Two Names To Remember

Jeff Sessions. Bluto Barr.

People cautioning against alarm over Trump’s betrayal of America on the international stage need to understand that none of Trump’s terrible appointments—once confirmed—will owe Trump anything. Trump will be gone, in no more than four years. These people need to look to their future, and they will all suppose that their future financial security will be assured by The Israel Lobby—not by Trump. This is perhaps the most warlike cabinet ever assembled. And if Trump tries to replace any of the morons he will get confirmed—yes, virtually all will be confirmed, because they were pre-approved by The Israel Lobby—his next choices will need to be pre-approved before they get confirmed, too. Don’t take my word for it—I just heard Doug Macgregor say:

all of these people are Israeli approved

This is why I bring up these names from the past. Jeff Sessions went way out on a political limb to support Trump on Trump’s keynote issue: the border. I supported Sessions for AG—for reasons that seemed to make sense at the time. Once confirmed, we learned that Sessions thought he had taken that political risk to secure a comfortable and prestigious retirement gig. He did nothing to support Trump against the Deep State onslaught, accepted an anti-Trump mole to watch over him (Ron Rosenstein), recusing himself needlessly and thus signing off on the Mueller Witchhunt. The rest is history, right?

Except that when Trump was finally allowed to replace Sessions he ended up with the eminently well qualified Bluto Barr. It sure looked good to me back then. But we now know that the former CIA lawyer was still working for the Deep State. The point is that Trump is different from other presidents. He’ll only really get one chance to make the right appointments, and he’s screwing that up already. We saw what happened during Trump 1.0 with multiple replacements—especially at the Chief of Staff level. Trump 2.0 looks to be cruising toward a similar fate before it even really gets underway. And Trump can’t expect any help from the new Senate leader, John Thune.

Trump has dodged several bullets in his political career—literally and figuratively—but why tempt fate in this way?

Now, some would say that, by appointing all these war mongering idiots to NS posts, Trump is playing a clever game of good cop bad cop in the Middle East. His idiots will be the bad cops, and then the good cop Trump will swoop in and make a deal and be a hero for peace.

Don’t count on that. First of all, there is a non-zero chance that Zhou and his keepers will escalate our wars during the transition. But second, major geopolitical players, including in the Middle East, are taking stock of Trump 2.0 and are jumping to their own conclusions—events will not wait for Trump’s inauguration. For example, today

Turkey severs all relations with Israel, says Erdogan

Turkish president says he will not 'continue or develop relations' with Israel in future

Turkey has the second largest military in NATO (behind the US) and, unlike other NATO countries, the Turkish military is a real military that could wage a real war, rather than the usual police actions. Turkey breaking free from NATO in this way is a big deal, and especially because Turkey controls access to the Black Sea and borders both Russia (for practical purposes), Iran, Iraq, and Syria. There is hardly any nation in the world more strategically located. As Doug Macgregor said this morning, Turkey has obviously decided that its future is with BRICS (they have applied for membership) and, strategically, with Russia and Iran. Are Waltz and Rubio and Hegseth going to suggest attacking Turkey, too? Will Trump dispatch his Jewish real estate tycoon golfing buddy to Ankara to try to strong arm Erdogan back into line?

By the way, all you Hegseth apologists really need to listen to Danny Davis and Doug Macgregor discussing the appointments so far: Col. Douglas Macgregor: Trump's Cabinet Picks, What Can We Tell So Far? In a sane country Mac would have been a top choice for SecDef, instead we get a lightweight like Hegseth. Davis plays a clip of Hegseth speaking and its shallowness is just appalling. Davis and Mac are somewhat charitable—if laughing out loud can be considered charitable in the circs—but they are also appalled. But they know—once confirmed, Trump is pretty much stuck with his pick. Don’t expect John Thune, the new GOP leader of the Senate—no, they didn’t delay the vote just because Trump was in town—to help bail Trump out of personnel mistakes. Unless he has friend to put forward.

Again, for a splash of cold reality in the face, do listen to Davis and Macgregor.