Speaking today in Garmisch-Partenkirchen Germany, Defense Secretary James Mattis gave a statement to the media before the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Marshall Plan at the George C. Marshall Center:

“The United States and our allies have the demonstrated capabilities and unquestionable commitment to defend ourselves from attack.

Kim Jong Un should take heed of the United Nations Security Council’s unified voice, and statements from governments the world over, who agree the DPRK poses a threat to global security and stability. The DPRK must choose to stop isolating itself and stand down its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The DPRK should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”

“President Trump was informed of the growing threat last December and on taking office his first orders to me emphasized the readiness of our ballistic missile defense and nuclear deterrent forces.

While our State Department is making every effort to resolve this global threat through diplomatic means, it must be noted that the combined allied militaries now posses the most precise, rehearsed, and robust defensive and offensive capabilities on earth. The DPRK regime’s actions will continue to be grossly over matched by ours and would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates.”

~ U.S. Secretary of Defense, General James Mattis

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The useful pawns continue their efforts to take out President Trump’s National Security Adviser HR McMaster.  But what they don’t realize, and the professional liberal activists do, is that ultimately the only person they are going to remove is strategist Steve Bannon.
The same Battered Conservatives that stood for an ovation to House Speaker Paul Ryan (CPAC 2015) two months after passing Omnibus; the same Battered Conservatives who failed to see the inherent risk created by General Mike Flynn in November 2016; are now rushing to create a binary choice between Steve Bannon and HR McMaster in the White House.

Specifically because of their chosen approach the efforts against McMaster will lead to President Trump having to decide between two senior administration officials, Bannon or Mcmaster; and in deciding which to keep, Bannon will be the biggest loser.
Predictably the professional political left know how to game out this dynamic.  The professionally democrat are much better political strategists; and they are more than happy to play along, knowing exactly what to do. Meanwhile, in their efforts to take down McMaster the useful idiots and battered conservatives in right-wing media are walking obliviously into a familiar trap.
The person the professional-political-left really want to target is Steve Bannon.  Bannon represents everything the left-wing activists hate.  They’ve already tried a few different approaches to take him down and isolate him from the presidency, with no measurable success.
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President Trump’s strategic approach using economic leverage to gain U.S. national security has established a very rare victory in the U.N. with unanimous support for Security Council sanctions against North Korea.  Yes, China and Russia supported.
Remember, from Day #1 of his administration President Trump was faced with a threat from N-Korea.  On his departure President Obama told the incoming new President Trump that North Korea would be his #1 Geopolitical national security challenge.
The MSM will likely never give President Trump credit for the remarkable long-term economic strategy he deployed to gain China and Russia’s support today.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United Nations Security Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday that could slash by a third the Asian state’s $3 billion annual export revenue over Pyongyang’s two intercontinental ballistic missile tests in July.

The U.S.-drafted resolution bans North Korean exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. It also prohibits countries from increasing the current numbers of North Korean laborers working abroad, bans new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures.

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UPDATE: After popular request, I finally received a copy of “the map” McGurk is using and added it to the transcript to make it easier. /SD
Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Brett McGurk follows up on the “around the globe” update speech delivered by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. With this update McGurk explains the current status of the D-ISIS campaign in Syria and Iraq. (additional emphasis regionally) WATCH:

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[Transcript] MS NAUERT: Good to see you back. I know, it’s Friday late in the day, summertime. So you all get good camper awards for coming in today. Thank you so much for being here on this Friday. We have our Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Brett McGurk, who’s here with us. I know you heard from Brett just a couple weeks ago at the end of the ISIS – D-ISIS coalition meeting here in Washington. And so Brett wanted to come in today to provide you all with an update as to where things stand in the campaign.
So without further ado, Brett’s here with that.
MR MCGURK: Thank you. Okay, thanks everybody for coming. I thought what I’d do today – you heard from the Secretary for a kind of trip around the world six months in here since he arrived about everything going on in the world and the activity here at the State Department. And what I thought I’d do is drill in a little bit more on what he discussed about the very important – one of our key priorities here at the department, about the campaign against ISIS.
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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.

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Earlier today President Trump together with VA Secretary David Shulkin launched the new TeleHealth program.  A VA healthcare initiative that allows VA Patients to schedule and change appointments, as well as reach VA client services, via a mobile app they can use on their smartphones and computers.
Advances in technology have enabled the VA to take advantage of platforms to provide VA services, but until now no-one ever put it into use.

[Transcript] 11:40 A.M. EDT – THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. I’d like to begin by thanking Secretary David Shulkin for the incredible progress that he’s making at the VA — tremendous strides. Thank you very much, David. We appreciate it. The veterans appreciate it, I can tell you that.
Today, I’m pleased to announce another historic breakthrough that will expand VA services to many more patients and veterans. We will do this through telehealth services. It’s what it’s called — telehealth services.
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There is a considerable amount of visible internet and social media angst surrounding the National Security Council and staffing decisions made by National Security Advisor HR McMaster.   CTH has no insight into the inner workings of disagreements within the current NSC, however, with a modest amount of both skepticism and cynicism the current level of alarm appears over indulged.

Within any work group there’s going to be differences of opinion.  Within any national security working group there’s going to be ideological differences of opinion.  The issues are important and very complex.  The differences should never be dismissed or marginalized in their potential consequence.  That said, it’s not the differences of opinion that present problems – it’s when those differences become entrenched in opposition to the reason for the groups primary function.  That’s when differences become problems.
Consider the foreign policy proposals, and worldviews therein, of candidate Donald Trump and candidate Ted Cruz.  Now think about taking the foreign policy/NatSec principals from both candidate camps, and the outlooks carried therein, and put them into the same council chamber to hammer out papers of recommended action toward policy.
Can you see the structure for an underlying problem?  Now overlay the ideological interests of the institutional military with a healthy dose of both deep state and religious (centered principle outlook) career ideology, and you’ve got a recipe for disagreement.  Well, that’s essentially what I see when reviewing various media reports of internal group conflict points. (more…)

Dangerous/Sketchy – An Inspector General investigation into a military recruitment program for non-Americans with foreign language skills has resulted in a dangerous level of foreign infiltration by potential terrorists.  Some of the dangerous recruits, potentially terrorists, are now “missing” and “unaccounted for”.

“The program has been replete with problems, to include foreign infiltration.”

(Via Fox News) Defense Department investigators have discovered “potential security risks” in a Pentagon program that has enrolled more than 10,000 foreign-born individuals into the U.S. armed forces since 2009, Fox News has learned exclusively, with sources on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon expressing alarm over “foreign infiltration” and enrollees now unaccounted for.

After more than a year of investigation, the Pentagon’s inspector general recently issued a report – its contents still classified but its existence disclosed here for the first time – identifying serious problems with Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), a DOD program that provides immigrants and non-immigrant aliens with an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for military service.

Defense Department officials said the program is still active but acknowledged that new applications have been suspended.
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Well, the headline attention on Venezuela’s collapsing democracy provides the tripwire trigger to go deeper into the South America crisis and how it is not rising up organically without geopolitical and ideological connection.  Always remember, in the battle for U.S. sovereignty, there are multiple facets connected to larger and more consequential issues.

Washington – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moros, pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13692, which authorizes sanctions against current or former officials of the Government of Venezuela and others undermining democracy in Venezuela. (more)

♦Venezuela’s democracy is collapsing. ♦Argentina and other South American nations have been engaged by the Trump administration for over six months. ♦President Trump signed pro-active executive orders. ♦Mexico’s economy and political apparatus is infected with corruption. ♦NAFTA is on the cusp of renegotiation. ♦Candidate, now President Trump, proposed a Southern security “Wall”. ♦Believe me, these things are not disconnected, and they are not NEW concerns.

To really absorb some of these geopolitical issues we must analyze specific 2014 events through the reality of prior, more consequential, events.  We must look into the way-back machine. To that end we have read the entirety of:
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President Trump will present his first Medal of Honor to a Vietnam hero today.  Former Specialist Five James C. McCloughan risked his life on nine separate occasions to rescue wounded comrades while serving as a medic in Vietnam.

UPDATE: Video Added

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