Dead Drop: July 1

THAR HE/SHE BLOWS: A bunch of Fox News commentators got their undies in a bunch complaining about an obscure Navy instructional video about the proper use of pronouns. Two engineers from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Rhode Island appeared in a short video explaining why it is important to address people by their preferred pronouns.  Somehow, the video made it into the hands of a variety of Fox personalities and they clutched their pearls, complaining that the sea service should be focused on preventing seagoing mishaps and not sailor misnomers.  On one show, Pete Hegseth, referring to the video, told anchor Bill Hemmer “That is beyond embarrassing. Anyone who has ever worn the uniform of the United States Navy should be writing letters and calling their congressman demanding what in the world is going on? Later, on Greg Gutfeld’s program, Gutfeld and a group of cohorts spent more than 9 minutes complaining about how the (3 minute and 47 second long) Navy video demonstrates that the service has its priorities all wrong and should be focusing on projecting power not pronouns. Somehow, we suspect the video is not the only thing the Navy has been doing.  For example, speaking of undersea warfare, this past Saturday the Navy commissioned USS Montana, a Virginia-class attack submarine. Hopefully, Fox News won’t find out that at the ceremony in Norfolk, Navy officials insisted on calling the boat “she.”

MEAL TEAM SIX:  When we first spotted this story, we thought it was from The Onion. But apparently it contains a layer of truth. The DailyMail.com says things are going so badly for Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine that he has recalled a 67-year-old retired general to take over from last honcho, General Alexander Dvornikov, who apparently didn’t sufficiently live up to his nickname: “the Butcher of Aleppo.” The new guy…whose last name is Pavel…but whose first name didn’t make the story…apparently cuts quite the figure. The British-based Daily Mail describes him as being “20 stone” (which translates to 280 pounds) and alleges that the general likes to eat five meals a day, washing it down with a “liter of vodka.” What could go wrong?  It looks like Putin’s choice of Generals to send to Ukraine is getting pretty slim.

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+

Search

Close