Add the whole fucking Republican party to this list of sycophants. So much rugged individualist bluster and blathering about “the rule of law” and “American values”, but when confronted with issues that actually impact those values?
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And what sources might you suggest for the future? Please keep in mind that RT, Breitbart, and Alex Jones are not reputable sources of news.
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The water is simmering, but the heating element has only just been turned on.
I have. It clearly states that he thinks the presence of his xenophobic white nationalist political advisor is required regularly at NSC meetings but the DNI’s and JSC chairman’s presences are not. If you’re OK with that prioritisation, I don’t know what to tell you.
Nor is a White House that proudly trafficks in “alternative facts.”
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I’d go with “flounder,” in keeping with today’s fish-oriented word association.
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Well said. This looks to be part of their dissembling plan as the shitheels go out on the Sunday shows. When we have to rely on G.W. Bush’s reasoning about why he wouldn’t let Turdblossom into NatSec briefings…well, that’s bad.
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Coup would be interesting. Probably a bad idea.
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Wrong. Go back and read it again. Dir Natl Intel & Chmn JCoS are on the Council meetings “shall attend” list, per statute.
Bannon’s position is on the optional “Invited” list.
The paragraph you selectively edited covers one of the Council’s subcommittees (the PC), not regular Council meetings.
That’s from the source.
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They can’t even tell the truth about attendance at the fucking inauguration!
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From the source:
The Principals Committee (PC) shall continue to serve as the Cabinet-level senior interagency forum for considering policy issues that affect the national security interests of the United States.
Yes, just a “subcommittee” – everyone knows the real decisions get made at the Deputies and Policy Co-ordination Committees. Why would you need to have the DNI and chair of the JSC there to discuss “policy issues that affect the national security interests” of the U.S. when you know the publisher of Breitbart is going to be there instead, right?
What really surprises me is that they didn’t add the Russian ambassador as a regular. I guess having Michael Flynn there amounts to the same thing.
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Well, going to whitehouse.gov, and looking at the actual Presidential Memorandum, as I did, is one suggestion.
I’ve been thinking about The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp lately. I never really understood the meaning of the film until just recently.
There is a moment towards the end where Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff tells Clive Candy that Nazis cannot be defeated with completely moral ways. This always bothered me because, as Nieche pointed out, you don’t want to become the monster you are trying to defeat.
It’s a very long, wandering movie and sometimes it’s hard to keep track of what the point is. But I get it now. I didn’t think the world would have this problem again so soon, and I didn’t think it would appear in this country.
In part Kretschmar-Schuldorff says:
“Clive! If you let yourself be defeated by them, just because you are too fair to hit back the same way they hit at you, there won’t be any methods but Nazi methods! If you preach the Rules of the Game while they use every foul and filthy trick against you, they will laugh at you! They’ll think you’re weak, decadent!”
“This is not a gentleman’s war. This time you’re fighting for your very existence against the most devilish idea ever created by a human brain - Nazism. And if you lose, there won’t be a return match next year… perhaps not even for a hundred years.”
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That’s an interesting way to look at the movie. We’ve had about 60 years in this country where liberals and progressives had the luxury of playing fair and not sinking to the level of conservatives. That “gentleman’s war” ended 16 years ago.
As it happens, I just read this article on “The Neverending Story” as a response to fascism. The key line, regarding the ending (hi @falcor):
[Petersen is] saying the way you fight bullies in the real world — the way you stop Nazis — is by having more compelling fantasies than they do and making sure everybody can see that.
As we can see in this very thread, the current White House still depends on fantasies – a grifter’s empty ones of safety and prosperity aimed at those who willfully delude themselves. They’re quickly moving to the use of main force to prop themselves up, but however else we resist in turn we must always back things up by trying to live up to another fantasy: the ideals of Western liberal democracy.
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https://lawfareblog.com/national-security-presidential-memorandum-2—president-trumps-nsc-and-hsc
[Additional comment: The NSPM states that “The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall attend [PC meetings] where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.” Press reports have suggested that this is a significant difference from previous Principals Committees and that the DNI and C/JCS may be excluded from certain PCs. I do not think this interpretation is correct. The NSPM provides that the DNI and C/JCS shall attend all NSC meetings. However, because the NSPM creates a single PC that would serve both the NSC and HSC, it may not be necessary or appropriate to invite the DNI and C/JCS to PCs concerning certain homeland security issues.]
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That’s the problem with that metaphor; by its nature, it tends to apply only in hindsight.
Maybe it’s like when some fringe congressman proposes a bill to quit the UN or prosecute chemtrails. You question the sanity and motives of that representative, and worry about how they’ll vote on real things, but you can mostly rely on the machinery to filter out the extremes. Perhaps that’s how it will go with Turmp, who has no power to make laws, after all.
On the other hand, he does have lots of executive powers, and as people have noted, if orders are followed, it makes no difference whether those orders are “legal”. That’s how Turmp and his goblins think, and they are not in any way hiding it.
My guess is that it’s a mixture of the two. The White House is openly committed to becoming a fascist regime, but the rest of government (and society) still has a choice in the matter.
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Yeah, that’s a great unbiased source of information these days.
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Coups are traditionally launched by the military against the civilian government, not the other way around. If the CIA and military don’t like the open disrespect that he’s been showing them, they have other means at their disposal that the EPA and National Parks Service do not. Caligula was able to play sadistic games with the most powerful men in Rome, but not the Praetorian Guard.
Nothing that promotes Bannon is good, but I’d be more concerned if it were the generals exerting the undue influence. If Trump and Bannon want a dictatorship, they’re doing it wrong.
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It has only been a week, and Bannon has already made himself ubiquitous. If I were Trump, I would at some point start to wonder who is actually running the country. Unless I had no interest in running the country. Unless I were just in it for the perks. Leave the hard stuff to that unshaven weirdo (no relation). He sure knows a lot about Mussolini, can’t argue with that.
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The problem is that the legislative branch is slow and unwieldy, largely by design. Trump is acting quickly and decisively and we need a response to match. I don’t think congress is willing or able to save us.
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Perhaps the details are off — perhaps not — but I think we can all agree that allowing Steve Bannon even a little contact with anything is a very bad idea.
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I’ll check that, but the link only gives me a picture of equally uncomfortably looking Sres. Trump and Pence.
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