There are plenty of Republicans furious that the National Defense Authorization Act has made it through Congress and sent to the WH for President Biden’s signature. Last I checked it wasn’t just the Free-Dumb caucus that was furious at Speaker Johnson but a bunch more Republicans. There’s already talk of kicking HIM out as Speaker because they didn’t get stuff they wanted. There are some Senators upset too, but it’s a lower percentage in the upper chamber than in the House. I won’t dig into all the various things GOPers object to.
What I do however want to talk about is a non-elected but still powerful (because Trump still listens to him at times) Republican who is REALLY furious. Steve “Two Shirts” Bannon. Newsweek reports Bannon is simply beside himself over a provision that WAS added into the NDAA. What might that be? Simple:
Included in the NDAA is a provision that bars the U.S. president from withdrawing the country from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) without approval from the Senate or an act of Congress.
Should he sleaze and slime his way back into the WH a “Trump 47” couldn’t simply issue the order on his own and get the ball rolling. And boy does that chap Bannon’s ass.
Let me remind you of Trump’s first crack at tending to this items on Putin’s list of chores. Think back on all those times he was “45” Trump regularly threatened to yank us out of NATO. Fortunately for most Americans as well as the free world it wasn’t quite as simple as Trump thought it would be. Not to mention Putin knew Trump wasn’t smart, and considered him just a useful idiot. No, Putin didn’t realize just how incompetent Trump was! That he knew virtually nothing about the workings of DC and was too stupid and lazy as well as too petulant to learn. For example Trump thought countries paid “Dues” to NATO to fund everything like members of his golf clubs paid dues! It’s rather more complicated than that.
Let’s just say the normally shameless Trump was likely embarrassed to learn it doesn’t work that way. Or how much it would cost to redeploy all of our forces and equipment, not to mention the bases that once we abandoned them would get handed over to the countries they were in. But the awful fact is he COULD have unilaterally decided to yank us out of the most largest and successful military and diplomatic alliance of the last seventy years. Maybe. Given the complexities and the money I mentioned that it would cost to pull OUT of NATO Congress could have slowed it down. It would however have fractured the whole thing beyond repair.
The threats alone did incalculable damage. Damage I might add that even with President Biden’s gifted leadership hasn’t been fully repaired and even then the scars will be large and ugly. It wasn’t all Putin wanted. Not by a long shot but it was worth a lot to him and he at least felt his investment in helping to make Trump President had provided him tangible results. Now? If Trump had gotten a second chance before ever taking office he’d have the right people in place to start doing devastating things right away and that would mean the end of NATO like Putin has dreamed of for decades.
I can all too easily imagine Trump creating a whole string of bases along the U.S. Mexico border and redeploying damned near everyone in Europe to them. I’ll bet Bannon has worked on just such a plan in fact. Now all that ain’t happening. Maybe Bannon isn’t just mad at getting stymied, he might be afraid. Who the hell knows what HE promised Putin? And Vlad? Knowing that it’s now damned near impossible to break up NATO (at least in whatever years he might have left which aren’t many) how much effort is he willing to put into getting Trump back in the WH? Oh, he’ll help some but he’s got plenty of problems of his own at home!
Maybe that’s part of what’s got Bannon so furious. He’s smarter than Trump and will have known right away what I just said. I’ll bet he’s trying to figure out how to tell Trump Vlad won’t be helping nearly as much as they were counting on. So, Bannon is telling journalists Congress can”t get away with doing what they did. That it’s “totally unconstitutional:
“The Constitution has very strict provisions for what has to happen to have a treaty approved. Right. It doesn’t say anything about how a treaty is not approved and leaves it to the commander in chief,” Bannon argued.
It’s true the Constitution provides that the President can enter into treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate. History also provides precedent of the Senate getting “clarifications” or even changes before providing said consent. And also approving modifications to treaties. In fact, from the very beginning everyone assumed that Congress would play a role in withdrawing from or significantly altering treaty committments:
In Thomas Jefferson’s A Manual of Parliamentary Practice for the Use of the Senate of the United States, printed in 1801, the Founding Father and America’s third president wrote: “Treaties being declared, equally with the laws of the United States, to be the supreme law of the land, it is understood that an act of the legislature alone can declare them infringed and rescinded.”
Let’s just say that even with a GOP Congress too terrified of Trump to defy him there would still be lawsuits. And for a change TRUMP would be on the receiving end of being frustrated at how long something can drag out in the courts.
The more I’ve thought about this as the evening has gone on the more I think what I said earlier about it affecting how much Putin will do to screw with next year’s election will be the biggest thing. Yes, IF he can hold out and keep Ukraine at bay until Trump returned to office Trump could help him pull his nuts out of the vise. If. So he’ll help Trump out at least some. A full-court press like back in 2016? I don’t think so. Even with Zuck and Elon using their respective platforms to f**k over President Biden Putin’s cyber war won’t be as effective. Not with people now in place with the talent and resources to fight back. Also, as I said he’s expending a LOT of what mental and physical energy he’s got left to simply stay alive (including by avoiding assassination) and trying to drum up the capability to hold out in Ukraine through next November.
As for right now. I just wish they could get Bannon in jail if only for a month or two. If it’s a short stint he won’t go to a clean, uncrowded federal prison. Nope. He’d be looking at the special wing of the Alexandria (VA) jail. Not a pleasant experience as Paul Manafort learned the hard way. I’ll take what I can get on that one.
Go take a shower pigboy before some ‘vermin’ decides the world doesn’t need your sorry unkempt ass above ground. Souuueeee! Here pig! here pig! here pig!
Bannon might want to reread some history about the League of Nations. President Woodrow Wilson CREATED the entire idea as part of his post-war plans following “the Great War.” But his Republican Senate (with some cooperating Democrats) refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, largely due to Article X of the Covenant of the League of Nations (which is similar in nature to NATO’s Article V regarding an attack on one member being an attack on all).
If Bannon REALLY believed the crap he’s spewing about “leaving” unapproved treaties to the “Commander-in-Chief” (which is actually NOT correct even in this regard–the Commander-in-Chief applies ONLY to the President’s power over the military, not his relationship to the Congress), then Wilson should’ve simply been able to override the Senate and signed (or, more accurately, authorized the signing) the Treaty of Versailles and had the US as a founding member of the League of Nations. For some odd reason, though, Wilson didn’t do that. Could it be that Wilson understood the limitations on the President’s power better than some asshole who’s never actually held a political office in his miserable life? I’m not even sure how Steve Bannon made it to the level of “political pundit” when he doesn’t seem to understand the first thing about politics. It’s easy as crap to run for office (provided you have the money to file the initial paperwork) without having any prior political experience but anyone who considers themselves a “political pundit” should have some basic knowledge of how politics operates. A political science degree isn’t necessary–even amateurs can play around with political punditry–but you DO need to understand the basics if you’re going around offering your “expertise” on the matter. And Bannon simply does NOT know what he’s talking about. (Then again, his audience knows even less on the subject than he does and “in the land of the blind” and all that.)
trying to get the whole trump thing down can be daunting but fear not.
just forget about it and think of the next great thing a bi-partisan congress can
achieve to block future would be kings/dictators.
Go back into your bottle bannon.
Imagining Bannon in harem pants and a vest like can evil djinni. Now I need brain bleach, because it is truly gross.
Isn’t Sloppy Steve facing renewed investigations into his border-wall scam, wherein he bilked Trump’s MAGAt faithful out of $millions but was pardoned by Trump on his final day in office, even before Bannon had been brought to trial … can we expedite this, please, and yes indeed, get Steve into a jail with some seriously nasty folks.
who’s on trump’s dirty dozen list?
Bannon
Stone
Gools
Flynn
Jarvanka
Jr.
Gorka
Meadows
jymbo
MGT
Steven Miller
Johnson??