3 minutes ago
Trump introduced Stormy Daniels to NFL star Ben Roethlisberger night after sex: testimony

Stormy Daniels testified that the night after she had sex with Donald Trump, she met him the next day in Lake Tahoe where he introduced to her to his "friend" — former Steelers Super-Bowl winning quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

Daniels said that Trump's bodyguard told her that Trump wanted to talk to her again, and she met Trump at one of the night clubs at the charity event.

"Trump was sitting in a booth, not drinking, at a nightclub with his friends and bodyguard," Daniels said. "He introduced as his old friend Stormy to Big Ben."

Daniels is referring to the NFL star's nickname, she said.

Daniels recalled how she remembers getting the chance to try on Roethlisberger's Super Bowl ring because she could fit two fingers in it.

Too few planners understand what special operators can do today
No less than in yesterday’s era of counter-terrorism, SOF are indispensable in today’s great power competition.
CLEMENTINE G. STARLING and JAMES CARTWRIGHT | MAY 5, 2024
COMMENTARY SPECIAL OPERATIONS PENTAGON
   
U.S. special operations forces have a unique role to play in today’s strategic competition with China and Russia, yet—outside a niche community—understanding of what SOF do is limited, outdated, and under-appreciated. It’s time that changed. For global security challenges that transcend traditional boundaries and cut across theaters and domains, Defense Department planners should look more often to special operations forces.

While most often associated with direct-action missions and counterterrorism, the modern special operator is far more than just a "trigger-puller." Hailing back to the roots of special operations in the Great War period, special operators are highly skilled at providing intelligence and executing missions below the threshold of conflict that complicate the goals of great power competitors. In World War II, for example, British and American special operators played an outsized role in organizing and training resistance forces in Nazi-occupied France to undermine the German occupation.

It behooves the national security community to update its understanding of the modern-day special operator and to use these highly trained and specialized forces to pursue U.S. goals against near-peer competitors.

Today, U.S. special operations forces have a diverse array of skills, including expertise in fields such as coding, space, and cyber operations. SOF are not only operators—deployed in kinetic, physical battlespaces—they are also, as importantly, enablers—conducting placement and access in spaces where they can collect information and intelligence and enable missions through AI and engineering support. They can operate across the spectrum of competition, executing and supporting U.S. diplomatic, informational, military, and economic efforts to combat adversary threats globally.

https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2024/05/too-few-planners-understand-what-special-operators-can-do-today/396316/

10:39
Court resumes from morning break

Judge Merchan admonishes prosecutor and says that the level of detail Stormy Daniels has been going into is unnecessary.

He says when she returns, they should move it along more quickly.

Of course he did ---- they're proving she's a lowlife and Jeffrey Toobin just called begging for a rest ......

Paul Ingrassia
@PaulIngrassia

BREAKING: Bragg’s prosecutors questioning Daniels about her STD tests and preferred sex positions. What a sleazy, disgusting trial.

With this political persecution, we are witnessing the execution of due process and rule of law in real time by Biden and his acolytes.

What a tragedy — the damage being done to the justice system will take years to repair, and may be permanent.


11:13 AM · May 7, 2024

 
The Marine Corps That Should Have Been
By Gary Anderson
May 04, 2024
 
Say what one wants about the Israeli incursion into Gaza, but not a single rocket or missile has been fired from what is left of it since the start of fighting. Compare this with the relative ineffectiveness of American efforts stop Yemen's Houthis from slinging missiles at shipping in the Red Sea. The difference is simply geography. The Israelis simply have to cross fencing and concrete barriers to directly confront their attackers, the Palestinians of Hamas.

If U.S. wanted to launch such a large scale punitive operation against the Houthis, it would have to be done from the sea with a large scale amphibious assault. An amphibious assault of this scale, requiring sea borne tanks, assault engineers and bridging capabilities that have been divested by the U.S. Marine Corps. Instead, the Marine Corps is building a defensive force built around anti-ship missiles designed primarily to contain the Chinese Navy.


This defensive force is a stark departure from former Marine Corps Commandant Al Gray’s vision to modernize the Marine Corps for future wars.

Back in the 1980s, General Gray had a vision for what he called Over the Horizon (OTH) operations using tilt rotor aircraft, long range helicopters, more capable long-range amphibious vehicles, and air cushioned landing craft. Gray realized that advanced defensive weapons would make traditional linear amphibious operations launched just offshore problematical, but OTH would enable landing in column in places that the enemy did not expect. Gray had the Marine Corps experiment with these capabilities. Throughout the nineties, numerous war games and field experiments took place to explore the physical and intellectual challenges. OTH gradually evolved into Operational Maneuver from the Sea (OMFTS) and a whole new philosophy of littoral campaigning.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2024/05/04/the_marine_corps_that_should_have_been_1029510.html