and
alina has demonstrated that they are correct. confusing jessie jackson
with reggie jackson? what a moron. and to lie that kamala harris
didn't know rev. jesse jackson?
alina
habba pretended to care about jesse jackson. she really needs to take
her tired self back to iraq. oops! they don't want her back there.
no 1 wants her.
nina tried to get info on cassadine from his daughter charlotte. charlotte later told danny about it and said that nina was only interested in her father to save her daughter willow.
nina told willow about how she got jack to destroy the video of wilow outside drew's home the night drew was shot and that now he's blackmailing her to get information on cassadine from charlotte.
willow told alexis that scout - drew's daughter and alexis' granddaughter - needed to be back at drew's. she didn't tell her this was because sidwell told her it had to happen. alexis was not pleased. willow told her that she would drop the restraining orders against danny and that danny could see his sister anytime.
britt and jason are planning to leave - with or without her medicine. if lucas and/or marco can get it, great, but they're leaving. lucas told marco that they are going to be together forever. marco says his father will not forgive him if he finds out what marco is doing.
carly was watched by ross. jack came in near the end of it and warned carly to stay away from ross but wouldn't tell her why.
Tuesday, March 10, 2026. Chump's illegal war rages on with no end in sight.
Tara Suter (THE HILL) reports,
"President Trump’s job approval has dipped by 3 points since March 2025
among registered voters, according to a new poll. In the NBC News poll,
44 percent of respondents said they either “strongly” or “somewhat”
backed Trump’s job performance, down from 47 percent in March 2025.
Fifty-four percent of poll respondents said they were “strongly” or
“somewhat” not in favor of his job performance, up from 51 percent last
year."
Martha McHardy (DAILY BEAST) emphasizes a different part of the poll:
A
damning new poll is rattling the Trump camp, showing the president
facing steep public disapproval and putting Republican prospects in the
midterms on shaky ground.
The latest NBC News poll, conducted
between February 27-March 3 among 1,000 registered voters, shows that
Democrats lead the Republicans by 6 points, with 50 percent to the GOP’s
44 percent, in the fight for control of Congress ahead of the 2026
midterms.
It comes as Trump is underwater on a range of key
issues critical to midterm voters, including the economy and inflation,
as well as immigration and the war in Iran.
According to the poll, on the economy, Trump faces his toughest ratings yet.
In the days after President Trump
launched U.S. forces in an attack against Iran, support for the strikes
is far lower than what it has been at the beginnings of previous foreign
conflicts.
So far, polls have found that most Americans oppose the Iran attacks. Support ranges from 27 percent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll to 50 percent in a Fox News poll.
The wide variation suggests that public opinion is still taking shape
as more Americans learn details of the attacks and the aftermath.
But
even the highest level of public support for this conflict falls far
lower than that at the start of most other conflicts, including World
War II, the Korean War and the Iraq War.
He's
destroyed the economy, he's destroyed our rights in the US with his war
on immigrants, he's destroying the Middle East with his war on Iran.
And he's hiding so much.
Taylor Delandro (NEWS NATION) reports:
The
White House has reportedly halted a federal security bulletin warning
law enforcement across the United States of a heightened threat
potentially tied to the conflict with Iran.
A Trump administration official, speaking to Reuters
on condition of anonymity to discuss internal government matters, said
the bulletin — prepared by the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and
National Counterterrorism Center — was intended for local law
enforcement agencies nationwide. [. . .]
The Daily Mail reported on Friday
that the White House blocked the release of the bulletin, which
contains specific details about how Iranian proxies could potentially
carry out attacks inside the U.S.
The five-page
document, reviewed by the outlet, warns of “elevated threats by the
government of Iran to US military and government personnel and
facilities, Jewish and Israeli institutions and their perceived
supporters, and Iranian dissidents and other anti-regime activists in
the United States.”
The
administration keeps whispering that the Kurds will help them overthrow
the government in Iran. They mean the Kurds as a body in the Middle
East -- that's in Iran, in Turkey and in Iraq. I've noted, whenever
we've noted those rumors here, that's not happening with regards to
Kurds in Iraq.
David S. Cloud (WALL STREET JOURNAL) reports:
The
war in the Middle East is pushing the U.S. military back into combat in
Iraq against an old foe—Iran-backed militia groups that two decades ago
battled American troops on the streets of Baghdad.
Iraqi
militias have attempted dozens of small-scale drone and rocket attacks
since the war began in a show of support for Tehran, including against a
U.S. military base and consulate in northern Iraq and a State
Department facility at the Baghdad International Airport. On Saturday,
rockets targeted the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which Iraqi Prime Minister
Mohammed Shia al-Sudani called a “terrorist act” by “rogue groups.”
The
U.S. said Sunday it has been carrying out attacks against the militias,
acknowledging that the war in Iran is spilling over into neighboring
Iraq and drawing American forces back into a place where they spent
years fighting insurgents and endured heavy casualties after the 2003
invasion that deposed Saddam Hussein.
The
Kurds in Iraq were sold out by the US government. That's reality and
it didn't happen just once. It goes back to the days of Henry
Kissinger. There's no reason for the Kurds to trust the US. If they
could trust the US, the Kurdish issues would have been settled in 2007
-- look at Article 140 of Iraq's 2005 Constitution, for example. That
was under Bully Boy Bush. Things did not improve under Barack Obama.
In fact, the 2010 disputed elections found the US siding with the clear
loser Nouri al-Maliki and they came up with The Erbil Agreement that
would please all sides. Kurds were trusting. Article 140, they were
told, would finally be implemented. It wasn't implemented by Nouri in
2007 but the US was gong to make sure that it was this time. Only they
didn't. Nouri got sworn in for a second term and he refused to
implement it and then he called the entire Erbil Agreement flawed and
illegal. When the Kurds attempted to put the issues of
self-determination before the Kurdish people in a non-binding vote? The
US turned on them and attacked them for 'daring' to think that they had
a right to self-determination.
So,
no, they're not going to trust the US on this. And the Kurdish family
dynasties in Northern Iraq -- the Kurdistan -- have ties to the Kurds in
Iran and to rulers in Iran. That's how the Talabanis kept Jalal
Talabani in place as president of Iraq for nearly two years after he was
rendered unable to actually rule via a stroke. His widow Hero Talabani
was constantly traveling to Iran to give real reports on Jalal's lack
of progress.
So much of what we are told by the White House about Iran doesn't line up with reality.
BARRON'S notes:
The
longer the conflict in Iran lasts, the higher gasoline prices will
rise. Several industry experts estimate gas prices ranging from $5 to
$5.50 a gallon if the price of Brent crude oil hits $150 a barrel. Crude
futures surged 20% Sunday evening, topping $100 a barrel.
For
gasoline, that’s an increase of around 50% from the current national
average of $3.36, according to Gas Buddy. While $150 a barrel oil may
sound far-fetched that price was even floated by Qatar’s energy
minister, Saad El-Kaabi last week.Macquarie analysts cite the
possibility of $150 oil, given the disruptions, notably the effective
closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway that transports 20%
of the world’s oil. Without a swift resolution, the crude market will
break in days, and not in weeks or months, they said.One way to game out
the potential impact that an extended war could have is by comparing
the current situation to the summer of 2022. That’s when gas prices hit a
record high after Russia invaded Ukraine and the U.S. sanctioned oil
from Russia.It took 110 days from Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion for
gas prices to peak at $5.01, and crude didn’t exceed $130 a barrel back
then. It takes time for oil prices to influence the retail price of gas,
which has to be refined, blended, and transported.
Group
of Seven leaders fell short of reaching an agreement to contain soaring
oil prices that are shaking global stock markets and pushing up prices
at the pump, as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran marks its 10th day.
G-7
leaders opted to hold off on tapping emergency oil reserves but
signaled they may soon release that crude into the marketplace. Their
meeting appeared to help calm stock markets, which by Monday afternoon
recovered some of their early losses.
“We’re not
there yet,” said French Finance Minister Roland Lescure, speaking to
reporters in Brussels after the meeting. “We’ve agreed to monitor the
situation very closely.”
World leaders are
growing increasingly concerned that oil prices will continue to climb.
Further increases could trigger broader inflation at a time when many
U.S. consumers are already concerned about affordability.
Reports
suggest leaders of the Group of Seven nations—Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, Japan, the U.K., and the U.S.—are considering a coordinated
release of crude stockpiles to ease the immediate impact of $100 oil,
but with OPEC members around the region slashing production, and the
Strait of Hormuz still unpassable, that is only likely to have a
temporary impact.
To say nothing of the
willingness of some G-7 states, whose trade pacts have been ripped-up
and replaced by a universal 15% tariff, to support the political efforts
of President Donald Trump over the longer term.That’s the thing about
playing with oil. It gets slippery, dirty, and creates a bit of a mess.
Everyone
can see the disaster unfolding before our eyes. Chump went into war
because Netanyahu wanted to (and Senator Lindsey Graham coached
Netanyahu on how to sell it to Chump). No real planning took place.
Which is why Chump met with weapons makers last Friday at the White
House -- the US's stockpile is already low. It's why American citizens
are trapped in the region -- and being told not to go to the local US
embassies which might be attacked by Iran. It's why there's no plan for
victory, no benchmarks for success. There is nothing. This is a
forever war in the making.
Amie Parnes (THE HILL) notes:
The
Iran war has given former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg an
opening to lean hard on his military background, blasting President
Trump’s “war of choice” in a series of public appearances.
As
one of the few potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders with
combat-zone experience, Buttigieg is emerging as one of Trump’s loudest
critics as foreign policy returns to the forefront.
In
appearances on television and a popular podcast, social media posts and
on his own Substack platform, Buttigieg has tied Trump’s military
action in Iran directly to the war in Iraq — which became a defining
issue for former President George W. Bush in the early 2000s.
“This
nation learned the hard way that an unnecessary war, with no plan for
what comes next, can lead to years of chaos and put America in still
great danger,” Buttigieg said in a social media post.
After
the strikes began Feb. 28, all the potential Democratic 2028 candidates
put out statements denouncing the administration and various aspects of
the war. But Buttigieg, who served in the Navy Reserves and was
deployed to Afghanistan, was able to wade in not just politically but
from personal experience.
In an interview on
the podcast “MeidasTouch,” Buttigieg was able to talk about his
perspective as a veteran in the Middle East, when he noted the six
Americans at that time who had been killed in the new war.
With “affordability” the Democrats’ watchword of the moment, I’m
surprised more haven’t pointed out that President Donald Trump’s
undeclared war on Iran costs more than Americans can afford. By this I
don’t mean American soldiers killed (seven thus far), which of course is the greatest concern. Nor do I mean how many other people will be killed (1663 so far, according to The Independent, including 175 at a girls’ school struck by one of our Tomahawks and another 83 children in Lebanon, according to that country’s health ministry). Rather, I’m thinking about the secondary but nonetheless urgent matter of dollars and cents.
Five days before the war began I pointed out that Trump’s Treasury was, as Kris Kristofferson would say,
busted flat in Baton Rouge. Already Trump’s “big, beautiful”
reconciliation bill had pissed away $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over 10
years, nearly doubling the budget deficit. The Supreme Court’s
cancellation of Trump’s illegal 10 percent tariffs on all foreign
products meant Trump might end up tripling the budget deficit over the next decade. Trump is trying to recoup his tariff losses by imposing temporary tariffs under Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act. But Trump’s own lawyers have argued in court that such an application is illegal, a conclusion with which 24 Democratically-controlled states agreed in a lawsuit filed March 5.
Worries
about the budget deficit already had the bond market raising the cost
of government borrowing. The outbreak of war pushed the 10-year yield on
Treasuries even higher as the price of oil shot past $100 per barrel thanks to the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a president, you may recall, who won in 2024 on the strength of his promise to lower inflation.
Instead, we’re getting an oil-driven inflation spike. On top of that,
last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics released an unexpectedly poor jobs report
showing the loss of 92,000 jobs in February. The simultaneous
occurrence of an oil-price spike and a possibly-faltering economy means
we may get our first serious bout of stagflation since the 1970s.
Did I mention the stock market has been tanking since the war began? So much for Pam Bondi’s “The Dow is 50,000” deflection. The Dow closed Monday at 47,740.80.
As the criminal US-Israeli war on Iran entered its second week, the
Trump administration vowed to continue the bombardment and refused to
rule out sending ground troops or implementing a military draft—even as
it has failed to overthrow the Iranian government or compel surrender.
“We
have won in many ways, but not enough. We go forward more determined
than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running
danger once and for all,” US President Donald Trump declared at the
House Republican policy retreat at his Doral resort in Florida on
Monday.
Asked if the war would end this week, he said flatly:
“No.” Hours earlier, in a desperate effort to calm oil and stock
markets, Trump had told CBS News that the war “is very complete, pretty
much” and that US forces are “very far ahead of schedule.”
Trump
has acknowledged that more American troops will die. “And sadly, there
will likely be more before it ends,” he said in a Truth Social address
on March 1 after the first three US service members were killed. “That’s
the way it is. Likely be more.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,
in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday, stated the administration’s
war aims with unvarnished brutality. “This is only just the beginning,”
Hegseth declared. “The only ones that need to be worried right now are
Iranians that think they’re gonna live.” Asked about limits on the
operation, he said: “You don’t tell the enemy, you don’t tell the press,
you don’t tell anybody what your limits would be on an operation.” On
Monday, the Pentagon’s official social media account posted an image of a
launched missile with the words “No Mercy” and the caption: “We have
Only Just Begun to Fight.”
The administration is taking
increasingly desperate and escalatory actions amid its failure to
achieve its stated aims. In January, the administration sought to
exploit mass protests as the vehicle for regime change; when that
failed, it turned to the targeted assassination of Iran’s leadership,
killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war. Iran’s
Assembly of Experts appointed Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the slain
supreme leader, on Monday in defiance of Israeli threats to kill any
successor.
The administration has adopted the Gaza model: the genocidal destruction
of Iranian society itself, reducing the country to rubble until it
physically cannot resist. Trump made this clear when he said that his
demand for “unconditional surrender” is “where they cry uncle or when
they can’t fight any longer and there’s nobody around to cry uncle.”
The
Justice Department released additional documents in the Epstein files
last week concerning decades-old sexual assault allegations against
President Donald Trump, with the Post and Courier confirming some
aspects of the accuser’s background, but key details and documents
concerning the bombshell allegations still remain unreleased, missing or
uncorroborated.
The
government’s files on financier Jeffrey Epstein include allegations
from an unnamed accuser, who alleges she was forced to perform oral sex
on Trump while underage in the 1980s, and he “punched [her] on the side
of [her] head” after she “bit him on the penis.”
NPR and journalist Roger Sollenberger
first reported that documents related to the accusations were
apparently withheld from the Epstein files, prompting the DOJ to release
memos documenting three interviews with the alleged victim last week. The DOJ claimed the files were not released because they had been incorrectly marked as being duplicates, but NPR reports 37 pages have still not been released.
The Charleston, S.C., Post and Courier confirmed
numerous details about the unnamed accuser’s life and background that
match what she told FBI agents, according to the notes the DOJ released
last week.
The publication did not corroborate
the allegations against Trump, and the White House disputes the
allegations as having “zero credible evidence” and being “from a sadly
disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history,” and Trump has
more broadly denied any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.
Last
November, with nearly unanimous bipartisan approval, Congress passed,
and President Trump signed, the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which
requires the Justice Department to publicly release all unclassified
materials related to these allegations. However, the department
subsequently ignored the law’s deadline, releasing only 3 million
documents that did not fully comply with the law’s instructions.
That
puts Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche
and FBI Director Kash Patel in direct violation of the law. They are
preventing justice for dozens of women and girls, some as young as 14,
who were allegedly trafficked, raped or brutalized. The Justice
Department’s failure to investigate thoroughly and prosecute spans
several presidencies, both Republican and Democratic.
Raskin,
who has seen many of the files, reports that Trump’s name appears “more
than a million times.” Because the president’s personal history is
already riddled with allegations of inappropriate and unwanted sexual
conduct with women, the Justice Department’s behavior leaves doubts as
to whether the remaining files would “totally exonerate” him of
wrongdoing in Epstein’s orbit, as he claims. If that is truly the case,
he could remove any doubt by ordering the department to release them all
now.
Congress’s credibility is now on the line. It
must assert its oversight responsibility, and review the documents to
determine whether there are legitimate reasons to withhold them from the
public.
The Justice Department’s behavior
already constitutes grounds for impeaching Bondi, Blanche and Patel. We
shouldn’t assume that impeachment and conviction would be futile with
Congress under Republican control. What member of Congress wants his or
her legacy tarnished by helping to cover up sex crimes at the highest
levels of society?
With the entire House of
Representatives and a third of the Senate facing reelection in eight
months, who is willing to go on record as a co-conspirator in the
Justice Department cover-up? Who wants to be on record that rich and
powerful men are above the law, while children are unprotected from the
vilest of crimes? And who wants to show that the Republican Party is
loyal to, or afraid of, predators?
Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse and US House Reps Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Ro
Khanna discuss The Epstein Files with MS NOW in the three videos below.
Lets wind down with this from Senator Ron Wyden's office:
Rudd lacks “familiarity with basic constitutional rights” on surveillance of Americans
Watch a video of Wyden deliver his remarks here
As prepared for delivery
I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of Joshua Rudd to be Director of the National Security Agency.
During his confirmation hearing, General Rudd demonstrated a lack of
familiarity with basic constitutional rights, which should be a bare
minimum qualification for this extremely powerful position. His
responses to questions about privacy and transparency were simply
unacceptable. I asked the nominee if he would pledge to not secretly
violate existing public guardrails on NSA surveillance, and he refused.
Few Americans understand the incredible scope of NSA’s surveillance
operations or the broad authorities under which the NSA operates. The
agency plays a central role in conducting surveillance under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA gets all the attention from the
American public and from Congress because it’s a public law and because
Congress debates the reauthorization of FISA Section 702 every few
years. But the NSA also conducts extensive intelligence and surveillance
operations outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and
pursuant only to Executive Order 12333. And when NSA operates entirely
under that executive order, there is no judicial oversight, not even
from the secret FISA Court. And congressional oversight is often
dependent on what the executive branch wants to disclose. The potential
for abuse is enormous. I was here in 2005, when the New York Times
revealed that the NSA had conducted an illegal warrantless wiretapping
program. For four years, the program had been hidden from the American
people. It was also hidden from Congress. I was a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee then, as I am now, and even we were not told
about the program.
This was one of those infamous “Gang of 8” situations where the
Intelligence Community informs only the Committee’s two leaders and
instructs them not to tell other members or staff. So when the
Committee’s Vice Chair, Jay Rockefeller, was told about the program, he
hand-wrote a letter to Vice President Cheney saying he had concerns but
that, on his own, he couldn’t fully evaluate the program. And so the
program continued on for years, with no oversight and no opportunity for
Congress to address it through legislation. This history demonstrates
what happens when the NSA’s enormous capabilities are abused by
administration officials who are willing to break the law. And,
unfortunately, that is an accurate description of this Administration.
It is indisputable that constitutional rights are under attack right
now. For example, we only recently learned that, nine months ago, the
Administration secretly decided that the government doesn’t need a
judicial warrant to break into a private home.
In other words, this Administration thinks it can just ignore the
Fourth Amendment. And, if the Administration will ignore the Fourth
Amendment to break down doors, what assurance could we possibly have
that they won’t also tap Americans’ phones without a warrant? And why
should we believe that they wouldn’t do it secretly, hidden from the
American people, from the full Congress, or even the full intelligence
committees?
When it comes to surveillance, I subscribe to Ben Franklin’s
principle that those who would give up liberty for security will lose
both and deserve neither. We need both. That’s not a partisan
proposition. Refusing to promise to not violate the Constitution does
not make us safer.
That is why I was particularly focused on General Rudd’s
understanding of the constitutional limitations on the NSA’s operations.
So I asked General Rudd whether, if he were directed to target people
in the United States for surveillance, he would insist that there be a
judicial warrant. I told him in advance that I was going to ask the
question. Then, at the hearing, I offered him the opportunity to answer
with a yes or a no. I didn’t get an answer.
So I tried to cut him some slack and encouraged him to just offer
general thoughts on the matter, but I still got nothing of substance. I
did everything in my power to allow him to demonstrate some
understanding of the basic guardrails of NSA’s authorities and got only
vague assurances that he was interested in following the law.
Given the history of NSA abuses, and this administration’s clear
contempt for the Constitution, General Rudd’s inability to answer this
question in any meaningful way would have been enough for me to oppose
his nomination.
But there were other topics on which General Rudd’s responses were
troubling. He wouldn’t associate himself with the NSA’s previous
commitment to not buy and use Americans’ location data. Then-NSA
Director Nakasone made this commitment in a public letter in 2023. But
General Rudd would not stand by that public policy.
Location data, which is bought and sold by sleazy data brokers, can
reveal extremely sensitive private information about Americans,
including what medical clinics they go to, what houses of worship they
visit, what stores they shop at, what protests they attend, and which
friends and family they are seeing.
The threat to Americans’ privacy is even more serious when you stop
to consider how artificial intelligence can be used against enormous
amounts of commercially available data, including location information
on Americans. So it is deeply troubling that General Rudd refused to
endorse the NSA’s past commitment not to collect and use all this
sensitive data on Americans. General Rudd also refused to say whether
the government should mandate backdoors into encryption used by
Americans. Encryption is the code that protects your messages, pictures
and private data from predators and criminals.
For years, officials have argued that the government should force
tech companies to build back-doors into their encryption products. But
if you talk to security researchers, or cryptographers, they’ll tell you
there’s no way to create encryption backdoors that only the government
can use. Once you weaken encryption, it is inevitable that foreign spies
and criminals will exploit that vulnerability. As hacking has gotten
more and more sophisticated, the threat that our adversaries will use
any and all cyber vulnerabilities against us has gotten more and more
obvious.
In fact, the constant headlines about successful hacking campaigns
are probably the reason why we’re not hearing as much these days about
weakening encryption. So this question for General Rudd should have been
easy, particularly since the job to which he is nominated includes
responsibility for the nation’s cyber security. But, again, he refused
to take a position. General Rudd’s responses related to transparency
were especially troubling. In addition to laws and the Constitution, NSA
is bound by numerous policies and procedures which are publicly
available. These public policies and procedures are especially important
because they provide some guardrails on NSA’s surveillance and
intelligence activities under Executive Order 12333, which, again, are
not governed by FISA and not reviewed by the FISA Court.
To take just one example, if the NSA is going to conduct a search of
its 12333 collection for an American’s communications, it generally
needs the Attorney General to determine that there is probable cause
that the American is an agent of a foreign power.
This is not a law. It is a policy that has been made public by
successive administrations so that Americans could better understand the
guardrails that apply to the NSA’s surveillance activities. The NSA is
supposed to be hunting for terrorists and spies. It is not supposed to
be hunting for Americans who simply do things that the president doesn’t
like, such as criticizing their government or buying abortion
medication online.
So I asked General Rudd what I thought was another easy question: If
he were directed to operate in violation of those public policies and
procedures, would he inform the American people? He refused to make that
commitment. I also asked him whether, if the administration secretly
decided to withdraw or change any of these public policies, he would
ensure that the public sees the new policies? He wouldn’t make that
commitment either.
Let me be clear. The operational details of the NSA’s operations are
sources and methods and must absolutely be protected. National security
is at stake. Lives are at stake. But I did not ask General Rudd about
sources and methods. I asked him whether Americans can rely on the NSA
to conduct its operations within the guardrails that the government has
already made public. Based on his response, it’s not clear that they
can. And when Americans can no longer trust whether intelligence
agencies are respecting their own public policies, it’s bad for
Americans, bad for democracy, and bad for the intelligence agencies.
General Rudd was even asked whether, if the President secretly
decided not to follow these public policies, would he at least
immediately inform the Senate Intelligence Committee. General Rudd
wouldn’t even answer that question with a clear yes, which makes me
wonder what abuses even the intelligence committee won’t ever hear about
I have great respect for General Rudd’s many years of military
service, but, besides his troubling statements about constitutional
rights, he is simply not qualified for this job. We are now in the
second week of this catastrophic and reckless war that Donald Trump
started. This war and its global fallout have created new and serious
threats to U.S. national security. The country needs an NSA Director
with experience in U.S. signals intelligence activities around the
world. General Rudd does not have that experience.
The Director of NSA has another job, that of Commander of U.S. Cyber
Command. The demands of this job are mind-boggling. The cyber threat to
the United States cannot be overstated. And, as SALT TYPHOON
demonstrated, our adversaries have succeeded in inflicting serious
damage to U.S. national security. Just last week, the government
acknowledged ongoing hacking of U.S. government agencies. And now we are
at war and are facing an incredibly complex set of cyber threats and
options.
The country needs someone who is prepared from day one to protect
this country from cyber adversaries, including Iran as well as China and
Russia.
The Commander of CYBERCOM needs to have a deep and sophisticated
understanding of this threat and how it is evolving. He or she needs to
be able to see this threat in its geopolitical context and to fully
grasp the technical capabilities and the policy options that might help
NSA and CYBERCOM counter the threat. We are at war, and we cannot afford
to promote someone who lacks the experience for the job.
General Rudd’s predecessors in this job had that experience. They
came up through CYBERCOM. They were ready. General Rudd is not. And,
when it comes to the cybersecurity of this country, there is no time for
on-the-job learning. The threat is just too urgent for that.
For all these reasons, I oppose this nomination, and urge my colleagues to do the same.
###
The following sites updated:
