The U.S. Lacks The Cognitive Infrastructure To Do What Russia And China Do

WSJ  | In 2016, a high-level panel of the National Academies, an independent scientific group that provides advice to the federal government, warned that foreign adversaries, including China, were readying a new generation of hypersonic weapons. While the details of the study are classified, its conclusions set off alarm bells inside the Defense Department. 

“My joke was, if I briefed it to any more people in the Pentagon, I would’ve been briefing the janitors down on the mezzanine level,” said Mark Lewis, a former senior Pentagon official who was involved in managing the military’s hypersonic portfolio and who participated in the 2016 study. “Everyone and their brother wanted to see it.”

Concerned by the growing threat, the Pentagon ramped up testing and development. The Army, Navy and Air Force are developing hypersonic weapons, sometimes in cooperation, as is the Pentagon’s research agency Darpa. “We are in a race,” said Lewis, who is now president and chief executive officer of the Purdue Applied Research Institute.

Pentagon officials are now debating how best to respond to this buildup. Some argue the U.S. should focus more on defensive systems, rather than missiles. Others say that even if U.S. adversaries have more hypersonic missiles, the state of American hypersonic weaponry—even if not yet deployed—will ultimately be more advanced. And not everyone agrees that a hypersonics arms race comes down to numbers of missiles. “If you have 10, should I have 11?” asked Heidi Shyu, the Pentagon top technologist.

Last year, the Air Force awarded

Raytheon Technologies, now known as RTX, a nearly billion-dollar contract to develop a hypersonic cruise missile that would be launched from an aircraft and is designed to strike enemy ships. The Army hoped to have ready this year the U.S. military’s first hypersonic weapon—missiles that would be launched from trucks. 

 

While a second generates heat exceeding 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond the limit of most materials. “The biggest challenge with hypersonics has always been the thermal management,” said Wes Kremer, the president of Raytheon.

Cost is also an issue. Hypersonic missiles, which are complex to develop and require specialized materials, are pricier than conventional missiles—about one-third more than ballistic missiles with comparable capabilities, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Kremer said that hypersonic missiles would be a “niche capability” to go after moving targets, where speed is essential. “Obviously you don’t need it to go against the bridge, the bridge isn’t moving,” he said. 

The bigger challenge may be for the Pentagon to decide, after so many years and so much money spent, what sort of hypersonic capabilities it wants in its arsenal. The U.S. military is currently pursuing two different types of hypersonic weapons: cruise missiles that use an air-breathing jet engine known as a scramjet, and glide vehicles that are launched from the air, and then glide to their targets at high speeds. 

The Pentagon is funding about a half dozen different hypersonic weapons—though the exact number is secret—and some former officials suggest there is no clear plan for deciding which of these to field and how. “There wasn’t a strategy during my time at the Pentagon,” said William Roper, the former head of Air Force acquisition. “And from what I can see from the outside, there doesn’t appear to be one now.”

One of the biggest stumbling blocks is a lack of infrastructure needed for testing. Developing the weapons requires testing in wind tunnels that can replicate the unique aerodynamic pressures of hypersonic flight.

 

Apple And Google Laid The Foundations For A Dystopian Industry Which Should Not Exist

haaretz  |  We’re being monitored. It’s a universally acknowledged truth about this digital age. Technology firms and advertisers know almost everything about us: where we are, what we buy, which apps we download and how we use them, our search histories and past purchases, even our sexual orientation and what fetishes we’re into. There’s only one thing that advertisers don’t or aren’t supposed to have access to: our identity. The world of ads and the data behind them is meant to be anonymous.
We’ve all been there. We read the post of a friend who just got back from vacation, and a few hours later an ad for a hotel pops up on our screen, and similar ones hound us for days, following us across websites and social media – but few of us have any idea how or why this happens.

Whenever we open an application or a website on our phone, without our noticing, a rapid process of mass negotiation takes place, and a complex and aggressive market embodying the whole economy of the internet plays out: In a split second – a fraction of the moment that elapses until the page we want opens – an automatic bidding process occurs between hundreds of thousands of different advertisers. They are fighting to advertise exactly to us at this exact moment in time. The more accurate the information the advertisers have about us, the more segmented and targeted the data, the greater the chances that we’ll actually click – and thus the price of the ad increases.

But some have the ability to take advantage of that fraction of a second to perform a much more malicious mission: to send people a distinctive, seemingly innocent, ad that contains advanced spyware. Though the ad looks completely standard, it is in fact a cyberweapon that is capable of infiltrating our phone or computer. 

In the past, it was believed that only state intelligence organizations had this capacity. It exploits the world of digital advertising, which is supposed to be completely anonymous, to bypass the security mechanisms of Apple, Google and Microsoft and install advanced spyware on our devices.
“These capabilities can turn any ad into a kind of digital bullet,” says a source familiar with the technology.

The new technology has also begun to trickle out into the commercial defense market. An investigation by Haaretz Magazine and the paper’s National Security & Cyber digital investigation desk has discovered that in the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic – when certain tools were developed and deployed to track the spread of the virus – a new and disturbing cyber and espionage industry has come into being in Israel. A number of Israeli firms have developed technologies that are capable of exploiting advertising to collect data and monitor citizens. Hundreds of thousands – if not millions – of people can be monitored in this way.

The investigation, which is based on interviews with over 15 sources from Israel’s offensive cyber, security systems and defense industries, further reveals that a small group of elite companies have taken things a step further: They have created technology that use ads for offensive purposes and injecting spyware. As millions of ads compete for the right to penetrate our screens, Israeli firms are clandestinely selling technology that transforms these ads into tools of surveillance – or even into weapons that are capable of penetrating our computers or phones.

One of these companies is Insanet, whose existence is being made public here for the first time. As its name suggests, it possesses insane capabilities, according to sources in the industry. Founded by a number of well-known entrepreneurs in the fields of offensive cyber and digital intelligence, the company is owned by former ranking members of the defense establishment, including a past head of the National Security Council, Dani Arditi. The investigation reveals that the company has developed technology that exploits ads both for tracking and for infection. It’s not by chance that the company has named their product Sherlock.

America Has No Hypersonics Because IT Tools CANNOT Replace Math And Physics Knowledge, Skill, And Ability...,

 

cf2r.org  | We will start, if necessary, by reading this article [1] . He reports on Russian advances in this area and discusses the potential concerns of the Western world about its ability to follow them, with the United States in the lead. We are asking ourselves the question here not of a delay which would be due to later development, but what seems to us to be a real conceptual difficulty in making such machines work.

Since we are in the West, let us remember these words of Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize winner in physics: “the goal of the physicist is to make the equations speak” .

Let us note then that at the end of the Cold War, we find ourselves in a rather strange situation at first glance. The West pushed electronics and computing much further than the Soviet Union. It did not occur to anyone that the latter had held up without this and we were content to think, here, that its equipment was obsolete and ineffective. The Ukrainian conflict demonstrated the opposite!

However, those who worked on equipment opposing the collapse of the Berlin Wall know very well that the “enemy” of the time had implemented treasures of thought to precisely make the equations speak and understand what was really in-game without having to go through computer calculations. This was the case, for example, with so-called “ionic” space propulsion engines.

Meanwhile, at home, we relied more and more on software. They constituted a black box over which we had no control and we “swallowed” the results, whatever they were, as if they were the naked truth coming out of the well.

An example is often better than a long speech. In 2013, I had a machine of my design tested in a digital wind tunnel. Contract was signed with the School of Mines which included one of its best students from the Polytechnico Milan. The aim of the study was to determine the drag and lift coefficients of my aircraft. I had made an estimate by hand which took me 10 minutes. After 6 months of effort, the super calculator produced a drag coefficient which was equal to mine to within 10%. If we stop the story here, you might think I was 10% wrong. Nay! Indeed, in essence, my concept had to have a non-zero lift coefficient. But the one who emerged from the “hellish” program was zero. It was therefore a clear error which showed that we could not have any confidence in the result concerning the drag. I will spare you the analysis that followed as well as its conclusions.

Today, engineering schools, in full agreement with companies, want people who are efficient in handling various IT tools: Catia, etc. If in fact the latter, at the time they were designed, brought great progress for those who were used to thinking, they only “Taylorized” the real profession by degrading it enormously, leading to the incremental improvement which tomorrow will be the prerogative of artificial intelligence. On the other hand, from my point of view, replacing the Soviet physicists and engineers of the time with AI would absolutely not be possible.

So this is where we are and until our scientists are able to make the equations speak, it seems very unlikely that the West will be able to make hypersonic missiles worthy of the name. What do I mean by that? Not rockets that go to Mach 5, which is the limit between supersonic and hypersonic, but that reach Mach 9 like the Zircon at sea level or 27 like the Avangard at high altitude, while remaining maneuverable .

To reach such a level, it is imperative to return to studies focusing on paper and pencil. Write the equations, try to solve them by hand and understand, when you make approximations, what they correspond to physically and if they are legitimate.

Let's take one more example. There are so-called phase change fluid loops for cooling parts of, for example, satellites. If we do not carry out, with ad hoc approximations, an expansion limited to order 4 of the Navier-Stokes system, we cannot conceive of such loops. A computer will never be able to achieve this, although excellent engineers in the past have been able to do so.

When we see the low level in mathematics and physics today throughout the Western school structure, we say to ourselves that the light will come from elsewhere. And this is what we are seeing.

Dementia Among U.S. Officials Poses National Security Threat

theintercept  |   As the national security workforce ages, dementia impacting U.S. officials poses a threat to national security, according to a first-of-its-kind study by a Pentagon-funded think tank. The report, released this spring, came as several prominent U.S. officials trusted with some of the nation’s most highly classified intelligence experienced public lapses, stoking calls for resignations and debate about Washington’s aging leadership.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who had a second freezing episode last month, enjoys the most privileged access to classified information of anyone in Congress as a member of the so-called Gang of Eight congressional leadership. Ninety-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., whose decline has seen her confused about how to vote and experiencing memory lapses — forgetting conversations and not recalling a monthslong absence — was for years a member of the Gang of Eight and remains a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which she has served since 2001.

The study, published by the RAND Corporation’s National Security Research Division in April, identifies individuals with both current and former access to classified material who develop dementia as threats to national security, citing the possibility that they may unwittingly disclose government secrets. 

“Individuals who hold or held a security clearance and handled classified material could become a security threat if they develop dementia and unwittingly share government secrets,” the study says.

As the study notes, there does not appear to be any other publicly available research into dementia, an umbrella term for the loss of cognitive functioning, despite the fact that Americans are living longer than ever before and that the researchers were able to identify several cases in which senior intelligence officials died of Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive brain disorder and the most common cause of dementia.

“As people live longer and retire later, challenges associated with cognitive impairment in the workplace will need to be addressed,” the report says. “Our limited research suggests this concern is an emerging security blind spot.” 

Most holders of security clearances, a ballooning class of officials and other bureaucrats with access to secret government information, are subject to rigorous and invasive vetting procedures. Applying for a clearance can mean hourslong polygraph tests; character interviews with old teachers, friends, and neighbors; and ongoing automated monitoring of their bank accounts and other personal information. As one senior Pentagon official who oversees such a program told me of people who enter the intelligence bureaucracy, “You basically give up your Fourth Amendment rights.” 

Yet, as the authors of the RAND report note, there does not appear to be any vetting for age-related cognitive decline. In fact, the director of national intelligence’s directive on continuous evaluation contains no mention of age or cognitive decline.

While the study doesn’t mention any U.S. officials by name, its timing comes amid a simmering debate about gerontocracy: rule by the elderly. Following McConnell’s first freezing episode, in July, Google searches for the term “gerontocracy” spiked.

“The president called to check on me,” McConnell said when asked about the first episode. “I told him I got sandbagged,” he quipped, referring to President Joe Biden’s trip-and-fall incident during a June graduation ceremony at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado, which sparked conservative criticisms about the 80-year-old’s own functioning.

Obama's Sugar Mama Appointed "Chief Commercial Officer" For The Ukraine..,

WaPo  |  President Biden will appoint a former commerce secretary, Penny Pritzker, to be special representative for Ukraine’s economic recovery, a new position that signals the Biden administration’s concern about the country’s long-term economic survival even as its war with Russia grinds on.

In a statement, Mr. Biden said that Ms. Pritzker “will drive the United States’ efforts to help rebuild the Ukrainian economy” by working with Ukraine’s government along with U.S. allies, international financial institutions and the private sector.

Ms. Pritzker, 64, will encourage pro-investment strategies in Ukraine while also drumming up public and private investment from other nations, according to a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the appointment was not yet official. She plans to travel to the country in the coming weeks to begin assessing the state of its economy and to meet with political and business leaders.

The White House will announce the appointment on Thursday. Ms. Pritzker will work from the State Department, reporting to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.

The appointment comes as attention in the United States and Europe increasingly turns toward Ukraine’s survival in economic as well as military terms. A report in March by the World Bank found that rebuilding the country’s badly damaged infrastructure and gutted urban areas could cost more than $400 billion over a decade. Group of 7 member nations have just begun sketching out how that undertaking might work, especially with Russian forces occupying large portions of Ukraine.

Mr. Blinken added in a statement that Ms. Pritzker would be central to the effort to ensure “that Ukraine not only survives but thrives, standing on its own.” He said the goal was to turn the country into “a prosperous, secure, European democracy.”

Ms. Pritzker hails from a prominent Chicago family known for its business empire and longtime influence within the Democratic Party. Her brother, J.B. Pritzker, is the Democratic governor of Illinois. Their father, Donald, was a co-founder of the Hyatt hotel company.

Ms. Pritzker started several business ventures of her own, and as President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary from 2013-17, she was known for her close relationships with business leaders across the United States. She is also on the board of Microsoft and a former chairwoman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

She played an important role in Mr. Obama’s rise through Illinois and national politics, using her contacts to help raise hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaigns. In a January 2020 endorsement of Mr. Biden’s presidential candidacy, she noted that she had known Mr. Biden for more than 20 years.

 

 

 

Turning Over That Pritzker Family Log To See What Comes Scurrying Out From Underneath...,

wikipedia  |   The Superior Bank FSB was a Hinsdale, Illinois-based savings and loan association that collapsed in July 2001^[1] with some $2.3b in assets.^[2] It was co-owned by the Pritzker family of Chicago.

Synopsis

Superior opened in 1988 under conditions created by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which made generous arrangements for the takeover of several failed thrifts. The bank was a 50-50 partnership between the Pritzkers (the elder Jay, Penny and Thomas) and real estate investor Alvin Dworman, who ran Superior from his New York office after Jay Pritzker's death in 1997. The Pritzkers and Dworman bought the failed Lyons Federal for the relatively modest price of $42.5 million, with each using a shell corporation to control half of Coast-to-Coast Financial Corporation (CCFC), a holding company created to own Superior.

In July 2001, Superior was seized by federal banking regulators after the Pritzkers reneged on a recapitalization program. The Pritzker family entered into a $460 million, 15 year, interest-free settlement in December 2001 to protect the family's business reputation and avoid civil forfeiture and litigation. At the time, Superior Bank was the largest bank failure in more than a decade. As of March 2012, former Superior Bank depositors are still owed over $10 million.

July 2001 collapse

According to a press release from the Office of Thrift Supervision,

Superior Bank suffered as a result of its former high-risk business strategy, which was focused on the generation of significant volumes of subprime mortgage and automobile loans for securitization and sale in the secondary market. OTS found that the bank also suffered from poor lending practices, improper record keeping and accounting, and ineffective board and management supervision.^[1]

George Kaufman, a finance professor at Loyola University Chicago called Superior's failure "a tale of gross mismanagement," adding that "[Superior] was engaged in relatively unethical practices, fancy-footwork accounting, playing it very close to the edge."^[3]

Kaufman says many share in the blame for the mess-the bank's managers, directors, and auditors, as well as banking regulators-but he also wonders how the Pritzkers, as co-owners, could have allowed it to happen. "One of the great mysteries to me is what the Pritzkers were up to, why they took these chances," he said. "It makes no sense given their wealth and visibility."^[3]

Settlement by the Pritzkers

In December 2001, the Pritzkers agreed to pay a record $460 million to the federal government to avoid being punished for the failure of Superior Bank FSB.^[4] It was a 15-year, interest-free settlement that granted the Pritzkers a share of the government's settlement with the bank's former accountants. In June 2012, news reports revealed that the Pritzker family received a discount in 2011 on the 2001 settlement.

According to The Washington Times, "But after paying $316 million of the interest-free debt, the family quietly struck a deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) in June 2011 to discount the balance in return for paying off the debt early. Ms. Sweet and Mr. Courtney are among 1,400 depositors still owed $10.3 million at the end of March, records show. The FDIC Insurance Fund is still out $296 million after paying off Superior’s insured depositors. It is highly unlikely the remaining depositors or the FDIC will receive much more money since nearly all of the settlement funds have been paid out, according to records and interviews."^[5]

“'The depositors got nicked coming, going and after the fact,'” said Clinton Krislov, a lawyer who represents depositors whose accounts exceeded the $100,000 covered by FDIC insurance. “'The depositors have gotten all they will from the Pritzkers.'”

RICO lawsuit

In 2002 uninsured depositors filed federal class-action charges under the RICO Act against one-time board chairwoman Penny Pritzker, her cousin Thomas Pritzker, Dworman, other bank principals and Ernst & Young. Plaintiffs’ attorney Clint Krislov claimed that those who controlled Superior induced depositors to put money in the bank, “corruptly” funneling money out of the bank to “fraudulently” profit the owners. ^[6] The lawsuit, Courtney v. Hallerin was initially filed under a district court which dismissed the claims;^[7] the appeal was argued before the 7th Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals on September 25, 2006. In her May 7, 2007 opinion, Judge Wood affirmed the lower court's decision.

Langley's Mouthpiece Said Biden Should Not Run Again

WaPo  |  Joe Biden launched his candidacy for president in 2019 with the words “we are in the battle for the soul of this nation.” He was right. And though it wasn’t obvious at first to many Democrats, he was the best person to wage that fight. He was a genial but also shrewd campaigner for the restoration of what legislators call “regular order.”

Since then, Biden has had a remarkable string of wins. He defeated President Donald Trump in the 2020 election; he led a Democratic rebuff of Trump’s acolytes in the 2022 midterms; his Justice Department has systematically prosecuted the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that Trump championed and, now, through special counsel Jack Smith, the department is bringing Trump himself to justice.

What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out, as he promised in his victory speech. With an unexpectedly steady hand, he passed some of the most important domestic legislation in recent decades. In foreign policy, he managed the delicate balance of helping Ukraine fight Russia without getting America itself into a war. In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.

But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.

Biden wrote his political testament in his inaugural address: “When our days are through, our children and our children’s children will say of us: They gave their best, they did their duty, they healed a broken land.” Mr. President, maybe this is that moment when duty has been served.

Biden would carry two big liabilities into a 2024 campaign. He would be 82 when he began a second term. According to a recent Associated Press-NORC poll, 77 percent of the public, including 69 percent of Democrats, think he’s too old to be effective for four more years. Biden’s age isn’t just a Fox News trope; it’s been the subject of dinner-table conversations across America this summer.

Because of their concerns about Biden’s age, voters would sensibly focus on his presumptive running mate, Harris. She is less popular than Biden, with a 39.5 percent approval rating, according to polling website FiveThirtyEight. Harris has many laudable qualities, but the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.

Biden could encourage a more open vice-presidential selection process that could produce a stronger running mate. There are many good alternatives, starting with now-Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass, whom I wish Biden had chosen in the first place, or Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. But breaking up the ticket would be a free-for-all that could alienate Black women, a key constituency. Biden might end up more vulnerable.

Politicians who know Biden well say that if he were convinced that Trump were truly vanquished, he would feel he had accomplished his political mission. He will run again if he believes in his gut that Trump will be the GOP nominee and that he has the best chance to defeat Trump and save the country from the nightmare of a revenge presidency.

Biden has never been good at saying no. He should have resisted the choice of Harris, who was a colleague of his beloved son Beau when they were both state attorneys general. He should have blocked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which has done considerable damage to the island’s security. He should have stopped his son Hunter from joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company and representing companies in China — and he certainly should have resisted Hunter’s attempts to impress clients by getting Dad on the phone.

Biden has another chance to say no — to himself, this time — by withdrawing from the 2024 race. It might not be in character for Biden, but it would be a wise choice for the country.

Biden has in many ways remade himself as president. He is no longer the garrulous glad-hander I met when I first covered Congress more than four decades ago. He’s still an old-time pol, to be sure, but he is now more focused and strategic; he executes policies systematically, at home and abroad. As Franklin Foer writes in “The Last Politician,” a new account of Biden’s presidency, “he will be remembered as the old hack who could.”

Time is running out. In a month or so, this decision will be cast in stone. It will be too late for other Democrats, including Harris, to test themselves in primaries and see whether they have the stuff of presidential leadership. Right now, there’s no clear alternative to Biden — no screamingly obvious replacement waiting in the wings. That might be the decider for Biden, that there’s seemingly nobody else. But maybe he will trust in democracy to discover new leadership, “in the arena.”

I hope Biden has this conversation with himself about whether to run, and that he levels with the country about it. It would focus the 2024 campaign. Who is the best person to stop Trump? That was the question when Biden decided to run in 2019, and it’s still the essential test of a Democratic nominee today.

Five Facts That Compel Biden Impeachment

jonathanturley  |  Consider just five established facts:

First, there appears to be evidence that Joe Biden lied to the public for years in denying knowledge of his son’s business dealings. Hunter Biden’s ex-business associate, Tony Bobulinski, has said repeatedly that he discussed some dealings directly with Joe Biden. Devon Archer, Hunter’s close friend and partner, described the president’s denials of knowledge as “categorically false.”

Moreover, Hunter’s laptop has communications from his father discussing the dealings, including audio messages from the president. The president allegedly spoke with his son on speakerphone during meetings with his associates on at least 20 occasions, according to Archer, attended dinners with some clients, and took photographs with others.

Second, we know that more than $20 million was paid to the Bidens by foreign sources, including figures in China, Ukraine, Russia and Romania. There is no apparent reason for the multilayers of accounts and companies other than to hide these transfers. Some of these foreign figures have allegedly told others they were buying influence with Joe Biden, and Hunter himself repeatedly invoked his father’s name — including a text exchange with a Chinese businessman in which he said his father was sitting next to him as Hunter demanded millions in payment. While some Democrats now admit that Hunter was selling the “illusion” of influence and access to his father, these figures clearly believed they were getting more than an illusion. That includes one Ukrainian businessman who reportedly described Hunter as dumber than his dog.

Third, specific demands were made on Hunter, including dealing with the threat of a Ukrainian prosecutor to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where Hunter was given a lucrative board position. Five days later, Joe Biden forced the Ukrainians to fire the prosecutor, even though State Department and intelligence reports suggested that progress was being made on corruption. Likewise, despite warnings from State Department officials that Hunter was undermining anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine, he continued to receive high-level meetings with then-Secretary of State John Kerry and other State Department officials.

Fourth, Hunter repeatedly stated in emails that he paid his father as much as half of what he earned. There also are references to deals that included free office space and other perks for Joe Biden and his wife; other emails reference how Joe and Hunter Biden would use the same accounts and credit cards. Beyond those alleged direct benefits, Joe Biden clearly benefited from money going to his extended family.

Fifth, there is evidence of alleged criminal conduct by Hunter that could be linked to covering up these payments, from the failure to pay taxes to the failure to register as a foreign lobbyist. What is not established is the assumption by many that Joe Biden was fully aware of both the business dealings and any efforts to conceal them.

The White House is reportedly involved in marshaling the media to swat down any further investigation. In a letter drafted by the White House Counsel’s office, according to a CNN report media executives were told they need to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans “for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies.” It is a dangerous erosion of separation between the White House and the president’s personal legal team. Yet, many in the media have previously followed such directions from the Biden team — from emphasizing the story that the laptop might be “Russian disinformation” to an unquestioning acceptance of the president’s denial of any knowledge of his son’s dealings.

Notably, despite the vast majority of media echoing different defenses for the Bidens for years, the American public is not buying it. Polls show that most Americans view the Justice Department as compromised and Hunter Biden as getting special treatment for his alleged criminal conduct. According to a recent CNN poll, 61% of Americans believe Joe Biden was involved in his family’s business deals with China and Ukraine; only 1% say he was involved but did nothing wrong.

Operation Sunrise: How We Came To Be The 4th Reich

Allen Dulles was a part of Operation Sunrise and it appears he went against orders and did not negotiate an unconditional surrender but instead brokered deals with the nazis. It doesn't help that nazi sympathy was fairly rampant throughout the military and government hence the willingness to proceed with Operation Paperclip. Dulles worked for a law firm that protected IG Farben (corporation that participated in slave labor and genocide) and I'm currently looking into his prewar antics as it appears he may have been involved in helping fund the rise of the nazis from the beginning. Money was apparently stolen from a bank in England. Also, during the war Dulles had his OSS operation set up in Switzerland. The Swiss bank basically legitimatized the nazi's money and the idea that they were "neutral" is kind of ridiculous. The nazi's couldn't have operated without those bank accounts so taking their money was aiding and abetting. I still need to sit down and follow all the money, but some really fucky things were going on before the war even broke out. Don't forget the 1930's failed business plot to install a fascist leader in the US. The people involved in that likely came up with some new plans.

It's pretty amazing how the US reshaped Wernher von Braun's public persona. He was literally an SS Major and the director of a military unit making the most advanced weapon systems for the Nazis. You don't get in those positions without being heavily involved in the Nazi party.

The dossier on him literally has a 'carrot' style insertion to change "ardent Nazi" to "not an ardent Nazi." He went from a leader of Nazis to literally hosting shows on Disney about space travel.

There's quite a bit there, actually, from the Vatican-NAZI connection in the whole UFO affair, to the Knights of Malta in more recent years.

I'll start at a random point of connection:

Dulles helped Mengele flee to Argentina, where the CIA later supported a right-wing authoritarian coup

https://www.jstor.org/stable/4383422

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Argentine_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

NAZI Walter Schreiber -- who conducted LSD experiments with MKULTRA -- wound up in Argentina.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-cold-war-cia-interrogators-learned-from-the-nazis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Schreiber#Emigration

NAZIs also fled to Chile, where the CIA later backed a dictator that used NAZIs to torture dissidents

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Dignidad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

Walter Rauff was a NAZI that had CIA connections, who also worked for Mossad (Israel) and the Chilean secret service

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rauff

The NAZI-CIA connection goes beyond Paperclip. US intelligence services used NAZIs in the Gehlen Organization

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization

So there's a global intelligence service / NAZI connection.

Here's the main Vatican - NAZI link: The Vatican got independence from Mussolini, who was soon allied with Hitler.

David Grusch has talked about the Vatican - NAZI - UFO connection, and there has been, from the beginning, a broad connection with intelligence services.

There's another interesting Vatican-Intelligence service link with the Knights of Malta, the only nation on the planet without any territory, it has diplomatic relations with over 100 countries, issues its own passports, is controlled by the Vatican, and has prominent representatives in the US intelligence services.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Military_Order_of_Malta

CIA Director William Casey was a member of the Knights of Malta. William F. Buckley Jr was a member of the Knights of Malta. James J. Angleton was a member.

Buckley was also a member of the Skull and Bones -- the same secret society both George W. Bush (son of former CIA director George HW Bush) and his 2004 Presidential competitor John Kerry both belonged to (the same year no less), but which neither would discuss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwJDs1cg9Eo

So there's a CIA-Vatican-NAZI-Secret Society international right-wing apparatus that took hold on planet Earth around 1945.

I could keep going with this but I have other things to do.

But I will say the US Navy -- where the videos started leaking from -- is tied into all this to. It was, for example, and Naval intelligence officer Dr. Charles Savage was involved in LSD experiments with programs that became MKULTRA

https://ahrp.org/1947-1953-navys-project-chatter-tested-drugs-for-interrogation/

and, as we keep hearing, there seems to be an inter-dimensional component to all this, which LSD may sensitize people to. Like information about UFO's, the cognitive states unlocked by LSD are tightly controlled. LSD in the US is a schedule I substance, more tightly controlled than cocaine, and as tightly controlled as heroin.

Religious scholars like Huston Smith argued that the prohibition on psychedelics may be a prohibition on human cognitive evolution, since this experience has been with humanity since early times

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/r-i-p-huston-smith-religious-scholar-who-defended-psychedelics-spiritual-potential/

So there may be a NAZI-CIA-Vatican-UFO-Industry conspiracy that is both keeping technology from us, and also keeping our minds under tight control by limiting our ability to perceive non-desirable aspects of reality.

There's a shit ton of baggage in there.

Bonus weirdness:

Timothy Leary was using LSD to channel messages from aliens in Sirius

https://incaseyoureinterested.com/2018/03/06/tomorrow-tuesday-tim-learys-starseed/

http://rawilsonfans.de/en/the-starseed-signals/

Aliester Crowley was also channeling messages from Sirius, as well as an entity he called "AIWAS"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

Here is what AIWAS looked like

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/eb/36/e1/eb36e169f555d973eb307bf3297218cb.png

The first head of the US Jet Propulsion lab was a follower of Crowley, named Jack Parsons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons

 

Mexico Once Again Showing The World Why It's F*cking Mexico...,

reuters  |  Mexican lawmakers heard testimony that "we are not alone" in the universe and saw the alleged remains of non-human beings in an extraordinary hearing marking the Latin American country's first congressional event on UFOs.

In the hearing on Tuesday on FANI, the Spanish acronym for what are usually now termed Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), politicians were shown two artifacts that Mexican journalist and long-time UFO enthusiast Jaime Maussan claimed were the corpses of extraterrestrials.

The specimens were not related to any life on Earth, Maussan said.

The two tiny "bodies," displayed in cases, have three fingers on each hand and elongated heads. Maussan said they were recovered in Peru near the ancient Nazca Lines in 2017. He said that they were about 1,000 years old.

Similar such finds in the past have turned out to be the remains of mummified children.

"This is the first time extraterrestrial life is presented in such a form and I think there is a clear demonstration that we are dealing with non-human specimens that are not related to any other species in our world and that any scientific institution can investigate it," Maussan said.

"We are not alone," he added.

Jose de Jesus Zalce Benitez, Director of the Scientific Institute for Health of the Mexican navy, said X-rays, 3-D reconstruction and DNA analysis had been carried out on the remains.

"I can affirm that these bodies have no relation to human beings," he said.

Lawmakers also heard from former U.S. Navy pilot Ryan Graves, who has participated in U.S. Congressional hearings about his personal experience with UAP and the stigma around reporting such sightings.

In recent years, the U.S. government has done an about-face on public information on UAP after decades of stonewalling and deflecting. The Pentagon has been actively investigating reported sightings in recent years by military aviators, while an independent NASA panel studying UFOs is the first of its kind by the space agency.

NASA is set to discuss findings from the study on Thursday.

 

 

 

David Grusch New Interview

 

12:00 onwards - Grusch outlines that leakers are under penalty of imprisonment and execution.

16:50 onward “non human Biologics” he stated in an interview previously they’re pilots and he doesn’t know what their actual job was. They were “nonhuman intelligence” pilots.

18:00 onward he was cleared by the Pentagon to talk about this.

19:00 onward Grusch insinuates that the initial reasoning for hiding the information was the ontological shock it would cause in society due to society’s religiousness at the time, along with concealing the information from adversaries like Russia.

20:40 onward - the officials involved in the Manhattan Project also created the laws related to obfuscation and secrecy of the topic. 21:28 - retrieved UAP materials that give off radiation are classified under the Atomic Energy Act (intentionally).

23:00 onward - there was a deeper classified project (related to the Manhattan Project) studying UFOs aside from Project Blue Book

28:00 onward- Grusch states that it’s hard to tell how far ahead their (the nonhuman intelligence) technology is. “It’s hard to state how far in advance it is. You’re just assuming some sort of linear progression. They’ve made an asymptotal leap that put them over the edge. They’re similarly as advanced as us but they’ve had an asymmetric evolution they went a different path than us. While we’ve made nuclear weapons, they’ve made a propulsion discovery but they’re not that much more advanced than you and I”.

29:50- Grusch states that once we unlocked nuclear power we made major technological strides. We may be one discovery away from manipulating spacetime.

30:29- the UFOs are interested in our nuclear technology.

36:00 onward - Grusch references Lue Elizondo’s comment on the ETs studying us and it’s possible the UFO crashes were intentionally seeded to test humanity’s development in relation to being exposed to this technology.

42:00 onwards - there may have been scientific breakthroughs that were hidden from the public.

44:00 - Dr Hal Puthoff of the Pentagon insinuates that antigravity research did get somewhere (made progress) and then was hidden.

47:00 onward - UFO metamaterials are discussed.

59:50- the connection of the “UFO Disclosure” movement (and intentional disinformation) to the “elite” is described by the host.

1:04:00 onwards - there’s a long history of “UFO debunkers” being directly linked to government organizations that have actually studied UAP.

1:17:28- this portion is interesting since it references information that Elizondo and Dr Garry Nolan have stated.

For background, Elizondo (Pentagon), Dr. Garry Nolan (accomplished academic who was approached by the CIA to study UAPs, also stated they told him information regarding the beings operating the crafts), and John Ramirez [CIA- was referenced as having worked there separately by Jim Semivan of the CIA, referenced in this article (https://www.benzinga.com/amp/content/34082411)] have all stated, in summary, that members within the defense establishment believe these beings are bioengineered AI.

Grusch notably references this at this time stamp as a possibility to what these beings are. If you notice, he goes out of his way to reference specifically what Elizondo had stated in a past interview, that the ETs are designed to look humanoid to interact with humans. (In Elizondo’s interview, he brought up an example of how zookeepers in China disguise themselves as pandas to interact with the pandas, and what we are seeing is a similar situation).

1:19:30- ETs being our descendants from the future is discussed. The host describes this as being a possible reason for the ET non-interventionism. As in, they don’t want to harm the timeline too much such that their own existence is nullified. (My note: it would be interesting if some of what people have witnessed is in fact humans from the future that have mastered ET propulsion and time travel technology, which is why they only appear fleetingly in some instances and choose not to intervene in major events).

1:27:00 onward - military sensory systems disproportionately detect UFOs since their collection mechanisms are more advanced than what’s available to the average person.

1:32:30 onward - Grusch details how being on the Autism spectrum have shaped his interactions.

Grusch background (wiki): David Charles Grusch is a decorated Afghanistan combat veteran and former Air Force intelligence officer[1] who worked in the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).[2][3][4][5] From 2019 to 2021, he was the representative of the NRO to the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force.[3][4][6] From late 2021 to July 2022, he was the co-lead for UAP analysis at the NGA and its representative to the task force.[2] He assisted in drafting the National Defense Authorization Act of 2023,[7] which includes provisions for reporting of UFOs, including whistleblower protections and exemptions to non-disclosure orders and agreements.[8][9][10] Congressional interest in UFO sightings immediately prior to Grusch's public claims surrounded questions about the four objects that the Air Force shot down in February 2023.[11]

ROSS COULTHART’S RESPONSE TO MEDIAWATCH

MEDIAWATCH’S QUESTIONS:
1. Why do you believe David Grusch’s Congressional testimony when there is no
firsthand evidence?
2. Do you believe alien spacecraft have visited earth?
3. Do you believe the US government has retrieved alien spacecraft and bodies but covered up the evidence?
4. Do you know if an alien spacecraft is secretly held in the US, and if so, why not reveal its location?
5. Have you maintained your journalist objectivity in covering David Grusch’s claims?
 

ROSS COULTHART’S RESPONSE:
• The tenor of these questions suggests that MediaWatch has a pre-conceived agenda in how it will report this issue. This is because MediaWatch’s questions are grounded in a false assumption.

• MediaWatch’s questions state as a fact that there is no first-hand evidence to support David Grusch’s allegations. Contrary to misreporting in some US legacy media, there is first-hand evidence, and it has been presented under oath to the Intelligence Community Inspector General in private hearings (the ICIG is the oversight body for the US’ intelligence services). I have confirmed this testimony with multiple sources directly and I have interviewed first-hand witnesses myself directly.

• The current ICIG Thomas Monheim is still preparing his report into Mr Grusch’s allegations, comprising both Grusch’s complaint about reprisals against him for being a zealous UAPTF investigator and whistleblower and also, most importantly, the Inspector General is investigating Mr Grusch’s complaint that there has been a conspiracy within both the US Defense Dept & intelligence community and senior executives in private aerospace to illegally conceal a non-human intelligence [NHI] crash retrieval program and reverse engineering program from Congressional oversight.

• As I have confirmed both with Mr Grusch and Congressional sources, the current ICIG was so concerned about Mr Grusch’s allegations, after conducting his own investigations, that he referred all of them immediately to Congress, deeming all of Grusch’s complaints “urgent and credible”.
 

• I emphasise, these ICIG investigations included multiple interviews with first-hand witnesses to the NHI crash retrieval and reverse engineering program known to Mr Grusch, as well as other evidence. Other first-hand witnesses have also testified to the ICIG who are not known to Mr Grusch, backing his allegations.

The U.S. Government Cancels DEEP VZN

dailymail  |  US officials are quietly shutting down a taxpayer-funded $125million project to hunt for new viruses due to fears it could spark another pandemic. 

DEEP VZN - pronounced deep vision - was launched in October 2021 with the aim of finding and studying novel pathogens in wildlife in Asia, Africa and Latin America. 

While the research was meant to prevent human outbreaks and pandemics, critics, including Biden administration officials, are afraid it could do the opposite and have voiced their fears about the potentially 'catastrophic risks' of virus hunting.

And their concerns are amplified due to the growing suspicion Covid emerged from an American-sponsored lab in Wuhan, China - a theory the FBI subscribes to.

The project was meant to run until 2026, but DEEP VZN was shut down without a formal public announcement in July 2023.

USAID's DEEP VZN (pronounced deep vision) project was hunting viruses among wildlife in Asia , Africa and Latin America.

While this is the most recent to come to light, it is far from the first research the US has conducted on this matter. 

For more than a decade the government has funded international projects aimed at identifying exotic viruses among wildlife that could infect humans someday, sending millions to support various similar projects. 

Money has flown overseas from the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

DEEP VZN, which stands for Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens - Viral Zoonoses, was launched by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in October 2021 and less than two years later, USAID officials informed members of Senate committees with jurisdiction over DEEP VZN the program was being shut down. 

The premature closure of the project came abruptly and was privately relayed to Senate aides by the office of Atul Gawande, USAID's assistant administrator for global health.

The news was buried in a congressional budget document hundreds of pages long and was discussed during interviews Mr William conducted with federal lawmakers and researchers. 

A scientist at the center of the Covid lab leak theory has admitted he cannot rule out the possibility the virus escaped a Chinese research facility.

At its launch, USAID said the 'ambitious new project' was meant to work with partner countries and the global community to 'build better preparedness for future global health threats.'

The organization said the project would 'strengthen global capacity to detect and understand the risks of viral spillover from wildlife to humans that could cause another pandemic.

'The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how infectious diseases threaten all of society, up-ending people's lives and attacking societies at their cores. 

'It is also a strong reminder of the connection between animals, humans, and the environment, and the effect that an emerging pathogen spilling over into humans can have on people's health and on global economies.'

The project was being carried out by scientists from the Washington State University Paul Allen School for Global Health among other research and partner entities. 

The goal was to collect more than 800,000 samples over the five-year period, mostly from wildlife, to identify a subset of 'previously unknown' viruses that 'pose a significant pandemic threat.'

The university sought to detect 12,000 new viruses throughout the program's run and scientists hoped the information would not only help prevent future pandemics, but also better prepare health officials if one did emerge. 

'DEEP VZN is a critical next step in the evolution of USAID's work to understand and address the risks posed by zoonotic diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans.'

However, in a statement regarding the closure of the program, USAID said it had determined the research was 'not an agency global health security priority at this time' and its decision reflected 'the relative risks and impact of our programming.'

 

 

Do You Remember Those Bioweapons Labs In Ukraine That Victoria Nuland Admitted To Marco Rubio?

greatgameindia  |  Russian military uncovered US-operated biolabs in Ukraine while conducting a special operation in the nation. Some very interesting findings in the form of list of Americans coordinating bioweapons research at Pentagon biolabs in Ukraine have been revealed as well.

On Thursday, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) released new files procured by Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, which include communications between American financier Hunter Biden – the son of US President Joe Biden – and figures engaged in biological research in Ukraine that his investment company aided in financing.

 The emails disclosed the identities of numerous key American leaders from Metabiota and Black & Veatch, and also officials from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), who were involved in biological research initiatives. Those named include: