This is not a shocking discovery, but the report contains the receipts of the manipulation and shows specifics of how things transpired. Even while there was conflict and opposition within the agency, the ability to still move quickly to advance the plan to aid Biden and/or impact Donald Trump is revealing. In addition, the most disqualifying aspect of the whole laptop fable is how the CIA was working in concert with the FBI on behalf of the Biden campaign. We have learned that the intelligence community went to social media companies and instructed the executives on how they should treat any mention of the laptop as a Russian misinformation campaign. //
The way this collusion played out — between the CIA, FBI, Biden Campaign, and the press — is essentially the Deep State laid bare. The sad truth and depth of this is seen in the massive difficulty in bringing anything approaching accountability to bear for any of this for anyone involved. This is a massive example of manipulating an election result, but all of those shown as guilty are the same players today, bleating about the threats to our democracy. //
123FJB
3 hours ago
Just keep in mind that at least half of your fellow Americans have no problem with what was done and in fact are hoping for it to happen again and again.
Let THAT sink in.
Not only are the enemy inside the gates, they are having a party in the town square in broad daylight.
etba_ss 123FJB
2 hours ago
And the heads of all these agencies were appointed by the guy they were screwing over.
Trump simply cannot allow this to stand. I have zero confidence he will make any better choices in Round 2 or clean anything out or drain any swamp. His attention span is too short and he's too focused on the nightly news clip, verses the long, hard, behind the scenes slog of cleaning out the swamp.
DEI is big business in the federal government. Since Joe Biden took office, the Department of Defense budget for what it calls "DEI projects" has risen each year, from $68 million in fiscal year (FY) 2022, $86.5 million in FY 2023, to now $114.7 million in FY 2024. So, what are the tax dollars of the American people paying for? //
Scott Adams
@ScottAdamsSays
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The US military recruitment problem is entirely due to white men no longer joining.
DEI did that.
Let’s not pretend it was something else.
12:41 PM · Jun 15, 2024 //
The U.S. military should only be merit-based for one reason. So that America's most skilled, talented, capable fighting men and women are ready at a moment's notice to defend a country they have been taught to love. //
@amuse
@amuse
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DEI: Most Americans have no idea what the last four years has done to our military - it is in shambles. The hardchargers skilled at killing people and breaking thing have been labeled 'toxic' and purged. The focus now is on diversity over skill or capabilities. Show more
10:01 AM · Jun 25, 2024 //
anon-608f C. S. P. Schofield
6 hours ago
Let's not pretend this didn't begin with "equal opportunity" or "EEO officers". There is a class of, mostly, blacks and females whose only job and desire has been to create as much dissension within the ranks as possible while using federal law to make them appear invaluable.
I will say, if no one else, that the various civil rights acts, affirmative action, and EEO type nonsense was always going to result in this.
There is NOTHING inherent in a black, female, or any other privileged class which the military requires to fulfill its mission. That we are forced to pretend that there is is why the military has slowly been slipping from a "family business" where the current generation was preceded by- or serving along- another. Policing is suffering the same fate and it is NOT a positive development.
I certainly am not encouraging anyone to serve, and mine is a family with a history back to the War of 1812, at least.
Operation RUBICON THESAURUS
The secret purchase of Crypto AG by BND and CIA
THESAURUS 1 (later: RUBICON), was a secret operation of the German Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to purchase the Swiss crypto manufacturer Crypto AG (Hagelin) — codenamed MINERVA — in order to control the company, its algorithms and – indirectly – its customers. From 12 June 1970 2 onwards, Crypto AG was jointly owned by CIA and BND, each with 50% of the shares, and from 30 June 1994 exclusively by the CIA [1]. //
Discover how CIA and BND turned Crypto AG from a simple denial operation into an active measures operation. Learn which roles were played by the Deutsche Treuhand Gesellschaft (KPMG), a Liechtenstein law firm, Siemens, Motorola, NSA and Swedish intelligence. The following story is about — in the words of the CIA — The Intelligence Coup of the Century.
The headquarters of the former Crypto AG in Steinhausen (ZG) produced cipher machines for decades. The German foreign intelligence service BND and the US CIA secretly bought the company in 1970. They caused many states to be supplied with machines with weaker encryption that could be decrypted by the BND and CIA. The successor company Crypto International AG was most recently based there. The Swiss company was at the center of a suspected espionage affair. In the summer of 2020, the company was closed due to a federal export ban. Since then, the company premises have been abandoned, but the last traces are still visible, and in a few years the factory and administration building, built in 1966, is to be demolished; around 200 apartments are planned on the site. With my photo report in spring 2021, I documented the abandoned building and area before it disappeared.
In 2020 however, the German TV station ZDF revealed that since 1970, the company was jointly owned by the German BND and the American CIA, and since 1994 exclusively by the CIA [28]. It means that for many years, Western intelligence services were able to manipulate the algorithms of Crypto AG's products and read the communications of many of its customers. Although the company also sold unreadable 1 equipment, the list of countries that had access to such secure technology became shorter every year. According to the NSA, all encryption should be readable.
➤ For further details on this topic, please refer to our follow-up story Operation RUBICON.
- In this context, readable means that the cryptographic algorithms could be broken by the NSA. Also known as friendly. In contrast: algorithms that are not breakable by NSA, are called unfriendly or unreadable.
SIGABA was an electromechanical rotor-based cipher machine developed in the late 1930s in the United States (US) as a joint effort of the US Army and US Navy [1]. At the time it was considered a superior cipher machine, intended to keep high-level communications absolutely secure. It was used throughout WWII and was so reliable that it was used well into the 1950s, after which it was replaced by newer machines like AFSAM-7 (KL-7). As far as we know, SIGABA was never broken.
Remember marveling at the fortitude of the two guys depicted in the 1996 film "The Ghost and The Darkness?" Bell did the same thing. Only instead of two lions, he killed a mess of them (the exact number is not known, but was reported to have been in the high double digits). He did this alone. With a single-shot rifle. In a caliber normally considered good for deer. At age 16.
Eventually, the task of hunting down slavering 500-pound apex predators with a taste for human flesh got too boring for the young Bell, so he determined to go halfway around the planet to join the gold seekers in the Klondike Gold Rush. But it turns out that gold-seeking was about the only thing that the young Bell couldn’t get the hang of, so after enlisting a partner to equip him, he went back to what he did best: Killing things, in this case spending the winter of 1897-98 shooting deer and moose to keep the denizens of Dawson City eating. //
After [WW2], Bell went back to Africa only briefly; just long enough to knock out a 3000-mile canoe trip through the Gold Coast and Liberia. He then retired to Corriemoillie, his 1,000-acre highland estate at Garve in Ross-shire, Scotland.
The Turing-Welchman Bombe was an electro-mechanical device used at Bletchley Park and its outstations during World War II to assist in breaking the Enigma cipher used by the German military.
Based on ideas from a device known as a bomba, designed in Poland by Marian Rejewski as early as 1939, the Turing-Welchman Bombe enabled Bletchley Park to find the daily keys of the Engima machine on a regular basis throughout most of the war.
The British Bombe was designed by Alan Turing with important additions by Gordon Welchman. They were built by the British Tabulating Machine Company in Letchworth, Hertfordshire.
Virtual Bombe is a 3d Turing-Welchman Bombe simulation which can run using just your browser. No install is necessary.
Enigma is the brand name of a series of cipher machines developed in Germany between 1923 and 1945.
A number of these machines were used during World War 2 by the German Army, Navy and Air Force, this website has simulations for both the three rotor Enigma I used by the Heer (Army) and Luftwaffe (Air Force) and the four rotor Enigma M4 used by the Kriegsmarine (German Navy).
The Enigma code was cracked and read initially by the Poles in 1932 with Bletchley Park continuing and expanding on this work where they regularly read the German encrypted messages throughout the war.
Virtual Enigma is a 3d Enigma simulation which can run using just your browser. No install is necessary. It was released on Alan Turing's 109th Birthday 23rd June 2021
Virtual Hagelin M-209
A 3D simulation of the Hagelin M-209 cipher machine
In cryptography, the M-209, designated CSP-1500 by the Navy (C-48 by the manufacturer) is a portable, mechanical cipher machine used by the US military primarily in World War II, though it remained in active use through the Korean War.
The M-209 was designed by Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin and manufactured by Smith & Corona in Syracuse (New York, USA). It was based on the C-38 which itself was an improvement of an earlier machine, the C-36.
This software is an accurate simulation of the M-209 Cipher Machine, used by the US Military during World War 2. The M-209, the American licensed version of the Hagelin C-38, was a portable hand operated cipher machine for tactical messages. It had the size of a lunchbox and presented a brilliant mechanical design, developed by the Swedish cryptographer Boris Hagelin.
This simulator, fully compatible with the original cipher machine, enables realistic operation with rotating wheels, setting of wheel pins and drum lugs, combined with authentic graphics. The program comes with a very complete helpfile, containing the manual, the enciphering procedures from the US military and all technical details on the machine.
M-209 was a light-weight portable pin-and-lug cipher machine, developed at the beginning of World War II by Boris Hagelin of AB Cryptoteknik in Stockholm (Sweden), and manufactured by Smith & Corona in Syracuse (New York, USA). The machine is designated CSP-1500 by the US Navy and is the US military variant of the C-38, which in turn is an improved version of the C-36 and C-37. A compatible motorised version – with keyboard – is known as BC-38 (later: BC-543). During WWII, the M-209 was known by German cryptanalysts as AM-1 (American Machine #1)). //
The cryptographic strength of the machine was reasonable for its time, but was not perfect. As of early 1943, it was assumed that German codebreakers were able to break an M-209 message in less than 4 hours. 1 Nevertheless, it was considered sufficiently secure for tactical messages which, due to their nature, would be meaningless after several hours. This is why the M-209 was later also used in the Korean War. The M-209 was succeeded in 1952 by the C-52 and CX-52. //
According to them, the effort to break it was impractically high.
It proved however, that American cryptologist William Friedman, had been right all along. He liked the Hagelin machines and had found them to be theoretically unbreakable, but knew that they could be setup in such a way that they became weak and vulnerable to cryptanalytic attacks [8]. British and American codebreakers were able to read the Hagelins from both enemies and allies.
After the war it became clear that the Germans were able to read 10% of the American Hagelin traffic: 6% from cryptanalysis, and 4% from captured keys. But due to the amount of work involved in breaking, the delay between intercept and decrypt was usually 7 to 10 days; too long to be usefull for tactical messages like the ones sent by the US Army. Apparently, the Japanese also understood many of the principles of Hagelin exploitation, but hardly broke Hagelin traffic [8].
For high-level messages, the Americans used a rotor machine — SIGABA — which was similar to Enigma, but much much more advanced. As far as we know, SIGABA was never compromised.
Cold War
Immediately after WWII, in 1947, the NSA started the development of a cryptanalytic machine named WARLOCK I — also known as AFSAF-D79 and CXNK — that was able to solve the Hagelin C-38/M-209 much faster than with hand methods. The machine became operational in 1951 and was used to read the traffic from many countries that were using M-209 or C-38 machines. The US had 'accidentally' released large batches of M-209 machines on the surplus market for as little as US$ 15 and even US$ 2 [8]. Many of these were purchased by South American countries.
On the Importance of Process and the Republican Nature of the New Government
In Federalist 38 Madison discusses the process by which the new proposed constitution was written and how that process was superior to anything that had been attempted before in history. If you recall, Plato believed that an enlightened philosopher king should rule, and that only this kind of man would be capable of creating, and leading, the city state. His reasoning was that man was too fraught with faults to avoid pursuing his own self-interest.
Madison lists the examples of Minos in Crete, Zaleucus of the Locrians, Theseus in Athens, Lycurgus of Spart, Romulus of Rome, and others to illustrate how these city states all were established, and their laws created, by a single person even as they went on to have legislative bodies. And all these states went through periods where single emperors ruled regardless of the original intent of their founding. Even democracy loving Athenians, “a people who would not suffer an army to be commanded by fewer than ten generals, …should consider one illustrious citizen as a more eligible depositary of the fortunes of themselves and their posterity, than a select body of citizens”.[1]
Up until this point, this is how governments were formed. “(T)hese lessons teach us, … to admire the improvement made by America on the ancient mode of preparing and establishing regular plans of government”. The process by which the new constitution was written matters greatly. The representative way in which all states, and through their delegates the citizens thein, are represented is absolutely novel. It has never happened in the course of history to that time. This process alone helps ensure the liberty of the citizens of the new country.
Madison asks of those who object to the constitution, what they would propose as an alternative? //
In Federalist 39 Madison seeks to answer whether the new constitution creates a truly republican form of government and whether that government is federal or national in construction.
On the first question, Madison starts by declaring that only a representative republic, “would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution”. He points out that no such thing exists anywhere else in the world, and lists the various places that claim the title incorrectly. “It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it”. There is no nobility in the new country, in fact the constitution includes an, “absolute prohibition of titles of nobility”.
In each of the states’ constitutions, legislatures are chosen by the people for, “a definite period, and in many instances, both within the legislative and executive departments, to a period of years.” Here again we see the criticality of turnover within these branches of government for ensuring liberty. //
But to those who worry about too much power being in the hands of the federal government, Madison reiterates the point that Hamilton made earlier that, “the proposed government cannot be deemed a NATIONAL one; since its jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.”
Of the major cases the US Supreme Court has heard this term, one that might not have gotten as much attention as it should have, is SEC versus Jarkesy. The court heard oral arguments at the end of November, 2023. The case goes to the question of whether or not administrative agencies have the ability to use administrative courts with administrative law judges rather than those that are under the Third Article of the constitution to enforce their regulations and rulings.
The case is broadly seen as getting to the heart of separation of powers. increasingly executive agencies have found ways to concentrate power within themselves and not having to deal with the other branches of government.
The appeal filed held the argument that using administrative judges violates the constitution. The filing stated that the executive using its own judges to rule effectively meant that there was no oversight of the executive agencies that were pressuring the charges.
It also noted that the 7th Amendment of the Constitution gives the defendant the right of a trial by jury. For any civil damages that are greater than $20 one can also seek a jury. Executive agencies using their own courts have consistently refused to allow juries to be used.
Willie Howard Mays’ died at the age of 93. There’s a story about Willie.
The Say Hey Kid’s first season in the bigs was shaping up to be an awful one. He’d gotten no hits. He was a rookie with the worst record in the league. Period. After 26 plate appearances he’d hit the ball only once.
Once.
Mays’ batting average was hovering above zero.
One day, after a crushing defeat, young Willie marched off to the showers and cried. He was ready to quit the game. That’s what he told his manager. Too much pressure. Too many expectations. You could almost hear the proverbial fat lady warming up.
His manager found him crying, face in hands. Willie begged the manager to send him back down.
“It’s too hard,” Willie cried. “I don’t belong in the majors, send me back to the minors.”
But the manager refused. The skipper used all the clichéd inspirational coaching phrases. “There ain’t no I in team.” “Can’t never could.” “Life’s a sewer, you get out what you put in.”
But the pep-talk wasn’t working. So the manager gave Willie some practical advice. The words just came out of the old man’s mouth.
“You’ll get two hits tomorrow, Willie. If you’ll just pull up your pants.”
The B-52 has been a stalwart of the U.S. Air Force since the 1950s. Eighty years after its introduction, the bomber is still relevant, with new variants planned to extend the airframe's service life for decades to come. Indeed, the B-52 will likely reach the 100 year mark of active-duty service.
When the B-52 first flew, aviation itself was only 50 years old, so as of today, the B-52 has been in the Air Force for more than half of the time that humans have been flying airplanes. Along the way, it has received consistent upgrades – to avionics, engines, weaponry, and more – allowing the 50s-era airframe to stay useful in a modern air force.
The B-52J is the latest iteration, with a new Rolls Royce F-130 engine that promises to improve fuel efficiency and stealth performance. It also brings a new radar system borrowed from the F/A-18 Super Hornet, as well as improved weaponry. //
That presents lots of options for un-aliving bad guys. Which, of course, is the whole purpose of the Air Force and all our armed forces, at least in the non-DEI world: to close with and destroy the enemy by fire, maneuver, and shock effect, or, in the case of the Stratofortress, bombing bad guys back into the Stone Age. //
War Planner
25 minutes ago edited
Thank you, Ward,
Almighty proud here! It's how I got my sobriquet: worked for USAF SAC DOCODW writing the SIOP (war plan) for these beasts. You know the safe you saw in Dr Strangelove? Yeppers, that's where my work product went every six months whether we needed it or not!
..kinda feel like Steve McQueen in Papillion on the raft floating out to sea, "I'm still here you bastards!"
Soldier on, Buffs*, soldier on! //
War Planner C. S. P. Schofield
19 minutes ago edited
SACism:
A B-52 is powered by engines that generate the horsepower of 100 railroad locomotives and is constructed with 25 miles of wire and enough aluminum to make 1,000 garbage cans.
..and it flies just like driving 100 locomotives hauling 1,000 garbage cans with 25 miles of wire!
Bottom line: Congress can amend §666 to make it clear that acts like what Snyder did are illegal. What will come of this is bad faith actors pointing at the court and claiming that Snyder is another example of the high court defending corruption. Rather, it is SCOTUS defending liberty and requiring Congress to define criminal statutes with clarity and specificity.
Modern left-wing activism in the United States has roots in the Soviet Union's 1960s strategy to undermine Western culture. By promoting divisive ideologies and fostering internal dissent, the Soviets aimed to weaken the societal fabric from within, creating a legacy that continues to influence today’s political landscape.
Over the decades, these tactics evolved and merged with neo-communist strategies for infiltration. This resulted in a robust network of activist groups and organizations at both local and national levels. Initially designed to destabilize Western norms, these groups adapted to the changing political landscape, maintaining their relevance and influence. //
The foundation of left-wing activism in the United States can be traced back to a deliberate strategy orchestrated by the Soviet Union in the 1960s. This plan was aimed at undermining Western culture and destabilizing American society by promoting divisive ideologies and fostering internal dissent. The Soviets knew that to weaken the Western world, they needed to create discord from within, leading to a systematic effort to infiltrate various aspects of American life.
After the end of the Cold War, many leftists aligned with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union shifted their focus to the "green" movement. This shift was marked by Gorbachev's founding of the Green Cross, proving that the "green" movement was always a communist front.
The Soviet strategy aimed not only to spread communism but also to create a lasting legacy that would continue to influence and disrupt Western culture. By embedding operatives and sympathizers within influential institutions, the Soviets set the stage for long-term subversion. This approach, often referred to as the "Long March Through the Institutions," involved systematically infiltrating and gaining control of key societal structures, such as education, media, and non-profit organizations.
On its initial publication in 1998, John R. Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime drew both lavish praise and heated criticism. More than a decade later, it continues to play a key role in ongoing arguments over gun-control laws: despite all the attacks by gun-control advocates, no one has ever been able to refute Lott’s simple, startling conclusion that more guns mean less crime. Relying on the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever conducted on crime statistics and right-to-carry laws, the book directly challenges common perceptions about the relationship of guns, crime, and violence. For this third edition, Lott draws on an additional ten years of data—including provocative analysis of the effects of gun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C—that brings the book fully up to date and further bolsters its central contention.
Nuclear power could be America’s saving grace — if progressive activists would only stop kneecapping its spread.
Although it’s both clean and abundant, nuclear power is often overlooked by a misinformed public and environmental activists alike.
But change makers like Bill Gates are championing the technology, and should be celebrated for doing so.
The billionaire philanthropist has invested $1 billion in TerraPower, a brand new nuclear power plant which commenced construction in June in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
A 345-megawatt Natrium reactor — the next-generation of nuclear technology — it’s expected to be safer than traditional fission power plants because sodium is used to cool the reactor.
The plant, which has an estimated total cost of $4 billion, is yet to be approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, but Gates said that he’s confident TerraPower will hold up to scrutiny.