Why not question viability replacing despot's iron will over middle eastern tribes?

This is not the first administration to find itself absorbed by a book on Vietnam. When President Barack Obama contemplated sending more troops to Afghanistan, he and his staff read “Lessons in Disaster,” by Gordon M. Goldstein, an account of McGeorge Bundy, the national security adviser to Johnson. The book found that Johnson had failed to question the underlying domino theory that the fall of one country to communism would lead to others.

If failure to question the domino theory caused the escalation of Johnson's Vietnam war effort then failure to question the theory we are able to replace by force a despot's iron will over various middle east tribes with a unified and democratic government causes our continual grind in warfare. Let Iraq and Syria balkanize as they will and support diplomatically and with humanitarian aid those regions that govern successfully.      

Progressives to revert to same States Rights argument Southern obstructionists used

Pogo’s “we have met the enemy and he is us” is the observation that progressive’s will soon understand as theirs by having made Washington a meddlesome institution that can do unto them with the same autocratic contrary behaviour as they had done unto the rural rubes previously. Democrats will have to concentrate their efforts inward toward the coastal urban states and resist Washington with the same States Rights arguments that Southern obstructionists had used against them. If California should decide its natural course is to provide higher education, comprehensive health care and sanctuary protection for the immigrant population that fuels its economy then it should self fund and disentangle itself from the central web that holds it back by reasserting the rights of States never ceded to the central government by the Constitution. Its this structure of government that will save us from the autocracy envisioned by David Frum’s opinion piece in The Atlantic.

N.S.C. is example of government bloat Trump could hack off without consequence

Bannon Has No Place on the N.S.C. because President would be better served consulting directly with State, Defense and Intelligence.  Its and example of government bloat that Trump could hack off without consequence.

Has GE considered marketing onsite generators fueled by otherwise flared gas?

Mr. Sumner’s group, along with the American Petroleum Institute and other major industry trade associations and individual companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, all pressed congressional leaders to immediately repeal the methane rule, which the Interior Department finalized in November.

The measure, according to the department, would force companies to prevent the release of gas via flaring or leaks, eliminating an estimated 180,000 tons a year of methane gas, a contributing factor in climate change, while also increasing federal revenue by as much as $10 million a year, as the energy companies pay royalties only on fuel they contain and then sell

Has GE considered marketing on site generators fueled by gas that would otherwise be flared?  The excess electricity could be put on the grid and in North Dakota, for example, reduce coal burning at local utility.  

Original Meaning the best defense against Trump's autocracy

David Frum’s “How to Build an Autocracy” is a disturbing vision of what we have to look forward to under Donald J. Trump. The question is what to do about his total capture of the reigns of power where demonstrations against him only validate his actions among his supporters and Republican’s rural base will lead party leaders by the nose to do his bidding. The answer is to dismantle those reigns of power that Progressive’s pursued to Federalize the Constitution to the detriment of States Rights with the expectation that the central government would always be lead by an elite.
The tool to dismantle is original meaning as practiced by Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas. The great deviation in the interpretation of the commerce clause of the Constitution began when Congress used it as justification to enact the Interstate Commerce act of 1887. The ICC had a long history in government meddling until it was finally abolished in 1995. Despite its demise its legacy of central government meddling grew exponentially from four cabinet positions to fifteen; the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs from the original four.  It's a dangerous array of tools to hand over to a deplorable whose natural instinct is toward crony capitalism.
De-Federalizing Washington is a long term direction; short term, States should look inward to solve and serve its citizens. Its what the founding fathers intended. California, for example, should ignore Washington and do what it prefers so that if it wants to be the sanctuary state then ask federal officials enforcing Trump's will to leave. If marijuana legalization creates a bank cash problem then charter State Banks to allow transactions to be settled in alternates to cash as a crime control measure and ignore Federal bank regulations disallowing it. And the list goes on.  

State's nuanced policy in tribal conflict is a complication that leads to treachery

To Defeat ISIS, Arm the Syrian Kurds

Blinken is a former deputy Secretary of State under Obama and his nuanced thinking shows. The motives in the region are tribal, simple, where nuanced is not possible. Foremost the Kurds seek nationhood. They fight with their heart because of that end goal. Using Kurds as an imperial force to overtake Sunni Raqqa is a waste of the military power of an agent for peace and a rational politic in the region. Kurds have no interest in governing after the conquest a city that does not welcome them as their own. Secondly the idea that you can use Kurds and yet insist that Turkey's P.K. K. is not a part of it is a complication that leads to treachery.