Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

The current and future danger posed by Putin puppet Donald "Tovarich" Trump to our national security is more in focus than ever, following the intelligence briefing by now former DNI Joseph Maguire alerting the White (Supremacist) House to active Russian interference in our elections:

Trump responded not by rejecting Russia’s interference or pressing his officials to work harder to deter it, but by telling Maguire and another senior career intelligence official present that they were being “played,” according to a senior White House official.

Five days later, Trump announced that Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany and a presidential loyalist, would step in as the new acting director of national intelligence. Maguire was told to vacate his office at the DNI’s headquarters in Virginia by 10 a.m. the next morning, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

Current and former national security officials were appalled but not surprised by Maguire’s unceremonious dispatch. “[I]n this administration, good men and women don’t last long,” retired Adm. William H. McRaven, who led the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and is one of Maguire’s closest friends, wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post on Friday. [snip]

Grenell, who has no experience in the intelligence community, is close to Trump and his children. The president delights in his boosterism on Fox News and Twitter, where Grenell frequently clashes with the president’s critics and with journalists.

Current and former intelligence officials see Grenell’s appointment, which he has said will last only until a permanent director is confirmed by the Senate, as a signal that Trump intends to exert more political control over the intelligence community.

A House intelligence committee official worried that Trump “has installed a new acting DNI to protect himself and interfere politically in the crucial work of the intelligence community, leaving our elections more vulnerable to foreign interference than ever.”

The decision to move another Trump loyalist, Kash Patel, into a senior advisory position at the intelligence director’s office further cemented that impression.

Patel, a former aide to Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and most recently the top counterterrorism official on the National Security Council, has infuriated CIA and FBI personnel over his efforts to prove a conspiracy in the intelligence community to bring down the president by investigating his campaign’s possible ties to Russia in 2016.

And when the Russians aren't meddling, you can be sure Republican Machiavelli Moscow Mitch McConnell is:

Democrats are denouncing Republicans' now-confirmed meddling in next month's primary for Senate in North Carolina after it was revealed that a top GOP super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell funded an outside group that spent millions to boost a liberal candidate over national Democrats' preferred contender.

Faith and Power PAC, a super PAC that formed earlier this year, has spent nearly $3 million boosting state Sen. Erica Smith, who is running in the primary against Cal Cunningham, a veteran and former state senator backed by the Senate Democrats' official campaign arm. The two are running in a five-person primary to face GOP Sen. Thom Tillis in November.

It was clear the group was tied to Republicans when it began spending in early February, but the new FEC disclosure filed late Thursday confirmed its sole funding came from the Senate Leadership Fund, which is run by McConnell's allies.

We have no dog in that fight, but apparently McConnell is doing what he can to stir up trouble among Democrats where they're running against a vulnerable Republican Senator.

Another opportunity for the world to see what a dimwitted clown we have as "president":

President Donald Trump butchered several Indian words during a speech on his first official visit to the country.

Trump addressed a massive public rally Monday in Gujarat, the home state of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, and struggled to pronounce several words, reported BBC.

The U.S. president bungled his pronunciation of Ahmedabad, the city where he was speaking, and the name of Indian philosopher Swami Vivekananda.

BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan reported that crowds began leaving midway through Trump’s speech, which came after Modi spoke.

He's all yours, Modi.

Meanwhile, R.I.P. Katherine Johnson:

Katherine Johnson, one of the history-making, barrier-breaking NASA mathematicians depicted in "Hidden Figures," died Monday, the administrator of NASA said.

She was 101.

"Johnson helped our nation enlarge the frontiers of space even as she made huge strides that also opened doors for women and people of color in the universal human quest to explore space," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a statement.

As usual, we strongly recommend a visit to Infidel 753's link round- up for a far greater selection of worthy reads.  We never fail to find multiple objects of interest and/ or amusement.