Updated: Friday, December 11
ONE MORE NAME OFF THE LIST — The Biden Administration has named Susan Rice as the president's top advisor on domestic policy. It's a bit of a head scratcher, but so too was her name being thrown into the mix for the STILL unannounced pick for D/CIA. Insiders tell us that Rice was a no-go from the start on the Hill, and that former DDCIA David Cohen is still the frontrunner for the top spy job with Justin Jackson, former DD of the CIA's National Clandestine Service in the number two spot. All the anticipating is exhausting. We just wonder what's taking so long...
DISHONORABLE MENTION: The whole fight over whether or not to rename U.S. military bases that currently bear the names of Confederate generals is still up in the air. It is pretty clear that a large majority of the members of Congress favor removing the names of leaders of the losing side of the Civil War from modern day bases – but President Trump has said he will veto the bill that mandates such a switch. Congress has developed a fairly elaborate scheme to study the matter and within the next three years to remove all “names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America” from military bases. There is a plan for local communities and others to be involved in coming up with fitting new names. The House passed the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act by a veto proof margin. We can’t but think that those Confederate generals would probably get a kick out of knowing that they are still stirring up trouble more than a century and a half after the war ended.
SECRET SPOKESPEOPLE: On Saturday December 5th senior Pentagon officials condemned The Washington Post’s use of anonymous sources who suggested that the Defense Department was dragging its feet regarding cooperation with Biden administration transition efforts. And, because this is 2020, these DOD officials refused to attach their names to their complaint. But they held a conference call with the media saying that “the accusation by anonymous sources” referred to in some media accounts “is demonstrably false and patently insulting.” Here at The Dead Drop – we stand fully behind anonymous sources – as long as what they are saying is true. And you can quote us – anonymously.
HOW DO THEY KNOW IT’S NOT A BODY DOUBLE? CIA spokesperson Nicole de Haay, went on the record with Reuters and other media outlets recently denying social media reports that Agency director Gina Haspel had been arrested, injured or was found dead. As crazy as it sounds, (and it does sound crazy) outfits like QAnon have been spreading conspiracy theories that Haspel was injured in the apocryphal battle over a secret election computer server in Germany. Some reports claimed Haspel had been sent to GITMO. There is even video circulating on Facebook and Twitter that claims to be Haspel being arrested – but in the world of reality that most of live in, it is actually old video of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton being assisted when she appeared to faint at a 9/11 commemoration ceremony in 2016. CIA spokesperson de Haay said in response to what she called the most absurd inquiry she has handled: “Director Haspel is alive and well and at the office.”
RESUME BUILDING: Unless the Trump administration really believes that a secret computer server in Germany will turn up that is responsible for changing the outcome of elections in multiple states, it is hard to imagine why the Pentagon is purging the ranks of the Defense Business Advisory Board 45 days before the end of the administration and replacing long-time members with Trump loyalists like Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie. Perhaps they are trying to give the new members a bullet point on their Linked In profiles going forward. The White House also axed a number of members of the Defense Policy Board – including folks like former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.
REVERSE KREMLINOLOGY: U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers have long watched who stands where in Moscow, as a way to gauge who is up and down in Russian hierarchy. Turns out the Russians do the same in reverse – and according to The Moscow Times, Russia is all atwitter about the appointment of Jen Psaki to be the next White House press secretary. Although Psaki may not exactly be a household name in the U.S., apparently, she is quite well-known in Russia stemming from her time as State Department spokesperson in the Obama administration. The Moscow Times says Psaki is “a celebrity in Russia – even if against her will.” Russians claim Psaki often misspoke when talking about Russia in 2013 to 2015 when she was at State. Allegedly the Russians have even created a term: “Great Psakiing” which in Russian is said to mean “confusing the facts.” Of course, the Trump administration’s association with “facts” has been a bit dicey as well, but it is good to know that the Kremlin will be listening closely to what the next White House spokesperson has to say.
BOOKS TO LOOK FOR: OK, do not look too soon, but coming in the fall of 2022 is a book called Daughter of Spies: Wartime Secrets, Family Lies by Elizabeth Winthrop Alsop. She is the author of some sixty (!) published books (primarily children’s fiction.) The new one is anything but. Rather, it is said to be a coming-of-age memoir about her parents (her father was journalist and OSS veteran Stewart Alsop. Coming sooner — will be a new book by retired U.S. Navy Admiral William McRaven. Publishing in April 2021, The Hero Code: Lessons Learned from Lives Well Lived, is said to provide examples of innate qualities of the human spirit that uplift our generation of everyday heroes – and profoundly shape our future. If the Admiral’s past book provides any clue – those qualities may include excellence in bed making. The publisher of “The Hero Code” will be Grand Central.
NOW THAT’S CAMOUFLAGE: Last week’s Dead Drop mentioned that there are researchers working on ways that soldiers might be able to communicate in the future using brainwaves rather than words. Now comes word about South Korean researchers looking at ways to develop “artificial skin” that may one day make troops invisible, event to heat sensors. Rather than the old-fashioned camouflage that helped you blend in with trees, or the desert, or the Navy’s old design that helped you blend in with water – the new substance might give wearers a chameleon’s ability to blend in with surroundings – changing constantly to mimic not only colors and thermal characteristics with the environment.
POCKET LITTER: Bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
NAMES IN SPACE: The Air Force has launched plans to rename two Florida Air Force bases. No, they didn’t rename them to honor the Confederate Air Force. Patrick Air Force Base will now be called “Patrick Space Force Base” and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station will be known as the “Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.”
RANKS IN SPACE: Congress has given up on trying to tell the Space Force on what to call its personnel. For a while, the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act was going to mandate the fledgling service use Navy ranks…because…well, they have space SHIPS and space CREWS..and besides Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise told them to do so. But now, Congress has just told the Secretary of the Air Force to figure the whole thing out and let them know what the plan is before implementing it.
UNDERWATER ALIENS: Here’s another reason to give the Space Force - Navy ranks: there may be space aliens under the earth’s seas. Well, at least that is one suggestion stemming from the leak of a photo from the Pentagon’s UFO task force which appears to show a “silver cube” hovering 35,000 feet above the Atlantic. It is a convoluted story you can dive into here from The Daily Mail in the UK. What does something 35K feet in the air have to do with the oceans? We’re not sure either. But, The Daily Mail includes some speculation that the UFO (or UAP as they are now called: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) might be able to “freely move both through the air and underwater, zipping through the ocean undetected and emerging into the air at incredible speeds.”
WHEN IS APRIL FOOL’S ON THE HEBREW CALENDAR? They don’t have one? Well, we are going to need another explanation for comments by Haim Eshed, former head of Israel’s Defense Ministry’s space directorate. Yahoo news says Eshed is a respected professor and retired general, though he recently told Israeli media that not only do aliens exist, but there have also been cooperation agreements signed between species and an “underground base” has been established “in the depths of Mars” where American astronauts work alongside aliens. Eshed said that President Trump knows all this and was about to reveal it but was convinced not to do so. OK, now we know Eshed is making stuff up. No way Donald Trump would be able to keep that secret. He’d be building Trump Tower Mars.
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