Cut to the News
Cut through the clutter to today's top news
May 10, 2021
Good morning
Welcome to today's top news.
Leading the News . . .
Regional emergency declaration issued over pipeline shut down after cyberattack . . . The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Sunday issued a regional emergency declaration in 17 states and the District of Columbia in response to the shutdown of one of the largest pipelines in the US, which supplies around 45 percent of fuel consumed by the East Coast. The regional emergency declaration from the U.S. Department of
Transportation lifts restrictions for motor carriers and drivers who are providing assistance to areas that are suffering a shortages of "gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and other refined petroleum products" in the wake of the Colonial pipeline shutdown. The regional emergency declaration affects the following territories: Alabama, Arkansas, District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. The emergency declaration will stay in effect until the emergency is over or until 11:59 p.m. ET, June 8, 2021. The Hill
Cyberattack on US pipeline is linked to criminal gang . . . The cyberextortion attempt that has forced the shutdown of a vital U.S. pipeline was carried out by a criminal gang known as DarkSide that cultivates a Robin Hood image of stealing from corporations and giving a cut to charity, two people close to the investigation said Sunday. The incident is the worst cyberattack to date on critical U.S. infrastructure. DarkSide claims that it does
not attack hospitals and nursing homes, educational or government targets and that it donates a portion of its take to charity. It has been active since August and, typical of the most potent ransomware gangs, is known to avoid targeting organizations in former Soviet bloc nations. Associated
Press
Hmm. 'Known to avoid targeting organizations in former Soviet bloc nations'? Okay
U.S. Pipeline Shutdown Exposes Cyber Threat to Energy Sector . . . US government and industry officials have known for years about the energy infrastructure’s susceptibility to cybercrime. A cybersecurity unit of Homeland Security said in 2016 it had worked to identify and mitigate 186 vulnerabilities throughout the energy sector, the most of any critical-infrastructure industry that year. In 2018, federal officials warned that
hackers working for Russia had infiltrated the control rooms of U.S. electric utilities.
The energy industry is a big target. The U.S. has roughly 2.5 million miles of pipelines. Across that vast network are hundreds of thousands of devices—sensors that take myriad readings, valves that help control flow and pressure within a pipeline and leak detection systems—and all are vulnerable to attack, security experts said. Wall Street Journal
They've known for years? How about decades?!
Russia's first major cyber attack on US networks, as acknowledged in the unclassified realm, dates back to 1996. Previously highly classified USG investigation, code-named Moonlight Maze, uncovered in 1999 that Russia had exfiltrated, in a multi-year cyber espionage operation, sensitive data from the Pentagon, NASA, the Department of Energy, Weapons Laboratories, and universities throughout the United States.
Government apparatchiks, do your job to secure the country!
GOP braces for wild week with momentous vote . . . House Republicans return to Washington this week embroiled in a bitter battle over the direction of the party, the face of its leadership and what role former President Trump should play heading into next year’s elections — and far beyond. This Wednesday, the GOP conference will gather to decide the fate of Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), the third-ranking House Republican, whose
sustained attacks on Trump have made her a pariah in the eyes of many colleagues. “She’s done as a member of leadership. I don’t understand what she’s doing,” said a former House GOP lawmaker. “It’s like political self-immolation. You can’t cancel Trump from the Republican Party; all she’s done is cancel herself.”Cheney is facing a leadership challenge from Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), a staunch Trump loyalist. The Hill
Republican Leaders Push Trump Agenda At Devin Nunes Freedom Festival . . . Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes held his first annual Nunes Freedom Festival in California Saturday where speakers discussed the status of the country and pushed former President Donald Trump’s agenda. Kash Patel, a former staffer in the Trump administration, called the gathering an opportunity of “bringing together the community to ensure Republican values
are heard and not silenced. “America deserves a national security strategy that’s better than ‘what did the last guy do. I’m going to do the opposite,’ which seems to be the Joe Biden approach and that fails in Iran, Russia, China, Middle East,” Kash explained. “Fails in counterterrorism, fails in counterintelligence.” Republican Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs talked to the group about hi-tech censorship. “We are at an existential crossroads in this country, and we have to get it back to
fundamental notion of what our rights are,” Biggs said. “They come from God they don’t come from the government.” Daily Caller
Trump to relaunch MAGA rallies . . . Donald Trump isn’t running for office in 2022, but his Make America Great Again rallies are making a comeback, according to senior adviser Jason Miller. Mr. Trump “has already begun to vet and endorse candidates for 2022, with an eye toward electing not just Republican candidates, but America First Republican candidates” Mr. Miller said. He confirmed the statement Saturday “Brace yourself: Trump’s
MAGA rallies are coming back.” Washington Times
Biden Admin Hiding Damning Report on Student Debt Crisis, Lawmakers Say . . . Republican lawmakers claim that the Biden administration is burying a report that shows how shoddy accounting at the Department of Education could cost taxpayers billions. In a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Representatives Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.) and Greg Murphy (R., N.C.) say Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona is hiding information
from a Trump-era report that found that student loan repayments have continuously fallen short of the Education Department's projections. Taxpayers may end up footing the bill for that discrepancy, which could amount to roughly one third of the federal government's $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio. Washington Free Beacon
Michelle Obama: BLM “takin’ to the streets because they have to” . . . Michelle Obama said Blacks experience fear as they go about their daily lives, but that fear of Black people “is irrational.” Mrs. Obama spoke during an interview with CBS Morning News, to be broadcast today. “. . . And we have to ask our fellow citizens to listen a bit more, and tobelieve us, and to know we don’t wanna be out there marchin’. I mean, all those
Black Lives Matters kids, they’d rather not have to worry about this. They’re takin’ to the streets because they have to. They’re tryin’ to have people understand that that we’re real folks, and the fear that many have of so many of us is irrational. White House Dossier
Pastor Arrested For Holding ‘Illegal’ Religious Service . . . Pastor Artur Pawlowski of the Street Church in Alberta, Canada was arrested on Saturday for holding a church service that allegedly defied public health orders. Pawlowski was arrested along with his brother, Dawid, and both have been charged with organizing an “illegal in-person gathering,” in addition to “requesting, inciting or inviting others” to join them, the Calgary
Police Service said in a statement. Pastor Pawlowski previously went viral when police officers interrupted a Passover celebration at his Alberta church. From a tweet by Ezra Levant: "A heavily-armed SWAT team just took down a Christian pastor heading home from church. Police say he’s charged with “inciting” people to go to church. This is the second pastor jailed this year. We’re crowdfunding his lawyers at http://SaveArtur.com." Daily Caller
Psaki Says She’s Stepping Down Next Year . . . White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced Thursday that she plans on leaving her current role within a year. “I think it’s going to be time for somebody else to have this job in a year from now or about a year from now,” Psaki said in an interview with CNN’s David Axelrod. Psaki said she wants to spend more time with her kids.
“I don’t want to miss time with them,” Psaki, who has a five and three-year-old said. “I don’t want to miss moments. I don’t want to miss things, and I’m very mindful of that as well.” Daily Caller
One down, many more to go. Hope she doesn't go to Fox. Marie Harf is plenty.
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Another 'woke' CIA recruitment ad makes waves . . . Another "woke" CIA recruitment video is making waves in the wake of a viral ad that enraged GOP lawmakers and other prominent figures on social media. The second video, posted to the CIA's YouTube page last month, featured a member of the LGBTQ community who described himself as an "agency librarian."Growing up gay in a small Southern town, I was lucky to have a
wonderful and accepting family," he said in the clip. " I always struggled with the idea that I may not be able to discuss my personal life at work," the man in the "Humans of CIA" ad said. "Imagine my surprise when I was taking my oath at the CIA and I noticed a rainbow on then-Director [John] Brennan’s lanyard." Fox News
Of course, our national security apparatchiks have no time to track foreign threats and secure the country. They are busy creating "woke" videos and chasing conservatives out of the military and USG.
Major China Bill Fails to Deliver on National Security Funding, Puts Military in a Crunch . . . Senate Democrats have billed the Strategic Competition Act as a "comprehensive" check on Chinese aggression, but the legislation fails to deliver on the national security funding necessary to realize its goals, according to former defense officials and Republican critics. The $7.7 billion spending proposal will pay for dozens of studies of
China's tactics to gain influence worldwide. The lion's share of cash in the bill helps promote global press freedom and increases foreign aid. And its defense-related funding places little focus on improving the size and readiness of the U.S. military. Instead, the legislation offers $10 million to build democratic institutions in Hong Kong and millions of dollars dedicated to reforming U.S. engagement at the United Nations to counter China, among many other soft-power initiatives. Washington Free Beacon
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Classified State Dept. Docs Could Connect Coronavirus to Chinese Lab . . . Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to declassify official documents that could show whether the coronavirus originated in a Chinese lab. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.), the top Republican on the committee, submitted a letter with two other GOP committee members to Blinken on
Thursday. The lawmakers seek records about a State Department assessment that the Chinese military worked on "secret projects" at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a lab located near where the first cases of coronavirus emerged in late 2019. Washington Free Beacon
Central Europe’s deadly pandemic blunders . . . The Visegrad Four share something tragic in common: They have among the worst cumulative death rates from COVID-19 in Europe, far above the EU average and above most Western European countries.
While infections and deaths have been falling in recent weeks, for these Central European nations, their third wave has been exceptionally deadly. The legacy of this surge means that the per-capita mortality rate in the Czech Republic and Hungary is almost twice the EU average, taking into account all deaths since the pandemic's start. Slovakia's is about 40 percent higher, and Poland's is almost 20 percent above the EU average. In human cost, these statistics mean that the four
countries have lost about 140,000 lives to the pandemic. PoliticoEU
COVID-19 has put renewed focus on obesity . . . Countries with high obesity rates such as the UK have nearly 90 percent of COVID-19 deaths, compared with countries that have less obesity such as Vietnam. Medically, obese people are more likely to contract COVID-19, suffer greater morbidity, and are more likely to transmit the virus than non-obese people. COVID-19 has also increased national obesity thanks to lockdowns and forced disruptions of
normal life. Pre-COVID in 2019, more than 40 percent of adults were obese in the US CDC data. A 2018 National Center for Health Statistics report found the average weight of American men in 2015–2016 was 197.9 pounds and women 170.6, up from 172.2 pounds and 144.2, respectively, in the years 1976–1980. And COVID-19 has made things worse. Epoch Times
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China now emits more than rest of developed world combined . . . China’s emissions of greenhouse gases have more than tripled over the last three decades and now, for the first time, exceed those of all developed countries combined, according to new research. China contributed 27% of global emissions in 2019, far exceeding the United States, the second-highest emitter at 11%, followed by India (6.6%), and the European Union (6.4%), the Rhodium
Group found. In 2019, China’s emissions reached 14,093 million metric tons of carbon equivalent, a more than tripling of 1990 levels, and a 25% increase over the past decade. Washington Examiner
UK spies warn local authorities over ‘smart city’ tech risks . . . Smart city technology designed to streamline public services could prove an “attractive target” for hostile states seeking to disrupt Britain’s infrastructure or steal sensitive data, UK spies have warned. The intervention by the National Cyber Security Centre, a branch of GCHQ, reflects growing fears in the intelligence community that local authorities may inadvertently
enter risky contracts which could expose them to cyber attack or compromise individuals’ privacy. A deal that was aborted at the last minute involved Bournemouth council in Dorset, which was preparing a contract with the Chinese ecommerce company Alibaba to provide “smart place” services. Financial Times
Inside Sweden’s Effort to Steel Its Citizens Against Threats From Russia . . . In peaceable Sweden, authorities are readying schoolchildren and adults for the kind of crisis that seemed unthinkable a decade ago: a military invasion by Russia. The U.S. and its allies in Europe see an invasion by Moscow as less likely than during the Cold War, when citizens and companies were more accustomed to taking a role in defending their
countries. But Russia, as well as China, has sought to divide and weaken the West using the kind of assaults that remain below the threshold of armed conflict, such as cyberattacks and disinformation. That has alerted governments, in particular in smaller countries close to Russia, to the need to make their economies and societies more resilient. Wall Street Journal
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Higher Prices Leave Consumers Feeling the Pinch . . . Americans accustomed to years of low inflation are beginning to pay sharply higher prices for goods and services as the economy strains to rev back up and the pandemic wanes. Price tags on consumer goods from processed meat to dishwashing products have risen by double-digit percentages from a year ago, according to NielsenIQ. Whirlpool Corp. freezers and dishwashers and Scotts
Miracle-Gro Co. lawn and garden products are also getting costlier, the companies say. Wall Street Journal
US Companies Are Struggling To Hire Workers As Millions Remain Unemployed . . . The Labor Department’s long-awaited Friday employment report showed a rather underwhelming statistic on employment rise which shrank from 770,000 in March to only 266,000 in April, leaving the unemployment rate almost unchanged at 6.1%. Some experts argued that the current unemployment benefits may be too generous. The $1.9 trillion relief package passed by
Congress in March extended unemployment benefit payments of $300 through September. Analysts say this may have exacerbated the general unwillingness of the jobless to join back the labor force, since receiving the benefits, which average at $318 a week, brings in more income than working full time for $15 an hour. Daily Caller
Summer Jobs for Teens Make a Comeback—But Not All Types . . . This year is shaping up as a boom year for summer jobs for young people, but it’s an uneven spread. Industries that traditionally hire teenagers, like hospitality and retail, are rapidly expanding again. Millions of young adults have been vaccinated against Covid-19, making them more comfortable than they were last year with high-contact, in-person jobs. And many teenagers, who
suffered some of the biggest job losses in 2020, really need the money. But for those interested in more white-collar work like paid internships and research gigs, it can still be competitive. Short-term positions are often not critical to running a business, so there are fewer of them available in many fields than there were before the pandemic, says AnnElizabeth Konkel, a Washington, D.C.-based economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab, a research arm of the jobs website Indeed. Wall Street Journal
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The Facebook Oligarchs’ Betrayal of America . . . The Silicon Valley is looking a lot more like the Silicon Swamp—hostile to Americans and friendly to dictatorships. If the Facebook oligarchs can silence someone who served as President of the United States and received nearly 75 million votes, then they can silence anyone. But to understand the depth of the hypocrisy and anti-Americanism of the Facebook elites, take a look
at who they are not removing from the platform: Chinese Communist totalitarian dictatorship and many others. Xinhua News Agency– a state-run propaganda outlet – has 90.2 million followers on Facebook. The People’s Daily and the Global Times, Chinese Communist Party propaganda outlets, have 86.5 million and 62.9 million followers, respectively. The “Movement in Support of Vladimir Putin” page has 3.1 million followers. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, representing a country
where its Congress openly chants “death to America,” has 883,829 Facebook followers. Apparently, President Trump is also more unacceptable to the Facebook oligarchs than the group Nation of Islam, which has 81,179 followers. Nation of Islam is led by Louis Farrakhan, a known anti-Semite and preacher of hate. Gingrich360
Dinesh D’Souza: Emerging Totalitarian Mindset Seen In People Reporting On Neighbors . . . A new phenomenon is spreading in the United States, where people are being encouraged to report on their neighbors on partisan legal issues, and for violating corporate rules. To learn more about this emerging “totalitarian mindset,” we sat down for an interview with writer, author, and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza. Epoch Times
Americans becoming Sovietized? 10 warning signs about the woke left's radical agenda . . . What ultimately ended the nihilist Soviet system? Here are 10 symptoms of Sovietism, according to Victor Davis Hanson. Ask yourself whether we are headed down this same road to perdition. A job in the bureaucracy or a military assignment hinged not so much on merit, expertise or past achievement. What mattered was loud enthusiasm for the
Soviet system. Wokeness is becoming our new Soviet-like state religion.
The Soviets fused their press with the government. Pravda, or "Truth," was the official megaphone of state-sanctioned lies. Journalists simply regurgitated the talking points of their Communist Party partners. In 2017, a Harvard study found that over 90% of the major TV news networks’ coverage of the Trump administration’s first 100 days was negative. The Soviet surveillance state enlisted apparatchiks and lackeys to ferret out ideological dissidents. The Department
of Defense is reviewing its rosters to spot extremist sentiments. The U.S. Postal Service recently admitted it uses tracking programs to monitor the social media postings of Americans. Fox News
Catholic Schools Beat Public Schools in Reading and Math . . . Here is one demonstrable fact about the difference between Catholic and public schools: Students who study at Catholic schools do better in reading and math. Students who attended Catholic elementary schools in 2019 tested better in mathematics and reading than students who attended public schools. The latest issue of the Digest of Education Statistics, published by the U.S.
Department of Education, includes the average reading and math scores that fourth and eighth grade students achieved in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, tests that were administered in 2019. Daily Signal
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Rescue Cat Helped Save Woman's Life After Detecting Breast Cancer . . . An animal lover has hailed her rescue cat a hero after he saved her life by alerting her to undiagnosed breast cancer. Kate King-Scribbins, 35, from St Paul, Minnesota, was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer after finding a lump—thanks to her cat, Oggy, who became “obsessed” with lying on the left side of her chest. “I look back on the changes in his
behavior towards me before my breast cancer diagnosis and I truly believe he was trying to alert me to the dangers growing in my body,” Kate said. “Oggy had always loved to snuggle up in my arms but he began to snuggle more aggressively than usual, which was odd.”
The cat was focusing on Kate’s chest area and more prominently on her left side for months. Although Kate would direct Oggy to some other place, he wouldn’t move and was determined to just lie on the left side of her chest. This subconsciously prompted Kate to check her breasts and after discovering a lump, she was later diagnosed. Epoch Times
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