Trump Deep State
I've made few bones about how disappointed I've been with Donald Trump in recent weeks over his handling of major foreign policy issues. It's not like I don't realize what is being done to him or how hard his political opponents are pushing for his removal from office.

I do, fully.

In fact, from the beginning I wanted Trump to go on offense. Playing nice with vipers only gets you bit. And, I feel now that Trump went into the White House a little naïve about how fully arrayed against him the establishment in "Mordor-on-the-Potomac" was. (H/T Lew Rockwell)

Now, however, it's clear that he does and the question on everyone's mind is whether he has enough wiggle room to extricate himself from the noose they are dropping around his neck.

I'm not here to tell you that I think he does.

What I am here to tell you is that time is definitely running out on Trump's most vocal opponents and Trump himself.

Their strategy to impeach him over the thinnest of contacts with Russia both during and after the campaign is failing badly. We now have that bastion of rationality and deep thinking, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Idiocracy) saying that she's running on an "Impeach Trump" platform.

Here's the gig, if Waters is anything like the previous black, female Democratic Rockstar, Corrinne Brown, then she's this vocal because of what is likely to come out about her rather than Trump.

But, I'm just speculating. She could just be stupid.

But, why I say that time is running out is that the American people are getting fed up with all of this. Trump's swing supporters want results which the Democrats and most of the GOP refuse to give him. And failing that, they want him to lead rather than complain about the situation.

Tweet-storms are fun, but eventually they just look like warmed-over Obama blather.

Remember, we voted for Trump to rid ourselves of Obama's memory, not to have Trump remind us of him all the time.

On the other hand, Special Investigator Robert Mueller's clock is running out as well. He's got nothing and knows it. A grand breakdown of a CNN article by Alexander Mercouris yesterday lays out in stunning detail just how little Mueller actually has and how nervous the partisan hacks he's assembled are becoming about being counter-sued for harassment after this whole farrago is over.

In other words, after a year of investigation involving - according to some reports - 3,000 investigators and 14 prosecutors (!) and backed by the combined weight of the US's massive intelligence community - no evidence of illegal collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians has come to light, and the investigators are giving up hope of ever finding any.

Unsurprisingly some of them are now so worried about the retribution they may one day face because of the relentless way they have conducted an inquiry into literally nothing that CNN reports by them taking out insurance to protect themselves (emphasis mine)

So, Mad Maxine can rant on television all she wants but there is no 'there there' when it comes to Trump's Russia ties. If there were Mueller's Padawan-learner Asst. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wouldn't be saying "indictments are not forthcoming" and the Justice Department "doesn't engage in fishing expeditions" publicly.

He'd be virtuous signaling that there's more to this situation then is apparent.

All Trump has to do is run out the clock on Mueller without looking like he's obstructing the investigation. In that respect, Trump's doing just fine.

But, at the same time it is imperative that he go on the offence here. He needs to energize his soft support among the centrist-libertarians who want either the corruption cleaned up or the foreign policy to change.

So far, we haven't seen much of that. It looks like he's surrounded by vipers ready to strike at a moment's notice. I know looks can be deceiving but I also tend towards using Occam's Razor.

While Mueller is out there wasting taxpayer money Trump is adrift. He can play around the edges of reform without actually reforming anything in a substantive way. It's those things that are sops to his loyal fan base, the shills and the uncritical excusers, to keep them from revolting while the swamp slowly drains the color from his face.

At that point, even impeachment would be a kindness. And he'll be a prisoner in a house he let others build around him.