The inexhaustible capacity.....sustainable at that.....of the right to lose its shit, go batshit crazy, tumble down yet anther conspiracy theory rabbit hole, based upon misinformation, is both amazing and laughable.
On the surface, it’s hard to see why Agenda 21 is so controversial. While it urges international cooperation, it is hardly the totalitarian, internationalist screed that critics claim. Far from promoting international governance, for example, it calls for greater local government involvement in sustainable agricultural and urban development.
Hysteria over Jade Helm exercise in Texas was fueled by Russians, former CIA director says
Gov. Greg Abbott's decision in 2015 to ask the Texas State Guard to monitor a federal military exercise prompted significant criticism. A former CIA director said Wednesday that the move emboldened Russians to next target elections.
BY CASSANDRA POLLOCK AND ALEX SAMUELS MAY 3, 2018 UPDATED: 2 PM CENTRAL
A former director of the CIA and NSA said Wednesday that hysteria in Texas over a 2015 U.S. military training exercise called Jade Helm was fueled by Russians wanting to dominate “the information space,” and that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's decision to send the Texas State Guard to monitor the operation gave them proof of the power of such misinformation campaigns.
Michael Hayden, speaking on MSNBC’s Morning Joe podcast, chalked up peoples’ fear over Jade Helm 15 to “Russian bots and the American alt-right media [that] convinced many Texans [Jade Helm] was an Obama plan to round up political dissidents.”
Abbott ordered the State Guard to monitor the federal exercise soon after news broke of the operation. Hayden said that move gave Russians the go-ahead to continue — and possibly expand — their efforts to spread fear.
“At that point, I’m figuring the Russians are saying, ‘We can go big time,’” Hayden said of Abbott's response. “At that point, I think they made the decision, ‘We’re going to play in the electoral process.’”
Jade Helm 15 was a planned military training exercise that became a fascination of conspiracy theorists before it even began. The exercise, which spanned several states, began in Texas in Bastrop County in 2015 and was described by federal officials as routine. But some conspiracy theorists speculated that the exercise was a covert effort to institute martial law. Hayden was not CIA director at this time.
Weeks before the exercise began, Abbott wrote a letter to the State Guard asking them to keep an eye on the operation so “Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.” In the letter, Abbott added that he had "the utmost respect for the deep patriotism of the brave men and women who put their lives on the line to fight for and defend our freedom."
Yet the move prompted significant criticism. Democrats questioned whether Abbott really trusted the military. Even some Republicans — including former Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst — spoke out in support of the exercise. Former state Rep. Todd Smith accused Abbott of "pandering to idiots."
“I think it’s okay to question your government — I do it on a pretty regular basis," former Gov. Rick Perry, who is now U.S. Energy Secretary, told reporters at the time. "The military's something else."
A spokesperson for Abbott did not immediately return The Texas Tribune’s request for comment Thursday, but Democrats are already seizing on Hayden's remarks to further criticize the governor for calling the State Guard to monitor the operation.
“It doesn’t take an intelligence expert to see that Trump Republican Greg Abbott calling the Texas National Guard on the U.S. Military was downright idiocy,” Manny Garcia, the deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a news release, misidentifying the Texas State Guard. “Abbott still owes the men and women of our armed forces, and every single Texan, an apology.”
Hayden was CIA director from 2006 to 2009. His allegation isn't the first one connecting Russian misinformation campaigns and Texas. Last year, federal lawmakers revealed a trove of information from ads purchased on Facebook, including ones showing that two Russian Facebook pages managed to organize dueling rallies in front of a Houston mosque in 2016.
In a November 2015 GQ interview, President Obama described Jade Helm as "his favorite conspiracy theory".[48]
U.S. Army Special Operations Command map,[16][9] depicting the US military plans during the Jade Helm 15 exercise
Conspiracy theories
The conspiracy theories seem to emanate from the map shown here from the U.S. Army Special Operations Command which divides the region into four colors, with two "hostile" states, two "permissive" states, two states leaning one way or the other, and California divided.[17] Jim Shea of the Hartford Courant wrote that the conspiracy theories included: a "psychological operation aimed at getting people used to seeing military forces on the streets" so that they do not realize when an invasion actually takes place;an international operation aimed to seize people's guns; recently closed Walmarts used by the military to "stockpile supplies for Chinese troops who will be arriving to disarm Americans"; and a military plan to "round up political dissidents" and "remove key political figures" who may be against the imposition of martial law.[18] Other theories have described Jade Helm 15 as a "secret plot" to impose martial law, confiscate firearms, invade Texas, and institute "total population control."[19]
The conspiracy theories also included concern about the name of the exercise, with the "jade" possibly referring to China,[20][21] or possibly an acronym for artificial intelligence developed by the U.S. military.[22] Conspiracy theorist and Texas radio host Alex Jones said that "helm" is an acronym for "Homeland Eradication of Local Militants".[19]
There was some tie-in between the Jade Helm 15 exercise and a resurgence of the FEMA camps conspiracy theory with the exercise raising fear that it was a dry run for forcing citizens into internment camps.[23] These fears were demonstrated to have been unfounded when the exercise was completed and no one was placed into a camp.[24]
Reactions The Austin American-Statesman newspaper noted that after plans and maps of the exercise were made public, there was an "explosion of outrage on social media after the release of the map, which labeled Texas, Utah and the southern tip of California as 'hostile.'"[36] There was also speculation that shuttered Walmart stores would be used for "guerrilla-warfare staging areas and FEMA processing camps",[37]though this theory was debunked by the website Snopes.[38]
A survey of registered Republicans by Public Policy Polling in May 2015,[39] found that 32% thought that "the Government is trying to take over Texas", and that half of all Tea Party supporters are concerned with an imminent Texas invasion.[40]
Greg Capers, sheriff of San Jacinto County, published a letter in the Cleveland Advocate (of Cleveland, Texas), in response to numerous phone calls from citizens, in which he described "alternative news sources" that were spreading inaccurate information about the exercise, and encouraged citizens to "utilize legitimate mainstream news sources" for those interested in accurate information.[41]
Russian disinformation
Clint Watts and two others in the FBI began to notice Russian disinformation campaigns starting in April 2014.[58] Watts said that Russian-driven efforts to spread misinformation were involved with Jade Helm 15.[58] In 2017, Facebook shut down a page called "Heart of Texas" which was found to be associated with a Russian company promoting disinformation, including promoting the Jade Helm conspiracy.[59]
On May 3, 2018, The Texas Tribune reported that Michael Hayden, a former director of the CIA and NSA said that the "hysteria" surrounding the training exercise "was fueled by Russians wanting to dominate 'the information space.'"[60] Hayden said that Russian bots were used to spread misinformation.[61]
Last month’s average temperature was 0.93 degrees Celsius (1.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1991-2020 average for September. That’s the warmest margin above average for a month in 83 years of records kept by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Climate Change Service.
“It’s just mind-blowing really,” said Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo. “Never seen anything like that in any month in our records.”
While July and August had hotter raw temperatures because they are warmer months on the calendar, September had what scientists call the biggest anomaly, or departure from normal. Temperature anomalies are crucial pieces of data in a warming world.
“This is not a fancy weather statistic,” Imperial College of London climate scientist Friederike Otto said in an email. “It’s a death sentence for people and ecosystems. It destroys assets, infrastructure, harvest.”
Copernicus calculated that the average temperature for September was 16.38 degrees Celsius (61.48 degrees Fahrenheit), which broke the old record set in September 2020 by a whopping half-degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s a huge margin in climate records.
The hot temperatures stretched across the globe but they were chiefly driven by persistent and unusual warmth in the world’s oceans, which didn’t cool off as much in September as normal and have been record hot since spring, said Buontempo.
Earth is on track for its hottest year on record, about 1.4 degrees Celsius (2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than pre-industrial times, according to Samantha Burgess, Copernicus’ deputy director.
This past September was 1.75 degrees Celsius (3.15 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the mid-1800s, Copernicus reported. The world agreed in 2015 to try to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) warming since pre-industrial times.
The global threshold goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius is for long-term temperature averages, not a single month or year. But scientists still expressed grave concern at the records being set.
“What we’re seeing right now is the backdrop of rapid global warming at a pace that the Earth has not seen in eons coupled with El Nino, natural climate cycle” that’s a temporary warming of parts of the Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide, said U.S. climate scientist Jessica Moerman, who is also president of the Evangelical Environmental Network. “This double whammy together is where things get dangerous.”
Though El Nino is playing a part, climate change has a bigger footprint in this warmth, Buontempo said.
“There really is no end in sight given new oil and gas reserves are still being opened for exploitation,” Otto said. “If you have more record hot events, there is no respite for humans and nature, no time to recover.”
Buontempo said El Nino is likely to get warmer and cause even higher temperatures next year.
“This month was, in my professional opinion as a climate scientist – absolutely gobsmackingly bananas,” climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said on X, formerly known as Twitter. ___
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
