Beltway Insider: Biden/Hurricane Ian, Ukraine War, COVID/Vaccine Totals, School Shooting, TILL

President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden announced plans to travel to hard hit areas in Puerto Rico and Florida to survey the shocking devastation caused by Hurricane Ian, which decimated communities, and left millions without power.

The President's job approval rating, according to the website fivethirtyeight.com, for the period ending October 2, 2022 decreased by 0.1% to 42.3% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness decreased by 0.9% to 51.9% of those polled who disapprove of his effectiveness. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.


Beltway Insider: Biden/UN, Russia/Ukraine, Puerto Rico, COVID/Vaccine Totals, Thomas Lane, Louise Fletcher


Biden Announces Travel to Hard Hit Regions

President Biden has announced he will travel to Puerto Rico and Florida this week to meet with local leaders, in an effort to determine what more the federal government can do in the immediate to aid and alleviate the suffering Hurricane Ian has brought.

Even as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has been touted as a potential 2024 presidential candidate, and a vocal opponent of President Biden, it is likely DeSantis will be accompanying the President to the most devastated regions and will put politics aside for the good of the people of his state.

It has been reported that Biden has called the governor several times, and DeSantis has said that "Florida is getting what it needs from the federal government," which included a pre-storm deployment of most needed items ready to be mobilized at the soonest possible post-storm availability.

Hurricane Ian Decimates Florida's Gulf Coast; Death Toll Rises

The death toll from Hurricane Ian, which decimated communities along Florida's southwest coastline, leaving millions homeless, without power, and causing billions in property and infrastructure damage, has risen to 70 known fatalities, and is expected to continue to rise.

Once thriving tourist towns have been leveled. Images of obliterated communities with debris fields resembling the remnants of an explosion, the result of the 155 mph winds, two miles shy of Category 5 strength, that battered the area.

"Hurricane Ian could be the most expensive storm in Florida's history, devastating communities from the state's western coast to inland cities like Orlando. But the most severe lashing took place in southwestern coastal cities like Fort Myers and Naples, where some neighborhoods were annihilated," reported CNN.

The 18-foot storm surge along the coastline and barrier islands essentially eliminated entire towns, leaving only piles of splintered wood, demolished automobiles, boats pushed inland wedged between trees.


Hurricane Ian Pummels Florida, Prepares for Second Hit


The battering of 155 mph winds, 18-foot storm surge, the seasonal king high tide and the rain combined into a formula for disaster. Subdivisions in Port Charlotte has extensive flooding, with residents who rode out the storm in their homes, fortunate that little wind damage was reported, although they are without power and stranded as the roads are either washed away or impassable.

Residents of Fort Meyers were not as fortunate. Fort Meyers is obliterated. From the marina, which is completely destroyed, to the homes that were wiped off the map leaving only cement foundations as reminders, to neighborhoods still underwater days later. Sanibel Island is unrecognizable.

"The storm also destroyed sections of at least two bridges in Florida's southwest coast, the Sanibel Causeway and Pine Island Bridge, which connect the mainland to two barrier islands near Fort Myers. Gov. Ron DeSantis said that both bridges would require "structural rebuilds." A spokesperson for the Coast Guard confirmed that crews flew over Sanibel Island on Thursday to airlift some people to safety," The New York Times reported.

Hurricane Ian's Rare Double Hit 

Hurricane Ian was a rare storm, in fact only four other hurricanes in the history of record keeping, that followed a similar track and made landfall and then reorganized and made landfall again within the continental United States a second time: Hurricane Donna in 1960, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, buzzed the Florida keys as a Category 1 before devasting New Orleans with category 5, 175 mph winds, and Hurricane Charley in 2004, which nearly mirrored the path of Hurricane Ian, making landfall at Captiva Island, on Florida's southwest coast, and traveled across the state through Orlando, exiting the state at Daytona Beach, it reorganized in the Atlantic and made landfall a second time in Cape Romain, South Carolina.

Hurricane Ian is poised to the costliest storm to hit Florida with a price tag reaching as high as $30billion dollars, and overall, with damages in two additional states, the storm damage could total $50billion.

Putin's Maniacal Moves

Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to taunt the thirty member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, and the European Union, with violations of territorial sovereignty by repeated attempts to annex regions of the Ukraine.


World News: Defeat of Russia Looms as Kiev Looks to Beijing


Coerced Elections; Annexed Lands

After a series of coerced elections, similar to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Putin forced citizens of four Ukraine regions to choose between continued heavy fighting, relative peace and an end to military bombardment. The cities were constant air attacks, substantial shelling, and essentially uninhabitable as most of the former residents fled after Russian forces invaded.

"Four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine appeared to vote overwhelmingly in favor of joining the Russian Federation, according to Russian state media. Ukraine and its international partners have dismissed the highly controversial referendums as shams and a violation of international law," reported NPR.org.

Controlling the World's Wheat Controls the World

With Ukraine is a global producer of wheat, corn, and barley. According to the European Commission, Ukraine accounts for 10% of the world wheat market with an annual harvest of 33 million metric tons. Putin's intentions of controlling the world's wheat, corn, and barley with an iron fist, is crystallizing.

Putin's invasion and control of the Ukraine was key to his plan to control the world's wheat market, which would increase his nation's GNP, and attempt to create a stranglehold on other nations.

Without factoring the post-war gains into the decision to engage the Ukraine in a confrontation that would clearly create long-term crippling economic sanctions, his end game would need to include more than simply a land grab.

Creating a regional monopoly would allow Russia to nearly double its exports of wheat production to regions within Indonesia, Turkey, Egypt. Another rarely known fact the Ukraine produces more than 50% of the sunflower oil market. Annexing the land controls the world's wheat which controls the world's leaders.

Putin's Land Grab Backfires

One day after Putin declared victory in a series of sham elections across four Ukrainian regions, Russian forces retreated, as Ukraine forces closed in on the regiment.

"The Russian Defense Ministry says its troops withdrew from the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman "due to the threat of encirclement" — a day after the Kremlin illegally annexed that region. Ukraine's military suggested it had full control of the city after it announced that Russian troops had been killed or captured," reported The Washington Post.

In an effort to retake the areas targeted by Putin, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky aided by military weaponry supplied by the United States and other EU member nations, surrounded the cities and have regained control of the regions.

With mass casualty reported on both sides, and cities becoming bombed out ruins, continued escalation of this war is expected.

Ukraine Pushes for Accelerated NATO Admission

"Ukraine is applying for "accelerated ascension" into NATO, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday, in an apparent answer to Russia's move to illegally annex four of the country's partially occupied regions, The Washington Post reported.

Should the Ukraine gain admittance to NATO, then a collation of NATO forces, including the United States, would be obligated to enter the war, taking up arms with Ukraine, against the aggression of the Russian Forces.

This move could compel Russian allies, including and especially China to take a more aggressive approach to global involvement, such as sanctioning the export of Rare Earth Elements, of which China has the global monopoly, and every nation in the world depends on RRE for any product that has a screen, handhelds, cellphones, computers, laptops, hybrid automobiles, defense products, green products, and the list only increases as the dependency on technology increases.

Although many nations would prefer to sit on the sidelines, if Ukraine is admitted to NATO, it's allied strength will cause further repercussion globally.

President Biden said, "America and its allies are not going — let me emphasize this — are not going to be intimidated.  Are not going to be intimidated by Putin and his reckless words and threats.  He's not going to scare us, and he doesn't — or intimidate us."

Vaccine Totals

Over a year into the biggest vaccination campaign in history, more than 12.7 billion doses have been administered across 184 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. In the United States, 854,087,395 vaccines have been distributed and 619,765,972 have been administered. More than 90% of the population have received the two-dose vaccine. (Date from the CDC).

Coronavirus Totals

Mandates have been altered or lifted in most urban areas with limited exceptions, and the population is encouraged to maintain personal protective practices. Masks are optional and tolerated. Vaccines and boosters are still considered the most effective agents against contracting the Coronavirus.

For the one-week period ending October 2, 2022, the total of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide reached 614,385,693 people with a total worldwide death toll of 6,522,600 deaths, and a 7-day death rate increase of 7,896. (Data from The World Health Organization).

COVID U.S. Totals

Infections rates in the United States are also on the rise. For the seven-day period ending October 2, 2022, the total confirmed cases rose to 96,143,199 people with new confirmed cases increasing by 671,097 with a 7-day average of 95,871 cases per day. The coronavirus has claimed 1,053,789 total deaths, adding 3,158 more deaths over the 7-day period. (Data from the CDC).

Pentagon's Diary Gets Personal

Protecting for gain of function knowledge only aides those who initiated the constitutional violations. It does nothing to combat the homegrown terrorism or the narcissistic above the law belief. The best obtainable version of the truth.


TILL Review – Riveting, Emotionally Gripping, Resonating


Russia School Shooting Leaves 17 Dead

The death toll is last week's school shooting in Udmurtia region of Russia, in Eastern Europe, has risen to 17, with 18 others still hospitalized.

"The press service of the governor of Udmurtia said on September 27 that two people died overnight, bringing the death toll from the attack -- the fourth school shooting in the Volga region in the past 15 months -- to 11 children and six adults," Radio Free Europe reported.

The shooter, a 34-year-old man, was killed. Survivors described him as wearing a neo-Nazi emblem on shirt and died by a self-inflicted gunshot.

TILL Premieres at New York Film Festival

TILL, the re-creation of the 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmitt Till, premiered at the New York Film Festival, to rave reviews. Lead by an electrifying performance by Danielle Deadwyler and echoed by the entire cast, TILL brings this disgrace in America's racial history to the forefront and once again into the national conversation.

Deadwyler's poignant revival of Mamie Till-Mobley and her determination to seek justice, to demand justice in a time when speaking out would come at a cost, even more than the loss of her son. For justice she was willing to put her own life on the line, and out of this tragic death came life and the birth of the civil rights movement. Justice is elusive and injustice a cruel taunting companion that will force even the gentle to stand and demand recognition and restitution. We see in TILL a mother's evolution.

Director Chinonye Chukwu explained while making the film the emotional toll on the cast caused her to limit some of the more heartbreaking scenes to only two takes. Watching this film, the anguish of loss, of humanity's cruelty to one another, of this season of hatred triggers feelings of sorrow, anger, rage, and disgrace for my country who allowed this injustice then, and even now, to continue. TILL opens October 14, 2022.

For more information on President Joe Biden www.whitehouse.gov.

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