The Internal GOP Struggle Intensifies

With the forces of Big Tech and Media behind them--as well as those of the Army of the Potomac still present in the Imperial City--the Zhou Baiden regime is seeking to persuade We The People of its legitimacy. It remains hampered in that regard by the fact that it dare not put its figurehead--Zhou Baiden himself--forward in public to do the job of persuasion. That would, in the American tradition, entail responding to random questioning in a free wheeling press conference environment--a non-starter for Zhou.

The GOPe has stepped forward, however. Mitch McConnell may have suffered a significant setback in the Senate vote regarding impeachment, triggered by Rand Paul, but he hasn't given up the NeverTrump cause. Within the Senate itself, while McConnell has had to deal with public warnings from established senators who are not normally aligned with Rand Paul--Lindsey Graham and Ron Johnson, for example--he has other tools for control. It appears that Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz--certainly among the most politically ambitious as well as (objectively speaking) intellectually accomplished Republican senators--have been sidelined, at least for a time, by an ethics complaint based on their objections to some of the electors (really). I don't claim to understand Senate rules but, until persuaded otherwise, my working assumption will be that the ethics complaint has McConnell's blessing, even if it was brought by Democrat senators.

In the meantime, McConnell is also providing aid and comfort to the Zhou Baiden both in his Senate role as well as by interfering in internal House matters. To all appearances, McConnell is attempting to establish himself--if not as actual head of the Republican party, then--as at least the senior or elder statesman for all Republicans. Again, I have a working assumption, and that is that McConnell is attempting to leverage his Big Money campaign finance contacts to muscle recalcitrant Republicans. No doubt he is acting at the behest of major donors and the Bushie wing of the Establishment. The outcome is no foregone conclusion--Trump has changed much in the political landscape.

In what follows, I've selected a list of headlines--several of them drawn from Liz Shield's Morning Greatness for today, with added comments. The overall thrust is the attempt to understand who the players in this high stakes contest are and where the battle lines are drawn.

First, let's start with a broad brush type of article, and I'll select just a few passages to place the political warfare in DC within its proper Globalist context:

Davos Against A Free West

There has been an air of satisfaction about the elites and specialists who spoke last week at the Davos Agenda summit. That air is stale and familiar; the same air calmly vented during Obama, Bush, and Clinton’s terms, and got pumping when Nigel Farage introduced sovereignty back to the United Kingdom. For four years, the common people of the United States and across the West got a taste of something poisonous—or, at the very least, bad for their health—but thankfully now they are all back on a healthy diet of whatever the experts prescribe as Joe Biden has taken office. The Davos crowd circulates that air of satisfaction because they have resumed control over life, death, history, and the future. After all, who better to protect democracy than an elite few?

...

The establishment spent the past four years panicking, not that a demagogue might undo democracy in the West but that a Republican might remind the West that it is democratic. No, President Trump did not injure or hurt democracy. He simply reminded the establishment that democracy was still the expectation—that even in a republic the citizens are in control.

...

... an unelected elite—comprised of corporatists, warmongering statists, Silicon Valley technocrats, coastal oligarchs, Islamofascists, and/or some commixture of the aforementioned oppressors—feels entitled to run our lives and has taken democracy out of the business of running them.

An unelected elite needs protection from We The People, thus the Army of the Potomac. However, armies aren't geared toward the task of social control--that's a police function, as we discussed yesterday. Chris Wray has spent his time at the FBI assuring an unbelieving public that Antifa isn't a thing--it's just an ideology in the heads of a few people. Please don't believe your lying eyes. The real threat is insurrectionist white supremacist guys. Right. And, in fact, recent events have revealed that the FBI has, in fact, been focused on conservatives for many years.

Therefore, in light of Trump and the better to suppress dissent that has been so labeled, what more sensible move than to install a Deputy Director of the FBI--the guy who "oversees all FBI domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities"--with many years of experience in counter terrorism? Thus, yesterday Paul Abbate took over as DD at the FBI. As you'll see, pretty much his entire career is based on terrorism--at home and abroad. Read here about his rise to the top:

Mr. Abbate began his FBI career in March 1996 ...

Here he is in the Bush years:

In December 2003, Mr. Abbate transferred to the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters as a supervisory special agent ... In October 2005, he deployed to Iraq, serving as senior FBI liaison officer to the U.S. Department of Defense and leading a group of FBI personnel conducting counterterrorism operations in-theater.

From February 2006 to December 2009, Mr. Abbate served as a supervisory special agent within the Newark Division’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. In February 2008, he deployed to Afghanistan, where he served as FBI deputy on-scene commander, leading FBI counterterrorism and personnel in-theater.

We transition to the Obama years:

In December 2009, Mr. Abbate returned to the Counterterrorism Division as assistant section chief, providing national-level oversight and guidance of all United States-based international terrorism investigations. During this time, he was a member of a team that received the Attorney General's Award for Exceptional Service.

In July 2010, Mr. Abbate reported to the Los Angeles Field Office and served as assistant special agent in charge for counterterrorism matters, overseeing the primary branch of the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force. 

In August 2011, Mr. Abbate again returned to the Counterterrorism Division, where he served as section chief, providing oversight of all FBI international terrorism investigations and counterterrorism operations external to the United States.

In October 2012, Mr. Abbate was appointed special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division. During this time, he also served as the FBI on-scene commander in Libya.

From October 2013 to September 2015, Mr. Abbate served as the special agent in charge of the Detroit Division, covering the state of Michigan. In September 2015, he was appointed assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, where he served until his appointment in December 2016 as the executive assistant director for the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. In this role, he was responsible for overseeing all FBI criminal and cyber investigations worldwide, international operations, critical incident response, and victim assistance.

Finally, under Wray:

In February 2018, Mr. Abbate was named associate deputy director of the FBI, where he was responsible for the management of all FBI personnel, budget, administration, and infrastructure.

My point is, when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail. When your entire rise to the top of the FBI has been fueled by a devotion to counter terrorism, and when those above you say that Right Wing terror is the problem, well ...

Who thinks Paul Abbate is concerned for our constitutional order? It's worked pretty well for him, rising through the ranks in our National Security State. Who better to lead the coming crackdown?

Now we turn to DC infighting:

Who are the 10 Republican senators meeting with President Joe Biden on COVID stimulus?

Here we see McConnell offering aid and comfort to the Establishment that overthrew our constitutional republic and installed in its place the Zhou Baiden regime with its sock puppet head. Most of the named ten senators have publicly endorsed the election hoax or have remained silent. This must be presumptively be assumed to be a McConnell approved list of senators who will go to the White House to lend legitimacy to the shaky Zhou regime:

Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine

Shelley Moore-Capito of West Virginia

Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska

Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio

Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah

Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina

Sen. Todd Young of Indiana

Mitch McConnell Praises Liz Cheney: ‘Important Leader’ with ‘Courage’ to Act

McConnell's interference in an internal House matter will hardly win him friends among GOP reps, nor will it enhance the leadership prestige of Kevin McCarthy. But that's not the point. The point is to muscle recalcitrant House members into line--forcing an unwanted 'leader' down their throats--and to force them to back away from support for Trump. From that perspective, it's difficult to imagine what pressure work would work except financial--campaign finance--pressure. Particularly galling, of course, is that McConnell's move against Trump supporting reps comes in the following context: Black Lives Matter backs ‘Squad’ member’s push to expel over 100 Republicans from Congress. The obvious question becomes, Whose side is McConnell on? The answer should be just as obvious. McConnell's interference will not help unify the party and regain the House in 2022. This is about purging Trump supporters.

Biden looking into yanking Trump’s access to intelligence briefings

I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for any senior Republican to decry this outrageous move. Particularly galling is the false claim that Trump would use such access to benefit financially. We've already seen clear evidence that Pelosi, Biden Inc., and others are already putting in place perhaps the most corrupt regime in American history. It's all part of the Big Lie behind the coup, and Republicans generally have maintained a discrete silence.

Trump lawyer to make First Amendment case at impeachment trial

Trump's new lawyers--David Schoen and Bruce Castor--have outlined a three-prong defense. First, of course, they'll argue that the whole fake impeachment thing is exactly that--fake political theater and patently unconstitutional. To the extent, however, that there is a serious goal that would be to prevent Trump from running for office again. They will also make a First Amendment argument, and this is where Trump's claims of election fraud may come in. Finally, they will also argue that any violent acts after Trump's January 6 speech were planned in advance and were unconnected to his speech itself.

“Besides the fact that this process is completely unconstitutional ... this is a very, very dangerous road to take with respect to the First Amendment, putting at risk any passionate political speaker, which is against everything we believe in this country,” Schoen said.

...

Schoen said Monday that Trump has “condemned violence at all times.”

“Read the words of his speech. It calls for peacefulness,” he said.

...

“We know also that the agenda of Pelosi and others is simply to bar President Trump from ever running for president again, and that’s about as undemocratic you can get, a slap in the face to the 75 million people who voted for Donald Trump,” Schoen said.

“I would say you also shouldn’t be able to call many of the senators as witnesses because of the awful bias and prejudgement they’ve shown,” he added. “Can you imagine any American citizen considered to be in a trial in which the judge and jury has already announce publicly that the defendant must be convicted in a case? ... 

And finally:

YES! Thousands of Republicans Change Party Affiliation In Four States After Capitol Riots

The story is as you might expect:

The majority of Republicans leaving the party reportedly changed their status to unaffiliated, according to the reports.

Sample comments explaining their move:

“I do feel there is a split. I’m not necessarily doing it to hurt the Republicans Party, but the way they turned their backs completely on Trump, that kind of got me really upset,” Trubia told CPR.

...

“I didn’t leave the party,” 28-year registered Republican Kimrey Rhinehardt of North Carolina said, according to The News & Observer. “The party left me. My belief system and my values remain unchanged.”

Who thinks inciting (!) these kinds of reactions is good for conservatives or for the GOP as a political party that hopes to have a future? The answer, of course, is that for the Establishment such considerations simply miss the point of the New Normal and the Great Reset. Constitutional order itself is beside the point now.