Dec 20 Intel Update: More Substation Attacks

hello again everyone and welcome back to the underground this is the Intel update for the 20th of December 2022 and as always it is being recorded on the day prior so let's get right to it uh first up I wanted to address some of the updates that we've had following the Moore County North Carolina critical infrastructure attack uh the attack on the electrical substations down there so so as many of you know this incident uh has had many different challenging aspects to it for one there has been the actual attack itself the circumstances surrounding the attack the details of what exactly was attack and how attacks were carried out and then the other side of things are the responses to it so there are two major groups of concerns there so let's first talk about the actual electrical substation attack itself uh really not much more is known uh it has been kind of an information black hole since our last briefing on this incident the only really thing that we have to update are the responses to the situation right so speaking of the actual attack itself we really don't know much more there haven't been any arrests there have been several warrants issued at least according to the local s attack itself we really don't know much more there haven't been any arrests there have been several warrants issued at least according to the local sheriff down there but those warrants are sealed so we don't know what they pertained to so there have been multiple uh Financial incentives being offered uh totaling as last I checked up to 75 000 which in that part of North Carolina to be you know kind of indelicate is is a pretty pretty big sum so uh the fact that no one has come forward yet even with this uh pretty substantial reward being offered for any information pertaining to the attacks that kind of tells me that there's the authorities are kind of struggling on this one to kind of figure out what happened just my gut feeling is that since this is such a remote part of the country I mean Southern Pines itself is not really that remote I mean it's a city right uh but you know where these attacks occurred it's it's rural North Carolina and there's really not a whole lot of State you know either state or federal government surveillance down in that area I am absolutely certain that you know as with every electrical substation in the world or at least in the United States there's ance down in that area I am absolutely certain that you know as with every electrical substation in the world or at least in the United States there's probably surveillance footage of who conducted these attacks however it's probably so inconclusive that no one can really get any information from it cell phone data is almost certainly being surveilled down there as well and I can guarantee you that everyone in Moore County probably has had their cell phone data pulled by the FBI at this point again that's just a hunch but I mean hey look at the kind of surveillance that we're living under nationally you know every day the fact that there still hasn't been an arrest and there still hasn't been anything it's kind of like um the whole situation with a missing person right if someone goes missing and there isn't and they're not recovered within you know 48 Hours the chances of them being recovered are pretty substantially low the same kind of thing applies to attacks like this is that as time goes on if we don't get an immediate arrest uh you're probably going to be very hard-pressed to find someone now even though I'm sure a lot of people don't really want to hear this I must talk abo you're probably going to be very hard-pressed to find someone now even though I'm sure a lot of people don't really want to hear this I must talk about the potential for who could have done this attack and really it could have been anyone uh however I do want to address the main concern that I've seen kind of floating around out there and it's just kind of the the elephant in the room at this point when we see infrastructure attacks and that elephant is people thinking that this could have been the government doing this as a way of either sending a message or trying to knock off critical infrastructure in areas where they know there is going to be significant resistance to their actions these General sentiments are are real right there this is not something that we're just you know seeing you know being made up this is a real sentiment tensions are very high and these sentiments these feelings these atmospherics right the situation on the ground gets made a lot worse by the County's reaction to this electrical substation attack so let me just cut right to the chase with that and explain what I mean so here's what we had we had a critical infrastructure attack two electrical substa t me just cut right to the chase with that and explain what I mean so here's what we had we had a critical infrastructure attack two electrical substations were attacked specifically with the intent to cause damage and bring the power offline for whatever reason we don't know the full end goal I suppose but we do know that somebody somewhere wanted the power out in Moore County North Carolina and they knew exactly how to do it following this incident which is bad enough as is the local government went and did a lot of weird stuff and what they did was the the first thing they did as soon as the power goes out curfew there we go right the the attack occurred uh on around seven ish seven to eight ish I think on the third of December by that by the next morning the fourth of December curfew was in effect and it stayed in effect for several days while the crisis was you know kind of working its way through the problem with this is that that's not all that's not all of what they did the local government the local County officials shut down tattoo parlors because literally the county officials stated the reason why they didn't want tattoo parlors open is because it's a good idea it's not tattoo parlors because literally the county officials stated the reason why they didn't want tattoo parlors open is because it's a good idea it's not a good idea to give people tattoos in the dark like what in the Sam Hill is going on down there the other thing that was also concerning is the local Health Department uh also shut down every single restaurant or establishment that lost power during the crisis they shut down those restaurants and they only let them reopen if they could prove beyond all doubt to the health inspector that they their food was safe that they didn't uh you know like lose Refrigeration or something like that and uh the food spoil while you know sitting in a hot refrigerator so a lot of weird stuff happened this is not typical like power goes out all the flipping time all around this country all around the world and there is very rarely like I can't remember any situation where a health inspector literally says you cannot serve customers until we come in and reinspect and make sure that your food did not spoil during the power outage like that's just utterly ridiculous uh to me so we had a lot of weird stuff happen down there it's almost like as soon as the during the power outage like that's just utterly ridiculous uh to me so we had a lot of weird stuff happen down there it's almost like as soon as the power went out every single authority figure even at the smallest most unimportant level uh immediately became tyrannical and they wanted to wield their power as much as they possibly could like when was the last time anybody body who regulates tattoo parlors was any had any kind of relevance in the world whatsoever I mean I hate to phrase it like that but that's the truth so yeah a lot of weird stuff happened a lot of what we might consider to be tyrannical stuff uh instantly occurred as far as the local government uh you know was concerned at the lowest possible levels and like I mentioned these thought processes get Amplified because what is the first thing that happened right there have been power outages all over this country and and uh electrical substations attacked all over this country right we had an IED a vehicle-borne IED detonate in downtown Nashville a couple of years ago no information since then but no curfew was announced when there was an actual no kidding IED attack in the United States of America and really nothin no information since then but no curfew was announced when there was an actual no kidding IED attack in the United States of America and really nothing happened because of that they cleaned up the debris and everyone went about their day like it never happened right here in North Carolina the power goes out in five minutes later the sheriff's declaring a curfew everyone stay in their homes right that's a huge deal right you have to look get things like that and you know I'm I'm really sorry for the people who can't see the writing on the wall for what this means because sure you want to catch the bad guys you want to catch the guys that did this but at the same time you've also got to think why am I getting why am I getting punished for this when there's why the why the extreme overreach here we've got so many law enforcement like all of these electrical sites had the entire County's law enforcement at them right also infuriating to see are is the local response to it I mean there were so many people um that that thought oh the curfew is perfectly fine the sheriff's doing a wonderful job this is great yeah nobody needs to make tattoos in the dark despite the fact that most tattoo a is perfectly fine the sheriff's doing a wonderful job this is great yeah nobody needs to make tattoos in the dark despite the fact that most tattoo artists actually use headlamps routinely during their job but despite that fact there were a lot of people that thought that the local authorities were doing a good job and that these tyrannical measures were not tyrannical at all they're just you know trying to keep our community safe only other hand you've got a lot of people down there that are smart enough to see the riding on the wall and say hmm yeah curfews not a good thing the damage has already been done you've already got you know your entire police force uh stationed outside of every other electrical substation in the county you know why the curfew here what's the big deal so there are a lot of people I just want for for people who aren't aware of this because this brief goes out to you know a lot of people people who aren't in the area might not understand that people in the area people in Moore County a substantial number of them cannot see the writing on the wall as to why this was a bad thing right they look at the power going out and they think that's the biggest issue them cannot see the writing on the wall as to why this was a bad thing right they look at the power going out and they think that's the biggest issue that's not the biggest issue the biggest issue is your local authorities trying to tyrannize you during a crisis so now you're not just fighting the crisis but you're up against you know authorities who you know have guns and that's not a huge it's not a good uh thing so a lot of people don't realize that they're really up against three major groups of adversaries when it comes to things like this now you know it used to be man when I was growing up when the power went out you know the local authorities were were you know helpful they they do what they can they may not be the best well-equipped but nowadays man what is what has been the response the response is the authorities you know pointing guns at the citizens who didn't do anything wrong you know that's kind of the the attitude that that comes out of this that a lot of people especially in you know places where these kinds of things happen don't realize they don't realize the adversarial nature of the relationship and because they don't understand the adversarial nature of the r s happen don't realize they don't realize the adversarial nature of the relationship and because they don't understand the adversarial nature of the relationship they're going to get you know kind of you know bad things happen to them and they're they're going to realize it far far too late so the next time this thing happens right because let's face it as we get further into this brief you're going to realize that electrical infrastructure attacks are on the rise like you would not believe now every time there's a substation attack throughout the country you have to be prepared no matter where you're at in the country you have to be prepared for your local police officers to keep you in your home that's the precedent that's been set you have to be prepared for a curfew at any given time and so few of us remembered that over the past couple of years of curfews if you know what I mean but also your next door neighbors could quite literally be your adversary because you dared to oppose the creation of a curfew so I think I've talked this one to death we'll move on now to uh the actual Regional updates uh but I really just wanted to make sure that we kind of ironed things out and talk s one to death we'll move on now to uh the actual Regional updates uh but I really just wanted to make sure that we kind of ironed things out and talked to this one out a little bit more with regards to what this attack means this is a very severe incident that requires a significant amount of reading between the lines to understand the impacts of so let's move on to the Northeast region so far I haven't found anything for the Northeast there have been a lot of things that have occurred right I don't want to again I want to remind everyone that just because it's not on the slide doesn't mean that it hasn't happened it's just I haven't gotten to it yet and I haven't run it to ground with a bunch of different sources right these things take time so uh I haven't really focused on the northeast just yet so we'll go ahead and move on to the Southeast region so moving to the Southeast region we can kind of see why I think this is worth talking about a little bit more because even in North Carolina the latest attack back on the third slash 4th of December in Southern Pines that attack was not the only one uh there have been several others uh there was one uh back on the 11th of November i th of December in Southern Pines that attack was not the only one uh there have been several others uh there was one uh back on the 11th of November in Maysville North Carolina this one really didn't get any news because it didn't really affect any customers the power was able to be rerouted successfully and even though the substation was offline for gosh a considerable amount of time I think a couple of days at least while the repairs are being conducted the customers didn't really feel the impact of it so again this is rural North Carolina and there's just not a whole lot of information in some some of these places right I think the interesting thing so far is that North Carolina is a very uh heavily militarily Centric State and I find it very interesting that two electrical grid attacks have occurred immediately outside or in the general vicinity of we have the Duke Energy attack in Southern Pines North Carolina taking place just outside of Fort Bragg or really rather Camp McCall the special side of uh things and we also have this attack in Maysville which is is sort of in the general vicinity of Camp Lejeune and also Cherry Points not too far away technically I guess so there's attack in Maysville which is is sort of in the general vicinity of Camp Lejeune and also Cherry Points not too far away technically I guess so there's also a few Coast Guard bases down there but I'm not sure if you'd Factor those into the to the thing but I do think it's very interesting that these attacks are occurring outside of or in close proximity to military bases I don't know that's just kind of my gut observation here I don't know if there's any kind of you know link there investigatively you'd think that investigators have to be thinking about that but I guess we'll see as time goes on moving down to Florida a very interesting series of attacks occurred in the sort of Tampa Bay area and I say area because six at least six as of now electrical substations have been taken offline or affected in some way by vandals and or people seeking to attack the facility now again I have to be super vague about this because not a lot of the details are public and we just don't know the details of what these attacks looked like we do know that Duke Energy has disclosed that there were multiple quote unquote intrusions to their facilities throughout the area now it being Tampa Bay you know at Duke Energy has disclosed that there were multiple quote unquote intrusions to their facilities throughout the area now it being Tampa Bay you know the Tampa area being Florida we have to kind of remind ourselves that a lot of electrical sites are tampered with broken into um affected in some way by copper theft right with the economic situation in the country being super you know not great at the moment we had we were realizing that things like catalytic converter theft copper theft purchase metal theft is at an all-time high you know it's not helped by the markets I guess either way but we have to think about that um I think that's a possibility so I wanted to mention it right up front but I also think that it's probably not very likely you don't have six different electrical substations attacked or vandalized you know within a very short time frame I don't really know what to think about this it's just one of those things I wanted to bring up in the context of our you know National infrastructure electrical infrastructure being under attack like in unprecedented numbers so I I thought that since it occurred after the North Carolina attacks uh and those North Carolina attacks under attack like in unprecedented numbers so I I thought that since it occurred after the North Carolina attacks uh and those North Carolina attacks were so high profile I thought maybe it was copycats and that that could also be a theory as well but really we don't know hardly any details about these attacks in Florida so I guess we're just gonna have to wait and see moving to the East Central midwestern region uh kind of an interesting one this is uh this got kind of viral news because it was yet another food production facility that caught fire slash exploded uh this was at the Star of the West Milling Company in Kinto Ohio just outside of Cleveland uh this one is a little complicated uh to to kind of talk about because I'm not entirely sure if the facility actually is functional because when you when you try to Deep dive on these things you can read the headline you know Star of the West Milling Company catches fire right but when you actually start looking into this facility you start finding news articles from you know months and years ago stating how operations have ceased at this facility so I don't know if this facility was actually active at the time we do know that it w nd years ago stating how operations have ceased at this facility so I don't know if this facility was actually active at the time we do know that it was vacant and there were no workers at the time of the fire sound familiar to literally all the other briefs that we've you know talked about these facilities are always vacant at the time of the fire interestingly enough but also it was labeled as a historic site because it's a very old historic building you know in Kent Ohio so I'm not entirely certain if this facility actually produces food I saw several news agencies claiming that you know several hundred thousand pounds of flour you know this is what this produced but I I don't know if that's what it currently produces whether or not the building was actually occupied and producing food at the time of the incident is really important and it matters a lot because if the building was you know vacant and it had it wasn't producing any food and there was just kind of an abandoned building well if you know a building that catches fire that's abandoned we can just kind of chalk that up to a normal arson kind of event however if it was a functioning facility we really start after thinki at's abandoned we can just kind of chalk that up to a normal arson kind of event however if it was a functioning facility we really start after thinking in terms of all right this might be a more deliberate attack on critical infrastructure so again we'll keep an eye on this I'm sure someone out there who goes by the facility and knows maybe it's both maybe it is a historical site and maybe it did do some kind of limited production of flour or or grain processing of some kind uh but yeah I just wanted to kind of talk about this one because even the local media doesn't seem to know what this facility was actually doing at the time of the fire other than you know being vacant with no workers at it so kind of interesting and we'll again have to wait and see what the details are on this one moving over to the West Central midwestern region two incidents of no um two of which are quite interesting so let's start with Kansas back on the 7th of December uh TC energy which is a company that maintains uh the flow of of product through the Keystone Pipeline the original Keystone Pipeline I detected a leak of roughly 14 000 barrels which spilled interestingly enough into a local Creek in extr tone Pipeline the original Keystone Pipeline I detected a leak of roughly 14 000 barrels which spilled interestingly enough into a local Creek in extremely remote Washington County Kansas the pipeline was offline for a significant amount of time about a week or so as far as I can tell while repairs were being made but right now really no one has disclosed the company hasn't disclosed nor have government agencies disclosed what the cause of this leak was was this a deliberate attack or was this some kind of you know maintenance error again when we're looking at critical infrastructure attacks I know I've said it multiple times but let me reiterate that it doesn't necessarily have to be nefarious a lot of times these critical infrastructure incidents are purely maintenance right and we'll get to that here uh when we're when we talk about Iowa in just a second but we don't necessarily have to look at things from a from a purely nefarious Viewpoint right these could be legitimate incidents that are really just maintenance issues now that doesn't mean that they're that they're all you know hunky-dory and everything's fine no we have seen over the past couple of years a sharp increase in doesn't mean that they're that they're all you know hunky-dory and everything's fine no we have seen over the past couple of years a sharp increase in maintenance issues because of supply chain issues causing parts to wear out more quickly and they're not being replaced things are being used past their life cycle and we've got a whole just a mess of a you know chain of causation of really bad incidents right so the potential for really bad stuff to happen is very very high right now and it's not just because we're all thinking that there are you know deliberate attacks on our critical infrastructure which there most certainly are but a lot of these are are just purely mistakes now I wanted to say that uh with regards to this one because when we swing over to Iowa we can talk about the C60 Factory slash recycling facility uh incident now this was a very high profile sort of I guess we should call it an incident rather than an accident uh which was a large explosion at that facility now this facility is a recycling facility they primarily focus on recycling shingles back into oil or petroleum products of some kind now this incident I'm sure will make every Osho uh official just absol ly focus on recycling shingles back into oil or petroleum products of some kind now this incident I'm sure will make every Osho uh official just absolutely cringe because it's almost like they went down the list of everything you should not do at a facility and they did all of those things for instance at this facility at the time of the fire slash explosion the sprinklers were not functional at all throughout you know the whole facility also the facility had a long history of fires in fact there had been several Fires at this facility involving diesel fuel uh the day in the days prior to this uh explosion and local and the actual employees of the facility were putting out these diesel fires with uh hand fire extinguishers so you know that tells you something right there also employees had not actually been paid there were few employees who noted that they had not been paid for oh they had a backlog of about a month's worth of pay they were missing from this facility again another huge red flag uh and there were other complaints too stuff like employees complaining that the facility management refused to provide them with literally the absolute Baseline of Osha mandated stuff like tuff like employees complaining that the facility management refused to provide them with literally the absolute Baseline of Osha mandated stuff like hard hats and reflective vests so you start to get kind of a bigger picture here um of a more negligence kind of incident right as if things were not bad enough the facility is now a Hazmat Zone because the chemicals that they use or something at this facility is now leaking into both a local River sort of tributary thing and also into the ground so that's not good for the local environment so the reason that I wanted to bring this one up is because again we have to keep in mind that right now is really really risky for a lot of Industry right if we're not trying to take out Bad actors or monitor deliberate attacks on our infrastructure we're doing it to ourselves right so just gross negligence is a huge problem right now and we have to keep in mind just like what I said uh you know a couple of briefs ago I think we really really really have to be vigilant so if you are a factory worker or if you work at an industrial site please please please be careful because here's the bottom line we all know how vulnerable our system is right now or if you work at an industrial site please please please be careful because here's the bottom line we all know how vulnerable our system is right now our entire Global infrastructure is just cripplingly dependent on everything going right at all times it is so so easy to completely disrupt and destroy a lot of our critical infrastructure and no one has really paid attention to any of this stuff until stuff starts happening unfortunately so we have to make be vigilant and understand that government agencies don't even really care until after the fact right and a lot of times they don't even really care even if an incident does occur so it's really down to you the average everyday worker to make sure or at least be aware if something's going on now I I understand a lot of people work in places where you know OSHA violations are a huge thing and there's really not anything they can do about it because you know do your job or you're fired kind of thing I get that but you don't want to be that guy who works at a facility and it gets you know impacted in some way under mysterious circumstances and you knew you could have done something right you knew that the thing that got attacked was now impacted in some way under mysterious circumstances and you knew you could have done something right you knew that the thing that got attacked was the thing that you knew was vulnerable the whole time you don't want to have that happen and uh I think that these two incidents here both the pipeline incident and the the recycling facility incident really highlight and drive home these really really important issues that there's really no one here coming to save us right we know this but we also need to start thinking about that in terms of Industry as well so let's move on to the Southwest now this is a rather empty slide because I am still trying to figure out how to talk about this issue and this is the Border crisis down on the southern border between the United States and Mexico mostly the border between between Texas and Mexico because Texas is really one of the the only States down there that's actually burying kind of the brunt of uh the the immigration crisis down there I'm not really sure like I mentioned how to start talking about this because I could do a whole two-hour brief on just this issue alone but for those of you who are not aware of what's going on down at the ng about this because I could do a whole two-hour brief on just this issue alone but for those of you who are not aware of what's going on down at the border the situation is pretty bad I understand that immigration is more of a political issue than it is an everyday daily life issue for most of America like I get it so I really think what's needed for Americans to understand what this issue is is a a rephrasing and a more eloquent description of what's going on down there at the border and why it matters for someone living in a state not even close to the border right people who hear immigration they they don't they think of it in terms of a national gross you know large political issue right something that gets talked about during political debates and not really something that affects them on a day-to-day basis and I really really want to stress that the immigration issue is not just a political issue this is a huge huge problem and it is affecting the daily lives of millions of people right we're not just talking about from a welfare standpoint or a taxes standpoint or a job standpoint the crime that is coming along with this and other socioeconomic factors are a very very big are standpoint or a taxes standpoint or a job standpoint the crime that is coming along with this and other socioeconomic factors are a very very big problem and I'm not doing a super great job at expressing why it's a it's a big problem so rest assured I'm going to get a little bit more deliberate when I talk about this later on so again I just really wanted to draw attention to the southern border and remind everyone that I am not ignoring this deliberately I just don't know how to summarize and break down this very very large issue uh I can say generally that we have seen a huge influx of people and you you know you see these numbers on TV right you see the numbers either on social media or on some you know website or something and you just you just can't put into your mind how many people that actually is uh you you think you just see a number and you can't understand that you know ten thousand people coming across a border in a day that's a that's so much more than you could possibly imagine right these are a lot of people and they're going to go somewhere uh one of the facilities that they're going is actually the Fort Bliss Don Yana facility uh I think that's just over the B ey're going to go somewhere uh one of the facilities that they're going is actually the Fort Bliss Don Yana facility uh I think that's just over the Border in New Mexico actually uh but it's still I think technically Fort Bliss I'm sure somebody knows out there when I went through Fort Bliss a couple of years ago the doniana facility was still just kind of like a vacant facility nobody was really at it um but since the Afghan crisis occurred they actually stood that facility up and that's where all of the Afghan refugees or most of the Afghan refugees have been since that incident uh before they you know quietly were shelf to other parts of the country right so I know people forget about you know hey the Afghanistan crisis was a huge thing but there's a reason that we covered that incident with such you know such detail it's not just because of you know my own personal connection to Afghanistan but because these facilities were stood up and now shocker look these facilities are now being used to house illegal immigrants coming across the border so the village as it's colloquially called is now being used to house immigrants that have come over in these recent waves of new and new p the border so the village as it's colloquially called is now being used to house immigrants that have come over in these recent waves of new and new people coming over so uh as far as how they're going to stay there or how this is going to work nobody really knows again we try to think of this a lot of people at least try to think of this in terms of a large political issue but since it's a political issue there are differing opinions on what should be done with you know these tens of thousands of people coming across the border uh if not you know millions of people over the past few years and because of that nobody is really getting down to the nitty gritty details of how the everyday management of this crisis is happening for instance we've kind of briefly mentioned this a while back when we were covering you know the actual the the Inception of operation Lone Star uh but the the operation uh including I think six different units or six different commands uh command structures to Halt the uh immigrant waves coming across the border from from Texas's side of things uh that's really been a mission that is highly highly controversial a lot of people particularly troops on the ground from from Texas's side of things uh that's really been a mission that is highly highly controversial a lot of people particularly troops on the ground have expressed that this is a garbage mission that they're being mistreated very strongly by the state they're either when this mission was first stood up they weren't getting paid they're being taken away from their families and activated you know for a mission that is you know what they feel is kind of pointless with regards to how they're employed in the mission so there's a lot of discontent there conditions for troops are have gotten better uh but they're still I mean it's it's the southern border it's really hard to describe there's nothing there a lot of these places are just not super great places to be I mean you know no offense to anybody living in El Paso but you know I've been to El Paso several times and it's not exactly a fantastic fantastic place so so yeah you've got it's just a whole nothing about this is good right you've got you know your liberal National leadership that is kind of turning a blind eye to this and pushing the buck off to everybody else but you also have your conservative State leadership perfectly f hat is kind of turning a blind eye to this and pushing the buck off to everybody else but you also have your conservative State leadership perfectly fine with mistreating troops for political gain which at least it's not my words these words from the guys down there and a lot of these a lot of these cases so you see how this is a no-win situation for anyone and a lot of people are down there trying to make the best of this situation and try to do some good but unfortunately it doesn't really look like there's a whole lot of good to be had with this whole mission so so again I know I'm kind of rambly today but I really wanted to to talk about the southwest region particularly the Border crisis and I want to talk about it in much more detail as we go along this is kind of like the heads-up notice of hey even if you're not affected by the border crisis you you really you really are uh so even if you don't live near the areas where the Border crisis is occurring uh trust me it's it's rapidly becoming your problem problem as a lot of these people are filtering to other parts of the country so start getting spun up on this area start reading and start understanding what's going on why is people are filtering to other parts of the country so start getting spun up on this area start reading and start understanding what's going on why is this such an issue and why do why is it worth talking about so much and you'll start understanding the socioeconomic factors and the the cultural factors that make this a very significant problem that affects the country as a whole right so again we'll talk about this more in depth and I'll be a little bit more eloquent next time but for now I just wanted to remind everyone hey border crisis is getting worse and um you might want to start paying attention to it and finally moving out west we can wrap things up for the United States again with more electrical grid attacks so many of you know that I personally lived in the Pacific Northwest for a few years there uh some some years ago so I tend to you know this is my own personal bias I'm trying to kind of overcome but it's really hard to to describe the Pacific Northwest to someone who has not lived there it is real it might as well be a different country um you know I was born and raised on the East Coast to you know down in the southeastern United States and I moved out there and ta different country um you know I was born and raised on the East Coast to you know down in the southeastern United States and I moved out there and talk about culture shock I got less of a culture shock going to the Middle East than I did going to the Pacific Northwest um so I say all of that to say look electrical grid attacks in these areas are pretty standard uh particularly in Portland OR Seattle every single day there is somebody doing something to some critical infrastructure in those cities either it's deliberate or or an accident or something these cities might as well be Gotham City at this point because these places are just absolutely horrible places uh so when you know I hear of an electrical substation attack in Portland OR Seattle I basically ignore it I don't even include it in the briefs you know I probably should but it's like okay what else is new this is a very common thing so why am I talking about it now well because there are uncommon electrical grid attacks being undertaken in the Pacific Northwest so there have been six different attacks over the past two to three weeks in Oregon on the Oregon side of the border and I think there were a couple in Washington been six different attacks over the past two to three weeks in Oregon on the Oregon side of the border and I think there were a couple in Washington as well I need to double check that but these attacks have not been inside the city limits of Portland or Seattle or or even Olympia or Vancouver or anything uh these attacks have been at really seriously remote places like in the middle of nowhere like drive four hours and you get to these sites and interestingly enough these attacks bear a striking resemblance to the attacks that occurred in both Florida and in North Carolina recently in which case there were there was limited breaching occurring uh you know Gates were forced to open or like chain link fences were cut or or something to that effect again we don't really know exactly how the attacks occurred because the authority is not going to release that data but the attack style was very very similar to what we've already seen somebody breaching a perimeter you know a fence around a substation and conducting Small Arms attacks on specific equipment now this is a pretty pretty big deal because a lot of these places again like I mentioned are remote and that may not sound like muc pecific equipment now this is a pretty pretty big deal because a lot of these places again like I mentioned are remote and that may not sound like much but that's really the whole kind of thing if I'm not mistaken one of these attacks actually occurred at the Bonneville Dam complex I don't know if it was uh the substation that serves the dam or whatnot but uh the Bonneville complex is a huge huge hydroelectric uh Dam facility that provides a lot of electricity to the state of Oregon and really the West Coast in general so anytime anybody comes close to one of these big facilities we gotta stop and look at this right and there have been six of these different attacks throughout the region really really close together so these I don't I mean again with with things being the way they are these could be copycats these could be deliberate attacks I literally don't know and no one else knows either we can only assess right and like I've mentioned a few times before you know it sounds kind of callous to say and you know you know kind of nonsensical to mention but the the honest truth here is that a lot of people are not really going to Care uh who conducts the attacks whether it's antifa ensical to mention but the the honest truth here is that a lot of people are not really going to Care uh who conducts the attacks whether it's antifa or the FBI or the CIA or some you know bubble with a rifle or something nobody really cares at the end of the day they just flick the light switch on the wall no power now they're gonna you know be affected in some way because of that right of course we here try to be at least a little bit more analytical than that uh when it comes to these kinds of attacks which is why you know we're talking about it but the sad truth is is that we really just are not going to get the information all we're going to have is some news report from some local news media station that barely gets National coverage saying oh this electrical substation was offline for a couple of days due to an unknown incident or or my personal favorite weather concerns because weather is like the number one thing that takes out electricity across the country and uh just my just my hunch is that a lot of the a lot of the weather that we're seeing isn't really weather but again that's just me theorizing uh with no evidence whatsoever to back it up but you have to start think er that we're seeing isn't really weather but again that's just me theorizing uh with no evidence whatsoever to back it up but you have to start thinking about these things uh in terms of being a little bit more deliberate especially if you start thinking about well you know who do electrical outages you know impact they impact the general population because everyone that has Authority in this country is going to have a generator from your local Police Department to the hospitals to you know the White House they're all going to have generators so you're not really harming anybody by taking power offline but yourself so you really have to wonder who's behind these attacks um even though each individual attack is its own case study so so now that I'm completely all over the place today let's go ahead and close things up with the United States and move to Europe and really today I want to talk mostly about Western Europe so uh sorry Eastern Europe we're going to talk about you another time because Eastern Europe is getting kind of spicy right now uh down uh down in the Balkans um but I need to get a little bit more data on that before I start talking about that potential conflict so l right now uh down uh down in the Balkans um but I need to get a little bit more data on that before I start talking about that potential conflict so let's start with the United Kingdom our friends across the pond there you guys have had quite a bit of problems with uh two main concerns which again are not new we've been talking about these for weeks and months and years now uh but the two biggest concerns have been food and energy prices mostly uh the price of these two things are becoming a huge problem for citizens though The credibility of most statistics on the planet is very questionable right now uh many British mainstream media sources have cited recent studies claiming that one-third of single parents are skipping meals uh regularly perhaps most disturbingly there is limited unconfirmed reporting out of Wales that people are being reduced to consuming pet food in Cardiff again we all know how the media loves a sensational story so there's no telling how true these reports are but many citizens throughout Europe are posting about their own food insecurities on social media so that does lend some credibility to these reports you know I hate to drop kind of a bomb like that an ut their own food insecurities on social media so that does lend some credibility to these reports you know I hate to drop kind of a bomb like that and then just kind of walk away and say well maybe not maybe maybe it doesn't matter but that's how it is you know with mainstream media these days you see something really shocking and then you kind of have to balance it out with a lot of reason and unfortunately with regards to the food energy crisis throughout Europe we're not going to find a whole lot of Reason these days to balance out the bad news unfortunately so so food and energy have been a huge problem for residents of Great Britain and a lot of Western Europe as well jumping to Mainland Europe there in the Netherlands the world economic Forum continues to wreak havoc on the Dutch food supply with Farmers being forced to only use a fraction of the fertilizer that they need in order for the wef controlled government to meet their climate goals look I'm just going to be honest with you today the the Straight Dope is that throughout Europe there is a concerted effort to reduce the global food supply and the Dutch government is among the top offenders in the humanitarian crisis t t Europe there is a concerted effort to reduce the global food supply and the Dutch government is among the top offenders in the humanitarian crisis that is currently underway the Dutch government has cut livestock production by 30 percent across the board and has shut more than 3 000 Farms down and confiscated the land because those Farms are quote Peak polluters right look we we all know what's going on and we all know what we need to do get really good at farming and living without electricity while at the same time your government is hunting you I I can't really mince words on that one because it's the truth at this point we have been given the advantage of Prior notice and it doesn't take a genius to predict how severe these things will likely become and I understand that European viewers like watching an American cover European news it much it must be a bloodbath to be honest but at the end of the day I think that maybe an outsider's perspective is probably a little bit more helpful than you might think because we're dealing with a lot of the same issues here and let's be honest a lot of the problems in Europe are being created by or heavily influenced by or encouraged by you h a lot of the same issues here and let's be honest a lot of the problems in Europe are being created by or heavily influenced by or encouraged by you know very powerful Americans so so when I say that the culture in Europe is much different than the culture in America like trust me I understand that that's the understatement of the century and I also understand that the culture of literally every single European nation is extremely different from every other European nation I understand that I know but when I say really strong things like you know what I just said about the Dutch government it's it's not meant to be you know unnecessarily Americanized you know dramatic right these are some serious issues here and we've got to stop mincing words at some point so when we're talking about these issues in Europe people understand that they're serious and we see the same thing happening here in the United States so I just wanted to put that out there for uh the average person out there who might be thinking you know well this is just an American's opinion on things well yeah it is but I also think that you know hey it's pretty clear as to what's going on the good news with all of this merican's opinion on things well yeah it is but I also think that you know hey it's pretty clear as to what's going on the good news with all of this is that we've got a lot of time to get creative with Solutions especially throughout Europe where electricity has become temporary and food has become a luxury the same kind of seriousness for lack of a better term applies to the energy sector as well while most nations are grappling with both shortages of and high costs of food the other main issue for Europeans uh is energy both the extreme High Cost of energy and the lack of availability in many areas this is already a huge problem for a good chunk of Europe right can handles for instance are sold out throughout most of Germany Finland has told citizens to not plug in their electric cars on cold mornings and uh Britain's National Grid operator has indicated that blackouts will be a major possibility and once again average citizens are left holding the bag with all of this uh German political leadership has fortunately scrapped the plans to shut down Germany's last three nuclear power plants and several coal-powered plants have been brought online out of mothballs to meet Germany's ns to shut down Germany's last three nuclear power plants and several coal-powered plants have been brought online out of mothballs to meet Germany's power needs will this be enough to prevent blackouts I highly doubt it I mean I'm no energy expert but it doesn't take a genius to see that Germany's actions much like the actions of most other European nations are far too little far too late however we shall see what the creativity of the citizenry will bring about now is the time for Europeans to start taking interest in their own Survival and reduce the Stranglehold their governments have over them even if their governments do not desire that outcome seeing as how Germany has been an example of companies involuntarily turning down thermostats for climate reasons now would be a pretty good time for everyone to perhaps remove their smart thermostats electric wheel companies not letting you charge your electric car well maybe now it's time to rethink that purchase or at least take measures to fully own your technology and be able to charge your vehicle off of solar panels or other means that governments cannot control these things may seem simple in retrospect but right now this is wh ge your vehicle off of solar panels or other means that governments cannot control these things may seem simple in retrospect but right now this is what average citizens are being faced with around the world including here in the United States so we shall continue the tradition by ending on that foreboating note and we'll have to talk about some more stuff next time I know that there there has been so much news and so many incidents that have occurred over the past well since the last briefing that there's just way too many for me to talk about and I've just kind of got to take a step back and and reassess what's going on here so for those of you who think oh there's nothing going on now trust me there's there's stuff going on uh it's just it's just overwhelming uh to cover all of this stuff so try trying to kind of pick the stuff that I've already kind of thought about quite a bit and um and we'll go from there as a side note uh I'm really trying to avoid these briefings becoming a sort of I told you so because we've been talking about a lot of this stuff for a very very long time and it's from I know it's it's it's probably annoying for you but it's definitely annoying for me whe ut a lot of this stuff for a very very long time and it's from I know it's it's it's probably annoying for you but it's definitely annoying for me when I basically talk about the same thing over and over and over again because the same exact things are happening over and over and over again you know there's there's nothing I can do about that but I'm trying to find ways of making these briefings a lot more efficient and a lot more useful rather than you know me just reading you the news but as you all know these briefings have been kind of a Meandering experience over the past few years so I guess we'll keep Meandering a little bit further thank you again to everyone out there for watching us and supporting us over the years and more than that thank you for supporting yourselves as we all know you know chances are if you ended up watching this video then you know you know how things are going we don't really need to to preach or tell you what's going on in the world you can plainly see it for yourself and I really do appreciate the amount of innovation the amount of dedication uh and the amount of hard work that we have seen people you know undertaking uh in these tough times and y ount of innovation the amount of dedication uh and the amount of hard work that we have seen people you know undertaking uh in these tough times and you know to prepare for the Times uh that are about to get tougher you know right now we're just at the beginning of this Global goat Rodeo so here's your motivation to keep getting better keep getting fitter and keep learning and take all of the hardship that you've experienced so far and put it to good use turn your disadvantages into advantages even if for right now we have to fight in the shade