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President Trump: Part II

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Bannon is cutting anyone with actual expertise out of the policy-making process on national security.

Under previous administrations, if someone thought another person or directorate had a stake in the issue at hand or expertise in a subject area, he or she was free to share the papers as long as the recipient had proper clearance.

With that standard in mind, when some officials saw Trump’s draft executive orders, they felt they had broad impact and shared them more widely for staffing and comments.

That did not sit well with Bannon or his staff, according to the official. More stringent guidelines for handling and routing were then instituted, and the National Security Council staff was largely cut out of the process.

By the end of the week, they weren’t the only ones left in the dark. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, was being briefed on the executive order, which called for immediately shutting the borders to nationals from seven largely Muslim countries and all refugees, while Trump was in the midst of signing the measure, the New York Times reported.

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The lack of a paper trail documenting the decision-making process is also troubling, the intelligence official said. For example, under previous administrations, after a principals or deputies meeting of the National Security Council, the discussion, the final agreement, and the recommendations would be written up in what’s called a “summary of conclusions” — or SOC in government-speak.

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During the first week of the Trump administration, there were no SOCs, the intelligence official said. In fact, according to him, there is surprisingly very little paper being generated, and whatever paper there is, the NSC staff is not privy to it. He sees this as a deterioration of transparency and accountability.

“It would worry me if written records of these meeting were eliminated, because they contribute to good governance,” Waxman said.
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If people keep implying that Bannon is the real brains running the show and Trump is just the clown puppet I wonder if it would drive a rift between them.
 
dudalb said:
This is going to end well.......
Bannon is making a lot of enemies...many of them Republicans.
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Even those he's bringing in will bolt if this freezing out continues.

Tillerson has told the president's political advisers that he was baffled over not being consulted on the substance of the order.
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This is not what his cabinet members signed up for except for Carson, Devos and Perry. They'll need to change their decision making process or Cabinet members will quit and leak like crazy.
 
It's not a whole lot different from the bluff being called on 'repeal and replace the ACA', Trump's incompetence bluff has been called.
 
dudalb said:
This is going to end well.......
Bannon is making a lot of enemies...many of them Republicans.
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They are still too chicken to do anything about it. For all their whining during the primaries, they almost all meekly fell into line come the election and have supported him staunchly ever since.
 
We're also starting to see some rumblings from the stock markets. Despite the initial bump following the election, the chaos and incompetence that have been displayed lately do not bode well for the future. Some economists predicted the uncertainty about what Trump may do, his lack of a track record in governance, might be unsettling to world markets and they're not backtracking from that.

According to PBS News last night, yesterday Trump signed a government regulations EO. It called for, among other things, every new regulation passed being accompanied by two existing ones being removed. Also, new regulations must have zero cost for the businesses being regulated. Sounds amateurish.
 
Uncertainty and the resulting volatility is how a lot of money is made on Wall Street these days - but it is detrimental to the economy as a whole.
 
newyorkguy said:
According to PBS News last night, yesterday Trump signed a government regulations EO. It called for, among other things, every new regulation passed being accompanied by two existing ones being removed. Also, new regulations must have zero cost for the businesses being regulated. Sounds amateurish.
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That should work. As long as the rule applies to Executive Orders too.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Uncertainty and the resulting volatility is how a lot of money is made on Wall Street these days - but it is detrimental to the economy as a whole.
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Well, yes and no. If you helped arrange the dominoes and can thus predict how they'll fall, it's a nice effort/reward ratio. But then if your overgrown man-baby comes unpredictably crashing through the room, it might upset your plans. You're certainly going to have more trouble making those nice, surgical (insider tip-assisted) moves under those conditions. Plus it means a lot more time spent setting up dominoes only to have them wrecked again when you're not even halfway through the set-up, and for far less return.

Imagine the blood pressure readings of some car company executives last week when he tossed out the 20% tariff idea. I can just imagine one of them scrolling their news feed over morning coffee and suddenly their spouse hears a weak cry, "honey?...Asparin...please hurry..."
 
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I feel bad for the event-based trading algorithms that have to read Trump's twitter posts and make buying/selling decisions based on them.
It's just cruel....
 
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