RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/553690-why-the-white-house-wont-define-darksides-pipeline-attack-as-terrorism

We’ve heard calls in recent years for an ever-widening category of “terrorists” to encompass groups from the Jan. 6 rioters to antifa to the the Ku Klux Klan. So it is surprising that the White House and the media have referred to the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attackers simply as “hackers.” “DarkSide” is not just a collection of hackers — it’s a group of terrorists. And the only thing more concerning than the failure to label them correctly is the possible reason for not doing so.

From the White House to The Washington Post, the mantra has been uniform: Gas to the East Coast was cut off by hackers who demanded — and reportedly received — $5 million in ransom to give us back control of a critical pipeline. The White House not only called these individuals hackers but — when pressed about its position on paying the ransom — insisted it was just a decision for a private company. Deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger said, “Colonial is a private company, and we’ll defer information regarding their decision on paying a ransom to them.” She and others in the Biden administration insisted the ransom payment was a “private sector decision” and said that “the administration has not offered further advice at this time.”

After the ransom was widely reported as having been paid and gas began to flow again, President Biden gave a “no comment” when asked if he was aware of the payment. It was a curious response since the media apparently knew. The company certainly knew, and, most importantly, DarkSide knew. Yet, the White House wanted to portray itself as a pure observer to a private decision on how to handle “hackers.”

The reason is obvious: Colonial just paid a ransom to terrorists. Moreover, gas pipelines are not just “a private company” but a highly regulated industry that closely follows the government’s directions.

The fact is that most of Washington wanted the company to pay off the terrorists because our East Coast was rapidly melting down over shortages. While The New York Times bizarrely issued (and later quietly deleted) a statement that the attack had not led to any gas station lines or higher prices, other news stories were filled with images of long lines, fights at pumps and cascading shortages.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2021/05/10/three-bystanders-shot-in-broad-daylight-in-times-square-by-a-man-named-farrakhan-muhammad-n1445762

Just before five o’clock on Saturday afternoon in Times Square, a man began firing randomly into the crowd, injuring three people, including a four-year-old girl. The “white supremacy is the biggest threat to our nation and we must have gun control” propaganda mill couldn’t even start its wheels turning before the perpetrator was identified as a 31-year-old illegal CD peddler and possible drug dealer Farrakhan Muhammad, who was still at large as of Monday afternoon.

The cops thought they had nabbed the shooter when they zeroed in on a man who matched the description of the man whose image from security cameras had been circulated, but he told them he was actually the shooter’s brother, and gave them the name of the perp. It remains unclear how the NYPD determined that they weren’t really talking with the shooter himself but instead bought his story that his brother did it.

In any case, the brother told the cops that Farrakhan Muhammad hadn’t intended to shoot random people; Farrakhan had actually been aiming at his brother, who was standing in the crowd, but he was a poor shot.

That may really be what happened, but I also can’t help but notice that Farrakhan Muhammad has a very interesting name. He appears to be named after one man who has called for 10,000 volunteers to stalk and kill white people, and after another who is generally considered to be the author of a book that three times exhorts people to “kill them wherever you find them” (Qur’an 2:191, 4:89, cf. 9:5). Might Farrakhan Muhammad’s ideology and worldview have had anything to do with these shootings, or were they all about his being angry with his brother, as has been reported?

Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe Farrakhan Muhammad is a born-again Christian or an avowed pacifist who just lost his temper. Nonetheless, his name in connection with his act does raise eyebrows. After all, the Islamic State (ISIS) and al-Qaeda have repeatedly called for random jihad attacks on individuals in the U.S. and Europe of precisely the kind that Farrakhan Muhammad committed on Saturday.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/05/china-now-tops-all-nations-foreign-agent-spending-daniel-greenfield/

Some context for these numbers.

The number of unregistered foreign agents is several times greater than the number of unregistered foreign agents. These rules are generally not enforced until the government decided that they should be enforced. The Trump administration began going after China’s unregistered foreign agents resulting in a clearer picture of how much money China is spending on its activities in the United States.

But this is still the tip of the iceberg.

New foreign-agent filings are finally detailing a massive Beijing propaganda operation that’s fueled a sixfold increase in disclosed Chinese foreign influence efforts in the United States in recent years.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Chinese foreign agent spending has skyrocketed from just over $10 million in 2016 to nearly $64 million last year.

Thanks largely to its stable of propaganda operations, China is now the top spender on foreign influence operations in the U.S.

American laws designed to force disclosure of paid foreign influence are beginning to reveal the huge sums Beijing has devoted to its effort.

Don’t let Axios kid you, this is a limited percentage of the real sum. They’ve got community groups, campus associations, scientific organizations, and a whole lot less that’s not showing up anywhere. A lot of this is just state propaganda outlets having to get legal.

CRP data show Chinese entities spent more on registered foreign agent activities in 2020 than those of any other nation.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17343/sonic-attacks

Unfortunately, neither the Obama nor Trump administrations imposed costs on Cuba or China. With such direct attacks on the U.S. going unpunished, how could American enemies not now be tempted to use their new weapons on American soil?

“If we do nothing, then China or Russia will deploy these devices for large-scale use on the eve of a major military conflict. Imagine microwave weapon trucks on the bluffs overlooking the Pentagon.” — Richard Fisher, leading China military expert at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, to Gatestone Institute, May 2021.

Up to now, the CIA and State Department have been especially lax in trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious cases, but no unit in the federal government has made much progress.

Washington… should know who at least some of the culprits are. The real mystery is why the U.S. still has not done anything to protect its officials and citizens.

Unidentified parties have in recent years been directing sonic attacks on U.S. officials on American soil. One such attack even occurred on the grounds of the White House.

We should not be surprised. Failure to impose costs on known sonic attackers — the Cuban and Chinese regimes — almost certainly emboldened the perpetrators to think they could harm Americans in America.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2021/04/27/the_air_force_is_about_to_lower_its_already_low_standards_774596.html

Air Force standards for flight training and promotions have been on a downward spiral since the Cold War ended in 1991. Incredibly, the service’s senior leaders are about to accelerate that dive. 

Before we explore these latest moves and their repercussions, let’s take a minute to revisit the journey that brought the Air Force to where it is today.  

During the 1980s, the U.S. faced a potential conflict with the Soviet Union. Soviet air-to-air capabilities and surface-to-air missile systems presented a formidable threat.  The U.S. Air Force, therefore, designed standards and a training pipeline that prepared pilots to excel in that environment. That pipeline incrementally stepped their skill levels by presenting an ever-growing number of tasks and increasingly complex systems and missions they were expected to master. 

Training is expensive, but those costs rise steeply after flight school, making it the most economical point to screen out poor performers.  Student failures at every level beyond becoming more and more burdensome; however, the costliest failures take place, not in training but in the unforgiving environment of combat. There, mission success and the lives of others rely on the faculties and the confidence of our pilots. 

To ensure mission success, screening at all levels was intense.  The washout rate for flight school in the 1980s was high—just three out of every four students got their wings. And the demand for proficiency elevated with every level of training beyond.  A few more washed out of fighter lead-in training, front-line fighter training, and even Fighter Weapons School (Top Gun).

https://townhall.com/columnists/juliorivera/2021/04/12/in-less-than-3-months-joe-biden-has-turned-america-into-a-sitting-target-for-international-aggression-n2587732

We are less than 90 Days into Joe Biden’s Presidency and it seems clear that the United States is no longer prioritizing national security, and this is seen in ways including the administration’s handling of the country’s southern border.

As far as the current migrant crisis we face, this unmitigated disaster is a self-inflicted wound that began with Biden publicly disclosing his intent to legalize as many as 11 million illegal aliens in the weeks following his victory in this past November’s election. 

This reversal in American immigration policy along with his decision to immediately stop construction of border walls and fencing, was directly responsible for the 78,323 border patrol encounters with migrants in the south-western states of California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona in January of 2021. That number was more than double the reported 36,585 border patrol encounters that occurred in January of 2020, according to statistics from US Customs and Border Protection. 

Despite a controversial media blackout that led to a visit to the southern border by Republican members of the Senate a just few weeks ago, the mainstream media has not been able to hide this dangerous truth, and human traffickers and organized crime elements from Central America and Mexico are taking notice of the new America attitude towards border crossers and are set profit in the billions of US dollars between the practices of facilitating travel into the US as well as their various illicit activities related to the illegal drug trade and organized crime activities.  

https://www.govconwire.com/2021/03/govcon-expert-chuck-brooks-strategic-paths

GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks, an invaluable member of Executive Mosaic’s GovCon Expert program, has published his latest feature detailing the essential understanding of cybersecurity, its capabilities, the best practices to get the most out of the technical concept and the awareness of cyber’s potential to find success.

“At its very core, the practice of cybersecurity is risk management. It requires being vigilant and encompasses educating employees, identifying gaps, assessing vulnerabilities, mitigating threats, and having updated resilience plans to respond to incidents.”

You can read Chuck Brooks’ latest GovCon Expert article below:

Strategic Paths of Cybersecurity

By GovCon Expert Chuck Brooks

Cybersecurity requires a plan and strategy.

At its very core, the practice of cybersecurity is risk management. It requires being vigilant and encompasses educating employees, identifying gaps, assessing vulnerabilities, mitigating threats, and having updated resilience plans to respond to incidents.

Government and industry leaders should have a working understanding of risk management (and risk exposure) and have context on the different array of threats and threat actors. They should also be knowledgeable on the guiding axiom of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Framework: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-administration-fires-most-homeland-security-advisory-council-members/ar-BB1f0Dig?li=BBnb7Kz

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas fired most members of the department’s independent advisory council on Friday, a purge that included several allies of former president Donald Trump and veteran officials who served under both parties.

Former Department of Homeland Security officials and advisory board members who worked under Democratic and Republican administrations said they could not remember so many members being dismissed at once, as the general practice of past administrations was to allow appointees to serve out their terms before replacing them.

The council is unpaid and includes leaders from state and local government, law enforcement, the private sector and academia who advise the agency on issues such as immigration, terrorism, crime and national disasters. Members serve one- to three-year terms and meet about four times a year.

The removal of more than 30 board members comes as the Biden administration tries to rid the department of Trump-era policies and practices, especially on immigration, and as it has struggled to shelter and care for an unprecedented number of migrant children and teenagers who have arrived at the southwest border without their parents.

DHS officials said Mayorkas would conduct an assessment of the council and reconstitute it with bipartisan members who better reflect the diversity of the United States and the people DHS serves. Mayorkas said he plans to retain Chairman William Bratton, the former police commissioner in New York and police chief in Los Angeles, and Vice Chair Karen P. Tandy, a retired administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. William H. Webster, former director of the FBI and the CIA, will remain the council’s chair emeritus.

But everyone else is out.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/general-flynn-video-how-adversary-comes-inside-our-frontpagemagcom/

This new Glazov Gang episode features General Michael Flynn, former National Security Advisor for President Trump and best-selling author of The Field of Fight.

In this special episode, General Flynn discusses How an Adversary Comes Inside of Our Home, revealing the enemy infiltration of America.

Don’t miss it!