- US Power Grid Attacks Happening More and More, and the System Remains Very Vulnerable
- In 2013, a well-planned attack against a Silicon Valley electrical substation caused millions of dollars in damages, while nearly taking out power to Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Intel. Since that attack, no suspects have been identified. The question remains, was it terrorism or extreme vandalism?
- Now, a new wave of attacks is targeting America’s electrical grid at the same time as Russia’s brutal attacks on Ukraine’s energy system dominate the news.
- On Dec. 3, 2022, gunfire took out two North Carolina substations, knocking out power to 40,000 homes and businesses.
- Then on Christmas Day, attackers struck four substations in Washington State, causing power outages.
- The infrastructure law passed last year includes $15 billion to upgrade and strengthen the power grid, but some energy experts estimate it would cost as much as $5 trillion dollars to modernize and upgrade the protection of the country’s electric system.
- Tim Miller told us. “Back when I was working on the staff of the Secretary of Homeland Security, we had major concerns about how vulnerable our power grid is. And unfortunately, it’s gotten worse since then.”
- “We’ve got a bunch of enemies now that hate this country and some are internal. So it should cause us to go, ‘Hey, wait a minute now we need to really look at hardening up our power grid,'” he said.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine: Is the Hammer About to Fall?
- The ultimate strategic objective of the current policy, is to tighten the grip of western elites on the levers of global power and to prevent the dissolution of the “rules-based international order.” But after 11 months of nonstop warfare in Ukraine, the US-backed western coalition finds itself in a worse position than when it began.
- One of the biggest surprises of the current war, is simply the lack of preparedness on part of the US.
- Otherwise, how does one explain these glaring errors in judgement:
- They never thought the sanctions would backfire
- They never thought they’d run out of weapons and ammo
- They never thought Russia’s oil receipts would skyrocket
- They never thought that the majority of countries would maintain normal relations with Russia
- They never figured they’d actually need a coherent military strategy for fighting a ground war in Eastern Europe.
- Excerpt from an interview with ex-Brigade General Erich Vad who served as Angela Merkel’s policy advisor from 2006 to 2013:
- Let’s summarize:
- The media is “overestimating the (effect of) Ukrainians’ regionally limited offensives”. In short, the Ukrainians are losing the war.
- The Russians are winning the war. (“The Russians are clearly advancing. They will probably have completely conquered the Donbass before long.”)
- Russia can mobilize up to two million reservists
- Weapons alone will not change the outcome of the war. (“the martens and leopards are not enough.”)
- There is no evidence that the west has clearly defined strategic objectives. (“Do you want to achieve a willingness to negotiate with the deliveries of the tanks? Do you want to reconquer Donbas or Crimea? Or do you want to defeat Russia completely? There is no realistic end state definition. And without an overall political and strategic concept, arms deliveries are pure militarism…Military operations must always be coupled with attempts to bring about political solutions.”)
- Remember the Powell Doctrine [Colin Powell]? “The Powell Doctrine states that a list of questions all have to be answered affirmatively before military action is taken by the United States:
- Is a vital national security interest threatened?
- Do we have a clear attainable objective?
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
- Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
- Is the action supported by the American people?
- Do we have genuine broad international support?
- Colonel Douglas MacGregor said in a recent interview:
- “There are now 540,000 Russian troops stationed around the outskirts of Ukraine preparing to launch a major offensive that I think will probably end the war in Ukraine.540,000 Russian troops, 1,000 rocket artillery systems, 5000 armored fighting vehicles including at least 1,5000 tanks, hundreds and hundreds of tactical ballistic missiles. Ukraine is now going to experience war on a scale we haven’t seen since 1945.”
- Bottom line: While Washington and its NATO allies do not have a coherent strategy for winning the war in Ukraine…
- We expect that the outcome of this conflict will reshape Europe’s outdated security architecture and force a realignment that will mark the end of the unipolar era.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Institute of the Middle East.
- “First of all, our main enemy is certainly the United States. What does the U.S. react to? They react to two things: the threat of physical annihilation and the liquidation of a certain number of military personnel. What we know based on wars in Vietnam and Korea is that several tens of thousands of annihilated American servicemen will cause the public opinion in the U.S. to be severely strained. I will repeat: not several thousand, like in Afghanistan or Iraq, but a certain number of tens of thousands… We have absolutely nothing to lose.”
- Head of RT Margarita Simonyan described the mood in the country:
- “In every home, in every kitchen and living room, in every courtyard all conversations are only about what will happen next, how it will all end… I don’t see any possible course of events except for the following: first of all, they will not stop. I’m not talking about Ukraine or Zelensky [She is talking about the West]… They will keep raising the stakes to the point that it will cause us pain. Safety of the territory of the Russian Federation will be at issue, not just the newly added territories. I don’t doubt that they will do all that they can so that we have to be concerned about the safety of Moscow, or at least seriously thinking about it… This will certainly happen!”
- Simonyan concluded: “This can only end with an immediate threat that is voiced and presented, a threat of a nuclear confrontation.”
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Luke 21:25-26 “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves, people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Important Takeaways:
- Grim 2022 US Climate Report Details $165 Billion in Disaster Costs
- NOAA cataloged 18 weather and climate-related disasters that each topped $1 billion in losses. “These disasters included six severe storms, three tropical cyclones, three hail events, two tornadoes and one each for drought, flood, winter storm and wildfire events,”
- Total US disaster costs went over $165 billion
- Hurricane Ian’s impact on Florida was a big driver behind that figure, accounting for $112.9 billion.
- NOAA’s count of 1,331 tornadoes (near average number)
- NOAA cataloged 66,000 wildfires that consumed 7.5 million acres, which was also near average
- NOAA totaled the 2022 western and central US drought and heat wave cost at over $22 billion.
- Water levels in the Mississippi River dropped so low critical barge traffic was interrupted.
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Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- U.S. Manufacturing Declined in December at Fastest Rate Since Pandemic Began
- The S&P Global U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell at the fastest rate since May 2020 in December, a continuing sign that the manufacturing sector is on the decline, S&P Global reported Tuesday.
- The U.S. Manufacturing PMI posted a 46.2 in December, down from 47.7 in November and solidly below 50, which signals that the sector is contracting, according to S&P Global. Production levels contracted in back-to-back months, with new sales plummeting at the end of December at the fastest pace since 2007, as companies cited weakening demand amid “economic uncertainty” and inflation weighing on customers.
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Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- Why America’s electrical grid is vulnerable to attack
- America’s electrical grid is under attack. Christmas Day attacks on electrical substations in Washington “knocked out power to thousands of customers in the region,” The New York Times reports — part of a string of attacks in the Pacific Northwest dating back to mid-November. Those outages were similar to an early December assault on a North Carolina electrical station that left 45,000 customers without power. “Physical and computerized assaults on the equipment that delivers electricity are at their highest level since at least 2012,” Politico reports
- Why are power stations vulnerable to attacks?
- The American grid is decentralized, which does make it more difficult for attackers to knock out power to the entire country. But those substations are often not terribly secure: “Many of the nation’s 55,000 substations are blocked only by chain-link fences, and the equipment is easily accessible once within the fencing,” CBS News reports. The hodge-podge of companies and electricity providers that make up the national power system — more than 3,000 different entities — means that there is “no single agency responsible for managing the resilience of the power grid.” That makes regional and local power failures more likely.
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Luke 21:11 “There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.”
Important Takeaways:
- US Weighs Covid-Prevention Measures for Travelers From China
- Japan is now requiring a negative Covid-19 test upon arrival for travelers from China, while Malaysia has imposed new tracking and surveillance measures. The US is weighing similar steps, the officials said, as a way to prevent further spread.
- Discontent with Covid Zero sparked protests in China, leading authorities to move rapidly toward ending those policies and three years of self-isolation from the rest of the world. Yet the speed of those changes has seen infections surge.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- U.S. Preparing More Sanctions on North Korea, Sullivan Says
- U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan says the United States is working a new round of sanctions against North Korea
- As Pyongyang forges ahead with banned missile development and signals a possible new nuclear test.
- North Korea has said denuclearization is off the table, and accused the United States and its allies of pursing “hostile” policies, including sanctions, that have left it no choice but to expand its military.
- Decades of U.S.-led sanctions have not halted North Korea’s increasingly sophisticated missile and nuclear weapon programs, and China and Russia have blocked recent efforts to impose more United Nations sanctions
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Revelations 18:23:’For the merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.’
Important Takeaways:
- North Korea test launches ballistic missile capable of striking anywhere in US
- North Korea missile lands 130 miles off Japan’s coastline and within Japanese exclusive economic zone
- Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada estimated that the missile had a potential range of over 9,300 miles depending on the weight of the warhead.
- “In which case it could cover the entire mainland United States,” he warned.
- U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the launch “needlessly raises tensions” and showed that North Korea prioritized military gains over diplomacy.
- “Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions and instead choose diplomatic engagement,” she added.
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Revelations 6:3-4 “when he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” 4 And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
Important Takeaways:
- US Condemns Apparent Failed ICBM Test by North Korea
- The US urged North Korea to halt further “destabilizing” tests and return to negotiations over its nuclear weapons program, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.
- The suspected ICBM was launched from an area near Pyongyang around 7:44 a.m. and flew eastward toward Japan, reaching an altitude of 1,920 kilometers (1,200 miles), according to South Korean data.
- The Republic of Korea Air Force separately announced that its exercises with the US were being extended because of the “ongoing North Korean provocations.”
- The missile was one of at least three fired by North Korea on Thursday, including two shorter-range rockets that fell into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan
- North Korea earlier this week threatened to take “powerful measures” if the US didn’t halt military drills with partners including South Korea, firing off at least 23 missiles on Wednesday.
- The US and South Korea this week started air drills known as Vigilant Storm that had been scheduled to run through Friday and involve about 240 aircraft in about 1,600 sorties to “hone their wartime capabilities,” the US 7th Air Force said in a statement.
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