Trump boots top officials but includes Steve Bannon in reshuffled National Security Council

[still_one]

Source: Raw Story/Washington Post

"In another series of executive orders on Saturday, Pres. Donald Trump restructured the National Security Council (NSC) and created a position on it for senior aide and former Breitbart.com CEO Stephen K. Bannon.

The Washington Post reported Saturday night that in addition to installing Bannon on the council, Trump ordered the Pentagon to come up with a strategy to defeat ISIS and conducted his first phone call with Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin and conducted calls with other heads of state.

The Post reported that Bannon has been given a regular seat on the National Security Councils principals committee, which will include the nations highest ranking security officials, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State.

Unlike previous presidential administrations, Trumps Saturday memo specified that the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs will only attend principals committee meetings that pertain to their specific responsibilities and expertise.

........

"On the council, Bannon will be privy to some of the country’s most highly classified military and intelligence secrets. Typically membership on the council is reserved to the president and key administrators and is, as columnist and author Dan Froomkin said Saturday night “off limits to political hacks.”





Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/2017/01/trump-boots-top-officials-but-includes-steve-bannon-in-reshuffled-national-security-council/

[radical noodle]

1. And while we discuss immigration

to the point of regurgitating, this is the more important story.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Yup. This is a big power move. Beware of this secret council declaring martial law

What this means is that they think they can turn the Joint Chief of Staff into a waterboy and make him obey without input. They can for a while but not forever.

[MBS]

36. My thoughts, too.

Ominous, and, in the end, REALLY STUPID, as well as (in my opinion) treasonous. Would anyone truly interested in our national security relegate the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Director of National Intelligence to minor, marginal, "as-needed" roles in the National Security Council, FFS?? Just beyond belief.

[dalton99a]

34. +1

[tenorly]

2. Already?

But we where having so much fun!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

3. Facts and sane people? Дональда Трампа doesn't need them. Bannon & Flynn & Pence & tRump & Ryan

Bannon & Flynn & Pence & tRump & Ryan are so stupid. They are greatly overplaying their hands.

tRump is happy being the figurehead. He wants the ego-strokes and adulation, but none of the work or responsibility.

Ryan thought he could control the juggernaut. He's a fool and made a stupid bargain when he didn't block tRump in the primaries.

The Republicons have brought this ruin on themselves but they don't care that the nation is suffering as a result.

[TeamPooka]

5. Goebbels is taking over.

[Berlin Expat]

15. A better comparison for Bannon

would be Martin Bormann.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Bormann

[lutefisk]

19. Absolutely. Bannon, Bormann... same thing

All bets are off.
This has crossed over into anything can happen territory.

[Pachamama]

27. Excellent comparison: Steve Bannon Hitler's Secretary Martin Borman

[AgadorSparticus]

6. This is a big concern.

[global1]

7. Of All The Crap That Trump Has Pulled Thus Far.....

this is the most dangerous to our security. This needs to be well publicized and the American People need to know how dangerous this is.

[still_one]

9. That is what I am thinking also

[keithbvadu2]

8. Bannon has weaseled his way to real power.

[Tanuki]

26. I wish I could rec this post! eom

[orangecrush]

10. Jesus Christ

Time for Trumps removal.

[still_one]

11. won't happen unless the republicans start to be concerned about the country, rather than their party

[orangecrush]

12. Which means

We have to help them understand that.

[Judi Lynn]

21. For 8 years they refused to help President Obama help this country,

now they refuse to keep Trump from destroying it.

[shraby]

13. I assume he would need security clearance and how would he ever qualify?

[Glimmer of Hope]

14. You would think so! Who the fuck is this guy?

[LastDemocratInSC]

16. He is Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin

Perhaps reincarnated.

[LastDemocratInSC]

17. I had a low level security clearance for a while

Because I worked on a software project for the DoD that was an encyclopedia of hazardous chemicals.

The investigators interviewed my neighbors and college professors for that minor stuff.

What would have happened if I had been revealed as a right wing white nationalist who described himself as a Leninist? I would have been out of a job.

And this guy ends up in the White House?

[Sgent]

22. The president can give him one

by just doing it.

[okwmember]

18. Not that I care if Rick Perry is in the room,

but I also noticed that the Secretary of Energy was also removed from the regular members list. Assuming the Sec is a competent person, I feel like he or she should be in the meeting.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Astonishing! Doesn't seem even remotely possible.

[center]



[/center]
These people simply are NOT smart enough for anyone to take seriously.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. Bannon "wants to destroy the state"

Then we had a long talk about his approach to politics. He never called himself a “populist” or an “American nationalist,” as so many think of him today. “I’m a Leninist,” Bannon proudly proclaimed.

Shocked, I asked him what he meant.

“Lenin,” he answered, “wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” Bannon was employing Lenin’s strategy for Tea Party populist goals. He included in that group the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as the traditional conservative press.
...
“National Review and The Weekly Standard,” he said, “are both left-wing magazines, and I want to destroy them also.” He added that “no one reads them or cares what they say.” His goal was to bring down the entire establishment including the leaders of the Republican Party in Congress. He went on to tell me that he was the East Coast coordinator of all the Tea Party groups. His plan was to get its candidates nominated on the Republican ticket, and then to back campaigns that they could win. Then, Bannon said, when elected they would be held accountable to fight for the agenda he and the Tea Party stood for.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/22/steve-bannon-trump-s-top-guy-told-me-he-was-a-leninist.html

[OKNancy]

24. this is more scary than anything else he has done IMO n/t

[FreeStateDemocrat]

25. "Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness..."

"Bannon's second marriage was to Mary Louise Piccard, a former investment banker, in April 1995. Their twin daughters were born three days later.
Bannon was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence, battery and dissuading a witness in early January 1996, after Piccard accused Bannon of domestic abuse. The charges were later dropped when his now ex-wife did not appear in court. In an article in The New York Times, Piccard stated her absence was due to threats made to her by Bannon and Bannon's lawyer:
Mr. Bannon, she said, told her that "if I went to court he and his attorney would make sure that I would be the one who was guilty"... Mr. Bannon’s lawyer, she said, "threatened me," telling her that if Mr. Bannon went to jail, she "would have no money and no way to support the children." ... Mr. Bannon’s lawyer ... denied pressuring her not to testify.
Piccard and Bannon divorced in 1997. During the divorce proceedings, Piccard also stated that Bannon had made antisemitic remarks about choice of schools, saying that he did not want to send his children to The Archer School for Girls because there were too many Jews at the school and Jews raise their children to be "whiny brats". "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Bannon

[BumRushDaShow]

28. The only hope left is that

those who provide the information feed to this new setup, have it parsed enough to minimize catastrophic damage and save the Republic.

[heaven05]

29. this is a really

DANGEROUS situation.......bannon is the power behind the throne...I think rinse is his chief strategist....we are in real coup territory. Bush-Cheney mini-coup pales to irrelevance.....

[3_Limes]

30. It's happening here.

Right now. We're watching it.

Any suggestions on how to react to this? We're in uncharted territory now.

[still_one]

31. Yup, it is up to the Senate Democrats to stop it, and they can do it, if they have the will

"Senate Democrats have a powerful tool at their disposal, if they choose to use it, for resisting a president who has no mandate and cannot claim to embody the popular will. That tool lies in the simple but fitting act of withholding consent. An organized effort to do so on the Senate floor can bring the body to its knees and block or severely slow down the agenda of a president who does not represent the majority of Americans.

The procedure for withholding consent is straightforward, but deploying it is tricky. For the Senate to move in a timely fashion on any order of business, it must obtain unanimous support from its members. But if a single senator objects to a consent agreement, McConnell, now majority leader, will be forced to resort to time-consuming procedural steps through the cloture process, which takes four days to confirm nominees and seven days to advance any piece of legislation — and that’s without amendment votes, each of which can be subjected to a several-day cloture process as well."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/27/democrats-in-congress-can-block-trumps-agenda-if-they-want-to-heres-how/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.88dc0bf48488

[3_Limes]

32. Surely our Legislators will recognize the threat,

right? The import of this can not be lost on anybody who understands how the Govmnt. works, right?

So I guess this is when we separate the children from their grownups.

[still_one]

33. I hope so

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

35. Who cleared Bannon for a Top-Secret clearance?

Somebody is asleep on the job.