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Monday, February 10, 2025

Can you skydive continuously without landing? Watch skydiver Max Manow pull off a never-before-seen feat over the Grand Canyon, showcasing gravity-defying teamwork with an airplane pilot.


Gravy Analytics has been sued yet again for allegedly failing to safeguard its vast stores of personal data, which are now feared stolen. And by personal data we mean information including the locations of tens of millions of smartphones, coordinates of which were ultimately harvested from installed apps.


A consortium of investors led by billionaire Elon Musk is offering $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit that controls artificial intelligence startup OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.


We at Homeland Security Today have once again reached out to our Editorial Board, columnists, and community of subject-matter experts to ask for their assessment of the threats facing the nation in 2025. As our readers know, our experts come from a unique cadre with practical experience who have devoted their careers to defending and protecting America. In this three-part series, we share their assessments of the risks and vulnerabilities that should be at the forefront of our community.


With the rise of omicron came the fall of long-lasting protection from reinfection with the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, according to a study published in Nature. read more


Comments

@#6

My current view is that the minor aviation incidents have come to the fore of late because of the major incidents that have occurred.

For example, a recent Alaska air crash was blamed on Pres Trump.

But there's this ...

Longtime Alaska writer reflects on Alaska's history of aviation fatalities (2023)
alaskapublic.org

... Eugene "Buzzy" Peltola Jr.'s fatal plane crash on Tuesday is yet another point in Alaska's grim aviation statistics.

A 2021 investigation from ProPublica and Unalaska public radio station KUCB found that since 2016, 42% of U.S. deaths from small aircraft crashes occurred in Alaska, up from 26% in the early 2000s.

"I don't think we ever really want to accept it, though, because we know that there are ways to make aviation safer," said longtime Alaska journalist and writer Charles Wohlforth.

High-profile Alaskans aren't immune; many political figures and their loved ones have died in crashes. In 1972, a small plane carrying then-Congressman Nick Begich, then-U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, a staffer and a pilot disappeared in the Portage area.

In 1994, Alaska Department of Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Claude Swackhammer and a state trooper died in a plane crash near Haines.

In 2010, Alaska's longest-serving U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, was among five people killed when a floatplane crashed north of Dillingham. He had survived a plane crash in Anchorage in 1978 that killed his first wife and four others.

In 2020, state Rep. Gary Knopp was among the seven people killed in a midair collision on the Kenai Peninsula. ...


@#3 ... Meaningless order ... And the voters don't care. ...

Not only do the voters not seem to care ...

CBS News poll -- Trump has positive approval amid "energetic" opening weeks; seen as doing what he promised
www.cbsnews.com

... With most describing him as "tough," "energetic," "focused" and "effective" -- and as doing what he'd promised during his campaign -- President Trump has started his term with net positive marks from Americans overall.

Many say he's doing more than they expected -- and of those who say this, most like what they see. Very few think he's doing less. ...


@#16 ... Is that why we had to change the definition of "vaccination" a few years back? ...

The Meaning of Vaccine Is the Same as It Was in 1796, Regardless of Online Conspiracy Theories (2021)
historyofvaccines.org

...
A reader sent in an email to our inbox at 2AM last night:

"It has come to my attention that the general definition of vaccine has changed, at least wrt Merriam Websters Dictionary. That publication has removed the use of the term "immunity." Is that where the medical definition is pulled from or is there a medical journal or dictionary that is used by the health care industry?

If not, I would think there needs to be a concerted effort, in these confusing times, to make very clear that the current usage of the word "vaccine" was different, prior to 2020-21.

Perhaps an alert or notation on your landing page warning that changes in the english language may make historical references difficult or unclear."

The origin of his question was unclear until a web search yielded an article from the Miami Herald and several mentions of this on social media. It appears that CDC did some editing on their website, and now " magically " the word "vaccine" has a completely different meaning. The Miami Herald explains it this way:

"Before the change, the definition for "vaccination" read, "the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease." Now, the word "immunity" has been switched to "protection."

The term "vaccine" also got a makeover. The CDC's definition changed from "a product that stimulates a person's immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease" to the current "a preparation that is used to stimulate the body's immune response against diseases.""

And, yes, the Merriam-Webster definition of vaccine has changed from what it had in 2013 to what is there now, in 2021. But the change was from "immunity" to "immune response." Further reading of the definition of immunity defines it as what happens when an organism develops an immune response. It seems that the folks at Merriam-Webster did some editing,,,

[italics and bold theirs]

Trump's Treasuries Remark Was on Payments, Not Debt, Hassett Says
www.yahoo.com

... President Donald Trump's weekend comments regarding irregularities in Treasury payments were a reference to billionaire Elon Musk's claims that the government had made improper transfers to contractors and grant recipients -- not an expression of concern about payments to bondholders, the president's top economic adviser said Monday. ...

So, Pres Trump's top economic adviser had to walk-back Pres Trump's comments because he (the President) was having either memory issues or lying?


@#1 ... If you don't like an agency, then use the legislative process to phase it out. ...

Looks like Pres Trump has his sights on impoundment.

ArtII.S3.3.7 Impounding Appropriated Funds
constitution.congress.gov

...Article II, Section 3:
He 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; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

The Take Care Clause has figured in debates between the political branches over the Executive Branch practice of impounding appropriated funds. No definition for this term exists in statute or in Supreme Court case law. One possible definition, though, describes Executive Branch action or inaction that results in a delay or refusal to spend appropriated funds, whether or not a statute authorizes the withholding.

It is difficult to state with certainty how frequently the Executive Branch has used impoundment. In perhaps the earliest example, President Thomas Jefferson delayed spending funds appropriated in 1803 for the purchase of gun boats, a response to international tensions concerning the port of New Orleans.1 After Congress made the funds available, the President negotiated the Louisiana Purchase, rendering the immediate use of the gun-boat appropriation "unnecessary."2 Presidents in the nineteenth3 and twentieth centuries4 similarly signaled a willingness to delay or withhold spending appropriated funds.

Impoundments usually proceeded on the view that an appropriation sets a ceiling on spending for a particular purpose but typically did not mandate that all such sums be spent.5 According to this view, if that purpose could be accomplished by spending less than the appropriation's total amount, there would be no impediment in law to realizing savings.6 Impoundments were also justified on the ground that a statute, other than the appropriation itself, authorized the withholding.7

Executive impoundment reached its apex under President Richard Nixon, who employed impoundment more frequently than his predecessors.8 Often, his Administration justified impoundments by stating that different funding levels,9 or different funding models,10 were preferable to the ones that Congress had selected when it appropriated the funds. ...

[italics theirs]


More from the article...

... The homeland security community is faced with potential risks from numerous political, social, domestic and international threats and must adapt to the evolving technological landscape like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, while maintaining vigilance toward the ongoing threat from the Taliban, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), China, and Russia.

What follows has been categorized into three sections, those forecasts dealing with

>>Terrorism (lone actors, ISIS, DVE),

>>Advanced Technology (cybersecurity, UAS), and

>>Multidimensional Threats (political polarization, biotechnology, supply chains).

...

Terrorism with a Small Footprint, Individual Actor Methodology

2025 will usher in many new, unknown and surprising-source threats. In today's world of coordinated response, many threat actors have adapted and now the individual threat actor should be on everyone's radar. Different from "lone wolf" attacks, individual threat actors may be part of larger organizations or movements but acting out in an asymmetric warfare methodology in order to make it harder to prevent. Such threats may attack "soft targets" that may not have been threatened previously.

The most-likely-to-occur threats, and hence, possibly most pressing at an all-homeland level, are likely to come from four main threat categories: insider threat; homegrown violent extremism (HVE)/domestic violent extremism (DVE), adversarial nation threats; and terrorist threat actors.

Attacks could come in the form ...


 

@#4 ... One of the things they've floated is the supposed quote from Andrew Jackson ...

An Independent Judiciary
teachdemocracy.org

... Politics and the Judiciary

Ever since the time of John Marshall, the judiciary has been embroiled in political squabbles, some that have threatened its independence. In fact, the famous case of Marbury v. Madison itself began when President Adams tried to appoint a loyal federalist party man to a judgeship, and the new president Jefferson rejected the appointment favoring judges from his own political viewpoint.

President Andrew Jackson quarreled with Chief Justice Marshall over the court's decision in the case of Worcester v. Georgia. Jackson reportedly said, "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." Though it is likely that Jackson never really used these words, the statement illustrates one of the real limits on judicial power. It must rely on the other branches of government to enforce its rulings. ...


As Trump pushes legal boundaries, judges hold the line
www.reuters.com

... U.S. President Donald Trump's furious pace of orders slashing foreign aid, sending troops to the border and pardoning violent criminals has met little resistance in Congress. Federal judges are delivering the strongest signal yet of a looming showdown -- with the rule of law.

On Saturday, a federal judge in Manhattan temporarily blocked Elon Musk and his DOGE government efficiency team from Treasury Department systems that process trillions of dollars of payments. In recent days, judges have also temporarily prevented administration policies from freezing billions of dollars in federal grants, dismantling America's foreign aid agency, altering transgender rules and adopting a plan to buy out thousands of federal workers.

U.S. District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle delivered a forceful message at a Thursday hearing that Trump must respect the rule of law as he temporarily blocked one of Trump's most controversial policies, ending birthright citizenship.

"There are moments in the world's history where people look back and ask, 'Where were the lawyers? Where were the judges?' In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable," said the judge, who was nominated by Republican former President Ronald Reagan. Applause broke out in his courtroom. ...



A question I asked in another thread ... what happens if (when?) Pres trump simply decides not to follow a Court's ruling?



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