New Weapon of Mass Destruction

Tragedy struck nearby recently.

Death from Fentanyl

The daughter of a friend overdosed [OD] on marijuana - laced with Fentanyl; her small daughter found her, comatose.

She was an attractive young lady whose boyfriend introduced her to marijuana, then to heroin, and on to other drugs.  She had "gone straight" after her last overdose, and it's possible, she was given Fentanyl in another substance; the end result was death.

She was in the health business and lost her job when she was found using her access to pharmaceuticals for her increasing habit. In the meantime, her boyfriend died of an overdose, leaving her with a small child to raise on her own.

The young woman had moved away from her hometown and extended family, probably to be with her boyfriend two states away, to avoid family pressure to give up drugs. Her mom begged her to come home where she and extended family could help care for the child, but, the young woman was adamant that she was "clean".

A Fentanyl Dose the size of a Sesame Seed
Can be inserted into a Marijuana Joint
and not be noticed

Given her heroin OD, it was obvious she was not clean.

Sadly, she had visited with us only a few weeks before her OD death.

Fentanyl did the trick, as it takes only a smidgen to kill - and it killed her in a flash; and even with immediate response by the EMT, no measure of could revive her, and she died in her mother's arms in the ICU, with her child in the next room.

The mom and her family remain  devastated, and heartbroken, but will come together to raise the child in a loving environment.







But the grandmom, who co-signed for her daughter's student loans, is now on the hook for those loans; although she's unemployed/retired with a minimal income, she can't file for bankruptcy due to the exclusion of student loan liability protected by the Dodd-Frank Consumer Financial Protection Act -- which protects banks and destroys consumers.  The Financial Protection clause of that act ensures that students - or their parents who declare bankruptcy are still liable for student loans.

What's our motive for publishing this?
The issue here ties to Trump's goal of building that Wall.
It won't block all the Illegals, and it will only partially block the flow of drugs into the US.
But, it will enable our Law Enforcement Community to deal it some crippling blows.

In the interim, it will likely block the massive amounts of drugs crossing our southern border in tractor trailers, cars, horseback, and backpack.  Among those drugs are Fentanyl, which can be blocked from entering overland; the Wall could possibly stifle the drug trade, or severely limit it.

Don't look to Congress to act anytime soon since it's fairly obvious that most of Congress are in the pockets of the drug lords. Worse, several of our recent Presidents and their families were controlled by the Cartels which bolstered their multi-million dollar bank accounts - not to speak of the spin-off criminal activities of Human Trafficking and Child Sex exploitation.

But, this drug problem is nothing new; it began in earnest in Vietnam with opium and heroin being transported regionally in those ubiquitous "Black Helicopters" with the drugs subsequently being transported to the US aboard USAF cargo aircraft and commercial ships, and even  having been inserted into the corpses of our dead GIs.

Hollywood introduced Marijuana as a "cultural issue" in a variety of very popular movies such as MASH and movies about cool kids in California high schools.


In fact, one of the most popular TV series was Weed, which popularized the use and sale of Marijuana and linkages to Mexican cartels as just a lot of fun - with a touch of danger.  And then, there was the wildly popular series, Breaking Bad, which rationalized the use of a broad scope of narcotics as a part of the US drug culture -- and a very profitable one.  Drug usage for our younger generations is not only "cool", it is Mandatory to fit in as one of the "In-Crowd".

A large percentage of our young and naive troops in Vietnam were introduced to Marijuana to relieve their boredom in remote outposts and to reduce their tension while waiting for the inevitable Viet Cong attack.  As the War progressed, more of our GIs partook, and the dealers began lacing the Marijuana with Heroin to ensure continued addiction by our troops when they returned to the US.  Back home, the former GIs were hooked and were ready customers for drug dealers selling boosted Marijuana, and leading to Heroin and Cocaine addiction.

Nearly 20 years later, no one can define
why our troops are in Afghanistan!

This narcotics consumption process continued to the present with hundreds of thousands of US troops  shipped to the Middle East to fight in the Bush/Clinton/Obama Middle East wars, the most recent of which continues in Afghanistan -- a key source of international heroin production and distribution.
[Otherwise, we remain bewildered at why our troops are deployed there]




Fast forward to today, after decades of Hollywood movies and Television programs extolling the virtues of Marijuana and Opiates as "Recreational Drugs",  the pressure was on to legalize "Medical Marijuana"; and, many states took that initiative.  The hook there was that Big Pharma lobbied state legislatures to create tight restrictions and massive amounts of paperwork to sell this Medical Marijuana, squeezing out the small medical Mom&Pop outlets who could neither staff their enterprises or manage all the paperwork involved to meet state requirements.

Today's marijuana, produced by the Pharmas is magnitudes greater in intensity than that which was popular in the 1960s, and now, it's laced with both heroin and Fentanyl -- the point is to eradicate our younger population as a functional element of our work force and overall population.

We'll get off our soap-box now.
If you know of any users, or families of users, feel free to pass our comments along; your kids, and our kids are not safe.

And our country is under assault with narcotics as the new Weapon of Mass Destruction.
Drugs like laced/boosted Marijuana reduce our workforce through elimination via drug testing; while more potent drugs [e.g., heroin] reduce the effectiveness and judgment of the mid-range executives managing financial institutions.

Ultimately, Fentanyl is poised to create massive damage to our water supply infrastructure, as only a small amount can contaminate millions of gallons of water.  This deadly substance is being carried across our southern border in amounts sufficient to cripple our major cities well ahead of any detection process -- and Congress is allowing this to happen by blocking the efforts of President Trump to close the border access to Illegals transporting this WMD.

Trump Blasts His Intel Chiefs as Naive

The Intelligence Community Seal

UPDATE: [31Jan2019] 
Senator Schumer has called for an "Intelligence Intervention of Trump" to "educate the President on issues of National Security."  This comes from the Democrat Party which routinely leaks highly classified and sensitive materials to CNN and other elements of the Press.  

More importantly, Schumer's inference is that he is setting the stage for the "impeachment" of the POTUS, implying that Trump is incapable of managing the Affairs of State.  Mr Trump made clear early on that he had no confidence whatever in the US Intelligence Community's judgment, based on the weaponization of the Intelligence products he had received before and after his Inauguration.
Importantly, Schumer's comments border on Treason, and issue which could backfire on his belligerence.

The POTUS, like any other Chief Executive [Private or Public sector], listens to his advisors and makes his decisions which includes their input.  
[Obama was notable for ignoring his Presidential Daily Brief and instead going to the Golf Course; he was also notable for going to Las Vegas to gamble in the midst of the Benghazi disaster.]

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Click here for related story
Yahoo News, by Dylan Sableford (Senior Editor)

According to the Yahoo News, President Trump has criticized his Intelligence Chiefs as "Extremely Passive and Naive" after they disagreed with his assessment of Iran as a "source of potential danger and conflict".   Trump also discounted their assessments of North Korea and ISIS as continuing to pose serious threats to the US.

This is not to say these managers are not professional and competent; it IS to say the organizations they manage, because of their histories and massive growth since 2001, no longer have the capability to produce objective, precision analysis - in a timely fashion.

My professional opinion is based on roughly 50 years of experience operating in and around

 the Intelligence Community and LEC with Military Intelligence, CIA, DIA, NSA, 

DOJ, the FBI [including active roles as Analyst and Operations Manager, as 

Case Officer, Special Operations advisor, builder, instructor, and director of a 

national Military Intelligence organization that trained over 1,000 units, 

Special Intelligence Advisor to the CG of Southern Command and to the 

CIA's DDO-LA, Director of Operations for the Defense Clandestine Service, 

and Editor of the (Intelligence) Black Book at  the Pentagon]. 

Our judgement is that Mr Trump is correct in doubting the ability of the current Intelligence Community to provide an accurate National Security assessment.  What he receives has no particular value.

The IC ranks are filled with programmed analysts who feed the current leadership the politicized drivel they’ve been forced to produce over the previous four Administrations.

This is a bloated, relatively incompetent bureaucracy, incapable of making objective assessments.

Now, what may have originally begun as an extremely accurate, objective assessment by an experienced and highly skilled analyst must currently  navigate through a dozen or more layers of politicized supervisory bureaucrats, altering content to meet the accepted political orientation of each layer.

By the time the modified assessment reaches the Director level, it has become worthless pablum, inoffensive to even the most mindless politician - and thus acceptable to brief the President.

Back in 2002, with Ed Meese, we redesigned the Intelligence Community and capped the entire IC at fewer than 10,000 for all the components, with no more than 100 staff for the newly created Director of National Intelligence [DNI] to replace the Director of Central Intelligence which had become an incompetent but all-powerful overseer of all the Intelligence organizations.

The DNI, as we envisioned it, would become a streamlined coordination point through which intelligence collection could be coordinated and assessments could be conducted in an open and collegial manner.

STU III

Previously, coordination of precision intelligence was routinely conducted over the Grey Phone
[aka: STU, or secure telephone unit] in which all levels of classified information could be discussed without fear of interception.

A collective call could bring in analysts from key agencies, complete with tasking and retrieval, and on the spot assessments -- to be translated into refined intelligence.

But, the last time we checked, the IC had swollen to nearly 900,000 underemployed drones cleared at the Top Secret level, staffing nearly 1,300 government organizations, supported by nearly 2,000 private companies in 10,000 locations, with a proposed budget of about $60 Billion.

Today, that same coordination would be either impossible, or would take weeks of coordination, and "oversight".

To clarify, supporting this monstrous behemoth, we calculate there is a core competency of about 10,000 superb analysts, operators, and support personnel whose professionalism and expertise carry the weight and expense of the other 890,000 non-essential employees.

These professionals can tap into the collection and analysis of experts in accessible organizations [e.g., NSA, DIA, or NRO] in order to add technical expertise to their assessments and operations.  Agencies such as NSA have highly sophisticated equipment which gathers an incredible amount of information, which is stored, but inadequately analyzed to become finished Intelligence.  Furnished to the right analysts, the information can serve to create accurate intelligence.


As a footnote, 
the IC is NOT composed of 17 agencies - as reported in the accompanying article which apparently uses Hillary Clinton or Senator Warner as its prime sources.

There are more than 1,000 organizations which collect, process, and contribute to a few actual agencies tasked with producing national Intelligence products.

These are:
1) CIA
2) DIA,
3) NSA [National Security Agency]
4) NRO [National Reconnaissance Office]
5) NGA [National Geospatial Intelligence Agency]

The DNI [Director of National Intelligence] is an Administrator - not an agency.

The following are not agencies, but are Intelligence subsets of Departments or other agencies
1) DOD/DHS
     a) Army
     b) Navy
     c) Air Force
     d) USMC
     e) USCG
     f) Secret Service [formerly under Treasury Department]
     g) ICE
     h) Customs & Border Protection
     i)  TSA

2) Treasury Department [Intelligence Bureau; Secret Service]
3) Energy Department [Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence]
4) Department of Justice
    a) FBI
    b) DEA
    c)  ATF
5) Commerce Department [Intelligence Bureau]
6) State Department [Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR)]

There are a few other highly specialized organizations which conduct unique programs; but, those are not officially part of the Intelligence Community.

 In summary, Trump is correct in his assessment of the IC chiefs who are Administrators, and not experienced operators or analysts.

Mr Trump is better served by outside organizations which specialize in collecting and analyzing Intelligence on specific areas and topics pending a complete revamping of the Intelligence Community.

Trump Cancels Pelosi's Scheme

White House - If Taheb's Rocket Attack Gone As Planned
[Independent Sentinel]

News Media hasn't given much coverage to the Georgia man, Hasher Jallal Taheb, who planned to assault the White House, and kill the POTUS.

Conveniently, Pelosi decided to skip the State of the Union event by creating a CODEL [Congressional Delegation] this week to visit Brussels, Cairo, and Afghanistan; that would have given her, and leading Democrats an alibi - had Trump been killed, enabling Nancy to ascend to the Oval Office once Pence had been removed -- a separate scheme we'll discuss later.

DAILY CALLER

Trump allowed Nancy's CODEL to board the USAF bus, but then advised that, given the government shut-down, he could not allow Nancy to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on such a trip at Taxpayers expense, but suggested she and her Congressional colleagues remain in Washington to negotiate a budget settlement.

Lots of scheming going on here.
-----------------------
UPDATE: 26JAN2019
According to the Leftist Media, "Trump folded"
In reality, the potential of an Air Traffic Controllers union sick-out portended a major air traffic disruption which would impact the national economy.  Trump compromised to ensure government employees would not be inconvenienced more than they already have, and also to buy time while he created his next move.  

However, it would not be out of the realm of reality to fire all the Air Traffic Controllers at LaGuardia and replace them with non-union employees, just as Reagan did in 1981; this would likely gain Trump solid backing from voters who are sick of the union tactics. If they work, they get paid; if they call in sick as a protest -- they get fired!
On 22 October, 1981, the Federal Labor Relations Authority decertified PATCO; it can happen again.

Currently, Trump can, and likely will  employ these options:
a) Create a State of the Union event at a sports venue to which he can invite the public [tens of thousands] as he has to his rallies.
b) Create an Executive Order in response to a "National Emergency" to shift existing funds from DOD to the Corps of Engineers to build his National Defense Wall -- much the same as President Eisenhower used DOD funds to build his National Defense Highway [aka: the Interstate Highway system] when Congress denied him funds.

Trump can, and likely will, deny Pelosi future use of the USAF transportation she has used in the past at nearly $200,000 per trip.  That money can be used to build part of the wall, perhaps with her picture emblazoned on it facing Mexico to terrify the Migrant Caravan.

This entire episode has served to publicize the abject corruption of Pelosi, and the inability of even dedicated Democrats to work with Trump to rebuild America.

If Congress does not pass a budget to Trump's requirements, he can, and likely will shut the government down once again -- and perhaps arrest Pelosi.


UPDATE [23JAn1018]:  
Speaker Pelosi announced she won't allow Trump use of the House Chamber 
to deliver the State of the Union address:

Speaker Pelosi

It may come as a surprise to Ms Pelosi, but delivering the State of the Union [SOTU] address is merely a courtesy for the Congress and the Supreme Court. According to the Constitution, there is not even a requirement for the annual address, but rather: 

"The President, shall from time to time, give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient."

Given Ms Pelosi's edict, President Trump could fill a local sports arena with citizens, Congress and the Supreme Court, complete with big screen videos of Schumer, Pelosi, and Hillary all giving sincere speeches on the "NEED FOR A WALL!"  

This SOTU will the first in recent history to be delivered outside of Congress, and perhaps, the most entertaining!
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BACKGROUND:

Courier Flight -- for Congressional Vacations

A CODEL has traditionally been a family vacation trip for Congresspersons and their families to visit pleasure spots around the world, like Cairo and Brussels. The massively expensive flights are aboard US Air Force passenger planes, officially designated "Courier Flights" which have passenger accommodations equivalent, or superior to commercial airline First Class accommodations, complete with US Military personnel serving as flight attendants.

Those become bureaucratic and security nightmares for the US Embassy in each country as the Embassy staffs are then tasked to take the CODEL members on shopping trips and sightseeing tours. CODEL members are each issued a bag of local currency for spending money.

Endless Briefings

Essentially, the visit shuts down all operations of the Embassy planning for the visit, hosting the visit, and then writing reports on the visit for both the State Department as well as responding to demands by Members and Senators, plus shipping all the CODEL purchaseS back to the US on USAF planes to avoid US customs.




But then we have Afghanistan, the final destination of the CODEL, which would affect both the Embassy as well as the Military personnel stationed there -- who are attempting to draw down their force.

Green Zone Expands Exponentially
Still Vulnerable

The CODEL has to be hosted, requiring tons of preparation, both administrative and security by both the Embassy and the Military. While this mass of US politicians and their families prance around the Kabul Green Zone with a huge escort of US and Afghan troops, other security has to be ramped up to its highest level since the visitors would be a prime target.

Resources devoted to this security would be ground based troops, air surveillance, constant AC-130 monitoring, NSA monitoring, Army Security Agency monitoring, heightened Military Police monitoring, and a host of other asset employment.


Notably, the Taliban detonated a bomb in the Green Zone in May, 2017, killing hundreds, and destroying the German Embassy.

A CODEL consisting of a herd of self-important US politicians would offer a high visibility target, the destruction of which would provide the Taliban an extraordinary propaganda prize. 

Notably, Pelosi and Schumer condemned Trump for publicizing the CODEL's destinations, particularly Afghanistan, claiming such publicity endangered them.


That would presume that local news organizations in Europe and the Middle East would not have already been alerted to the visit by their own diplomatic corps and politicians who would be making highly visible preparations for such a visit to toady up to US legislators for financial hand-outs.

Anyone who has been assigned to a Military base targeted by a CODEL can verify the insane levels of preparations required for such a visit, which would entail disclosure to Afghan counter-parts and contractors, many of whom are covert operatives of the Taliban.

ANALYSIS:
As a final note, rumor has it that all the conversations of the CODEL entrapped on the USAF bus were recorded as it left the Capitol, and then, following the release of Trump's letter to Pelosi, the bus circled the Capitol repeatedly before releasing the passengers from the bus.

Armored Train Minimized Potential Damage

Some of those recorded conversations revealed the expectation that Trump would be killed during their absence, bringing back memories of the derailing of the Train taking Republican politicians and their families to a conference near Richmond.

The train was derailed by a dump truck which ran head-on into the train, driven by a local fellow who had "mental problems".

Damage to the train was minimized by the fact that the train was armored, which kept the entire trains from derailing and rolling downhill; it reduced injuries and prevented the probability of many deaths. Some folks believe the Democrats and Deep State engineered that train wreck in the hopes of wiping out the Republican leadership -- but, that has yet to be resolved.

The President has skilled advisors thoroughly familiar with coup plotting; an excellent chess player, he's well ahead of the Democrat and RINO schemers who wish to topple him as they destroy the US.