Military Veterans and Patriots

Category: Opinion

While we’re at President Trump

First breakfast was long ago already, for those who never actually seen the crack of dawn, it’s perfect time to eat.

Seen my neighbor out there, checking things out, he got something, was lookin like this

The mission of the U.N. has not once ever been accomplished since it’s inception, not once

ZeeeMediaOfficial on X: “U.S. moves to withdraw from the UN! LET’S GOOOOOOOO!!! 🔥🔥🔥 Sen. Mike Lee, introduced legislation Thursday to terminate U.S. membership in the U.N. & its affiliated bodies, and cut funding. Rep. Chip Roy poised to introduce the measure in the House Friday. https://t.co/txJ3JRrV5b” / X

Co-sponsors of the bill in the House of Representatives include Representatives Mike Rogers (AL-03), Eli Crane (AZ-02), Diana Harshbarger (TN-01), Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13), Harriett Hageman (WY-AL), Josh Brecheen (OK-06), Thomas Massie (KY-04), and Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14).

Mike Lee

@SenMikeLee

The United Nations has become a platform for tyrants, and a megaphone for people who hate America. We should stop paying for it and put America first. Proud to introduce the DEFUND Act with

@chiproytx

and

@RepMikeRogersAL

to withdraw the US from the UN.

They can leave with the clothes on thier back and that’s it, everything stays, so much skullduggery to be exposed.

John, he was from a time in America when we the people could laugh at ourselves, we need that once again, Ladies first 🙂

Opening bid starts at a measly sawbuck (10.00) in Roman lingo “X” for this very rare picture of Abe with his favorite Stratocaster

picture was taken by none other than Keith Richards

And just so you know, when people walk by my marker, I want them to make the sign of the Cross while whispering,

Sweet Lord Jesus what did he do

26 February 2025
Chivalry

It’s an old word

code of conduct associated with knights, emphasizing qualities like bravery, honor, and courteous behavior, especially towards women. Today, it generally signifies polite and kind behavior that reflects a sense of honor.

Words are ok, deeds, well that’s something different, in ways you know, it’s just never talked about not really. Take Curly for an example, he made you laugh, but who was he as a man.

Typically surrounded by various dogs, Curly was known to come home with a stray dog and foster it until he could find it a permanent home. When the Stooges were out on the road, Curly took it upon himself to find a new home for at least one stray dog in every town they visited. Curly is estimated to have saved and rescued more than 5,000 dogs in his lifetime. This makes him a man ahead of his time, with a very admirable concern for man’s best friend.

Grew up where feelings took second seat to deeds, look what happened to males once the femnazis got ahold of them, nothing good that’s for sure. These guys, their deeds display their feelings

Men, we really do talk different than the ladies, mind you, this a friend.

As a veteran, I betcha you can relate to the expression on the face

As a kid, I was schooled with these words

Make safe the path for Woman to walk without fear

Ole Rob Roy said basically the same thing, except with an accent

Ladies, you may find this useful, pay attention girls

Something you may not thought of, I have, Karoline the press lady, I was thinking she needs some music while walking and entering the press briefings, she’s not really my girl per say, but in the situation she’s my girl 🙂

24 February 2025
SecDef Hegseth Gets a Rude and Disrespectful Welcome by US Military Command in Germany

SecDef Hegseth Gets a Rude and Disrespectful Welcome by US Military Command in Germany

streiff12:13 PM on February 12, 2025

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth began a tour of Europe Tuesday, starting at the headquarters of US European Command at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany. The newly minted SecDef has a heavy schedule in front of him, inspecting US forces in Europe and dealing with his first meeting with NATO. He is obviously trying to move beyond the controversies associated with his confirmation. He is also trying to lead by example and reverse the cultural rot in the US military by force of will.

He traveled to Europe by way of a C-17 cargo plane with a command pod rather than in a Gulfstream executive jet.

C-17’s ‘Silver Bullet’ Airstream Trailer Pod Used By Secretary Of Defense Hegseth On First Overseas Trip

The dated Silver Bullet Command and Control Modules are scheduled to be replaced later this year after more than three decades of service.

Story: https://t.co/3yXYsTr6Aj— Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) February 12, 2025

He traveled with his wife and child. This has become something of a standard image of all Trump Cabinet secretaries. Trump has had his grandchild at his desk. Sean Duffy’s family is prominent in events. JD Vance’s wife and kids travel with him. Musk’s kid was at the press conference he held yesterday. The image of family as a central point in life rather than an adjunct to your job is striking when compared to previous administrations, including Trump 1.0. See my colleague Brandon Morse’s post on the subject: Elon Musk Is Demonstrating the Best Pro-Life Strategy Right Now and It’s Heartwarming to See – RedState.

NEW: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth & his wife just landed in Germany after opting to skip the Munich Security Conference to instead talk to American troops throughout Europe, including Poland & Belgium.

“I would much rather talk to troops than go to cocktail parties.”… pic.twitter.com/8tsyUdVPJ8— George (@BehizyTweets) February 11, 2025

Hegseth mixed with the troops.

Pete Hegseth at the gym with U.S. soldiers in Europe this morning.

Defense Secretary lifting weights with the troops, awesome.pic.twitter.com/aLU3vmhMGJ— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) February 11, 2025

He ran PT with 1st Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group.

BREAKING: Pete Hegseth is in Germany training with Green Berets and is skipping the Munich Security Conference to interact with American troops throughout Europe instead.

“I would much rather talk to troops than go to cocktail parties.” pic.twitter.com/aPtxhNiRTN— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) February 11, 2025

This is a close-up of the upper right image in the last group because the size of that guy has been commented on.

Pete Hegseth is in Germany training with Green Berets and is skipping the Munich Security Conference to interact with American troops throughout Europe instead.

“I would much rather talk to troops than go to cocktail parties.”

Did you work out today?😜 https://t.co/SbAtcHoulh— NannaTracyM (@NannaTracyM) February 12, 2025

While the informal side went well, the official visit was, in my view, a lot more problematic.

These images are from the official reception.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited US European Command (EUCOM) headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany yesterday. He is on his first trip to Europe since taking office. pic.twitter.com/JoIbjC8rcD— Brodie K. – Analyze & Educate (@AnalyzeEducate) February 12, 2025

I’m old school on uniforms. I think the custom of wearing BDUs (utilities, fatigues, whatever you want to call the field uniform) all the time is horrendous. When I was a young officer, you weren’t allowed to wear BDUs off-post. Period. You couldn’t go to a fast food place or run an errand on the way home or at lunch wearing BDUs. In my view, if you can’t break out the Class A uniform to welcome the SecDef and note the color guard is in dress uniform, then there is no possible occasion that calls for them. But, if you do wear BDUs to greet the SecDef, show him the respect of wearing a fresh set. Meeting the head of the Department of Defense in wrinkled BDUs is a calculated insult because I really don’t believe this four-star or his aide are that stupid.

More evidence to back up my contention that the greeting was intended to show Hegseth how little the commanding general thought of him, perhaps for the first time in the history of the Defense Department, the Secretary of Defense was heckled by military wives.

A very small group of protesters shouting “DEI” greeted @SecDef @PeteHegseth at the EUCOM HQs. Not sure who they were, but they have base access. 😳

Here’s the tail end of it: pic.twitter.com/2AoyeXd4R7— Kristina Wong 🇺🇸 (@kristina_wong) February 11, 2025

At the same time, middle school, I say again, middle school students walked out to protest the end of DEI programs. This was absolutely organic to the middle school and had no helping hand from the command structure in Stuttgart because if there is one thing that really sets off 6th graders, it is losing their DEI classes.

More than 50 students at Patch Middle School in Stuttgart, Germany, staged a walkout Tuesday to protest recent Pentagon moves that have targeted diversity initiatives at military schools.https://t.co/Sx3HDrdPXC— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) February 12, 2025

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re willing to greet your boss in wrinkled clothes and allow him to be heckled by dependent wives, you can imagine what else is going on out of sight.

Former infantry officer, CGSC grad and Army Operations Center alumnus. Also an amateur historian (Colonial America) and a dabbler in historical fiction.
RedState member since 2004. “He would rather pinch off his own head than admit he’s wrong” — Daily Kos. Follow me on Twitter.

I know nothing about military promotions; however, such disrespect should move the Command structure to the no promotion mode.

14 February 2025
Counterrevolution Blueprint

Counterrevolution Blueprint

How to eliminate left-wing racialism from the federal government

By: Christopher F. Rufo for City Journal

How to eliminate left-wing racialism from the federal government

The second election of Donald Trump, along with Republican victories in both houses of Congress, sets the stage in the United States for a confrontation between democracy, which depends on representative institutions to form a government, and the rule of unelected elites, which relies on claims of expertise to control the state.

Already, internal opposition to Trump is organizing within the federal agencies. CNN reports that Pentagon officials are discussingdisobeying official policy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has declared that he would refuse if Trump asked for his resignation. Some would like to see a reprise of the orchestrated counteractions against Trump, from the Russia collusion hoax to the Hunter Biden laptop censorship to the political prosecutions that led to his arrest and felony convictions.

The coming political confrontation is unusual because the specific antagonist is hard to identify. Trump is not contending against Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, or even the Democratic minority in Congress. Instead, the president-elect’s post-electoral opposition comes from inside the executive branch itself, in defiance of Article II of the Constitution, which opens with the unqualified statement: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”

In recent years, phrases like “the deep state” have arisen in American political discourse to describe this phenomenon, in which administrators, bureaucrats, and unelected officials seem to wield a kind of power that we still lack appropriate language to describe. Part of the motivation is self-interest—bureaucrats want to protect their positions—but another is ideological: the federal government is steeped in left-wing race and gender ideology, and its adherents see Trump as an existential threat.

By rights, he should be. The incoming president has, under the Constitution, every right to bend the administration to his vision, which is contrary to the tenets of left-wing racialism. But those ideologies, which the Biden administration has entrenched through its “whole-of-government” diversity agenda, have long ruled the agencies that control the details of federal policymaking. Hence, the conflict: the president, who has formal authority, versus the ideological bureaucracy, which has real power.

At the end of his first term, Trump attempted to correct this problem through actions such as an executive order banning critical race theory in the federal government. The second Trump administration must go further and dedicate itself to a process that Vice President–elect J. D. Vance has described as “dewokeification.” This is the most urgent policy problem facing the administration, because without representative institutions and a restoration of constitutional authority, it is not possible to govern America.

The Trump administration has a unique opportunity to take decisive action on Day One, through executive orders that can serve as the opening salvo in a counterrevolution. The basic premise: the U.S. should strip left-wing racialism from the federal government and recommit the country to the principle of color-blind equality. Through an aggressive campaign, Trump and his cabinet can put an end to forms of discrimination disguised under the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) and make government work again.

The process of ideological capture has taken decades. But the counterrevolution can, and must, quickly retake those institutions in the name of the people and reorient them toward the enduring principles of liberty and equality. Bureaucrats abusing the public trust to advance their own ideologies should be put on notice: they will be shut down, their departments abolished, and their employment terminated. The administration will work to rid America of this ideological corruption before it further rots our institutions, demoralizes our citizens, and renders the government totally incompetent.

The counterrevolution begins now.

First, a map of the territory. Left-wing thinking is pervasive in the federal bureaucracy, shaping the behavior of federal agencies and operating unaffected by electoral politics. Most employees of the administrative state, especially those concerned with justice, education, arts, and health, are overwhelmingly left-wing, and partisans of fashionable ideologies.

The data are striking. During the 2020 presidential cycle, Department of Justice employees directed 86 percent of their political contributions to Democrats; at Labor, it was 88 percent; Health and Human Services, 92 percent; and Education, 97 percent. Overall, 84 percent of donations from nondefense federal employees went to presidential candidate Biden, according to Bloomberg. These numbers mirror trends in tech companies and universities, often seen as bastions of left-wing thought. When institutions skew so heavily toward one ideology, they become prone to ideological capture.

The federal government now underwrites progressive ideologies, such as critical race theory, through vast financial subsidies. Public universities, bolstered by federal funding and government-backed student loans, house numerous departments promoting these views. Additionally, federal grants and diversity training contracts, largely managed by bureaucrats without legislative oversight, channel taxpayer money toward ideological initiatives. Data from the General Services Administration reveal a consistent left-wing bias in such expenditures, persisting under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

At the Treasury Department, for example, administrators under Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden funded many critical theory–based programs, often under euphemisms related to “diversity.” Under Obama, the Treasury created the Office for Minority and Women Inclusion and other race- and identity-based initiatives. Under Trump, Treasury pushed critical race theory as an operating ideology, hiring consultants to conduct training programs teaching employees that America was a nation of “systemic racism” with a 400-year history of “racial terrorism” that continues “to this very day.” Their proposed solution: for federal employees—especially “white folk” with an obligation to do serious “inner work”—to become “activists” and advance the agenda of “racial equity.”

These programs multiplied and intensified under Biden. As I recently reported, the Biden administration used executive authority to create a permanent racialist bureaucracy, including an Equity Hub, an Advisory Committee on Racial Equity, and a Counselor for Racial Equity. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, together with Vice President Kamala Harris, announced $8.7 billion in lending to “minority-owned businesses,” an openly discriminatory effort. The Treasury also compelled federal contractors to implement DEI. At the same time, Treasury policy concerning Earned Income Tax Credit audits changed to “examining audit fairness by other demographic categories”—a euphemism for racial favoritism.

Such rhetoric has increasingly become the rule within federal agencies and federally funded academic, educational, and activist groups. Racial preferences and discrimination are becoming an ever more entrenched part of government policy. The administration changes, but the ideology remains: subsidized by taxpayers, administered by the “expert class,” and imposed on the American people.

Richard Nixon proposed a “New American Revolution” that would decentralize power—returning it to states, localities, and citizens. (AP Photo)

What can be done about the problem of ideological capture? Three American presidents—Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump—tried to address the problem directly. None solved it, but all offer starting points for a solution.

In his 1971 State of the Union address, Nixon proposed a “New American Revolution” that would decentralize power, returning it to states, localities, and citizens. Nixon argued that the federal government had become too domineering and threatened to supplant core social functions. He also saw that the permanent federal bureaucracy and its class of experts, bureaucrats, and intellectuals were hostile to his administration and his constituents. “The further away government is from people, the stronger government becomes and the weaker people become. And a nation with a strong government and a weak people is an empty shell,” he said. “The idea that a bureaucratic elite in Washington knows best what is best for people everywhere and that you cannot trust local governments is really a contention that you cannot trust people to govern themselves.”

Nixon proposed a New Federalism that would reduce the number of cabinet departments, reorganize the executive branch, and send billions in funding to states and municipalities. “What this Congress can be remembered for is opening the way to a new American revolution—a peaceful revolution in which power was turned back to the people—in which government at all levels was refreshed and renewed and made truly responsive,” Nixon concluded in his State of the Union. “This can be a revolution as profound, as far-reaching, as exciting as that first revolution almost two-hundred years ago.” By the end of his first term, Nixon saw himself as a champion of the “general interest,” caught in a battle with an inimical bureaucratic system.

The media noticed. After his landslide reelection, the New York Times published its “Nixon Counterrevolution” editorial, warning that the 37th president sought to “advance an ideological grand design” that would reverse the New Deal and the Great Society, abolishing federal programs that worked to impose elite views on local communities. “Mr. Nixon seeks to accomplish a retrogressive counterrevolution in the guise of an administrative reorganization,” the editorial cautioned.

Nixon acted decisively, releasing budgets and plans to enact his counterrevolution. He reorganized the federal apparatus to make it more responsive to presidential authority, abolished programs promoting left-wing ideologies, suspended federal housing initiatives pending review, and narrowed the ideological scope of federally funded social services. Central to his approach was “revenue sharing,” a bold system channeling federal funds directly to states and localities. Nixon saw decentralization and White House control of the executive branch as vital to preventing bureaucratic tyranny and ensuring that government operated closer to the people.

When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he, too, sought to curb left-wing ideological influence within the federal government. Reviving Nixon’s vision of a New Federalism, Reagan called his effort a “quiet revolution” to devolve power back to citizens. His primary strategy, described by some analysts as an effort to “defund the Left,” focused on reducing federal spending, cutting programs in areas like community development, education, social services, and employment training, and targeting ideological opponents within the government.

In a more limited, but perhaps more pragmatic way, Donald Trump also sought to roll back left-wing ideological domination of federal agencies—this time, targeting critical race theory. Inspired by my reporting for City Journal and developed in part on my policy recommendations, in the closing months of 2020, Trump issued an “Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” intended to ban divisive, critical race theory–based training programs within the federal government.

The executive order denounced critical ideologies “grounded in hierarchies based on collective social and political identities rather than in the inherent and equal dignity of every person as an individual” and “rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.” It prohibited all training programs that promoted the “divisive concepts” that:

(1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (2) the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist; (3) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (4) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (5) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (6) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (7) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.

None of these approaches was sufficient. Nixon was hemmed in by the bureaucracy and a Democratic Congress; then Watergate forced him out. Reagan scaled back some funding but did not fundamentally change the entrenched ideology or behavior of the federal bureaucracy. And Trump’s “critical race theory ban” was rescinded by Joe Biden’s order on the first day of his presidency in 2021.

Though these policies failed to solve the critical problem, they illuminate its nature and provide a starting point for a solution. The task for policymakers now is to build on the efforts of Nixon, Reagan, and Trump, and to design policies that will tame the bureaucracy and thereby advance the public interest. Failing that, as Nixon warned, the American experiment will come to an end: bureaucratic rule will devour the constitutional order.

As the second Trump administration takes shape, the president should remember a key lesson: though he must accept the current reality that Washington, D.C., is the greatest benefactor of critical theories and left-wing ideologies in America, he is far from powerless to change it. He has policy options that can begin the process of restoring presidential authority, realigning the bureaucracy toward the president’s vision, and reversing the process of ideological capture.

To catalyze this process, I propose an ambitious counterrevolution blueprint that can begin on Day One. Immediately on assuming office, the president should issue a suite of executive orders to “surround and smother” left-wing ideologies across six domains: bureaucracy, content, policy, funding, behavior, and personnel.

The first objective is to shift the structures of the bureaucracy and align them more directly with the administration’s principles. The president should order the agencies to abolish all DEI departments, plans, and programs and terminate the employees associated with them. Many of these programs were created not at the direction of Congress but of previous presidents—most notably, President Obama’s Executive Order 13583, President Biden’s Executive Order 13985 and Executive Order 14035, and by agency leaders on their own initiative. Trump can end these programs under his executive authority and replace DEI with a policy of strict color-blind equality.

This action would deliver an immediate shock to the bureaucracy. Critical ideologies took hold largely because conservative administrations have either overlooked the issue or hesitated to confront it. Lacking clear arguments and vocabulary on race and gender, many conservative leaders have avoided these topics, allowing agencies to build entrenched “diversity” infrastructures that operate beyond congressional oversight.

An executive order dismantling these programs would destabilize internal partisans who have used them to advance left-wing ideologies. These employees would be tasked with dismantling their own systems and implementing a new framework based on color-blind equality. The order would disrupt the structures enabling ideological capture and reassert the president’s constitutional authority. While resistance from the most partisan employees is likely, strong directives would neutralize even the most committed ideologues.

The second objective is to identify and eliminate all programs, policies, grants, proposals, trainings, and budget items that promote left-wing racialism. This requires a system to identify where such ideology appears in federal documents. The most effective approach is to develop an artificial intelligence program that can scan the flow of paperwork for keywords and flag relevant instances for review by the Office of Management and Budget, which operates under direct presidential oversight. This system would channel information from across the federal government to the White House, enabling politically appointed officials to monitor the ideological content of federal programs, defund them as necessary, and enforce the directives of this order effectively.

This “locate-and-terminate” system could be deployed across the government and provide a ranked scale for prioritizing manual review. Though left-wing bureaucrats within the agencies might try to develop euphemisms and neologisms to evade enforcement, the key concepts and principles of critical theories have been relatively stable over the past half-century; the language is unlikely to change fast enough or significantly enough to evade restriction.

The third objective of the executive order is to restrict federal agencies, federal contractors, and recipients of federal funds from promoting racial and sexual bigotry in all programs, policies, trainings, and management. Building on the framework of President Trump’s Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping, the order should add to it the text below, and mandate that the federal government not promote, advance, or inculcate the following “divisive concepts,” that:

(10) an individual, on the basis of his or her race or sex, is presumed to have traits such as white privilege, white fragility, internalized racism, implicit bias, or unconscious bias; (11) concepts and institutions such as meritocracy, individualism, rationality, equality, color blindness, hard work, and the nuclear family are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race; (12) racial disparities in social and economic outcomes are solely or necessarily the result of racism or racist policies; (13) individuals should be encouraged or required to participate in separate spaces, facilities, accommodations, programs, or “affinity groups” on the basis of race or sexual orientation.

The fourth objective: cut off funding for left-wing ideologies in federal grantmaking and contracting. The order should require that all existing, pending, proposed, and considered federal contracts that contain the flagged items pass through the OMB for manual review and approval. Existing contracts that violate the “divisive concepts” restrictions should be immediately terminated through the budget impoundment process and litigated as necessary; future grant applications, considerations, and nominations that advance the “divisive concepts” should be denied by OMB staff.

This policy offers a twofold benefit: it would systematically “defund the Left” within the federal government and disrupt the broader ecosystem supporting left-wing ideologies. By banning “diversity and inclusion” contractors and extending “divisive concepts” restrictions to all federal grants and contractors—including major corporations and research universities—the order would curb the spread and influence of critical race and gender theories across the largest public and private bureaucracies. “Diversity and inclusion” has become a multibillion-dollar industry and a key mechanism for advancing left-wing ideologies in corporations, schools, and government agencies. The executive order would limit these initiatives’ scope and growth, while creating legal risks for firms engaging in discriminatory or extremist practices.

The fifth objective is to reshape federal agencies’ culture and behavior. This effort should begin with an expansion of the principles of the Hatch Act, which prohibits civil service employees from engaging in partisan political activity, to include all social and political activism not directly related to an employee’s official duties. In principle, the restriction would apply equally to the political movements of the Left and the Right; in practice, it would almost exclusively restrict left-wing activism, given the composition of the federal workforce and the existing culture of the federal bureaucracy.

The executive order would not directly change the biases and political orientation of federal employees, but it would keep them from acting them out. Over time, the result would be a reduction in left-wing activism and messaging within the federal government, which, in the longer term, could restore ideological balance and accountability to the executive.

The sixth objective is to eliminate affirmative action and disparate-impact doctrine from federal policymaking—core frameworks of critical race theory and left-wing “equity” initiatives in areas like criminal justice, public health, and redistribution programs. The executive order would rescind Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246 and ban affirmative action and disparate-impact doctrine in hiring, policies, and decision-making across the federal government and federally funded entities. In their place, it would mandate strict color blindness and equal treatment under the law, replacing “equity” with “equality.”

This policy would have an immediate impact on governance. Affirmative action, in particular, though widespread in public and private institutions—such as university admissions, corporate hiring, and federal contracting—is deeply unpopular. Even liberal states like California and Washington have rejected it through ballot initiatives. An executive order that prohibits race-based decision-making would gain broad support and create momentum for permanent legislative changes.

The final objective of the counterrevolution blueprint is to reinstate Trump’s Executive Order 13957, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” which removed certain civil service protections for federal employees involved in policymaking. This would give the president greater leverage over ideological factions in the government. The strength of the permanent bureaucracy lies in its leaders’ confidence that they will outlast any administration, enabling them to resist presidential agendas with minimal risk to their positions.

Schedule F applies to all “Federal service employed in positions of a confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating character,” granting the president greater authority to manage agencies and dismiss higher-level civil servants who fail to meet expectations or to implement presidential policies. This reform would give the White House tighter control over the bureaucracy and provide cabinet officials additional tools to ensure agency compliance.

The second Trump administration should dedicate itself to a process that Vice President–elect J. D. Vance describes as “dewokeification.” (Ariana Drehsler/The New York Times/Redux)

Taken together, this executive order’s provisions would seriously restrict left-wing ideologies in the federal government and reinstate political control over the bureaucracy. In the short term, the order would demoralize and constrain left-wing ideological culture; in the long term, it would realign the federal government with the vision of the president and reorient the state toward the principles of liberty and equality.

The Trump administration has been assembling a stellar reform team. Key positive developments include Trump’s selection of Vance, who proposed the Dismantle DEI Act as senator, as his running mate, and his appointment of Russell Vought as the director of Office of Management and Budget. Vought, in particular, is a brilliant administrator who understands the threat of critical race ideologies and, more importantly, knows how to operate the machinery of the state.

Our historical moment contains, in certain ways, more possibilities than Nixon’s or Reagan’s—presenting, for the first time in two generations, a real opportunity to unify constitutional government against bureaucratic ideological capture. Digital technology can now expose the extent of left-wing malfeasance and misfeasance in government, while also helping elected officials prevent or punish such activity. It is now possible to restore the representative character of our governing institutions—and, in the process, rebuild trust in them—which, over the same period, has fallen to its lowest recorded levels. A president under attack from within his own executive branch can now reassert his authority by appealing directly to voters.

What is the character of American democracy? Do the people want self-government, and are they capable of it? Or are they to be administered and dictated to by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, who claim a global and perhaps historical vision of “governance,” but no special allegiance to the American people? The major issues in the 2024 election—from immigration and the border, which bear on the constitutional question of citizenship, to crime and the economy, which bear on the Declaration of Independence’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—point to the desire for a restoration of popular rule. The time is ripe for decisive action under the Constitution to ensure the liberties of the people—the end to which all just government is directed.

Top Photo: Incoming president Donald Trump has, under the Constitution, every right to bend the administration to his vision. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

10 February 2025
One last song

I have zero cares about anything pertaining to the nfl, my cares lay elsewhere

Weep Not For Me, I Am A Marine

Do not stand at my grave weeping.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds drifting gently over the land.
I am God’s diamond, a light glistening through the skies,
His snow crystal riding winds, caring not where fate takes me,
happy to flow through endless beauty.
I rise, I soar, I change, gently.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain;
I am the seasons that call to the earth,
becoming the gentle autumn rain caressing land.
You awaken to the dawn hush;
I am the swift, uplifting warmth of the morning breeze.

At night, I am the stars that shine.
I was old, yet you see me,
able to run once again as I shoot through the night sky.
I am the splendor of the harvest moon.
Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there; my spirit soars on the wind.
I did not die the way you think.

Because…

All Marines die in the red flash of battle
or the cold loneliness of a nursing home,
their bodies broken, aged because of war.
In the vigor of youth or the infirmity of years, all eventually cross over.
But our Marine Corps lives on.
Every Marine who ever existed is living still
through our young Marines who claim our title today.

It is the sense of brotherhood that outlives our mortality.
It is belonging to our Marine Corps, which gives us light to live by,
our honor to uphold, traditions to pass on,
our warrior code to give our new generation…

What they care about, what I care about are two different worlds

Semper fi

10 February 2025
No guarantees

Step out your door in the morning, don’t really think about it, too busy with life, sometimes you just wish the day gets over with. Anytime, anywhere for just about any reason one can think of, the future is uncertain, death is always near. safe to say, the mood of the whole country changed last night, weird, Jim Mckay and his wide world of sports came to mind, the world ice skating is saddened, people we don’t even know have our prayers, does matter if they were American or Russian skaters along with the flight crew no; death came, maybe we feel as we do because it could be anyone one of us.

Daniel’s music came mind

As Daniel mentioned

Shine light into darkness

30 January 2025
Abolish the Army

Abolish the Army

In December, Reason Magazine ran a series of articles on Abolish the…a variety of agencies….more of which I will be posting.

My posting of the article is not an endorsement. I did find their reasoning somewhat interesting due to the Constitutional thought processes involved.

https://reason.com/2024/11/14/abolish-the-army

Abolish the Army

Summary

The article discusses the idea of abolishing the Army and restoring the militia as the Founders intended. The Founding Fathers were wary of standing armies and believed that a large military force in peacetime could be dangerous to liberty. They put an expiration date on any American army, limiting spending to two years. However, the Army has grown significantly since World War I and is now the largest branch of the military.

“Standing armies are dangerous to liberty,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 29.

Matthew PettiFrom the December 2024 issue

The people who created the U.S. Army did not want it to last forever. George Washington, the first commander of the Continental Army, wrote that “a large standing Army in time of Peace hath ever been considered dangerous to the liberties of a Country,” though he supported a small frontier force. Other Founding Fathers struck similar notes.

“Standing armies are dangerous to liberty,” wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 29. “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home,” warned James Madison at the Constitutional Convention. “What, sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty,” said Elbridge Gerry during the debates over the Bill of Rights.

No wonder, then, that they put an expiration date on any American army. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution states that Congress has the power “To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.” The next clause, authorizing the U.S. Navy, imposes no limits on spending. The message was clear: America needs a peacetime defense force at sea, not on land.

Before World War I, the U.S. Army didn’t even have permanent division–level units. But things have shaped up quite differently since then. The Army is now the largest branch of the military, with nearly half a million active duty troops, plus another 176,000 reservists.

The “militia” that was supposed to “prevent the establishment of a standing army” has now been absorbed into it. Since the early 20th century, all state-level National Guard units have been subordinate to the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force. Since 2001, more than a million guardsmen and guardswomen have been sent overseas, sometimes for multiple tours of duty, rather than defending their home states.

Fortunately, the Founding Fathers’ worst fears about “tyranny at home” were not realized. There has been no military coup d’etat in American history. But the standing army has still come at a cost—and not just a financial one. It has made it easier for the president to launch invasions of foreign countries without any declaration of war or real democratic debate, and it has helped police departments enforce tyranny on a local scale. And a large, permanent land army may be sucking up resources that America needs to prepare for real threats.

The United States launched an average of one military intervention abroad per year from 1776 through 1945, according to Monica Duffy Toft and Sidita Kushi’s book Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy. Since then, the number has grown to 4.6 interventions per year. “While in the past the United States often relied on diplomacy, economic tools, and threats or displays of force, its modern-day self has resorted to more direct militaristic tactics, rather than reserving force as the policy of last resort,” write Toft and Kushi.

Meanwhile, the standing army has been the handmaiden of a more heavy-handed, less accountable police force at home. In response to the unrest of the 1960s, the Army built training centers known as Riotsvilles, teaching law enforcement officers how to wage counterinsurgency on Americans. After 9/11, over $1.6 billion of surplus military equipment flooded into police departments through the 1033 program, according to a Brown University Costs of War Project study.

Given these drawbacks, what is the benefit of a standing army? Americans face fewer threats to their territory than they did when the Founding Fathers warned about standing armies. (Canada and Mexico, after all, are friendly now, and Native Americans are U.S. citizens.)

The U.S. has commitments to defend treaty allies in Europe and Asia, and an interest in making sure global trade routes are free for Americans to use. But responding to those challenges quickly requires naval and air power more than it requires a large ground army. The largest threat U.S. allies face today is China, and any future conflict with that country would likely be waged in the Pacific Ocean, with little role for ground forces. A 2020 paper by the Cato Institute, examining what a truly defensive posture for the U.S. military would look like, concluded that the Army is severely bloated, especially in comparison to the Navy and Air Force.

“Above all, the active-duty U.S. Army should be substantially smaller and postured mostly for hemispheric defense,” the paper states. “A grand strategy of restraint would eliminate most permanent garrisons on foreign soil and rely more heavily on reservists and National Guard personnel for missions closer to the U.S. homeland.”

That sounds a lot like the vision the Founding Fathers had: a navy and a militia, but no standing Army.

29 January 2025
Disturbing Questions about the Intelligence Community
Disturbing Questions about the Intelligence Community

John Geen for American Thinker

In the run-up to the 2020 election, 51 “intelligence experts” signed a letter claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop bore all the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation operation.  In recent months, we’ve learned that the letter was just a piece of campaign subterfuge, organized by Antony Blinken, to insulate candidate Biden from evidence on the laptop of corruption.

Since the 2020 election, we’ve learned that the FBI validated the laptop as authentic, and its contents have not been tampered with.  The evidence on the laptop was even of such fidelity that it was used by the DoJ to prosecute Hunter Biden for tax evasion.  The 51 knew that the letter — not the laptop — was complete disinformation, yet went along with Blinken’s plan to provide plausible deniability to candidate Biden until after the election.

We are justifiably outraged that the 51 used their credentials to dishonestly influence an election.  We should also consider the implications of having people of such limited integrity serving in the Intelligence Community (I.C.).

Graeme Wood, writing for The Atlantic, points out that the 51 included professionals who had built careers in the I.C. by objectively assessing data and providing rigorous analysis.  Yet they skipped the discipline of their profession when they flagged the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation.  Wood writes,

Why these titans of intelligence were willing to risk their hard-won credibility on the possibility that Hunter Biden might not be a slimeball is deeply mysterious.

Yes, it is, but that is a statement based on a false assumption — that the signatories were people of honor.  The 51 “titans of intelligence” didn’t risk their credibility; they revealed that they had none.

The most important question now isn’t “why” (as Wood seems to ask); it is “what.”  We know they did it to influence an election and were willing to jeopardize national security to do it (that’s the “why”).  The more important question is, what other damages have such ethically challenged people done to America?

Some professions require honesty (adherence to facts) and integrity (adherence to principles).  When a professional is discovered to have ethical deficits, it is reasonable to question whether he was ever trustworthy.

If a police detective is caught tampering with evidence, it doesn’t merely undermine his current case.  It calls into question every case he has ever investigated.  Were there statements made under oath that were false?  Was the evidence presented collected, preserved, and accounted for as claimed?  Is there any proof other than the word of a demonstrated liar?

The 51 all served in professions requiring honesty and integrity, at the highest levels of the I.C. — some as directors of the CIA, NSA, and Office of National Security.  How much of the analysis and advice provided by their departments was honest intelligence, and how much was political prevarication?  Given their signatures on the letter, why should we presume the former rather than the latter?  If it’s the latter, how much damage was done to America during their decades of building their organizations and advising executive decision-makers?

Consider the recent conduct of the I.C.
- They failed to recognize the growing danger of al-Qaeda — until too late.
- They assured President Bush that Iraq had WMDs.
- They didn’t anticipate the fall of Libya or the rise of ISIS.
- They were wildly over-optimistic with their nuclear assessments of Iran and North Korea.
- They were convinced that the Taliban would be a trustworthy partner during our retreat from Afghanistan.
- They haven’t said a word about the national security implications of an open border.
Have members of the I.C. just been bad at their jobs, or was something else going on? How many flawed executive decisions have been made based on political manipulation presented as rigorous intelligence analysis?

Given that the people who populate our I.C. agencies were hired, trained, and guided by the 51 liars, can they be trusted to provide sound advice as
- China threatens Taiwan,
- Russia intimidates its neighbors,
- Iran expands its terror networks,
- Venezuela devolves into chaos,
- Mexico is commandeered by narco-terrorists, and
- Cuba sits 80 miles off our coast praying for our demise?
President Trump must surely be questioning the credibility of the advice he receives from his intelligence services.  I can just imagine the questions running through his head during his daily briefing.  What have they missed, what are they hiding, and what are they lying about?

The 51 didn’t just expose their own lack of credibility.  They cast suspicion over the entire Intelligence Community.

John Green is a retired engineer and political refugee from Minnesota, now residing in Idaho.  He is a contributor to The American Spectator and the American Free News Network.  He can be reached at greenjeg@gmail.com.

Frankly, it has become an oxymoron to call them “intelligence”.
28 January 2025
Will the Deep State Strike Back?

Will the Deep State Strike Back?

It’s telling that what’s good for American citizens is bad for Trump’s entrenched opponents.

Jeff Carlson & Hans Mahncke

As President Trump comes back into office, a crucial question lingers. What kind of resistance will the new administration face from the Establishment Deep State? Will the political mandate of Trump and JD Vance, coupled with the downsizing attacks from Elon and Vivek, be enough to push the establishment back on their heels? What plans has the Deep State drawn up for Trump’s return?

Trump has already survived two separate assassination attempts—one of which failed by mere centimeters. We’re hoping the adage “If you shoot for the King you better not miss” holds true but we find ourselves concerned over what other plots the Deep State may have in store.

We’re not allowing ourselves to become Black-pilled (we’re actually quite optimistic longer-term) but we are trying to be realistic about the foes that President Trump faces. As we know all too well, in 2016 Trump came into office hoping to Drain the Swamp. He found himself up against a vast ocean of corruption.

Trump was attacked from the moment he took office and those attacks never really let up. Unprecedented levels of leaking by anonymous intelligence officials was a daily occurrence. Entire federal agencies were arrayed against him. The media unquestioningly published whatever they were fed, no matter how outlandish the claims.

Indeed, although it’s easy to forget the sheer toxicity of the political environment during those early months, it was far from certain that the young Trump Administration would make it through 2017—much less the full four years of his presidential term.

It’s also worth remembering that in early 2017, Republicans were in a position of very real power. The GOP held the House, the Senate, the White House and a majority of governorships. And yet some of the biggest threats to Trump came not from Democrats but from Establishment Republicans.

Which raises a question of its own. What good is having a Republican majority in Congress if all they do is thwart the Republican president? This complete abdication by most of the GOP is a very real part of the reason why Republicans predictably lost the House in the 2018 midterm elections. And, of course, SpyGate and the Russia-Collusion narrative continued unabated.

Then, just as the Trump Administration was finally finding its footing in 2019, the State Department-led impeachment of Trump began. An impeachment effort that was a violent, systemic response to Trump’s questioning of Biden’s corruption in Ukraine—and our country’s larger actions in that region over the last two decades.

It is these systemic responses that have our attention. As we noted in a previous article, Obama’s presidency not only brought about significant division and policy shifts but also laid the groundwork for a network of fanatical loyalists and ideological allies, many of whom remain entrenched in both governmental and non-governmental institutions.

These figures, often former members of the Obama administration, have undermined democracy and the will of the people across multiple presidencies and they remain active in government roles through multiple administrations. Key figures in intelligence, defense, statecraft and other critical sectors often retain their positions or reemerge in different roles, reinforcing the perception of undemocratic continuity across American governance.

In part, this is why we contend that it’s unlikely that the Deep State simply goes quietly into the night and accepts their defeat. As we and others have said many times, there are literally trillions of dollars at stake.

All of our readers are familiar with Spygate and the fabricated Russia-Collusion narrative so we won’t rehash the entirety of that here but there are several moments that we feel are worth revisiting as a reminder of the Obama-backed forces that were mobilized against President Trump and his young first administration.

On Jan. 3, 2017, Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 was signed into effect by the outgoing Obama administration. The new order allowed for other intelligence agencies to ask the National Security Agency (NSA) for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that would be useful to a particular mission.

At the time, we questioned the timing of the order and possible ulterior motives on the part of the Obama White House. Why the pressing need to rush this order during the final days of his office? And why did the order allow for significant expansion in the sharing of raw intelligence amongst agencies.

One of the items within this provision prohibited dissemination of information to the White House. Remember that this provision would not impact Obama whose administration ended in two weeks. But it would most definitely impact the dissemination of information to the incoming Trump administration.

In other words, if this new provision had been implemented in early 2016 as originally scheduled, dissemination of any raw intelligence on or relating to the Trump campaign to officials within the Obama White House would likely have been made more difficult or quite possibly prohibited.

Said differently, prior to the January 2017 signing of Section 2.3, it appears that greater latitude existed for officials in the Obama administration to gain access to information. But once the order was signed into effect, Section 2.3 granted greater latitude to interagency sharing of that information, setting the stage for the massive intelligence community leaking that was still to come.

The practical effects from this order were highlighted by an inadvertent slip during a March 2, 2017 MSNBC interview with Obama’s former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas. Although she later tried to backpedal, during the interview, Farkas gleefully detailed how the Obama administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump Team:

I was urging my former colleagues…get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration…

The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knewabout the Trump staff dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence…That’s why you have the leaking.

Note that Farkas said “how we knew” not “what we knew”. A crucial distinction.

Less than three weeks later, House Intelligence Leader Devin Nunes effectively confirmed what Farkas had discussed. On March 22, 2017, after learning of the unmasking of members of the Trump transition team, Nunes abruptly gave an impromptu press conference, followed by a more formal press conference later that day.

Humor us as we run through some quotes from Nunes. Keep in mind that Obama’s NSA Data Sharing Order was specifically designed to allow for significant expansion in the sharing of previously collected raw intelligence among the various intelligence agencies:

“Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting…I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the President-elect and his team were at least monitored and disseminated out in intelligence reporting channel”

“It was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the President-elect and his transition team and what they were doing…incidental collection that then ended up in reporting channels and was widely disseminated.”

A few months later, on July 27, 2017, Nunes sent a letter to the Director of National Intelligence regarding the ongoing leaks of classified information and the need for new unmasking legislation to address the problem. Nunes’s letter specifically targeted officials within the Obama administration.

Nunes noted that one particular official had made a huge number of unmasking requests in 2016. That unnamed individual is almost certainly former U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power, who was later appointed by Joe Biden to run USAID, the massive cutout (conduit) agency for the CIA.

USAID is anything but what its name implies. It’s used to promulgate and fund the policies of the CIA and the State Department—including the overthrow of governments. Additionally, as we have noted previously, USAID also played a huge role in establishing and funding the NGOs that directed the massive flows of illegals into the US.

We all saw the lengths the establishment apparatus was willing to take during the 2020 election. Massive censorship of conservatives by the Deep State’s Big Tech partners was the norm. Unconstitutional changes to state election laws were made. More than one hundred million mail-in-ballots swamped our electoral system as our nation endured a manufactured pandemic of dubious origin.

Efforts by the Deep State did not simply go away after Trump left office. If anything they redoubled their agenda under a mentally diminished and overtly pliant Joe Biden. The events of January 6th provided an additional windfall for the Establishment and their DNC lackeys.

A rally that degenerated into what appears to have been a manufactured riot would later be used to label those who supported President Trump as traitors. Thousands were arrested and jailed. The entire MAGA movement was branded as insurrectionists by the media. Arrests by the FBI continued into the final weeks of the Biden administration.

The actions undertaken by members of the J6 Committee were so outlandish, so unbelievably egregious that a recent investigationconcluded that the entirety of the J6’s work should be completely discredited.

When Trump began to resurface politically, a massive lawfare effort was unleashed against him. Many of these legal attacks were led by Norman Eisen, a Brookings senior fellow, Obama’s former White House Ethics Czar and Ambassador to Czechoslovakia during the “Velvet Revolution.”

Eisen and his Brooking’s-funded group have been behind the ongoing Lawfare that has targeted Trump throughout his presidency, through the Biden Regime and into the present date. He and his latest group currently have their hopes set on fomenting some sort of a Color Revolution.

But despite all of these attempts—or perhaps because of them—Trump persevered and grew even stronger. Culminating in a sweeping election win that saw Republicans take control of the House, the Senate and The White House as Trump took the popular vote. It was a staggering setback for the Deep State.

Trump and Elon Musk have plans to slash as much as $2 Trillion from our annual federal budget—a number so large as to be almost incalculable. An integral part of this plan calls for the removal of tens of thousands of deadweight federal employees that are so entitled that they generally don’t bother to show up for work.

But even against this backdrop of downsizing—or perhaps because of it—many federal employees admit they are planning to openly oppose the incoming Trump Administration. According to a recent poll, 42% of federal government managers admitted that they plan to work against the incoming Trump Administration.

When measured along political lines, the numbers appear even more dramatic, with 73% of federal employees who identify as Democrats admitting they plan to resist or strongly resist the new Trump Administration.

We’ve written previously of efforts by long-time Deep Staters like Mary McCord—and their plans to find legal avenues to limit President Trump’s ability to quell potential civic unrest and ongoing violence in the streets.

For those unfamiliar, McCord was the Acting head of the DOJ’s National Security Division from 2016 to 2017 and was involved in the FBI’s early FISA surveillance of Trump advisor Carter Page. McCord was also appointed by Nancy Pelosi as legal counsel to the Jan 6th Capitol Security Review Task Force and has written articles pushing the Jan 6th narrative.

Most recently, she has been trying to derail the appointments of Pam Bondi as Attorney General and Kash Patel as FBI Director.

One area McCord, along with several senior Democrat lawmakers, appears to be targeting is the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992, during the L.A. riots.

We acknowledge this very real risk of civil unrest but given the mandate that Trump won on Election Day, we find ourselves less concerned than we otherwise might have been. The American public’s tolerance for riots and street violence has diminished markedly from the heyday of the ANTIFA and BLM riots. It’s a new era and a fresh political climate. What worked previously may fail badly today.

Trump rightly recognizes the historic moment that lies in front of him. It appears that nothing is off the table: mass deportations starting on day one, huge budget and headcount cuts, the implementation of tariff proposals, the retooling of our tax system and a complete overhaul of every federal agency. Our election systems are likely to undergo some major overhauls as well.

But everything that Trump hopes to implement is universally opposed by the Deep State Bureaucracy. Vehemently so. It’s telling that what’s good for American citizens is bad for Trump’s entrenched opponents.

Some have put forth the idea that the Deep State will enter a hibernation of sorts during the Trump presidency. But we do not share this view. Trump’s proposed changes are so fundamental, sweeping, and structural that if leaders of the Deep State, including figures like Obama, fail to respond, they may find themselves with nothing to return to. Which is precisely why we are asking the questions we’ve put forth.

Trump is making a lot of the right moves both policy and personnel-wise. His administration is far more prepared than in 2016. We’re not necessarily happy with every policy move and every nomination but we are very happy overall. But at the same time, we still find ourselves marginally unsettled over what may come next from a Deep State that is unlikely to simply give up.

We are living in exciting times. The enormity of the potential changes are both breath-taking and exhilarating. But we are also in dangerous times. A wild animal presents the greatest risk when it finds itself cornered.

We are grateful that President Trump has moved his formal inauguration into safer quarters. We also continue to believe the best thing a new Trump Administration can do to keep the deep state off-balance is a continuation of what they’ve already been doing.

Move Quickly & Break Things.

24 January 2025
President Trump Restructures the NSC and Removes IC Influence

President Trump Restructures the National Security Council and Removes IC Influence

Sundance for The Conservative Treehouse

People have asked why we focus so much sunlight and attention toward the network silos that operate the Intelligence Community (IC) and as an outcome the national security focus of government. The answer is simple, as Mary McCord herself admitted publicly, the IC are the background approver for every weaponized approach of government, including the DOJ.

With that in mind, CTH has painstakingly made the case –with details and receipts– for a process of removing the IC silos from influence over the Office of The President. The Chief Executive must control all elements of national security policy and implementation.

Thankfully, the Supreme Court recently affirmed the plenary power of the executive branch, and the unitary power of the President in controlling every system within that branch of government.

That ruling (presidential immunity) further bolstered the solution we have continuously proposed. The IC silos must be decoupled from the Executive office definitions of national security, until such a time as the IC institutions can be bought to heel.

The most effective way to confront a rogue, hostile and corrupt IC apparatus is to take away their power. The best way to remove their power is to use their primary weapon, their silo structure, against them.

Turn each silo into an irrelevant echo-chamber by using the White House National Security Council as their replacement. Regardless of what triggers the various IC silo embeds try to pull (CIA, NSA, FBI, DIA, etc.) let them shoot blanks by removing their power over policy and process.

If the IC is isolated from influence, eventually the Legislative Branch, specifically the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, will realize the ‘Seven Ways from Sunday’ group no longer hold power. The IC becomes a crew stomping their feet while no one pays attention.

This approach would be affected by restructuring the President’s National Security Council (NSC), the National Security Advisor (NSA Mike Waltz) and working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI Tulsi Gabbard), in a synergistic process. The IC become simply information functionaries. The Nat Sec Council then validates and defines the information, creates the definitions of national security interest, and initiates the guidance to President Trump, who ultimately triggers any action.

Until yesterday there were only a few subtle signs that this ‘silo isolation’ approach was being accepted as the most effective optimal solution to the problem within the intelligence apparatus. However, yesterday President Trump signed an Executive Order [SEE HERE] doing exactly the type of restructuring that is needed.

The XO is technical and deep in the weeds, but this is the process that has the greatest likelihood of success.

SUBJECT: Organization of the National Security Council and Subcommittees

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct the following:

As President, my highest priority and responsibility is to ensure the safety and security of the United States and its people. The national and homeland security threats facing the United States are complex and rapidly evolving. These issues often do not fit neatly into the categories that single departments and agencies are designed to optimally address, a fact recognized and exploited by our strategic competitors and adversaries in their adoption of whole-of-government and even whole-of-society approaches.

The United States Government’s decision-making structures and processes to address national security challenges must therefore be equally adaptive and comprehensive. They must be able to competently design and execute cooperative and integrated interagency solutions to address these problems, and protect and advance the national interests of the United States. Therefore, to advise and assist me in this endeavor, I hereby direct that my system for national security policy development, decision-making, implementation, and monitoring shall be organized as set forth in this Memorandum. This Memorandum prevails over any prior orders, directives, memoranda, or other Presidential guidance related to the organization of the National Security Council (NSC or Council).

A. The National Security Council and Supporting Staff

1. Functions, Responsibilities, and Chairs.

(a) Functions and Responsibilities. The National Security Act of 1947, as amended (the Act), established the NSC to advise the President with respect to the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to national security. The Homeland Security Council (HSC) has the distinct purpose of advising the President on matters pertaining to homeland security. The NSC shall convene as the HSC on topic areas agreed to in advance by the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (National Security Advisor) and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (Homeland Security Advisor). Along with its subordinate committees and staff, the NSC shall be the President’s principal means for coordinating Executive departments and agencies in the development and implementation of national and homeland security policies, strategies, activities, and functions, their integration across departments and agencies within their purview, and for long-term strategic planning.

(b) Chairs. The President will chair the NSC. When the President is absent from a meeting of the Council, he may appoint a Cabinet-level official to chair.

2. NSC Staffing Responsibilities of the National Security Advisor.

(a) Role of the National Security Advisor. The National Security Advisor shall be responsible, as appropriate and at the President’s direction, for determining the agenda for the NSC, ensuring that the necessary papers are prepared, and recording and communicating Council actions and Presidential decisions in a timely manner.

(b) Role of the Homeland Security Advisor. When convened as the HSC, the duties referenced in subsection (2)(a) shall be the responsibility of the Homeland Security Advisor.

3. Designating NSC Members, Attendees, and Invitees.

(a) Membership. The NSC membership consists of the statutory members set forth in section 101(c)(1) of the Act (50 U.S.C. 3021(c)(1)):

The President;
The Vice President;
The Secretary of State;
The Secretary of the Treasury;
The Secretary of Defense;
The Secretary of Energy;
The Director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy;
and additional members hereby designated by the President pursuant to section 101(c)(1) of the Act:

The Attorney General;
The Secretary of the Interior;
Chief of Staff to the President (White House Chief of Staff); and
The National Security Advisor.
When the NSC convenes as the HSC, members shall also include:

The Secretary of Homeland Security; and
13) The Homeland Security Advisor.

(b) NSC Meeting Attendees. The National Security Advisor retains the discretion to determine the attendee list for all meetings of the NSC, including by requesting the attendance of any senior official of the Executive Branch. The Homeland Security Advisor retains this same discretion when the NSC convenes as the HSC. This discretion shall be exercised based on the policy relevance of attendees to the issues being considered, the need for secrecy on sensitive matters, staffing requirements, and other considerations.

As regular practice, the National Security Advisor and Homeland Security Advisor shall include as additional non-voting attendees:

The Director of National Intelligence (non-voting advisor);
The Assistant to the President and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor (non-voting advisor and principal notetaker) or, when convening as the HSC, the Deputy Homeland Security Advisor (non-voting advisor and principal notetaker);
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (non-voting advisor); and
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (non-voting advisor).
(c) NSC Regular Invitees. Unless specifically restricted, these officials are invited to attend any NSC and HSC meeting as non-voting advisors:

The Assistant to the President and Counsel to the President;
The Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy;
The Assistant to the President for Policy; and
The Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs and Legal Counsel to the National Security Advisor.
4. Right to Propose Agenda Items.

Any NSC member attending a meeting in a voting capacity may propose, in advance and in accordance with a timeline set by the National Security Advisor or his designee, agenda items for their consideration.[1] The National Security Advisor will determine whether to include these items on the agenda. The Homeland Security Advisor shall have this same discretion when the Council is convened as the HSC.

5. The National Security Council Staff.

(a) Staff Fusion. There is a single NSC staff within the Executive Office of the President (EOP) that serves both the NSC on national security matters and the HSC when the Council is considering homeland security matters. The staff is headed by a single Executive Secretary, in accordance with section 101(e)(1) of the National Security Act of 1947 (50 U.S.C. 3021(e)(1)) and section 905 of the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (6 U.S.C. 495).

(b) Purpose. The purposes of the National Security Advisor and subordinate staff are to

(i) advise and assist the President in the course of conducting activities that relate to or affect the carrying out of the President’s constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties pertaining to national or homeland security, pursuant to the Presidential Records Act of 1978, as amended;[2]

(ii) advise and assist the other members of the NSC (and the NSC when convening as the HSC), and others in the White House;

(iii) help the President plan and set priorities, in accordance with section II of the Message of the President in the Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1977;

(iv) advise and make recommendations to the President with respect to, and establish, integrated domestic, foreign, and military policies and procedures for the departments, agencies, and functions of the Government relating to national and homeland security, pursuant to sections 2 and 101(b)(1) of the Act (50 U.S.C. 3002, 3021(b)(1));

(v) coordinate, facilitate, monitor, oversee, and review Administration policies and their implementation with respect to national security, and make resulting recommendations to the President;

(vi) help the President resolve major conflicts among departments and agencies with regard to national security, in accordance with section II of the Message of the President in the Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1977.

(c) Fair, Balanced, and Thorough Processes. In accordance with sections I and II of the Message of the President in the Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1977, the NSC staff shall ensure that the processes it organizes, coordinates, and manages fairly and thoroughly gather the facts, intelligence, and other relevant information necessary to NSC decisions; fully analyze the issues; consider a full range of views and options; assess the prospects, risks, costs, and implications of each option; and distill these options for the President, other NSC principals, and senior officials participating in the subsidiary committees of the NSC or HSC, in a fair, balanced, and organized way. The National Security Advisor and subordinate NSC staff shall represent the views and differences of NSC principals and other senior officials to the President with accuracy and fidelity.

(d) Policy Development. In accordance with sections I and II of the Message of the President in the Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1977,[8] the NSC staff shall facilitate the development and refinement of interagency policy options, and develop additional options besides those proposed by departments and agencies as necessary, both to complement, supplement, and enhance their work, and to offer the President and other NSC principals and other senior officials a sufficiently broad menu of operationally feasible options for consideration, deliberation, and decision.

B. The Principals Committee

1. Principals Committee Establishment.

(a) (i) Functions and Responsibilities. The Principals Committee (PC) shall continue to serve as the Cabinet-level senior interagency forum for considering policy issues that affect the national security interests of the United States. The PC shall develop options and recommendations for the President on national security and homeland security matters requiring the President’s attention, and with the Committee’s full consensus shall set priorities, issue policy guidance, and facilitate coordination and integration on national security policy and implementation issues as appropriate that do not require Presidential attention.[9] Issues involving matters that are statutorily authorized for decision by a principal, or delegated to a principal by the President, can be coordinated and decided by the principals without requiring Presidential attention.

(ii) Voting and NSC Referral. Consensus is reached when all voting (i.e., non-advisory) attendees present either vote affirmatively for the same decisional option or formally abstain, and all such votes shall be recorded and minuted. Issues for which the Committee fails to reach consensus shall be referred to the NSC for decision, with a formal nonconcurrence required by at least one non-advisory attendee present for such a referral. Whether an issue requires Presidential attention, and the Committee attendees’ positions on the issue itself, shall be separately polled. If a voting attendee does not concur with the determination that Presidential consideration is not required, the issue shall be referred, along with the results of the PC’s deliberation on the issue itself and its recommendations, to deliberation by the NSC.

(b) Role of the National Security Advisor. The PC shall be convened and chaired by the National Security Advisor. The Chair shall determine the agenda, location, and meeting materials, in consultation with the appropriate attendees.

(c) Substitute Chairs. At his sole discretion, the National Security Advisor may delegate authority to convene and chair or co-chair the PC to an appropriate attendee of the NSC or EOP policy council senior official. The Homeland Security Advisor, who is Chair when the PC considers matters that would be raised to the NSC convening as the HSC, may similarly delegate such duties.

(d) Right to Propose Agenda Items. Any PC member attending in a voting capacity may propose, in advance and in accordance with a timeline set by the Chair, agenda items for consideration by the PC. The Chair will determine which, if any, shall be included.

2. Executive Secretary Responsibilities and Process.

(a) Responsibilities. The Executive Secretary shall ensure that the necessary papers are prepared, serve as executive secretary of the PC, and shall record and communicate accurately, and in a timely manner, the Committee’s conclusions and decisions, what was not decided, and any responsibilities for implementation by departments and agencies or taskings to the Deputies Committee or subsidiary policy coordination committees that have been agreed or assigned, if appropriate.[10] The Executive Secretary shall generally be assisted in these tasks by the senior directors and other NSC staff by the senior directors and other NSC staff.

(b) Dispute Resolution Process. If a PC voting attendee disputes that the conclusions or decisions of the PC were correctly minuted, this must be communicated in writing to the Executive Secretary and the National Security Advisor (and any substitute Chair if appropriate) within three business days, although those officials may allow additional time if exigent or extenuating circumstances require it. If resolution of the dispute cannot be achieved, and any necessary amended report of the PC proceedings was issued within a week of the dispute being communicated, the disputing attendee may appeal the matter to the White House Chief of Staff or, should that official so designate, to the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, whose decision shall be final.

3. Principals Committee Attendees and Invitees.

(a) Principals Committee Attendees.

(i) The National Security Advisor retains the discretion to determine the attendee list for all PC meetings on national security. The Homeland Security Advisor retains this same discretion when chairing the PC. This discretion shall be exercised based on the policy relevance of attendees to the issues being considered, the need for secrecy on sensitive matters, staffing needs, and other considerations. As regular practice, the National Security Advisor and Homeland Security Advisor shall include as additional non-voting attendees:

1) The Director of National Intelligence;

2) The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff;

3) The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency;

4) The Principal Deputy National Security Advisor;

5) the National Security Advisor to the Vice President; and

6) The Executive Secretary (principal notetaker).

(ii) PC Regular Invitees. Unless specifically restricted, these officials are invited to attend any PC meeting as non-voting advisors:

The Assistant to the President and Counselor to the President;
The Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy;
The Assistant to the President for Policy; and
The Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs and Legal Counsel to the National Security Advisor.
(iii) Staffing Invitees. At the discretion of the Chair, staff members of the NSC or other appropriate EOP policy councils may be invited to attend specific PC meetings to assist the Executive Secretary in the performance of their executive secretary duties.

C. The Deputies Committee

1. Deputies Committee Establishment.

(a) Functions and Responsibilities. The Deputies Committee (DC) shall continue to serve as the senior sub-Cabinet interagency forum for consideration of and, where appropriate, decision making on, policy issues that affect the national security interests of the United States. The DC shall review and monitor the work of the interagency national security process, including the interagency groups established pursuant to section D below. The DC shall work to ensure that issues brought before the NSC, the NSC when convening as the HSC, and the PC have been properly analyzed and prepared for decision. The DC shall also focus significant attention on monitoring the implementation of these policies and decisions and shall conduct periodic reviews of the Administration’s major national security and foreign policy initiatives.

(b) Role of the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. The DC shall be convened and chaired by the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. The Chair shall determine the location, agenda, and meeting materials in consultation with the DC attendees.

(c) Substitute Chairs. At his sole discretion, the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor may delegate authority to convene and chair or co-chair the DC to an appropriate regular attendee of the DC or other appropriate EOP official. The Deputy Assistant to the President for Homeland Security (Deputy Homeland Security Advisor) shall chair meetings when considering issues that would be raised when the NSC is convened as the HSC. The Deputy Homeland Security Advisor has similar delegatory authority.

(d) Right to Propose Agenda Items. Any DC member attending in a voting capacity may propose, in advance and in accordance with a timeline set by the Chair, agenda items for consideration by the DC. The Chair will determine which, if any, shall be included.

2. Executive Secretary Responsibilities and Process.

(a) General. The Executive Secretary shall ensure that the necessary papers are prepared, and shall record and communicate accurately, and in a timely manner, the Committee’s conclusions and decisions, what was not decided, and any responsibilities for implementation by departments and agencies or taskings to subsidiary policy coordination committees that have been agreed or assigned, if appropriate. The Executive Secretary shall generally be assisted in this task by the senior directors and other NSC staff.

(b) Dispute Resolution Process. If a DC voting attendee disputes that the conclusions or decisions of the DC were correctly minuted, this must be communicated in writing to the Executive Secretary and the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor or the Deputy Homeland Security Advisor, as relevant, within three business days, although those officials may allow additional time if exigent or extenuating circumstances require it. If resolution of the dispute cannot be achieved, and any necessary amended report of the PC proceedings issued within a week of the dispute being communicated, the disputing attendee may appeal the matter to the White House Chief of Staff, or should that official so designate, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, whose decision shall be final.

3. Designating Deputies Committee Regular Attendees and Invitees.

(a) Deputies Committee Attendees. The Principal Deputy National Security Advisor retains the discretion to determine the attendee list for all DC meetings.

The Deputy Homeland Security Advisor retains this same discretion when chairing DC meetings. This discretion shall be exercised based on the policy relevance of attendees to the issues being considered, the need for secrecy on sensitive matters, staffing needs, and other considerations.

As regular practice, the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor shall include as DC attendees:

The Deputy Secretary of State;
The Deputy Secretary of the Treasury;
The Deputy Secretary of Defense;
The Deputy Attorney General;
The Deputy Secretary of Energy;
The Deputy Director of National Intelligence (non-voting advisor);
The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (non-voting advisor);
The Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (non-voting advisor);
The Executive Secretary of the NSC (non-voting advisor and principal notetaker); and
The National Security Advisor to the Vice President.
When homeland security issues are on the DC agenda, the DC’s regular attendees will also include:

11) The Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security; and

12) The Deputy Homeland Security Advisor (chair).

(b) DC Regular Invitees. These officials are invited to attend any DC meeting:

The Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and
The Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Policy Strategist.
D. Policy Coordination Committees

Management of the development and implementation of national security policies by multiple Executive departments and agencies typically shall be accomplished by Policy Coordination Committees (PCCs), with participation primarily occurring at the Assistant Secretary level. As the main day-to-day fora for interagency coordination and integration of national security policies, PCCs shall develop and provide policy options and analyses for consideration by higher echelon committees of the national security system. PCCs shall ensure timely responses to, and implementation and monitoring of, decisions, directives, objectives, instructions, inquiries, tasking, and policy guidance of and by the President, National Security Advisor, and the higher-echelon committees of the national security system.

PCCs shall be established at the direction of the National Security Advisor or Homeland Security Advisor, in consultation with the White House Chief of Staff or her designee. Members of the NSC staff will chair the PCCs.

PCCs shall review, coordinate, integrate, and monitor the implementation of Presidential decisions in their respective national security and homeland security policy areas. The Chair of each PCC, in consultation with the Executive Secretary, shall invite representatives of departments and agencies to attend meetings of the PCC where appropriate. The Chair of each PCC, with the agreement of the Executive Secretary, may establish subordinate working groups to assist that PCC in the performance of its duties.

Interagency Policy Committees (IPCs) chartered under the aegis of the process established by National Security Memorandum-2 (NSM–2) may continue to be operated as PCCs by the NSC staff until renewed or discontinued by the National Security Advisor.

E. General

(a) The President and the Vice President may attend any meeting of any entity established by or under this directive.

(b) This document is part of a series of National Security Policy Memoranda, which have replaced both National Security Memoranda and National Security Study Memoranda as the instrument for communicating relevant Presidential decisions. This directive shall supersede all other existing Presidential directives and guidance on the organization or support of the NSC and the HSC where they conflict, including National Security Memorandum–2 of February 4, 2021 (Memorandum on Renewing the National Security Council System), which is hereby revoked. This document shall be interpreted in concert with any Presidential directives governing other policy councils and offices in the EOP mentioned herein, and with any Presidential directives signed hereafter that implement this document or those Presidential directives.

[SOURCE]

This process hinges upon the execution of National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.

We will watch closely.

My generosity, in providing you with this lengthy article, is unmatched. There is no doubt, in my mind, there are more than a few who will thoroughly understand this and kindly explain it to those of us who are unclear. The one thing I do know is I would not trust 99% of the listed participants to sit at my dinner table.

23 January 2025