January 5, 2018

"Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire backer of Bannon and Trump, chooses sides."

WaPo reports. Excerpt:
Long before Trump stepped onto the campaign trail, the Mercer family and Bannon were drawing up schematics for an outsider populist presidential candidate who could topple the establishment. It was a dream years in the making. And now Trump, who fulfilled their hopes, has come between Mercer and Bannon, a further escalation of the conflict ripping through the president’s base....

In 2011, the future president first met Bannon to discuss a possible presidential run. The same year, the Mercers were introduced to conservative flamethrower Andrew Breitbart and Bannon, agreeing to invest $10 million into Breitbart News, according to the New Yorker. One stipulation of the Mercers’ deal was to place Bannon on the news company’s board. Breitbart died months later, which left the news operation in Bannon’s hands....

17 comments:

The Godfather said...

She chose Trump over Bannon, showing that she's no fool, even for a billionaire.

Bannon on the other hand . . . .

YoungHegelian said...

a further escalation of the conflict ripping through the president’s base....

Wait! What? A major donor family has a pissing contest with a ideologue who has delusions of grandeur & it becomes a conflict ripping through the president’s base?

That is an amazingly bizarre statement.

Now, Bernie-ites vs Hillary-ites or GOPe vs Trumpers, those are conflicts ripping through political bases. Mercers vs Bannon is a tempest in a thimble.

n.n said...

a further escalation of the conflict ripping through the president’s base....

WaPo reports... ominous and catastrophic. Catastrophic and ominous. And then we laughed and had a gay old time.

Ray - SoCal said...

What will arise to replace the hole left in the Media Market with Breitbart with Bannon leading it?

Peter Thiel is talking of something.

This talk of about Bannon, and how he shot himself in the foot, Republicans are in civil war, etc. is becoming boring. Trump supporters are staying with Trump, he delivers on what he promised, and how very unpolitician. Bannon unfortunately got a bad case of Hubris, and now Nemesis has come. What is more interesting is what is next? MSM is going crazy with the Wolff book, and it sounds like all the good salacious stuff has come out. The remaining Anti Trumpers are still talking Trump is an idiot, and is lucky he has competent subordinates (truth is you don't hire a bunch) of competent people by accident. The Whitehouse has become less of a soap opera, which I credit 100% to Kelly. Leaking is minimal now, which is a huge change.

And while this soap opera is going on, Trump just opened up a huge amount of the coastal waters for drilling. It's amazing on how Trump can keep all the Presses attention on him. And it does not seem to be by accident, but deliberate. And it's helping!

David-2 said...

I see @YoungHegelian and @n.n have already pointed out the ridiculousness of the idea of a further escalation of the conflict ripping through the president's base.

So I have no need to pile on further. But, seriously, conflict ripping through the president's base. I can't even.

What idiots these "journalists" be.

Bill Peschel said...

Every time someone says something bad about Trump -- about his behavior, his manners (and lack thereof), the way he dresses, eats, gets his shoes polished, what he watches on GorillaTV (which really sucks since they stopped playing music videos) -- I recall his accomplishment over the course of the past year and think of Lincoln's comment about Grant's drinking.

mockturtle said...

“Bob believes that human beings have no inherent value other than how much money they make,” a colleague told the New Yorker. “If someone is on welfare they have negative value. If he earns a thousand times more than a schoolteacher, then he’s a thousand times more valuable.”

This is all we need to know about Robert Mercer: What a 'colleague' told to The New Yorker and quoted by the WaPo. And, by inference, his entire horrible alt-right family. :-(

mockturtle said...

I'm old enough to remember Hedda Hopper and Luella Parsons. Both were more reliable news sources than the current MSM.

Michael K said...

"That is an amazingly bizarre statement."

It's OK, YH, it's the WaPoo.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

I sometimes wonder if Bezos ever thinks about the millions he is pissing off with this stuff.

Walmart.com must be loving it.

Unknown said...

How is it team T seems to always get the opposition to do his job for him? Bannon has deserved million-dollar paychecks given his hard work and success to date, destroying the Left, the Rinos and is well on his way to chewing through the never T-er-s, and once the parties are out of the way their establishments with the swamp they drag along, and cabinet departments proven only uneeded baggage will evaporate as their budgets are cut to just enough to pay to keep the vagrants out, just because a law created department doesn’t say % GDP or headcount. And it’s certainly not in the Constitution. Start reducing it by 1% a month until you’re at the last 1% and then leave it there forever and pass the hat for the ten dollars a year needed to fund. And they are certainly not in the constitution. Doing his part to drastically shrink government to balance the budget and start reducing the debt to single digits may well be worth a billion dollars. So how does T get B paid, tell him go say a few bad words about me and get a book written, you'll make millions in honor of Breibart's shade, take the money out of mostly the Left's and RINO Voyeur’s pocket books. Making him truly independent of T, a real Andrew Jackson with his own legacy, Way to go both of you! Maybe they talked about it over dinner and Baron solved it because it looked like sandlot baseball. Score!

Darkisland said...

I wonder if the mercers supported Obama ln 2008 & 12?

If anyone else had been president trump wouldn't have had a chance.

I have long thought that Obama was a Trojan horse. Either on purpose or by incompetence and it doesn't matter which.

I think he will go down as one of our greatest presidents. It was a long walk through that valley of death. An 8 year slog but we've reached the other side and the land of milk and honey is in sight.

So much winning we'll get tired of it.

In 100 years or so.

Maybe.

John Henry

Darkisland said...

I'll go further:

In another year or two even the most rabid antefas, anti and never Trumpers, resistance et al will be like the German National Socialists in 1945.

"Me? I was never a National Socialist/Anti-Trumper. I always believed in President Trump. I just joined out of peer pressure."

I predict that by 1920, even Inga will have started enjoying winning. She will be denying that she ever thought or spoke ill of the man. She will not only be denying, she will be believing her denials herself.

$5, even odds. Any takers?

John Henry

GRW3 said...

I wonder if Bannon has some form of manic depressive cycling. I was impressed by the text of a speech he made to a catholic organization and I’ve heard other good things from him. Those things however seem to be balanced against self destructive activities, like going all in for Roy Moore.

eddie willers said...

Breitbart died months later

To this day I believe that if Andrew had lived, we'd have had a President Romney.

As far as Bannon goes, sloppy is the word. You shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but it often works with a person. Looking like an unshaven drunk all the time tells me there is something wrong.

n.n said...

David-2:

To be fair, the witch hunt progresses 24/7 on all the major news outlets, and who knows what baby hunts are happening under a veil of privacy. So, unless Trump has made a deal with Pro-Choice Republicans, the Party is divided and he is still vulnerable, and his commitment to restoring America for the People and our Posterity is in jeopardy. Then there is the chance that he will continue Obama/Clinton's social justice adventures from Niger to Somalia to Libya to Egypt to Syria to Ukraine and immigration reform (e.g. refugee crises, etc.) will sustain a progressive consequence savored by Democrats and businesses.

D.E. Cloutier said...

Old saying in journalism: "When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."

Articles about "Trump the village idiot" have become dog-bites-man stories. Newshounds in the mainstream media need to make a change. Coming up next: "Trump the clever guy."

Ray - SoCal said...

Andrew Breitbart’s death was at way too young an age. It was a huge loss.

Wow on the comment Romney may have won if Breitbart lived.