Open Borders Have Created A Terror Attack Time Bomb In The US In 2025

 by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

If US security was represented as a great dam holding back a historic flood, today it would be a Chinese built Temu dam held together with paper mache and ramen noodles, ready to snap in half and kill a million people downstream. In 2024 there is no security: The public simply operates on blind faith that no one will take advantage of the vast weaknesses built into the system and government officials hide any risks associated with their policies.

But what are the sources of the danger headed our way? Why is 2025 becoming more and more prominent as an inception date for an attack?

Donald Trump’s election win, his impending return to the White House and his promise to close the border and deport millions of illegals could be the cleansing tsunami that America needs, but it could also inversely trigger a host of foreign attacks, domestic attacks as well as false flag events. 

Here are the reasons why the next year is ripe for a large scale event…

Open Borders Have Created Threat Saturation

“Homeland Security” is a misnomer; the current head of DHS, Alejandro Mayorkas, openly admitted to a room full of border patrol agents this year that over 85% of illegal immigrants apprehended at the southern border are released into the country. Mayorkas originally claimed the release rate was 70% in an interview with FOX News, only to raise that number to 85% when agents pressed him during the private meeting.

Reports indicate that at least 400,000 known criminals have crossed the border illegally during Joe Biden’s presidency, and 13,000 of those immigrants were convicted murderers. What we don’t know, however, is how many terror suspects and foreign agents have also entered the US in the past four years.

The DHS releases limited data. Migrants that get a hit on the terror watch list are held and cataloged, of course, but with wide open borders and the Biden White House running interference there’s no way to know how many slipped through.

The political left argues that “no terror attacks have happened on Biden’s watch”, but these are the same people that originally denied the existence of Venezuelan gangs taking over apartment complexes in multiple cities across the country.  The saturation of illegal migrants will inevitably lead to a terror event in America, it’s only a matter of time.  Why?  Because now they are under threat of being removed en masse.

Whatever their original plans, the reality of mass deportation puts these people on a time table and some may act out violently in response.  Many will feel entitled to stay in the US despite their criminal entry. 

It may not happen on Biden’s watch, but his administration will have been the catalyst that made deportations necessary and the resulting attacks possible.

Geopolitical Tensions And Open Borders Don’t Mix

I believe an attack is inevitable in 2025 primarily because of the geopolitical brush fires being ignited across the globe right now. There is also always the looming danger of false flag events designed by covert actors trying to trick the public into placing blame on the wrong culprit.

The war in Ukraine and the expanding wars in the Middle East involving Israel (and the resurgence in Syria) are dependent on US support and possibly future military involvement on the ground. It’s fair to say that without US involvement, all of these wars would end rather quickly. One can debate the ethical necessity of America engaging in proxy conflicts or the need for the US to protect certain allies and assets, but a lot of foreign elements view the US as the root cause of their pain.

They also know the easiest way to attack the US is through the doorway that the current establishment has left wide open on the southern border.

The US has been hit with a mass immigration storm while also embroiled in at least two regional proxy wars that have the potential to expand into world wars. Why wouldn’t Russia, China, or multiple nations in the Middle East use that weakness to their advantage?  Even more disturbing, the globalists that want the US to send troops to defend Ukraine or Israel could also perpetrate an attack that falsely leads back to Russia or Iran.

I continue to argue that America has no reason to be involved in the majority of foreign entanglements and that we should stay out of these conflicts entirely. But we are where we are.  There are malicious people within our own government that want to force Americans into war, and there are foreign actors that hate us because of the actions of these same elites.  The dominoes have already been set in motion and guess where that leaves us?

Conservatives Inherit Disaster While Leftists Go Weather Underground

The  conservative sweep on election day means we inherit all the messes that Joe Biden and his handlers created – Economic, political, social, and geopolitical. There will also be considerable motivation for establishment elites to create chaos from thin air while conservatives hold governmental power, and this presents a third domestic threat which will definitely arise in the wake of a Trump presidency: Leftist activists.

The goal of the progressive establishment when it comes to attacking conservatives is to create so much instability and fear that conservatives feel compelled to set aside their principles and the constitution in order to restore order. In this way the left hopes to “prove” that conservatives are the “fascists” they often accuse us of being.

For the past several years conservatives have also been labeled “domestic terrorists” bent on civil war, but it’s actually the progressive left that engages in the majority of civil unrest and violence in the name of political expediency.

The first time leftists were enraged by a political loss and took to the streets to riot, most conservatives and even the Trump administration erred on the side of constitutional flexibility. The problem is, leftists have a habit of exploiting free speech rights as a springboard for mob intimidation. Also, most of the riots took place in Democrat controlled states and cities where local officials defended the violence and tried to block any intervention.

Some people argue that leftists are no longer motivated to engage in this kind of unrest and the lack of chaos after Trump’s election win is proof.  I beg to differ.  First, leftists are not a hardy bunch and they tend to wait for warmer weather before going out to cause disruption.  Second, Trump isn’t even in office yet.  Just wait until the mass deportations start and then you’ll see all kinds of riots.

The political left believes that mob violence and looting is a form of free speech and “reparations” for perceived injustices. They feel completely justified in their behavior and that makes them exceedingly dangerous. If you see the mass burning of random neighborhoods as an “ends justify the means” situation, then you can probably convince yourself that any crime is acceptable.

This trend of terrorism as activism is likely to evolve beyond simple mobs in the next round. In other words, under a new Trump Administration we should expect smaller Weather Underground-like groups among progressive activists; groups that will engage in terror attacks. The two assassination attempts against Trump this year support this hypothesis.

To summarize, there are four distinct instigators of political violence all active going into 2025:

• Organized criminal gangs crossing the border as migrants.

• Foreign agents and terrorists slipping into the US using mass immigration as a cover.

• Leftist activists radicalized to believe they are righteous in their violence.

• Establishment elites and covert agencies creating false flag events.

The types of attacks we face comprise a wide spectrum and I fear that conservatives may very well throw support behind a martial law scenario should the situation break out the way I think it will. Infrastructure attacks would be the most devastating (and would not require a high level of effort or sophistication); a lot of people may see military intervention as the best option.

I would argue that this is exactly what the establishment wants. They want the liberty movement to abandon our foundations in the name of security – They want us to take shortcuts that lead us down an authoritarian path. If we are to increase the safety of the American populace it’s going to take years of work to fix the mess that progressives have left behind. No shortcuts like martial law.

We’ll have to close the borders tight (The one place where a national guard or military presence makes sense). We’ll have to deport millions of illegal migrants already in the country. We’ll have to reduce our presence in global proxy wars. We’ll have to secure communities through localized efforts (militias).

Most importantly, should violence break out, community participation in defense is paramount. The locals need to be prepared for grid down, for rioting, for random attacks. It’s the general public that needs to be ready. Regular civilians are the people that will be there the moment disaster strikes and they must be empowered to take action.

When a terror attack takes minutes to achieve, regular people who are there when it occurs have seconds to respond. Until we can repair the damage done to our national security over the past four years, the public is the first and most important line of defense.

*  *  *

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/open-borders-have-created-terror-attack-time-bomb-us-2025

Intra-Cellular Eyes Depression Approval for Caplyta as Stock Flies Under the Radar

 

Intra-Cellular submitted its application to the FDA for Caplyta’s approval in major depressive disorder, potentially opening up an additional $1 billion in sales. Still, the stock remains “cheap,” according to Jefferies analysts.

Creating new drugs for central nervous system disorders is a tough business but one notable exception in recent years has been Intra-Cellular Therapies’ Caplyta, approved in December 2019 for schizophrenia and two years later for bipolar disorder. Now the small pharma company is going for a third indication, major depressive disorder (MDD), submitting an application Tuesday to the FDA for its use as an adjunct treatment for the pervasive mental health condition. The new indication could open up a more than $1 billion opportunity for Intra-Cellular, according to Jefferies.

In a note to clients Tuesday morning Jefferies analysts put the likelihood of approval in the range of 90–95% and said the stock is underappreciated—even “cheap.” The company is trading at around $86, up from $70 at the start of the year. If Intra-Cellular rounds out the trio of indications, Jefferies believes the company’s valuation could rise somewhere between $9 billion and $12 billion and even higher if executives’ bull case of $5 billion in peak Caplyta sales comes to fruition. Intra-Cellular currently has a market cap of $9.12 billion.

Caplyta brought in $175 million in the third quarter for its two already approved indications, up more than 8% from the previous quarter and beating expectations of $172 million. Intra-Cellular raised guidance for 2024 to a range of $665 million to $685 million.

With a little less than a month left in the fourth quarter, Caplyta has reached record high prescriptions, according to a Sunday note from Jefferies. This could lead to Q4 sales of “at least” $193 million, the analysts said.

It’s been almost exactly five years since Caplyta was initially approved for schizophrenia. The Jefferies analysts say they believe the company could finally reach profitability in 2025.

Building the Caplyta Franchise

The MDD submission was based on two Phase III trials that showed an improvement in symptoms when Caplyta was paired with an antidepressant, as compared to placebo. Intra-Cellular Chief Medical Officer Suresh Durgam said in a statement that he believes Caplyta could become the first choice add-on therapy for MDD, as more than half of patients do not adequately respond to an antidepressant alone.

Jefferies expects the agency to accept the application by February 2025, followed by a decision in October. Meanwhile, company shares could climb higher in the first half of the year in anticipation of the FDA’s decision.

The FDA will likely compare Caplyta to Otsuka and Lundbeck’s Rexulti, AbbVie’s Vraylar and Johnson & Johnson’ Spravato, each of which have produced what Jefferies called “mixed/inconsistent data” in MDD. Spravato, a form of ketamine called esketamine, is approved for treatment-resistant depression and for depressive symptoms in adults with MDD and suicidal ideation. Rexulti and Vraylar are both approved as adjunctive treatments for MDD.

“Caplyta’s efficacy is clearly robust/superior across two adjunct MDD studies,” Jefferies wrote. “Its safety profile also looks superior to the other antipsychotics.”

CEO Sharon Mates told investors in October that Caplyta stands out on the mood disorder market because of its favorable tolerability profile, as many patients discontinue these treatments due to weight gain, metabolic disturbances and motor adverse events. It’s also a once-a-day pill that can be taken with or without food and there’s no titration when starting treatment.

“We believe Caplyta is well-positioned to become a drug of choice across the spectrum of major mood disorders,” Mates said during the third quarter earnings call.

She also brushed off concerns about a new entrant to the schizophrenia market: Bristol Myers Squibb’s Cobenfy, which was approved in September. Mates said that a new option for patients with schizophrenia is great news but the market has long been defined by dissatisfied patients switching to new entrants. Since its launch, she continued, Caplyta has been a favored option among patients who are unhappy with the side effects of older medicines.

“We don’t see any one product dominating that schizophrenia market,” Mates said, adding that Cobenfy is not heading for Caplyta’s other domains in bipolar disorder or the newly requested MDD space.

Mates said that AbbVie’s expansion of Vraylar from schizophrenia and bipolar into MDD in December 2022 has shown Intra-Cellular that there’s plenty of room on the market for other options.

But Wait, There’s More

Caplyta isn’t the only medicine in Intra-Cellular’s quiver. The company is expecting some key Phase I/II pipeline readouts in 2025 and 2026 for ITI-214 in Parkinson’s disease and ITI-333 for opioid use.

Intra-Cellular is also developing a deuterated form of Caplyta called ITI-1284, an oral disintegrating tablet that can be placed under the tongue. The drug is in Phase II testing for generalized anxiety disorder as well as for agitation and psychosis in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Intra-Cellular also recently kicked off two studies of Caplyta in autism for pediatric patients with irritability. There are currently two drugs cleared for this indication, BMS’s Abilify and J&J’s Risperdal, and Jefferies suspects others may be used off label. This could be a $500 million to $1 billion opportunity for Intra-Cellular down the line, as experts have told the firm that Caplyta has a better safety profile than the approved options. The studies are expected to wrap in March 2027.

https://www.biospace.com/business/intra-cellular-eyes-depression-approval-for-caplyta-as-stock-soars-under-the-radar

House Oversight Report Supports Chinese Lab-Leak Theory For COVID-19 Origin

 by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Republican-led oversight subcommittee has concluded that the COVID-19 virus likely originated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, following a two-year investigation into the pandemic.

The House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a 520-page report on Dec. 2, detailing the findings of the subcommittee’s investigation.

Laboratory technicians wearing personal protective equipment work on samples to be tested for COVID-19 at the Fire Eye laboratory, a COVID-19 testing facility, in Wuhan in Hubei Province, China, on Aug. 4, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images

The report found that the U.S. National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and that EcoHealth Alliance Inc. used U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate this research at the lab.

It also found that the Chinese communist regime, agencies within the U.S. government, and some members of the international scientific community sought to cover up facts concerning the origins of the pandemic.

The committee said that COVID-19 possesses biological characteristics not found in nature and that data indicates that all COVID-19 cases stemmed from a single introduction into humans, unlike previous pandemics, where there were more spillover events.

“By nearly all measures of science, if there was evidence of a natural origin it would have already surfaced,” the oversight subcommittee said in a statement.

The report said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology has a history of conducting “gain-of-function” research under low biosafety precautions.

Several researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology fell sick with a COVID-like virus months before the first case of the outbreak was allegedly detected at a wet market, according to the report.

The report said that in January 2021, the U.S. State Department published an unclassified fact sheet that stated: “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.”

Citing the fact sheet, the report stated that the Wuhan Institute of Virology “has a published record of conducting ‘gain-of-function’ research to engineer chimeric viruses.”

The report said the June 2023 ODNI assessment supported this conclusion and went further, stating, “Scientists at the WIV have created chimeras, or combinations of SARS-like coronaviruses through genetic engineering, attempted to clone other unrelated viruses, and used reverse genetic cloning techniques on SARS-like coronaviruses.” The June 2023 ODNI Assessment said that some of the “WIV’s genetic engineering projects on coronaviruses involved techniques that could make it difficult to detect intentional changes.”

Among those interviewed during the panel’s investigation was Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who stepped down from his role in December 2022.

The report stated that Fauci had “prompted” a research study titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”—which dismissed the idea that the virus was laboratory constructed—to “disprove” the lab leak theory.

Fauci testified at a June hearing that he did not suppress the lab leak theory and did not view it as inherently a conspiracy theory but said that “some distortions on that particular subject are,” according to the report.

Security personnel keep watch outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. Thomas Peter/Reuters

“Although Dr. Fauci believed the lab-leak theory to be a conspiracy theory at the start of the pandemic, it now appears that his position is that he does have an open mind about the origin of the virus—so long as it does not implicate EcoHealth Alliance, and by extension himself and NIAID,” it stated, citing Fauci’s memoir published just weeks after the hearing. “Understandably, as he signed off on the EcoHealth Alliance grant.”

In a May 2021 Senate hearing, Fauci said his agency did not provide funds for “gain of function” research into coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Fauci told the hearing.

The report also stated that Taiwan notified the World Health Organization (WHO) on Dec. 31, 2019, about “atypical pneumonia cases” reported in Wuhan and asked the agency to investigate, but the WHO ignored the warnings.

The WHO response to the COVID-19 pandemic was “an abject failure because it caved to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party and placed China’s political interests ahead of its international duties,” the subcommittee said.

In a statement accompanying the report, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the committee, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a distrust in leadership. Trust is earned. Accountability, transparency, honesty, and integrity will regain this trust.”

A study published in the journal Risk Analysis on March 15 found a high probability that the COVID-19 virus had an unnatural origin. Although the study did not prove the origin of the COVID-19 virus, its authors said that “the possibility of a laboratory origin cannot be easily dismissed.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Anthony Fauci, NIAID, EcoHealth Alliance Inc., and the WHO for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

Naveen Athrappully contributed to this report.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/house-oversight-report-supports-chinese-lab-leak-theory-covid-19-origin

Uranium Mining Revival Portends Nuclear Renaissance In Texas & Beyond

 by Dylan Baddour via Inside Climate News (emphasis ours),

In the old ranchlands of South Texas, dormant uranium mines are coming back online. A collection of new ones hope to start production soon, extracting radioactive fuel from the region's shallow aquifers. Many more may follow.

These mines are the leading edge of what government and industry leaders in Texas hope will be a nuclear renaissance, as America's latent nuclear sector begins to stir again.  

Texas is currently developing a host of high-tech industries that require enormous amounts of electricity, from crypto-currency mines and artificial intelligence to hydrogen production and seawater desalination. Now, powerful interests in the state are pushing to power it with next-generation nuclear reactors. 

"We can make Texas the nuclear capital of the world," said Reed Clay, president of the Texas Nuclear Alliance, former chief operating officer for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office and former senior counsel to the Texas Office of Attorney General. "There's a huge opportunity."

Clay owns a lobbying firm with heavyweight clients that include SpaceX, Dow Chemical and the Texas Blockchain Council, among many others. He launched the Texas Nuclear Association in 2022 and formed the Texas Nuclear Caucus during the 2023 state legislative session to advance bills supportive of the nuclear industry. 

The efforts come amid a national resurgence of interest in nuclear power, which can provide large amounts of energy without the carbon emissions that warm the planet. And it can do so with reliable consistency that wind and solar power generation lack. But it carries a small risk of catastrophic failure and requires uranium from mines that can threaten rural aquifers. 

In South Texas, groundwater management officials have fought for almost 15 years against a planned uranium mine. Administrative law judges have ruled in their favor twice, finding potential for groundwater contamination. But in both cases those judges were overruled by the state's main environmental regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Now local leaders fear mining at the site appears poised to begin soon as momentum gathers behind America's nuclear resurgence. 

In October, Google announced the purchase of six small nuclear reactors to power its data centers by 2035. Amazon did the same shortly thereafter, and Microsoft has said it will pay to restart the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania to power its facilities. Last month, President Joe Biden announced a goal to triple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050. American companies are racing to license and manufacture new models of nuclear reactors.

"It's kind of an unprecedented time in nuclear," said James Walker, a nuclear physicist and co-founder of New York-based NANO Nuclear Energy Inc., a startup developing small-scale "microreactors" for commercial deployment around 2031. 

The industry's re-emergence stems from two main causes, he said: towering tech industry energy demands and the war in Ukraine.

Previously, the U.S. relied on enriched uranium from decommissioned Russian weapons to fuel its existing power plants and military vessels. When war interrupted that supply in 2022, American authorities urgently began to rekindle domestic uranium mining and enrichment. 

"The Department of Energy at the moment is trying to build back a lot of the infrastructure that atrophied," Walker said. "A lot of those uranium deposits in Texas have become very economical, which means a lot of investment will go back into those sites."

In May, the White House created a working group to develop guidelines for deployment of new nuclear power projects. In June, the Department of Energy announced $900 million in funding for small, next-generation reactors. And in September, it announced a $1.5 billion loan to restart a nuclear power plant in Michigan, which it called "a first of a kind effort."

"There's an urgent desire to find zero-carbon energy sources that aren't intermittent like renewables," said Colin Leyden, Texas state director of the Environmental Defense Fund. "There aren't a lot of options, and nuclear is one."

Wind and solar will remain the cheapest energy sources, Leyden said, and a buildout of nuclear power would likely accelerate the retirement of coal plants.

The U.S. hasn't built a nuclear reactor in 30 years, spooked by a handful of disasters. In contrast, China has grown its nuclear power generation capacity almost 900 percent in the last 20 years, according to the World Nuclear Association, and currently has 30 reactors under construction.

Last year, Abbott ordered the state's Public Utility Commission to produce a report "outlining how Texas will become the national leader in using advanced nuclear energy." According to the report, which was issued in November, new nuclear reactors would most likely be built in ports and industrial complexes to power large industrial operations and enable further expansion. 

"The Ports and their associated industries, like Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), carbon capture facilities, hydrogen facilities and cruise terminals, need additional generation sources," the report said. Advanced nuclear reactors "offer Texas' Ports a unique opportunity to enable continued growth."

In the Permian Basin, the report said, reactors could power oil production as well as purification of oilfield wastewater "for useful purposes." Or they could power clusters of data centers in Central and North Texas. 

Already, Dow Chemical has announced plans to install four small reactors at its Seadrift plastics and chemical plant on a rural stretch of the middle Texas coast, which it calls the first grid-scale nuclear reactor for an industrial site in North America.   

"I think the vast majority of these nuclear power plants are going to be for things like industrial use," said Cyrus Reed, a longtime environmental lobbyist in the Texas Capitol and conservation director for the state's Sierra Club chapter. "A lot of large industries have corporate goals of being low carbon or no carbon, so this could fill in a niche for them." 

The PUC report made seven recommendations for the creation of public entities, programs and funds to support the development of a Texas nuclear industry. During next year's state legislative session, legislators in the Nuclear Caucus will seek to make them law. 

"It's going to be a great opportunity for energy investment in Texas," said Stephen Perkins, Texas-based chief operating officer of the American Conservation Coalition, a conservative environmental policy group. "We're really going to be pushing hard for [state legislators] to take that seriously."

However, Texas won't likely see its first new commercial reactor come online for at least five years. Before a buildout of power plants, there will be a boom at the uranium mines, as the U.S. seeks to reestablish domestic production and enrichment of uranium for nuclear fuel. 

Texas Uranium 

Ted Long, a former commissioner of Goliad County, can see the power lines of an inactive uranium mine from his porch on an old family ranch in the rolling golden savannah of South Texas. For years the mine has been idle, waiting for depressed uranium markets to pick up.  

There, an international mining company called Uranium Energy Corp. plans to mine 420 acres of the Evangeline Aquifer between depths of 45 and 404 feet, according to permitting documents. Long, a dealer of engine lubricants, gets his water from a well 120 feet deep that was drilled in 1993. He lives with his wife on property that's been in her family since her great-grandfather emigrated from Germany. 

"I'm worried for groundwater on this whole Gulf Coast," Long said. "This isn't the only place they're wanting to do this."

As a public official, Long fought the neighboring mine for years. But he found the process of engaging with Texas' environmental regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, to be time-consuming, expensive and ultimately fruitless. Eventually, he concluded there was no point.

"There's nothing I can do," he said. "I guess I'll have to look for some kind of system to clean the water up."

The Goliad mine is the smallest of five sites in South Texas held by UEC, which is based in Corpus Christi. Another company, enCore Energy, started uranium production at two South Texas sites in 2023 and 2024, and hopes to bring four more online by 2027. 

Uranium mining goes back decades in South Texas, but lately it's been dormant. Between the 1970s and the 1990s, a cluster of open pit mines harvested shallow uranium deposits at the surface. Many of those sites left a legacy of aquifer pollution. 

TCEQ records show active cases of groundwater contaminated with uranium, radium, arsenic and other pollutants from defunct uranium mines and tailing impoundment sites in Live Oak County at ExxonMobil's Ray Point site, and in Karnes County at Conoco-Phillips Co.'s Conquista Project and at Rio Grande Resources' Panna Maria Uranium Recovery Facility.

All known shallow deposits of uranium in Texas have been mined. The deeper deposits aren't accessed by traditional surface mining, but rather a process called in-situ mining, in which solvents are pumped underground into uranium-bearing aquifer formations. Adjacent wells suck back up the resulting slurry, from which uranium dust will be extracted. 

Industry describes in-situ mining as safer and more environmentally friendly than surface mining. But some South Texas water managers and landowners are concerned. 

"We're talking about mining at the same elevation as people get their groundwater," said Terrell Graham, a board member of the Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District, which has been fighting a proposed uranium mine for almost 15 years. "There isn't another source of water for these residents." 

"It Was Rigged, a Setup"

On two occasions, the district has participated in lengthy hearings and won favorable rulings in Texas' administrative courts supporting concerns over the safety of the permits. But both times, political appointees at the TCEQ rejected judges' recommendations and issued the permits anyway. 

"We've won two administrative proceedings," Graham said. "It's very expensive, and to have the TCEQ commissioners just overturn the decision seems nonsensical." 

The first time was in 2010. UEC was seeking initial permits for the Goliad mine, and the groundwater conservation district filed a technical challenge claiming that permits risked contamination of nearby aquifers. 

The district hired lawyers and geological experts for a three-day hearing on the permit in Austin. Afterwards, an administrative law judge agreed with some of the district's concerns. In a 147-page opinion issued September 2010, an administrative law judge recommended further geological testing to determine whether certain underground faults could transmit fluids from the mining site into nearby drinking water sources. 

"If the Commission determines that such remand is not feasible or desirable then the ALJ recommends that the Mine Application and the PAA-1 Application be denied," the opinion said. 

But the commissioners declined the judge's recommendation. In an order issued March 2011, they determined that the proposed permits "impose terms and conditions reasonably necessary to protect fresh water from pollution." 

"The Commission determines that no remand is necessary," the order said. 

The TCEQ issued UEC's permits, valid for 10 years. But by that time, a collapse in uranium prices had brought the sector to a standstill, so mining never commenced. 

In 2021, the permits came up for renewal, and locals filed challenges again. But again, the same thing happened. 

A nearby landowner named David Michaelsen organized a group of neighbors to hire a lawyer and challenge UEC's permit to inject the radioactive waste product from its mine more than half a mile underground for permanent disposal. 

"It's not like I'm against industry or anything, but I don't think this is a very safe spot," said Michaelsen, former chief engineer at the Port of Corpus Christi, a heavy industrial hub on the South Texas Coast. He bought his 56 acres in Goliad County in 2018 to build an upscale ranch house and retire with his wife. 

In hearings before an administrative law judge, he presented evidence showing that nearby faults and old oil well shafts posed a risk for the injected waste to travel into potable groundwater layers near the surface. 

In a 103-page opinion issued April 2024, an administrative law judge agreed with many of Michaelsen's challenges, including that "site-specific evidence here shows the potential for fluid movement from the injection zone."

"The draft permit does not comply with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements," wrote the administrative law judge, Katerina DeAngelo, a former assistant attorney general of Texas in the environmental protection division. She recommended "closer inspection of the local geology, more precise calculations of the [cone of influence], and a better assessment of the faults."

Michaelsen thought he had won. But when the TCEQ commissioners took up the question several months later, again they rejected all of the judge's findings. 

In a 19-page order issued in September, the commission concluded that "faults within 2.5 miles of its proposed disposal wells are not sufficiently transmissive or vertically extensive to allow migration of hazardous constituents out of the injection zone." The old nearby oil wells, the commission found, "are likely adequately plugged and will not provide a pathway for fluid movement." 

"UEC demonstrated the proposed disposal wells will prevent movement of fluids that would result in pollution" of an underground source of drinking water, said the order granting the injection disposal permits. 

"I felt like it was rigged, a setup," said Michaelsen, holding his four-inch-thick binder of research and records from the case. "It was a canned decision."

Another set of permit renewals remains before the Goliad mine can begin operation, and local authorities are fighting it, too. In August, the Goliad County Commissioners Court passed a resolution against uranium mining in the county. The groundwater district is seeking to challenge the permits again in administrative court. And in November, the district sued TCEQ in Travis County District Court seeking to reverse the agency's permit approvals. 

Because of the lawsuit, a TCEQ spokesperson declined to answer questions about the Goliad County mine site, saying the agency doesn't comment on pending litigation. 

A final set of permits remains to be renewed before the mine can begin production. However, after years of frustrations, district leaders aren't optimistic about their ability to influence the decision. 

Only about 40 residences immediately surround the site of the Goliad mine, according to Art Dohmann, vice president of the Goliad County Groundwater Conservation District. Only they might be affected in the near term. But Dohmann, who has served on the groundwater district board for 23 years, worries that the uranium, radium and arsenic churned up in the mining process will drift from the site as years go by. 

"The groundwater moves. It's a slow rate, but once that arsenic is liberated, it's there forever," Dohmann said. "In a generation, it's going to affect the downstream areas."

UEC did not respond to a request for comment. 

Currently, the TCEQ is evaluating possibilities for expanding and incentivizing further uranium production in Texas. It's following instruction given last year, when lawmakers with the Nuclear Caucus added an item to TCEQ's bi-annual budget ordering a study of uranium resources to be produced for state lawmakers by December 2024, ahead of next year's legislative session.  

According to the budget item, "The report must include recommendations for legislative or regulatory changes and potential economic incentive programs to support the uranium mining industry in this state."

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/uranium-mining-revival-portends-nuclear-renaissance-texas-beyond

Children illegally worked dangerous overnight shifts at pork processing plant, feds find

 Federal investigators found nearly a dozen children to be working dangerous, overnight shifts at Seaboard Triumph Foods' pork processing plant in Sioux City, Iowa, the Department of Labor announced.

Employed by Guymon, Oklahoma-based sanitation contractor Qvest, 11 kids allegedly used corrosive cleaners to sanitize head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, neck clippers and other equipment at the Seaboard Triumph Foods facility from at least September 2019 through September 2023, the DOL stated in a news release on Friday.

Federal law prohibits minors from working in meat processing due to an increased risk of injury. 

Seaboard Foods is among the nation's biggest pork producers. In addition to Iowa, Seaboard Foods, a division of Seaboard Corporation, has operations in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah, and in Mexico, according to the company's website.

"These findings illustrate Seaboard Triumph Foods' history of children working illegally in their Sioux City facility since at least September 2019. Despite changing sanitation contractors, children continued to work in dangerous occupations at this facility," Michael Lazzeri, the Midwest regional administrator with the DOL's Wage and Hour division, stated in the release.

Qvest must pay $171,919 in child labor civil monetary penalties and take steps to prevent it from illegally hiring minors again.

Qvest and Seaboard did not return requests for comment.

Still, children under 18 illegally employed in dangerous jobs in meat and poultry slaughtering and processing operations is not unique in the industry or to the Seaboard Foods plant in Sioux Falls.

Seaboard in September 2023 contracted Fayette Janitorial Services for sanitation work at its facility. After taking over the plant's sanitation services contract, Fayette allegedly rehired some of the children previously employed by Qvest, with the Somerville, Tennessee-based contractor earlier this year found to be employing nine minors at the Sioux City plant, the DOL alleged.

Fayette also allegedly hired 15 children as young as 13 at a Perdue Farms processing plant in Accomac, Virginia, where a 14-year-old was severely injured. Perdue terminated its contract with Fayette before the DOL's court filing, the company said. 

Migrant kids clean US slaughterhouses? 

The development is part of an ongoing probe into whether migrant kids are cleaning U.S. slaughterhouses. It also comes less than a year after the government fined another sanitation services provider $1.5 million for employing more than 100 kids —  ages 13 to 17 — at 13 meat processing plants in eight states. 

The DOL launched its investigation after a published report detailed migrant kids working overnight for contractors in poultry processing facilities on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. A New York Times Magazine story last December detailed children cleaning blood, grease and feathers from equipment with acid and pressure hoses.

The Times' account included details of a 14-year-old boy who was maimed while cleaning a conveyor belt in a deboning area at a Perdue slaughterhouse in rural Virginia. The eighth grader was among thousands of Mexican and Central American children who have crossed the border on their own to work in dangerous jobs.

But it's not only migrant children tasked with illegal and dangerous work. A 16-year-old high school student, Michael Schuls, died last summer after getting trapped in a machine at a Wisconsin sawmill. 

From an elevated waterslide at a Jacksonville, Florida, beach park to a sawmill in Clarkrange, Tennessee, federal investigators are finding children across the country working illegal hours and performing risky, unlawful tasks. In May, federal investigators found a 13-year-old girl allegedly working up to 60 hours a week on an assembly line in Luverne, Alabama.

More recently, the DOL found a Grand Rapids, Michigan, window cleaning company had illegally hired three kids to clean residential windows and gutters, and to install Christmas lights, with one requiring surgery after suffering serious injuries after falling from a roof. Another DOL case resolved last month involved children operating and cleaning a meat grinder and driving motor vehicles to deliver orders for a pizza restaurant in Iron River, Wisconsin.   

The DOL's Wage and Hour division oversaw 736 investigations uncovering child labor violations affecting 4,030 children in fiscal 2024, the agency stated. 

In addition to the federal government, the state of Massachusetts recently took aim at companies violating child labor laws, citing an operator of dozens of Burger King franchise locations across the state for allegedly scheduling minors to work more than the legally allowed hours. Separately, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell reached a settlement with a New Jersey-based owner of Popeyes franchises across Massachusetts to resolve similar allegations, her office stated last week.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iowa-sioux-falls-child-labor/

Watch: US A-10 'Warthog' Filmed Engaged In Attacks Over Eastern Syria

 A US Air Force A-10C "Warthog" Thunderbolt II Close-Air Support Aircraft has been filmed flying low and doing strafing runs over eastern Syria as fighting has broken out there in the wake of the fall of Aleppo to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) jihadists.

It appears that US-backed "Syrian Democratic Forces" (SDF) are clashing with pro-Syrian forces, including possibly the Syrian Army and allied militias, some of which have been pouring across the border from Iraq.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) has yet to confirm anything, but one independent geopolitical news source writes, "US Air Force (USAF) A-10 Warthog combat jets were purportedly deployed in Syria to conduct airstrikes against Iran-linked militias that entered Syria to fight the rebels that have launched a fresh offensive against Bashar al-Assad regime." A Pentagon official has said that at least one airstrike took place "in self defense". 

And Fox News Pentagon correspondent Lucas Thomlinson has posted the below footage from Deir Ezzor...

The original source, an analyst who closely watches eastern Syria, wrote: "U.S. airstrikes target positions of Iran-backed militias in Deir Ezzor, eastern Syria."

The Pentagon is perhaps reluctant to comment, also just ahead of the new Trump administration taking office in January, given the fact that it's waging a war in Syria - including the deployment of warplanes - with no Congressional debate or approval whatsoever.

We detailed earlier that on Monday a Syrian army officer told Reuters that Iraqi militia forces crossing the border are "fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the frontlines in the north."

More footage (unverified) reportedly from along the Euphrates River in the Deir Ezzor area:

Many of the fighters have been identified as belonging to the Kataib Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun groups. The US has long been in an internecine conflict with Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, with over the years periodic rocket fire even targeting the US Embassy in Baghdad, as well as various bases which host remaining American troops.

These forces have been fully aware that the Pentagon could attack their convoys at any moment, and so have reportedly been crossing the border in small groups and using concealed roads.

"At least 300 fighters, primarily from the Badr and Nujabaa groups, crossed late on Sunday using a dirt road to avoid the official border crossing, two Iraqi security sources said, adding that they were there to defend a Shi'ite shrine," Reuters reports. Clearly the Pentagon is now getting more deeply involved in the current regional fighting, after having occupied oil and gas areas of northeast Syria for years.

https://www.zerohedge.com/military/us-10-warthog-filmed-engaged-attacks-over-eastern-syria