HUMBLE BRAGG: “Make (the Confederate States of) America Great Again” doesn’t seem like a winning tactic. So, we were surprised to see two presidential candidates, Ron DeSantis and Mike Pence, declare that if elected, they will restore the name “Fort Bragg” to the North Carolina military facility recently renamed “Fort Liberty.” DeSantis declaimed that: “The people who have served there are proud of their service there,” adding “It’s an iconic name and iconic base, and we’re not gonna let political correctness run amok in North Carolina.” Pence followed the next day with very similar language. We confess we were not too steeped in knowledge about the man for whom the base was originally named – but Jamie McIntyre in his daily newsletter filled in some gaps informing us that: “The base was originally named in 1918 for Gen. Braxton Bragg, a Confederate general and slave owner, who, according to a 2016 biography, Braxton Bragg: The Most Hated Man of the Confederacy earned a reputation for incompetence, for wantonly shooting his own soldiers, and for losing battles.” Sounds pretty iconic.
OK, WE 'MIGHT' HAVE GOTTEN THAT ONE WRONG: About two months ago, The Dead Drop reported that “just about everyone’s bet” was that Admiral Lisa Franchetti would be nominated as the first woman Chief of Naval Operations and the first female member of the Joint Chiefs. This week, NBC News reported that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin instead has recommended to the President that Admiral Samuel Paparo, current head of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, will get the CNO job. At this writing – these are just “reports” – and nobody is going anywhere until the President formally nominates a candidate – and for that matter, until the Senate confirms the appointment which may not happen until Senator Tommy Tuberville (R, AL) lifts his stranglehold on senior promotions. One theory on why Austin may have recommended Paparo over Franchetti is the thought that his recent Pacific experience gives him a leg up on dealing with threats from China. We’re not sure we’re buying that – since he was widely expected to take over the joint U.S. Indo-Pacific Command next – which has a lot more to do with potential combat with China than does the CNO gig which is about recruiting, training, and equipping the U.S. fleet rather than warfighting.
INACCURATE REPORTS OF INACCURACY: Several major media outfits, like Politico, late last week reported that China is developing a spy base in Cuba, but the White House and Pentagon said those reports are “inaccurate.” Phew. But then a little while later, word emerged that what was inaccurate was not that the Chinese were planning on setting up such a base – but that it has been operational for several years. Administration officials, falling back on the “it didn’t happen on my watch” dodge, told journalists that “this is an issue that this administration inherited.” Seemingly, it took officials several days to get permission to reveal exactly what was inaccurate about the original report. Never mind, a source told CNN, the difference between planning on setting up a spy base and running one for several years was just “semantic quibbling.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters this week, that China’s interest in using Cuba as a spying platform has been addressed by this administration and that “Our experts assess that our diplomatic efforts have slowed down this effort by the PRC.” Exactly – and even partially how things were slowed down – was left unsaid. Meanwhile, pundits like Max Boot, writing in The Washington Post, asked the provocative question: “If the United States can spy on China, why can’t China spy on the U.S.?” It is unclear what China may be doing in Cuba. Maybe they are processing all that data they're getting from Tik Tok.
THE TRUTH IS (WAY) OUT THERE: If a whistle is blown in outer space – can it be heard? There is lots of news floating around about claims that the U.S. government has been hiding the fact that we are not alone – and that they have hard evidence of extraterrestrials having visited Planet Earth. But wait – there’s more. The Daily Mail tabloid quotes a lawyer named Daniel Sheehan says he was told by a whistleblower that the feds recovered a crashed UFO years ago and that when they went inside, it somehow “distorted space-time.” By this, he apparently means physical space – not outer space. Supposedly, a 30-foot saucer was found partially embedded in the earth many years ago – and the team that dug it out, selected one of their own to go inside (we’re betting it was the junior member of the team.) Whoever it was apparently reported that once inside – the 30-foot wreck was as big as a football stadium. The 36-year-old whistleblower is said to have given scores of classified documents to the DOD IG and some smaller subset to the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He didn’t give the SSCI staffers all the documents, however, because he said, some of their members didn’t have the right clearances. We're kinda wondering what clearances they need. Maybe TS-ET? (It could give an entirely new meaning to “Five Eyes.”) But fear not, Rep. James Comer (R, KY) chair of the House Oversight Committee, is planning hearings of his own about the claims, according to Salon. No doubt, there will be a lot of people trying to get into that (presumably closed-door) hearing. Maybe they can alter the time-space-continuum to make room bigger.
FELINE CURIOUS? The Dead Drop has mentioned a couple of times before, a forthcoming Paramount+ TV series called “Special Ops: Lioness” starring Zoe Saldaña, Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman. The show was reportedly inspired by a Marine Corps program where female Marines were assigned to search potential female insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. The TV series is about a fictional CIA version of the concept. The official trailer of the show has now dropped and we hear it debuts on Paramount+ July 23rd. We'll be watching.
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
SHAMELESS PLUG: Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly has been pretty active on LinkedIn, posting behind-the-scenes videos and photos from The Cipher Brief's recent below-the-radar trip to Kyiv, where they hosted more than 50 U.S. business professionals and more than 80 of their Ukrainian colleagues for a forum on economic and security issues. Yeah. In the midst of a war. We weren't exactly sure why they kept everything so 'hush hush' until we realized the number of Ukrainian government ministers who participated. We hear that is incredibly rare in Ukraine, so hats off. We also hear that more is coming from The Cipher Brief on the Ukraine story, so stay tuned.
WHAT IS THE PENALTY? Warning: this story is heart wrenching. North Korean big man Kim Jong-Un has reportedly issued a ban on suicide in his country calling it “treason against socialism.” Apparently, there has been a spike in the numbers of people committing suicide in the Hermit Kingdom. The Sun tabloid mentions the case of a ten-year-old boy and his grandmother, saying they took their own lives by eating rat poison after the boy’s parents died of starvation. We're just asking ourselves who should really be paying a penalty for this.
NO TANKS, DEERE: You must harvest your victories where you can. The Russian Ministry of Defense proudly released a video of what they said shows one of their attack helicopters “annihilating” German-made Leopard tanks in Ukraine. But analysis of the video seemed to show that the alleged Leopard was more likely a tractor used for work on farms, like this self-propelled John Deere sprayer. Hmmm, kinda makes you think the Russians are in to disinformation or something...
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