Contours of a TrumpAdmin

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Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:15 pm

Been a lot of rumors, NYT offers a recap of said rumors as well as a few important emerging power blocs (obviously Charles Kushner will be coming up for the next four years) and players.

Via: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/12/us/po ... .html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — Vice President-elect Mike Pence will take over the job of leading Donald J. Trump’s transition effort, taking the helm from Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, as Mr. Trump moves to assemble a government after his stunning upset victory, several sources close to the transition team said on Friday.

Mr. Christie had been in charge of the transition for the last several months, but the surprise nature of Mr. Trump’s victory made it critical to move more quickly to assemble a team.


The future role of Mr. Christie will be a very transparent indicator of just how Warren Harding Ass this administration will be. They're not dropping his ass quite yet...

The president-elect told advisers he wanted to tap Mr. Pence’s Washington experience and contacts to help move the process along, according to people familiar with the discussions. An executive committee, which will include members of Congress, will advise Mr. Pence as the process moves forward.

Mr. Christie, along with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, and Michael T. Flynn, a retired lieutenant general who has been a top campaign supporter, will serve as vice chairs of the transition, the sources said.


For those curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_T._Flynn

Pretty clear that the Trumps are as shocked by the Clintons (and the rest of us, fuck) about their win...

There are some indications that the transition effort was slow to start up, perhaps the result of Mr. Trump’s upset victory, which caught much of the political world by surprise. At least a few of the people helping organize the search for Mr. Trump were tapped at the last minute, while others have been preparing quietly for weeks.

At the Pentagon and the State Department, officials of the Obama administration said Thursday that they had not yet heard from Mr. Trump’s transition team about beginning the complex work of transferring responsibilities and authority. A spokesman for the State Department said he did not have “any firm word” on when briefings might begin for designated officials from the new government.

Even as Mr. Trump moves to create a new administration, his transition team is being reshaped. It has been led by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey since May, when Mr. Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee. That was over the objections of Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

The transition team was treated as something of a backwater. Mr. Trump appeared to care little about it, and the adviser who was most involved with it, Paul Manafort, left the campaign in August. With Mr. Trump preparing to take office in less than 90 days, the transition work has abruptly come to life again, but with a lag in who might get slots.


Peter Thiel is still a rumor, but a solid one:

Peter Thiel, the billionaire Silicon Valley investor, was offered a role on the team and is under consideration to lead it, according to one person briefed on the matter.

Still, the pending reorganization hasn’t stopped a steady flow of potential appointees from being mentioned.

The critical position of chief of staff — the gatekeeper for the president inside the West Wing — is expected to come down to a choice between Mr. Bannon, the editor of Breitbart News who was chairman of Mr. Trump’s campaign, and Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee.


Those two couldn't be more different, in terms of their own personal approaches, and in terms of what their appointment would signal. I find it very hard to believe Team Trump would choose Priebus, but I was stunned when Obama appointed Clinton, too.

Mr. Giuliani told CNN on Thursday that he might accept an appointment as attorney general, saying that “there’s probably nobody that knows the Justice Department better than me.”

Steven Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive and Mr. Trump’s campaign finance chairman, is said to be a serious contender for Treasury secretary (though Carl Icahn, the investor, and Representative Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, have also been mentioned in the news media).


As rapacious vampire egomaniacs go, Carl Icahn is at least a contrarian honey badger rather than a Good Ol Boys Club team player. He would be nearly as entertaining as Mr. Trump, for economics nerds like myself.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:59 pm

Via:

Trump Campaigned Against Lobbyists, but Now They’re on His Transition Team

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump, who campaigned against the corrupt power of special interests, is filling his transition team with some of the very sort of people who he has complained have too much clout in Washington: corporate consultants and lobbyists.

Jeffrey Eisenach, a consultant who has worked for years on behalf of Verizon and other telecommunications clients, is the head of the team that is helping to pick staff members at the Federal Communications Commission.

Michael Catanzaro, a lobbyist whose clients include Devon Energy and Encana Oil and Gas, holds the “energy independence” portfolio.

Michael Torrey, a lobbyist who runs a firm that has earned millions of dollars helping food industry players such as the American Beverage Association and the dairy giant Dean Foods, is helping set up the new team at the Department of Agriculture.

...

“This whole idea that he was an outsider and going to destroy the political establishment and drain the swamp were the lines of a con man, and guess what — he is being exposed as just that,” said Peter Wehner, who served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush before becoming a speechwriter for George W. Bush. “He is failing the first test, and he should be held accountable for it.”


Ach, the LULZ

Among the advisers assisting Mr. Trump who have no clear private-sector ties are Brian Johnson, a top lawyer for the House Financial Services Committee, who is helping to pick top staff members for the federal government’s many financial services agencies.

Edwin Meese III, who served as attorney general under Mr. Reagan and is now associated with the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank, is helping oversee management and budget issues, along with Kay Coles James, a Bush administration official who now runs an institute that trains future African-American leaders.

Former Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, who served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and was once a special agent in the F.B.I., is overseeing issues related to national security, including the intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security.

...

Michael McKenna, another lobbyist helping to pick key administration officials who will oversee energy policy, has a client list that this year has included the Southern Company, one of the most vocal critics of efforts to prevent climate change by putting limits on emissions from coal-burning power plants.

Advisers with ties to other industries include Martin Whitmer, who is overseeing “transportation and infrastructure” for the Trump transition. He is the chairman of a Washington law firm whose lobbying clients include the Association of American Railroads and the National Asphalt Pavement Association.

David Malpass, the former chief economist at Bear Stearns, the Wall Street investment bank that collapsed during the 2008 financial crisis, is overseeing the “economic issues” portfolio of the transition, as well as operations at the Treasury Department. Mr. Malpass now runs a firm called Encima Global, which sells economic research to institutional investors and corporate clients.

Mr. Eisenach, as a telecom industry consultant, has worked to help major cellular companies fight back against regulations proposed by the F.C.C. that would mandate so-called net neutrality — requiring providers to give equal access to their networks to outside companies. He is now helping to oversee the rebuilding of the staff at the F.C.C.

Dan DiMicco, a former chief executive of the steelmaking company Nucor, who now serves on the board of directors of Duke Energy, is heading the transition team for the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Mr. DiMicco has long argued that China is unfairly subsidizing its manufacturing sector at the expense of American jobs.

In his campaign, Mr. Trump promised to take steps to close the so-called revolving door, through which government officials leave their posts and then personally profit by helping private companies reap rewards from policies or programs they had recently managed.

In October, declaring that “it’s time to drain the swamp in Washington,” he promised to institute a five-year ban in which all executive branch officials would be prevented from lobbying the government after they left. He has also promised to expand the definition of a lobbyist, so it includes corporate consultants who do not register as lobbyists but still often act like one.

Bruce F. Freed, the president of a nonprofit group called the Center for Political Accountability, which is pressing major corporations to be more transparent about their political spending, said Mr. Trump’s transition team had sent an unfortunate signal to his followers.

“This is one of the reasons you had such anger among voters — people rigging the system, gaming the system,” Mr. Freed said. “This represents more of the same.”
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Freitag » Fri Nov 11, 2016 4:43 pm

A number of the people on that list are well-established experts with no clear interest in helping private-sector clients.

[...]

Among the advisers assisting Mr. Trump who have no clear private-sector ties are Brian Johnson, a top lawyer for the House Financial Services Committee, who is helping to pick top staff members for the federal government’s many financial services agencies.

[... several more examples ...]

NYT
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Fri Nov 11, 2016 9:40 pm

Asked about Malplass at the end of an evening conf. call just now, he was described to me as centrist, pragmatist, and "a more conservative Paul Volcker." Everyone was surprised to learn he was involved with Trump anything.

His wiki page is not only inoffensive, but promising:

Economic views

Government waste
As a columnist, Malpass has been a critic of government spending and taxation levels in the United States. In 2010, following the passage of the Affordable Care Act, he referred to Washington’s legislative and regulatory culture as being “possessed” by a tax-and-spend disposition. Later that year he warned that Washington’s ongoing expansion threatened to bring about “a fundamental deterioration in America’s private sector"; in his view: “[Small businesses] are the nation’s critical engine for growth, innovation and job creation, yet they are being starved for credit and slammed with more taxes, government directives and litigation exposure.”

Political Upheaval
Malpass advocated political upheaval after the Republicans won control of the House in November 2010: “With the election over, the nation’s anger at Washington’s gluttony and corruption must now channel itself into practical solutions. The election made clear that the people want a political upheaval aimed at fiscal sanity, responsible regulations and a reduction in federal power. In its first days the new Congress has to act on the understanding that this is a takeover, an upheaval of the old spending culture.”

Federal Debt Limit
In 2012 he proposed a political and legislative plan to rewrite the debt limit in order to restrain federal spending: “The U.S. has a law on the books called the debt limit, but the name is misleading. The debt limit started in 1917 for the purpose of facilitating more national debt, not reducing it. It still serves that purpose… Replace the debt limit with an operational ceiling on the debt-to-GDP ratio. It should be forced onto a downward glide path to below 50%. The new debt limit should penalize Washington enough to make it do its job. If the debt ratio goes over the glide path, cut salaries each month for upper-income federal employees, including the President, Congress and senior officials. Make it very public that they are paid to control spending.”

IMF Austerity Programs
He has criticized the IMF’s austerity programs for lowering median incomes in numerous countries including South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Malaysia, Greece and Portugal. “In the private-sector version of austerity, governments impose new taxes and mandates on the private sector while maintaining their own personnel, salaries and pensions. That's the antigrowth version of austerity prevalent in Europe's austerity programs.”

Government and Income Inequality
In 2014 he argued that big government drives income inequality and that a reduction in centralized federal power would increase median incomes, stating: “Big government expansions in recent years have harmed individuals with modest incomes while exempting or benefiting people with higher incomes.”

Quantitative Easing
He criticized the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program for slowing growth, mis-allocating credit to large bond issuers and worsening income inequality. Malpass views QE though a post-monetarist framework, and advocates a strong and stable dollar policy. “Washington thrives on the impression that the economy and markets are dependent on the Federal Reserve and deficit spending. The Fed's low rates and bond purchases damaged markets, hurt savers and channeled credit to the government at the expense of job creators.”


Talk about a typical Wall Street monster, eh?

Also worth noting that he's a hardcore Reconstructionist Theocrat and a huge NASCAR fan:

Education
Malpass holds a BA in physics from Colorado College and an MBA from the University of Denver. He studied international economics at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He speaks Spanish, Russian, and French.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sun Nov 13, 2016 7:55 pm

WEW, LAD those are some shit-face picks, Donald, hot damn. The worst of both worlds, as it were.

Via: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... strategist

Trump Taps Reince Priebus As Chief Of Staff, Steve Bannon As Chief Strategist

Less than a week after his election, Donald Trump has begun to fill out the team he plans to bring with him to the White House. The president-elect announced Sunday that he has selected Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to serve as chief of staff in his incoming administration.

In the same announcement, Priebus' appointment shared top billing with the news that Trump campaign CEO Stephen K. Bannon will serve as chief strategist and senior counselor to the president.

"I am thrilled to have my very successful team continue with me in leading our country," said Trump said in the emailed statement. "Steve and Reince are highly qualified leaders who worked well together on our campaign and led us to a historic victory. Now I will have them both with me in the White House as we work to make America great again."

The dual selections are likely to send two separate signals to those closely watching Trump's transition into power.

The choice of Priebus, who has served as party chairman since 2011, suggests conciliation toward the establishment Republicans with whom Trump has often shared a strained relationship. A veteran GOP operative, Priebus is well accustomed to the capital's corridors of power. As NPR's Eyder Peralta reports for our NewsCast unit, "In Priebus, Trump finds a Washington insider" — and one who stayed loyal to Trump during a frequently rocky campaign.

"I am very grateful to the President-elect for this opportunity to serve him and this nation as we work to create an economy that works for everyone, secure our borders, repeal and replace Obamacare and destroy radical Islamic terrorism," Priebus said in the statement.

Meanwhile, the inclusion of Bannon, the former head of the far-right outlet Breitbart News, suggests another direction entirely. Rumored to be have been considered for chief of staff himself, Bannon "would have been the insurgent choice" for the top aide job, Eyder says. He is "known for his no-holds-barred approach to politics and his popularity among the alt-right," as NPR's Sarah McCammon reported last week.

NPR political editor Domenico Montanaro has more on the man who helped steer Trump's campaign during its final months:

"Unquestionably, [Bannon] is a take-no-prisoners operative. A former Hollywood producer, a Goldman Sachs managing director, as well, he ran the Breitbart website, which has become synonymous with the alt-right. And he's certainly no fan of the establishment Republicans."


The statement did not clarify the distribution of duties between the two men, but said they will work "as equal partners to transform the federal government."


Has there ever been a 'Chief Strategist' position before? Not finding any examples off a preliminary search.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby semper occultus » Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:00 pm

Has there ever been a 'Chief Strategist' position before?


....sounds like it's basically "The President's Brain"......Karl Rove...?

I'm tipping Hilary Clinton for Ambassador to Libya
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Nov 15, 2016 11:41 pm

Things were moving fast today:

Image

Via: Carlos Slim's Blog

Firings and Discord Put Trump Transition Team in a State of Disarray

One week after Mr. Trump scored an upset victory that took him by surprise, his team was improvising the most basic traditions of assuming power. That included working without official State Department briefing materials in his first conversations with foreign leaders.

Two officials who had been handling national security for the transition, former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were fired. Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser.

The dismissals followed the abrupt firing on Friday of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, who was replaced as chief of the transition by Vice President-elect Mike Pence. Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers and Mr. Freedman who had ties with Mr. Christie. As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie had sent Mr. Kushner’s father to jail.


Should have seen that coming, damn.

Eliot A. Cohen, a former State Department official who had criticized Mr. Trump during the campaign but said after his election that he would keep an open mind about advising him, said Tuesday on Twitter that he had changed his opinion. After speaking to the transition team, he wrote, he had “changed my recommendation: stay away.”

He added: “They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.”

Mr. Cohen, a conservative Republican who served under President George W. Bush, said Trump transition officials had excoriated him after he offered some names of people who might serve in the new administration, but only if they felt departments were led by credible people.


You may remember the distinguished chickenhawk fixer Mr. Cohen from such American triumphs as "The Iraq War," or his work organizing the smear campaign against the authors of "The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy." I would have told him to get fucked, too.

Some of the early transition difficulties may reflect the fact that Mr. Trump, who has no governing experience or Washington network and campaigned as an agent of change, does not have a long list of establishment figures from the Bush era to tap. His allies suggested that might ultimately prove positive for Mr. Trump if he was able to assemble a functioning team that would bring new perspectives to his administration.

For advice on building Mr. Trump’s national security team, his inner circle has been relying on three hawkish current and former American officials: Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California, who is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; Peter Hoekstra, a former Republican congressman and former chairman of the Intelligence Committee; and Frank Gaffney, a Pentagon official during the Reagan administration and a founder of the Center for Security Policy.


Muslims are right to freak out about Mr. Gaffney. So is pretty much anyone else; dude is not a very well hinged human being.

Prominent donors to Mr. Trump were also having little success in recruiting people for rank-and-file posts in his administration. Rebekah Mercer, the scion of a powerful family of conservative donors and a member of Mr. Trump’s executive transition committee, has said in conversations with Republican operatives and previous administration officials that she was having trouble finding takers for posts at the under secretary level and below, according to a person familiar with her outreach efforts. She told them that the transition team was more than a month behind schedule and on a tight timeline.

In another delay, Mr. Pence did not sign legally required paperwork to allow his team to begin collaborating with Mr. Obama’s aides until Tuesday evening, a transition spokesman said. Mr. Christie on Election Day signed a memorandum of understanding to put the process into motion as soon as the outcome was determined, but once he was ousted from the job, Mr. Pence had to sign a new agreement.

The paperwork serves as a nondisclosure agreement for both sides, ensuring that members of the president-elect’s team do not divulge information about the inner workings of the government that they learn during the transition, and that the president’s aides do not reveal anything they may discover about the incoming administration’s plans.


"...ensuring that members of the president-elect’s team do not divulge information about the inner workings of the government."

That might have a few implications for Disclosure™ , eh?

Silencing contracts are fun, I'm under a few for the rest of my life myself.

Teams throughout the federal government and at the White House that have prepared briefing materials and status reports for the incoming president’s team are on standby, waiting to begin passing the information to their counterparts on Mr. Trump’s staff.

As of Tuesday afternoon, officials at key agencies including the Justice and Defense Departments said they had received no contact from the president-elect’s team.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby seemslikeadream » Tue Nov 15, 2016 11:51 pm

Lindsey Graham Calls For Senate Investigation Into Whether Russia Hacked DNC
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/rus ... 9c1fa703d5


Trump adviser linked to Turkish lobbying

A company tied to Erdogan's government hired retired general Michael Flynn's lobbying firm.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/d ... ing-231354


Trump Ditches His Press Pool Again, Violating Media Protocol
It is setting up a dangerous precedent for press coverage of his administration.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/don ... 9c1fa70613

Giuliani was paid advocate for shady Iranian dissident group
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/jos ... 93b621f44c


Trump Senior White House Adviser Steve Bannon Reported To The FBI For Potential Felony
By Jason Easley on Tue, Nov 15th, 2016 at 5:30 pm
Trump appointee to be his senior White House adviser, Steve Bannon, was reported to the FBI and accused of a felony violation of campaign finance laws that occurred during Donald Trump's presidential campaign.


Trump Senior White House Adviser Steve Bannon Reported To The FBI For Potential Felony
Trump appointee to be his senior White House adviser, Steve Bannon, was reported to the FBI and accused of a felony violation of campaign finance laws that occurred during Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

In a statement, The Democratic Coalition Against Trump explained why they reported Bannon to the FBI:

The Democratic Coalition Against Trump reported Steve Bannon to the FBI on Tuesday morning after learning that he likely broke campaign finance laws during his time as CEO for the Trump campaign. According to FEC records, $950,090 was paid to Bannon’s company, Glittering Steel LLC, over the course of the campaign by pro-Trump super PAC, Make America Number 1. The super PAC is mainly backed by Robert and Rebekah Mercer, and Rebekah was recently named to Trump’s transition team. The most recent payment made to Glittering Steel LLC was on November 5, 2016, and a full list of the expenditures made by the PAC to Bannon’s company can be found here. Before Bannon became Trump campaign CEO in August of this year, Glittering Steel LLC was reported to the FEC at Breitbart’s address in Beverly Hills, CA. Right after Bannon became CEO, however, Glittering Steel LLC was exclusively reported to the FEC at an address in Arlington, VA.

It is against campaign finance law for super PACs to directly coordinate with the campaigns they support, so Bannon’s role as both an employee of the super PAC and campaign CEO would have broken the law. Additionally, there is a 120-day “cooling off” period for employees once they leave a super PAC to join a campaign to help avoid coordination, which Bannon would have violated when he became Trump’s campaign CEO just 9 days after being paid by Make America Number 1. The FBI’s public corruption unit has jurisdiction to investigate campaign finance crimes, and in 2015 a campaign worker was sentenced to 2 years in prison for his role in illegal coordination between a campaign and a Super PAC.

If the timeline above is correct, Bannon and Trump’s actions were a clear violation of campaign finance laws. The problem will be getting the FBI to investigate the senior White House adviser to the President Of The United States.

It is reasonable to suspect that if Trump’s administration unfolds as it is looking it might there will be many comparisons to Richard Nixon in the coming months and years. The apparent flaunting of the law by Trump and Bannon will only fuel these comparisons.

Elections have consequences, and one of the consequences of 2016 is that a man like Steve Bannon is going to be working in the White House. If the FBI does investigate Bannon, it could trigger a landslide of problems for President-elect Trump.

http://www.politicususa.com/2016/11/15/ ... elony.html
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Agent Orange Cooper » Wed Nov 16, 2016 1:43 am

Pretty good tying-together from Knowles. Not specifically about the administration, but there isn't really a more general Trump-presidency thread.

http://secretsun.blogspot.com/2016/11/lifes-riot-with-spy-vs-spy.html

Life's a Riot with Spy vs. Spy

Well, that was a surprise.

Like a lot of you I wasn't expecting that. But it makes more sense as we move on and more information comes to the surface.
It may well be that what we just witnessed- though hardly anyone realized it, or will realize it- was the end result of a secret war between powerful factions of the Deep State. Well, perhaps not the end result but certainly a climax.

There's probably a lot more secret warring to come.

I haven't written about the election until now because, frankly, I'm confused. I've been following the news as best I can and I have only questions for you, I'm afraid. But they're interesting questions.

I'm no fan of the Donald, never have been. I don't have high hopes for his time in office. I know some of you may disagree, but I've been watching this guy for a very long time. And I'm beginning to seriously wonder if, as I speculated, there is indeed a plan to render the country ungovernable. If so, they're off to a good start.

But first a reality check.

For Trump's friends and enemies I think we need to remind ourselves who exactly we're talking about here: this is a man who has spent his life in the belly of the Beast. He's swam in the most shark-infested waters imaginable: New York real estate, New Jersey gambling, professional sports, network television. He's survived because he's a shark too.

And this isn't an "outsider" we're dealing with here, this is a product of the System, through and through. The people he's been tapping for his transition team and Cabinet make that abundantly clear- almost to a one, it's a parade of standard-issue machine hacks, old ghosts from the political past.

I'm not going to go into the more extreme accusations and characterizations of him and his circle because I've heard this kind of thing all my life about every Republican politician. Like I said, I'm not a fan of the man, didn't vote for him and have no interest in defending him, but political correctness has not only gone entirely toxic, it's actually become profoundly counterproductive.

But anyone can drone on about that. I'm more interested in this strange fugue state that Washington and the media seem to be in. Is it simple shock or are there other forces at work?

Why do I ask?

Because no one seems to behaving the way they have following previous elections, and certainly not the way you would expect if there truly were some dire threat to the Republic itself. Why?

The margins in so many of the states were achingly close for Hillary. Why didn't she ask for recounts? She apparently won the popular vote why not wait to concede and challenge some of the results? Why give up so easily? Hasn't she wanted this all her life? Wouldn't her backers want some return on the billions spent on her election? Why give up so easily?

Why haven't either Trump or Hillary made an issue of election fraud? There seems to have been no end of allegations this year, so much so that even the mainstream media was forced to address it. What's up with that?

If Trump is indeed such an existential threat to the Republic, why have we seen so little pushback from Congress? Why is poor old Harry Reid, who- significantly, perhaps- is out the door at the end of this term, forced to play the attack dog? Why are the Dems spending so much time fighting amongst themselves instead of putting up a united front?

Why are we seeing this coordinated attack on Breitbart editor Steve Bannon after the election is over? He ran the Trump campaign, he was a known quantity all this time. Wasn't the time to try to take him down before he won the election? Why would they wait until now?

And why would they criticize Bannon for his extremist ties when they know it would open them up to a counterattack (and charges of hypocrisy) when they want to nominate a guy with deep ties to the Nation of Islam and other extremists to lead the entire Democratic Party? Is going after Bannon a preemptive strike? It's starting to feel like one.

So many questions...

Why is the media denying any connection between the demonstrations- and indeed, the riots-- and the party machine? Democratic pressure group MoveOn.org publicly called for demonstrations the day after the election. No one seemed to have a problem with that at the time. I'm sure Trump fans would have been marching if he lost too.

But many of the rioters in Portland who've been arrested come from out of state, leading one to wonder if we're seeing an op here. We've seen other agents provocateur in places like Austin as well.

After all, riots and traffic blockages and all of the rest of the mischief we're seeing only piss people off and turn them against your cause. It's simply bad strategy. Cui Bono?

Speaking of bad strategy...

Why did the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates Wall Street, step down two years before the end of her term[/b]? She just happened to have been involved in the Marc Rich investigation, which the FBI inexplicably got involved with recently.

Just a coincidence?

Why would a Democratic party operative criticize George Soros-- the de facto head of the party-- as ineffectual and out of touch in friendly press outlet Politico? Why hasn't Soros had his hacked position papers taken offline yet? If Russia really was behind that hack you can be certain that site would get yanked.

Why are so many Democrats sounding like McCarthyite Cold Warriors when it comes to Russia these days? Do they seriously believe Putin was behind the leaks? Indiana Senate candidate Evan Bayh lost his race after his connections to big money donors leaked to the press- was Putin eyeing a takeover of the Senate seat from Indiana too?

Why did Clinton lieutenant Sidney Blumenthal claim we've seen a coup, led by the FBI? Sour grapes? Conspiracy theory? This isn't some cellar-dweller we're dealing with here. Why would he say such a thing?

Who is this old Nixon hand going on Alex Jones' show and claiming there in fact was a counter-coup, allegedly staged by military intelligence against a different coup?

It's all so confusing. But there's one important question left to ask.

Is it at all possible that this weird fugue might have anything to do with this Pizzagate abomination?

This story just gets worse and worse every time I look at it. I'm not just talking about the theorizing you might see on a 4Chan, I'm talking about the Facebook and Instagram pages of some of the subjects in question. I want to wash out my eyes. With bleach.

It's so bad- and so in your face- that even Vigilant Citizen was able to publish a coherent accounting of the scandal.

Is this in fact the Sword of Damocles, currently hovering over Washington's head? Is this why everything feels so damn off? Is this why Trump seems to be operating relatively unmolested? Former Blackwater head Erik Prince seem to indicate as much before the election but, you know- Erik Prince. Not exactly a disinterested observer.

This may well be the reason you're seeing this huge push against so-called "fake news" sites.

Because if this breaks out the mainstream media might try to bury the story and leave it to the alt.media to cover, since the scandal could possibly lead to their doorsteps, given how incestuous media and politics have become. Which, of course, we know all about now because of the Wikileaks revelations.

I said before the election that all of this threatened to become the new Franklin Savings scandal but I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.

If any of this pans out, it's much, much worse.

If any of this pans out-- and by that I mean makes it to trial-- this is the fucking apocalypse for American politics.

As a matter of fact I woke up in the middle of a troubled sleep the day the FBI would later send its letter to Congress and texted our Gordon that I'd been dreaming all night of the Apocalypse.

Those dreams may yet turn out to be prophetic.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Agent Orange Cooper » Wed Nov 16, 2016 2:10 am

Latest:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/intelligence-expert-mike-rogers-leaves-trump-transition-team-amid-shake-up-1479221847

Donald Trump’s Transition Team Reshaped
Vice President-elect Mike Pence drops lobbyists; former Intelligence panel head Mike Rogers ousted

WASHINGTON—Another round of staff changes buffeted President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team Tuesday amid resistance from within the Republican Party over a top choice for secretary of state.

Vice President-elect Mike Pence formally signed documents that put him in charge of the transition team, and officials insisted the 10-week effort to build an administration is on schedule. In one of his first moves, Mr. Pence ordered the removal of all lobbyists from the transition team, said one transition team member with knowledge of the decisions.

Earlier Tuesday, former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, once considered a candidate to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, was ousted from the Trump transition team’s national security unit. Matthew Freedman, who was leading the group’s planning for the White House National Security Council, also departed. Mr. Freedman didn’t return messages seeking comment.

Mr. Rogers was told he was being replaced because everyone who was brought in by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the transition team’s original chairman, was being ousted, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Frank Gaffney, a Reagan administration veteran, was brought in to assist on national security issues, as has GOP U.S. Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Devin Nunes.

“We’re moving step-by-step,” said Rep. Chris Collins (R., N.Y.), who is the transition team’s congressional liaison. “Things are in pretty good shape right now.”

On Tuesday night, Mr. Trump tweeted: “Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!”

By signing the formal transition papers, Mr. Pence has begun a process that has multiple additional steps. The Trump transition team must now provide the Obama administration with the “names of individuals they have authorized to represent the transition effort across the government,” Brandi Hoffine, a White House spokesperson said.

They also must submit documents such as code of conduct forms that prohibit conflicts of interest. Once that paperwork is in place, the White House will give the Trump transition team briefing materials and they can begin working on location at various federal agencies.

Mr. Pence will remain closely involved in selecting members of the next administration, and cultivating relations between his former colleagues in Congress and Mr. Trump, the first American elected president without having held a government or military job.

That role faced an early test as Rudy Giuliani, a leading candidate to lead the State Department, was targeted by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. The Republican senator, who has tried to block previous presidential appointments, criticized the former New York mayor for calling for the bombing of Iran in 2015. He also said he opposed former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who was also under consideration for the job.

The pair represents “the most bellicose interventionist wing of any party,” Mr. Paul told Reason magazine. “I can’t support anybody to be our secretary of state who didn’t learn the lesson of the Iraq war.”


Mr. Bolton and Paul Manafort, a previous top adviser to Mr. Trump, didn’t return messages seeking comment.

Mr. Giuliani said at the WSJ CEO Council on Monday the removal of troops in Iraq was “the worst decision made in American history.” Reached by telephone Tuesday, he said he didn’t have time to discuss the issues swirling around his potential nomination.

Beyond the Iraq war, Mr. Giuliani is also drawing scrutiny for his regular appearances at events supporting an Iranian opposition group, called the Mujahedin-e Khalq, which the State Department designated as a terrorist organization from 1997 through 2012.

Last year, Mr. Giuliani addressed MEK leaders in Paris and called for the overthrow of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his clerical regime. “The Ayatollah must go! Gone! Out! No more!” Mr. Giuliani told a crowd of thousands. “He and Rouhani and Ahmadinejad and all of the rest of them should be put on trial for crimes against humanity.”

The MEK paid Mr. Giuliani and other former U.S. officials to speak at its events, according to group leaders and U.S. officials who investigated the matter. Speaking fees ranged from $25,000 to $40,000 per appearance.

A broad mix of senior Republicans and Democrats has appeared at MEK events, including James Jones, President Barack Obama’s former national security advisor; Howard Dean, a one-time head of the Democratic National Committee who is now seeking that post again; and Mr. Bolton.

The Treasury Department launched a probe into the legality of former officials being paid by the MEK or its affiliates while it was still on the State Department’s terror list, U.S. officials have said. Treasury officials declined to comment on the status of that probe, including whether it has been closed.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said Tuesday he could work with Mr. Giuliani if he were tapped as secretary of state. “Rudy is an internationally known figure, he’s a personal friend, he has dealt with the unimaginable which was 9/11. He was a loyal supporter of President Trump; he should be rewarded in my view,” said Mr. Graham, who had opposed Mr. Trump in the campaign.

A spokesman for Mr. Trump’s transition team declined to comment on Mr. Giuliani’s possible appointment.

Mr. Rogers issued a statement saying “it was a privilege to prepare and advise the policy, personnel and agency action teams on all aspects of the national security portfolio during the initial pre-election planning phase.”

Mr. Trump also on Tuesday appointed more than a dozen of his top donors and fundraisers to a committee charged with planning his inauguration ceremony in January.

The committee will be led by Thomas Barrack Jr., a real-estate investor who held Mr. Trump’s first fundraiser in May and spoke at the GOP convention in Cleveland in July. The committee’s finance vice-chairmen include billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who gave millions of dollars to a pro-Trump super PAC in the final weeks of the campaign; Florida Republican fundraiser Brian Ballard; Diane Hendricks, a roofing magnate who gave more than $1 million to a group that aired pro-Trump ads; and Anthony Scaramucci, who was one of the first fundraisers to rally behind Mr. Trump when he began actively soliciting money.

Also on Tuesday, Ben Carson, one of Mr. Trump’s top allies, said he declined an offer to become the next secretary of Health and Human Services. Dr. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, was among the first of Mr. Trump’s Republican primary rivals to endorse him and he served as one of the president-elect’s primary surrogates during the campaign.

“I don’t particularly want to work inside the government,” Dr. Carson said on a conference call with conservatives.

Dr. Carson, an adviser who talks to Mr. Trump, said he didn’t expect the next president to build a wall on the Mexican border, a signature promise of the campaign. “What he really wants to do is secure the border,” he said. “And there are a variety of ways of doing that. And we’re going to make sure that that gets done. So you can rest assured that those principles will be followed, but it may not necessarily be the exact letter.”

—Carol E. Lee, Peter Nicholas, Rebecca Ballhaus, Mara Gay and Felicia Schwartz contributed to this article.


Regarding Giuliani...



...methinks Trump has a loyal dog.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Nov 16, 2016 7:55 am

White House Propagandist Bannon's Gravy Train Is Secretive Radical Right-Wing Billionaire Hedge Fund Family
Every right-wing media operation needs a billionaire funder.

.......

“I don’t think it’s about Trump. Trump is just a vehicle,” a Mercer family colleague told Politico. “

.......

When Trump assumes office in January, Bannon will be on the podium. And quietly observing the spectacle will be one of the real powers behind the throne, the libertarian billionaire Mercer family.


http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/w ... illionaire



If Lopez, Giuliani, Bolton, or Gingrich serve in the Trump administrations, the MEK will have the highest level access its ever enjoyed in the U.S. government, a remarkable journey for a fringe Islamic-Marxist group that, until 2012, was on the State Department’s terrorism list for its role in assassinating Americans.
http://lobelog.com/former-terrorist-gro ... p-cabinet/


Ugly and Unprepared, 'Knife Fight' Breaks Out in Trump Transition
"Stay away. Will be ugly," one former Bush official advised after an exchange with Trump's transition team

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/1 ... transition


Give Steve Bannon a chance. It’s not like he’s literally Joseph Goebbels.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/co ... 6034dbb6da



Serbia’s Mayor
BY ANDREW KIRTZMAN
July 12, 2012
Rudy Giuliani’s authoritarian clients.
https://newrepublic.com/article/104903/ ... rbia-mayor
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby semper occultus » Wed Nov 16, 2016 11:06 am

...pretty interesting profile of Mnuchin....

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-31/steven-mnuchin-businessweek

Mnuchin was born into a level of privilege that makes Trump’s deluxe childhood look ordinary. His grandfather, an attorney, co-founded a yacht club in the Hamptons, and his father, Robert, was a top Goldman Sachs trader who later became an art dealer. Mnuchin followed his father to Yale, where he lived in the old Taft Hotel with Eddie Lampert, now a billionaire investor, and Sam Chalabi, whose uncle, Ahmad, later ran the Iraqi National Congress.

Mnuchin drove a Porsche in college, two friends say. His classmate Michael Danziger, an heir to a pharmaceutical fortune, says he was also tapped to join Skull and Bones but turned down the secret society. “You’re going to live to regret this,” he recalls Mnuchin saying. Danziger, who knew his classmate was headed into finance, says he answered: “You put the ‘douche’ in fiduciary.” Mnuchin says the exchange never happened.


Image
Film director Oliver Stone (left to right), Steven Mnuchin, and actor Chris O'Donnell at a Lakers game in Los Angeles on March 22, 2011.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby seemslikeadream » Wed Nov 16, 2016 3:42 pm

Raging Islamophobic Conspiracy Theorist Reportedly Advising Trump Team
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes Frank Gaffney as "one of America's most notorious Islamophobes"
byAndrea Germanos, staff writer

President-elect Donald Trump has reportedly added Frank Gaffney—a former Reagan official and Islamophobic conspiracy theorist—to his transition team to weigh in on national security issues.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) describes Gaffney as "one of America's most notorious Islamophobes" and the think tank he heads, the Center for Security Policy (CSP), as "a conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement in the United States."

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported on the Gaffney's involvement Tuesday, though the Trump campaign indicated he is not playing such a role. "Either way," The Intercept's Jon Schwarz writes, "this is an extremely bad sign."

Gaffney's appointment follows the booting of former chair of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers from his role as national security senior advisor—a sign, according to one observer, of "how far the new administration may depart from long-standing U.S. national-security policies."

Gaffney has suggested President Barack Obama is a Muslim, while Trump has relied on CSP's flawed June 2015 poll to support his proposal to ban Muslims from the country.

Tallying up more of his beliefs, New York Magazine's Eric Levitz wrote that Gaffney believes

1. Saddam Hussein was behind the Oklahoma City bombing.

2. Obama incorporated the Islamic crescent into the logo of a new missile-defense group.

3. By appointing a Muslim-American to New Jersey's state judiciary, Chris Christie may be complicit in treason.

Jessica Schulberg added at the Huffington Post:

Gaffney suggested that Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan at the time, was submitting to Sharia when Petraeus condemned the burning of a Quran by a Florida pastor.
Gaffney accused Pope Francis of having "rabidly anti-American" views after the pope said in February that it's "not Christian" to urge the deportation of undocumented immigrants and vow to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Gaffney has objected to Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Andre Carson (D-Ind.) serving on the House Intelligence Committee because they are Muslim and therefore, he said, likely to leak information to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Gaffney made additonal statements about Ellison this week after the congressman announced his run for chair of the Democratic National Committee, calling Ellison "the poster child of the 'Red-Green axis.'"

With Gaffney now on board the president-elect's team, Jonathan Chait writes at New York Magazine that "the emerging cast in Trump's administration creates an unnervingly high potential for absolute catastrophe."
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/1 ... trump-team






Image

ACLU Statement on Donald Trump’s Election

11/9/16

In response to Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States, ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero had the following statement:

“For nearly 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been the nation’s premier defender of freedom and justice for all, no matter who is president. Our role is no different today.”

“President-elect Trump, as you assume the nation’s highest office, we urge you to reconsider and change course on certain campaign promises you have made. These include your plan to amass a deportation force to remove 11 million undocumented immigrants; ban the entry of Muslims into our country and aggressively surveil them; punish women for accessing abortion; reauthorize waterboarding and other forms of torture; and change our nation’s libel laws and restrict freedom of expression.”

“These proposals are not simply un-American and wrong-headed, they are unlawful and unconstitutional. They violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. If you do not reverse course and instead endeavor to make these campaign promises a reality, you will have to contend with the full firepower of the ACLU at every step. Our staff of litigators and activists in every state, thousands of volunteers and millions of card-carrying supporters are ready to fight against any encroachment on our cherished freedoms and rights.”

“One thing is certain: we will be eternally vigilant every single day of your presidency and when you leave the Oval Office, we will do the same with your successor.”

The ACLU released its analysis of candidate Trump’s policy proposals in July, which can be found at: https://medium.com/acluelection2016/don ... .yx3u5rjpi


OPINION

TRUMP TEAM’S FIRST ETHICS SCANDAL
BY MICHAEL RUBIN ON 11/16/16 AT 12:10 AM

Turkish President Erdogan Calls On US To Hand Over Fethullah Gülen
OPINION

This article first appeared on the American Enterprise Institute site.

It’s only been a few days, but already it seems Donald Trump’s presumptive foreign policy and national security team could be weathering its first scandal.

I have written about General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and an important Trump adviser, and his sudden about-face on Turkey in both his assessment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s helpfulness in the war against terror and with regard to exiled Islamic theologian Fethullah Gülen. Gülen is a onetime ally of Erdogan’s whose exile and perhaps execution the Turkish president now demands.

Former Defense Intelligence Agency Director and Donald Trump adviser Michael Flynn testifies before the House Intelligence Committee on "Worldwide Threats" on February 4, 2014. Michael Rubin writes that he sees a ethics scandal regarding Flynn and his sudden about-face on Turkey in both his assessment of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s helpfulness in the war against terror and with regard to exiled Islamic theologian Fethullah Gülen, whose exile and perhaps execution Erdogan now demands.

What raised so many eyebrows was how sharply the op-ed diverged from Flynn’s previous positions and how it appeared to be in complete conformity with the Turkish government’s positions.

Now it appears there is more to the story. From The Daily Caller:

An intelligence consulting firm founded by retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s top military adviser, was recently hired as a lobbyist by an obscure Dutch company with ties to Turkey’s government and its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan….

The piece does not include a disclosure that Flynn Intel Group, the consulting firm that Flynn founded in Oct. 2014, just after leaving DIA, was recently hired to lobby Congress by a Dutch company called Inovo BV that was founded by a Turkish businessman who holds a top position on Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board.

Related Stories
Turkey Continues Purge by Suspending 370 Organizations
What Next For U.S.-Turkey Relations Under Trump?
Trump Aide: U.S. Must Extradite Gulen to Turkey
Michael Rubin: Western Journos Afraid to Report Turkey


A review of Dutch records shows that the company was founded by Ekim Alptekin, an ally of Erdogan’s who is director of the Turkey-U.S. Business Council, a non-profit arm of Turkey’s Foreign Economic Relations Board.

Members of the Foreign Economic Relations Board are chosen by Turkey’s general assembly and its minister of economy. In the role, Alptekin helped coordinate Erdogan’s visit to the U.S. earlier this year.

Certainly, any sort of disclosure means an ethics omission. This comes on top of Flynn’s attendance at the RT gala in Moscow and his leading chants of “Lock her up” at the Republican National Convention. All should raise broader questions about his judgment
http://www.newsweek.com/michael-rubin-t ... dal-521622
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Sat Nov 19, 2016 3:39 pm

A week later and the cabinet is shaping up already:

NSA job went to Mike Flynn of Turkey
DCI nomination went to Mike Pompeo of Kansas
AG nomination went to Jeff Sessions of Alabama

Next week we should be seeing a ton of opposition research get leaked as GOP opportunist factions commence the in-fighting in earnest: good times.

While the media continues to seize upon every passing detail of how bizarre TrumpAdmin is shaping up to be, [url]the narrative[/url] is still focused on shambles, disarray, incompetence ... Donald Trump is not remotely stupid.

Meanwhile, Bannon keeps providing the hot copy...

Via: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/s ... ent-948747

...The New York Times, in a widely circulated article, will describe this day at Trump Tower as a scene of "disarray" for the transition team. In fact, it's all hands on: Mike Pence, the vice president-elect and transition chief, and Reince Priebus, the new chief of staff, shuttling between full conference rooms; Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and by many accounts his closest advisor, conferring in the halls; Sen. Jeff Sessions in and out of meetings on the transition team floor; Rudy Giuliani upstairs with Trump (overheard: "Is the boss meeting-meeting with Rudy or just shooting the shit?"), and Bannon with a long line of men and women outside his corner office. If this is disarray, it's a peculiarly focused and organized kind.

It's the Bannon theme, the myopia of the media — that it tells only the story that confirms its own view, that in the end it was incapable of seeing an alternative outcome and of making a true risk assessment of the political variables — reaffirming the Hillary Clinton camp's own political myopia. This defines the parallel realities in which liberals, in their view of themselves, represent a morally superior character and Bannon — immortalized on Twitter as a white nationalist, racist, anti-Semite thug — the ultimate depravity of Trumpism.

The focus on Bannon, if not necessarily the description, is right. He's the man with the idea. If Trumpism is to represent something intellectually and historically coherent, it's Bannon's job to make it so. In this, he could not be a less reassuring or more confusing figure for liberals — fiercely intelligent and yet reflexively drawn to the inverse of every liberal assumption and shibboleth. A working class kid, he enlists in the navy after high school, gets a degree from Virginia Tech, then Georgetown, then Harvard Business School. Then it's Goldman Sachs, then he's a dealmaker and entrepreneur in Hollywood — where, in an unlikely and very lucky deal match-up, he gets a lucrative piece of Seinfeld royalties, ensuring his own small fortune — then into the otherworld of the vast right-wing conspiracy and conservative media. (He partners with David Bossie, a congressional investigator of President Clinton, who later spearheaded the Citizens United lawsuit that effectively removed the cap on campaign spending, and who now, as the deputy campaign manager, is in the office next to Bannon's.) And then to the Breitbart News Network, which with digital acumen and a mind-meld with the anger and the passion of the new alt-right (a liberal designation Bannon derides) he pushes to the inner circle of conservative media from Breitbart's base on the Westside of liberal Los Angeles.

What he seems to have carried from a boyhood in a blue-collar, union and Democratic family in Norfolk, Va., and through his tour of the American establishment, is an unreconstructed sense of class awareness, or bitterness — or betrayal. The Democratic Party betrayed its working-man roots, just as Hillary Clinton betrayed the longtime Clinton connection — Bill Clinton's connection — to the working man. "The Clinton strength," he says, "was to play to people without a college education. High school people. That's how you win elections." And, likewise, the Republican party would come to betray its working-man constituency forged under Reagan. In sum, the working man was betrayed by the establishment, or what he dismisses as the "donor class."

To say that he sees this donor class — which in his telling is also "ascendant America," e.g. the elites, as well as "the metrosexual bubble" that encompasses cosmopolitan sensibilities to be found as far and wide as Shanghai, London's Chelsea, Hollywood and the Upper West Side — as a world apart, is an understatement. In his view, there's hardly a connection between this world and its opposite — fly-over America, left-behind America, downwardly mobile America — hardly a common language. This is partly why he regards the liberal characterization of himself as socially vile, as the politically incorrect devil incarnate, as laughable — and why he is stoutly unapologetic. They — liberals and media — don't understand what he is saying, or why, or to whom.

...

He absolutely — mockingly — rejects the idea that this is a racial line. "I'm not a white nationalist, I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist," he tells me. "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. If we deliver" — by "we" he means the Trump White House — "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. That's what the Democrats missed. They were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about."

In a nascent administration that seems, at best, random in its beliefs, Bannon can seem to be not just a focused voice, but almost a messianic one:

"Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a 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. 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 represents, he not unreasonably believes, the fall of the establishment. The self-satisfied, in-bred and homogenous views of the establishment are both what he is against and what has provided the opening for the Trump revolution. "The media bubble is the ultimate symbol of what's wrong with this country," he continues. "It's just a circle of people talking to themselves who have no f—ing idea what's going on. If The New York Times didn't exist, CNN and MSNBC would be a test pattern. The Huffington Post and everything else is predicated on The New York Times. It's a closed circle of information from which Hillary Clinton got all her information — and her confidence. That was our opening."

At that moment, as we talk, there's a knock on the door of Bannon's office, a temporary, impersonal, middle-level executive space with a hodgepodge of chairs for constant impromptu meetings. Sen. Ted Cruz, once the Republican firebrand, now quite a small and unassuming figure, has been waiting patiently for a chat and Bannon excuses himself for a short while. It is clear when we return to our conversation that it is not just the liberal establishment that Bannon feels he has triumphed over, but the conservative one too — not least of all Fox News and its owners, the Murdochs. "They got it more wrong than anybody," he says. "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump. To him, Trump is a radical. Now they'll go centrist and build the network around Megyn Kelly." Bannon recounts, with no small irony, that when Breitbart attacked Kelly after her challenges to Trump in the initial Republican debate, Fox News chief Roger Ailes — whom Bannon describes as an important mentor, and who Kelly's accusations of sexual harassment would help topple in July — called to defend her. Bannon says he warned Ailes that Kelly would be out to get him too.

It is less than obvious how Bannon, now the official strategic brains of the Trump operation, syncs with his boss, famously not too strategic. When Bannon took over the campaign from Paul Manafort, there were many in the Trump circle who had resigned themselves to the inevitability of the candidate listening to no one. But here too was a Bannon insight: When the campaign seemed most in free fall or disarray, it was perhaps most on target. While Clinton was largely absent from the campaign trail and concentrating on courting her donors, Trump — even after the leak of the grab-them-by-the-pussy audio — was speaking to ever-growing crowds of 35,000 or 40,000. "He gets it; he gets it intuitively," says Bannon, perhaps still surprised he has found such an ideal vessel. "You have probably the greatest orator since William Jennings Bryan, coupled with an economic populist message and two political parties that are so owned by the donors that they don't speak to their audience. But he speaks in a non-political vernacular, he communicates with these people in a very visceral way. Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches, so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400 kids."

Indeed, during the worst days of the campaign, even down to the last day when most in Trumpland thought only a miracle would save them, "I knew that she couldn't close. They out-spent us 10 to one, had 10 times more people and had all the media with them, but I kept saying it doesn't matter, they got it all wrong, we've got this locked."

Bannon now becomes part of a two-headed White House political structure, with Reince Priebus — in and out of Bannon's office as we talk — as chief of staff, in charge of making the trains run on time, reporting to the president, and Bannon as chief strategist, in charge of vision, goals, narrative and plan of attack, reporting to the president too. Add to this the ambitions and whims of the president himself, and the novel circumstance of one who has never held elective office, the agenda of his highly influential family and the end-runs of a party significant parts of which were opposed to him, and you have quite a complex court that Bannon will have to finesse to realize his reign of the working man and a trillion dollars in new spending.

"I am," he says, with relish, "Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors."
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Re: Contours of a TrumpAdmin

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Nov 22, 2016 1:51 pm

Via: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the ... ing-trump/

Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel is putting together a brain trust of Silicon Valley insiders to share ideas with the transition team for President-elect Donald Trump. But he’s having trouble finding takers.

In recent days, the Facebook board member and PayPal cofounder - who is also a member of the Trump transition - has been appealing to fellow entrepreneurs of all political stripes to share their best ideas and possibly join the incoming administration.

Thiel has been carrying around an iPad with an editable list of possible candidates, say people familiar with Thiel’s thinking who did not want to be named because the venture capitalist has not made his effort public. Those who have been approached by Thiel have been asked to add other names to the shortlist.

Thiel, a libertarian who was shunned by his tech industry peers for being a Trump supporter, is pitching his personal network of entrepreneurs on the opportunity to influence an incoming administration that is somewhat of a blank slate when it comes to technology policy. Because Trump had so few ties to the world of tech, Thiel will have an unusually powerful influence on the new administration, the people familiar with his thinking said.

But in the liberal bastion of Silicon Valley — where Trump is despised and even admitting you’re a Republican can hurt your candidacy for a job – that coveted opportunity has been fraught with challenges. And some people have turned him down altogether. Thiel declined to comment.

People who have joined Thiel form a tight-knit group of conservative and libertarian-leaning entrepreneurs who have long felt ostracized in Silicon Valley for their political views, a source said. Many are excited to finally have a voice in government.

Some entrepreneurs who had not been politically active said the opportunity was too good to pass up. “The chance to influence the government is a huge opportunity,” said Jack Abraham, a serial entrepreneur who is executive director of the Thiel Fellowship. “There are people who are repulsed by Trump, and it’s understandable - Silicon Valley is very liberal. But it’s unfortunate [that some people don’t want to contribute] because this is a unique opportunity for smart people to inject ideas.”

Others who spoke to the Washington Post said people Thiel approached were conflicted: Thiel is revered throughout Silicon Valley for his business acumen, even by those who disagree with his politics. In any other circumstance, being tapped by someone of his stature to have a voice at the highest levels of power would be hugely appealing.

Entrepreneurs working in emerging areas that the government has yet to fully regulate, such as the virtual currency bitcoin and drones, see the value in having a line to an administration that so far has had few ties in the tech world.

But people who have turned Thiel down felt Trump’s campaign had been too divisive and that an association with Trump could have toxic repercussions in their social and business circles, several people said.

The reaction in Silicon Valley reflects a broader dilemma for the incoming administration: Many of the best and brightest are wary of contributing to the incoming government because they fear the ramifications of having ties to Trump. These concerns have played out in recent days among Republicans who are considering whether to serve.

People on Thiel’s shortlist include Blake Masters, who co-authored, with Thiel, the book Zero to One, which is read as a business bible in Silicon Valley. Masters is also president of the Thiel Foundation, an organization dedicated to funding young people who want to skip college to pursue an entrepreneurial idea.

Other Thiel mentees have been tapped, including Joe Lonsdale and Abraham. Like Masters, Lonsdale met Thiel while he was a libertarian-leaning Stanford student, and co-founded the data-mining startup Palantir Technologies with Thiel. Abraham is executive director of the Thiel Foundation, and Thiel's ties to Abraham include sitting on the board of his startup Zenreach.

Balaji Srinivasan, whose startup focusing on the virtual currency bitcoin received funding from Thiel, shares some of his anti-authoritarian ideals. Thiel has advocated for technologists to live in offshore ships that would function as mini-nations to escape regulation; Srinivasan once advocated for technologists to exit the United States and form a separate society that would govern itself.


Note that he's literally "tapped" nobody -- these are all people whose only clout was given to them by Theil.

In speeches leading up to the election, Thiel has pushed for a government agenda that includes greater investments in science and technology. He gave a $1.25 million donation to political groups supporting Trump.

Thiel is also a backer of many companies that have pending business with Washington. He’s funded the ride-sharing company Lyft and home-sharing company Airbnb, which have been in the crosshairs with regulators and unions. He also has backed a marijuana business and a drone maker, areas that federal regulators are scrutinizing.

The people close to Thiel said he had also told Trump’s team about the the challenges startups had in doing business with the federal government. The issue is close to Thiel: Palantir, which Thiel co-founded, recently won a legal case against the Department of Defense, in which the company claimed that it was sidelined from competing for government contracts.
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