The rising furore over President-elect Donald Trump's naming of alt-right hero Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist has devolved into a bizarre argument over whether Bannon is personally racist and anti-Semitic or "only" ran a website questioning the loyalty of Jewish critics and espousing the views of far-right European parties.

It's not bad enough that a high-ranking White House official praises right-wing, anti-Semitic parties, boasts of his publication's association with white nationalists and built a campaign around the threat of globalist, international moneymen – a thinly disguised anti-Semitic trope? (Actually, Bannon's former wife claims that he did object to sending his children to a school with Jewish students. Doesn't this "count"?) House Speaker Paul Ryan tells us not to worry; it's all good. Really.

Funny how Trump and some of his closest aides who rail against globalism are enmeshed in foreign businesses. Trump, of course, is indebted to foreign banks.

From The Wall Street Journal: "Germany's Deutsche Bank has been one of Trump's long-time suppliers of credit. The bank provided him with hundreds of millions in loans to finance the DC hotel and other projects. Deutsche Bank, which does plenty of business in America, has already been hit with massive fines by US regulators for various shenanigans. So what happens when a foreign bank that federal regulators oversee is a creditor to the president those regulators answer to? The same problem could play out with banks in China and other foreign countries that Trump has had dealings with."