ROGAN RUSHES TO DEFEND CANADA’S FREEDOM: Everyone agrees that Donald Trump did his candidacy a LOT of good by spending a whopping two hours and 59 minutes with superstar podcaster Joe Rogan last October 25. Rogan’s wildly popular podcast boasts about 19.5 million subscribers, most believed to be men under the age of 35. Rogan wasn’t holding back though in his (March 14) podcast with Michael Kosta of the Daily Show, of his strong feelings of disapproval over Trump’s attacks on Canada. “We gotta become friends with Canada again. This is so ridiculous. I can't believe that there's like anti-American and anti-Canadian sentiment going on. It's the dumbest f***ing feud.” Rogan went on to say, “I don't really think they should be our 51st state. There, I said it.”
SWAG TO CALL HOME ABOUT: Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., visiting Israel recently, received a bit of swag from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – a silver replica of an explosive-laden pager that the Israeli spy agency ingeniously got into the hands of Hezbollah fighters, then initiated the explosives, killing more than 30 and wounding thousands last September. “What can I give a man who has everything? How about giving him a beeper?” Netanyahu said, according to the English language newspaperThe Forward. “This is a silver-plated beeper. The real beeper is, like, one-tenth the weight. It’s nothing, but it changes history.” During his visit to the White House last month, Netanyahu gave President Donald Trump a replica pager, plated in gold, of course.
PLUGGING LEAKS: Just about every administration seems to go through a stage when they kvetch like crazy over ‘leaks’. (Remember the Nixon-era White House plumbers?) Well, the Trump ’47 administration seems to have reached that stage in record time, this time around. The New York Times reports that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has launched an investigation into who may have leaked information to the Washington Post about Israel and Iran and separately, who may have leaked information to NBC News about US-Russia relations. The Times says it’s unclear if any of the information that was ‘leaked’ was classified but clearly, the administration is vowing to hold those who were responsible, “accountable.” It’s interesting to note – as The Times did – that during her confirmation hearing, Gabbard struggled mightily to not come down hard on Edward Snowden who of course, leaked classified information on an industrial scale causing extensive damage to U.S. national security. We have an idea – how about holding him accountable? Now, we know that could prove difficult since he currently resides in Russia and all, but with the warming of relations between Washington and Moscow, why shouldn’t the U.S. benefit somehow from this ‘warmth’ and hold Snowden ‘accountable’?
WHAT (ELSE) COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? According to recent press reports, DNI Gabbard had settled on retired Army LTC Daniel Davis as one of her top deputies and one of his main responsibilities was going to be coordinating what goes in the President’s Daily Brief. While Davis has no intelligence background, he does have history as a podcaster. Davis’ chances of ending up at Liberty Crossing (the home of the DNI) took a dive though, when folks noticed that his public comments often seemed pro-Putin – which might seem to make him fit right in on some levels, but he has also been very loudly anti-Israel – which is generally frowned on in the Trump administration. According to an article by David Corn in Mother Jones, Davis and his podcast guests liked to criticize Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky while heaping praise on Vladimir Putin for his ‘brilliant’ handling of the war. In the end though it seems that his seemingly pro-Hamas stance may have been what caused Gabbard to reverse herself on giving Davis the Daily Brief gig.
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BRIEFCASE: Well, the briefcase itself isn’t missing – just what was in it. The Daily Mail reports that about 74 years ago, when British spy Guy Burgess defected to Moscow, he left behind two briefcases at a members-only club, “one locked and another stuffed with letters, papers and photographs,” asking that one “should be left for Anthony Blunt, a fellow Soviet spy who was able to dispose of any incriminating papers before handing over the briefcases to MI5 when the defection emerged.” The British National Archives will soon put on exhibition an empty briefcase along with some other artifacts in a first-of-its-kind (for MI5) display. The exhibition will run from April 5 to September 28th. The former contents of the briefcase might be even more interesting – but you’d probably have to travel to Moscow to see those.
WHEN YOU CARE ENOUGH TO SCREEN THE VERY WORST: The hallmark of a national security wonk is that they will watch almost any war movie. So, we were intrigued recently when Military.com ran a story listing “The Worst War Movies Ever Made.” The list wan’t exactly scientific but rather was the result of solicitation aimed at servicemembers and veterans. Coming in dead last on their list (meaning it was the best of the worst?) was the 2008 flick “The Hurt Locker” which some felt did serious damage to the public’s understanding of the role of explosive ordnance disposal personnel. There were some oldies but baddies on the list too – like the 1968 “The Green Berets” featuring none other than John Wayne. Judging from the trailer for that film, it appears the Vietnam war was fought before the invention of helmets since the Green Berets went into battle wearing – well, green berets. Rounding out the list of must-miss-movies was “anything on the Hallmark Channel” – which is hard to argue with.
WHEN YOU DON’T CARE WHO YOU COPY: The independent online publication The Insider, founded by Russian journalist and activist Roman Dobrokhotov, and operating out of Riga, Latvia, published a piece last week titled “Poster boy: Six instances of Kremlin disinformation amplified through Elon’s Musk’s social network.” The title is a little misleading since the Kremlin disinformation cited is not just amplified on the social network Musk owns – but by Musk’s personal posts on X. The Insider shows a half dozen examples of Musk echoing bogus information about things like whether Ukrainian President Zelensky is a “dictator” or that USAID was sponsoring terrorism or spreading COVID-19.
THERE’S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE, BUT WHAT IT IS AIN’T EXACTLY CLEAR: According to a report on ABC News, the White House recently took the unusual step of ordering the FBI to stand down on conducting background checks on people appointed to senior positions and instead ordered the Pentagon to do the vetting. While the Pentagon has lots of experience conducting investigations for issuing security clearances – the Bureau has traditionally been in charge of checking out White House aides. Many Trump administration officials are reported to be distrustful of the Bureau. Whether that played in this decision…is anyone’s guess.
NOT A LAUGHING MATTER: The Russian government has arrested stand-up comedian Artemy Ostanin, after complaints about a joke he told about meeting a legless beggar on the Moscow subway. Reuters says the head of a public movement named “Zov Noroda” (Call the People) complained that the fictional beggar might have been a Ukraine war casualty – and therefore Ostanin should not be allowed to mock someone who might have lost limbs in the ‘special military operation’. The comedian was taken into custody while trying to enter Belarus and charged with “inciting hatred and debasing human dignity, an offence that carries a jail term of up to six years.”
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
GIVING EAR WORMS A BAD NAME: The folks at “The Spy Collection” have inexplicably chosen to post another “music” video on YouTube. This one is called “Spies Gonna Spy” and it was “written with a combination of traditional songwriting methods and generative AI technologies.” Here is just a small sample of the lyrics: “Now ready for extraction, Bug out bags, ready for action, Spy, Spies gonna spy, Don't hide, Don't try, Spies, Spies. Spies ,Spies gonna spy.” Kinda sounds like something you might play on a loop at a black site to get terrorists to confess – to anything.
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