This week's odds and ends, some personal mixed in with some national security insights.

Grandkids, rain for Texas, football season begins and another criminal indictment

Paul Cobaugh

Aug 25, 2023

Happy Friday TAT family,

Well today, I take on a brief summary of the week, including personal tidbits that have tangential relationships to some earlier TAT articles and wrapping it up with a couple of thoughts on the most recent indictment of the worst national security threat of my lifetime. This is most poignant because, I also vividly recall the Cuban missile crisis clearly, that left my elementary school experience punctuated by a perpetual state of living under my school desk.

First and foremost, today’s shorter than normal piece begins with a visit from out-of-town grandkids, 7 and 4. Their mom and dad are in town for work. This means that later today, will be fun times with the screeches derived from the pool, water slides, lazy rivers, etc. Yes, I am the grandchildren’s age when it comes to such fun. We will all be exhausted by dinner, and I just may precede them to sleep afterwards.

Playing in the water is not only a timeless way to play in warm weather but it also has become a matter of life and death all around the world for many. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the dishonesty by big oil in their 40+ years of financing “climate denial” all around the world has turned yearly disasters into one of our most expensive and futile efforts at this critical national security threat. At this point, there will never be recovery from climate change and even improving our lives a tiny bit will be a hard-fought fight due to the false narratives imbedded into the identity of the GOP and other conspiracy theorists.

Yes, if you wish to assign blame, point directly at big oil. The facts absolutely support this. Sadly, much of our Congress, prominently on the right side of the aisle, refuses to protect our children’s and grandchildren’s future.

Tonight, high school football begins in Texas. This, like in my home state of Ohio, is nearly a religion. The good thing for the far-right extremists running Texas is that “Friday Night Lights” fever will steal a few headlines from the Taliban-like behavior of our state government in Austin. Texas continues to be the national butt of jokes for their culture wars, that like Florida, Ohio, Texas and other so-called “red states” deny our constitutional rights and forbid truth as a matter of official policy. There is not one thing that is conservative about them.

When college and pro football begin, there will be plenty of top cover for Abbott’s unconstitutional/ neo-Confederate activities.

I’m wishing everyone safety from our persistent, self-imposed threat from record heat. Thanks for nothing ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Phillips, Conoco, Marathon and all the rest of those profiting wildly from our planet’s slide towards uninhabitability.

On the topic of climate change, we had our very first rain in ages this week and by the end of the weekend, will break all known records for days over 100 degrees. We are not alone and our nation, not to mention the rest of the world has broken heat records in the thousands this past few months. Where we live on the north side of San Antonio and the next couple of counties are experiencing for the second year running, the worst drought in the country.

I’m so glad that the board rooms of ExxonMobil and the rest are experiencing record quarterly profits for years on end and are now kowtowing to OPEC to cut production, which finances Putin’s genocide in Ukraine as well as big oil’s bottom-line. Yes, this is sarcasm with a very sharp point!

Finally, we are gathering indictments against the former president at an astounding rate with each being more serious as the last. I will not go on and on about this because that elite commentators across the board are already doing so. I only wish to add a few points that I hope you find worthy of consideration, regarding this most serious of national security threats.

Donald Trump is a traitor behind a serious, long-planned armed attempt to take over the US government and destroying our constitutional democracy. These are all facts, captured in excruciating detail by the finest investigators and intelligence analysts our nation has to offer.
He also has very likely, in my professional opinion and that of many friends still very active in high-level national security assignments, already compromised some of the highly sensitive, classified documents he stole. He has also likely compromised them in a manner that assists some of our worst adversaries and competitors.
He also disclosed sensitive intelligence to foreign adversaries other than the classified documents in his recent indictment.
Today’s Republican Party, dominated by the anti-patriots of the MAGA movement remain an enormous threat.
Much of that threat exists because our US national security community refuses to modernize with legitimate, experienced knowledge to mitigate the conspiracy theory ideology of the US far-right.
My professional experience tells me with absolute certainty that today’s GOP will vote for Trump unless a case that makes its way in front of SCOTUS allows him to escape the restraints provided in the 14th Amendment. Today’s SCOTUS, also in my professional opinion cannot be trusted with certainty to interpret US law with reliable, constitutionally grounded opinions.
Trump had more voters in 2020 that 2016, after 4+ years of treason, corruption and the near destruction of US key relationships around the world. All of this is based on the fake patriotism of today’s, MAGA dominated GOP.

This section could go one for pages and pages, but I will summarize quickly before heading to pool time with grandkids.

Once a person’s identity is set, it is very hard to alter. This means that the current version of the Republican Party will turn out for Trump or Republican MAGA-type candidates in dangerous numbers. It’s simply how human identity, or our internal narrative process works, once it is well-established. Pollsters claiming that there will be large changes in Republican voters away from MAGA, are wrong. The record numbers voting for him in 2020, proves my point.

The key to reintegrating a once solid party into the mainstream, is to mitigate the mainstream GOP news outlets’, far-right, conspiracy theory narratives. The only way to do so is with better, proactive narratives which the US national security community refuses to understand. They prefer to find some magic solution with CYBER tools. Any truly experienced influence operator would tell them that they’re delusional, but they never listen to experience, preferring to continue paying the same alleged experts, who’ve failed US national security for at least the past four decades.

Trump and other MAGA candidates are the Pied Piper of modern America, stealing our offspring and our future. Big corporate and 1% wealth donors fund this. GOP voters are simply the sheeple putting party over country and don’t in most cases, recognize what they are doing. This is the power of wielding narrative as a tool of influence. Too bad the US national security community refuses to listen to real experts instead of listening to big defense contractors who sell expertise to something they demonstrably don’t understand.

For today though, I’ll just slip into some cool water and play shark with grandchildren as my prey. If you hear screams of delight and fun today don’t worry, it’s just me playing with delightful grandchildren and acting like one too.

All my best for your Friday and rest of the weekend,

Paul