By Bill Bonner
But then, last week the last great hope for the Trump administration blew up in Syria. Now the neo-cons are delighted. And the cronies. And the zombies, too.
Here’s the outlook: no real change to O’care. No cutbacks in entitlements. No attempt to balance the budget. No belt-tightening at the pudgy Pentagon (instead, it will get more money).
And now this: The wars in the Middle East will not only go on… they will accelerate. For now, the U.S. is not only fighting terrorists. It is also fighting the people who are fighting the terrorists.
It’s a perfect Deep State war: It is guaranteed neither to win nor to lose, but simply to go on indefinitely. This gives the insiders more and more of the nation’s wealth to piddle away in absurd wars in preposterous places.
Meanwhile, Congress adjourned. When it returns in two weeks, it will confront another crisis of its own making. Bloomberg reports:
Government funding expires on April 28, which will give Congress five days to unveil, debate, and pass an enormous spending bill… or trigger a government shutdown.
“What a mess,” said Paul Brace, a congressional expert at Rice University in Houston, offering his own pessimistic view of the unified Republican control of the House and Senate so far under President Donald Trump. “It was so much easier when all you had to do was oppose Obama.”[…]
House Republicans “have differences of opinion. And they aren’t just political differences. They are policy differences,” said Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio.
Old & New Wounds
Worst Mistake
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA – By our calculation, it took just 76 days for President Trump to get on board with the Clinton-Bush-Obama agenda. Now there can be no doubt where he’s headed. He’s gone Full Empire. Not that it was unexpected. But the speed with which the president abandoned his supporters and went over to the Deep State is breathtaking.
Once there was only a Trump fragrance called Empire… now he has gone full empire himself
Among the noise and hubbub of the election campaign, there was one message coming from the Trump team that was music to our ears. Middle East wars? He was against them, he said.
He claimed to have opposed the 2003 attack on Iraq. He said it was one of the “worst mistakes” the country ever made. As for further involvement, why waste American lives and American wealth on wars you can’t win?
“America First,” he said. This was a refreshing position. It put the Republican neo-cons and Establishment Republicans against him; many went over to Hillary rather than risk giving up their think tank grants and consulting fees.
Tweets by Bill Kristol, one of the best known pro-war neo-con think tank appendages and political pundits in the US. It is quite amazing that this man is actually considered a “conservative”. He is probably not in the least concerned that his views are widely rejected by American citizens, safe in the knowledge that they can be “brought around” every time with a sufficient dose of war propaganda (generally, this has always been true). However, mainstream media are fading away, reaching fewer and fewer people every year. Controlling the narrative is no longer as easy as it once was.
A 2013 poll showed 52% of Americans thought the U.S. should “mind its own business internationally.” But the elite gained power and money from foreign wars; they weren’t going to give them up. Non-entitlement spending in the swamp goes largely to cronies in the military-security industry.
Perfect Deep State War
But Donald Trump promised a “new foreign policy.” No more trying to be the world’s policeman. No more fighting other people’s battles… and making things worse. No more wasting American money and American lives on foolish, unwinnable wars.
Ending America’s pointless and unsettling romp in the desert would be a good first move. The bill for these misadventures is now said to be $7 trillion. As to Syria, Trump was typically direct. Don’t attack the country, he warned Barack Obama in a 2013 tweet, or “MANY VERY BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN…”
The Donald couldn’t have been any clearer in 2013… but that was then, and this is now.
But then, last week the last great hope for the Trump administration blew up in Syria. Now the neo-cons are delighted. And the cronies. And the zombies, too.
Here’s the outlook: no real change to O’care. No cutbacks in entitlements. No attempt to balance the budget. No belt-tightening at the pudgy Pentagon (instead, it will get more money).
And …read more
Source:: Acting Man
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