Who is driving the boat?

[psionandy]

If you're wondering about which boat, It's a quote from a review of the Liam Neeson movie, Taken. By Mark Kermode.

At the end of the film, Liam has killed a whole boatload of kidnappers, but the boat remains on its course, moving at quite a pace. One would imagine that any boat captain who was aware of the relentless slaughter happening on board would try to escape. Liam himself doesn't seem to want to investigate the bridge. If the boat is not being driven, it is going to crash!

The line has also been used to describe other films in which narrative holes are obvious.​

In a more Political sense, Its a question worth asking. Not that it has to be the President*, for no single man could do it alone.

• In the later years of Ronald Regan's Presidency, its clear he wasn't the driving force that he was at the start of it... Due to health issues the Vice President (George Bush) was more involved in running the show than the Tradition role of the VP
  
  
• When George Bush was then President, the VP (Dan Quayle) didn't have his hands on the wheel... and it was definately George who ran the show.
  
  
• Bill Clinton looks (to me) as if he was running the show, but his wife a much larger role in policy than previous presidents.. even to the extent that she had a crack at reforming health care (to no avail)
  
  
• When it comes to George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld did a lot of the 'governmental' heavy lifting, especially when it came to policy and the business of govenment.
  
  
• Barack Obama appears to have been the man in charge, even during the campaign, the Republicans and commentators referred to 'his America' . If anyone else was running they weren't doing it in plain site.

So now there is a new President in America....
I appreciate its very early to judge this, but is he driving the boat? A lot of executive orders have been written by Bannon and Miller...

"Inside the West Wing, it is almost impossible for some aides to know what is in the executive orders, staffers say. They have been written by Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior White House adviser for policy, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, according to people familiar with the matter. Ideas for some of the Trump executive orders came from transition officials and so-called “landing teams,” sources say, who weren’t working in the White House."​

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trumps-flashy-executive-actions-could-run-aground-234200

Mike Pence on the other hand has been around the political block... and could be the person running the show whilst the President serves as the figurehead (or executive producer) http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/...ke-pence-be-the-most-powerful-man-in-america/ and those waiting for a republican coup de tat , are expecting him to be the leader if Mr Tump suddenly has an impeachment issue.....

On the other hand, having come from a business background where the chairman sets the direction for the company, and lets his board members and execs do the strategy and tactical implementation... So has he outsourced that bit to Exon/Trump/Goldman Sachs (Based on his cabinet choices)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weissman/trumps-corporate-cabinet_b_14087282.html

Or just someone/thing else.....


So Andy, I hear absolutely nobody ask, what do you think... The answer is, I don't know...
There are upsides and downsides of all of these unproven theories....

I bet it isn't Liam Neeson though.














*Btw, if I was mistaken, and you know who was running the country under any of those Presidents then feel free to comment and let me know (as long as you don't blame it on a whole ethnic/racial group, or go the full David Icke and blame it on actual Lizards)

 

[psionandy]

So, if the Chairman of the Joint Chief s of staff gets bumped for someone.... Is that who is driving the boat?

While the American public's attention was focused on the thousands of families whose lives were disrupted and even put at risk by Trump's ban on Muslims entering the USA, the US Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were removed from the list of permanent attendees in the President's National Security Council. They were replaced with white nationalist Trump advisor Steve Bannon.

Presidential press spokesman Sean Spicer downplayed Bannon's lack of expertise, describing the avowed racist as "a former naval officer." Bannon left the Navy in 1983. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whom Bannon is replacing, is an active-service four-star general.

White House insiders say that Bannon personally intervened to extend the Muslim ban to Green Card holders, an illegal move that heightened the controversy around the ban.​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...728948-e574-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html

 

[psionandy]

Looks like Mr Trump may have just noticed he was asleep at the wheel.....

President Trump was reportedly not fully briefed on the executive order he signed that allowed his chief strategist Steve Bannon a seat at the meetings of the country’s top national security efforts. ...Trump was frustrated over the executive order and reportedly demanded to be looped in on the executive orders earlier in the drafting process. According to the Times, Trump demanded that his chief of staff Reince Priebus to come up with a fundamental approach to executive orders.​

http://boingboing.net/2017/02/06/stephen-bannon-fooled-trump-in.html

 

[psionandy]

The infighting and jockeying for power among Donald Trump’s inner circle—a product of the “creative tension” he is said to encourage amongst his staff—that defined his presidential bid has certainly followed the real estate mogul to the White House. As Stephen Bannon and Stephen Miller—notably the latter—battle a wave of criticism over Trump’s deeply flawed executive order on immigration, and Reince Priebus takes the blame for the hire of Sean Spicer,Kellyanne Conway is laying the groundwork to emerge the victor in the seemingly inevitable West Wing shake-up.
​

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/02/kellyanne-conway-west-wing

 

[psionandy]

OK.... Its been a while now.. and a large chunk of people mentioned in the first post have gone.

So... I'm interested.. Based on the evidence so far... who is driving the boat?

(I'm really not interested in how well they are driving it? why they are driving it in the right or wrong direction? or anything about the lack of competence of the previous drivers)

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Autopilot.

 

[psionandy]

 

[no one]

Captain Stubing?

 

[dan330]

a lot of the admin (revolving door), each is trying to push or pull the boat...
but through his childish ego.. refuses to listen to good sense.
45 is driving this boat... straight over the edge of this flat earth.

under the direction of putin.

#TraitorTrump