If the Russians knew about the Syrian chemical weapons strike before it was executed, it raises some interesting questions but is not evidence of increased culpable distance between Trump and Russia.
Considerable time and media has been spent suggesting that because of Breitbart’s negative media attacks on Kushner, and its being “reined in” by Jared’s whining to Big Orange, that there is a bigger feud between the Bannonist and Kushnerian wings of Trump’s domain. Ultimately, like the grandkids singing for Agent Orange, in order to consolidate power, Bannon will have to either marry Tiffany or Barron (see Milo Yiannopolos).
Remember that under a Strategy of Tension, disinformation is the norm, so consider the weekend’s multiple media games played off-site of the WH that aren’t involved in golfing.
The Kochs’ meeting with domestic Cabinet members while Trump showed off for China’s president by launching missiles at Syria is only one aspect, as is the feint to return the Glass-Steagall Act as a means to lure centrists.
Elevating global military posture pushes Congressional hawks and doves concurrently and in all this the media could forget about the onward arc of #TrumpRussia.
One key to interpreting the mess that is the Trump regime is to keep following the money. The other side of the trail consists of the ideological fissures that Trumpian rubes cannot be expected to sustain, but it is what the more deeply situated RWNJs are navigating. The other big players are the GOP like Devin Nunes running cover(-up) or at least throwing themselves on a recusal grenade. And then there’s the industrialized MSM filling that remaining roster spot, as they enable the lobbying classes and their corporations.
Seeing who exits and elevates in the WH is more than a fantasy football game because the wackos like Anton and Miller remain in ideological play on the strategy side even as the military continues to serve itself and the MIC. The Flynn cohort may be gone as are Priebus’s stooges, but the GOP and its RWNJ extremists remain in charge, tolerated by conservatives who reveal their libertarian streak with each Syrian military escalation.
Popcorn futures will rise but celebrating open/closed feuding among RWNJs is as normal as Democrats fighting over purity with the same net effects.
Background briefings are fairly common, off-the-record briefings less so, and canceling one or the other happens occasionally. But, as someone who worked as a White House reporter for seven years, beginning a briefing on background and changing it to an off-the-record is something I have never heard of.
The unusual circumstances allowed the pool reporter a loophole to reveal at least one source for the briefing, mysterious Trump senior national security official Michael Anton. Ordinarily, officials at a background or off-the-record briefing are anonymous, but the reporter took advantage of the situation to get Anton’s name out.
Whatever the reason for the change, its occurrence, after yet another blow to Trump’s Syria airstrike mythology, hardly seems coincidental, but because the White House is forbidding journalists to report on it, we may never know.
Welcome to The Coffee Shop, just for you early risers on Monday mornings. This is an Open Thread forum, so if you have an off-topic opinion burning a hole in your brainpan, feel free to add a comment. __________________________________________________________
“Brush up your Shakespeare, start quoting him now..” – from KISS ME KATE
Today, in the Louisville, Kentucky Courier Journal newspaper and USA Today , a story describing the new Coal Museum in Benham, a small (population 500) town in eastern Kentucky sent me into a laughing spasm. The museum, the pride of the coal industry that our fearless Mitch McConnell and so many others supports, announced that they will power the building with…..
Solar panels.
Yes, solar panels that will produce free electrical energy, one the museum opens. The solar panels were donated by a philanthropist.
The museum press release states that the solar power will save between eight and twelve thousand bucks a year compared to what the Benham Power Board would charge if they were not installed.
Benham was once a company town like the one Tennessee Ernie Ford sang about. It was owned by Cadillac Coal Company, now long gone.
“We use the word Catfish to describe online hoaxes where someone falsely represents themselves on the internet, due to various new forms of media such as chartrooms, Facebook, online dating, and so on…”
Trump is our National Catfisher King of the racketeers
They used to tank Cod from Alaska all the way to China. They’d keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the Codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless.
So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and catfish will keep the cod agile.
And there are those people who are catfish in life.
And keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh and thank God for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn’t have somebody nipping at our flesh.
The Senate votes on President Richard Nixon’s nomination of G. Harrold Carswell to the Supreme Court. A combination of the high-reversal rate (58%) of his decisions on appeal, his support decades earlier of racial segregation and white supremacy, and his poor record on women’s rights cause his nomination to be rejected by a vote of 51-45.
38 Democrats and 13 Republicans vote against him.
Nixon then nominates Judge Harry Blackmun, who is confirmed in a 94-0 vote.
Harry Blackmun, though a Conservative, has often been called the “conscience of the Court” because of his unwavering support for the rights of individuals to equal treatment under the law and their right to privacy. He is author of the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade.
Blackmun serves 24 years on the Supreme Court, from 1970 to 1994.
Just imagine if the Republicans had changed the rules in 1970 and confirmed G. Harrold Carswell, who lived until 1992, by a single vote majority.
Imagine if Harry Blackmun had never served on the Supreme Court.
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