Strike while the iron is hot.
iron
There can be no better advertisement against Democrats, neoconservatives, and never-Trumpers than their display after the Helsinki summit. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.

The Democrats' destruction began long before Trump. They are wholly associated with government, their answer to all problems and the source of their identity and power. Where they once had a healthy hostility towards the military and the intelligence agencies, they are now among their stoutest defenders. Their ideology, such as it is, is simply more: more government, taxes, laws, regulations, revenues, power, surveillance, wars, and programs, in short, more blob.

Democrats and government is not just a marriage of convenience. They believe, to the core of their being, in its power with a fervor and conviction that surpasses most religious faith. Denied control of the government, they are fish on the bank, deprived of their element, flopping helplessly. The cardinal sin of whatever opposition they face is never rooted in ideology, it's rather that the opposition has the temerity to seek control of their government.

Somewhere along the line Democrats quit caring, or even asking, whether government worked. The first Mayor Richard Daley may have been a distasteful autocrat, but Chicago during his reign called itself the city that worked. Democrats have had lengthy tenures over cities that manifestly don't work-Detroit, Baltimore, Washington, Cleveland, New Orleans, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and now Chicago-in some cases they're crumbling. Governance has become an exercise in patronage, payola, and making excuses, the effectiveness of city-provided services not even on the list of concerns.

Obamacare has been the apotheosis of Democrat-sponsored incompetence. It's the latest in a long string of government failures, epitomized by the huge stack of debt and unfunded promises, and disastrous military interventions. Government über alles has become an albatross for its believers, particularly the Democrats, although there are many Republican acolytes.

The age of centralization and government is passing, cause of death the centrifugal devolution of information, computing and communications power, and weaponry to individuals. Governments will mount repressive rearguard actions, but they can't fight the central reality of our time: they have failed, massively, and are unable to contain the fallout and blowback. Globalism-more of the same, only bigger-is running into resistance that's still gathering steam. Just wait until the world's debt-based financial system and economy collapse.

The Democrats have hitched their wagon to a falling star. When facts are uncongenial, take refuge in fantasy. Democrats embrace the whimsical notion that Hillary Clinton deserved to win the 2016 election. She had to cheat to beat Bernie Sanders, a socialist who would further yoke the party to the falling star. It's charitable to call her record undistinguished. If she weren't Bill Clinton's wife she'd have no record at all. She had trouble citing accomplishments or detailing a program. Her campaign was inept, crowned by the "deplorables" insult that cost her the election.

The Democrats' academic branch office and intellectual vanguard has gone farthest off the deep end. Socialists in training demand free (to them) higher education, and free (to them) housing and medical care plus a guaranteed income once they're out of school. Who pays for all this in a country carrying $200 trillion plus in debt and unfunded obligations? Not their problem-they issue demands, not solutions.

From once illustrious institutions has come an exciting panoply of newly discovered gender variations-with matching pronouns-and sexual deviancies. No minority group claiming victimhood and mouthing the required pieties is too small for the solicitous concern of campus social justice warriors. Anyone who questions socialism, identity politics, or mandated tolerance is met with an intolerant storm of vitriol that increasingly transmutes into violence.

The left's signature issues resonate with perhaps 30 percent of the electorate. Russiagate gets a rise out of even less. Yet these burning issues are the horses the Democrat will ride come November.

Some are inclined to write off the Trump-Russia collusion story as yet another fantasy, irrelevant to most Americans, but it's much more than that. That it's pure concoction finds ultimate confirmation in one simple fact: its proponents have not offered a scintilla of actual proof.

We've had assessments, assertions, maybes, might haves, could haves, and "informed" speculation; a remote "hack" that couldn't be a remote hack, but rather an onsite download because of the high transmission speed; a Democratic-funded dossier used as the basis of a FISA court surveillance request and its subsequent renewals; indictments against potential defendants who will never be tried; banner headlines for and endless media trumpeting of inconsequential developments, and prosecutions and plea bargains that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign's alleged collusion with Russia.

They've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at this gargoyle, but the kitchen sink for which reasonable people keep looking is any hard evidence from those who bear the burden of proof that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. As SLL has said from the beginning, the story is pathetically flimsy, a sign of its purveyors' weakness, not strength. It's driven not by Russophobia, but prosecution-phobia. Washington broke into insane hysteria the night of November 6, 2016 not because Donald Trump said he'd seek better relations with Russia, but because of his catchphrase: "Drain the Swamp!"
Trump knows or suspects where some of the bodies are buried, and the powers that be fear he'll go after them for everything from garden-variety graft, bribery, theft, and influence peddling to crimes as sordid as child molestation and murder.

"Plot Holes," SLL, 2/26/17
Corruption and criminality have been a way of life in Washington for decades. Trump is clearly a threat.
This, not the fear that Trump will revise US policy towards Russia, is behind the Deep State's cold sweat, motivating its hysterical-comical if wasn't so serious-campaign to depose him. This is the first time it has faced an unfriendly in the White House, with presidential powers to investigate, expose, prosecute, scandalize, and ruin.

"Plot Holes"
Trump has driven his opposition batsh*t crazy. Drowning in their own fetid fantasies and irretrievable irrelevance, he's got an opportunity to throw them anchors. It's the perfect time to go on the offensive.

If the economy and stock market hold up, if the US doesn't invade anybody, and if no nuclear bombs drop between now and November, the Democratic blue wave will be just another one of their fantasies. The election may well amount to an endorsement of Trump. However, nothing is set in stone and if the blue wave does materialize, Trump guarantees himself two years of headaches and obstruction, at best, and impeachment-if rabid Democrats get their way-at worse. Forget about any prosecution of the Deep State and the clowns who have led its inept coup, it could be Trump wearing the new black.

Taking Rand Paul's suggestion and revoking the security clearances for some of those clowns-John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Susan Rice, Michael Hayden, and Andrew McCabe-would be a powerful first step. It signals that something more serious-indictment and prosecution-may be on the way. He would be moving against enemies who have so overplayed their weak hand they've actually increased his support. Although there would be plenty of flack, especially from the captured media, the majority of Americans would applaud the move.

It would send another, subtextual message as well. It turns the treason calumny against those who have so irresponsibly used it.

You take away security clearances from people who pose a security threat. These conspirators are part of a cabal trying to remove the legitimately elected president of the United States. They are using their Russiagate concoction to oppose at every turn any attempt by Trump to improve relations with the one country on the planet that has as many nuclear weapons as the US. This dangerous, arrogant, and corrupt cabal represents a grave threat to what remains of the rule of law, the institution of the presidency, and the life of every American.

They must be stopped. It's time for Trump to stop them.