What Happens When You Try To Be Someone That You're Not?

Kamala “code switching” again by using an accent to be more relatable to predominantly black audience

Seriously, how low will she go for votes? pic.twitter.com/4uVNmIVNff

— Myrna 💋💄🍺 𝕏 (@GigaBeers) September 3, 2024

 

Camilla, Out In These Streets, Standing On Bidnis....,

 

Demented Squawking By A Putrid Old Buzzard..., (Nancy Pelosi)

Watch Nancy Pelosi claim that protestors opposing Israel's genocide in Gaza are spreading "Putin's message," and that she wants them investigated for possibly being on Russia's payroll.

This is what Russiagate has been about since day one: embracing Russia conspiracy theories… pic.twitter.com/YeWsPpLXZX

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 28, 2024

TNR  |  Representative Nancy Pelosi accused pro-Palestine protesters of having links to Russia and called for the FBI to investigate them.

During a Sunday interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Pelosi was asked if she was worried that younger voters would abandon President Joe Biden due to his resistance to a cease-fire.

“For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin’s message,” Pelosi said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see.”

“I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia.”

When asked if she thought some of the pro-Palestinian protesters were Russian plants, Pelosi said, “I don’t think they’re plants. I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the FBI to investigate that.”

Israel’s constant bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 26,500 people, primarily women and children, since October 7, according to Gaza’s health ministry. The vast majority of Americans, particularly younger voters, support a cease-fire. Growing numbers of lawmakers have also begun to call for an end to the fighting, but the White House continues to back Israel.

Pelosi’s comments sparked immediate backlash. The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Nihad Awad, called Pelosi’s claim “delusional” and her call for an FBI investigation “downright authoritarian.”

“Sadly, Rep. Pelosi’s comments echo a time in our nation when opponents of the Vietnam War were accused of being communist sympathizers and subjected to FBI harassment,” he said in a statement.

“Instead of baselessly smearing those Americans as Russian collaborators, former House Speaker Pelosi and other political leaders should respect the will of the American people by calling for an end to the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza.”

Many people on social media were quick to point out the hypocrisy of Pelosi’s comments. The majority of people who support a cease-fire are politically neutral or left-leaning, including thousands of Black American pastors, Doctors Without Borders, and according to some polls, 80 percent of Democratic voters.

Others pointed out that the specific call for an FBI investigation marked a dangerous shift in the government’s stance on involving law enforcement against anti-war efforts. Widespread crackdowns against pro-Palestine speech have been compared to a new wave of McCarthyism.

Biden’s refusal to call for a cease-fire could well cost him in November. His popularity among young voters has dropped dramatically, primarily due to his stance on Israel. Biden’s campaign manager traveled last week to Detroit, which has a large Arab-American community. Many of the community leaders refused to meet with her over Biden’s Gaza policies.

 

 

"All roads lead to Putin" pic.twitter.com/UcMbnMagpW

— Aaron Maté (@aaronjmate) January 28, 2024

And Now We Know The Truth About Claudine Gay

glennloury  |  Roland Fryer is the most gifted economist of his generation. Not the most gifted black economist of his generation, the most gifted economist of his generation. Period.

He was tenured at Harvard at the age of 30, he was awarded the American Economics Association’s John Bates Clark Medal, he received a MacArthur “Genius” grant, his publications appeared in some of the most distinguished journals in the field, and his scholarship was regularly covered in the mainstream media. His research upends many commonly held assumptions about race, discrimination, education, and police violence. It is tremendously creative, rigorous, and consequential scholarship, and it cannot be simply written off because it happens to challenge the status quo.

To do the kind of work Roland does, you have to be more than brilliant. You have to be fearless. And I cannot help suspect that now Roland is paying the price for pursuing the truth wherever it leads. Several years ago, he was accused of sexual harassment by a disgruntled ex-assistant. In my opinion and that of many others, those accusations are baseless. But Harvard has used them as a pretext to shut down Roland’s lab, to curtail his teaching, and to marginalize him within the institution.

I’ll not mince words. Those at Harvard responsible for this state of affairs should be utterly ashamed of themselves. They have unnecessarily, heedlessly tarnished the career of an historically great economist. Again, I can't help but suspect that they have effectively buried vital research not because it was poorly done but because they found the results to be politically inconvenient. “Veritas” indeed.

Now, I have been a friend and mentor to Roland for some time, and I’ve taken great pleasure in watching him succeed. I can see how one might view my criticisms of Harvard as biased. But this matter has been investigated by others with no personal stake in Roland's career who have found Harvard’s actions and reporting on them by the New York Times to be deeply flawed. I would point readers who want to know more to Stuart Taylor Jr.’s fine reporting for Real Clear Investigations.

Along the same lines, the filmmaker Rob Montz has made a short documentary about this subject. I’m interviewed in it alongside others who see this fiasco for what it is, some of whom have much to lose by publicly coming to Roland’s defense. People need to see this film. They need to know the truth about Roland Fryer. So I ask you to watch and to judge for yourself, and if you feel so moved, to share it as widely as possible.

Unprecedented Lawfare Waged Against Trump Will Produce Inevitable Blowback

twitter  |  This is what an *actual* attack on democracy looks like: in an un-American, unconstitutional, and *unprecedented* decision, a cabal of Democrat judges are barring Trump from the ballot in Colorado. Having tried every trick in the book to eliminate President Trump from running in this election, the bipartisan Establishment is now deploying a new tactic to bar him from ever holding office again: the 14th Amendment. I pledge to *withdraw* from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is also allowed to be on the state’s ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley to do the same immediately - or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country.

Today’s decision is the latest election interference tactic to silence political opponents and swing the election for whatever puppet the Democrats put up this time by depriving Americans of the right to vote for their candidate of choice. 

The 14th Amendment was part of the “Reconstruction Amendments” that were ratified following the Civil War. It was passed to prohibit former Confederate military and political leaders from holding high federal or state office. These men had clearly taken part in a rebellion against the United States: the Civil War. That makes it all the more absurd that a left-wing group in Colorado is asking a federal court to disqualify the 45th President on the same grounds, equating his speech to rebellion against the United States. 

And there’s another legal problem: Trump is not a former “officer of the United States,” as that term is used in the Constitution, meaning Section 3 does not apply. As the Supreme Court explained in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010), an “officer of the United States” is someone appointed by the President to aid him in his duties under Article II, Section 2. The term does not apply to elected officials, and certainly not to the President himself.   The Framers of the 14th Amendment would be appalled to see this narrow provision—intended to bar former U.S. officials who switched to the Confederacy from seeking public office—being weaponized by a sitting President and his political allies to prevent a former President from seeking reelection. Our country is becoming unrecognizable to our Founding Fathers.

The U.S. Is Well Beyond Hypocrisy

amgreatness  |  The abject narcissism of the insular Left is startling. They apparently believe the American public is amnesiac enough to forget what leftists once did, now that they’re doing the utter opposite. And they assume we are to discount their hypocrisy and self-absorption simply because they self-identify as erudite and moral and assume their opponents are irredeemable and deplorable.

Impeachment

The Left is saturating the airwaves with outrage over the current House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry. They allege that formally investigating Joe Biden’s role in the family grifting operation is somehow a poor constitutional precedent, if not out-of-bounds entirely.

So we hear further arguments that it will be unwise to impeach a first-term president when he loses his House majority, that there is no reason to “waste” congressional time and effort when Biden will be automatically acquitted in the Democratically controlled Senate, and that the impeachment is cynically timed to synchronize with president’s reelection efforts.

All of these are the precise arguments many of us cited when Donald Trump was impeached in December 2019 (as his reelection campaign began, and immediately after being cleared of the 22-month, $40-million-special-counsel Russian-collusion hoax).

The Democrats tried to remove an elected president over a phone call without a special counsel’s report. So Trump was impeached only after the 2018 election led to a Democratic House majority, which went from eating up nearly two years of his administration in the Russian-collusion hoax straight into the impeachment farce. There was no concern about the cost to the nation of putting an elected government into a continual state of siege.

There is one difference, though, between the Trump impeachment and the Biden impeachment inquiry. Donald Trump was impeached because he accurately accused the members of the Ukrainian government of paying Hunter Biden, with his zero fossil fuel expertise, an astronomical sum to serve on the Burisma board—as the costly quid that earned the lucrative quo from his dad Vice President Joe Biden.

No one now denies that Joe Biden got prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired by threatening to cancel legislatively-approved U.S. aid. Shokin knew about the skullduggery through which the Biden family eventually received $6.5 million from Ukraine—and so Biden ensured his firing, and publicly bragged about it in performance-art fashion.

In sum, Trump had a perfect right as commander in chief to delay (he did not cancel) aid to Ukraine, to ensure that its government was not still paying off the Bidens for their lobbying efforts on its behalf.

 

 

Space Command Reaches Full Operational Capability (Buzzword Bingo Buffet)

epochtimes  | The U.S. Space Command, the Pentagon’s newest and 11th combatant command, has reached full operating capability, according to its commander, Army Gen. James Dickinson.

Gen. Dickinson made the declaration during a headquarters town hall on Dec. 15, according to a statement. The U.S. Space Command (USSPACECOM) was created in 2019 at the direction of former President Donald Trump.

“Since its establishment in 2019, USSPACECOM has been singularly focused on delivering exquisite capability to the joint force to deter conflict, defend our vital interests, and, if necessary, defeat aggression,” Gen. Dickinson said.

“Thanks to the disciplined initiative of our people and the support of our joint, combined, and partnered team, I can confidently say we have reached full operational capability.”

He explained that the announcement followed an “in-depth evaluation of the command’s capabilities,” including the ability to execute its mission on “our worst day, when we are needed the most.”

The declaration of full operating capability met certain criteria, including having the appropriate numbers of skills across the human capital and having the necessary command processes and functions in place, according to Gen. Dickinson.

“As the command has matured, challenges to a safe, secure, stable, and sustainable space domain have significantly increased,” Gen. Dickinson said. “Both the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation are fielding counter space capabilities designed to hold U.S., Allied, and partner space assets at risk.”

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said that it'll become a “major space power” sometime around 2030 and that it's planning to double the size of its space station in the next few years.

Rick Fischer, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in a commentary published by The Epoch Times last month, warned that “China has no hesitation to arm its space stations and other large manned space platforms, including its bases on the moon and beyond,” no matter what China’s state-run media have stated.

 “Until the CCP expires or abandons its ambitions for hegemony on Earth, the United States and its partners in space will need to achieve security, meaning they will require military capabilities in space to use against Beijing’s manned and unmanned space systems intended to attack the democracies,” Mr. Fischer added.

The command had completed its first training exercise with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, which “served as a major step in validating the headquarters staff as a ready, joint force,” Gen. Dickinson said.

“Our work continues,” he said. “As the complexity of the domain grows, so must our capability to deliver operational and strategic effects to our nation and preserve the safety and stability of the domain.”

In July, President Joe Biden said the U.S. Space Command’s headquarters would remain at Peterson Air Force in Colorado Springs, Colorado, reversing President Trump’s plans to move it to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) both released statements on Dec. 15 welcoming the command’s news.

 

 

 

 

Not Costco Too!!! Say It Isn't So....,

They have definitely been lying to us about inflation.

This is insane!

🔊 pic.twitter.com/F5QLjs1ZTD

— Declaration of Memes (@LibertyCappy) October 16, 2023

KCUR  |  You know how holiday stuff is expensive when you most want to buy it, but cheaper after the holidays?

The same dynamic will soon apply to what you pay for electricity on the Missouri side of the Kansas City area.

All of Evergy’s Missouri customers will see a steep price hike for the electricity they burn during the peak demand hours of late afternoon and early evening.

It’s called time-of-use pricing and Jim Busch, the director of industry analysis at the Missouri Public Service Commission, said it makes sense.

“When you look at the overall benefits to the consumers and the company and society as a whole,” he said, “it’s a better path to go down.”

Evergy's change to the time-sensitive model comes with particularly dramatic upticks.

Electricity costs more to generate at peak times, like summer evenings when everyone’s running their air conditioners. Companies have to fire up auxiliary generators to meet that demand.

That means burning natural gas. Cranking up those gas plants costs more to kick out the same power than coal, solar, wind and nuclear.

Time-of-use rates reflect that added cost. Customers pay something closer to the actual cost to produce power at a given time — and have an incentive to use less electricity when it costs the most to produce.

Power companies already send out bills based on time-of-use rates in much of the western U.S. Evergy has allowed customers in both Missouri and Kansas to voluntarily opt-in to variable price billing for years. And the method is catching on, Busch.

But there’s something different about the time-of-use billing schedule for Missouri that Evergy customers will see this fall.

Typically, the price of electricity varies only slightly over the course of the day. Rates may go up or down one or two cents per kilowatt hour.

Some Missouri Evergy customers, on the other hand, will see rates fluctuate dramatically. Under the default plan, customers will be charged 9 cents a kilowatt hour most of the time. But the rate vaults up to 38 cents between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. on summer evenings. That’s a 322% spike.

“That is a huge increase,” said Daniel Zimny-Schmitt at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “There’s no way around that.”

He said 38 cents a kilowatt hour, the top rate under Evergy’s default plan, would mark one of the most expensive residential electricity rates in the country outside of California.

The default plan —Evergy brands it “Standard Peak Saver" — is one of four options that Missouri Evergy customers can choose from by October. If you don’t do anything to your Evergy account, that’s the billing structure you’ll have.

Preznit Poopie Pants Caught In Yet Another Bald-Faced Lie...,

thegrayzone  |  After an Israeli reserve soldier named David Ben Zion told a reporter Palestinian militants “cut [off] heads of babies,” Biden, Netanyahu, and the international media amplified the dubious claim.

The Grayzone has identified Ben Zion as a fanatical settler leader who incited riots by demanding a Palestinian town be “wiped out.”

An international outcry erupted when Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced that Palestinian militants from the besieged Gaza Strip had killed 40 “babies,” and beheaded several of them during an incursion into Kfar Aza, a kibbutz on the Gaza border. President Joseph Biden repeated the inflammatory claim during an October 10 White House Rose Garden address, while networks across the West carried the story without a shred of critical scrutiny.

According to CNN correspondent Nic Robertson, apparently citing Israeli military sources, Palestinian militants carried out, “ISIS-style executions,” in which they were “cutting the heads off of people,” including babies and pets. 

The Grayzone has now identified a key source of the claim that Palestinian militants beheaded Israeli babies. He is David Ben Zion, a Deputy Commander of Unit 71 of the Israeli army who also happens to be an extremist settler leader who incited violent riots against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank earlier this year.

In an October 10 interview with reporter Nicole Zedek of the Israeli state-sponsored i24 network, Ben Zion stated, “We walked door to door, we killed a lot of terrorists. They are very bad. They cut heads of children, they cut heads of women. But we are stronger than them.” 

He added, “We know that they are animals,” referring to Palestinians, “but we found that they don’t have any heart.”

Hours after his interview with i24, still in the village of Kfar Aza, a uniformed Ben Zion could be seen repeatedly grinning ear-to-ear in a video posted to his Facebook – an odd disposition for a supposed witness to the methodical butchering of babies.

Earlier that day, i24’s Zedek declared during a live report from Kfar Aza, “About 40 babies were taken out on gurneys… Cribs overturned, strollers left behind, doors left wide open.’” Zedek’s report has been viewed tens of millions of times on Twitter and promoted by Israel’s Foreign Ministry – which underwrites her network.

Hours later, she qualified her statement, stating, “Soldiers told me they believe 40 babies/children were killed. The exact death toll is still unknown as the military continues to go house to house and find more Israeli casualties.”

Yet the unverified tale quickly made its way to the highest levels of leadership, as if by design. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s spokesman stated unequivocally that babies and toddlers were found with their “heads decapitated,” while President Joe Biden himself vaguely gestured towards “stomach-churning reports of babies being killed.”

Likewise, cable news has flown into a frenzy, breathlessly reporting the story despite the IDF walking back its initial confirmation.

Meanwhile, some reporters who initially carried the official Israeli allegations about beheaded babies began issuing qualifications of their own.

Oren Ziv, an Israeli reporter who joined the military’s official tour of Kfar Aza, commented on Twitter, “I’m getting a lot of question about the reports of ‘Hamas beheaded babies’ that were published after the media tour in the village. During the tour we didn’t see any evidence of this, and the army spokesperson or commanders also didn’t mention any such incidents.”

So who is the source behind the explosive claim?

 

Mayorkas Lawfare Censorship Advisory Board's Signatories To The Huntergate Laptop Coverup

dailycaller  |  Top Republican lawmakers requested information from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas regarding an agency group that will include former intelligence officials who signed a letter suggesting the Hunter Biden laptop was a “Russian information operation,” according to a copy of a Thursday letter first obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

DHS tapped former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former CIA Operations Officer Paul Kolbe, all of whom signed an October 2020 letter casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation, to join the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group. In response, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green and Republican Texas Rep. August Pfluger are demanding to know DHS’ selection process for the group’s members, according to a copy of the letter. 

The Hunter Biden laptop contents were authenticated by the Daily Caller News Foundation, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News and other media outlets. No evidence currently exists to suggest the laptop was a Russian disinformation operation.

“Multiple members of this Homeland Intelligence Expert Group have shown an utter disregard for the truth, not to mention brazen political bias. Does Secretary Mayorkas really think appointing leading Russian-collusion hoaxers will increase trust in his department? Clearly, he doesn’t care,” Green said in a statement to the DCNF.

Both Clapper and Brennan have been previously criticized for misleading the American public. On multiple occasions, Clapper gave incorrect information to Congress.

Clapper gave “inconsistent testimony” about contacts he had with the media while in office, Republicans charged. Additionally, Brennan denied that CIA officials had hacked the computers of Senate Intelligence Committee staffers, a statement that was later proven false.

“James Clapper and John Brennan have no place in positions of power—much less on a board of so-called experts where they will surely continue to serve as partisan Democrat operatives disguised as national security officials. The Department of Homeland Security must dispense with its disinformation boards and expert groups and focus on the real national security issues facing our country—such as the thousands of illegal migrants crossing our southern border on a daily basis,” Pfluger, who serves as the chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence, said in a statement to the DCNF.

The group will meet four times per year to advise DHS on intelligence and national security efforts regarding issues such as “terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology,” DHS said.

DHS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

 

 

DHS Has Assembled A Rogue's Gallery Of Oxygen-Thieving Turd Burglers To KEEP US SAFE!!!

DHS.GOV  |  Today, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) Ken Wainstein, and Counterterrorism Coordinator Nicholas Rasmussen announced the establishment of the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group (Experts Group). The group is comprised of private sector experts who will provide their unique perspectives on the federal government’s intelligence enterprise to DHS’s I&A and the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator.

“The security of the American people depends on our capacity to collect, generate, and disseminate actionable intelligence to our federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, campus, and private sector partners,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “I express my deep gratitude to these distinguished individuals for dedicating their exceptional expertise, experience, and vision to our critical mission.”

“The Homeland Intelligence Experts Group is being formed at a time of unprecedented challenge, with the U.S. intelligence enterprise facing threats from a range of malign actors, to include foreign nation-state adversaries, domestic violent extremists, cyber criminals, drug-trafficking cartels and other transnational criminal organizations,” said Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis Ken Wainstein. “The Experts Group will be an invaluable asset as we navigate through this evolving threat and operating environment and continue to strengthen our efforts to protect the Homeland.”

“The homeland threat environment is more diverse, dynamic, and challenging than at any point in our post 9/11 history, with threats tied to an array of different terrorist and violent extremist ideologies and narratives,” said Counterterrorism Coordinator Nicholas Rasmussen. “The experience, expertise, and perspective offered by Experts Group members will undoubtedly put the Department in a strong position to confront this threat landscape, and we are grateful for the willingness of the Experts Group members to serve in this important capacity."

The Experts Group will provide DHS with a wide range of views and perspectives, with a membership that includes former senior intelligence officials, journalists, and prominent human rights and civil liberties advocates.

The Experts Group members are the following:

• John Bellinger, Partner, Arnold & Porter (Former Legal Advisor, Department of State and National Security Council)
• John Brennan, Distinguished Fellow, Fordham University School of Law and University of Texas at Austin (Former Director, Central Intelligence Agency)
• James Clapper, CNN National Security Analyst (Former Director of National Intelligence)
• Rajesh De, Partner, Mayer Brown (Former Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy and NSA General Counsel)
• Thomas Galati, Senior Vice President, East Coast Security Operations, NBC Universal (Former New York Police Department, Chief, Intelligence and Counterterrorism)
• Tashina Gauhar, Senior Director, Compliance, Strategy and Policy, The Boeing Company (Former Associate Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division, Department of Justice)
• Asha M. George, Executive Director, Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense (Former Subcommittee Staff Director, House Committee on Homeland Security)
• Karen Greenberg, Director, Center on National Security, Fordham University School of Law
• Emily Harding, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of the International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (Former Deputy Staff Director, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence)
• Paul Kolbe, Senior Fellow and former Director of the Intelligence Project, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center (Former Operations Officer, Central Intelligence Agency)
• David Kris, Co-Founder, Culper Partners LLC (Former Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division, Department of Justice)
• Michael Leiter, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (Former Director, National Counterterrorism Center)
• Elisa Massimino, Executive Director, Human Rights Institute, Georgetown Law
• Gregory Nojeim, Senior Counsel and Director, Security and Surveillance Project, Center for Democracy & Technology
• Francis Taylor, Principal, Cambridge Global Advisors (Former Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, DHS)
• Caryn Wagner, Former Under Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis, DHS
• Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow in Governance Studies, The Brookings Institution, and Co-Founder and Editor in Chief, Lawfare            

The Experts Group will meet four times annually and leverage the expertise of each member to provide input on I&A’s most complex problems and challenges, including terrorism, fentanyl, transborder issues, and emerging technology.

For more information on I&A’s vital work, please visit Office of Intelligence and Analysis | Homeland Security (dhs.gov).

Horrible Dep. SecDef Kathleen Hicks Takes Over AARO From Discredited Sean Kirkpatrick...,

defensescoop  |  In separate discussions over the last week, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks and a Pentagon spokesperson briefed DefenseScoop on the near-term vision for the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. 

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks recently moved to personally oversee the Pentagon’s unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) investigation team formally known as the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, DefenseScoop has exclusively learned. And a new website will soon be launched where incidents can be reported.

Hicks now holds regular meetings with AARO’s inaugural director, Sean Kirkpatrick — who she’s also repositioned to report directly to her.

The Pentagon’s second-in-charge took action late last month, partly to help speed up AARO’s development and launch of a congressionally mandated public website where the organization will be expected to disclose its unclassified work and findings and offer a secure mechanism via which users can submit their own reports of possible UAP observances.

In separate discussions over the last week, Hicks and Pentagon spokesperson Eric Pahon briefed DefenseScoop on new details regarding the deputy secretary’s near-term vision for AARO — and the latest status of the new website and reporting mechanism ahead of an official announcement from the Defense Department expected on Thursday.

“I believe that transparency is a critical component of AARO’s work, and I am committed to sharing AARO’s discoveries with Congress and the public, consistent with our responsibility to protect critical national defense and intelligence capabilities,” Hicks told DefenseScoop.

Behind the scenes

Mysterious, seemingly unexplainable flying objects have long perplexed humans all over the world. For decades, they have been referred to as UFOs. But recently, the U.S. government began using the “UAP” moniker to account for what appear to be craft that can travel underwater or transition between space and Earth’s atmosphere, or other domains.

The latest surge of interest and pressure from the American public and Congress started really mounting in the last five or so years, in response to multiple verified videos showing U.S. military pilots’ interactions with baffling objects, often around key national security installations.

Hicks formally established AARO via an official memorandum last year, after lawmakers mandated its creation in the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

“The UAP mission is not easy, and AARO’s mission, to minimize technical and intelligence surprise by synchronizing scientific, intelligence, and operational detection identification, attribution, and mitigation of UAP objects of national security issues, is being orchestrated by a small, but growing team,” Hicks explained.

“AARO is not yet at full operational capability, and I look forward to AARO achieving that in fiscal year 2024,” she also told DefenseScoop. 

To meet its directions from Congress — and led by it’s inaugural director Sean Kirkpatrick — AARO officials must disseminate a series of reviews about the organization’s expanding portfolio of UAP investigations and sightings that Defense Department and intelligence community personnel catalog. Kirkpatrick testified at a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing in April that, at that time, AARO was diving deep into more than 650 cases of reported incidents.

Not long after that event, in July, the House Oversight Committee held a separate hearing on UAP transparency, which was notably well-attended, where three former U.S. defense officials each testified under oath that they believe UAP pose “an existential threat to national security.” During the hearing, all witnesses suggested, and one blatantly stated, that AARO has not met its responsibility to seriously engage with potential observers and that DOD needed better reporting and response mechanisms. 

During both Kirkpatrick’s and the whistleblowers’ hearings, a visible point of contention that came up was associated with AARO’s seemingly delayed delivery of the fiscal 2023 NDAA-mandated website and UAP reporting mechanism.

 

 

If You Didn't Trust Your Own Examination Of The Science And Instead Succumbed To The Propaganda

censorednews  |  The COVID-19 lie that started it all—before lockdowns and mandates—was the lie that the virus was more deadly than it actually was. On March 3, 2020, the media cited the World Health Organization to spread the misinformation that the global death rate of COVID-19 was 3.4%. Years later, the WHO’s much-expanded dataset now shows the real global case fatality rate is less than 1%. However, at the time, when the President of the United States correctly pointed out the figure was inflated, he was viciously attacked for “downplaying” the virus, as the WHO’s misleading statistic was regurgitated in the press.

“WHO says the death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought” - CNBC

“The death rate now estimated at 3.4% for anyone afflicted with this virus” - FOX News

“3.4% of people who get coronavirus die from it.” - USA TODAY

The WHO’s death rate was severely inflated because most COVID-19 cases are mild with no symptoms and are therefore never reported. In fact, Dr. Fauci and the Director of the CDC, Dr. Redfield predicted as much just three days prior to the WHO’s misleading 3.4% death rate. In the New England Journal of Medicine, Fauci and Redfield concluded the number could be “considerably less than 1%”. This contradiction between US public health officials and the WHO went mostly ignored. The media was only triggered into a response when Donald Trump used the same scientific reasoning on FOX News with Sean Hannity.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I think the 3.4% is really a false number. Now, this is just my hunch, but based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it's very mild. They will get better very rapidly. They don't even see a doctor. They don't even call a doctor. You never hear about those people.

Trump repeated his reasoning for clarity, although his full explanation was later deleted from nearly all mainstream news segments which criticized him for sharing thoughts “based on nothing” (John Berman, “CNN New Day”, CNN, 3/5/20).

PRESIDENT TRUMP: When you do have a death…all of a sudden, it seems like three or four percent, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of one percent. But, again, they don't know about the easy cases, because the easy cases don't go to the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the number—personally, I would say the number is way under 1 percent. 

MEDIA MISINFORMATION / DISINFORMATION

Former Vox reporter and special guest to the Biden White House, Aaron Rupar, reflexively attacked Trump’s rational, and ultimately correct, take on the WHO death rate, as “astoundingly irresponsible”.

Over the following days, Trump was mocked on nearly every major television channel (CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, & Comedy Central), where he was accused of lying.

MSNBC hosts and experts labeled Trump’s correct take on the death rate as “not correct”, “not true”, “dishonest”, and “disinformation” (Andrea Mitchell, Ben Rhodes, and Geoff Bennett on “Andrea Mitchell Reports”); “false information”, (Chris Jansing on “Live with Hallie Jackson”); and “misinformation” (“Live with Velshi and Ruhle”).

CNN’s reporters and pundits did the same, calling Trump’s informed skepticism “disinformation” (Brian Stelter, “CNN Newsroom”); “misinformation” (Anderson Cooper, “Anderson Cooper 360”); and “sketchy information” (Jim Acosta, “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer”).

(NOTE: This is only a small sample of the false accusations.)

After the news set the narrative, late-night hosts took their cues and obediently forwarded the message that WHO’s word reigns supreme and therefore Trump is crazy to question it.

 

Elite Maleficence And Impunity (REDUX Originally Posted 8/17/23)

washingtonexaminer  |  On Monday, we got a bombshell. New documents indicate the entire justification for vaccine mandates was based on a falsehood — and that public health officials knew it. 

Emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and former NIH Director Francis Collins were aware of, and discussed, “breakthrough cases” of COVID in January 2021 — right when the vaccines became widely available. In her email, Walensky says that “clearly,” it is an “important area of study,” links to a study raising the issue, and assures the person she is sending it to that Dr. Anthony Fauci is looped into these conversations.

However, in public, Walensky was saying something quite different. Two months after discussing this data, she said vaccinated people “don’t carry the virus” and “don’t get sick.” In a congressional hearing, after it became clear people were able to get infected with COVID even after receiving the vaccine, she defended her original statements by claiming it was true at the time she said it — namely, for the strands we were dealing with in early 2021.

We now know that was not true and that Walensky herself knew it was not true.

Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, called the revelation “stunning.” He pointed out that despite this knowledge, “they continued to push vax mandates anyway.”

This is the real scandal, as there is little harm in getting something like this wrong in a vacuum. After all, COVID-19 vaccines certainly saved many, many lives and reduced the severity of infection for many more. But the fact vaccine mandates were pushed, even though those in charge knew people could contract and spread the virus while vaccinated, is indefensible. That they mislead the public on this makes it even worse.

If the vaccine stopped COVID dead in its tracks, as Fauci explained, then the decision to institute a vaccine mandate would merely be a controversial yet ultimately legitimate public health measure. The fact it did not do that but rather had primarily personal benefits completely removes the justification for mandates.

The Biden administration tried to impose a vaccine mandate on employers, thousands of people were fired from their jobs, and there was a time when unvaccinated people were not even allowed into restaurants in some of the country’s largest cities.

And it was all based on a lie.

 

 

Rep. Michael Turner Is Concerned That Further UAP Hearings Will Deeply Embarrass The DoD

Representative Michael Turner from Ohio who is the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has convinced Rep. James Comer who is the Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, that any more UAP hearings by the H.O.C. "Would cause serious harm to the reputation of the Department of Defense in the eyes of the public, and should be avoided for the foreseeable future."

As a result of this decision, there will be no further hearings on this topic by the H.O.C.

Rep. Mike Turner is directly influenced by the military contractors in his state.

Representative Michael Turner's district includes Wright Patterson AFB , and the headquarters of Batelle. I guarantee he knows the truth , but we are not good enough as regular taxpayers .

His Dayton office #9372252843 .

Please call rep Turners local office TODAY and voice your displeasure.

Ask why he deserves to know but we don’t . The DoDs behavior is a national embarrassment on this matter .

And they should be embarrassed to continue lying to the American people .

They think average US citizens like us are gullible fools , who will continue to accept balloons , swamp gas, weather phenomena, and whatever other nonsense they wanna tell us about UAP sightings.

Please call his office .

Tell him how you feel about him being bought and paid for by the USMIC .

Elite Maleficence And Impunity

washingtonexaminer  |  On Monday, we got a bombshell. New documents indicate the entire justification for vaccine mandates was based on a falsehood — and that public health officials knew it. 

Emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request show that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky and former NIH Director Francis Collins were aware of, and discussed, “breakthrough cases” of COVID in January 2021 — right when the vaccines became widely available. In her email, Walensky says that “clearly,” it is an “important area of study,” links to a study raising the issue, and assures the person she is sending it to that Dr. Anthony Fauci is looped into these conversations.

However, in public, Walensky was saying something quite different. Two months after discussing this data, she said vaccinated people “don’t carry the virus” and “don’t get sick.” In a congressional hearing, after it became clear people were able to get infected with COVID even after receiving the vaccine, she defended her original statements by claiming it was true at the time she said it — namely, for the strands we were dealing with in early 2021.

We now know that was not true and that Walensky herself knew it was not true.

Jay Bhattacharya, a professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, called the revelation “stunning.” He pointed out that despite this knowledge, “they continued to push vax mandates anyway.”

This is the real scandal, as there is little harm in getting something like this wrong in a vacuum. After all, COVID-19 vaccines certainly saved many, many lives and reduced the severity of infection for many more. But the fact vaccine mandates were pushed, even though those in charge knew people could contract and spread the virus while vaccinated, is indefensible. That they mislead the public on this makes it even worse.

If the vaccine stopped COVID dead in its tracks, as Fauci explained, then the decision to institute a vaccine mandate would merely be a controversial yet ultimately legitimate public health measure. The fact it did not do that but rather had primarily personal benefits completely removes the justification for mandates.

The Biden administration tried to impose a vaccine mandate on employers, thousands of people were fired from their jobs, and there was a time when unvaccinated people were not even allowed into restaurants in some of the country’s largest cities.

And it was all based on a lie.

 

 

Ken Klippenstein Wrote About The DoD Office Of Information And Perception Management (IPMO)

theintercept  |   While perception management involves denying, or blocking, propaganda, it can also entail advancing the U.S.’s own narrative. The Defense Department defines perception management in its official dictionary as “[a]ctions to convey and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning.” This is the part that has, historically, tended to raise the public’s skepticism of the Pentagon’s work.

The term “perception management” hearkens back to the Reagan administration’s attempts to shape the narrative around the Contras in Nicaragua. The Reagan administration sought to kick what his Vice President George H.W. Bush would later call the “Vietnam syndrome,” which it believed was driving American public opposition to support for the Contras. Ronald Reagan’s CIA director, William Casey, directed the agency’s leading propaganda specialist to oversee an interagency effort to portray the Contras — who had been implicated in grisly atrocities — as noble freedom fighters.

“An elaborate system of inter-agency committees was eventually formed and charged with the task of working closely with private groups and individuals involved in fundraising, lobbying campaigns and propagandistic activities aimed at influencing public opinion and governmental action,” an unpublished draft chapter of Congress’s investigation into Iran-Contra states. (Democrats dropped the chapter in order to get several Republicans to sign the report.)

The Smith-Mundt Act, passed in 1948 in the wake of the Second World War, prohibits the the State Department from disseminating “public diplomacy” — i.e., propaganda — domestically, instead requiring that those materials be targeted at foreign audiences. The Defense Department considered itself bound by this requirement as well.

After the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon triggered backlash after U.S. propaganda was disseminated in the U.S. In 2004, the military signaled that it had begun its siege on Fallujah. Just hours later, CNN discovered that this was not true.

But in 2012, the law was amended to allow propaganda to be circulated domestically, under the bipartisan Smith-Mundt Modernization Act, introduced by Reps. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, which was later rolled into the National Defense Authorization Act.

“Proponents of amending these two sections argue that the ban on domestic dissemination of public diplomacy information is impractical given the global reach of modern communications, especially the Internet, and that it unnecessarily prevents valid U.S. government communications with foreign publics due to U.S. officials’ fear of violating the ban,” a congressional research service report said at the time of the proposed amendments. “Critics of lifting the ban state that it may open the door to more aggressive U.S. government activities to persuade U.S. citizens to support government policies, and might also divert the focus of State Department and the BBG [Broadcasting Board of Governors] communications from foreign publics, reducing their effectiveness.”

The Obama administration subsequently approved a highly classified covert action finding designed to counter foreign malign influence activities, a finding renewed and updated by the Biden administration, as The Intercept has reported.

The IPMO memo produced for the academic institution hints at its role in such propagandistic efforts now. “Among other things, the IPMO is tasked with the development of broad thematic messaging guidance and specific strategies for the execution of DoD activities designed to influence foreign defense-related decision-makers to behave in a manner beneficial to U.S. interests,” the memo states.

As the global war on terror draws to a close, the Pentagon has turned its attention to so-called great power adversaries like Russia and China. Following Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, which in part involved state-backed efforts to disseminate falsehoods on social media, offices tasked with combating disinformation started springing up all over the U.S. government, as The Intercept has reported.

The director of national intelligence last year established a new center to oversee all the various efforts, including the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Foreign Influence Task Force and the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.

The Pentagon’s IPMO differs from the others in one key respect: secrecy. Whereas most of the Department of Homeland Security’s counter-disinformation efforts are unclassified in nature — as one former DHS contractor not authorized to speak publicly explained to The Intercept — the IPMO involves a great deal of highly classified work.

That the office’s work goes beyond simple messaging into the rarefied world of intelligence is clear from its location within the Pentagon hierarchy. “The Influence and Perception Management Office will serve as the senior advisor to the USD(I&S) [Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security] for strategic operational influence and perception management (reveal and conceal) matters,” the budget notes.

When asked about the intelligence community’s counter-disinformation efforts, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress this month, “I think DIA’s perspective on this, senator, is really speed: We want to be able to detect that and it’s really with our open-source collection capability working with our combatant command partners where this is happening all over the world — and then the ability to turn something quickly with them, under the right authorities, to counter that disinformation, misinformation.”

Like Project Blue Book, The AARO Is DoD's UAP Public Affairs And Coverup Office

defensescoop  |  AARO Director Sean Kirkpatrick issued a fiery statement spotlighting “his own personal observations and opinions” — but “not necessarily official DOD and IG positions” — on social media Thursday. The Pentagon authenticated his post Friday. 

In it, Kirkpatrick wrote that he “cannot let yesterday’s hearing pass without sharing how insulting it was to the officers of” the Defense Department and the intelligence community who have been “working diligently, tirelessly, and often in the face of harassment and animosity, to fulfill their Congressionally-mandated mission.”  

Allegations of “retaliation, to include physical assault and hints of murder, are extraordinarily serious, which is why law enforcement is a critical member of the AARO team, specifically to address and take swift action should anyone come forward with such claims. Yet, contrary to assertions made in the hearing, the central source of those allegations has refused to speak with AARO,” Kirkpatrick wrote — pointing at Grusch without directly stating his name. 

He also said AARO has yet to see credible proof regarding allegations of any reverse-engineering programs for non-human technology, and that some information reportedly obtained by Congress has not been shared with his office. 

Pentagon spokesperson Sue Gough declined to weigh in on Kirkpatrick’s statement in an email to DefenseScoop late Friday evening. 

“The department is aware of Dr. Kirkpatrick’s post, which are his personal opinions expressed in his capacity as a private citizen and we won’t comment directly on the contents of the post. We do want to reinforce the department’s unwavering commitment to openness and accountability to the American people and Congress,” she wrote.

Still, Gough’s official Pentagon responses also echoed some of the notions articulated by the AARO director.

“The department has no information that any individual has been harmed or killed as a result of providing information to AARO. Any unsubstantiated claims that individuals have been harmed or killed in the process of providing information to AARO will serve to discourage individuals with relevant information from coming forward to aid in AARO’s efforts,” she wrote.  

“To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently,” she reiterated.

Gough did not respond to follow-up questions from DefenseScoop Monday regarding new or existing channels for service members to flag UAP incidents, and whether or not there’s been an uptick in new reports to AARO — or intensified harassment — since the hearing. 

According to Graves, the former F-18 pilot who testified last week, DOD’s responses reflect “a perfect example of why witnesses are reluctant to come forward.”

“The Pentagon Press Office statement following the hearing was misleading. The disconnect between pilot witness testimony under oath at the Congressional hearing and the Pentagon Press Office’s dismissal is a perfect example of why witnesses are reluctant to come forward. It makes zero sense that our military would undermine its own servicemen and women when they are reporting serious flight risks,” he told DefenseScoop on Monday. 

Based on his own experiences with military-connected UAP, Graves formed and now runs the witness program Americans for Safe Aerospace to provide an entity for the public to safely and securely report observations or encounters. He testified at the hearing that his team estimates roughly only 5% of UAP sightings are currently reported to AARO.

“I hope Congress will hold DOD accountable and push for more support for witnesses and whistleblowers. For example, the [Pentagon] Press Office says AARO welcomes witness accounts — but AARO has not even implemented a public reporting mechanism as required by last year’s [National Defense Authorization Act]. How are witnesses even supposed to get in contact?” Graves told DefenseScoop.

The U.S. Military Has Lost Every Fight Since WW-II AND $21 Trillion Dollars...,

Forbes  |  In two prior columns, which can be accessed here and here, Mark Skidmore and I wrote about $21 trillion in federal government transactions in the Departments of Defense (DOD) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that our government indicated were undocumented and unexplained. As the concerns and questions we raised gained traction, investigative reporter Dave Lindorff dug into the issue, recently publishing the article “Exclusive: The Pentagon’s Massive Accounting Fraud Exposed” in The Nation. Based on a series of interviews with current and former government officials, Lindorff concluded that Pentagon accounting is “phony”, composed of made up numbers designed to obfuscate and thus propelling “US military spending higher year after year”.

The issue received additional attention in the media when incoming Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to the $21 trillion in a Tweet:

$21 TRILLION of Pentagon financial transactions “could not be traced, documented, or explained.” $21T in Pentagon accounting errors. Medicare for All costs ~$32T. That means %66% of Medicare for All could have been funded already by the Pentagon. And that’s before premiums.

This comment captured the attention of numerous media outlets including the New York Times and the Washington Post where the focus was on fact checking (see here and here, for example). The near universal assessment was that the comment by Ocasio-Cortez was misleading—the $21 trillion in undocumentable transactions do not reflect actual unauthorized spending. However, there is a very important point that is missed by nearly everyone.

Despite our efforts as well as those of Dave Lindorff, our government has not shared any underlying data or information regarding the nature of the undocumentable transactions. For example, both Mark Skidmore and Dave Lindorff have repeatedly asked the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) to provide an addendum to a report published by the OIG in 2016, which indicated that the Army had $6.5 trillion in undocumentable transactions. Typically, undocumentable transactions are a just small fraction of authorized spending. How could a $122 billion Army financial statement generate undocumentable adjustments that were 54 times authorized spending?

More specifically, both Skidmore and Lindorff requested that the OIG provide more detailed information about the nature of 170 transactions that generated $2.1 trillion in undocumentable transactions (see page 6 of the OIG report). Why would the Army make up such huge phony numbers, as Lindorff and his sources assert? And yet is difficult to imagine that such huge sums could flow in and/or out of the Army financial statement in a way that was unauthorized. It is impossible to verify without greater transparency.

We have consistently argued that in order to determine what these transactions were presumably for, one would need access to the underlying data. And yet the OIG has refused to provide any additional information, even with a FOIA request. Without any supporting documentation, we are all left with having to decide whether or not we “trust” that government authorities are sharing accurate information. At some level, we all must operate with some degree of underlying faith, but in this context there is reason to doubt. As we demonstrated in our last article, Comptroller of the DOD, David Norquist, clearly withheld critical information from Congressman Walter Jones, thus making his testimony deceptive. Greater transparency is needed to re-establish public trust. Instead, we are blocked from accessing any further information. Indeed, the most recent OIG report was fully redacted!

Last year the Pentagon conducted its first ever independent audit, which it failed. During the audit process Pentagon officials became concerned that the audit would reveal potentially sensitive information. Several months after beginning the audit, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) posted a new document, which recommended that the government be allowed to misstate and move funds in order to hide expenditures if it is deemed necessary for national security purposes.

See page 3 of the document for a summary:

This Statement permits modifications that do not affect net results of operations or net position. In addition, this Statement allows a component reporting entity to be excluded from one reporting entity and consolidated into another reporting entity, and the effect of the modification may change the net results of operations and/or net position.