[MAIL] The espionage trial for a former CIA worker who was charged with leaking secrets published by WikiLeaks in 2017, began in New York on Tuesday.
Assistant US Attorney David Denton pointed at 30-year-old Joshua Adam Schulte in a Manhattan courtroom as he blamed him for the massive leak of secrets that was published by WikiLeaks in March 2017.
'This case is about the single biggest leak of classified information in the history of the CIA,' Denton said.
The leak was 'instantly devastating' to America's interests abroad, he said, because it exposed CIA operatives, brought intelligence gathering to a halt and left allies wondering whether the US could be trusted with sensitive information.
Years of work by the agency 'went up in smoke,' he said.
And he accused Schulte of continuing to try to leak secrets after his arrest from his jail cell by smuggling in a contraband cellphone and creating encrypted email and secret social media accounts.
'Joshua Schulte violated his oath to safeguard our country,' Denton said. 'He did it because he was angry and disgruntled at work.'
Sabrina Shroff, Schulte's defense lawyer, countered Denton's arguments by portraying the CIA as inept at securing its most sensitive files and said Schulte was an 'easy target' to try to blame because he 'antagonized almost every person there' before quitting for a $200,000-a-year position at a company in New York.
[NYPOST] A Florida man was arrested for allegedly hanging a veteran’s emotional support dog with an electrical cord ‐ because it was barking, according to new reports.
Robert Leroy Edwards, 38, was renting a room in a Manatee County home belonging to disabled Navy vet Richard Hunt’s adult son when the heart-breaking incident occurred early Wednesday, local media reported.
Midnight, Hunt’s emotional support dog, was also staying on the property ‐ and the man allegedly became enraged at the pooch’s barking and strangled the black lab to death with the cord, WFLA reported.
"[My son] called me hysterical," Hunt told WFTS. "He said someone is killing Midnight, he is killing Midnight. He is trying to hang her. He’s hanging her."
Edwards then allegedly woke Hunt’s other son, 16, who was sleeping in the home, and asked the teen to help hide the dog’s remains.
He refused ‐ so Edwards punched him, local authorities told the outlet.
Hunt’s older son walked outside to see what was going on ‐ only to be attacked by Edwards as well, the local sheriff’s office told the news station.
The older son then called 911, and Edwards was arrested for battery, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and torture charges ‐ two misdemeanors and a felony.
Deputies later found Midnight’s body hidden inside the family’s boat on the property.
"I can see [Midnight’s] face that last minute," Hunt told WFTS.
"I can see her struggling, not understanding what’s going on, my heart, I mean, he’s such a scumbag to have done that to her."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/05/2020 00:00 ||
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#1
Just have some common courtesy. No one wants to hear your flea bag bark all day.
Daniel arap Moi, a former schoolteacher who became Kenya’s longest-serving president and led the East African nation through years of repression and economic turmoil fueled by runaway corruption, dies at age 95. https://t.co/b8Z95MT4fM
#2
Didn't have the heart to mention this the other day, but I "dine" at a PE once every few years. It's never been a bit authentic -- no hawking (or whatever) from the kitchen... no tables of laughing Instagram models eating live monkey nuts... no half kilo of cabbage stalks per plate -- but the last time I was there, so was about half a tour bus of Chinese folks. Unusual sight, sure, but there they were, and chowing down, too.
ANd while I'm wandering... off pile (apols if similar previously posted; been that kind of week):
In a world ward full of inpatient curses,
Of impatient doctors and MRSAs,
Of vomit and viruses,
Questions that tire us...
Is one man obsessing on who stands up for nurses.
#5
It is an Arliss Loveless Model 86 chambered in 10x24mm Caseless with light armor piercing with explosive tips, which fire using a low energy Cerium alloy circuit to create an electronic field to activate the cartridge, eliminating the need for traditional mechanical firing mechanisms. With a ammo capacity of 20, the default setting is semi-auto, with a full auto burst of 200 rpm after a trigger depress lasting an entire second. These settings can be altered using a SetScan or Teleaudio Inducer.
[Federalist] President Donald Trump praised Tuskegee Airman and retired Brig. Gen. Charles McGee in his State of the Union Address Tuesday night. McGee served 30 years in the military and flew 409 aerial fighter combat missions.
McGee, who turned 100 years old Dec. 7, fought in World War II, the Korean War, and Vietnam and visited Trump in the Oval Office earlier in the day to have stars pinned to his uniform.
"Charles McGee was born in Cleveland, Ohio, one century ago. Charles is one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen, the first black fighter pilots," Trump explained. "A few weeks ago, I signed a bill promoting Charles McGee to brigadier general. ... Gen. McGee, our nation salutes you."
McGee was joined Tuesday in the House gallery by his great-grandson, Iain Lanphier, who was also introduced during the address to the nation as an aspiring fighter in the Space Force.
"Iain has always dreamed of going to space," Trump said. "He aspires to go to the Air Force Academy, and then he has his eye on the Space Force. As Iain says, ’Most people look up at space. I want to look down on the world.’"
Trump’s address comes amid the president’s highest approval rating among Americans since taking the Oval Office in 2017, with Gallup reporting a 49 percent approval rating for Trump despite an ongoing impeachment trial expected to wrap up Wednesday in the Senate. In contrast, Barack Obama only held a 46 percent approval rating at the same point in his presidency in 2012.
#3
Muammar Gaddafi was confronted by a Tuskegee airman in what can be considered a high noon stand off. The airman said that Gaddafi would have been dead before his gun could clear its holster, and Gaddafi knew it.
#8
#3Muammar Gaddafi was confronted by a Tuskegee airman in what can be considered a high noon stand off. The airman said that Gaddafi would have been dead before his gun could clear its holster, and Gaddafi knew it.
Posted by: Varmint Splat1454 2020-02-05 01:10
The airman in question was Chappie James. Read and be amazed.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/05/2020 20:35 Comments ||
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#9
“I told him to move his hand away. If he had pulled that gun, he never would have cleared his holster,” James recalled.
thanks, Mike
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/05/2020 20:38 Comments ||
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#10
Four weeks when we oughtta be happy:
"You crackas are actin' less crappy!"
Instead, it's the month
That "a nation confronth,"
And I'd trade ya the whole thing for Chappie...
a few of whose vital dates conveniently overlap the dreary interval. Born February 11, retired January 31, died February 25. Anyone up for renaming the month?
HT AOSHQ Sidebar
[Daily Mail - Where America gets its news] A Wuhan medic has said there are more deaths from coronavirus than reported, as patients are dying before they can even be tested for the virus.
Hospital worker Jeisi Luo, not his real name, also made the shocking claim that there are far more cases than official figures suggest, because the waiting list for diagnosis is too long.
Official figures from China claim there are 24,000 cases in the country, with 13,522 of these recorded in the virus epicentre and surrounding Hubei province, although the actual figure is suspected to be higher.
A video emerged two weeks ago from the province of a medical worker claiming there are as many as 90,000 cases in the city.
Footage filmed at Wuhan's Number Three hospital this week showed eight body bags loaded in a bus, with more allegedly added while the recorder was inside the hospital for five minutes.
Mr Luo warned that the problem lies in an inability to carry out enough nucleic acid tests (NAT), which diagnose the virus.
'When preliminary tests determine that a patient has a lung sickness, the nucleic acid test which detects the virus, cannot always be carried out because the waiting list is too long,' he told DW. 'The patient is therefore not diagnosed.'
He said medics were dealing with this crisis by 'prescribing medicine' and sending patients home to 'self-isolate'.
Had to kill CNBC to announce this. They'll "pounce" on any data showing the Coronavirus has cooled the next round...oh, wait. Only Republicans "pounce".
[CNBC] The jobs market kicked off 2020 in grand fashion, adding 291,000 in private payrolls for the best monthly gain since May 2015, according to a report Wednesday from ADP and Moody's Analytics.
That was well above the 150,000 estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones and more evidence that the U.S. still is a good distance from full employment even with the jobless rate at its lowest point in more than 50 years. The total also was a sharp gain from the 199,000 in December, which was revised down 3,000 from the initial count.
Growth came across a swath of industries.
Leisure and hospitality led with 96,000 new jobs, but education and health services also contributed 70,000 and professional and business services added 49,000. On the goods-producing side, construction rose by 47,000, the best growth since the 62,000 added in January 2019, and manufacturing was up 10,000, the biggest monthly gain since last February.
In all, services added 237,000 positions compared with 54,000 for goods producers. Trade transportation and utilities rose by 8,000, while the information and financial activities sectors contributed 2,000 apiece. Natural resources and mining was the sole loser with a drop of 2,000. Weather helps Damn that Trump and his clever weather controls!
"It's juiced by very mild winter weather," said Mark Zandi. "The fingerprints of that are all over this report."
Yet another disaster caused by global warming, amirite?
Leisure and hospitality and construction are both weather-sensitive and got boosts from the higher than normal temperatures and low precipitation.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/05/2020 10:15 ||
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[Ay-Pee, via SCMP] * US already uses at lower-yield air-launched nuclear weapons, but are arming subs with them for first time
* The yield, or destructive power, of the W76-2 is classified. But experts say it may be about 5 kilotons
The US military has deployed a new addition to its nuclear arsenal ‐ a long-range missile armed with a nuclear warhead of reduced destructive power. The so-called low-yield missile joins other, more powerful weapons aboard stealthy submarines prowling the oceans.
The debut deployment aboard long-range submarines, known as boomers, is a landmark in US nuclear weapons policy. It is the first major addition to the strategic nuclear arsenal in recent decades and is a departure from the Obama administration’s policy of lessening dependence on nuclear weapons in pursuit of a nuclear-free world.
In confirming the missile deployment to Associated Press, the Pentagon’s top policy official asserted that the weapon makes Americans safer by making nuclear war less likely. Critics, including some Democrats in Congress, call it a dangerous excess that increases the risk of war.
The W76-2 has been fitted atop an undisclosed number of Trident ballistic missiles carried aboard the US Navy’s Ohio-class submarines.
The US military has deployed a new addition to its nuclear arsenal ‐ a long-range missile armed with a nuclear warhead of reduced destructive power. The so-called low-yield missile joins other, more powerful weapons aboard stealthy submarines prowling the oceans.
The debut deployment aboard long-range submarines, known as boomers, is a landmark in US nuclear weapons policy. It is the first major addition to the strategic nuclear arsenal in recent decades and is a departure from the Obama administration’s policy of lessening dependence on nuclear weapons in pursuit of a nuclear-free world.
In confirming the missile deployment to Associated Press, the Pentagon’s top policy official asserted that the weapon makes Americans safer by making nuclear war less likely. Critics, including some Democrats in Congress, call it a dangerous excess that increases the risk of war.
John Rood, the undersecretary of defence for policy, said in an AP interview Monday that adding the "low-yield" warhead, known as the W76-2, to submarines which tote Trident II ballistic missiles lowers the risk of nuclear war. He said the United States will continue its stated policy of using nuclear weapons only in "extraordinary circumstances". He also said the warhead will help the United States dissuade Russia from risking launching a limited nuclear conflict.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/05/2020 10:54 ||
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#1
Our nukes are a lot more accurate than the Hiroshima one now, and we don't need to take out entire cities. One 5kt nuke in a port and oil storage is enough to cripple that city's strategic worth for a good while.
[Guns America] The APC9 K Pro is a Swiss-made submachine gun that recently won a contract with the US Army. As a replacement for the MP5, it’s a mighty good package.
#2
1080 cyclic and a 20 or 30 round magazine? Three round 'BrrPS' if you have a good trigger, so, what? Five or six 'brrps' and you switch mags? Gun Review: B&T APC9
[Mil.com via Task & Purpose] U.S. Army and British soldiers will participate in a force-on-force experiment next month to test out battlefield techs ranging from thermal-defeating woobies to exoskeleton knee braces.
The Maneuver Battle Lab at Fort Benning, Georgia, will host the Army Expeditionary Warrior Experiments (AEWE) 2020 from Feb. 4 to March 17. A platoon of British soldiers will join two platoons from Benning's Experimental Company to fight against an opposing force (OPFOR) made up of a platoon from the 4th Infantry Division in an effort to create a realistic environment for evaluating dozens of prototype technologies, such as unmanned aerial systems, communications gear and sophisticated sensors.
"All units, including the OPFOR, will have advanced capabilities, so what we are trying to replicate is not only what an opposing force might have now, but what they might have in the future," Eddie Davis, director of the Maneuver Battle Lab, told Military.com. "It kind of levels the playing field because other armies are getting advanced to a certain degree, so we want to make sure we are fighting a challenging threat."
One piece of kit soldiers will test is a thermal-signature defeating blanket similar to the beloved poncho liner or soldier "woobie."
"That is kind of what intrigues us because we have looked at thermal-defeating blankets, as a loose term in the past, and they have worked, but they were very rigid, very difficult to carry," Davis said.
"So this could potentially serve as similar thing you do with a poncho liner and also have thermal-defeating capability. That is interesting to us. It gives us the ability to hide ourselves from the thermal signature, which is pretty deadly," he added.
The experiment will also evaluate unmanned aerial systems that have been modified to transport blood to forward areas for emergency medical treatment.
"To deliver blood on the battlefield -- it's very sensitive to temperature ... so this is just showing an application that says if you have a drone available that we could get whole blood to the forward edge of the battlefield," Davis said, adding that Benning looked at a similar technology during last year's AEWE.
"Last year, we got three days where it kept it the temperature within the band of acceptability, so that is interesting," he said.
Throughout the exercise, soldiers will also have a limited number of pneumatic exoskeleton braces, made by Roam Robotics, for the knee and ankle that are designed to increase performance and reduce fatigue while running, climbing or carrying heavy loads.
"We are making exoskeletons in a different way and, as opposed to the metals and motors that dominate traditional machines, we are making new devices that are primarily made out of fabrics and plastics," according to a promotional video on the firm's website. "The concept is really simple -- power is good and weight is bad. We can add more power for less weight than any machine we have seen to date."
#5
I would think those aluminum foil looking sleeping bags would hide your signature pretty well. Make the lining out of that and your big concern might be overheating.
#6
I would think those aluminum foil looking sleeping bags would hide your signature pretty well.
They can, kinda. Does stop showing a body, but you will see heat leakage from the open ends. It will look like someone hiding under a blanket.
The best way is to either use a lot of leaves and sticks over you or mud/water. With an emergency blanket over you, covered in a several inch layer of leaves and branches you will be very hard to see on thermals.
But that is also why police use dogs in tandem with thermals.
[The Firearm Blog] If the Ultimate gun safe ever existed this is probably it. Florida-based Big Daddy Unlimited is now offering the The Continental Safe ‐ styled after the one seen in John Wick III.
You don’t just get the safe. This is a "lifestyle safe" to attract fans of John Wick, and possibly others, with a superb collection of firearms and custom automatic knives. As you probably already imagined suppliers like Taran Tactical and Microtech Knives are involved.
The safe itself is supplied by AMSEC Safes, and is painted in Metallic Hunter Green with hand-painted 24K Gold Leaf details. Yup, there’s also a hidden liquor cabinet in there.
As the safe comes with a luxury leather sofa I suggest you tell you’re wife you just "bought some furniture", and as a piece of friendly advice I suggest you don’t show her the invoice.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
02/05/2020 00:00 ||
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Disappointed in Wick 3; in fact kinda stopped watching after Halle Berry's character was introduced. I hadn't seen such a poor rage-sassy black woman gangster performance since Hillary!.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[MAIL] The espionage trial for a former CIA worker who was charged with leaking secrets published by WikiLeaks in 2017, began in New York on Tuesday. 
[NYPOST] A Florida man was arrested for allegedly hanging a veteran’s emotional support dog with an electrical cord ‐ because it was barking, according to new reports.
Edwards then allegedly woke Hunt’s other son, 16, who was sleeping in the home, and asked the teen to help hide the dog’s remains.
[Federalist] President Donald Trump praised Tuskegee Airman and retired Brig. Gen. Charles McGee in his State of the Union Address Tuesday night. McGee served 30 years in the military and flew 409 aerial fighter combat missions.
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[Ay-Pee, via SCMP] * US already uses at lower-yield air-launched nuclear weapons, but are arming subs with them for first time
