Author Archives: Brian O'Neill

02.07.17
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The Goofiest or the Most Frightening Thing You’ll Read In The Next Few Minutes

170206-melissa-mccarthy-spicer-screengrab-1160.jpg

(Original title was going to be “…read all day”, but events have a way of rapidly making such pronunciations seem ill-sighted.)

So, it appears that Trump was very, very unhappy with how Melissa McCarthy made Sean Spicer look on Saturday Night Live, mostly because it was accurate, one assumes. For a figure of such easy and consistent ridicule, Trump has the idea that image is everything. So people in the White House are nervous for Spicer’s future, as well they should be, since it is true that very few will be able to see Spicer without thinking of McCarthy’s evisceration.

But how did the White House staff really know how Trump felt? Well, they read the tea leaves like old Kremlinologists.

Trump’s uncharacteristic Twitter silence over the weekend about the “Saturday Night Live” sketch was seen internally as a sign of how uncomfortable it made the White House feel.

That’s right: they knew something was wrong because the President of the United States didn’t tweet his displeasure with a comedy show. That’s how they knew he was really rattled. That was a sign something was up.

That’s our President.

01.31.17
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Lest you think I’m exaggerating on Bannon

JustSecurity:

Even before he was given a formal seat on the National Security Council’s “principals committee” this weekend by President Donald Trump, Bannon was calling the shots and doing so with little to no input from the National Security Council staff, according to an intelligence official who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution.

“He is running a cabal, almost like a shadow NSC,” the official said. He described a work environment where there is little appetite for dissenting opinions, shockingly no paper trail of what’s being discussed and agreed upon at meetings, and no guidance or encouragement so far from above about how the National Security Council staff should be organized.

I’m usually not a huge fan of the “unnamed source”, but do trust JustSecurity, and anyway, this lines up with everything we know. A man whose major qualifications are running a site for semi-literate hate jockeys who failed their AM radio tryouts is making the nation’s biggest decisions.