After spending 72 hours looking specifically at the motives of those pushing almost identical paragraphs including the catchphrases: “holdovers”, “purging loyalists“, “unfettered access” and “Caroline Glick“; it comes as no surprise to hear the administration perceives the anti-McMasters crowd as having “jumped the shark”… “reached too far”, and “exposed their agenda” etc.

Ironically HR McMaster appears to be safer than ever in his position as National Security Adviser not specifically because of anything he has done, but as an actual outcome of the piranha approach taken by his detractors. The severity of his opposition’s group-think actually exposed the common denominator.

“General McMaster and I are working very well together. He is a good man and very pro–Israel. I am grateful for the work he continues to do serving our country.” ~ President Donald Trump, August 4th, 2017

HR McMaster might not get the Afghanistan policy outcome he prefers, but his position as NSA appears safe; and we won’t have to go to war against Iran to appease his opposition. This looks like a genuine win/win/win. Bannon wins on Afghanistan policy; McMaster wins on Iran policy; America-First wins because we’re not going into another war in either Iran or North Korea. Perfect.

WASHINGTON […] John Kelly, Trump’s new chief of staff, has told McMaster he supports him remaining as national security adviser, Politico reported, citing two unnamed senior White House aides.

After Kelly started Monday, McMaster ousted Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council, and the latest ally of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to be dismissed from the White House. (read more)

Also, the President weighed in directly in response to an inquiry from the New York Times:

President Trump defended Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, his embattled national security adviser, on Friday in the face of a full-bore campaign by the nationalist wing of his political coalition accusing him of undermining the president’s agenda and calling for his dismissal. General McMaster has angered the political right by pushing out several conservatives on the national security staff and cautioning against ripping up the nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by President Barack Obama without a strategy for what comes next. His future has been in doubt amid speculation that Mr. Trump might send him to Afghanistan. But after two days of unrelenting attacks on General McMaster by conservative activists and news sites, complete with the Twitter hashtag #FireMcMaster, the president weighed in to quash such talk. “General McMaster and I are working very well together,” he said in a statement emailed to The New York Times. “He is a good man and very pro–Israel. I am grateful for the work he continues to do serving our country.” A senior White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the president’s views, added that Mr. Trump has “total confidence” in his national security adviser. (read more)

China and North Korea policy working smoothly. Economic Diplomacy – No war.

ISIS is on their heels and the Freedom Alliance is strong against Qatar. Diplomacy – Less War.

Syria slowly working down, Russia going along; Iraq stabilizing and Afghanistan likely following Erik Prince approach. All equals lessening War.

Now we just have to figure out how to pay for it all.

Enter Steven Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross and Robert Lighthizer…

[…] The Deep State, Political Establishment, whatever-you-want-to-call-them, have since the moment President Trump started getting his staff and cabinet picks into place, been systematically attacking each and every one of them. From Flynn to Sessions to Bannon to even his own sons and daughter.

They leak from “anonymous sources” to the media complex, who then print it. A narrative is setup…not necessarily that said member of Trump’s team is bad or anything, but that said person is really “a swamp rat”. Various “pro-Trump” denizens of social media and regular media, from bloggers to Fox News to radio hosts to YouTube personalities to prolific Tweeters push this narrative endlessly, inviting Trump supporters to get on board with the latest member of Trump’s team to get outraged about.

All without any actual proof of course. Proof, evidence, is one thing. But rumors are better. Conjecture is more appealing. OMG Trump is surrounded by enemies in his midst and if we don’t cry out about it, he’ll never know!

This is the Establishment’s game. They want us to not trust in Trump. They want us to be suspicious of anyone in his circle. They want us to eat our own because they cannot defeat us directly. We’re too strong for that, so they want us to defeat ourselves.

It reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”. Look it up, it’s a good episode. A happy neighborhood is suddenly tossed into a situation of suspicion and utter chaos as a result of a power outage and some rumors from a comic book. They turn on each other, neighbor on neighbor, believing each other are an enemy. That each other are aliens in fact.

During all of this, the real aliens are watching in their spaceship in awe of how easily these people can be turned against each other using a simple thing like messing with their electricity.

Science fiction to be sure, but the psychology of it is very real indeed. And Trump’s enemies are using it against us.

Every time I see someone railing against Sessions, I hear the Deep State talking. Every time I see someone talking about McMaster being some swamp dweller, that’s the Deep State talking. That’s CNN and the WaPo, and yes, even Fox News talking.

They want to isolate Trump. They want to put him on an island. They want to tear down any kind of team he can put together, so that he is powerless to do anything. And they can’t force that themselves. No, they need us to do it for them. They need us to demand his people are fired. They want us to believe anything his people do are against us and him.

Is Sessions ineffective? I don’t know. I don’t work at the DOJ, so I don’t know what all he is doing there. The wheels of justice are very slow, something I do know, and I can at least accept that is why I haven’t seen widespread arrests yet. But I don’t really know what is going on behind the scenes.

Is McMaster a swamp creature? I really don’t know. I’m not on the security council. I don’t know the man personally. I have not been involved in discussions between him and the president. I have no way of knowing if he is trustworthy other than that the President chose him.

Are his staff or his cabinet untrustworthy? Again, I don’t know. I have no reason to believe one way or the other. Because I am not in the meetings. I am not privy to the President’s thinking or plans. I have no access to any of the departments, nor know what they are working on or planning. I don’t know what goes on in any of their heads.

I, like many of you, cannot discern exactly what is truth and what is mere conjecture, and what is flat out lies. Because like most of you, my source of most information comes from a media complex that has been proved time and again to be deceptive. And like most of you, I am not a part of any inner circle that actually knows what is going on.

But I trust Trump. I trust our President. I trust that he is capable and intelligent enough to know who around him he can trust. To know when he should fire someone. To know how to use people that might actually be opposed to him in a way that benefits him, whether they realize it or not. I trust that Trump knows far more than any of us does. And I trust that he has the instincts to navigate the Swamp without our help or “concerns”. That all he needs is our unwavering support.

I trust President Trump. Do you?