[DM] Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has made the extraordinary claim that there is a '100 percent chance' Senator Mitch McConnell's wife Elaine Chao is a 'Chinese communist spy,' citing her trip to China during her husband's weekslong hospitalization. Was she near the end of her CCP assignment anyway ?
Chinese media photographs appear to show Elaine Chao meeting Vice President Han Zheng in Beijing just 72 hours after her husband was hospitalized after he allegedly suffered cardiac arrest.
'His wife flew to China and met with the vice president of China just days after he basically died, and they brought him back with CPR and took him to the hospital,' Greene said. So MTG has "inside info"? Right
Greene blasted Republican leaders for what she described as their silence over McConnell's health.
'Shame on the Republican Party for basically staying silent while such a powerful Republican senator is laying in the hospital,' Greene said.
Greene linked her jabs at Chao to broader concerns about China, suggesting Republicans should be confronting what she described as Chinese influence as they focus on combatting socialism during election season.
'When are we going to call out a possible Communist Chinese spy?' she asked before adding: 'What woman leaves her husband's side while he is dead or dying in the hospital, flies to China and meets with the vice president?'
#2
Greene linked her jabs at Chao to broader concerns about China, suggesting Republicans should be confronting what she described as Chinese influence as they focus on combatting socialism during election season.
Something tells me we're somewhat late to the "combatting socialism" game.
#3
Seems like the statement that Chao is 100% a spy would be subject to legal action for which MTG no longer holds immunity. Very low chance she gets sued in this case due to the accuracy of the statement, but there seems to be a high chance that MTG will get herself in trouble at some point.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/08/2026 7:04 Comments ||
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#4
MTG is an idiot, but correct in this. Mitch was highly compromised and little wonder he married his CCP handler.
#5
Another story is she was already there before mitch was officially called into hospital, but because there is no clarification of the mitchline and lots of chaff being thrown, and DM being DM, and this is the first time I've heard publicly mitch's wife is of chinese heritage, I'm leaning towards all this is true.
#10
Taiwan is not like Cuban expats; the island is rife with infiltrators. The fact that she was part of Trump’s first term cabinet is indicative of her being a bad actor. If she was not compromised, she’s not in deep meetings with high ranking CCP officials. If the business was legit, it could be conducted on TEAMS. Is Chao a spy, asset or something else, who knows. As a former cabinet secretary, she should not be over there doing whatever it is she’s doing. Not much of a devoted wife.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/08/2026 12:13 Comments ||
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#11
to be fair, how devoted to Mitch could you be?
#13
What woman leaves her husband's side while he is dead or dying in the hospital, flies to China and meets with the vice president?'
Maybe Elaine went to China for some spare parts for Mitch. The Chinese are into other things besides viruses and plant pathogens. And maybe one of those nice AI vocalizer modules so Mitch can "talk" with people on the phone.
#14
If the business was legit, it could be conducted on TEAMS.
Honestly, I looked at that trip and thought about an excuse for shopping, especially a quick stopover in Hong Kong to visit her dressmaker. At this stage he probably doesn’t need a new suit made…
#17
At the very highest levels of security - nothing less that face-to-face communications can be trusted to be secure, not any form of electronics, and most certainly, not in any less that utterly isolated, trusted location. Those conditions argue why in the midst of a spouses critical hospitalization, a trip to mainland China was necessary. Assurances and agreements on any vulnerabilities of an high-level asset's conduct being disclosed seem a reasonable explanation. Merely conjecture of course, but it seems more likely than shopping....
[FleetLogic] The Royal Navy’s Nineteen-Ship Question: Is The Royal Navy Making A Sea Change?
On June 29th, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) made a major announcement in regards to the future of the Royal Navy. Instead of building the previously planned Type 83 air defence destroyers to replace the Type 45 destroyers, the RN would instead pursue a new ship class, called the “Common Combat Vessel” (CCV) as a replacement for the Type 45s. These new ships are to serve as command ships for a fleet of Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) and Unmanned Undersea Vessels (UUVs) as part of a “Hybrid Navy” plan. (See UK Government Press Release: At least six new air defence warships to defend UK waters and boost shipbuilding) UK GOV
In addition to the change from the Type 83 to the CCV, the Royal Navy will not be acquiring the Type 32 frigates that had been proposed for future acquisition. I did not find this change as surprising as the cancellation of the Type 83 destroyers, as the Type 32 concept was rather nebulous. Still, a decision to cancel a planned group of five frigates, as well as reducing the buy for Type 45 replacements from 8 to 6 vessels of a new, and undefined type raises some serious questions. (See London Loves Business: Starmer sinks the Royal Navy as Labour axes new warships for drones) London Loves Business
The new plan keeps the uncrewed family but reduces the manned force carrying it. The public mix now points to at least six Common Combat Vessels, eight Type 26 frigates, and five Type 31 frigates. That’s a total of nineteen escorts, seven fewer than had been included in the previous plan. To these 19 ships will be added a force of Type 91 uncrewed missile platforms, Type 92 uncrewed underwater sensing platforms, Type 93 extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles, and Type 94 uncrewed sensor platforms. (See Naval News: At least six Common Combat Vessels will be built for the Royal Navy) Naval News
The new plan keeps the uncrewed family but reduces the manned force carrying it. The public mix now points to at least six Common Combat Vessels, eight Type 26 frigates, and five Type 31 frigates. That’s a total of nineteen escorts, seven fewer than had been included in the previous plan. To these 19 ships will be added a force of Type 91 uncrewed missile platforms, Type 92 uncrewed underwater sensing platforms, Type 93 extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles, and Type 94 uncrewed sensor platforms. (See Naval News: At least six Common Combat Vessels will be built for the Royal Navy) Naval News
WHAT IS A CCV?
While specifics are short, we do know that the CCV is described as a hybrid warship, a control hub, and the manned center of a force that includes uncrewed systems in the air, on the surface, and below the surface. The use of the term hybrid is interesting. Given the CCV is manned, and the supported uncrewed vessels are not, calling it a command platform for a hybrid force seems more appropriate. Either way, it is intended to control Type 91 missile platforms, Type 92 underwater sensing platforms, Type 93 XLUUVs, and Type 94 sensor platforms. It just doesn’t say exactly what form the CCV takes. (See UK Government Press Release: At least six new air defence warships to defend UK waters and boost shipbuilding) UK GOV
The missing details are not minor. At this stage, the public description of the CCV does not yet define the basic ship, its combat system, or its level of survivability. Its displacement, hull form, radar fit, VLS count, missile load, crew size, cost, and survivability standard all remain unclear.
The need for unmanned systems to increase the size of the Royal Navy is clear, and uncrewed systems belong in the future fleet. Far larger fleets, like the U.S. Navy, intend to employ large numbers of unmanned vessels. The questions here come down to whether they are being added to a sufficient manned force or if they are being used to make a smaller manned force look sufficient. A fleet can be hybrid and still be too small, lacking enough manned ships to command, support, and protect the unmanned component under pressure.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Alexey Statsenko
[REGNUM] In historiography, the generally accepted date for the start of World War II is September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany, supported by Slovakia, attacked Poland. This date is, to put it mildly, arbitrary, dictated by a Eurocentric perspective. But in fact, the greatest war in human history began on July 7, 1937, in China.
Official history there adheres to this date. This isn't a Chinese attempt to challenge the European chronology, but rather a fundamentally different view of the global nature of the conflict.
Armed clashes, resulting in China losing territory to the Land of the Rising Sun and the Japanese establishing puppet states in the captured lands, continued throughout the 1930s. In late 1932, the Japanese army invaded the Chinese province of Rehe, subsequently occupying the provinces of Hebei and Chahar. By early 1937, Japan controlled all territories west, north, and east of Beijing, but showed no intention of curbing its territorial ambitions.
In late June 1937, several hundred Japanese troops were conducting exercises west of Beijing, at the Lugou Bridge (better known as the Marco Polo Bridge). Chinese troops stationed in Wanping Fortress silently observed the enemy.
At dawn on July 7, the Japanese command sent a telegram to the Chinese informing them that a Japanese soldier had gone missing during exercises and had most likely been kidnapped by the Chinese. The Japanese demanded permission to enter the city to search for the soldier. More than three years remained until the similar Gleiwitz Provocation, which the Germans used to invade Poland.
The commander of the Chinese garrison in Wanping Fortress, Colonel Ji Xingwen, rejected the Japanese demands. Then, that evening, the Japanese issued an ultimatum: either the Chinese military comply with their demands, or the city would be bombarded with artillery.
The Chinese again refused, and at midnight Wanping was subjected to artillery strikes. Then, infantry supported by several tanks attacked the Chinese positions at the bridge. The Japanese took control of the Marco Polo Bridge, but the Chinese received reinforcements and, using their numerical superiority, recaptured the bridge. In this battle, the Japanese lost about a dozen killed and over 30 wounded, while the Chinese lost up to a hundred killed and about the same number wounded.
Negotiations followed. The Japanese side promised not to attack Beijing and the neighboring city of Tianjin if the Kuomintang government expelled all anti-Japanese organizations from its cities, the Chinese accepted responsibility for the July 7 incident, and General Song Zheyuan, commander of the 29th Army, offered a personal apology. The Chinese agreed to the first two conditions but rejected the third.
A few days later, fighting resumed. The Japanese captured Wanping and entered Beijing on August 8. Thus, the Marco Polo Bridge incident became both the pretext for and the beginning of Japan's aggression against China.
And this wasn't some isolated event on the other side of the world. At that time, Japan, along with Germany, was already a member of the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was directed against the USSR. Thus, China was attacked by one of the states of the military bloc, which automatically escalated the conflict beyond a local one.
Five months later, Italy joined the pact, and eight months later, Germany annexed Austria. This marked the beginning of Germany's expansion eastward, and Italy's into the Balkans. But by 1937, the well-known "Axis" had emerged, joined by five more European states during World War II and opposed by the Allied forces.
The Soviet Union extended a helping hand to the Chinese at a difficult time. Although the Chinese army had overwhelming numerical superiority and benefited from knowledge of the terrain, it was composed of poorly trained peasants, often armed only with spears and sabers. The Japanese army, on the other hand, was an effective military machine with motivated and trained soldiers, tanks, artillery, and aircraft.
Furthermore, the country was engulfed in a civil war between the communists and the Kuomintang, and separatism among local military leaders reigned. The Japanese quickly captured virtually all of northern China's industrial centers.
And from Soviet territory came weapons and ammunition, military advisers, and internationalist volunteers: pilots, tank crews, artillerymen. Speaking at the 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in March 1939, Joseph Stalin emphasized that a new imperialist war was already in its second year, waged over a vast territory from Shanghai to Gibraltar and affecting more than 500 million people. The map of Europe, Africa, and Asia was being forcibly redrawn. Thus, the USSR's viewpoint regarding the start date of World War II at that time coincided with China's.
Yes, Germany invaded Poland in September 1939. Although Great Britain and France declared war on Berlin, they never actually began hostilities. And after the defeat of Warsaw, the war in Europe died down until the spring of 1940. But in Asia, it continued in full swing.
Therefore, many authoritative historians believe that July 7, 1937, should be considered the date of the beginning of World War II. Another fact supports this theory: if the war began with Germany's attack on Poland, then why did it end not with Germany's surrender on May 9, 1945, but with Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945?
It was after Japan's attack on the US Pacific naval base at Pearl Harbor that America officially entered World War II. The Pacific War saw the first combat use of atomic weapons—on August 6 and 9, the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Meanwhile, the Third Reich had already surrendered three months earlier.
The Sino-Japanese War included large-scale battles (the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Changsha, Operation Ichigo), as well as city assaults with fierce street fighting (Nanjing, Shanghai).
Of course, we Europeans know little about them. But that doesn't mean they didn't happen and that they didn't influence world politics and history like the Battle of Stalingrad or the Battle of El Alamein.
For example, in the Japanese military operation Ichi-Go (April–December 1944) to create a corridor from Northern China to Southeast Asia, Japan deployed more than half a million troops, more than 1,500 guns, up to 800 armored vehicles, 15,500 automobiles, and over 200 bombers.
These were enormous numbers for the Pacific theater. As a result of this operation, the Japanese captured more than 40 cities, taking control of an area of up to 2 million square kilometers with a population of 60 million.
Yes, in Asia there were no large-scale tank battles like the Kursk Bulge, the Allied breakthrough in Normandy, or the battle for the Baltics in 1944–1945, because Japan and China did not have a huge number of tanks, and the nature of the fighting and the tactics of the parties were completely different than in Europe.
Nevertheless, during World War II, China suffered enormous human losses—up to 20 million killed (including more than 12 million civilians), and 10-15 million maimed and wounded. Only the USSR suffered more.
While the German Nazis committed genocide against Slavs and Jews, the Japanese carried out mass extermination of the Chinese. One of the bloodiest episodes was the capture of Nanjing in December 1937. The Japanese occupiers carried out the bloody "Nanjing Massacre," which claimed the lives of between 200,000 and 300,000 civilians and prisoners of war.
There's no other parallel in the history of World War II with such a single killing of so many people. Perhaps the only way to compare the casualties of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is to combine them.
Two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, from the 16th Infantry Division even competed to see who could be the first to hack to death more than 100 people with a sword. In the end, both killed over a hundred victims. After Japan's surrender, these and several other war criminals were executed by firing squad.
Between 20,000 and 80,000 Chinese women were also raped during the massacre. A Japanese soldier, Takokoro Kozo, who participated in the massacre, recalled: “ Women suffered the most. Regardless of age, not a single one could escape rape. We sent trucks into the streets of cities and villages to round up numerous women. Then, each one was divided among fifteen to twenty soldiers for sexual pleasure. After the rape, we killed them.” And this happened in December 1937, when Europe, with the exception of Spain, was relatively calm.
During the conflict with China, the Japanese made extensive use of biological and chemical weapons, killing over 100,000 civilians and soldiers. In 1940, Japanese bombers dropped ceramic bombs filled with plague-infected fleas on Ningbo, and in 1941, they did the same on Changde. The result was localized bubonic plague epidemics.
The Japanese used chemical weapons even more frequently. This typically occurred when the Chinese were putting up fierce resistance and could not be destroyed with conventional weapons. The Japanese dropped up to 1,000 chemical aerial bombs on the city of Woqu, 2,500 during the battle of Dingxiang, and 48,000 during the Battle of Wuhan. The lack of gas masks on the Chinese resulted in heavy casualties.
Thus, the armed conflict that began on July 7, 1937 at the Lugouqiao Bridge, upon closer examination, turns out to be the first spark that started the fire of World War II, which claimed the lives of 70-85 million people.
So, it is quite possible that in the future, history textbooks will feature a new chronology of World War II, which will include the years 1937–1945.
#1
I would say it started when Japan invaded Manchuria and the Nazis started taking over in the early 30's
Posted by: Chris ||
07/08/2026 0:34 Comments ||
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#2
Wiki AI: "Japan officially withdrew from the League of Nations on March 27, 1933. This move came after the organization's assembly overwhelmingly voted to condemn Japan's 1931 invasion of Manchuria and demanded the restoration of the region to Chinese sovereignty.
The sequence of events surrounding Japan's departure unfolded as follows:
The Mukden Incident: In September 1931, the Japanese military staged a fabricated attack on a Japanese-owned railway in Manchuria, using it as a pretext to launch a full-scale invasion.
The Lytton Report: In response to an appeal by China, the League dispatched a commission led by Lord Lytton. Published in October 1932, the Lytton Report concluded that Japan was the aggressor, refused to recognize the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo, and called for the withdrawal of Japanese troops.
The Geneva Walkout: On February 24, 1933, the League's General Assembly adopted the report by a vote of 42 to 1 (with Japan casting the sole dissenting vote). In defiance of this condemnation, the Japanese delegation—led by diplomat Yosuke Matsuoka—staged a dramatic walkout from the assembly."
[RedState] I've long been a vocal advocate for nuclear power for electricity generation, and I'm still convinced that nuclear power is a major part of the United States' future energy portfolio, especially where the big, electricity-hungry data centers that support the growth of artificial intelligence (AI) are concerned; one small modular reactor per data center may well be the future of these installations.
For most applications, though, natural gas is the big upcoming thing, and it's set to surpass petroleum and coal as the primary sources of energy. And here's the the thing: The United States has a lot of natural gas. A lot of it.
For 75 years, petroleum has been the energy source that has powered the U.S. more than any other. That’s about to change.
By the end of the decade, natural gas likely will surpass oil for the first time after the gap all but disappeared in 2025. This seismic shift will end a chapter that began in 1950, when petroleum ended the longstanding reign of another fossil fuel: coal.
“I say we probably cross that threshold within the next couple years, and by 2030, we will have a big lead on petroleum,” Toby Rice, CEO of top U.S. gas producer EQT Corp., said in an interview.
The transition from America being a nation powered by oil to one running primarily on gas shows how much the economics of cheap gas has reordered parts of the energy sector and pushed out competing fuel sources.
We have vast reserves of natural gas, and improving technologies, like fracking and horizontal drilling, are opening up a wealth of new recoverable reserves, not the least of which are found right here in Alaska. These reserves, and our increasing development of them, have made the United States a net energy exporter, driven mostly by natural gas.
The rise of wind and solar as significant contributors to U.S. electricity generation has also aided the development of gas-fired power plants, as gas facilities can ramp up and down more rapidly than coal and nuclear generators when intermittent renewable power drops.
Notably, the positioning of gas as a top U.S. energy source doesn’t account for the explosive growth of U.S. liquefied natural gas. The U.S. is already the world’s largest exporter of LNG, and shipments are set to roughly double by the end of the decade. Shell predicts U.S. feedgas for LNG plants will make up 23% of total U.S. gas production by 2035, according to its annual LNG outlook.
This is a good and comforting place for the United States to be in.
The transition won't be without its own hurdles. The Alaska state legislature is, as of this writing, still debating the state's role in the financing and tax profile of the proposed Alaska natural gas pipeline, which will deliver bulk natural gas from the North Slope to the Kenai Peninsula for export. There will be more political battles over pipelines and facilities. But natural gas makes a great deal of sense; it's clean, it's abundant, and it's cheap. Unlike "green" energy sources, it is a high-density energy source. Unlike solar and wind power, natural gas is reliable and constant. Gas-fired power plants can quickly scale up and down to meet demand. No "green" source can do that.
I still believe nuclear power to be an essential and growing part of America's energy profile, and if that magical "30-50 years from now" barrier can ever be breached and workable grid-scale fusion power can be had, that will be the greatest game-changer in energy to date - but on that one, you can color me skeptical.
For now, natural gas is the next big thing, and it doesn't look as though that will change anytime soon.
#1
One point I would make is that oil and NatGas have different uses. Oil is almost exclusively a fuel for transportation, while NatGas has almost zero use for transportation.
[MEForum] German Officials Ignored Islamist Ties, Funneled Taxpayer Millions to Islamic Relief, and Suppressed a Damning Audit for Years
Editor’s Note: Sigrid Herrmann has been a pioneering voice exposing the troubling ties and questionable practices of Islamic Relief Deutschland (IRD) and its parent organization Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW) for over a decade. Her persistent investigations, including a report submitted to Germany's Federal Court of Auditors (BRH), helped bring to light the Federal Foreign Office's flawed oversight of millions in taxpayer funds—issues detailed in a long-suppressed 2019 audit released earlier this year.
As Focus on Western Islamism has reported, these revelations contributed to IRD's expulsion from the influential Aktion Deutschland Hilft humanitarian alliance, underscoring ongoing concerns about the Islamic Relief franchise. Here is her first-hand account of her efforts to hold IRD accountable.
[The Federalist] Justice Jackson lied to the public in her ruling, something no member of any court can ever do.
Being a justice on the United States Supreme Court requires legal brilliance, intellectual rigor, strict discernment of and adherence to facts, and logical consistency. Clearly, not every justice on the current court meets these criteria.
This was demonstrated in the courts’ recent "trans" sports decision that now reasonably permits schools, under Title IX, to let biological sex be the determinant of who can and cannot compete on high school and college sports teams. In sum, this was a case about fundamental human reality and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s bold and incoherent dissent from it.
In their landmark 6-3 decision, the majority (Kavanaugh, Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett) describe the primary plaintiff — identified as "B.P.J." in the case — as a biological male who "identifies as female."
This boy is West Virginia’s Becky Pepper-Jackson, who consistently dominated girls in track and field events. Kristen Waggoner, President of Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that helped argue this case before the court, said Pepper-Jackson took wins from more than 470 girls over 1,400 competitions. He stole two regional and one state championship from deserving female athletes. In addition to beating girls in sports, Pepper-Jackson also threatened them with sexual assault in the locker room, Waggoner explained to a CNN host.
#2
Out of the Republicans, only Collins, Murkowski and Romney voted to confirm her. That tells me that the RINOs wanted her confirmed but they knew she was going to be bad.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/08/2026 7:27 Comments ||
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#3
A lifetime DEI appointment to the highest court in the land. The statement has been made, the dividends are manifest.
#5
In a way, she is a national treasure in oral arguments. The dissents are surely written by unqualified staffers. She’s responsible for picking them and their work product, but when she opens her mouth off script that’s all her. The Japanese their thing will be talked about for decades after Amy CB is forgotten.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/08/2026 12:01 Comments ||
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#6
"Wait for it" is a filler construct that doesn't convey any information but inflates the word count. It is also inappropriate in an official court document.
#7
The idea has crept in that the Supreme Court is supposed to be a representative body like Congress. It's not. Race and gender should have no role whatsoever in appointing justices. Jackson carries that to an extreme by first deciding what's best for "her people", and then contorting the law to fit that result. She's awful.
Posted by: Matt ||
07/08/2026 14:07 Comments ||
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[PJ Media] The Manson case first reached my family through a cup of soda pop behind a fast-food counter. My brother came home angry after a boy he knew as "Charlie's kid" poured soup into his drink.
Later, while working at my first job, a coworker loaned me Ed Sanders's The Family and filled my next few evenings with stories about Charles Manson, his followers, and the murders that stained the country.
In the public record, that Wisconsin thread leads to Michael Brunner, born Valentine Michael Manson, the son of Manson and Mary Brunner, one of his earliest followers.
Brunner was raised by his maternal grandparents in Eau Claire, Wis., after his mother's life with Manson and later imprisonment left him with a name no child should have to carry.
Now Congress has pulled the old nightmare back into daylight. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee's Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, held a June 30 hearing titled "Mind Control and Accountability: Uncovering the Truth of the CIA's MKUltra Project."
Witnesses included Stephen Kinzer, senior fellow in international and public affairs at Brown University, and Tom O'Neill, investigative journalist and author of Chaos: Charles Mansion, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties. From Newsmax:
Task Force Chair Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said the American people deserve a full accounting of the program, accusing the CIA of illegally experimenting on U.S. citizens before destroying evidence to conceal its activities.
She also revealed the agency is declassifying newly discovered MKUltra documents involving a forgery program.
O'Neill, author of "Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties," testified he uncovered correspondence between CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb and psychiatrist Dr. Louis "Jolly" West after reviewing hundreds of boxes of West's papers.
According to O'Neill, the documents describe proposals involving LSD, hypnosis, memory manipulation, and behavioral modification.
He testified that West later operated near a San Francisco clinic where Charles Manson and members of his group received free medical treatment in 1967, shortly before Manson emerged as the leader of the cult responsible for the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Still, O'Neill stopped short of claiming he had proven Manson was an intelligence asset.
MKUltra was real, not campfire chatter for true-crime addicts. The CIA created the program in 1953 to study mind-control techniques during the Cold War. Luna said the project subjected Americans, prisoners, hospital patients, veterans, and others to LSD, electroshock, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and psychological torture without their knowledge or consent. She also said CIA Director Richard Helms ordered MKUltra files destroyed in 1973.
O'Neill's testimony brought Manson into the room. He told lawmakers that psychiatrist Louis Jolyon "Jolly" West came to the Haight-Ashbury Free Medical Clinic in San Francisco in 1967 to recruit subjects for a study. Manson and his growing group came through the same clinic for free medical care. Newsmax:
He also suggested psychiatrist West's involvement with Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's killer, kept Ruby from publicly telling his story.
Those allegations have not been confirmed by official government investigations.
Kinzer, author of "Poisoner in Chief," described MKUltra as one of the CIA's darkest chapters, alleging it involved prisoners, psychiatric patients, and unwitting civilians subjected to LSD, hypnosis, and psychological experimentation.
He testified that CIA Director Richard Helms ordered most MKUltra records destroyed in 1973, leaving only scattered documents that later surfaced through Freedom of Information Act requests.
The hearing also examined allegations that people may have died during overseas MKUltra experiments and that additional records could shed light on unresolved questions, although historian David Barrett cautioned against expecting a "smoking gun" from the newly discovered files.
Luna pledged the task force will continue pressing the CIA to release additional records, saying lawmakers intend to determine the full scope of the program and ensure the American people have the complete record.
O'Neill said he couldn't prove West and Manson were ever in the same room.
A careful person has to stop there; suspicion can point toward a locked door, but it can't pretend to be the key.
But where's the fun in stopping there?
Manson was a killer who ordered other people to butcher strangers: Sharon Tate, eight and a half months pregnant, died along with four others in the Polanski home. The next night, Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were murdered.
Nothing about CIA secrecy softens those crimes or turns Manson into a victim.
Secrecy has a price. When government agents drug people, hide records, destroy files, and wait half a century before telling the whole story, people will fill the silence.
Joe Rogan, host of The Joe Rogan Experience, helped push O'Neill's theory into a much larger audience in 2020. The question keeps spreading because the CIA already admitted enough to make disbelief harder than it should be.
There's no proof Manson was an MKUltra asset. California prison officials said he died of natural causes in 2017. The CIA has disputed claims tying Manson to the program, but CIA Director John Ratcliffe now leads an agency still carrying old baggage from men who treated Americans like lab material. If new MKUltra records exist, they should come out clean, complete, and unredacted wherever possible.
The Manson story may fade one day, but another door keeps cracking open, and the old darkness breathes again. A free country can survive ugly facts; it suffers far more when powerful men decide the people can't be trusted with the truth.
#2
A covert field study of behavioral modification still taught.
The Milgram Experiment is, in the early 1960s, a series of social psychology experiments that were conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, who intended to measure the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting in a fictitious experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner". These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.
[Fronts] Perhaps the biggest global consequence of the Ukraine War has been the proliferation of cheap drone capabilities to state and non-state actors across the world.
by Brant Philip
Perhaps the biggest global consequence of the Ukraine War has been the proliferation of cheap drone capabilities to state and non-state actors across the world. While drones were used in earlier conflicts, such as the Islamic State's war against the International Coalition in Syria and Iraq, they were less-sophisticated and used sparingly. Today, though, small suicide FPV drones, drones designed to drop a munition, and spotter drones have spread across battlefields from Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine, to Haiti and Nigeria. But there are few wars where the impact may soon grow to be as disruptive as in the Sahel.
THE SAHELIAN CONTEXT
So why is the drone picture in the Sahel different? Contrary to other actors that benefit from state support and funding, such as HTS (backed by Turkey and Ukraine),
…Ukraine? I missed that somehow…
or Hezbollah (backed by Iran), jihadist groups in the Sahel lack such patrons and have consequently lagged behind in developing these capabilities. One actor stands out, however: the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a primarily Tuareg rebel group in northern Mali. Not held back by religious ideology or any designation as a terrorist organisation, the FLA has benefited enormously from its relationship with Ukraine, which has gladly provided the training and equipment it needs against their arch nemesis in the region: Russia, a key player in the Sahelian theatre and the main backer of the three military juntas in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Cheap drone capabilities proliferated from Ukraine are transforming the Sahel conflict faster than most other theaters despite limited state support for local jihadist groups.
The Azawad Liberation Front became the region's earliest drone adopter through Ukrainian training and equipment, enabling both armed drop-drones and fiber-optic models immune to jamming.
JNIM has achieved more consequential effects through unarmed reconnaissance drones that guide mortar fire and direct ground assaults than through armed drones alone.
Government juntas lag substantially behind insurgent groups in drone adoption, relying on Russian mercenaries for training while insurgents innovate independently and hide capabilities for surprise attacks.
Leveraging this support, the FLA became the earliest adopter of the technology in the region. In 2024, an envoy of Ukrainian military instructors visited the group in northern Mali, and after this first encounter a batch of rebels was sent to Ukraine for hands-on training with the armed forces, where they learned both to fly drones against their targets and to assemble the components themselves. Following this training, the rebels returned home and began teaching their brothers-in-arms directly, first on computer simulators and then with real drones.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
