Posted this once before and worth doing so again:
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Four must read postings. (See 1,1a,1b and 1c Below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Another rant and this one not from a Democrat. (See 2 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Biden and Democrats tripped up by his comments? (See 3 below.)
Finally, men have some legitimate complaints but eventually they will be reduced to taking out the garbage.
Bookseller conducting a market survey asked a woman: "Which book has helped you most in your life?"
The woman replied, "My husband’s check book!!"
A prospective husband in a book store: "Do you have a book called 'Husband – the Master of the House?'"
Sales girl: "Sir, fiction and comics are on the 1st floor!"
Pharmacist to customer: "Sir, please understand, to buy an anti-depression drug, you need a proper prescription. Simply showing me a marriage certificate and wife’s picture is not enough!"
The most intense period of fighting in Korea ended some 62 years ago, but the divide across the Peninsula remains the world’s most visible legacy of the Cold War. While the Republic of Korea (ROK – South Korea) has become economically successful and democratic, North Korea has become a punchline.
“So if cyber can cause physical malfunction of major infrastructure resulting in deaths, the Pentagon has now found a way “to establish a deterrent dynamic.”
By Brennan Weiss
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, outlining a series of rising global and cyber threats the United States faces from adversaries including North Korea, Russia, Iran, and China.
Wives are magicians: They can change anything into an argument.
When a married man says, I WILL THINK ABOUT IT - what he really means is that he doesn't know his wife's opinion yet.
A lady says to her doctor: "My husband has a habit of talking in his sleep! What should I give him to cure it?"
The doctor replies: "Give him an opportunity to speak when he's awake!"
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Just another news day in America's attempt to engage in political insanity:
BREAKING: Two Men Have Come Forward Who Think They Were The Ones Ford Identified
Two men have come forward separately to claim they are who Ford is thinking of, not Kavanaugh. Read in browser »
Liberty University Sends Pro-Kavanaugh Supporters, Leftists Lose Their Minds
Liberals say they believe Jesus would be handing out water bottles to Yale students protesting Kavanaugh. Seriously. Read in browser »
It’s Hard to See How Lester Holt and NBC News Survive This Epic Mistake
It's become self-evident that media corrupts and mainstream media corrupts absolutely. What NBC just did is clear proof. Read in browser »
BREAKING: The Missing Link in the Kavanaugh Setup
As usual, follow the money, and you'll find the attorney who ties everything together. Read in browser »
And:
Bob Livingston spells it out. (See 4 below.)
A personal observation:
What the Kavanaugh Hearings represent is the further unraveling of America
A personal observation:
What the Kavanaugh Hearings represent is the further unraveling of America
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) This Is How North Korea Would Start a War (And How Bad It Could Get)
By Robert Farley
The most intense period of fighting in Korea ended some 62 years ago, but the divide across the Peninsula remains the world’s most visible legacy of the Cold War. While the Republic of Korea (ROK – South Korea) has become economically successful and democratic, North Korea has become a punchline.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK – North Korea) has continued to increase the sophistication of its ballistic missiles, has developed nuclear weapons, and maintains the world’s largest garrison state. Pyongyang has also made clear that it isn’t afraid to provoke Seoul (and Seoul’s biggest supporter, the United States) with aggressive moves such as the sinking of the corvette Cheonan, and the bombardment of South Korean islands.
The general peace on the peninsula has more or less held since the 1950s. Still, while North Korea’s power has declined substantially relative to that of South Korea, the idea that Pyongyang might come to the conclusion that war could solve its problems still worries U.S. and South Korean planners.
If North Korea faced a situation in which it determined that war was the only solution, how might it seek to crush the ROK, and deter the United States and Japan?
Timing is Everything. North Korea’s best hope for success in peace hinges, as it has for the past seventy years, on the potential collapse of the global capitalist system. This sounds… optimistic, but consider that South Korea suffered badly during the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, that the capitalist world continues to suffer from the fallout from the 2008 Financial Crisis, and that Japan faces what appear to be insurmountable economic difficulties.
Even if a world economic collapse does not bring capitalism to its knees, another such crisis could put stress on the relationship between South Korea, Japan, and the United States.
North Korean prospects in the war depend utterly on sidelining the United States in some fashion, either through the presentation of a fait accompli, or through high stakes deterrence. The situation with Japan is more complex, but Tokyo views North Korea as sufficiently threatening that a war would almost certainly incur some kind of intervention, if not necessarily in direct support of RoK forces.
The other scenario under which DPRK might decide to attack would come in anticipation of a major U.S.-ROK attack against the North. In such a situation, the North Korean leadership might decide that it has little to lose. The military balance would, in such a context, strongly favor pre-emptive action on North Korea’s part.
In War…
The clearest path to North Korean victory in war depends on a quick defeat of South Korean forces, providing the United States and Japan with a fait accompli that Pyongyang will expect Beijing to back.
The clearest path to North Korean victory in war depends on a quick defeat of South Korean forces, providing the United States and Japan with a fait accompli that Pyongyang will expect Beijing to back.
The North Korean attack would likely involve a classic 20th century combined arms assault, using artillery to disrupt RoK defenses and soften up positions (as well as create civilian panic), infantry to break holes in the South Korean lines, and mechanized forces to exploit those gaps. The North Koreans could well add special forces (potentially deployed to South Korea before the initiation of hostilities) and regular forces deployed by tunnel to South Korean rear areas.
The Korean People’s Air Force is ancient, and has received no significant infusion of Russian or Chinese technology in years. The force has very little counter-air capability relative to the Republic of Korea Air Force, and its fighters would find themselves easy prey for well-trained South Korean pilots flying sophisticated aircraft. The KPA can expect very little ground support, either on the tactical or operational scales, and would likely struggle under South Korean air attacks.
To remedy these problems, North Korea would likely reserve a large proportion of its land-attack cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles for attacks on South Korean air bases, in the hopes of destroying fighters on the ground and rendering facilities useless.
The Korean People’s Navy would play a dual role in the operation. Offensively, it would try to attack Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) capital ships (including the Dokdo-class amphibs, and the Sejong the Great-class destroyers, the latter of which have anti-ballistic missile capabilities) with submarines and cruise missiles, while also attempting to disrupt port operations. Defensively, the KPN would try to protect North Korea’s coastline from bombardment and amphibious assault, both of which had a great impact on the 1950 war.
Any North Korean invasion would also include attacks on South Korean ports, both to disrupt trade and to complicate the arrival of large-scale reinforcements. These attacks would likely involve conventionally-armed ballistic missiles, although the DPRK might resort to nuclear or chem-bio weapons for some particularly lucrative targets (such as Busan).
With luck (and the North Koreans would need tremendous amounts of luck) the Korean People’s Army (KPA) could disrupt U.S. and RoK forces sufficiently to seize control of the major entry and exit points to Seoul, at which point it could consider either trying to roll up the rest of the peninsula, or hold for a negotiated peace that would leave the DPRK in a stronger position. This decision would hinge both on the tactical situation, as well as an assessment of whether North Korea’s national goals lie mainly in reunification, or in regime survival.
But Diplomacy Has a Role…
The longer the war continues, the grimmer North Korea’s prospects look. Consequently, Pyongyang needs the support of Beijing to end the war and secure its gains quickly.
The longer the war continues, the grimmer North Korea’s prospects look. Consequently, Pyongyang needs the support of Beijing to end the war and secure its gains quickly.
Why would Beijing concede to act as guarantor of the fruits of North Korean aggression?
Not because of any lingering affinity with the North Korean regime, but rather out of a desire to prevent further disruption and instability along its border. Similarly, its frustrations with North Korea aside, China has little interest in the establishment of a U.S. or Japanese client across the whole of the Korean Peninsula.
In this situation, North Korea would hope that the prospect of war against China (and perhaps Russia) would deter the United States from pursuing the liberation of South Korea. This calculus is remarkably similar to that of Kim il-Sung in 1950, although in this case North Korea’s own nuclear arsenal (presumably directed at Japan) would provide some deterrent.
In Keeping the Peace…
This is the best case for North Korea, but it is important to recall that most analysts judge North Korea’s military as insufficient to defeat the forces of the RoK. The static defenses along the DMZ, combined with the mobility and sophistication of RoK forces, mean that any offensive into South Korea is likely to bog down into a logistical disaster before it can capture Seoul. At that point, attacks along the depth of the North Korean position, combined with a concerted assault on regime targets and the KPA’s command and control network, will likely isolate advance forces and leave them ripe for destruction.
This is the best case for North Korea, but it is important to recall that most analysts judge North Korea’s military as insufficient to defeat the forces of the RoK. The static defenses along the DMZ, combined with the mobility and sophistication of RoK forces, mean that any offensive into South Korea is likely to bog down into a logistical disaster before it can capture Seoul. At that point, attacks along the depth of the North Korean position, combined with a concerted assault on regime targets and the KPA’s command and control network, will likely isolate advance forces and leave them ripe for destruction.
The North Korean air defense network is immense and robust, but not particularly sophisticated. Even the much-vaunted artillery along the border will likely see quick attrition at the hands of hyper-accurate counter-battery attacks and other precision guided munitions. Once KPA forces are defeated in the field, there is little doubt that the ROK and the United States would take advantage of the opportunity to end the regime once and for all.
North Korean military officers know all of this, and surely appreciate the exceedingly low probability that an attack would see any kind of success, either short or long-term. But we can hardly rule out that political circumstances might shift such that North Korea becomes desperate enough to launch an attack, or that it imagines itself as having “one last great opportunity.” At the very least, preparation rarely hurts.
Robert Farley is a Senior Lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce. His work includes military doctrine, national security, and maritime affairs.He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money and Information Dissemination and The Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter:@drfarls.
This first appeared in 2017 and is being re-posted due to reader interest.
Defense Science Board calls for new cyber deterrence plan targeting foreign leaders.
By Bill Gertz
A report by a Defense Science Board task force concludes that the decade-long cyber vulnerabilities must be mitigated while the Pentagon quickly creates new cyber deterrence capabilities, including offensive cyber weapons designed to inflict damage on adversaries and their leaders. Critical American infrastructure like the electric grid will remain vulnerable to catastrophic cyber attacks from Russia and China for at least 10 years, according to a Pentagon study.
The 44-page report, “Task Force on Cyber Deterrence” was made public Feb. 8. It is based on a two-year study by a panel of military and defense experts. The report presents a dire picture of weaknesses in both military and civilian information and control systems that are being exploited by advanced cyber warfare states such as China and Russia, along with second-tier cyber threats from states such as North Korea and Iran.
“The United States, as well as our allies and partners, are at serious and increasing risk of severe cyber attack and increasingly costly cyber intrusions,” the report concludes. “The requirement for enhanced deterrence is, in our view, not debatable. Nor is the need to accelerate the implementation of deterrence measures.”
Russia and China pose the greatest cyber attack dangers. Both governments are increasing their already substantial capabilities for cyber attacks on U.S. industrial control systems that operate critical infrastructure.
Even if U.S. networks are hardened, “such progress will not be adequate to deny Russia and China the ability to unleash catastrophic cyber attacks on the United States, given their massive resources, and capabilities-at-scale (e.g., intelligence apparatus, ability to influence supply chains, and ability to introduce and sustain vulnerabilities) to dedicate to their objectives,” the report said.
The report notes that in the past several years the United States has been hit by cyber attacks and costly data thefts by the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and North Koreans.
China engaged in a massive cyber theft campaign over at least the past decade, according to the report. Despite a promise from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to halt the thefts, Chinese intellectual property theft “has reduced but not stopped.”
Russia also hacked U.S. institutions and used the information it obtained to try to undermine voter confidence and affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, the report said.
According to the report, foreign nations already appear to have placed malicious software inside computer networks used to control the U.S. electric grid. The foreign malware is known as “Havex” and “BlackEnergy,” both of which have been linked to attacks on industrial control systems. BlackEnergy has been used in electric grid attacks in Ukraine and was traced to Russia's government by security analysts.
The task force suggested that if it is acceptable to preposition such malware inside infrastructure controllers, “then the United States may wish to take such actions—if for no other reason than to deter an adversary from ‘pulling the trigger' on similar implants it may have placed in U.S. systems.”
As for non-state cyber attacks, hackers linked to groups called Anonymous and New World Hackers were blamed for disrupting Internet service over a wide area of the country in cyber attacks against the Internet domain name system provider Dyn in October 2016.
However, the report warns that recent cyber attacks by non-state actors did not rise to the level of “high end” attacks that could be undertaken by advanced cyber warfare states such as Russia and China.
The United States likely will face devastating cyber attacks in the coming years as foreign cyber attack capabilities increase.
“A large-scale cyber attack on civilian critical infrastructure could cause chaos by disrupting the flow of electricity, money, communications, fuel, and water,” the report said. “Thus far, we have only seen the virtual tip of the cyber attack iceberg.”
“Russia and China have both been part of the problem to date, and could take this threat to the next level by using cyber in sustained campaigns to undermine U.S. economic growth, financial services and systems, political institutions (e.g., elections), and social cohesion,” the report said.
To create a new cyber deterrence plan, the report recommends that the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, Adm. Mike Rogers, develop strategic offensive cyber capabilities that could be used to deter a cyber attack against U.S. critical infrastructure. The command also should produce deterrents against cyber campaigns to steal data and influence U.S. elections.
“These strategic offensive cyber capabilities should hold at risk a range of assets that the adversary leadership is assessed to value,” the report said.
Task force co-chairmen James N. Miller and James R. Gosler stated in an introduction to the report that “major powers, for example, Russia and China, have a significant and growing ability to hold U.S. critical infrastructure at risk via cyber attack.” Moscow and Beijing also could block U.S. military forces from responding to such cyber attacks.
“Although progress is being made to reduce the pervasive cyber vulnerabilities of U.S. critical infrastructure, the unfortunate reality is that, for at least the next decade, the offensive cyber capabilities of our most capable adversaries are likely to far exceed the United States’ ability to defend key critical infrastructures,” Miller and Gosler said. “The U.S. military itself has a deep and extensive dependence on information technology as well, creating a massive attack surface.”
Additionally, Iran and North Korea both “have a growing potential to use indigenous or purchased cyber tools to conduct catastrophic attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure,” they said.
“The U.S. government must work with the private sector to intensify efforts to defend and boost the cyber resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure in order to avoid allowing extensive vulnerability to these nations.”
A third threat is posed by state and non-state actors that conduct persistent cyber attacks and costly cyber intrusions against the United States. While separately inconsequential, these attacks cumulatively could produce “death by 1,000 hacks,” the report said.
The task force is urging the U.S. government to rapidly create and strengthen cyber deterrents through the use of offensive cyber and other attacks targeting foreign leaders.
The board recommends the military create a hack-proof “thin line” of U.S. strike forces made up of cyber warfare weapons, nuclear, and conventional weapons “in order to ensure that the United States can credibly threaten to impose unacceptable costs in response to even the most sophisticated large-scale cyber attacks.”
“In effect, DoD must create a second-strike cyber resilient ‘thin line' element of U.S. military forces to underwrite deterrence of major attacks by major powers,” Miller and Gosler said.
The report said that while “pervasive cyber vulnerabilities” in the electric grid and other critical infrastructure are being reduced, “improvements are not on a pace to reduce risks to acceptable levels within the next decade.”
“The unfortunate reality is that, for at least the coming five to ten years, the offensive cyber capabilities of our most capable potential adversaries are likely to far exceed the United States’ ability to defend and adequately strengthen the resilience of its critical infrastructures,” the report said.
Until now, cyber deterrence has focused on denying adversaries the ability to attack U.S. information systems.
New cyber deterrence is needed to demonstrate that the United States will inflict unacceptable costs for attacks on its information system-dominated infrastructure.
Any massive retaliation against nuclear-armed Russia and China for cyber attacks would not be credible, yet the United States needs to develop both cyber and other capabilities that range from low-level disruption to “catastrophic destruction and loss of life,” the report said.
Offensive cyber counter-attacks are essential to deterrence. Other military responses, as well as diplomatic, law enforcement, and economic responses, also should be developed.
Without providing details, the report says cyber deterrence will require knowing what foreign leaders value and then threatening or demonstrating that those elements can be damaged.
“A decision to conduct—or not conduct—a cyber attack on the United States will not be taken by a country; rather, it will be taken by a leader or small leadership group, and this leader or group must be the focus of U.S. deterrence planning,” the report said.
The Pentagon's main focus for cyber deterrence “should be on key leadership individuals (including those who influence them) in the top four cyber threat nation-states: Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea,” the report adds.
The report mentions the risk of escalation in responding to cyber attacks—a key worry of the Obama administration. But contrary to the passive cyber security policies of President Obama, the task force warned that inaction in response to cyber attacks leads to further attacks.
Escalation and loss of intelligence sources are a concern, “but not responding carries near-certainty of suffering otherwise deterrable attacks in the future,” the report said.
The task force said the current cyber deterrence campaign “has been largely reactive and not effective.”
As part of cyber deterrence, the United States must take steps to harden critical infrastructure, with electrical, water, and waste water systems urgent priorities.
The task force dismissed the idea of cyber arms control agreements with Russia or China as “not viable.”
“Due to the nature of cyber systems and attack tools, the verification of cyber arms control limitations would not be feasible,” the report said.
Cyber attacks on military systems could result in guns, missiles, and bombs failing to fire, detonating in place, or being misdirected against U.S. troops. Additional cyber attacks during a future conflict could disrupt supply lines, navigation systems, and other warfighting tools.
The Pentagon should create cyber attack-resilient forces made up of submarines with land attack cruise missiles, bombers with long-range missiles and ground-penetrating bombs, and strong command, control, and communications systems.
Because of military and civilian reliance on electricity, the report urged the Pentagon to focus on protecting the electric grid against cyber attacks through collaboration with electric power companies.
“So if cyber can cause physical malfunction of major infrastructure resulting in deaths, the Pentagon has now found a way “to establish a deterrent dynamic.”
By David Sanger
A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyber attacks.
For decades, American presidents have threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyber weapons.
The draft document, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House. Its final release is expected in the coming weeks and represents a new look at the United States’ nuclear strategy. The draft was first published last week by Huffington Post.
It called the strategic picture facing the United States quite bleak, citing not only Russian and Chinese nuclear advances but advances made by North Korea and, potentially, Iran.
“We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” the draft document said. The Trump administration’s new initiative, it continued, “realigns our nuclear policy with a realistic assessment of the threats we face today and the uncertainties regarding the future security environment.”
The Pentagon declined to comment on the draft assessment because Mr. Trump has not yet approved it. The White House also declined to comment.
But three current and former senior government officials said large cyber attacks against the United States and its interests would be included in the kinds of foreign aggression that could justify a nuclear response — though they stressed there would be other, more conventional options for retaliation. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the proposed policy.
Gary Samore, who was a top nuclear adviser to President Barack Obama, said much of the draft strategy “repeats the essential elements of Obama declaratory policy word for word” — including its declaration that the United States would “only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.”
But the biggest difference lies in new wording about what constitutes “extreme circumstances.”
In the Trump administration’s draft, those “circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” It said that could include “attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.”
The draft does not explicitly say that a crippling cyber attack against the United States would be among the extreme circumstances. But experts called a cyber attack one of the most efficient ways to paralyze systems like the power grid, cellphone networks and the backbone of the internet without using nuclear weapons.
“In 2001, we struggled with how to establish deterrence for terrorism because terrorists don’t have populations or territory to hold at risk. Cyber poses a similar quandary,” said Kori Schake, a senior National Security Council and State Department official during President George W. Bush’s administration, who is now the deputy director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
“So if cyber can cause physical malfunction of major infrastructure resulting in deaths,” Ms. Schake said, the Pentagon has now found a way “to establish a deterrent dynamic.”
The draft review also cites “particular concern” about “expanding threats in space and cyberspace” to the command-and-control systems of the American nuclear arsenal that the review identifies as a “legacy of the Cold War.” It was the latest warning in a growing chorus that the nuclear response networks could themselves be disabled or fed false data in a cyber attack.
So far, all of the United States’ leading adversaries — including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — have stopped well short of the kind of cyber attacks that could prompt a larger, and more violent response.
The Russians have placed malware called “Black Energy” in American utility systems, but never tried to cause a major blackout. They have sent cable-cutting submarines along the path of undersea fiber optic lines that connect the continents, but not cut them. North Korea has attacked companies like Sony, and used cyber weapons to cause chaos in the British health care system, but never directly taken on the United States.
Still, the document recognizes that American, Russian and Chinese strategies have all been updated in recent years to reflect the reality that any conflict would begin with a lightning strike on space and communications systems. During the Obama administration, for example, a secret program, code-named “Nitro Zeus,” called for a blinding cyber attack on Iran in the event negotiations over its nuclear program failed and Washington found itself going to war with Tehran.
There are other differences with the Obama administration policy.
The draft strategy embraces the American production of a new generation of small, low-yield nuclear weapons — some of which were under development during the Obama administration. Some experts warn that such smaller weapons can blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and, as a result, be more tempting to use.
And it states outright that Russia is testing its first autonomous nuclear torpedo, one that American officials believe would be guided largely by artificial intelligence to strike the United States even if communications with Moscow were terminated. It was Washington’s first public acknowledgment of such an undersea weapon, a prototype of which was first envisioned in the 1960s by Andrei Sakharov, the physicist who later ranked among the Soviet Union’s most famous dissidents.
The torpedo’s development was detected by the Obama administration and has been widely discussed in defense circles, but never publicly referred to by the Pentagon as a significant future threat.
Mr. Trump has rarely publicly criticized President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for Russia’s aggressions around the world. But the Pentagon document describes Moscow’s actions as so destabilizing that the United States may be forced to reverse Mr. Obama’s commitment to reduce the role and size of the American nuclear arsenal.
Russia is adopting “military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote in an introduction to the report. “These developments, coupled with Russia’s invasion of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark Moscow’s unabashed return to Great Power competition.”
In most cases, the Trump administration plan would simply move forward nuclear weapons that Mr. Obama had endorsed, such as a new generation of nuclear cruise missiles — low-flying weapons with stubby wings that, when dropped from a bomber, hug the ground to avoid enemy radars and air defenses.
But the strategy envisions other new nuclear weapons. The draft policy calls for “the rapid development” of a cruise missile to be fired from submarines. Mr. Obama had retired that class. It also calls for the development of a low-yield warhead for ballistic missiles fired from submarines.
It is relatively easy for presidents to change the country’s declaratory policy on the use of nuclear arms and quite difficult for them to reshape its nuclear arsenal, which takes not only vast sums of money but many years and sometimes decades of planning and implementation.
The price tag for a 30-year makeover of the United States’ nuclear arsenal was put last year at $1.2 trillion. Analysts said the expanded Trump administration plan would push the bill much higher, noting that firm estimates will have to wait until the proposed federal budget for the 2019 fiscal year is made public.
“Almost everything about this radical new policy will blur the line between nuclear and conventional,” said Andrew C. Weber, an assistant defense secretary during the Obama administration who directed an interagency panel that oversaw the country’s nuclear arsenal.
If adopted, he added, the new policy “will make nuclear war a lot more likely.”
news of the document’s edgiest conclusions involves the existence of a deadly new class of Russian nuclear torpedo — a cigar-shaped underwater missile meant to be fired from a submarine.
Torpedoes tipped with nuclear arms were common during the Cold War, with the Soviet Union pioneering the weapons and developing them most vigorously. One Soviet model had a range of miles and a large warhead.
Mr. Sakharov, a famous Russian dissident in the 1970s and 1980s, envisioned a giant torpedo able to travel several hundred miles and incur heavy casualties with a warhead thousands of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Though his vision was rejected at the time, the new review discloses that Moscow has resurrected a weapon along the same lines.
The document calls it “a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo.” In a diagram labeled “New Nuclear Delivery Vehicles over the Past Decade,” it identifies the torpedo by its code name, Status-
6.News stories have reported the possible existence of such a weapon since at least 2015, but the document’s reference appears to be the first time the federal government has confirmed its existence. The long-range torpedo with a monster warhead is apparently meant to shower coastal regions with deadly radioactivity, leaving cities uninhabitable.
6.News stories have reported the possible existence of such a weapon since at least 2015, but the document’s reference appears to be the first time the federal government has confirmed its existence. The long-range torpedo with a monster warhead is apparently meant to shower coastal regions with deadly radioactivity, leaving cities uninhabitable.
“So if cyber can cause physical malfunction of major infrastructure resulting in deaths,the Pentagon has now found a way “to establish a deterrent dynamic.”
A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyber attacks.
For decades, American presidents have threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyber weapons.
The draft document, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House. Its final release is expected in the coming weeks and represents a new look at the United States’ nuclear strategy. The draft was first published last week by Huffington Post.
It called the strategic picture facing the United States quite bleak, citing not only Russian and Chinese nuclear advances but advances made by North Korea and, potentially, Iran.
“We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” the draft document said. The Trump administration’s new initiative, it continued, “realigns our nuclear policy with a realistic assessment of the threats we face today and the uncertainties regarding the future security environment.”
The Pentagon declined to comment on the draft assessment because Mr. Trump has not yet approved it. The White House also declined to comment.
But three current and former senior government officials said large cyber attacks against the United States and its interests would be included in the kinds of foreign aggression that could justify a nuclear response — though they stressed there would be other, more conventional options for retaliation. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the proposed policy.
Gary Samore, who was a top nuclear adviser to President Barack Obama, said much of the draft strategy “repeats the essential elements of Obama declaratory policy word for word” — including its declaration that the United States would “only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.”
But the biggest difference lies in new wording about what constitutes “extreme circumstances.”
In the Trump administration’s draft, those “circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” It said that could include “attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.”
The draft does not explicitly say that a crippling cyber attack against the United States would be among the extreme circumstances. But experts called a cyber attack one of the most efficient ways to paralyze systems like the power grid, cellphone networks and the backbone of the internet without using nuclear weapons.
“In 2001, we struggled with how to establish deterrence for terrorism because terrorists don’t have populations or territory to hold at risk. Cyber poses a similar quandary,” said Kori Schake, a senior National Security Council and State Department official during President George W. Bush’s administration, who is now the deputy director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
“So if cyber can cause physical malfunction of major infrastructure resulting in deaths,” Ms. Schake said, the Pentagon has now found a way “to establish a deterrent dynamic.”
The draft review also cites “particular concern” about “expanding threats in space and cyberspace” to the command-and-control systems of the American nuclear arsenal that the review identifies as a “legacy of the Cold War.” It was the latest warning in a growing chorus that the nuclear response networks could themselves be disabled or fed false data in a cyber attack.
So far, all of the United States’ leading adversaries — including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — have stopped well short of the kind of cyber attacks that could prompt a larger, and more violent response.
The Russians have placed malware called “Black Energy” in American utility systems, but never tried to cause a major blackout. They have sent cable-cutting submarines along the path of undersea fiber optic lines that connect the continents, but not cut them. North Korea has attacked companies like Sony, and used cyber weapons to cause chaos in the British health care system, but never directly taken on the United States.
Still, the document recognizes that American, Russian and Chinese strategies have all been updated in recent years to reflect the reality that any conflict would begin with a lightning strike on space and communications systems. During the Obama administration, for example, a secret program, code-named “Nitro Zeus,” called for a blinding cyber attack on Iran in the event negotiations over its nuclear program failed and Washington found itself going to war with Tehran.
There are other differences with the Obama administration policy.
The draft strategy embraces the American production of a new generation of small, low-yield nuclear weapons — some of which were under development during the Obama administration. Some experts warn that such smaller weapons can blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and, as a result, be more tempting to use.
And it states outright that Russia is testing its first autonomous nuclear torpedo, one that American officials believe would be guided largely by artificial intelligence to strike the United States even if communications with Moscow were terminated. It was Washington’s first public acknowledgment of such an undersea weapon, a prototype of which was first envisioned in the 1960s by Andrei Sakharov, the physicist who later ranked among the Soviet Union’s most famous dissidents.
The torpedo’s development was detected by the Obama administration and has been widely discussed in defense circles, but never publicly referred to by the Pentagon as a significant future threat.
Mr. Trump has rarely publicly criticized President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for Russia’s aggressions around the world. But the Pentagon document describes Moscow’s actions as so destabilizing that the United States may be forced to reverse Mr. Obama’s commitment to reduce the role and size of the American nuclear arsenal.
Russia is adopting “military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote in an introduction to the report. “These developments, coupled with Russia’s invasion of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark Moscow’s unabashed return to Great Power competition.”
In most cases, the Trump administration plan would simply move forward nuclear weapons that Mr. Obama had endorsed, such as a new generation of nuclear cruise missiles — low-flying weapons with stubby wings that, when dropped from a bomber, hug the ground to avoid enemy radars and air defenses.
But the strategy envisions other new nuclear weapons. The draft policy calls for “the rapid development” of a cruise missile to be fired from submarines. Mr. Obama had retired that class. It also calls for the development of a low-yield warhead for ballistic missiles fired from submarines.
It is relatively easy for presidents to change the country’s declaratory policy on the use of nuclear arms and quite difficult for them to reshape its nuclear arsenal, which takes not only vast sums of money but many years and sometimes decades of planning and implementation.
The price tag for a 30-year makeover of the United States’ nuclear arsenal was put last year at $1.2 trillion. Analysts said the expanded Trump administration plan would push the bill much higher, noting that firm estimates will have to wait until the proposed federal budget for the 2019 fiscal year is made public.
“Almost everything about this radical new policy will blur the line between nuclear and conventional,” said Andrew C. Weber, an assistant defense secretary during the Obama administration who directed an interagency panel that oversaw the country’s nuclear arsenal.
If adopted, he added, the new policy “will make nuclear war a lot more likely.”
One of the document’s edgiest conclusions involves the existence of a deadly new class of Russian nuclear torpedo — a cigar-shaped underwater missile meant to be fired from a submarine.
Torpedoes tipped with nuclear arms were common during the Cold War, with the Soviet Union pioneering the weapons and developing them most vigorously. One Soviet model had a range of miles and a large warhead.
Mr. Sakharov, a famous Russian dissident in the 1970s and 1980s, envisioned a giant torpedo able to travel several hundred miles and incur heavy casualties with a warhead thousands of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Though his vision was rejected at the time, the new review discloses that Moscow has resurrected a weapon along the same lines.
The document calls it “a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo.” In a diagram labeled “New Nuclear Delivery Vehicles over the Past Decade,” it identifies the torpedo by its code name, Status-6.
News stories have reported the possible existence of such a weapon since at least 2015, but the document’s reference appears to be the first time the federal government has confirmed its existence. The long-range torpedo with a monster warhead is apparently meant to shower coastal regions with deadly radioactivity, leaving cities uninhabitable
A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyber attacks.
For decades, American presidents have threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyber weapons.
The draft document, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House. Its final release is expected in the coming weeks and represents a new look at the United States’ nuclear strategy. The draft was first published last week by Huffington Post.
It called the strategic picture facing the United States quite bleak, citing not only Russian and Chinese nuclear advances but advances made by North Korea and, potentially, Iran.
“We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” the draft document said. The Trump administration’s new initiative, it continued, “realigns our nuclear policy with a realistic assessment of the threats we face today and the uncertainties regarding the future security environment.”
The Pentagon declined to comment on the draft assessment because Mr. Trump has not yet approved it. The White House also declined to comment.
But three current and former senior government officials said large cyber attacks against the United States and its interests would be included in the kinds of foreign aggression that could justify a nuclear response — though they stressed there would be other, more conventional options for retaliation. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the proposed policy.
Gary Samore, who was a top nuclear adviser to President Barack Obama, said much of the draft strategy “repeats the essential elements of Obama declaratory policy word for word” — including its declaration that the United States would “only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.”
But the biggest difference lies in new wording about what constitutes “extreme circumstances.”
In the Trump administration’s draft, those “circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” It said that could include “attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.”
The draft does not explicitly say that a crippling cyber attack against the United States would be among the extreme circumstances. But experts called a cyber attack one of the most efficient ways to paralyze systems like the power grid, cellphone networks and the backbone of the internet without using nuclear weapons.
“In 2001, we struggled with how to establish deterrence for terrorism because terrorists don’t have populations or territory to hold at risk. Cyber poses a similar quandary,” said Kori Schake, a senior National Security Council and State Department official during President George W. Bush’s administration, who is now the deputy director general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
“So if cyber can cause physical malfunction of major infrastructure resulting in deaths,” Ms. Schake said, the Pentagon has now found a way “to establish a deterrent dynamic.”
The draft review also cites “particular concern” about “expanding threats in space and cyberspace” to the command-and-control systems of the American nuclear arsenal that the review identifies as a “legacy of the Cold War.” It was the latest warning in a growing chorus that the nuclear response networks could themselves be disabled or fed false data in a cyber attack.
So far, all of the United States’ leading adversaries — including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — have stopped well short of the kind of cyber attacks that could prompt a larger, and more violent response.
The Russians have placed malware called “Black Energy” in American utility systems, but never tried to cause a major blackout. They have sent cable-cutting submarines along the path of undersea fiber optic lines that connect the continents, but not cut them. North Korea has attacked companies like Sony, and used cyber weapons to cause chaos in the British health care system, but never directly taken on the United States.
Still, the document recognizes that American, Russian and Chinese strategies have all been updated in recent years to reflect the reality that any conflict would begin with a lightning strike on space and communications systems. During the Obama administration, for example, a secret program, code-named “Nitro Zeus,” called for a blinding cyber attack on Iran in the event negotiations over its nuclear program failed and Washington found itself going to war with Tehran.
There are other differences with the Obama administration policy.
The draft strategy embraces the American production of a new generation of small, low-yield nuclear weapons — some of which were under development during the Obama administration. Some experts warn that such smaller weapons can blur the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and, as a result, be more tempting to use.
And it states outright that Russia is testing its first autonomous nuclear torpedo, one that American officials believe would be guided largely by artificial intelligence to strike the United States even if communications with Moscow were terminated. It was Washington’s first public acknowledgment of such an undersea weapon, a prototype of which was first envisioned in the 1960s by Andrei Sakharov, the physicist who later ranked among the Soviet Union’s most famous dissidents.
The torpedo’s development was detected by the Obama administration and has been widely discussed in defense circles, but never publicly referred to by the Pentagon as a significant future threat.
Mr. Trump has rarely publicly criticized President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for Russia’s aggressions around the world. But the Pentagon document describes Moscow’s actions as so destabilizing that the United States may be forced to reverse Mr. Obama’s commitment to reduce the role and size of the American nuclear arsenal.
Russia is adopting “military strategies and capabilities that rely on nuclear escalation for their success,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis wrote in an introduction to the report. “These developments, coupled with Russia’s invasion of Crimea and nuclear threats against our allies, mark Moscow’s unabashed return to Great Power competition.”
In most cases, the Trump administration plan would simply move forward nuclear weapons that Mr. Obama had endorsed, such as a new generation of nuclear cruise missiles — low-flying weapons with stubby wings that, when dropped from a bomber, hug the ground to avoid enemy radars and air defenses.
But the strategy envisions other new nuclear weapons. The draft policy calls for “the rapid development” of a cruise missile to be fired from submarines. Mr. Obama had retired that class. It also calls for the development of a low-yield warhead for ballistic missiles fired from submarines.
It is relatively easy for presidents to change the country’s declaratory policy on the use of nuclear arms and quite difficult for them to reshape its nuclear arsenal, which takes not only vast sums of money but many years and sometimes decades of planning and implementation.
The price tag for a 30-year makeover of the United States’ nuclear arsenal was put last year at $1.2 trillion. Analysts said the expanded Trump administration plan would push the bill much higher, noting that firm estimates will have to wait until the proposed federal budget for the 2019 fiscal year is made public.
“Almost everything about this radical new policy will blur the line between nuclear and conventional,” said Andrew C. Weber, an assistant defense secretary during the Obama administration who directed an interagency panel that oversaw the country’s nuclear arsenal.
If adopted, he added, the new policy “will make nuclear war a lot more likely.”
One of the document’s edgiest conclusions involves the existence of a deadly new class of Russian nuclear torpedo — a cigar-shaped underwater missile meant to be fired from a submarine.
Torpedoes tipped with nuclear arms were common during the Cold War, with the Soviet Union pioneering the weapons and developing them most vigorously. One Soviet model had a range of miles and a large warhead.
Mr. Sakharov, a famous Russian dissident in the 1970s and 1980s, envisioned a giant torpedo able to travel several hundred miles and incur heavy casualties with a warhead thousands of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Though his vision was rejected at the time, the new review discloses that Moscow has resurrected a weapon along the same lines.
The document calls it “a new intercontinental, nuclear-armed undersea autonomous torpedo.” In a diagram labeled “New Nuclear Delivery Vehicles over the Past Decade,” it identifies the torpedo by its code name, Status-6.
News stories have reported the possible existence of such a weapon since at least 2015, but the document’s reference appears to be the first time the federal government has confirmed its existence. The long-range torpedo with a monster warhead is apparently meant to shower coastal regions with deadly radioactivity, leaving cities uninhabitable
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, outlining a series of rising global and cyber threats the United States faces from adversaries including North Korea, Russia, Iran, and China.
Coats told lawmakers Tuesday that the growing national debt is the biggest internal threat to US national security. He urged Congress to take action “before a fiscal crisis occurs that truly undermines our ability to ensure our national security.”
The US national debt is currently more than $20.63 trillion. The recently implemented GOP tax law and last Friday's budget proposal are projected to add to it. But he also warned against an internal threat that he says could undermine US economic and national security: the national debt.
“I'm concerned that our increasing fractious political process, particularly with respect to federal spending, is threatening our ability to properly defend our nation both in the short term and especially in the long term,” Coats said alongside five other top intelligence chiefs. “The failure to address our longterm fiscal situation has increased the national debt to over $20 trillion and growing.”
“I would urge all of us to recognize the need to address this challenge and to take action as soon as possible before a fiscal crisis occurs that truly undermines our ability to ensure our national security,” added Coats, who served as a Republican senator from Indiana for 16 years.
As of Tuesday, the national debt stood at $20.63 trillion. Coats also cited Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told Fortune in 2012 that the national debt was “the single biggest threat to our national security.”
In Tuesday's hearing, Coats said former secretaries of state Madeline Albright and Henry Kissinger, former secretaries of defense Bob Gates and Leon Panetta, and current defense secretary James Mattis agree with Mullen's assessment.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2) Why has the Kavanaugh situation riveted the country like nothing else since the election? Because the Dems are challenging the bed rock principals set forth in the constitution and Bill of Rights. Our democracy is under direct attack. There is zero evidence of the Ford allegations, and no corroboration even from the woman who Ford named as a witness. She has put forth letters from her husband and three friends who claim she mentioned it in the past year or two. That is not corroboration- it is simply a person telling her version of a story 35 years later. As the lie detector expert said, “she thinks she is telling the truth, but that does not mean it is true.” Ramirez admits she was drunk and not even sure it was Kavanaugh, and nobody she named recalls the incident, but the Dems, and the press have taken her baseless allegation as fact, and declared him guilty. In 1991, at the Thomas hearing, Biden stated, “an FBI report in these cases is useless”. I just watched a tape of that in case you doubt it. He went on from there to essentially call anyone who thinks an FBI investigation in these situations is going to provide a definitive answer, is grossly uninformed about FBI investigations. There is zero legal basis for the FBI to do anything per the FBI, and following the Biden statement. There is no complaint, no crime, no corroboration of the allegation and no possible forensics. There are no facts to investigate. Yet the party line is, what is he afraid of about an FBI investigation. The answer is nothing, but there is nothing the FBI can investigate, and he is not obligated as the accused to ask for an investigation when there is no crime or event to investigate. Per Biden, anyone who thinks the FBI can provide answers has no idea what the FBI does. (Gilabrand prime example). But it is a nice talking point that the press runs with because they are out to stop Kavanaugh at any cost, just as Schumer said they would do before he was even nominated. Some like Schumer claim it is not a criminal trial so should be handled and judged differently. Then they call for a criminal investigation by the FBI. It is not up to the FBI to decide who is telling the truth. Schumer even had the audacity to say ”there is no presumption of innocence for Kavanaugh because this is not a criminal trial”. So in his view he can be destroyed on unsubstantiated allegations, and is not entitled to a presumption of innocence. Maybe someone needs to send Schumer a copy of the constitution, and explain American jurisprudence and culture.
We hear from the progressive left and the propaganda media that Ford's accusations are credible, but that she doesn't have to prove them. The burden of proof, we're told, is on the accused. Welcome to the new star chamber.
A star-chamber is a system of entrapment that provides no escape. The accused is made to testify against himself and then punished upon confession of guilt.
The term credibly accused is nonsense. It replaces the rule of law with the rule of smear. Anyone can "credibly accuse" anyone of anything at any time.
American jurisprudence hinges on the presumption of innocence. The 5thAmendment guarantees the right of due process; the 6th the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation and to confront your accuser(s).
The leftist politicians pushing Ford headlong into setting herself up for perjury thought Ford's unsubstantiated claims — supposed witnesses named by Ford all refute her claims or deny having knowledge of them — against Kavanaugh would cause him to back down and President Donald Trump to withdraw the nomination. When that didn't happen, they began fighting a delaying action in order to drag other "accusers" into the fray.
A second one arrived, but her claims were so specious even The New York Times wouldn't publish them. Again, none of the witness she herself named affirmed her story. Then a third one, associated with the Creepy Porn Lawyer, possible Democrat presidential candidate and currently appearing on every propaganda cable news show Michael Avenatti, appeared with claims even more outlandish than the first two.
As stated above, the term credibly accused is specious nonsense. Kavanaugh cannot possibly "credibly defend" himself because the charges against him from the first two accusers are so flimsy that not even a month or year has been established for the events; much less a day and time. The third accuser's claims that Kavanaugh and friends were running a high school drug and rape gang and she willingly attended more than 10 of them as a 19-year-old woman, is so preposterous that it's almost laughable.
This theater would be comical if not for the stakes involved.
The leftists claim to be champion of women, and that defending women from the predatory patriarchy is what the fight against Kavanaugh is about. That is sophistry. If the leftist politicians pushing this narrative against Kavanaugh cared about women they'd direct some of their outrage at Keith Ellison, Senator Robert Menendez, Bill Clinton and the dozens of congressweasels that have used the federal treasury to pay off women they've sexually harassed.
This fight is about abortion and the ability to legislate from the bench through an activist judiciary. Never mind if they have to destroy three women, Kavanaugh, his wife and children to win it.
Leftist politicians and their propaganda media enablers worship in the cult of abortion. They are willing to destroy the rule of law, common decency and as many people as necessary to defend their "right" to murder babies in the womb.
When you're so evil that preserving the murder of the most innocent is your primary goal, other souls destroyed along the way are acceptable collateral damage.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2) Why has the Kavanaugh situation riveted the country like nothing else since the election? Because the Dems are challenging the bed rock principals set forth in the constitution and Bill of Rights. Our democracy is under direct attack. There is zero evidence of the Ford allegations, and no corroboration even from the woman who Ford named as a witness. She has put forth letters from her husband and three friends who claim she mentioned it in the past year or two. That is not corroboration- it is simply a person telling her version of a story 35 years later. As the lie detector expert said, “she thinks she is telling the truth, but that does not mean it is true.” Ramirez admits she was drunk and not even sure it was Kavanaugh, and nobody she named recalls the incident, but the Dems, and the press have taken her baseless allegation as fact, and declared him guilty. In 1991, at the Thomas hearing, Biden stated, “an FBI report in these cases is useless”. I just watched a tape of that in case you doubt it. He went on from there to essentially call anyone who thinks an FBI investigation in these situations is going to provide a definitive answer, is grossly uninformed about FBI investigations. There is zero legal basis for the FBI to do anything per the FBI, and following the Biden statement. There is no complaint, no crime, no corroboration of the allegation and no possible forensics. There are no facts to investigate. Yet the party line is, what is he afraid of about an FBI investigation. The answer is nothing, but there is nothing the FBI can investigate, and he is not obligated as the accused to ask for an investigation when there is no crime or event to investigate. Per Biden, anyone who thinks the FBI can provide answers has no idea what the FBI does. (Gilabrand prime example). But it is a nice talking point that the press runs with because they are out to stop Kavanaugh at any cost, just as Schumer said they would do before he was even nominated. Some like Schumer claim it is not a criminal trial so should be handled and judged differently. Then they call for a criminal investigation by the FBI. It is not up to the FBI to decide who is telling the truth. Schumer even had the audacity to say ”there is no presumption of innocence for Kavanaugh because this is not a criminal trial”. So in his view he can be destroyed on unsubstantiated allegations, and is not entitled to a presumption of innocence. Maybe someone needs to send Schumer a copy of the constitution, and explain American jurisprudence and culture.
This matter has riled me more than anything in years because it is a direct attack on our justice system, the constitution, our democracy and the process to select the best people for the court and other positions. The Dems have undermined the basic rule of law we live by in America. They have trashed the senate and politics for years to come. The attack on Kavanaugh is not a disgrace, it is undermining of all of the principles we live by in this country. Someone pops up and says someone did whatever 36 years ago, and here are witnesses. The witnesses are then questioned by staff under penalty of a felony if they lie. All including her female friend refute what Ford has said, her therapist notes refute her story, and yet the Dems, the media, college students and professors, and Hollywood have already stated he is guilty. (but we are told to keep in mind this is not a criminal trial-but he is guilty) The protestors, many of whom are professional agitators, have sentenced him already. This behavior by senatorial Dems is dangerous to all of us if allowed to stand. Some say this is really the fault of the Republicans for not hearing Garland. So now the Dems are OK to do this because the Republicans applied the Biden rule, no major judge choices within one year of an election. I forgot, the Biden rule just applies when good for Dems to stop Republicans, not the other way around.
Why will anyone in their right mind ever agree to serve in government if this is allowed to happen. What do we investigate next, sixth grade? Ten years old? If you do not understand how despicable and dangerous this is, you live in an alternative world. Women now are being harmed by this because it makes any claim by them look suspicious, and maybe similarly of dubious reality. Men are being left to wonder who is safe anymore if any woman can just hurl false claims and destroy a man. This is a disaster for us all, and for our sense of fairness under the law and in society.
The Dems claim it is unfair for a female professional expert in sex crimes to ask the questions of Ford. Who better, a bunch of politicians so the press can attack and say it was a bunch of old white guys, so it was unfair? They seem to prefer the stupid grandstanding of Corry Booker and Harris playing to their base, and the screaming protestors. You can expect the Dems to attack Kavanaugh about a fictional book written by his friend Judge. They are not interested in truth, but in using Ford to win the November election and to stop Kavanaugh at any cost. Republicans just took away one of the key attacks the Dems would have lodged had the politicians asked the questions. It is obvious they are just using Ford for political ends because they know with Kavanaugh on the bench he will help end the left’s strategy of using the ninth circuit to try to stop Trump. They will not be able to get these sweeping orders from left wing judges to stand. They will no longer be able to have legislation dictated by carefully chosen judges who are left wing, which is what is happening, and what has made a mockery of the distinction between the three branches of government. Another attack on our democratic form of governing that is key to our being extraordinary.
I believe, and pollster Frank Lundt backs this up, that the Dems have so overplayed this that the Republican turnout possibly is going to be far more than anyone thought. The anger that the behavior of the Dems has created is motivating a lot of people to go vote for Republicans. In the end, this may actually play to Republicans winning in states where Trump won, and there is a sitting Dem senator. This is visceral for most people because it attacks their very essence and culture they have been taught and ingrained in them since grade school.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) Biden's Decades-Old Comments Come Back to Haunt Dems
Biden now insists the FBI probe an allegation against Brett Kavanaugh from 35 years ago.
3) Biden's Decades-Old Comments Come Back to Haunt Dems
What Joe Biden said at Clarence Thomas' 1991 confirmation hearing has come back to haunt Democrats. (The Daily Caller)
Then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden urged senators in 1991 not to rely on an FBI report about Clarence Thomas, who had been accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill.
“The next person who refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesn’t understand anything,” Biden said during Thomas’s confirmation hearing. “The FBI explicitly does not in this or any other case reach a conclusion, period. So, judge, there is no reason why you should know this. The reason why we cannot rely on the FBI report — you wouldn’t like it if we did, because it is inconclusive.”
“They say, ‘he said, she said, and they said,’ period,” he continued. “So when people wave an FBI report before you, understand they do not, they do not, they do not reach conclusions. They do not make, as my friend points out more accurately, they do not make recommendations.”
Biden now insists the FBI probe an allegation against Brett Kavanaugh from 35 years ago.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
4) What's behind the destruction
of Brett Kavanaugh?
By By Bob Livingstone
Christine Blasey Ford, a woman who has accused Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault more than three decades ago, will get her day in court today. That is, if she shows up for the Senate Judiciary hearing.
We hear from the progressive left and the propaganda media that Ford's accusations are credible, but that she doesn't have to prove them. The burden of proof, we're told, is on the accused. Welcome to the new star chamber.
A star-chamber is a system of entrapment that provides no escape. The accused is made to testify against himself and then punished upon confession of guilt.
The term credibly accused is nonsense. It replaces the rule of law with the rule of smear. Anyone can "credibly accuse" anyone of anything at any time.
American jurisprudence hinges on the presumption of innocence. The 5thAmendment guarantees the right of due process; the 6th the right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation and to confront your accuser(s).
Ford's legal team — a group of Democrat activists and political hacks — have been at times both crawfishing and making impossible demands on the Senate Judiciary committee before agreeing to allow her to testify, even though Ford and Democrat politicians both on and off the Judiciary Committee have stated she needs to be heard. Her legal team had not turned over to the committee documents that purport to bolster her claims late Wednesday.
The leftist politicians pushing Ford headlong into setting herself up for perjury thought Ford's unsubstantiated claims — supposed witnesses named by Ford all refute her claims or deny having knowledge of them — against Kavanaugh would cause him to back down and President Donald Trump to withdraw the nomination. When that didn't happen, they began fighting a delaying action in order to drag other "accusers" into the fray.
A second one arrived, but her claims were so specious even The New York Times wouldn't publish them. Again, none of the witness she herself named affirmed her story. Then a third one, associated with the Creepy Porn Lawyer, possible Democrat presidential candidate and currently appearing on every propaganda cable news show Michael Avenatti, appeared with claims even more outlandish than the first two.
As stated above, the term credibly accused is specious nonsense. Kavanaugh cannot possibly "credibly defend" himself because the charges against him from the first two accusers are so flimsy that not even a month or year has been established for the events; much less a day and time. The third accuser's claims that Kavanaugh and friends were running a high school drug and rape gang and she willingly attended more than 10 of them as a 19-year-old woman, is so preposterous that it's almost laughable.
This theater would be comical if not for the stakes involved.
The leftists claim to be champion of women, and that defending women from the predatory patriarchy is what the fight against Kavanaugh is about. That is sophistry. If the leftist politicians pushing this narrative against Kavanaugh cared about women they'd direct some of their outrage at Keith Ellison, Senator Robert Menendez, Bill Clinton and the dozens of congressweasels that have used the federal treasury to pay off women they've sexually harassed.
This fight is about abortion and the ability to legislate from the bench through an activist judiciary. Never mind if they have to destroy three women, Kavanaugh, his wife and children to win it.
Leftist politicians and their propaganda media enablers worship in the cult of abortion. They are willing to destroy the rule of law, common decency and as many people as necessary to defend their "right" to murder babies in the womb.
When you're so evil that preserving the murder of the most innocent is your primary goal, other souls destroyed along the way are acceptable collateral damage.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment