JamesCrippen

Emergency Management nerd. Business Continuity. Political agnostic. Husband to a wonderful wife. Father to a beautiful daughter.

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Every human person is planned and willed by God to enter into communion with Him, with others, and with creation. Human dignity does not depend on a person’s abilities, wealth, or position in life, nor on the right or wrong choices made. Instead, it is a gift that precedes and transcends each person, endowed by God as an expression of His unfailing love. #MagnificaHumanitas #GeneralAudience

[JamesCrippen @JamesCrippenEM]

To will anothers good you have to know what their good is. Empathy is how you find that out

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

Compare what Bishop Barron says about empathy with what Pope Leo XIV says about empathy.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

NEW: In a homily on Sunday, Bishop Robert Barron contradicted Pope Leo XIV, telling 3.6 million YouTube subscribers that empathy “is not a supreme value” and that it “threatens truth, reality, justice,” and love.

In May, Pope Leo XIV told a Vatican colloquium that “human compassion and empathy are not something additional or optional, but are a call from God to reflect his goodness in our daily lives.”

Leo lamented that “compassion and empathy are sadly in danger of disappearing today,” and called the resulting apathy “one of the most serious spiritual challenges of our time.”

It is the latest step in Barron’s steep descent into MAGA partisanship. https://t.co/oSstIGowES

[Aaron Blake @AaronBlake]

A really telling post about the GOP evolution away from small-gov't conservativsm from the Heritage Foundation.

Basically: We can't dismantle the "welfare state," so let's embrace the welfare state for our own purposes.

[Vatican News @VaticanNews]

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem launches “Within Your Gates,” an interdisciplinary initiative bringing together scholars and practitioners from different faith traditions and disciplines to reflect on the Holy City’s universal mission.

https://t.co/y3U0UwNVc1

[Jeff Duncan @JeffDuncan_]

Very sad news to report...

Longtime WWL radio sports personality Mike Detillier dies https://t.co/Pjnkwl9SMU via @nolanews

[Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 @PollTracker2024]

CBS News: House GOP Conference Chair Stands by Max Miller

House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain (R-MI) said while she hopes abuse allegations against Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) are “not true,” she is supporting his reelection bid for a third term because “I will support anyone with an R behind their name.”

McClain: “At the end of the day, he’s our nominee right now. I wish the allegations weren’t true.”

https://t.co/AYvmE2RVl6

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

NEW: A nun arrested by ICE on her way to Mass in Texas. A bishop in Wyoming grieving “for parents who fear being detained when taking their children to school.” An Arkansas bishop comparing the Trump regime to 1930s Germany.

The biggest resistance to Donald Trump in MAGA country isn’t the Democrats, the courts, or the media.

Inspired by Pope Leo XIV, it’s the Catholic Church. https://t.co/yuPsMYvD74

[CBS Sunday Morning 🌞 @CBSSunday]

On the morning of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush was visiting an elementary school classroom in Sarasota, Fla., when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, informed him that America was under attack.

Card revisits the Emma E. Booker Elementary School with @MajorCBS, and talks about a singular moment, captured in an iconic photograph.

[Jeremiah Johnson 🌐 @JeremiahDJohns]

"Capitalism is why people have to work" is very silly thing to say, but it's part of a grand tradition of blaming literally everything, no matter how absurd, on capitalism.

A short thread:

[Vatican News @VaticanNews]

Pope Leo XIV upholds the role of contemplative nuns in the Church as weavers of communion with the threads of prayer, work, and Eucharistic adoration.

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

You don’t have a service.

You’re a merchant mariner. Take pride in that job, it’s honestly cool.

BUT ITS NOT THE MILITARY

[Kelly McKinney @kellymnyc]

Aid experts have denounced the US’s “embarrassing” and “pitiful” initial response to the Nepal flood disaster after the US state department announced it was releasing $500,000 in emergency funds to help the relief effort.

The modest sum was mocked on social media as seasoned humanitarian aid specialists say the US response has shrunk to a shadow of its previous capacity by the dismantling of USAID after Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year.

Under USAID, the amount would have been decided by a disaster assistance response team, which would have been on the ground immediately to assess needs because of the close working relationship the agency had with Nepal, a known natural disaster zone.

“They would have done an assessment very quickly with the Nepalese authorities, and then we would have decided on a number,” said Mark Ward, a former head of USAID’s disaster response team, who was nicknamed “Mr Disaster” by President George HW Bush.“I’m sure it would have been a lot more than the figure that we’ve seen.”

His sentiments were echoed by George Ingram, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former staff member of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee.

“I was embarrassed for America,” he said. “It would have been better for them not to announce it.

https://t.co/kDu807beBZ

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Let us #PrayTogether for a just and sustainable management of water, a vital resource, so that everyone may have equal access to it. #PrayerIntention @clicktopray_en @vaticanIHD https://t.co/rCmSKkqM3b

[JamesCrippen @JamesCrippenEM]

Holy shit.

[vx-underground @vxunderground]

I really recommending reading this.

In summary, a company which does ID verification for in-person interactions (hotels, car rentals, ID verification for alcohol or marijuana, etc) has some how exposed over 153,000,000 drivers licenses for people in the United States and Canada.

It is a catastrophic data breach, probably one of the worse I've ever seen. If you're in the United States and have traveled, gotten a hotel, purchased marijuana or alcohol, there is a high probability you're in this.

Unlike other breaches, this includes a photo of the person (from the license), making verification you've identified the person significantly easier.

This poses a significant threat to celebrities (musicians, YouTubers, streamers, adult entertainers, actors, etc), politicians, lawyers, wealthy people (CEOs, investors, people of public interest), Law Enforcement Officers, etc

Krebs himself, and several other security researchers, have already confirmed they're in the data leak.

tl;dr gah damn dawg this company is going to be sued into oblivion

https://t.co/QpsegBUzH5

[Ryan Evans @EvansRyan202]

Thomas R. Anderson (Cynical Publius) decided to become a special government employee without disclosing it to his followers while he continued to opine on defense, domestic policy, primary electoral contests. These are his choices and he is suffering the consequences of them in the court of public opinion in the form of media criticism and complaints.

Last night, he posted an absurd X article about me in which he accuses me of being part of a deep state plot against him. Aside from getting details of my career wrong, he raises (again) a false accusation against me and War on the Rocks: that he was 'doxxed' by us earlier this year. This has become central to his personal grievance narrative. Look at how many times he mentions it in his posts since March. But it doesn't make it true.

The truth is this: Thomas disclosed his identity on a podcast hosted by his friend at the beginning of this year (screenshot below). Further, on Feb. 24, on this website (screenshot below) he said he would start using his own name on March 17. On March 14, we published an article rebutting his 'American Greatness' article on professional military education. The rebuttal was professional and serious. We identified Thomas as the author of the piece we were responding to because readers should know whose arguments are being challenged and what relevant experience or expertise that person brings to the subject. In this case, that meant identifying Anderson as a former Army officer and an attorney. His identity was directly relevant to understanding the debate, particularly because his argument concerned the military profession and professional military education. We did not publish his address, phone number, workplace location, employer, family information, or any other private personal information. We identified the author of a published argument by the name he had already publicly disclosed.

Despite having committed to using his name himself on X 3 days later, Thomas accused us of 'doxxing' him. But all we said was his name, which he already used and said he would start using regularly. Why? My opinion: he tried to make hay out of this for more attention from his followers/MAGA. It quickly spiraled into a mass electronic harassment campaign targeting Brad Duplessis, his family, my employees, and me. We were actually doxxed. Not fake doxxed like Thomas claims. His followers on X posted our home addresses, including a photo of my front door, photos of Brad's home/family, our office location, photos of my junior employees. Then there were dozens of physical/death threats. Brad - an Army veteran who served his country honorably - had to temporarily move his wife and son out of the state. After their continued harassment, he was fired from his job. At War on the Rocks, we spent thousands of dollars upgrading our office security posture and had to turn to the police. We have reason to believe that Thomas and Jennica Pounds (DataRepublican) and others were coordinating this electronic harassment campaign in terms of messaging themes, but more on that another time.

My understanding is that ​h​e received one death threat, which he shared. Even one is inexcusable of course. From the start I said that I would not tolerate any of that from my followers. And it does not appear to have been one of my followers.​ We got scores. It took a negotiation with him to make him say the same -- to call of his dogs -- once it had clearly spiraled out of his control and he -- I believe -- realized the legal liability he had created for himself. But this was after his rabid followers threatened us with violence for days. (Side note: with the help of some friends in OSINT we identified many of these people). And again, all we did was share a name in an article on March 14 that he himself said he would start using on March 17. In a DM I asked him why all the fuss given he said he was going to start using his name. No response. No remorse. In his new X article he says this fake 'doxxing' is part of why he had to leave his old job at the law firm, when in fact, as you can see from the screenshot, he announced this decision weeks earlier.

​N​ow he accuses me of being a part of a deep state plot against him, which I expect to provoke​ fresh threats. The reality is that Thomas is just full of shit. He is a liar who sells hate to people on X.

It was shocking that when something like this finally happened to us, it was not Russia, China, or jihadists, but fellow Americans.

War on the Rocks is non-partisan. I am a political independent. We exist to foster, stoke, and provoke debate on ​national security policy and strategy among a community of professionals. That won't change. ​Our contributors include people who serve in this administration, and served in the last one.

[Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger]

Poor @CynicalPublius. Imagine being a colonel then getting the internets collective sack lowered upon your forehead in humiliation

[JamesCrippen @JamesCrippenEM]

Why didnt you clarify that point yourself when you were a DoD employee?

[Cynical Publius @CynicalPublius]

Dan, there are literally thousands of people accusing me of writing what I write on X and in periodicals at the behest and the paycheck of the Pentagon.

YOU KNOW THIS IS UNTRUE.

Why won't you clarify that?

Or do you like the way your toxic innuendo created a bot swarm of accusation that I am a pedophile being funded by Israel with money laundered through the Pentagon?

THAT is the level of insanity that your filthy implications have created.

It's simple Dan.

Just tell the world we're not paid by the Pentagon to write articles and X posts and that all we did was work on a narrowly-structured Senior Service College Task Force on a temporary basis.

I appeal to your humanity to publicly clarify that point, because what you are allowing to happen is sheer evil.

Well?

[Dan Lamothe @DanLamothe]

Colonel, good morning. Are your remarks here made in a personal capacity or as a government employee?

I stand by our reporting, which accurately details that each of you had government roles that neither you nor the Pentagon disclosed to the American people.