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This broadcast was recorded in one, 60-minute segment.
Introduction: The first program recorded after the election of Donald Trump, this broadcast updates aspects of the Trumpenkampfverbande covered in past shows and looks ahead to the gathering storm.
(We note that, for a number of weeks to come, we will be reading into the record much of a short, excellent biography of Trump by David Cay Johnson. We can’t recommend the book strongly enough.)
Beginning with a closing ad run by the Trump campaign, we note its anti-Semitic nature: “ . . . . From a technical and thematic perspective it’s a well made ad. It’s also packed with anti-Semitic dog whistles, anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Semitic vocabulary. I’m not even sure whether it makes sense to call them dog whistles. The four readily identifiable American bad guys in the ad are Hillary Clinton, George Soros (Jewish financier), Janet Yellen (Jewish Fed Chair) and Lloyd Blankfein (Jewish Goldman Sachs CEO). . . . This is an anti-Semitic ad every bit as much as the infamous Jesse Helms ‘white hands’ ad or the Willie Horton ad were anti-African-American racist ads. Which is to say, really anti-Semitic. You could even argue that it’s more so, given certain linguistic similarities with anti-Semitic propaganda from the 1930s. But it’s not a contest. This is an ad intended to appeal to anti-Semites and spread anti-Semitic ideas. . .”
This comes as no surprise, as Trump’s campaign manager, Stephen K. Bannon embodies the fascism dominant in the Trump campaign: ” . . . . Trump has electrified anti-Semites and racist groups across the country. His own campaign has repeatedly found itself speaking to anti-Semites, tweeting their anti-Semitic memes, retweeting anti-Semites. His campaign manager, Steven Bannon, is an anti-Semite. . . .”
Much of the program focuses on the evolution of these forces as a Trump administration takes form:
- Previously marginalized fascist and racist groups have moved into the overground, mainstream political arena: “. . . . ‘Trump has shown that our message is healthy, normal and organic — and millions of Americans agree with us,’ said Matthew M. Heimbach, a co-founder of the Traditionalist Youth Network, a white nationalist group that claims to support the interests of working-class whites. It also advocates the separation of the races. . . . ‘For racists in this country, this campaign has been a complete affirmation of their fears, worries, dreams and hopes,’ said Ryan Lenz, the editor of the Hatewatch blog at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups from its headquarters in Montgomery, Ala. ‘Most things they believe have been legitimized, or have been given the stamp of approval, by mainstream American politics to the point now where it’s no longer shameful to be a racist.’ . . . .”
- These groups are poised to move into a Trump administration: ” . . . . ‘I have been very surprised that we have not seen attractive, well-spoken, racially aware candidates running for local office,’ Jared Taylor, head of the white nationalist American Renaissance publication and annual conference, told TPM in a Wednesday phone call. ‘I think this will be inevitable, and I think that Trump will have encouraged this. That our people will run for school board, city council, mayor, all that I anticipate certainly.’ . . . .”
- Stephen K. Bannon is being considered for the position of White House Chief of Staff: “President-elect Donald Trump is strongly considering naming his campaign CEO Steve Bannon to serve as his White House chief of staff, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN on Thursday. . . .”
Returning to subject material covered in FTR #906, the program also updates coverage of the FBI’s direct interference in the campaign and the story of the propaganda book Clinton Cash, written by Koch brothers protege and Breitbart/Bannon associate Peter Schweizer.
The two focal points of that program have dovetailed–Comey’s last minute interference in the campaign may well have tipped the balance in favor of Trump. Many of the agents serving under Comey have been motivated by the Schweizer text! ” . . . . In August the F.B.I. grappled with whether to issue subpoenas in the Clinton Foundation case, which . . . was in its preliminary stages. The investigation, based in New York, had not developed much evidence and was based mostly on information that had surfaced in news stories and the book “Clinton Cash,” according to several law enforcement officials briefed on the case. . . .”
Apparently, the Trumpenkampfverbande has penetrated the bureau to an alarming extent: ” . . . . ‘The FBI is Trumpland,’ said one current agent. . . . The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is ‘the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,’ and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.’ . . .”
Taken in conjunction with the stunning acquittal of Ammon Bundy and company for their occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, the fact of a major portion of the FBI working for the Trumpenkampfverbande should frighten honest citizens.
Such anxiety is particularly well-founded since Trump is apparently compiling an enemies list.
In FTR #930, we examined links between Alfa Bank and the Trump campaign. Far from being “Putin/Russia/Kremlin,” this is part and parcel to the German Ostpolitik we discussed in FTR #‘s 918 and 919. PLEASE examine the programs and descriptions to flesh out your understanding. Dismissed as invalid by the FBI and the media, the Alfa/Trump connection not only appears solid, but the links between Alfa and Marc Rich on the one hand, and James Comey’s investigations of Marc Rich and Bill Clinton’s pardon of Rich may well have influenced the FBI’s non-investigation of the Trump/Alfa link. Again some of the main considerations in this regard:
- The unsuccessful attempt by Alfa subsidiary Crown Resources to buy Marc Rich’s commodities firm: ” . . . A deal to sell the Swiss-based commodities operation of former U.S. fugitive financier Marc Rich to Russia-owned energy trading group Crown Resources is off. . . . Crown is owned by the Alfa Group conglomerate. . . . .”
- The subsequent successful attempt by Alfa player Mikhail Fridman to purchase the Marc Rich firm: ” . . . Mikhail Fridman: ‘Defendant Mikhail Fridman currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of co-conspirator Alfa Bank and as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Defendant Consortium Alfa Group. Fridman further served on the Board of VimpelCom, a NYSE company, and has control over Golden Telecom, a NASDAQ company ... purchased the United States trading firm owned by American, Mark Rich, the one time commodities baron pardoned by President Clinton with much controversy. . . .”
- The FBI’s long-dormant Twitter account began tweeting files about Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, shortly after the official dismissal of investigations into the Alfa/Trump link: ” . . . . Now, a new interagency mystery is raising questions about whether the F.B.I. has become politicized, just days before the presidential election. On Sunday, a long-dormant F.B.I. Twitter account suddenly sprung to life, blasting out a series of links to case files that cast the Clintons in a decidedly negative light. . . . Then, on Tuesday, the “FBI Records Vault” account—which had not tweeted at all between October 2015 and Sunday—published a link to records related to the 15-year-old, long-closed investigation into former President Bill Clinton’s pardoning of onetime commodities trader turned fugitive Marc Rich. The post, which was quickly retweeted thousands of times, links to a heavily redacted document that repeatedly references the agency’s “Public Corruption” unit—less-than-ideal optics for Hillary Clinton, who has spent her entire campaign fighting her image as a corrupt politician. . . .”
- FBI Director James Comey was in charge of the original Marc Rich investigation and the pardon of Rich by Bill Clinton. Is there a connection between the official dismissal of the investigation into the Alfa/Trump link by the FBI, the tweeting by the FBI of the files on the Clinton pardon of Marc Rich and the fact that it was Comey who presided over the Marc Rich investigations? ” . . . . In 2002, Comey, then a federal prosecutor, took over an investigation into President Bill Clinton’s 2001 pardon of financier Marc Rich, who had been indicted on a laundry list of charges before fleeing the country. The decision set off a political firestorm focused on accusations that Rich’s ex-wife Denise made donations to the Democratic Party, the Clinton Library and Hillary Clinton’s 2000 Senate campaign as part of a plan to get Rich off the hook. Comey ultimately decided not to pursue the case. The kicker: Comey himself had overseen Rich’s prosecution between 1987 and 1993. . . .”
One wonders if the Comey/Rich investigations link may have influenced James Comey’s unconscionable announcement days before the election about a new investigation of the Hillary Clinton e‑mail non-scandal?
Program Highlights Include:
- Former State Department official Richard Burt’s links to the Alfa Bank.
- Burt’s role as a foreign policy advisor to Donald Trump.
- Burt’s role as a lobbyist for a natural gas pipeline that had, until recently, been financed in part by major German corporations.
- Burt’s previous position as Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to Germany in the run-up to German reunification.
1a. Trump’s last major campaign ad was overtly anti-Semitic.
“ . . . . From a technical and thematic perspective it’s a well made ad. It’s also packed with anti-Semitic dog whistles, anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Semitic vocabulary. I’m not even sure whether it makes sense to call them dog whistles. The four readily identifiable American bad guys in the ad are Hillary Clinton, George Soros (Jewish financier), Janet Yellen (Jewish Fed Chair) and Lloyd Blankfein (Jewish Goldman Sachs CEO). . . .”
Take a moment to look at this closing ad from Donald Trump.
From a technical and thematic perspective it’s a well made ad. It’s also packed with anti-Semitic dog whistles, anti-Semitic tropes and anti-Semitic vocabulary. I’m not even sure whether it makes sense to call them dog whistles. The four readily identifiable American bad guys in the ad are Hillary Clinton, George Soros (Jewish financier), Janet Yellen (Jewish Fed Chair) and Lloyd Blankfein (Jewish Goldman Sachs CEO).
The Trump narration immediately preceding Soros and Yellin proceeds as follows: “The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake in this election. For those who control the levers of power in Washington [start Soros] and for the global [start Yellen] special interests [stop Yellen]. They partner with these people [start Clinton] who don’t have your good in mind.”
For Blankfein: “It’s a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the [start Blankein] pockets of a handful of large corporations [stop Blankfein] and political entities.”
These are standard anti-Semitic themes and storylines, using established anti-Semitic vocabulary lined up with high profile Jews as the only Americans other than Clinton who are apparently relevant to the story. As you can see by my transcription, the Jews come up to punctuate specific key phrases. Soros: “those who control the levers of power in Washington”; Yellen “global special interests”; Blankfein “put money into the pockets of handful of large corporations.”
This is an anti-Semitic ad every bit as much as the infamous Jesse Helms ‘white hands’ ad or the Willie Horton ad were anti-African-American racist ads. Which is to say, really anti-Semitic. You could even argue that it’s more so, given certain linguistic similarities with anti-Semitic propaganda from the 1930s. But it’s not a contest. This is an ad intended to appeal to anti-Semites and spread anti-Semitic ideas. That’s the only standard that really matters.
This is intentional and by design. It is no accident.
Trump has electrified anti-Semites and racist groups across the country. His own campaign has repeatedly found itself speaking to anti-Semites, tweeting their anti-Semitic memes, retweeting anti-Semites. His campaign manager, Steven Bannon, is an anti-Semite. The Breitbart News site he ran and will continue running after the campaign has become increasingly open in the last year with anti-Semitic attacks and politics.
Beyond that, this shouldn’t surprise us for a broader reason. Authoritarian, xenophobic political movements, which the Trump campaign unquestionably is, are driven by tribalism and ‘us vs them’ exclusion of outsiders. This may begin with other groups – Mexican immigrants, African-Americans, Muslims. It almost always comes around to Jews.
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1b. In our discussion of the Trumpenkampfverbande, we have noted that what we have called the Underground Reich is now coming into plain view and transformed into a mass movement. That movement has now triumphed. The New York Times had a few thoughts on Trump’s extremist supporters.
. . . . “Trump has shown that our message is healthy, normal and organic — and millions of Americans agree with us,” said Matthew M. Heimbach, a co-founder of the Traditionalist Youth Network, a white nationalist group that claims to support the interests of working-class whites. It also advocates the separation of the races.
Whatever happens on Nov. 8, Mr. Trump’s candidacy has brought groups like Mr. Heimbach’s out of the shadows, and they say they have no intention of returning.
“For racists in this country, this campaign has been a complete affirmation of their fears, worries, dreams and hopes,” said Ryan Lenz, the editor of the Hatewatch blog at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups from its headquarters in Montgomery, Ala. “Most things they believe have been legitimized, or have been given the stamp of approval, by mainstream American politics to the point now where it’s no longer shameful to be a racist.”
The biggest beneficiary may well be the so-called alt-right, the once obscure and now ascendant white nationalist movement with close ties to Breitbart News, the website operated by Mr. Trump’s campaign manager, Stephen K. Bannon. . . .
. . . . In short, they say they believe that Mr. Trump’s campaign has turned them into a force that the Republican establishment cannot ignore.
“What you can’t say is that we’re just a bunch of marginal loons,” Mr. Spencer said. “The truth is that we have a deeper connection with the Trumpian forces and Trumpian populism than the mainstream conservatives do. They’re going to have to deal with us.” . . . .
. . . . To members of the alt-right, Mr. Trump is a transformative figure. It has been a long time since a mainstream politician, let alone a presidential nominee, talked about the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and warned about “international banks” plotting “the destruction of U.S. sovereignty.” Mr. Trump has given them the legitimacy they long craved. . . .
. . . . “I basically agree with everything Donald Trump advocates,” Mr. Anglin wrote in an email. He went on to say Mr. Trump has made it “socially acceptable” to talk about thing that were once off limits, such as “the globalist Jewish agenda.” . . .
3a. Richard Burt is a member of Alfa’s senior advisory council. He’s also a lobbyist for the Nord Stream II pipeline, which will send natural gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine and Belarus. Burt is crafting Trump’s foreign policy.
In FTR #930, we examined links between Alfa and the Trump campaign. Far from being “Putin/Russia/Kremlin,” this is part and parcel to the German Ostpolitik we discussed in FTR #‘s 918 and 919. PLEASE examine the programs and descriptions to flesh out your understanding.
“Trump and Russia: All the Mogul’s Men” by James Miller; The Daily Beast; 11/07/2016.
Why do so many of Trump’s campaign staffers have dodgy ties to Russian energy companies or Russian state clients? . . . .
THE BANKER
Richard Burt is the chairman of the advisory council for The National Interest, the in-house journal of the Center for the National Interest, where Trump delivered his maiden foreign-policy speech last April. He is also a member of the senior advisory board of Russia’s Alfa Bank, a major Moscow financial institution which, thus far, has escaped Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.
Burt was recruited by Paul Manafort to help the Trump campaign write a speech that tried to define his foreign-policy vision. Burt has also repeatedly defended Trump’s foreign-policy ideas, including during periods of time when Trump was under attack for not having enough support from well-respected foreign-policy experts.enough support from well-respected foreign-policy experts
On Oct. 31, reporter Franklin Foer broke the story that a group of cybersecurity experts had tracked regular internet communications between Donald Trump’s organization and Alfa Bank.
According to experts interviewed by Foer, Trump’s organization registered a server in 2009 that was mostly responsible for sending mass emails. Recently, however, the server’s traffic was reduced to a suspiciously small amount of data—smaller than what a single person would receive via email in a single day. The server appears to have been designed to allow communications only between Trump’s organization and two other organizations, with 87 percent of those communications taking place with one of two servers belonging to Alfa Bank.
Alarmingly, the communications patterns appeared to many experts who spoke with Foer to be human-to-human communication, rather than automated mail. But the frequency of the messages also seemed to correspond to the news cycle’s focus on the connection between Trump and Russia. Furthermore, after journalists contacted Alfa Bank, Trump’s server was shut down, potentially indicating that Alfa warned Trump’s office that the server was facing scrutiny. Four days later, a new server was set up by the Trump organization.
Both Alfa and the Trump campaign deny that Trump’s computers were in contact with the Russian bank.
The FBI reportedly spent weeks investigating these allegations but concluded that there could be other explanations for the communications, including mass marketing or spam emails. It remains unclear whether the FBI was able to use the existence of these communications to obtain a warrant. It is possible that this is nothing more than spam emails sent between two large financial institutions.
Burt, however, has other ties to the Russian government that are concerning.
According to Politico, he was paid $365,000 in the first half of 2016 for work he did to lobby for the building of a new natural-gas pipeline, Nord Stream II, which would supply more gas to Europe while bypassing Ukraine and Belarus. The plan is opposed by the Obama administration and the Polish government because it would allow Russia to further interfere in the internal domestic politics of Ukraine without fear that Ukraine could cut off Russia’s gas supplies or take the gas for itself. At the start of 2016, the Russian state energy giant Gazprom owned 50 percent of the company that wants to build the pipeline, but since the European partners have pulled out, Gazprom now owns 100 percent.
All in all, Burt’s major contribution to the Trump campaign is evident in that first major foreign-policy address, which set the stage for greater economic, political, and military cooperation between the U.S. and Russia.
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3b. As noted above, one of Alfa’s senior advisors is the guy behind Trump’s foreign policy vision. He is also a lobbyist for a major Russian/German pipeline. The pipeline that is currently 100 percent owned by Gazprom, but was 50 percent owned by European investors until they all pulled out of the project in August after a Polish regulatory agency raised antitrust questions about the project. That’s an important point because, while the focus in on Burt’s ties to Russia, he was lobbying for Nord Stream II. In that ontext he was lobbying for European giants like BASF (formerly a member of I.G. Farben), E.ON, ENGIE, OMV, and Shell too.
It’s also with noting that Burt was a former US ambassador to Germany:
Richard Burt helped shape the candidate’s first foreign-policy speech while lobbying on behalf of a Moscow-controlled gas company.
A Republican lobbyist was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote one of Vladimir Putin’s top geopolitical priorities at the same time he was helping to shape Donald Trump’s first major foreign policy speech.
In the first two quarters of 2016, the firm of former Reagan administration official Richard Burt received $365,000 for work he and a colleague did to lobby for a proposed natural-gas pipeline owned by a firm controlled by the Russian government, according to congressional lobbying disclosures reviewed by POLITICO. The pipeline, opposed by the Polish government and the Obama administration, would complement the original Nord Stream, allowing more Russian gas to reach central and western European markets while bypassing Ukraine and Belarus, extending Putin’s leverage over Europe.
Burt’s lobbying work for New European Pipeline AG, the company behind the pipeline known as Nord Stream II, began in February. At the time, the Russian state-owned oil giant Gazprom owned a 50 percent stake in New European Pipeline AG. In August, five European partners pulled out and Gazprom now owns 100 percent.
This spring, Burt helped shape Trump’s first major foreign policy address, according to Burt and other sources. Burt recommended that Trump take a more “realist,” less interventionist approach to world affairs, as first reported by Reuters. Trump’s April 27 speech sounded those themes and called for greater cooperation with Russia.
…
All the while, Burt continued to be paid for his Nord Stream II lobbying work, which is ongoing. Asked about the simultaneous lobbying and advising, both sides downplayed the relationship.
“We have no knowledge of this,” wrote Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks in an email. “In fact, our team cannot verify his self-proclaimed contributions to Mr. Trump’s speech and, I don’t believe Mr. Trump or our policy staff has ever met Mr. Burt. To our knowledge he had no input in the speech and has had no contact with our policy team.”
For his part, Burt, a former Reagan State Department official and U.S. ambassador to Germany, said he does not consider himself an adviser to the campaign and that he would provide Hillary Clinton with advice if asked. Burt said that while he has discussed Trump with Russian officials, his work for Nord Stream II has only involved contact with the project’s European staff in Zug, Switzerland. He said his firm, McLarty Associates – headed by former President Bill Clinton’s ex-chief of staff Mack McLarty – was referred the Nord Stream II work by a financial PR firm in New York.
According to congressional disclosures signed by Burt and another member of the firm, the lobbying work consists of “monitoring and supplementing Washington discussion of EU energy security.”
Initially, when asked about his input on the Trump campaign, Burt said it was limited to input on the April speech.
…
Burt’s connections to Russia go back many decades. In 1989, former President George H.W. Bush appointed Burt to negotiate the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the USSR, which was concluded in 1991. In recent years, the 69-year-old Burt said he has advised Russia’s Alfa Bank, and he continues to work with the bank’s co-founder, Mikhail Fridman. Burt has also registered for recent lobbying work on behalf of the Ukrainian construction firm TMM, the Polish government-owned airline LOTand the Capital Bank of Jordan.
Russia’s incursions in Ukraine, as well as its stepped-up efforts to undermine Western democracies and the European Union by funding fringe nationalist parties and disinformation campaigns, have stiffened resistance to Nord Stream II. In American foreign policy circles, Burt’s work on behalf of the pipeline is a source of consternation.
The pipeline would undermine Poland’s hopes of developing its own shale gas sector, and it would strengthen Europe’s dependence on Russia as its main provider of energy. Unlike an existing pipeline, Nord Stream II would bypass Ukraine and Belarus, two former Soviet republics, thus diminishing their importance to Europe and helping to keep them within Moscow’s sphere of influence.
Burt is not alone in his ties to Russia’s state oil giant. Carter Page, whom Trump named as a foreign policy adviser in March, has said he advised Gazprom on some of its biggest deals from 2004 to 2007, when he lived in Moscow. In September, after months of scrutiny from the press, Congress, and American intelligence officials, Page said he had finally divested himself of a stake he held in Gazprom.
In recent years, the Kremlin has made influencing Western think tanks a more prominent component of its soft power strategy. And in recent weeks, Burt has gone to work on the think tank circuit, pitching the pipeline in private sessions in Washington and Europe.
“He’s a tremendously sophisticated operator. He comes across as a tremendously polished, knowledgeable doyen of the foreign service,” said a person who witnessed Burt sell the pipeline at a meeting at the Atlantic Council last month and spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was meant to remain private. “There are huge holes in what he’s saying, but I can imagine that to many congressmen, senators and officials, it’s all very convincing.”
Burt described his work on behalf of Nord Stream II as, “Making sure the client understands what’s going on in the debate here and providing information to people in the administration on Nord Stream’s views.”
“If we want to speak to people in the United States, he helps us set up meetings with people,” said Jens Mueller, a spokesman for the pipeline project, who said the meetings were with “the normal stakeholders involved in the debate: think tanks, embassies.” He said only Burt’s firm is working on the pipeline’s behalf in the United States.
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3c. Note that the above article described Burt’s work as lobbying Washington DC, presumably because of US opposition to the pipeline, and that, until the recent pull out of European investors, the German government had been a staunch defender of the pipeline over growing criticism as tensions between the West and Russia grew and sanctions were put in place. All in all, it’s not hard to see why he was chosen to be a Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline lobbyist. Burt was Reagan’s ambassador from 1985 to 1989, during the preliminary stages for German reunification.
Summing up: one of the figures crafting Donald Trump’s foreign policy vision is Reagan’s former ambassador to Germany, currently a senior advisor to Alfa and a lobbyist for a Russia-to-Germany pipeline that, until recently, had major Germany energy companies as investors and backing by the Germany government.
Again, we see Trump as a herald of German Ostpolitik. He is not a “Russian/Kremlin/Putin” dupe/agent of any kind.
FTR #‘s 918, 919, 929 go into this at length.
Richard Burt serves as senior adviser to CSIS. He is chairman of International Equity Partners, a Washington-based investment banking and advisory services firm focusing on development and consulting in major emerging markets. Before leaving government, Burt served as ambassador and chief negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) with the former Soviet Union, and as U.S. ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany from 1985 to 1989, during the preliminary stages of German reunification. Before serving in Germany, he was assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs from 1983 to 1985. Burt has also worked as the national security correspondent for the New York Times and at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
3d. No sooner was Trump elected than Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, renewed his call for an all-EU army. In FTR #‘s 918, 919, 929, we opined that this was a major goal of the Trumpehkampfverbande. Nigel Farage’s “Brexit” removed a major obstacle to the creation of an EU army. Farage is also a supporter of Trump and a colleague of Trump campaign chief Stephen K. Bannon.
Note that Jean-Claude Juncker has deep connections to the Underground Reich, as discussed in FTR #802.
Donald Trump’s election as US President has sparked fresh call for an EU army, amid a warning that the continent will not always be able to rely on American protection.
The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, voiced his concerns after the Republican’s surprise victory was announced.
He said a ‘community of defence’ is required.
Juncker said: ‘We need more security in Europe, and I do not mean just the anti-terror fight.
‘Talking about security we need a different way of organizing a European defense.’
He said that the French National Assembly prevented a proposed European community of defence being created in 1954 – a move that could have seen an army created, but was rejected amid concerns about national sovereignty.
Juncker said: ‘We need it now. The idea that the Americans will eternally see to… European security is not true.
‘Independent of the outcome of the US election, the Americans will not see to Europe’s security forever. We have to do it ourselves.
‘And this is why we need a new approach to the European community of defense, including a European army.’
In July, Trump cast doubts over his commitment to Nato agreements, telling the New York Times: ‘We have many Nato members that aren’t paying their bills.’
And he added: ‘You can’t forget the bills. They have an obligation to make payments.
‘Many NATO nations are not making payments, are not making what they’re supposed to make. That’s a big thing. You can’t say forget that.’
His comments echo remarks made by German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who has called on the EU should match Nato.
She declared she was in ‘deep shock’ after Trump’s win, saying the President-elect has cast doubt on Nato’s mutual defence pact. . . .
. . . . British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon rubbished the idea of a shared European army last month, stating: ‘We continue to oppose any new military structure that would introduce a second layer of command and control. Command and control is a matter for the military, it is a matter for Nato.
4. In FTR #906, we noted the use of the book Clinton Cash to stoke the anti-Clinton media fires. We also noted FBI director James Comey’s partisan function as head of the FBI–Comey was a supporter of Mitt Romney in 2012.
It turns out the FBI field agents who have been aggressively pushing the FBI to investigate the Clinton Foundation we’re basing their suspicions on “Clinton Cash”, the discredited book written by Breitbart’s editor-at-large:
The New York Times report on the FBI’s Clinton Foundation investigation reveals a pretty sketchy information source
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has gone full Breitbart.
OK, not really. But this nugget from a New York Times story on how the bureau kept two investigations under wraps this summer so as not to appear to be meddling in the presidential campaign could lead you to wonder.
In August . . . the F.B.I. grappled with whether to issue subpoenas in the Clinton Foundation case, which . . . was in its preliminary stages. The investigation, based in New York, had not developed much evidence and was based mostly on information that had surfaced in news stories and the book “Clinton Cash,” according to several law enforcement officials briefed on the case.
Oh, neat, “Clinton Cash,” the partisan hit job published last year by Breitbart’s editor-at-large, Peter Schweizer, and later adapted into a documentary that was executive produced by former Breitbart chairman and current Trump campaign CEO Stephen Bannon. Next the FBI will tell us that Roger Stone was the special agent in charge of the investigation.
If you have forgotten about “Clinton Cash,” Digby laid out a nice case against it and Schweizer. The short version is that the book was one in a long, long line of thinly sourced tales about the Clintons that have made millions of dollars for various right-wing writers and publishing houses since the early 1990s. For that matter, these tales sold a lot of copies of the Times as well, when it went all in chasing Whitewater stories early in Bill Clinton’s presidency.
“Clinton Cash,” published just as Hillary Clinton was announcing her own campaign for the presidency, is an obvious effort to cash in early to what will likely be four to eight years’ worth of salacious and worthless investigations of her upcoming administration. It immediately ran into the same problem that dozens of anti-Clinton books have encountered over the years: It contained more bullshit than a waste pond on a cattle ranch. The publisher had to make revisions to the book’s later editions. Schweizer was forced to admit in both interviews and in the conclusion of his book that he had not quite made the case he was trying to present.
Senior FBI and Justice Department officials came to the same conclusion, much to the apparent dissatisfaction of some agents, as the Times reported:
In meetings, the Justice Department and senior F.B.I. officials agreed that making the Clinton Foundation investigation public could influence the presidential race and suggest they were favoring Mr. Trump. . . . They agreed to keep the case open but wait until after the election to determine their next steps. The move infuriated some agents, who thought that the F.B.I.’s leaders were reining them in because of politics.
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And if it can’t get the GOP what it wants? Just this week Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, mentioned the pressure that Republicans on the committee have been putting on the FBI to turn up something — anything — on Hillary Clinton regarding her private email server and suggested the GOP is going to start investigating the bureau and its director, James Comey, over the agency’s failure.
This latest blowup is simply the newest chapter in better than two decades of Republicans co-opting the FBI and other investigative agencies in service of chasing whatever dark Clintonian shadows they can conjure from the fever swamps of right-wing media and websites. No charge is too spurious or absurd, which is how the nation wound up with the specter in the 1990s of a Republican congressman shooting cantaloupes in his backyard to “prove” that Vince Foster could not have committed suicide.
It is not new, of course, for right-wing demagogues to use the FBI to chase down false and inflammatory garbage. But even with its history, one of the ways the bureau maintains legitimacy as an institution is by giving the appearance of a nonpartisan actor. If its agents are so determined to base investigations on right-wing con jobs that their bosses do have to rein them in, then it will lose whatever moral authority it wants to claim.
5. The FBI is apparently heavily populated with extreme partisans of the Trumpenkampfverbande.
” . . . . The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is ‘the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,’ and that ‘the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.’ . . .”
Highly unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton intensified after James Comey’s decision not to recommend an indictment over her use of a private email server
Thursday 3 November 2016 14.02 EDT Last modified on Thursday 3 November 2016 16.26 EDT
Deep antipathy to Hillary Clinton exists within the FBI, multiple bureau sources have told the Guardian, spurring a rapid series of leaks damaging to her campaign just days before the election.
Current and former FBI officials, none of whom were willing or cleared to speak on the record, have described a chaotic internal climate that resulted from outrage over director James Comey’s July decision not to recommend an indictment over Clinton’s maintenance of a private email server on which classified information transited.
“The FBI is Trumpland,” said one current agent.
This atmosphere raises major questions about how Comey and the bureau he is slated to run for the next seven years can work with Clinton should she win the White House.
The currently serving FBI agent said Clinton is “the antichrist personified to a large swath of FBI personnel,” and that “the reason why they’re leaking is they’re pro-Trump.”
The agent called the bureau “Trumplandia”, with some colleagues openly discussing voting for a GOP nominee who has garnered unprecedented condemnation from the party’s national security wing and who has pledged to jail Clinton if elected.
At the same time, other sources dispute the depth of support for Trump within the bureau, though they uniformly stated that Clinton is viewed highly unfavorably.
“There are lots of people who don’t think Trump is qualified, but also believe Clinton is corrupt. What you hear a lot is that it’s a bad choice, between an incompetent and a corrupt politician,” said a former FBI official.
Sources who disputed the depth of Trump’s internal support agreed that the FBI is now in parlous political territory. Justice department officials – another current target of FBI dissatisfaction – have said the bureau disregarded longstanding rules against perceived or actual electoral interference when Comey wrote to Congress to say it was reviewing newly discovered emails relating to Clinton’s personal server.
Comey’s vague letter to Congress, promptly leakedby Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz, said the bureau would evaluate communications – subsequently identified as coming from a device used by disgraced ex-congressman Anthony Weiner, whose estranged wife Huma Abedin is a Clinton aide – for connections to the Clinton server. Comey’s allies say he was placed in an impossible position after previously testifying to Congress it would take an extraordinary development for him to revisit the Clinton issue. Throughout the summer and fall, Trump has attacked the FBI as corrupt for not effectively ending Clinton’s political career.
A political firestorm erupted, with Comey and the bureau coming under withering criticism, including a rebuke on Wednesday from Barack Obama. Even some congressional Republicans, no friends to Clinton, have expressed discomfortwith Comey’s last-minute insertion of the bureau into the election.
The relevance of the communications to the Clinton inquiry has yet to be established, as Comey issued his letter before obtaining a warrant to evaluate them. Clinton surrogates contend that Comey has issued innuendo rather than evidence, preventing them from mounting a public defense.
Some feel Comey needs to address the criticism and provide reassurance that the bureau, with its wide-ranging investigative and surveillance powers, will comport itself in an apolitical manner. Yet since Friday, Comey has maintained his silence, even as both Clinton and Trump have called for the bureau to disclose more of what it knows.
Leaks, however, have continued. Fox News reported on Wednesday that the FBI is intensifying an investigation into the Clinton Foundation over allegations – which both the foundation and the Clinton camp deny – it traded donations for access to Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state. The Wall Street Journal reported that justice department officials considered the allegations flimsy.
The leaks have not exclusively cast aspersions on Clinton. Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, is the subject of what is said to be a preliminary FBI inquiry into his business dealings in Russia. Manafort has denied any wrongdoing.
The Daily Beast reported on Thursday on ties between Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, and the FBI’s New York field office, which reportedly pressed the FBI to revisit the Clinton server investigation after beginning an inquiry into Weiner’s alleged sexual texting with a minor. The website reported that a former New York field office chief, highly critical of the non-indictment, runs a military charity that has received significant financial donations from Trump.
Comey’s decision to tell the public in July that he was effectively dropping the Clinton server issue angered some within the bureau, particularly given the background of tensions with the justice department over the Clinton issue. A significant complication is the appearance of a conflict of interest regarding Loretta Lynch, the attorney general, who met with Bill Clinton this summer ahead of Comey’s announcement, which she acknowledged had “cast a shadow” over the inquiry.
“Many FBI agents were upset at the director, not because he didn’t [recommend to] indict, but they believe he threw the FBI under the bus by taking the heat away from DoJ [Department of Justice],” the former bureau official said.
All this has compounded pressure on Comey, with little end in sight.
Jim Wedick, who retired from the bureau in 2004 after 35 years, said that if Clinton is elected, she and Comey would probably find a way to work together out of a sense of pragmatism. He recalled both his own occasional clashes with federal prosecutors and Bill Clinton’s uneasy relationship with his choice for FBI director, Louis Freeh.
“Each one will find a way to pick at the other. It’s not going to be good and it’s not going to be pretty. But they’ll both have to work with each other,” he said.
…
6. The partisanship within the FBI should be viewed against the background of the acquittal of Ammon Bunday and company after their illegal occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.
Militia groups and anti-government activists rejoiced at the news that seven defendants charged in the armed occupation earlier this year of a remote federal wildlife refuge in Oregon were acquitted of all charges late Thursday.
The stunning verdict in the high-profile trial has convinced those who see it as their duty to take up arms against what they view as government overreach that their crusade is a just one.
“Tonight we have vindication for the life, fortune and sacred honor we all promised to give and for which many have given already,” Central Oregon Constitutional Guard leader B.J. Soper wrote in a Facebook post, adding that he’d had tears in his eyes all night.
While the Oath Keepers, a so-called patriot group made up of current and former military and law enforcement personnel, criticized the occupiers’ decision to take over a federal building, founder Stewart Rhodes told TPM that the jury’s decision represented “a victory for due process.”
“In the big picture, they’re right,” Stewart Rhodes said of the occupiers in a Friday phone call. “Western lands are being stolen from the American people. It’s not just white ranchers, it’s also the Native Americans too. It’s happening right now at the pipeline. So it’s the entire west.” . . . .
7a. Not surprisingly, fascists are poised to move into both elected and appointed political office under Trump.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s upset presidential win, the small yet vocal cohort of white nationalists who supported his campaign are refocusing their efforts from trolling liberals online to running for elected office.
Their reasoning: If a candidate who appealed to the tide of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment surging on the country’s right could win over voters, why not one who is openly “pro-white”?
“I have been very surprised that we have not seen attractive, well-spoken, racially aware candidates running for local office,” Jared Taylor, head of the white nationalist American Renaissance publication and annual conference, told TPM in a Wednesday phone call. “I think this will be inevitable, and I think that Trump will have encouraged this. That our people will run for school board, city council, mayor, all that I anticipate certainly.”
Others are thinking in the short-term and training their eyes, perhaps more quixotically, on possible positions in a Trump administration.
William Johnson arguably did the most to advocate for the real estate mogul’s campaign through traditional political channels. The Los Angeles-based lawyer and chair of the white nationalist American Freedom Party founded the pro-Trump American National super PAC, bankrolled robocalls on his behalf, and was listed to serve as a Trump delegate at the Republican National Convention until media outcry forced the Trump campaign to remove his name and attribute his inclusion to a “data error.”
Johnson told TPM his plan now is to “wheedle my way into a Trump administration.” He said he’d love a position as ambassador to Japan or the Philippines, countries home to many of his legal clients, or under secretary of Agriculture, as he runs a small persimmon farm. These likely remain pipe dreams, given that the Trump campaign has said in the past that it “strongly condemns” Johnson’s rhetoric.
“Right now because the election is over and there’s going to be no election for another two years, we’re not focused on people running for office,” Johnson said. “We’re focused on getting people into the administration and working within the system. But in another year or so when elections start gearing up, we will put our candidates into place.”
Meanwhile, civil rights groups are keeping a wary eye on the slow creep of white nationalists and the alt-right from marginalized conferences and online message boards into walking, waking political life. Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, believes that the “bigotry and anti-Semitism and hatred” that voters saw come out during the campaign was just the beginning. Trump’s extremist supporters, he told TPM, “feel rewarded for their bad behavior.”
“The alt-right in particular which was this very loosely organized online movement, we’re going to see if it tries to become more of a real world movement,” he added.
This normalization effort is already underway. The alt-right held what amounted to a press conference at the Willard Hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. in September, and Segal mentioned an upcoming National Policy Institute event with “known anti-Semites” like California State University professor Kevin MacDonald.
These in-person meet-ups in conventional settings, Segal said, “speak to a development from an online phenomenon to a real-world one.”
White nationalists aspired to office even before Trump launched his campaign. Former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke served one term in the Louisiana House in the late 1980s and made several stabs at elected office in the following years. This year, he launched a failed bid for a Louisiana Senate seat and directly tied himself to a Trump ticket.
The younger generation has been known to take the same tack. A recent Washington Post profile of Derek Black, son of the founder of the white nationalist Stormfront website and a darling of the movement until he publicly broke away from it, explained the strategy Black employed when he was still part of that inner circle.
“The way ahead is through politics,” Black told attendees at a 2008 white nationalist conference, according to the Post. “We can infiltrate. We can take the country back.”
He was 19 years old at the time and had already won a GOP committee seat in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Peter Brimelow, the editor of anti-immigration site Virginia Dare, said Trump’s win would make mainstream politicians “see that these are winning issues.” Although Brimelow doubts that any self-described white nationalists will “be allowed into public life,” he pointed to politicians like Rep. David Brat (R‑VA) as “breakthroughs” who he said share very similar views to those of the white nationalist community.
Taylor, of American Renaissance, pointed to Sen. Jeff Sessions (R‑AL), Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former New York City Mayor Giuliani—all of whom are already working closely with the Trump team—as the kind of officials white nationalists would like to see in the next administration.
Civil rights groups are closely monitoring which officials Trump names to key administration posts, and these are the kinds of names that give them pause.
“When [Breitbart Chairman Steve] Bannon is the CEO of your campaign and also someone who has made a place for the alt-right, the prospects are scary,” said Richard Cohen, legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center. “On the immigration front you’ve got people like Kobach, the architect of the country’s harshest immigration laws, SB1070 in Arizona and HB56 in Alabama, on his transition team for immigration. You have people connected to the Family Research Council, a hard-line anti-gay group, who are playing a role in his transition team.”
“So far we haven’t seen any effort on his part to distance himself from the people who brought him to the party,” Cohen added. “He’s still dancing with them.” . . .
7b. Trump is reportedly strongly considering Steve Bannon to be his chief of staff!
President-elect Donald Trump is strongly considering naming his campaign CEO Steve Bannon to serve as his White House chief of staff, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNN on Thursday.
The White House chief of staff is typically tasked in large part with ensuring that all wheels are spinning in the complex White House organization, and the source said that some people in Trump’s orbit do not think Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News who joined Trump’s campaign in August, is the best fit for that position.
Trump’s contemplation of Bannon as chief of staff comes as his presidential transition team is feverishly ramping up its efforts to build out an administration after his surprising win Tuesday. . . .
Bannon has also been a major force behind some of Trump’s more controversial stunts, including when Trump held an impromptu press event with women who had accused former President Bill Clinton of sexual assault and misconduct. Bannon was spotted in the back of the room smiling as reporters were led in for the debate night surprise.
8. The Trumpenkampfverbande is already keeping an enemies list. a la Richard Nixon.
“If [Graham] felt his interests was with that candidate, God bless him,” Manigault remarked. “I would never judge anybody for exercising their right to and the freedom to choose who they want. But let me just tell you, Mr. Trump has a long memory and we’re keeping a list.”
The Trump administration may be pretty vindictive
Foreshadowing the possibility that the worst fears of Donald Trump’s critics have merit, Omarosa Manigault — who met Trump while competing on “The Apprentice” and has campaigned for him in this election — has discussed how the Republican victor has been keeping an enemies list.
“It’s so great our enemies are making themselves clear so that when we get in to the White House, we know where we stand,” Manigault told Independent Journal Review at Trump’s election night party on Wednesday.
She also referenced a tweet sent by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham on Tuesday afternoon.
I voted @Evan_McMullin for President. I appreciate his views on a strong America and the need to rebuild our military. #3— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 8, 2016
“If [Graham] felt his interests was with that candidate, God bless him,” Manigault remarked. “I would never judge anybody for exercising their right to and the freedom to choose who they want. But let me just tell you, Mr. Trump has a long memory and we’re keeping a list.”
What is the best book on the alt-right that will allow a lay person to assess the various constituents, strengths, and history of this movement? Do present events seem sudden or on slow simmer for some time? Can knowledge translate into people power in these kinds of instances?
Well look at that: It turns out Steve Bannon won’t be selected as Trump’s Chief of Staff. That task will go to Reince Priebus. No, Bannon will be taking a different position in the Trump administration. A position that will allow him to engage is neo-Nazi scheming full time without needing to worry about all those pesky staffing issues. Yes, Steve Bannon is Donald Trump’s new Karl Rove. And guess who is super excited about that:
“I must admit that I was a wee bit surprised that Mr. Trump finally chose Mr. Bannon, I thought that his stable of Washington insiders would have objected too vociferously...“Perhaps The Donald IS for ‘REAL’ and is not going to be another controlled puppet directed by the usual ‘Wire Pullers,’ and does indeed intend to ROCK the BOAT? Time will tell.”
Yes, the head of the American Nazi Party is surprised. Positively surprised. Along with just about every other white nationalist group in the nation.
So how about rest of the GOP? Do they have any thoughts about Steve Bannon now that the leader and face of the party has chosen an open white nationalist as is chief strategist? Well, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy had a response. It wasn’t actually a response to questions of what he thinks about Trump choosing a white nationalist for this key position. No, his response what that we should give Trump and his white nationalist team time to govern before judging because “The president has a right to select who he thinks is best to be able to move through”:
“Fox News’s Chad Pergram did get a follow-up question: Are Republicans ceding “moral ground” by associating with people like Bannon in order to pass conservative policies?”
Yikes. It doesn’t bode well for the GOP’s ability to avoid all the neo-Nazi Trump taint that’s threatens to redefine the party as an openly white nationalist party when House Majority leader couldn’t even handle a Fox News softball question on the matter:
“So it does seem like you are ceding that moral ground,” Pergram said.
So after Trump’s first round of key staffing decisions, even the Fox News reporter feels the GOP has already ceded the moral ground simply for not being outraged over Trump’s decisions. Ouch. It was always clear that a Trump presidency would shred what little remains for the GOP’s credibility as a non-bigotry-based party, but this is rather fast.
So how about House Speak Paul Ryan? Surely he must have some feelings on the topic. And indeed he does: Paul Ryan has no concerns about Bannon because he trusts Donald Trump’s judgement:
“I trust Donald’s judgment,” Ryan added.
As we can see, Donald Trump’s first round of appointments — Reince Priebus for chief of staff and Steve Bannon as chief strategist — touched off a firestorm that is already destroying the GOP’s image and the party’s collective response is basically what Paul Ryan said: “I trust Donald’s judgment”.
So while it’s increasingly clear that we’re about to watch the US get devoured by an orgy of corruption and fascist looting, at least it also increasingly clear that the looters aren’t really going to have a good explanation for all the looting. At least not yet. We’ll see what the party’s strategists can come up with.
@Greg Brown–
I don’t know of a single book, however I recommend “The Beast Awakens” by Martin A. Lee and “Dreamer of the Day” by Kevin Coogan, both discussed at length in programs on this website.
Both written before the euphemism for fascism “alt.right” was coined.
Best,
Dave
Now that President Obama is forced to basically vouch for Donald Trump and assure the world that a Trump administration won’t dissolve NATO, it’s pretty clear that Europe is going to be in permanent national-security freakout-mode for the next four years. And as the article below notes, with the US on the verge of pulling itself out of its long-standing role as the security guarantor for Europe and also potentially abandon its liberal values, that means a whole lot of European eyes are going to be turning to Germany for both moral and military leadership:
“Germany’s defense minister, Ursula von der Leyen, said Trump’s election could provide an “important stimulus” to upgrading the EU’s military capacity and bolstering its structures. “The defense of liberal democracy,” she said, “has become our highest priority.” This means that “the EU has to take over more responsibility in foreign and military affairs.” EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has again brought up the possibility of an “EU army,” an idea that has been periodically rolled out and then quickly mothballed in the past but could find more traction under a President Trump. EU foreign ministers met on Sunday in Brussels to parley over the implications of a Trump presidency at a special dinner, called for by Germany.”
Get ready for Pax Germanica. You can thank Trump for that. And if you’re tempted to assume, “oh good, Germany will be a much nicer military hegemone than the US,” keep in mind that one of the primary driving forces of the rising far-right across the EU has been the socioeconomic catastrophes Berlin basically thrust upon the rest of the EU, in particular the eurozone, by insisting on Ordoliberal austerity. That’s a really bad sign for a rising military power. So if Pax Germanica’s role within the EU is any indication of what to expect with Pax Germanica leads a European army, we probably shouldn’t expect the new EU military super-power status to be super nice while engaging on its foreign adventures.
Also keep in mind that, while Trump might effectively end the US’s status as a global leader — in the sense that the US will have a hard time leading the world if Trump confers on it pariah status — that doesn’t mean Trump is going to be gutting the US’s military capacity. Don’t forget that he campaign on “rebuilding” the US military (although that was actually a reversal of his prior positions on defense spending). So if Trump either ends up effectively killing NATO or simply scaring the Europeans so much that they end up building their own shiny new EU army anyway, we aren’t going to see the EU replace the US’s military capacity. We’ll instead just have a much greater global military capacity. Whooopie!
Although, who knows, maybe if Trump reverses his campaign stances and comes out strongly in favor of NATO we won’t see an EU army and the immediate rise of Pax Germanica. Because while Germany might want the whole EU to go on a giant military spending spree, it’s not clear that the rest of the EU is as enthusiastic (especially since they’ll probably just be forced to buy a bunch of German and French-made hardware). Who knows. We don’t, and won’t ever know what could have been, since the Trump team is promising to take a hard-line on shifting towards a fee-for-service NATO model:
“Trump’s sometimes dismissive attitude during the election towards Nato has prompted alarm in Europe. Also speaking on Today, Paladino argued that people should not believe everything Trump said on the campaign trail, but stressed the president-elect was serious about changing Nato.”
Oh isn’t that reassuring: Don’t believe what Trump said on the campaign trail...except for the part about not fullfilling our NATO obligations to member nations behind on their dues. That was the message from Trump surrogate Carl Paladino during an interview with ex-NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen. So, as we can see, destabilizing NATO as part of some sort of shakedown is very much on the Trumpian agenda. Maybe. It sort of depends on how you interpret Carl Paladino’s incoherence:
Let’s try to parse that: So Carl Paladino says Trump is the kind of guy who keeps his promises...except for the promises he made on the campaign trail...although he’ll keep the fee-for-service NATO promise...but still don’t worry because he’s much more pragmatic now that he won the election...also, there needs to be a NATO summit soon where Trump can send the message that nothing has changed...except for the fee-for-service part. That’s changed. Trump promises.
So there we have it: while we don’t yet know what precisely a Trump administration’s plans are for NATO, it’s already very clear a Trump administration is already destabilizing it simply be being an incoherent and unreliable mess that simultaneously tries to threaten and reassure. It raises the question of how many other US allies around the globe are going to joining up with team Pax Germanica before our Trumpian nightmare ends.
This should do wonders to quell the growing fears that the incoming occupant of the White House is a White Supremacist: the Trump team has reportedly decided that Steve Bannon isn’t going to be available for interviews. So the emerging messaging strategy from the Trump administration is 1. Don’t worry about Bannon, if you knew him like we all know him you wouldn’t be concerned and 2. No interviewing Bannon:
“Not everybody wants to be a public face...Not everybody is asked to do that on behalf of president-elect.”
Yes, Donald Trump’s white nationalist chief advisor has no interesting in all the hassle of talking to the public so why is everyone harassing him? Why can’t he be given the benefit of the doubt. Forever.
So now, with the Trump Adminstration trying to turn Bannon into the White House’s persecuted Boo Radley mystery figure, now is probably a good to time recognize that lots of non-Trump administration people also know Steve Bannon and don’t have such wonderful things to say:
” I have no evidence that Bannon’s a racist or that he’s an anti-Semite; the Huffington Post’s blaring headline “WHITE NATIONALIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE” is overstated, at the very least. With that said, as I wrote at The Washington Post in August, Bannon has openly embraced the racist and anti-Semitic alt-right – he called his Breitbart “the platform of the alt-right.” Milo Yiannopoulos, the star writer at the site, is an alt-right popularizer, even as he continuously declares with a wink that he’s not a member...”
Well there we go...even Steve Bannon’s former co-workers and current enemies can’t say for sure that Bannon himself is a racist anti-Semite (Bannon’s ex-wife might have some comments about that), although Shapiro notes that he’s clearly more than happy to court them. And that assessment is about as positive a spin one could credibly put on the Bannon situation if one was to give Bannon the complete and total benefit of the doubt. “There’s no evidence Bannon himself believes all those horrible things people say he believes. Maybe he merely has no problem at all promoting those horrible beliefs if it benefits him and it just happens to be currently very beneficial.”
That’s basically as good as the spin can possibly get if we actually look at the available evidence.
And yet we aren’t actually seeing any meaningful spin coming out of the Trump team at all. It’s just this weird bad joke response where implausible denials of Bannon’s Alt-Right nature get followed up with new rules that Bannon won’t get interviewed at all and we should all just drop the topic. It’s a rather odd lack of strategy considering we’re talking about a Trump team strategy to keep retain its lead strategist.
Daily Mail UK November, 16, 2016 by Khaleda Raman
Teacher who compared Trump’s rise to Hitler is suspended from high school to keep students ’emotionally safe’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3932194/Holocaust-scholar-suspended-school-taught-40-years-comparing-Donald-Trump-Hitler-class.html
A California teacher has been suspended with pay from the school he has worked at for 40 years for comparing Donald Trump’s rise to power to Adolf Hitler’s.
Frank Navarro, a scholar of the Holocaust, who has worked for decades at Mountain View High School said he taught his world studies class the similarities between Hitler’s rise to power and Trump’s campaign.
But after concerned parents began contacting the school, principal Dave Grissom and superintendent Jeff Harding made the decision to suspend Navarro.
Navarro said the parent claims he called Trump and Hitler one and the same, but he says that’s not what happened.
‘This parent said that I had said Donald Trump was Hitler, but I would never say that. That’s sloppy historical thinking,’ Navarro told SF Gate.
He says he did make comparisons about how the two rose to prominence and lead their respective nations, including rhetoric about deporting foreigners and restoring greatness to the country.
‘I think it makes sense. It’s factual, it’s evidence-based. It reminds students that history is real,’ Navarro said.
But the school officials said given the climate following the election, the lesson was inappropriate.
‘Regardless of their political affiliation, many of our students show signs of emotional stress,’ Grissom told parents in a letter.
He said the school has an obligation to be an ’emotionally safe environment’ for students.
But, Grissom also said, the school must protect teachers and staff when unsubstantiated claims are made against them.
Grissom told SF Gate the suspension is a ‘time out’ for Navarro.
Navarro said it is his duty as a history teacher to ensure students are aware of bigotry and to point it out, according to a Change.org petition.‘I feel strongly about this: to stand quiet in the face of bigotry and to turn your eyes away from it is to back up the bigotry, and that’s not what I, or any history teacher, should be doing in our work,’ Navarro said.
Officials said they would wrap up an investigation into the claims soon.
After The Oracle, the student newspaper, wrote about the suspension, outraged parents and students began saying Navarro should not have been suspended.
‘Emails started flowing in to the principal late that night,’ Navarro told the paper.
The Change.org petition, which seeks to have an apology made to Navarro and his suspension lifted, received more than 7,600 signatures as of Sunday afternoon.
Navarro’s daughter posted on the petition, furious about the situation her father had been placed in.
‘What Mountain View High School has done to my father is wrong. Discussing the connection between Trump and Hitler is important and relevant to history and the painful situation we are in now in this country,’ she wrote.
She added that her father was set to retire in June and that the school will be losing a beloved teacher.
He’s back, teaching his “dangerous” facts.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/14/mtn-view-high-teacher-returns-after-trump-hitler-lesson/
This doesn’t bode well: The New York Times’s public editor wrote a mea culpa yesterday about its 2016 election coverage. The big problem with the coverage? Something about the systematic monstering and demonization of Hillary Clinton over trumped up trivialities? No, the New York Time’s editors are apparently lamenting that the paper was too harsh on Trump voters by lumping them in with Trump’s hateful rhetoric:
“But Spayd’s hand-selected readers led inexorably to her point that the Times had not been sufficiently charitable to Trump voters. “Few could deny that if Trump’s more moderate supporters are feeling bruised right now, the blame lies partly with their candidate and his penchant for inflammatory rhetoric,” she wrote. “But the media is at fault too, for turning his remarks into a grim caricature that it applied to those who backed him.” At every turn, the readers with whom Spayd chooses to engage criticize the purported liberalism of the Times’ coverage. The message the public editor sends is clear: the paper should move to the right to quell reader concerns.”
So that’s a little preview of the Time’s coverage for the next four years. Here’s another preview:
Yes, get ready for plenty of coverage about what a “confident”, “focused”, and “proud” president Donald Trump will be. Oh, and “freewheeling”. He’s going to be a very freewheeling president. In other words, get ready for the media to do what it can to normalize Trump.
But that doesn’t mean the New York Times isn’t going to be covering Trump’s white supremacist/Alt-Right ties entirely. For instance, check out another story that was published in the Times on the exact same day as the above column from its public editor: It’s a story about how the Alt-Right just held an open Nazi-style conference to celebrate Trump’s victory as their own, complete with with Sieg Heils and all the rest. And while the Times points out that Trump’s team certainly has a tangential relationship to the Alt-Right given Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon as his campaign CEO and now chief strategist, the article also make pains to suggest that the ties between the Trump team and Alt Right are difficult to define just as the Alt-Right itself can be difficult to define (even though the founder of the Alt-Right explicitly calls it a white-identity movement). Uh huh:
“As he finished, several audience members had their arms outstretched in a Nazi salute. When Mr. Spencer, or perhaps another person standing near him at the front of the room — it was not clear who — shouted, “Heil the people! Heil victory,” the room shouted it back.”
Neo-Nazis who proudly make Nazi salutes. That’s clearly who the Alt-Right is, especially considering the guy who put on this conference is the one who started the term “Alt-Right”. And the times makes this quite clear.
At the same time, the article feels the need to ask quetions like when it comes to the Trump team’s ties to the Alt-Right, suddenly things get all hazy:
Aha, so because Steve Bannon rhetorically backed away from the Alt-Right in an interview following Trump’s victory, it’s suddenly super hard to interpret the situation. Maybe Steve Bannon isn’t really an Alt-Right true believe because now he says he’s not? And maybe Breitbart didn’t really become the leading Alt-Right propaganda outlet because now Steve Bannon suggests it was only “a tiny part” of the viewpoints expressed? Hey maybe the Trump administration isn’t really run by people with deep Alt-Right sympathies?
These are the kinds of deplorable questions that article appears to be trying to raise. An article that appeared on the same day the Time’s public editor wrote a column about how the paper was too hard on Trump’s supporters by suggesting that they might be complicit in endorsing Trump’s hateful, inflammatory Alt-Right-ish rhetoric. So while the New York Time’s editorial staff appears to be feeling guilty over being too hard on Trump’s supporters for supporting a blatantly racist Alt-Right candidate, it’s also pretty clear that they’re feeling bad over being too hard on the Trump/Bannon/Alt-Right alliance too. It’s all rather deplorable, but here we are!
And in other news-related news...
Read the following article quoting Trump’s top advisor, Steve Bannon. When he made the following comments consider his veiled references. He uses the term “certain elements” instead of “Jews” and when he refers to the “1930’s” he is referring to the time when Hitler ascended to power. I have inserted three stars *** before those specific paragraphs:
By REENA FLORES CBS NEWS November 19, 2016, 1:09 PM
Steve Bannon speaks out on white nationalism, Donald Trump agenda
Steve Bannon, the chief strategist and right-hand man to President-elect Donald Trump, denied in an interview that he was an advocate of white nationalism — and gave hints instead about how his brand of “economic” nationalism will shake up Washington.
In The Hollywood Reporter, Bannon, the controversial former head of Breitbart News who went on to chair Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, discussed why he believed his candidate won the election.
“I’m not a white nationalist, I’m a nationalist. I’m an economic nationalist,” Bannon told the news outlet earlier this week. “The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f—ed over.”
Bannon’s appointment to the White House has drawn criticism from Democrats and several civil liberties groups, in part because of his (and Breitbart’s) strong association with the alt-right, a political movement with strains of white supremacy.
In the past, the former Breitbart CEO has admitted the alt-right’s connections to racist and anti-Semitic agendas.
***“Look, are there some people that are white nationalists that are attracted to some of the philosophies of the alt-right? Maybe,” Bannon told Mother Jones in August. “Are there some people that are anti-Semitic that are attracted? Maybe. Right? Maybe some people are attracted to the alt-right that are homophobes, right? But that’s just like, there are certain elements of the progressive left and the hard left that attract certain elements.”
In the Reporter interview, Bannon challenged the notion that racialized overtones dominated the Trump campaign on the trail. He predicted that if the administration delivered on its election promises, “we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years.”
“It’s everything related to jobs,” Bannon said and seemingly bragged about how he was going to drive conservatives “crazy” with his “trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.”
***“With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up,” he proposed. “We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.”
Bannon, in the Reporter interview, also gave some insight into how he viewed his political foes (presumably, liberals and the media) — and the “darkness” he touts in fighting against them.
“Darkness is good,” Bannon said. “Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That’s power. It only helps us when they...get it wrong. When they’re blind to who we are and what we’re doing.”
Whether via Ostpolitik or via the Shanghai Cooperation Org, I am of the opinion that the we are now witnessing the 4th Reich rising in the East. The Reich is reaching out to Neo-Nazi / White Nationalist / Alt-Right parties throughout the Europe and The Americas (and perhaps beyond) supporting candidates like Trump. The goal is placement of multiple Quisling regimes during the lead up to great war. From the perspective of The Reich, taking out the US via Quisling transformation is key. This removes the US implied nuclear deterrent. The French and British deterrents are insufficient to stand off The Reich. The Reich would have an automatic ability to do nuclear blackmail if the US went Vichy.
@ James–
It doesn’t come from the East, although the East will be incorporated into it.
It comes from the West, the Underground Reich is the driving force.
Ultimately, the whole world will be under its sway.
The U.S. has already fallen.
best,
Dave
With questions and significant alarm over Donald Trump’s selection of Steve Bannon as chief strategist not going away any time soon (hopefully never), here’s the latest example of Trump’s approach to dealing with these questions: Trolling the nation by playing dumb. Implausibly dumb:
“If I thought he was a racist or alt-right or any of the things, the terms we could use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him,”
Bwah! He actually said that. Presumably with a straight face. And then he tried to get us to feel sorry for Steve, who apparently just can’t imagine why people say such horrible things about him:
Yes, it must be so distressing for a man like Bannon who made it one of his missions as the head of Breitbart to mainstream the neo-Nazi ‘Alt-Right’ that now he’s the president-elect’s chief strategist and everyone is talking about the Alt-Right. Poor Steve. Why can’t he mainstream neo-Nazis while advising the president in peace without all these people associating him with neo-Nazis?
So that’s Trump’s strategy: trolling the hell out of the nation. You have to wonder if this strategy is Bannon’s idea or Trump came up with it on his own? Either way, it’s clearly a popular strategy for questions of this nature:
“The white nationalist who said “Hail Trump” and “hail our people” during a conference in Washington D.C. on Saturday — and who received straight-armed Nazi-like salutes in response — told NBC News Monday that his comments were meant to be “cheeky,” “exuberant” and “ironic.””
That’s right, when Richard Spencer led the room in straight-armed Nazi-like salutes at the end of his white power speech that called for a whites-only state, he was just being cheeky! Also, the white power speech was cheeky too. The whole thing was just a giant ironic joke. He’s not a real life neo-Nazi who would emulate Hitler. Why would anyone assume such horrible things about Richard?
And that appears to be the current strategy of the Trump/Bannon/Alt-Right alliance: Trump and Bannon claim they no nothing about the Alt-Right, while Richard Spencer claims it’s all a big ironic joke and he’s not leading a real Nazi movement. So as we watch the neo-Nazi underworld, now fused with the GOP, come into the mainstream and ‘drop the mask’, that process at this point is less ‘dropping the mask’ and more ‘replacing the mask with an evil clown mask as we grow our numbers’. It’s a reminder that the scariest evil clowns don’t where makeup. Although some do.
Given that the Trump campaign, with the help of the dominant right-wing media establishment, won the 2016 election in large part by successfully selling the public on an alternate reality bubble of carefully crafted smears and disinformation designed almost exclusively to simultaneously cast Hillary Clinton as a super-villain and Trump as a savior with a secret plan to destroy ISIS and who would make everyone rich, one of the open questions facing a new Trump administration, and facing everyone else, is what exactly is Trump’s worldview? Yes, we can be confident that Trump’s team will largely adhere to the wishes of the global far-right oligarchy and probably do whatever it can to make the global super-rich richer while disempowering the rabble further, but it’s still not clear how exactly he’s going to accomplish that goal other than massive tax cuts and massive defense spending. Although with the selection of Lt. General Michael Flynn as his national security advisor it’s pretty clear that Trump’s foreign policy will likely involving using a war on ISIS as a launchpad for a war on Iran. In other words, when it comes to foreign policy in the Middle East Trump is a neocon
“A few weeks before the election, Flynn emphasized that Trump knows “that when it comes to Russia or any other country, the common enemy we all have is radical Islam” — suggesting that any daylight between the two men is being eliminated. Indeed, while there is little in “The Field of Fight” to suggest that Flynn has some overarching doctrine to impart to the incoming commander in chief, there are flashes that suggest further differences: Whereas Trump has pledged to “get out of the nation-building business,” for instance, Flynn proffers a vision reminiscent of George W. Bush’s freedom agenda. “Removing the sickening chokehold of tyranny, dictatorships, and Radical Islamist regimes must be something our nation stands for whenever freedom-loving people around the world need help,” Flynn writes. “If we don’t stand for this, we stand for nothing.” And though he says it is a “pipe dream” to believe that Washington can bring democracy to the Middle East, “we could certainly bring order.””
Oh goodie: With Michael Flynn, we’re getting the worldview of George W. Bush’s “Freedom agenda” of bringing democracy through military action merged with a realpolitik cynicism that just ignores the bringing democracy part. How inspirational. That should have those extremist Muslims who are already deeply wary of the West brimming with a newfound urge to bring about an Islamic Reformation.
And how is Flynn planning on carrying Trump’s Freedom agenda? Well, from a tactical level it sound like the plan is basically the same ‘smart power’ strategy the Obama administration is already using...
“None of which sounds any more groundbreaking than when Hillary Clinton went on about smart power.”
So the plan is apparently apply the same ‘smart power’ buzzwords, but in the context of Flynn’s new Holy War reframing of tensions between Muslim world and the West. Let’s hope that’s actually a smart application of ‘smart power’. It sure doesn’t seem like it. Maybe all the trolling will be what makes the difference...
“Flynn also suggests that military operations should feature a sort of follow-up mockery. When U.S. forces succeed in taking down terrorist groups, we should go on “the ideological offensive, asking whether the Almighty had changed sides in the holy war,” he suggests. “After all, if previous victories were the result of divine blessing, were defeats not proof that their cause had been rejected on high?” It’s the sick-burn approach to counterterrorism.”
Aha! It turns out the overwhelmingly disproportionate military losses incurred by the various Muslim targets at the hands of the Western military alliance since the start of the “War on Terror” would triggered a mass Islamic Reformation if only there had been more obvious mockery after those defeats. Now we know.
Oh, and re-declaring George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” will also apparently really help:
Ok, so which countries (not malevolent self-interested government power factions, but entire evil countries) are going to be part of the “international alliance of evil countries and movements that is working to destroy us?” Would that include the primary state sponsors of groups like al Qaeda and ISIS like Saudi Arabia, or Turkey? Well, it’s definitely not going to include Erodgan’s government in Turkey since Flynn is a big Erdogan backer. No, in order to root out the support structure for groups like ISIS and al Qaeda, Flynn suggests we look to Iran:
“Since ISIS is a byproduct of al Qaeda does that mean Iran has ties to them as well? Flynn responded, “Dig deep down into the intelligence and you will find ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ There are these funny relationships that exist. We have clearly seen with Iran and al Qaeda that a Shiite state nation and a Sunni organization have worked together. They do this because at the end of the day they hate the U.S. more than they hate each other.””
That’s right, forget the extensive covert state-sponsored support for ISIS from the Sunni governments like Turkey and Saudi Arabia. It’s Iran’s support for ISIS that we really need to worry about! And don’t forget that Flynn’s co-author for The Field of Fight is none other than uber-neocon Michael Ledeen, one of the biggest cheerleaders you’re ever going to find for war with Iran. So get ready for the next front in the US’s war against Sunni terrorist groups like ISIS and al Qaeda: war with Shia Iran. Because toppling a secular dictatorship in Iraq apparently wasn’t enough.
Now, while it’s true that Iran’s government makes a mockery of meaningful spirituality by snuffing out religious liberty and imposing a horrid theocratic nightmare on its people and the government really does have extensive ties with Shia terrorist groups and even some Sunni ones like Hamas, the idea that the US can simply declare a “War on Radical Islam” and basically force a mass Islam Reformation of both Shias and Sunnis while declaring war on both is about as far from a ‘smart power’ a plan as one could imagine. Except, despite Flynn’s calls about rooting out the sources of contemporary Islamic radicalism, Trump and Flynn show no real signs of addressing actual sources of Sunni radicalism like the government of Saudi Arabia or the ideology of Erdogan’s Muslim Brotherhood-oriented worldview. Instead, based on this Breitbart interview of Flynn, those Sunni governments like Saudi Arabia will likely remain key US allies and leaders of the Islamic Reformation:.
““We’ve got to put demands on the world, especially the Muslim nations around the world, who need leadership from the United States to coalesce, or to become a coherent fighting force,” Flynn said of that new 21st Century alliance. “These guys know that they have a problem, and I’m talking about Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen. Some of these countries that still have a nation-state structure, they know that they have a problem inside their systems. They’re looking for leadership to be able to help them bring the right resources together, bring the right capabilities together.””
That’s right, the governments like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman are the kinds of nations Flynn sees as important allies in the new “21st Century alliance” that will be dedicated to bringing about a grand Islamic Reformation. Good luck with that!
So, all in all, it’s looking a lot like Trump’s new national security advisor, Michael Flynn, is basically peddling the same strategy that the neocons like Michael Ledeen have been pushing since Bush invaded Iraq: taking the side of the Sunni powers promoting radical Islamism and terror while opposing the Shia powers promoting radical Islamism and terror in what is essentially a Sunni/Shia religious civil war between opposing sides of radical Islamism and terror. Whoopiee!
But, hey, if Trump and Flynn have some super secret plan that will somehow convince all of these Sunni society power structures to rapidly transition away from the theocratic model they rely on for their legitimacy and grant the religious freedoms that would allow for a genuine Islamic Reformation to take root, great! That would be a really pleasant surprise.
But that’s also the problem here: if Trump and Flynn actually have a real plan to help usher in this Islamic Reformation, based on all the Trump/Flynn plans we’ve heard thus far it must be a super secret plan we haven’t heard yet. Because so far it’s just the same neocon plan for the WWIII. And trolling. Lots of trolling.
World peace here we come.
Oh great, so it sounds like Donald Trump’s new national security advisor, lieutenant general Michael Flynn, has a tendency to ‘go rogue’. As the article below describes, maybe that rogue behavior involved things like getting an internet connection secretly installed in his Pentagon office when it was forbidden due to security concerns or passing classified information to NATO without approval. Or maybe it involves just making stuff up and repeating it:
“Flynn also began to seek the Washington spotlight. But, without loyal junior officers at his side to vet his facts, he found even more trouble. His subordinates started a list of what they called “Flynn facts,” things he would say that weren’t true, like when he asserted that three-quarters of all new cell phones were bought by Africans or, later, that Iran had killed more Americans than Al Qaeda. In private, his staff tried to dissuade him from repeating these lines.”
Our new national security advisor! He’s so qualified, his subordinates started compiling a list of “Flynn facts”. Oh, and he was pushing the “Hillary Clinton is part of a Satanic child-sex ring” obvious hoax just days before the election:
So, is Flynn just easily fooled, or easily inclined to do things that will discredit himself and the candidate he was promoting? It’s an alarmingly relevant question these days. It also raises the question of which websites he was perusing from his unauthorized secret internet connection. Maybe we could ask Flynn’s Chief of Staff about that. Because if anyone would be familiar with whether or not Flynn is an avid consumer of Breitbart/Infowars junk news it would be his Chief of Staff/son:
“He also enjoys retweeting people like Mike Cernovich and Paul Joseph Watson, mouthpieces of that Rebranded White Nationalism known as the “alt-right.” And HOO BOY, does he love him some Alex Jones and Infowars. So much so that he, for some reason, tagged them in his pregnancy announcement…”
That’s Flynn’s son...and his chief of staff: a guy who retweets Alt-Right neo-Nazis Mike Cernovich and Infowars. So, at a minimum, it’s pretty clear that the new national security advisor isn’t too upset about having a chief of staff who’s chummy with Infowars and the Alt-Right. There’s probably not going to be a shortage of new “Flynn facts” for the Trump administration to chew on.
Given all that, it’s worth asking if there’s going to be any sort of stabilizing force on Flynn’s team. Someone who can whisper things that aren’t Alt-Right/Infowars talking points into Trump’s when the density of “Flynn facts” (or Steve Bannon’s “Brietbart facts”) becomes too overwhelming. Or is it going to be an Alt-Reality, all the time national security team? And here’s our answer:
“...But in addition to a seemingly lifelong penchant for dubious self-promotion and resume inflation McFarland claimed that Clinton was so worried about her candidacy that she sent secret helicopters to spy on her house in the Hamptons and also cased her apartment Manhattan. “Hillary Clinton is really worried about me, and is so worried, in fact, that she had helicopters flying over my house in Southampton today taking pictures.”
Yep! Michael Flynn’s deputy national security advisor charged Hillary Clinton with sending secret helicopters to spy on her when McFarland was running in the GOP’s Senate primary a decade ago to eventually oppose Senator Clinton. And she has a tendency to lie about her background. That’s not alarming at all!
“Earlier this week, former Republican U.S. Sen. Alfonse D’Amato called McFarland’s campaign “a joke” and “a candidate in her own mind.””
Well, it looks like we should start preparing for a president who will be convinced by his national security team that the government black helicopters are coming after him. That should be interesting. Hopefully Trump’s daily intelligence briefing will at least expose him to a broader set of intelligence community perspectives so he’s not operating exclusively in the Breitbart/Alt-Right/Infowars reality bubble. Hopefully.
Here’s a story that’s about as surprising as a story about Donald Trump going on an Alex Jones-inspired tweet-storm:
The New York Times as a profile piece about Steven Bannon that includes all sorts of personal anecdotes about Bannon’s background from lots of acquaintances who try to paint him as a ‘controversial’ and ‘combative’ guy who might use the Alt-Right to further his own ambitious but is really an ‘outsider populist’ who truly cares about the little guy. That appears to be the thrust of the piece, although if that’s the long-term plan for obscuring the reality that there’s a neo-Nazi chief advisor coming into the White House, they might need to do something about the anecdotes about Bannon advocating limiting voting to property owners and remarks that it wouldn’t be so bad if that disenfranchised a lot of African-Americans:
“Jones, who described herself to the Times as very liberal, insisted that Bannon was “not a racist” but instead “using the alt-right—using them for power.””
So is this going to be argument used for the next phase of the normalization of our incoming neo-Nazi administration chief strategist: The Trump administration isn’t being run by a neo-Nazi. It’s merely being run by someone who uses neo-Nazi movements for power. Nothing to worry about there. And sure, maybe Steven Bannon proudly and aggressively promoted and mainstreamed these neo-Nazi/Alt-Right views right up to the point of joining the Trump campaign, and maybe he thinks only property owners should vote and maybe he has a fixation on genetic superiority...but that doesn’t mean we should assume he actually holds Alt-Right/neo-Nazi views. Why does everyone keep suggest Bannon is a racist extremist? Instead, how about we all focus on what a populist he is!
Just ignore your lying eyes and bask in the ‘populist revolution’ of Donald Trump. A giant collective lobotomy appears to be the plan.
Here’s something probably worth considering when pondering the possible impact of a Trump administration’s ‘national fire sale’ energy policy: Unless there’s some sort of major disruption in the global energy markets that triggers a massive spike petroleum prices, it’s unclear how much interest there’s going to be in the energy sector for taking advantage of Trump’s national fire sale given that energy prices are already quite low and projected to stay low for the foreseeable future:
“President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to roll back environmental regulation will not be enough to spur significant fossil fuel production in the face of a glut of crude oil, an international agreement to reduce coal use, and the increasing use of renewables, said Block.”
So is there going to be a tariff on energy imports? Something else, perhaps?
It looks like we’re getting a taste of what foreign policy is going to be like under a Trump administration now that that Donald Trump pulled a surprise stunt and tweeted to the world that he had taken a call from Taiwan’s president, in violation of the US’s long-standing “One China” policy, and then tweeted in response to the outcry:
Yes, breaking taboos and ‘keeping it real’ to maintain his ‘mavericky’ cred is basically what we can expect since that’s straight out of the Trump playbook. At least that appears to be the theatrical motivation behind the public face of Trump’s likely foreign policy.
And it’s not hard to see why he would prefer this approach. ‘Keeping it real’ by blowing up delicate diplomatic niceties is a great way to obscure the reality that Trump’s worldview and policies are built on a foundation deception and oligarchic fantasies. To put it another way, when you have deeply troubled and complex world like ours run by and for oligarchs like Trumnp, there’s inevitably going to be an abundance of low-hanging fruit in terms of existing policies with internal contradictions or unaddressed issues facing the masses — like the US selling weapons to Taiwan while officially supporting a one-China policy or the long-standing economic plight of America’s working class — that someone like Trump can come along and brand himself a “Truth teller” simply by picking that fruit. And maybe he’ll peddle simple solutions or simply point out the contradictions, but he’ll never have to provide real solutions as long as he keeps picking that fruit!
So we should probably expect a lot more “incidents” like what just took place. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to be totally random incidents that Trump comes up with on his own. There’s a method to the madness, and as Josh Marshall notes below, that method is likely coming from Trump’s advisors. Trump’s mad neocon advisors:
“That is where I fear and believe we are with Trump. Not everything in foreign policy is sacred. But here we have an impulsive and ignorant man whose comfort zone is aggression surrounded by advisors with dangerous ideas. His instinctive aggression makes many of their most dangerous ideas possible; and their ideological formulations give his actions a rationale and logic that transcends psychological impulses and the anger of the moment. Even President Bush had a coterie of more Realist-minded and cautious advisors to balance out the hotheads. They lost most of the key debates — especially in the first term. But they provided a restraining counter-balance in numerous debates.”
And that’s perhaps the scariest aspect of this whole incident: not that Trump signaled a shift in the US’s long-standing policy towards China, although that’s potentially disturbing enough given that it’s a signal that he’s not just intent on establishing his ‘mavericky’ cred with a confrontation with China but likely also his ‘macho’ cred. No, the scariest part of what this whole incident is that it looks like Trump’s mavericky/macho schtick is being used as a cover to carry out the policy wishes of the Dick Cheney faction of US foreign policy strategists:
And who do we find behind this now notorious phone call? Well, it’s not actually Dick Cheney’s top East Asia strategist Stephen Yates, who is now at the Heritage Foundation:
No, it wasn’t a Heritage Foundation fellow like Yates. Instead it was long-time far-right organizer and strategist Ed Feulner, the founder of the Heritage Foundation and a member of Trump’s team:
“Edwin Feulner, founder of the Washington-based Heritage Foundation, played a key part in setting up the call, according to Taiwan’s Central News Agency, quoting a source familiar with the matter.”
Yes, Trump is basically following the lead of the founder of the Heritage Foundation who also happens to be a big fan of free-trade agreements. What a populist maverick! Surely this is a sign he has the American working-class in mind.
So now that appears that Trump is following the advice of folks like Feulner, one of the next questions is what the hell else is Feulner advising Trump regarding that region of the world. Don’t forget that there’s widespread expectations that North Korea is going to “test” Trump early on with something like a nuclear weapons test? Well, back in May, Feulner wrote a column in the Washington Times with recommendations for how to deal with Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions. First, increase economic sanctions, which will require Beijing’s cooperation. Next, set up a missile defense shield, which will also require Beijing’s cooperation or at least will seriously piss off the Chinese government. And third, stationing an aircraft carrier capable of launching dual use aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons so that whenever the US is sending flights over Sourth Korea the North Koreans won’t know if it’s armed with nukes or not.
It’s a reminder that if Trump keeps following Feulner’s script, it’s looking like the US is going to be be setting up a showdown with China in parallel with its ongoing showdown with Pyongyang:
“With these aircraft deployed to South Korea, every time one of them takes off or lands, the North Korean dictator does not know whether it is carrying a conventional weapon or a nuclear weapon.”
Well, let’s hope there aren’t any mechanical incidents to add to the political incident. But also keep in mind that it’s not like flying nuclear armed bombers over South Korea in a show of force is unprecedented. The US did exactly that in September following the North Krean nuclear test that month. But as we can see with Trump’s decision to follow Feulner’s lead on antagonizing China, future flights of that nature could be taking place in an environment where US/Chinese relations have plummeted following a simultaneous showdown of Taiwan. Possibly a military showdown given the extreme Chinese sensitivities over eventual reunification.
All in all, it’s looking like a combination of populist isolationist talk, but also taboo-breaking macho talk, for the domestic audiences is going to be coupled with with the kind of aggressive ‘Peace through Strength and breaking stuff’-style neocon foreign policy actions that Dick Cheney would be proud of is what we should probably expect for the next four years. In other words, Trump’s New World Order is going to be created via the application of Trump’s ‘law and order’ instincts and a willingness to casually take massive risks, applied under neocon guidance, and executed and with a mavericky taboo-breaking flair. So, you know, we probably shouldn’t be surprised if it’s not very ordered.
Here’s another sign of the times: It looks like “Pizzagate” — a hoax conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton and John Podesta running a child sex ring out of the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria that was cooked up days before the 2016 election and aggressive spread on social media — is still going strong. At least some minds. Like the mind of the man who walked into the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria yesterday to “self-investigate” the hoax claims with a rifle and ended up threatening the staff and firing off a round.
And now, in wake if this incident, Michael G. Flynn, Jr., son and chief of staff of Donald Trump’s national security advisor Michael Flynn, is taking to Twitter to defend his father over accusations that Michael Flynn Sr. was promoting the Pizzgate hoax with potentially deadly consequences. Specifically, Flynn Jr. is defending his father by defending the Pizzagate hoax itself, asserting that the hoax should be considered a valid story until proven false.
But as the article below points out that despite the fact that Flynn Jr. jumped to the defense of father by defending Pizzagate, Flynn Sr. had never actually promoted Pizzagate. No, instead what Flynn Sr was promoting right before the election was the “Spirit Cooking” hoax, a different hoax that also purports to tie Hillary Clinton to Satanic rituals involving children.
So, to summarize:
1. A man just walked into a pizzeria that was the target of a “Hillary Clinton is part of a child sex ring” hoax and fired shots.
2. Folks pointed out that Michael Flynn Sr., Trump’s selected National Security Advisor, was pushing similar theories days before the election and therefore validating them in the minds of many.
3. Michael G. Flynn, Jr. replied with a tweet defending his dad by suggesting the Pizzagate hoax should be considered a real story until proven false.
4. And now we have to point out that Flynn Sr. wasn’t promoting Pizzagate. No, he was promoting “Spirit Cooking”, a different “Hillary Clinton is part of a child sex ring” hoax.
So that’s where we are. In a place where there’s such an aggressive promotion of far-right Fake News that we now have to take the pains to parse each of the separate hoaxes in order to accurately assess the public damage they’re doing. In other words, we now have to understand all the far-right conspiracy theories just to understand how much misunderstanding is taking root in our collective psyche and shaping reality:
“The whole matter is a near-perfect microcosm of just how much fake news stories have penetrated our political process — so much so that we can’t even keep them straight. And it’s likely to lead to those who embrace conspiracy theories or simply distrust the mainstream media to believe Flynn was unfairly maligned for his tweet.”
Well, that exactly doesn’t well. Unless having the next National Security Advisor, and his advisor and son, peddle garbage happens to bode well:
It’s probably worth noting that the story Flynn Sr. was promoting right before the election about the “Spirit Cooking” meme was about a Breitbart interview of Black Water founder Erik Prince and his assertion that arrests were going to happening soon (arrests that never happened...big shocker!)
It’s probably also worth noting that Prince is the brother of ....*drum roll*.....Trump’s choice for Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos.
So, yes, Donald Trump’s Education Secretary is the sister of the head mercenary who was pushing a fake story about a Satanic sex abduction ring that was tweeted about by Trump’s National Security Advisor. And when questions were raised about the role this promotion may have played in legitimizing a parallel hoax story about Hillary Clinton and a child sex ring, Trump’s National Security Advisor’s chief advisor, who also happens to be his son, defended his dad/boss by tweeting a defense of the parallel hoax story.
In other news, Jack Posobiec, director of a some group called “Citizens4Trump the guy Michael Flynn Jr. linked to tweeted in his tweet about how Pizzagate should be treated as real until proven false, is pretty sure that the guy who “self-investigated” the pizzeria was a government false-flag actor. So the guys pushing these hoaxes are apparently convinced that if someone acts like they’re taking the stories seriously they must be working for the government.
And yet the guys about to run the government do appear to actually believe them. Or are at least acting like it.
Don’t underestimate Trump or his voters
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/opinion/article124589944.html
Since Nov. 9, I have heard people label President-elect Donald Trump’s voters as stupid, uninformed and cruel. I have heard people claim that they no longer recognize their country, that this America is not their America.
And that is exactly why he won.
Trump supporters can be split into four groups: the Never Hillary camp, the party loyalists, the “I just care about the Supreme Court” folks, and true supporters. To those who wonder how on earth Trump won, the answer is simple. Some people really didn’t like Hillary Clinton, some felt obliged to support the party, some wanted a Republican to nominate the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement, and some felt utterly alienated from popular political discourse.
It is the last group that pushed Trump over the edge, making his election a reality.
They watched a steady stream of jobs exit America and a steady stream of illegal immigrants pour in. When they listened to the radio or turned on the television or opened a newspaper, they didn’t hear or see or read anything that sounded like them. They came to see politicians as corrupt, not to be trusted.
They wanted their grandparents’ America. It doesn’t matter if they were right or wrong. What matters is that that’s what they felt, and that’s what they said, but no one listened.
Those unhappy with the results of the election — I’ll call them the #NotMyPresident camp — claim to have lost trust in their fellow Americans, as if the action of checking the box next to Trump on their ballots instantaneously transformed garden-variety Republicans and Independents into unpredictable beasts.
But in reality, the claimants’ own limited interaction with people who hold different views is to blame. They view this “other” as uninformed and objectively wrong, an evaluation sustained by ideological segregation and, more broadly, a lack of empathy.
For an example, look to the popular mass media, which was so unable to understand why someone would vote for Trump that it ignored signs pointing to his victory. Trump supporters didn’t spring from the post-election soil like mushrooms overnight. They have been growing slowly, quietly, for years.
The #NotMyPresident camp makes a mistake in writing off Trump and his voters as stupid. First, not all Trump voters are true supporters. The Never Hillary, party loyalist, and the Supreme-Court crowds differed from Trump on a number of issues. A vote for Trump was not an endorsement of his entire political agenda or, for that matter, his offensive personal comments on women and minorities.
Second, we can no longer pretend that Trump is stupid. He’s not. He’s a businessman, and he just sold himself to the American people. He saw what people wanted to hear, what would dominate the news cycle. And he said it, regardless of whether he believed it was true or whether he had any intention of fulfilling his promises.
Furthermore, he ran what has been described as the most sophisticated social media advertising campaign in history. He accumulated data on known supporters and used that data to identify potential supporters. He later did the same to identify potential Clinton voters. Both groups he targeted with Facebook “dark posts,” which are nonpublic paid posts revealed only to selected users.
Potential Trump voters saw pro-Trump ads; potential Clinton voters saw a cartoon Clinton repeating her 1996 comment likening youth gangs, presumably African-Americans, to “super predators.” This “depress the vote” campaign was largely successful; in key states like Michigan and Ohio, Democratic voter turnout was down from the 2012 and 2008 elections.
It is time we stop underestimating Trump, and it is time we stop ignoring the anti-Washington sentiments which led to his election. Instead of tweeting #NotMyPresident, please go have a conversation with a Trump voter.
I promise the next four years will be easier if you respect Trump as you would any commander in chief and if you offer up policy proposals rather than insults.
Eliza Jane Schaeffer of Lexington, Kentucky, is a freshman at Dartmouth College. She wrote this for the Lexington Herald Leader.