I have been musing a bit over the McCain-Graham axis and the Putin Collaboration Theme versus the Trump Administration. McCain is the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee and has a long tenure in the DC morass to accumulate opposition troops in the bureaucracy.
With the selection of McMaster for National Security Advisor it is pretty clear that Trump’s intent is to amass between Mattis, Kelly and now McMaster a phalanx of proven honor, skill and courage to offset both McCain and Graham’s expertise, especially in a Senate hearing.
(I found the following Instapundit link on McMaster to be quite illuminating
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/257917/)
So far , the media has not tried any character assassination on Kelly for the immigration moves and enforcement, they are content to let Trump be the lightning rod. I expect Mattis will get little flack for any issues with war fighting.
So a potential strategy emerges of Trump taking the heat and pushing back on the media while his staff gets change made. Almost private sector behavior. The opposite of plausible deniability.



Speak softly and carry a big stick.
I also like that Congress has had a significant number of members of the House ask that the authorization for use of force be debated anew and re-evaluated. The President has emergency powers to fight, but they are truly for emergencies. Foreign affairs, no matter what the robes think, are clearly in the bailiwick of the Administration. So some things are clearly available to the President. But overall use of force for extended periods is war making and should be the purview of the Congress.
Good analysis TKC1101.
Imagine this hitting the member feed over at center right. It would have 100 comments and 25% of the folks on it temporarily suspended or somesuchshit.
It was posts like this that endeared me to their black little hearts, the enforcers of the True Conservative Way.
Damn, that is my music to my ears!
Trump carries a big stick but does not speak softly. This is not the time for soft speech; we had quite enough of that.
Would this post have caused great tumult on Ricochet? Seems quite tame and noncontroversial to me. Shows how out of touch I must be.
And in case there’s still a single person on earth who hasn’t heard this (since nobody can shut me up about it), HR McMaster is a cousin of mine. McMaster is my mom’s maiden name and my daughter’s middle name.
We expect top secret leaks now, RA. Only the best stuff.
You never cease to surprise me, RAngles.
I try I mean I tly.
Raughing.
Okay!
@drlorentz: I disagree; it shows how very normal you are.
Ricochet was in a tumult over me and I am the most truly “establishment” and pragmatic capitalist that ever walked this planet.
What truly annoys me other than my tax bills and the increase in my healthcare premiums over the past 8 years is that I am considered by many in the GOP as “radical.”
Huh??? All I do is pay my taxes, take care of my property and invest in the companies that have made this country prosperous.
At the risk of using patois of which I do not approve, “My bad.”
We are bad to the bone.
McCranky and Lindsey, the androgynous butt boy remind me of Clarice and Cora, the aspy twins in the first Gormenghast novel. They are pathologically self-absorbed, utterly abstracted from anything resembling reality and monomaniacal in their pursuits. The twins wanted power in their simple minded way, and the two mad bombers of the Senate want … well, I’m not sure what they want exactly, other than that their preferred means of achieving it is a liberal application of high-explosives delivered by the U.S. Air Force.
“McCranky” haha. I hate him for badmouthing the country while abroad. Such bad form.
It’s depressing that these malignant clowns keep getting re-elected. I say this as someone who lives in the state that sent the twin banshees from left-wing hell, DiFi and Kamala the Vampiress, to DC. But you kind of expect Mordor to be represented by the Gorgon sisters, I’d hoped for better from the voters in AZ and SC. [Hi RA, nice to see you over here. Lends a little class to the place, and God knows Ten Pennies could use the adult supervision.]
Vald, don’t say that to RA. She thinks this is the R place. You know she is blond, right? I have been trying to convince her this is R 4.0.