This is beyond stupid to make Steve Witkoff NATSEC Advisor. The most qualified satellite in Trumpf's ever-shrinking orbit for the job is retired US Army Lieutenant-General Joseph Kellogg Jr, the Special Envoy for Russia and Ukraine. Kellogg previously served as the National Security Advisor to VPOTUS Mike Pence. Trumpf should keep Steve Witless as an envoy because that position really means glorified messenger, which is what the alte cocker is good for. This is an inter-galactically stupid move.

#11: This Dotard-Oligarch Steven Witless has ZERO national security experience. Previous NSAs? Dr Henry Kissinger, General Al Haig, General Colin Powell, Zbigniew Brzezinski, to name a few. The Trumpf junta is going to resemble Saddam Hussein's cabinet of sycophants, lickspittles, and toadies.

There have been some other 'firsts' for Israel of late: 1) Shark attack; 2) brain eating amoeba case; 3) mPox; 4) bird flu; and 5) Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic (CCH) fever. And now this. As a Pariah state, who can Israel ask help from? Countries with some defense or security contract I imagine (and the US, of course).

The irony is supremely priceless that Israel has requested international help while denying international help for the Gazans.

Let's play the AIPAC blame game we hear from some Democratic apologists for Israel: "See! They should have voted for Kamala!" or "Is this better for them?" or "They tilted the election for Trump!" Uh-huh, all 2.1 million Arab-Americans did that, 25% of whom are of Lebanese descent, and not all of them are of voting age.

Distract. Deny. Deflect.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians was going on for decades regardless of whether a Democrat or a Republican sat in the White House.

What chutzpah for Beelzebub Smotrich to announce kicking out all the Palestinians while Israel is on trial at the Hague for genocide. And everybody knew that Netanyahu could have released any of the THOUSANDS of Palestinian captives in IDF prisons to get the hostages freed. Likud just want wanted an excuse to exterminate the Gazans and keep Netanyahu's corruption trial in abeyance.

Didn't somebody just put up a billboard in Florida denouncing ------ which angered local Republicans?

#8 and 10: Like you wrote, polygraphs are not lie detectors, they merely detect changes in sweat, breathing, blood pressure, or pulse rate when answering questions. Interviewees are given the questions and answer them 'Yes' or 'No' before being strapped into the apparatus. Test questions are administered to establish a baseline for the subject. A competent polygrapher can resolve an issue with the subject that the machine detects. This happened to me many years ago when a routine question I answered caused me some anxiety which the machine detected. After I was unstrapped, the polygrapher then asked me about that issue. For the life of me, I couldn't understand why that question bothered me internally. The polygrapher worked with me, understood my anxiety, and then re-worded the question which I answered. I was then re-strapped into the apparatus and that re-worded question no longer stressed me.

The polygraph is just another "tool in the kit," like neuro-linguistic programing (NLP) or standard interrogation techniques. No one is convicted on the basis of a polygraph, but they can be denied a job.

Years ago in Iraq, my colleagues located and rendered Abu Musab al-Zarqawi ineffective. One of AMZ's deputies was caught and standard interrogation techniques worked on the EPW-- no torture or polygraphs were necessary. Some of these techniques, like NLP, are quite effective. None of these techniques should be used to ferret out leakers or so-called "enemies of the state."

Hi Snoofy: Unfortunately, some of us were compelled to take them because of our careers. I dreaded taking each of them, but I survived all of them. This Trumpf junta tactic of using polygraphs to detect leakers is just blatant fascism and has nothing to do with national security.

Not all government employees with security clearances are polygraphed. Many federal employees have a SECRET clearance and no access to sensitive compartmentalized information and they are not polygraphed. However, USIC personnel with TS-SCI security clearances at CIA, DIA, or NSA, do undergo an initial polygraph examination. At CIA and NSA, the polygraph examination is twenty questions (ten for Counterintelligence and ten for Lifestyles). DIA did not require a Lifestyles polygraph examination. USIC personnel are then subjected to periodic examinations every five years. I was polygraphed seven times in my career, initial and then periodic. If anyone has been polygraphed 15 times they must either be twice as old as me or they were investigated several times.

#12: Hi Doc: About AI and freelance-writing, sites such as Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine or Ellery Queen Mysteries require the writer to testify they did not use AI in writing their submission. The writer is warned if AI was used in the work, they will be forever banned from submitting manuscripts.

#5: Israel is a ________ country.

And Israel is ranked number eight on the World Happiness Index and ranked in the top ten for their medical system which provides for universal coverage (unlike America which ranked 24th on the World Happiness Index and its citizens suffer medical bankruptcies). The GOP will be slashing Medicaid and Medicare to exacerbate our plight. No wonder we're unhappy in America.

Meanwhile, "adjusting for inflation, US aid to Israel from 1951 to 2022 totaled $317.9 billion, making it the largest recipient of American foreign aid since World War II."

#3: Hi Corky: The words of John Steinbeck and Will Rogers resonate today in our version of their travails.

BTW: My wife and I saw the Yardbirds play-- thanks for posting. Jim McCarty signed our album.

"Thank you for letting us know our Islamophobic PSYOP program on Americans is working."
Signed,
AIPAC

#1: Mental illness is out of control in this country.