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Author: TriSec    Date: 12/20/2016 11:19:42

Good Morning.

Mondo posted it briefly on the blog yesterday. I saw it too, and I was highly alarmed by this report.



GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — President-elect Donald Trump has continued employing a private security and intelligence team at his victory rallies, and he is expected to keep at least some members of the team after he becomes president, according to people familiar with the plans.

The arrangement represents a major break from tradition. All modern presidents and presidents-elect have entrusted their personal security entirely to the Secret Service, and their event security mostly to local law enforcement, according to presidential security experts and Secret Service sources.

But Trump — who puts a premium on loyalty and has demonstrated great interest in having forceful security at his events — has opted to maintain an aggressive and unprecedented private security force, led by Keith Schiller, a retired New York City cop and Navy veteran who started working for Trump in 1999 as a part-time bodyguard, eventually rising to become his head of security.

Security officials warn that employing private security personnel heightens risks for the president-elect and his team, as well as for protesters, dozens of whom have alleged racial profiling, undue force or aggression at the hands of Trump’s security, with at least 10 joining a trio of lawsuits now pending against Trump, his campaign or its security.

“It’s playing with fire,” said Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who worked on President Barack Obama’s protective detail during his 2012 reelection campaign. Having a private security team working events with Secret Service “increases the Service’s liability, it creates greater confusion and it creates greater risk,” Wackrow said.

“You never want to commingle a police function with a private security function,” he said, adding, “If you talk to the guys on the detail and the guys who are running the rallies, that’s been a little bit difficult because it’s so abnormal.”


While it might be unprecedented in the United States, it's certainly not unprecedented among dictators. Of course, the most well-known example is the SA Brownshirts. Hitler's private army had no loyalty to the government or any ideals; they swore an oath personally to Adolf Hitler himself.

One wonders what kind of "loyalty" Mr. Trump's security guards have to him. But more importantly, I wonder what the Secret Service and Pentagon think of these things? After Hitler came to power, the German Army was highly alarmed by how it happened - but their loyalty was bought in exchange for Hitler sacrificing the entire organization on the "Night of the Long Knives".

Moving on, another story from yesterday has had some repercussions today. We all heard that the Russian ambassador to Turkey was assassinated.


ANKARA - Russia’s ambassador to Turkey was shot by a Turkish police officer shouting about Syria’s civil war in the capital of Ankara on Monday, according to witnesses and officials.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed Ambassador Andrey Karlov, 62, was later pronounced dead from his injuries, and called the shooting a terrorist act.

Turkish police officers responding to the incident fatally shot the gunman, who was identified by officials as Mevlut Mert Altintas, aged 22. Turkish officials confirmed earlier reports that Altintas was himself a police officer, working riot detail in Ankara.


Well, it should come as no surprise that Vladimir Putin has promised repercussions.


Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed Monday to hit back at terrorists and step up Russia's involvement in Syria's civil war in response to the assassination in Ankara of Russia's ambassador to Turkey.

"This murder is clearly a provocation aimed at undermining the improvement and normalization of Russian-Turkish relations, as well as undermining the peace process in Syria promoted by Russia, Turkey, Iran and other countries interested in solving this conflict in Syria," Putin said in Moscow. "The only response we should offer to this murder is stepping up our fight against terror."

Putin spoke hours after a well-dressed gunman shouting "don't forget Aleppo" shot and killed Andrei Karlov, Russia's ambassador to Turkey, in an attack that could have wide-ranging implications for Syria's civil war and the U.S. campaign against ISIS.

Several other persons were wounded in the attack by the gunman wearing a black suit and tie, who reportedly fired at least eight shots before he was killed by Turkish first responders at a city gallery opening of a photography exhibition.


It sure does seem like we have been "doomed to repeat it" recently. Ordinarily, I wouldn't mind to sit back and watch pride goeth before a fall, but I live too close to a major population center to ignore the possibilities now.
 

34 comments (Latest Comment: 12/20/2016 20:28:44 by Raine)
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