Story archive / 2014–2021
stories spanning national security, politics, history, public records, and unusual discoveries.
38 stories
01
A quarter-century after the attacks, the post-9/11 system is stronger but still incomplete: its toughest unfinished work is accountability, resilience, and oversight.
02
With the selection of the Biden/Harris ticket, EVERY Democratic nominee for President/Vice President since 1984 has been a lawyer (attended law school), according to our review of public bios During…
03
While in Mexico recently, we got the impression Spanish speakers around us were conversing much more rapidly than we, or the other Americans in our group, speak English. Just our imaginations? Or do Spanish speakers…
04
Joaquin Phoenix stars in the hit movie "Joker," an origin story of the eponymous deranged killer from the Batman universe. But the group whose logo he wore at showings of the movie is no joke. It belongs to an…
05
From the transcript of the 12/29/19 edition of ABC News' "This Week:" Bold face is ours... "ROBERT O'BRIEN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER (sic): Yes, we always monitor the situation. And Chairman un (sic) has said that…
06
North Korea calls threats by President Trump “the sound of a dog barking.” Here’s why. For decades Pyongyang has threatened, attacked, captured and killed Americans (and our South Korean allies) without paying any real…
07
SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT ISSUED "IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT" DIRECTIVE TO PRINCIPALS WEEKS BEFORE INCIDENT- -FOCUSED ON RIGHTS OF UNDOCUMENTED TO EDUCATION, BUT INCLUDED NO MENTION OF POTENTIAL SECURITY ISSUES SOME 8% OF…
08
Records obtained by Need to Share News asked whether USCIS tracks naturalization applicants who reject the Constitution or admit terrorist ties.
09
President Trump promised to focus the US government on America’s “forgotten men.” None so deserve that title as the GIs imprisoned by China but never returned at the end of America’s “Forgotten War” in Korea, along with…
10
[We are awaiting comment from PRNewsire; its owner Cision, Protester.io; and the FBI. We'll update if we get anything.] "Um...this came over PR Newswire...not sure this is legal?" Tweeted well-known conservative editor…
11
The U.S. government has now declassified files on years of ingenious secret experiments to use "coded pilot whale sounds" for covert communications between American Navy ships and submarines during the Cold War. Excited…
12
A recovered investigation compares what the U.S. naturalization form asked about Nazis, ISIS, al-Qaida, terrorism, and support for the Constitution.
13
What the emblems signify, in case some are unfamiliar:
14
With the selection of the Clinton/Kaine ticket, EVERY Democratic nominee for President/Vice President since 1984 has been a lawyer (attended law school), according to our review of public bios [BTW…
15
Magician David Copperfield famously made the Statue of Liberty "disappear" in plain sight on national television. Now the major national media are attempting a similarly audacious trick, this time involving some…
16
[Context:"Justice Department blasted for editing Orlando transcripts (6/16)"] ... "By the grace of Heaven, Emperor of [omitted], Emperor [omitted]...we hereby declare war" on USA, 12/8/1941. ... "The ruling to kill the…
17
Reason for Research: Follow up on debate involving hate crimes and Islamophobia sparked by the Orlando terrorist attack. Obviously, even a single hate crime against anybody is one too many, but the numbers and trends…
18
“The Families Have Waited Long Enough!” Kin of Cold War POW/MIAs Demand Action (Memorial Day Weekend, 2016) The families of US aviators lost during spy flights near the Soviet Union, China and North Korea have fought…
19
An FBI interview report links a Clinton campaign letter to a $50,000 APAC-Vote donation. This review separates the account from proven fact.
20
Secretary of State Clinton joked about a failed North Korean missile test after a senior aide facetiously suggested they send North Korea's dictator a signed picture from the movie "Failure to Launch." The State…
21
Kissinger had to beg (and butter up) then-Sec. of State Clinton to get help in getting the government to review and release some of 560,000 decades-old documents from his time in government, including…
22
As Jihadists began to fill the gap left by the US-supported overthrow of dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi and his regime, a four-person team of State Department intelligence analysts was assigned to analyze a pet project of…
23
In early 2009, a pair of U.S. television journalists got picked up by North Korean police near the border with China. Never ones to let a potential hostage crisis go to waste, North Korean officials in June sentenced…
24
In the tangle of ethnic and religious bloodletting across Iraq and Syria, one group stands out for its fighting spirit and friendliness to America: the Kurds. Many in Congress have urged the Obama Administration to do…
25
FBI files describe Ronald Reagan confronting antisemitic remarks in 1943 and document his Screen Actors Guild role in Hollywood labor battles.
26
A recovered FOIA story examines the FBI's proof-of-death rules, its treatment of Wikipedia, and how to request records on a deceased person.
27
Along with a host of bureaucratic shortcomings, cybersecurity flaws and leadership screw-ups, the US Army investigation of 2010's massive WikiLeaks compromise of classified information identifies a major threat…
28
The folks at the Wilson Center have once again come up with a fascinating document from previously Top Secret Soviet files. This one highlights how Washington-Moscow tensions in Eastern Europe have been going on for…
29
The German submarine glided through the icy water past New York City, its captain noting the glowing skyscrapers of Manhattan and then Coney Island’s brilliantly-lit Ferris wheel. Soon his lookouts spotted a large oil…
30
Books about Vietnam POW/MIAs Abandoned in Place: The Men we Left Behind and the Untold Story of Operation Pocket Change Lynn O’Shea, with forward by Col. Don Gordon (Ret.) Amazon 2014: Kindle and Paperback (July 2014)…
31
An apologetic official from Veterans Affairs has been reaching out to citizens who sought records from the agency under the federal Freedom of Information Act, which requires the government to share many types of…
32
This morning we received an email from Google with the following title: "Google AdWords Policy Update - Weapons policy restriction." The email, from the "Google AdWords Team," announces a new policy starting in…
33
We like a spy story about a glamorous Nazi test pilot as much as the next guy, so we were excited when we saw what was inside a recent delivery of documents we'd asked the Air Force to declassify. But what jumped out…
34
Last week we ran across a prostrate 'possum, just a baby, in the back year. We did some online research and learned that if it failed to wake up and run off overnight, we should drop it off…
35
"Mr. Yanukovych, in a news conference Friday in Rostov-on-Don,...added, 'People of Crimea don’t want to submit and they will not submit to Bandera thugs,' referring to the World War II era nationalist leader who was…
36
As protesters in Ukraine battle for the future of their country, they invoke the battle cry of a previous fight to free their country from Moscow's influence. "From the stage on the square, a speaker yelled 'Glory to…
37
"There are some reports that Russian authorities have ordered a media ban on reports of terrorist incidents during the Games:" claims a report from the US Congressional Research Service (CRS) made public today. [Even if…
38
A Summary of the Issue’s Political Evolution The remains of many Americans who died on the battlefield or in communist prison camps are in North Korea; their recovery is a high priority, but this summary concerns those…
