Monday Intel Brief 10/24/22
End of an Empire news
The world is collapsing on many fronts and you’re seeing America, and the West in general, fall into complete social, economic and political chaos. Here are some of the stories I’m watching:
Conservative groups are banding together to protect elderly voters after allegations of voter fraud and abuse came to light:
The American Constitutional Rights Union (ACRU) and the Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) have partnered to protect senior voters during this midterm election cycle.
In a press release, AMAC CEP Rebecca Weber announced the partnership with the ACRU to help safeguard elderly Americans voting rights after reports of potential vote fraud in nursing homes.
“If there was ever a senior-centric election cycle, it’s this year’s midterm elections; older Americans will win big or lose. It is critical that the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, senior citizens, protect their rights, particularly their voting rights,” stated Weber.
Former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and former Attorney General Edwin Meese III are both on the ACRU board and highlighted an investigation into a Wisconsin nursing home for vote fraud in a Town Hall article over the Summer:
That report was damning and is driving concern among the right that leftists are literally abusing old people in nursing homes:
Our Protect Vulnerable Voters Project revealed troubling findings. ACRU’s Vote Fraud hotline revealed information about cognitively impaired facility residents having their ballot choices made by staff, sometimes under coercion and often without their knowledge.
Other hotline complaints revealed that activist groups across the country were collecting ballots from residential facilities with the promise that the ballots would be delivered to election officials. Facility directors should not risk giving ballots to outside organizations as this is an unnecessary and unsecure method of handling ballots. The chain of custody and security of ballots should be a foremost concern for any facility director.
The evidence of such fraud is growing. In 2020, a Texas social worker was indicted on 134 felony counts of vote fraud for registering mentally incapacitated citizens to vote without their consent. And this year, an employee at the Father Murray Nursing Center in Macomb County Michigan was sentenced to jail for forging signatures on absentee ballot applications.
In Wisconsin, the state assembly appointed a special counsel to investigate vote fraud in nursing homes after an investigation by a county sheriff uncovered evidence indicating numerous cases of vote fraud in a nursing home. Special Counsel Michael Gableman, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, released a report this year indicating, “rampant fraud and abuse occurred statewide” at Wisconsin’s nursing homes and other residential care facilities.” After investigating more than 90 nursing homes in five counties the Special Counsel concluded that there was evidence of fraud including illegally assisting and marking ballots and possible forgery.
The coercion part is what’s circulating on the right - years of watching groups like Antifa and BLM riot have primed the American right to assume the worst about leftists. This seems minor to many people but this could be a flashpoint for violence on a small scale if people begin confronting nursing home staff for perceived abuse of family members.
Speaking of righties being fed up the state of New California has taken one step closer to reality:
The leadership of the new state of California has held numerous meetings over the past few years. They ultimately decided to use the West Virginia model to create a new state which is made up of numerous counties in the current state of California.
During the Civil War a group of patriots that wanted to side with the Union, broke off from Virginia Democrats and created their own state. This model was adopted by the patriots in California more than a century later. In the 1860s America was in a Civil War. In the 2020s America is being destroyed from the inside by a different group of Democrats with no regard for the US Constitution.
Last Friday the participants working towards statehood for the new state held another meeting. This meeting was special. The New California State Senate and Assembly both approved the EMERGENCY ORDINANCE FOR THE REORGANIZATION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA GOVERNMENT.
From the first paragraph of their Emergency Ordinance, the new state members write:
“We the People of the State of California by their Delegates assembled do ordain as follows:
A Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of State for the State of California shall be appointed by this body to discharge the duties and exercise the powers which pertain to their respective offices by the existing laws of the State under the Constitution of 1849/50 as approved by the United States Congress at the time of statehood, and to continue in office for six months, or until their successors be elected and qualified. The General Assembly is required to provide by law for an election of Governor and Lieutenant Governor by the people as soon as in their judgment such election can be properly held.”
An act of attempted secession will lead to the California government using violence to stop it, since these counties are the most productive. If that happens righties from across the nation will provide moral, financial and probably physical support to the New California faction which may lead to escalation. This could be Fort Sumpter scenario.
Another flash point will be Clean Elections USA who are organizing vigils to watch and document fraud at voter drop boxes. The left is claiming this is threatening, the right says that’s because the left is cheating. Another perceived fraud laden election could be a flashpoint for civil conflict which will see the government using troops to quell violence. I am hearing Antifa is already organizing attacks on poll watchers.
Of course America will have it’s hands full since the government is all in on WW3:
The US and its allies might directly intervene in the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev, even if there is no threat to any NATO member states, retired US Army general David Petraeus told France’s L’Express weekly on Saturday.
Washington might form a new coalition of the willing in such a scenario and use it instead of NATO, Petraeus, who also briefly served as the CIA director, believes.
Russia could take some actions in Ukraine that would be “so shocking and so horrific” that it would prompt a response from the US and other nations, he said, adding that they “might react in one way or another, but as a multinational force led by the US and not as a NATO force.”
[…]
Petraeus commanded US forces in Afghanistan from 2010 to 2011, presiding over America’s highest death tolls during the 20-year war, and increased civilian casualties.
The general helped persuade then-President Barack Obama to deploy an additional 30,000 US troops to the country, but his counterinsurgency plan, which hinged on “securing and serving” the local population, flopped.
The Russians are telling the French they think Ukraine will launch a dirty bomb attack in France to start a war. This probably means Russia is planning to launch an offensive and they’re trying to break up the NATO led pro-Ukraine alliance, but who knows? Maybe the Ukraine really has dirty bombs they’re planting in Paris.
America is running out of diesel, which will cause mass chaos:
Diesel doesn’t get as much of the limelight as oil and gas, but it should because diesel fuel is the industrial lifeblood of the United States, and the price of diesel alone probably has a more significant impact on inflation and the prices you’re paying at the grocery store over any other factor. Without ample amounts of diesel, semi-trucks don’t move, farms are shut down, and critical manufacturing sectors are crippled.
As Bloomberg noted this week, “The US has just 25 days of diesel supply, the lowest since 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration. At the same time, the four-week rolling average of distillates supplied, a proxy for demand, rose to its highest seasonal level since 2007.”
The Biden administration has remained strangely silent, probably hoping that the dismal news doesn’t hit the mainstream because it’s a total political timebomb waiting to go off, especially as the midterm elections are so close.
Bloomberg noted:
The diesel crunch comes just weeks ahead of the midterm elections and has the potential to drive up prices for consumers who already view inflation and the economy as a top voting issue. Retail prices have been steadily climbing for more than two weeks. At $5.324 a gallon, they’re 50% higher than this time last year, according to AAA data.
Notably, National Economic Council Director Brian Deese recently commented on the emerging crisis. Deese said diesel inventories are “unacceptably low” and added that “all options are on the table,” whatever that means.
If we get short on diesel the trucks stop running. If the trucks stop running it’s game over. Excerpts from a .pdf of a report by the ATA:
Every day, Americans purchase billions of dollars of groceries. Most of these goods are brought to market via daily truck deliveries.
Significant shortages will occur in as little as three days, especially for perishable items following a national emergency and a ban on truck traffic. Minor shortages will occur within one to two days. At convenience stores and other small retailers with less inventory, shortages will occur much sooner.
Consumer fear and panic will exacerbate shortages. The forecast of a winter storm quickly exhausts basic commodities at grocery stores and supermarkets. It takes retailers up to three days to recover from these runs on supplies. News of a truck stoppage—whether on the local level, state or regional level, or nationwide— will spur hoarding and drastic increases in consumer purchases of essential goods. Shortages will materialize quickly and could lead to civil unrest.
Supplies of clean drinking water will run dry in two to four weeks. According to the American Water Works Association, Americans drink more than one billion glasses of tap water per day. For safety and security reasons, most water supply plants maintain a larger inventory of supplies than the typical business. However, the amount of chemical storage varies significantly and is site specific. According to the Chlorine Institute, most water treatment facilities receive chlorine in cylinders (150 pounds and one ton cylinders) that are delivered by motor carriers. On average, trucks deliver purification chemicals to water supply plants every seven to 14 days. Without these chemicals, water cannot be purified and made safe for drinking. Without truck deliveries of purification chemicals, water supply plants will run out of drinkable water in 14 to 28 days. Once the water supply is drained, water will be deemed safe for drinking only when boiled. Lack of clean drinking water will lead to increased gastrointestinal and other illnesses, further taxing an already weakened healthcare system.
[…]
Without truck transportation, patient care within the truck stoppage zone will be immediately jeopardized. According to Cook, many hospitals have moved to a just in-time inventory system. In fact, some work from a low-unit-of-measure system. This means that essential basic supplies, such as syringes and catheters, are not ordered until the supplies are depleted. These systems depend on trucks to deliver needed supplies within hours of order placement. Internal redistribution of supplies in hospitals could forestall a crisis for a short time; however, in a matter of hours, hospitals would be unable to supply critical patient care. • If an incident of national significance produces mass injuries, truck transportation is the key to delivering urgently needed medical supplies necessary to save lives. According to Cook, there are not enough medical supplies in any local area to support a large scale medical emergency.
[…]
Hospitals and nursing homes will exhaust food supplies in as little as 24 hours. Hospitals and nursing homes receive daily truck deliveries of food for patients. The International Food Distributors Association notes that because these facilities lack significant warehousing capabilities, a truck stoppage will result in food shortages within 24 to 48 hours, particularly among perishable items.
Pharmacy stocks of prescription drugs will be depleted quickly. Although pharmacies typically carry several weeks inventory of many drugs, seasonal pharmaceuticals, such as antibiotics and flu-shots during winter months, have faster turnover rates. According to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, most of the nation’s 55,000 drug stores receive daily merchandise deliveries by truck.
[…]
Within days of a truck stoppage, Americans will be literally buried in garbage with serious health and environmental consequences. Further, without fuel deliveries, many waste processing facilities will be unable to operate equipment such as backhoes and incinerators.
I encourage you to read the rest. It’s a sobering reminder of the fact our first world lifestyle is built on a fragile foundation of cheap energy.
Obama and Clinton economic guru Larry Summers is scared about the oil supply in general:
During an interview aired on Friday’s edition of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” Harvard Professor, economist, Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton Larry Summers stated that while he agrees with the initial release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve done by the Biden administration, he isn’t clear that further releases will work, partially because whatever oil gets released is “going to have to get back in at some point. And that’s going to have the opposite impact on oil prices.”
Summers said, “I think the initial SPRO release was a powerful thing that, over the last months, has done a lot to contain oil prices. And I think the Biden administration was exactly right to do it strongly, do it for a long time, do it in coordination with others. I think it’s much less clear how much scope there is for that policy to work further, going forward. In part, that’s because, many of the constraints are on the refining side. In part, that’s because it’s a little bit like QE for the Fed, whatever you put out there, you’re going to have to get back in at some point. And that’s going to have the opposite impact on oil prices. So, I think you’ve got to be careful about that instrument from here. And I think that we’ve all got to be very apprehensive about the degree of confrontation that now exists between the United States and what might be called the Russian/Saudi axis. This is going to be a very complex time, and I hope that we get through it while avoiding oil price spikes. My guess is that that’s going to happen, but I think that’s a major downside wild card from here, both with respect to inflation and with respect to recession.”
That's a polite way of saying we’re between a rock and a hard place.
On our Northern border Canada just banned buying handguns. This came after a slew of anti-gun bills and Justin Trudeau saying you don’t have a right to self defense with a gun in Canada:
Interestingly this move came after Trudeau was found to have allowed CCP police stations all over Canada:
According to a new report, these police stations, while purportedly created to combat fraud, are a means to extend the genocidal communist regime's influence and powers of "transnational repression." This confirms the acceleration of a well-documented trend of the communist power infringing upon the "rights and freedoms of overseas Chinese and minority communities in exile."
Safeguard Defenders, a European pan-Asian human rights NGO, issued a September report entitled "110 Overseas: Chinese Transnational Policing Gone Wild," detailing how the communist Chinese regime has employed "overseas police service stations" on five continents.
On January 22, Liu Rongyan, director of the Overseas Chinese Police Office of the Public Security Bureau in Fuzhou City, announced that the "first batch" of 30 overseas police services in 25 cities across 21 countries had been opened. There are now reportedly 54 such CCP-backed centers.
[…]
Whereas China contends that these stations serve expats in the capacity of micro-consulates, aiding with administrative tasks (e.g., filing police reports or renewing drivers' licenses), Safeguard Defenders indicated that the primary function of these forward operating bases is instead to compel persons to return to China whenever the regime has determined them to have broken Chinese law.
"These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperation and violate international law," said the report. Furthermore, they may "violate the territorial integrity of third countries involved in setting up a parallel policing mechanism using illegal methods."
The development of these centers occurred alongside the CCP's campaign to intimidate and extort Chinese nationals and expats to return to China to face criminal proceedings. Between April 2021 and July 2022, communist authorities claimed 230,000 nationals were "persuaded to return."
As well as letting Chinese troops watch Canadian military training:
Canada is not a military superpower, and now we know why: The country’s gullible leaders apparently don’t understand that its military operations are supposed to be kept secret from potential enemies of the state.
In a shocking revelation, Canada’s Department of National Defence has confirmed that it allowed communist China’s army onto Canadian soil to observe its winter training exercises in February 2018, the Toronto Sun reported.
The DND claimed that members of the People’s Liberation Army only observed and did not participate in any training — as if that minimizes the potential threat to national security.
Is the Canadian government prepping for a war where they’re on the side of the CCP? Trudeau has been very complimentary of the genocidal regime:
At a “ladies night” fundraiser in Toronto in 2013, an up-and-coming politician was asked which nation’s administration he admired most in the world.
Wearing a pale blue shirt and a smile, the fresh-faced Liberal Party leader answered Communist China.
“There is a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say we need to go green, we need to start, you know, investing in solar,” Justin Trudeau told the group of women. “There is a flexibility that I know [Prime Minister] Stephen Harper must dream about: having a dictatorship where you can do whatever you wanted, that I find quite interesting.”
The comments drew fire, particularly from Canadians who noted China’s oppressive regime and documented human rights abuses.
"It seems to be that he's not well-informed," a member of a round-table told the CBC.
Or is he? As chaos escalates Canada is something to watch. Handguns are excellent insurgent weapons because they allow poorly trained fighters to carry out assassinations. The fantasy of pitched battles with an occupation force is just that - successful insurgencies often simply target mid level bureaucrats and propagandists. So it plays into the CCP’s hands if they wanted to invade Canada to have handguns banned. Just sayin’
Finally enjoy this film from the 60s called Family Fallout Shelters which was aimed at housewives and explained to them how to stock their shelters for nuclear war. Just thought it’s apropriate: