Trump Chart

I have made a hard-drawn chart to map out Trump's first few appointments. I keep working on it like a protective talisman traced in felt tip. Here are some results:

No one wanted Trump - almost every appointment or major funder backed another Republican candidate at some point.

His major funders were the speculative finance jackals Mercer (Israel-Brietbart) and Mnuchin (Isreal-Goldman Sachs), casino mogul Sheldon Adleson (Israel-Casinos), the Koch Bros (Libertarian-Tea-party) and Lew Eisenberg (Isreal-Republicans) the head of Republican financing.  

Adleson got his creature appointed as UN Ambassador, the Koch Bros' got CIA - both appointments are hopelesslyunprepared for these roles and so are empty vessels to be used as needed. Mercer got Bannon as 'White House chief strategist', while Mnuchin gets to directly take the Treasury role.

There is a strong right-wing Israeli element amongst 4 of 5 funders. This trend is amplified by two key member of Trump's staff: Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner - the son of a jailed stock speculator, liaison to Adleson's casino cash, practicing Orthodox Jew and key Trump adviser - and Trump's 'Political Director', Mike Glasser, an associate of Lew Eisenberg and head of an APIAC chapter.

There is also a strong right-wing Christian element. The Koch's Pompeo (CIA director) joins Trump's Attorney General and vice-president in being a member of a strange Capitol Hill bible-study group that teaches Muslims are forbidden from enriching uranium by God. You can never overestimate the sheer weirdness of Republican bible-thumpers.

The VP, Mike Pence, says he views Dick Cheney as a role-model. He has taken some Koch and Adelson cash (even joining Adelson's anti-'online gambling' bill) but it is his Roman Catholic turned Born Again evangelism that seems to define him.

The Attorney General is Cpt. Sessions and he is one of the few Trump loyalists. The other major loyalist is Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn who got the job at the NSA. Flynn is consider a neo-con after co-authoring an anti-Islam book with old school neo-con Mike Ledeen. Flynn is close to Trump and he ran an intelligence consulting firm where Trump's 'senior national security adviser', Jim Woolsey, was on the board. Woolsey and Flynn appear at the same rallies and Woolsey endorsed Trump's choice on Flynn for the NSA.  Woolsey is also tied into the casino cash by his and Adeleson's mutual friend of Newt Gingrich. [Woolsey is also tied into a strange Chinese-supported casino in Saipan run by Trump's protege Mark Brown... but that is another story].

Everyone mentioned - funders, loyalists, neo-cons - all agree that Isreal is the main ally and Iran the main enemy. The Iranian nuclear treaty is a primary target. If they start demanding 'WMD inspections' from Iran, be nervous.

Some of Trump's outsider status was true and this made him a ripe host for a few lucky elements to ride into the White House. Still it seems like the usual suspects. Eisenberg, Adleson and Koch have been the core Republican funders since 2008. The neo-cons, tea party and Christan right have been the pools the Republicans general draw from and these pools are so shallow that any victorious Republican administration would look somewhat similar. Giving the Treasury to Mnuchin continues a tradition of appointing Goldman Sachs alumni started by Bush Jr.

While some major neo-conservaties were made unpalatable by the failure in Iraq, and Trump could play to the crowd by talking about being 'lied into invading Iraq, the basic neo-cons beleifs have become accepted wisdom among most Republicans. The presence of a  neo-con godfather in Woolsey and a neo-con warrior in Flynn are only the most blatant manifestations of it. The neo-con coalition of military-industrial lobbists, Israel-firsters and US fascists (seeking revenge for military losses in Iraq ....and Afghanistan... and Syria... and Vietnam... and Korea...) defines this administration. Only the Koch Bros's slippery libertarianism and Trump's own chaotic views stand in faint counter-balance.

The role of extraordinary wealth is notable, in the last decade, the fortunes of Koch Bros, Adleson, Mercer and Mnuchin have multiplied   a dozen times. This might be why the many Wall Street backers of Clinton could be defeated by so few. It is also a fairly Democratic team, the two key neo-cons, Mike Flynn and Woolsey, identify as Democrats and served in Obama and Clinton administrations, Mnuchin was a Democratic donor and has partnered with George Soros for funds, the son-in-law is a Democrat. There is also a strain of anti-Islam conspiracy theorizing amongst many appointees that blends well with their right-wing Christian, pro-Israel worldview, these conspiracy theories will now become American policy.

Over all it looks like a very blunt gangster raid on the public treasury through the usual method (military spending, deregulation, privatization, bail-outs and tax cuts) combined with a foreign policy guided by a desire to be feared again. Austerity, militarism and financial fakery will predominate. A bag full of demons will be opened. Mourning is not inappropriate.

The working class will eventually realized it has been tricked and grow angry, financial crises will keep testing the Trump team's skills, the liberal media will continue their bizarre neo-Cold War madness while happily exploiting each new Trump scandal, eventually war will like the natural solution to the Trump White House. We nearly had an attack in Iran in Bush Jr's second term and suspect will see some version of it in the next 4 years.

Some Choice Quotes

Scott Horton interview wrote:“Gareth Porter: Think of Trump as perhaps as more like LBJ, in the sense of someone who has a strong ego, as LBJ certainly was, but who does not have the experience in foreign policy, who will tend to be less certain about countermanding the views of his national security advisers, so it’s going to be very important who he names on his team”

Real News Network wrote: PAUL JAY: Yeah. I once asked a fairly insider, government insider, and also wealthy insider, during the Bush-Cheney Administration, why do the elites allow Bush-Cheney to have this adventure in Iraq when it's clearly going to be a disaster in terms of foreign policy and geopolitics and they're wedded to this crazy idea of regime change everywhere, and his answer was, "It's very simple. They're getting a free-for-all on the economic side. Anything they want. They want a regulation done away with? It's done away with. They want a new law passed? They want a tax loophole? They just never made money like this before, so that's all they care about, and whatever happens..." They had a situation where you had a Cheney-Bush Administration that would not listen to the deep state, that didn't listen to the normal controls over American geopolitical policy who were all against the invasion of Iraq--

LEO PANITCH: By the time you put these guys in, it's an illusion to think that capitalists can directly control them. These guys have their own dynamic, and we shouldn't expect, even if wiser heads on Wall Street prevail, I'm not sure they're easily going to be able to control this guy. And I think that's part of what we need to be afraid of.

MATTIS

The Guardian article on Trump's latest appoint is titled "Donald Trump announces James 'Mad Dog' Mattis as secretary of defense", the by-line reads "The retired marine general, known for his blunt approach toward the US military and Middle East conflicts, raises establishment hopes that he can rein in Trump."

So a Marine named 'Mad Dog' is supposed to "rein in" Trump, huh? The corporate liberals at the Guardians are so pathetic I don't even know if they can see the irony.

If you dig far enough into the article, you can find out that the Guardian does cover some basic points:

*Mattis favors arming Syrian rebels fighting Assad,

*Mattis has criticized Nato allies against accommodating “Russian violations of international law”.

*Mattis said Iran is “a special case that must be dealt with as a threat to regional stability”, a position shared by Flynn (NSA) and Pompeo (CIA).

All the anti-war libertarians who supported Trump look like dupes. Anyway, here is what the Guardian leaves out:

Patrick Lang - ex-Army officer wrote: Mattis lost his job as CENTCOM commander for crowding the Iranians by sending US warships inshore where they were evidently expected to provoke a fight.  This was contrary to Obama's policy and Mattis was warned about this behavior before he was replaced.  Mattis should be cautioned against exceeding his authorities before being made SECDEF.

Jeremy Scahill said that Mattis "believes in the iron fist of U.S. militarism" when Trump and others refer to Mattis as "a general's general," Scahill said that what that means is that "there is no real crime when you kill civilians in war.

Speaking about fighting in Afghanistan, Mattis told a panel discussion in San Diego in 2005, "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. . . . It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you ... You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

Here is the Guardian's spin on the "fun to shoot people" topic:

A speech he gave in 2005 mused that it was “fun to shoot some people” in Iraq and Afghanistan, a statement called callous by Marla Ruzicka, the head of a civilian-advocacy group that worked with the military in Iraq. Mattis was defended by marine leadership but instructed to watch his tone.

Those who know Mattis say his bluster is intentionally over-the-top and leavens his intellectual streak. Despite being a marine, he co-authored the army’s counterinsurgency field manual with David Petraeus, which cautioned restraint and discrimination in lethal force. His allies say he took Ruzicka’s criticisms to heart, particularly after she was killed in Iraq by a suicide bomber.

It was by such general uselessness and cringing before bullies that the corporate liberal media that brought Trump to power. Even the #$@king FOX-owned Wall Street Journal was more critical than the Guardian, at least they noted that:

WSJ wrote:Mattis, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has a four-year-long connection with Theranos Inc., the embattled blood-testing startup.

In 2012, Gen. Mattis, then leading the military’s Central Command, pressed for the U.S. Army to procure Theranos lab equipment and deploy it in the battlefield, according to senior military officials involved in Army medical research. The officials said officers and civilian personnel involved in a review of the technology were told Gen. Mattis sought the procurement.

Gen. Mattis joined Theranos’s board in July 2013, a couple of months after his retirement. As of Thursday night, Theranos’s website listed Gen. Mattis as a company director.

Theranos is the subject of criminal and civil investigations by the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are trying to determine if the company misled investors and regulators about its technology and operations.

Gen. Mattis also is on the board of directors of General Dynamics Corp., the defense contractor and aerospace firm that builds nuclear-powered submarines, armored vehicles and business jets

To ensure that the military remains under civilian command, US law states that anyone “who has within ten years been on active duty as a commissioned officer in a Regular component of the armed services shall not be eligible as Secretary of Defense.” As Mattis does not meet this critera he will need a special waiver. Luckily, John McCain said that he is "a great admirer" of the general and would sign any waivers.

Kelly

[Following quotes from: http://lobelog.com/donald-trumps-marine-corps-presidency-the-few-the-proud-the-unhinged]

Kelly's role is complicated by the admiration for his service as assistant division commander for James Mattis during Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as the loss of his oldest son (29-year-old 2nd Lt. Robert Kelly), who was killed in Afghanistan. “No one can take his combat experience away from him,” a recently retired and senior Army officer.

Kelly’s four-year experience as Southcom commander (from November 2012 to January 2016) had a more profound impact on him than his time as a combat commander in Iraq, according to those who know him best.His experience, Kelly told the committee, showed the “relative ease with which human smugglers moved tens of thousands of people to our nation’s doorstep.” The networks, he claimed, could “facilitate the movement of terrorist operatives or weapons of mass destruction toward our borders, potentially undetected and almost completely unrestricted”—with Russia, China, Iran, criminal organizations, transnational drug trafficking networks, and terrorist groups like the Islamic State (ISIS or IS) and Lebanese Hezbollah taking advantage of the lawlessness. Kelly even repeated a mantra reprised since the mid-1980s about South America’s “Muslim Triangle” (the tri-border region of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay) as a “potential attack venue against Israeli or other western targets” that could be exploited by Lebanese Hezbollah—the Marine Corps nemesis.

The problem with the Kelly testimony is not simply that it contained sotto voce caveats—the networks “could facilitate,” criminal gangs were operating “towards our borders” and they are “potentially undetected” —but reiterated what many journalists believe is one of the war-on-terrorisms urban myths: that Latin America’s tri-border area is fertile ground for al-Qaeda, IS, and, especially “Lebanese Hezbollah.”

Prior to his Trump meeting, Kelly had been in the midst of establishing a non-governmental organization to counter the influence of drug traffickers in the northern triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador). The effort focused on providing monetary inducements to Central American coffee growers to take back plantations taken over by criminal gangs.

“As we sit here right now,” Kelly intoned, “we should not lose sight of the fact that America is at risk in a way it has never been before. Our enemy fights for an ideology based on an irrational hatred of who we are. Make no mistake about that, no matter what certain elements of the ‘chattering class’ relentlessly churn out.” Kelly never detailed what he meant by the “chattering class,” or what it was they were churning out, but it was hard to miss. “Yes, we are at war, and we are winning,” he said, “but you wouldn’t know it because successes go unreported, and only when something…is sufficiently controversial [is it] highlighted by the media elite that then sets up the ‘know it all’ chattering class to offer their endless criticism. These self-proclaimed experts always seem to know better—but have never themselves been in the arena.”

This is fairly standard, alt-right stuff, but for a previous generation it is chilling: a labeling of a group of Americans, a fifth column of the citizenry once described as “fellow travelers” or “dupes”—citizens whose loyalty was doubtful at best, evil at worst.

Kelly’s remarks were celebrated because of his statement that if members of Congress “do not like the laws they’ve passed” then they should change the laws or “shut up.” But, as columnist Michael Cohen detailed in the pages of the Boston Globe, Kelly’s comments on the Congress were actually of secondary importance when set against his emphasis on the “relentless” threats to “our way of life” from an innumerable host of enemies. “We are under attack from people who hate us, hate our freedoms, hate our laws, hate our values, hate the way we simply live our lives,” Kelly said. Cohen called it “one of the more unhinged speeches that you will ever hear from a Cabinet secretary” who had “jumped out of the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down.”

The danger that Kelly’s language represents is not merely rhetorical or the stuff of college seminars on civil-military relations. It is fundamental and throws into doubt the idea that Donald Trump’s Marine Corps presidency is comprised of an “axis of adults” that is non-partisan or apolitical—or even adults. Instead, having replaced their uniforms with suits and ties, military officers like Kelly seem to believe that their experience qualifies them to lecture their fellow citizens on American “values”—or worse, that having been in uniform they are somehow more patriotic than the rest of us who haven’t.

_

I'm done with analyzing Trump's administration for now. No hope, no change. Just another egomanic in the White House with more neo-con's hand up his ass using him like a dirty puppet. He's a man-child who asked the Alpha man-childs that infest the Marines to come coddle him and tell him he's a big man.... Such big men whose historical bio will be added to the the long list of fecal stains left by such big men.

VIJAY PRASHAD: wrote:Mr. Trump,  seems to want to appoint all Generals to his cabinet, it's more like a junta than a government.

Trump's Cabinet
Defense - General James Mattis (Marines)
Department of Homeland Security - General John Kelly (Marine)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - General Joseph Francis Dunford (Marines)
National Security Agency - Lieutenant General Mike Flynn (Army) Admiral Michael S. Rogers (Navy)
Attorney General - Captain Jeff Session (Army)
Senior adviser on National Security - Captain James Woolsey (Navy)