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The regime’s main organizational goal right now is to transfer all effective power to a tight inner circle, eliminating any possible checks from either the Federal bureaucracy, Congress, or the Courts. Departments are being reorganized or purged to effect this.

This past weekend—Muslim ban and NSC reorganization, among other things—was a trial balloon for a coup, writes a Google privacy engineer.
↩︎ Yonatan Zunger
Jan 30, 2017
Steve Bannon at Bloggers Briefing, October 19, 2010. Credit: Don Irvine.

The National Security Council is now a political pawn for Trump, Bannon, and Republicans.

As Goldman Sachs banker-turned-Hollywood producer-turned-Breitbart neo-Nazi-in-chief Stephen Bannon ascends to the National Security Council—previously an extremely apolitical body meant to advise the President on national security, as well as approve drone strikes—it's worth looking back at how Republicans acted when President Obama did nothing more than… not reform it quickly enough.

See also: Former Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice's response to Bannon's appointment:

Jan 30, 2017

The White House considers Bannon's national security views more important than a four-star general's.

Trump's reorganization of the NSC not only put political hack Bannon at the same level as cabinet secretaries (and above them, in some cases), but it also removed the two people most important to its workings (and required to attend by law), the Director of National Intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates points out.

Sean Spicer responded to criticisms that Bannon had been elevated over Joseph Dunford, a four-star general who now serves as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, by pointing out that Bannon served in the Navy in the '70s and '80s. 

Jan 30, 2017

In a well-run administration, the most important role of the NSC and the national security adviser is to engage the key responsible officials and repositories of expertise, and assure that the president understands their views prior to making his decisions.… To date the president seems to have little interest in it.

If you could not guess already, this assessment of Trump's National Security Council revamp by public policy scholar I.M. Destler does not believe that this is going to be a "well-run administration" or NSC.
↩︎ Politico Magazine
Jan 30, 2017
More Headlines
A room wallpapered in (presumably unread) New Yorkers. Credit: lars_o_matic.
A very stupid thing begins again. Credit: TMN.
The other White House, Moscow's Kremlin. Credit: Andrey Korzun.
Al Wadj Bank, Saudi Arabia. Credit: NASA.