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Unbelievable audacity, please meet the Trump White House Security Council [1]

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Date: 2025-01-13

Not sure why this story surprised me but it did--even after November 5th's awful results I didn't think an incoming Trump administration would wade so deep into the weeds as to interfere with long-time government employees, the experienced civil servants who have helped to keep us safe in their roles as White House Security Council staffers. I would be wrong. Seriously wrong and very concerned that this news, as bad as it is, is likely only the tip of the interference iceberg.

According to a story released earlier today by AP and also released by Newsweek, these non-political staffers, who have always carried over from one administration to another with few exceptions, are now being questioned. No, make that grilled as to who they voted for in 2024. And what they have said on their social media posts. Further, have they contributed to political campaigns? And whose campaigns would those be?

It appears that along with what is highly unprecedented, this will have not only a chilling effect on these employees, but it may result in all or most of them being fired on January 20th or a few days later. Which, as Biden's National Security advisor, Jake Sullivan, has said (this is directly from Newsweek, online feed, January 13th, at approximately 10:30 am):

"Given everything going on in the world, making sure you have in place a team that is up to speed and, you know, ready to continue serving at 12:01, 12:02, 12:03 p.m. on the 20th is really important," Sullivan said on Friday. Sullivan said it was "up to the next national security adviser to decide how they want to play things. All I can say is how we did it and what I thought worked." He spoke about how NSC officials are selected. "When they are selected to come over, they're not selected based on their political affiliation or their policy opinions; they're selected based on their experience and capacity, and so we have a real diversity of people in terms of their views, their politics, their backgrounds." (End of quoted Newsweek feed)

This normal process is now slated for the garbage heap. And from none other than current US Congressman, Mike Waltz (FL), who will if approved replace Jake Sullivan. Waltz said in effect, sure, we're going to remove, maybe even before January 20th, all nonpolitical appointees and all career intelligence officials on the Security Council. Because, as he says, that way we will have working for us only those who are 100% loyal to Trump. Bada bing.

This clearly has to do with Colonel Alexander Vindman, now a VA congressman. And a few others who were deemed disloyal by Trump because they called him on his illegal international and security behavior. So then, the best way to go forward is to just gut the entire staff. What could go wrong? Given the situation we are facing right now internationally, just about every-damned-thing.

A riff here: this is only one area in which expertise will be decimated, even destroyed, this one due to Trump's insane level of demand for loyalty. But there are others in the works as well--expertise is now on the chopping block when it comes to science, almost all of it, health care, almost all of it, education, economics, finance, defense, the legal system, I could go on, but you get the picture. This is of course dangerous, certainly boneheaded, and will set us back decades as a nation and a people, but so far, none of this is getting through to the majority of Americans whose influence could have an impact on this crap. And maybe this has to do with the fact that far too many oligarchs own the mechanisms of dissemination of knowledge and information? And it benefits them not at all for us to understand what they are doing to us and worse, plan to do as these next four years roll out. As Bette Davis said in All About Eve, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night." A long, bumpy night lasting four or more years.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/1/13/2296794/-Unbelievable-audacity-please-meet-the-Trump-White-House-Security-Council

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