Are Bannon's Protectors, The Mercers, Too Big To Prosecute?

I don't know when Bannon is going to get fired but months ago he was telling associates that he probably wouldn't make it for a full year. Now less extreme elements inside the Trumpist Regime are pushing him out. McMaster and Kushner-in-law seem to have teamed up and succeeded in outing him and his ally, KT McFarland from the National Security Council. McMaster is even more eager to get rid of Bannon's pet Hungarian Nazi Sebastian Gorka. Maybe on the flight into Singaporean exile, McFarland can read Bannon's favorite book, The Fourth Turning and contemplate how her winter has already begun.

Bannon's own "worldview-- which has been described as everything from Leninist to alt-right, an extremist fringe movement associated with white nationalism-- is still shrouded in mystery and conjecture. But by his own telling, much of the foundation for his political beliefs can be found in the book, which predicts that America is hurtling toward a crisis on par with the American Revolution, the Civil War and the Great Depression. And the grim future that the book foresees helps explain the underpinnings of the president’s conservative, nationalist 'America First' agenda, one that Mr. Bannon has played a large role in shaping."

Ryan has his Fountainhead and Bannon has The Fourth Turning and in both cases people see "a convenient excuse to sow fear and justify extreme action." In Bannon's case, most academic historians who have bothered to even lookout it, "dismiss the book as about as scientific as astrology or a Nostradamus text. And many will find reason for alarm in its conclusion that the coming crisis will demand loyalty and conformity from citizens." Bannon's other favorite light reading is the neo-Nazi The Camp of the Saints by French fascist Jean Raspailand the writings of Italian fascist crackpot Julius Evola.

Mike Allen, who has good White House sources reported yesterday that Bannon "is increasingly isolated and will be forced out unless he can adopt a more cooperative approach." The Kushners find Bannon not results-oriented enough and "too inclined to want to burn things down and blow things up. They want a more open process driven by the interests of the president, not ideology.

It makes no sense to discuss Bannon without remembering that he is, first and foremost a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mercers, the evil billionaire couple behind the Trumpist curtain. During the election, we warned that they were paying Bannon (as well as KellyAnne ConMan and other far right reprobates) to work for Trump. That's illegal and we new that sooner or later, those arrangements would have to be seriously examined. Over the weekend, Sophia Tesfaye moved the ball forward. An official complaint has now been filed with the FBI based on Bannon's work illegally coordinating Mercer Super PAC activities with the Trump campaign while receiving around one million dollars in payments from that Super PAC even after the Mercers had managed to place him at the heart of the Trump operation in August. The Mercers broke the law by paying a shell company [Bannon's Glittering Steel LLC] for unspecified services to mask hidden payments to the people, like Bannon, they had placed in Trump's campaign.

The case centers around Make America Number 1-- a pro-Ted Cruz super PAC that was repurposed after its primary backers, hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer-- which decided to back Trump. The super PAC’s former president, Kellyanne Conway, then went on to work as Trump’s campaign manager.

Furthermore, Breitbart, which was run by Bannon before he became Trump’s campaign chairman, is at least partially owned by the Mercers.

“[T]he Mercers recommended Trump hire Bannon, were in a position to know that the Trump campaign was not paying Bannon,” an October complaint from the Campaign Legal Center, a non-partisan campaign finance watchdog, alleged. The group said the Mercers broke federal campaign laws by paying Bannon for his work through their super PAC so that the campaign wouldn’t have to shoulder the cost.

The L.A. Times published this really good meme yesterday. It's worth clicking on, blowing up and acquainting yourself with the whole sordid cast of characters: