Serious members of congress would not waste time in the worldwide threats hearing asking about antifa, citing Fox News reports.
Republicans cannot save themselves from this tailspin of national security irrelevancy. It’s really a spectacle to behold.
Similarly, this is not the time to do regular agency oversight.

Do members of Congress not know what a worldwide threat is?
80 minutes in, someone asks about Russian military buildup in Ukraine. 🎈

Answer is deferred largely to closed session, but noted as significant, references to 2008 Georgia and 2014 Crimea

“Capacity to take further aggressive action” says CIA director Burns

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Molly McKew

Molly McKew Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @MollyMcKew

13 Apr
At SASC hearing on European Command priorities, good answer from Gen. Wolters on a (somewhat irritating) question about whether EUCOM should “free up” assets used to deter Russia to compete with China: /1
WOLTERS: “My first response is, what we do to effectively compete and deter against the nearest-peer competitor in Europe — Russia — is effective in deterring China, because of the connectivity between the two nations ... /2
... and the willingness of both nations to engage in malign influence against the United States and against NATO. So those activities that allow us to continue to be successful in the competition phase against Russia are also helpful against China.” /3
Read 5 tweets
10 Apr
Made some of my favorite post-Soviet-world treats for an under-the-weather friend (toasted sesame seeds in a spiced honey caramel, basically).

Sesame seeds are loaded with iron, magnesium, calcium, protein — a good gift for all kinds of friends and neighbors who need a boost.
Also a good opportunity to use your trusted Jameson rolling pin
Some of you asked for a recipe. There are as many versions as grandmothers but I like mine crunchy and use this:

2 c sesame seeds
1/2 c fragrant honey (orange blossom etc)
1/2 c raw sugar
Spices to taste— I use 1/2 or 1 tsp cinnamon & ginger plus some coriander & lavender
Read 9 tweets
19 Mar
Oh my goodness, the forever-kale — long may she reign 🥬 👑— has made kale babies just in time for spring!

(Btw, my phone tries to autocorrect the word “kale” to “jaleo” which I think is pretty A+ cc @chefjoseandres )
And ok, I give a lot of credit to the bountious forever-kale, which has survived a year of hot and ice and snow and ups and downs of the DC weather shield — but shoutouts to the forever dandelion greens, watercress, and parsley are also in order as we roll into spring
Also excited to see the first scarlet nubbins of the red fennel peeking out from beneath the accumulated bird seed. Prettiest thing in the garden.
Read 4 tweets
17 Mar
The ODNI report on foreign threats to the 2020 elections shows a serious, ongoing threat to US national security that we really aren’t talking about: the American proxies & dupes doing the Kremlin’s dirty work against America

New via @RenewGreatPower /1

greatpower.us/p/in-the-2020-…
The report covers technical interference, Russia, Iran, China, and other actors.

It also corrects (without saying so) some misrepresentations of US intelligence findings issued before the election, which attempted to play up Chinese initiatives and downplay Russian activities /2
Key takeaways—

1) Trump’s denial of 2016 Russian elex interference & refusal to act helped normalize the use of election interference by a broader range of actors who perceive there are few real costs. This is now just another tool in the toolkit. Bad news. /3
Read 22 tweets
11 Mar
New FBI bulletin from warns of increased use of synthetic media in influence operations, specifically mentioning use of these tools for “social engineering”

The acknowledgement that the goal of these ops is behavioral change is a leap forward from 2017 /1 beta.documentcloud.org/documents/2050…
Cc “it’s just Facebook ads” and “but it doesn’t do anything” people

Recommendations on what you can do about it are all over the place — jumble of security tips and “media literacy” recs

“Train users to report social engineering attempts” — sure, ok, easy-peasy /2
I remain 🙄 of solutions that pass along responsibility for state-led attacks to individual citizens. But I am encouraged to see greater engagement from the government & timely warnings like this that add authority and credibility to attempts to explain what has been happening /3
Read 4 tweets
24 Feb
An interesting point from the Bill Burns/CIA confirmation hearing today.

Sen. Blumenthal raised the issue of US Intel agencies going around legal restrictions/court approval to buy the private data of Americans from data brokers — which he labelled sleazy operators (true) /1
Raises an interesting point tho about the “OSINT” stuff which often relies on such purchased/illicit but online anyway data

“private” researchers can leverage information in ways Intel agencies can’t—in ways they are often criticized for (“how can they not know, it’s online”) /2
This same data also underpins all political campaigns.

Why should goons like Parscale get to use this against Americans? /3
Read 4 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!