Is Biden on the Path to Terminate Space Exploration and Space Force?

White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki gave a snarky reply when asked a question about the Space Force. Psaki responded she had no idea who the Space Force point of contact was and later added that Space Force had the full support of President Biden. Exactly how would she know? Jen Psaki later had to issue a circle back tweet:

 

In part: WASHINGTON — In a new strategic vision, Gen. James Dickinson outlines the truths and tasks U.S. Space Command must adopt in order to maintain American space supremacy.

The breezy eight-page document reaffirms the incredible value space provides to the nation’s economy and military, but warns of the growing threat posed by anti-satellite weapons being developed by China and Russia. Throughout the Trump administration’s term, officials frequently cited the development and testing of anti-satellite weapons as a justification for the establishment of both Space Command and the U.S. Space Force, blaming China and Russia for bringing to space the potential for conflict and war.

  • Space is a vital interest that is integral to the American way of life and national security.
  • Space superiority enables the joint force to rapidly transition from competition to conflict and prevail in a global, all-domain fight.
  • Space war fighters generate the combat power to win in space.
  • Space provides the war fighter a combat advantage from the ultimate high ground to the last tactical mile.

President Joe Biden is making his space policy preferences increasingly clear: America will remain grounded for the time being.

On Jan. 28, SpaceX was set to put its Starship rocket through another test in the blue skies above Texas. The objective of the test was to get the massive rocket up to 12.5 kilometers — about seven miles — above the Earth and then spin the giant rocket around so that it could make a vertical landing.The First U.S. Space Force Launch Is This Afternoon ...

Sadly, the visionary goal of getting Americans to Mars first came crashing down when the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which, under the Trump administration had allowed for SpaceX to conduct their important test flights, ordered Mr. Musk to cancel the Starship prototype test.

The FAA did not cite its reasoning behind ordering the cancellation of the launch. Many have speculated that the cancellation was brought about due to safety concerns. After all, in December 2020, SpaceX did a test of the experimental rocket. The Starship prototype made it to a height of 41,000 feet. Once it reoriented itself, in order to allow for the rocket to land vertically, the great silver spacecraft promptly did a bellyflop that ended in a massive explosion.

Despite this, SpaceX learned many valuable lessons from the December failure that were to be applied to the Starship launch in January. In science, the only lasting failure occurs when one does not test a new idea or hypothesis. This axiom is especially true in the context of the new space race between the United States and China.

It’s likely that the FAA’s decision to cancel the launch is part of a wider Biden administration effort undo the Trump administration’s vibrant space policy. Plus, former President Trump’s space vision was explicitly aimed at countering advances made by China in space. It is unlikely that the Biden administration seeks to continue that policy, as the Biden team attempts to stabilize deteriorating relations with Beijing over the next few years.

Concern over Mr. Musk’s Martian intentions is likely another factor for the FAA’s cancellation of the Starship launch. Last year, Mr. Musk indicated that any future SpaceX Martian colony would not be “ruled by Earth-based laws.” The problem for Mr. Musk is that SpaceX has been awarded lucrative contracts by the Earth-based U.S. government. If SpaceX were to create a colony on Mars, because of the company’s contractual relationship with the U.S. government, Washington very much expects that colony to be an American endeavor.

Lastly, Mr. Musk has been publicly supportive of the recent “GameStonk” controversy. A group of anonymous, individual investors on Reddit decided to engage in a little activism by inflating the stock price of Gamestop, a video game retailer. Melvin Capital, a storied Wall Street investment firm, was forced into bankruptcy by this move (they took the other side of the bet, attempting to short the Gamestop stock).

The “GameStonk” event was so significant that the Biden administration is vowing to prevent something similar from happening again. Congress is even getting involved. Because of Mr. Musk’s prestige and his vocal support for the Redditors who helped to take down Melvin Capital, it is possible that the Biden administration was punishing Mr. Musk by canceling the Starship launch at the last minute.

It is not only Mr. Musk who suffers from the FAA’s cancellation of the SpaceX test flight. We, the American people — and the entire effort to beat China to Mars — suffer. The Biden administration’s decision to increase regulations on the private space launch services sector and slow down their operations, as evidenced by the recent Starship launch cancellation, will only help China in its ongoing mission to defeat America in the new space race. More here.

***.Earth calling: SpaceX capsule carrying NASA crew to land ...

Musk, 49, is widely heralded for disrupting the auto industry with high-performance electric cars and upending Big Aerospace with reusable rockets.

His companies are growing: Tesla is building new factories in Berlin and in Austin, Texas, while SpaceX — which has contracts with the Air Force and NASA — is rolling out Starlink, its high-speed internet service, to rural and remote customers across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. There’s also Boring Co., his tunnel-construction business, and Neuralink, which is testing its brain machine interface device on monkeys and pigs and hopes to begin human trials this year. More here. 

Twitter Being Sued for Refusing to Remove Child Pornography

In short, child pornography does not violate their terms of use policies. While you’re at it…check out Facebook Messenger or any of the other platforms that are encrypted.

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The 70 page lawsuit is found here.

Twittergate: Massive child porn rings revealed on Twitter ...

source and TwitterGate

 

NYP:

Twitter refused to take down widely shared pornographic images and videos of a teenage sex trafficking victim because an investigation “didn’t find a violation” of the company’s “policies,” a scathing lawsuit alleges.

The federal suit, filed Wednesday by the victim and his mother in the Northern District of California, alleges Twitter made money off the clips, which showed a 13-year-old engaged in sex acts and are a form of child sexual abuse material, or child porn, the suit states.

The teen — who is now 17 and lives in Florida — is identified only as John Doe and was between 13 and 14 years old when sex traffickers, posing as a 16-year-old female classmate, started chatting with him on Snapchat, the suit alleges.

Doe and the traffickers allegedly exchanged nude photos before the conversation turned to blackmail: If the teen didn’t share more sexually graphic photos and videos, the explicit material he’d already sent would be shared with his “parents, coach, pastor” and others, the suit states.

Doe, acting under duress, initially complied and sent videos of himself performing sex acts and was also told to include another child in his videos, which he did, the suit claims.

Eventually, Doe blocked the traffickers and they stopped harassing him, but at some point in 2019, the videos surfaced on Twitter under two accounts that were known to share child sexual abuse material, court papers allege.

Over the next month, the videos would be reported to Twitter at least three times — first on Dec. 25, 2019 — but the tech giant failed to do anything about it until a federal law enforcement officer got involved, the suit states.

Doe became aware of the tweets in January 2020 because they’d been viewed widely by his classmates, which subjected him to “teasing, harassment, vicious bullying” and led him to become “suicidal,” court records show.

While Doe’s parents contacted the school and made police reports, he filed a complaint with Twitter, saying there were two tweets depicting child pornography of himself and they needed to be removed because they were illegal, harmful and were in violation of the site’s policies.

A support agent followed up and asked for a copy of Doe’s ID so they could prove it was him and after the teen complied, there was no response for a week, the family claims.

Around the same time, Doe’s mother filed two complaints to Twitter reporting the same material and for a week, she also received no response, the suit states.

Finally on Jan. 28, Twitter replied to Doe and said they wouldn’t be taking down the material, which had already racked up over 167,000 views and 2,223 retweets, the suit states.

“Thanks for reaching out. We’ve reviewed the content, and didn’t find a violation of our policies, so no action will be taken at this time,” the response reads, according to the lawsuit.

“If you believe there’s a potential copyright infringement, please start a new report. If the content is hosted on a third-party website, you’ll need to contact that website’s support team to report it. Your safety is the most important thing, and if you believe you are in danger, we encourage you to contact your local authorities.”

In his response, published in the complaint, Doe appeared shocked.

“What do you mean you don’t see a problem? We both are minors right now and were minors at the time these videos were taken. We both were 13 years of age. We were baited, harassed, and threatened to take these videos that are now being posted without our permission. We did not authorize these videos AT ALL and they need to be taken down,” the teen wrote back to Twitter.

He even included his case number from a local law enforcement agency, but still the tech giant allegedly ignored him and refused to do anything about the illegal child sexual abuse material — as it continued to rack up more and more views.

Two days later, Doe’s mom was connected with an agent from the Department of Homeland Security through a mutual contact who successfully had the videos removed on Jan. 30, the suit states.

“Only after this take-down demand from a federal agent did Twitter suspend the user accounts that were distributing the CSAM and report the CSAM to the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children,” states the suit, filed by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and two law firms.

“This is directly in contrast to what their automated reply message and User Agreement state they will do to protect children.”

The disturbing lawsuit goes on to allege Twitter knowingly hosts creeps who use the platform to exchange child porn material and profits from it by including ads interspersed between tweets advertising or requesting the material.

Early Thursday, Twitter declined comment to The Post but later in the day, reversed course and sent a statement by email.

“Twitter has zero-tolerance for any material that features or promotes child sexual exploitation. We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse and have heavily invested in technology and tools to enforce our policy, a Twitter spokesperson wrote.

“Our dedicated teams work to stay ahead of bad-faith actors and to ensure we’re doing everything we can to remove content, facilitate investigations, and protect minors from harm — both on and offline.”

After a Quiet Meeting in Vegas, Lawsuits Against Big Tech to be Filed

Source: A group of conservatives and Trump administration officials quietly met in Las Vegas over the weekend to discuss issues including ‘woke tech’, ‘restoring law’, and the ‘new slave power,’ according to a report by Protocol.

The event, known as the ‘Digital Statecraft Summit,’ was hosted by the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank.

A copy of the event’s agenda obtained by Protocol reportedly listed high-profile speakers including United States Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, former deputy national security adviser for President Trump, Michael Anton, and the current acting head of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Adam Candeub.

Ken Paxton Wants 'Ultimate Home Field Advantage' in Felony ... Ken Paxton

A source familiar with Kratsios’ planned remarks told Protocol he intended to speak about artificial intelligence and China.

Anton, who served as deputy national security adviser under Trump from February 2017 to April 2018, was slated to be on ‘The New Slave Power’ panel. Anton recently wrote an essay entitled ‘Blue America Needs Red America’ for Claremont’s American Mind publication, in which he suggested that Democrats were ‘openly talking about staging a coup’ in an effort to ‘command and oppress’ Republicans. Also on the panel with Anton was conservative blogger Curtis Yarvin, also known as Mencius Moldbug, who once wrote in a blog post: “although I am not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff.”

While it was unclear what Candeub was scheduled to speak about, Mother Jones reported that he is known to have ties to white nationalists, including writing four Wall Street Journal op-eds with Marcus Epstein and representing Jared Taylor in a lawsuit against Twitter in 2018.

It was also unclear what Paxton was slated to speak about. Paxton is leading a multi-state antitrust action against Google and was part of an effort to overturn the results of the presidential election based on unfounded claims of election fraud in four states that voted for President-elect Joe Biden. The FBI is currently investigating claims that Paxton abused his power to benefit a wealthy donor. A representative for Paxton did not immediately return FOX Business’ request for comment.

John Eastman joins the Federalist Society 11.14.19 - The ... John Eastman

In addition, Chapman University professor and conservative legal scholar John Eastman, who helped to rally Trump supporters outside the White House before the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6 which left five people dead, was reportedly slated to speak.

Also listed on the agenda was newly confirmed FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington, but he told Protocol he did not end up attending.

“Despite initial plans to do so, I did not attend or otherwise participate in the Claremont event this weekend, and I did not prepare or submit remarks,” Simington said.

An attendee told Protocol that the tone of the event was expected to to be “very critical of tech, very pro some type of intervention.”

‘There’s going to be some discrepancy and debate around what intervention looks like,’ the individual said.

The attendee added that the Claremont Institute appeared to keep information about the summit ‘under wraps’, noting that no information was provided on who would be speaking just hours before the event was set to kick off and that the organization did not appear to be promoting the event on social media Saturday as the first panels began.

Protocol reported that the event also took place amid a spike in COVID cases in the Las Vegas area, and that Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams declined to answer the outlet’s questions about “the new slave power” panel and what COVID-19 safety protocols were being implemented.

“The Claremont Institute has been a leading voice against political censorship by the Big Tech oligarchs, and we have no interest in commenting on an obvious hatchet job by a publication so clearly beholden to the pieties of Silicon Valley,” Williams said in an email to Protocol. “Your questions are riddled with false premises, but we welcome the fire.”

The Claremont Institute did not immediately return FOX Business’ request for comment.

The meeting comes as conservatives have argued that that they are being unfairly targeted by tech giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon.

Facebook and Twitter suspended President Trump earlier this month, citing a ‘risk of further incitement of violence’ after deeming a series of posts related to the violence at the Capitol as inflammatory.

Meanwhile, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R.-Ga., regained access to her Twitter account after it was temporarily locked on Sunday over “multiple violations” on the social media platform related to claims of election fraud in the presidential and Senate runoff elections.

“Dear @Twitter, Contrary to how highly you think of yourself and your moral platitude, you are not the judge of humanity. God is,” Greene wrote, adding that Twitter is “becoming boring” since President Trump was permanently banned after the Capitol riot.

In addition, alternative social media platform Parler is suing Amazon Web Services for a breach of contract and antitrust violation, alleging it acted with “political animus” after severing ties with the company for failure to moderate “egregious content’ related to the riot.

Parler’s lawyer, David Groesbeck, argued during a hearing last week that the company would suffer irreparable harm if it was forced to permanently close and that it is in the public interest to restore the platform’s service. The platform’s chief executive officer, John Matze, said the platform would return to users soon in a status update on Sunday evening.

WASHINGTON – State attorneys general are planning a third lawsuit against Alphabet Inc’s Google, this one focused on the search and advertising giant’s Play Store for Android phones, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The lawsuit is expected to be filed in February or March, the sources said, and it would follow complaints about Google’s management of its Play Store even though the company was originally seen as more open about its app store than Apple.

Including a Justice Department lawsuit filed against Google in October, the possible new action would be the fourth government lawsuit brought against the Silicon Valley company since late 2020. All allege that Google abused its dominance of the internet search business or otherwise broke antitrust law.

Google bans apps with objectionable content from its store, and further requires that some apps use the company’s payment tools and pay Google as much as 30 percent of their revenue.

Those and related policies prompted criticism from app developers, particularly when Google said last year it would ramp up enforcement. Google’s Play Store is far more widely used than similar products from Amazon, Samsung, Huawei and others.

The probe will be headed by attorneys general of New York, Utah and North Carolina, and other states are also expected to join, one of the sources said.

Asked to comment on the possible new legal action, Google said in a statement that its Android mobile operating system has allowed users access to multiple app stores, which means that developers have options.

“Most Android devices ship with at least two app stores preinstalled, and consumers are able to install additional app stores,” Sameer Samat, vice president of Android and Google Play, said in a statement.

“This openness means that even if a developer and Google do not agree on business terms the developer can still distribute on the Android platform,” he said.

Video game maker Epic Games sued Google and Apple separately in US district court in August, accusing the companies of using their dominance to charge app developers an “exorbitant” fee of 30 percent on sales and of imposing other restrictions.

Apple, whose app store does not directly compete with Google’s because it is not compatible with Android devices, is under Justice Department investigation for its policies.

After more than a year of investigations into the four major tech platforms, including Facebook, Amazon and Apple, the Justice Department was first out of the gate with a lawsuit against Google focused on its search business and search advertising.

In addition, two groups of state attorneys general filed lawsuits last year, one led by Texas and focused on advertising. The other targeted Google’s alleged efforts to extend its dominance in search to newer markets, like voice assistants.

What is it with CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike, The DNC's Security Firm, Was Under Contract ... CrowdStrike was working on behalf of the DNC, the company was also under contract with the FBI for unspecified technical services. According to a US federal government spending database, CrowdStrike’s “period of performance” on behalf of the FBI was between July 2015 and July 2016. CrowdStrike’s findings regarding the DNC server breach — which continue to this day to be cited as authoritative by everyone from former FBI Director James Comey, to NBC anchor Megyn Kelly — were issued in June 2016, when the contract was still active. source

Some may believe this is all old news. It maybe years old, however it is remains unsolved. With a new Biden administration, it is important that many, many of those old players are now part of the Biden presidential operation, especially Susan Rice and the others that did unmasking. Beware of what comes.

Meanwhile…..when governments collude…especially intelligence agencies and operatives….

Real Clear Politics published in May of 2020 the following:
CrowdStrike, the cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, privately acknowledged more than two years ago that it had no evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee’s server.

CrowdStrike President Shawn Henry’s admission under oath, in a recently declassified December 2017 interview before the House Intelligence Committee, raises new questions about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller, intelligence officials and Democrats misled the public. The allegation that Russia stole Democratic Party emails from Hillary Clinton, John Podesta and others and then passed them to WikiLeaks helped trigger the FBI’s probe into now debunked claims of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to steal the 2016 election. The CrowdStrike admissions were released just two months after the Justice Department retreated from its its other central claim that Russia meddled in the 2016 election when it dropped charges against Russian troll farms it said had been trying to get Trump elected.

And the Crowdstrike CEO is proud of the work his company does with the FBI. Going back further, it is noted: Attorney Andrew Bagley has been employed by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike since January 2015; this company was involved deeply in the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hacking debacle. In 2010, Bagley served as a visiting researcher at the Link Campus University in Rome; while there, his résumé notes that Bagley, “Conducted research and held discussions with Italian and American prosecutors, special agents, and intelligence officials about intelligence analysis, national security, cybersecurity, and counterterrorism policy.”

Image

According to Bagley’s online résumé, he served as the E-Discovery Technical Advisor to the FBI, conducting legal research, advising on technical issues, and drafting policy for the Discovery Coordination and Policy Unit within the FBI, from 2012 to 2015.

In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that the DNC’s servers had been hacked.

Interesting: Despite the patent importance of the physical server system to the FBI and Intelligence-Community investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Bureau never examined the DNC servers. Evidently, the DNC declined to cooperate to that degree, and the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue a subpoena to demand that the servers be turned over (just like the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue subpoenas to demand the surrender of critical physical evidence in the Clinton e-mails investigation).

Instead, the conclusion that Russia is responsible for the invasion of the DNC servers rests on the forensic analysis conducted by CrowdStrike. Rather than do its own investigation, the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s lawyers.

Link International - Link Campus University of Rome Link University, Rome

As Senator Lindsey Graham published the now declassified documents/testimonies on RussiaGate, CrowdStrike comes into view again. Why? Well, the FBI has a long and comprehensive history with the Link Campus in Rome and now we learn more about Joseph Mifsud. He was on staff at the Link Campus in Italy. Remember how, AG Barr flew to Italy for some one on one interviews? Those he interviewed remain unknown.Could AG Barr have met with Vincenzo Scotti or maybe even Mifsud himself? As for Link Campus University, Italy: Mifsud, Scotti, and Frattini were all employed by this Italian university. ‘Enzo’ Scotti is Scotti is an Italian politician and member of Christian Democracy. He was Minister of the Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs. And it could be that Mifsud is hiding in Russia….just a suggestion.

As intelligence expert Chris Blackburn notes on Twitter, leafing through the minutes, “the FBI knew that Joseph Mifsud was working with Italian intelligence figures-trainers at the Link Campus in Rome. Because the FBI worked there, too. Of course Mueller didn’t want to include it in his report.” Nothing but “Russian agent”, then. As RealClearInvestigations points out, after Mifsud was identified as the man who would talk to Papadopoulos, Mueller’s team described him as someone with important Russian contacts. This description of the Maltese lecturer, however, ignored Mifsud’s own ties to Western governments, politicians and institutions, including the CIA, FBI and British intelligence services. It’s really curious that, despite Mifsud’s central role in the investigation, the FBI conducted only a brief interview with him in an atrium of a Washington, D.C., hotel in February 2017. Mueller’s team later claimed that Mifsud provided false statements to FBI agents but did not charge him as happened with Papadopoulos. How could he be a Russian agent? And if he did, why wasn’t he questioned?
Then there is CrowdStrike and Ukraine, or is there?

FILE – CrowdStrike co-founder and CTO Dmitri Alperovitch speaks during the Reuters Media and Technology Summit in New York, June 11, 2012.

After CrowdStrike released its Ukraine report, company co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch claimed it provided added evidence of Russian election interference. In both hacks, he said, the company found malware used by “Fancy Bear,” a group with ties to Russian intelligence agencies.

CrowdStrike’s claims of heavy Ukrainian artillery losses were widely circulated in U.S. media.

On Thursday, CrowdStrike walked back key parts of its Ukraine report.

The company removed language that said Ukraine’s artillery lost 80 percent of the Soviet-era D-30 howitzers, which used aiming software that purportedly was hacked. Instead, the revised report cites figures of 15 to 20 percent losses in combat operations, attributing the figures to IISS.

The original CrowdStrike report was dated Dec. 22, 2016, and the updated report was dated March 23, 2017.

The company also removed language saying Ukraine’s howitzers suffered “the highest percentage of loss of any … artillery pieces in Ukraine’s arsenal.”
***
Just a few months ago, in fact June of 2020, CrowdStrike on their website apparently felt compelled to put forth the following detail for reasons that may be coming clear.
June 5, 2020 UPDATE

Blog update following the release of the testimony by Shawn Henry, CSO and President of CrowdStrike Services, before the House Intelligence Committee that was recently declassified.

What was CrowdStrike’s role in investigating the hack of the DNC?

CrowdStrike was contacted on April 30, 2016 to respond to a suspected breach. We began our work with the DNC on May 1, 2016, collecting intelligence and analyzing the breach. After conducting this analysis and identifying the adversaries on the network, on June 10, 2016 we initiated a coordinated remediation event to ensure the intruders were removed and could not regain access. That remediation process lasted approximately 2-3 days and was completed on June 13, 2016.

Why did the DNC contact CrowdStrike?

The DNC contacted CrowdStrike to respond to a suspected cyber attack impacting its network. The DNC was first alerted to the hack by the FBI in September 2015. According to testimony by DNC IT contractor Yared Tamene Wolde-Yohannes, the FBI attributed the breach to the Russian Government in September 2015 (page 7).

Why did the DNC hire CrowdStrike instead of just working with the FBI to investigate the hack?

The FBI doesn’t perform incident response or network remediation services when organizations need to get back to business after a breach.

CrowdStrike is a leader in protecting customers around the world from cyber threats. It is common for organizations to hire third-party industry experts, like CrowdStrike, to investigate and remediate cyber attacks when they suspect a breach even if they are collaborating with law enforcement. As John Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at The Department of Justice, testified before the House Intelligence Committee (cited from page 21 of his testimony):

“A lot of — outside of any political organization, companies, most corporations, they often would use these third party contractors, who they hired through their own counsel, and maximize the control from the point of view of the victim.”
What the heck is going on here for real? Outside of this little website of mine, is anyone else going deeper and seeking truths when it comes to CrowdStrike, Perkins Coie, Link University and the FBI…much less the all things DNC?
Other key citations for reference include:

https://www.voanews.com/usa/cyber-firm-rewrites-part-disputed-russian-hacking-report

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/scandals-collide-dossier-dnc-server-perkins-coie/

https://www.torial.com/satoshi.nakamoto/portfolio/355396

 

Chinese Communist Party is “inside the gates”

In part from Breitbart:

Secretary of State Michael Pompeo warned lawmakers that the threat from the Chinese Communist Party is “inside the gates” during a meeting with House Republican lawmakers on Friday.

Pompeo told members of the conservative Republican Study Committee that as a former lawmaker, he is aware of the threat posed by China but that he did not appreciate “the scope and the scale and the nature” of how close the threat is until he became Central Intelligence Agency director.

This CCP infection inside the United States goes beyond Senator Feinstein, Congressman Eric Swalwell, former California Senator, Barbara Boxer or even closing the Chinese embassy in Houston. There is the Thousand Talents Program that has wormed it's way through academia and the Confucius Institutes.

How about a little known Florida congresswoman, Stephanie Murphy (D-FL)? She is quite dedicated to China due in part to her husband Sean and his manufacturing company, 3N2. His company produces sports equipment/apparel in China. Further, she advocates for all the democrat policy points including open-border policies and more studies into “gun-violence”. Crazy enough, Murphy actually joined a small group of Democrats in calling to remove tariffs on the Chinese government.

None of this is actually new when it comes to Stephanie Murphy, in fact it goes back as far as 2017. Did anyone notice?

When you are on social media, do you actually work hard to determine if you are being trolled by some foreign entity? We are quite aware of Russian disinformation but going back years, at least to 2016 (interesting year), China's own troll farm has been just as successful in the social media sphere and you are likely a victim. DC politicians are just as likely to be willing accomplices.

There is or was a Chinese operation called the 50-centers and you probably clicked on a lot of their social media posts.

The Left-leaning policy organization Foreign Policy published the following in 2016.

A May 17 paper written by professors at Harvard, Stanford, and the University of California, San Diego provides the most detailed and ambitious description of China’s 50-centers available to date. It confirms the existence of a “massive secret operation” in China pumping out an estimated 488 million fabricated social media posts per year, part of an effort to “regularly distract the public and change the subject” from any policy-related issues that threaten to anger citizens enough to turn them out onto the streets. But the research finds no evidence these 50-centers are, in fact, paid 50 cents, nor does it find they engage in direct and angry argument with their opponents. Instead, they are mostly bureaucrats already on the public payroll, responding to government directives at a time of heightened tension to flood social media with pro-government cheerleading.

Opinion: How Chinese paid cyber-troll farms are upending ... photo

Understanding the behavior of pro-government netizens is important, given the stakes. In the past two and a half years, the Chinese government has used a combination of muscle and guile to cow online opinion leaders into submission, muzzling social media as a political force, and leaching public dialogue of much of its independence. But beneath the peppy, pablum-filled surface that has resulted, Chinese social media remains a contested space. In countless online chat rooms, bulletin boards, and Weibo threads, Chinese social media roils with the same ideological debates that also increasingly consume Chinese academics and elites.

Broadly speaking, the clash pits so-called leftists — that is, conservatives and neo-Confucianists who marry stout Chinese nationalism, a yearning for reconstructed socialism, and the quest for a reversion to hierarchy and filial piety — against rightists, or reformists, who continue to espouse what a Westerner would recognize as universal values, such as civil and human rights, government transparency, and democracy and constitutionalism. It’s more common for the two camps to exchange barbs than ideas. The leftists label the rightists sellouts, turncoats, and “public intellectuals,” the latter delivered with an implicit sneer. The rightists often call the leftists “50-centers,” regardless of who really pays their bills.

What is worse is a separate issue known as the Chinese cyber-attacks. A for instance however:

More than two dozen universities in the United States and around the world were targeted as part of an effort by the People’s Liberation Army, the Chinese military, to build up its naval and submarine forces.

iDefense, one security firm, tracked the Chinese cyberattacks to a hacking group known variously as Temp.Periscope, Leviathan or Mudcarp. A second firm, FireEye, calls the hacking group APT40 or Temp.Periscope.

FireEye said the operations appear linked to Chinese activities in the South China Sea, where Beijing has built disputed islands and deployed advanced missiles on them beginning a year ago. The Chinese military hacker unit in charge of that region is the Chengdu-based Unit 78020.

The 27 universities included the University of Hawaii, the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Take caution, judge slowly. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is right.