PUTIN TO BUD LIGHT: “HOLD MY BEER” Russia’s “Special Military Operation” has also turned into a war of words. Russian President Vladimir Putin was reportedly peeved last week, when a group of Kremlin critics met in Prague. To display his distaste, Putin declared that Czech beer contains “female sex hormones.” That’ll show ‘em. Of course, the critics in Prague got off easy compared to the trouble brewing for naysayers closer to Vlad’s reach. Also last week, another Russian official who had been opposed to the invasion of Ukraine, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Pyotr Kucherenko, 46, died of an unknown ailment on a flight back from Cuba to Russia. The number of prominent Russians who have fallen out of windows, unexpectedly committed suicide or otherwise mysteriously died after criticizing Putin, is now in double digits. Maybe they all just chugged some bad beer.
I NOW PRONOUN YOU…. What’s in a name? And more to the point, what’s in a pronoun? In the case of the State Department – potentially a lot of trouble. It seems that IT officials at Foggy Bottom were road testing a new feature they were hoping to roll out on the State Department’s Microsoft Outlook email system. The idea was to give users the option of including their preferred pronouns such as she/her/hers, he/him/his etc. in the “from” field of outgoing communications. But something went haywire during the test and the computer (whose pronoun we assume is “it”) started randomly assigning pronouns to employees without their consent. Chief Information Officer Kelly E. Fletcher (no pronoun provided) said in an internal email that “the feature inadvertently went live, and a large number of employees had randomly assigned pronouns added to their profiles.” According to Mediaite, some State Department employees said they were “triggered” by getting the wrong pronoun assigned to them. As a result, the department is encouraging “any employee who feels hurt or upset as a result of this unfortunate mistake,” to seek professional counseling through the State Department’s Employee Consultation Service.
SHOOT THE MESSENGER: Trust us, we know that launching an online news site is not easy. So we were interested in a recent New York Times story about a fledgling site called “The Messenger” which began operations a little more than a week ago. When The Messenger launched, it had 175 journalists on staff and an initial bankroll of $50 million. Within a week, there was infighting among top staff and one senior editor resigned in a huff. Since we had never heard of the site, we thought we would check it out and immediately spotted a story in our wheelhouse. The headline blared: “‘The Diplomat’ Season 2: Cast, Release Date, and Everything to Know.” Since many Dead Drop readers love the Netflix series, and others love to hate it – we thought we would see what we could learn from The Messenger. Not much. The article says - Release date? unknown, Cast? Keri Russell yes – she was quoted elsewhere as saying she is thrilled to return to this “smart, screwball show.” Everyone else in the cast? unknown. Plot for season 2? Dunno. Season 2 trailer? Not produced. Number of episodes? Maybe 8…maybe more…maybe less. Well, $50 million and 175 journalists can only find out so much.
A BILLION HERE, A BILLION THERE: “Pretty soon you are talking about real money,” to quote the late Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen. Last week, the Pentagon discovered that due to an accounting error, the Defense Department had at least an additional $3 billion laying around to provide assistance to the Ukrainian military. It seems Pentagon bean counters mistakenly were counting how much it would cost them to replace items they were shipping off to Ukraine – rather than how much Uncle Sam paid for the stuff in the first place. CNN’s Jake Tapper observed to National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, “That’s a hell of an accounting error!” Hey, who among us hasn’t found a few bucks stuffed in their jeans pocket or some loose change under the sofa cushions?
WHAT THE GENERAL MEANT TO SAY: There have been some conflicting accounts of what Major General Kyrylo Budanov said on the Ukrainian YouTube channel Rizni Lyudi recently. Initially it appeared that Budanov was confirming that Kyiv has been assassinating Russian propagandists – perhaps inside Russia, saying Ukraine had “successfully targeted quite a few people.” Budanov didn’t provide any names or details and Ukraine had previously denied involvement in several high-profile killings in Russia. In subsequent comments, however, Budanov said some of his remarks about “killing Russians anywhere in the world” had been misinterpreted and that “the most important part” of his comments had been left out – that he was speaking only about Russians who are war criminals, who have committed crimes against humanity, crimes such as gang rapes, rapes of minors, murders…It was about them. That clarification was removed from the quote.”
WHAT SCOTT RITTER ACTUALLY SAID: We apologize for carrying items about dumb stuff said by former UN weapons inspector and convicted felon, Scott Ritter, in Russia for three consecutive weeks now but he keeps saying more jaw droppingly dumb stuff that is impossible to ignore. In this week’s edition (once again thanks to Russian Media Monitor Julia Davis) Ritter continues on his book tour of Russia where he advised his Russian TV host in a lengthy interview on how Russia can defeat America and Ukraine, Ritter once again asked the Russian people to forgive America, said there is no freedom of speech in the US, predicted a Russian win in Ukraine by summer or early fall and rued the fact that a Russian girl would not take a picture with him. He said the reason for that denial was because he is American – but perhaps she was just familiar with the real reason why he went to prison for three years.
WE INTERRUPT THIS BAD NEWS FOR SOMETHING UPLIFTING: There was a great piece in The Washington Timeson Monday about an event at the Spyscape Museum in New York where former CIA operations officer (and current Cipher Brief expert) Dan Hoffman and others gathered to raise money for children fighting cancer. The event, run by the Jessie Rees Foundation, included an auction of artifacts including a Ukrainian flag signed by Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander of Ukraine’s armed forces and a Ukrainian national soccer jersey with the number 46 – which is said to be about the number of children who are diagnosed with cancer every day. The jersey also carried the Foundation’s motto: “Never Ever Give Up.”
POCKET LITTER: Dead Droplets and bits and pieces of interesting /weird stuff we discovered:
PURE NONSENSE: When we first saw this, we thought it might be satire built by artificial intelligence – but apparently there was not a lot of intelligence - artificial or real - that went into the latest post-government activities of retired Lt Gen. Michael Flynn. Apparently, (and we say “apparently” because we are still having trouble believing it) Flynn is a “founding member” and president of the advisory board for “4thePure” a dating site for anti-vaxxers. The organization’s website says it is “an online community where health-conscious individuals who have rejected the COVID-19 vaccine can connect and find everything they need — friendships, dating, curated news, service providers, doctors, blood donors, fertility options, jobs, shopping, events, etc. — with an endgame of supporting one another, preserving the gene pool and growing a community of the free.” There is a video of Flynn standing in front of an artificially-generated waving American flag touting the virtues of joining 4thePure. Good news – you too can be a “founding member” for only $2500 which will get you 25% off 4thePure merch and invited to special events presumably where you can explore fertility options with fellow unvaccinated true believers. Former DIA Directors and National Security advisors have to make a buck, we guess.
BAT S#$%: We recently spotted an item about Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, the Virginia man who is accused of attacking two members of Rep. Gerry Connolly’s staff in Fairfax, VA with a metal baseball bat. It seems there were multiple signs prior to the attack that Pham had some – well, issues. For example, his father told reporters that Pham at various times blamed the FBI and the Navy for making him sick. And in 2022, Pham sued the CIA in federal court for “wrongfully imprisoning me in a lower perspective” and “brutally torturing me…from the fourth dimension.”
WE PREFER THE FIFTH DIMENSION: Send us news tips that will help put this screwball world into perspective. Send them to us at: TheDeadDrop@theCipherBrief.com.
ONE LINK YOU CAN CLICK: Today’s constant barrage of information makes it easy for countries to wage disinformation campaigns and your emotions are the weapon of choice. Learn how disinformation works and how we can fight it in this short video. This is one link you can feel good about sharing.
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