In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

More has trickled out about the National Security Council firings yesterday following the Signal flap, along witn a couple of new firings just this morning : President Donald Trump fired Air Force General Timothy Haugh, the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and head of U.S. Cyber Command. General Haugh, a Biden holdover who assumed leadership of both agencies in 2024, has been relieved of his duties effective immediately, the New York Post reported. General Haugh, who succeeded Gen. Paul Nakasone nearly a year ago, was informed by the White House that his tenure had concluded. His civilian deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, was also relieved of her duties. . . . Notably, this follows a meeting between President Trump and conservative activist Laura Loomer, who has been vocal about the need for personnel who are steadfastly loyal to the President’s agenda. The Gateway Pundit reported on Thursday that during Loomer’s meeting with Trump, Loomer asked Trump to fire s...

The thing that struck me about Trump's moves on the migration crisis was that they simply removed at least two legs of the stool that held the whole situation up -- he closed the border by eliminating the policy of paroling anyone who wanted to come in, and he ended the funding to the dozen or so faith-based NGOs that ran the migrant programs, both the ones that settled groups into small cities and towns in the interior and the ones that ran the camps at the border. That transformed the whole situation within weeks. At the same time, he's working to knock legs off the stool that's held up the Ivy League and other prestige universities . The Trump administration’s drive to clean up woke elite universities continues, with Princeton and the big tuna, Harvard, both under the microscope. Princeton reportedly faces a pause on some $210 million in federal funds as the Department of Education investigates it for allowing antisemitism to fester unchecked, concealed as ...

A couple of other recent developments supplement the Musk-Gracias Green Bay, WI remarks on immigration at the border. Breitbart News quotes the San Diego Union Tribune : [T]he county’s two major migrant sheltering agencies gave notice that they will be laying off employees by the end of next month. Catholic Charities in San Diego will let go of 73 employees at its two shelters, one in San Diego County and the other in Imperial County. Jewish Family Service will do the same with about 115 employees at its San Diego Rapid Response Network migrant shelter — once hailed as a national model for welcoming a large number of people. According to NBC 7 San Diego , Rep. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego, announced an additional $43,675,626 in Shelter and Services Program funding Wednesday [November 27, 2024] for non-governmental organizations providing support to migrants awaiting their immigration court proceedings. The Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego received $21,598,261 and Jewis...

Bits and pieces keep coming out about the Biden mass immigration program. Over the weekend, Musk and one of his DOGE associates, Antonio Gracias, outlined a new piece of the overall picture at a rally in Green Bay, WI. This is a less-than-ideal forum -- I certainly hope Musk and DOGE are working on an organized, authoritative written report of their findings. Up to now, most of the insights we've been seeing have been over programs that bypassed the border by recruiting "refugees" in their home countries and flying them in via the CHNV and TPS programs, which I'll update in tomorrow's post. The Musk-Gracias presentation in Green Bay focused on the border itself. There doesn't seem to be a single, complete transcript; the best I've found is from Beege Welborn at Red State , but annoyingly typical of Salem Media writers, she doesn't provide a link to the full transcript if it exists, and frankly, I have a hard time taking seriously anyone who goes by...

My biggest point yesterday was that people don't just get on Signal the way they get on Outlook. There has to be a good reason for them even to learn what it is at all, and while I've been out of the business so long that I've never worked with it myself, my instinct is that normally you have to have a tech install it, especially if you're just a suit or a talking head. Thus the most puzzling part of Dershowitz's commentary was at 4:47: Look, I don't know very much about technology, I'm really a Luddite when it comes to this, but I am on Signal. That brought me up short. He's a brilliant guy, a celebrity, a retired law professor and appellate attorney, but why does he need high-level commercial grade encryption? Remember that the German Enigma code was basically just a tweak of an earlier commercial-grade product. This is heavyweight stuff. That briefly made me wonder if in fact everyone gets Signal the way they get Outlook. But then I realize...

Feeling more and more like an op by neocons to take out Pete and damage JD. Complete and total BS. Now I’m at the point where, fine, you little twits want to dance, let’s dance: Trump should cut pretty much most of NSA and NSC, from the top down, and install Bridge Colby as NSA.… https://t.co/H5SPoDW79z — Ned Ryun (@nedryun) March 27, 2025 As I often note here, I spent much of my IT career working the nuts and bolts of computer security in both classified and civilian environments. Security works in basic ways across the board, and once you're used to it, it isn't rocket science. Thus I'm a little puzzled when I see this: Elon Musk is helping lead the investigation into the Signal chat leak involving top national security leaders and the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, the White House press secretary said Wednesday. "The National Security Council, the White House Counsel's Office, and also, yes, Elon Musk's team" will be leading the investiga...

As I mentioned in my post on Amtrak last week , there's a whole sub-sub genre of YouTubers who liveblog their Amtrak trips. They aren't really train buffs like I am; they seem just to enjoy the scenery combined with amenities like eating in the dining car or riding in the sleeping cars or business class. This would be perfectly fine, except that Amtrak travel is predictably nightmarish, with trains regularly canceled or running nine or 12 hours late or even longer, with the diner and snack bar out of food, toilets clogged, heat out, and so forth. In that post last week, I mentioned one of the best-known Amtrak YouTube channels, Grounded Life Travel, with the charming couple Allie and Rob, who go ga-ga over the Amtrak long distance trains they ride several times a year on crosss-country trips, often between cruises on opposite coasts. Frankly, this sort of Amtrak travel is high-risk activity. Even Allie and Rob mention oh, by the way, Amtrak canceled the Coast Starlight on t...