July 14, 2025

OUTSIDE THE BOX: Marines Test ‘Narco Sub’ With An Eye On War With China.

Taking creative inspiration from Latin American drug traffickers, the United States Marines Corps is testing low-profile “narco subs” intended for potential use in the Indo-Pacific theater. The Marines have another term and — of course — an acronym for the concept: the Autonomous Low-Profile Vessel (ALVP) program.

The unmanned vessel being tested by II Marine Expeditionary Force is called the “Sea Specter,” and it’s produced by Gibbs & Cox, is a subsidiary of Reston, VA-based Leidos. “I think that it’s OK to say that those narco subs inspired the concept, but that’s where the similarities end,” Gibbs & Cox chief engineering officer Jeff Bowles told Defense One. “Narco subs are dirty. They’re dangerous. They’re not engineered. But in principle, their mission is the same — move a large volume of cargo with the minimal chance of being observed by anyone else.”
…
While the program’s current emphasis is on logistics missions, the vessels could have a variety of uses. “This thing could loiter in a prescribed area for a very extended duration,” Bowles said, suggesting they could facilitate communications. “It could also form a picket line to look for intruders. You could line these up, you know, and look for human trafficking, or any type of people encroaching on U.S. territory. These things have the endurance to sit there.”

Historically, the Marines have done more with less, so a cheap, narco-inspired cargo vessel isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

Posted at 10:38 am by Stephen Green

ONE YEAR LATER: One Year after Butler, Secret Service, FBI Face New Questions.

Despite the early classified briefings about a threat, those senior officials failed to relay the information to federal and local law enforcement personnel responsible for securing and staffing the event. Those excluded from the briefing shockingly include Perez, the agent in charge of planning and executing security for the July 13 Trump event, the Government Accountability Office found. Grassley commissioned the GAO to investigate the rally failures.

Sources in the Secret Service community, however, tell RCP that Perez may have not be forthcoming with GAO investigators — that she had to know of a heightened threat because counter snipers were added to the rally — the first time such the added layer of security usually reserved for presidents was taken during the 2024 Trump campaign. Additionally, throughout the campaign, all Secret Service agents had been briefed about the ongoing Iranian threat upon their arrival at Mar-a-Lago. (The report Grassley released only identifies agents by their titles, but multiple sources have confirmed to RCP the names and identities of all the agents involved in the Butler security planning and execution.)

Meredith Bank, the lead advance agent from the Pittsburgh Field Office, was briefed on the threat, which was not specific to the Butler rally, although other members of that office, including top supervisors who were placed on suspension with her, were not briefed, the GAO found. Bank’s job as the lead agent was broader than securing the site itself. She was charged with devising the plans to secure Trump from the time he touched down at the airport to the time he left the rally and his plane departed.

As a result of the siloed information sharing, many federal and all local law enforcement planning and staffing the event, including Perez and other members of the Trump protective detail and the Pittsburgh Field Office, were unaware of the active threat. Local law enforcement officers told the GAO that if they had received the threat information, they “would have requested additional assets” for the Butler rally.

Read the whole thing, but this line stands out: “The Secret Service argued that the entire agency had failed, not just the individuals, so firings wouldn’t solve the problem.”

Firings certainly would have sent a message about what level of basic competence is expected, but I guess that’s not something the Secret Service cares too much about.

Posted at 9:36 am by Stephen Green

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Hostile MSM Hacks Aren’t Even Good at Being Bad Anymore. “They are all so blinded by hatred for Trump that they’re incapable of doing the bare minimum. I’ve been writing about MSM for over 20 years and I remember a time when they put a lot more effort into being crafty about their bias. That’s all been out the window since 2016. They’re just mindless, frothing rage beasts now, lashing out rather than thinking.”

Posted at 9:05 am by Stephen Green

THEY AREN’T RATIONAL PEOPLE: Miranda Devine: Shocking new poll reveals majority of deluded Dems still believe the Russia collusion hoax was real. “The fact that liberals and Democrats still believe in the hoax is likely a reflection of their preferred media outlets, such as the New York Times, which refuses to hand back its ill-gotten Pulitzers, and MSNBC, which pays discredited plotters such as former CIA director John Brennan and former Mueller prosecutor Andrew Weissman to act out their Trump derangement on air.”

Related:

Posted at 8:51 am by Glenn Reynolds

PUPPET GOVERNMENT:

UPDATE:

Posted at 8:49 am by Glenn Reynolds

FAIL, BRITANNIA: London’s no-go neighbourhoods: Pockets of the capital with highest knife crime offences revealed – as reports hit a another consecutive record high.

Former Met cop and knife crime campaigner Norman Brennan, who was 25 when he was stabbed in the chest and nearly murdered by a burglar while on duty, told MailOnline: ‘Under Sadiq Khan, London has no-go areas and the streets have become unsafe.’

Home Office data shows more than 16,800 knife crimes were recorded by the Metropolitan and City of London police forces last year, a 16 per cent rise on the previous record of over 14,500 a year earlier.

The highest number of knife crimes occurred in several central London neighbourhoods, focused around the high-end areas of Mayfair, Fitzrovia, Soho, St James and the Strand.

The most up-to-date figures are from 2023 as the Met stopped publishing data which breaks down weapons offences to this granular level of geographic detail early last year. MailOnline has asked if the force intends to start publishing this breakdown again.

The solution? More knife control: “Mr Brennan, who is campaigning for mandatory five-year sentences for knife possession, said the figures show ‘the streets have become lawless.'”

Posted at 8:34 am by Stephen Green

ROBERT SPENCER: Former NY Governor Criticized Comrade Mamdani, and Then This Happened. “Yet when he criticized Mamdani, Paterson found to his dismay that not only was he inundated with angry phone calls from the young Communist’s supporters, but his family was targeted as well. And so once again we see the new feature the left is intent on introducing into American politics: intimidation.”

Posted at 8:03 am by Stephen Green

CALIFORNIA’S SLAVERY REPARATIONS PROGRAM:  California was never a slave state.  Nevertheless, numerous “reparations” bills have passed the Assembly to benefit the descendants of American slaves.  For example, AB7 would (if it passes the Senate and is signed into law by the governor)  authorize California universities to discriminate in admissions in favor of  the descendants of slaves.  Similarly, AB57 would earmark 10% of the funds available under California’s first-time homebuyers program for the descendants of slaves.  As passed by the Assembly, AB742 would “prioritize” applicants seeking “licensure” who are descendants of slaves.  The Senate version is currently worded somewhat differently, but it’s still the same idea.

More such bills have passed the Assembly and seem destined to pass the Senate.

Apparently, California Democrats think this gets them around those pesky laws that forbid race discrimination.  They are wrong.  Imagine if, back in the 1950s, segregated school districts had switched from segregating the schools based on race to segregating them based on descent from slavery.  It wouldn’t have made a difference.  They’d have been laughed for their efforts.

Obviously lawsuits will be filed if these bills pass.  More interestingly, the Department of  Justice could go after the State of California for a violation of Title VI.  Thanks in part to the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987, the federal government could potentially cut off the state from billions of dollars in federal funding.

This stuff deserves to get more publicity than it’s getting.  If Gavin Newsom signs any of them, and then runs for President (or even if he doesn’t), you can bet they will be a standard talking point for Republicans.  Personally, I rather stop them now.  But some in the Republican Party have a different opinion.

Posted at 8:01 am by Gail Heriot

COMMIES ARE GARBAGE PEOPLE AND SHOULD BE TREATED AS SUCH:

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

DATA REPUBLICAN: According to data from the Center for Immigration Studies (pro-immigrant), many immigrants work for extremely low wages, which are then subsidized by taxpayers through public assistance.

The argument that “someone has to pick your lettuce” is dead; there is no “cheap labor” only corporate subsidies at our taxpayer expense. It might even end up being cheaper for businesses holistically when they are forced to pay actual market wages rather than depending on roundabout benefits.

🔸 54% of immigrant-headed households use at least one major welfare program, compared to 39% of U.S.-born households.
🔸 Non-citizen households (e.g., green card holders and illegal immigrants) show the highest usage at 59%.
🔸 Compared to U.S.-born households, immigrant households show elevated usage in:
– Food assistance programs: 36% vs. 25%
– Medicaid: 37% vs. 25%
– Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC): 16% vs. 12%
🔸 Illegal immigrants can receive benefits on behalf of their U.S.-born children, while children who are illegal immigrants themselves are eligible for school meals and WIC.
🔸 Several states provide Medicaid or SNAP to some illegal immigrants, and millions of undocumented immigrants with work permits (DACA, TPS, asylum applicants) qualify for EITC.
🔸 Removing low-cost programs like school meals and WIC from the analysis still shows 46% of immigrant households vs. 33% of U.S.-born households use at least one remaining major program.
🔸 Workforce participation is high: 83% of immigrant households and 94% of illegal immigrant households have at least one worker.

Workforce participation would be higher among citizens if citizens didn’t have to compete with taxpayer-subsidized, below-market labor.

Posted at 7:32 am by Stephen Green

WORDS OF ADVICE FROM JEREMIAH (OF THE OLD TESTAMENT PROPHETS*):  How to survive the end of the world, Part 2.

*Obviously, since of the bullfrog all we know is “I never understood a single word he said.”

Posted at 6:00 am by Sarah Hoyt