Tag Archives: freedom

Incidental Unmasking

Posted on by
Reply

Now we know that then-National Security Advisor to then-President Barack Obama (D) Susan Rice asked several times for American names to be unmasked that had been masked since their presence in communications of foreign nationals that were being legitimately monitored was entirely incidental to the communications and the reasons for which those communications were being monitored.

Rice’s requests were strictly legal; the NSA incumbent is one of the Executive Branch officials with the legal authority to ask for, and to receive, the names to be unmasked without having first to go through a court, even the secretive Star Chamber FISA court.

There are a couple of questions, though, that aren’t being answered.  One is why she asked for these unmaskings.  NSA could have entirely legitimate reasons for that, but the names for which she asked seem centered on then-President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign and transition team members.

The other question concerns how long such unmasking, whether by Rice or by others of Obama’s administration, had been going on.

Well, It’s About Time, Ollie

Posted on by
Reply

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has spoken up in a way contrary to his predecessors regarding our policy—our very attitude—toward northern Korea.

Let me be very clear: the policy of strategic patience has ended[.]

That’s not just on Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, though.  Our various administrations have tried for 20 years, or more, the idea of talking, cajoling, bribing (to the tune of $1.35 billion in “aid”) northern Korea’s various Kim dictators.  Baby Kim, in glad response, has only accelerated his drive for sticking nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles (he already has the warheads and the missiles).

Talking is nearly always a better first step than shooting, and we tried that.  Now, though, it’s become time—it’s way past time—to do something else, to stop repeating Einsteinian insanity.

Among the somethings else is taking a harder line vis-à-vis the People’s Republic of China.

Mr Tillerson noted that China has been punishing South Korea economically because Seoul is deploying America’s THAAD missile-defense system. “This is not the way for a regional power to help resolve what is a serious threat to everyone,” he said, referring to China. “We instead urge China to address the threat that makes THAAD necessary.”

(It’ll be interesting, too, to see the PRC’s reaction to being called a regional power rather than the global one to which the Warring State is aspiring.)

Other somethings else include increasing further the missile and other defense capabilities of the Republic of Korea, Japan, us, and other friendly and allied nations in the region or with interests in it and the relatively explicit possibility of military strikes ranging from shooting down northern Korean missile launches, whether test or otherwise, to striking northern Korea’s missile launch facilities, nuclear facilities, and long-range artillery facilities that might be used to try to retaliate against Seoul.

Other somethings else include more direct action against the PRC and its interests: barring PRC business enterprises that do business with or in northern Korea from the US financial system.

Dismembering Government?

Posted on by
Reply

If the advance word leaks about President Donald Trump’s upcoming budget proposal can be believed, it would appear that his swamp-draining and Government downsizing are about to get start.  And “news” outlets like CNN are getting their panties bunched over the prospect.  This is from this outlet’s piece, tellingly headlined Trump’s plan to dismember government:

It would codify an assault on regulatory regimes over the environment, business and education bequeathed by former President Barack Obama, and attempt to halt decades of steadily growing government reach.

And this:

Slicing up government power is part of a deeper antipathy towards institutions and the political establishment that runs deep in the Trump White House.

Yewbetcha. And among us poor, dumb, gun-toting, Bible-clinging, irredeemably deplorable denizens of flyover country, too.

And this from The Washington Post, albeit a bit less strident than CNN:

President Trump’s budget proposal this week would shake the federal government to its core if enacted, culling back numerous programs and expediting a historic contraction of the federal workforce.

And this from the Post‘s cite of Robert Reischauer, of an earlier time’s CBO:

These are not the kind of cuts that you can accommodate by tightening the belt one notch, by shaving a little bit off of a program, or by downsizing a few staff here or there.  These are cuts that would require a wholesale triage of a vast array of federal activities.

Dismember government: ’tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.

Of What are they Afraid?

Posted on by
Reply

The People’s Republic of China has been vociferously objecting to the US deploying a missile defense system—THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense)—in the Republic of Korea, with the RoK’s blessing and at their behest.  The PRC has begun taking economic retaliatory actions against the RoK and threatening the Koreans and us with further, more serious action if we don’t desist.

So my question.

Ankit Panda, writing for The Diplomat, offered some thoughts last week, one of which centers on the PRC’s concern that the THAAD deployment, relying as it does on a particular radar system—two of which already are deployed in Japan—would let the US degrade a PRC second nuclear strike against the US.  To be clear: a second strike is an ability of one nation to respond to another nation’s (first) nuclear strike with a nuclear strike of its own, the second strike of an exchange.

Since it doesn’t matter that THAAD is incapable of intercepting the PRC’s ICBMs en route to the US, and the US has no offensive interest in the PRC (and not to put too fine a point on it, neither do the RoK or Japan, and neither of them have a nuclear capability even were they offensive minded), I have to wonder why the PRC objects so harshly to a nation having the capability to defend itself against a rogue nation, gang-run, that’s bent on developing nuclear missiles of intermediate and intercontinental range.  Especially when that same rogue nation constantly threatens Armageddon against the RoK.

Especially when that rogue nation is a client of the PRC.

As Panda put it,

To avoid the need for a massive nuclear build-up and to feel comfortable with its several hundred or so nuclear warheads for targeting, China needs to feel comfortable enough its intercontinental ballistic missiles can reliably penetrate US antiballistic missile countermeasures.

Just what are the Warring State PRC’s plans vis-à-vis the US?

What are the Warring State’s plans, via its madchild-run client, vis-à-vis the RoK?

Privacy

Posted on by
Reply

Cross-posted from my comment on the matter at Grim’s Hall and based on a CNN article.

From Comey’s quote as provided by CNN:

There is no such thing as absolute privacy in America….

That’s his (cynically offered, because I don’t agree he’s either as stupid or as ignorant as he’d have to be otherwise) straw man; he’ll have to play with his dolly without me.

He also has distorted (deliberately, if not from his lack of understanding, coming from Government’s perspective as he does) what the Founders wrought:

Our founders struck a bargain that is at the center of this amazing country of ours and has been for over two centuries.

No. Not even close. Our Founders allocated to the Federal government a strictly limited set of authorities and powers to execute them. There was, and is, no bargain other than the one that exists between any employer and employee: do your job, or I’ll fire you. And as one of our social compact documents puts it on two occasions, at gunpoint if needs be.

Full stop.

Perhaps this distorted view of things is near the core of his failures to perform–three times–vis-à-vis Hillary Clinton during the campaign, and again since the inauguration.