the open while his daughter lived in the open in Russia. Bolton finally enters stage right and we get "the most horrific attack on the UK public since the Nazis" according to the borg. A few days ago I commented elsewhere that "if" the Skripals had been poisoned their bodies would contain the metabolites indicative of the poison and thus Yulia would never be permitted to return to Russia. Today we find both are to be disappeared by the CIA. At their own request? of course not.

The civil construction companies and their lobbyists are not going to accept losing the lucrative government contracts for building the Wall. Universal National Service. "An extension of the family." "You have a bigger family than you imagined" Why not? What we have now is not working.

There is one component that is missing from the analysis of Trump, his obsession with damaging himself publicly. It is the equivalent of a teenage girl cutting herself. Just 2 instances. His claim of best inauguration day crowd number and his speech to the CIA the day after inauguration. Both were totally avoidable, but were self made tragedies.

Objectivism does seem to be identical to selfishness and so is antithetical to the armed forces. The costs involved in "teaching" selfishlessness appear to be extremely high but the costs of not doing so are incalculable.

Colonel, isn't the presence of Kurds in Turkey a serious impediment to any rapprochement between Assad and the Kurds? Would Turkey hand back Afrin and northern Syrian lands if the question of Kurdish rebellion in Turkey remains unsettled. Would the Syrian Kurds cut off their brethren in Turkey to please Assad?

I suggest that the community get busy and post this information and links to as many comment pages in the MSM pages as possible. Time to fight for the Republic.

If the Russians succeed in tying America to the Kurds then America will have to kill Turks forcing Erdogan to leave NATO. Russian control over the Bosphorus would be a prize of immense strategic value.

What would be the Pentagon's response if only 10% of the next Tomahawk strike reach their target? 2017 success rate appears to have been 50%.

"some time to make statements that might mitigate his dilemma"? Are we talking about raising children here? Sessions has been possibly the worst appointment Trump has made. You don't pick a boy to be squad leader and Sessions has failed Trump and the country since day 1. Fear/threats are extremely bad motivators and work only when the desired action_response is understood, i.e. the desired goal does not change tweet by tweet. A key point is that fear/threats inevitably trigger a negative backlash in all team members, not just the target.

McCabe is brutally fired a day short of his 20 years, Sessions is humiliated on a daily basis, Tillerson was shafted everytime he went overseas trying to fix Trump's mistakes. Now, how many in the Trump administration and in government are going to 'work for the president' as opposed to 'working for themselves'. Fear is not the tool of the effective manager.

Trump seems unable to manage and keep a team of people of exceptional ability because he fears a cabal forming that will 'capture' him and steal his glory? Hannity and Bolton are definitely his type of sycophants, distrusted by the establishment and desperate for power.

For turcopolier. Given the ascension of the "war with Iran will be fun" clowns, is it possible for Trump to order a stupid war? I assume that the Pentagon has a number of plans for Iran running the gamut from a bloody nose to armageddon. Is it possible for Trump to reject all existing plans and order a completely nonsensical attack that the Pentagon would comply with? How much constraint does the system provide?

You are judged by your statements "rotflmdo... your argument looks more like self serving crapo" Hopefully this a community of correspondence not invective. Build a plant inside America and you are subject to American taxes. Build the same plant overseas and the lawyers will find 15 ways to hide the income and achieve a tax of 4% or lower. Why are taxes so high? Because income has not increased for most people and the social costs have only increased. No jobs, no pay, more welfare, higher taxes. I see conservatives self-excusing themselves by claiming red-tape and regulation for outsourcing and exporting factories as equivalent to people throwing trash onto the highway and excusing themselves by saving that "it was just a small piece of trash and the highway is so large." Once the American economic inequality was moderate, the middle-lower class had money to spend. The steady increase in inequality and the loss of economic strength has reached the point that we can no longer speed down the highway but are forced to slowly maneuver around the detritus of companies who decided that America was not worth the effort.

"There are plenty of enterprises around doing well and turning an honest penny. But too much niche or fringe, I'd guess, seldom that brilliant a prospect for the money and effort put into them, and nowhere near enough of them. " Traditionally the president used his bully pulpit to honor the personally productive and publicise the worthy. Compliance costs indicate a failure of common sense. If compliance mechanisms become pervasive and obligatory it means that the citizens are deficit in "common sense". Of course, Wall Street has enough money to buy their freedom from compliance.

"have a corresponding duty to share with us how they will reduce our massive trade deficit with the rest of the world. " See my #10. We need capitalists/managers who do not come from the insular world of the Long Island rich. People from small villages who are able to work smarter for the country. We already have far too many globalists in power.

For blueP #7 "Trump wants to re-shore the US industrial base" Believe that this is will be impossible to achieve with the current crop of capitalists/managers. They believe that that any returns less that 20-30% per annum are unacceptable. They refuse to work hard. If they were simple workers you would fire them and hire people who were more motivated, i.e. more hungry. Trump is push on string here. Hillary likes the idea of paying companies/managers government supplements to work harder and keep jobs in America. Simply put, we don't have the money. Invest in community universities and greatly increase the number and quality of potential managers. Greater supply of managers = lower salaries and far stronger competition. Restricting competition is not the solution.

The problem is that our managers have become lazy and incompetent. The free market solution is strong competition for management positions. The traditional American strength was excellence in public universities, which allowed people of any economic background to demonstrate excellence and become managers. The elite have destroyed this competition and thus the vitality of the country. Trump's tariffs will only hasten the destruction as they fail to address the real reason for our trade imbalance.

For PT. With all respect, suggest you read Richard Sale, internalize, and then give us the facts and only the facts.

To PT: still no collaboration.

Y2000, Trump runs as a presidential candidate for the Reform Party. Gets 15,000 votes in California's primary. March 2011, Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll has Trump leading all presidential contenders, even Mitt Romney. Now that is an amazing step-up in recognition. April 2011, More research polls show Trump as the top Republican presidential candidate, Trump turns birther and dumps on President Obama. 2012, Trump endorses Mitt Romney. So, there are plenty of indicators that Trump would be inclined to run for President. Check the Russian connections here as if you were a Russian operative. http://billmoyers.com/story/trump-russia-timeline/ The basics are already in place, and, for the Russians, ensuring Hawk Hillary lost to "businessman" Trump is a no-brainer. The commercial Russians would be desperate to prevent US-Russian war in Syria a'la Hillary Clinton, as their investments and basic fortunes would be placed at risk. Judging from some of the comments the level of partisanship here inside SST is basically the same as outside.

Just to better position the discussion. Exactly how large was Trump's margin of winning? Some 60,000 total in 3 states? What was the dominant characteristic of Hillary's loss? Lackluster turnout by Democrats that did vote for Obama but not for Hillary.

Sid, re your post 65. I beg to differ. My recollection was that the intel agencies fought hard to keep all qualifications and caveats in all NIEs. Basically, they tried to say, "this WMD claim is unproven and dubious." Blame Dick Cheney and his stovepipe operation for WMD fiasco. Basically he ensured that crap was passed off as truth.

Please read your own link. It delineates the constraints placed upon lawyers engaged in pending cases. The matter being discussed has already been settled. The FISA accepted the submission and all 3 reapplications. Gowdy is not a lawyer representing a plaintiff currently before a judge. There is however one reason and that is the possibility of Gowdy being selected by Trump as a Special Prosecutor to investigate the whole FISA matter. Gowdy may believe that flat out statements of illegality would taint his "independence". But that is a joke. Gowdy was part of the House Intel Committee that has already issued a supposedly definitive opinion as the legality. Gowdy has no independence. He does, however, have personal ethics. Given the unusual arrangement of the FISA apparatus Gowdy may believe that a definitive statement of illegality is impossible to make. But, to cut to the chase. Do you believe that Steele lied when writing the memos?

Graham and Grassley "Thus, the FISA applications are either materially false in claiming that Mr. Steele said he did not provide dossier information to the press prior to Oct. 2016 or Mr. Steele made materially false statement to the FBI when he claimed he only provided the dossier info to his business partner and the FBI.” As Isikoff writes in Yahoo, September 24 2016 "The activities of Trump adviser Carter Page, who has extensive business interests in Russia, have been discussed with senior members of Congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential election, the sources said. " It should be clear that several if not many people in Washington were privy to the Page meeting Russians. I note also that, as far as I can see, there is nothing in the Isikoff article that is unambiguously attributable to the Steele memos. Maybe the experts can find a clear indicator. Page himself is headlined in a Reuters article July 8 2016 (referenced by Isikoff) after he gave a pro-Russian lecture to students at the New Economic School in Moscow. The article titled "Trump adviser, on Moscow visit, dodges questions about U.S. policy on Russia" says "Page declined to say whether he was planning to meet anyone from the Kremlin, the Russian government or Foreign Ministry during his visit."