WE HAVE FOUND THE ENEMY: The new Republican controlled House of Representatives is eager to get to work and fix some things they consider broken (or break some things their colleagues across the aisle thought they fixed.) Among the steps, is the creation of a new subcommittee under the House Judiciary Committee that has the working title of “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” which we will dub the “SSWFG.” Neither the full title nor the acronym roll off your tongue. Axios says the prime “targets” of the SSWFG will be the FBI, Justice Department and the intelligence community writ large.
GUESSING GAME: Included among the transcripts recently released by the January 6th Committee was one containing the testimony of Chairman of the Joint Chief’s General Mark Milley. Among the interesting nuggets was the statement that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn wanted Milley to recall to active duty retired military officers who had spoken or written negatively about President Trump so that they could be courts martialed. No names of those Flynn and others wanted to be forced to “walk the plank” were cited – but that didn’t stop speculation. Salon mentioned retired Marine Corps General John Allen and Navy Admiral Mike Mullen as possible candidates. In the end, Milley apparently was able to convince the White House that freedom of speech extends to retired military officers too.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? Speaking of the former Defense Intelligence Agency chief and the former National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn was interviewed this week on Steve Bannon’s podcast where he pronounced that “Russia has achieved all of their objectives” in Ukraine. We didn’t know that the Kremlin’s objective was to do so much damage to their own forces. Apparently, to Flynn’s mind, Russia’s achieved objectives included exposing “bio labs that have been in there sponsored by the U.S.” Oh, and he criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for showing up for a speech to Congress “in a sweatsuit.” Flynn’s brother Charles, who is a four-star general who heads the Army Indo-Pacific Command, was also interviewed by the House January 6th committee. A transcript of that session was just released in which the younger Flynn is asked about his actions in the Pentagon on January 6.th Charles Flynn made clear that he did not necessarily share his brother’s political views.
HIRE A VET: The 118th Congress might be facing a challenge in picking a new speaker, but they have done well enlisting members who have served in the military. By Military Times’ count, there are 97 veterans now serving, which is five more than in the last Congress. Of those 97 - 72 are Republicans and 25 are Democrats. The Army leads the race among the services for most vets in Congress with 42 members. The Space Force has yet to land a seat – but given the relative newness of the service – we’ll give them a pass (for now.) There are seven female veterans in Congress which is an all-time record. The number of women in Congress (veteran and non-veteran alike) went up by two to 149 in the 118th Congress. At the current rate of increase, one website calculated that women are on track to reach parity in Congress in the year 2141. Check back with us then to see if they made it.
RISKY BUSINESS: The State Department recently conducted a poll among its employees to find out how much risk they feel empowered to take as part of their jobs. The answer, according to Politico is: not much. The outgoing deputy secretary for management and resources, Brian McKeon, told employees in an email that “Nearly 75 percent of respondents said they did not receive clear communication from their leadership on risk tolerance…” He added that “a significant number of respondents associated risk with threat and related concepts like risk aversion, fear of failure, career, and security.” Politico suggests that Foggy Bottom will soon be undertaking new initiatives to “foster a culture of ‘failing well.’” A State Department spokesperson confirmed the survey but asked not to be named. Apparently, doing so was not worth the risk.
COLD COMFORT: If you are a young (or not so young) Russian reservist about to be sent to the war zone and you're worried about being killed before you are able to leave your legacy in Mother Russia – rest easy. Putin has got you covered. According to The Moscow Times, Russian state media have recently said that their government has agreed to pay for “sperm freezing, the storage of biomaterial in a cryobank” for deploying troops. This is the latest version of the Kremlin’s strategy of the 1980’s Dorito’s commercial: “Crunch all you want. We’ll make more.”
MAYBE THE RUSSIANS ARE INTO CLONING: This week, a grim-faced Vladimir Putin delivered a somber new year’s message to the Russian people. As captured by Russian Media Monitor, Julia Davis, he coughed and hacked his way through the short set of remarks – which in itself was remarkable since presumably the speech was recorded and the Kremlin communication team apparently could not come up with a better version to share with the public. Standing behind Vlad was a group of equally grim-faced men and women in a variety of military fatigue uniforms. Sharp-eyed observers noticed that some of the same people seem to show up in the background of lots of Putin photo ops. One woman seen in uniform for New Year’s Day, also appeared in quite different outfits on a fishing boat and at church services with Putin in the past. Others observed that candid shots of Putin at his address may show he was wearing a ballistic vest under his suit. Satirical twitter site “Darth Putin” suggest that things are going so well for Putin he has to wear a bullet proof vest even when he is “close to actors just pretending to be soldiers.” Putin’s poor performance in his New Year’s speech stands in stark contrast to the one delivered by Ukrainian President Zelensky. Memorable line from President Z: “We were told: you have no other option but to surrender. We say: we have no other option than to win.”
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
CHILD’S PLAY: Many of us used the extended holiday period to catch up on professional reading, renew bonds with family members and reflect on past successes and failures. Include in that group is retired four-star Navy officer (and Cipher Brief Expert) Admiral Jim Stavridis who posted on social media that on the last night of her visit to his home in Florida, his seven-year-old granddaughter, Lorelei, challenged him to a game of “Battleship” – and beat him like a drum. Perhaps the loss was foretold in the stars – since in folklore “Lorelei” is said to be a distracting beauty who sits on a rock along the Rhine River and lures sailors to their doom.
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