When a launch has been confirmed, the Commander of NORAD calls a Full Attack Conference which includes COMNORAD, COMSTRATCOM (Commander US Strategic Command), the Presiden, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Here the military leadership presents a number of options from which the President and SECDEF can choose. In case of a massive inbound strike, there is only one option: the Alert Response Plan … strike back with everything you’ve got.
After both the President and SECDEF have identified themselves over a secured telephone line using an Authenticator Card (called the Biscuit, a plastified card the size of a credit card), they can order the military to execute the relevant option presented.
However …
Continuity of Government plans also calls for the evacuation of the political and military leadership when an inbound nuclear strike is detected.
Evacuating and discussing options is not very likely in the case of a massive inbound strike (it is different in the case of a limited strike). If Washington DC is targetted, evacuation would take precedence over an order to strike back.
The reason is very simple: if a massive inbound strike is detected, the only option presented is the Emergency Alert Plan. In such a scenario, COMSTRATCOM has the authority to order a retaliatory strike allowing the political leadership to get the hell out of dodge before the missiles strike.
Predelagated Release Authority as it is technically called has been around since the Eisenhower Adminsitration. It came into effect in 1954 and is still the best safeguard against a decapitation strike.
It is a myth that only a President can order the use of nuclear weapons, it was just something we told journalists to stop them from asking awkward questions (such as who really had the authority).
South Korean President Moon Jae-in suggested this week that the country might ban the consumption of dog meat, sparking a debate about the controversial tradition, USA Today reported.
Moon, a dog-lover and pet owner himself, questioned whether the practice should continue but did not specify whether an outright ban was in the works.
In Korean culture, dog meat is believed to have restorative properties and increase virility and is consumed on special holidays. Despite a law that bans the “cruel” slaughter of dogs and cats, there is no ban on consumption at restaurants and establishments.
Still, a poll last year by the Human Society found that 84 percent of South Koreans won’t eat dog meat and 60 percent would support a legal ban. Even so, politicians have been hesitant to take action, fearing a backlash from traditionalists.
Animal rights groups welcomed Moon’s comments. Meanwhile, other politicians have announced in recent weeks that they will ban the consumption of dog meat in an effort to boost their popularity ahead of next year’s presidential elections, Sky News noted.
The consumption of canine meat has sullied South Korea’s image, particularly at international events such as the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Restaurants in the Pyeongchang area continued selling dog meat, despite a government request – and subsidy offers – to stop the practice, according to National Geographic.
During the early months of Covid-19 vaccinations, several major demographic groups lagged in receiving shots, including Black Americans, Latino Americans and Republican voters.
More recently, the racial gaps — while still existing — have narrowed. The partisan gap, however, continues to be enormous. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 86 percent of Democratic voters had received at least one shot, compared with 60 percent of Republican voters.
The political divide over vaccinations is so large that almost every reliably blue state now has a higher vaccination rate than almost every reliably red state:
Data as of Sept. 23. Chart excludes Washington D.C.The New York Times
Because the vaccines are so effective at preventing serious illness, Covid deaths are also showing a partisan pattern. Covid is still a national crisis, but the worst forms of it are increasingly concentrated in red America.
Data as of Sept. 23. Chart shows the 14-day average and excludes Washington D.C.The New York Times
As is often the case, state-by-state numbers can understate the true pattern, because every state has both liberal and conservative areas. When you look at the county level, the gap can look even starker.
Below is a set of charts, created by my colleague Ashley Wu, that offers a close-up of one typical red state, Wyoming, and one typical blue state, Maryland:
Data as of Sept. 23.The New York Times
Data as of Sept. 23. Charts show the 14-day average.The New York Times
When Covid was bluer
It’s worth remembering that Covid followed a different pattern for more than a year after its arrival in the U.S. Despite widespread differences in mask wearing — and scientific research suggesting that masks reduce the virus’s spread — the pandemic was if anything worse in blue regions. Masks evidently were not powerful enough to overcome other regional differences, like the amount of international travel that flows through major metro areas, which tend to be politically liberal.
Vaccination has changed the situation. The vaccines are powerful enough to overwhelm other differences between blue and red areas.
Some left-leaning communities — like many suburbs of New York, San Francisco and Washington, as well as much of New England — have such high vaccination rates that even the unvaccinated are partly protected by the low number of cases. Conservative communities, on the other hand, have been walloped by the highly contagious Delta variant. (You can find data for hundreds of counties here.)
Since Delta began circulating widely in the U.S., Covid has exacted a horrific death toll on red America: In counties where Donald Trump received at least 70 percent of the vote, the virus has killed about 47 out of every 100,000 people since the end of June, according to Charles Gaba, a health care analyst. In counties where Trump won less than 32 percent of the vote, the number is about 10 out of 100,000.
And the gap will probably keep growing:
Chart shows the 14-day average. Excludes parts of Alaska, New York and Washington D.C. because of data availability.The New York Times
Why is this happening?
Some of the vaccination gap stems from the libertarian instincts of many Republicans. “They understand freedom as being left alone to make their own choices, and they resent being told what to do,” William Galston has written in The Wall Street Journal.
But philosophy is only a partial explanation. In much of the rest of the world, vaccine attitudes do not break down along right-left lines, and some conservative leaders have responded effectively to Covid. So have a few Republican governors in the U.S. “It didn’t have to be this way,” German Lopez of Vox has written.
What distinguishes the U.S. is a conservative party — the Republican Party — that has grown hostile to science and empirical evidence in recent decades. A conservative media complex, including Fox News, Sinclair Broadcast Group and various online outlets, echoes and amplifies this hostility. Trump took the conspiratorial thinking to a new level, but he did not create it.
“With very little resistance from party leaders,” my colleague Lisa Lerer wrote this summer, many Republicans “have elevated falsehoods and doubts about vaccinations from the fringes of American life to the center of our political conversation.”
‘Owning the left’
With the death count rising, at least a few Republicans appear to be worried about what their party and its allies have sown.
In an article this month for Breitbart, the right-wing website formerly run by Steve Bannon, John Nolte argued that the partisan gap in vaccination rates was part of a liberal plot. Liberals like Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Anthony Fauci and Howard Stern have tried so hard to persuade people to get vaccinated, because they know that Republican voters will do the opposite of whatever they say, Nolte wrote.
His argument is certainly bizarre, given that Democratic politicians have been imploring all Americans to get vaccinated and many Republican politicians have not. But Nolte did offer a glimpse at a creeping political fear among some Republicans. “Right now, a countless number of Trump supporters believe they are owning the left by refusing to take a lifesaving vaccine,” Nolte wrote. “In a country where elections are decided on razor-thin margins, does it not benefit one side if their opponents simply drop dead?”
Those of us
who live in the Bay area are familiar with a restaurant chain named Delfina.
They operate two pricey restaurants in San Francisco and Palo Alto. They have
what I would describe as "a working man's and working woman's
restaurant" in Burlingame. They make great pizza at a bargain-basement
price.
This restaurant has been a favorite
hangout of Elena and me for years. We decided to go to lunch there as we were
in the area. When we got to California Avenue in Burlingame, we saw a scene
that looked like an economic boom. Every shop and every restaurant was packed
with happy people eating, drinking, and spending money.
We walked up to Delfina. It was closed.
There was a notice on the door that they were only open for dinner. We went
next door to a Mexican restaurant that I love called Sixto's. We had some good
margaritas and a great meal.
It was a mystery about what happened with
Delfina. For many years they had been open during the day. Had they gone broke?
With this boom going on, that was doubtful. After a lot of thought, I decided
that their problem was that they could not find enough workers. I have heard
stories of several restaurants that closed during the pandemic and cannot
reopen. They cannot afford to give the incentives and pay the wages that
workers are getting now.
Here is another example. Federal Express
just announced its quarterly earnings. The stock dropped 8% after earnings did
not reach expectations. They had plenty of new business Their labor costs had
gone up substantially due to the incentives and higher wages they had to offer
to recruit workers.
This high price of labor is not strictly a
US phenomenon. Right now, in the UK, many petrol stations are closed. There are
supplies of petrol. They cannot find truck drivers to drive the delivery trucks
to bring petrol to the petrol station. They have had to relax visa requirements
to recruit truck drivers from all over Europe.
If you came to the Bay area from Argentina,
Brasil, Peru, Canada, Mauritius, or South Africa, and you were a skilled worker
with good English skills, you would find multiple job offers on the table with
high wages, generous signing bonuses, and all legal fees paid for an
immigration lawyer to get your work permit. When you looked for a house to buy
or an apartment to rent, you would be in shock. I suspect that the higher-level
professional jobs come with housing assistance.
You may not
have heard of her, but Meng Wenzhou aged 49 is Chinese royalty. She is the
chief financial officer of the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. Her
father, Rhen Zhengfei is the founder of Huawei.
For the last three years, she has been
under house arrest in one of her two luxurious mansions in Vancouver. She had
to wear an ankle bracelet. Guards were posted around her home around the clock.
She had to post a giant bail in excess of $10 million US. It was as if she were
serving a prison sentence under house arrest.
What prompted this confinement? She was
charged in US District Court in Brooklyn with lying to major banks to evade
sanctions against Iran. She was fighting extradition back to the US where she
faced what I estimated to be 7 years in prison.
This confinement caused huge diplomatic
tensions between the US, Canada, and China. Two Canadian citizens, Michael
Spavor and Michael Kovig were arrested after Meng's arrest. Both were charged
with espionage. Mr. Spavor was sentenced to 11 years in a Chinese prison.
I awakened this morning to see the
shocking news that Meng Wenzhou was released from house arrest and allowed to
return to China. Shortly afterward, the two Canadians were released from
custody and allowed to return to Canada.
Meng had attended a US District Court
hearing by video. She admitted to committing the crimes laid out in the
indictment. She did not plead guilty to a felony. She was put on deferred prosecution
until December of 2022. I also assume that she had to pay a large fine of
several million dollars. That detail was not made public.
Meng's legal bills in the US and Canada
easily reached $20 million US. She was forced to serve a jail sentence (under
house arrest) of almost 3 years.
It was a painful and expensive experience
for her as well as the US, Canadian, and Chinese governments. The negotiations
must have been intense and long drawn out. When the deal was done, they finally
needed the approval of US District Court Judge Ann Donnelly. Rarely do US
District Court judges approve such deals.
A man walks by the Employment Development Department’ San Francisco office in 2020. A prison inmate, a nurse and a car dealer employee used the dark web to bilk California’s troubled unemployment system of almost $2 million.
Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle
A prison inmate, a nurse and a car dealer employee used the dark web to bilk California’s troubled unemployment system of almost $2 million, buying a $71,000 Audi Q7 and a new home with their ill-gotten gains.
It sounds like the plot of a hackneyed heist movie.
But it’s just the latest in a string of embarrassing revelations about fraud at the state Employment Development Department, which has lost billions of dollars to scammers during the pandemic. Officials say the EDD lost between $11 billion and $31 billion to perpetrators who include organized criminals from overseas, gangs of prison inmates and even some on Death Row who took advantage of a deluge of claims and lax standards for verifying information. EDD has received 22.7 million claims and paid out $164.8 billion since January 2020.
Prison inmate Ratha Yin, 34; his wife, Amanda Yin, 31, a nurse; and Steven Mavromatis, 26, of San Leandro, were charged this month with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. If convicted, each could face up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The case unraveled in October 2020 when a prison guard at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County searched Ratha Yin’s cell and found contraband electronics, including two cell phones, one in Yin’s pocket and the other inside a book, and two SD cards concealed in a deodorant bottle, that contained “a trove of information about communications” between the three over filing fraudulent EDD claims. The complaint said that Yin’s cellmate, who was not named, may have been a co-conspirator or have participated in separate EDD frauds. Yin’s nephew, also not named, may be been another co-conspirator, the complaint said, noting his suspicious text exchanges with a contact stored as “Neff.”
The perpetrators went on the dark web, a hidden part of the Internet often used by criminals, to steal personal information about hundreds of people, then created email accounts for them, and filed unemployment claims in their names, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. EDD issues benefits via Bank of America debit cards, which the trio had mailed to a post office box controlled by Mavromatis, the complaint said. The documents said the two men filed 91 fraudulent claims, reaping at least $1.9 million, while Ratha Yin and other unnamed co-conspirators filed other claims worth at least another $132,000.
But the stolen amounts may have been much higher. The complaint notes that Bank of America records for 285 claims associated with the trio show ATM cash withdrawals amounting to $5.569 million.
A text exchange between Ratha Yin and an unknown co-conspirator discusses the fraud.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
Amanda Yin’s role was to launder the illegally obtained funds, the complaint said. It said she bought household items with cavities to hide valuables, such as a flower pot with a false bottom, a picture frame with space inside and books with false backs. She exchanged texts with her husband about a cryptocurrency wallet, a way to store funds and prevent them from being seized remotely, such as by law enforcmeent.
Some of the money allegedly went into accounts in Amanda Yin’s name and some into a joint account with her husband, the complaint said. In addition, it said, she used a “straw purchaser” to buy a $71,000 Audi sport utility vehicle for all cash. In May 2021, allegedly used the proceeds for a $160,000 down payment on a $391,000 home in Indio (Riverside County).
“We appreciate the strong work of law enforcement in investigating this criminal activity from last year and bringing the perpetrators to justice,” EDD said in a statement.
The agency said it implemented new fraud filters last year that have prevented at least $60 billion in potential fraud.
However, earlier in the pandemic EDD allegedly left the door wide open to fraudsters. Unlike other states, California did not cross-check jobless claims against a list of incarcerated people. EDD even paid $21,000 in benefits to a con artist using the name and Social Security number of Calif. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Ratha Yin's phone had photos from video calls showing large amounts of cash.
Criminal complaint, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
In July EDD hired former federal prosector McGregor Scott as special counsel to probe the widespread fraud during the pandemic. Scott works with a task force at the state Office of Emergency Services.
The nationwide pandemic shutdown resulted in millions of layoffs. As part of a massive aid package, Congress created the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which for the first time made jobless benefits available to self-employed people, gig workers and freelancers. But that also made it easier for fraudsters to file fake claims. At the same time, EDD, which was overwhelmed and struggling to pay legitimate claims, relaxed its systems for verifying applications.
The result was “what appears to be the most significant fraud on taxpayer funds in California history,” according to a letter that a task force of district attorneys sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom last year.
