Althouse: At the Cosmic Bucky Café...

July 23, 2018

At the Cosmic Bucky Café...

... the sky's the limit.

40 comments:

Anonymous said...: Behind a paywall at the WSJ. Headline: Satellite Images Indicate North Korea Has Started Dismantling Primary Nuclear Test Site

First three paragraphs: "Satellite imagery shows North Korea has begun taking down its main satellite launch facility, an apparent confidence-building measure by Pyongyang amid concerns about the slow pace of progress on dismantling the country’s nuclear weapons programs.

North Korea has begun to raze its rocket engine test stand and assembly plant at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station, the country’s primary launch site for rockets since 2012, according to new imagery published Monday by North Korea-focused website 38 North.

The move, which hasn’t yet been announced by North Korea’s state media, is an apparent follow-through on a promise that President Donald Trump said was made to him during his June 12 summit meeting in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un."

If true, real progress!; 7/23/18, 8:15 PM
Sprezzatura said...: This fancy rodent/skunk looks great.

Classy!; 7/23/18, 8:28 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Khesanh 0802:

You can bypass the WSJ and go straight to the source here. I would also recommend 38North in general for all things North Korea and nuclear related. This seems to coincide with improvements at their nuclear research facility, which the same site also details. Interesting development and certainly something to keep an eye on.; 7/23/18, 8:32 PM
Hagar said...: I do not think the argument that former high officials should retain their security clearances so that their advice can be solicited if a situation should arise about which they might have valuable information to contribute.
They do not need clearances to be asked about things they already know.

And as for the six under consideration here, the case is that some of their past actions that are now becoming known, and their present public statements are absolutely unacceptable for persons in any way connected with national security issues. These people have not acted, and are not acting, as non-partisan professional civil servants.
In fact, for at least half of them, their mental balance might be questioned; heir recent statements have been that far out.; 7/23/18, 8:32 PM
Rick said...: Left Wingers Plan to win Back the Economically Struggling Rust Belt: Claim "Buy American" is Racist"

Keep up the good work fellas.; 7/23/18, 8:34 PM
Anonymous said...: @Hagar I think it should be the policy that sometime after the end of any Presidential transition all security clearances of retired/replaced office holders should be revoked. If they are no longer in government they don't need security clearances. If they need to be renewed for some reason they can be on a case by case basis. The six being singled out are particularly egregious examples of why this should be a blanket policy.; 7/23/18, 8:40 PM
Anonymous said...: @J Farmer I pay my subscription so I can bitch at the new editor in chief and the editorial page editor. Good stuff from 38N. Looks like substantive dismantling is taking place. I am not sure how the upgrade of the nuclear processing facility fits with this, but getting rid of missile launchers is a good first step.; 7/23/18, 8:44 PM
fleg9bo said...: Looks like substantive dismantling is taking place. I am not sure how the upgrade of the nuclear processing facility fits with this

It means they won't be able to launch their new nukes but they will be able to sell them to Iran or one of its proxies.; 7/23/18, 8:51 PM
Fernandinande said...: In Era of Trump in Trump's Russia, snake meddles with you.; 7/23/18, 8:55 PM
Fernandinande said...: Rick said...
Left Wingers Plan to win Back the Economically Struggling Rust Belt: Claim "Buy American" is Racist"

That's how you get more crabgrass. And Trump.; 7/23/18, 8:57 PM
Big Mike said...: I see that they've identified the Toronto shooter. His name is Faisal Hussain and his family claims that he had mental issues. An 18 year old woman and 10 year old girl were killed by him, and another 13 or so wounded, before he died in a shoot out with police. Initial reports claimed he killed himself when the police showed up, but now they're not so sure that the fatal bullet didn't come from a police handgun.; 7/23/18, 9:01 PM
Fernandinande said...: @Rick
https://www.yelp.com
Rating: 4.5 - ‎21 reviews [now 80]
21 reviews of Mow Masters Lawn Mowing

Active Cleanup Alert
This business recently made waves in the news, which often means that people come to this page to post their views on the news.; 7/23/18, 9:02 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Fernandistein:

In Era of Trump in Trump's Russia, snake meddles with you.

What a country!; 7/23/18, 9:04 PM
StephenFearby said...: Andrew McCarthy goes full monty today in NRO:

FISA Applications Confirm: The FBI Relied on the Unverified Steele Dossier

A salacious Clinton-campaign product was the driving force behind the Trump-Russia investigation

"...The FISA Judges

In my public comments Sunday morning, I observed that the newly disclosed FISA applications are so shoddy that the judges who approved them ought to be asked some hard questions. I’ve gotten flak for that, no doubt because President Trump tweeted part of what I said. I stand by it. Still, some elaboration, which a short TV segment does not allow for, is in order.

I prefaced my remark about the judges with an acknowledgment of my own personal embarrassment. When people started theorizing that the FBI had presented the Steele dossier to the FISA court as evidence, I told them they were crazy: The FBI, which I can’t help thinking of as my FBI after 20 years of working closely with the bureau as a federal prosecutor, would never take an unverified screed and present it to a court as evidence. I explained that if the bureau believed the information in a document like the dossier, it would pick out the seven or eight most critical facts and scrub them as only the FBI can — interview the relevant witnesses, grab the documents, scrutinize the records, connect the dots. Whatever application eventually got filed in the FISA court would not even allude en passant to Christopher Steele or his dossier. The FBI would go to the FISA court only with independent evidence corroborated through standard FBI rigor.

Should I have assumed I could be wrong about that? Sure, even great institutions go rogue now and again. But even with that in mind, I would still have told the conspiracy theorists they were crazy — because in the unlikely event the FBI ever went off the reservation, the Justice Department would not permit the submission to the FISA court of uncorroborated allegations; and even if that fail-safe broke down, a court would not approve such a warrant.

It turns out, however, that the crazies were right and I was wrong. The FBI (and, I’m even more sad to say, my Justice Department) brought the FISA court the Steele-dossier allegations, relying on Steele’s credibility without verifying his information.

I am embarrassed by this not just because I assured people it could not have happened, and not just because it is so beneath the bureau — especially in a politically fraught case in which the brass green-lighted the investigation of a presidential campaign. I am embarrassed because what happened here flouts rudimentary investigative standards. Any trained FBI agent would know that even the best FBI agent in the country could not get a warrant based on his own stellar reputation. A fortiori, you would never seek a warrant based solely on the reputation of Christopher Steele — a non-American former intelligence agent who had political and financial incentives to undermine Donald Trump. It is always, always necessary to persuade the court that the actual sources of information allegedly amounting to probable cause are believable.

Well, guess what? No one knows that better than experienced federal judges, who deal with a steady diet of warrant applications. It is basic. Much of my bewilderment, in fact, stems from the certainty that if I had been so daft as to try to get a warrant based on the good reputation of one of my FBI case agents, with no corroboration of his or her sources, just about any federal judge in the Southern District of New York would have knocked my block off — and rightly so."

https://preview.tinyurl.com/ydy3e5fw; 7/23/18, 9:13 PM
rehajm said...: If your happiness is determined by whether or not a Democrat is in office you’re not really cut out for this democracy stuff.; 7/23/18, 9:18 PM
Big Mike said...: Down in Texas a waiter claimed that he was stiffed on a tip by a restaurant patron who wrote "I don't tip terrorist" on the check. Turns out to be yet another hoax. The waiter, named Khalil Cavil, now admits that he wrote the note and he says he's that there's "no excuse" for what he did.

No, I don't think there was.; 7/23/18, 9:24 PM
Sebastian said...: "Andrew McCarthy goes full monty today in NRO"

Meanwhile, the left is in denial.

NPR trotted out a lawyer who said, and I paraphrase, that if this FISA application doesn't pass, nothing can. No analysis of any specifics, of course, and no serious questions from the "reporters"--sir, is hearsay peddled by a foreign spy standard FISC procedure to launch surveillance of an American citizen?

They gave their usual mealy-mouthed defense--sure, Republicans claimed that the FBI didn't notify that Hill instigated the whole thing, but hey, they said it came from someone who wanted dirt. Same thing, right?

In a couple of hours of exchanges on this blog, involving actual analysis based on actual reading, we did a little better. Not hard.; 7/23/18, 9:32 PM
StephenFearby said...: WSJ Opinion Piece

William McGurn, 2018 7:22 p.m. ET

Abolish the FISA Court
The introduction of judges shields the executive branch from accountability.

'...Just before FISA became law, a Yale law professor wrote a prophetic article in these pages about the abuses to come. His name was Robert Bork, and among his worries were that judges would show undue deference to intelligence agencies, that congressional committees wouldn’t be able to summon judges to explain their warrant approvals, and, above all, that giving courts the last say would have “the effect of immunizing everyone, and sooner or later that fact will be taken advantage of.”'

https://www.wsj.com/articles/abolish-the-fisa-court-1532388170; 7/23/18, 9:49 PM
Michael K said...: It now appears that the Senate Intell staffer, Wolfe, gave a copy (probably unredacted) to his NY Times reporter paramour.

Maybe we could ask her for the unredacted warrant.; 7/23/18, 9:59 PM
BarrySanders20 said...: Bucky is the future for we BarrySanders20ers, as the boy starts his undergraduate studies there in the fall. Looking forward to traveling to Madison for a few game days and seeing the many Bucky tributes. He follows my grandfather who graduated from UW in 1930. Fun family connection after two generations escaped the lure of Madison.; 7/23/18, 10:07 PM
walter said...: "His name is Faisal Hussain and his family claims that he had mental issues."
Will wait for an addendum re motivation...; 7/23/18, 10:24 PM
walter said...: Though in Toronto, might be "hate speech" to consider.; 7/23/18, 10:25 PM
Bill Crawford said...: Cavil?; 7/23/18, 10:57 PM
FIDO said...: It seems that the US government has FINALLY broken up that IRS phone scam system which has been annoying millions of people. Seems they used call centers in India.

Even our crime is being outsourced.

Since it is a white collar crime, I don't want too harsh a punishment. Something involving rabid weasels.; 7/24/18, 1:10 AM
rehajm said...: France is full of chlamydia this summer. Back in the states our backyard chicken coops are giving everyone salmonella.; 7/24/18, 4:15 AM
rehajm said...: Iranian leadership seems versed on the proper etiquette of playground put downs.; 7/24/18, 4:19 AM
Narayanan said...: McCarthy still framing as "me v. Those crazies" . I wonder how he framed himself when he was prosecutor.; 7/24/18, 4:37 AM
Clyde said...: I like Rocket Raccoon better, which would probably be heresy in the Dairy State.; 7/24/18, 4:52 AM
Clyde said...: Khesanh 0802 said...
@Hagar I think it should be the policy that sometime after the end of any Presidential transition all security clearances of retired/replaced office holders should be revoked. If they are no longer in government they don't need security clearances. If they need to be renewed for some reason they can be on a case by case basis. The six being singled out are particularly egregious examples of why this should be a blanket policy.

Exactly! Classified information is about "need to know." Former government officials, whether friends or foes of the current administration, no longer have the need to know, any more than you or I would. Given the skullduggery that these former spooks have been up to, it's long past time for a change in policy.; 7/24/18, 4:57 AM
Humperdink said...: Mayor of Toronto (paraphrasing): "I don't know why anyone in Toronto would need a gun"..... after unarmed citizens are gunned down. SMH; 7/24/18, 5:02 AM
Breezy said...: Rand Paul has been consistent in trying to protect Americans from insidious insiders.; 7/24/18, 5:23 AM
stlcdr said...: Looks like sonic the hedgehog.; 7/24/18, 5:40 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: rehajm said...
France is full of chlamydia this summer.

Darn, guess I better lay off the interns! 4:15 AM; 7/24/18, 5:53 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: Remember that there are two parts to be able to see classified data -
One is the correct clearance level (i.e. if you only have a Confidential clearance, you can't see Secret-level material)
Second is the access - there has to be a "need-to-know". For instance, an Air Force officer with a Top Secret clearance would normally not have access to COnfidential level anti-submarine material that the Navy uses.

In special circumstances (i.e. someone is part of an operation that requires access to material they don't normally have access to) those restrictions can be waived, but that should be documented (i.e. the waivees sign their life away to not reveal anything) and they are of very limited duration.

Presumably, the individuals in question retain their clearances, but no longer have access; this step would seem to be aimed at
1) The inappropriate use of their former status
2) Taking away an excuse (although probably an invalid one) for why some officials would claim it was OK to leak classified information to these individuals; 7/24/18, 6:10 AM
Paco Wové said...: "if this FISA application doesn't pass, nothing can."

It's scary to think that material of the quality on display in the weekend's doc dump is what makes the wheels of our state go round.; 7/24/18, 6:27 AM
Josephbleau said...: We all know that Bucky is a self entitled jerk. I am proud of my own Texas A&M for having no fictional personality to guide them.; 7/24/18, 8:28 AM
Jersey Fled said...: I had a security clearance as part of my military job classification. It was terminated the minute I left the military.

Good enough for the military, good enough for these a-holes.

Incidentally, if I were Trump I would announce that I would terminate my clearance when I left office.; 7/24/18, 9:57 AM
readering said...: All this talk of security clearances after leaving office misses point. Shouldn't target political opponents using clearance status.; 7/24/18, 10:03 AM
rehajm said...: Shouldn't target political opponents using clearance status.

Shouldn't target political opponents using all available government agencies and the court system either but yet here we are.; 7/24/18, 10:34 AM
readering said...: Think my mom had a throw pillow with a saying that addressed that. Now where did I put it?; 7/24/18, 11:23 AM