Intel Update — October 31 — Monitoring the Situation

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground. This is the intel update for October 26th through the 31st, 2025. Yes, that is indeed correct. I am doing this week's brief a day early so that I can have a little bit more flexibility to monitor the situation tomorrow just in case things start uh popping off or things get a little bit spicy. I don't think it's going to be that necessary, but I wanted to have some flexibility so that I'm not tied down and my computer's not occupied producing a video for, you know, 10 12 hours or something like that, which is what it normally takes every weekend. But anyway, we'll get to that in just a moment. Starting off with the global concerns that have happened this week. It's been pretty busy as usual. Here in the homeland, the domestic unrest continues in the usual places. San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, New York. No real big change there. Although, I will say that we are starting to get into the colder weather, which is probably a good thing because we are exiting the peak rioting season. So for any of the, you know, dozen or so different social issues that are currently up in the air and hotly debated and hotly contested in the United States right now, it's always good when the weather is colder, right? Because it's going to reduce the potential for rioting to take place overnight. Speaking of uh rioting potential, the gigantic elephant in the room that everyone is staring at rather intently this week is the potential shut off of the SNAP program or EBT uh benefits for a lot of Americans. So that's why I'm going to kind of focus on that this week just in case things get really crazy. Overseas this week, the same previous issues we have been tracking for months now have continued as before. War in the Caribbean continues with an intensification of strikes on narco vessels in the Pacific and in the Caribbean Sea. This week, these strikes have intensified over the past couple of weeks. The United States has started to strike more and more vessels in the Pacific as opposed to the just the Caribbean like they were doing before. We shall see if this gets intensified, but we'll talk about the forces that have been in the region in a moment. We'll see if this gets intensified over the next few weeks. But that's the general situation in Venezuela. And of course, overseas, the migrant tensions in the United Kingdom continue as before. It just continues to get worse and worse and worse. And in the Middle East, things are deteriorating rather sharply. Though, one can argue that what's going on right now isn't specifically part of the peace agreement. So, the Israelis have started bombing more intensely in Lebanon. Lebanon, if we remember, was not part of the original ceasefire agreement. So the war that was continuing was between Israel and Hamas. And Israel and Hamas have this agreement. Now granted, Israel is continuing to bomb Gaza. So, you know, that's how it goes. There have been limited skirmishes between both of those parties, but Lebanon is a whole other animal. They meet the definition of a nation state. So, they're not like West Bank. They're not like Gaza where it's some kind of weird diplomatic like, you know, zone. Lebanon is a lot more established. So continuing to bomb things in Lebanon is not doing super great for relations in the region, particularly since a lot of nations such as this week France have been involved more directly with Israeli forces because they are stationed as peacekeepers there, you know. So we all know how that kind of works, but still not super great for lasting peace in the region. The ceasefire technically was was broken uh last week, but everyone's just kind of pretending that it's still around. So I guess we'll have to see how this intensifies over the next few weeks. Moving to strategic movement for this week. Again, the main focus point is Venezuela. However, there were two mishaps that occurred in the South China Sea. One F-18 was lost and an MH60 was lost uh at sea. Both of which were from the Nimtts. And this has been kind of a rabbit hole uh for the past few years. So, you can dive all the way down to the bottom of it, but one of the main uh theories right now as to why two aircraft were lost is fuel contamination. So, the United States in the Pacific, this has been a big strategic concern for a while, but the United States in the Pacific does not have a super reliable or great way of refueling their uh aircraft. And the United States does not have enough fuel depot in the region to meet these demands. So, the United States has to purchase fuel uh for their aircraft and things like that. They've got to buy JP8 from other countries and those other countries don't really have a great supply of really high quality fuel. So when you have two aircraft go down at roughly the same time, that tends to make everybody think uh fuel problem, fuel issue. So it wouldn't be the first time this has happened. Thankfully, in this case, everybody survived, which is honestly just a pure miracle. Uh because going down in a helicopter at sea is not great, right? And the crew of the F-18 also survived as well. So thank God for that. Seriously, uh that's a a great thing to see. But yeah, this does highlight the issues that the United States is going to have to get ironed out if we want to engage in a conflict in the Pacific Ocean. A little bit closer to the homeront back in the Caribbean Sea, the counter for this week is seven vessels sunk so far by uh Southcom. Casualty-wise, we're talking 18 KIA and one captured this week. So, I'm going to try to keep a tally of uh how many strikes that are are being conducted throughout the week because this has become more or less a daily thing, especially now that the US is starting to conduct targetings at night. simultaneous targetings of multiple vessels at once, stuff like that. So definitely intensifying. We'll see how intense it really does get, but that's the situation for right now with strategic movement around the United States this week. Not a whole lot of kinetic events to report other than the usual unrest with regards to ICE and uh counter counter immigration issues. Really the biggest story this week, which is probably what will result in this slide uh changing quite a bit, is this slide, which is the potential shut off of SNAP benefits due to the government shutdown. So, what is going on? Well, as many have uh probably not really noticed so much this week, the US government has actually been in a state of shutdown for about a month now. The US government was due to sign a continuing resolution to continue the federal budget as of October 1st. That did not happen, so the government shut down. And now that we're approaching month two, SNAP benefits are on the table to be shut down for this coming month. Federal workers have already not been paid for the month of October. But now that we're talking this SNAP shutdown, this is potentially significant enough for me to alter my schedule to get ready for it. I mentioned this last week and the internet has been ablaze with tracking this sort of situation and I will freely admit that this might be just a waste of time. So, if this video comes out and the US government has a continuing resolution, Congress is able to pass something, they're able to get people to cross the aisle and sign something to keep SNAP benefits turned on for the month of November, you can just feel free to, you know, ignore what I say here and ignore the concerns I have. So, what are the biggest concerns? Right up front, the biggest concerns are rioting and looting. This is the biggest concern to immediate safety if you live in an area which is prone to this sort of thing anyway. And I have noticed throughout the past couple of weeks, there are quite a few Tik Tok trends that are gaining a lot of traction and a lot of people are just expressing the sentiment that they support this kind of behavior. Most notably, things like robbing people of their groceries as they exit a store. There are a lot of shoplifting clinics that are being held on social media teaching people how to more effectively shoplift and steal and loot and rob and all this kind of horrible stuff. I have seen a few different people mentioning uh stealing their co-workers food from, you know, the workplace or stealing basically anything that they can because they don't get uh their their benefits. There's also a growing movement to dine and dash at more like sitdown restaurants throughout the country. So, for many people around the United States, the secret ingredient to EBT being shut off is crime. So, just be advised of that. Things may get out of hand. Now, for those of you who don't know how the EBT system works, SNAP benefits are not all distributed on the same day. They're distributed by uh on a states basis by either case number or the first letter of somebody's last name. So, if SNAP gets turned off this evening uh tonight into tomorrow, right? If a continuing resolution is not reached, the number of people who will be affected tomorrow, November 1st, will not be that many. So the longer that this goes on, if it is to go on, the longer this goes on, the more people will be affected. And in theory, by the end of November, if it does go that long, Lord help us if it does, but if it does go on that long, in theory, 100% of the country who gets uh SNAP benefits will be affected, which as of right now is a little over 40 million people. So not a small number at all. I'm also keeping an eye on organized protest concerns because we we know how a lot of protests seem to be quite well funded these days. They all show up wearing the same t-shirt and the same pre-made signs and they all kind of hand them out and then they all take them back up. So, I have not seen much of that uh right now. There seems to be a lot of people just kind of hinging on a lastminute deal being made tonight. So, that may be true. Maybe by the time you're watching this again a deal has been reached. I don't know. But hindsight's 2020, right? Right now it's it's 9 in the morning on a Friday. So, we're still in a state of just assuming that this is going to be going into effect as of uh this afternoon. Now, like I mentioned in the beginning, a lot of this more kinetic stuff might not actually come to fruition. It might just be more just general discontent and more like shoplifting kind of things and not straight up, you know, George Floyd levels of rioting because of one factor. It's pretty chilly out there. Over the next couple of days, the low temperatures around the country are going to be pretty low. So, it's going to be uh a little chilly out there for rioting, but that's kind of hard to gauge because we're talking 40 million people here, right? We're talking a lot of people are going to be affected and they're going to have thousands of dollars of their income immediately taken away. And that tends to make people upset regardless of the weather. So, even considering that, it's very possible that it doesn't really matter too much if if this gets pretty severe. So, something to keep in mind. Now, one of the things that comes up when we're preparing for something like this is why do we even need to prepare, right? And that that leads into some very uncomfortable topics, right? So the social debate of the SNAP program and EBT in general and the culture and all the stuff we see on social media, but we just kind of side eye each other about, right? That kind of thing. All of this stuff comes up, right? I'm not really interested in getting into this whole debate here because it just leads nowhere. But I will say that the reason you're seeing so much vitriol about about this sort of thing is that there's a lot of people around the United States that view the emergency welfare system, which is what SNAP is supposed to be, right? Supplemental nutrition, right? There are a lot of people who, surprise surprise, have been misusing our welfare system in the United States for a very long time. So much so that it it's not even just that they believe they're entitled to it. So it's not an entitlement issue. It's beyond that. I have seen a lot of people directly state that they are not just entitled to things like EBT. They are it is a survival thing for them. So again, I'm trying not to weigh into it too much because it just gets into vitriolic debate that doesn't really help anybody. But I will say that now that we're kind of at the end hour here, if this does go ahead, things could get pretty nasty to the point to where I don't think people understand how nasty they can get. So something to keep in mind. Another thing to consider are the more prolonged concerns. You got to remember my perspective, which is more often than not things like national security, espionage, stuff like that. You may look at the people on social media just behaving rather abhorrently concerning what they have the right to, right? But one thing that you have to remember is that there are a lot of active duty soldiers, active duty service members getting these benefits, right? People who have security clearances. If you're a soldier, right? If you're one of the 22,000 active duty troops right now that are getting SNAP benefits and that gets turned off and suddenly you are on active duty but you can't, you know, provide for your family, that's going to increase the potential for espionage. You might be tempted to go on a War Thunder forum and sell some documents, right? As we have discovered over the past few years of, you know, uh, service members leaking secrets to foreign nations, it doesn't take a whole lot sometimes. And out of that 22,000 uh who are uh financially in a tough spot, that makes a great motivator for espionage. So my guess is is that China, Russia, Israel, all these other nations that that spy on us, they are probably going to dial up their targeting of soldiers up to 11. So if you are in the military out there and you are in charge of people, right? You're an officer, you're an NCO, keep this in mind. Your dudes are vulnerable right now and they're probably going to be vulnerable to foreign uh influence. they're probably going to be targeted a lot more heavily. Even if they're not on SNAP benefits, these foreign governments know that the espionage risk is pretty high, so they they go fishing to see what they can get. Out of that 22,000, do you think they could probably get half a dozen? I'd be willing to bet yeah, probably. And that's not even including the 213,000 reservist because guess what? Reservist may not have daily access to information they can sell, state secrets they can sell, but they've got what's in their brain parts, right? And these dudes still have clearances. So, just something to keep in mind, right? this is a a pretty big risk when it comes to uh espionage and the targeting of uh soldiers and uh service members in general. So something to keep in mind. Same thing with federal workers, right? Federal workers have already been kind of strung along for a while now. They didn't get paid in October, so they've been having to work for free for a while. Some have been paid here and there depending on the job, but for the most part, it's really been no federal workers been getting paid. So they're already, you know, behind on their bills for a month. month and now you're talking about shutting off SNAP uh the SNAP program. It's like a double whammy, right? So, something to keep in mind. I know a lot of people have a lot of strong feelings about welfare in America. I I get it. I have very strong feelings about it, too. But these days, I'm also concerned about things like espionage, and I haven't seen anybody talk about that potential uh lately. So, something to keep in mind. Another thing to remember for those of you who engage in charity and you're involved with a church who does charity, uh you know, most churches do, you're probably going to get swamped over the next few days. So, that is something to be aware of. I know that a lot of churches, a lot of charities that are like genuinely good and wholesome charities, they tend to be some of the more low-level uh charities, they're not super big. They're not maybe nationwide. They may be like locally like a local food bank or even smaller like a local local food bank, like not your state's food bank, but like sometimes churches will have food banks for just a church or people who who have needs. these services are going to get overwhelmed because when you cut off welfare from one portion of society, all of the other uh forms of charity throughout society have to take up the slack and they're just not prepared, right? They're not prepared for that. That's my concerns with the SNAP program being shut off and why I thought it was worth dedicating a little bit of time to talking about. But again, this could all be a farce. I 100% know that this is a political thing. So, it's definitely a political pawn to get people angry. I get that. But we've also never been this close before to it actually happening. So in the 40 50 years that the federal uh SNAP program has been in existence, it's never been shut off once. And I think the potential for this to get pretty bad is pretty high. So I wanted to talk about it. Even if this turns out to be a farce. If you want to know my opinion, I personally think they're going to come to an agreement at the end hour and we have just wasted all this time being concerned about this. But just in case they don't, just in case both parties, both sides of the aisle want to let this shutdown continue just just to send a message to pressure the other side. These people live in Washington. They don't have to deal with the impacts of this on a day-to-day basis. They don't have to deal with the impacts of their own actions on a day-to-day basis. So, I think they're being a little bit more cavalier about this sort of thing. So, it may just slip by and actually bite us this time. But either way, worth considering, worth thinking about, worth preparing for. I know we're kind of here at the last minute, but I I did want to mention that just as a point of note. Switching gears quite significantly, I did want to uh mention this brief public service announcement with regards to Halloween. So, today is Halloween. People are going to go out trick-or-treating tonight. And I know that every year this comes up. I wanted to mention it once again just as a reminder. Be careful who you let your kids get candy from. Every year this happens and every year no one is arrested for it. But the transgender movement all over social media has threatened to once again spike children's candy with drugs to turn them transgender. Most of the time these threats are empty, but we have to consider this to be a very clear and present danger. So I did want to mention that for every anyone out there. A lot of the time these very very severely mentally ill people are trying to get attention. So they do little cute little what they call jokes on social media. But we all know how jokes in in this community work. Some one minute it's a joke, the next minute it's an attack plan. So yeah, just wanted to mention that because this happens every year. They they tend to recycle the same photos from the past year. I know that everybody wants to have just a nice, you know, peaceful evening out, but these are the kind of things you got to be a little bit concerned with these days. So something to keep in mind. Now, wrapping up things with the United States, briefly touching on the UK. Things are not going super well. There have been multiple stabbings this week and this week has been uh host to many different court cases coming to light. So once again as a reminder for those of you who don't really know the kind of British culture with regards to court cases, most of the justice system takes the position that we they should not release the names or the identities or even the crimes of suspects who are arrested for very brutal crimes, right? So like you know murders, stabbings, rapes, this kind of thing. They don't even make the police blotter a lot of the time until they go to court or they until they are convicted. And that's what's happened this week. So this week there have been roughly a dozen or so cases that occurred actually several years ago, but they're now just coming to light. The British people are now just becoming aware of them today or yesterday or this week in general. Even though the crimes themselves occurred a long time ago, these people are being either convicted or the court records are being unsealed this week. So I wish it wasn't. So, I wish we could talk about these crimes when they happen, but most of the time we just can't unless they're captured on video. And even when a private citizen does take a video of an attack in progress, right, the the police try to censor that as well. So, this is the statement from the Metropolitan Police uh urging people to not share the video of the Oxbridge attack. So, that's the official British uh kind of response to this sort of thing. I think that the British people are kind of used to this by now, but the Americans um might be a little bit more uh shocked to learn that police are actually urging people and ordering people to not share footage of an attack because it may potentially lead to a series of misinformation. Not that the video is incorrect. Note that the police in their statement here, they're not saying that the video is incorrect. They're not saying that the attack did not happen. They just don't want people sharing the video because somebody might say something untrue about it in the future. The British people are quite upset. Things are moving quite at a rapid pace. There's a growing sentiment uh that I have picked up on and I've I've been told by several people that there seems to be a lot of um attempt to get people as angry as possible. I'm on the fence about that sort of thing. We have the same idea happen in the United States here too, right? This whole idea of well, they're trying to make you angry. They're trying to get you to do something versus the idea of, well, no, people are actually genuinely angry about something. So, I don't know. There's obviously a propaganda effort to pretty much everything nowadays. Everything's a scop, right? I don't know. There's a lot of give and take there. I think the British people are quite upset. Uh, but I think that the British government is also trying to get get them to do something stupid uh sometimes. But then again, it's hard to say. So, as the United Kingdom continues to work through their own issues, we're going to have to work through our own issues this week uh if if the uh SNAP program gets shut off. And we'll uh we'll see how it works out. Hopefully everything will work out both for the United Kingdom and here at home uh this coming week, but just in case it doesn't, we can do the best we can to prepare and just keep our head on a swivel this week. So, same as usual, right? No, no real big change for for any of us. So, that's pretty much all I have for today. Here are the intercepted ghost net reports for this week. Great week for the Ghost Net. Really good for uh seeing a lot of people exchanging information, sharing the news in an off-grid manner that is surprisingly hard to censor, right? It's pretty handy when people will say how many stations that they hear or how many stations that they communicate with. That's that's kind of handy. For instance, this one guy here said that he heard 76 people. 76 stations heard in the past hour. That's a lot of people uh for a ham radio net. That's that costs a lot of money to to get invested in to to have the equipment to transmit and uh requires a government license. That's a lot of people uh for for any one given time on the radio. I think it's doing very well. I can't hear everybody from my own position. So, sorry if I'm I'm missing some critical information here, but this is a pretty good thousand mile bubble around myself. So, I think that's a pretty good uh pretty good catch for this week. So, thank you guys all for participating in the Ghost Net. This is really good. We'll keep it going. And don't forget, next week we should have a time change, right? Daylight savings time here in the US comes to an end for those states that participate in it. So, just be advised of that. Next week, I always forget every time anyways. I just leave my radio running uh for a good period of time before and after the normal net anyway, just in case uh somebody forgets about the time change. But that's all I have for today. Thank you guys all for watching. Thank you guys all for sticking in. And uh again, hopefully doing today's brief a day early is all for nothing. But even if it isn't, I plan to update the maps, my ArcGIS maps, uh the SIPCOT maps, all that kind of stuff over the weekend, just uh just in case, even if nothing happens, I can still use that time uh for good use to update all of those products. So, thank you guys all for watching. Thank you guys for all of your support. Once again, I could not do this without you guys. It is your support that allows me to do this kind of thing and dedicate so much time to tracking random things around the world. So, I thank you all for that. So hopefully next week will be pretty peaceful and even if it isn't, it'll be all right. We'll get through it.