The Dead Drop

TRUMP THIS: A group of more than 100 national security experts signed an open letter this week pledging to work “energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office” of president as Donald Trump. There are a lot of familiar names in the group – people who describe themselves as representing a “broad spectrum of opinion” from the Republican party. Late last week, Trump announced that Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL) would be Chairman of his National Security Advisory Committee.  The announcement from his campaign said that Trump “will continue to announce members of his National Security Advisory Committee…over the next few weeks.” At this writing, no additional names have emerged.  The Dead Drop is very interested in who will be on that list.  If you hear some before the announcement…drop us a note. Marco Rubio released his National Security Advisory Council on Monday (with a fair number of names overlapping from the open letter bashing Trump).

SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION:  White House Homeland Security adviser Lisa Monaco announced in a speech earlier this week that soon the administration would release their count of combatant and non-combatant casualties resulting from drone strikes outside of major war zones since 2009.  The Dead Drop applauds this step to bolster “transparency.” But we can’t help but wonder how long the government will continue to pretend that the name of “the Agency” responsible for many of the strikes is still classified. When certain strikes occur, the Pentagon will quickly tell you, “that wasn’t us!”  We guess you are just supposed to assume terrorists (and those standing near them) periodically explode through magic.