Perhaps the scariest incident to date of Trump’s insanity was unveiled yesterday. Yesterday, he kicked the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the CIA off the need-to-be-there list of the national security council. If they are needed, they will be invited. Instead he appointed his quasi-Nazi friend, Steve Bannon.
The NEW YORK TIMES: Separately, the president gave Stephen K. Bannon, his chief strategist, a full seat on the “principals committee” of the National Security Committee. While elevating his adviser to a position alongside the secretaries of state and defense, Mr. Trump downgraded the roles on the committee of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the director of national intelligence.
What that means is that any concerns the US might have regarding national security may not have the head of the armed force’s input. Nor the CIA’s. The Chairman of the JCS is the head of the army, navy, air-force, marines and special forces. In effect, Donald and Steve can now make war decisions without the top military general or the top intelligence officer even being consulted.
When Sal and I decided to come to Arizona, it was partially to finish the second book which, to be honest, is nearly done but still not a fun read. I may have to put it out just to get the monkey off my back. Sal was keen to put out a second book but was wanting to do something fictional. She wanted to ‘make stuff up.’
I already mentioned that her idea was to write a fictional account of two elderly Canadians who, because of Trump’s new edicts, have to flee the US. It is a plot based not so much on the edicts themselves but rather the mood those messages creates. Namely fear. At first, I thought it a cheap B plot and envisioned driving across deserts and hiding in culverts and all that sort of crap. Fun shoot’em ups. But, basically, I dismissed it and tried to make book 2 more readable.
In the meantime, however, Trump edicts are causing the exact mood change Sally prophesied. Right wing nut-bars opened fire on a mosque in Quebec City. Overly officious and likely racist immigration officials ignored legal rulings from judges and detained and barred-from-entry immigrants from Muslim countries. Canada’s minister on Immigration, Ahmed Hussen, had to get special permission to travel to the US because of the country of his birth, Somalia. Canada’s very own Prime Nice Guy has had to offer sanctuary in Canada for all those refused by the US. And the list of stupid situations resulting from Trump in office for just ten days goes on and on.
Gorbachev has stated that nuclear war is now more likely under Trump. China has stated that war is inevitable if Trump continues to meddle in the South China Sea. Millions of Brits are protesting Trump’s scheduled visit to the UK and only Vladimir Putin is pleased with the events transpiring so far.
Ten days.
Our Off the Grid Home 
In Trump world, the Donald is checking off his list of promises made during the campaign. Ban Moslems …check. Destabilizing the world…check. Trump will continue his moves to isolate himself. Trump seems to think that his policy of putting America first will be embraced all over the world! This is deeply misguided.
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I agree that it is misguided and, to make my point, without the CIA and the JCS at the table, completely misinformed as well. Steve Bannon of Brietbart News is at the table ahead of the CIA and the military?
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Maybe you’d better come back and check if your water pipes have thawed. Things are apt to get ugly down there and there might be a ban on sane people exiting. Besides, we might need you up here to keep mad people from entering. The book can wait.
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I confess to thinking that way….that’s the way the Jews got taken away, that’s the way the Rwandan genocide happened, that’s the way the Mexicans have been disappeared. And the rest of Central America…..
….it just happens…..and you are left standing in a line surrounded by fences….
But I tend to the dramatic. I tend to ‘project’ my fears…….I tend to ‘imagine the worst’….
Mind you, it is hard to imagine that this nut-bar made it as far as the White House and no one, it seems, has the power to stop him. Well…the women judges did……but, really?
To be fair, we have only come across one Trump-lover lunatic-fringe idjut and even he was just comical. It was at a large ‘market’ of stalls and vendors and he was selling Make American Great Again hats. No one was buying. Sal asked him about it and he said, “Trump’s great! Look at what he has done in just ten days! You with us?”
Sal: “Unfortunately, no. And equally as unfortunately, I don’t like what he has done.”
“A lot of Canadians would trade Trudeau for Trump!”
I doubt that but there are a lot of Canucks down here. Maybe some…….
I wonder what we could trade Trudeau for….?
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Canada does have a probably small but determined right wing championed by some of the people contending for the leadership of the Conservative party. Canada’s alt-right do not have a very inclusive vision of Canadian values. They will have a vision of values circumscribed by them. They will be the deciders and definers of Canadian values. They will decide who stays or who goes, who loves whom, what one does with ones own body, and will decide all other social programmes and entitlements. They will decide the function of government and will leave all progress to free enterprise. The role of government will be reduced as far as possible. Let Darwinian forces reign.
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If we let Darwinian forces reign, doesn’t that mean I just go kill them?
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Why kill them when neglect will serve as well or incarceration or exclusion or defunding of programmes. No need for Philippines type road side exicutions of suspected drug dealers the disaffected are killing each other.
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There are very scary times for everyone. – Margy
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The totally unqualified and ignorant Steve Bannon said (back in 2007, I believe), “War with China is inevitable.” And he’s in the National Security meetings. Trump’s dissing Australia, previously a good friend of the US. And – was it Maddog – who said that if N. Korea continues with it’s ICBM program, the US will respond massively. Trump’s suggesting sending US troops into Mexico to deal with ‘bad hombres’. It’s not implausible to think that he may take the world into WW3. He is even partly on the path to create the second civil war.
Putin might be pleased….but the rest of us will feel otherwise.
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I was wrong: He has repeated it more recently: “The United States and China will fight a war within the next 10 years over islands in the South China Sea, and “there’s no doubt about that”. At the same time, the US will be in another “major” war in the Middle East”.
Those are the views – nine months ago at least – of one of the most powerful men in Donald Trump’s administration, Steve Bannon, the former head of far-right news website Breitbart who is now chief strategist at the White House.
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