The news cycle these days moves fast and furious, especially when it comes to our esteemed President Donald Trump. A few days back, Trump referred to parts of the planet as peopled by “shithole countries,” including such places as Africa and Haiti, among others. Trump was greeted with nearly unanimous, bipartisan condemnation for his blatant racism. It was all over the news. But that was days ago, an eternity in the ongoing Trump saga.
There was one prominent loyal Trump supporter – Erik Prince – who greeted Trump’s racism with glee, but whose comment did not make it into the mainstream news. Prince, the founder of the Blackwater mercenary army outfit, is the brother of Betsy DeVos, Trump’s Education Secretary, the opponent of all things public in public education.
“I’m happy to have a president that will bluntly speak the truth in negotiations,” Prince commented on Breitbart News Tonight. “If the president says some places are shitholes, he’s accurate.” According to Prince, “It’s a sad characterization of many of these places. It’s not based on race. It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with corrupt incompetent governments that abuse their citizens, and that results in completely absent infrastructure to include open sewers, and unclean water, and crime. It’s everything we don’t want in America.”
Of course, the worst “open sewer” on the planet is Washington DC, but Prince has ideas how to fix that, and has the contacts to get some unusual things done. Prince’s comments about “shithole countries” will probably only further ingratiate himself with Trump, who is somewhat known for his susceptibility to flattery.
Prince’s latest initiative in Washington is a proposal to provide a private, global spy network that would report directly to CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the president, bypassing official US intelligence agencies. Pompeo, like Prince, is one of Trump’s most loyal partisans.
Prince’s proposal was developed with the assistance of a guy named Oliver North – he of the Iran-Contra scandal, who worked for another guy named Ronald Reagan. There are reports that this proposal, in addition to supplying spy info, would have a “direct-action arm, totally off the books.” Other reports indicate that Pompeo likes Prince’s plan and has lobbied Trump to support it. There are even reports that Prince has already started supplying Pompeo with intel.
Think I am dreaming this up? Check out the December 4, 2017 article in The Intercept if you don’t believe me. Don’t ask me why you haven’t read about this in the New York Times or the Washington Post (sorry, Meryl Streep).
And I didn’t dream this up either: the House spending bill released on January 17 would allow the president, or people under him, like Pompeo, to fund intelligence programs in complete secrecy, without any authorization from Congress. The presidnet could do so without even informing Congress’ already-secretive intelligence committees, a break with long-standing practices that date back to the National Security Act of 1947 in the early days of the CIA. What could Trump possibly have in mind?
Do you, dear reader, even want to hear about Prince’s recent plan to create a private army to fight the never-ending war in Afghanistan? Or about his plan to create a private police force to keep Libyan refugees out of Europe? Or about Prince sending up trial balloons about entering the Wyoming Senate race?
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats and Republicans alike voted on January 16 to renew and strengthen the FBI’s power to search American’s digital communications without a warrant. Glad to see that there is bipartisan support to keep us all safe.
You know what they say. Just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.
I admit to having struck a somewhat humorous and ironic tone in this article. But it really is not funny. They really are out to get us, at least a lot of us.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is one of the largest cities in the world without a central sewage system. Most of the more than 3 million residents use outhouses and rely on workers with some of the worst jobs in the world, hauling away human excrement by hand one bucket at a time. The men are called bayakou, and they work in the dark by candlelight.
The scary part is not that politicians use the word shithole, its that America will become a shithole if present leadership continues.
“It has to do with corrupt incompetent governments that abuse their citizens, and that results in completely absent infrastructure to include open sewers, and unclean water, and crime.”
Well that sounds like parts of the United states now. Puerto Rico has no clean water or electricity. There is a whole generation of kids growing up in Flint Michigan with permanent brain damage due to lead poisoning in the water. And you don’t hear much about FEMA helping out with any of the California disasters because no one in California voted for Trump.
Corrupt incompetent governments? That is Trump with a capital T.
Price is scary and nefarious, but I feel this is worse:
“Meanwhile, Senate Democrats and Republicans alike voted on January 16 to renew and strengthen the FBI’s power to search American’s digital communications without a warrant. Glad to see that there is bipartisan support to keep us all safe.”
This is really alarming, though I shouldn’t be suprised. Money for completely secret spy operations and private armies? Who could expect anything else from a sycophant like Betsy DeVos’ bro.