Rapid Response 47
@RapidResponse47
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"I don't care your race, your religion, your color, your sex, your sexual preference. I don't care about any of that. I just want the best and the brightest keeping Americans safe — and that should be the standard," says @SecDuffy.

"We're going back to our mission of SAFETY."

9:33 AM · Feb 2, 2025

houdini1984
8 hours ago
In a perfect world, Snowden would have been able to report the IC's violation of Americans' rights to Congress. He should have attempted to do so. But is he a traitor? Hardly.

Here's the thing. We're talking about a Congress that failed to punish the intelligence community for... wait for it... spying on Congress. Yes, that's right. The IC was literally spying on our representatives, and forced to admit to those activities. And what did Congress do? They continued to renew all the powers that the IC regularly abuses.

Anyone who's paying attention understands that our elected representatives are, almost to a man and woman, scared to death of this country's intelligence community. They are terrified that their own secrets may be used against them by a vengeful IC. They are willing to sacrifice your liberties to maintain some semblance of peaceful coexistence between themselves and the forces of the deep state.

So, yeah. Snowden's actions are easy to criticize. And they were illegal, in the purest sense of that word. But was he wrong to distrust Congress? Was he right to believe that the American people deserve to know that their government is violating their rights on a daily basis? Did he have an obligation to choose between going to prison or remaining silent?

Personally, I am glad that the truth came out. And I don't blame Tulsi one bit for refusing to be nagged into calling the man a traitor. That nagging is just designed to distract from the real issue, which is that our government has long been weaponized against us.

anon-w8wg houdini1984
5 hours ago edited
Snowden was kind of simultaneously hero and traitor. His actions absolutely threw a wrench in America's military and intelligence gears (I was in the military at the time). However, he brought to light things that the people needed to know, things that never should have been approved. Personally, I don't have a problem calling him traitor. I have no problem with Tulsi Gabbard not calling him a traitor, though, as long as she notes what was bad about his actions. She did this, which makes her more qualified than most intelligence directors, IMHO.

In fact, now that I think of it, Snowden might have helped put us on the MAGA track. So, maybe there's more good to him than I've given him credit for.

Random US Citizen
11 hours ago
What Snowden did was illegal and punishable by law. On the other hand, Gabbard is right—he also exposed a lot of domestic spying by the U.S. government against its own citizens. It’s interesting—in a sort of horrifying way—that so-called conservative Republicans are more upset that Gabbard opposes Patriot Act overreach than any other issue that came up at her confirmation hearing.

anon-bjec NightStalker
9 hours ago
I doubt we would have had one Trump presidency, much less two, without Snowden. Who would have believed the massive duplicity with which the deep state acts? A lot of us might have actually bought into the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA nonsense, not believed it was even possible for Obama to weaponize the IC against a political opponent. A lot fewer people would have been aware of just how bad the IC and deep state are when operating domestically.

People like Schifty Schiff see Russians under every rock without stepping back to see the big picture. Snowden exposed sources and methods alright. Sources: massive domestic spying apparatus weaponized against Americans. Methods: outrageous violations of every basic tenet of the Constitution and founding principles.

We needed to know.

My friend Bridget Phetasy recently replied to this highly accurate meme on X, and it made me laugh.

Possibly drunk, I felt compelled to respond.

Challenge accepted.

I had my assignment.

I’d write about all the ways my wife and I could raise our two kids Gen X and how in the end it would be really good for them for reasons of confidence, self-reliance and proper taste in music.

Then a funny thing happened.

As I started thinking about how we could raise our kids Gen X, I realized … WE ALREADY WERE.

Every time I thought of a funny or real Gen X thing, it was like, oh hey what, we’re doing that. Obviously, it’s not 1988, and we’re not checking every single Gen X box, but, come on, our third graders already have very strong opinions about Full House.

Now … I know what some of you are thinking.

You might say it reflects poorly upon me not to have a parenting strategy of which I am even conscious at all.

My response is that it is the most Gen X thing possible to not even have a parenting strategy.

Oh, you’re a Tiger Parent? I’m a Keep My Kids Alive and Teach Them Not to Be A Chucklehead Parent, nice to meet you. Yes, I was born between 1965 and 1980. How could you tell?

Without even ever discussing it, my wife Jen (a standard issue Gen-X name if there ever was one) and I are teaching our children The Old Ways. //

By today’s standards, our childhood was basically a series of OSHA violations. We ate too many Pop-Tarts, rode in the back of station wagons without seatbelts, lived in constant fear of being kidnapped by a creepy guy in a white van named Lester and got most of our hydration and immunity from garden hoses. But we also learned how to exist without constant supervision, how to entertain ourselves without a screen, how to handle differences of opinion away from adults and how to venture forth from the house without a subcutaneous GPS chip.

The Old Ways are the good ways.

With any luck, one day my kids will grow up, roll their eyes at the next generation, and mutter, they’re the worst. //

A Gen-X sibling who had sisters and a single landline will be the one who brings peace to the Middle East.

Feb. 1 is Change Your Password Day, and you may think that good cyber hygiene means creating new, robust passwords every few months. Not so fast.

There was a time that whenever I wrote something related to security passwords, I'd use these words: "Use password managers, as they make it very easy to change passwords, which you should do frequently." Because that's the advice everyone gives about passwords, along with making them strong and unique to every service and account you create.

I haven't done that in years, though, because one of our resident security experts, Neil. J. Rubenking, pointed out that the "should do frequently" part is now outdated advice.

When the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issued Digital Identity Guidelines in 2017, they used a lot of science-talk to discuss information security standards and "memorized secrets"—its term for passwords, passphrases, and personal identification numbers (PINs). Its conclusion: "Do not require that [passwords] be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically) unless there is a user request or evidence of authenticator compromise."

The NIST report also included an appendix about the Strength of Memorized Secrets, which discusses how it's almost impossible for people to memorize passwords if they have forced "composition rules," such as including a symbol, an uppercase letter, a numeral, etc.

"The benefit of such rules is not nearly as significant as initially thought, although the impact on usability and memorability is severe," NIST said.

The length of a memorized secret is more important than complexity. Yet so many services reject extra-long passphrases. (NIST says people should be allowed up to 64 characters.)

Nothing beats memorization for security, but after a couple of years online, you could have hundreds of passwords to keep in your brain. That way lies madness. Ultimately, the best advice for anyone dealing with password security is to use a password manager so you only have to remember one master password/phrase.

Here are a few ways to securely erase your hard drive:

DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) – Use this free tool that overwrites data multiple times, making recovery impossible.
Windows Secure Erase (for SSDs) – If you're wiping an SSD, use the manufacturer's secure erase tool (e.g., Samsung Magician, Crucial Storage Executive).
Command Prompt (for HDDs) – Run cipher /w:C: to overwrite deleted files on the selected drive.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning that Contec CMS8000 devices, a widely used healthcare patient monitoring device, include a backdoor that quietly sends patient data to a remote IP address and downloads and executes files on the device.

Contec is a China-based company that specializes in healthcare technology, offering a range of medical devices including patient monitoring systems, diagnostic equipment, and laboratory instruments.

A sense of crisis among aid groups was growing as U.S.A.I.D.’s website went dark.

Bonchie @bonchieredstate
So 51 intelligence officials signed a letter claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, and they did so not because they had actual evidence but because they wanted to help get Joe Biden elected.

That...seems like an issue.

George Papadopoulos @GeorgePapa19
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Feb 1
🚨JUST IN: A leaked email from John Brennan verifies that the 51 intelligence agents that endorsed the Hunter Biden laptop letter did it with the specific intent of enabling Biden to mislead the American public during his election campaign.
9:04 AM · Feb 2, 2025
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The HP-41C overcame these limitations by adding alphanumeric capabilities to both the display and keyboard. The keyboard had an "Alpha" key that toggled the keyboard between alpha and the normal calculator mode. (The alpha characters were printed on the slanted faces of the keys.) If the user needed a function not printed on a key, the name of the function could be typed in and executed. (About half of the HP-41Cs functions were preassigned to keys.)

Because typing out the name of a function could be cumbersome, the HP-41C added another toggle key called "user". The user could assign any built-in function or user program to any key. Once the keyboard was placed in user mode, any assignments made by the user overrode the label on the key. (With the gold shift key, this allowed two user functions per key.) The user toggle state remained set even when the calculator was turned off allowing true keyboard customization.

To make it easy to remember keyboard assignments, HP provided keyboard overlays along with preprinted labels for all built-in functions and blank labels for user functions. In addition, whenever a key was held down, its function name was displayed. If it was the wrong key, the user could continue to hold it until the display showed "NULL" when meant the function was canceled.

Of course, HP didn't just improve the human interface. The HP-41C had more memory (now non-volatile) than its predecessor, more functions, improved programming, and could be expanded with both RAM and ROM modules.

Ttcalc is a public domain programmable calculator for Microsoft Windows written by Stefan Seiwerth that is modeled after the HP-41C series of calculators. Download the program, unzip and see the readme.txt file for installation instructions. Run ttcalce.exe for the English version or ttcalc.exe for the German version. (The help file for either version is in German.)

The White House @WhiteHouse
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Kayla Hamilton, Jocelyn Nungaray, and Rachel Morin were murdered by illegal aliens.

Their courageous mothers had something to say to @SelenaGomez and those who oppose securing our borders. Watch ⬇️

6:14 PM · Jan 31, 2025

In fiscal year 2023, the United States disbursed $72 billion of assistance worldwide on everything from women's health in conflict zones to access to clean water, HIV/AIDS treatments, energy security and anti-corruption work. It provided 42% of all humanitarian aid tracked by the United Nations in 2024. //

NavyVet Largo Patriot
11 hours ago
We should amend the Constitution, if we can't get legislation, that prevents any and all aid, grant, or other funding when the government has a deficit.

If we can't afford to give money away - i.e. government has to borrow money to meet its obligations - then it should be expressly illegal, and, any elected official proposing it should be immediately removed from office and barred from running in the future. //

doctor goodheart Weminuche45
4 hours ago
In my personal experience (Russia 1990's), it's a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to Beltway bandits, with a tiny percent of funds actually hitting the ground in foreign countries.

Per William Easterly's books (e.g. The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good), foreign aid has repeatedly been shown to do more damage than good. It creates a large pool of money and therefore power to one tribe vs. another tribe; substitutes US-made food supplies for local growers, thereby perpetuating poverty--and so on and so forth as President Reagan would have said.
Anyway what to the leftists care? They used to be concerned about world poverty. Now they want to worsen it to depopulate the world, or at least keep most of the world unable to have cheap energy, the source of prosperity and health.

BECS are officially referred to as “voluntary,” and supposedly developed by “consensus,” for state and local governments to implement building energy efficiency requirements. The International Code Council (ICC), through its numerous committees, publishes these codes and generates revenues by selling them to whoever needs them (e.g., code officials, builders, trades, etc.). ICC energy codes are organized and managed under a separate division of the ICC called the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). //

“Consensus” building energy codes have been largely and silently commandeered by EERE which has accelerated under the Biden administration. “Consensus” comes through “packing the bleachers” of committees with loyalists to further the Net-Zero concept. Tactics include “improving” building energy efficiency codes through “public/private partnerships.” However, the true cause of Net-Zero policies is to advance electrified “energy efficiency” via “clean” (a.k.a. renewable) energy so that consumers can be more readily controlled. //

RedStorm
9 hours ago
I find energy consumption information useful as a consumer on major appliances, for example. Not that I think I’m ‘saving the planet’ by buying an appliance that uses less energy, but I like knowing relatively what that sucker is going to cost me to operate. Same with mileage information about an automobile. Those are useful regulations, requiring producers to provide information that is of value to consumers. Give me information to make decisions that make sense to me and my lifestyle, don’t restrict my options, let the market take care of that. If only regulators could stay in that lane…

Holy cow! We're talking eight figures in many cases. Now, the time scale runs from 1990 to 2024; we might note that the guy in second place, Raphael Warnock (D-GA), wasn't elected until 2021. So in three years, the reverend managed to rake in Big Pharma bucks to the tune of $14 million and change. He's in second place - and guess who's in first?

If you guessed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I), the daffy old Boshevik from Vermont, you guessed right. The pharmaceutical companies and the organizations associated with them have been feeling the Bern to the tune of $23,193,451. "Medical Societies" are the biggest donor bribers; they're into Bernie for over half that amount, $12,749,883. When Sanders claims he hasn't taken any money from Big Pharma CEOs, we should notice that he's specifying CEOs because he's taking a lot of money from the medical societies that they doubtlessly belong to. //

The only thing Bernie gets right about what socialism claims to be is that, despite his massive net worth, he still looks and dresses like a flood victim.

I spent many years conducting root cause analyses and teaching major corporate employees, mostly engineers, how to do root cause analysis. One of the tools for root cause analysis is what some call "5 Whys," but I always called a "Why-Why Analysis," as sometimes it may take two "Whys" and others, ten. In this case, there are too few houses. But they don't ask or answer the next question: Why? //

When asked, "How do you know when you've arrived at a root cause," my stock reply was, "When you arrive at the point where some person or group of people made a decision, that's likely to be your root cause." //

Percyisacat
4 hours ago
Where did they find 1100 sq feet for $2500 a month in Campbell?????? My son lived in Santa Clara, and paid over $3,000 a month for rent.

Richard Grenell @Rechargeable
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It It is not lost on me that most of the DC media failed to tell the truth about their partnership with the Biden Regime. Why else would they not criticize the failure of the Biden Administration to even visit Americans in prison in Venezuela?

The diplomatic standard is a wellness check, at least. These 6 Americans had ZERO help from Joe Biden, Anthony Blinken or Jake Sullivan.

Zero.

Donald Trump freed them on Day 11.
1:47 PM · Feb 1, 2025. //

Richard Grenell @RichardGrenell
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We can now announce more great news from our Venezuela diplomatic mission yesterday:

Venezuela has agreed to take back all the illegal immigrants in the U.S. from Venezuela - and pay for it! Thanks to @realDonaldTrump!
1:13 PM · Feb 1, 2025. //

A former Biden official, who served under both Obama and Biden in the State Department and the Department of Defense, said it was "inconceivable" that the Trump team managed to pull this off.

Richard Grenell @RichardGrenell
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Of course it’s inconceivable for someone from the Biden team…

They made chaos around the world because they didn’t show up or lead. There isn’t a region of the world that was safer after 4 years of Joe Biden’s Administration.

Brian P. McKeon @bpmckeon64
Replying to @MarcACaputo
It's inconceivable that Maduro didn't give something for the hostages and for agreeing to take deportees. A visit by Grenell wouldn't be enough.
4:46 PM · Feb 1, 2025

Now, this is a big, complex issue, and a lot to absorb, but the thumbnail is this: Rising nationalism in Europe is driven in part by frustration over rising energy costs (as well as things like unchecked immigration) and those rising energy costs are in large part due to net-zero schemes to appease climate activists. Britain has gone all-in for renewables, but the renewables aren't consistent, and when the wind isn't blowing, the United Kingdom has been relying on the expensive proposition of starting up natural-gas-powered electrical plants - using Norwegian natural gas. Their backup, incidentally, is gas imported from the United States, and President Trump is planning to ramp up production, but he's also likely to meet American consumer and industrial needs over exports. Interestingly, in the article linked above, "The Telegraph," an outlet not terribly friendly to President Trump, has actually given him credit for doing what's right by America first.

epaddon
2 hours ago
"Incapable of human feeling." Says the race hustler who was incapable of human feeling for what he did to Stephen Pagones when he defamed him with lies in the Tawana Brawley hoax. That this disgusting POS has never been out of the public eye since then is of itself an example of DEI with its racist black privilege that made possible BLM rioters and looters never having to be accountable for any of their crimes.

Lance Parkertip
2 hours ago
Al Sharpton, the man who incited violence against Jews over a traffic accident? The man who is as racist as the Grand Dragon of the KKK? The fake reverend who hasn't paid taxes in years? The fake Christian who is racist against his fellow man? He has brass ones to be looking down his pointy nose at others.

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby order a freeze on the hiring of Federal civilian employees, to be applied throughout the executive branch. As part of this freeze, no Federal civilian position that is vacant at noon on January 20, 2025, may be filled, and no new position may be created except as otherwise provided for in this memorandum or other applicable law. Except as provided below, this freeze applies to all executive departments and agencies regardless of their sources of operational and programmatic funding.

This order does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces or to positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety. Moreover, nothing in this memorandum shall adversely impact the provision of Social Security, Medicare, or Veterans’ benefits. In addition, the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) may grant exemptions from this freeze where those exemptions are otherwise necessary.

"The bipartisan FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs the Administration to hire the maximum number of air traffic controllers. That’s what the law says, so the Administration must rescind this ridiculous executive order,” Ranking Member Larsen said. “Hiring air traffic controllers is the number one safety issue according to the entire aviation industry. Instead of working to improve aviation safety and lower costs for hardworking American families, the Administration is choosing to spread bogus DEI claims to justify this decision. I'm not surprised by the President’s dangerous and divisive actions, but the Administration must reverse course. Let’s get back to aviation safety and allow the FAA to do its job protecting the flying public.”