In case you missed it with everything going on here in the United States of America over the last couple of weeks, including focus on the presidential election coming up in November and the potential rematch of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, there is still a conflict going on between Russia and Ukraine.
Now, I know that Ukraine is never too far from our minds because there's constantly a battle in Congress over how much funding or weapons we should send to the Ukrainians to defend themselves from the Russians.
I keep up with all that is going on in that conflict with this excellent series of articles by my colleague Streiff called Putin's War, which he generally posts once a week.
So, as I was perusing the news early this morning before a big day on Capitol Hill, I was hardly shocked to read what was reported right here.
Ukraine struck oil facilities deep inside Russia overnight and into Tuesday, expanding a campaign of drone attacks on refineries and other petroleum infrastructure that aims to disrupt fuel supplies to the front line and damage Moscow’s most important export industry.
No surprise here.
One of the drone attacks hit a large refinery operated by Lukoil, Russia’s second-biggest oil company, in the Nizhny Novgorod region, some 600 miles from the Ukrainian border. The strike caused a fire that spread thick black smoke over the morning sky, according to local authorities and images on social media.
Another drone hit near the town of Kirishi not far from St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, and home to a large refinery. A third attack struck oil-storage tanks in Oryol, a region near the Ukrainian border, authorities said.
The drone attacks demonstrate Ukraine’s ability to strike critical infrastructure deep inside Russian territory, including several similar attacks on oil facilities in recent weeks. Ukrainian attacks have caused damage severe enough to prompt monthslong repairs and required Russia to ban gasoline exports to preserve domestic supply.
If you have been following any of the Russian invasion of Ukraine story, a bombing with drones probably is not the most shocking thing to you. The tools of war have advanced now so that it is almost like playing a video game from your home, except, of course, lives and property are at stake.
So, sad as it is for me to say, that part of the story is not what really got me thinking early this morning. My natural thought moved to wondering: When is something like this going to happen here?
I have written about this idea many times here at RedState and have also spent a number of shows, both on the radio and on my Facebook Live, talking about what would happen to the country if a large sector of the US population did not have access to power at the flick of the switch.
In fact, my last offering on this topic was just back in November of 2023 with this post: Good Morning: Scientists Warn a Sun Flare Could Wipe Out the Internet for Months.
Well, a new report has scientists predicting that the sun is going into a more active period of burping up coronal ejections, and what I described above could very well happen and they cover it right here.
"There have been a lot of (solar) flares," Becker said. "Flares are when the sun brightens, and we see the radiation, and that's kind of the muzzle flash. And then the cannon shot is the coronal mass ejection (CME). So, we can see the flash, but then the coronal mass ejection can go off in some random direction in space, but we can tell when they're actually going to head towards Earth. And that gives us about 18 hours of warning, maybe 24 hours of warning, before those particles actually get to Earth and start messing with Earth's magnetic field."
Large blobs of plasma, or superheated matter, fly through space in a CME. A percentage hit the Earth, which distorts our planet's magnetic field. That third prong on the electric plug, which usually gives excess electrical charges a safe place to go, becomes "like a big electrical circuit."
"And then you get this kind of insidious thing where you could actually get current from ground," Becker said. "So everybody thinks, 'Oh, my computer's grounded, I'm okay,'" but in an event like this, if you drive inductive currents to the surface of the Earth, it can almost work backwards, and you can end up actually frying things that you thought were relatively safe."
The power grid, satellites, underground fiber optic cable with copper sheaths, navigation and GPS systems, radio transmitters and communications equipment are all vulnerable.
The above story is just if the sun does what God created it to do, which is provide light and heat for us and occasionally throw a solar burp our way to screw with our stuff. What happens if you have an old codger as the leader of your country being dishonest about how many people have snuck into your country, and you have no clue what they want?
READ MORE:
The Electrical Grid: A House of Cards Built on Sand
Oh, and then, just for fun and a ton of heartburn, let's add on a story about what the FBI Director testified in front of Congress the other day that my colleague Ward Clark wrote right here: Interesting Times: Troubles and Travails in the World Order.
Furthermore, it's not like we don't have troubles of our own. Here's one item that should have everyone in the U.S. concerned, more than any other, even considering the source:
FBI Director Christopher Wray expressed concern about the "terrorism implications from potential targeting of vulnerabilities at the border," noting rising threats from Americans inspired by Islamist groups and other foreign militants since Hamas' attack on Israel on Oct 7.
"The threat has gone to a whole new level," Wray said.
That much is certain, and the blame for this goes squarely at the feet of the Biden Administration; since 2021, millions of unscreened, unvetted, illegal aliens have been allowed in - or even flown in - and we have no idea what most of them intend to do. My Townhall sister-site colleague, Kurt Schlichter, has some thoughts on the matter, and I'm here to tell you it's horrifying.
So, hopefully, you can see how my line of thinking progressed down this information rabbit hole where I woke this morning to read a story about an attack half a world away, and I could come full circle this quickly to wonder what will happen here and when.
Most rational people can agree that our government officials have let us down on many levels for a number of years. This cannot be pointed at one side or the other to tip the scale, but it is genuinely one of the most bipartisan things that has happened in Washington, D.C., in eons.
Our leaders have failed to lead and have put this country in one of the most dangerous predicaments ever faced on its soil since either the Revolutionary War or the Civil War. Please feel free to take your pick.
I don't have any sanguine suggestions here other than to pray as if your life depends on it—because it does—and prepare as you see fit and according to the Lord's guidance.
When the proverbial SHTF Uncle Sam and his employees are most likely to worry about their backsides and let your bacon fry.
America was built on the concept of rugged individualism, and my generation and yours have been spoiled into mostly forgetting how that was. Unfortunately, I expect we will find out sooner rather than later. I hope I'm wrong on that.
Yet, I know I’m not.
