Fiery Breitbart News, Buoyed by Trump Victory, Aims to Go Global
War Breaks Out Between Neo-Cons And Libertarians Over Trump’s Foreign Policy
Nov 20, 2016 by Tyler Durden
In late October, when it was still conventional wisdom that Hillary was “guaranteed” to win the presidency, the WaPo explained that among the neo-con, foreign policy “elites” of the Pentagon, a feeling of calm content had spread: after all, it was just a matter of time before the “pacifist” Obama was out, replaced by the more hawkish Hillary.
As the WaPo reported, “there is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump’s scorched-earth presidential campaign is treated as a mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama’s departure from the White House — and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton — is being met with quiet relief.”
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.
Oops.
Not only did the “foreign policy” elite get the Trump “scorched-earth distraction” dead wrong, it now has to scramble to find what leverage – if any – it has in defining Trump’s foreign policy. Worse, America’s warmongers are now waging war (if only metaphorically: we all know they can’t wait for the real thing) against libertarians for direct access to Trump’s front door, a contingency they had never planned for.
As The Hill reported earlier, “a battle is brewing between the GOP foreign policy establishment and outsiders over who will sit on President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team. The fight pits hawks and neoconservatives who served in the former Bush administrations against those on the GOP foreign policy edges.”
Taking a page out of Ron Paul’s book, the libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America’s commitments around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and “nation-building,” curtail expensive military campaigns and troop deployments, and intervene militarily only to protect American interests. In short: these are people who believe that human life, and the avoidance of war, is more valuable than another record quarter for Raytheon, Lockheed or Boeing.
On the other hand, the so-called establishment camp, many of whom disavowed Trump during the campaign, is made up of the same people who effectively ran Hillary Clinton’s tenure while she was Secretary of State, fully intent on creating zones of conflict, political instability and outright war in every imaginable place, from North Africa to Ukraine. This group is pushing for Stephen Hadley, who served as national security adviser under George W. Bush. Another Bush ally, John Bolton whose name has been floated as a possible secretary of State, also falls into this camp.
According to The Hill, other neo-con, establishment candidates floated include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), outgoing Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), rising star Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and senior fellow at conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.).
“These figures all generally believe that the United States needs to take an active role in the world from the Middle East to East Asia to deter enemies and reassure allies.”
In short, should this group prevail, it would be the equivalent of 4 more years of HIllary Clinton running the State Department.
The outsider group sees things differently.
They want to revamp American foreign policy in a different direction from the last two administrations. Luckily, this particular camp is also more in line with Trump’s views questioning the value of NATO, a position that horrified many in the establishment camp.
“How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don’t make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite. We need to think really hard about these commitments,” said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute.
A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush’s foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as “a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose.”
Others, however, have defended Bolton. Eliot Cohen, a former Bush State Department senior adviser, tweeted late Tuesday that Bolton “would be a capable Secretary of State — experienced & tough.”
Then again, what Cohen thinks does not matter: he is perhaps the most visible foreign policy establishment type who has been critical of Trump’s transition. He said this week that he had been asked by a friend in Trump’s orbit to submit names of people in the establishment who might want to serve. Cohen told his friend that those skeptical of Trump would want to know who was leading his administration on foreign policy.
When Cohen grew critical of those questions, he wrote a biting op-ed in The Washington Post advising people to not work for Trump, at least for the time being. “At the very least, they should wait to see who gets the top jobs. Until then, let the Trump team fill the deputy assistant secretary and assistant secretary jobs with civil servants, retired military officers and diplomats, or the large supply of loyal or obsequious second-raters who will be eager to serve,” he wrote.
Some saw the op-ed as good news, believing it signified a radical turn by Trump from a foreign party establishment that should be ignored. “The first encouraging news I’ve heard in days. If a leader of #NeverTrump is saying this, that means the establishment hasn’t won. Yet,” said Christopher Preble of the CATO Institute.
However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham, a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: “He understands who our friends and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways.”
He also slammed Paul’s criticism of Bolton: “You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul’s advice on national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he’s a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues.”
Funny, that’s exactly what the experts said about Trump’s chances of winning not even two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he’d like to see in Trump’s cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved relationship with adversary Russia. “When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again,” he warned.
Luckily, McCain – whose relationship with Trump has been at rock bottom ever since Trump’s first appearance in the presidential campaign – has zero impact on the thinking of Trump.
Furthermore, speaking of Russia, Retired Amy Col. Andrew Bacevich said there needs to be a rethink of American foreign policy. He said the U.S. must consider whether Saudi Arabia and Pakistan qualify as U.S. allies, and the growing divergence between the U.S. and Israel. “The establishment doesn’t want to touch questions like these with a ten foot pole,” he said at a conference on Tuesday hosted by The American Conservative, the Charles Koch Institute, and the George Washington University Department of Political Science.
Furthermore, resetting the “deplorable” relations with Russia is a necessary if not sufficient condition to halt the incipient nuclear arms build up that has resulted of the recent dramatic return of the Cold War. As such, a Trump presidency while potentially a failure, may be best remember for avoiding the launch of World War III. If, that is, he manages to prevent the influence of neo-cons in his cabinet.
And then there are the wildcards: those Trump advisers who are difficult to peg into which camp they fall into. One example is retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was selected by Trump as his national security adviser. Flynn is a “curious case,” said Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative. The retired Army general has said he wants to work with Russia, but also expressed contrary views in his book “Field of Fight.”
According to Larison, Flynn writes of an “enemy alliance” against the U.S. that includes Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. From that standpoint, he is about as “establishment” as they come.
It’s also not crystal clear which camp Giuliani falls into. The former mayor is known as a fierce critic of Islamic extremism but has scant foreign policy experience.
Most say what is likely is change.
“Change is coming to American grand strategy whether we like it or not,’ said Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in National Security at Texas A&M University.
“I think we are overdue for American retrenchment. Americans are beginning to suffer from hegemony fatigue,” he said.
And, let’s not forget, the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children who are droned to death every year by anonymous remote-control operators in the US just so the US can pursue its global hegemonic interest.They most certainly have, and unless something indeed changes, will continue to suffer, leading to even more resentment against the US, and even more attacks against US citizens around the globe, and on US soil. Some call them terrorism, others call them retaliation.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-19/war-breaks-out-between-neo-cons-and-libertarians-over-trumps-foreign-policy
EMERGENCY MESSAGE TO LEFTISTS FROM TRUMP / STEVE BANNON
Alex Jones breaks down powerful interview from Trump’s chief strategist
Nov 20, 2016
Alex Jones covers the universal prosperity message encoded in the interview Trump’s head council Steve Bannon gave to The Hollywood Reporter.
Also check out Alex’s other report: “Elites Panic As Trump Begins To Deliver”
original here
RON PAUL REVEALS HIT LIST OF ALLEGED ‘FAKE NEWS’ JOURNALISTS
“This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied us into multiple bogus wars.”
Nov 20, 2016
Former congressman Ron Paul revealed a list of “fake news” journalists he claims are responsible for “bogus wars” and lies about Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the election. Journalists from CNN, the New York Times, and the Guardian are included.
“This list contains the culprits who told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and lied us into multiple bogus wars,”according to a report on his website, Ron Paul Liberty Report. Paul claims the list is sourced and “holds a lot more water”than a list previously released by Melissa Zimdars, who is described on Paul’s website as “a leftist feminist professor.”
REVEALED: The Real Fake News List https://t.co/1CkOSe25LU pic.twitter.com/lqb9Uze1pi
— Ron Paul (@RonPaul) November 19, 2016
These are the news sources that told us ‘if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,’” he said. “They told us that Hillary Clinton had a 98% of winning the election. They tell us in a never-ending loop that ‘The economy is in great shape!’”
Paul’s list includes the full names of the “fake news” journalists as well as the publications they write for, with what appears to be hyperlinks to where the allegations are sourced from. In most cases, this is WikiLeaks, but none of the hyperlinks are working at present, leaving the exact sources of the list unknown.
CNN is Paul’s biggest alleged culprit, with nine entries, followed by the NY Times and MSNBC, with six each. The NY Times has recently come under fire from President-elect Donald Trump, who accuses them of being “totally wrong” on news regarding his transition team, while describing them as “failing.”
The failing @nytimes story is so totally wrong on transition. It is going so smoothly. Also, I have spoken to many foreign leaders.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016
I have recieved and taken calls from many foreign leaders despite what the failing @nytimes said. Russia, U.K., China, Saudi Arabia, Japan,
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 16, 2016
The publication hit back, however, saying their business has increased since his election, with a surge in new subscriptions
@realDonaldTrump @nytimes fact: surge in new subscriptions, print & digital, with trends, stops & starts, 4 X better than normal.
— NYTCo Communications (@NYTimesComm) November 13, 2016
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is also amongst those named on the list. In an email from the Democratic National Committee (DNC) released by WikiLeaks, the DNC staff discusses sending questions to CNN for an interview with Donald Trump.
#DNCLeak2 emails: Cozy with CNN, silencing journalists & pinning it on Putin https://t.co/NcBuc00TvO
— RT (@RT_com) November 8, 2016
Also listed is NY Times journalist Maggie Haberman, whom leaked emails showed working closely with Clinton’s campaign to present the Democratic candidate in a favorable light.
So-called ‘fake news’ has been recently attacked by US President Barack Obama, who claimed that false news shared online may have played a role in Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg has now said that the social media site may begin entrusting third parties with filtering the news.
original here
LA Times: Fiery Breitbart News, Buoyed by Trump Victory, Aims to Go Global
20 Nov 2016
Reporter David Ng visits the Los Angeles offices of Breitbart News, where CEO and co-founder Larry Solov runs the site.
From the Los Angeles Times:
It all began a little more than 10 years ago in a basement in Westwood: a small army of young employees in T-shirts and shorts huddled over their laptops, determined to launch a news site that would shake up the world of conservative media.
At first, the site started by Andrew Breitbart was a simple news aggregation service. But in a few short years it evolved into an idiosyncratic voice combining original reporting, incendiary commentary and outright trolling, in keeping with the rambunctious spirit of its founder, who died in 2012.
…
Others laughed it off as a journalistic lightweight catering to a far-right fringe known as the alt-right. No one’s laughing anymore.
…
In a series of interviews, leaders sounded a confident and defiantly unapologetic note. As a company, it is aiming for no less than the world. “The goal is to become a global news network,” said Larry Solov, the company’s president and chief executive officer.
…
A recent visit showed that Breitbart retains its startup flavor, with mostly young reporters typing away on laptops. The door to the main conference room is emblazoned with the hashtag #War — a mantra Breitbart instilled in his team. The company even has a mascot: the honey badger, the carnivore and YouTube star known for its tenacious attitude and thick skin — qualities that the newsroom has adopted as its own.
…
[Editor-in-Chief Alex] Marlow sees an opportunity to lure Trump supporters put off by Fox News’ ambivalent take on the Republican candidate, since “so much of their audience feels betrayed by how they covered this presidential race.”
…
“We think we were influential in the election and people are resentful of it,” said Solov, noting that he is Jewish, as was Breitbart.
“We are a nationalist website. How the word ‘white’ got tacked on is part of a coordinated media smear campaign,” said Marlow. “We like that we have a border — we don’t want to cede our country to unelected global bureaucrats. It has nothing to do with skin tone.”
Read the rest of the story here.
.http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/11/20/la-times-breitbart-news-fiery-conservative-outlet-buoyed-trump-victory-aims-go-global/
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