Big Government

Pentagon officials are reportedly discussing how to respond to potential directives from President-elect Donald Trump, according to a report by CNN citing defense sources.

The conversations include planning for various possible actions by the incoming administration, such as deploying military forces to assist with mass deportations or reinstating Schedule F, an executive order from Trump’s previous term that would reclassify certain federal employees, making them easier to dismiss.

The reported discussions include “gaming out” scenarios in which Trump could use the military to support federal and local law enforcement in deportation operations.

According to CNN, some officials are preparing for “the worst-case scenario,” though a defense official acknowledged that the actual course of action remains uncertain.

One of the primary concerns among Pentagon officials, CNN reported, is the possibility that Trump could reintroduce Schedule F, a measure he first implemented via executive order in 2020.

Schedule F reclassified certain civil servants as “at-will” employees, allowing for their dismissal based on performance.

Joe Biden rescinded the order shortly after taking office in 2021, but Trump has publicly indicated his intention to bring it back, stating in a 2023 video that he would “wield that power very aggressively.”

The prospect of Schedule F’s return has reportedly generated significant concern within defense circles, with one official telling CNN that they have received a high volume of communications on the topic.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has previously warned against “inappropriate political encroachments” on career civil servants, while Trump has criticized some in the Pentagon as “rogue bureaucrats.”

Concerns over potential conflicts between Trump and the Department of Defense have also been amplified by Trump’s past statements, including his October comments to Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo about addressing “radical left lunatics” within government ranks.

Trump referenced the possible need for the National Guard or the military to deal with “the enemy within,” a term he used to describe political opponents, including Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff from California.

The possibility of a strained relationship between Trump’s administration and the Pentagon has reportedly led officials to prepare for a different dynamic in his second term.

CNN reported that the connection between the Trump White House and the Department of Defense (DoD) was notably tense during his first term, prompting a heightened focus on personnel choices for key DoD roles this time around.

"The unelected bureaucracy of this government answers to the civilian and duly elected leadership."@ScottJenningsKY excoriates Pentagon officials over reports of secret meetings about how to “thwart or countermand the Commander-In-Chief."

The plotting against Trump has… pic.twitter.com/Glptqqvw5q

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) November 9, 2024

Republican CNN contributor Scott Jennings addressed these reported discussions on Anderson Cooper 360⁰, suggesting that if officials are worried about upcoming changes, they should raise their concerns directly with Trump. “What’s Donald Trump supposed to think?” Jennings asked.

“He’s gotta read in the newspaper tonight that the unelected bureaucracy of the federal government is having meetings, at some level, about how to thwart or countermand the Commander in Chief.”

The report comes amid heightened interest in how Trump’s approach to the Pentagon may differ from his previous term.

Many of Trump’s most vocal critics from his first term came from within his own administration, including former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and former Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Both Milley and Kelly were prominent in their critiques, with Kelly comparing Trump to a fascist and alleging that Trump praised Adolf Hitler, a claim Trump has denied.

As Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the focus on his potential actions and changes within the Pentagon reflects broader questions about how his administration will interact with the military and defense establishment.

The discussions reported by CNN indicate that defense officials are actively considering the challenges and adjustments they might face under the incoming administration, with scenarios being evaluated to anticipate potential policy shifts under Trump’s leadership.

Read More at LifeZette

Though it took the media several suspicious days to notice, most Americans now know that huge portions of the southeast have been destroyed by Hurricane Helene. Television shows us dramatic images of the wind destruction, but it’s the water that can truly destroy towns and cities. 

This storm was one of the worst to hit the American south in decades. Even places far in-land, such as Western North Carolina, took the kind of direct hit that most of us associate with living right on the ocean. Whole towns in the foothills of mountains have been wiped off the map. The rain dump was so fast and furious that even mountainside dwellers—the lucky ones—are stuck behind impassable downed trees and roads that don’t exist anymore. 

The woman who wants to be our next President sprang into action. From her flying office, Kamala Harris let scared Americans know she was on the job by sharing a picture of her airliner suite. Here she is “taking notes” on what appears to be blank paper, while “listening to a phone call” while her earbuds are not plugged in to the phone. 

On October 2, Harris made a stop in hurricane-ravaged Augusta, Georgia, to announce the federal government’s generosity. Every person with an immediate need can get up to—wait for it—$750. That’s right, a whole $750. What can you get with that? Not much. It’s not enough to replace all four brakes on the average car. It’s less than one month’s rent in most areas for a studio-efficiency apartment. 

Funny how illegal border crossers—criminals by definition—get a whole lot more just for showing up. They don’t even have to lose their home, they don’t have to be sitting on a tree stump praying that a rescue truck can get up the mountain. All they have to do is break into the country, and New York City, for example, will give them a loaded debit card with twice the money that Americans in New York get for monthly food stamps. 

As you would expect, social media users were a bit put off. 

Remember the devastating Lahaina wildfire that killed hundreds in Hawaii? The internet does. 

Remember when a freight train derailed in Ohio and sent a plume of toxic gas into the air, and nobody from the White House bothered to show up or say anything for weeks? The internet does. 

User Markus puts the $750 “government money” (it’s your tax dollars) in perspective:

Well, quite. 

The Democrat party never stops shrieking that Republicans are misogynist (“sexist” has been retired in favor of the accusation of “hating” women because they’re women) pigs. Any conservative who does not want to allow elective abortion all the way through the ninth month is accused of wanting women to die. Democrat women enjoy dressing up in Handmaids Tale costumes with tape over their mouths to make it seem like America is careening toward a totalitarian state where women will be held down and forcibly impregnated. 

It’s so wild you could be forgiven for wondering if the ladies doth protest too much; it almost looks like projected fantasy. Maybe it’s just an excuse to wear a theatrical costume and a pretty bonnet. 

The concept of “narcissistic reversal” is at play here. That’s when someone who is in the wrong reverses the truth and accuses an opponent of the bad thoughts or behavior that the accuser is actually doing. We see it among leftist women who (rightly) protest against the incursion of men into their private spaces. For example, the Biden administration is in power, and it is Biden who rewrote Title IX through executive order. His changes make it impossible for colleges to prevent so-called “trans women” (that is, men) from playing on women’s sports teams. And yes, that includes allowing these fully penised men into locker rooms. 

And despite their repeated accusations that “trans is a men’s rights project,” it is overwhelmingly leftist women who have culturally and legally enforced transgender ideology in American classrooms, in law, and in corporate hiring. 

With all that in mind, it should come as no surprise that most Democrats in the House voted against a bill to deport illegal aliens who rape women, and to refuse any convicted sex offenders into the country. 

While the bill passed, that’s no thanks to Democrats. So much for the party of women, eh? 

It’s a real head-scratcher. It has been so clear for so many years that conservatives, not liberals, want to protect women from sexual predation, yet millions of women continue to vote religiously for the very party that refuses to put up a wall between them and perverted men. 

Let’s see what X users had to say. 

She of the ramen-noodle-looking hair is upset at the press again. Who? White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre, famous for avoiding answering any specific questions from the press and scolding them instead for being “inappropriate.”

Jean-Pierre was recently “triggered” when she got press questions about allegations that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, are kidnapping and eating house pets and ducks and geese that frequent town parks. Her reaction is pretty much the same as the reaction from most government officials and the media: they are not concerned about whether the complaints from Springfield residents are true. They are only interested in shrieking that people are “racist” and “xenophobic” (*yawn*) for daring to suggest that Haitians—who are widely reported to sacrifice and eat cats in Voodoo ceremonies in their home country—might actually be doing something wrong. 

Putting on her best schoolmarm/mommy tone of voice, Jean-Pierre lectures reporters about “attacking” a “vulnerable community” in “a hateful way.” No word on whether she considers the Springfield cat, duck, or geese communities to be vulnerable as well. Don’t bother asking if she has any sympathy for the human residents; she doesn’t, obviously. 

See for yourself:

What’s got Jean-Pierre upset? Well, what doesn’t. She can put on the aggrieved act on at least two fronts. First, she’s black, so she gets to call any criticism she doesn’t like “racist,” and in America, that kind of dishonest whining works to shut down white people. But she’s also the daughter of Haitian immigrants, and so she’s going to refuse to admit that immigrants from her third-world country are any different from native-born Americans who understand that duck parks are not a meat market. 

Indeed, it seems the entire mainstream media is bent on denying that it’s even possible that the 20,000 Haitian migrants dumped unceremoniously on the town of 60,000 in Ohio could do anything wrong or uncivilized. This, despite numerous eyewitness reports from Springfield residents that Haitians are crashing cars and killing people along with snatching up geese and ducks to take home to cook. 

Let’s see how X users reacted to Jean-Pierre. 

Vice President Kamala Harris was once recognized by everyone as the most liberal Senator of all. The liberal site Govtrack itself recognized this, until it changed its ranking system, likely to remove the “stigma” from Harris. The site has a snotty aside about how dumb “right wing media” are trying to make their action look nefarious. 

Psst: Govtrack—we don’t believe you. It’s you who make yourselves look nefarious. 

Now in 2024, Kam-Kam has been elevated to the status of secular Democratic saint, even though she was plopped in as the Democrats’ nominee when senile Joe Biden decided to drop out of the race. She came in dead last in the 2019 Democratic primaries causing her to drop out of the 2020 race, and she has managed to become the Dems’ nominee without having to face a single challenger in a primary or earn even one Democrat vote. 

It is no surprise, then, that Kamala Harris feels bold and confident about her socialist, anti-freedom agenda. She’s like a clone of Biden, but even more radical. It was Biden’s Centers for Disease Control that took the unprecedented and highly unconstitutional step of effectively nationalizing the private landlord-tenant rental market during the pandemic. Remember when the CDC decided that it had the right to force landlords to continue housing tenants no matter what, even if they didn’t pay the rent, because evicting them would create a “public health” problem?

It was a move few of us ever thought could happen in America, but it did, and a cultural and legal precedent was set that we are going to continue to pay for. 

Now, Harris is telling the world exactly what she’s going to do to put the screws to landlords and the entire housing market:

That’s right. Kamala believes she has the right to set prices on rents, and that she gets to decide what an “unfair” rent raise might be. As long as you frame it as Bad Corporations against Good Working Families, disastrous rent control policies that always kill the housing market will suddenly become good things, right? 

Opposition to rent control is practically universal among economists. When the University of Chicago polled the nation’s top economists on their opinions of it, only a whopping 1% of economists favored rent control once answers were weighted for confidence.

Or as even the liberal Washington Post puts it in a headline; “The one issue every economist can agree is bad: Rent control.”

Let’s see what the internet has to say, and why not start at the top? 

Uh-oh! Literal-minded liberals are having big trouble with understanding memes and humor again. 

Ah, Kamrade Harris is looking revolutionary today!

Yes, they are, Chuck. 

You’re going to have a hard time believing this, but woke Democrat governor of California, Gavin Newsom, actually said no to a bill that would have given illegal aliens free down-payment money to buy a home in the U.S. 

The bill, AB 1840, was called the “California Dream For All” bill. It would have given taxpayer money to illegal aliens to use for a downpayment on a house. You read that right. A bill to give away your money as an American citizen to illegal border jumpers worked its way through both chambers of the California legislature and made it all the way to the governor’s desk. We are living in an era where politicians can publicly advocate stealing money from U.S. citizens to give to criminals who waltz into our country illegally. 

This should be no surprise, really, as it’s become clear that the Democrats hate American citizens and believe we are cash cows for third-world vagrants. Especially the “unhoused.” 

AB 1840 was generous, too, promising the aliens 20 percent of their dream home’s value up to $150,000. And if you live in California, you would be buying their home for them. Aren’t you nice? 

We’re scratching our heads over why Gavin Newsom, who has been likened to the psychopathic character Patrick Bateman from the movie American Psycho, would suddenly have felt a fiduciary duty to his own citizens above the desires of illegal foreigners. After all, Newsom signed a bill recently to give Medicaid (again, you pay for this with your tax dollars) to all illegal immigrants in the Golden State. 

But on AB 1840, he is signing a different tune. While he certainly did not come out and admit that it’s gallingly unfair to take tax dollars from U.S. citizens to give houses to criminal illegals, he did say he could not sign the bill because of the “finite funding” for housing in California. 

Users on X (Twitter) had their own theories about Newsom’s motivation. 

We suspect Jewels here is right; Newsom is likely positioning himself for a future presidential run. 

What do you think explains Governor Goodhair’s change of heart?