The weird thing about Kushner, is that he’s actually a straight up democrat. Recall, he couldn’t vote for Trump in the primary, because he was actually a registered Democrat at the time.
So… who the hell knows what he’ll actually do.
Of course, the other part of this is that he’s not really QUALIFIED to be making any of these decisions.
But given the choice between Kushner making decisions without being qualified, or Bannon making decisions without being qualified, I’d take Kushner. I’d probably take him over most of the folks in that whitehouse.
And that’s apparently the argument by Bannon/Priebus against Kusner and his followers in the White House, as discussed this morning by a few with inside knowledge. Bannon/Priebus want to keep steering Trump down the path of hard right, while Kushner does not. And the argument has now gone public.
Listening to it this morning gave me pause because if Bannon/Priebus were gone, and things actually did start to steer more moderate in the Trump administration, would I be able to give him a more favorable view?
That’s kind of how I feel about Ivanka being involved in White House business as well. It’s not ideal, but the more intelligent/moderate/rational people that Trump can lean on for support, the more hopeful I am that that we can get through this shitshow. The outcry there has been about nepotism is entirely warranted, but in our current situation I think it could be a net positive. When you have someone like Trump as the president, being an expert at handling his moods and having an established trust may be almost as valuable for an adviser as being an expert in policy/government maters.
It’s weird because the Trump section of the GOP aren’t ultra conservative. They’re just ultra-idiotic. Not Kushner, as I suspect he’s pretty sharp, but I mean the overall set of Trump supporters who voted him into power.
They basically just support whatever Trump says… without and real thought or consideration about anything else. I suspect that he can (and has) advocated things which are totally at odds with actual conservatism. And they totally support it, because they love Trump… And he’s said stuff which was crazy hard line reactionary conservatism, and they support that too… because they love Trump.
On some very real level, Trump himself doesn’t give a shit about anything, besides looking good and having folks love him. He’s definitely not a conservative. He’s just an imbecile. If someone gives him non-crazy advice, and he does it, and folks love him for it… ok. It’s still frightening to have such a guy in control of the most powerful nation on earth, but it’s better than him getting controlled by fucking madmen like Bannon.
Well, people were saying this for ages. Trump wasn’t running on a standard Republican line at all. His line on healthcare was to do Obama-care better, not just get rid of it. He had anti-big business, protectionist trade policies (as much as they were). He wanted big infrastructure spending.
Of course he picked up some of the Republican policies to get the easy votes - the abortion stuff is the main one. But we all said to each other when he was elected 'so how is he going to work with the Republicans on things like healthcare, given his platform was decidedly anti-Republican?".
I’m sure it’s a pipe dream anyway. And I agree, we could toss in all his anit-EPA, anti-national-park-service, anti-climate-change bullshit as proof he’s a loon, and a destructive one.
The official said a drone operated by Russians was flying over a
hospital as victims of the attack were rushing to get treatment. Hours
after the drone left, a Russian-made fighter jet bombed the hospital in
what American officials believe was an attempt to cover up the usage of
chemical weapons.
Also, trusting a non-vetted piece of info by an anonymous “senior US official” is complicated. There are certainly all kinds of forces pushing into conflict with Russia and whatnot for a lot of reasons. This could easily be fabricated (knowing exactly what the drone was “observing” seems a bit far-fetched from available technology/info, for instance).
You know the saying - in war, truth is the first casualty. There are a lot of forces, political and otherwise, waging war against others, and the actual truth of what happened will most certainly be difficult to assert.
Unfortunately, bombing hospitals is nothing new in Syria. It could actually be coincidence. Or it could be cover up. Or a little of both. That’s the tragic state of affairs there.
I saw a story where the White House was saying it would respond anytime barrel bombs or nerve gas was used on babies, or something to that effect. Which is, dare I say, ironic, given the verified and documented cases of US drone strikes and missile attacks killing, um, babies and other non-combatants.
Certainly, intent matters, but only the Americans seem capable of maintaining the cognitive dissonance necessary for believing that somehow our killing of civilians is categorically ok, while anyone else’s is categorically wrong. Of course, non-combatants are killed in droves around the world in other countries on a regular basis, while Americans rarely suffer that sort of thing.
