That whole article is awesome, but you're right, that is definitely the scariest part.
The thing is, Bannon is significantly more intelligent and educated than Trump. Trump doesn't know shit about what it actually takes to be a president. So it makes sense to delegate the more technical aspects of running the country to Bannon. But delegating this kind of work also means conceding a certain amount of direct control, which maybe doesn't sit well with him, given what an ego-tripping control freak he is. But honestly, what's the alternative? There's just no way that he's going bone up on the technical minutia of managing the executive branch at this point. It ain't happening. Trump actually is sort of intelligent in his own way, but he has no attention span whatsoever, he prefers watching cable news to reading books, and he's also getting pretty damn old and fuzzy headed. So he's forced to be dependent on others. If it wasn't Bannon, it would be someone else. Someone has to be there to actually do the boring, technical, strategic shit that needs to be done, because Trump can't do it, not directly anyway.
So I imagine that Bannon feels pretty confident in his position. The dude's pretty close to untouchable. Even if Trump ever wanted to wrestle power away from him, Bannon could burn him badly through Breitbart. I read Breitbart on a semi-daily basis, and I'm surprised at how often I see people who are ready to turn on Trump the moment they perceive him to softening up a bit. It's not a regular thing, but the potential is certainly there. Even the notion that he won't be pursuing criminal charges against Hillary had some of them furious that he was selling out on that issue. So it's not completely unimaginable that Bannon could try and turn the tide of hard right public opinion against Trump if he ever needed to. So really, he has nothing to fear, because Trump, for one reason or another, can't afford to lose him. Bannon's gonna go hard as a motherfucker with this administration, just because he can.
Yes, and also probably an unimaginably bigger asshole... if that can be imagined.
But intelligence and being a complete dick are not mutually exclusive things...
Bannon is almost certainly a sociopath, and he's endeared himself to Trump, who is also a sociopath, but with celebrity appeal and a brand name, and a "very good brain." Trump is a fucking moron, but ultimately, he's the one with the finger on the nukes. He's the one with the real power... so you have two petty narcissistic pudgy old men jerking each other off, all the while planning for a complete makeover of the world, but with probably different motives. I think if Steve Bannon actually had control of the office, he'd be launching nukes as fast as possible. He wants chaos and madness, and he's achieving it, because he's smart and has well thought-out terrible ideas.
Trump just wants applause, power, and glamor, because he's a fucking navel-gazing moron.
from his ridiculous dumbfuck perspective, perhaps, but if he had the first inkling of how to do the job he was just elected to do, it would make sense to appoint qualified and sane people.Trump doesn't know shit about what it actually takes to be a president. So it makes sense to delegate the more technical aspects of running the country to Bannon.
I've been trolling infowars' comments section for a while now. Still not banned.
I lost it with their news story "Lady Gaga To Conduct Satanic Ritual at Super Bowl LI"
I'm not even gonna link it because it was so ridiculous.
But I could not go through the Joe Rogan podcast. It felt like torture after 2 minutes.
Wait...what?
The two Canadian attacks listed weren't covered? I remember being at work the morning that the the soldier was shot in Ottawa, and shots were later fired in Parliment Hill. The CBC cut off the show we had on in the break-room for live coverage. Cpl Cirillo's family lives a 2 minute walk from my karate school. It was on every news report, tons was written about it. We had a goddamn televised memorial event when they brought his body home, and another one a year later.
This wasn't covered my fucking ass, you stupid piece of shit!
The other attack happened the day before. It was covered on the news that night. Then it was overshadowed by what happened the next day.
While I don't find trolling funny, I agree with you about not being able to listen to that JRE episode. I can't stand it when Eddie Bravo starts talking nonsense. It sucks because I definitely respect his opinion on just about everything else and he is a Jiu Jitsu master...I just can't handle his conspiracy theory bullshit. I don't have that respect for Jones. He's just a complete goober. He needs help.
Last edited by Swykk; 02-07-2017 at 07:13 AM.
I dunno, Trump is pretty vengeful, too, and could spend every moment of every day of his life ragging on Breitbart.
I think Trump is relying TOO MUCH on his "key people" and now he's finally starting to micromanage more, to have control, know what he's signing, know what's going on, so that things don't get overly fucked-up because HIS ass is on the line for all of this and, of course, he doesn't like being blamed for anything. He is generally NOT a micromanager, he hires people to do a good job so that he doesn't have to babysit everything; if they fuck up, he fires 'em. But, he's quickly learning that his typical "hands off" approach doesn't work when you're President.
Trump would've been far better off with Christie, but they got rid of Christie because of that Bridgegate shit. Too bad, at least Christie is a lawyer and was the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey.
Edit: Trump is keeping Christie in his back pocket, though.
Last edited by allegro; 02-07-2017 at 11:31 AM.
This, over proposed legislation to provide due process to people before police can seize all their assets according to Greenwald.
https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/stat...07910277636097
Edit: DeVos just confirmed with Pence breaking the 50-50 tie.
Last edited by Deepvoid; 02-07-2017 at 11:42 AM.
Sen John McCain linked this on Twitter.
Reading the details is horrifying, ugh.
Edit: McCain has issued a statement: http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/...ass-executions
Last edited by allegro; 02-07-2017 at 12:37 PM.
Last edited by allegro; 02-07-2017 at 12:38 PM.
It was only fitting that Mike Pence put it over the line...goddamn. She was an absolutely awful candidate, and I'm for school choice. Another person in a high position who has no idea what she's doing.
Yeah, true. Of course, it's not like Trump and Bannon are enemies. It seems like they see eye to eye on most things, so Trump probably feels justified in trusting Bannon, more or less. And I suspect that, in areas where perhaps Bannon does differ in opinion from Trump, Bannon is generally able to avoid conflict. He's not an idiot. Supposedly Bannon and Miller are both really good at framing things in a way they know Trump will find appealing. It's not like Trump is hard to manipulate.
I would find all of this to be a very fascinating character drama if it was happening at a safe distance, or maybe if it was in a book or show. Trying to figure out what makes these people tick while they're actively ruling over us and fucking up our country isn't nearly as fun.
Wasn't Christie pushed out by Kushner as payback for prosecuting his father?
Edit: Nevermind, just read your link. Hmmm. Maybe that was just what people were speculating at the time.
Last edited by Mantra; 02-07-2017 at 01:11 PM.
Trump looks more and more like a dumb but useful idiot every day, and I thought it was harder to go lower than he was.
Lots of headlines on the ol interwebz. A lot of them were less-than-stellar operations, but some of the less awful sites were commenting - at least at the time of the two Republicans announcing their change - that her confirmation was in danger. The rhetoric did seem to die down once people did the math and realized that she still needed more people to stand up to her, and that none of them would.
Trump gets laughs when he offers to destroy a Texas state senator career.
Is he a gangster now?
Yeah, I don't get the shock that Devos got appointed... this was an incredibly obvious one.
I guess it's not surprising either, that I'm seeing a lot of surprise from the same people who were saying "c'mon, Jill Stein has a real chance!"
Republicans are definitely putting party over country as on DeVos. They know she's terrible and have no excuse for voting for her besides Trump nominating her.
I'm shocked to find myself saying this, but I agree. Those websites that track "all gun deaths" or "mass shootings" have some seriously sketchy data in them. Even as someone who is 100% in favor of stricter gun control, I was staring at those pages with a cocked eyebrow and going "what the......?"
But, let me use that as a reason to say that this is exactly WHY we need to be allowed to fund gun violence research as the health crisis that it is. Treat it like a disease. Have a comprehensive database of every ACTUAL shooting with a real, designed-to-kill-things weapon that includes relevant demographic information. Not to use it as some partisan attack ad, but so we can better analyze WHO is getting shot and WHY. Maybe then we'll have a chance to rethink the way we approach reducing gun violence.
Sorry, that has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
Alex Jones is just mental. He believes there is a satanic eyes wide shut type group running pop culture. He's a moron.
For years he was urging us to beware the police state, beware authoritarian governments... fair enough
But now he backs the most authoritarian president since the fifties! I don't get how he sees trump as an improvement on Obama in that respect
Mentally ill. At least David Icke continues to hate all governments. Yes there is a bit of truth to what Jones says, but very few people are talking 100% unicorns
I think it's very worrying that someone like Jones has any kind of proximity to a potus. There's a lot of hysterical hitler/trump comparisons which are pretty much nonsense, but the vindication of mad conspiracy theories of the kind espoused by Jones is definitely the sort of thing that could be described as heading down that road
After all, a lot of Jones' stuff is just classic 20th century jew bashing, just euphemised and reheated for a new audience
A very interesting read.
The DeVos vote is a bad case study for the power of campaign contributions.
well the flu has officially killed more people than muslim terrorists
-louie
Lol... yep that's it! Well, I don't know if that's what they believe, but at the very least, they believe that the elites believe that abuses and sacrifice render some kind of energy
Actually it is something I have long pondered... do Jones, Icke et al believe that these elites (which they believe in) actually DO practice black magic, and black magic is actually real - or do they just think they are deluded and depraved?
Dragging it back to Trump... I have always wondered if he is a 9/11 conspiracy theorist. He has made some pretty strange remarks regarding it, and apparently has some kind of personal relationship with Jones. I'm absolutely gagging to find out, because if he is, that is totally mad and will make for interesting news stories, and if he isn't, it will create a schism between him and the Jones crowd, also loaded with potential for interesting news
so Warren was silenced by McConnell and his spineless cronies for trying to read a letter written by Coretta Scott King... the widow of Martin Luther King... THE civil rights hero of the American civil rights movement... to present a side of Sessions that might be relevant, given that his past is under scrutiny for racism.
WHAT?! https://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/sha...ter-to-senate/
Read the letter, which Warren was unable to deliver... because a bunch of fucking cowards knew it had power greater than theirs
i know huffpo is a leftist rag but no one is concerned by this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...04061313a1fbb?
-louie