#U.S. Cyber Command

[saywhat-politics]

Russia has intensified cyber operations against Ukraine and NATO countries, according to previous U.S. intelligence and private sector reports.

March 2, 2025, 6:35 PM MST

By Courtney Kube and Nnamdi Egwuonwu

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt offensive cyber operations and information operations against Russia, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said.

Hegseth gave the order to the head of the command, Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, in late February, the official said. It is unclear clear how long the order will last.

A senior U.S. defense official declined to comment on the decision "due to operational security concerns."

“There is no greater priority to Secretary Hegseth than the safety of the Warfighter in all operations, to include the cyber domain,” the official told NBC News.

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which is housed in the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that its "mission is to defend against all cyber threats to U.S. Critical Infrastructure, including from Russia. There has been no change in our posture."

Representatives for U.S. Cyber Command did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Russian Embassy also did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

[gwydionmisha]

We have abjectly surrendered to Russia. I know most Republicans hate Democracy so much they'd rather be a Russian satellite country, because if they didn't they wouldn't have voted to Trump, and nearly all the Republican Senators are all in on exposing their bellies and pissing themselves if Putin even looks like he might rub their bellies and call them good boy, because if they didn't they wouldn't have put Pete Hegseth in charge of our military, but it still feels bizarre that Republicans didn't have even a sliver of patriotism left to prevent this.

[smalltofedsblog]

Cyber Command Gains New Authorities To Hire & Buy

The 13-year-old US Cyber Command began a new federal fiscal year Oct. 1, with new fiscal and hiring and buying authorities granted by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act.

[thealexperspective]

Whilst everyone is distracted by the Oscars this is happening.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 2, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 03, 2025

On February 28, the same day that President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance took the side of Russian president Vladimir Putin against Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, Martin Matishak of The Record, a cybersecurity news publication, broke the story that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stop all planning against Russia, including offensive digital actions.

Both the scope of the directive and its duration are unclear.

On Face the Nation this morning, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), a strong supporter of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and Ukraine, contradicted that information. “Considering what I know, what Russia is currently doing against the United States, that would I’m certain not be an accurate statement of the current status of the United States operations,” he said. Well respected on both sides of the aisle, Turner was in line to be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee in this Congress until House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) removed him from that slot and from the intelligence committee altogether.

And yet, as Stephanie Kirchgaessner of The Guardian notes, the Trump administration has made clear that it no longer sees Russia as a cybersecurity threat. Last week, at a United Nations working group on cybersecurity, representatives from the European Union and the United Kingdom highlighted threats from Russia, while Liesyl Franz, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for international cybersecurity, did not mention Russia, saying the U.S. was concerned about threats from China and Iran.

Kirchgaessner also noted that under Trump, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which monitors cyberthreats against critical infrastructure, has set new priorities. Although Russian threats, especially those against U.S. election systems, were a top priority for the agency in the past, a source told Kirchgaessner that analysts were told not to follow or report on Russian threats.

“Russia and China are our biggest adversaries,” the source told Kirchgaessner. “With all the cuts being made to different agencies, a lot of cybersecurity personnel have been fired. Our systems are not going to be protected and our adversaries know this.” “People are saying Russia is winning,” the source said. “Putin is on the inside now.”

Another source noted that “There are dozens of discrete Russia state-sponsored hacker teams dedicated to either producing damage to US government, infrastructure and commercial interests or conducting information theft with a key goal of maintaining persistent access to computer systems.” “Russia is at least on par with China as the most significant cyber threat, the person added. Under those circumstances, the source said, ceasing to follow and report Russian threats is “truly shocking.”

Trump’s outburst in the Oval Office on Friday confirmed that Putin has been his partner in politics since at least 2016. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia… Russia, Russia, Russia—you ever hear of that deal?—that was a phony Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, scam. Hillary Clinton, shifty Adam Schiff, it was a Democrat scam. And he had to go through that. And he did go through it, and we didn’t end up in a war. And he went through it. He was accused of all that stuff. He had nothing to do with it. It came out of Hunter Biden’s bathroom.”

Putin went through a hell of a lot with Trump? It was an odd statement from a U.S. president, whose loyalty is supposed to be dedicated to the Constitution and the American people.

Trump has made dismissing as a hoax what he calls “Russia, Russia, Russia” central to his political narrative. But Russian operatives did, in fact, work to elect him in 2016. A 2020 report from the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed that Putin ordered hacks of Democratic computer networks, and at two crucial moments WikiLeaks, which the Senate committee concluded was allied with the Russians, dumped illegally obtained emails that were intended to hurt the candidacy of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Trump openly called for Russia to hack Clinton’s emails.

Russian operatives also flooded social media with disinformation, not necessarily explicitly endorsing Trump, but spreading lies about Clinton to depress Democratic turnout, or to rile up those on the right by falsely claiming that Democrats intended to ban the Pledge of Allegiance, for example. The goal of the propaganda was not simply to elect Trump. It was to pit the far ends of the political spectrum against the middle, tearing the nation apart.

Fake accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook drove wedges between Americans over issues of race, immigration, and gun rights. Craig Timberg and Tony Romm of the Washington Post reported in 2018 that Facebook officials told Congress that the Russian campaign reached 126 million people on Facebook and 20 million on Instagram.

That effort was not a one-shot deal: Russians worked to influence the 2020 presidential election, too. In 2021 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Putin “authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President [Joe] Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical division in the US.” But “[u]nlike in 2016,” the report said, “we did not see persistent Russian cyber efforts to gain access to election infrastructure.”

Moscow used “proxies linked to Russian intelligence to push influence narratives—including misleading or unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden—to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded.

In October 2024, Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, warned in an interview with CBS News that Russia was bombarding voters with propaganda to divide Americans before that year’s election, as well. Operatives were not just posting fake stories and replying to posts, but were also using AI to manufacture fake videos and laundering Russian talking points through social media influencers. Just a month before, news had broken that Russia was funding Tenet Media, a company that hired right-wing personalities Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, and Matt Christiansen, who repeated Russian talking points.

Now back in office, Trump and MAGA loyalists say that efforts to stop disinformation undermine their right to free speech. Project 2025, the extremist blueprint for the second Trump administration, denied that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election—calling it “a Clinton campaign dirty trick”—and called for ending government efforts to stop disinformation with “utmost urgency.” “The federal government cannot be the arbiter of truth,” it said.

On February 20, Steven Lee Myers, Julian E. Barnes, and Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times reported that the Trump administration is firing or reassigning officials at the FBI and CISA who had worked on protecting elections. That includes those trying to stop foreign propaganda and disinformation and those combating cyberattacks and attempts to disrupt voting systems.

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas broke the story that two members of the “Department of Government Efficiency” are now installed at CISA: Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old known as “Big Balls,” and Kyle Schutt, a 38-year-old software engineer. Kim Zetter of Wired reported that since 2018, CISA has “helped state and local election offices around the country assess vulnerabilities in their networks and help secure them.”

During the 2024 campaign, Trump said repeatedly that he would end the war in Ukraine. Shortly after the election, a newspaper reporter asked Nikolai Patrushev, who is close to Putin, if Trump’s election would mean “positive changes from Russia’s point of view.” Patrushev answered: “To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.”

Today, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a reporter: “The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[my-midlife-crisis]

MAGA WATCH AND PAY ATTENTION

Let's look at this a different way, shall we?

So, to put this in terms you would understand:

Pete Hegseth removed digital walls that keep Russia out of our private records and plans. Then in less of a month he and a group of others had a digital chat about Yemen. Which with out any cyber defense against Russia... Putin will be able to access the info Hegseth and others went over endangering our soldiers.

Just watch this FOX NEWS video and see that our own republican homeland security didn't know about our cyber wall from Russia being removed and why.

Hegseth should be arrested. Anybody in that chat should be arrested.

[follow-up-news]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to halt offensive cyber operations and information operations against Russia, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said.  Hegseth gave the order to the head of the command, Air Force Gen. Tim Haugh, in late February, the official said. It is unclear clear how long the order will last. A senior U.S. defense official declined to comment on the decision "due to operational security concerns."

[misfitwashere]

April 11, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 12

READ IN APP

On April 4, Trump fired head of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and director of the National Security Agency (NSA) General Timothy Haugh, apparently on the recommendation of right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is pitching her new opposition research firm to “vet” candidates for jobs in Trump’s administration.

Former secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall wrote in Newsweek yesterday that the position Haugh held is “one of the most sensitive and powerful jobs in America.” Kendall writes that NSA and CYBERCOM oversee the world’s most sophisticated tools and techniques to penetrate computer systems, monitor communications around the globe, and, if national security requires it, attack those systems. U.S. law drastically curtails how those tools can be used in the U.S. and against American citizens and businesses. Will a Trump loyalist follow those laws? Kendall writes: “Every American should view this development with alarm.”

Just after 2:00 a.m. eastern time this morning, the Senate confirmed Retired Air Force Lieutenant General John Dan Caine, who goes by the nickname “Razin,” for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a vote of 60–25. U.S. law requires the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of staff of the Army, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the commandant of the Marine Corps, or the commander of a unified or specified combatant command.

Although Caine has 34 years of military experience, he did not serve in any of the required positions. The law provides that the president can waive the requirement if “the President determines such action is necessary in the national interest,” and he has apparently done so for Caine. The politicization of the U.S. military by filling it with Trump loyalists is now, as Kendall writes, “indisputable.”

The politicization of data is also indisputable. Billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) claims to be saving Americans money, but the Wall Street Journal reported today that effort has been largely a failure (despite today’s announcement of devastating cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that monitors our weather). But what DOGE is really doing is burrowing into Americans’ data.

The first people to be targeted by that data collection appear to be undocumented immigrants. Jason Koebler of 404 Media reported on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using a database that enables officials to search for people by filtering for “hundreds of different, highly specific categories,” including scars or tattoos, bankruptcy filings, Social Security number, hair color, and race. The system, called Investigative Case Management (ICM), was created by billionaire Peter Thiel’s software company Palantir, which in 2022 signed a $95.9 million contract with the government to develop ICM.

Three Trump officials told Sophia Cai of Politico that DOGE staffers embedded in agencies across the government are expanding government cooperation with immigration officials, using the information they’re gleaning from government databases to facilitate deportation. On Tuesday, DOGE software engineer Aram Moghaddassi sent the first 6,300 names of individuals whose temporary legal status had just been canceled. On the list, which Moghaddassi said covered those on “the terror watch list” or with “F.B.I. criminal records,” were eight minors, including one 13-year-old.

The Social Security Administration worked with the administration to get those people to “self-deport” by adding them to the agency's “death master file.” That file is supposed to track people whose death means they should no longer receive benefits. Adding to it people the administration wants to erase is “financial murder,” former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley told Alexandra Berzon, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard of the New York Times. Those people will not be able to use credit cards or banks.

On Tuesday, Acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Melanie Krause resigned after the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to share sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes, in part to demonstrate their commitment to citizenship, and the government has promised immigrants that it would not use that information for immigration enforcement. Until now, the IRS has protected sensitive taxpayer information.

Rene Marsh and Marshall Cohen of CNN note that “[m]ultiple senior career IRS officials refused to sign the data-sharing agreement with DHS,” which will enable HHS officials to ask the IRS for names and addresses of people they suspect are undocumented, “because of grave concerns about its legality.” Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed the agreement with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Krause was only one of several senior career officials leaving the IRS, raising concerns among those staying that there is no longer a “defense against the potential unlawful use of taxpayer data by the Trump administration.”

Makena Kelly of Wired reported today that for the past three days, DOGE staffers have been working with representatives from Palantir and career engineers from the IRS in a giant “hackathon.” Their goal is to build a system that will be able to access all IRS records, including names, addresses, job data, and Social Security numbers, that can then be compared with data from other agencies.

But the administration’s attempt to automate deportation is riddled with errors. Last night the government sent threatening emails to U.S. citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) terminating “your parole” and giving them seven days to leave the U.S. One Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer asked on social media: “Does anyone know if you can get Italian citizenship through great-grandparents?”

The government is not keen to correct its errors. On March 15 the government rendered to prison in El Salvador a legal U.S. resident, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the courts had ordered the U.S. not to send to El Salvador, where his life was in danger. The government has admitted that its arrest and rendition of Abrego Garcia happened because of “administrative error” but now claims—without evidence—that he is a member of the MS-13 gang and that his return to the U.S. would threaten the public. Abrego Garcia says he is not a gang member and notes that he has never been charged with a crime.

On April 4, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. no later than 11:59 pm on April 7. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which handed down a 9–0 decision yesterday, saying the government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, but asked the district court to clarify what it meant by “effectuate,” noting that it must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

The Supreme Court also ordered that “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”

Legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained what happened next. Judge Xinis ordered the government to file an update by 9:30 a.m. today explaining where Abrego Garcia is, what the government is doing to get him back, and what more it will do. She planned an in-person hearing at 1:00 p.m.

The administration made clear it did not intend to comply. It answered that the judge had not given them enough time to answer and suggested that it would delay over the Supreme Court’s instruction that Xinis must show deference to the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs. Xinis gave the government until 11:30 and said she would still hold the hearing. The government submitted its filing at about 12:15, saying that Abrego Garcia is “in the custody of a foreign sovereign,” but at the 1:00 hearing, as Anna Bower of Lawfare reported, the lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, said he did not have information about where Abrego Garcia is and that the government had done nothing to get him back. Ensign said he might have answers by next Tuesday. Xinis says they will have to give an update tomorrow.

As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently warned, if the administration can take noncitizens off the streets, render them to prison in another country, and then claim it is helpless to correct the error because the person is out of reach of U.S. jurisdiction, it could do the same thing to citizens. Indeed, both President Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have proposed that very thing.

Tonight, Trump signed a memorandum to the secretaries of defense, interior, agriculture, and homeland security calling for a “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” The memorandum creates a military buffer zone along the border so that any migrant crossing would be trespassing on a U.S. military base. This would allow active-duty soldiers to hold migrants until ICE agents take them.

By April 20, the secretaries of defense and homeland security are supposed to report to the president whether they think he should invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to enable him to use the military to aid in mass deportations.

—

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

President Donald Trump’s abrupt apparent removal of the general who oversaw U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency at the reported behest of the MAGA influencer Laura Loomer, a notorious bigot and conspiracy theorist, is a five-alarm fire for national security and good governance. The move demonstrates that the only qualification for service in the administration is personal loyalty to the president as determined by his most zealous sycophants. Top Democrats on the House and Senate intelligence committees said on Thursday night that Gen. Timothy D. Haugh had been removed from his positions as director of the NSA and head of the military’s Cyber Command. According to The New York Times, “a U.S. official briefed on the matter said Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and outside adviser to President Trump, called for General Haugh’s removal during her Oval Office meeting on Thursday. Mr. Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to fire General Haugh, the official said.” Loomer subsequently appeared to take credit, writing on X that Haugh and his deputy had been “fired” because they were “disloyal to President Trump” and thanking the president “for being receptive to the vetting materials provided to you.” She gave no evidence of Haugh’s purported disloyalty in her post — nor any critique of his service in his positions — instead criticizing him as “a Biden appointee” who “had no place serving in the Trump admin given the fact that he was HAND PICKED by” former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley.  Haugh is not the only apparent casualty of Loomer’s efforts. His seeming removal comes amid a firestorm caused by the revelation that Hegseth had provided precise details about an imminent U.S. military strike in Yemen in a Signal messaging group of top Trump officials assembled by national security adviser Mike Waltz, a move experts said endangered the lives of U.S. service members.  Waltz and Hegseth still remain in their posts — but as that story continued to metastasize, Loomer met with Trump in the Oval Office and provided him “with opposition research on [National Security Council] staffers whom she views as neoconservatives or not sufficiently loyal to the president.” The White House purged at least six NSC staffers following that meeting.

Donald Trump gets reckless advice from Laura Loomer to dismiss members of his national security team, including Gen. Timothy D. Haugh.

See Also:

The Guardian: Who is Laura Loomer, the far-right influencer behind national security firings?

The Status Kuo (Jay Kuo): Loomered

[mariacallous]

Joint ODNI, FBI, and CISA Statement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ODNI News Release No. 29-24 November 4, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the following statement:

“Since our statement on Friday, the IC has been observing foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans. The IC expects these activities will intensify through election day and in the coming weeks, and that foreign influence narratives will focus on swing states.

Russia is the most active threat. Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences, judging from information available to the IC. These efforts risk inciting violence, including against election officials. We anticipate Russian actors will release additional manufactured content with these themes through election day and in the days and weeks after polls close.

The IC assesses that Russian influence actors recently posted and amplified an article falsely claiming that U.S. officials across swing states plan to orchestrate election fraud using a range of tactics, such as ballot stuffing and cyber attacks.

Russian influence actors also manufactured and amplified a recent video that falsely depicted an interview with an individual claiming election fraud in Arizona, which involved creating fake overseas ballots and changing voter rolls to favor Vice President Kamala Harris. The Arizona Secretary of State has already refuted the video’s claim as false.

Iran also remains a significant foreign influence threat to U.S. elections. As noted in a prior update, we have assessed that Iran has conducted malicious cyber activities to compromise former President Trump’s campaign. Iranian influence actors may also seek to create fake media content intended to suppress voting or stoke violence, as they have done in past election cycles. We previously reported that Iran also remains determined to seek revenge against select former US officials whom it views as culpable for the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Soleimani in January 2020. It has repeatedly highlighted former President Donald Trump among its priority targets for retribution.

In light of continued influence efforts by foreign adversaries and the increasing volume of inauthentic content online, CISA recommends voters seek out information from trusted, official sources, in particular, state and local election officials.

The FBI and CISA encourage campaigns and election infrastructure stakeholders to report information concerning suspicious or criminal activity to their local Election Crime Coordinators via FBI field office (www.fbi.gov/fieldoffices), by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324), or online at ic3.gov. Cyber incidents impacting election infrastructure can also be reported to CISA by calling 1-844-Say-CISA (1-844-729-2472), emailing report@cisa.dhs.gov, or reporting online at cisa.gov/report. Election infrastructure stakeholders and the public can find additional resources about how to protect against cyber and physical threats at CISA’s #PROTECT2024 (https://www.cisa.gov/protect2024).”

[girlactionfigure]

🚨 G7 WARNED OF IMMINENT IRANIAN ATTACK ON ISRAEL WITHIN 24 HOURS 🚨

‼️The G7 countries have informed that Iran could mount a full-scale attack on Israel within 24 hours.

‼️General Michael Kurilla, Commander of U.S. Central Command, is expected to arrive in Israel on Monday to review plans and coordinate forces in the Middle East.

‼️U.S. President Joe Biden will convene his national security team in the situation room on Monday at 2:15 PM ET (9:15 PM Israel time) to discuss developments in the region.

‼️In a special report by Army Radio, Efi Triger noted that the IDF has recently deployed several units from the Home Front Command and the Jordan Lions Battalion to reinforce the defense of the Seam Line communities in the Sharon area. This action follows an urgent warning after recent targeted killings, indicating plans to carry out infiltration attacks on these communities, orchestrated by Iran and Hamas.

The Shin Bet received intelligence that terrorists from the Tulkarm area intended to infiltrate settlements in the Sharon Seam Line area. Consequently, soldiers have been stationed within these settlements to provide an immediate response to any incidents, given the proximity to Palestinian territories.

These units are tasked with serving as the last line of defense within the settlements, should all other security measures fail, learning from the events of October 7th. It became evident on the night between Friday and Saturday that there were genuine threats, as a terrorist cell from Tulkarm, eliminated on Saturday morning, was planning an infiltration attack in Israel.

Security officials told Army Radio that Iran and Hamas are attempting to divert Israeli attention to Judea and Samaria to provoke an intifada, hoping this will prevent an Israeli attack in Lebanon. Judea and Samaria risk becoming the main theater of war once again.

🔅EMERGENCY PREP - THE BASICS

via ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime

Things are scary, “well what am I supposed to do?”

Basic preparation IN ISRAEL:

.. Drinking water.  Buy some bottled water, 9 liters per adult (less for children).

.. Washing / flushing water.  Have a few buckets or fill a bunch of used water bottles, to wash or flush with - fill buckets when emergency starts, BUT not if you have small children who can drown in an open bucket.

.. Medicine.  If you take chronic medicine (every day), get the 3 month supply from your Kupah.

.. Money.  Have cash on hand in case ATM’s and credit cards aren’t working.

.. Food.  Canned, dry, etc, supplies on hand for a week per person.  Baby food? Formula? Special nutrition? Pet food?

.. Light.  Flash lights, candles. 

.. Communications.  Have a power-bank or two for your cell phone.  And maybe a radio (buy at hardware stores).

.. Shelter.  Make sure it is ready.

More here -> Supplies and Equipment for Emergencies.  https://www.oref.org.il/12490-15903-en/pakar.aspx

❗️EMERGENCY PLANNING

Links work in Israel.

.. Preparing your home for an emergency.  https://www.oref.org.il/12490-15902-en/Pakar.aspx

.. Help Prep your Neighborhood and Family Elderly.  https://www.oref.org.il/12550-20999-en/pakar.aspx

.. Know the Emergency numbers:

Police 100 emergency, 110 non-urgent situation

Ambulance 101

Medics 1221

Fire 102

Electric Company 103

Home Front Command 104

City Hotline 106

Senior Citizen Hotline *8840

Social Services Hotline 118

Cyber (hack) Hotline 119

🔸 MENTAL HEALTH HOTLINES, in case you are freaking out:

.. in English : Tikva Helpline by KeepOlim, call if you are struggling!  074-775-1433.

.. in Hebrew : Eran Emotional Support Line - 1201 or chat via eran.org.il

...

[autumngracy]

MSNBC | Defense Secretary Hegseth orders U.S. Cyber Command to cease operations against Russia

NBC confirms Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered U.S. Cyber Command to stand down on all offensive cyber operations and information operations against Russia. MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart unpacks this breaking news with his panel.

[keithmosher2]

Calling Moscow

It should be all too obvious…

Feb 4: The U.S., along with Russia, vote "No" on U.N. resolution condemning Russia for the war with Ukraine.

Feb 5: DOGE obtains access to information on all U.S. citizens through the Treasury Department and OBM computer systems, with no oversight. Several of the DOGE team have ties to Russia.

Feb 6: Attorney General Pam Bondi ends FBI efforts to combat foreign influence in U.S. Politics, and ends Kleptocracy Initiative which battled corruption and returned ill-gotten gains to victims of financial crimes.

Feb 19: US and Russia - without Ukraine - enter peace talks over the Ukraine war, in which they propose that Ukraine will not get its land back, and will not enter NATO, which is to say Russia wins everything.

Feb 28: Defense Sec. Hegseth orders Cyber Command to halt Russia Planning.

Feb 28: White House "Hand Picks" the pool reporters for the Zelenskyy meeting, leaving OUT the AP and Reuters reporters, but Russian TASS reporter gets into the Oval Office for the event.

Feb 28: The Felon President and creepy Vance berate Zelenskyy, accusing him of risking World War 3, offering Ukraine nothing, not even sympathy, but demanding tribute.

If it is not clear to you that the First Felon is a Russian asset and/or agent, you are not paying attention.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Davies

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 11, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 12, 2025

On April 4, Trump fired head of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) and director of the National Security Agency (NSA) General Timothy Haugh, apparently on the recommendation of right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, who is pitching her new opposition research firm to “vet” candidates for jobs in Trump’s administration.

Former secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall wrote in Newsweek yesterday that the position Haugh held is “one of the most sensitive and powerful jobs in America.” Kendall writes that NSA and CYBERCOM oversee the world’s most sophisticated tools and techniques to penetrate computer systems, monitor communications around the globe, and, if national security requires it, attack those systems. U.S. law drastically curtails how those tools can be used in the U.S. and against American citizens and businesses. Will a Trump loyalist follow those laws? Kendall writes: “Every American should view this development with alarm.”

Just after 2:00 a.m. eastern time this morning, the Senate confirmed Retired Air Force Lieutenant General John Dan Caine, who goes by the nickname “Razin,” for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a vote of 60–25. U.S. law requires the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to have served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of staff of the Army, the chief of naval operations, the chief of staff of the Air Force, the commandant of the Marine Corps, or the commander of a unified or specified combatant command.

Although Caine has 34 years of military experience, he did not serve in any of the required positions. The law provides that the president can waive the requirement if “the President determines such action is necessary in the national interest,” and he has apparently done so for Caine. The politicization of the U.S. military by filling it with Trump loyalists is now, as Kendall writes, “indisputable.”

The politicization of data is also indisputable. Billionaire Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) claims to be saving Americans money, but the Wall Street Journal reported today that effort has been largely a failure (despite today’s announcement of devastating cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that monitors our weather). But what DOGE is really doing is burrowing into Americans’ data.

The first people to be targeted by that data collection appear to be undocumented immigrants. Jason Koebler of 404 Media reported on Wednesday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been using a database that enables officials to search for people by filtering for “hundreds of different, highly specific categories,” including scars or tattoos, bankruptcy filings, Social Security number, hair color, and race. The system, called Investigative Case Management (ICM), was created by billionaire Peter Thiel’s software company Palantir, which in 2022 signed a $95.9 million contract with the government to develop ICM.

Three Trump officials told Sophia Cai of Politico that DOGE staffers embedded in agencies across the government are expanding government cooperation with immigration officials, using the information they’re gleaning from government databases to facilitate deportation. On Tuesday, DOGE software engineer Aram Moghaddassi sent the first 6,300 names of individuals whose temporary legal status had just been canceled. On the list, which Moghaddassi said covered those on “the terror watch list” or with “F.B.I. criminal records,” were eight minors, including one 13-year-old.

The Social Security Administration worked with the administration to get those people to “self-deport” by adding them to the agency's “death master file.” That file is supposed to track people whose death means they should no longer receive benefits. Adding to it people the administration wants to erase is “financial murder,” former SSA commissioner Martin O’Malley told Alexandra Berzon, Hamed Aleaziz, Nicholas Nehamas, Ryan Mac, and Tara Siegel Bernard of the New York Times. Those people will not be able to use credit cards or banks.

On Tuesday, Acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Melanie Krause resigned after the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to share sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities. Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes, in part to demonstrate their commitment to citizenship, and the government has promised immigrants that it would not use that information for immigration enforcement. Until now, the IRS has protected sensitive taxpayer information.

Rene Marsh and Marshall Cohen of CNN note that “[m]ultiple senior career IRS officials refused to sign the data-sharing agreement with DHS,” which will enable HHS officials to ask the IRS for names and addresses of people they suspect are undocumented, “because of grave concerns about its legality.” Ultimately, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed the agreement with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.

Krause was only one of several senior career officials leaving the IRS, raising concerns among those staying that there is no longer a “defense against the potential unlawful use of taxpayer data by the Trump administration.”

Makena Kelly of Wired reported today that for the past three days, DOGE staffers have been working with representatives from Palantir and career engineers from the IRS in a giant “hackathon.” Their goal is to build a system that will be able to access all IRS records, including names, addresses, job data, and Social Security numbers, that can then be compared with data from other agencies.

But the administration’s attempt to automate deportation is riddled with errors. Last night the government sent threatening emails to U.S. citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) terminating “your parole” and giving them seven days to leave the U.S. One Massachusetts-born immigration lawyer asked on social media: “Does anyone know if you can get Italian citizenship through great-grandparents?”

The government is not keen to correct its errors. On March 15 the government rendered to prison in El Salvador a legal U.S. resident, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the courts had ordered the U.S. not to send to El Salvador, where his life was in danger. The government has admitted that its arrest and rendition of Abrego Garcia happened because of “administrative error” but now claims—without evidence—that he is a member of the MS-13 gang and that his return to the U.S. would threaten the public. Abrego Garcia says he is not a gang member and notes that he has never been charged with a crime.

On April 4, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis ordered the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. no later than 11:59 pm on April 7. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court, which handed down a 9–0 decision yesterday, saying the government must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s release, but asked the district court to clarify what it meant by “effectuate,” noting that it must give “due regard for the deference owed to the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs.”

The Supreme Court also ordered that “the Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps.”

Legal analyst Joyce White Vance explained what happened next. Judge Xinis ordered the government to file an update by 9:30 a.m. today explaining where Abrego Garcia is, what the government is doing to get him back, and what more it will do. She planned an in-person hearing at 1:00 p.m.

The administration made clear it did not intend to comply. It answered that the judge had not given them enough time to answer and suggested that it would delay over the Supreme Court’s instruction that Xinis must show deference to the president’s ability to conduct foreign affairs. Xinis gave the government until 11:30 and said she would still hold the hearing. The government submitted its filing at about 12:15, saying that Abrego Garcia is “in the custody of a foreign sovereign,” but at the 1:00 hearing, as Anna Bower of Lawfare reported, the lawyer representing the government, Drew Ensign, said he did not have information about where Abrego Garcia is and that the government had done nothing to get him back. Ensign said he might have answers by next Tuesday. Xinis says they will have to give an update tomorrow.

As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor recently warned, if the administration can take noncitizens off the streets, render them to prison in another country, and then claim it is helpless to correct the error because the person is out of reach of U.S. jurisdiction, it could do the same thing to citizens. Indeed, both President Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt have proposed that very thing.

Tonight, Trump signed a memorandum to the secretaries of defense, interior, agriculture, and homeland security calling for a “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” The memorandum creates a military buffer zone along the border so that any migrant crossing would be trespassing on a U.S. military base. This would allow active-duty soldiers to hold migrants until ICE agents take them.

By April 20, the secretaries of defense and homeland security are supposed to report to the president whether they think he should invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to enable him to use the military to aid in mass deportations.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON