Trump Signs EO Closing Cyber Security Loopholes

Statement from National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien | The White House

“…….Building upon the Trump Administration’s unprecedented actions to prevent malign actors from infiltrating our information technology and communication and services (ICTS) supply chains, this Executive Order, “Taking Additional Steps to Address the National Emergency with Respect to Significant Malicious Cyber-Enabled Activities,” reduces malign actors’ access to and ability to use United States ICTS products for nefarious purposes.

Foreign malicious cyber actors threaten our economy and national security through the theft of intellectual property and sensitive data, and by targeting United States critical infrastructure. By gaining access to United States IaaS products, foreign actors can steal the fruits of American innovation and prepare destructive attacks on our Nation’s critical infrastructure with anonymity. Malign actor abuse of United States IaaS products has played a role in every cyber incident during the last four years, including the actions resulting in the penetrations of United States firms FireEye and Solar Winds.”

National Guard Chief Says 65,000 Soldiers And Airmen In DC Now

I came across this video in which National Guard Bureau chief Dan Hokanson says that 65,000 soldiers and airmen of the NG [3 times the number being reported in the media] are on the ground in DC.

Trump Protects Law Enforcement Officers, Judges, & Prosecutors

On Jan 18, Potus issued an executive order protecting law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors and their families from threats to their lives and security in the course of performing their duties.

While offices and prosecutors already possess the right to carry a concealed fire arm, the order cuts out the red tape involved, allows for deputizing prosecutors as US marshals, and newly bestows the right to carry concealed weapons to judges.

In addition, investigations of crimes against the foregoing categories will be prioritized and they will be allowed to withhold private information from the public record for their safety.

With this EO, it certainly looks like the Trump administration is preparing carefully for the arrests of powerful people who might be inclined to threaten retribution against officers of the law and the courts for doing their jobs.

The following events are relevant here:

Governor Brian Kemp was probably dissuaded from coming clean on the corruption in the Georgia election and the facts about his relationship with Dominion Voting Systems by the fiery death in very suspicious circumstances of a young intern Harrison Deal. Deal was engaged to the governor’s daughter.
The agent rumored to be investigating the crime was found dead shortly thereafter, leading to speculation that he had been killed as a result of the investigation.

Justice Roberts was said to have been intimidated by the possibility of rioting by left wing groups when he side stepped the substantive issues involved and made the decision to turn down Texas’ election lawsuit on procedural grounds.

On January 14, 2021 indictments were unsealed in New York against 14 of the top bosses of   MS-13, considered to be one of the most dangerous transnational crime gangs, one involved in human and drug trafficking right across Central America. MS-13 gang members act as the foot soldiers of the Mexican drug cartels, selling methamphetamine across borders. The Mexican cartels themselves are the end point of transnational drug shipments that start as far afield as China. The indictments came as a result of Trump’s whole-government approach to prosecuting transnational criminal gangs and they charge the gang leaders with terrorist -related crimes.

“Specifically, the indictment charges the defendants with conspiracy to provide and conceal material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, conspiracy to finance terrorism and narco-terrorism conspiracy in connection with the defendants’ leadership of the transnational criminal organization over the past two decades from El Salvador, the United States, Mexico and elsewhere.”

6. Thousands of Chinese researchers who concealed their ties to the Chinese government/military have left their posts and returned  to China fearing arrest, after the arrest of six of them who lied on their visa applications about their ties to the People’s Liberation Army. Other high-profile cases include the arrest of Dr. Charles Lieber, chairman of Harvard’s chemistry department, who received tens of thousands in grant money from the Wuhan Institute of Technology and lied about it to the Pentagon as well as a  top MIT professor who received $19 million in federal grants while concealing his contracts and other ties with PRC entities and has been charged with grant fraud by the DOJ.

The new EO has been issued to make sure that powerful people do not intimidate the officials prosecuting Trump’s war on criminal transnational networks that are operating to corrupt our elections, steal vital research, traffic drugs and human beings between the US and other countries and then launder the proceeds of these activities.

It is a clear sign that he anticipates still more arrests of powerful and dangerous bad actors.

The Mental Gulag Is Here (Update)

Mind-reading passengers for terrorist potential – (note, potential) i.e. “thought crimes” – is here, folks, and seriously being batted about by Homeland Security:

“The aim of one company that blends high technology and behavioral psychology is hinted at in its name, WeCU — as in “We See You.”
The system that Israeli-based WeCU Technologies has devised and is testing in Israel projects images onto airport screens, such as symbols associated with a certain terrorist group or some other image only a would-be terrorist would recognize, said company CEO Ehud Givon.
Continue reading

Obama Heads UN Security Council..

“Barack Obama will cement the new co-operative relationship between the US and the United Nations this month when he becomes the first American president to chair its 15-member Security Council.

The topic for the summit-level session of the council on September 24 is nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament – one of several global challenges that the US now wants to see addressed at a multinational level.

“The council has a very important role to play in preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons, and it’s the world’s principal body for dealing with global security cooperation,” Susan Rice, US envoy to the UN, said last week.

Her remarks were the latest by the Obama administration to emphasise a shift from the strategy of the previous Bush administration, sometimes criticised by its UN partners for seeking to use the world body principally to endorse its own unilateral policies. The US currently holds the month-long rotating presidency of the Security Council…”

More at the Financial Times.

My Comment:

Did I read that right? The way to shift away from the Bush administration’s tendency to use the UN to endorse its own unilateral policies is to put Obama at the head of the UN Security Council??
Am I missing something here? How does this represent a shift away? Isn’t it more like coming out of the closet on it?

Travel Like a Libertarian….

A new piece with some travel tips at Lew Rockwell.

Here’s the opening:

“A while ago I wrote an article suggesting that for some libertarians it might be time to run.

I still think it is. But I also think your journey abroad should be reasoned and carefully planned, or it could leave you worse off, not better. Run smart, not stupid.

To help you do that, here are some things I’ve learned from years of going back and forth across the world. I’ve grouped them under four headings that express fundamental elements of a libertarian stance in the world.

Connectivity (the free market is all about communicating and persuading)
Security (libertarians should take the initiative in defending themselves)
Simplicity (less always makes for more independence)
Flexibility (don’t resist change; it’s the essence of the free market)