Steve Bannon is an awful father and a wife beater

[GrumpyGran]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Wow, just wow: "Bannon: Catholic Church needs ‘illegal aliens to fill the churches’"

  Reveal hidden contents

Stephen K. Bannon, President Trump's former chief strategist, lashed out at leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States who condemned the president's recent decision to phase out an Obama-era program that has allowed nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children to gain temporary legal status.

Bannon, who is Catholic, accused the church of wanting a steady flow of illegal immigrants coming into the country to fill its church pews and make money.

“Unable to really to come to grips with the problems in the Church, they need illegal aliens, they need illegal aliens to fill the churches,” Bannon said in an interview with Charlie Rose that will air on "60 Minutes” on CBS on Sunday. “It's obvious on the face of it.”

Bannon added: “They have an economic interest. They have an economic interest in unlimited immigration, unlimited illegal immigration.”

Rose cut Bannon off and said: “That's a tough thing to say about your church.”

“As much as I respect Cardinal [Timothy] Dolan and the bishops on doctrine, this is not doctrine,” Bannon responded. “This is not doctrine at all. I totally respect the pope and I totally respect the Catholic bishops and cardinals on doctrine. This is not about doctrine. This is about the sovereignty of a nation. And in that regard, they're just another guy with an opinion.”

Following the announcement that the Trump administration would phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called the decision “reprehensible” in a strongly worded statement. About one in four U.S. Catholics are foreign born, and 34 percent of all Catholics are Hispanic, according to Pew Research Center.

“Now, after months of anxiety and fear about their futures, these brave young people face deportation,” they wrote. “This decision is unacceptable and does not reflect who we are as Americans.”

Several of Trump's top aides, along with his wife, are Catholic. The president, who identifies as Presbyterian, met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in May. The two have not had an easy relationship. In February 2016, the pope condemned Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda and suggested that such stances did not match the values of Christianity. Trump immediately fired back from the campaign trail, saying that it was “disgraceful” for the pope to question his faith and accusing the Mexican government of “using the pope as a pawn” and providing him with inaccurate information. In October 2016, Trump attended a charity roast in New York City that benefits Catholic charities and said in a speech that his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton was “pretending not to hate Catholics.”

The overall Catholic vote in 2016 was split between Trump and Clinton. Hispanic Catholics overwhelmingly supported Clinton, while Trump won over Catholics who are opposed to abortion above all else and wanted to see a conservative justice named to the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

I saw the part of Charlie Rose's interview that was on this morning. So Bannon thinks he should dictate the position of the Catholic Church with regard to humanitarian issues? I love people like this who are "members" of a religion but want to change the views of the religion to fit their beliefs. Has he found a prosperity parish? Wonder what confession is like for him. Or if he even goes.

[JMarie]

5 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

I saw the part of Charlie Rose's interview that was on this morning. So Bannon thinks he should dictate the position of the Catholic Church with regard to humanitarian issues? I love people like this who are "members" of a religion but want to change the views of the religion to fit their beliefs. Has he found a prosperity parish? Wonder what confession is like for him. Or if he even goes.

I'm guessing there aren't a lot of immigrants in his parish.

[GreyhoundFan]

3 minutes ago, JMarie said:

I'm guessing there aren't a lot of immigrants in his parish.

If he joined a parish in the DC area, yes, there are lots of immigrants. I can't think of a Catholic parish around here (I live in Virginia, just outside of DC) that doesn't have a large immigrant population. Most parishes have at least one Spanish language mass every weekend. Several have Vietnamese or Korean language masses as well. The parish closest to me has two Spanish language masses every weekend, one each on Saturday and Sunday.

Actually, thinking about it, St. Catherine of Siena, in Great Falls VA, doesn't have a Spanish mass. They are a bit "different". They have weekly mass in Latin and have a large Opus Dei group. If you are a history/politics person, that's the parish where Robert Hanssen worshiped.

[JMarie]

Bannon doesn't really strike me as the type who would seek out a Latin mass.  Rick Santorum, yes, but not Bannon.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Cardinal Dolan rips into Bannon for 'insulting' remarks about Catholic Church and immigrants"

Spoiler

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s assertion that Roman Catholic bishops “need illegal immigrants” is so “preposterous,” “insulting” and “ridiculous” that it doesn’t merit a response, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said Thursday.

In an excerpt of a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Thursday morning, Bannon told CBS’ Charlie Rose that the Catholic church and bishops “have been terrible about” undocumented immigrants. He suggested they were unable “to come to grips with the problems in the church” because they rely on undocumented immigrants to fill the churches and have an economic interest in “unlimited illegal immigration.”

Dolan told SiriusXM in a radio interview that he hadn’t heard Bannon’s comments but saw a transcript of his remarks.

“You might imagine I was rather befuddled to see it,” Dolan said. “I don’t really wanna care to go into what I think is a preposterous and rather insulting statement that the only reason we bishops care for immigrants is for the economic because we want to fill our churches and get more money. That’s insulting and that’s just so ridiculous that it doesn’t merit a comment.”

Bannon, an immigration hard-liner who returned to Breitbart News after being ousted from the White House last month, said he disagreed with the Trump administration’s rescission of former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides work permits for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. The administration began phasing out the program this week, but the rescission won’t take effect until March, giving Congress six months to find a legislative solution.

Dolan said earlier this week that Trump’s decision on DACA turned so-called Dreamers into “political hockey pucks” and “is certainly not Christian” nor American. Bannon said he respects Dolan and other bishops on doctrine. But “this is not about doctrine at all,” he said. “This is about the sovereignty of a nation. And in that regard, they’re just another guy with an opinion.”

Dolan, for his part, said Thursday he appreciated Bannon’s effort to clarify that DACA isn’t an issue of Catholic doctrine and that bishops were simply giving their opinions.

“This is not an issue of Catholic doctrine because it comes from the Bible itself, and we Catholics are people of the book,” Dolan said. “And the Bible is so clear — so clear — that to treat the immigrant with dignity and respect, to make sure that society is just in its treatment of the immigrant, is biblical mandate. It’s clear in the Old Testament — my Jewish neighbors remind of that all the time — and it’s clear from the lips of Jesus when he said: ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers you do to me. And when I was a stranger' — meaning an immigrant or a refugee — 'you welcomed me.’”

Of course, I don't think Bannon could give a flying fuck what anyone says or thinks about him, so it won't matter to him what Cardinal Dolan says.

[sawasdee]

I've also read that outreach to immigrants means that in many parishes Latinos are a net financial loss....

Pope Francis said it all last year - 'build bridges, not walls.'

If he can't agree with the hierarchy - and the Gospel - maybe he should find another place to worship? His racism and nativism are certainly not a fit for the church I was raised in.

[Howl]

On 9/7/2017 at 7:13 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

Actually, thinking about it, St. Catherine of Siena, in Great Falls VA, doesn't have a Spanish mass. They are a bit "different". They have weekly mass in Latin and have a large Opus Dei group. If you are a history/politics person, that's the parish where Robert Hanssen worshiped.

That man is one of the sleaziest human beings to ever walk the planet, in every way that a human can be sleazy.  I also hate him because I read a book about him (Spy: The Inside Story of How the FBI's Robert Hanssen Betrayed America)  that I forgot to turn in at the library and ended up with a hefty fine.  And Opus Dei? Scary, scary, scary!   

As I was googling for the title of the book I read, I saw a detail from another book (The Bureau and the Mole) that said that Hanssens's wife's brother, also an FBI agent, had notified the FBI that he thought his brother-in-law might be spying for the Russians 10 YEARS before he was caught. 

[GreyhoundFan]

@Howl -- I agree with you. Have you seen the movie, "Breach"? Excellent, though I know some of the components were fictionalized. Chris Cooper does a great job of playing Hanssen in full creepy mode.

[Cartmann99]

Was checking up on the nutters, and say this over at Right Wing Watch:

Spoiler

Right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulous said he was “lucky enough” to have spent time with “Uncle Steve” Bannon, former White House chief strategist and leader of Breitbart News, this week. If Bannon’s recent influence on Breitbart is any indication, he may be interested in re-weaponizing Yiannopoulous against forces he believes jeopardize his White House agenda.

While answering a question from a caller on “Breitbart News Radio” this morning, Yiannopoulous revealed that he had met with Bannon earlier this week. The revelation seemed to shock even the program’s host, Alex Marlow.

“So I spent some time with Steve. I was lucky enough to see him this week,” Yiannopoulous said. “And I think you’re absolutely right. It’s talking about the long game—“

“Did you just break news there?” Marlow interrupted. “Wow. Milo and Steve, meeting of the minds. Alright, interesting.”

Yiannopoulous did not reveal details about his conversation with Bannon, but declared the former White House adviser “understands the left the best” and showered Bannon with praise. Yiannopoulous formerly served as an editor at Breitbart until comments in which he appeared to condone pedophilia forced him to resign.

If Bannon’s recent influence at Breitbart serves as any sign, the Yiannopoulous meeting may indicate that he is still recruiting foot soldiers to help him clear the White House and GOP of people who jeopardize the agenda he created to put President Donald Trump into office.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/milo-yiannopoulos-says-he-met-with-steve-bannon-this-week/

I guess pedophilia's just not that big of a deal anymore. *shudders*

[GrumpyGran]

On 9/7/2017 at 8:13 PM, GreyhoundFan said:

If he joined a parish in the DC area, yes, there are lots of immigrants. I can't think of a Catholic parish around here (I live in Virginia, just outside of DC) that doesn't have a large immigrant population. Most parishes have at least one Spanish language mass every weekend. Several have Vietnamese or Korean language masses as well. The parish closest to me has two Spanish language masses every weekend, one each on Saturday and Sunday.

Actually, thinking about it, St. Catherine of Siena, in Great Falls VA, doesn't have a Spanish mass. They are a bit "different". They have weekly mass in Latin and have a large Opus Dei group. If you are a history/politics person, that's the parish where Robert Hanssen worshiped.

Well, maybe he does go to St. Catherine, sounds like he would fit in there. Do they have a mass in Russian?

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I told 326 lies yesterday. I didn't pay my child support. Again. I plotted to have six other people in my office fired. I tried to convince the leader of the free world to marginalize about 2 million people. I called Cardinal Dolan a shithead. I called the mother of my children a...well, it was a bad word. I parked illegally three times. I left a 5% tip at lunch. I threw cigarette butts out my car window. Let's see, think that's it."

"Say 4,690 Hail Marys and you're forgiven"

"Thanks, Father. See you tomorrow."

[GreyhoundFan]

"Bannon declares war with Republican leadership in Congress"

Spoiler

Stephen K. Bannon — President Trump’s former chief strategist who left the White House in August — declared war Sunday against the Republican congressional leadership, called on Gary Cohn, Trump’s top economic adviser, to resign, and outlined his views on issues ranging from immigration to trade.

Bannon, in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” accused Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) of “trying to nullify the 2016 election.” It was Bannon’s first television interview since leaving the White House and returning as executive chairman to Breitbart News, the conservative website he previously led.

He blamed them for failing to repeal and replace former president Barack Obama’s signature health-care law and made clear that he would use his Breitbart perch to hold Republicans accountable for not helping Trump push through his agenda.

“They’re not going to help you unless they’re put on notice,” he told CBS’s Charlie Rose. “They’re going to be held accountable if they do not support the president of the United States. Right now there’s no accountability.”

Stressing absolute loyalty to Trump, Bannon criticized members of the administration who, he said, had leaked to the news media their displeasure with the way Trump handled the white-supremacist-fueled violence in Charlottesville, which left one dead and more­ ­injured.

“You can tell him, ‘Hey, maybe you can do it a better way.’ But if you’re going to break, then resign. If you’re going to break with him, resign,” he said. “If you find it unacceptable, you should resign.”

He explicitly mentioned Cohn, Trump’s director of the National Economic Council who had criticized Trump’s response in an interview with the Financial Times, and said he “absolutely” thought Cohn should have resigned.

Bannon joined the Trump campaign in August 2016 and emerged as the president’s ideological id, channeling his populist and nationalist impulses. Though he made many enemies in the West Wing, including the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and clashed with John F. Kelly, Trump’s second chief of staff, Bannon remains close to Trump.

Recalling a particularly low moment in the campaign — the emergence of the “Access Hollywood” tape that captured Trump bragging about groping women — Bannon dismissed it as “just locker room talk,” but he said the moment served as an important “litmus test” for loyalty to Trump.

At the time, Reince Priebus, Trump’s first chief of staff, urged the then-candidate to either drop out of the race or face a historic loss. And, Bannon said, Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), who served as a campaign adviser overseeing Trump’s transition plan, lost a likely spot in the president’s Cabinet because of his response to the ­video.

“I told him: ‘The plane leaves at 11 o’clock in the morning. If you’re on the plane, you’re on the team,’ ” Bannon said, referring to Christie. “Didn’t make the plane.”

On China, Bannon reiterated his calls for the United States to take a tougher stance over trade and appropriating U.S. technology. “Donald Trump, for 30 years, has singled out China as the biggest single problem we have on the world stage,” he said. ‘The elites in this country have got us in a situation. We’re at not economic war with China; China is at economic war with us.”

And he also seemed to criticize the president’s recent decision to rescind protections for “dreamers” — those 690,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the country as young children — while giving Congress six months to devise a legislative solution. The move, he said, could cost Republicans the House in the 2018 election.

“If this goes all the way down to its logical conclusion, in February and March, it will be a civil war inside the Republican Party that will be every bit as vitriolic as 2013,” Bannon said. “And to me, doing that in the springboard of primary season for 2018 is extremely ­unwise.”

I couldn't bring myself to watch the interview, since I'd probably break my television in anger. I can't believe that anyone listens to this cretin.

[fraurosena]

What I don't get is why on earth any self-respecting and serious news outlet would give this horrible excuse for a human being a platform to voice is white-supremacist, racist, and misogyinistic views. 

Even though a lot of people will hate watch, and viewers = income, I still think it's abhorrent to seemingly legitimize his extemist views.
Bad form, CBS, very bad form.

[GreyhoundFan]

Bannon: Trump firing of Comey was the biggest mistake ‘maybe in modern political history’:

Spoiler

Former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon believes the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey by President Trump was the biggest mistake “maybe in modern political history.”

Bannon made the statement during an online segment of his interview with “60 Minutes” broadcast Sunday. The statement was extraordinary considering all the political mistakes made in “modern history,” including but not limited to the Watergate cover-up by President Richard M. Nixon and the related Saturday Night Massacre, the Iran-contra affair during the administration of President Ronald Reagan and President Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinsky, just for starters.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt that if James Comey had not been fired,” Bannon told interviewer Charlie Rose, “we would not have a special counsel.”

“We would not have the Mueller investigation in the breadth that clearly Mr. Mueller is going,” he added, referring to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s appointment to investigate any possible connection between Trump or his campaign with Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Mueller was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein on May 17 in the wake of Comey’s dismissal by Trump on May 9. People familiar with the probe have told The Washington Post that Mueller’s team is looking at the decision to fire Comey, which some have argued could be interpreted by prosecutors as part of an effort to obstruct justice.

Bannon’s comment supplemented an on air “60 Minutes” interview that also included some eye-opening claims, such as saying that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) were “trying to nullify the 2016 election.” It came as Rose pressed him on the Comey firing, telling the former Trump adviser that he had heard that Bannon had declared the firing the worst mistake in political history. Bannon described that as “too bombastic” an assertion, narrowing it to “modern political history.”

Washington, said Bannon, “is a city of institutions, not individuals. And I think you have to look at it as institutions. The FBI is the institution. The speaker of the house is an institution. The majority leader is an institution. Okay? The Justice Department is an institution. They have an institutional logic of how they proceed and what they’re going to do. And you can’t get caught up in individuals.”

While declining to answer Rose’s questions about his conversations within the White House on the matter, Bannon did say he had not heard any discussion of firing Mueller before being dismissed from his White House job on Aug. 18.

...

Actually, this is probably one of the few items which this cretin and I agree. It was a stupid decision and a major mistake. Now, the fact that it may bring down the orange menace and some of his sycophants is a good thing, but I think they are dumb enough that they would have made some other major mistake that would have necessitated a special counsel.

[GrumpyGran]

6 hours ago, fraurosena said:

What I don't get is why on earth any self-respecting and serious news outlet would give this horrible excuse for a human being a platform to voice is white-supremacist, racist, and misogyinistic views. 

Even though a lot of people will hate watch, and viewers = income, I still think it's abhorrent to seemingly legitimize his extemist views.
Bad form, CBS, very bad form.

I'm seeing shades of Cheney with Bannon. But there has to be an ultimate reward for him. We know what Cheney wanted, what does Bannon want?

As for CBS broadcasting this, for some reason Charlie Rose gets what Charlie Rose wants. I do watch the CBS morning show but I am disappointed at least once a week by how the major networks seem to shy away from digging below the surface where Trump is concerned. I get that they have to at least try not to be constantly negative with regards to the right. Even if it's truth, a substantial section of our society is now sensitive to media always saying negative things about one side. Best to know what Bannon's approach is since he still has Trump's ear.

[GreyhoundFan]

Someone else thinks as little of Bannon as we do: "George Clooney really hates ‘little wannabe writer’ Steve Bannon"

Spoiler

George Clooney has made no secret of his distaste of Stephen K. Bannon, and throughout the weekend he offered a few choice words for President Trump’s former chief strategist, so choice that many of them cannot be repeated in this family newspaper.

Clooney, an activist Democrat, let loose while speaking to journalists to promote his new film “Suburbicon” at the Toronto Film Festival, with a special focus on conservative outlet Breitbart News.

“I like picking fights. I like that Breitbart News wants to have my head,” Clooney said, Entertainment Weekly reported. “I’d be ashamed 10 years from now if those weaselly little putzes, whose voices are getting a lot higher every week as this presidency starts to look worse and worse weren’t still [after me.]”

“Steve Bannon is a failed … screenwriter, and if you’ve ever read [his] screenplay, it’s unbelievable,” Clooney said. “Now, if he’d somehow managed miraculously to get that thing produced, he’d still be in Hollywood, still making movies and licking my a– to get me to do one of his stupid-a– screenplays.”

Breitbart News covered the event, using the headline “Triggered: George Clooney has full blown meltdown over Steve Bannon.”

Clooney doubled-down on these comments in an profanity-laden interview with the Daily Beast on Saturday, again discussing Bannon’s screenwriting. He called Bannon an expletive also infamously used by Trump last year in a recorded conversation with Billy Bush.

“Steve Bannon is a little wannabe writer who would do anything in the world to have had a script made in Hollywood,” Clooney told the Daily Beast. “He wrote one of the worst scripts I’ve ever read — and I’ve read it. His fake Shakespeare-rap script about the L.A. riots. Oh, you’ve gotta read it!”

Clooney added it was “terrible.”

The screenplay he referred to was for “The Thing I Am,” a hip-hop musical loosely based on Shakespeare’s “Coriolanus” and set during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. According to Vanity Fair, the script is filled with the n-word.

Bannon did not directly respond to Clooney’s criticism, but he complained about wealthy, left-leaning individuals criticizing him on Sunday night during an appearance on “60 Minutes.”

“I don’t need to be lectured by a bunch of, by a bunch of limousine liberals, okay, from the Upper East Side of New York and from the Hamptons,” Bannon said.

Clooney also attacked Bannon earlier this year.

In February, Clooney told French news organization Canal Plus that Bannon was a “failed film writer and director.”

“He wrote a Shakespearean rap musical about the L.A. riots that he couldn’t get made,” Clooney told Canal Plus. “He made a lot of money off of ‘Seinfeld.’ He’s elitist Hollywood, I mean that’s the reality.”

Clooney has long been outspoken politically, and he railed against the Trump administration ever since the former reality television star entered politics.

“There’s not going to be a President Donald Trump,” Clooney said after Trump announced his candidacy. “That’s not going to happen. Fear is not going to be … what drives our country. We’re not going to be scared of Muslims or immigrants or women. We’re not actually afraid of anything. We’re not going to use fear. So that’s not going to be an issue.”

On Fox and Friends, Trump responded, “As far as George Clooney is concerned, let’s put it this way — he’s no Cary Grant.”

I didn't realize Bannon had written a screenplay. Sounds like something I'd have zero interest in reading or watching.

[GreyhoundFan]

[fraurosena]

Anyone surpised at this? Anyone? Nah, didn't think so.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting analysis: "Steve Bannon basically just admitted Trump is easily duped"

Spoiler

The information that President Trump sees has been a major subplot of the White House's internal drama. Aides often privately describe the president as highly susceptible to acting upon the last piece of information he's seen — no matter how dubious. And controlling that flow of information is a big part of new White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly's effort to right the ship and keep the Oval Office on-task.

But rarely do you see someone close to the president just come out and admit how unsophisticated he is as a consumer of information.

That's what Stephen K. Bannon did Monday night, though not quite in so many words. While chatting with Fox News's Sean Hannity, the former White House chief strategist suggested that Trump was essentially duped into supporting appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) in Tuesday's Alabama special-election runoff. And it wasn't really all that subtle.

Bannon, who along with Breitbart and some other Trump stalwarts, has endorsed former state Supreme Court justice Roy Moore against Strange, told Hannity that there needs to be a “real … review” of how Trump came to the decision to endorse Strange.

“They tried to destroy Donald Trump; the same gang that is going after Roy Moore is the same gang that went after Donald Trump,” Bannon said. “And I have to tell you, I think at some time later after [Tuesday], a real, you know, review has to be done of how President Trump got the wrong information and came down on the wrong side of the football here.”

Bannon's reasons for saying this are pretty apparent. Among them:

He is signaling to potential Moore supporters that Strange really isn't Trump's kind of candidate and that they should feel good about voting for Moore.

He is trying to give Trump an out after the special election — which Moore is favored to win — by suggesting that Moore was really the more Trumpian candidate all along.

He is perhaps settling old White House scores by arguing that those around Trump don't have his interests at heart. (Bannon was one of those sources of information Kelly has sought to clamp down on.)

But making that argument — that Trump was duped — also means arguing that he is capable of being duped, and apparently rather easily in this case. Inherent in Bannon's argument is the idea that Trump either isn't discerning enough to make that endorsement decision for himself, or at least that he doesn't do enough homework.

Bannon is basically confirming everything aides have said privately about how unsophisticated Trump is in consuming information. This is the president of the United States, and Bannon is talking about him as if he's still a total political novice — a weather vane, even.

That's a pretty stunning admission coming from one of the people who has worked closest with Trump.

I wonder if we'll see this on twitter, or is the TT afraid of Bannon?

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Interesting analysis: "Steve Bannon basically just admitted Trump is easily duped"

I'm shocked I tell you SHOCKED.

[GrumpyGran]

13 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Interesting analysis: "Steve Bannon basically just admitted Trump is easily duped"

  Hide contents

The information that President Trump sees has been a major subplot of the White House's internal drama. Aides often privately describe the president as highly susceptible to acting upon the last piece of information he's seen — no matter how dubious. And controlling that flow of information is a big part of new White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly's effort to right the ship and keep the Oval Office on-task.

But rarely do you see someone close to the president just come out and admit how unsophisticated he is as a consumer of information.

That's what Stephen K. Bannon did Monday night, though not quite in so many words. While chatting with Fox News's Sean Hannity, the former White House chief strategist suggested that Trump was essentially duped into supporting appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) in Tuesday's Alabama special-election runoff. And it wasn't really all that subtle.

Bannon, who along with Breitbart and some other Trump stalwarts, has endorsed former state Supreme Court justice Roy Moore against Strange, told Hannity that there needs to be a “real … review” of how Trump came to the decision to endorse Strange.

“They tried to destroy Donald Trump; the same gang that is going after Roy Moore is the same gang that went after Donald Trump,” Bannon said. “And I have to tell you, I think at some time later after [Tuesday], a real, you know, review has to be done of how President Trump got the wrong information and came down on the wrong side of the football here.”

Bannon's reasons for saying this are pretty apparent. Among them:

He is signaling to potential Moore supporters that Strange really isn't Trump's kind of candidate and that they should feel good about voting for Moore.

He is trying to give Trump an out after the special election — which Moore is favored to win — by suggesting that Moore was really the more Trumpian candidate all along.

He is perhaps settling old White House scores by arguing that those around Trump don't have his interests at heart. (Bannon was one of those sources of information Kelly has sought to clamp down on.)

But making that argument — that Trump was duped — also means arguing that he is capable of being duped, and apparently rather easily in this case. Inherent in Bannon's argument is the idea that Trump either isn't discerning enough to make that endorsement decision for himself, or at least that he doesn't do enough homework.

Bannon is basically confirming everything aides have said privately about how unsophisticated Trump is in consuming information. This is the president of the United States, and Bannon is talking about him as if he's still a total political novice — a weather vane, even.

That's a pretty stunning admission coming from one of the people who has worked closest with Trump.

I wonder if we'll see this on twitter, or is the TT afraid of Bannon?

He won't acknowledge this at all. He knows he needs Bannon on his side. Bannon has insulted him, opposed him and his choices and lamely blames 'other Republicans'. He's been less loyal to Trump than many of Trump's other cabal members who Trump publicly disparages. Maybe Bannon has something on him.

[Cartmann99]

I finally got around to reading that Buzzfeed article that everybody is talking about. I'm glad I read it, but Bannon, Milo, etc... are truly the scum of the earth.

In case anybody else hasn't read it yet, here you go:

 

Edited October 7, 2017 by Cartmann99

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an excellent op-ed from the NYT: "Yes, Steve Bannon Should Terrify You"

Spoiler

Remember all the talk, before Steve Bannon was expectorated from the Trump administration, that he’d be a worse menace on the outside than on the inside?

Turns out it was true.

He popped up last week in a picture as unsettling as any image from Puerto Rico, North Korea or Las Vegas. It showed the potbellied Pygmalion beside a new protégé, Michael Grimm, who is hoping to reclaim, from a fellow Republican, the congressional seat that he had to vacate a few years back when he was convicted of felony tax fraud and sent off to the clink. Bannon apparently wants to help.

Why? Excellent question. Grimm’s botched effort to enrich himself by hiding $1 million of his restaurant-business earnings doesn’t exactly scream populism. He has as much to do with draining the swamp as Cheetos do with nutrition.

But he’s loud, obnoxious and a thorn in the side of the Republican establishment, and those are the real criteria to be a minion in Bannon’s motley brigade. That picture of the two of them in Bannon’s Washington townhouse — the Breitbart Embassy, it’s called — was a declaration of Bannon’s real intent, which is to inflict as much pain and ugliness on the G.O.P. as he can. He’s not an ideologue. He’s an arsonist. And he doesn’t care who or what is reduced to ashes.

What made Bannon so damned angry? I’ve scoured the long profiles of him and devoured “Devil’s Bargain,” a biography of sorts by Joshua Green. I know about his father’s stock-market losses and his own estrangement from dewier and more smoothly conformist classmates at Harvard’s business school. Still I feel there’s something we’re missing, a sequence of belittlements beyond our view.

Or maybe not. Maybe this nihilism of his was just his surest ticket to prominence and relevance, which he so obviously craves. No sooner was he out of the White House than he was on “60 Minutes,” holding forth. He visibly swelled with self-satisfaction, as he did weeks later, down in Alabama, celebrating the insurgent Senate candidacy of Roy Moore.

Was Moore’s appeal to Bannon the fact that as recently as last December, he was still promoting the lie that Barack Obama was born abroad? Was it his freak-out over homosexuality, which he has likened to bestiality? Or was it the overarching reality that Moore, like Grimm, makes Republican congressional leaders’ skin crawl? For Bannon, Moore is an instrument of torture, and after he won the Republican primary less than two weeks ago, Bannon and his allies made clear that the scheming and dark fun had only just begun.

In Mississippi they’re trying to persuade Chris McDaniel to wage a Republican primary battle against Senator Roger Wicker, an incumbent up for re-election next year. I’m not entirely sure what Wicker’s crimes against populism are, but I can tell you a bit about McDaniel, who’s a real charmer. After the Women’s March in late January, he wrote a Facebook post that asked: “If they can afford all those piercings, tattoos, body paintings, signs and plane tickets, then why do they want us to pay for their birth control?” Their birth control? There’s some male involvement in unwanted pregnancies and some male investment in preventing them, especially if the male, like McDaniel, is assertively anti-abortion.

On a radio show that he once hosted, McDaniel mocked the idea of learning any Spanish by volunteering his own translations of “mamacita.” “I think it basically means, ‘Hey, hot mama,’ ” he said. “Or, you know, ‘You’re a fine-looking young thing.’ ” He’s a nasty-sounding old thing, which is another way of saying that he’s catnip to the likes of Bannon.

Other Republicans in the Senate who are up for re-election, on Bannon’s hit list and in serious danger of defeat in their primaries include Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona. Their colleague Bob Corker of Tennessee pre-empted that kind of ordeal by deciding to retire at the end of this term, and Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Haslam, resisted entreaties to enter the race and tussle with furious Bannonites.

And so the G.O.P., hardly a paragon of sanity over recent years, is looking loonier than ever. “The formula is to be more aggressive, more outrageous, don’t back down from crazy statements,” one longtime Republican strategist told me. He’s aghast at the fault lines that he sees opening, for instance between Republicans with an appropriate wariness toward Trump and those who demand unwavering fealty to him.

The latter camp includes Nick Ayers, who is Mike Pence’s chief of staff. According to an audiotape obtained by Politico, he recently urged major Republican donors to “purge” Trump-bucking lawmakers by denying them any money and instead funding Republican challengers.

For Democrats aiming to capture the Senate and House majorities, this is in one sense great news. Jennifer Duffy, who analyzes elections for The Cook Political Report, told me that “Republicans’ two toughest Senate races — Nevada and Arizona — are winnable with the incumbents but are going to be very, very rough if the Bannon-backed candidates are the nominees.”

In addition, Duffy said, “You look at Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi — nominating the wrong candidate could potentially put those races in play for Democrats.”

So is Bannon miscalculating horribly and simply out of his gourd? No. He’s not thinking in the conventional terms of Republicans versus Democrats; he’s thinking that “any disruption is a good thing, and that the best way to get what he wants — a white-centered, nationalist America — is to blow up the establishment,” the Republican strategist said. Other Republican operatives concurred.

If Bannon can bend the G.O.P. in its current form to that vision, great. If he can’t, then he might as well destroy it to make room for something else. If Democrats grab the reins of power in the meantime, so be it. He’ll sow and enjoy as much mayhem as he can along the way, and somehow deems that preferable to the status quo.

Moore, McDaniel and Grimm aren’t perfect ideological companions, but they’re chaos candidates, and if they manage to get to Congress and the G.O.P. maintains its majorities there, heaven help us all. Just think about what they’ll inject into the formal debate on Capitol Hill; just think about how much further they’ll warp it. It could make the Tea Party’s ascent in 2010 seem tame.

Think about this, too: Moore was twice removed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court for failing to abide by federal orders. When they came into conflict with his conscience, meaning his extremely conservative interpretation of Christianity, he prioritized the latter. You could call that a triumph of principle. You could also call it a collapse of civic responsibility and respect for the system.

No doubt Bannon loved it.

Once again, I can't believe this is where we are.

[GrumpyGran]

On 10/7/2017 at 1:46 PM, Cartmann99 said:

I finally got around to reading that Buzzfeed article that everybody is talking about. I'm glad I read it, but Bannon, Milo, etc... are truly the scum of the earth.

In case anybody else hasn't read it yet, here you go:

 

I don't understand this. Ok, I'm old but it seems to me that Bannon is walking a bunch of spoiled little brats who could never figure out a way to achieve real success so they are flame-throwers. Are they pandering to hateful, ignorant people who want some deniability? Racism, but we're not racist, white supremacy but we're not nazis. Look, we love this little gay Jewish boy with the black boyfriend. See, we're...something.

What I really see here is Bannon making sure that there is something to the right of the right. That will sure make the right look moderate  on election day.

[GrumpyGran]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

If Bannon can bend the G.O.P. in its current form to that vision, great. If he can’t, then he might as well destroy it to make room for something else. If Democrats grab the reins of power in the meantime, so be it. He’ll sow and enjoy as much mayhem as he can along the way, and somehow deems that preferable to the status quo.

This is it. He's the ultimate control freak. It's not enough to control his wife, his children, his employees or bosses, he wants to control the world. He and Pence are the Hitlers in this and I don't think they will ultimately work well together. There's Bannon's chaos party, Pence's fundie party and the old-school Republicans. This makes me hopeful for 2018, especially if they continue with their we-don't-give-a-fuck-about-most-of-you legislative agenda.

[JMarie]

And now he wants to control the Senate

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/08/politics/steve-bannon-senate-races/index.html

https://www.270towin.com/2018-senate-election/

Quote

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is expanding his efforts to unseat sitting Senate Republicans in primaries next year.

In the two weeks since Bannon-backed former judge Roy Moore defeated Sen. Luther Strange in Alabama's Republican primary, Bannon has expanded his map of targets in the 2018 midterms and ramped up his efforts to establish a donor network to fund his slate of insurgent candidates.

Bannon has added Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch to the ranks of incumbents he plans to take on.

And that's "just a partial list," a source familiar with Bannon's plans said.

"Nobody's safe," the source said.

There's nine Republican senators up for reelection next year.  Bannon actually likes Ted Cruz, Roy Moore will be taking over for Luther Strange, and Bob Corker is not seeking another term.  That's only six senators.