Steve Bannon Is off the National Security Council

White supremacist Steve Bannon is off the National Security Council. At the moment, the entirety of the Washington Post's report reads: "A senior White House official said that the change is not a demotion, and that Bannon had accomplished what he'd set out to do on the National Security Council."

Followed by a note that the story will be updated. But at least we've gotten the important detail—that Bannon is TOO AWESOME for the National Security Council ANYWAY.

This is good news, in the sense that Bannon never should have had a seat on the National Security Council in the first place.

BUT. Bannon will presumably retain his position as chief strategist in the White House, where he will continue to operate with even less oversight and transparency than he did on the NSC.

So that's not great. As long as Bannon remains in the White House at all, we have a problem.

[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg reports that the role of Trump's Homeland Security Adviser, Tom Bossert, has also been downgraded, while "the national intelligence director, Dan Coats, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, are again 'regular attendees' of the NSC's principals committee."

And there's this amusing note: "A White House official said that Bannon was placed on the committee in part to monitor Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and never attended a meeting."

So they're trying to argue at they were totes on top of the whole Flynn thing and put Bannon there to babysit him, and now his job is done because Flynn's gone. Laughably cynical and opportunistic. Trump defended Flynn even on the day he fired him, and now he wants to rewrite history to try to frame Bannon as a hero, rather than a shitlord who is being relocated to minimize scrutiny.

As investigations for administration ties to Russia continue, and the administration appears to be angling for a war.