Reality Bites from the White House Survivor Show
One Flynn flam man gone!
Security adviser, four-star general, Mike Flynn resigns and chaos ensues in the Trump White House. Spicer calls on Saturday Night Live: Politics as melodramatic art form. Who will survive?
According to The Guardian’s Julian Borger in Washington (Tuesday 14 February 2017 08.55 EST), reports indicate an insider’s bedroom coup has replaced former insiders and NSC professionals at the White House.
Borger writes, “Alongside him (Steve Bannon) are Stephen Miller, another rightwing ideologue, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and advisor. They have set up the Strategic Initiatives Group, a parallel institution to the national security council inside the White House, which produces policies, in the form of quick-fire executive orders and memoranda, without consultation with the staff experts on the National Security Council (NSC).”
News reports also suggest that the Trump campaign team (managed by Kushner) were in contact with the Russians (managed by Putin) prior to the general election, resulting in leaked emails that negatively affected the promising Clinton campaign. Now a Congressional investigation, informed by security leaks, has formed and will divert attention from both foreign and domestic policy concerns. As the trailer for the pilot says: “Trump finds himself playing in the big leagues, far from the low-life pols, mafia figures, and guttersnipes where he got his education in the outer boroughs of New York City.”
For years litterateur Gore Vidal emphasized the power of the “National Security State.” Remember how James Clapper, former NSC chief, lied to Congress about tapping American emails and phone calls. Then Snowden revealed Clapper’s “untruths” and lit out for Moscow. Clapper stayed on until the end of the Obama administration. Snowden’s fate, like Trumps, is held closely by Vladimir Putin, former KGB head: now the Russian strong man.
Insiders say the NSC has turned its ears and eyes on Trump as a threat because he ignores the “professionals” who operate the shadowy security state. Just as J. Edgar Hoover maintained power by keeping dossiers on politicians and Presidents, so the NSC “knows” what goes on behind closed doors, in emails, and on cell phones. In Washington D.C. Information, not gossip, is the real “gold,” unlike the fool’s gold on Trump Tower or in the headlines on tabloids.
The Guardian’s Borger confirms the pique felt by the secret set: “Ignored at best, berated at worst, the NSC career staff began leaking copiously about Trump’s erratic phone calls with other world leaders and other missteps, infuriating the president, who ordered leak investigations, further deepening the discontent and dysfunction inside the White House. Any successor to Flynn would face the same struggle for influence and the president’s ear as he did.”
Televised news drama shows Trump’s shocking disregard for security at Mar-a-Lago while President discusses classified documents re: North Korea’s missile shot at a dinner party with Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Fawning guests and sleazy hangers-on record the action on cell phones displaying a shocking disregard for security clearances.
Will the American cadre of secret agents and security staffers at the NSC be denied by a tweeter, a youthful right-wing ideologue, the real estate developer son-in-law, or the decadent Breitbart news representative of the “skins” and his nascent KKKers sans “white robes”? We’re only asking.
In a blunt attempt to turn the presidency into a ploy to enrich the family’s investments in golf courses and hotels, insiders say Trump has over-played his hand. The longer Trump remains in office, the more the pressure builds on Congress, especially Republicans to dump Trump, the Bandido of the Outer Boroughs.
Amidst White House turmoil the bookies are betting on the soft-spoken man from Indiana, one Mike Pence, who keeps Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell close but his Bible closer.
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