Am I the only one the only one that thinks Steven is a bit miffed at the Trump camp?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... hael-wolff

And cue in Donald......

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-blasts ... on-brknews

When he refers to the meeting between Don Jr, Jared and Natalia Veselnitskaya as treasonous and that Don Jr will crack like an egg I would say the honeymoon is over.

First of all, it isn't Steve Bannon's book. The book Fire and Fury is written by Michael Wolff. Bannon is reportable provided most of the "color" to the book. Available soon at your favorite book store..

The big shocker I've heard about so far is that Bannon states he is absolutely sure that after the notorious meeting, Don Jr. marched his contacts up to meet Trump.

Quoting from my favourite book-ordering website...

"In this explosive book, Wolff provides a wealth of new details about the chaos in the Oval Office. Among the revelations:

- What President Trump's staff really thinks of him
- What inspired Trump to claim he was wire-tapped by President Obama
- Why FBI director James Comey was really fired
- Why chief strategist Steve Bannon and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner couldn't be in the same room
- Who is really directing the Trump administration's strategy in the wake of Bannon's firing
- What the secret to communicating with Trump is
- What the Trump administration has in common with the movie The Producers"

Well, I guess because they've been casting the main roles in an equally zany way...

Can't wait for that book.


David

I think Bannon and his Alt Right crowd want to achieve one thing with this book. Send Jared away and free Ivanka. Batshit crazy.

Trump should rehire Scaramucci, just to appear on TV shows and talk down Bannon. Start with HBO and satellite radio talk shows.

I'm torn on whether I want to buy the book. Not like i'll have time to read it all and odds are the juicy details will be posted everywhere...but just read it for myself and see.

dtw2hyd wrote:

I think Bannon and his Alt Right crowd want to achieve one thing with this book. Send Jared away and free Ivanka. Batshit crazy.

Trump should rehire Scaramucci, just to appear on TV shows and talk down Bannon. Start with HBO and satellite radio talk shows.

Not possible while Kelly is chief of staff.

(and Kelly and Mattis are the only members of the Trump administration who strike me as faintly competent - maybe Tillerson también.)

dtw2hyd wrote:

I think Bannon and his Alt Right crowd want to achieve one thing with this book. Send Jared away and free Ivanka. Batshit crazy.

Err, it's not Bannon's book. Dozens and dozens of White House staff were interviewed, and Bannon is only one of them.

For a synopsis... read http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42559436

David

flyingturtle wrote:

dtw2hyd wrote:

I think Bannon and his Alt Right crowd want to achieve one thing with this book. Send Jared away and free Ivanka. Batshit crazy.

Err, it's not Bannon's book. Dozens and dozens of White House staff were interviewed, and Bannon is only one of them.

For a synopsis... read http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42559436

David

You should check that with the thread starter, even title says Steve Bannon Book (or) didn't like my post and want to say something.

Bannon is not the only loose cannon out there in tRumpland. I love this turmoil, the Right caused enough of it for eight years for Obama.

Beautiful! I love the new aggression between Trump and Bannon. May they take each other down. Trump has already upped the stakes of this pissing match by saying that Bannon has lost his mind. I wonder how Bannon will respond.

zkojq wrote:

Bannon has lost his mind.

Not much of a net loss.

i think i will wait for the movie.

The biggest question is, how would that add anything to the Mueller's investigation. Imagine what would happen if Bannon agreed to talk !

Trump says *Bannon* has lost his mind.

The wheels are about to come off the Trump train, and fast. Going to be an incredible 6 months.

From the book, Thomas Barrack on Trump: "He's not only crazy, he's stupid."

Goodyear wrote:

The wheels are about to come off the Trump train, and fast. Going to be an incredible 6 months.

Many have predicted, and yet has to come true, I won't hold my breath if I were you.

The important thing here is that most of the interviews with Bannon were before he was kicked out of the White House (ie before he had an axe to grind with Trump).

Eyad89 wrote:

The biggest question is, how would that add anything to the Mueller's investigation. Imagine what would happen if Bannon agreed to talk !

1. Bannon was the information hub in the White House. It's your job as the chief strategist.
2. Bannon knew about the Veselnitskaya meeting on floor 25.
3. Therefore, Bannon is very likely to know more details about the collusion.

Bannon does not need to agree to any talk. He can be subpoenaed.

David

Now that Trump has passed the tax cuts, the elites & special interests who supported his election don't really need him anymore.

flyingturtle wrote:

2. Bannon knew about the Veselnitskaya meeting on floor 25.
3. Therefore, Bannon is very likely to know more details about the collusion.

Bannon does not need to agree to any talk. He can be subpoenaed.

David

From the book:

Bannon also said he believed that the Russians were taken after the meeting to meet Trump, something the president has denied happened.

"The chance that Don Jr. did not walk these jumos up to his father’s office on the twenty-sixth floor is zero," Bannon says in the book.

So if they did meet with Trump Sr but they have lied about it to Muller, that could be a world of trouble for them.

"You realize where this is going," Bannon says. "This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy," referring to Andrew Weissmann, a senior prosecutor on Mueller's team. "Their path to f***ing Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr. and Jared Kushner. It’s as plain as a hair on your face."

I strongly suspect that there is a lot to answer for regarding money laundering for Russian elites through Trump's properties. Russia helping him in the election is probably a relatively minor part of the scheme.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white- ... ok-n834286


Added bonus:

“So when I got in the cart with Eric,” Dodson says, “as we were setting off, I said, ‘Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks—because of the recession, the Great Recession—have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.’ And this is what he said. He said, ‘Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’ Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty interesting.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05 ... olf-course

Now the Trump camp wants to ban the book:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-lawye ... 0dqaq.html

This is freedom of opinion, that thing the conservatives love to guard so much, except for when it runs against them.

cpd wrote:

Now the Trump camp wants to ban the book:

http://www.smh.com.au/world/trump-lawye ... 0dqaq.html

This is freedom of opinion, that thing the conservatives love to guard so much, except for when it runs against them.

Freedom of speech is a bitch when it is your own vile being used against you.

casinterest wrote:

Freedom of speech is a bitch when it is your own vile being used against you.

Oy, gevalt!

And before Mr. Trump sues Michael Wolff for libel, he should research how often he slandered the Clintons and the Obamas...

I eagerly await the announced 2nd excerpt from the book. The first one was a complete riot!

Trump is a man who is fully convinced of himself. He's an efficient leader, he makes the best decisions... here's how Albert Speer, the German armaments minister, described Hitler's daily routines:


Hitler's routine at Obersalzberg included appearing at 11 a.m. for summaries and reports from Bormann followed by a prolonged afternoon dinner. This was followed by a walk to the teahouse, where Hitler would start endless monologues, occasionally falling asleep in the midst of one. At 6 p.m., after a two-hour teatime, everyone would make their way back to the Berghof for supper. The entourage then retired to the salon where they would watch a movie (as Hitler did in Berlin), followed by a gathering around the fireplace. Usually the movies were the same ones shown in the movie houses, though frequently foreign films were shown, "including those that were withheld from the German public." During the war, records would be played instead of a movie. By 2 a.m. Braun and Hitler would retire, while the remaining guests drank champagne and cognac. Speer called it a "constant waste of time."

Hitler's Berlin routine was similar, according to Speer. Hitler "rose late in the morning... but from the subsequent dinner on he more or less wasted time until the early hours of the evening." In the memoirs, Speer openly wondered when exactly Hitler ever found time to do anything important, "When, I would often ask myself, did he really work?" Speer thought Hitler had an "artistic temperament", "squandering his working time." At these dinners, Hitler told his guests "My father often dealt me hard blows. Moreover, I think that was necessary and helped me."


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

If you find any similarities to Mr. Trumps 4 to 8 hours of daily TV consumption or his golf vacations...


David

cpd wrote:

Now the Trump camp wants to ban the book:

Which will do more for sales than any advertising campaign could possibly manage. Well played, Trump!

Revelation wrote:

but of course banning a book is pretty hard to do in the US...

The whole concept of "banning a book" in 2018 is pretty laughable unless you live in North Korea.

It must be most authors' dream to have their book "banned".

flyingturtle wrote:

casinterest wrote:

Freedom of speech is a bitch when it is your own vile being used against you.

Oy, gevalt!

And before Mr. Trump sues Michael Wolff for libel, he should research how often he slandered the Clintons and the Obamas...

That's only slanderous or libelous when it is being used against him. All of the alt-right crowd who are so vocal about freedom of speech are always the first to start squealing like stuck pigs when freedom of speech affects them adversely.

scbriml wrote:

The whole concept of "banning a book" in 2018 is pretty laughable unless you live in North Korea.

It must be most authors' dream to have their book "banned".

Perhaps Trump can mobilise all of his supporters to buy up all of these books and then have big book-burning festivals.

Speaking of all the Trump supporters, where are they? They've all vanished... Hmm. And didn't they all used to be such big supporters of Bannon as well?

Revelation wrote:

Personally, I won't waste a cent on it.

All it already tells us is what any sane person already knows: tRump is a horse's ass.

The sad state of affairs, I'm afraid.
Potential readers pretty much already know exactly what Trump is like from the avalanche of facts about him we've been buried under since he stepped on the political scene and would not be surprised by much of what they read in there.
On the other hand, the Trump fanatics are not exactly the reading type now, are they?

It seems that Trump was quite desperate to be on good terms with Rupert Murdoch, and Steve Bannon reportedly felt threatened by Murdoch.

What harm could an old aged Australian possibly do?

I might actually buy the book to get a co-ordinated roundup of White House Stupid Things & People.

I'm in the group that believe that Trump is a total failure as President. After Mueller's Team gets through their investigation I would be surprised if Trump doesn't face criminal charges of money laundering. If Trump's House of Cards crashes there is going to be another interesting book on Trump's Financial Fall. I seriously doubt if Trump and Family can come up with he cash to cover those loans so premier properties (Like Trump Tower and the new DC Trump International Hotel) can be grabbed by the foreign bankers. I'll probably buy that book also.

This book will not really change anything outside disrupting the news cycle for the next week or so. The only way any of these allegations actually affect anything is if there is hard evidence to corroborate them. Otherwise it will be just like every other "scandal" where it confirms the preconceived notions of what you think but nothing comes of it, or to over bluntly state it.

Revelation wrote:

tRump is a horse's ass.

Really Trumps mistake was that he acknowledged its existence. If they just were to say is its untrue when asked and leave it at that then it would have blown over in a couple days. I doubt the juicy allegations can be back up with hard evidence which will mean the Muller investigation will look at it but won't touch it with a 10 foot pole, and as a result anti-trump activist will wave it around for a while then drop it when the next "promising" allegation comes up. To put it simply, by going on the offensive, he Barbara Streisand-ed himself. He used a airport water cannon to put out a match flame.

There are tapes, apparently. Saddle up folks!

Ken777 wrote:

I might actually buy the book to get a co-ordinated roundup of White House Stupid Things & People.

I've ordered it. The first excerpt was a riot to read. I just hope the whole book fulfils my expectations. Even when only half of the book would be truthful, the inside of the White House is still a malodorous aggregation of male bovine effluent.

Raventech wrote:

This book will not really change anything outside disrupting the news cycle for the next week or so.

I agree. It could still be a classical textbook on how weird national leaders could be. Or even a reference book. Within the next few weeks, I expect Trump to make some bad mistakes though, especially when Mr. Mueller invites Mr. Wolff over for a tea...

David

I almost bit the bullet last night. Amazon had it for $21. Tempting...tempting...

If someone took notes with a malicious intent of every mistake Obama did during his first year and publish at the year-end, it would be somewhat similar.

Also, this book is a perfect example of our society, choas can be spun as incompetency or even mental instability, all you need is more voices repeating the same thing.

There is no going back, future presidents have to deal with this new phenomenon.

Revelation wrote:

because he's more focused on other men's wives

And not just the wives of any guy, but of his friends.

President Trump used to boast that one of the things that made “life worth living” was sleeping with his friends’ wives, according to a new tell-all book.

Before he was president, Trump would have his secretary ask the friend to drop by his office, where he would subject him to “more or less constant sexual banter,” according to “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House,” a copy of which was obtained by The Post.

With the wife listening in on speakerphone, Trump would say: “Do you still like having sex with your wife? How often? You must have had a better f–k than your wife? Tell me about it.

“I have girls coming in from Los Angeles at three o’clock. We can go upstairs and have a great time. I promise.”

It really doesn't get any lower than that (yet I'm sure all his evangelical type supporters are falling over themselves to forgive him).

https://nypost.com/2018/01/04/trump-tho ... ving-book/

Revelation wrote:

The thing is, how many times can I say "I told you so" to right winger friends and family? The man had his own damn TV reality show, so there's no way you can say "I had no idea what he was like". People knew exactly what he was like, and they voted for him anyway. They knew he was a lout and a boor and a letch and a fool and they voted for him anyway.

Reminds me of all the people who keep living with abusive partners. They ignore facts, because hope, belief, stubbornness, fear of loneliness etc. is stronger. I know I'll sound ghastly, but some people need to be beaten up to make them understand things.

There are personal preferences and personal decisions, for which you don't have to justify yourself. If you like to wear bunny dresses at home and decide to have sex as bunnies, it's not my problem. But if your choices could harm somebody else, you must justify yourself, and be open about uncomfortable facts. That's what is lacking in many people today. They rather want to have an unperturbed relationship with their idol. Or to eat their pineapple "Pizzas" without being threatened.

dtw2hyd wrote:

If someone took notes with a malicious intent of every mistake Obama did during his first year and publish at the year-end, it would be somewhat similar.

Problem is that Obama is too intelligent and cautious to make all these mistakes. And given that he doesn't behave like a bozo, I assume only very, very few WH staffers would be willing to betray their boss in interviews.

Giving a journalist a free pass to hang around the West Wing every day to enjoy a chaotic, bloodthirsty atmosphere? What could NOT go wrong?


David

dtw2hyd wrote:

If someone took notes with a malicious intent of every mistake Obama did during his first year and publish at the year-end, it would be somewhat similar.

Also, this book is a perfect example of our society, choas can be spun as incompetency or even mental instability, all you need is more voices repeating the same thing.

There is no going back, future presidents have to deal with this new phenomenon.

If anything, future presidents have a VERY low bar to clear after Trump. Funny that even during the Bush years this wasn't a big deal.

An administration that is competent will not have to be concerned about leaks or books about how the inner workings are. For someone to claim that all presidents will have to deal with this in the future means that they're not willing to admit that something is off in this administration. It's not the DC Establishment or the Elites; it's a man that is completely unhinged and attempts to deflect any criticism as fake or with threats.

If Obama had had outbursts when Benghazi happened, we would have known (nothing in the Oval Office is ever a secret), yet the fact that no aide or official has come out to say that Obama exploded means that the man was mentally competent to handle the situation instead of lashing out. The fact that it's our daily bread to read reports of Trump yelling at the TV or lashing out (and we've seen his persona already) means that there's more credibility in the reports than the White House saying "No, that didn't happen". And because Trump has been caught with lies already (saying that he was the voice in the p*$$y grabbing video before denying it and saying it was edited), why should I believe the White House?

dtw2hyd wrote:

If someone took notes with a malicious intent of every mistake Obama did during his first year and publish at the year-end, it would be somewhat similar.

Sure, sure.

dtw2hyd wrote:

Also, this book is a perfect example of our society, choas can be spun as incompetency or even mental instability, all you need is more voices repeating the same thing.

As opposed to chaos being indicative of what else exactly?

dtw2hyd wrote:

There is no going back, future presidents have to deal with this new phenomenon.

Um, OK.

dtw2hyd wrote:

If someone took notes with a malicious intent of every mistake Obama did during his first year and publish at the year-end, it would be somewhat similar.

Also, this book is a perfect example of our society, choas can be spun as incompetency or even mental instability, all you need is more voices repeating the same thing.

There is no going back, future presidents have to deal with this new phenomenon.

In 2007 Nicolas Sarkozy was elected president of the French Republic. Soon after, we learned that his wife had left him during the campaign, that he was depressed, that it affected his early presidency. Then he married Carla Bruni, and we got a text message that became famous : if you come back, I cancel everything, sent by Sarkozy to his ex, just before the wedding.

This to say that the 2008 campaign and 2009 early presidency of Obama were very much in the same time period we're still living in. In fact Obama was the first candidate to really take advantage of social networks. Obama attracted a lot of attention, for completely other reasons, mainly that he was black, and had lived abroad. If his early presidency had been one tenth of the train wreck we're witnessing now, there wouldn't be 1 book about it, there would be 100.

Obama was not a President Corp product either. Every president has a learning curve. It is the job of the transition team and every loyal WH staff to maintain protocol and decorum of executive branch. Trump's biggest mistake was not to have good transition team, keeping Obama's WH staff and having his family deeply involved.

He was a CEO of American Inc and his behavior of "make it happen", "rules don't matter" is exactly in line with most CEOs.

Trump probably thinks AG is his personal/corporate attorney, hence he expects AG("his attorney") to protect him. His entire temper tantrum is based on his understanding, lack thereof. His reaction is exactly like a CEO just learnt corporate attorney lost a lawsuit. Someone has to explain it doesn't work that way in government. Is it childlike behavior, sure yes.

Every time Michelle rolls her eyes Alex Jones and Fox News may spin it as she is leaving Obama, it is the responsibility of civilized society to dismiss them, not join their camp.

dtw2hyd wrote:

Every time Michelle rolls her eyes Alex Jones and Fox News may spin it as she is leaving Obama, it is the responsibility of civilized society to dismiss them, not join their camp.

Which means, given the actions of a significant part of society, they wanted it to be true just because.

Notice how during the Obama years the Dow also reached records and job and GDP numbers came in at the pace they're coming in lately. Yet those who found fault either dismissed the numbers as fake or said they could be better. Now suddenly, the numbers come in roughly the same and people already wanna carve Trump into Mount Rushmore.

This leads me to believe they wanted to hate Obama for something (race, political affiliation, his name...), facts be damned.

Michelle went to Spain for a vacation (to which she's entitled to and for which money is already allocated): OMG! SPENDING!
Melania remains in NYC for 5 months with Secret Service 24/7: well, we have to think of Barron and it's her choice.

Jobs number comes in over 200K under Obama: fake! We must look at the REAL unemployment.
Jobs number comes in around 150k under Trump: Place him on the $100 bill #MAGA

Civilized society would have not allowed Trump or his allies (i.e. Republicans) to come to power, yet they prefer to buy the line that Clinton is a witch and evil Obama's apprentice. If they didn't join their camp, they allowed it to flourish instead of keeping it in check.

einsteinboricua wrote:

[
This leads me to believe they wanted to hate Obama for something (race, political affiliation, his name...), facts be damned..

I think you're onto something there. In the past when the WH has passed from one party to another there were changes in policy. But what is going on now is unprecedented. Firing ambassadors before there replacements could be confirmed is one example.

You're on to something, einsteinboricua:

einsteinboricua wrote:

Michelle went to Spain for a vacation (to which she's entitled to and for which money is already allocated): OMG! SPENDING!
Melania remains in NYC for 5 months with Secret Service 24/7: well, we have to think of Barron and it's her choice.

Jobs number comes in over 200K under Obama: fake! We must look at the REAL unemployment.
Jobs number comes in around 150k under Trump: Place him on the $100 bill #MAGA

...this reminds me of an experiment they did on visitors of an AIPAC conference in NY. They read several quotes to the people waiting in line, and the subjects were clearly and genuinely disgusted by the racist quotes. But when they revealed the quotes came from Bibi Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni and Naftali Bennett, they were not disgusted anymore. They were suddenly angry towards the interviewers.

There is a psychological filter at work which sorts out information that does not adhere to preconceptions. Our minds are really terrible at fighting confirmation bias. We always decide first, and then seek reasons later. The more educated people are, they are just more self-secure at defending their stance. No, they're not evaluating more counter-arguments. Nope.

Societies don't work by communicating the truth. Social cohesion is formed by building and maintaining a reputation. So, every social group is a Galapagos Island where people's stances and positions evolve, but they evolve towards a higher reputation. There's zero incentive to tell the truth - except somebody else can put your information to good use, and is thankful for it. And think about it: Which incentives are you following when you write a a.nut posting on a hot topic?

Which incentive would there be for a Trump aficionado to learn about Obama's achievements, and explain them to his friends?

I really suggest reading the wonderful book by Jonathan Haidt, "The Righteous Mind", where he explores how our moral judgment is formed and why we are so divided in our views.


David