Below is State of the Day, a morning newsletter from the Daily Caller Editorial Desk. Sign up here.
__________
Hey everyone,
Welcome to State of the Day,
Just in case the FBI, CIA, NSA, ODNI, and the rest we don't know about weren't enough!
Meet The Newest Member Of The Deep State
Custom hacking tools, clandestinely planted faulty components, and covert sabotage operations — think Mission: Impossible — have quietly arrived at the Pentagon.
And, I'll admit, at first I thought it sounded pretty awesome.
But you know what else sounded perfectly reasonable at first? Every other U.S. intelligence agency.
The unfortunate truth is when you mix large sums of undisclosed government spending with the most power-hungry among us, it'll never end well.
The Pentagon established the Technology Support Office, or TSO, without its usual pomp and circumstance. Formed in April, the office brought together the Pentagon's efforts to develop tools and strategies to disrupt foreign defense tech, all under one covert umbrella, according to Politico.
Their work reportedly includes everything from offensive hacking to deception operations designed to fool adversaries abroad into using faulty equipment in their weapons systems.
The idea makes sense, and most reasonable people could support the mission to keep our enemies from gaining a strategic advantage. But the Pentagon has decided the best way to do that is creating another three-letter agency, shrouded in secrecy, with God knows what budget and procurement powers.
One former senior Pentagon intelligence official estimated the office's classified contracts budget alone could exceed $1.5 billion, though Politico noted it's an unofficial estimate.
The pitch for these new agencies is never hard to understand: the CIA was meant to coordinate intel after WW2, the NSA was supposed to consolidate intelligence during the Cold War, and ODNI came after 9/11.
All reasonable problems worth fixing, but if you ask me, little good ever comes from the government acting in secret.
When the CIA was worried sick about Soviet mind control techniques, they used prostitutes to lure unsuspecting men into CIA safehouses and pumped them full of LSD to see if they could control their minds while agents watched behind a two-way mirror; see MK ULTRA.
See how quickly a national security pitch morphs into deep state debauchery? You'd be hard-pressed to find a throughline between WW2 and functionally lobotomizing Americans with psychedelics and high-voltage electroshock therapy.
And yet!
And before you call me a conspiracy theorist, let me throw in my bit about Epstein, too.
The American intelligence community and the FBI worked to suppress evidence, documents, and implicated parties related to Jeffrey Epstein in an effort to keep the extent of the horrific sexual abuse and sex trafficking perpetuated at his behest hidden from the American public.
Would anyone care to explain how that has absolutely anything to do with the agency's charge to "protect and defend against rampant crime?"
Oh, and don't forget, your very own U.S. House of Representatives voted to create a brand new technology cooperation initiative with Israel in the National Defense Authorization Act, which would "expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation." I'm sure this fun little venture will offer plenty of opportunities for play date espionage.
That no doubt will end well, and surely won't result in any catastrophic security failures!
So please, cut me some slack if I'm not jazzed by another secretive government program that spends our tax dollars doing who knows what.
We've seen time and time again what happens when these swampy endeavors lack any modicum of public accountability.
If I can offer any consolation, the TSO Netflix documentary will probably be a good watch.
—
From The Editors' Desk
EXCLUSIVE: They Haven't Had Water For Years. An Influential Republican Politician May Be To Blame, Daily Caller, Abigail Archer
Ever wondered how much political inside baseball it takes to keep your dam running while your neighbors' wells run dry? Residents in Cedar Lake, Oklahoma, say their once-thriving lake has become an unusable mudflat, leaving docks stranded far from the waterline. Abigail Archer spoke with residents and gathered a trove of photos documenting the lake's decline. Read more at the Daily Caller.
Israel Lobby Quietly Shifts Political Operation To Super PAC Under New Name, Daily Caller News Foundation, Jillian Butler
The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, also known as AIPAC, announced it would no longer endorse congressional candidates individually or donate directly to their campaigns. Instead, the powerful group will merge its political operations with the United Democracy Project PAC. Read more about the change that is sure to impact future elections from Daily Caller News Foundation National Defense Reporter Jillian Butler.
Republican group places seven-figure ad buy in Mississippi, Semafor, Burgess Everett
The Magnolia State is getting much more attention this election season than it's used to. The Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP super PAC, is sending over $1 million into the state in hopes of defending incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith's seat against Democratic challenger Scott Colom. Read more on the expanding midterm map from Semafor's Burgess Everett.
'Lot Of Mistakes': GOP Megadonor Peter Thiel Criticizes Trump's Decision To Launch War, Daily Caller, John Loftus
Palantir cofounder and Republican mega donor Peter Thiel chimed in on the ongoing war in Iran, saying, in part, "I'm skeptical of [the war], I think we should not have done it." The comments came as part of his "Antichrist" lecture series, which has generated plenty of media buzz on its own. Read more on the criticism from one of the right's first Silicon Valley donors from the Daily Caller's John Loftus.
Source link
