Friday 29th of March 2024

the world is in safe hands...

 

bannon...

The seemingly candid comments – which included the claims that he would oust his rivals in the federal government, who were “wetting themselves” – come at a time when Bannon faces an uncertain future at the White House. There have been increasing calls from the left and the right for the removal of the former editor of Breitbart News. When Trump was asked at a press conference this week if the chief strategist would remain in his position, the president said: “We’ll see.”

It is unclear why Bannon chose to call Kuttner, who wrote that he had not requested the interview and was “stunned” to hear from him. However after publication stories circulated that Bannon was unaware he was providing an interview.

There have been recent reports of internal conflicts and power struggles within the administration, and Bannon made the call amid an intense backlash related to Trump’slinks to the far right and the president’s comments that there were “very fine people” at a violent white nationalist protest in Charlottesville.

In the American Prospect story, headlined “Steve Bannon, unrepentant”, Trump’s top aide said: “We’re at economic war with China. It’s in all their literature. They’re not shy about saying what they’re doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it’s gonna be them if we go down this path. On Korea, they’re just tapping us along. It’s just a sideshow.”

Contradicting Trump’s threats of “fire and fury” on North Korea, Bannon said: “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”

Bannon also discussed his “battle inside the administration to take a harder line on China trade”, Kuttner wrote. Asked about his adversaries at the US departments of state and defense, Bannon responded, “Oh, they’re wetting themselves.”

He continued: “I’m changing out people at east Asian defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of east Asian and Pacific affairs] out at state.”

The State Department and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday night. At the time of writing Susan Thornton was still listed in her position.

Kuttner also asked Bannon about the “ugly white nationalism epitomized by the racist violence in Charlottesville and Trump’s reluctance to condemn it”. Heather Heyer, acivil rights activist, was killed when a man alleged to be a white nationalist drove a car into a crowd of counter protesters on Saturday.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/17/steve-bannon-calls-far-r...

 

hiding behind the bushes...

bushes

Several leading members of Donald Trump's Republican Party and key ally Britain have sharply rebuked the United States President after he insisted that white nationalists and protesters opposed to them were both to blame for deadly violence in the Virginia city of Charlottesville over the weekend.

Key points:
  • Former presidents join current Republican politicians in rebuking President
  • President told "your words are dividing Americans, not healing them"
  • Mr Trump had said "there is blame on both sides" for fatal violence in Charlottesville

 

Mr Trump's remarks yesterday, a more vehement reprisal of what had been widely seen as his inadequate initial response to the bloodshed around a white nationalist rally, reignited a storm of criticism and strained ties with his own party.

Republican former presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush were among those from Mr Trump's own party to speak out after the President's comments.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-17/donald-trump-charlottesville-comme...

he did nothing of the sort... but hey!?...

 

US allies Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea are among countries which trust Vladimir Putin more than Donald Trump in handling foreign affairs, a new Pew poll shows.

“In many countries he [Putin] is more trusted than American President Donald Trump,” according to a statement from the Pew Research Center on Wednesday. 

At least 36 countries from across the world took part in the survey.

The poll showed that at least seven EU countries trust Russian President Vladimir Putin more than US President Donald Trump. Greeks appear to have highest confidence in Putin (31 percent higher than their confidence in Trump), followed by Germany (with a +14-percent differential), and Hungary (+5 percent). Putin is also more trusted in France, Sweden, Italy, and Spain than his US counterpart.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/399865-putin-trust-trump-poll/

 

Meanwhile at the media gas works:

 

 

The allegation that the mainstream media disseminates  “fake news” about the Trump administration often can seem overwrought, even a kind of caricature. Yet the nearly universal media response to President Trump’s news conference at which he addressed the Charlottesville violence can only reinforce it. One day this response [will] make a rich subject for future historians analyzing it as earlier historians probed witch-burnings, pogroms, and other outbreaks of mass hysteria. They likely will focus on the spectacle of sophisticated, experienced, well credentialed people—Chuck Todd, Jake Tapper, Joe Scarborough, to name three of dozens—responding to Trump’s comments on the tragic weekend as if they were, say, undergraduate social justice warriors at Middlebury College.

First, the transmission of facts, which might be the essential point of journalism. Trump approached the Trump Tower podium Tuesday afternoon hoping to talk about infrastructure. The media wanted to talk about Charlottesville (ignoring, not surprisingly, Chicago, where nine people were murdered over the weekend).

The meat of Trump’s answer can be broken down into parts. First, he praised the young woman who was murdered, called the driver who ran her over a disgrace to his country, wasn’t certain of the semantics whether he should be accused of terrorism or murder.

Second, he asked a reporter for a definition of the alt-right, a term probably as imprecise as “socialist”—and perhaps a reasonable way of expressing uncertainty about the actual center of gravity of a seemingly elastic group that includes such disparate ideological figures as Trump’s own American nationalist aide Steve Bannon, the white nationalist Richard Spencer, and the neo-Nazis Spencer has invited into his tent. Third, he reaffirmed the statement he made on Saturday, condemning in the strongest possible terms bigotry and violence.

Then he fatefully threw out the red meat, denouncing what he called the “alt left,”  or “Antifa,” which showed up in Charlottesville, without a permit, intending, as was evident to anyone paying attention to the group’s past actions, on physically attacking those attending the alt-right demonstration. He reiterated his previous statement that there was “blame on both sides.”  He repeated his disdain for “neo-Nazis and white nationalists,” saying they should be “condemned totally.” Then he noted that some people had come simply to protest the taking down of the Robert E. Lee statue, erected over a hundred years ago.

So how did the media report this message, in which he singled out for condemnation white nationalists and neo-Nazis, lamented the violence on both sides, and posited that many people involved were “fine people” demonstrating for relatively normal things—that is, for the maintenance of a statue, or protesting against the alt-right’s bigotry?

It was hard to miss. Headline after headline streaming on the news chyrons on CNN and MSNBC asserted that Trump had defended Nazis, while the transcript (and a video) shows plainly and unambiguously he had done nothing of the sort. Commentators on the two major cable channels were hysterical, some guests labeling Trump a white supremacist, wondering why Jared and Ivanka or the minority members of his administration had not abandoned him. A New York Times story records the “chills”  experienced by Chuck Todd upon hearing Trump, the shock of Jake Tapper.

read more:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/what-trump-got-right-abo...

The USA is a country presently eating its own past. Up until the civil war, most of the presidents were racists and official racism in the US did not stop after this war. This is the US history. Taking down the statues of all the "heroes" of the opposition (the Confederates) in the civil war over slavery is akin to the French demolishing the Louvre or the German destroying the Reichstag. Americans are getting beyond the Nazi sentiment, they are getting stupid.

 

may as well rewrite the US constitution...

 

Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

 

...can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - who's next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

 

...the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017


The president repeated the point he made in a controversial press conference on Tuesday, that protesters who want to take down monuments to Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and “Stonewall” Jackson today may demand the removal of George Washington or Thomas Jefferson tomorrow.

The country’s first president and the author of the Declaration of Independence were both slave-owners. A pastor in Chicago, Illinois has already asked the city authorities to change the name of a park currently named after Washington, as well as another that bears the name of Andrew Jackson, the seventh US president.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/usa/399909-trump-tweets-confederate-monuments/

 

As mentioned before, the US has hypocritically supported the Thugs and Nazis in Ukraine. 

There is no room for neo-Nazis and extremism in our societies. When the USA sponsored thugs and Neo-Nazis in Ukraine, everyone (in the West) applauded because this was tearing Ukraine away from the "nasty" Russia. Yes the Ukrainian government is supported by Nazis in that country and all is sweet as far as we're concerned. Even a seat at NATO is on offer... We (the USA) are even selling weapons to Ukraine to fight those horrible ethnic Russians in Ukraine who would not have a bar of the Neo-Nazis. At this stage the moral compass of the USA is spinnnnnnning like a mad top...

Trying to erase history is mad... see World War two never happened...

 

the confusion is deliberate...

 

BEIJING — The Trump administration plunged America’s Asian alliances into new confusion Thursday with conflicting signals over how to counter North Korea’s nuclear threat, as the chief White House strategist said a military solution was impossible.

Three other leading officials of the administration — its top military general on a visit to China, and its defense secretary and secretary of state in Washington — effectively contradicted him, emphasizing that Mr. Trump was prepared to take military action if necessary.

The mixed messages about North Korea policy added to the sense of disarray coming from the White House, where Mr. Trump appeared to have all but forgotten the crisis a week after he threatened an ad hoc “fire and fury” response to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, if he menaced the United States.

Stephen K. Bannon, the nationalist ideologue who is Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, said in an interview that there was “no military solution” in the Korean Peninsula, and that he might consider a deal in which United States troops withdrew from South Korea in exchange for a verifiable freeze in the North’s nuclear program.

read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/world/asia/north-korea-trump-moon-jae-in-south.html

 

Confusion is a way to let people know about uncertainty... It's not new in politics, war and peace... The tactic is deliberately designed to create doubt in the mind of adversaries or "friends" alike...

 

no more confusion...

 

President Donald Trump has fired chief strategist Steve Bannon, ending the turbulent tenure of a rabble-rousing conservative media entrepreneur and political activist.

Key points:
  • Mr Bannon gave an interview earlier this week that was seen to undercut the President
  • Critics have long accused Mr Bannon of being anti-Semitic
  • Democrats have welcomed Mr Bannon's departure

 

"White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Steve Bannon have mutually agreed today would be Steve's last day," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.

"We are grateful for his service and wish him the best."

A source familiar with the decision, which had been under consideration for a while, said Mr Bannon had been given an opportunity to depart on his own terms.

"The President made up his mind on it over the past couple of weeks," the source said.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-19/donald-trump-fires-steve-bannon-as...

 

Before the news of Bannon's removal, this charming article by the Gadfly appeared in the Saturday Paper:

 

 

What fate awaits Steve Bannon, the Pussy Grabber’s policy adviser and West Wing oral onanist?

Lord Moloch wants him out of the job so he can be the policy adviser, and Moloch is quite well qualified, what with running a whole lot of nasty crypto alt-right publications.

In fact, British campaigners are demanding that advertisers stop giving money to The Sun because of its consistent anti-immigration and anti-Muslim diatribes.

The creepy Kushners (Ken and Barbie), who are friends of Uncle Rupe’s, also want Steve gone and so did Anthony Scaramucci – as fine a cohort of humans as you’re likely to find.

Steve is now being called a white supremacist and maybe you can see tiny patches of white through his burst veins and bourbon-infused complexion [see toon at top]. In any event, Trump himself is giving a good impersonation of a white supremacist.

Meantime, Trump Tower has come in for attention as The New York Times has explored the collection of spivs, crooks, hucksters, career criminals, charlatans, mobsters, bilkers and ne’er-do-wells who have lived there. TheTimes quoted one observer as saying, “Criminals got to go somewhere”.

read more:

https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/2017/08/19/gadfly-grey-matters/15030...

 

For the uninitiated, Lord Moloch is the Gadfly's nicknaming of Uncle Rupe aka Rupert Murdoch...

Meanwhile, James Murdoch, one of the sons in charge of some of the Murdoch empire, was less than impressed with The Donald for his comments blaming both sides for the riots in Charlotteville... 

Read more:

http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/james-murdoch-the-reaction-by...

 

And by the way, just between me and lamppost and you if you choose, my comment above about "confusion" being deliberate was totally sarcastic with a hint of sulphuric acid... 

from the white house to breitbart...

Just last week Mr Trump pledged to answer North Korean aggression with "fire and fury".

Mr Bannon has already returned to Breitbart News, the far-right publication he led before joining Mr Trump's election campaign, and chaired an evening editorial meeting.

In his first public remarks after being fired, Mr Bannon said he still backed Mr Trump, but expressed doubt about the administration's future without him.

"I'm leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents, on Capitol Hill, in the media and in corporate America," he told Bloomberg News.

The 63-year-old former Navy officer, Goldman Sachs investment banker and Hollywood movie producer said his departure from the White House signalled a major shift for the Trump agenda.

"The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over," he told the conservative Weekly Standard.

Mr Bannon's exit follows a number of other high-profile departures from the seven-month-old administration — Mr Trump's national security adviser, his chief of staff, his press secretary and two communications directors — in addition to the FBI director he inherited from Barack Obama

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-19/donald-trump-gives-steve-bannon-a-...

 

In our present social constructs, it's individual stories like that of Bannon (or Trump) that set the tone of our democratic adventures. Democracies are not pure philosophical ideals that are impermeable to influences of such individuals and the conflicts they inflict. This why I tend to often concentrate more about the people — the players — rather than the idea of democracy.

a political hit job?...

The arrest of the former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and three of his colleagues from the project that mimics President Trump's pledge of building a border wall came out of the blue less than three months ahead of the November vote that will determine whether POTUS will be re-elected for a second term.

The sudden emergence of accusations against former POTUS aide and reportedly one of the main architects of the Mexico border-wall project, Steve Bannon, was not an accident, but a calculated political move, several experts interviewed by Sputnik opined. He and three other individuals were accused of wire fraud and improper spending of funds raised as a part of the "We Build the Wall" project.

It is "clearly a political hit job", which was timed to harm President Donald Trump and hurt his chances of re-election, Pamela Geller, a political activist, commentator and editor-in-chief of the Geller Report believes. She highlights the fact that the four men were a part of the group that was working on a project that mimicked Trump's border wall and hence discrediting the "We Build the Wall" initiative's members could potentially harm the president as well.

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/202008211080240356-case-against-bannon-is-desperate-attack-against-trump-ahead-of-election-political-experts-believe/

 

Bannon denies any wrongdoing and at this stage all the media should use the word "alleged" in their salting of Bannon (in order to denigrate Trump mostly)... The charges are not proven as yet, until found guilty. Bannon is on bail ($5 million bux). Bannon is smarter than get into a scheme which would "catch him". Read from top.