Axios is getting fed a line of bull:
The White House chief strategist has told associates he never intended to do an “interview” with an editor at the American Prospect, a left-wing publication.
Bannon has told associates that he admired the author’s stance on China, and so called the journalist, Robert Kuttner, on Tuesday, to discuss his piece. Apparently Bannon never thought that the journalist might take his (very newsworthy) comments and turn them into a story. It’s Anthony Scaramucci all over again (minus the curse words.)
Bull.
I’m a health policy analyst with some press contacts but I am a virtual no one in the grand scheme of things.
I know that everything I say starting with “Hello” is on the record unless both parties specifically agree that a conversation or part of a conversation is either off the record, for background or not for attribution. Yes, I know that some of my comments will never be printed. Those are often comments regarding how freaking adorable the puppy pictures on Twitter are but everything can be printed.
Several months ago, I was in DC for work. I try to get my work down and I also try to meet with people I talk to on Twitter so I can put names and voices to Twitter accounts. I arranged a coffee with a reporter. We met and as soon as I finished stirring my coffee, the reporter had a tape recorder out just in case we discussed anything super interesting. Did that shape how I expressed some ideas? Yes, but we still had a great conversation and we both came out of it with a better understanding of the other. That’s life when talking with a reporter.
Baud
But those are the stories I’m interested in.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: You’ll just have to live with the pic of my girls that I linked to yesterday.
Mary G
Sounded like drunk dialing to me and this is just an effort to save his job. The president can’t have liked the tone of “I’m going to get rid of so-and-so at State” because it feeds into the President Bannon controls the dumb puppet thing. Also, too, he told the truth about North Korea and we can’t have that.
TK
I think he was looking for an escape hatch because his influence is waning and basically used Kuttner, knowing full well he’d be able to say that liberal was unfair to him/misquoted him and his people would eat it up when Trump fires him for undercutting the North Korea policy.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That was a good pic.
Lee
Woah Woah Woah! There pardnr
You are one of the semi-serious posters that fill in between the cat, dog & lost mustard posts. Don’t sell yourself short!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Mary G: Bannon drunk? He must have not been asleep then.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
My employers always had simple rules of what to say to the press. Basically, “Hello, let me give you the number of our Communications Director”.
Cheryl Rofer
Thanks, David. I was thinking similar things last night. I talk to reporters occasionally and assume that I am always on the record, unless we negotiate otherwise. And I try not to go off the record. If there’s something I don’t want printed, I just don’t say it unless it is absolutely essential to the meaning of other stuff I’ve said. I had a Twitter dm conversation with a reporter the other night. I’m pretty sure it was just a conversation between Twitter acquaintances and his attempt to understand a subject better, but I still didn’t say anything that I wouldn’t want printed.
Anyone in the White House should understand this.
Cheryl from Maryland
Anyone anywhere should understand one is always on the record. If not to the press, then to the general public or to one’s counterparts or even to one’s neighbors – when I was evaluating museums to take Smithsonian objects, if I went outside the office for information, I automatically assumed that I shouldn’t say/write anything I didn’t want repeated. On the other hand, this attempted walk back just adds to the chaos — so, confusion to our enemies.
PST
I do not, of course, believe Bannon, but if, for the sake of argument, one accepts that he or Scaramucci thought they had reached an agreement with a journalist that their conversations were “off the record,” then they were engaged in torrential leaking — supposedly a mortal sin in Trumpworld, but in fact a way of life there, objectionable only when someone else does it.
Spanky
Filed under “That’s nice, but who the fuck cares?” :
Thanks, WaPo.
Spanky
@?BillinGlendaleCA: If memory serves, it’s possible to be drunk and asleep. A lot.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Bannon’s a professional troll so was he’s trolling.
And good lord, Bennon gets drunk and starts bragging to reporters as the source of most of those White House leaks makes sense.
Frankensteinbeck
I doubt this was accidental, but one should never underestimate either the hubris or stupidity of Trump and his lackeys.
TS
@Cheryl Rofer:
Anyone in any other White House would understand this. Team trump – not so much.
nonynony
And of course Bannon owns a news website (or should I say a “news” website) so he really should know this at some level.
So what’s really going on here? I see a lot of people suggesting that this is some kind of 19-dimensional chess on Bannon’s part.
I would suggest that maybe, just maybe, Bannon is a lot like Karl Rove. A man of above-average intelligence who, through no small amount of luck, has stumbled into a powerful role manipulating the most powerful idiot man-child in the world and now thinks he’s a genius.
I would also suggest that maybe the egomaniac was drunk off his ass when he called Kuttner. He’s always struck me as the type who thinks he can hold his liquor better than he actually can. The kind of guy who will be insisting that he’s “not too drive to drunk” as you try to take his keys away from him at the end of the night.
(I literally cannot see a tactical reason for him to go on the record essentially calling the racist worms who think he’s great a bunch of stupid dupes while also essentially bragging that he’s the guy who is really in charge and Trump is going to jump to do whatever he wants. There’s no purpose behind it – even if he’s just a goddamn Discordian looking to sow some chaos, there are much more crazy things he could be doing to do that.)
OzarkHillbilly
Keeping in mind that this is the former head of Breitbart News. Kinda tells you what kind of a news organization they are.
Keith P.
I’m not buying it, simply for the reason that Scaramucci tried to use the same excuse 2 weeks ago…very publicly, too.
Catherine D.
@Mary G:
I was thinking more cocaine than booze …
Frankensteinbeck
@nonynony:
A good point. Even the best of us have our moments of derp, and Bannon is nowhere near the best of us.
OzarkHillbilly
@nonynony: Beat me to it.
Wapiti
My fear is that it’s Bannon cornering Trump into a decision to bomb NK. All the smart people in the room say you can’t bomb them, and Trump begrudgingly walks away. Bannon goes to the press with ‘Trump can’t do X’ to get the ball rolling again, maybe push Trump over the edge into a decision.
Bannon might believe that they need an outside enemy – fast. He might be willing to break a lot of people-things to make it happen.
MattF
Just as a sub-narrative, Bannon talks to a reporter for a lefty magazine, sounds suspiciously sane, and then complains about being quoted. What, exactly, was his goal in talking to a lefty reporter? IMO, it’s possible that Bannon is making plans for influence after he’s been fired– “Fired by Donald Trump” is a good bullet point on your resume, if you’re looking leftward. Would not put it past him.
clay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Joe this Morning blasted Bannon this morning as the “number one leaker”, saying that he (Bannon) is constantly calling up journalists and bragging about all the moves he’s making and how he’s not afraid of Kushner because he (Bannon) was tying the Russian thing around Kushner’s neck and other examples like that. But he always did so under condition of anonymity.
It seems like Bannon was doing the same thing here, but he forgot to establish the conditions first.
rikyrah
Tell that truth, Mayhew.
JPL
twitter.com/AP/status/898065855489212416
I assume this was in response to Bannon’s comment on North Korea.
nonynony
@Catherine D.: I doubt it’s cocaine – I mean look at the man. That’s the look of either a serious boozehound or a meth-head.
And I don’t mean that second one as a joke. Bannon always reminds me of the “after” picture when they do those before and after pics of meth-heads on the “don’t do meth” ads scattered around on billboards in the rural areas of the state.
debit
@nonynony: Seriously. There are open sores on his face in every picture I’ve ever seen of him.
Central Planning
@Spanky: Is passed out technically sleeping?
gene108
I was kind of impressed by what I read of the Bannon interview. He has an actual coherent strategy to address what he sees as unfair trade practices in China, within international law.
It is probably the most rational thing anyone from this Administration has said in the last seven months.
Yeah, yeah there’s some kooky paranoia about China eclipsing the USA, but he actually named international statutes that could be used to enforce his vision of trade policy, as opposed to his “boss”, who just talks about slapping a 40% tariff on imports.
MomSense
@Mary G:
Was just about to say the same thing.
germy
He’s literally a diseased liver with a 1970s hairdo.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF:
Ummmm, no. Just no.
germy
(Editorial euphemism)
Yarrow
Speaking of the tag, “Good News for Conservatives,” sigh…
nonynony
@clay:
Now that’s interesting. Comes back to my theory about him being a man with above-average intelligence who thinks he’s a genius. Also to my theory that he was drunk.
Too bad it was on Morning Joe and not on Fox & Friends – Trump probably will never hear about it.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@nonynony:
I’ve dealt with a lot of morbid middle-aged alcoholics in my career. He has the facial complexion, mottling and hair sheen (there’s a waxy aspect I recognize) of about a liter a day man – vodka or whiskey is my guess. His upper torso fat is not evenly distributed – that’s a sign (to me, anyway) that his liver is struggling.
sdhays
@JPL: At this point, North Korea gaining nuclear strike capability seems pretty “imaginable” to me…
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
The only time I’ve ever talked to a reporter was back in the mid-1980s, when Pete Rose was player manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. I was with my cousin, in some small town in Southern Ohio, when Pete Rose rejoined the Cincinnati Reds as player manager. A reporter for the local town newspaper got wind that we from out of town (big excitement in a small town in that part of Ohio) and asked us for our opinion on whether we were pro-Pete Rose as a player manager. Despite that very limited experience, even I know that in order for what you say to a reporter to be off the record, you have to tell the reporter you want the conversation off the record.
Bannon absolutely has to know this…he ran a “news” organization (Breitbart) for several years.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
Indiana doesn’t surprise me, especially with that report from last week about Indiana purposefully expanding Early Voting in GOP areas while refusing to do so in DEM areas. Voter Suppression.
JPL
Since Bannon dismissed the white supremacists, I assume Trump thinks he needs to throw his base a bone
Trump tweet
rikyrah
‘Wages and wives’ are a big reason the rich are getting richer
Richard Reeves, The Brookings Institution
Jul. 27, 2017, 9:44 AM
Over the past four decades, the gap between those at the top of the income ladder and everyone else has widened. The “top” here includes, but is not limited to, the top 1%. A larger group, equivalent to the top fifth of the income ladder, have seen their incomes rise faster than the majority of Americans.
The top fifth (quintile) of US households saw a $4 trillion increase in combined pretax income in the years between 1979 and 2013. The combined rise for the bottom 80%, by comparison, was just over $3 trillion. The gap between the bottom fifth and the middle fifth has not widened at all. In fact there has been no increase in inequality among the bottom 80%.
It is not correct to describe the inequality problem as a “growing gap between rich and poor.” The problem is a growing gap between “the rich” — if we are willing to accept that label for families with $120,000-plus incomes — and everyone else.
Widening income inequality reflects two trends in particular: increased gaps in earnings and greater labor-market participation for women who are married with children — wages and wives. The trend in earnings has been toward higher wages at the top, largely as a result of increased returns to human capital. While real wage rises have been sickly for those outside the top quintile, even as the economy climbs out of recession, the average salary at the top has grown by 58% since 1979. For sure, this figure includes the top 1%, who are seeing their earnings grow fastest of all. But even for the 19% below them, average wage and salary income grew by a robust 44% over the same period.
………………………………………
If high-earning women were marrying low-earning men, the effect of increased female labor-force participation on income inequality might be positive. But that’s not happening. Instead, well-educated, well-paid women marry well-educated, well-paid men, a process sociologists have given the stunningly unromantic label of “assortative mating.” This means that the growing gaps we see in earnings are magnified in terms of household income. My colleague Gary Burtless estimates that between 10 and 16% of income inequality in the US is caused by the “growing correlation of earned incomes received by husbands and wives.”
The combination of wage inequality, increased female employment, and assortative mating has therefore driven a sharp and growing income separation of the American upper-middle class.
Why does this matter? Some object to inequality on simple moral grounds (see Jeremy Waldron’s new book, “One Another’s Equals,” for a contemporary expression). My fear is that American inequality is starting to replicate itself across generations. In a society and economy where money matters a great deal — in terms of access to housing, education, and healthcare, for instance — an increase in income inequality is likely to lead to an increase in other forms of inequality, too. Upper-middle-class parents are able to invest heavily in the human capital of their children, which in turn increases their chances of remaining at the top of the income ladder — what The Economist labels as “hereditary meritocracy.”
Raven
I just drove 50 miles in Charleston rush hour traffic because I forgot a couple ofLil Bits eye meds. The animal eye vet here wouldn’t/couldn’t fill it so now I’m at Publix pharma. Our eye vet could fax it so it was a big waste of time to drive here. On the other hand it’s really hot and fishing is not great.
Another Scott
@nonynony: “People are policy.” Donnie knew what he was getting when he hired these people. Whether Bannon is a genius or an idiot doesn’t really matter. His actions in destroying our government have the same effect either way.
Of course, Donnie is doubling down yet again on the Twitter machine this morning.
He needs to go.
He can take Bannon and all the rest with him and make the USA a better place.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
And, because I don’t wanna hear anymore about Dolt45’s voters…
Most disturbing thing I read yesterday. Absolutely Enraged me.
From Mother Jones:
“We Just Feel Like We Don’t Belong Here Anymore”
Think it’s hard for the white working class in rural America? Try being a person of color.
BECCA ANDREWS
AUG. 16, 2017 6:00 AM
Since Trump’s election, there has been ample coverage of white people—the rise of white nationalism, the white working class that makes up Trump’s core constituency, the 53 percent of white women who voted him into office. Much less has been written about the people of color who live and work amid the rising tide of white nationalism in rural red states.
…………………………………………
It can be a lovely place to live, but in counties like Crockett, it’s hard to be anything other than white. So I decided to go back home, and talk to the people I should have been talking to all along—people of color who live and work and go to school with white Trump supporters. They told me how it feels to live among neighbors who voted against their best interests, and—worst case—their basic existence.
………………………………………………………
Madyson Turner: “With the way it’s going now, I’m actually scared that I won’t make it.”
I remember high-school Madyson Turner as a vibrant young black woman with a sense of humor that could dissipate tension in any room. (Turner’s name has been changed here to protect her privacy.) But when we meet up in a Subway sandwich shop in Alamo, there’s a new weight to her shoulders, and her infectious laugh doesn’t come quite so easily.
When she first began to see reports about the violence in Charlottesville, Turner thought it was a tasteless joke. Then she saw videos of the clash on Saturday, and her phone rang—her boyfriend was calling to check on her and process what was happening. He sounded upset. What he said tore at her: “I would rather the world end instead of us having to keep dealing with this stuff.” What hurt her more was the realization that she agreed with him.
“With the way it’s going now, I’m actually scared that I won’t make it,” she said to me in a text message.
Turner tells me in the past year, life for her family has changed. She hints that her parents have been in West Tennessee long enough to know which families fought against civil rights “back in the day.” Since Trump’s election, they’ve warned her to steer clear of a list of people that is too long for comfort.
The day after the November presidential election, Turner went with her mother to the store, and they both kept their heads down. “We just feel like we don’t belong here anymore,” she says.
Turner’s mom, who cleans houses in town for a living, went to work a couple days after that, and her employer, an older white woman, brought up the results of the recent election. The two had talked politics before—Turner’s mom is a Democrat, and her employer is a Republican. “Well, you might as well come and live with me now,” the employer said. “You gonna be mine eventually.”
She called her daughter in tears. Turner immediately got in her car and picked her mother up to bring her home.
Last year before the election, a young woman Turner described as one of her best friends casually mentioned she hoped for a Trump victory so that he might “do away with some of these African-American people.” She quickly clarified that she wasn’t referring to Turner’s “type,” but when Turner sharply asked her what she meant, she couldn’t answer. Another friend assured her that it would be OK if Trump won the election because she would convince her parents to purchase Turner’s family as their new slaves. In a place where a few large plantation-style houses remain scattered through the county, the “joke” feels a lot like a threat.
“I saw a lot of true colors from a lot of people since the election—down with African Americans, down with Hispanics, build the wall, even for the legal ones,” she says. “It really hurts.”
germy
clay
@gene108:
Not that kooky, but what he doesn’t realize (or acknowledge) is that the Trump Administration is taking steps to increase China’s international power while reducing our own. Withdrawing from TPP, insisting that China do the heavy lifting about North Korea… if the US intentional abdicates a leadership role in Asia/the Pacific, who does Bannon think will fill that vacuum?
So Bannon’s own actions are what is causing his paranoid idea to become more likely.
germy
Yarrow
@JPL:
Trump’s base loves him.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@rikyrah: You know, I’m tired of these articles blaming upper middle income families for marrying peers and staying near the bottom of the top 1% in income and wealth. They’re not the problem, and that phenomenon is not the problem. It’s a huge distraction from the actual problem, which is that the 0.01 percent are hoovering up the vast majority of wealth and are the only people really making gains. The upper middle income folks are mostly treading water just like everyone else, and are one real financial disaster away from destitution, just like everyone else. It may take a bigger, less probable financial disaster but a bout with cancer when you’re between health insurance plans would do it.
Yeah, a few of their kids might invent some new app, device, etc. that pushes them up into the income stratosphere but the vast majority just go to work at professional jobs like being a doctor, lawyer, mid level corporate executive, engineer, etc. Yes, they stay upper middle class but again they are not the problem or why everyone beneath their income level is suffering…the problem is the people in the Koch brothers’/Trump/Bezos/Gates income bracket. They’re the ones sucking up every ounce of surplus wealth in this country.
Major Major Major Major
OT: In an article I just read in the WaPo business section, the alt-right is defined as “a fractious coalition of neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and those opposed to feminism”, so, good for them, telling it like that in straight news!
Yarrow
@Raven: That does not sound like fun.
Emma
@rikyrah: I read that yesterday. I. Can’t. Even. Really. No words. Just sulphourous rage.
rikyrah
Why top members of Trump’s team still haven’t resigned
08/16/17 01:02 PM
By Steve Benen
………………………
Whether these accounts are true or not is hard to say. It’s awfully easy for various officials – many of whom are unnamed – to quietly tell reporters that they’re uncomfortable with their boss’ racist display. It’s less easy to do something meaningful, such as typing a resignation letter.
And yet, at least as of this morning, that hasn’t happened. It’s worth considering why.
The New York Times had an interesting piece this morning on what some White House insiders were saying last night.
That’s quite an insight. It’s not that members of the president’s team were surprised to hear him make such offensive comments; rather, they were “stunned” he made these comments to a national audience.
Evidently, he’s supposed to keep these offensive rants in-house.
This helps explain why no one has quit over the last 20 hours because it’s a reminder that members of Team Trump knew what they signed up for. When they chose to work for this president, they knew about the racism. And the reluctance to condemn white supremacists. And the misogyny. And the narcissistic megalomania. And the rhetoric in support of violence. And the admiration of authoritarian dictators. And the delusional conspiracy theories. And the uncontrollable dishonesty.
Each of them – from cabinet secretaries to White House aides to interns – knew exactly who Donald J. Trump is, and they took the job anyway.
rikyrah
GOP senator ready to ‘move beyond’ Trump’s racially charged comments
08/16/17 04:53 PM—UPDATED 08/16/17 05:14 PM
By Steve Benen
In the wake of the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) condemned white nationalism as a “completely evil ideology.” As the Cap Times reports today, however, the Republican senator is less firm when it comes to Donald Trump’s defense of racist activists.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/16/17
Trump lawyer not helping with pro-Confederacy e-mail
Rachel Maddow shares a new report from The New York Times that Donald Trump’s lawyer forwarded an e-mail arguing no difference between Robert E. Lee and George Washington.
Cermet
I, for one, am glad of this leak or news or what-ever; that Bannon understands full well what any military action will cause (likely that millions would die) and fully acknowledges that the consequences cannot be avoid so he would never encourage such an action, is a relief. Frankly, hope he can remain influencing the orange fart cloud on this rather critical point.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/16/17
Lots of talk, no resignations over Trump racist rally remarks
Rachel Maddow notes that contrary to expectations and the indications of a lot of sternly worded condemnations, no members of the Trump team actually resigned in the wake of his comments on the racist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/16/17
Prominent investigator exits Mueller Trump Russia team
Rachel Maddow reports on the surprising departure of Peter Strzok, a prominent counter-espionage investigator who had been working on Robert Mueller’s Trump Russia investigation.
Major Major Major Major
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Only a liter?
And I have to ask, how can you tell which particular kind of liquor, just by looking at him? I’d guess vodka just from who he is, but that’s a personality thing.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/16/17
Russia still helping Trump, hacked mail story suggests
Rachel Maddow looks at the timeline of a Trump-promoted, hacked e-mail-driven conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton collusion with Ukraine as it made its way through the White House, a Russian web site, and Fox News on its way to Trump supporters.
Hoodie
@clay: Bannon only Cres about China to the degree that it provides power to his domestic rivals. The mooch was right, Bannon has his own agenda, just like goebbels had his own agenda. The goons from C’ville don’t read lefty mags and are a bunch of head cases anyway, so he’s not worried about hurting their feelings. As long as they’ve got rallies and heads to bash, they’re happy. Those guys show up for the cosplay, they get off on the confrontation and the potential for violence. It’s fight club.
That contact with kuttner is more about dividing liberals and the left on trade and their are plenty of suckers on the left who will fall for it. C’ville provided an opening for bannon because it’s split Trump from the global corporations that are heavily tied into China and put a torpedo into kushner’s boat. Notice the coincident attacks on amazon. It’s all about weakening any independent power centers, drawing in borders, dividing potential alliances that could challenge concentration of power. You want a weak, compliant congress, a stacked judiciary and a controlled media that peddles a combination of propaganda and silly entertainment. You do that by cultivating a base that is addicted to resentment and sowing chaos that allows you to stoke that resentment, play on people’s emotions and keep them from acting rationally. If you understand that these guys ultimately want a Putin-style kleptocracy in which everyone has to pay up to get a seat at the table, it starts to make sense.
rikyrah
Ms. Ifill was on point last night. Speaking the truth.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/16/17
Trump race crisis a test for Congress to take real action
Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, talks with Rachel Maddow about how Congress can do more than the bare minimum of tweeting condemnation of racism to address the actual problem with legislation.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/16/17
A plan to resist emboldened racists: keep Trump small, use laws
Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, talks with Rachel Maddow about how best to anticipation and counter the political ambitions of racist groups emboldened by succor from Donald Trump.
rikyrah
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 8/16/17
Alabama AG sues Birmingham over covered Confederate memorial
Mayor William Bell of Birmingham, Alabama talks with Rachel Maddow about his decision to cover up the city’s Confederate Memorial and the legal pushback from the state for doing so.
J.
I am a journalist/reporter who started life as a fact checker for a New York magazine (where I used to fact check Donald Trump, who, for the record, was happy to speak with ANYONE in the media). When the whole Monica Lewinsky – Bill Clinton thing blew up, we reporters developed what we called the Linda Tripp Rule: Any time you speak with someone and plan on recording them, be sure to ask their permission first — and then get it on tape. That way they can’t refute what they said or accuse you of publishing off-the-record comments. Anyone who has anything to do with the media or PR, especially anyone who was around NYC or DC in the 1990s knows about this rule. So for the Mooch or Bannon, both of whom are older than I am and have dealt with the media for years, to say they had no idea their comments were on the record is disingenuous.
Jeffro
Here’s a great political column from a sports writer: Sorry For the Inconvenience Fans, but Black Athlete Activism is Multiplying
Read the whole thing (and email Mr. Brewer with your thanks if you like it as much as I did)
rikyrah
Trump, Joint Chiefs have very different responses to Charlottesville
08/17/17 09:22 AM
By Steve Benen
How isolated is Donald Trump in the wake of his public defense of bigoted activists? Even U.S. military leaders are making clear their reactions to violence in Charlottesville are not in line with the president’s.
At face value, seeing U.S. military leaders denounce racists and their twisted ideas may seem obvious and unremarkable, but the broader context is important. For one thing, service chiefs do not always weigh in publicly in response to national events. On the contrary, their goal is generally to remain as apolitical as possible.
……………………………………………………..
Slate’s Fred Kaplan had a good piece on this late yesterday, calling the services chiefs’ statements “stunning,” and the result of a leadership vacuum created by the collapse of the presidency.
Glidwrith
@rikyrah: Holy Fucking Shit, that has got to be the sickest, most disgusting thing I have read in a while. The assumption that these unrepentant bigots would own people, just because the Shitgibbon was elected tells me these slime heard his message loud and clear. Time to up the donations again and call up the Congresscitters.
Shalimar
I think Bannon drunk-dialed the reporter to congratulate him on a story he agreed with. From the tone and his reputation as a background manipulator, Bannon spends a lot of his time talking with reporters like this, and he never has to say it’s off the record because conservative journalists wouldn’t dream of crossing him by printing his ramblings without explicit permission.
rikyrah
ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES 8/16/17
Frederick Douglass: How to deal with ‘treacherous president’
Frederick Douglass, who according to Donald Trump is being ‘recognized more and more,’ wrote an essay re-published by The Atlantic today on how to deal with ‘A Treacherous President who Stood in the Way.’
Iowa Old Lady
@Spanky: “Deeply troubled”? He can hang out with Susan Collins.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: I read that story yesterday. Realizing what POC are going thru’ since this election is just fueling my rage. Unfortunately, it’s mostly my Bernie-wuz-robbed white friends who are feeling the brunt of it.
gene108
@clay:
I agree. Trump is a godsend for China’s international ambitions.
I can’t get mad about TPP. Most of the opposition to it came from the Left, because it is a matter of faith that NAFTA and other international agreements destroyed manufacturing in the USA. And if we never had trade agreements like NAFTA, there would be manufacturing jobs for everyone, when you go to the stores stuff would mostly say “Made in USA”, and no white people would have “economic anxiety”.
I also think China rips off a lot of intellectual property developed here, as well as reverse engineers things we build there to get ahead, without having to invest in R&D.
And China’s economy may or may not be as strong as perceived from the outside. Their accounting standards are rather opaque, the government props or directly funds large sectors of their economy to keep people employed, whether or not those businesses are viable.
Basically, China is going to rival the USA economically or their economy is going to come crashing down. We shall see.
But Trump & Co are not helping our cause.
bluehill
@rikyrah: It’s interesting to see some news commentators, particularly the ones on fox, realize that the things Trump said before weren’t part of an act to rile dems. I think they thought they were in on the joke and are now finding out the joke’s on them.
Major Major Major Major
@Miss Bianca: why’s that unfortunate?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@rikyrah:
There’s a giant fucking surprise.
People like what they like, within certain mathematic standard deviations. Anecdotally, in my experience, about 2/3 of people tend to wind up with partners with similar socioeconomic backgrounds, primarily met through shared schools, neighborhoods, activities and interests. There’s nothing nefarious about it. By the time you get to the second deviation, you tend to wind up with frequent discord.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott: The “beauty” of Confederate equestrian statues? I mean, I know Trump famously has terrible taste, but YEESH.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@FlipYrWhig: Oh come on. What is there to criticize in this artistic masterpiece?
Bruce K
@Central Planning:
Only if you get a good REM cycle out of it, I think. And chemically-induced unconsciousness tends to interfere with REM cycles…
tobie
@clay: @gene108: Trying to instigate a trade war with a country that owns a good portion of our debt and that we’re depending on to contain North Korea is not a wise move. It may feel good initially but we will lose in the end.
Chinese leaders have been meeting with EU leaders to forge new trade agreements; they’re negotiating treaties with Latin American countries in a bid to replace the US. They are in short trying to fill the vacuum we’ve created with Trump. If Bannon were wise, he would realize that trade policy is not a zero-sum game. He would recognize that one of the best moves the Obama administration made to contain China’s influence and shore up US manufacturing and agriculture was TPP. You give him too much credit, Gene. Bannon may have though about tactics for fighting China but he has no long-term strategy.
FlipYrWhig
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: It’s like someone said to make a statue out of this ASCII art:
d% @=@
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Major Major Major Major:
North America. Culturally, the morbid middle class alcoholics I’ve dealt with seem to tend to run to whiskey or vodka, with a moderating hydration of beer during heavy benders. Rum and gin do not seem to be go-tos.
Major Major Major Major
@Bruce K: so any unconsciousness lasting less than ~90 minutes isn’t sleep? That can’t be right.
Quinerly
@rikyrah:
Thanks for posting this.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
@Cheryl from Maryland:
Anyone who lives in or works in an even semi public environment, and isn’t a fucking idiot, knows they are always on the record. ALWAYS. And that includes me. I had a job for 11 yrs that was at best semi public and have reporters as friends, hell the company I worked for had it’s own glossy mag and a half dozen reporters working on staff. Not on the record? In this environment? What a fucking moron.
Amir Khalid
@TK:
I doubt that Bannon is deliberately sabotaging himself to get out of his white House job. I reckon his ego would demand he walk out rather than be thrown out.
tobie
@FlipYrWhig: I believe that one of the statues removed in Baltimore (Lee and Jackson riding on horses) has already been replaced with a contemporary work of art. I’ll check on this. Who knows…we could be at the beginning of a new age of public art! Just a fringe benefit of removing tacky homages to secessionists.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: oh, wow, that’s ….excellent.
gene108
@tobie:
A competent administration can walk and chew gum at the same time. Obama filed a complaint with the WTO about China dumping tires and won, but this did not start a trade war. Hell, Bush,Jr imposed tariffs on steel imports and did not start a trade war.
Hillary got so much shit for her early support of TPP, from the Left, she changed her position on it. What killed the TPP was a strong push from the Left. Bernie explicitly ran against it. If Lefties did not equate it to more massive job losses, like those caused by NAFTA, enough Dems and Reps would have supported it for it to pass, while Obama was still President.
But that thinking has infected the entire Republican Party, with regards to international agreements. We can’t even ratify updates to the Law of the Sea treaty, because too many Republicans view ratifying treaties as signing away our sovereignty.
The rot on this is pretty deep in conservative circles.
Compared to the rest of the clown car Trump brought on, for someone being able to say I will file a complaint based on an existing 1974 law is like the most coherent policy idea I have heard in seven months.
The bar is pretty damn low for me to be impressed with Trump and Congressional Republicans.
If we pass a budget and raise the debt ceiling they deserve a cookie for not destroying the global economy.
Standards are really, really fucking low. It is like rewarding a two year old for going poop in the potty, except we are dealing with adults.
tobie
@gene108:
So true…a point that bears repeating again and again.
(And I will never forgive the left for vilifying trade agreements. It’s actually one of my concerns with Elizabeth Warren. She knows better and is just demagoguing the issue.)
Major Major Major Major
@tobie: agree re: trade.
Miss Bianca
@Major Major Major Major: Unfortunate in that I wish I could actually vent my “fuck fuckity fuck white people SUCK” rage in ways that feel more productive. Because goddamn…I thought Trump voters clung to their race blinders, but Berners and third-partiers? How dare I suggest that their “economic anxiety” is nothing compared to that of POC, or that they can’t – or won’t – acknowledge the built-in advantages that Whitenuss gives them in America? Or that Hillary Clinton actually *deserved* the Democratic nomination – won it, in fact, fair and square, despite their squawking about “DNC corruption!!11!!” – because she actually did the work and spoke to the real concerns of the *real* base of the Democratic party. I’m just being dramatic, apparently, when I point these things out to them. It’s making me feel very, very stabby.
Another Scott
@tobie:
Many economists argue (persuasively, in my view) that the bolded part is problematic.
China didn’t buy our debt to help us out – they did it out of their own self-interest. It kept the Yuan / Renminbi low which helped their exports and kept their economy growing quickly. They had little choice but to do so. See, e.g., Dean Baker from 2009.
Yes, starting a trade war with them would be monumentally stupid, and picking a fight with them while we need their help to rein-in Kim is monumentally stupid, but not because they own a lot of US Treasuries.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tenar Arha
@rikyrah:
I can’t even…[everything everywhere]
Ex. I can’t even argue against these unreconstructed racist dirtbags crawling out from under their rocks that the 13th, 14th, & 15th says categorically that’s never going to happen since I’ve lived through what’s been done to reinterpret the 2nd into an individual right, and how the loophole for those imprisioned within the 13th has been used. Shades of Miss Millie & Sofia.
ETA typo [spits against the evil eye]
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Major^4, he said he was just guessing. Give him a break!
I would go with vodka too, as people assert (wrongfully) that you can’t smell it. When someone is drunk there is a reason we call it “stinking drunk” !!! And if Bannon starts drinking early, as seems likely, he can’t smell others when they’re stinking drunk.
Ruckus
@gene108:
No, we really aren’t. Adults recognize the world around them and at least give passing thought to cause and effect.