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Month: September 2017

“One of those guys who’s read three books and thinks that’s all the books there are”

“One of those guys who’s read three books and thinks that’s all the books there are”

by digby

Charles Pierce on Bannon:

There was gale-force bullshit coming from all points of the compass and nonsense was running at floodtide in the newspapers and on TV this past weekend, a sorry couple of days for elite political journalism. As to the latter, Charlie Rose got a chance to sit down with Steve Bannon, the last heir to House Harkonnen and, despite Rose’s letting Bannon off several hooks, we learned that Steve Bannon is one of those guys who’s read three books and thinks that’s all the books there are, that he’s more than a little batty, and that, as my pal John Fugelsang tweeted this morning, that he continues to look like “a guy who stayed up watching porn until 6:45 and his alarm went off at 7.

How in the world could Rose have this guy on and not even mention the Mercers, the wingnut billionaire power couple without whose bankroll Bannon would be just another Alex Jones hawking brain pills and chemtrail remover? How could he let Bannon, who made his pile at Goldman Sachs and then made another pile in Hollywood, use the phrase “limousine liberals” without picking up a banana from the fruit bowl and throwing it at him? And how in the name of god could he hear Bannon say this without then picking up the phone and calling his bosses at 60 Minutes and telling them they by god better not send him out to interview anymore of these basket cases without a HazMat suit.


If there’s one thing the 19th century is known for, boy, it’s how we controlled our borders. That’s why all those Irish fleeing the Famine ended up in Madagascar. Yeesh.


Read on…

Bannon is a very scary guy, completely full of shit, smarter than Trump but not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. But he does understand, apparently instinctively, what the Nazi white nationalist right wants to hear. And he’s backed by big money from an equally nutty billionaire, Robert Mercer and his lunatic daughter.

I’m grateful that he’s out of the White House. He’s very dangerous and if Trump finally cut him loose it’s because he realized that Bannon has his own agenda and Trumpie doesn’t like that. It’s supposed to be all about him. Nonetheless, Bannon sees Trump as a tool (he’s said so) that he can deploy to enact his own vision which, to the extent Trump simply channels the ranting of the drunk guy at the end of the bar, dovetails with Trump’s. (There is quite a bit of overlap.)

Anyway, if you get a chance watch the interview if you missed it. After you’ve had a couple of very stiff cocktails.

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QOTD: Trump, of course

QOTD: Trump, of course

by digby

Trump’s administration and Republicans everywhere admonished people not to politicize the hurricanes and historic flooding by bringing up climate change.

But any excuse for a tax cut is just fine, amirite?

“Tax cuts and tax reform. I think now with what’s happened with the hurricane, I’m going to ask for a speed up,” Trump said at a news conference. “I wanted a speedup anyway, but now we need it even more so.”

Nothing in this world that can’t be fixed with a tax cut for millionaires.

And they say he isn’t a real Republican ….

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Donald Trump the “Independent” white supremacist, far right Republican

Donald Trump the “Independent” white supremacist, far right Republican

by digby

I wrote about he insane proposition that Trump is the first Independent president for Salon today:

During the first months of the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump was clearly operating by the seat of his pants. Because of that, many a jaded pundit declared Trump the flavor of the week and said he was no different than earlier fads like Herman Cain in 2012 — or maybe, if he was lucky, Fred Thompson in 2008, another TV star (but one who at least had political experience). Elite reporters literally laughed out loud at the suggestion Trump might win.

When Trump began amassing delegates, everyone began to take him more seriously, and a new narrative emerged: Media pros anxiously waited for what they assumed would be an inevitable “pivot” to recognizable presidential behavior. They seemed to believe that his bizarre antics were a sideshow that he was cleverly deploying to set himself apart from his staid, more experienced rivals.

It wasn’t as if Trump had a set of issues that differed wildly from the pack. He took a different tack on “free trade” than the standard Republican position, and he promised not to cut Social Security and Medicare, which wasn’t much of a stretch since the others didn’t place their usual emphasis on “deficits” and “entitlements” in that campaign either. He was notably soft on Russia, but most of his agenda was standard GOP dogma — he just didn’t bother with the dog whistle. Trump spoke like a right-wing radio pundit instead of a politician trying to cover up the fundamental authoritarianism, racism, xenophobia, gun fetishism and plutocratic protectionism — which after all have been the basis of the Republican agenda for decades.

His voters loved it. Because those voters were heavily drawn from the white working class, the press saw him as “populist” even though only his trade policy and his vague promises to bring back manufacturing jobs from overseas fit that definition.

Trump has never made that pivot to normal, presidential behavior, but the mainstream media has declared one every couple of months, whenever he behaved in some way that seemed recognizably “presidential,” like ordering air strikes or giving a State of the Union address that didn’t include stories of mass executions with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. And the media still clings to the notion that Trump is a “populist.

It’s simply untrue. With the exception of Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Trump’s major cabinet picks are all conservative movement zealots. And for every so-called mainstream adviser in the White House, there are at least two from the recesses of the fever swamps.

A partial list of Trump proposals so far includes the deportation and withdrawal of legalization for immigrants and blanket denial of entrance to the U.S. for citizens from a long list of Muslim countries, repeal of the Affordable Care Act, gutting energy and environmental regulations, backing out of the Paris climate accords, installing a Supreme Court justice to the right of the departed Antonin Scalia, tax cuts for millionaires like himself and deep cuts to domestic programs. He’s even said to be in discussions about using “mini-nukes” in a limited, tactical nuclear war.

On social issues generally, Trump is a vicious demagogue who feeds his core followers’ grievances and anger at the rising status of people of color, immigrants and feminists. He banned transgender service members from the military on a whim. It was only last month that he caused a firestorm by ratcheting up the nuclear threat while shrugging off crowds of torch-bearing Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us.” Then there was Trump’s cruel DACA decision, using the most fatuous rationale he’s ever given: the Constitution. The only part of it he’s ever read is the Second Amendment, which he used to recite while extolling the virtues of vigilantism.

That brings us to the Big Bipartisan Deal of last week that has the mainstream media exclaiming once again that Trump has made a pivot, this time to being anindependent” in the mode of Teddy Roosevelt. This is all because he agreed to raise the debt ceiling and pass an emergency relief package with the help of Democrats. This is seen as Trump cleverly deploying the “Art of the Deal” to Get Things Done.

It’s utter nonsense. In fact, when the history of this period is written, I won’t be surprised to learn that the GOP leadership and the Democratic leadership cooked the whole thing up, and Trump bought into it because he was mad at Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and thought it would make them squirm. Even if this wasn’t orchestrated between the party leaders, it’s clearly kabuki theater on the GOP side.

The Republicans faced a major pileup of must-pass legislation in September, including the debt limit, disaster relief after Harvey (and now Irma as well) along with routine FEMA funding, a budget resolution, funding of the ACA exchanges and the CHIP program for kids and their Holy Grail: “tax reform,” also known as tax cuts for rich folks. They had dawdled so long over their repeated attempts to kill Obamacare (which the “populist” Trump administration is now crudely trying to sabotage) that they’d left their most important work to the last minute.

At the same time, the House Freedom Caucus was up to its usual mischief, ready to throw the country into default and deny emergency disaster aid in order to make a political point. So Ryan was supposedly making noises that he wanted a temporary hike in the debt ceiling for several months, while the White House was insisting on tying it to disaster relief. What to do? Our hero Trump saved the day by agreeing to the Democrats’ “demand” that instead of a four-month hike in the debt ceiling, they would sign on to three months, and disaster relief had to pass at the same time. Ryan and McConnell — in this telling of the story — were so bowled over by our maverick president’s macho boldness they had no choice but to bring this package to the floor and let the Democrats have their day. Please.

In the end, the Republican leadership got some much-needed breathing room, the Freedom Caucus got to rail against Ryan as usual without having to do anything about it, Democrats got to smirk and wink and Trump got his massive ego stroked once again by the mainstream media, upon which he heaps contempt on a daily basis. Win-win.

But let’s not lose sight of the fact that all Trump actually accomplished was agreeing to sign a bill that would lift the debt ceiling for three months, something that used to be considered a nonpartisan routine procedure, and an appropriation for disaster relief. These are bills any president in U.S. history would have signed, no matter who held the majority in Congress. The media turning this mundane agreement into the passage of the bipartisan Civil Rights Act is more than a bit much.

Trump may not act like a Republican president. But he doesn’t act like a Democratic or an Independent president either. He doesn’t act like a president at all. It’s long past time for the media to stop trying to fit him into some familiar groove that they can understand. While he’s busy with his weird demagogic performance art, his administration is working as quickly as possible to enact the most racist, most right-wing Republican agenda in history. He is fine with that, as long as he gets the credit.

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The corruption continues

The corruption continues

by digby

February 18, 2017

But that’s no surprise, is it? Apparently this is all just fine:

A major construction company owned by the Chinese government was hired to work on the latest Trump golf club development in Dubai despite a pledge from Donald Trump that his family business would not engage in any transactions with foreign government entities while he serves as president.

Trump’s partner, DAMAC Properties, awarded a $32-million contract to the Middle East subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering Corporation to build a six-lane road as part of the residential piece of the Trump World Golf Club Dubai project called Akoya Oxygen, according to news releases released by both companies. It is scheduled to open next year.

The companies’ statements do not detail the exact timing of the contract except to note it was sometime in the first two months of 2017, just as Trump was inaugurated and questions were raised about a slew of potential conflicts of interest between his presidency and his vast real estate empire.

The Chinese company, known as CSCEC, is majority government-owned — according to Bloomberg and Moody’s, among others — an arrangement that generally encourages growth and drives out competition. It was listed as the 7th largest company in China and 37th worldwide with nearly $130 billion in revenues in 2014, according to Fortune’s Global 500 list.

The company, which has had a presence in the United States since the mid-1980s, was one of several accused by the World Bank of corruption for its role in the bidding process for a roads project in the Philippines and banned in 2009 from World Bank-financed contracts for several years.

Meredith McGehee, chief of policy, programs and strategy at Issue One, which works to reduce the role of money in politics, said doing business with a foreign entity poses several potential problems for a president, including accusations that a foreign government is enriching him, gaining access to or building goodwill with him and becoming a factor in foreign policy.

The Trump Organization agreed to not engage in any new foreign deals or new transactions with a foreign entity — country, agency or official — other than “normal and customary arrangements” made before his election.

But Trump ignored calls to fully separate from his business interests when he became president. Instead, he placed his holdings in a trust designed to hold assets for his “exclusive benefit,” which he can receive at any time. He retains the authority to revoke the trust.

McGehee said Trump clearly knew foreign arrangements could be problematic because he outlined a list of restrictions, although vague ones, for his company to follow while he served as president. But more importantly, she said, the writers of the U.S. Constitution knew they could be too.

The Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution says officials may not accept gifts, titles of nobility or emoluments from foreign governments with respect to their office, and that no benefit should be derived by holding office.

“This is not just a concern of good government organizations,” she said. “It was a fundamental concern of the founding fathers.”

There is nothing to worry about. The boys aren’t running all the details past him, just keeping him generally informed of how all his emoluments are coming along. So there’s no reason to believe anything like this might affect his decisions as president. All he cares about is the working man.

We knew he was a billionaire businessman who had a history of grifting and stealing when he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes and eked out a tiny victory of 77,000 votes across a few winner take all states. So the “American people” endorsed his blatant corruption. It’s fine.

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What is this police state you speak of?

What is this police state you speak of?

by digby

Via Axios:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has told associates he wants to put the entire National Security Council staff through a lie detector test to root out leakers. It’s unclear whether this will ever happen, but Sessions floated the idea to multiple people, as recently as last month. 

Sessions’ idea is to do a one-time, one-issue, polygraph test of everyone on the NSC staff. Interrogators would sit down with every single NSC staffer (there’s more than 100 of them), and ask them, individually, what they know about the leaks of transcripts of the president’s phone calls with foreign leaders. Sessions suspects those leaks came from within the NSC, and thinks that a polygraph test — at the very least — would scare them out of leaking again.

Nothing unusual about intimidating members of the National Security Council. Nothing at all. It’s just standard operating procedure for the Stasi. Keeps ’em scared.

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The horror of that day

The horror of that day

by digby

Anyone over the age of 20 or so probably remembers the horror of that day 16 years ago. Young people have grown up in its shadow.

I was writing and my husband came running in to tell me that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. It was hard to wrap my mind around it but I rushed out to see the pictures on television. When the second plane hit, I said “I’ll bet it was Osama bin Laden.” This was not because I was psychic or because I had access to any special information. But if you’d been following the news for a while you knew they’d been blowing up embassies and bombing American ships and the threat was growing. And needless to say, two planes hitting the towers was obviously terrorism.

Anyway, it was a terrible, terrible day and it changed  the way we live forever.

Here’s Trump on CNN talking about it at the time:

We don’t know if this happened before or after he saw thousands of fantasy Muslims cheering on rooftops.

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Here we go again by @BloggersRUs

Here we go again
by Tom Sullivan


One of two rescued manatees stranded by receding water during Hurricane Irma.

While Hurricane Irma slammed Florida, the president spent the weekend at Camp David. Upon returning to Washington, D.C., he showed off his emotional intelligence:

President Trump said Sunday that the major hurricanes hitting the U.S. are improving the “brand” of the U.S. Coast Guard.

Trump told a reporter that the country has “great people” responding to the massive storms and that “a group that really deserves tremendous credit is the United States Coast Guard,” according to a White House pool report.

“What they’ve done — I mean, they’ve gone right into that, and you never know. When you go in there, you don’t know if you’re going to come out. They are really — if you talk about branding, no brand has improved more than the United States Coast Guard,” Trump said.

He knows jack about leadership or governing a democratic republic. But branding? The reality show star with the steaks and the fake university knows something about branding, since his brand is his livelihood. Even if it’s going into the toilet.

But while the president talked about branding and Floridians stood up to Hurricane Irma, three time zones west Portland Stands United Against Hate was standing up once again to white nationalists:

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Chaos erupted quickly when opposing groups faced off over differing views on white nationalism in downtown Portland, prompting at least 7 arrests, confrontations, a change in the permitted march route and violent actions that resulted in at least 2 officers being injured.

Then the protest that began in Portland moved across the river into Vancouver, where Joey Gibson’s Patriot Prayer group gathered.

Owing to past violence between the groups, police presence keeping the two groups separated was more robust. Once again, counterprotesters seemed to outnumber Gibson’s supporters.

It’s hard to make out exactly what went down from tweets and limited reporting, but it seems the antifas this time brought more silly string than sticks and pepper spray. Nevertheless, punches were thrown. Confederate flags were flown.

The stark difference in the Portland weather and the counterprotester chants of “Nazis, go home!” brought to mind a line from Casablanca:

Strasser: Oh, we Germans must get used to all climates, from Russia to the Sahara.

Perhaps they’d enjoy south Florida?

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Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer, at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

Bannon’s sartorial oddity

Bannon’s sartorial oddity

by digby

Why is he wearing one black button down shirt on top of another black button down shirt?

Who does that? Why would anyone do that?

I’m actually stymied on this one.

Also, he says a bunch of really awful stuff and looks like he’s been up for about 4 days on a coke bender. That’s 60 Minutes, coming up tonight on your CBS station.

But what about that shirt?

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White, Christian spooks only need apply?

White, Christian spooks only need apply?

by digby

This article in Foreign Policy reports that the CIA recently cancelled speakers for its diversity program because the Trump people pretty much feel they’ve done enough of that sort of thing. Also,  Mike Pompeo is a hard right partisan who’s bringing his wingnut agenda to … the CIA. This seems kind of stupid if you ask me.

Anyway:

For those who have worked inside the agency, the backtracking on diversity represents a threat to the workforce and national security, according to Nada Bakos, a former CIA analyst who helped track high-level terrorist targets like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The agency needs employees from different backgrounds and orientations to effectively recruit agents abroad. “What if you have to recruit someone who’s gay and that’s the only reason they’re talking to you?” she asked.

“This isn’t just about today’s diversity issue. It’s about tomorrow’s lack of diversity that will erode the agency,” Bakos told FP. “You can’t hire someone who’s typically white American to walk around Baghdad.”

Until the 1990s, being openly gay or transgender was a career-ending taboo kept secret among officers. The agency was fearful that employees’ personal relationships would serve as valuable blackmail for adversaries overseas. Exposure would likely result in the loss of security clearances, rendering analysts and officers unemployable in the field of intelligence.

The situation for women and minorities was little better, particularly when it came to high-profile assignments like production of the President’s Daily Brief, a summary of top-secret intelligence given to the president every morning. “The most important intelligence product … during the 1950s and ’60s and ’70s was essentially produced by old white men,” said David Priess, a former CIA briefer and author of The President’s Book of Secrets.

In 1995, President Bill Clinton issued an executive order that prevented intelligence officers from losing their clearances on the basis of their sexuality, kicking off what was to be a long and hard-fought shift in agency culture.

In March 2013, John Brennan was appointed director under President Barack Obama, and the new CIA head moved to make diversity and employee rights a priority. Senior leaders competed for spots to speak at employee gay pride events and accompanied the director to diversity events and celebrations.

While embraced by many, Brennan’s policies drew the ire of right-wing publications like the National Review, which claimed his diversity and inclusion strategy was just a way to make the agency more “politically correct.”

But for Brennan, the changes were a matter of building a better workforce, as well as national security. “I believe strongly that diversity and inclusion [are] what this country is all about,” Brennan said in a phone interview with FP. “I can think of no organization that can make a better business case for diversity and inclusion than the CIA. We have the responsibility of covering the globe, understanding all societies, cultures, and backgrounds.”

One would think that understanding as much about everything as possible is a good idea. But when you are a single-minded zealot, you don’t need no stinkin’ understanding. The Bible is all you need.

Pompeo is rumored to be working more as a Trump loyalist in this post than as someone who sees the job as a politically neutral national security position. Of course, he isn’t the first political hack in the job or even the first with a specific partisan agenda and loyalty to a specific president. He might be the first to help his president cover up his secret involvement with a foreign power though. That’s a new one.

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Crazy people in the rain

Crazy people in the rain

by digby

I’m watching all these reporters stand in the hurricane and I can’t help but think about my mother’s saying: “They don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain.”

I guess it makes for better TV than just positioning an unmanned camera but it’s kind of dumb too.

Anyway, lots of wet celebrity newsmen on TV right now if you’re into that sort of thing.

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