Veterans, Pittsburgh, China: 3 Stories You Should Read 10/31/2018

October 31, 2018 Confluence

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Confluence Daily is your daily news source for women in the know.

In the category of: People who know what defending freedom really looks like have an opinion.

Veterans slam Trump for border ‘stunt’

“This is not a national security issue. … We’re seeing women, children and the elderly within this caravan fighting for their lives. We don’t need more military there,” according to Bishop Garrison, the interim executive director of the Truman National Security Project, a left-leaning organization focused on national security and veterans issues.

“We don’t need to make a sensitive issue and situation all the more dramatic,” said Garrison, a former Homeland Security and Pentagon official.

Will Fischer, a former Marine who now works for the VoteVets, a progressive veteran’s organization, said it was clear the President was thinking about politics more than national security.

“Donald Trump thinks unarmed people who are fleeing horrors and are still 1,000 miles away are a national security threat a week before election day,” Fischer said. “I don’t think so. It’s a political ploy to blow upon the embers of racism and nativism, and he is using the military again as a political prop to advance his own agenda”

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In the category of: Taking a stand – literally.

WATCH: Trump’s motorcade forced to turn around after thousands of protesters flood Pittsburgh streets

On Tuesday, despite many people’s wishes, President Donald Trump traveled to Pittsburgh to pay his respects to the lives lost in the synagogue massacre.

During CNN’s Jake Tapper Tuesday show, national correspondent Miguel Marquez said that he was shocked at how “how big” and “how quickly” the protest against Trump’s visit grew.

According to Marquez, there were two different protests taking place. Marquez said that protest he was at, which was about a block away from the Tree of Life synagogue, was not planned 24 hours ago.

According to CNN, police had tried to clear path for Trump’s motorcade. But Marquez later said the president had “moved off in another direction.”

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In the category of: It’s not just Russia.

CHINA’S 5 STEPS FOR RECRUITING SPIES

Even as popular culture and public attention has focused in the past decade on a few high-profile cases against Russian intelligence operations, China’s spying efforts have yielded a more steady stream of incidents. Over the last 15 years, dozens of people—including Americans, Chinese nationals, and Europeans—have been arrested, charged, or convicted of economic or military espionage for China. In just the 28-month period that a notorious Russian spy ringunraveled around 2010, US officials charged and prosecuted more than 40 Chinese espionage cases, according to a Justice Department compilation.

The majority of Chinese espionage cases over the years have involved ethnic Chinese, including Chinese students who came to the US for college or advanced degrees, got hired at tech companies, and then absconded back to China with stolen trade secrets. Historically, very few Chinese spying cases have featured the targeting or recruitment of Westerners. But this year has seen a rash of cases of Americans allegedly recruited to spy on China’s behalf, encouraged to turn over the sensitive military, intelligence, or economic information—at least one of which started with a simple LinkedIn message.

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