Understandable selection.  President Trump has announced the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense.

[Source]

Remember, under the Trump Doctrine, the use of the military takes a backseat to the deployment of economic weapons to achieve national security objectives.  From this fundamental outlook, the Secretary of Defense needs to maintain a strong military, but only for use as a last resort when called upon.

If triggered for reasons of extreme national security, the Defense Department under Commander in Chief Donald Trump is expected to deliver much faster, harsher and a more directed forceful response.  This was on display in Syria, 2017, when ISIS was destroyed in weeks; and then followed up with the first ever dropping of a ‘MOAB’, the Mother of All Bombs.

With this intent in mind, Pete Hegseth needs to harden the warriors and prepare them only in the event that all other approaches by President Trump have not led to the optimal outcome.  This approach scares the crap out of militaristic nations who were stuck in the old ‘red line’ paradigm.

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A key position.  President Trump has announced his selection of William Joseph McGinley to serve as White House Counsel for the second term.

[Source]

The White House Counsel (WHC) is a critical component to the Office of the Presidency.

In term-1 the WHC was the primary hurdle to much of the corrupt information the public wanted President Trump to address.  It was White House Counsel who warned President Trump that any unilateral action taken by him would be construed by the silos within the IC, FBI and DOJ to be interference with their investigations.  President Trump deferred to that counsel.

The WHC doesn’t represent the President, the WHC represents the Office of the Presidency. It is the WHC primary function to protect the power of the President within the Executive Branch.  This generally leads to many misinterpretations of risk, and the President is often hamstrung by overly cautious counsel in the position.

Thankfully, a recent Supreme Court decision over “presidential immunity” affirmed the absolute and plenary power of the person who is President, as the authority of all actions that take place within the executive branch during their officials acts as President.  As SCOTUS affirmed there is no power greater than President Trump.  The President is the executive branch in everything, and the President has no boss.

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President Trump announces via Truth Social, his intent to nominate former ODNI official John Ratcliffe to the position of Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

[Source]

Former DNI Ratcliffe passed through the Senate Intel Committee nomination process in 2019 after being blocked by Mitch McConnell in 2018.  With a prior SSCI confirmation being successful, the path to confirming John Ratcliffe as CIA Director is essentially a foregone conclusion.

As CIA Director, John Ratcliffe will control the world’s second-most powerful intelligence agency. Ratcliffe has almost no attack vectors for the internal IC apparatus to use against him, that’s why I previously thought a role in the Trump-2 intel system would be good.

Ratcliffe was/is the lead transition team member on all things related to Intelligence.  Prior rumor put him in the NatSec Advisor role, but CIA Director is a good fit.  John Ratcliffe is very stable, vanilla, no drama and can be expected to deliver on the priorities of the Trump administration.  He will work very well with the White House.

The concern would be Ratcliffe’s ability to remove the corrupt players within the darkest part of the darkest IC system.

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President Trump has confirmed his intention to use Florida Rep (Daytona) Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor.

[Source]

Mike Waltz serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).

In the role of Nat Sec Advisor, Waltz would presumably represent the power of the president toward every element of the National Security apparatus and Intelligence Community.

The Nat Sec Advisor is a very powerful position, if used correctly.  The absolute power of the President toward the intelligence community in the executive branch is carried by the Nat Sec Advisor (NSA).  The NSA has the ability to reach into every silo and control every element of every decision therein.

The NSA organizes the finding memos which authorize all covert intelligence operations globally and domestically.  The NSA can shut down bad things in the IC, cancel black-op operations, and essentially hold omnipotent power within the executive branch over every aspect of the 17 intelligence agencies who operate therein.  The NSA can also determine what is, and what is not, a national security matter.

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If the basic story unfolding in Mar-a-Lago is to be believed, RFK JR, Elon Musk and a small group of technocrats and billionaires have become the ‘kitchen cabinet’ advisors putting the Trump administration together.  Rumors swirl that Melania Trump, Devin Nunes and Dan Scavino have checked out of the ridiculous “non-clown-car” hot mess until the dust settles.

Adding evidence to this possibility, the media are starting to report on some rather, well, shall we say, curious picks from the Mar-a-Lago transition group.

Everyone else, except you guys, will miss what each of the New York Post “leaked” names have in common.  They are all in direct alignment with the retention of the Intelligence Community as it exists.  For the IC, this is the team that lets them hunker down until ’28.

♦ Rubio at State:

Rubio would be the IC pick because, well, he is Vice-Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and a direct installment due to his efforts to support the prior Trump targeting; which included the big assist to then Vice-Chair Mark Warner.   The IC has super thick black files on Rubio, they’d love to have him at State.  This rumor seems ridiculous.

Actually, this rumor seems like a leak trap.

♦ Waltz as National Security Advisor.

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Yes, folks in the transition, I get it.

I totally understand why you approach the weaponization of government as a cancer treatment, and the Dept of Justice is the silo of focus for you to target with the harshest Stage-4 metastatic chemo.

I completely understand why, during this phase, all of your efforts have to be on aggressive treatment.  Main Justice carries the badges, and it is only Main Justice that can prosecute corruption.  I get it. I understand.  However, the cancerous lesion, that first moment when the compromised cells began to die and replicate, will not lead to an origination in the DOJ.

So far, every pathologist who has reviewed the diagnostic biopsy has called this a ‘cancer of unknown primary origin’ or abbreviated a CUP. Having backlight this cell structure for many years, I call tell you with confidence the accurate origin is the United States Intelligence Community.

Please, begin all Term-2 treatment options with this diagnosis in mind.

Please pay attention to the silo structure.

Notice in this first short video how Mary McCord positions the power structure of the DOJ-NSD silo in deference to the Intelligence Community (IC).

This is a critical path within the next step to American’s “great awakening.” In the past we have outlined how the DOJ-NSD weaponizes their Lawfare by using “National Security Information,” or what the insiders call “NSI.”

As an outcome of the way our checks and balances have been modified against our interests, the judicial branch has repeatedly deferred to the DOJ around the issue of “national security.” In fact, if the DOJ labels any Lawfare approach as a national security matter the subsequent evidence therein, the NSI (even when not seen) is accepted by the judicial branch without question. The judicial branch defers to the executive on all matters defined by the executive as “national security.”

This is the area of exploit being discussed by Mary McCord in this segment below. However, PLEASE NOTICE there is an apparatus that can supersede the DOJ-NSD’s ability to weaponize Nat Sec Information, that’s the power of the intelligence apparatus. WATCH:

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In mid-April of this year, I was sitting in a Starbucks (renamed Stars Coffee) in the Galleria Mall in downtown Saint Petersburg, Russia, watching the massive crowds of shoppers that looked like something out of a mid-1990’s Christmas season in the USA. The place was packed with people shopping.

As I sipped my coffee, on my phone I was reading a Wall Street Journal report about the devastating impact of the Western sanctions against Russia, “according to those with an understanding of Moscow’s situation.”  I read a paragraph, looked up at the crowd, read a paragraph, looked around and the bags being carried, I laughed.

A little later, I filled the gas tank in my rent-a-car for $15 and drove past miles upon miles of towering apartment buildings under construction, having just read about the shortage of ‘steel’ in Russia, “according to sources familiar with the matter.”  Stopping to buy a week’s worth of groceries for $70, I referenced the other article from the Washington Post that day about massive inflation in Russia, “according to expert western economists.”

Several weeks later I had another cup of coffee at a cafe’ in eastern Ukraine, while reading a New York Times article about mass casualties and alarming bombing that was apparently happening all around me.  The sun was shining, but it was a little chilly.  It was very odd, to read the USA publication describing “despair” evident to them, somehow, while I see smiling faces of people all around me doing ordinary things and enjoying sausage rolls.

The journey to understand the manipulation of information flow from the U.S. Intelligence Community to Americans, really solidified in those moments.  Yes Alice, this is why the IC controls social media, I thought to myself.

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Recess appointments have been a general source of contention for those of us in the deep weeds who did not like Republican Leader Mitch McConnell keeping the upper chamber for four straight years 2018 through 2020, when the Republicans eventually lost their majority.

Now that the Senate has flipped back into Republican control, President Trump is proactively looking to confront the “recess appointment” issue withing the current Republican leadership contest. [Truth Social]

A recess appointment is an appointment, by the President of the United States, of a senior federal official to fill a vacant position while the United States Senate is in recess.

Recess appointments are authorized by Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, which states: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

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When the FBI and DOJ lawfare operatives want to frame their agenda and undermine their targets, they have historically leaked to the New York Times and Politico.  Both outlets serve as the promoters for false or misleading information that benefits the bad actors inside the DOJ and FBI.

As a consequence, when the DOJ or FBI start freaking out, they run to the same New York Times and Politico.

Politico is reporting today about how the lawfare operatives inside Main Justice are panicking about what incoming President Trump will do.

WASHINGTON DC – A collective sense of dread has taken hold at the Department of Justice, which drew Donald Trump’s rage like no other part of the federal government during his campaign.

Some career attorneys at DOJ are already considering heading for the exits rather than sticking around to find out whether threats from Trump and his allies are real or campaign bluster. Those threats range from mass firings of “deep state” lawyers to expelling special counsel Jack Smith from the country.

“Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly lawyers, are losing their minds,” said one DOJ attorney, who like most of the people interviewed for this article was granted anonymity to speak freely about colleagues and avoid retribution from the president-elect and his allies. “The fear is that career leadership and career employees everywhere are either going to leave or they’re going to be driven out.”

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REPOST BY REQUEST:  I say gently, don’t look for President Trump to expend valuable political capital on this.

Senator John Thune has been groomed by Mitch McConnell to be his replacement for decades.  Thune’s ascension to the role of Senate Majority Leader was, maybe is, essentially a foregone conclusion.

Senator Thune will carry the full support of roughly 15-to-20 senate DeceptiCons (deceptive conservatives), and perhaps a dozen more squishy ones in the middle who want great committee positions. The important dynamic that comes into play is Senate Committee Chairman “leverage” for Donald Trump’s nominees.

Nov 7th on CNBC Senator John Thune discussed the upcoming secret ballot election for Senate Majority Leader.  WATCH (prompted):

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Essentially, this is Thune’s gentle first shot requesting President Trump “stay out of” the senate caucus decision.  Likely, what matters most to President Trump is getting his nominees past the Republican majority confirmation process.  Thune was in previous talks with President Trump several months ago, and again several weeks ago in Mar-a-Lago.

Senator Thune doesn’t want President Trump to put his finger on the scale. If matters of the Senate are left alone, Thune ascends – period. However, Thune isn’t stupid and would like Trump to support him. Essentially, Thune would welcome intervention so long as the intervention came with an endorsement.

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