From Bloomberg:
President Donald Trump reorganized his National Security Council on Wednesday, removing his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, and downgrading the role of his Homeland Security Adviser, Tom Bossert, according to a person familiar with the decision and a regulatory filing.
National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster was given responsibility for setting the agenda for meetings of the NSC or the Homeland Security Council, and was authorized to delegate that authority to Bossert, at his discretion, according to the filing.
Under the move, the national intelligence director, Dan Coats, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, are again “regular attendees” of the NSC’s principals committee.
This is somewhat good news, I would think. Hopefully this is McMaster taking some more control and setting up some clear lines and authority. I know Adam will chip in or add his own expertise to this or a dedicated post, but this is important news to discuss.
lollipopguild
Reality BITES.
Keith P.
Someone was probably complaining about the flies Bannon was bringing in.
SiubhanDuinne
Jared really can do anything!
JPL
This is from the WSJ
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C8qQfH8UAAArZ9w.jpg
It’s always about the previous administration. lol
laura
Has Jared issued a statement yet?
ET
Good. He has no business being there. I am wondering what was said to get him out considering how much tRump needs him – there is a story there.
Big Ole Hound
Anything to reduce Bannon to a non-player is good news
SiubhanDuinne
More seriously, there are one or two people on FB wondering whether this might presage Bannon’s total ouster. I’m not enough of a Kremlinologist to have an informed view. Thoughts?
rikyrah
Never shoulda been there in the first place.
hueyplong
Not sure what to think until Jared speaks, though any bad news for Bannon seems like good news for the USA.
Greg
@JPL:
What in the world is “operationalized” supposed to mean in this context?
JPL
@rikyrah: Bannon told the WSJ that his job was to return the NSC to its previous position, after Rice operationalized it. He already fixed it. lol
Keith P.
In today’s edition of WTF?, Normal Lear is saying that Ann Coulter is dating Jimmy Walker. And I do mean the actor from “Good Times”.
JPL
@Greg: I know right! It’s not a rational statement.
trollhattan
@Keith P.:
I figure by the third time he attacked another member with a plastic spork they’d had enough.
SatanicPanic
Not sure what to make of this.
Chyron HR
@Greg:
“de-ni**erfied”
rikyrah
Trump’s EPA moves to defund programs that protect children from lead-based paint https://t.co/LDFkOLMaSi
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 5, 2017
Anonymous At Work
This is a clear sign of McMaster setting things back to normal and using the idea that Trump would have lost his top 4 candidates for the NSC Advisor post within 75 days as the threat to get Bannon out of there. There’ll be more cleaning out of the lower levels that won’t get attention, I bet.
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
Will those cuts take effect before or after the kids’ healthcare is removed?
hovercraft
@JPL:
Yeah sure he was put on to clean it out. Totally, it’s true it’s true!
rikyrah
@Chyron HR:
BOOM
pluky
@Anonymous At Work: dumping cohen-watkins will get noticed.
SFAW
@Keith P.:
Skank-O-MITE!
Gin & Tonic
@Anonymous At Work: Let’s see if Cohen-Watnick walks the plank.
Starfish
@Keith P.: Ann Coulter’s dating history is really weird. She also dated Bill Maher.
AxelFoley
@Keith P.:
I think they’ve been together for a while.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: I think the rest of us can go home for the day after that.
slag
@Greg: Maybe he meant that she clarified its objectives to make it do actual things. Maybe Bannon was brought in to turn it back into the smoking room at the Drones Club?
hovercraft
@Greg:
Turned into a weapon that was then used in a failed operation to derail Twitler’s campaign? I don’t speak fluent wingnut but that seems as good a translation as any, no?
GregB
One wonders if Bannon is finally getting snared in the Russian connection trap.
There are reports that several of the far right fascist media outlets are under scrutiny by the FBI. Including Breibart.
Anyhow, this is good news. Bannon reeks of death.
MattF
I suspect that Bannon stepped on a very large number of of toes. And unlike, say, Karl Rove, Bannon didn’t have a long-term relationship with any person or party.
SFAW
@Starfish:
And Dinesh D’Scumbag (owner of one of the more punchable faces around).
Chris
@SiubhanDuinne:
I second this request for anyone who’s more knowledgeable about such things.
There were three senior advisers that I considered utterly unacceptable even by the lowered standards that this admin requires – Flynn, Bannon, and Sessions. One of them is gone for real, the other just took a blow and it would be nice to see him gone as well. The last, Sessions, is probably the most dangerous in my view, but for precisely that reason he’s the least likely to go – they need their vote-suppressor badly.
MattF
@SFAW: Ugh. And double Ugh. Coulter was bearable when her jaws were wired shut.
Chris
@Greg:
“I wanted to use a big word to show everyone how smart I can, but ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’ had too many syllables for me to remember.”
pamelabrown53
@SiubhanDuinne: #8.
“I’m not enough of a Kremlinologist…”. Too funny! I’m thinking we will all need to become “Kremlinologists” in order to make sense of the Trump regime. So far we haven’t seen any suspicious deaths!
MaryL
@JPL: This is consistent with my prediction that Trump, bored and frustrated with the actual work of presidenting (and more importantly, his utter failure at it), will eventually declare that he has succeeded in his mission to Make America Great Again and will resign early, or at least not run for reelection.
Feebog
@Anonymous At Work:
I think you are right. This is McMaster pushing back. Most likely telling Cheeto Benito Bannon goes or McMaster is gone. Flag Officers generally have little use for devious assholes like Bannon.
Adam L Silverman
@Greg: He means it went from having an analytical and organizational function to having an operational one. He has no idea what he is talking about.
Adam L Silverman
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman:
Which is why he had no business being there.
hueyplong
Someone with a strong stomach should check out Breitbart’s coverage of this.
chopper
@Keith P.:
none of what you wrote makes any sense at all.
Yarrow
After the election, Sarah Kendzior, who studies authoritarian regimes, said to watch for frequent changes in personnel in Trump’s group of advisers. Apparently these sorts of frequent changes are a common tactic in authoritarian regimes, perhaps used to keep those people from trusting each other and vying for favor from the authoritarian leader.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: This is also true.
Yarrow
@GregB:
Truth.
GregB
I love the supposed anti-elitism of Bannon. Multi-millionaire, Hollywood and Goldman-Sachs alumni who’s world view is crafted around some 1970’s French fiction novel.
Nothing elitist about that walking liver spot of a human.
Ohio Mom
@rikyrah: Every time this administration makes a cut like this one — millions of dollars toward preventing lead poisoning — the economy takes another small hit.
All that money has multiplier effects, in addition to the obvious good it does in maintaining childrens’ health and IQs (want to make the entire country smarter? Remediate all the lead out there).
They are steering us into another recession.
As for Bannon, Here’s to much more chair-rearranging on the deck of this Titanic of a presidency.
SatanicPanic
@Yarrow: This seems true, but it also seems out of order- like shouldn’t Trump have consolidated power first? He’s not in the strongest position right now.
Chyron HR
So, uh, did Bannon agree to fall on his sword for the good of the administration and the (bowel) movement? Because l thought the whole reason he was onboard was that his website tells the frenzied alt-nazi hordes what to think and who to kill.
JPL
@Yarrow: Well that makes me feel better.
Gin & Tonic
@Yarrow: Looking at him I suspect instead that he reeks of bourbon.
piratedan
@Chyron HR: Bannon made the fatal mistake of not marrying into the Trump family apparently…
Smiling Mortician
@Ohio Mom:
Definitely not a part of the GOP plan.
Chris
@Yarrow:
Also to keep any one adviser/minister from staying in place long enough to plant roots, develop a support base, and otherwise do things that might threaten the Beloved Leader.
Yarrow
@SatanicPanic: I don’t think he’s particularly good at this authoritarian leader thing, much to my relief. He still may do some of the things commonly seen done by authoritarian leaders worldwide. He’s got all the tendencies of one and the desire to be one. Bannon may have pissed him off and in conjunction with McMaster’s ultimatum he may have decided to demote him. I’m not sure we’ll know for sure, but then again this White House leaks like a sieve so we may hear things.
MattF
@Yarrow: Also, there are sudden changes in ideological details that seem unimportant to outsiders, but matter greatly to insiders. Suddenly changing direction when your Dear Leader changes the Party Line is an important skill in authoritarian regimes.
In particular, external pressures on Trump are having an impact– and the internal reaction gets expressed by shifting the details of the particular lie that’s justifying the current strategy, whatever it may be. Which, I think, is why we’re seeing a revival of Clinton Derangement Syndrome as a defensive ploy.
pamelabrown53
@rikyrah: #22.
“BOOM” indeed. Bannon used his demotion as an opportunity to reinforce the distraction/faux counter “scandal” by invoking Susan Rice. The right has demonized her for years and made her name synonymous with Obama’s “lying ni**er. I’ll bet her name is more well known amongst the rabid wingers than dems.
Butthurt Jordan Trombone (fka XTPD)
@Starfish: Not at all surprising that Dickhead Dickface and Coulter dated.
Yarrow
@JPL: I think it’s wise to keep a skeptical eye on moves like this. We have to be clear-eyed about who they are and continue to fight back against them. My comment is just one observation. It may not be correct.
@Chris: Yes, this too. Good point.
different-church-lady
I don’t know whether to be relieved that sanity might be prevailing, or dismayed that Trump might be learning competence.
SatanicPanic
@Yarrow: This is my take too. He’s doing all the authoritarian dictator things but, lucky for us, they’re ill-suited to our system of government, for reasons I don’t fully understand. Plus he’s an ignorant dumbass, which isn’t a problem for many would-be dictators, but seems to be for him. I don’t know how this turns out, but I’m cautiously optimistic that his world-class bungling skills will come into play. Seems like they already are.
MattF
@different-church-lady: Neither. The ground is shifting under their feet, and they are trying to stay upright.
different-church-lady
@Keith P.: Plate of shrimp: just yesterday I was trying to remember his name!
Yarrow
@MattF: Yep. The Republicans are already good at this, which is why they’re natural authoritarians. Whatever the current party line is, that’s what they’ve believed all along.
rikyrah
From Benen:
germy
different-church-lady
@MattF: The double-edged sword: a competent Trump administration will wreak havoc on our social structure. An incompetent one will fail us in a time of genuine crisis.
LurkerNoLonger
Bannon should be removed from the human race and downgraded to anal wart.
rikyrah
Republicans Prep Regulatory War on Women’s Health-Care Benefits
Apr 5, 2017, 9:21am
Christine Grimaldi
GOP infighting in the U.S. House of Representatives effectively killed Republicans’ unpopular American Health Care Act and by their own admission preserved President Obama’s signature health-care reform law as the law of the land—indefinitely. But the damage Republicans can do to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the alternately vilified and venerated Obamacare, and protections for reproductive health care, remains a very real possibility.
…………….
The second prong leaves crucial rollbacks up to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). By HHS Secretary Tom Price’s accounting, there are 1,442 citations in Obamacare providing discretion to the secretary. He pledged that HHS will “look at every single one.”
That doesn’t mean HHS can act on every single one.
Some policies are known as statutory. Because they live in the text of Obamacare, they are law. And they can’t be changed without changing the law, as congressional Republicans tried and failed to do.
Other policies are known as regulatory. After a bill becomes law, it’s up to the federal agencies to devise regulations for how the law will be enforced. Agencies often solicit input from the public and key stakeholders to devise guidance, rules, directives, and other documents that have the force of law.
That’s where the power of Price and his HHS lies.
Join Rewire for part one of our series exploring the stakes under the Trump administration—and how some lawmakers and advocates alike are fighting to stop the onslaught against reproductive health care.
germy
MattF
@LurkerNoLonger: The Great Mandala wouldn’t have to move far to do that.
germy
I think Marco will be running for president again in 2020. What are his chances?
cervantes
@germy: Well yabbut Flynn resigned on Feb. 13. That was a month and a half ago. So Bannon hasn’t been keeping an eye on Flynn for quite a while now.
Corner Stone
I would also not discount the recent media attention Bannon has received. The magazine cover stories, the way they were telling Trump that Bannon is the *real* power in the WH.
I think that probably played as much of a factor as anything McMaster requested/threatened.
germy
Mnemosyne
@Greg:
I think it means they got the quote from Bannon after he’d polished off the fifth of scotch but before he started on the vodka.
lollipopguild
@Chris: Supercalifragalisticexpealidosous!
GregB
@different-church-lady:
I think they missed their big window to run the competent wrecking ball through everything. His poll ratings are in free fall. He’ reduced to shoving his daughter at the media as some sort of a good luck talisman. His crew of fascist insiders are are going Donner Party on each other.
The Resistance is formed and knows how to push back.
His incompetence may still get us all killed though.
JPL
NYTimes has a new article about Trump. Bill O’Reilly did nothing wrong, and Susan Rice may have committed a crime.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/us/politics/trump-interview-susan-rice.html?_r=0
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Twitler and his friends have been railing about escalating crime rates, as lead was one of the possible reasons given for the crime explosion back in the day, maybe it’s time to drive the numbers back up to match their bullshit.
Just kidding, Twitler doesn’t know enough to be that Machiavellian, he just doesn’t care, he and his fellow billionaires just want to drive down expenditures so they can get bigger tax cuts.
hovercraft
@Starfish:
And Keith Oberman.
Keith P.
@SFAW: DY-NO-MAN?
StringOnAStick
I suspect that as the FBI/IC noose is tightening, someone inside the family circle decided Bannon needed to be pushed from the plane now that at least one engine is smoking. Plus obviously McMasters had had enough of his crap and knew he was a security risk, among other unsavory things. Also, that “keeping an eye on Flynn, who we all knew had problems*” story is weak, weak tea.
* If they all knew Flynn “had problems”, why did they (1) put him in such a sensitive position, and (2) circle the wagons around Flynn until they had the convenient excuse to get rid of him over the whole sloppy “lying to Pence” story? Where is the competence in keeping a guy who “we all knew had problems” in such a sensitive and important position? This winning thing, how does it work?
hellslittlestangel
@SiubhanDuinne: I look forward to hearing that Bannon is suffering from a “bad cold.”
pamelabrown53
@different-church-lady: #62.
I reject both the “sanity prevailing” and “learning competence” premises. Instead I’d refer to Adam Silverman’s comment @ #41: my speculation is that McMaster, rightly pissed with the Cohen-Watnick machinations asserted himself with the threat of resignation.
The Moar You Know
@Gin & Tonic: He is a walking medical textbook display of “gin blossoms”. I don’t like doing Frist diagnoses, but I feel very confident in stating that guy is an alcoholic and a pretty advanced one.
JMG
Trump just gave interview to New York Times. In it, he says Susan Rice may have committed a crime, offering no evidence of course. Also says Bill O’Reilly didn’t sexually harass anybody. I believe he’s in a contest to top Nixon’s lowest approval rating by the Fourth of July. And I wouldn’t bet against him.
hovercraft
@JPL:
To quote our great leader Baud, NY Times is garbage!
Not giving them a click for this nonsense given your summary.
hovercraft
@hellslittlestangel:
He wants to spend more time with his family. LOL, they’d probably pay to have him spend less time with him. SAD !
lollipopguild
@Gin & Tonic: Please do not insult bourbon.
hovercraft
@different-church-lady:
You’re so funny.
Haaaaaaaaaaaahaaaaaa
Seriously great joke.
Anonymous At Work
@pluky: @Gin & Tonic: *Now*? Certainly. Two months from now, when he’s moved to a White House staffer’s job?
McMaster had this mandate from Day 0; this was a pre-condition for him accepting the position from Trump. It took this long, I suspect, to prevent Trump from admitting to a “mistake”.
The Lodger
@SFAW: Dyn-O-Shite!
Aleta
This has got to mean there’s significant evidence on Bannon, because how the fuck can there not be when we all knew it from the start and what are our taxes for if not to get this guy.
(Or I guess it might mean he suddenly left the country and can’t make it to the NSC meetings right now.)
Sure wish he’d been arrested in public though.
Ohio Mom
@germy: If Kasich runs, and I think he will at least give it a whirl, I think he’ll do better than Rubio.
Ugh, just typing those names! Like belching up something that I shouldn’t have eaten.
JPL
@hovercraft: lol Truth be known, they didn’t have to interview him, because all of us know he’d defend Bill. When you’re a star, you can grab them by the pu$$y.
germy
@The Moar You Know:
– Chico Marx
pamelabrown53
@germy: #74.
“What are {Rubio’s] chances in 2020? I’ll admit to being a poor prognosticator, still I really see Rubio as too whimpy to pull it off. Actually, if we could find a semi-charismatic dem candidate here in Floriduh to challenge him, he wouldn’t even be a senator.
Aleta
@Yarrow: He did it during the campaign too. Somehow it feels like a shell game to hide information and incompetence too.
quakerinabasement
I know it’s cliche to say we’re “through the looking glass,” but how can you have reorganization when you haven’t had any organization at all?
hovercraft
Oh look Uncle Pat is still kicking around out there.
Pat Buchanan: Godly Vladimir Putin Will Fight ‘Self-Indulgent Secularism’
In a syndicated column last week, Pat Buchanan hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin as a hero of “social conservatism” and a foe of “the New World Order” that seeks to replace Christianity with “secularism and hedonism.”
Buchanan, who has lavished praise on Putin in the past, called Putin “a God-and-country Russian patriot” who stands for Christianity and “against the Western progressive vision of what mankind’s future ought to be.”
The right-wing pundit doesn’t seem to mind Putin’s crackdown on religious freedoms, particularly those of evangelical Christians, and tolerance of Sharia law.
Putin’s approval rating, after 17 years in power, exceeds that of any rival Western leader. But while his impressive strides toward making Russia great again explain why he is revered at home and in the Russian diaspora, what explains Putin’s appeal in the West, despite a press that is every bit as savage as President Trump’s?
Answer: Putin stands against the Western progressive vision of what mankind’s future ought to be. Years ago, he aligned himself with traditionalists, nationalists and populists of the West, and against what they had come to despise in their own decadent civilization.
What they abhorred, Putin abhorred. He is a God-and-country Russian patriot. He rejects the New World Order established at the Cold War’s end by the United States. Putin puts Russia first.
And in defying the Americans he speaks for those millions of Europeans who wish to restore their national identities and recapture their lost sovereignty from the supranational European Union. Putin also stands against the progressive moral relativism of a Western elite that has cut its Christian roots to embrace secularism and hedonism.
…
Putin has read the new century better than his rivals. While the 20th century saw the world divided between a Communist East and a free and democratic West, new and different struggles define the 21st.
The new dividing lines are between social conservatism and self-indulgent secularism, between tribalism and transnationalism, between the nation-state and the New World Order.
Wow, whooda thunk I’d live to see the day when right wingers were praising a Russian president for defying America. There is no looking glass, we’re in bizzarro world.
p.a.
How’s the
altopenly racist, not dog whistle, right taking this? Websites & twitter up in arms? Dump tRump movement yet?NR
Apparently Bannon still has the highest level of security clearance though, so we should be cautious. This move may just be window dressing.
Quinerly
OT…just heard a blurb that Trump has defended O’Reilly from the Oval Office. Says he he shouldn’t have settled with anyone. Each day we become more of a joke on the world scene.
manyakitty
@piratedan: Tiffany wouldn’t count, anyway.
JPL
@Quinerly: But Susan Rice may have committed a crime. hmmm
The President just condemned Assad. (baby steps)
pamelabrown53
@Quinerly: #105.
If true: we are in free fall down the rabbit hole? The “POTUS” defending a serial sexual abuser from the Oval Office?
OT, did you get my my e-mail re: St. Louis meet up/March for Science?
SFBayAreaGal
O.T. or not: Babylon 5 fans you can stream the whole series for free at this link:
https://www.go90.com/shows/babylon5?tab=videos_with_masthead
hellslittlestangel
@hovercraft: Pat Buchanan goes weak-kneed and starry-eyed over white nationalism, no matter who is espousing it.
Roger Moore
@GregB:
Amazing that you can smell it over the stale booze.
Quinerly
@JPL:
I just walked in and turned on this shitshow of a presser/joint appearance with the King of Jordan. King is looking at Trump with bewilderment. Trump is so embarrassing when he tries to read, then ad libs.
David Spikes
@germy: Rubio is Rick Parry come again.
He looks good until you really look at him.
germy
@David Spikes: or until you hear him speak.
Yarrow
@pamelabrown53:
No one has more respect for women more than Trump.
MattF
@SFBayAreaGal: I watched that. Over 20 years ago!
pamelabrown53
@hellslittlestangel: #110.
When George Wallace died, his soulless soul entered Pat Buchanan’s body.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
I’m listening to it on the radio. Don’t know whether it’s as obvious on TV, but with audio only that long heavy sniffing intake of breath he did so much during the campaign is really obvious.
Completely agree with you on how embarrassing he is. King is speaking now and being very gracious. I’ve always had a soft spot for the kings of Jordan.
Ian G.
@hovercraft:
I almost got through all of Pat’s rant, but had to resist throwing my phone out the window and punching a nearby child when this horseshit was served:
How about the 13 unarmed Lithuanian protesters murdered by the army of Putin’s beloved Soviet Union when they stormed a TV tower in Vilnius in 1991? I guess their national fucking identify is to be vassals to Nicholas II, Stalin, or Vladdy forever. Ditto the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who have died in Donbass trying to maintain their national identity. Or the Polish, Czechs, Bulgarians, Romanians, etc. who all fear and loathe Putin.
Buchanan can choke on a dick.
GregB
@hellslittlestangel:
It’s spelled BuKKKanan.
Quinerly
@pamelabrown53: That email acct is screwed up since the last Outlook update. Haven’t been able to open any on that acct. Appointment with Microsoft store tomorrow. Hope we can make a meet up work. Will get back to you by Friday. Thanks for reaching out.
Marcopolo
Trump speaking at his press conference w/ King Abdullah–the irony it burns. Yes what happened in Syria yesterday was horrendous but it’s a lot harder to be righteous when a military operation you ordered in Yemen a month and a half ago wound up killing women and children.
Also too, he does not go as far as Nikki Haley at the UN this morning. Weak tea from Trump. She called out the Russians to prove that they actually do have “influence” with Assad to put an end to the targeting of innocent civilians.
Last comment: Do you think Abdullah mentioned how many Syrian refugees Lebanon has taken in? If I recall, one out of every six people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. But Donnie’s so terrified of his own shadow he doesn’t want us to welcome any.
hovercraft
@Quinerly:
What, stand his ground like Twitler does and NEVAH settle? Do as I say not as I do? Lucretia really needs to tell her dad about teh google, it’s available to everyone, even Barron with his cyber skills could help him out.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: Because King Abdullah is actually aware of what has been done in the fight against ISIL, as well as almost nothing has changed over the past 6 weeks. The strategy has not been changed. The senior leadership, including at the operational levels, have bought into the strategy that was developed under President Obama, believe in it, and espouse it.
MattF
@pamelabrown53: IMO, Ol’ Pat is more of a plain old ’30s fascist transplanted to the 21st century. He’s smart enough to know he can’t go full Nazi in this day and age, but that’s about the only constraint.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: Also, if you heard someone speak the way the President just did in answering the first question, you’d call 911 and ask them to place him on a 72 hour evaluatory hold.
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne:
Trump’s posture/the way he was leaning when he gave his introduction was odd. That snorting is always obvious when he reads. Big lean for big handshake on Trump’s part at the end of the King’s prepared remarks.
Mnemosyne
OT, but blog favorite Awesomely Luvvie took on that Pepsi commercial.
dmsilev
@hovercraft:
…Trump University notwithstanding.
Adam L Silverman
@Ian G.: Typical American white supremacist. Completely ahistorical. No understanding that European is a geographic designator more than anything and can’t just be used as a default term for white.
Adam L Silverman
@Marcopolo: And it is a big risk for Lebanon. Their fragile, multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian nature of Lebanese society, reflected in their consociational political system, does not handle demographic changes well.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman:
So incompetent. So obvious. We can’t sustain this as a nation. He’s incoherent right now.
David Spikes
It might be significant that Bannon wasn’t thrown a new title, new job, new something to replace the old. And the fact that the king-I mean the president-didn’t announce it and praise Bannon for doing a great job-looks bad for stevarino.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve always been skeptical of Trump’s blathering being part of a master plan, but the Susan Rice ploy, drawing Lindsey Graham and McCain on to their team, plus the involvement of Ken Starr collaborator Joe diGenova, makes me wonder if somebody, not trump, didn’t have a plan
patroclus
Watching Trump’s news conference now – I think the U.S. is going to war.
Aleta
There’ve been so many stories about Bannon v Pruiebus v Kushner. (Leaving aside all the intrigue stories that br t b, h o t a ir, etc have been putting out.) Just a couple:
I guess eventually we’ll hear that Ivanka spearheaded a cooperative effort among women business leaders to get Bannon the fuck away from her office door, the NSC, and the helicopter.
Quinerly
@SiubhanDuinne:
I so loved Queen Noor. Her autobiography of years ago is a favorite. I still pick it back up from time to time.
JPL
@Adam L Silverman: At least our president uses words even a four year old can understand.
Adam L Silverman
@David Spikes: He is still the Chief Strategist (Senior Advisor to the President for Strategy). He’s still got his own alt-NSC – the White House Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG). He’s just been removed from being a member of the principals committee of the NSC.
Ian G.
@Adam L Silverman:
Someone needs to offer Pat an airline ticket to Kiev where he can proclaim these views loudly with a bullhorn on the streets. No need for a return ticket. The only remains of his they’ll ever find are his ears being worn as jewelry by some Donbass veteran.
Roger Moore
@different-church-lady:
I’ll take incompetent evil over competent any day. A big crisis may never come, but our social structure most certainly is both always here and always vulnerable. Also, too, there are ways of getting incompetent people out of the way if a genuine crisis arises.
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman:
tl;dr on the Buchanan piece: Europeans are eager for a few more centuries of war.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: He doesn’t understand the difference between a bilateral agreement and a treaty.
hovercraft
@Quinerly:
As opposed to his first meeting with Obama, when he was so excited he did this:
Obama Hitches a Royal Ride
July 23, 2008
By NATALIE GEWARGIS
After attending a banquet at King Abdullah’s Beit Al Urdan palace Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, hitched a ride -lliterally – to the Amman airport with the King.
Abdullah drove himself – with Obama riding shotgun – from the palace to the airport in a silver Mercedes 600 series with blacked out windows.
The King – in the driver’s seat – raced onto the tarmac and came to an abrupt halt, stopping on a dinar, just a few feet away from one of Senator Obama’s pre-positioned secret service agents.
Now he’s dealing with the Shitgibbon and like the rest of the world is thinking What The Everloving Fuck America. I think some of them think/hope that the buffoon act is for the cameras and that behind closed doors he’s better. Ha! Gotcha.
David Spikes
@Adam L Silverman: Lebanon is full of Syrians, Iraquis, Palestinians. Every conflict in that area sends more refugees over the borders. IIRC when Jordan solved its Palestinian problem, they moved to Lebanon and started a new civil war.
rikyrah
@pamelabrown53:
Birds of a feather…..
Roger Moore
@quakerinabasement:
Redisorganization.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Aleta: I gather Laura Ingram and her friends in trump’s inner circle refer to Kushner-Crohn wing as “The Democrats”. I can’t imagine they’re stupid enough to think they can go up against the Daughter-Wife
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
On my way…Love Luvvie
OT, but related…did you see the absolutely ETHER of a tweet that Bernice King put out about Pepsi?
Pepsi needs to take the L and just go away for awhile.
pamelabrown53
@MattF: #125.
Absolutely. Even though Buchanan is approaching Methuselah in age, my read is he would have been a Nazi sympathizer.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@hovercraft: Authoritarians stick together.
hellslittlestangel
@pamelabrown53: Actually, Wallace turned into a decent man in his last years.
Aleta
@Quinerly: She was something. So smart.
It’s a loss that Japan could not break the right wing’s grip on tradition to release Masako Owada onto the world scene, for she would have done important things. Maybe someday.
Quinerly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You must have seen Rachel last night. Loved how she put all that together for us political junkies. I have fond memories of my parents screaming at Victoria and Joe on tv when visiting my parents during the Clinton Administration.? My mother loathed Victoria Tsing(sp??).
hovercraft
@David Spikes:
The GOP is all about “casting”, remember when John Thune was the next big thing, then he opened his mouth and proved to be as dumb as a doorpost and that was that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Quinerly:
I haven’t read it in years — probably since around the time it was first published — but I loved her too. Lisa Halaby, smart-as-a-whip American girl.
Quinerly
Mrs. Greenspan is telling me, “People are confused.”
TenguPhule
@hellslittlestangel:
I look forward to him committing suicide by shooting himself in the head six or seven times.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Quinerly: I did. I remember as if it were yesterday: DiGenova and his unlit cigar as a prop, Toensing and her perpetual head tilt and half smile. Better as propagandists, I have to say, than the quivering-eyed lunacy of Coulter and Pat Caddell. I remember one time it seemed very much as if Joe Conason and diGenova (very unaccustomed to push back) were gonna jump across the table and duke it out.
Lizzy L
@patroclus: With whom? (I am not watching because I cannot watch or listen to the man.)
MattF
@TenguPhule: Not an easy thing to do.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
You know, I think they almost could have pulled off that commercial (or a similar one) with, say, Beyoncé as the lead, or at least some famous woman of color (Laverne Cox to check two boxes, maybe?)
But as soon as one of Pepsi’s bright boys said, “Hey, we have Kylie Jenner under contract — let’s make her the lead!” the fail parade was inevitable.
Also, the CEO of PepsiCo must be kicking herself this morning: she’s an Indian-American woman.
Marcopolo
@pamelabrown53: Re the St Louis March for Science: are folks settled on an approximately 12:30 p.m. start time? Brought this up at the Indivisible meeting I was at on Monday night and no one there was entirely clear about it.
Adam L Silverman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The only reason you have someone like Cohen-Watnick in the billet he’s in is because he’s a tool. What he went looking for was not anything he needed to know for the routine conduct of his duties. He was either freelancing or he was ordered to do it. I can’t prove it, but I don’t believe he was freelancing. From what we understand of the timelines based on the news reporting after the President’s tweets about being tapped, is that Cohen-Watnick got busy shortly thereafter. LTG Flynn was gone by then. LTG McMaster would not order something like this and tried to remove Cohen-Watnick. That leaves Cohen-Watnick’s benefactors who he used to end run LTG McMaster: Bannon and Kushner. When Cohen-Watnick took this stuff to the WH Counsel they told him to stop, he was out of his lane, and didn’t need to know this. He then end ran the WH Counsel to get the stuff to Nunes who is himself too stupid to know what he’s doing. As a result Nunes made hash of this. That then required extraordinary measures. A leak to Mike Cernovich – one of the bigger names in the alt-right (and men’s rights movement). Once the leak went to Cernovich and he wrote about it online, it got mainstreamed by Eli Lake who had been burned by these guys just the week before. And Lake knew just how weak the tea he was being served was, hence all the caveats about no illegality, within the scope of Susan Rice’s work, etc. And now the usual useful idiots (some more emphasis on useful and others more on idiot) quickly fell all over themselves to get in front of cameras to hammer the Susan Rice stuff.
Remember what is at the heart of this: an ongoing, since JUL 2016, US Interagency counterintelligence task force investigation into the connections between the Trump campaign and transition and Russian intelligence and the Russian government. At the same time we know there are two other criminal investigations ongoing dealing with some of these matters. What Cohen-Watnick did, most likely on orders from one of his two benefactors in the White House, was an attempt to interfere with an ongoing Federal investigation. Susan Rice is a convenient foil. She is not well liked within the IC. She is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as being willing to play too fast and too loose with her authorities when she was the National Security Advisor, and of letting IC professionals have it with both barrels when she didn’t get her way. And, of course, she committed the cardinal sin of going on a Sunday talk show and providing a statement on Benghazi that had been approved for release by the CIA, which, at the time, was being run by GEN Petraeus. So she’s an easy target and foil to try to change the subject in order to cover the President’s cockamamie idea that he was being surveilled during the election.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman:
Yet.
Like I’ve said before, I expect any day now for Trump to start arming “Daesh who talk nice about him”.
Because he’s that stupid. And I don’t doubt he can find someone high enough in the armed services to do it. It’s not as if its 9 billion in cash on pallets, after all.
Adam L Silverman
@patroclus: We’ve been at war. Since 2001.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
I hear bathtub-related accidents are all the rage right now.
TenguPhule
@GregB:
What do you mean ‘may’?
Baud
@MattF: Jared could do it.
Adam L Silverman
@Ian G.: I often offer to pay for tickets to Somalia for people that tell me we shouldn’t have taxes or any Federal government functions other than, maybe, defense and that everyone should be self sufficient and provide for themselves. I offer to include a go pro so they can stream their adventures as they quickly realize that living someplace without a functional government, or any real government at all, isn’t all milk and cookies. I have had no one take me up on my offer yet.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore: Since he doesn’t take a bath from appearances, it wouldn’t be believable.
Jeffro
@germy:
I dunno…can he keep the Mercers AND the Kochs happy? Then he’s got a shot.
pamelabrown53
@Adam L Silverman: #143.
His lack of understanding between a bilateral agreement and a treaty is a very astute observation. Thank you. Would love for you to expound on this point in a dedicated post….after the “penetration on all levels” post for which I’m keeping a peeled eyeball.
Heh. Sorry if I’m commandeering your life but I learn so much from your posts: with conspiracy theories running rampant, it’s of paramount importance to have a voice who is trying to separate wheat from chaff.
MattF
@Baud: You’re saying suicide is a learned skill?
amk
This is all typical trumpian drama.
Cue msm blather: The famed ‘Pivot’ is here!!!
TenguPhule
@MattF: Have you seen the size of his head?
Shana
@slag: Bingo Little and Bertie Wooster resent the comparison.
hovercraft
@dmsilev:
i was being facetious, he’s settled lots of cases, there was a story a while back that he had used money from his “charity” to pay off some of the debts from lawsuits, one down at Mar a lago comes to mind, check the Farenthold reporting. Like everything else about him, never settling is a lie.
TenguPhule
@MattF: Its an art form to arrange a proper Russian suicide. Especially when the victims refuse to cooperate.
Adam L Silverman
@David Spikes: That is more or less correct. The influx of additional Palestinian refugees in the 70s after King Hussein’s crack down (the historic Black September) stressed the Lebanese ethno-religious and sectarian divisions past their breaking point. It is not the only reason for the Lebanese Civil War, but it was certainly a contributing factor.
bystander
There is a young female talkinghead on teevee right now named Nayyear Haq. She is blaming Obama for not taking military action in Syria. Earned her name that quick.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: In other words, they don’t like her because she is a strong woman and black to boot. Because that’s the kind of nonsense objection men often make when it is a woman who is leaning on them that they would not make when the leaner has a y chromosome. This is the same kind of nonsense objection made by male attorneys to Sonia Sotomayor because she was excessively “tough.” I worked for a male judge and he was respected precisely because he ate lawyers appearing in front of him for breakfast.
Jeffro
@JPL:
And in the process, falsely tried to lay it all on Obama. What a scumbag Trumpov is.
amk
@slag: Drones club is for upper class twits only. bannonatzi wouldn’t make the cut.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: I have no doubt he’ll run again, and be eclipsed by the new broad-shouldered blue-eyed boy Ben Sasse, who’s a lot smarter (at least at image maintenance) and from The HEARTLAND! while Paul Ryan grins painfully on the sidelines and thinks “If I’d left to spend more time with the family when they tried to force me into the Speakership, that’d be me!”
Adam L Silverman
@hellslittlestangel: He was, from what I understand, originally a somewhat decent man in his youth. It was only after he lost an election where his opponent painted him as too close to African Americans that he publicly swore that would never happen again and adopted the hard core Jim Crow, segregationist stances.
TenguPhule
@bystander: Yes, apparently President Obama should have violated the Constitution and ignored Congress who had voted against military action.
We’re going to need to have Civics be a mandatory course in HS again.
Barbara
@Adam L Silverman: You can offer to finance a tour of Haiti, a closer and (currently) more peaceful example of the same phenomenon.
Baud
@MattF: I’m saying he can do anything.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I have no doubt the GOP in 2020 will try to act all “normal” and “safe.”
A Ghost To Most
@Adam L Silverman:
My favorite rejoinder to those folks is “You don’t want America; you want Somalia with churches instead of mosques”
Jeffro
@hovercraft:
Ha! And we thought WE were mad at 80,000 economically anxious Trump voters in Wisconsin!
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: The whole business of tools and catspaws is fascinating, but one does wonder how much actual natsec work is getting done these days.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Not sure about Sasse. He has made a lot of enemies.
SiubhanDuinne
Okay, I’m kicking back with Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint and Mount Rushmore for the next couple of hours. Later!
hovercraft
@Adam L Silverman:
You meant to say he doesn’t understand what a bilateral agreement or a treaty is, right?
Ridnik Chrome
@hovercraft: No surprise there. Pat Buchanan was a fascist before being a fascist was cool. When he was growing up one of his heroes was Francisco Franco.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: But he has Presidential style hair!
Quinerly
@Marcopolo:
Poster says 1:00 (Union Station). My group is probably meeting at 12:15 at Howards (13th and Lynch, down by AB Brewery in Soulard) to carpool. Meet back there afterwards for drinks, music, to hang out. Would love to turn this in a BJ Meet Up if it works for area folks. Join us before, after, or both.
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Let’s hold off on the snuff fantasy till after dinner please.
A Ghost To Most
@Adam L Silverman:
– Patterson Hood
Marcopolo
@Marcopolo: Folks, so when I have a brain fart and type Lebanon instead of Jordan in regards to King Abdullah please do correct me. Just noticed my error :).
Also too, if we are operating under the premise that the Trump administration is all about projection does Trump saying he believes Rice committed a crime mean that he, Trump, has committed a crime? One can hope.
J R in WV
Hi all,
Off Topic, but I’m going to be in Tucson for the next week 4/6-12 and if anyone wants to have dinner or such drop me a comment – now don’t anyone do me a nasty!!
Sounds like someone with common sense dropped a penny in the WH, so that’s a good thing. I may not like or trust most national Republicans, but there’s a difference between that and Crazy !
Chris
@Quinerly:
I had been meaning to get to that one for literally years, and finally did so recently. Great read about a great person.
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Some combination of Sasse, Cotton, and Ernst wouldn’t surprise me.
D58826
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t remember the exact quote but he said something along the lines of ‘never being out-seg’ed again’
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Actually DAESH finally issued a statement about him:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/isis-calls-trump-idiot-first-message-addressing-new-president-n742716
So most likely not.
Marcopolo
@Quinerly: Not sure what my post march responibilities are vis a vis my household but if I am free I’ll try to make it.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: No, he can’t. Bureaucratic power in DC, especially in the White House, has to do with staff. Kushner’s power is access. That’s important, but without a large, competent, and effective staff that also has access, he will be unable to do much of anything.
Ian G.
@A Ghost To Most:
And your username is “a ghost to most”. You wouldn’t happen to be a Truckers fan, would you? Lol.
Aleta
Re: The appearance of Bannon’s claim to power via the SIC.
Remains to be seen, but there seems to be some coordination at the WH against him.
Yesterday, The Hill
Chris
@Adam L Silverman:
That was always the most ridiculous part of the Rice-hysteria. Her big crime was literally repeating what was at the time the best intelligence the U.S. had available, according to Petraeus. It’s only slightly less ludicrous than if you were blaming the White House spokesman for the White House’s positions.
Quinerly
@Chris:
Just checked her Wiki page. Not much on what she is doing now. Basically said she divides her time between Jordan, DC, and London. Hard to believe he has been dead almost 20 years.
Roger Moore
@TenguPhule:
It’s very simple, really. The situation in Syria is bad. Obama was president when it got that way. Therefore, the situation in Syria is the result of Obama doing or failing to do something. Most importantly, because I was not president, I am free to claim that any harebrained idea I can come up with, internally consistent or not, would have been better. Most importantly, I am free to ignore that other actors in Syria- Assad, the rebels, neighboring countries, etc.- had some role in events there and assign all the blame to Obama.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: You’ve dashed my hopes….
West of the Rockies (been a while)
So, what’s the real takeaway from the Bannon story? He’s “been removed” from the inner council but still essentially will continue to have all sorts of access to intelligence.
“Been removed” sounds punitive, but is it?
Is this removal a precursor to the revelation that he’s being criminally investigated by the IC? Is it that Trump is pissed that Bannon is being called the real power?
Any thoughts on determining the signal-to-noise ratio here?
Chris
@TenguPhule:
I haven’t seen the press conference, but I seriously doubt it. His preferences run more in the direction of Assad than Daesh. Well, I doubt he knows enough about it to actually have preferences, but his team’s pro-Russian stance translates to a pro-Assad stance in that context.
Adam L Silverman
@pamelabrown53: I’ll put it on the list…
It was unclear to me from his remarks if he was referring to the P5+1 agreement with Iran, which is what I think he was referring to, or the US bilateral agreement with Russia for Russia to oversee the removal and destruction of Syrian chemical and biological weapons and stockpiles. I’m pretty sure it’s the former, but can’t be 100% sure (and I ran it back several times…). Regardless he’s locked into the same rhetorical BS that the GOP and conservatives opposed to the P5+1 agreement with Iran used when it was announced: that it should have to be ratified. This includes senators. The problem is that there is a very specific set of procedures for diplomatic agreements – bilateral or multilateral – in regard to how they have to be handled within the US. Treaties obviously require Senate ratification, partially because if they are ratified they have the force of US law (this is partially why you cannot, no matter how many legal memos you have written, redefine torture). Other diplomatically negotiated agreements do not require treaty ratification. The P5+1 agreement is one that does not require ratification.
Adam L Silverman
@amk: Ambassador Croker was on MSNBC stating that whether the President intended to or not he has now jettisoned his campaign position and declared himself to being an internationalist with his remarks about Syria and North Korea.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: assuming Trump is sidelined, I’d bet on a Pence opting to be a caretaker and a Sasse-Haley ticket. Not a lot, but I’d bet something.
Adam L Silverman
@bystander: She was an Obama appointee.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: IIRC, there was a real disagreement within the Obama administration on Syria.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: In general: yes, I think you’re correct. In specific: I do not know her. I only know second and third hand what her rep is within the IC. I was not privy to any of that.
hovercraft
LR click through
Trump is Failing for Same Reason That Boehner Failed
by Martin Longman
April 5, 2017 11:58 AM
Jonathan Chait thinks the Republicans will come to regret that Hillary Clinton wasn’t elected president. His reasoning is solid. If elected, Clinton would have found her legislative agenda mostly blocked by a Republican Congress, and there’s a decent chance that the left would have disintegrated in frustration, leading to more big midterm gains for the GOP and possibly an easy victory in the 2020 presidential race.
Michael Anton’s now-iconic essay, “The Flight 93 Election,” made the case for Trump as a desperation gamble. (Hence the metaphor to a hijacked airline flight whose passengers had to choose a desperate and probably doomed fight over certain death.) Anton, now a staffer in Trump’s administration, saw another four years of Democratic presidencies as the end of white America and conservative America. Most Republicans — even those, like Anton, deeply suspicious of Trump — ultimately agreed. Almost the entire GOP decided its hatred or fear of Clinton overrode their misgivings about their own nominee, and, with varying levels of enthusiasm, supported Trump. They brought disaster upon their country, but as a small measure of compensatory justice, they have also brought it upon their party. By the time Trump has departed the Oval Office, they will look longingly at a staid, boxed-in Clinton presidency as a road not taken.
In truth, however, almost no Washington Republicans voted for Trump in the primaries. The elite conservative intelligentsia never saw Trump as fit for office, nor did they see him as an ideologically acceptable conservative. They had reconciled themselves to a Clinton presidency and were gearing up to win the battle over the autopsy of Trump’s campaign. Most of them did not want Trump to win and we’re relieved that the polls indicated that he had no chance to win. When I wrote yesterday that “our country has been atomic-wedgied on a flagpole” by the Russians, I intentionally referred not just to the left or the Democrats. Trump spent his whole primary campaign giving wedgies to the Republican establishment. Jeb was “low energy” and “Little Rubio” was a lightweight, John McCain was no war hero and, by the way, here’s Lindsey Graham’s personal cell phone number. Give it a call……………………..
Trump needed a bipartisan coalition from the moment he saw the surprising Electoral College results, and he had a major repair job to do if he was going to find any space on the left after insulting every ethnic and minority group in the country, running an explicitly racist campaign, and being exposed as a sexual predator. That was the moment when he needed to begin an aggressive pivot in both his style and rhetoric and in his legislative proposals. He was going to need to break some campaign promises, it’s true, but he had no choice because the Democrats weren’t going to associate with a man who was still calling for a Muslim Ban and for a mass deportation force and border wall…………….
Chait echoed a point I made recently when he wrote that this kind of pivot and bipartisanship “would cost [Trump] the Republican lockstep support he needs to quash investigations into his corruption and campaign ties to Russia.” I think this is a key point, which is why I characterized Trump’s presidency as doomed from the outset. But it wasn’t all that clear on Election Day that his liabilities on Russia would be so crippling. If it had been, he wouldn’t have overridden his own transition staff and made Michael Flynn his National Security Adviser. If he had understood his situation correctly, he wouldn’t have persisted in doubting the Intelligence Community’s conclusion that Russia had interfered in the election on his behalf, and he wouldn’t have been allowing his staff to meet with the Russian ambassador in Trump Tower or set up a surreptitious meeting with a Putin representative in the Seychelles.
At least at the outset, he had some alternatives. He might have tried to gain support for a legislative agenda that, while distinct from his campaign promises, was consistent with it in spirit. There were coalitions of Democrats who might have helped him figure out an alternative to the Trans-Pacific Partnership or ways to renegotiate NAFTA. He could have had support for an infrastructure bill that looked a lot like what President Obama had called for for years. Repeal and replace could have been softened into something less vindictive and more constructive. He could have consulted the Democrats on appointments to key administrative and cabinet positions.
In the end, this would have probably broken the House of Representatives in ways I have been advocating that it break ever since John Boehner discovered that he had to rely on Democratic votes to pass appropriations bills, pay the government’s debts, and keep the government’s doors open. Just as with Boehner, Trump’s true House majority would always have to be bipartisan if it were to be a majority at all. Why not elect a speaker who was reflective of that governing majority? Paul Ryan was disloyal anyway, so there was no need to prefer him to stay on.
But Trump decided that he would and could govern with no Democratic votes, and even went to great lengths to assure that he’d have no other option……………..
He’s not yet 100 days into his presidency, and he’s already arrived at this place. And he arrived at it in large part because he didn’t even try to avoid this fate.
In retrospect, the first thing he should have done after winning the election is call John Boehner and tell him he wanted to golf. Then Boehner could have explained to him that he’d never be able to corral the House Republicans to enact his agenda and that he’d need to think creatively about what he wanted to do and about how to get a majority that would make it possible.
Somewhere Boehner is raising a glass of Merlot and laughing his ass off. Twitler was a big critic.
Roger Moore
@Adam L Silverman:
All real power has to do with having staff. No individual is powerful enough to do much as an individual; they only get real power by getting a large number of people to do their bidding. A major function of governments is to formalize the arrangement.
Adam L Silverman
@Barbara: I don’t want the peaceful part. The non peaceful is an important part of the learning environment.
ruemara
@Keith P.: I don’t see why we needed a “Get Out” reboot so soon.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Bannon hasn’t lost his highest security clearance so pump the brakes.
pamelabrown53
@SiubhanDuinne: #194.
“North by Northwest” is one of my top 10 movies. Enjoy! Actually, I think I’ll put it on now. Thanx.
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: Not a fantasy, given the rather long trail of dead Russians in this. Its only a matter of time and delivery now. /With a healthy dose of snark
schrodingers_cat
Oh great FPers:
Bannon free new thread, please!
Kthx
Chris
@Baud:
Understandable. Given the fustercluck it is, even people with nothing but the best intentions will probably end up in some heated debate about the best thing to do. (Or not do).
Adam L Silverman
@A Ghost To Most: There are churches in Somalia.
Quinerly
@D58826: @Adam L Silverman:
I remember about a year ago, Wallace’s daughter was interviewed and asked about the comparisons of her father to Trump. She said her father would never demonize an entire religion or culture. She’s as progressive as you will find in Alabama. Married to a Supreme Court judge. They founded “Empower Alabama” to further the goals of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
TenguPhule
@Chris: Be fair. Spicer is very punchable.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: From what I know of LTG McMaster I am sure he’s working hard to discipline the system back to where it needs to be.
Baud
@Chris: They should have consulted bloggers. They always know what to do.
ruemara
@SatanicPanic: I can tell you why. Our government is bigger, more unwieldy and way more complicated in structure than any more recent modern govs that stemmed from single rulership forms. We’re also so intrinsically diverse, stubborn and fucking muleheaded on all sides that we’re as ungovernable to fascists as we are near ungovernable in democracy. Basic representative democracy is about the only thing we can do and we’re fuck-all dicks to anyone, even people we agree with, telling us what to do. Which was obvious. It takes time and we’re easily manipulated, but we’re not easily contained.
Adam L Silverman
@hovercraft: Sure, sure.
Elie
I just look at this administration and shake my head. Their insanity and incompetence is not sustainable. Its only what will be the take down and for what remains of competence in our institutions to prevent them from taking us all with them. Kushner is just the latest joke. I understand the Obama blaming cause that is essential to Trump’s Modus which always requires a villain of some sort. Earlier this week he even flashed back on the Clintons but probably figured that was not high enough on the distraction/outrage meter. Trump is “running with the line” right now, but the line is firmly tethered to an end point on a large ship that he will not be able to pull once the slack is played out. Also, too many things to manage and control in an administration without enough workers who know what they are doing. As I said, the only thing I care about is that they don’t take us with them…
Baud
@ruemara:
That should be a rotating tag-line.
Adam L Silverman
@A Ghost To Most: That about sums it up. In pursuing power he jettisoned ethics. Never a pretty combination.
Kropadope
@ruemara:
Life imitating art?
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
Obama “lost Syria” just like he crashed the economy in 2007-08. Powerful, for a feckless tyrant.
Elie
@ruemara:
Never thought about it like you just said it. Good points….
Adam L Silverman
@D58826: That was it. I wasn’t going to repeat it here.
TenguPhule
@Baud: Granted, most of our methods are neither ethical, legal or reliable.
TenguPhule
@Elie:
oh boy, have I got some bad news for you.
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: Remember it was Gorka who claimed that he was part of Bannon’s SIG as his senior advisor for National Security in addition to his formal job as Deputy Senior Advisor to the President for Counterterrorism.
sherparick
@Starfish: In odd couples, Keith Olbermann dated Laura Ingraham in the nineties.
D58826
@hovercraft:
And until the USSR dissolved a good communist dedicated to burying us from his perch at the KGB.
The world has certainly turned upside down.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: There was. As I wrote last night I did a strategic assessment, as part of a series of reports I did (Syrian Civil War, Iran and Hezbullah, Iraqi sectarian identity and sectarian violence, US strategy and policy on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute) from 2013 through 2014 in support of various CENTCOM, ARCENT, OSD-Policy, and OSD-Security Dialogue among others. I took the position in 2013 that we should not unilaterally respond to the chemical weapon attack for a variety of reasons, not least that it was unclear who was actually responsible and, perhaps even more important, we had no defined strategy or strategic end state for what we were doing other than enforcing something the President had said when asked about it the year before.
Chris
@ruemara:
Note that historically, the closest American thing to fascism doesn’t involve an all-powerful central government Doing Big Things. It’s more of a quasi-feudal arrangement with a bunch of petty tyrants whose main interest is getting to continue ruling their own fiefdoms.
If European fascism was modern-day absolutism, American fascism was modern-day feudalism.
bystander
@Adam L Silverman: I was afraid of that. She was decidedly condemnatory of Obama.
That damned Obama! Flatly refusing to use his magic wand.
SatanicPanic
@ruemara: so I guess our orneriness has its benefits!
Elie
@TenguPhule:
We’ll see. You should hate for me to be wrong about that. Are you thinking that they will win in the end?
Alain the site fixer
@Adam L Silverman: I think the SIG doesn’t exist except on paper. I read about this yesterday but can’t find it.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Do we know where Assad got his chemical weapon from? The news this morning just assumed that the inspectors missed it.
sherparick
@JMG: This will be repeated ad nauseam for the next week on Fox News, Fox Business, every Right Wing Talk Radio, Breitbart, Alex Jones, and all the right wing web sites so that 35% of the country will believe it as gospel by Friday. Just like it was Susan Rice and Hillary who killed those folks at Benghazi and sold all the U.S. uranium to Russia.
Chet Murthy
@Barbara:
QFT
Eljai
A couple outlets are reporting that Rick Perry is on the NSC now. Yeah, I feel better already.
Barbara
@Quinerly: Given how he changed when he lost the Alabama governor’s election, I do not have any doubt that Wallace would have demonized whoever he needed to at the time to retain office. He is her dad and I don’t expect the clear sighted analysis from someone’s daughter, but Wallace followed the ambient collective, he did not lead. He ramped up his bigotry to get back in office, and he let his bigotry go only when it became much safer politically to do so.
Chet Murthy
@amk: Bannonazi in footer bags! Hail Spode!
Adam L Silverman
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I have the same clearances. Unless he needs to know something, he doesn’t just get to see it.
hovercraft
And so it begins.
Flynn’s Son Lashes Out At Trump Adviser Who Replaced His Dad: ‘Is WH Serious?’
Michael G. Flynn, the son of President Donald Trump’s ousted national security adviser, lashed out on Wednesday at his father’s replacement, who he suggested was not as “loyal” to the President.
Flynn suggested that his father, Michael Flynn, and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon were more “loyal” to Trump than National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.
He also claimed that McMaster won’t use the phrase “radical Islam” and, apparently on that basis, questioned whether the White House is “serious” about defeating “our enemy.”
Pleas pass the popcorn
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: I remember seeing that.
efgoldman
@StringOnAStick:
Occam sez: Because they are too stupid and arrogant to know that was a problem.
PJ
@ruemara: If you spread enough money around to susceptible people in a democracy, as the Kochs and Mercers do, you can do a great deal to advance a specific program, despite a majority of the population not being in favor of that program. If you have billions to spend, your money supports political campaigns, think tanks promoting an ideology that justifies your program, media outlets that repeat your talking points, journalists who repeat your talking points not because they are paid by you but because they love access to you and want to think that they are your peer, etc. In a country the size of the US, there isn’t enough money to buy off everyone, or even a majority, but it can buy those who influence the public, which goes a long way in advancing something which is only of interest to a small minority (e.g., tax cuts for the very wealthy, who are a tiny part of the population.)
In the spread of disinformation and manipulation of the media and politicians, Rupert Murdoch and the Kochs had success in the US decades before Putin did.
Kathleen
@SiubhanDuinne: Before, assuming that would cause most suffering. guys
A Ghost To Most
@Ian G.: Best American rock band of the last twenty years. Their last album seals it.
Barbara
@efgoldman: Because they knew that being part of the conspiracy gave him so much to lose that he would never turn the tables on them.
SatanicPanic
@Eljai: I kinda do. That guy is dense AF and doesn’t seem outright evil. That’s about as good as it gets with this admin.
Chris
@trollhattan:
“Democrat lost Country X” is a Republican talking point going all the way back to the early fifties (usually a country that wasn’t actually “ours” to lose to begin with… as you can tell from the fact that it’s not named “the United States of America.”)
Truman lost China, Kennedy lost Cuba, Carter lost Iran and Afghanistan. Now this. (Nixon did not “lose” Vietnam, though, Walter Cronkite did that, and Eisenhower didn’t “lose” Cuba despite the fact that it actually happened on his watch and not Kennedy’s, and Dubya did not “lose” Palestine. Etc).
hovercraft
Flynn’s Son Lashes Out At Trump Adviser Who Replaced His Dad: ‘Is WH Serious?’
Michael G. Flynn, the son of President Donald Trump’s ousted national security adviser, lashed out on Wednesday at his father’s replacement, who he suggested was not as “loyal” to the President.
Flynn suggested that his father, Michael Flynn, and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon were more “loyal” to Trump than National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.
He also claimed that McMaster won’t use the phrase “radical Islam” and, apparently on that basis, questioned whether the White House is “serious” about defeating “our enemy.”
Quinerly
@sherparick: Read a profile of MSNBC’s Katie Tur a few months back. She was with KO for several years in her early 20’s. Both her parents are journalists and her father is transgender. Can’t remember if he has actually had surgery. This is turning into an “anything but Bannon thread.” I’ll also throw out the KAC coupling with Fred “Law and Order” Thompson of 20 or so years ago. Ick.
Now, the BJ ad on my page is for testosterone. Wow!
Gin & Tonic
@Eljai: He actually has a legitimate case. You know what DoE does, right?
bystander
“…you are now ruled by a stupid idiot…” – Daesh
Oh sure, rub it in. Like we didn’t know.
Timurid
@Baud: Sarin is WW II tech. As mentioned earlier, it can be made in any pesticide plant. There’s an off chance the Syrians just dropped high test agricultural pesticide. Undiluted, that stuff is super dangerous…
Miss Bianca
@hellslittlestangel: “I look forward to hearing that Bannon is suffering from a “bad cold.” ”
Not that he looks like he pays that much attention to personal hygiene under the best of circumstances, but in Bannon’s position right now I’d be worried about getting into the bathtub…
“OOPS!”
Adam L Silverman
@bystander: In a functioning administration, or any other organization, you want people who have diverse views and politely, firmly speak their minds when formulating strategy, policy, and plans. Then when the decision is made they move out sharply even if the decision isn’t their preferred decision.
DesertFriar
If you have never been there, I would recommend going to Cafe Poca Cosa on Pennington. Absolutely the best restaurant around. Menu is on a chalkboard and changes twice a day. Although when I go, I always have the same thing. That’s the Plato Poca Cosa. It’s the chef’s choice of three smaller portions of what is on the menu. You don’t get to pick. The chef picks.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: I do not.
hovercraft
@Eljai:
I believe that as Sec of Energy he is technically in charge of our nukes. This should comfort you all at night.
Adam L Silverman
@Alain the site fixer: It is likely that this is what the people who work for Bannon call themselves. Given Gorka’s pretensions, it makes sense he would use this term. Commanding generals have SIGs.
rikyrah
@SiubhanDuinne:
I am jealous
Uncle Cosmo
@David Spikes: A reanimated Alice Roosevelt Longworth would have said that he looks like the little hombre on the wedding quesadilla. Or something like that.
Adam L Silverman
@Eljai: As Secretary of Energy, who is responsible for the US nuclear arsenal and a lot of the expertise on non-proliferation, he should be.
ruemara
@PJ: Yes. And they lost most densely populated areas. They win because House & Senate seats & the EC vote are not based on the same metrics of population, they’re largely based on land masses. Not to mention no matter how much POC talk about voter suppression, it’s fucking hard to get progressive money & efforts into voter suppression solutions. So you can talk about money influencing people and media, but we’re still so fractured it’s hard to capture minds that weren’t willing to walk into the trap anyway. See, also, Trump voters.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: I am going to see it tonight at 7:00.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Co-signed. All of it.
Thru the Looking Glass...
God Lord… it’s like a giant
snowshit ball rolling downhill, getting bigger and bigger as it goes faster and faster…I’d reckon Jared & Reince are behind this… whilst I’m not crazy about either one of them, I do feel better w/ Bannon one the outs, somewhat… a little… a bit…
Now, if somehow we can avoid starting WW III before Nov 2018…
Strangely enough., Bannon seemed one of the very few people in that mess w NO direct ties to Russia, that I ever read about…
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
I’ll email you offline about an interesting speaker I saw at work yesterday where we talked about narrative and politics. There are too many specifics for me to put it here.
D58826
@sherparick: I would have paid good money to be a fly on the wall if they talked about Bill and Hillary :-)
Mnemosyne
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
It’s been rumored for a long time that Breitbart.com gets Russian financing, but I’m not sure that’s been confirmed.
bystander
@Chris: Let’s not forget that Rice went on to further disgrace herself when she read, reviewed and asked the identities of the Americans picked up in surveillance who were in constant contact with Russian money launderers. Like it was her job or something.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: Re Gorka, and Bannen/SIG:
As we know, Gorka has always had incentive for his narratives, and the WH officials expect to see benefits from theirs.
From the same article, at The Hill: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/327296-wh-internal-bannon-think-tank-never-actually-existed
lollipopguild
@trollhattan: Obama was all powerful, just like the Wizard of Oz except of course when he was exceptionally weak. You needed to keep a very large spreadsheet to keep track of the right wing complaining about Obama being “really weak” or “all powerful”. Then there were the many times when he was both of these at the same time. dessert topping or floor wax? BOTH!
Timurid
@Adam L Silverman: I’m sure he’s been studying very very hard… “When two atoms love each other very much…”
Kathleen
@The Lodger: Also too, Dy-No-Reich!
TenguPhule
@Elie: No, but I don’t expect them to be reined in short of complete civic breakdown.
The corpse of the Republic is rotting.
JPL
@Eljai: Huh? I guess if Jared can multi-task, so can Rick Perry.
A Ghost To Most
@TenguPhule:
“It’s just a flesh wound”
Adam L Silverman
@Aleta: I am the actual, real life professional that Gorka wants everyone to believe he is. I will say no more.
Miss Bianca
@Adam L Silverman: I did the same thing the other day to a couple folks in my writers group who were pulling the “hur dur government IS the problem” etc etc. routine. Strangely, they not only did not take me up on the offer, they even backtracked to admit that government does have SOME functions. Whew! What a relief! Now if we could come to agreement on the definition of “functionality” we might be able to have a dialogue!
Millard Filmore
@pamelabrown53:
My contempt for Trump leads me to think that an ultimatum of Bannon or ME would result in Trump picking Bannon. Trump can always replace McMaster and Bannon is a long time loyal friend.
My tin hat wild guess is that Cohen-Watnick’s adventure revealed that the IC has enough dirt on Bannon to fry him, and that the evidence is too widely distributed to be suppressed.
Corner Stone
I hate to tell some of you this…Obama got way over his skis on Syria. Then got cooled off and tried to force Congress to do their job. Which he knew they were never going to do. And also saved him from committing Boots Onna Ground ™ or any other damn thing.
If you want to argue that not taking action in Syria, at the time, is the appropriate response (which I did vociferously for numerous reasons, and people I love have skin in the game there), then that is one perspective. However, you can’t say issuing a Red Line and then OLE’ng to Congress when shit got real did not have outcomes. Because it did.
Somebody just WMD’d some Syrian people. That chemical warfare came from somewhere.
Instead of saying “Obama lost Syria”, which is a BS line and makes me want to vomit, Trump should articulate what he actually intends to achieve. With both hard and soft power. Now we know he will never do this because he is a buffoon surrounded by Amateur Hour. And he is Putin’s Puppet.
But blithely eliding what actually happened in Syria the last several years by using pithy hot takes to deflect the truth is fucking bullshit.
Quinerly
Back to Bannon…and maybe someone has mentioned it…saw a blurb from Monday that Roger Stone was on Infowars. He said Jared is the WH leaker and was gunning to oust Bannon. Didn’t click for details. Paraphrasing. Think it was the same show that Alex Jones went on and on about Adam Schiff being Gay (he’s not). These people. Slime does manage to find slime, though.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
It’s a beautiful thing when it happens. Unfortunately…
Joyce H
@Adam L Silverman:
Not just ‘should be’. The Sec of Energy is REQUIRED BY LAW to be on the NSC. What law is that? Oh, just the law that ESTABLISHED THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNSEL, that’s all. Which the Trump administration somehow missed the first time around.
For some reason, I keep remembering that old Casey Stengel quote – “Can’t anybody here play this game?”
Corner Stone
@Timurid:
I thought it was when one atom really hated itself and reached the point of self-loathing it could no longer stand it and split into two atoms?
Kathleen
@hellslittlestangel: He and Shirley Chisholm became good friends.
M31
@Gin & Tonic:
Well we do, does Perry?
rikyrah
In Pushing the Susan Rice Story, Did the Trump Administration Just Out Themselves?
by Nancy LeTourneau April 5, 2017 10:13 AM
……………………….
All of that is by way of background to an interesting nugget contained in this AP story.
All of that makes the question posed by Barton Gellman very prescient.
lollipopguild
@Joyce H: Laws? What are these laws that you speak of? Law? Laws? We don’t need no stinking laws! Or badges!
hovercraft
@Miss Bianca: Stop being such misers, we have a great deal of sparsely populated space out there, we can offer up a chunk of the mountain states or maybe we could give them Texas, OK, and some other states down there. I’m reluctant to give up NOLA, but sacrifices must be made, we would offer free re-location to anyone wanting to move in either direction. They could have their own free market utopia with no rules or regulations. In fact they could reserve the fancier coastal parts for the rich and confine their serfs to Oklahoma.
Much more generous than banishing them from these shores, but anyone wanting to come back to visit or work would need a visa and and would have to wear an ankle monitor for the duration of their visit so that we could make sure that they don’t become illegals.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone: Two gay atoms slam against each other until the weaker one splits into two smaller gay atoms which in turn go on to infect the rest of the bomb with their radioactive gayness.
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: Yes, yes they were. As I stated on Monday and yesterday. And earlier in this thread.
lollipopguild
@Corner Stone: That’s called fission. When two atoms live together even when they do not like each other it’s called cold fusion.
PJ
@ruemara: I agree with you about the limits of applying authoritarianism in the US today (my post could have been much clearer), just pointing out that money seems to be more effective at leveraging the weaknesses of democracy than the kind of direct power application that authoritarians want to make. There are always people who want to walk into the trap, but, as you point out, forcing Americans to walk into the trap is more difficult. Sheep will freely vote for the wolf when they think he’s a rebel like they are: http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/a20072
Of course, a few well-placed terrorist attacks, which Putin is no stranger to, can change that equation.
hovercraft
@M31:
Wasn’t there something about him being surprised when he got the job that he was in charge of maintaining the nukes?
TenguPhule
@A Ghost To Most: Its done knocked off. It’s an Ex-nation, I tell ya!
TenguPhule
@hovercraft: He thought it was an oil advertising job.
Kropadope
@M31:
Of course he does, he just found out when he was put in charge of it.
Corner Stone
@TenguPhule:
Our nuclear energy platform is based off the physics of the pit at a punk rock concert?
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone: With Perry in charge, yes.
Jeffro
@TenguPhule:
Which, sadly, is not even snark but the straight-up truth.
Rick Perry does make W look almost…intellectual. Almost.
GregB
People [email protected]Quinerly:
Listening to the level of vitriol and insanity unleashed by Jones, I would say that the heat on some of these smaller planets in the orbit is getting unbearable.
Something is going to blow.
M31
Thinking about Perry in charge of DOE caused this little conversation to happen in my head:
“Wow, can you imagine anyone knowing less about the cabinet job they were just given?”
“Yes.”
TenguPhule
@Jeffro: And this is why I’m a pessimist. The Onion couldn’t keep up with the new reality.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
Ah Texas, first they gave us the Shrub, then they gave us , Hey Don’t These Glasses Make Me Look Smart, and now you’re blessing us with Abbott. Please stop, secede already, we can’t take anymore of this generosity. Uncle!
ETA: I don’t think Abbott is dumb, but he is evil, which is worse.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Mnemosyne: That I had not heard before… but now that you mention it, I remember something about the FBI investigating alt-right websites for ties to fake news and Russian attempts to manipulate the election…
I was thinking more along the lines of the kinds of blatant, person-to-person ties people like Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, & jared clearly have…
Jeez… is there anyone in Trump’s inner circle who ISN’T knee-deep in Russian doodoo?
Corner Stone
@hovercraft:
I wish we fucking would.
Thru the Looking Glass...
@Jeffro: It’s the glasses… nothing says ‘Pseudo-intellectual; quite like plastic glass frames…
Now, if Rick were to start sportin’ a bowtie… he’d be the perfect George Will clone…
hovercraft
@M31:
Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, fuck it, all of them Katie. Knowing what wingnutia says about government and it’s supposed problems doesn’t mean you know anything about the department or how to run it.
Alain the site fixer
@Adam L Silverman: Ah, thanks!
piratedan
@J R in WV: if you want to do a meet, I think that can be arranged… we can do a meal in town or I can check with the much better half and play host.
didn;t know DesertFriar was also a local, and I do think there are a couple more… perhaps explore a Tucson meet and greet.
hovercraft
@Corner Stone:
I’m offering to relocate you, or you could remain there as our mole. Your choice, there will be other holdouts, but know that we are willing to offer you sanctuary. We approve of sanctuary cities and states.
Gravenstone
@germy: Trying to revise history just as fast as they fucking can.
TenguPhule
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
No.
This has been another obvious edition of SATSQ.
Uncle Cosmo
@Adam L Silverman: From the WIki bio:
Sometimes decency conquers ambition. But not as often–or as soon–as it should.
amk
@Chet Murthy: bannontazi would make ideal spode if he lost his girth.
Chris
@hovercraft:
Yeah, just think of the possibilities. After Texas goes completely off the hinges, the U.S. government is going to need some people on the scene when it decides to orchestrate a coup to overthrow your government and install a friendly regime that’ll sell us oil at reasonable rates.
Why, you could be the Shah of Texas!
Brachiator
@Eljai:
Rick Perry?
He can’t even spell “NSC.”
Quinerly
@GregB:
Jones would be totally off my radar but for his relationship with the president. Feel like I kinda need to keep up with some of his vitriol to know what the president is listening to. Read part of the insane rant about Schiff. I’m fearing one day we will all be so worn down from this, that we we will be numb. Hard to believe we are less than 100 days in.
hovercraft
@Chris:
If we get rid of the oil states, we can full throttle towards green energy, we have gas from states that will stay and we’ll still have Canada and Alaska. While they continue to pump the oil we’ll keep increasing CAFE standards while they build gas guzzles and those “rolling coal” obnoxious things the build to piss off liberals.
TenguPhule
@hovercraft: Unfortunately air and water flow across borders.
Bill Arnold
@Quinerly:
Perhaps this: ROGER STONE is today throwing JARED KUSHNER under the bus “he is leaking info” The alt-right’s paranoia has no loyalty #trump #theresistance
Juicy!
Chris
@hovercraft:
Oh yeah, good point.
But never fear, there’ll be other reasons. I can’t imagine blood-red Texas existing as an independent nation right on our border for any extended amount of time before we decide that we can’t leave the place alone.
Miss Bianca
@hovercraft: Ha, ha! Both I and the folks in question live in rural CO – so sparsely-populated and so rural, in fact, that we are technically considered “frontier” in demographic terms. So, they’d probably jump on the offer to spin off a “libertarian people’s republic” right here!
schrodingers_cat
@Chris: Partition/secession may seem like a good idea in theory, its usually terrible in practice and execution.
J R in WV
@A Ghost To Most:
Tedeschi Trucks Band, and Buddy Guy. I rest my case. I guess we’re all allowed out favorites, right? I think Susan Tedeschi is tops, and Derek is pretty good too.
Buddy Guy, tho, just wow! That guy’s 72, and he’s gotten better every year for all that time.
J R in WV
@DesertFriar:
So, right downtown, huh? Probably have driven past, but haven’t spent much time in the old downtown. Will give it a try. Thanks!!
Love the food in Tucson, high end, low end, local family, pretty much all good.
Jay C
My own opinion is that there’s a lot less than meets the eye re Steve Bannon’s reassignment.
While his (formal) removal from the NSC can’t help but be an improvement for that board (but SRSLY, replaced by Rick Perry???) he is still going to be in the White House, still have the President’s ear, and still be a Major Player in the Administration. Only now with somewhat less public (and non-public) scrutiny.
I’ll believe Steve Bannon is truly “demoted” when I see that his next office will be in one of those Federal buildings where the “conference tables” are fitted with ringbolts.
Quinerly
@Bill Arnold: Specifically, Jared is supposed to be leaking to Joe Scarborough. Is Jared back from Iraq? He’s got to get down to Mar A Lago for the China thing. Isn’t he putting that embarrassment together?
Chris
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh, totally.
I was mostly kidding above, but yeah, one of the main things that seems to go unmentioned when it comes to partition is that it isn’t, in fact, the end of the story, and that just because the people you parted with are now an outside nation doesn’t mean you won’t still have to deal with them. “Just let Texas/the South secede,” whether now or in the 1860s, basically just results in them becoming the Pakistan to our India.
(This isn’t even to get into all the bloodshed that goes into the partition process itself…)
Aleta
The Moar You Know
@Corner Stone: And Libya. Lotta people died there that didn’t need to, and no, I am not talking about BENGHAZI11!!1
Bill Arnold
@different-church-lady:
I think this is mostly infighting that was created by Trump’s original staffing decisions. We all know the characters involved. (J Kushner in particular.)
SiubhanDuinne
@pamelabrown53:
Just ended a couple of minutes ago. I think this was my first time to see it on the big screen in 50-some years. There are several truly terrifying moments, no matter how many times you’ve watched it and know how everything ends :-)
Glad I took my chances on the weather and decided too see it after all. Hope I don’t leave the theatre now only to find a tornado in progress.
Quinerly
Can’t link from Microsoft phone but check out Steve M’s post over at No More Mister Nice Guy blog on Flynn/Bannon. Short read with some blasts from the recent past. Hard to remember all this shit…even from January.
lollipopguild
@The Moar You Know: Libya was supposed to be taken care of by the Brits and the French.
Bill Arnold
@Quinerly:
Yes. Wouldn’t haven’t mentioned this except you did first. Would love to have access to the White House listening apparatus. :-)
If I was forced to guess, one item of argumentation ammunition was perhaps the NATO bill reportedly (and denied) presented to Angela Merklel.
White House denies report that Trump handed Merkel a bill for NATO services
The story at the time was that this was Bannon’s idea. If it happened or even if it was just discussed, it was a pretty bad idea.
Barbara
@Bill Arnold: You can’t fire the son-in-law. Not possible. The downside of nepotism for those who otherwise think they are okay with it.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: Nobody knows I’m a dog.
Bill Arnold
@Barbara:
Yes. Finding it a little difficult to model (as in understand) the dynamics of the relationship. (Anyone know of a good psychological-style profile of J. Kushner?)
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
I am still believing that Kadaffi was intent upon mas murder on a scale far beyond anything we’ve seen so far since NATO intervened in that poor mis-governed country. So maybe still a net win? I’m thinking so, and Obama didn’t go in there by himself, either. It was a NATO operation.
In which case
Barbara
@Bill Arnold: Google “The Tablet” and “Kushner” and “Shanda” and you will arrive at an article with the subheading “How the scion of one tri-state crime family married into another, in a story equal parts ‘Sopranos’ and ‘Game of Thrones.’”
Basically, Kushner is the kind of person who blamed his father’s stint in jail for 18 different federal crimes on his aunt and uncle’s unwillingness to join the conspiracy. He is the kind of person who prizes loyalty the way Trump does. The whole family is suffering from a case of collective Stockholm Syndrome.
Quinerly
@Barbara:
Big fan of “The Tablet.”
DesertFriar
@J R in WV:
Right. Between Scott & 6th Ave.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Good point, thanks.
Bill Arnold
@ruemara:
This made me smile (out loud, if such a thing were possible). Tx.
A Ghost to Most
@J R in WV:
You need to read the lyrics. DBT has laid out our American problems in lifelike detail.
Jason Isbell too.
Bill Arnold
@Miss Bianca:
Y’all are brutal today about demise-by-accident. Hoping we don’t go there – it’s very irritating to see such extremely improbable clusters.
Montanareddog
@SiubhanDuinne: In 1997 (20 years ago already!), I saw the re-released, restored version of “Vertigo” on a big screen. It blew my mind. A trite, melodramatic plot turned into a psychological masterpiece by Hitchcock at his late 50s peak. I can’t advise the youngs enough on how important it is to see great movies in a picture house.
Side note: I met my wife 3 years later. She grew up in a developing country where the TV showed like one Hollywood movie a week on a Sunday night after she and her siblings were supposed to be in bed. But they used to sneak down and look through a crack in the living room door as her parents watched. She asked me if I knew the name of a movie that had mesmerised her as a child, about a detective following a woman who was obsessed by a painting of a woman in a green dress. That question sealed our relationship.
Bill Arnold
@Thru the Looking Glass…:
M mentioned it; there’s some stuff about funding of Breitbart, that looked weak to me. A chain of names with a close-to-Putin person at the end. But I’m not a digger of this sort of linkage; perhaps it’s real.
liberalandlovingit!
@MaryL:
Impeachment. Pardon. Golf. All in a day’s work!
Barbara
@Bill Arnold: He might not have direct ties to Russia but he has direct ties and clear links to European Neo-Nationalist movements that are one step away from having Nazi ambitions. He is destabilizing for NATO and anything else connected to European Allies. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of them told McMaster exactly that.
liberalandlovingit!
@Uncle Cosmo:
Didn’t Attwater have a death-bed conversion and say that what he had done in his life was wrong- he should have been helping people instead of rat-f’ing them?
Ksmiami
@Yarrow: See for example Stalin…
liberalandlovingit!
@Ian G.:
-and small children in Syria, who looked like sleeping cherubim; LGBTQ in Chechnya; reporters; opponents. BDS