American Veterans, Please Answer This Query:

I recently streamed Hunter Killer, a halfway decent action thriller starring Gerard Butler and Gary Oldman. Something that bugged me was Oldman’s role. He played the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I’ve always thought that was an advisory position, but in the movie he seems to have operational command authority. Isn’t the Chairman outside of the chain of command which would go from President to Secretary of Defense then to (in the case of this movie) United States European Command? Or is there another route the orders would go through?

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:

For Hive Power Up Day, I staked 260.902 HIVE.

SEC Overstepped Bounds in Kraken Lawsuit, State AGs Charge

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Mounting research shows that COVID-19 leaves its mark on the brain, including with significant drops in IQ scores

Politics:

Trump says he’ll use local police for mass deportations if he’s elected

Last I heard, local police don’t take orders from POTUS. Did I miss a memo?

House Passes Short Term Bill to Avert Shutdown

House lawmakers approved a temporary spending bill to prevent a partial government shutdown this weekend, with Speaker Mike Johnson forced once again to turn to a coalition made up mostly of Democrats to pass it.
The vote was 320 to 99, with slightly more than half of Republicans joining with almost all Democrats to support the measure.

Trump’s ‘Migrant Crime Wave’ Doesn’t Exist

When Donald Trump speaks at the southern border in Texas on Thursday, you can expect to hear him talk about ‘migrant crime,’ a category he has coined and defined as a terrifying binge of criminal activity committed by undocumented immigrants spreading across the country.
But despite the former president’s campaign rhetoric, expert analysis and available data from major-city police departments show that despite several horrifying high-profile incidents, there is no evidence of a migrant-driven crime wave in the United States.

Pentagon Weighs Plan to Ship Weapons to Ukraine Quickly

The Biden administration is considering whether to provide Ukraine with badly needed arms and ammunition from Pentagon stockpiles even though the government has run out of money to replace those munitions.
Such a move would be a short-term measure to help tide over Ukraine’s armed forces until Congress breaks a monthslong impasse and approves a larger military aid package to the country.

Considering? Given Republican foot-dragging in the House, this probably should have been done months ago.

U.S to Airdrop Aid into Gaza?

The Biden administration is considering airdropping aid into Gaza, a U.S. official told NBC News, given the dire need for humanitarian assistance and the slower pace of land deliveries. Food aid entered the north of the strip for the first time in weeks yesterday, with fears mounting of an imminent famine.

Hunter Biden Gives GOP the Rebuttal They Didn’t Want

Hunter Biden’s appearance in front of investigators and members of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees unfolded a bit like a Bruce Lee movie.
Republican legislators and interviewers challenging the president’s son on the House majority’s behalf would throw out an allegation, often one that’s been worn smooth after tumbling around in the right-wing media universe for the past year or two. And Biden would invariably swat it away, stripping off the layers of innuendo that had been applied by Donald Trump and Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) or Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) or any of myriad Fox News commentators.
This included epic battles against well-known foes, like an exchange between Hunter Biden and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), or repeated, extended back-and-forth with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). But at no point was a question left unanswered — including through an invocation of the Fifth Amendment — or, to an objective observer, left answered with obvious incompletion.

Congress is leaving small Pacific allies vulnerable to China’s pull

Ex-Defence Secretary Ben Wallace tears strip off Germany's Olaf Scholz in bust-up over missiles for Ukraine

Special Counsel Seeks July 8 Trial Date for Classified Docs

Special counsel Jack Smith in a filing on Thursday requested a July 8 trial start date in the federal criminal case over former President Trump’s handling of classified documents.

The US is bracing for complex, fast-moving threats to elections this year, FBI director warns

Ex-FBI Informant Will Remain in Jail

Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant who is charged with lying to the FBI about the Biden family, will remain in jail until his trial.

Serendipity:

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