Posted on 02/03/2017 1:05:15 PM PST by drewh
If the first two weeks of the Trump presidency has shown anything, it's that chief strategist Steve Bannon has outmaneuvered his White House rivals, Cabinet secretaries and even Republican leaders in Congress. But Bannon is just getting started; he's got a longer-term strategy to dominate White House policy making for months and years. The question now is, can anyone opposed to his power grab prevent it from happening?
Inside the White House, Bannon is busily constructing a policy staff of his own Bannon has stood up his own Strategic Initiatives Group, which is seen by some as "an alternative lodestar of power and influence" meant to compete with other centers of influence, including the NSC.
"It's not a team of rivals, it's rival teams," one White House official told me, referring to Bannon's effort. .
Some call the Strategic Initiatives Group Bannon's internal think tank. It's led by Christopher Liddell, a former General Motors executive who hails from New Zealand. Goldman Sachs executive Dina Powell is also heavily involved, along with Baltimore real estate developer Reed Cordish. On the national security side is Sebastian Gorka, a controversial pundit and analyst with strong views on how to fight the war against Islamist extremism.
"We are charged with doing long-range initiatives that are really important to the president," he said. "That is very different from what the National Security Council is doing every day under the sterling leadership of General Flynn."
Gorka has also been deployed to defend Trump's executive order on immigration in the media. He told popular radio host John Batchelor this week that the Trump administration might expand the list of countries impacted by the immigration executive order and should look at the social media of those trying to enter the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Gee, it sounds as if the lefties think Bannon is... valerie jarrett.
Yeah! Love Steve Bannon.
Libs are coming unglued over Bannon the same way they did over Rove.
ping
He;s a sneaky man that Bannon
Grab away, but..........[shhhhhhhhh] stay away from pink hats - STDs.
No comparison between Bannon and Rove. Bannon is smart. Rove is just oily.
I’ve got some serious brotherly love going on for Steve Bannon. Anyone who drives the left as nuts as he does has GOT to be a good guy.
Let’s peek from the other direction, eh?
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22can+anyone+stop+obama%27s+power+grab%3F%22
Love Gorka. Could listen to him all day. He speaks the plain truth, but does it in that voice, with that accent, with that commanding presence—you can’t doubt him.
The guy holds a master’s degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and they are worried about him in participating in National Security Council activities?
Hope really is remarkably beautiful.
Iranian Valerie isn’t fit to be in the same room with Dr Gorka.
She can stick to dinners out with Jeb! and Rupert Murdoch.
Nancy Reagan ran the Reagan presidency.
Karl Rove ran the Bush presidency.
Bannon runs the Trump presidency
yada yada yada
O.K., who’s the babe on Bannon’s right in that pic in Post 10?
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