Tag Archives: EMP

08/30/15

Admiral James Lyons on Iran Nuke Deal [Video]

Accuracy in Media

Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi member Admiral James “Ace” Lyons (Ret.) appeared on The Daily Ledger show on the One America News Network earlier this week to discuss the Iran nuclear deal and its potential disastrous consequences for the United States.

“This [Iran] deal goes back to when President Obama was candidate Obama, about the time June 4 of 2008, at which time he opened up a secret communication channel to the Ayatollah regime in Tehran,” said Admiral Lyons on The Daily Ledger. Obama’s message to the Ayatollahs was that Iran would get a better deal under his presidency than under then-President George W. Bush, he said.

Lyons argued on The Daily Ledger that this “borders on treason.”

“Let me tell you, this deal is a total sellout,” he said. “But of course for Secretary [John] Kerry… he has no problem with this since this is the second time he has sold out his country.”

The Iranian deal does not prevent a nuclear Iran. What President Obama’s deal has done is “start a nuclear arms race in the most unstable region in the world,” said Lyons.

The deal also opens America up to an electromagnetic pulse attack, a method the Iranian military has considered using to destroy the United States.

Admiral Lyons also condemned Obama for not undermining Iran’s conventional weapons capability as part of the deal. “Even Jimmy Carter recognized that our position in the Persian Gulf was a vital interest to the United States,” he said.

Admiral Lyons was one of the speakers at the powerful Stop Iran Rally in New York’s Times Square last month, which drew a crowd of 12,000 people. He delivered passionate remarks alongside other CCB Members who have voiced their opposition to the deal. You can view their comments here.

You can watch Admiral Lyons’ full segment on The Daily Ledger here:

08/6/15

Ernest Moniz, Iran and the Imprimatur of Science

By: Benjamin Weingarten

Ernest Moniz

Ernest Moniz

Watching the Obama administration trot out Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz on the Sunday shows and in testimony to Congress following the consummation of what I believe will be a nuclear weapon-ensuring deal for not only the world’s leading state sponsor of jihad in Iran, but their Sunni counterparts, it should have been clear to all what a charade it was.

Moniz — an MIT physicist turned Obama administration shill — was there to provide the imprimatur of unimpeachable Science™ to the transparently deceptive deal. And who can fight with science, especially of the kind that is already settled?

In this light, I am reminded of a quote from an expert in financial markets and economic history, Jim Grant, he of the legendary Wall Street newsletter Grant’s Interest Rate Observer.

During an address delivered on June 2, 2015 to the Manhattan Institute in connection with his winning of the Hayek Prize, Grant stated:

In the 1960s, John Cowperthwaite, British governor of Hong Kong, refused to allow the collection of economic statistics lest the bureaucrats misappropriate that information in the service of governmental macroeconomic manipulation (the very word “statistics” derives from “the state”).

Such an act would be heresy today in a world in which the state, governing according to scientific principles, is the church for our progressive elites.

Cowperthwaite knew that politicians would conflate science and public policy to justify their agendas and grow their power.

For it is science that legitimates the Iran deal.

It is science that legitimates the disruption of human activity, and with it trillions of dollars in wealth through global climate regulation.

Indeed, it is science that legitimates any number of government intrusions into our daily lives.

Science ought to be celebrated. But politicians can manipulate it towards destructive ends.

Winston Churchill saw this early on when he expressed fears about the power of mass weaponry. Of course it is not the weapons that are the problem in and of themselves, but the prospect of evil people obtaining them and using them towards genocidal ends that ought to keep us awake at night.

Today America is aiding, abetting and enabling just these types of people.

In fact, as an aside, Ernest Moniz, again our Secretary of Energy, when asked about government findings on another mass weapon, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) during Congressional testimony — the use of which Iran has endorsed and for which we have yet to harden our grid — effectively pleaded ignorance.

Ernest Moniz is a fitting living embodiment of the fusion of science and state.

06/15/15

Obama Administration Incompetence Subjects Millions of Americans to Cyber Hackers

By: Roger Aronoff
Accuracy in Media

Millions of American government employees, former employees, contractors and more have had their most personal and private information breached by hackers, because the government failed to take the necessary steps to protect those records. According to Politico, “Administration officials have said privately that signs point to the first hack having originated in China, and security experts have said it appeared to be part of a Chinese effort to build dossiers on federal employees who might be approached later for espionage purposes.”

It is an outrageous and unacceptable breach of trust. The federal government, through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), interviews everyone who requires any sort of security clearance, and asks the most detailed and personal questions about past associations, indiscretions and behavior, to make sure nothing in their past could subject them to blackmail or subversion. The interviews extend to friends and associates of those being vetted, and those people are also in the databases that have been breached. But now it has come to light that OPM failed to hold up the Obama administration’s end of the bargain by not doing everything they could to protect those records.

According to David Cox, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, in a letter to the OPM director, “We believe that hackers have every affected person’s Social Security number(s), military records and veterans’ status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance and pension information; age, gender, race, union status, and more. Worst, we believe that Social Security numbers were not encrypted, a cybersecurity failure that is absolutely indefensible and outrageous.”

The Obama administration initially downplayed the cyber hack of the OPM, which centrally manages records for current and former federal employees. It did so even though it had missed the hack for at least four months, if not more, until a company, CyTech Services, which was conducting a sales demonstration, found malware in OPM’s system that could have been there for a year or more. The unfolding series of disasters has affected at least four million Americans—and perhaps as many as 14 million—including all current federal employees, retired federal employees, and a million former federal employees.

Reports of a second hack by China has added to the outrage, and compounded the problems. “Hackers linked to China have gained access to the sensitive background information submitted by intelligence and military personnel for security clearances, U.S. officials said Friday, describing a cyberbreach of federal records dramatically worse than first acknowledged,” reported the Associated Press.

“The forms authorities believed may have been stolen en masse, known as Standard Form 86, require applicants to fill out deeply personal information about mental illnesses, drug and alcohol use, past arrests and bankruptcies. They also require the listing of contacts and relatives, potentially exposing any foreign relatives of U.S. intelligence employees to coercion. Both the applicant’s Social Security number and that of his or her cohabitant is required.”

How many millions of Americans serving their country does this place at risk?

Under a Republican president, this newest administration scandal would have been front-page, round-the-clock news, with the most sinister of motives ascribed to them, probably for many days running. But as of Friday morning, The Washington Post had relegated coverage of this story to page A14, and several other news outlets began covering the story by simply reposting an AP article to their own websites. Television news has been dominated by stories of two escaped convicts, a local head of the NAACP who falsely represented herself as African American, and the reset, or re-launch, of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Where are the talking heads, the pundits in the media, calling for President Obama—not agencies, not government bureaucrats, but President Obama—to show more care in protecting American citizens against cyberattacks? Such attacks violate our privacy and leave each of us open to hacking, blackmail, and targeting by China, which has been connected in most reports to the breaches. And it serves as a reminder how likely it is that Hillary Clinton’s private email server that she used during her tenure as Secretary of State was hacked by the Chinese, and possibly the Russians, North Koreans and Iranians. One can only imagine what they have on her.

“What’s more, in initial media stories about the breach, the Department of Homeland Security had touted the government’s EINSTEIN detection program, suggesting it was responsible for uncovering the hack,” reports Wired.com. “Nope, also wrong.”

“The OPM had no IT security staff until 2013, and it showed,” reports Wired.

Ken Dilanian’s AP article, despite its wide distribution, fails to mention the number of warnings that OPM, and the government as a whole, has received about its lack of adequate security. “U.S. Was Warned of System Open to Cyberattacks,” reported The New York Times on June 5, describing OPM’s 2014 security as “a Chinese hacker’s dream.”

The 2014 Inspector General’s report was based on an analysis conducted between April and September of last year. While the administration has said that the attack occurred in December of last year, The Wall Street Journal’s Damian Paletta and Siobhan Hughes wrote of the first reported attack: “Investigators believe the hackers had been in the network for a year or more” when it was discovered in April.

That IG report stated that OPM’s status was “upgraded to a significant deficiency” due to a planned reorganization, and that it had “material weakness in the internal control structure” of its IT program.

“The agency did not possess an inventory of all the computer servers and devices with access to its networks, and did not require anyone gaining access to information from the outside to use the kind of basic authentication techniques that most Americans use for online banking,” reported the Times. “It did not regularly scan for vulnerabilities in the system, and found that 11 of the 47 computer systems that were supposed to be certified as safe for use last year were not ‘operating with a valid authorization.’”

Neither the AP nor the Times noted that this situation reaches as far back as at least fiscal year 2007, with the 2013 IG report indicating that there was a “lack of IT security policies and procedures.” This worsened in fiscal year 2009, with some corrections in 2012, but as of fiscal year 2013 instituted reforms had “only been partially implemented.”

Clearly, this failure has been growing on President Obama’s watch.

The Times noted that “upgrades were underway” when the first reported attack happened, and cited an unnamed former Obama administration official as saying, “The mystery is what took the Chinese so long.”

When asked about the IG reports, White House press secretary Josh Earnest insisted on setting the cited reports aside, because “there is risk associated” with using any computer network. The U.S. government has been raising that risk by not securing its own networks.

One might question whether American citizens are any safer today, and if the Obama administration has made the necessary reforms following these attacks. Earnest, the White House press secretary, used vague language to describe security upgrades after the first cyber intrusion was reported. He cited “ongoing efforts” to “update our defenses and update our ability to detect intrusions” and blamed Congressional inaction.

“And the fact is, we need the United States Congress to come out of the Dark Ages and actually join us here in the 21st century to make sure that we have the kinds of defenses that are necessary to protect a modern computer system,” he said. “And we have not seen that kind of action in Congress.”

While cooperation with the private sector may help upgrade government information technology systems, it is the responsibility of the administration and the media to hold President Obama accountable for this debacle, which has been brewing over the course of his entire term in office. There should be a complete investigation, whether by Congress or an independent counsel, into the failure of the Obama administration to protect the privacy and personal information of millions of Americans. What did they know, when did they know it, and who or what is to blame? What can be done to ensure this doesn’t happen again? People should be held accountable.

“If OPM is behind on cybersecurity, which it is, it has plenty of company,” reported the Post on June 7. Almost all, 23 of 24, major agencies cited these security issues as a “major management challenge for their agency,” it reported. The GAO indicated last year that the number of breaches involving personally identifiable information has more than doubled between 2009 and 2013, according to the Post.

With the mainstream media intent on championing all the benefits of Obamacare amidst an upcoming Supreme Court decision over subsidies, coverage of the security deficits within the health care exchanges has virtually disappeared. “Independent agencies such as the Government Accountability Office and the HHS inspector general have warned of continued security problems,” wrote Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) for The Wall Street Journal last November. “This is concerning for Americans, as HealthCare.gov houses vast amounts of sensitive personal enrollment information—from full, legal names, to Social Security numbers, dates of birth and even income information.” She notes that Healthcare.gov has been “described by experts as a ‘hacker’s dream.’”

Just like OPM. How soon will we hear that the millions on the Obamacare exchanges have also had their personal information compromised by foreign hackers, and will the mainstream media also then blame that future disaster on a bureaucrat, and not Obama?

Our nation also remains vulnerable to an electromagnetic pulse attack, which could involve exploding a nuclear weapon at high altitude in the atmosphere. With Iran seeking nuclear capability, this becomes even more of a threat.

A report by the Department of Homeland Security indicates “that a massive electromagnetic pulse event caused by a solar flare could leave more than 130 million Americans without power for years,” reported WorldNetDaily last December.

“President Obama could sign an executive order mandating [that] DHS add EMP to its emergency planning, but he has not done so, even though he reportedly is aware of the consequences.”

When are the mainstream media going to hold President Obama accountable for the many scandals, and bungling incompetence, plaguing his administration? Our veterans are at risk because of scandals and incompetence at the VA, and our flying public because of scandals and political correctness at the FAA and TSA. Obama’s security policies are jeopardizing the safety and welfare of millions of Americans. If the Chinese government is really behind these attacks, which is still being investigated, do we plan to retaliate in any way? Or is there no price to pay? The mainstream media, once again, appear to be more interested in preserving their access to the halls of power, and in avoiding at all costs attributing any of the blame for this catastrophe to the Obama administration’s ineptitude and incompetence.

05/3/15

The Continuity of Government – The Mystery of Peters Mountain

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: Trapper Pettit

A friend sent me an article from Zero Hedge that I find intriguing and it raises far more questions than answers.

I did not know that there was something called a PreparAthon held by FEMA on April 30th. Did you? Supposedly the nationwide drills are for – get this – the catastrophic consequences of global warming. Right. Sure it is. I suspect that propagandic line is for the rubes, when in fact what the feds fear the most is an EMP attack or a massive cyber attack. DHS was just all abuzz over this drill evidently.

But what caught my attention, was the movement and inclusion of activities around a real underground bunker north of Charlottesville, Virginia on Peters Mountain. This not-so-secret bunker may just be the hidey-hole for feds and our nation’s intelligence operations when the Schumer hits the fan. It is the perfect bunker to protect those elitists and power mongers that matter, while everyday America devolves into barbarity and the die-off begins.

Meanwhile, FEMA and DHS held their PreparAthon aimed at severe weather events due to climate change. Talk about a massive waste of money… unless of course those exercises provide cover for drills for threats of a much more serious and dire nature. Preparations for continuity of government and all that entails once the barbarians breach our gates for real.

Would it surprise anyone that the government was stocking their bunkers and preparing for the worst? With nationwide riots, escalating nuclear threats, imminent global war, ISIS terrorist cells planted in every state, the growing threat of crippling cyber attacks and the all too real EMP catastrophe looming, it’s a virtual certainty that the government is preparing to save their own and ensure that they can continue to rule the roost even if the roost is devastated.

These massive preparations include our intelligence agencies – can’t go on existing without spies, now can we? I first learned of Peters Mountain from author and friend, Trapper Pettit and his fantastic book The Osprey Vendetta. Hugely entertaining, but aside from a great read, Peters Mountain was woven into the storyline in that series of books as well.

For the very first time this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence made public that it would partake in the PreparAthon employing something vaguely named the National Intelligence Emergency Management Activity (NIEMA). The Director of National Intelligence merely describes NIEMA as providing “the framework, platforms, and systems to enable the Director of National Intelligence to lead an integrated and resilient [intelligence community] enterprise capable of sustaining the ‘intelligence cycle’ under any crisis or consequence management event, both at our headquarters and at our alternate operating locations.” Peters Mountain anyone? I highly doubt the DNI is shaking in his spiffy boots over climate change – but there is a whole host of real threats overshadowing the US that make preparation and fortification of utmost importance to spooks.

From Zero Hedge:

But job descriptions, contracting documents, insider resumes, and furtive discussions with Washington sources reveal that this little-known “activity” is a $100-million-a-year disaster playpen. At its 24/7/365 Response Operations Center (at a classified location), watch officers provide what’s referred to as “situational awareness and crisis support” to the nation’s leaders; and when that fails, they evacuate to their classified alternate facility, which sources say is in Albemarle County in central Virginia.

There is really only one candidate—a mysterious facility atop Peters Mountain, roughly 16 miles east of Charlottesville—and it’s undergone a $61 million plus renovation since 2007.

What follows are some intriguing photos of Peters Mountain. This is property owned by AT&T, but it is government land. Oh, so many questions there… Not only has AT&T leaked our private conversations and information to the government, they are fully in bed with them as this would seem to most certainly attest to. On top of the mountain, on a helicopter pad, is the AT&T logo for the world and Google to see.

The plot of land is strangely listed as “vacant residential land” of no value. However, it does belong to AT&T. Land with no value that has had 10’s of millions of dollars of improvements over the last several years. Hmmmm.

Zero Hedge points out that the building permits submitted since 2007 amount to $61,124,583.00 for interior and exterior alterations, including the building of the helicopter pad, a new bunker entrance, “alteration to interior spaces” and installation of two new satellite dishes.

I would say it is safe to assume that this property is something ‘other’ than residential and houses something deep inside. Why else would you need a bunker entrance? There are also a number of other buildings on the property along with a rather large parking lot. Just what is AT&T and the government up to?

Google and Bing each have satellite views of the mountain top, showing the same structures and the progress of construction since 2007. And I find these pictures just fascinating. On the right hand side you can see the parking lot and the bunker entrance. The two large building like structures could be air purification installments and ventilation. Just a guess. The structure must be buried deep within the mountain to protect from bombing etc. Dirt is an excellent protector. Although it doesn’t sport an outwardly military appearance, it reeks of it.

The two large structures on top of the mountain, to the left of the helicopter pad, are assumed to be vent stacks and hardened power and communications antennae. Two satellite dishes added after 9/11 are also now apparent, suggesting autonomous and enduring communications. Starting to get that ‘military’ feel yet?

Consider the Mormon’s Granite Mountain Vault for document storage and how massive that is. You might also want to consider Perpetual Storage Inc.’s vault in Utah as well, which houses computer equipment, digital records, etc. Neither of these are set up as actual living bunkers. The scale inside Peters Mountain must be massive to provide for human living, food storage and growth, waste elimination, supplies of water and electricity, computer processing, medical provisions, defense provisions, etc. for hundreds, if not thousands, of people

There is nothing that refers to NIEMA, the DNI or the intelligence community on record in that county. But of all the places that could hold hardened fortification, Peters Mountain more than fits the bill. Sources, according to Zero Hedge and Gawker, describe the national Warning, Alert and Mobilization System (WAMS) which would alert a select group of civilian executives from across the intelligence community to deploy to the bunker. The alert would come from “The Communicator” Automated Notification System and would take two forms: alerts for everyone and alerts for the “core” participants. Because Washington is notorious for traffic congestion, those so-called core participants, those who have to move away from Washington within minutes of notification, would congregate and board helicopters which would take them to the bunker.

Gawker even sent a driver to go up the road on the mountain. But when he encountered a “Road Closed – No Trespassing – Private Property” sign, he decided he would go no further. I guess he didn’t want to be shot or arrested.

It appears to me that exercises at this bunker occur frequently and that along with Mount Weather, Raven Rock and the Olney bunkers, it’s stocked, primed and ready at a moment’s notice for those who would be fortunate enough to be invited in should the very worst happen.

Yep, I know this is the stuff of conspiracy theories… but ask yourself, with everything that is happening in America, do you honestly believe our government isn’t providing an escape plan for our so-called select leaders? Peters Mountain raises far more questions with me than answers. But the aerial footage is pretty self-explanatory to an extent and even their work permits specified a ‘bunker entrance.’ It doesn’t get much more obvious than that.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has looked around and has noticed the government buying up food and weaponry, as well as supplies, etc. I keep wondering why the hurry? Do they know something we don’t? Why is the Fed fortifying its building in Chicago? And the kicker… NORAD just returned to Cheyenne Mountain. In a refreshing twist, NORAD comes right out and says it is because of the EMP threat.

From NewsMax:

“Why the return?” write Henry F. Cooper and Peter Vincent Pry. “Because the enormous bunker in the hollowed-out mountain, built to survive a Cold War-era nuclear conflict, can also resist an electromagnetic-pulse attack, or EMP.”

While the Pentagon is moving to shield its global air defense command from being knocked out by an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, the Obama administration has failed to act on urgent recommendations to protect the country’s civilian electronic infrastructure from a similar catastrophe, they write.

“An EMP strike, most likely from the detonation of a nuclear weapon in space, would destroy unprotected military and civilian electronics nationwide, blacking out the electric grid and other critical infrastructure for months or years,” Cooper and Pry write.

“The staggering human cost of such a catastrophic attack is not difficult to imagine.”

The likeliest source of such an attack would be North Korea or Iran, according to Cooper, former director of the Strategic Defense Initiative, launched by the late President Ronald Reagan, and Pry, executive director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security and a veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Iran is a nuclear-ready state with ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States now, Cooper, Pry and and two other Reagan administration alumni wrote in an op-ed for Newsmax in February.

In the Journal, Cooper and Pry reiterate that “Iran should be regarded as already having nuclear missiles capable of making an EMP attack against the U.S.,” noting, “Iran and North Korea have successfully orbited satellites on South-Polar trajectories that appear to practice evading U.S. missile defenses, and at optimum altitudes to make a surprise EMP attack.”

So, consider this… if the military fears an EMP from Iran (or Russia or China) and is prepping like hell for it, why is our President striking deals with them? That’s treasonous in my book. These same leaders who make fun of bloggers warning on the power grid and its vulnerabilities and preppers who preach preparedness, are the same leaders who won’t harden the electric grid and take it off the Internet where it is vulnerable, while prepping bunkers where they can run to when it all goes south. Sounds to me as if the elitists are all for the continuity of government and the fall of America… right into the clutches of a global government construct.

04/13/15

Judge Jeanine Pirro, Chris Plante, and Rep. Lamar Smith to Receive Accuracy in Media Awards in D.C.

AIM

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Spencer Irvine
(202) 364-4401 ext. 103
[email protected]

Washington, D.C. – Accuracy in Media will honor Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro, WMAL talk show Chris Plante and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) with this year’s Reed Irvine journalism awards at a cocktail reception on Tuesday, April 21st at the Capitol Hill Club.

Jeanine Pirro will receive the Reed Irvine Award for Investigative Journalism for her Fox News program, “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” during which she regularly pierces the veil on issues that the mainstream media misreport or ignore, such as the vulnerability of our electrical grid to an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack, and the unfolding Benghazi scandal and government cover-up.

AIM will also honor Chris Plante, a Washington, D.C. talk radio host who will receive the Reed Irvine Award for Excellence in Journalism. As host of “The Chris Plante Show” on WMAL, he serves as a one-man media watchdog powerhouse from 9 am to noon, five days a week.

Rep. Lamar Smith, founder and chairman of the Media Fairness Caucus, will receive the Reed Irvine Award for Accountability in Journalism for his tireless efforts to challenge the media’s biased reporting and raise the standards of mainstream press coverage.

WHEN: Tuesday, April 21, 2015
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm
The event will begin promptly at 6:15 pm.

WHERE: Capitol Hill Club
300 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Room: Eisenhower Room (1st Floor)

The Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award was established in 2005 to honor journalists for their courageous and principled reporting in the tradition of AIM founder Reed Irvine. Previous award winners include Andrew Breitbart, Sharyl Attkisson, Michelle Malkin and the late M. Stanton Evans.

For further information, please RSVP using EventBrite or contact Spencer Irvine at [email protected] or 202-364-4401, ext.103.

01/28/15

We asked an expert: ‘What exactly is an EMP, and how much damage could it do?’ His response was terrifying.

By: Benjamin Weingarten
TheBlaze

In light of nuclear negotiations with Iran, the general conflagration in the Middle East, Russia’s march and a whole host of other chaotic situations worldwide, recently we sat down with an expert on national security, foreign policy and in particular nuclear proliferation, John Wohlstetter, to discuss the gravest threats to the American homeland.

Wohlstetter, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute and London Center for Policy Research, two conservative think tanks, recently released an updated edition of his book on this very topic, “Sleepwalking With the Bomb,” and delivered a speech earlier in January titled “Rethinking the Unthinkable Why Failures of Imagination, Projection, and Strategy Court Nuclear Catastrophe” that piqued our interest.

During our interview with Wohlstetter, we had the chance to ask a very basic set of questions about what is potentially the most devastating of all weapons that could be launched at the market homeland: Electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Wohlstetter’s five minute primer, which you can find below, covers (i) What exactly an EMP is, (ii) How much damage it could cause in a worst case scenario and (iii) How an EMP attack might transpire:

What would the doomsday scenario of an EMP attack against an America whose infrastructure is not currently protected look like?

In a worst case scenario the detonation would be over Dorothy’s Kansas, in the center of the country. And at 300 miles altitude, you would have a circle, 360 degrees, with a radius of 1,470 miles…that covers the continental United States lower 48 states.

And in a worst case, you could see within a year 90% of the population die, as you don’t have electric power, nothing works, you can’t even get food to market. It would be catastrophic beyond belief.

And if you do it over the Eastern seaboard, you could center an explosion at a lower altitude, say 20-30 miles up over Pennsylvania. And you would cover about, if you centered it there…375 miles…And what you would do with that is take down the Eastern interconnection which supplies 70% of the country’s electric power.

Given that our infrastructure is not protected against this attack today — an infrastructure that Wohlstetter argues could be hardened for a figure of around $10 billion — are there at least contingency plans in place?

If the Congressional panel that looked at it was correct, in a worst case…you could see 90 percent or 100 percent of the network taken out. And if that happens, you can’t recover. It’s not like out of a disaster like a hurricane where you have edge recovery — communities that bring in supplies, rebuild for you, house people who have been displaced as happened after Katrina for example. You don’t have that edge recovery. In the case of the network, there are some transformers in big systems that take several years when you order them to bring them in and put them online. And…at least on what is know publicly, we do not have an adequate supply [of them]. [Link ours]

During the interview, which you can find below, we also had the chance to discuss several other critical topics including:

  • The biggest threat to American national security today
  • Why the nature of the threat of a nuclear weapon is far more worrying today than during the Cold War
  • The knock-on effects of a nuclear Iran
  • The strength (or lack thereof) of America’s missile defense system
  • How an EMP could be launched above the U.S.
  • Why the concept of mirror imaging is essential to understanding America’s foreign policy failures
  • And much more

Rethinking the Unthinkable Why Failures of Imagination Projection and Strategy Court Nuclear Catastrophe by…

 

Note: The link to the book in this post will give you an option to elect to donate a percentage of the proceeds from the sale to a charity of your choice. Mercury One, the charity founded by TheBlaze’s Glenn Beck, is one of the options. Donations to Mercury One go towards efforts such as disaster relief, support for education, support for Israel and support for veterans and our military. You can read more about Amazon Smile and Mercury One here.