Wednesday 17 May 2017

Where's the Praetorian Guard ..?

The behaviour patterns of Donald Trump, even if nicely 'explained' by Scott Adams, are increasingly bonkers.  The matter of compromising intelligence sources, as seems to be the case, is an outright shocker.

If his attitude to power is that of one of the madder Roman emperors, then where's the Praetorian Guard ?!  They had a policy on dealing with such things.

If you piss off some of the organisations he's pissing off, well, we may soon find out.

ND

19 comments:

Scan said...

No Trump fan here - I wouldn't have voted for either of them - but this was total nonsense from the get-go (as seen by the BBC continually changing their headline throughout the day - from "...Sharing Secrets..." to "...Sharing Information..."). The only source any of our news outlets could come up with was the Washington Post, who are still absolutely rabid that Trump beat Clinton. There's still no evidence that the Russians were involved in any way during the election (otherwise the Democrats would have released it), and this new story about him asking Comey to drop an investigation, coming from Comey himself after he'd been unceremoniously booted out, just sounds like revenge.

As others have said before: there's enough that Trumps says and does you could strap him on the rack for; so go after him for that, not the stuff that his enemies wish he'd said and done. Otherwise it just looks like the socialists doing what socialists do i.e. throwing massive tantrums when things don't go their way - and in the end we get back to the moral of the boy who cried wolf.

Anonymous said...

ND: "The matter of compromising intelligence sources, as seems to be the case, is an outright shocker."

Only if you've swallowed whole the lie that Russia must be our enemy*. Since we are engaged in a fight for our very civilisation, they don't have to be in that category.

One can't help but be reminded of the fourth Crusade and the resulting sack of Constantinople, which laid the groundwork for the conversion of that city and its sphere of influence to fall to the death cult. And is now of course part of Turkey.


* Hysterically reinforced by the BBC every time a Russian warship steams up the English channel.

andrew said...


The Israelis told the US TLA something juicy and the TLA told Trump and Trump told Russia.

The trouble is that this was (obviously) high value information and..
- at best it looks like Trump just blabbed and got nothing in return
- at middle it looks like Trump just blabbed and got nothing in return and someone will die and the Israelis wont give the US any good stuff for 3.5 years or so.
- at worst it looks like Trump just blabbed and got nothing in return and someone will die and the Israelis wont give the US any good stuff for 3.5 years or so and the TLAs will not feel able to report to the president and they will go off and do their own things.

Bill Quango MP said...

Trump breaking the Clinton machine was hugely entertaining.

Trump making his speeches to steelworkers and in Pennsylvania or construction workers in Florida was very moving. He genuinely seemed to get it and genuinely wanted to change their lives.

But much like Corbyn, he just isn't up to the job. The required structures just aren't thee to have an effective government/opposition.

It will all end in tears.

Anonymous said...

Andrew: "- at middle it looks like Trump just blabbed and got nothing in return and someone will die and the Israelis wont give the US any good stuff for 3.5 years or so."

Good, so the US won't give Israel any funds for two or three years. Good luck to Israel asking its neighbours for help because there is a huge black hole in its economy where the US subsidies used to be.


Bill Quango: "The required structures just aren't thee to have an effective government/opposition."

Is that really a surprise after eight years of Democratic infiltration into the organs of the state?

Anonymous said...

It's high comedy.

Trump does something stupid.
The White House goes on manoeuvres to say that it didn't happen
Trump announces it did happen, and he's allowed to do it

It's almost a daily process where Trump takes a shit, his staff try to hide that fact, but are undermined when he flings said shit around like a toddler. No wonder Spicer has started to hide in bushes.

And now Comey is getting his revenge.

If Foot wrote the longest suicide note in history, Trump is engaging in the longest public suicide attempt in history.

John in Cheshire said...

I don't trust or believe James Comey. Having watched him giving evidence to the US senate, his behaviour, body language and responses lead me to see him as not one of the good guys.

E-K said...

It's what you get when Reagan-ism/Thatcher-ism is banned: Trump/Brexit.

Caused by overbearing Leftism and so a return to Leftism will be the "told you conservatism wouldn't work" moment - already here in the form of Theresa Heath.

Conservatism didn't work because we weren't allowed to have it!

CityUnslicker said...

Trump is madly entertaining. I mean I would not want him as Prime Minister for the USA this is just awesome fun.

Plus, his gut instincts are often right, just as his ill-thought our off the cuff tirades are not.

North Korea- China back into kicking them, calmed down lots

Assad - No more chemical strikes in Syria

US - Obamacare to get a good going over in due course, most other things left alone.


One interesting snippet I learned from a US elitist of late was that of 4500 govt appointees, Trump only has made 300 odd to date, after 5 months!

The whole government is paralysed as a combination of him wanting people loyal to him (hard to find!) and the administration (i.e. civil service) playing it rough and keeping Obama placemen, in place. Thus Trump looks like he cant get much done, which he cant. On balance, perhaps this is safer, but still it shows the US system of a politicised civil service really stinks when you had a real leftist like Obama take 8 years to embed the cultural Marxism into the system.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure the President, as head of the executive and Commander in Chief, can share what information he likes, with whom he likes, if he sees it as being in the national interest so to do.

Finding loyal people must be a YUGE problem for him, when people at or near the top of the executive arm are leaking (or lying - who can tell?) to the press 24/7.

Still, we can console ourselves every day with the thought that President Clinton would have been far, far worse, and that NYT/WaPo would have covered her back every time. Obama killed US citizens by executive fiat, without due process, and there wasn't a peep.

hovis said...

Indeed 11.46 anon the funny thin is the sharing of info looks well within his power to declassify so this looks like standard eveel Russians meme - where are 'The Dead Kennedys' when you need a theme tune?

They may get Trump as the whole deep state is after him and he doesnthave the support netwirk, but if they stick to the law as is writtem, not on this.

Anonymous said...

The people who are after him now are the same people who were after him before - the "invite the world" crowd, Dem-supporting lawyers, journalists, media people and academics (i.e. 90% of them), and the "invade the world" crowd, bipartisan neocon/Deep State types who include a fair chunk of the Republican Party.

Remember that Trump didn't just p*** over Dowager Empress Hillary's coronation, he'd earlier p*****d over Crown Prince Jeb's smooth ascent to the dynastic nomination. Hillary had the Dem machine working on her side and beat Bernie, the Corbyn candidate. Trump had the Republican machine against him and absolutely crushed Bush - but the machine Republicans haven't forgiven or forgotten. Paul Ryan still wields power.

It's funny, but Trump and Corbyn find themselves having, objectively, pretty much the same enemies (Corby also doesn't want to "invade the world"). Corbyn because he (for the first time since maybe the 1970s) threatens the wealthy with, if not being less wealthy, at least having their wealth increase at a lower rate than they have grown comfortable with, and Trump threatening the wealthy (at least while campaigning) with cutting off the flow of cheap labour which meant the real US male median wage actually declined in the 41 years between 1973 and 2014. Corbyn's weapon is taxation, Trump's is (or was) labour supply.



K said...

If this information is so secret then why has the media been sharing the gist of it? The source probably wasn't at risk from the Russians but now ISIS might be able to guess who it is.

Either it's all made up or both the media and Trump are as dumb as each other.

Anonymous said...

Can someone explain the Deep State?

Is there an evil, all powerful, cabal out there that's hell bent on global control and domination or is it a term strictly meant for the conspiracy theorists?

Anonymous said...

The really shocking thing is, the Democratic party are prepared to conduct domestic politics on the international plane.

Now if you ask me, that should disqualify them from influence, power or authority of any sort.

They are now the party that is prepared to deliberately cause an international crisis because of some domestic issue.

But they did it with Benghazi when Rice went around lying through her teeth about the internet video that apparently everyone in Libya ( that had just been bombed back to the stone age by her boss, Hilary Clinton ) were watching via Utube on their laptops among the smoking ruins, when most sensible people would have been out scratching around for food.

Anonymous said...

"Can someone explain the Deep State? "

It's much the same as the Old Boys' Network. A mass of people in the administration who share a similar outlook on life. The outlook is a deep-rooted consequence of their upbringing and education.

Not an organised conspiracy, I think.

Don Cox

Anonymous said...

"Can someone explain the Deep State?"

2003 - the US and its allies/lapdogs/hangers-on (according to taste) invade and occupy Iraq on a false prospectus of WMDs. They are never found, the country falls into chaos, far more Iraqi people are killed in sectarian strife than Saddam ever managed. 14 years on it's still an utter mess. The military action was a total failure, unless creating a basket-case was the core idea.

2011 - armed protests (what we called terrorism when the IRA did it) break out in Eastern Libya against the Gaddafi regime. Just a month later, Quatar send troops to support the 'rebels', France and the UAE send the rebels weapons and trainers, while NATO air forces not only stop the government air force flying, but attack government ground forces (and kill some of Gaddafi's grandchildren). The rebels win and immediately split into warring factions, the country falls into chaos, six years on it's still an utter mess. Gaddafi's was one of the more competent despotisms, with good medical care and welfare systems for an African state, not to mention the Great Man-Made River, the world's largest irrigation system. The military action was a total failure, unless creating a basket-case was the core idea.

Now you would think that after these two disasters the United States would sheer away from any more regime change efforts in the Muslim world like an alcoholic sighting a pink elephant.

Syria. When you consider that the US and her allies are supporting armed groups who are effectively Al Quaeda (on whose account we invaded Afghanistan 16 years ago, still there, basket case then, basket case now, are we seeing a pattern here?) in an effort to overthrow another fairly competent and secular despotism, and that only Ed Miliband's Labour party and a few brave Tories stopped UK and US forces joining the rebel side a la Libya - when you consider these facts, and the fact that the US State Department even now would very much like to attack and overthrow the Syrian government - then you have to assume that whatever agenda is in play, the welfare of the Iraqi/Libyan/Syrian people has nothing to do with it.

"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action"

Thud said...

Trump is in the fight of his life against a system dedicated to cultural suicide that knows no bounds of decency.The very intensity of the struggle shows how they fear him, for all his faults he is fighting the good fight.

Anonymous said...

So what's the motivation? What's the end goal of the Deep State?

What's the point in overthrowing bad dictators, that kind of keep a lid on things, to only then have pure chaos and civil wars?

Or to put it another way, why throw a grenade into a pig pen knowing it's going to blow the walls down, let the pigs that survive escape and then leave a mess that needs to be cleared up?