Posted on 01/01/2024 5:05:22 AM PST by Godzilla
Welcome to Threat Matrix 2024
For historical reference TM2023 link is
https://freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/4120141/posts?page=1#1
Established in 2001, after the 9/11 attack on America and now in its 23nd year, this thread is designed to identify threats to America, both internal and external, and evaluate the probability of those threats occurring and the extent of potential damage. Discussions may stray into ‘tinfoil’ territory, but the goal is to peel back and confirm information so we can make informed decisions and actions. Incredible as it seems, “tinfoil” conspiracy theories have fast become realities so they can no longer be ignored outright, but must be evaluated and compared to current events.
2023 has been “historic”: Continued inflation Record illegal immigration Record crime Record housing prices and Unprecedented prime lending rate increases. Push to globalize the economy, food production and energy
I expect 2024 to be even worse as we are facing, among many things -
- 2024 is a political year with all the deep divisions and turmoils that brings. - Political assassinations - The potential for a serious and deep recession - CBDC stripping Americans of their free use of money - Race and other ethnic wars in the US as illegals mark out territory - Continued massive increase in crime - Further movement towards implementing the goals of the WEF via its “global reset” - - Continued combat in Ukraine that could spill out into other parts of Europe - Potential Chinese move on Taiwan – breaking analysis - Israel and Hezbollah/Iran finally directly going at it. - Other political turmoil growing globally over a wide range of issues. - Potential for a wide variety of Black Swan events to create even greater problems. . And this is just a short list.
It has been my pleasure to continue this thread over the past few years. This thread hopefully is continuing the goals of when it started.
For those who care, my posts reflect my scanning of the interwebs to provide me with early warning concerning factors that can endanger my life and family. Yes, I’m what many would call a “prepper”, and proudly accept that characterization.
How can something happening half way around the world affect me personally? Wuhan virus, my friend is but one recent example. I noted it in TM Dec 2019 and was prepared when chaos hit in 2020.
Other events have secondary and tertiary affects that reach us via shortages and inflation – fossil fuel prices are the most common, as well as economic impacts. I simply share news items and often my opinions that shape my actions and preparations.
My posts are broken down into specific topics and regions. I highlight and evaluative opensource reports in those areas in regard to how it will affect the US. Sometimes it feels like trying to drink from a fire hose and I don’t expect this to let up, only increase as the year progresses.
Will we even make it to the 2024 elections without things flying apart? Will the democrats / leftist manage a way to steal the election? Will the US find itself in the early stages of a civil war / national split up? The year promises to be very bumpy, so buckle up and prepare yourselves for what is to come.
Globalism / Great Reset –
Upcoming meetings of importance
- WHO February 19 to 21, Trans guideline committee.
- WHO pandemic ‘treaty’ May 2024
*****
Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles has cancer and will be continuing to do his duties, but from home and will be postponing public-facing duties. His medical team announced that the cancer was caught ‘early’ and full recovery probable.
No specifics have been released on the nature of the cancer.
OBSERVATION - Charles is one of the bigwigs at the WEF, pushing its agenda in England as well as other commonwealth countries.
This announcement now has brought clarity to rumors I read a number of months back that there was a possibly that Charles may step down soon. Reasons were not specific at the time, but could well have been medically related. Could this be what was rumored back then. Initial diagnosis would naturally precede actual treatment set up.
PR putting good foot forward on his potential recovery, but nothing is certain anymore. He has a number of other medical conditions that may be affected by his cancer treatment, or will make his treatment less effective.
CW2 / Domestic violence - Heightened THREAT
Showdown in TX continues. The beacons of Gondor are lit ! !
Yesterday, a news conference at Eagle Pass with Gov Abbott and 16 supporting governors reiterating the constitutional right for TX to defend itself from an invasion and reiterating support for TX.
***
The U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN), the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR), and National Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) called for a “week of action” that started yesterday and will end on Sunday, 11 February.
OBSERVATION - Besides now dropping to being more of a nuisance than a threat, this is an attempt to try to rally passion again for pro-hamas propaganda and leverage against Israeli support by democrats.
***
See Illegal immigration below on the growth of Venezuelan crime gangs in the US.
Terrorism - Level is HIGH due to impending conflict with Iran.
This warning renewed as of Feb 6, 2024
ELEVATED RISK - Potential military action against Iranian assets for the attack that killed US forces in Jordan could result in Iranian terror groups here in the US to activate and conduct terror ops here. These attacks can range from infrastructure destruction (water, power, communications, etc) to mass casualty events (superbowl related attacks) or attacks on political candidates - heavily leaning against current administration but also Trump as well. So far the govt hasn’t come out with any warnings but the risk has increased significantly the last 24 hours, based on common sense and stated goals of the Islamist movement/Iran.
Economy-
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell vowed in an interview aired Sunday that the central bank will proceed carefully with interest rate cuts this year and likely will move at a considerably slower pace than the market expects.
“With the economy strong like that, we feel like we can approach the question of when to begin to reduce interest rates carefully,” he told the news magazine’s Scott Pelley, according to a transcript CBS released.
“We want to see more evidence that inflation is moving sustainably down to 2%,” Powell added. “Our confidence is rising. We just want some more confidence before we take that very important step of beginning to cut interest rates.”
OBSERVATION - Once again, pulling back confidence in an early rate reduction. It is becoming less and less likely that the Fed will be able to affect the ‘economy’ in a favorable manner before the election in a manner that would be favorable to biden.
***
The Wall Street Journal notes Burritos and Big Macs to Cost More in California as Pay Rises
Minimum wage for California fast-food workers is set to rise to $20 an hour in April, a 25% increase from the state’s broader $16 minimum wage. Restaurants including McDonald’s, Chipotle, Jack in the Box and others say they will raise menu prices in California in response, with some McDonald’s franchisees estimating hundreds of thousands of dollars per restaurant in added labor costs.
The National Owners Association, a group of McDonald’s franchisees, estimated it will cost Golden Arches operators an additional $250,000 annually per restaurant, an amount that can’t readily be absorbed, according to an email from the group last September.
https://www.wsj.com/business/hospitality/california-minimum-wage-workers-prices-c3aef6b4
OBSERVATION - Kalifornia will likely feel the biggest pain, but higher costs have spread nationwide as all fast food franchises have struggled post wuhan to get people to work for them. In my world, I’ve pretty much stopped McD’s even for the grandkids after a play time in the park. Kid meals are not unhappy meals. Burger thing has coupons out with big discounts for various combos - that’s where we are headed on a more consistent basis (until the coupons get used up) now. Even a meal at the local Perkins is cheaper than McD’s.
POLITICAL FRONT –
Dates of importance
Feb 8 - The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the Colorado case.
March - latest CR expires
March 5- Super Tuesday primaries
***
Yesterday, Colorado presented its case in front of the USSC for the exclusion of Trump from the ballot on the “insurrection” charges.
****
Posting this here because of its political ramifications -
The Senate “bipartisan” border bill (which is more military aid and other pork than border security) is crashing on the rocks of republican public opinion - widely seen as a sellout to the marxist democrat goals for border chaos and tying Trumps hands if/when he returns to the WH.
In the midst of all this comes reports that supporter and instigator McConnell has tossed Senator James Lankford under the bus. McConnell allegedly recommended a NO vote on the supplemental Wednesday in a closed Senate GOP meeting. This follows efforts by McConnell to muster enough Republican support to override an expected filibuster of the bill.
NOTE - Still pending a lot of collaborating information, since McConnell reportedly said to vote NO last week - well before the content of the bill was officially releases and when it was still being reported that he was trying to sway enough republicans to vote YES to over ride the expected filibuster. SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT HERE, are we being PLAYED?
As of last count yesterday, 19 of the 41 republicans needed to sustain a filibuster have openly come out as voting NO on the bill. If the McConnell rumor is true, he must have added up the numbers and see that the remaining NO votes are coalescing together and his buddy-buddy bill with Schumer is doomed. But the question still remains - what the reports that he was still trying to get the votes necessary to get it passed?
House Speaker Johnson reiterated yesterday that if passed by the Senate, the bill would be DOA upon reaching the house.
I find it very disappointing that McConnell and probably some other republican senators (looking at you Romney) managed to convince Lankford to move forward with these ‘negotiations’ and disappointed that Lankford was stupid enough to agree. Though his seat doesn’t come up for reelection until 2026, he is now facing getting the “Chaney” treatment from Oklahoma state republicans when that time comes.
On the side, it has been uncovered that in a 2010 deposition in the case, given a week after he was elected to his first term in the U.S. House, Lankford testified that he believed a 13-year-old could consent to sex. Is there something else lurking there that McConnell used for leverage to get him to sell out the country and the republicans?
We have not heard the last on this bill, schumer is still planning on a vote on Wednesday.
Biden / Harris Watch –
Dates to watch -
March 7 - State of the union
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biden in response to Trump’s challenge for early debates “I’d want to debate me too”
Illegal Immigration –
See CW2 on Texas standoff.
***
Gov Abbot in yesterday’s news conference noted that illegal penetrations at Eagle Pass have dropped into the single digits, from thousands per day just weeks earlier.
***
Should cross ref under CW2 as well
The largest growing criminal organization in the world has infiltrated its way into the United States, said an El Paso FBI agent.
The Tren de Aragua, or the “Aragua Train,” gained notoriety after its founding in 2012 by Hector Guerrero, alias “Niño Guerrero” or Warrior Kid, in the state of Aragua located in the north-central region of Venezuela.
The gang has now become a significant concern along the US-Mexico border, Blair said.
A CNN report said U.S. Border Patrol arrested 38 possible gang members between October 2022 and 2023, with two detained near the El Paso border.
FBI Special Agent Britton Boyd with the El Paso FBI highlighted the threat to Borderland communities, emphasizing that identified Tren de Aragua members face prosecution for illegal entry into the U.S.
“The gang capitalizes on its Venezuelan community for entry, primarily engaging in human smuggling and sex trafficking,” Boyd said.
ALSO - NYC facing growth of crimes by Venezuelan illegals forming gangs and conduction robberies - as many as nearly 70 big ones in one week.
OBSERVATION - It was a well know secret that Venezuela emptied its prisons and sent them northward to the US. They are one of the higher percentages of groups entering the country and find an easier route due to Madera “political persecution”. As as these groups continue to take hold, they will expand. I’ve said it many times, local police are already overwhelmed by the surge in crimes, not just the border, but everywhere these locusts have landed. It is going to make rooting the out all the more difficult.
Foreign gangs will be a serious problem should things go sideways. They do not have the cultural affinity as the US gangs do and their reputation is that of being far more ruthless. They will have two power bases - border towns and major urban centers - where particularly latino gangs can blend in or alternate back and forth across the border as needed. International black market guns can and do cross the border, to arm these gangs up. Any SHTF / WOTL scenario, life would become very dangerous and a potential Reconquesta of the south very possible.
North/South Korea –
More speculation on NKs nuclear goals and next steps. While NK has been racing ahead with ballistic missiles that could be used to deliver a nuclear round, the question is has NK actually miniaturized the components into a size small enough to be carried by those rockets? And for an ICBM round - have they developed a reliable reentry vehicle to protect said bomb on terminal approach.
For over year now, the underground test site in NK has been restored with at least one test chamber available and ready for a test. Recent ICBM launches have been the high perigee types - going more straight up than across the globe - so NK can monitor telemetry (they don’t have the Pacific test range like the US does). One of these rockets could loft a live nuke warhead for exo-atmospheric explosion test - and very possibly generate an EMP that could affect SK and Japan.
Lots of ‘what if’s ‘ involved. A likely scenario would be a underground test of the warhead, followed by the exo-atmospheric test.
All this to say that this is an election year, and biden is looking weaker and weaker by the polls as well as in public appearances. They will attempt to leverage this for max effect. Kim knows that Trump is willing to negotiate on some matters, but unwilling to supply the technical military support putin is delivering.
Expanded discussion at link below.
Japan –
US/Japanese joint command exercise actually named China as the enemy and included detailed map of Taiwan. Previous command exercises were conducted against a fictitious opponent over a generic island(s).
Russia -
WAR WATCH - into the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Feb 24th, 2022
CURRENT ASSESSMENT - Updated Feb 2, 2024, closing in on two years of war.
Russia is attempting to seize the initiative by executing a winter/spring offensive across the eastern front. Russia has reportedly concentrated 40,000 troops to sustain this offensive. Though reports indicate that there have been some limited successes, Russian forces have taken heavy losses. One key objective continues to be the capture of Avdiivak, near Donetsk, as well as terrain lost to Ukraine during the Ukraine fall offensive in 2022. The attacks associated with this offensive do not appear to be supportive of each other in a manner that could help expedite any breakthrough and initiate any significant armor / mobile action. These assault axis also appear to be vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes on their logistics trains.
Russia has been able to gradually enlarge the number of soldiers in the theatre to the 400,000 range. Training and equipping of these forces is still rated very poor. Russia has drawn heavily upon ‘volunteers’ from penal colonies for their “Z” shock troops- the primary element of their meat attack (human wave) assaults against Ukraine defenses. It has been documented that ‘enforcement’ squads follow behind these ‘shock troops’ with orders to shoot any who attempt to retreat.
Russia continues to suffer heavy tank and APC losses. Old, cold war era tanks and APCs are becoming more and more common sights in battle fields. (formerly) Elite units like the Russian marines are routinely seen with T54/55 series tanks instead of the T72/80/90 series they were commonly equipped with.
Shortages of Ukraine artillery ammo has permitted Russia to regain some degree of local superiority on the battlefield. Some estimates give Russia a 3:1 advantage. This is down substantially from the start of the war where it had a 10:1 advantage.
Russian has been shepherding its stockpile of missiles/drones for a potential effort to take down the Ukraine power grid as they did winter 2023. This task has become increasingly difficult as Ukraine adds air defense systems and gets better coverage.
The Russian Black Sea fleet is is essentially impotent and hesitant to deploy into now contested waters. In the latest, large missile / drone attack, the Black Sea fleet was noticeably out of action. In the last half of 2023, Ukraine was able to take out about 20% of the fleet.
The Russia air force has taken significant losses at the hands of Ukraine. This has forced Russia to redeploy fighter bombers further away from the contested zone and exercise more caution when attacking. Larger aircraft have been forced to alter their operations as well.
Russian leadership reportedly planning for a long duration conflict, hoping to wear the Ukraine army down and cause European allies to tire of their support - forcing some sort of cease fire and negotiated peace. putin is struggling to place his economy on wartime footing to accomplish this goal.
*****
Tucker Carlson interviewed putin yesterday. Will be interesting to see the results.
Ukraine –
WEATHER FORECAST – Temperatures in the 20-30 range with scattered snow and rain.
24 HOUR ROUND UP – Weather continues to dominate action on the ground. However, temperatures are reaching levels around Ukraine that are starting to freeze the ground locally, meaning that ground operations may have their tempo increase over the coming days/weeks.
Relatives quiet as things are mostly stable. A lot of fighting in the Avdiivak area with terrain on the southeastern margin of the city swinging back and forth in changing control.
Russian Territory –
Blackouts in Rostov, Bataysk and Azov in Rostov region due to technical failure in power grid.
Outlook —
Weather and mud conditions are continuing to dictate ground operations, which are at a low level due to lack of maneuverability cross country and on dirt roads due to the mud.
Stalemate is the general term along the front, with continued higher numbers of Russian attacks trying to achieve momentum.
Some analysts are noting that Russia has readjusted its strategic reserves into four components and deployed them where they can reinforce various sectors with greater ease. This was a major problem during Ukraine’s summer offensive 2023 - Russia was forces to laterally move frontal units to reinforce sectors - stretching out their manning in other sectors - creating vulnerable zones.
More analysis regarding the 40,000 man force being put together along the eastern front. Timing appears to be set for the Russian elections - as a means of showing that Russia is winning and not just in a stalemate / meat grinder.
One last item of interest. I noted yesterday about the 9,334 pieces of Russian tube artillery no longer at storage armories. This number is very close to the reported number of artillery pieces listed by Ukraine as being destroyed. To say that Russia is running out of artillery is not an exaggerated claim.
Belarus -
Lithuania to close two more checkpoints on the border with Belarus – Raigardas and Lavoriskes – on March 1, 2024.
They also decided to limit the movement of people on bicycles and on foot at all checkpoints on the border with Belarus.
OBSERVATION - Belarus has been a major supporter of illegal migrants trying to get into Europe via Poland as well as Baltic Countries. Most recent tactic used by both Belarus and Russia is to send them to the border crossings on bicycles and on foot - some how that is easier than other tactics.
War nearly broke out between Poland and Belarus prior to the Ukraine war over Belarus moving these migrants into crossing places along the border.
Europe / NATO General –
In a Sunday opinion piece titled, “NATO is pushing the Russia-Ukraine conflict toward a ‘world war,’” published by the Global Times, a nationalistic English-language tabloid published by the propaganda department of the ruling Communist Party, noted NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg’s recent visit to the United States in which he spoke about the “readiness” of NATO along with the investment in aid and defense.
“Clearly, this is not just about NATO seeking funds. This is a clear preparation of public opinion to expand the Russia-Ukraine conflict into a world war,” Global Times’ opinion piece read.
OBSERVATION - Sometimes truth is spoken by your enemies. More and more, the talk coming out of European govts / NATO is an expectance of soon war with Russia, and public perception is being adjusted to support such preparations and eventual war.
ISRAEL –
Key overnight developments -
- Hamas reiterates its demand that Israel accept its demands for a permanent cease-fire before any hostage release negotiations can move forward.
——— GENERAL ——————————-
Lest we forget - there are still 136 being held hostage in Gaza.
***
Efforts to close wide gaps between Israel and Hamas in pursuit of a cease-fire continued in the region where concerns about a wider war with Iran-allied groups remain. A top Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, said they were studying the proposal put forward by the U.S., Egypt, Qatar, and Israel but insist on Israel accepting conditions including a permanent cease-fire.
https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/israel-hamas-war/2024/02/03/id/1152173/
——— GAZA FRONT ———————————-
Ongoing search and destroy operations throughout Gaza. Reports of more mass surrenders of Hamas and affiliated fighters. Also more reports of Hamas popping back up in N Gaza.
——— LEBANON / HEZBOLLAH——————————-
Continued exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and IDF along the border.
According to Israeli Army Radio, 17 missiles were launched from Lebanon towards Israel since this morning
Hezbollah: No negotiations on the southern border (of Lebanon) before stopping the war on Gaza.
NOTE - This would be in regards to Hezbollah pulling back to the Litani River and demilitarizing the portion of Lebanon south of the river to the Israeli border as required by UN resolutions.
———WEST BANK——————————-
Arrests continue in numerous cities in the West Bank.
———“ISLAMIC RESISTANCE” ———————————
US assessing that it destroyed 80 of the 85 targets it hit during Friday’s wave of airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq & Syria, per Pentagon Press Sec Maj Gen Pat Ryder. No US estimate on casualties.
Senior U.S. Defense Officials stated yesterday that there is currently no plan for a sustained large-scale campaign against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria, but that they are in the process of planning additional retaliation strikes if necessary.
Houthis say they have fired missiles towards two ships in the Red Sea.
A Barbados-flagged, UK-owned cargo ship came under a drone attack while sailing in the Red Sea. It reported being hit when it was 57 miles off the coast of Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah and incurred minor damage on the port side. No injuries were reported.
A ship in the Red Sea was attacked by a number of individuals in a small, speed boat. One of the speed boat passengers fired an RPG round at the vessel, striking it and causing minor damage.
——— FORECAST ————————-
Israel to continue search and destroy operations across Gaza. Fighting to continue to be locally intense across all Gaza as Hamas and affiliate cells are discovered and neutralized as well as of the couple hundred miles of tunnels are uncovered and destroyed.
US must keep the air strikes going against Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq as well as against the Houthi to suppress their attacks and degrade their capabilities. Any let up will only cause them to get froggy again and increase their attacks on US forces and Red Sea shipping.
Iran – Potential war with US developing.
A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) is sounding the alarm on Iran’s closeness to going nuclear, upgrading its threat level to “Extreme Danger,” the highest of its six ratings, for the first time since the group began following the Iranian nuclear program in the 1990s.
“If Iran wanted to further enrich its 60 percent enriched uranium up to 90 percent weapon-grade uranium (WGU)... it could do so quickly,” the report says.
“[Iran] can break out and produce enough weapon-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a week,” it goes on, “using only a fraction of its 60 percent enriched uranium. This breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access.”
Moreover, using its remaining stock of enriched uranium, the country “could have in total enough weapon-grade uranium for six weapons in one month, and after five months of producing weapon-grade uranium, it could have enough for twelve.”
Although manufacturing the delivery system for the weapon itself could take longer, an accelerated program to develop a simple warhead delivered by ship or truck “could be accomplished in about six months,” signaling Iran’s nuclearization “either dramatically via an underground nuclear test or stealthily via leaks about its accomplishment.”
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-785373
OBSERVATION - This is the big red flag. As the article points out, its one thing to have the concentrated uranium. Its another to create a device that can create an explosion and another to design that bomb to be able to be transported in some manner to its target.
****
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has refused to rule out striking targets in Iran in the wake of repeated strikes on Iran-linked groups across the Middle East. Speaking to NBC, Sullivan was asked repeatedly if the US was considering attacks inside Iran.
“Well, sitting here today on a national news program, I’m not going to get into what we’ve ruled in and ruled out from the point of view of military action,” he said. “What I will say is that the president is determined to respond forcefully to attacks on our people. The president also is not looking for a wider war in the Middle East.”
Pressed again on the question, he continued to avoid a direct answer. “I’m not going to get into what’s on the table and off the table when it comes to the American response,” he said.
I always read And appreciate your post Godzilla. You obviously put a lot of work and time capsulizing for us the important global news of the day as well as stateside news. Thank you again for your work
Slight delay in that I had to deal with 3” of dense snow fall from overnight. Desperately needed in the hills. Probably will have to go out again later and shovel some more.
Globalism / Great Reset –
Upcoming meetings of importance
- WHO February 19 to 21, Trans guideline committee.
- WHO pandemic ‘treaty’ May 2024
*****
Farmers have gained a VERY limited victory of sorts in their protests against the EU’s draconian global warming mandates towards agriculture.
One of the items von der Leyen announced this morning in her speech to the European Parliament was the withdrawal of the proposed Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR). This pesticide use control measure met with widespread controversy when it was introduced in 2022. Last year it didn’t survive a vote by the parliament for implementation because of protests from a united European agricultural sector. Prospects were already looking glum for attempts at passage this year even before France, Belgium, and Germany’s farming communities erupted.
During her speech on Tuesday morning, the Commission chief spoke at length about farmers, saying they “deserve to be listened to” as they face the ravages of climate change, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis.
But she insisted the sector, which accounts for over 10% of the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions and is heavily subsidised through the EU budget, needs to transition towards a “more sustainable model of production.”
“Only if our farmers can live off the land will they invest in the future. And only if we achieve our climate and environmental goals together, will farmers be able to continue to make a living,” the Commission president said.
“Our farmers are well aware of this. We should place more trust in them.”
...The withdrawal of the proposed law is not immediate and still has to be ratified by the College of Commissioners, a process expected to be finalized in the coming weeks.
Despite the news, von der Leyen stressed the issue of regulating pesticides, whose carbon footprint stems from their manufacture, transport and application, would remain on the agenda and could be subject to a “new proposal much more mature.”
OBSERVATION - Some equate this to a big ‘bait and switch’, noting that EU isn’t fully rejecting the global warming mandates, only possibly postponing them for a period (“remaining on the agenda”).
***
Over the weekend, the University of Warwick concluded its Warwick Economics Summit. On the second day, 3 February, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, joined the Summit via Zoom to push the Pandemic Treaty.
“It’s urgent [ ] that all of us learn the painful lessons the [covid] pandemic told us and make the changes that must be made to keep all of us safer. It’s for that reason that in December 2022 WHO’s member states met in Geneva and agreed to develop an international agreement on pandemic preparedness and response,” he said.
Tedro’s speech was an appalling attempt to manipulate young minds and use them to fight his battles, Tedros called on students to raise their voices “to counter the lies that are undermining the [pandemic] agreement on social media.”
https://expose-news.com/2024/02/06/tedros-the-terrorist-tries-to-push-whos-treaty/
OBSERVATION - The source is kind ‘out there’ in some aspects, but the fact of Tedro’s speech remains as well as the intent of it. Right now, the WHO is on the cutting edge to be the first to get national authorization via this pandemic treaty, to place the world under a globalist control. Going back, this ‘treaty’ has a very broad ranging definition of a ‘health’ emergency to include global heating as well as gun control.
CW2 / Domestic violence - Heightened THREAT
Showdown in TX continues. The beacons of Gondor are lit ! !
Oregon Republicans issued a statement saying that they stand with Texas Governor Gov Abbott in his efforts to secure our southern border
OBSERVATION - the 26 state break away from federal malfeasance as a foreshock to a developing ‘national divorce’ is obvious . As I’ve noted earlier, any further split will be on a state by state basis with left coast CA, OR and WA having their eastern regions red and wanting to split from the dark blue urbanites.
IN RELATED- biden just called up Alaska NG to support the border patrol in TX. This is a deliberate attempt to threaten potential NG v NG confrontations IMHO.
***
Several of the illegal aliens who recently seriously assaulted NYC police officers and were released by the NY DA for ‘lack of evidence’ were arrested by ICE agents in Phoenix AZ. The New York Post reports a church non-profit gave them free bus tickets to California after they gave the non-profit fake names.
The name of this so called “church non-profit” was not given.
OBSERVATION - Cross link to illegal immigration. Illegal crime will quickly surpass crimes by the former favored underclass of the democrats in an exponential manner. The effort being made to keep these thugs on the streets is mind boggling. Meanwhile, citizens are being robbed, beaten, raped and murdered with no hope of the criminal justice system bringing these illegals to justice. This serves to increase the chaos in the cities, but it is generating backlash as well.
These ‘non-profits’ need to be named and put front and center for their contribution to the promotion of crime and in this case , conspiracy.
***
The “Negro national anthem” and now known as the “black national anthem” will be played immediately after the National Anthem at this weekend’s Super Bowl.
OBSERVATION - Very few things depict the two-fold nature the left is creating in this country than the imposition of this so called ‘black national anthem’ on the American society. Already it has been drilled into so many minds of blacks and whites for that matter too that the white race doesn’t deserve to live in this country, let alone world, that promotion of another anthem widen’s that rift.
Terrorism - Level is HIGH due to impending conflict with Iran.
This warning renewed as of Feb 6, 2024
ELEVATED RISK - Potential military action against Iranian assets for the attack that killed US forces in Jordan could result in Iranian terror groups here in the US to activate and conduct terror ops here. These attacks can range from infrastructure destruction (water, power, communications, etc) to mass casualty events (superbowl related attacks) or attacks on political candidates - heavily leaning against current administration but also Trump as well. So far the govt hasn’t come out with any warnings but the risk has increased significantly the last 24 hours, based on common sense and stated goals of the Islamist movement/Iran.
Economy-
Credit card delinquencies surged more than 50% in 2023 as total consumer debt swelled to $17.5 trillion, the New York Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.
Debt that has transitioned into “serious delinquency,” or 90 days or more past due, increased across multiple categories during the year, but none more so than credit cards.
With a total of $1.13 trillion in debt, credit card debt that moved into serious delinquency amounted to 6.4% in the fourth quarter, a 59% jump from just over 4% at the end of 2022, the New York Fed reported. The quarterly increase at an annualized pace was around 8.5%, New York Fed researchers said.
OBSERVATION - Continued linage to the increase in CC debt is to keep the family afloat. Jobs are becoming scarce, wages not keeping up with inflation and out of control housing costs are on people’s minds - and they are not being swayed by the regimes bleats as to how wonderful things are. Reality meets rhetoric.
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Damage assessments are underway to gauge the damage to the agriculture fields from the weekend’s floods in central and southern Kalifornia. Initial reports suggest that enough damage has been sustained that food prices for some items are likely to rise short term due to shortages. Monitoring.
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National Retail Federation VP Jonathan Gold said disruption in the Red Sea is pushing shippers back to West Coast ports and is already starting to put pressure on rail supply chains. Gold added that already increasing pressure on rail shipping combined with higher demand could lead to even greater rail shipping congestion.
OBSERVATION - This is on top of the increased shipping costs (5 fold by some reports) and time.
Military / Strategic Activity / Deployments –
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected and tracked four Russian military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone today. The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian airspace, per NORAD.
OBSERVATION - Common event during the Cold War era that has been resurrected and has been ongoing for several years now.
POLITICAL FRONT –
Dates of importance
Feb 8 - The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the Colorado case.
March - latest CR expires
March 5- Super Tuesday primaries
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More republican turmoil over the treasonous ‘immigration’ reform bill that crashed and burned when released Monday. Still some confusion on exactly when McConnell did the 180 -was is Wed of last week or Monday of this week. News reports now point to the latter.
As the GOP senators convened on Monday night to deliberate over the compromised border bill, it became evident that the likelihood of obtaining the necessary 60 votes to move forward with the national security package was dwindling.
“McConnell recommended to GOP senators behind closed doors that they BLOCK the border bill on Wednesday, per multiple sources, bc it’s clear that most Republicans are preparing to vote no — either because they oppose the bill or want more time,” according to Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio.
This whole fiasco of secret negotiations with this bill stuffed with tons of other, unrelated items and spending has generated increasing calls for McConnell to step down from the leadership. This bill was everything the republican party stood against.
***
In related to the bogus border bill, chucky schumer appeared to have threatened citizens with being forced to fight in Ukraine if the bill wasn’t passed. “Americans wouldn’t like that”
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House Republicans suffered a stinging defeat Tuesday when four members of their conference joined Democrats in voting against impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.
The House voted 216-214 to not impeach Mayorkas over his failure to secure the border with Mexico. Only one Republican did not vote, believed to be Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., who is not in Washington following surgery in January. Scalise last fall was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.
Republican Reps. Ken Buck of Colorado, Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, Tom McClintock of California, and Blake Moore of Utah joined Democrats in voting against the resolution. Moore first voted to impeach but then joined the no side to allow the House GOP to bring up the vote again.
OBSERVATION - The congressional republicans are the keystone cops of modern politics. This impeachment should have been a slam dunk, yet some republicans didn’t have the will or the want to do so. Recognize that impeachment would be more symbolic that functional at this stage because the Senate would not vote to convict and throw the scum bag out. Still it would have been used to pound the regime during the 2024 campaign.
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Good new overnight is that Ronna McDaniels is out as head of the RNC. Reports state that she has told Donald Trump she will be resigning after the South Carolina primary.
Her tenure at the RNC saw victories snatched from the jaw of defeat time an again over the past several election cycles. As the niece of sen romney, her position was generally safe with the accompanying RINO establishment group. Trump has a moment in time to install a new leader to capitalize on his momentum and transfer some of it to congressional races to gain control of both houses this fall.
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The White House has once again been exposed for violating the First Amendment rights of Americans.
The Biden administration isn’t guilty of digital or social media censorship in this case, but banning books.
Internal docs subpoenaed by @JudiciaryGOP & @Weaponization indicate that @amazon bowed down to Biden White House pressure to censor BOOKS, books that expressed views the White House did not approve of.
https://trendingpoliticsnews.com/smoking-gun-documents-amazon-censorship-knab/
OBSERVATION - Nothing spells tyranny like that of govt censorship of views contrary to their desired narrative. The First Amendment was established to prevent govt intrusion into the realm of free speech and much like its brother, the 2d Amendment, was born out of the war of Independence. Then, British and pro-british elements sought to silence newspapers that contained articles critical of British rule and actions - forcing many to go underground. Willingness by these leftist companies like Amazon to comply is another layer to the development of an Orwellian scenario where all thought is controlled by the state.
IN RELATED - The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government said the National Science Foundation (NSF) issued multi-million dollar grants to university and non-profit research teams to develop artificial intelligence (AI) powered “censorship and propaganda tools,” with the intent to shape public opinion.
Illegal Immigration –
See CW2 on Texas standoff.
***
The leader of a California secession movement known as “Yes California” told Newsweek in an exclusive interview on Saturday that a national divorce is needed to avoid another “civil war.” As politics have become increasingly polarizing in recent years, there have been growing calls from residents in coastal-like states such as California, Texas, and New Hampshire to secede from the rest of the United States.
“Yes California” is currently campaigning on a ballot measure called CalExit 3.1, which would break California into two and establish a country separate from the U.S. in the San Francisco Bay area and along the central California coast, according to the “Yes California” website. The independent land would be called Pacifica. So far, 92,000 people have signed up to join the campaign through the movement’s website. However, it’s unclear how many of these people are California residents.
OBSERVATION - This is a continuation of growing public awareness and desires to separate from the every growing and tyrannical fed govt and in some cases equally tyrannical state govts. In this instance, instead of trying to create a new state to address the growing fault line of differences, a new entity altogether is being suggested.
Should the trigger line be crossed - and there are numerous and growing trigger lines today - succession by red states and counties may well be quicker than one would think now - primarily because people are getting conditions for a future split.
China –
Chinese Zhejiang Chouzhou Commercial Bank notified customers about the suspension of transactions with Russia.
NOTE - This is developing and the reason for the actions haven’t fully been brought into my radar screen yet.
Phillipines –
The Philippines is expected to work on dozens of projects this year to upgrade military bases as part of an agreement with the United States.
Signed in 2014, the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement allows the U.S. to allocate funding to improve and construct facilities within existing Philippine military bases as well as to deploy American troops on a rotational basis.
China has decried some of the EDCA’s base locations due to their proximity to Taiwan, which Beijing considers a rogue province and has threatened to take back by force. Although the U.S. officially does not support Taiwan’s independence, Washington does provide it with weaponry, and U.S. President Joe Biden has promised to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion.
OBSERVATION - Necessity to be able to defend against China is reestablishing military ties with the US.
Russia -
WAR WATCH - into the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Feb 24th, 2022
CURRENT ASSESSMENT - Updated Feb 2, 2024, closing in on two years of war.
Russia is attempting to seize the initiative by executing a winter/spring offensive across the eastern front. Russia has reportedly concentrated 40,000 troops to sustain this offensive. Though reports indicate that there have been some limited successes, Russian forces have taken heavy losses. One key objective continues to be the capture of Avdiivak, near Donetsk, as well as terrain lost to Ukraine during the Ukraine fall offensive in 2022. The attacks associated with this offensive do not appear to be supportive of each other in a manner that could help expedite any breakthrough and initiate any significant armor / mobile action. These assault axis also appear to be vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes on their logistics trains.
Russia has been able to gradually enlarge the number of soldiers in the theatre to the 400,000 range. Training and equipping of these forces is still rated very poor. Russia has drawn heavily upon ‘volunteers’ from penal colonies for their “Z” shock troops- the primary element of their meat attack (human wave) assaults against Ukraine defenses. It has been documented that ‘enforcement’ squads follow behind these ‘shock troops’ with orders to shoot any who attempt to retreat.
Russia continues to suffer heavy tank and APC losses. Old, cold war era tanks and APCs are becoming more and more common sights in battle fields. (formerly) Elite units like the Russian marines are routinely seen with T54/55 series tanks instead of the T72/80/90 series they were commonly equipped with.
Shortages of Ukraine artillery ammo has permitted Russia to regain some degree of local superiority on the battlefield. Some estimates give Russia a 3:1 advantage. This is down substantially from the start of the war where it had a 10:1 advantage.
Russian has been shepherding its stockpile of missiles/drones for a potential effort to take down the Ukraine power grid as they did winter 2023. This task has become increasingly difficult as Ukraine adds air defense systems and gets better coverage.
The Russian Black Sea fleet is is essentially impotent and hesitant to deploy into now contested waters. In the latest, large missile / drone attack, the Black Sea fleet was noticeably out of action. In the last half of 2023, Ukraine was able to take out about 20% of the fleet.
The Russia air force has taken significant losses at the hands of Ukraine. This has forced Russia to redeploy fighter bombers further away from the contested zone and exercise more caution when attacking. Larger aircraft have been forced to alter their operations as well.
Russian leadership reportedly planning for a long duration conflict, hoping to wear the Ukraine army down and cause European allies to tire of their support - forcing some sort of cease fire and negotiated peace. putin is struggling to place his economy on wartime footing to accomplish this goal.
*****
The Prana Network hacker group breached the email servers of the Iranian company IRGC Sahara Thunder, that facilitates arms sales from Iran to Russia. The servers contained data on the production of Shahed-136 attack drones for Russia. The documents do not directly mention the type of product being manufactured. Instead, drones are listed in documents under a special code as “Dolphin 632 type motor boat.”
The Iranian side announced a starting price of $375,000 per unit. However, during the negotiations, an agreement was reached for $193,000 per piece when ordering 6,000 units or $290,000 when ordering 2,000 units. The total price of the production contract, including the transfer of technologies, equipment, 6,000 pieces of UAVs and software, is roughly $1.75 billion. According to other published documents, at least partially, Russia conducts its financial transactions and payments with Iran in gold.
RUMINT-
Though the article is real, the speculation is rumor.
The Telegraph has published a new scenario of a potential war between Russia and NATO
- Putin mobilizes 200 thousand soldiers in Russia and goes on a new offensive in Ukraine in spring 2024;
- Russian Federation provokes protests of Russian speaking people in the Baltics and conducts cyber attacks against these countries in the summer;
NOTE - Russia has used this tactic in Georgia and Moldova
- Protests are used as a pretext for military exercises in Belarus and the deployment of troops in Kaliningrad in the fall;
- Clashes begin in the Suvalka Corridor area in winter. At this stage, Russia and the West will have a choice - to negotiate or to wage war.
NOTE - The linchpin in this whole matter is the ability of Russia to mobilize 200k soldiers - on top of that being mobilized to sustain the Ukraine war. Not only mobilize, but equip with enough tanks, APCs and other equipment - again - above demands for sustaining combat in Ukraine.
Economic Impact –
Chinese Zhejiang Chouzhou Commercial Bank notified customers about the suspension of transactions with Russia.
NOTE - This is developing and the reason for the actions haven’t fully been brought into my radar screen yet.
Ukraine –
WEATHER FORECAST – Temperatures in the 20-30 range with scattered snow and rain.
24 HOUR ROUND UP – Weather continues to dominate action on the ground. However, temperatures are reaching levels around Ukraine that are starting to freeze the ground locally, meaning that ground operations may have their tempo increase over the coming days/weeks.
Busy night for Ukraine ADA - shooting down 15 of 20 Shahed drones, 26 of 29 Kh-101 cruise missiles, 3 of 3 Kaliber cruise missiles. Russia also launched 4 Kh-22 cruise missiles, 3 Iskander-M and 5 S-300 ballistic missiles. Areas targeted centered on Kyiv, other central and western areas of Ukraine. In eastern Ukraine - Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, and Dnipropetrovsk areas were also hit.
Outlook —
Weather and mud conditions are continuing to dictate ground operations, which are at a low level due to lack of maneuverability cross country and on dirt roads due to the mud.
Hot zones continue to be Avdiivka and the eastern front.
Europe / NATO General –
Parliament of Hungary failed to ratify Sweden’s application to join NATO
ISRAEL –
Now 4 months into the Gaza War
Key overnight developments -
- Hamas announces its refusal to release the dozens of Israeli hostages it is holding without a complete cessation of the war.
——— GENERAL ——————————-
Lest we forget - there are still 136 being held hostage in Gaza.
Israel has now confirmed 32 hostages have been murdered by Hamas. They believe another 20 hostages may also have been murdered.
Hamas has laid out a series of demands, including exchanging hostages for Palestinian prisoners and rebuilding Gaza, in response to an Israel-backed ceasefire proposal.
The armed group wants a full withdrawal of Israeli forces and an end to the war after three 45-day truce phases.
The offer is likely to be unacceptable to Israel’s prime minister, who has called for “total victory” in Gaza.
The proposal received a tepid response from US President Joe Biden, who called it “a little over the top”. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said there was still “a lot of work to be done” to reach a permanent ceasefire, but stressed the importance of reaching a lasting peace.
***
The US message to Israel: “In a few weeks, the issue of normalization with Saudi Arabia and the chance to promote it ‘will be almost impossible’. You have weeks to decide”
Saudi Arabia draws the line: “The Kingdom has communicated its firm position to US administration that there will be no diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognized on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as capital”
***
Israeli army Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari says the military has uncovered documents and other materials from a tunnel in the Gaza Strip, indicating Hamas’s direct links and coordination with Iran. “We found official documents of Hamas from 2020, including the details of the funds transferred from Iran to Hamas and [Yahya] Sinwar, between 2014 and 2020. More than 150 million dollars were transferred from Iran to Hamas,” he says.
——— GAZA FRONT ———————————-
Ongoing search and destroy operations throughout Gaza. Reports of more mass surrenders of Hamas and affiliated fighters. Also more reports of Hamas popping back up in N Gaza.
——— LEBANON / HEZBOLLAH——————————-
Continued exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and IDF along the border.
Rockets were launched from southern Lebanon towards an Israeli position in the Kafr Shuba hills
Lebanese caretaker Foreign Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, voiced on February 6 the nation’s rejection of recent Israeli and international demands seeking to push Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah, north of the Litani River, saying Beirut will not accept ‘partial solutions’ to resolving the cross-border conflict.
“Western countries demand the retreat of Hezbollah for about eight to ten kilometers north of Litani,” Bou Habib said in an interview with Nida al-Watan. “This is a formula that Lebanon rejects. [Beirut] will not accept ‘partial solutions’ that do not bring the desired peace and do not secure stability but will lead to the renewal of the war again and again.”
But in reality even if the Lebanese government wanted to try and force Hezbollah away from the southern border it would not be able to do so. The Lebanese Army has long had a very limited arsenal, and really no air force to speak of, due to sanctions and limitations imposed by Washington.
Hezbollah is widely considered to be stronger than even the Lebanese state’s army, and a weak army is largely the legacy of the prior two-decade long Lebanese civil war.
OBSERVATION - Israel is continuing to pressure actions by the world and Lebanon to push Hezbollah back from the Israeli border. It is setting the justification framework for action when the time comes. Though things could kick off very quickly, I think that Israel will continue to hold off until they have most matters concerning Gaza settled down, so they won’t be distracted by any residual action there.
——— SYRIA / HEZBOLLAH / IRAN———————————-
Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, citing a military source, says Israeli warplanes launched missiles from an area north of Lebanon’s Tripoli, targeting several sites in Homs and the nearby area.
———WEST BANK——————————-
Arrests continue in numerous cities in the West Bank.
———“ISLAMIC RESISTANCE” ———————————
Iranian-backed Houthi militants fired six anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen toward the Southern Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
——— FORECAST ————————-
Israel to continue search and destroy operations across Gaza. Fighting to continue to be locally intense across all Gaza as Hamas and affiliate cells are discovered and neutralized as well as of the couple hundred miles of tunnels are uncovered and destroyed.
Hamas’ hostage exchange plan/offer is totally unlikely to be accepted by Israel. Some how they think they have the leverage to force a complete turnover of Israeli goals. They are shooting any resemblance of support in their treatment of the hostages, with the recent announcement of more murdered Israelis.
What is increasingly concerning are US govt threats to once again force a 2 - state solution on Israel, spoken openly by Saudi Arabia. Remember, there have been at least 5 two state ‘solutions’ put forth in the past, all rejected by the arabs. Forcing Israel back to the 1967 borders will place in a virtually undefinable situation - especially with today’s modern weapon systems. It is a non-starter.
To harken to more biblical view, US insistence on a forced 2 state solution and the division of Jerusalem places a target on this country. This is not a good thing to tempt God’s wrath any further.
US has stepped back a bit in preemptive strikes and the Houthi’s are pushing right back. Getting redundant in saying that overwhelming force is necessary under Arab psyche to gain any degree of deterrent.
Cartels, commmies and bad actors know how to set up 'non profits and NGO's and do their evil ON OUR DIME.
Globalism / Great Reset –
Upcoming meetings of importance
- WHO February 19 to 21, Trans guideline committee.
- WHO pandemic ‘treaty’ May 2024
*****
The Environmental Protection Agency has announced stricter standards for fine particle pollution, generally known as soot.
The annual fine particle standard will be lowered from 12 micrograms per cubic meter to 9. The tighter standard, first proposed last year, will obligate states and localities to monitor soot levels and take action if they are out of compliance. EPA officials estimate the change will yield public health benefits of up to $46 billion by 2032, including up to 800,000 avoided cases of asthma symptoms, 4,500 avoided premature deaths, and 290,000 avoided lost workdays.
Administrators and advocates on the call predicted blowback from affected industries but said that for every $1 spent on compliance, $77 would be returned in the form of health benefits.
OBSERVATION - Just what orifice do these jokers pull these numbers out from? Absurd. This is just another brick being added to the pile to eventually shut down coal power in the US as well as the use of diesel engines. Regulate them to death.
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California lawmakers re-introduced a proposal to mandate universal healthcare and ban private healthcare. Experts say this would cost $391 billion per year — or $100 billion more than the entire 2024-2025 state budget and reduce the overall availability of healthcare as doctors flee to higher-paying states that allow private care.
OBSERVATION - It has been a while since the issue/idea of single payer universal health care reared its head. This concept, however, fits well into the general goals of the WEF et al to control global ‘health’. I suspect we may see more of these efforts in the coming years.
CW2 / Domestic violence - Heightened THREAT
Showdown in TX continues. The beacons of Gondor are lit ! !
No significant actions against TX by the regime - with the closeness to the court date on the whole matter and the negative view it has cast on it, they may be trying to put it on the back burner for now.
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A core group of radical leftists are espousing a campaign against conservatives by threatening to come after them in their homes, businesses and churches if the republicans win in this year’s elections. Current focus of this anger is being directed towards an effort called “Project 2025”, an endeavor to ensure the next conservative president is ready to govern from day one,” the Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez wrote months before the protest took place.
“We need to go find out where they live, where they go to church, who they hang around with, and birddog they (sic) a—-,” one activist declared to the crowd.
“We have to embarrass them. That is a tactic,” they said. “Find out where they live. Find out where their office is!” said another speaker, urging the crowd to “disrupt business as usual” for conservatives.
OBSERVATION - Just how much traction this ‘movement’ gets is not clear at this moment. From the article, it seems they are seeking to rekindle the same, at your front door, intimidation tactics they attempted against USSC justices over Roe V Wade. A ready source of foot soldiers and support is the always present elements of Antifa who’s presence would likely turn the violence level up a big degree.
I would suspect that much of the initial protests following 2024 elections would be centered in or near the common, radical leftist blue city havens. How extensive will it be in red areas? BLM/Antifa attempted that in 2020, bussing numbers of protestors into rural red areas - only to beat a humiliating run back to those busses when faced by a larger, and many times well armed, population not in any mood for their nonsense.
Here in 2024, a Trump win will likely produce much more violent riots than 2020, and risk a much higher death count as both sides will be gunned up better this time around.
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The Aloha State’s highest court upheld a man’s gun-carry conviction on Wednesday after rejecting landmark decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
Hawaii’s Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision that found charges leveled against Christopher Wilson for carrying a gun without a permit violated his rights. Instead, the court ruled its state constitution provides no gun-rights protections whatsoever. That’s despite it including a provision protecting the right of the people to keep and bear arms identical to the one in the federal Constitution.
“Article I, section 17 of the Hawaiʻi Constitution mirrors the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Hawaiian court wrote in Hawaii v. Wilson. “We read those words differently than the current United States Supreme Court. We hold that in Hawaiʻi there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.”
The ruling directly contrasts with the core holdings at the center of SCOTUS’s gun rights precedents. The state supreme court’s ruling explicitly rejects the federal supreme court’s findings in 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller and 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The lower court’s straightforward rejection of the higher court’s Second Amendment jurisprudence could provoke SCOTUS to take up the case and issue a rebuke, as it did when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled protections don’t extend to modern weapons in 2016’s Caetano.
OBSERVATION - This is a dangerous and significant challenge to the USSC and the constitution. The USSC decision is a pretty clear and straight forward one. This act by Hawaii that shows a path toward the ‘Great Divorce’ desired by the left.
Terrorism - Level is HIGH due to impending conflict with Iran.
This warning renewed as of Feb 6, 2024
ELEVATED RISK - Potential military action against Iranian assets for the attack that killed US forces in Jordan could result in Iranian terror groups here in the US to activate and conduct terror ops here. These attacks can range from infrastructure destruction (water, power, communications, etc) to mass casualty events (superbowl related attacks) or attacks on political candidates - heavily leaning against current administration but also Trump as well. So far the govt hasn’t come out with any warnings but the risk has increased significantly the last 24 hours, based on common sense and stated goals of the Islamist movement/Iran.
Economy-
Banking is still a very real concern, and that concern is growing.
US banks hold about $2.7 trillion in commercial real estate loans. The majority of that, about 80%, according to Goldman Sachs economists, is held by smaller, regional banks — the ones that the US government hasn’t classified as “too big to fail.”
Much of that debt is about to mature, and, in a troubled market, regional banks might have problems collecting on those loans. More than $2.2 trillion will come due between now and the end of 2027, according to data firm Trepp.
The Financial Stability Oversight Council, of which Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and US Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler are members, released a report last December that cited commercial real estate as a major potential financial risk.
“As losses from a [commercial real estate] loan portfolio accumulate, they can spill over into the broader financial system,” they wrote. “Sales of financially distressed properties can reduce market values of nearby properties, lead to a broader downward CRE valuation spiral, and even reduce municipalities’ property tax revenues.”
OBSERVATION - The commercial real estate market is in a world of incredible hurt. Overbuilt and under occupied, owners cannot get enough revenue from leases to pay the loans - even in many cases those loans obtained at the pre-Fed high rates. Dangerous times are approaching that could tip the cart over in a major manner.
***
For the first time in more than 20 years, the United States purchased more goods from Mexico than China in 2023, highlighting a change in international trade and spotlighting America’s de-risking efforts.
Last year, the United States imported more than $475.6 billion in goods from its southern neighbor and exported about $323.2 billion, according to new Census Bureau data.
The United States ran a $152.38 billion trade deficit with Mexico, up 16 percent from the previous year.
By comparison, the United States bought roughly $427 billion in goods from China and shipped nearly $148 billion. The U.S. trade deficit with Beijing was close to $280 billion, narrowing by 27 percent from 2022.
OBSERVATION - This marks a significant shift in how the US markets/businesses are trying to have more secure off-country sources of materials and products. This shift is clearly not helping China’s wobbly business sector as other countries are going to similar source changes to secure better supplies of the things they once imported from China.
POLITICAL FRONT –
Dates of importance
Feb 8 - The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on the Colorado case.
March - latest CR expires
March 5- Super Tuesday primaries
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The Supreme Court hears oral argument in the Colorado ballot case at 9:00 a.m. this morning — the case of Trump v. Anderson. Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment?
***
The soap opera continues. On Tuesday, reports surfaced that embattled Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel will be stepping down from her position after the South Carolina primary. Now it seems McDaniel may be flopping back. In a recent memo she states -
“With a news cycle full of palace intrigue and speculation surrounding all of us, I want to take the time to reassure all of you that I am still hard at work as RNC Chairwoman and building a machine that will elect Republicans up and down the ballot in November. “
We’ll have to see what happens after the SC primary to know what will happen next.
***
Congress will soon be adjuring (again) and not return until the end of the month. When they do, they will be facing the deadline of dealing with budget issues coming due the first of March - giving them only 6 days to accomplish some sort of compromise bill to fund the govt for the rest of the FY. Speaker Johnson’s capitulation on the current extension has brought him under the guns of conservative republicans and any similar bill may not make out out of the House. This could force affected sectors of the govt to state shutting down in March. Big sticking points
- Closing down the border
- Funding Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan
If Johnson skirts around the core republican contingency, his seat could be vacated and an ever greater threat to republican control could occur, as I”ve noted in the past, some RINOS have rumored that they’d vote for a democrat speaker the next time around.
Biden / Harris Watch –
Dates to watch -
March 7 - State of the union
****
On Monday, Biden said that he just met with François Mitterand. Mitterand died in 1996.
Yesterday at a fundraiser, Biden said he met Helmut Kohl about January 6th. Kohl died in 2017.
Cyber attacks/warfare – HEIGHTENED ALERT
Chinese hackers managed to hide in U.S. infrastructure for up to five years, federal agencies warned on Wednesday, potentially allowing them the opportunity to launch a cyberattack against the United States.
According to a public cybersecurity warning released this week, which was compiled by multiple federal intelligence agencies in conjunction with British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand agencies, “PRC state-sponsored” hackers focused on major infrastructure “primarily in Communications, Energy, Transportation Systems, and Waste and Wastewater Systems Sectors — in the continental and non-continental United States and its territories.”
The report notes that the hackers used tactics that make it difficult for the infrastructure companies to notice their intrusions. It also adds that their “choice of targets and pattern of behavior is not consistent with traditional cyber espionage or intelligence gathering operations.”
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/china-hackers-infrastructure/2024/02/07/id/1152711/
OBSERVATION - The stories of this penetration into our infrastructure network continue. What isn’t being noted are the probability of firmware embedded into Chinese-made components that keep getting uses here, in spite of warnings and bans. The firmware can also create backdoor access whenever China wants to press the key.
Illegal Immigration –
See CW2 on Texas standoff.
***
This morning CBP sources exclusively told Fox News Channel that the number of apprehensions of those illegally crossing the southern border has reached an alarming 1,000,000 so far this fiscal year.
FY 2024 began on October 1, 2023. This is the earliest that the 1M milestone has ever been reached. In the last 24 hours, 6800 illegal immigrants were apprehended at the southern border. For comparison, the total for FY 2023 was 909,182 in the same period.
OBSERVATION - Numbers speak for themselves.
***
The regime is threatening the citizens of the US in a statement released yesterday. White House says ICE will reduce deportations, detention capacity if Republicans don’t pass border bill.
OBSERVATION - This level of aggressiveness and distain towards the citizens of the US is something I never thought I’d see in my life time.
China –
(H/T TIK) China has revealed an ambitious plan to transform its military operations through the integration of more advanced unmanned systems, a strategic shift toward drone-led special operations in war scenarios including a potential conflict with the US over Taiwan.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported this month that China’s military plans to replace humans with machines in special operations overseas to mitigate the high risks of such missions.
Scientists are working with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to develop unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) capable of flying vast distances, diving deep underwater and lying in wait for long periods, the SCMP report said.
The PLA’s 78092 unit has revealed details about a hypothetical overseas special operations plan published in the Fire Control & Command Control journal, aiming to help Chinese companies, engineers and scientists better understand the military’s needs and strategic goals.
The PLA’s plan says the hypothetical operation is set in 2035 when a small-scale conflict between China and an unnamed neighboring country occurs, with the caveat that both sides agree to limit their equipment to small arms including small boats, drones and anti-aircraft guns.
https://asiatimes.com/2024/02/china-leaks-a-blueprint-for-drone-war-dominance/
OBSERVATION - The Ukraine war has kicked the evolution of combat use of drones to a whole higher level. The technology has been looked at for years, but the off the shelf adaptations in Ukraine has blown that path out of the water. China seems to be looking to go forward with a more rigid implementation plan. What it is ignoring is that degree of flexibility being seen on the battle field of today. Same blinders approach by the US. AI and quantum computing may quickly alter this concept and make drones even more deadly.
***
Follow-up. Yesterday I posted about China’s Chouzhou Commercial Bank notifying its clients in Russia and Belarus that it is ending all of its operations there.
Later reports have indicated that this is due to payment issues associated with Western sanctions, the Russian state-controlled media outlet Vedomosti reported on Feb. 7, citing sources. Sources told Vedomosti that all payments have been impacted, not just those that use SWIFT.
North/South Korea –
With all the recent talk regarding NK initiating a war with the south, a quick review of its conventional forces is due.
The North Korean Army currently has about 800,000 troops, over 3,000 tanks, 3,000 other AFV, or armored fighting vehicles for infantry, and nearly 8,000 artillery pieces, including 2,000 rocket launchers. Most of these weapons are pointed south and stationed on or near the DMZ. North Korea has the means to be dangerous, for a little while anyway. Fuel shortages, elderly equipment and lack of maintenance means that a lot of this gear would not stay operational for long. As an example, the past 25 years or so of deferred maintenance, as in none on tube artillery pieces including the guns on tanks, means almost all of those can only fire one round because their recuperator seals have deteriorated so much.
North Korea has two armored divisions, 12 motorized infantry and 23 non-motorized infantry divisions used only for static defense along the DMZ.
Nearly every adult male serves at least six years in the military, the big problem is that years of economic problems and failed harvests have left the troops poorly equipped, often hungry, and increasingly insubordinate.
The South Korean military has half as many men, and some women, in the military. The southerners are better trained, armed, supported, and led.
https://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htworld/articles/20240208.aspx
OBSERVATION - Back in my active duty days, waaaay back in the Before Years, NK was a more substantial threat because of the money that came in from the communist realm to keep their equipment and training more up to date. That all ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union splintering. Never the less, any war would be extremely ugly for the first weeks.
Russia -
WAR WATCH - into the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Feb 24th, 2022
CURRENT ASSESSMENT - Updated Feb 2, 2024, closing in on two years of war.
Russia is attempting to seize the initiative by executing a winter/spring offensive across the eastern front. Russia has reportedly concentrated 40,000 troops to sustain this offensive. Though reports indicate that there have been some limited successes, Russian forces have taken heavy losses. One key objective continues to be the capture of Avdiivak, near Donetsk, as well as terrain lost to Ukraine during the Ukraine fall offensive in 2022. The attacks associated with this offensive do not appear to be supportive of each other in a manner that could help expedite any breakthrough and initiate any significant armor / mobile action. These assault axis also appear to be vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes on their logistics trains.
Russia has been able to gradually enlarge the number of soldiers in the theatre to the 400,000 range. Training and equipping of these forces is still rated very poor. Russia has drawn heavily upon ‘volunteers’ from penal colonies for their “Z” shock troops- the primary element of their meat attack (human wave) assaults against Ukraine defenses. It has been documented that ‘enforcement’ squads follow behind these ‘shock troops’ with orders to shoot any who attempt to retreat.
Russia continues to suffer heavy tank and APC losses. Old, cold war era tanks and APCs are becoming more and more common sights in battle fields. (formerly) Elite units like the Russian marines are routinely seen with T54/55 series tanks instead of the T72/80/90 series they were commonly equipped with.
Shortages of Ukraine artillery ammo has permitted Russia to regain some degree of local superiority on the battlefield. Some estimates give Russia a 3:1 advantage. This is down substantially from the start of the war where it had a 10:1 advantage.
Russian has been shepherding its stockpile of missiles/drones for a potential effort to take down the Ukraine power grid as they did winter 2023. This task has become increasingly difficult as Ukraine adds air defense systems and gets better coverage.
The Russian Black Sea fleet is is essentially impotent and hesitant to deploy into now contested waters. In the latest, large missile / drone attack, the Black Sea fleet was noticeably out of action. In the last half of 2023, Ukraine was able to take out about 20% of the fleet.
The Russia air force has taken significant losses at the hands of Ukraine. This has forced Russia to redeploy fighter bombers further away from the contested zone and exercise more caution when attacking. Larger aircraft have been forced to alter their operations as well.
Russian leadership reportedly planning for a long duration conflict, hoping to wear the Ukraine army down and cause European allies to tire of their support - forcing some sort of cease fire and negotiated peace. putin is struggling to place his economy on wartime footing to accomplish this goal.
*****
Russian Personnel Issues –-
Moscow, through travel agencies in Syria, is reportedly recruiting mercenaries for the war against Ukraine — the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine. They reportedly spend time in combat units fighting in the Aleppo region before being shipped off to Ukraine.
Economic Impact –
Follow-up. Yesterday I posted about China’s Chouzhou Commercial Bank notifying its clients in Russia and Belarus that it is ending all of its operations there.
Later reports have indicated that this is due to payment issues associated with Western sanctions, the Russian state-controlled media outlet Vedomosti reported on Feb. 7, citing sources. Sources told Vedomosti that all payments have been impacted, not just those that use SWIFT.
Ukraine –
WEATHER FORECAST – Temperatures in the 20-30 range with scattered snow and rain.
RUMINT –
F-16’s being given to Ukraine reportedly will come with long range munitions of an unspecified type that can given a significant penetration into Crimea and Russia border areas.
24 HOUR ROUND UP – Weather continues to dominate action on the ground. However, temperatures are reaching levels around Ukraine that are starting to freeze the ground locally, meaning that ground operations may have their tempo increase over the coming days/weeks.
Ukrainian air defense shot down 11 of 17 Shahed drones overnight.
Fighting intensified at Avdiivka, with Russian forces clawing to gain a foothold in the southern part of the city.
In the drone wars, it has been revealed that Ukraine has developed a new jet powered drone with considerable speed and range. Capable of carrying IIRC a warhead of 300 lbs or so.
Meanwhile, evidence that Russia is using its newest, supersonic cruise missiles against Ukraine for the first time.
Russian Territory –
There has been a MASSIVE explosion in Votkinsk, Russia. The Votkinsk Machine Building Plant - manufacturer of several Russian ICBMs - is headquartered here. This is over 1000 km from the front lines.
Outlook —
Weather and mud conditions are continuing to dictate ground operations, which are at a low level due to lack of maneuverability cross country and on dirt roads due to the mud.
Ukraine is feeling the strain of the loss of artillery ammunition to counter the Russian batteries. Ukraine’s defense has successfully kept Russian forces at bay due to quick, accurate fire and counterbattery support suppression Russian artillery support. This has left its European allies scrambling to increase production now that war stocks have been drawn down to extremely low levels. Ukraine still hold an advantage in drones providing early warning and targeting support and Ukraine is still able to provide devastating fire on Russian columns approaching the front, but sustainable fire during the rest of the fight is lacking.
ISRAEL –
Now 4 months into the Gaza War
Key overnight developments -
- Israel begins preparations to enter Rafah.
- US Reaper drone takes out two leaders of the Kata’ib Hezbollah responsible for the attack that killed 3 US soldiers and wounded dozens others.
——— GENERAL ——————————-
Lest we forget - there are still 136 being held hostage in Gaza.
Israel has now confirmed 32 hostages have been murdered by Hamas. They believe another 20 hostages may also have been murdered.
The Palestinian President received the US Secretary of State in Ramallah
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday met in Tel Aviv with Benny Gantz and Gabi Eisenkot, two former military chiefs who joined Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet after the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel.
The talks were to focus on “the hostages and the strong desire that we both have to see them returned to their families, the work that’s being done to that end”, Blinken said as they opened the meeting.
“The most urgent issue is of course to find ways to bring back the hostages,” Gantz told Blinken.
***
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference on Wednesday, during which he criticized the executive order signed by US President Joe Biden to impose sanctions on four residents of Judea and Samaria accused of violence against Palestinian Arabs.
“This order is a very severe and inappropriate thing which harms an entire population of law-abiding citizens, among whom are soldiers who fell in the fight to eliminate Hamas. If they were using it equally- they would have imposed sanctions on Palestinians as well,” the Prime Minister said when asked on the matter.
https://harbingersdaily.com/israel-at-war-week-18/
——— GAZA FRONT ———————————-
Ongoing search and destroy operations throughout Gaza. Reports of more mass surrenders of Hamas and affiliated fighters. Also more reports of Hamas popping back up in N Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered troops to prepare to enter the overcrowded southern Gaza city of Rafah. According to the report, the operation in Rafah is not expected to begin in the near future. Israel will first need to evacuate civilians, and so will not be able to operate with 1.2 million Gazans in the region. Israel’s main challenge is finding a destination to which to transfer them, especially with Israel continuing to object to their return to northern Gaza. Any operation would likewise require coordination with Egypt.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces bombed areas in the southern border city of Rafah where more than half of Gaza’s population is sheltering on Thursday.
——— LEBANON / HEZBOLLAH——————————-
Continued exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and IDF along the border.
——— SYRIA / HEZBOLLAH / IRAN———————————-
IDF strikes on Homs reportedly killed several Hezbollah soldiers.
———WEST BANK——————————-
Arrests continue in numerous cities in the West Bank.
———“ISLAMIC RESISTANCE” ———————————
Houthi managed to fire some more rockets, with no effect, while US combat patrols managed to locate and destroy Houthi drone/missile positions getting ready to fire.
See Iraq on US strike that is believed to have killed two IRGC related leaders / advisors to Kata’ib Hezbollah responsible for the deaths of three US soldiers last week.
———INTERNATIONAL ——————————-
Jordan Government media - The Jordanian king leaves on a tour visiting Western capitals in order to pressure an end to the war
——— FORECAST ————————-
Israel to continue search and destroy operations across Gaza. Fighting to continue to be locally intense across all Gaza as Hamas and affiliate cells are discovered and neutralized as well as of the couple hundred miles of tunnels are uncovered and destroyed.
The progress of the Israeli S Gaza campaign towards Rafah is moving forward. No public word from Egypt on the announced plans. Rafah is a community built at the Egyptian border crossing into Gaza. In the past Egypt has made clear it will not permit IDF operations in the city without its OK. Now, a vast number of arabs have congregated there as a safe zone from fighting further north. So not only does Israel have to deal with Egypt, but where to move these refugees to and how to safeguard relief supplies coming into Gaza.
Israel is already nibbling on the outskirts of the town, probably conduction battle field preparations for the full scale attack. How Israel handles Egypt is going to be one of the most delicate political moves they have faced since the founding of the country. Bottom line is, one way or another, they will enter the city and clear it of Hamas and related terrorists.
The taking out of the Kata’ib Hezbollah leaders responsible for the deadly attack on the US base in Jordan will definitely stir up the pot. The Kata’ib Hezbollah had earlier announced a ‘cease fire’ against the US to prevent further embarrassment to Iraq. Expect more attacks.
The quickness in targeting and more importantly timeliness of the intel is impressive. Knowing the exact civilian vehicle among thousands, and its course and destination - impressive. US still has some good HUMINT assets on the ground - something Kata’ib Hezbollah may think twice about.
Iraq -
February 7, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) forces conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the attacks on U.S. service members, killing a Kata’ib Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on U.S. forces in the region. There are no indications of collateral damage or civilian casualties at this time. 2 Kataib Hezbollah commanders were in the vehicle called, Abu Baqir Al-Saadi and Arkan Al-Alawi.
Parts including one of the six blades from a AGM-114R9X “Hellfire” missile launched by a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 “Reaper” drone have been discovered at the scene of the strike in Baghdad
Iraqi security forces almost immediately sealed off access to the ‘Green Zone’ in anticipation of protests against the US over the strike.
Misc of Note –
The Carleson- putin interview is going to be smothering the interwebs for a considerable time, so I’d thought I’d note some things here as not to muddle up the important stuff.
- First, he is a journalist and they do interviews like this.
- Second - I will not take putins comments or claims at the gospel truth. He is KGB through and thru and understands the use of misinformation and the current political climate in the US to stir things up. There will be copious amounts of - see putin said x so it is true - over the next days. I won’t go down that rabbit hole.
- Whether you are pro or anti Ukraine war, be very clear about this. As i just stated putin will make every opportunity to present his ‘case’ for the war in Ukraine and shine it in his favor. He is also in an election cycle and having some problems for his handling of the war, as well as other economic matters. He will use this interview internally so show what a great leader he is.
- I certainly hope Tucker isn’t stupid enough to believe he isn’t going to be used on the above. i also certainly hope he doesn’t jump down on one side or the other - his ability to be in a sense neutral is critical to his reporting on this. If he takes putin’s unsubstantiated claims and runs with it as the untarnished truth, then his credibility comes into question.
- Publish the interview, but verify the claims made throughly.
- Finally and perhaps a little redundant, putin knows passions here regarding funding of the war are peaking. It is to his advantage to enlarge the gap between the two groups as it undermines overall western support of Ukraine. He’ll say what ever is necessary to enlarge the debate.
For the record, right now I’m neutral on the interview. I think it is good to hear what he has to say - the closely examine the claims to ground truth reality.
Who gets custody of these Hawai'ian 'children' in this divorce?
Japan? China? The Philippines?
Could real Americans get visitation rights?
Yesterday was a day of stark contrasts. It is as if the crazy dial got kicked up a couple notches all at once. Fallout is going to be intense over the next week - at least.
Globalism / Great Reset –
Upcoming meetings of importance
- WHO February 19 to 21, Trans guideline committee.
- WHO pandemic ‘treaty’ May 2024
*****
One of the principle, driving forces leading the WEF/Global reset, Yuval Noah Harari, on Jan 31 posted a note on “X” reflecting on the recent set backs to their efforts.
“Populist leaders are on the rise around the world, attacking the liberal global order. They haven’t explained what will replace the order they have destroyed, and the result is the disorder, chaos and violence we are seeing today.”
OBSERVATION - In reality, the WEF/globalists have created much of the disorder, chaos and violence seen in the world today. It is the mechanism by which they look to eventually causing the global system to crash and everyone run to them to provide the solution to putting things back together again.
***
Recent address to Australian parliament, Australian senator, Malcolm Roberts, courageously exposes the WEF’s ‘Great Reset’ agenda.
“The WEF have now turned their evil agenda to food. The campaign against farming is really a campaign against one of the necessities of life—food.”
“Who controls the food supply controls the people. Who controls the energy can control whole continents. Who controls money can control the world. The World Economic Forum—and the predatory billionaires they represent—are currently trying to do all three.”
CW2 / Domestic violence - Heightened THREAT
Showdown in TX continues. The beacons of Gondor are lit ! !
See Illegal Immigration for latest lawfare victory for TX
***
There were some minor protests against Trump outside the USSC building lead by the typical Antifa rabble who proceeded to block the road with a REMOVE TRUMP banner.
***
A considerable number of protests/rallies by pro-hamas elements are scheduled for this weekend. This is the end of the “week of action” scheduled to end on Sunday, Feb 11th.
Embedded in these protests may be pockets of vandalism and minor violence. Also a potential for highway/road blockages. Be alert to your local news in blue metro areas for their activities.
I would expect protests at the Superbowl in Las Vegas with the purpose of delaying spectators from reaching the stadium. I have not seen any announcements for such a protest, but it is a big, juicy target that would gather a lot of visibility for their ‘cause’.
Terrorism - Level is HIGH due to impending conflict with Iran.
This warning renewed as of Feb 6, 2024
ELEVATED RISK - Potential military action against Iranian assets for the attack that killed US forces in Jordan could result in Iranian terror groups here in the US to activate and conduct terror ops here. These attacks can range from infrastructure destruction (water, power, communications, etc) to mass casualty events (superbowl related attacks) or attacks on political candidates - heavily leaning against current administration but also Trump as well. So far the govt hasn’t come out with any warnings but the risk has increased significantly the last 24 hours, based on common sense and stated goals of the Islamist movement/Iran.
Economy-
The nation’s debt and deficit crisis will significantly worsen, starting with the next fiscal (FY2025), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) warned Wednesday, releasing its budget and economic outlook for 2024-2034.
The public debt is projected to rise from $26.2 trillion at the end of 2023 to $48.3 trillion at the end of 2034, pushing the amount of federal debt higher than the nation’s economic output:
- As a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the debt is poised to rise from 97.3% in FY2023 to 99.0% of GDP in FY2024, then hit 101.7% in 2025.
- Debt will then continue to rise, to 116% of GDP in 2034 – and 172% of GDP in 2054. The highest percent on record is 106%, set in 1946 as the U.S. was coming out of WWII.
- The debt increase from FY2024-FY2034 will be fueled by steep increases in mandatory spending (such as Social Security and Medicare) and interest costs.
- Beginning in FY2025, net interest costs will be the highest percentage of GDP on record (since 1940).
OBSERVATION - This is developing into the scenario that the WEF is pushing for globally - bankrupt nations not able to service their debts.
Military / Strategic Activity / Deployments –
For fiscal year 2024, the Air Force, hoping to retain more of its experienced airmen, has automatically raised the maximum number of years enlisted members may serve at a given rank. Eligible airmen may serve an additional two years without a promotion before they’re forced to exit the service, according to an Air Force spokeswoman. The maximum time an enlisted airmen may spend in a given rank is called high year of tenure. The Air Force high year of tenure extensions apply to enlisted grades of airman basic through senior master sergeant to keep experienced service members in the ranks and keep the Air Force mission ready, Air Force spokeswoman Master Sgt. Deana Heitzman told Stars and Stripes by email Dec. 8.
OBSERVATION - For those of us who’ve served, we recognize that those unable to advance due to who knows what - often poor performance or overfilling of a particular MOS, is necessary to make room for more potentially qualified service members to advance up their ranks. Creating a log jam like this only constipates the system upstream - making it hard to retain those enlisted members.
POLITICAL FRONT –
Dates of importance
March 1 - latest CR expires
March 5- Super Tuesday primaries
***
The Supreme Court heard oral argument in the Colorado ballot case yesterday, and the case presented by Colorado appears to have been sunk by every justice of the court. Court observers indicate that there is a real possibility of a 9-0 decision against Colorado given the skepticism noted even by the courts most liberal members. The court didn’t announce when the opinion for the case would be announced - common policy for all cases - but given the time sensitive requirement to get one out there, it could come very quickly.
Biden / Harris Watch –
Dates to watch -
March 7 - State of the union
****
Yesterday was a thermonuclear dumpster fire for biden. It is a clear turning point for his campaign and presidency
Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report was released, and it was damning. Hur found biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials.” Further, he has significant cognitive issues & “did not remember when he was vice-president” & forgot when his term ended. No criminal charges are needed, it says.
Among some of the critical findings were that the president’s memory “appeared to have significant limitations”.
His handling/storage of highly classified, compartmented documents was unbelievably irresponsible. The report said the files were discovered “near a collapsed dog crate, a dog bed, a Zappos box, an empty bucket, a broken lamp wrapped with duct tape, potting soil, and synthetic firewood”.
(SPECIAL NOTE - I worked with compartmented classified material for much of my active duty time. By its nature, those materials were never to leave a SCIF except under high security arrangement - and definitely never to be stored in a box in a garage next to one’s car).
In apparent anger, biden called a late night presser and proceeded to prove the Special Council’s report to be accurate.
Ben Shapiro on “X” gave probably the best description of it -
“That was the Challenger explosion of presidential press conferences. What a full-scale disaster.”
biden insisted “my memory is fine” while attacking Hur for some items included in the report.
“How in the hell dare he raise that,” an angry Biden said of the portion of Hur’s report that stated Biden “did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died.” That matter, the president said, is “none of their damn business.”
“For any extraneous commentary, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Biden insisted, despite the report directly quoting Biden’s confused answers. “It has no place in this report,” declared Biden. “The bottom line is the matter is now closed and I can continue what I’ve always focused on: my job of being the president of the United States of America.”
Biden then displayed how sharp his memory was by stating that Egyptian president El-Sisi as the “president of Mexico.”
Other choice memory statements include -
“I said I’m gonna be a president for everybody, whether you live in a red state or a green state!”
OBSERVATION - Follow on commentary is rich on FR threads.
Bottom line is if one takes Hur’s report at face value, Biden escaped charges for willfully mishandling classified information because he is mentally incompetent. This was confirmed by his presser last night. If he is mentally incompetent to stand trial, he is equally disqualified to continue serving as president.
The next question is how much longer will the democrat powers that be allow him to stay in office? Movement to set the foundation for his removal under 25th Amendment conditions began last summer, with the walls coming down with MSM ceasing to edit out the increasing mental lapses biden has been exhibiting. Even allowing negative reporting of the same. This built to a crescendo last night where the press corps seemed to sense blood in the water and aggressively challenged biden. His incoherent ramblings didn’t help him at all.
Now the growing calls for him to step down or the cabinet to declare him unfit for office. Again, the MSM is doing a poor job of censorship in this regard. One panelist on CNN remarked, “This is becoming a five-alarm fire for the White House.” As I’ve said for the past 18+ months, I don’t expect Biden to make it to the Democratic National Convention in July.”
Now, what are the scenarios. I had early noted rumors that biden would step down just before the democrat convention - allowing a brokered replacement to step in. This fiasco may have altered that time line.
Still the top two contenders for president continue to be Newscum and Mike 0bama, with the tip going to newscum who’s been stealth campaigning for it for over a year. What about Harris? The powers that be know that the diversity pick for VP she represents would blow up and crash harder than the Hindenburg. She may get support to see out the end of the term as president, but not further.
This whole mess also places us in a very dangerous global situation. China may attempt to take Taiwan via the methods I’ve described in prior posts. Iran may get really froggy and sprint towards development of a nuclear bomb, in the process kicking off the massive Israel - Hezbollah war as cover. Ukraine - Russia further destabilizes. The whole could tip the US economy into a very real recession as the economic impacts of those actions hit an already weakened and recession bound economy.
So how much longer can biden hold out? The guesses are all over the place. Damage control assessment is on going and could result in him stepping down one way or another in a matter of days or months. Personally, I’m very surprised that he has lasted this long in office as he was already severely mentally and physically challenged when he took (literally) office. Last night is going to force the powers to fish or cut bait on his continued pursuit of a second term. I don’t think at this pace he can make it to the democrat convention - so i expect sooner rather than later.
Regardless, this whole episode last night has placed us into a potentially precarious situation our enemies will (not may) take advantage of.
Illegal Immigration –
See CW2 on Texas standoff.
***
Texas District Court Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk overruled a Biden administration attempt to block a Texas lawsuit over asylum rules that transfer authority from judges to asylum officers, saying the asylum rules could violate the U.S. constitution’s appointment clause.
Texas said the new asylum rule gives “significant additional authority” to asylum officers, limiting “immigration-judge review to denials of applications,” and upends “the entire adjudicatory system to the benefit of aliens.” (FO)
OBSERVATION - The ultimate goal of the democrats is to import enough like minded social parasites and get them citizenship to dramatically swing the political balance in the country and lock in a perpetual progressive government. These asylum rules are a means to that end.
***
Cross reference this to potential terror concerns.
Indio BP agents discovered thousands of gift cards, merchandise & 23 fake Pennsylvania drivers licenses during a checkpoint inspection. 3 of the 5 Chinese nationals arrested were AsylumSeekers awaiting their hearings.
OBSERVATION - These are not your innocent refugees fleeing to that better life here. You don’t go running around with these items unless you are up to no good.
BTW, Chinese are now the fastest growing demographic of illegals entering the country.
Russia -
WAR WATCH - into the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Feb 24th, 2022
CURRENT ASSESSMENT - Updated Feb 2, 2024, closing in on two years of war.
Russia is attempting to seize the initiative by executing a winter/spring offensive across the eastern front. Russia has reportedly concentrated 40,000 troops to sustain this offensive. Though reports indicate that there have been some limited successes, Russian forces have taken heavy losses. One key objective continues to be the capture of Avdiivak, near Donetsk, as well as terrain lost to Ukraine during the Ukraine fall offensive in 2022. The attacks associated with this offensive do not appear to be supportive of each other in a manner that could help expedite any breakthrough and initiate any significant armor / mobile action. These assault axis also appear to be vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes on their logistics trains.
Russia has been able to gradually enlarge the number of soldiers in the theatre to the 400,000 range. Training and equipping of these forces is still rated very poor. Russia has drawn heavily upon ‘volunteers’ from penal colonies for their “Z” shock troops- the primary element of their meat attack (human wave) assaults against Ukraine defenses. It has been documented that ‘enforcement’ squads follow behind these ‘shock troops’ with orders to shoot any who attempt to retreat.
Russia continues to suffer heavy tank and APC losses. Old, cold war era tanks and APCs are becoming more and more common sights in battle fields. (formerly) Elite units like the Russian marines are routinely seen with T54/55 series tanks instead of the T72/80/90 series they were commonly equipped with.
Shortages of Ukraine artillery ammo has permitted Russia to regain some degree of local superiority on the battlefield. Some estimates give Russia a 3:1 advantage. This is down substantially from the start of the war where it had a 10:1 advantage.
Russian has been shepherding its stockpile of missiles/drones for a potential effort to take down the Ukraine power grid as they did winter 2023. This task has become increasingly difficult as Ukraine adds air defense systems and gets better coverage.
The Russian Black Sea fleet is is essentially impotent and hesitant to deploy into now contested waters. In the latest, large missile / drone attack, the Black Sea fleet was noticeably out of action. In the last half of 2023, Ukraine was able to take out about 20% of the fleet.
The Russia air force has taken significant losses at the hands of Ukraine. This has forced Russia to redeploy fighter bombers further away from the contested zone and exercise more caution when attacking. Larger aircraft have been forced to alter their operations as well.
Russian leadership reportedly planning for a long duration conflict, hoping to wear the Ukraine army down and cause European allies to tire of their support - forcing some sort of cease fire and negotiated peace. putin is struggling to place his economy on wartime footing to accomplish this goal.
*****
putin’s interview is echoing around the globe, bringing a lot of analysis and commentary. Remember, putin was a KGB officer and fully understands and implements the tools of propaganda to his (and Russia’s) benefit.
Logistics –
There are reports that Starlink has begun to be delivered en masse to the Russian military through Dubai, the accounts are activated and work in the occupied territories.
Ukraine –
WEATHER FORECAST – Temperatures in the 20-30 range with scattered snow and rain.
24 HOUR ROUND UP – Weather continues to dominate action on the ground. However, temperatures are reaching levels around Ukraine that are starting to freeze the ground locally, meaning that ground operations may have their tempo increase over the coming days/weeks.
Zelensky appointed Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrsky as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, replacing Valery Zaluzhny.
Overnight, Ukrainian drones attacked Afipskiy and Ilskiy refineries in Krasnodar Krai. No serious damage reported at Afipskiy refinery, but main processing unit caught fire at Ilskiy refinery. Russian Ministry of Defense reports 19 drones were shot down over Kursk, Briansk, Oryol, Krasnodar regions and over Black Sea
Ukrainian air defense shot down 10 of 16 Shahed drones overnight.
According to some unconfirmed reports, the Ukrainian situation at Avdiivka is deterring due lack of ammunition. Russia forcing the attack to gain a foothold on the southern margin of the town.
Russian Territory –
Oil depot “Stalnoy Kon”(Steel Horse) in Oryol region was attacked with drones overnight
Multiple fires broke out in Moscow, Russia as soon as the interview with Vladimir Putin and Tucker Carlson is released
Outlook —
Weather and mud conditions are continuing to dictate ground operations, which are at a low level due to lack of maneuverability cross country and on dirt roads due to the mud.
Shortages of munitions is becoming critical and reaching the point where Ukraine defenses may fall in some sectors. Avdiivka being one of those sectors.
ISRAEL –
Now the war is entering its 5th month.
Key overnight developments -
- Israel continues to press towards Rafah
- IDF discovers massive tunnel complex beneath the central headquarters of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip
- Evidence found in the tunnel indicates many Israeli hostages were held there.
——— GENERAL ——————————-
Lest we forget - there are still 136 being held hostage in Gaza.
Israel has now confirmed 32 hostages have been murdered by Hamas. They believe another 20 hostages may also have been murdered.
Biden administration officials warned Israel against expanding its Gaza ground offensive to the southern city of Rafah as IAF hit Hamas targets on the border of the town.
“We have yet to see any evidence of serious planning for such an operation,” Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, said Thursday. Going ahead with such an offensive now, “with no planning and little thought in an area where there is sheltering of a million people would be a disaster.”
John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said an Israel ground offensive in Rafah is “not something we would support.”
OBSERVATION - I wouldn’t show Washington any of my plans either.
——— GAZA FRONT ———————————-
Ongoing search and destroy operations throughout Gaza. Reports of more mass surrenders of Hamas and affiliated fighters. Also more reports of Hamas popping back up in N Gaza into areas previously cleared by IDF.
Sources in the security establishment said that contact with the Hamas leader Sinwar has not only been cut off from his organization’s members but also from the mediators in the hostage negotiations.
According to the report contact with Sinwar was cut off ten days ago and the Hamas leadership has been making decisions without him. Over the past two months, the IDF has been making advances in Sinwar’s hometown of Khan Yunis. The arch-terrorist was reported to be hiding in the city, but he has yet to be located.
***
Hamas elite commander surrenders in tunnel: ‘We decided not to fight and waited for the IDF’. Nukhba force commander says he and two other terrorists left their weapons outside room in Khan Younis tunnel and raised their hands when troops approached, urges others to surrender as well or face death.
***
During a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday, the American diplomat was shown photos of a giant tunnel that was exposed in recent days underneath the central headquarters of UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. The meeting was attended by senior officials from both sides.
The Israeli leader showed Blinken proof of the misuse of the UNRWA headquarters’ underground premises for apparent terrorist tunneling purposes. Evidence found in the tunnel indicates many Israeli hostages were held there.
——— LEBANON / HEZBOLLAH——————————-
Continued exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and IDF along the border.
Hezbollah claimed to have fired dozens of Katyusha rockets toward northern Israel on Thursday night just hours after Arab media reported that a senior Hezbollah military commander Abbas al Dabs, known by his nickname Hajj Abdullah, was targeted in an alleged Israeli drone strike in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on Thursday afternoon.
Some reports also mentioned another Hezbollah operative as being hit in the attack, while others mentioned multiple other persons being wounded. While originally most reports said that at least two people were killed, Lebanese media later reported that the two were only injured and were in stable condition as of Thursday evening.
In likely response and warning to the 30 or so rockets fired into Israel, Israeli Air Force chief sayed dozens of aircraft were currently operating over Lebanon. Hundreds to be mobilized in case of war vs. Hezbollah. Finally, that the IDF is moving the 36th Division from Gaza to Lebanon front.
——— SYRIA / HEZBOLLAH / IRAN———————————-
The Syrian Observatory - Iranian militias transport weapons and ammunition from Deir ez-Zor to fortified sites belonging to Hezbollah on the Syrian-Lebanese border in anticipation of American strikes at those former sites.
The Syrian Ministry of Defense claims “Our air defenses shot down two drones west of Damascus that came from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan.”
———WEST BANK——————————-
Arrests continue in numerous cities in the West Bank. Associated with those raids, clashes break out between arabs and Israeli security forces.
——— FORECAST ————————-
Israel to continue search and destroy operations across Gaza. Fighting to continue to be locally intense across all Gaza as Hamas and affiliate cells are discovered and neutralized as well as of the couple hundred miles of tunnels are uncovered and destroyed.
Israel is preparing a ground assault into Rafah that could prove to hard to separate non-combatants from combatants. Egypt and other arab nations along with the US may complain about it, but there is little they can do to stop it short of military intervention. Egypt won’t risk damage to its border wall that could permit thousands, even hundreds of thousands to pour into it. With the bulk of Hama’s remaining combat forces being systematically taken out in Khan Yunis, Rafah represents the last possible hide out for Hamas leadership and held hostages.
At the same time, Israel is moving incrementally to prepare to attack Hezbollah in the north. Besides counter attacks, Israel is conducting a strategic level operations hitting Hezbollah key leaders and sites, efforts that will progressively weaken Hezbollah’s response to the eventual attack from Israel.
Timeline for the hit against Hezbollah? Israel knows and may be telegraphing it through its estimation on when Gaza will be fully subdued and Hamas eliminated as a threat. Israeli announcements continue to suggest that it would take nearly a year for that process to be complete - placing it roughly towards the end of this year.
SMH - that would place it right smack dab in the middle of potential near civil war election based rioting and potential constitutional crisis with a figure head president still in charge.
Misc of Note –
El Niño appears to have peaked and is set to come to a rapid end over the next few months. Climate prediction forecasts indicate sea-surface temperatures in the central Pacific will rapidly cool over the next several weeks, with now a 79% chance of the Pacific dropping below El Niño status in April.
The La Niña phase typically correlates to dry weather in the southern U.S. and cooler, wetter weather in the Pacific Northwest and parts of the North.
OBSERVATION - Typical of El Nino - my home here in the Redoubt has seen above normal temps (except for the short period in January) and below normal precipitation. The flip back to La Nina may bring blow normal temps and above normal precipitation as seen in the previous winter. We’ll have to watch to see how this pans out, and I may need to up my pre-winter wood supply accordingly. Plan accordingly for you homes as well.
Gamblers aren't going to put up with 'protesters'... my guess is no one's going to protest the game.
And money spent on Social Security etc?
The original ‘advantage plans’ for the elderly - the companies offing it - were paid $100,000 per year per person signed up. Evert year. It’s ‘health care’ grifters getting the big money.
I’ve been some of those casinos - I’m not sure some of those gamblers are even aware of what day of the week it is, let alone protestors.
Not the players - the owners. Casino owners want the city to look great and the game to shine up the image.
Owners - yes
Possibly, though these groups make heavy use of various social media for coordinating protests
CW2 / Domestic violence - Heightened THREAT
Showdown in TX continues. The beacons of Gondor are lit ! !
A couple more states are sending NG contingents to reinforce TX efforts at the border.
***
Authorities on Friday nabbed a 15-year-old migrant suspected of shooting a tourist and firing at cops in Times Square, law enforcement sources said.
The US Marshals Fugitive Recovery Task Force took the Venezuelan teen into custody in Yonkers at around 3:30 p.m., according to the sources.
OBSERVATION - I noted a few days ago of the rise in Venezuelan gangs of illegals in NYC. Here is another example. As these various ethnic groups jell together in our metropolitan areas, they are further contributing to the Balkanization of the same cities, setting the stage for increased ethnic conflicts and crime between illegal groups and pre-existing gangs.
***
Saturday’s early - watch out for pro-hamas ‘protests’ in major cities across the country thru Sunday.
Terrorism - Level is HIGH due to impending conflict with Iran.
This warning renewed as of Feb 6, 2024
ELEVATED RISK - Potential military action against Iranian assets for the attack that killed US forces in Jordan could result in Iranian terror groups here in the US to activate and conduct terror ops here. These attacks can range from infrastructure destruction (water, power, communications, etc) to mass casualty events (superbowl related attacks) or attacks on political candidates - heavily leaning against current administration but also Trump as well. So far the govt hasn’t come out with any warnings but the risk has increased significantly the last 24 hours, based on common sense and stated goals of the Islamist movement/Iran.
Military / Strategic Activity / Deployments –
The U.S Navy conducted two drills in the South China Sea this week, including a joint trilateral drill with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force and the Royal Australian Navy and the third iteration of the Maritime Cooperative Activity with the Philippines.
Meanwhile the Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group is currently in Guam on a port visit.
Wuhan and other “new” Plandemics –
A passenger on board a Lufthansa flight from Thailand to Germany died Thursday, after his fellow travelers watched in horror as blood gushed out of his mouth and nose.
The unidentified 63-year-old German man was seen boarding the Airbus A380 in Bangkok shortly before midnight visibly sick, with “cold sweats” and “breathing much too quickly,” Karin Missfelder recounted to Swiss German outlet Blick.
OBSERVATION - No word out yet as to what the cause of this incident was. But if a disease like Marburg or Ebola, the transmission threat to those on board is deadly high.
POLITICAL FRONT –
Dates of importance
March 1 - latest CR expires
March 5- Super Tuesday primaries
***
Most of the political soap opera focuses on biden - described below.
More heat being brought to bear on McConnell to step down. I suspect that he may be able to ride this out to the elections, but if the republicans manage somehow to retake the senate, he may not succeed to be the majority leader.
Biden / Harris Watch –
Dates to watch -
March 7 - State of the union
****
The spin factory following yesterday’s debacle is flying off its ball bearings, and internal democrat cohesion is becoming shredded. Calls to circle the wagons around biden are bouncing off calls for him to at a minimum step out of the presidential race - including those democrat big buck supporters.
Rumors are also present indicating that biden is looking to make AG Merrick Garland the scapegoat for the bombshell report which highlighted his mental challenges. Increased pressure from some republicans on AG Garland to either move forward with 25th amendment proceedings against biden or initiate prosecution for his crimes of mishandling and releasing without authorization highly classified materials.
Special prosecutor Hue is facing backlash from the WH for politicizing his investigation.
Another interesting theory poking its head up out there is that being designated as mentally deficient to defend himself in court was a ploy to prevent him from actually being charged with crimes associated with not only the classified documents, but other alleged crimes he is said to have committed - such as those surrounding hunter and Ukraine.
Further speculation that the powers that be are pressing forward to off ramp biden sooner than they originally had anticipated.
Either way, this story isn’t going away soon, as long as journalists keep getting the go ahead to press biden and the WH on the mental deficiency issue.
***
In light of biden’s disastrous press conference the other night, focus will be intense on his performance (literal) at the SOTU next month. As with previous addresses by other presidents, it will be scripted and posted on the teleprompters. More and more biden has failed to be able to follow the teleprompters as speeches and even more dangerous are the times he goes off script. If his presentation is any where near as poor as his past press conference, the pressure for him to step down or get 25th’d will grow exponentially.
Political drama could grow, depending how badly he spirals down between now and then it the wild hope that he will announce is resignation at the STOU. That in its self would toss the country into wild spasms. We’ll just have to wait and see how his damage control goes.
Illegal Immigration –
See CW2 on Texas standoff.
***
The spike in migrants crossing into the Tucson Sector returned last week, with daily apprehensions numbers jumping back to the levels seen during the record-shattering month of December. Tucson Sector agents apprehended nearly 14,000 migrants during the past week.
Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin posted a weekly update on “X” showing the return a major levels of migrants being apprehended. During the previous week, Modlin stated his agents encountered 13,800 migrants.
China –
Chinese stock market continues to stagger as its economy continues downward into the dumps. Now foreign investments that were high last year in expectation of explosive, post wuhan growth, are bailing before they lose any more money.
North/South Korea –
The Republic of Korea Navy’s 42nd Cheonghae unit – which includes destroyer ROKS Dae Jo-yeong (DDH-977), an embarked Super Lynx helicopter, ROKN SEALs, Republic of Korea Marines and a medical team – is also heading to the Gulf of Aden. The unit left left Jinhae Naval Base on Feb.1, according to a South Korea Ministry of National Defense news release.
Formally known as the ROKN Somali Sea Escort Task Group and built around a ROKN destroyer, the unit has deployed on counter-piracy missions since 2009 and has carried out a number of combat engagements with Somali pirates, notably in January 2011, when eight Somali pirates were killed and five were captured when the unit successfully rescued the crew of a hijacked tanker.
Russia -
WAR WATCH - into the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - Feb 24th, 2022
CURRENT ASSESSMENT - Updated Feb 2, 2024, closing in on two years of war.
Russia is attempting to seize the initiative by executing a winter/spring offensive across the eastern front. Russia has reportedly concentrated 40,000 troops to sustain this offensive. Though reports indicate that there have been some limited successes, Russian forces have taken heavy losses. One key objective continues to be the capture of Avdiivak, near Donetsk, as well as terrain lost to Ukraine during the Ukraine fall offensive in 2022. The attacks associated with this offensive do not appear to be supportive of each other in a manner that could help expedite any breakthrough and initiate any significant armor / mobile action. These assault axis also appear to be vulnerable to Ukrainian strikes on their logistics trains.
Russia has been able to gradually enlarge the number of soldiers in the theatre to the 400,000 range. Training and equipping of these forces is still rated very poor. Russia has drawn heavily upon ‘volunteers’ from penal colonies for their “Z” shock troops- the primary element of their meat attack (human wave) assaults against Ukraine defenses. It has been documented that ‘enforcement’ squads follow behind these ‘shock troops’ with orders to shoot any who attempt to retreat.
Russia continues to suffer heavy tank and APC losses. Old, cold war era tanks and APCs are becoming more and more common sights in battle fields. (formerly) Elite units like the Russian marines are routinely seen with T54/55 series tanks instead of the T72/80/90 series they were commonly equipped with.
Shortages of Ukraine artillery ammo has permitted Russia to regain some degree of local superiority on the battlefield. Some estimates give Russia a 3:1 advantage. This is down substantially from the start of the war where it had a 10:1 advantage.
Russian has been shepherding its stockpile of missiles/drones for a potential effort to take down the Ukraine power grid as they did winter 2023. This task has become increasingly difficult as Ukraine adds air defense systems and gets better coverage.
The Russian Black Sea fleet is is essentially impotent and hesitant to deploy into now contested waters. In the latest, large missile / drone attack, the Black Sea fleet was noticeably out of action. In the last half of 2023, Ukraine was able to take out about 20% of the fleet.
The Russia air force has taken significant losses at the hands of Ukraine. This has forced Russia to redeploy fighter bombers further away from the contested zone and exercise more caution when attacking. Larger aircraft have been forced to alter their operations as well.
Russian leadership reportedly planning for a long duration conflict, hoping to wear the Ukraine army down and cause European allies to tire of their support - forcing some sort of cease fire and negotiated peace. putin is struggling to place his economy on wartime footing to accomplish this goal.
*****
Continued commentary on the Carleson - putin interview bouncing around the inter webs.
Ukraine –
WEATHER FORECAST – Temperatures in the 20-30 range with scattered snow and rain.
24 HOUR ROUND UP – Weather continues to dominate action on the ground. However, temperatures are reaching levels around Ukraine that are starting to freeze the ground locally, meaning that ground operations may have their tempo increase over the coming days/weeks.
Ukrainian air defense shot down 23 of 31 Shahed drones, launched by Russia overnight. 7 persons killed, including 3 children and 57 wounded as result of Russian drone attack in Kharkiv overnight 5 persons wounded as result of Shahed drones attacks in Odesa
Outlook —
Weather and mud conditions are continuing to dictate ground operations, which are at a low level due to lack of maneuverability cross country and on dirt roads due to the mud.
Expect continued heavy fighting around Avdiivka.
ISRAEL –
Now the war is entering its 5th month.
Key overnight developments -
- Plans go forward for civilian evacuation from Rafah.
- Conflict at the Lebanese border is threatening to escalate following Israeli target killing of Hezbollah officials and retaliatory rocket fire by Hezbollah.
——— GENERAL ——————————-
Lest we forget - there are still 136 being held hostage in Gaza.
Israel has now confirmed 32 hostages have been murdered by Hamas. They believe another 20 hostages may also have been murdered.
Egyptian Foreign Minister - Any increase in the scope of military actions in Gaza will have serious consequences - in likely reference to the impending ground assault into Rafah.
UN Spokesman - Civilians in Rafah need protection and any forced mass displacement should not be carried out
Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, who is currently on a visit to Washington, DC, cancelled a scheduled meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, which was scheduled for Friday, due to Guterres’ statements against Israel, Channel 12 News reported.
According to the report, Ohana made clear that he would not give Guterres legitimacy by holding the meeting.
***
Israel’s military response in the Gaza Strip to the shock October 7 attack by Hamas has been “over the top,” US President Joe Biden says.
“I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been over the top,” he tells reporters at the White House during an evening address that was announced only about two hours earlier.
“I’m pushing very hard now to deal with this hostage ceasefire,” Biden says. “There are a lot of innocent people who are starving, a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying, and it’s gotta stop.”
The remarks, some of Biden’s sharpest public criticism to date of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, come as the Democratic president has come under increasing domestic pressure to press Israel on a ceasefire.
——— GAZA FRONT ———————————-
Ongoing search and destroy operations throughout Gaza. Reports of more mass surrenders of Hamas and affiliated fighters. Also more reports of Hamas popping back up in N Gaza into areas previously cleared by IDF.
Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli Army to start preparing the evacuations of 1.2 million civilians from the city of Rafah near the border between Egypt and Gaza.
Yedioth Ahronoth - The Israeli army approved a military operation in Rafah.
IDF notes there are at least 12 active smuggling tunnels in Rafah crossing into Egypt.
A ground invasion of the city is imminent as the IDF is preparing to liquidate 4 Hamas battalions there.
Hamas warns of a “massacre” if an Israeli military operation is launched in Rafah, south of Gaza.
Egypt has sent security reinforcements and patrols to the border with Gaza.
——— LEBANON / HEZBOLLAH——————————-
Continued exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and IDF along the border.
Maj.-Gen. Ori Gordin: “Our goal is to change the security situation in the north in a manner that will allow us to safely return the residents home to a state of security.
“We are determined to change the security reality that is already shifting these days and continue to prepare for an expansion of the war and to go on the offensive - this is our mission. We will continue to carry out the defensive battle, to strike Hezbollah, and to deny its capabilities”
Latest Hezbollah barrage counted some 40 missiles. This followed a strike that likely targeted Hezbollah officials on a vehicle in the village of Jadra, some 60 kilometers from the Israeli border. Footage from the scene shows at least three casualties
Hezbollah’s Nasrallah met with Iranian foreign minister in Lebanon yesterday
——— SYRIA / HEZBOLLAH / IRAN———————————-
IAF airstrikes targeted a number of points in the Damascus countryside suspected of being linked to Hezbollah/Iran.
———WEST BANK——————————-
Arrests continue in numerous cities in the West Bank. Associated with those raids, clashes break out between arabs and Israeli security forces.
———“ISLAMIC RESISTANCE” ———————————
A coalition of Iran-backed militants promised to resume “painful strikes” on U.S. troops based in Iraq and Syria in a statement on Friday following major U.S. counterattacks for the deaths of three soldiers.
The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a coalition of militia groups that includes one deemed responsible for the Jan. 28 suicide drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan, said it would suspend military operations on Jan. 30 as the U.S. threatened significant retaliation. Since U.S. forces did not vacate the region, “painful strikes and broad attacks” will come, the Islamic Resistance said in a statement.
“The opportunity that the Islamic Resistance today granted to the occupation forces to leave the Holy Land as a lifeline, it did not obtain yesterday,” a translation of the statement read.
The militants mourned the death of a senior militia leader of Kataib Hezbollah, one of the major groups in the coalition, at the hands of the U.S. military.
***
US forces continue to engage Houthi drone / missile launch sites, restricting actual attacks on shipping.
Overnight, Houthi seaborne drones were detected and destroyed by allied forces.
——— FORECAST ————————-
Israel to continue search and destroy operations across Gaza. Fighting to continue to be locally intense across all Gaza as Hamas and affiliate cells are discovered and neutralized as well as of the couple hundred miles of tunnels are uncovered and destroyed.
Israeli operations in Rafah will prove to be one of the most difficult actions seen in modern warfare. The displacement of over a million civilians while at the same time engaging hamas terrorists who are staging their ‘last stand’ is daunting. However, Rafah with its estimated 8 battalions of Hamas is a must do operation to ensure total defeat of Hamas in Gaza. It is further made necessary due to the underground network that is similar to what has been found further north - tied into smuggling tunnels into Egypt.
It is uncertain if and to what extent Egypt may intervene militarily . If they are consistent with previous statements - they are more concerned with gazans spilling into Egypt and bringing their problems with them.
Statements from world leaders indicate they don’t want these ‘non-combatants’ displaced. In doing so, they are reinforcing hamas’s doctrine of human shields. These same nations decry that use of civilians, but are using it to force Israel into their desires for a cease fire and eventual forced two state solution.
I think the Israeli leadership has already factored this in. It realizes that it is increasingly having to go it alone - especially as biden loses ground to the pro-hamas factions in the democrat party.
Expect an even higher level of negative reporting on Israeli actions as the ground operation in Rafah progresses.
In the north - there is a cycle of escalation developing between Israel and Hezbollah. Many of Israel’s air strikes on Hezbollah targets are beginning to hurt, especially those hitting senior leadership. Hezbollah has started increasing the number of large rocket barrages - gradually, but consistently. In doing so, they expose launch sites - most of which are underground - to targeting by IAF air strikes - taking them out of the picture for when the war really starts. As Hezbollah exposes its missile infrastructure more and more, they are losing more of it.
Rhetoric continues to build on the Israeli side and intensive planning has been well underway for years is getting detailed updating. Israel is close to initiating ground operations at any time.
“ISLAMIC RESISTANCE” - actions are expected to resume in Syria and Iraq. We will have to see how aggressive our counter and preemptive strikes will be in deterring attacks.
Aggressive CAPs have kept the Houthi attacks on shipping mostly suppressed. A shift to use of seaborne drones is a possibility - but they are currently not seen as a serious threat at this time. Another factor that is probably hindering the Houthi efforts has been the withdrawal of Iranian command / intelligence vessels out of the immediate region and into safe harbors. The possibility of sending these ship to the sea bottom must be very real to Iran, and with good reason since they have not been taken off the target list by the US.
Pakistan –
With most results now declared in Pakistan’s election, no political force has a clear majority but candidates linked to jailed former PM Imran Khan have won most seats so far.
The results have defied expectations and Mr Khan is claiming victory.
However another ex-PM, Nawaz Sharif, says his party has emerged the largest and wants others to join a coalition.
On Saturday Pakistan’s army chief urged the country to move on from the politics of “anarchy and polarisation”.
General Asim Munir said that a stable hand was needed to unite “Pakistan’s diverse polity”, and to make “democracy functional and purposeful”.
OBSERVATION - The next several weeks will see jockeying of smaller coalitions to see if they can get a better deal from Khan or Sharif. Very dangerous period as near-civil war broke out with the arrest over a year ago of Khan. Remember, Pakistan is a nuclear armed nation and recent trends has seen a shift to a more radical islam over moderates. Internal instability or even civil war could enable a terrorist group to get their hands on a warhead - with devastating results to either India or US.
Venezuela -
Venezuela is backing up its threats to annex part of Guyana and secure access to some of the world’s largest oil finds in more than a decade by moving light tanks, missile-equipped patrol boats and armored carriers to the two countries’ border in what is quickly turning into a new security challenge for the Biden administration.
OBSERVATION - Venezuela is progressing step by step on this operation. When they first announced their claim and that they were ready to seize the Guyana’s territory, some of the first actions were the construction of new military bases near the border. Now, these bases are being completed and army elements are moving into them. US and UK have pledged support to Guyana (former UK commonwealth nation), but as noted, support from the US may well be muted given our internal turmoil over military and related support to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. As it stands right now, the US is virtually powerless to stop Venezuela when they decide to strike.
Misc of Note –
The sun’s magnetic poles are about to flip, and it could cause lower latitude northern lights, more intense solar storms and potential danger for astronauts and satellite communication. However, experts predict there’s no overt cause for concern.
Stanford solar physicist Phil Scherrer described the process - “The sun’s polar magnetic fields weaken, go to zero and then emerge again with the opposite polarity. This is a regular part of the solar cycle.”
Mike Murray, program director at the Delta College Planetarium, predicted that this year’s pole reversal, which will likely happen between April and August, should be “nothing to worry about.”
OBSERVATION - Noting a growing trend of doom porn regarding solar magnetic pole flips. With it an abundance of just flat out misinformation. This has been going on for the entire life of the sun - and has happened dozens of times during our lives - and no doom has occurred. Many of the doomers link the large coronal mass ejections (CMEs) to the pole flip - nothing is further from the truth. Those CMEs are due to solar flare activity, not reversals and some of the biggest associated during period in between reversals.
My bottom line is I monitor solar activity daily for decades now. The threat is from massive X class solar flares, but reversals are not the threat some are making them out to be.
The State of the Union speech could be very interesting.
I wonder if they can prop and drug him up enough to pull it off or are going to use a body double.
Airbus A380 - Wikipedia The full-length double-deck aircraft has a typical seating for 525 passengers, with a maximum certified capacity for 853 passengers. The quadjet is powered by Engine Alliance GP7200 or Rolls-Royce Trent 900 turbofans providing a range of 8,000 nmi (14,800 km; 9,200 mi).
Could be a big problem... keep us posted.
Butler County sheriff ramps up training, security after FBI warning of terror attacks
Never apologize, post as I don’t always catch everything
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