"The ballroom is, to the confusion of many, a top priority for Trump. Indeed, it has been one since long before he launched himself into politics."

"Way back in 2010, Trump called David Axelrod, at the time a senior adviser to President Obama, and offered to build a ballroom for the White House. The offer was not accepted. Barely two weeks into his second term, Trump began talking up his ballroom dream once again. Within months, he had demolished the East Wing of the White House and construction was set to begin...."

I'm reading "What Does the Correspondents Dinner Have to Do With Trump’s Ballroom Project? The case may test just how far national security deference by the courts to the executive can stretch" (Lawfare).

"But most of Mr. Trump’s advisers had already viewed him as too hawkish to work for a president who campaigned as a skeptic of American intervention and is eager to reach a nuclear deal with Iran and normalize relations with Russia."

I'm reading "Trump is ousting Michael Waltz, his national security adviser" (NYT).

Mr. Waltz had been on thin ice since he organized a group chat on the commercial messaging app Signal to discuss a sensitive military operation in Yemen and accidentally included a journalist in the conversation.

"There is a jarring parallel between the D.C. Circuit's near-plenary deference to national security officials calling for social-media censorship..."

 "... and the recent, well-documented history of federal officials' extensive involvement in social-media censorship efforts directed at the speech of tens of millions Americans. This recent history sheds new light on the [TikTok] Act's stark restriction — a restriction which impacts the free-speech interests of over 170 million Americans.... [T]here are compelling reasons to stay the Act's deadline and allow President Trump to seek a negotiated resolution once in office...."

From Donald Trump's amicus brief in TikTok v. Garland. The brief, filed with the Supreme Court yesterday, supports neither party.

The deadline imposed by the act is one day before inauguration day, and that fits into an argument that the Congress has encroached on executive power.

Here's the NYT article on the subject, by Adam Liptak: "Trump Urges Supreme Court to Pause TikTok Ban/The president-elect took no position on the app’s First Amendment challenge to the law, which sets a Jan. 19 deadline to sell or close the popular platform." Excerpt:

Adopting a distinctive tone at odds with the sober and measured arguments more typical in Supreme Court advocacy, the brief instead touted Mr. Trump’s expertise.

“President Trump alone possesses the consummate deal-making expertise, the electoral mandate and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government — concerns which President Trump himself has acknowledged,” the brief said.

The brief doesn't merely tout Trump's expertise, it stresses the constitutional role of the President — all Presidents — in matters of foreign affairs. 

ADDED: This is a helpful summary by Adam Feldman: "The Universe of TikTok v. Garland in a Nutshell/Everything you want to know about the case boiled down into a few pages" (Substack).

More briefs here, including TikTok's brief, here. I'm especially interested in "Legislators Repeatedly Expressed Disagreement With The Content On TikTok."

"The comment from the Feds is absurd. These are car-sized drones that have flown over New Jersey, New York, and military bases in Virginia."

"If the Feds know who is doing this, they should say so. If they don't know, they should say that. To say that they 'pose no threat,' but we can't tell you what they are is the height of bureaucratic arrogance."

That's the most sensible comment at the WaPo column "New Jersey needs to get a grip. But our drone defenses need work. There’s no need to panic about drones." The column — not the comment, the column — is by Max Boot.

And here's the statement from the Feds the commenter is reacting to: "We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or public safety threat or have a foreign nexus."

And then there's this:

Yes father, use grok to generate an image of the New Jersey drones delivering McDonalds to that fat slob Chris Christie.

Perfect, now post it on 𝕏 https://t.co/gvnetk4faA pic.twitter.com/JbRCvjRgDo

— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) December 14, 2024

Lloyd Austin only just got out of intensive care yesterday.

I'm surprised to read (in The Washington Post).

Austin, 70, remains under doctors’ supervision at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. He was taken there by ambulance Jan. 1, while in “severe pain” with undisclosed complications from a Dec. 22 medical procedure that included an overnight stay, administration officials said.

He's still in the hospital, and we still don't know what the original procedure was. Something that includes an overnight stay, so, I'm thinking... not a colonoscopy. Why would they withhold this information, with so much attention aimed at this case? Perhaps they are bolstering the argument that it's something so private that it justified the initial failure to disclose? I can think of some things like that, but I won't put them in writing. Too private!

The ludicrous babying of Biden.

I'm reading "Opinion: The White House’s use of Zoom for meetings raises China-related security concerns" by Josh Rogin in The Washington Post:

The Biden White House is using the teleconference platform Zoom for most of its unclassified government-related virtual interactions, even as the Justice Department is prosecuting one of the company’s China-based executives for working with Beijing’s intelligence services to interfere in Zoom calls. Some lawmakers, former officials and experts are warning that the Biden administration may be ignoring the risks....

May be?!!!

A federal judge has ruled that all the money Edward Snowden makes from his books and speeches must be handed over to the federal government.

WaPo reports.

Snowden has been charged with espionage since 2013, when he exposed top-secret surveillance documents in what may have been the biggest security breach in U.S. history. The former contractor sees himself as a whistleblower compelled to reveal sweeping surveillance programs hidden from the American people. But through two administrations, the government has viewed him as a traitor who escaped justice by fleeing to Russia....

“The contractual language of the Secrecy Agreements is unambiguous,” [the judge] wrote. “Snowden accepted employment and benefits conditioned upon prepublication review obligations.”

Trump wins the travel ban case.

Here's the PDF of the Supreme Court case, issued just now.

ROBERTS, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which KENNEDY, THOMAS, ALITO, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined. KENNEDY, J., and THOMAS, J., filed concurring opinions. BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which KAGAN, J., joined. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined.

From the Roberts opinion:

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, foreign nationals seeking entry into the United States undergo a vetting process to ensure that they satisfy the numerous requirements for admission. The Act also vests the Presi- dent with authority to restrict the entry of aliens whenever he finds that their entry “would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.” 8 U. S. C. §1182(f). Relying on that delegation, the President concluded that it was necessary to impose entry restrictions on nationals of countries that do not share adequate information for an informed entry determination, or that otherwise present national security risks....

By its plain language, §1182(f) grants the President broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States. The President lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings—following a worldwide, multi-agency review—that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest. And plaintiffs’ attempts to identify a conflict with other provisions in the INA, and their appeal to the statute’s purposes and legislative history, fail to overcome the clear statutory language....

Moreover, plaintiffs’ request for a searching inquiry into the persuasiveness of the President’s justifications is inconsistent with the broad statutory text and the deference traditionally accorded the President in this sphere....

In section IV of the opinion the Court looks at"the claim that the Proclamation was issued for the unconstitutional purpose of excluding Muslims." First, the Court finds standing based on the "the alleged real-world effect that the Proclamation has had in keeping them separated from certain relatives who seek to enter the country." Looking at the substantive merits, the question is whether "singling out Muslims for disfavored treatment" violates the Establishment Clause."

"For the past year, Donald Trump has repeatedly denied the existence of a profound national security threat..."

... write the editors of the NYT in "Stop Letting the Russians Get Away With It, Mr. Trump." They're pointing at the new indictment as if it makes it obvious that the Russians already did something that amounts to a profound national security threat. But it's far from obvious. In fact, I can't see it at all.

On Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s role in the 2016 election, filed criminal charges of fraud and identity theft against 13 Russian citizens and three Russian organizations, all alleged to have operated a sophisticated influence campaign intended to “sow discord in the U.S. political system.”

So... they engaged in speech and they meant to "sow discord." I can't see that as a profound national security threat. If we were to adopt that view and act upon it, there would be a profound threat to freedom of speech.

["Specialists" at the Internet Research Agency] posed as Americans and created false identities to set up social media pages and groups aimed at attracting American audiences. 

Another day on the internet — people pretended to be what they are not. If you're going to assume that readers of the internet are so naive as to take the crap that pops up on line at face value, you're making the argument that we can't even have a democracy at all. People are too stupid to vote. But we're on the alert — even when we read the New York Times — that somebody's always trying to con us.

The broad outlines of this interference have been known publicly for a while, but the sheer scope of the deception detailed in Friday’s indictments is breathtaking.

Eh. I'm still breathing.

By the spring of 2016, the operation had zeroed in on supporting Mr. Trump and disparaging Hillary Clinton. 

Because it was more chaos-y. So what?

The Internet Research Agency alone had a staff of 80 and a monthly budget of $1.25 million. On the advice of a real, unnamed grass-roots activist from Texas, it had focused its efforts on swing states like Colorado, Virginia and Florida.

Staffers bought ads with messages like “Hillary is a Satan,” “Ohio Wants Hillary 4 Prison” and “Vote Republican, Vote Trump, and support the Second Amendment!”

So these geniuses produced more of the same junk that you see all the time on the internet. It was like having 80 more deplorables chattering. How can that be "a profound national security threat"?!

They created hundreds of social media accounts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other sites to confuse and anger people about sensitive issues like immigration, religion and the Black Lives Matter movement — in some cases gaining hundreds of thousands of followers.

Hundreds! Thousands! Who the hell cares? Is this column written for readers who have never spent any time on the internet? This editorial is doing the very thing it decries, trying to "confuse and anger people about sensitive issues."

They staged rallies while pretending to be American grass-roots organizations.

Another day at a protest. So what? We have our rallies in America, and if you go to one, as a competent citizen, you should wonder, who are these people really? If you went to a Vietnam War rally back in the day, and it turned out it was staged by communists and not loyal Americans, you'd be an anti-free-speech villain if you wanted those identity-hiding communists arrested for threatening national security.

A poster at one “pro-Clinton” rally in July 2016 read “Support Hillary. Save American Muslims,” along with a fabricated quote attributed to Mrs. Clinton: “I think Sharia Law will be a powerful new direction of freedom.”

Sneaky, yes, but profound threat to national security? It's just a stupid lie, and if people aren't smart enough to figure that out, then how can we be trusted with the vote?

As the election drew nearer, they tried to suppress minority turnout and promoted false allegations of Democratic voter fraud. The specialist running one of the organization’s Facebook accounts, called “Secured Borders,” was criticized for not publishing enough posts and was told that “it is imperative to intensify criticizing Hillary Clinton.”

What's the point here? That in the future these people might actually accomplish their nefarious plan to publish more posts?? That's the profound threat to national security?

After the election, they continued to spread confusion and chaos, staging rallies both for and against Mr. Trump, in one case on the same day and in the same city.

This column is continuing to spread confusion and chaos, but I nevertheless persist in keeping my wits about me. I'm not buying it. Just as I don't believe that Hillary Clinton said "Sharia Law will be a powerful new direction of freedom," I don't believe these piddling social media posts and real-world rallies are a profound thread to national security.

All along, they took steps to cover their tracks by stealing the identities of real Americans, opening accounts on American-based servers and lying about what their money was being used for... [A] specialist named Irina Kaverzina emailed a family member: “We had a slight crisis here at work: the FBI busted our activity (not a joke). So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues.” Ms. Kaverzina continued, “I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”

Fake news, indeed.

Yes, fake news, indeed. "For the past year, Donald Trump has repeatedly denied the existence of a profound national security threat" and based on the indictment — as laid out in this editorial meant to show how wrong he was — I'd say he was right. And I'm disturbed at how stupid the NYT editors seem to think its readers are. It's almost forgivable that they think people could be so easily confused by some Russian rallies and social media posts. Forgivable, but still deserving of the Trump taunt: fake news.

"The leaks have renewed a debate over whether the N.S.A. should be permitted to stockpile vulnerabilities it discovers in commercial software to use for spying..."

"... rather than immediately alert software makers so the holes can be plugged. The agency claims it has shared with the industry more than 90 percent of flaws it has found, reserving only the most valuable for its own hackers. But if it can’t keep those from leaking, as the last year has demonstrated, the resulting damage to businesses and ordinary computer users around the world can be colossal. The Trump administration says it will soon announce revisions to the system, making it more transparent."

From a NYT article, "Security Breach and Spilled Secrets Have Shaken the N.S.A. to Its Core/A serial leak of the agency’s cyberweapons has damaged morale, slowed intelligence operations and resulted in hacking attacks on businesses and civilians worldwide."

Hillary Clinton has "a comprehensive plan to defeat and destroy ISIS and keep America safe"?

That's the question I asked out loud as I watched Leon Panetta's speech last night.

I found this fact-checking at CBS:

Clinton has been touting her plan for months. It's hardly comprehensive.The three-part strategy, as described in November, involves crushing IS "on its home turf" in the Middle East, disrupting terrorist infrastructure on the ground and online, and protecting America and its allies. All are elements already included in Obama's anti-IS strategy. And none addresses the biggest gaps in the U.S.-led response to the Islamic State over the last two years, such as the lack of effective local troops to defeat IS in Syria. At what point should U.S. ground troops step in? What levels of civilian deaths are acceptable? How exactly does she propose to end Iraq's age-old Shiite-Sunni divisions? She hasn't said. She's expounded further, but mostly to reject suggestions by Trump and other Republicans.

And here's the full text from last November:  "The strategy Clinton outlined hinges on three main elements – defeating ISIS in Syria, Iraq, and across the Middle East; disrupting and dismantling the growing terrorist infrastructure that facilitates the flow of fighters, financing, arms, and propaganda around the world; and hardening our defenses and those of our allies against external and homegrown threats."

"We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it."

"But I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago."

"Hackers have breached a database containing a wealth of sensitive information from federal employees’ security background checks..."

"... the Obama administration said Friday — news that experts say could deal a devastating blow to U.S. intelligence gathering.... The hackers are believed to have obtained data from a security intake form known as a Standard Form-86, which includes details such as financial trouble, past convictions, drug use and close relationships with citizens of other countries. The form is used for background checks of current, former and prospective federal employees...."

ADDED: Here's the PDF of Standard Form-86. Excerpt:

"4 million current and former federal employees, from nearly every government agency, might have had their personal information stolen by Chinese hackers..."

"... U.S. investigators said."

On the up side, at least they noticed.

"An assessment continues, and it is possible millions more government employees may be affected."

They noticed the part they noticed.

"Nobody is saying 'that news organizations should simply defer to the government when it comes to deciding what the public has a right to know about its secret activities'..."

"... which is how [NYT Public Editor Margaret] Sullivan mischaracterized [Michael] Kinsley’s argument [against Glenn Greewald]. Of course the press can, and should, fight for its rights. But we won’t always win; it would be arrogant to suggest that we always should. The rule of law applies to everybody, even reporters."

RELATED: Snowden did a TV interview last night.

"There are times that what is right is not the same thing as what is legal,” Snowden said. “Sometimes to do what’s right you have to break the law.”...

“Being a patriot doesn’t mean prioritizing service to government above all else,” Snowden told [Brian] Williams. “Being a patriot means knowing when to protect your country and knowing when to protect the Constitution against the encroachment of adversaries. Adversaries don’t have to be foreign countries. They can be bad policies.”

"There is a whole celebrity political class in Washington, D.C., today that I think is doing a huge disservice to the functionality of our national security..."

"... who are using it to foment their isolationalist tendencies — and I think it is dangerous, really dangerous."

Said Republican Congressman Mike Rogers, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, announcing that he will not run for reelection (and will move into radio).

"A White House national security official was fired last week after being caught as the mystery Tweeter who has been tormenting the foreign policy community..."

"... with insulting comments and revealing internal Obama administration information for over two years."

2 years!

The Daily Beast preserved the tweets of Jofi Joseph, AKA natsecwonk, which included crap like:

“I'm a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me.”

“Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Wiener? Almost as bad a pairing as Samantha Powers and Cass Sunstein ...”

“So when will someone do us the favor of getting rid of Sarah Palin and the rest of her white trash family? What utter useless garbage....” 

2 years! What does this say about national security?

(I know. It's Samantha Power (not Powers) and Anthony Weiner (not Wiener).)

"NSA COLLECTING CONTACTS FROM 500,000 'BUDDY LISTS' EACH DAY."

Drudge, linking to this Washington Post revelation.

AND: In the longer view, we see an artistic parallelism in the President and his wife. Note the facial expression and the hands:


There are 3 headlines under the First Lady:

Squirrels go nuts for First Lady's garden in shutdown...
...tomatoes are rotting
UNHARVESTED...

"DoD relies on millions of devices to bring network access and functionality to its users."

"Rigorously vetting software and firmware in each and every one of them is beyond our present capabilities, and the perception that this problem is simply unapproachable is widespread."

(Via Instapundit.)

"Jake Tapper reveals classified information about CIA in Benghazi - should his sources go to prison? Should he?"

A tweet from Glenn Greenwald, part of a collection of tweets at Twitchy under the headline "Jake Tapper: Remember when Rand Paul asked Hillary about gun running in Libya?"

(I invite your comments, which must pass through moderation. Comments must relate to the linked article.)