Mainstream analysis has been wrong for so long, why start believing it now?
SLL has run a series of articles (“Plot Holes,” “Trump and Vault 7,” “Calling a Bluff?” “Let’s Connect the Dots,” “Powerball, Part One,” “Powerball, Part Two”) advancing interrelated hypotheses. We’ve asserted that President Trump is far smarter and the powers that be far stupider and weaker than current consensus estimates. Trump’s primary motivation is power. The nonstop vilification campaign against him has little to do with policy differences and instead reflects establishment fears that Trump will investigate, expose, and punish its criminality. The upshot of these hypotheses: Trump is winning and has consolidated his power.
Reader reaction to this non-mainstream and admittedly speculative line of thinking has been mixed and often skeptical. However, we’ll press on, because our hypotheses have yielded testable predictions, most of which have been borne out. From “Powerball, Part Two”:
To answer a question posed in Part One: if Trump has consolidated power both at home and abroad, don’t hold your breath waiting for a swamp draining. The most effective power is often power of which only a few know. Those he has by the short hairs would be most helpful to him—sub rosa—if they’re still in government. If such is the case, don’t be surprised if the Russia probe fades away, Trump’s nominal opposition consigns itself to rote denunciation, the Deep State sits still for his Middle Eastern policy changes, and he gets more of his agenda through than anyone expects.
Even the Washington Post has admitted the Russia probe is “crumbling.” Trump and Sessions know Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller won’t find much because there’s nothing there, although there may be a sacrificial offering or two to propitiate the investigatory gods. Trump read Sessions the riot act via Twitter and a Wall Street Journal interview about not investigating Hillary Clinton, intelligence community leaks to the press, and Ukrainian efforts to sabotage his presidential campaign. He’s been roundly condemned for publicly criticizing Sessions, but here’s a speculative leap: perhaps publicly criticizing Sessions was not really what Trump was doing.
Perhaps Trump was giving his attorney general political cover to pursue investigations against high-profile Democrats who cannot help Trump, sub rosa or otherwise. Investigations of Hillary Clinton, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Fusion GPS, and Debbie Wasserman Schultz would demoralize the Democrats, preoccupy and harass key players, expose criminality, and electrify Trump’s base. Providing Sessions further cover, twenty Republican representatives have sent a letter to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein demanding the appointment of a second Special Counsel to look into potentially illegal acts by Clinton, Lynch, and former FBI director James Comey.
After recusing himself from the Russiagate investigation, which he knows is pointless, and being “scolded” by Trump, Sessions is now a sympathetic, squeaky-clean figure; even Democrats have expressed support. He has far more latitude to pursue the investigations his boss wants him to pursue. Most of the ensuing criticism will be directed at Trump, which will bother Trump not at all (although there will undoubtedly be answering Twitter blasts).
Trump has quietly (when Trump does anything quietly, take note) made two sea changes in US policy in Syria. At the G20 summit, he negotiated a cease fire with Vladimir Putin for southwest Syria. Last week he ended a CIA program that armed Syrian jihadists fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Both changes are anathema to the US Deep State, the mainstream media, and US allies Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Israel, and Turkey, yet other than “rote denunciation,” they have been surprisingly docile. The latter change could presage abandonment of a pillar of US foreign and military policy since President Carter supplied arms and other aid to the mujahideen in Afghanistan during their successful fight against the Soviet Union. The US may be out of the business of arming Islamic insurgents against regimes it seeks to change.
Deft—by this analysis—as Trump has been, his biggest challenge lies ahead. The government is bankrupt, and demographics will push it ever-deeper in the hole. The global economy is struggling under monstrous and unsupportable debt. Fiat money something-for-nothing has a sell-by date, sooner or later the stock market and economy will head south. Historically, there’s been a tight correlation between stocks, the economy, and presidential popularity.
Can Trump dodge this bullet? Here’s another speculative leap: he is already laying the groundwork. He’s claiming credit for the stock market’s rally since he was elected. That may not be as foolish as it seems. When the market and economy falter, he will claim they went up on hopes for his program, and will blame Congress and the Federal Reserve for dashing those hopes.
Most people blame the Republican-controlled Congress, not Trump, for the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare. Trump proposes, but Congress disposes and Trump has made sure everyone knows that Congress is responsible. In the same vein, he signed the veto-proof Russian sanctions bill while at the same time excoriating Congress for passing it. He has an easier job making his case than a President whose party controls Congress normally would. Trump is a Republican in name only and ran just as hard against the Republican establishment as he did against Hillary Clinton.
Look for him to lambast Congress when it botches tax reform and the debt ceiling. He could be hoping for such miscues. Debt ceiling contretemps may set off financial market conniptions. Trump will sigh and tweet: If only Congress had passed my health care and tax reforms and given me a clean debt ceiling increase, none of this would have happened. If the Federal Reserve continues to raise its federal funds target rate and shrinks its balance sheet, he’ll include Janet Yellen in his tweets.
These hypotheses yield testable predictions. Mueller’s investigation will come a cropper, but investigations of high-profile and no sub rosa value leakers and Democrats—up to and perhaps including Hillary Clinton—will lead to indictments and either plea bargained settlements or convictions. Trump will take credit for the stock market until it reverses. He will continue to harshly criticize Congressional failures and blame them when financial markets and the economy head south. This may come to a head if Congress fails to pass a clean debt ceiling increase by the end of September. Trump will also point his finger at the Federal Reserve. This is a high risk strategy, given the longstanding psychological linkage between presidential popularity, the strength of the economy, and stock market indices. It’s probably the only strategy available to Trump. Time will tell if it works.
The war in Syria has crested; ISIS, though still capable of substantial mischief, has lost. The refugee flow has already reversed, an estimated half a million refugees have returned, which, as noted in “Powerball, Part Two,” gives European leaders some breathing room. Assad will stay in power unless Russia, not the US, sees fit to remove him. The embers of conflict will smolder for years, but Trump will not be fanning them by arming anti-Assad groups or escalating US military involvement. He will continue to use shows of force and diplomatic maneuvers to try to resolve other hot spots—North Korea, Iran, the South China Sea, Ukraine, Afghanistan—and will shy away from exclusively military solutions. He is deeply displeased with the war in Afghanistan and is calling for a rethink that may ultimately lead to withdrawal.
All this is speculative, but it continues a line of analysis whose predictions have been for the most part confirmed. However, borrowing from the ubiquitous financial disclaimer: past performance is no guarantee of future accuracy.
YOUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL READ THIS BOOK
STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC 
Quite interesting!
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Reblogged this on Starvin Larry.
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I will be re-reading this and all the links throughout the day as some of these multi-level chess moves have crossed my mind…others are hoped for…others still are a blinding flash of the until now unconsidered or realized…while others will need time to be Muellered over considering the force, time, space, and pawn structure possibilities.
Secessions of the game are afoot! ..Moves being sent in and or tweeted to the gallery from the underestimated Orange Master?
Robert, masterful snap shot of the chess board levels and chess principles in play.
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Thank you.
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Very powerful, original, integrative thinking worthy of being saved to see how many of the thought bullets hit the bullseye.
You seem to have solved the intelligence vs. wisdom dilemma on this issue as per Jordan Peterson.
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/08/06/wisdom-vs-intellect/
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Thank you.
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“Winning” strikes me as a bit of a stretch – presently, at least – but I think your analysis makes a strong case for ‘not losing’, which, per the adage: Insurgencies win by not losing may be good enough.
when Trump does anything quietly, take note
Heh. I’ll definitely be keeping this one in mind.
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If nothing else, Trump offers more mental stimulation than crossword puzzles.
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since i was banned by ncrenegade – lets see if i can post here??
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since i was banned by ncrenegade – lets see if i can post here??
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Why Repeal if We are Going to Replace?
The Constitution does not grant the federal government any authority to meddle in our health care, so it wouldn’t matter even if the Republican replacement plan were a good one.
In 2014, Gruber candidly declared that the legislation was written in a way that was designed to deceive the American people and to exploit “the stupidity of the American voter.”Let me ask the simple questions: do you believe that government is a truth-teller?
Do you believe that government intervention in a marketplace makes the market more efficient and just?
Do you believe that government is the solution to our economic problems?
If you do, then maybe Jonathan Gruber is right. Maybe you need someone like him, or your favorite political party, to lie to you for your own good.
The operative clauses to look up here are Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment. It will only take you about six minutes to read and understand that any replacement of Obamacare is more than just a Republican betrayal for American health care; it is a dangerous and tyrannical trespass into American homes and lives.
Make no mistake, repealing Obamacare is the Congress’s duty, and to replace it is the action of tyrants.
http://freedomoutpost.com/why-repeal-if-we-are-going-to-replace/
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Tyranny comes on little cat feet,
It doesn’t announce itself, it’s very discreet,
It sits looking over harbor and city,
There are those who thinks it’s pretty,
But once ingrained, liberty is gone,
On silent haunches it sits,~~~then moves on.
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Americans Oblivious To The Approaching Storm..
America is bankrupt. Congress is impotent. The courts are a stacked deck. The borders are more than porous. Civic violence and crime are increasing. Terrorists will continue to attack us. Our schools and colleges are indoctrination centers and the people are losing their honor, integrity and morality in exchange for drugs, pleasure and entertainment.
The grief being dumped on rural landowners is coming from the top down. It comes out of a spineless U. S. Congress that daily violates their oath of office to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. It comes from wealthy environmental groups. It comes from Europe and the United Nations with their fully expressed goal to take the land away from private citizens in America. It is formal UN policy that: “Private land ownership is a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice…. Public ownership of land and public control of land use is therefore indispensable.”
National and international injustices are further extended into state and then local governments, as it filters down from the UN, the President (Executive Orders) and the Congress that pass “green” legislation that fully violates the Constitution, if not putting at risk our very liberty.
The hard truth is, that if those of us who are fighting are left to our own resources to take on the almighty government, we will eventually be crushed.
https://newswithviews.com/americans-oblivious-to-the-approaching-storm/
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The Foolishness of Pursuing Regime Change in Iran..
Regime change in Libya didn’t go so well, either. Because it was hard to imagine that anything could be worse than the vicious rule of Moammar Gadhafi, President Barack Obama saw no downside in using air power to bring him down. But success was fleeting. Soon, Libya was embroiled in anarchy and overrun by the Islamic State, with repercussions far beyond its shores.
“The instability in Libya and North Africa may be the most significant near-term threat to U.S. and allies’ interests on the continent,” Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of the U.S. Africa Command, said in March. A half-million of the refugees flooding Europe came from Libya. So did Salman Abedi, who killed 22 people in a suicide bombing in Manchester, England, last month.
Relying on any means short of war to overthrow the government has little chance of working. Military force might be more effective, but it would mean full-scale war in Iran. Even if we were to win, the outcome would most likely yield more chaos, conflict and terrorism.
http://reason.com/archives/2017/06/29/foolishness-of-iranian-regime-change
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That was the plan from the beginning . . . . how else can you get a QUICK LEGAL, Muslim MIGRATION into the West.
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Reblogged this on The way I see things … and commented:
Caution – truth lies within
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“Trump read Sessions the riot act via Twitter and a Wall Street Journal interview about not investigating Hillary Clinton….”
That was after inviting her to his wedding, saying she’s doing a good job as Secretary of State, and even after being elected saying that he doesn’t want to hurt the Clintons because they’re good people.
(30 second video from 60 Minutes)
Kayfabe, baby. Totally kayfabe. Fake as pro wrestling. “Lock her up!” at Trump rallies was as fake as McConnell running for reelection in 2014 on ripping out Obamacare root and branch at the same time he’s voting with Harry Reid to support Obamacare and targeting the TEA Party that was pushing hard for a full repeal of Obamacare, which to me sounds a lot like ripping it out root and branch.
It was good to read in the above blog post that Trump seems to be reversing the worst of the dangerous Deep State foreign policy folly in the Middle East, but who knows what is really going on when we can only see the perverse fun house mirror distorted images of American politics presented for public consumption.
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The boss takes the Heat. The O-3’s, E-5’s and E-4’s do the work. Thus it is, thus it has always been.
Actually working for a boss like this is a very unique experience. You can get a shitload done.
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Reblogged this on The zombie apocalypse survival homestead and commented:
What there is that can be won, anyway.
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I’ll be totally convinced if he ends the drug war. It was his policy 27 years ago and is Sessions favorite.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/company-744807-trump-joke.html
Say. Maybe the message to Sessions was something else. Sessions is only going after people who have violated the laws in in the respective States. Hmmmm.
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I noted he ended the war in Syria back in April. The lever he used was the Israel – Europe gas pipeline.
http://classicalvalues.com/2017/06/its-a-gas/
All the interested parties will get to use some of that capacity including Israel.
The Turkish energy minister has visited Israel to discuss Israel sending gas to Turkey.
http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2017/07/13/turkish-energy-minister-visit-israel-pipeline-deal/
Saudi Arabia has openly decided against support for the terrorists. It will take a while but the ME wars in that area will be coming to an end. What is going on now is just jockeying for final position.
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My comment on the drug war didn’t show up.
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Trey Gowdy Votes To Appoint A Second Special Counsel To Investigate James Comey And Hillary Clinton
Growing Calls to INVESTIGATE HILLARY’S and OBAMA’S SCANDALS
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The last shall be first and the uninvestigated shall be investigated.
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