In 12 Minutes, All Communications Nationally is Gone

Posted on September 23, 2025September 23, 2025 by Denise Simon

It was a very real condition until just hours ago where the United States Secret Service found the threat. W can only hope it has been neutralized and there is no more threat…but read on…

After checking several sources for as much complete information, below are some terrifying details. There are likely more to be revealed in coming days as the investigation continues.

Per the Secret Service website:

NEW YORK – The U.S. Secret Service dismantled a network of electronic devices located throughout the New York tristate area that were used to conduct multiple telecommunications-related threats directed towards senior U.S. government officials, which represented an imminent threat to the agency’s protective operations.

This protective intelligence investigation led to the discovery of more than 300 co-located SIM servers and 100,000 SIM cards across multiple sites.

In addition to carrying out anonymous telephonic threats, these devices could be used to conduct a wide range of telecommunications attacks. This includes disabling cell phone towers, enabling denial of services attacks and facilitating anonymous, encrypted communication between potential threat actors and criminal enterprises.

While forensic examination of these devices is ongoing, early analysis indicates cellular communications between nation-state threat actors and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement.

“The potential for disruption to our country’s telecommunications posed by this network of devices cannot be overstated,” said U.S. Secret Service Director Sean Curran. “The U.S. Secret Service’s protective mission is all about prevention, and this investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that imminent threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down and dismantled.”

These devices were concentrated within 35 miles of the global meeting of the United Nations General Assembly now underway in New York City. Given the timing, location and potential for significant disruption to New York telecommunications posed by these devices, the agency moved quickly to disrupt this network. The U.S. Secret Service’s Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit, a new section of the agency dedicated to disrupting the most significant and imminent threats to our protectees, is conducting this investigation. This investigation is currently ongoing.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations, the Department of Justice, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the NYPD, as well as other state and local law enforcement partners, provided valuable technical advice and assistance in support of this investigation.

This is an ongoing investigation.

***

The BBC in part also adds this:

The devices were seized from SIM farms at abandoned apartment buildings across more than five sites. Officials did not specify the locations.

The discovery followed an investigation into anonymous “telephonic threats” directed at three US government officials this spring, unnamed officials told the New York Times.

One of the officials works in the Secret Service and the other two work at the White House, according to the newspaper.

Investigators also told CBS News they found 80g of cocaine, illegal firearms, computers and phones.

***

CBS includes in part:Telephonic threats to multiple senior U.S. officials this past spring – including multiple people protected by the Secret Service – first triggered the investigation, but officials say the network was seized within the last three weeks.

Still, another official added that “it would be unwise to assume” there aren’t other such networks in the U.S.

The investigation remains ongoing, according to the U.S. Secret Service. There have been no arrests yet, but officials said, “there could be arrests down the road,” adding that “from an operational perspective, we want those behind the network to know that the Secret Service is aware and that we’re kind of coming for them.”

This photo provided by the U.S. Secret Service, in New York, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025, shows part of a wall of SIM boxes that were seized by the agency. (U.S. Secret Service via AP)

Then from the Associated Press in part:

The operation had the capability of sending up to 30 million text messages a minute, McCool said.

“The U.S. Secret Service’s protective mission is all about prevention, and this investigation makes it clear to potential bad actors that imminent threats to our protectees will be immediately investigated, tracked down and dismantled,” the agency’s director, Sean Curran, said in a statement.

Officials also warned of the havoc the network could have caused if left intact. McCool compared the potential impact to the cellular blackouts that followed the Sept. 11 attacks and the Boston Marathon bombing, when networks collapsed under strain. In this case, he said, attackers would have been able to force that kind of shutdown at a time of their choosing.

U.S. Naval Operations in the Caribbean VS. Maduro VS China

Posted on September 10, 2025September 10, 2025 by Denise Simon

There are nine naval assets in the Caribbean due to Venezuela and Nicolas Maduro and his position as a drug king pin. the assets include destroyers, amphibious assault ships, reconnaissance, fighter aircraft, a submarine and drones.

Newsweek has a great map of the deployments and ship descriptions. Included in the Newsweek piece is the following:

The deployment reflects the Trump administration’s assertive approach to countering drug trafficking while signaling pressure on the Venezuelan government. Late on Tuesday, U.S. forces in the region launched a missile strike that destroyed a suspected drug boat linked to Venezuela, killing those on board, Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

By positioning advanced warships and long-range aircraft near Venezuelan waters, Washington is seeking to demonstrate both tactical capability and political resolve. In response, Venezuela is mobilizing troops and military assets, raising the prospect of a direct standoff in the southern Caribbean.

What is likely not revealed by these operations in the Caribbean is the matter of China. China has moved into the region in a huge force and very few are even aware of this threat. How so you ask?

In part: By 2022, ten countries had already joined Beijing’s so-called Belt and Road Initiative: Cuba, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Barbados, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica

China’s growing influence in Cuba and the broader Caribbean region has raised concerns among U.S. experts, who warn that Beijing’s expanding economic and military presence could pose a strategic threat to the United States.

China has significantly expanded its influence in the region through economic investments, diplomatic ties, and military cooperation, particularly with authoritarian regimes like Cuba. Experts warn that these efforts are part of a broader strategy to turn the Caribbean into a “Chinese lake,” according to a Newsweek report published on Sunday.

According to World Trade Organization data, Chinese manufacturing exports surged to $1.81 trillion in 2023, a 30-fold increase from 2002, while the U.S. global trade deficit exceeded $1.2 trillion. Chinese trade with the Caribbean skyrocketed from $1 billion in 2002 to $8 billion in 2019, including $6.1 billion in exports and $1.9 billion in imports.

China’s Deepening Ties With Cuba

Cuba has been one of China’s most loyal allies in the region for decades, with strong economic and military cooperation. A significant uptick in this relationship was observed in 2021, following Cuba’s July 11 (11J) protests, when Chinese paramilitary forces trained Cuban elite security units responsible for suppressing dissent. The Brigada Especial Nacional (BEN), a unit under Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior, reportedly received tactical training from China’s People’s Armed Police (PAP), a paramilitary force specializing in riot control and counterterrorism.

Sources told ADN Cuba that PAP training in Cuba began approximately six years before the 2021 protests, focusing on sniper tactics, intervention strategies, and specialized training for elite Cuban security forces. This collaboration underscores China’s role in bolstering the Cuban regime’s ability to suppress political opposition.

Beyond infrastructure projects and military cooperation, China is also strengthening its diplomatic and cultural footprint in communist Cuba. In May 2024, Beijing and Havana resumed direct flights between the two countries. The Cuban regime has also introduced visa exemptions for Chinese citizens with ordinary passports, making travel between both nations easier. More details here.

*** FNC has called on experts to describe the Chinese threat so close to to the U.S. coastline.

China is steadily expanding in the Bahamas through projects that blur economic development and geopolitical aims, an expert warned.

“The People’s Republic of China has been making diplomatic, economic and even military and quasi-military inroads into the Caribbean, South and Central America for the past couple of decades,” retired Rear Adm. Peter Brown, former Homeland Security advisor to President Donald Trump, told Fox News Digital.

Brown pointed to the rise in dual-use infrastructure projects along the Bahamas coastline, which is located just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination for the People’s Republic of China to use its commercial footprint in the Bahamas to monitor, exploit and perhaps even do worse to [the] U.S.,” he said.

Pointing to the Chinese-controlled British Colonial Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas, Brown said that its location directly across from the U.S. Embassy could give way to intelligence gathering on U.S. personnel.

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think that additional electronics were put in there with the purpose and the task of keeping an eye not only on the U.S. Embassy itself, but also the U.S. Embassy visitors,” he said.

The hotel is owned by a Chinese company, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, which has raised geopolitical concerns given its location. Fox News Digital has reached out to the British Colonial Hotel for comment.

China has invested heavily in the Bahamas through a range of additional high-profile projects, including a $40 million grant for a national stadium, a $3 billion mega-port in Freeport, and $40 million for the North Abaco Port and Little Abaco Bridge.

Additionally, China EXIM Bank provided over $54 million in loans to construct a four-lane highway and nearly $3 billion to finance the development of the Baha Mar Resort.

*** You can bet our high tech naval assets are picking up information and reporting back to the national security council and Secretary of State Marco Rubio…it is no wonder he has spent a good deal of time in the region.

Yes, China is Surrounding the S. China Sea, but what about Florida?

Posted on April 28, 2025April 28, 2025 by Denise Simon

The two faced dragon….tie to really recalibrate the relationship between the United States and China AGAIN….Previously n this website, I have discussed not only by a post but several times on radio about how the former intelligence/snooping base owned by Russia in Cuba known as the Lourdes SIGINT station was sold to China….no one in media or the national security realm seems to give it much attention…but now…we have an additional problem with China and that is the Bahamas.

How about the largest Chinese embassy in the world with hundreds of Chinese intelligence officers deployed there….. Embassy of China in Nassau in Nassau, Bahamas (Google Maps)

In part from FNC:

“The People’s Republic of China has been making diplomatic, economic and even military and quasi-military inroads into the Caribbean, South and Central America for the past couple of decades,” retired Rear Adm. Peter Brown, former Homeland Security advisor to President Donald Trump, told Fox News Digital.

Brown pointed to the rise in dual-use infrastructure projects along the Bahamas coastline, which is located just 50 miles off the coast of Florida.

“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination for the People’s Republic of China to use its commercial footprint in the Bahamas to monitor, exploit and perhaps even do worse to [the] U.S.,” he said. Pointing to the Chinese-controlled British Colonial Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas, Brown said that its location directly across from the U.S. Embassy could give way to intelligence gathering on U.S. personnel.

The hotel is owned by a Chinese company, Chow Tai Fook Enterprises, which has raised geopolitical concerns given its location. Fox News Digital has reached out to the British Colonial Hotel for comment.

China has invested heavily in the Bahamas through a range of additional high-profile projects, including a $40 million grant for a national stadium, a $3 billion mega-port in Freeport, and $40 million for the North Abaco Port and Little Abaco Bridge.

In 2019, now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned in a Miami Herald op-ed that the devastation caused by the natural disaster could create an opening for the People’s Republic of China to use aid as a Trojan horse to gain a foothold near American shores.

“By targeting the Bahamian government in this period of crisis, Beijing would be making the same opportunistic play to access critical foreign infrastructure,” Rubio wrote in 2019. “But in this case, the national security threat is especially perilous, as it would give China a foothold just 50 miles from the coast of Florida.”

***

How about another look at things in the Caribbean…Chinese expansion

Chinese Expansion in the Caribbean (Extra) - Virtual Mirage

China’s Influence in the Caribbean:

China is a member of both the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and an observer at the Organization of American States (OAS). Alongside Italy and Germany, China is the third largest shareholder at the CDB with 5.6% of overall shares, exponentially higher than the majority of Caribbean countries.

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) engagement in the Caribbean has largely focused on investments in infrastructure and developing trade relationships. As of 2022, ten Caribbean countries have signed up to Belt and Road (BRI) – Cuba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, Barbados, Grenada, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname.

The PRC is working towards diminishing the region’s ties to Taiwan as the region contains the largest bulk of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies. Today, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, Haiti, and Belize remain the only Caribbean nations that recognize Taiwan.

China’s Trade and Economic Investment in the Caribbean

While the Caribbean’s trade with China has grown at a slower pace than overall trade with the region, it increased from $1 billion in 2002 to $8 billion in 2019, with an estimated $6.1 billion in Chinese exports and $1.9 billion in imports.

China is a major trading partner of Cuba’s and Chinese businesses are involved in the Cuba’s telecommunications, tourism, mining, and energy sectors.

Cuba is highly dependent on China and ongoing economic challenges resulted in the reconstructing of an estimated $4 billion in debt to China in 2011 and another restructuring in 2015. For more reading click here.

The U.S. Must Join China’s Belt and Road In Developing The Caribbean ...

How Badly is the Taxpayer Being Fleeced?

Posted on April 28, 2025April 28, 2025 by Denise Simon

We have some indications as noted by what DOGE has uncovered…but it hardly all of it. The House is working diligently on the Trump Big Beautiful Bill because much of what has come from DOGE as well as Cabinet secretaries, there will need to be legislative action to stop the stupid as in spending in the future….yet…check out what my long time friends at Open the Books has uncovered….

In part:

BY THE NUMBERS

During fiscal year 2024, federal agencies reported $161.5 billion in improper payments – money sent to the wrong entity, for the wrong amount or wrong reason – according to data released by the Office of Management and Budget in November.

That means President Biden left office having presided over $925.7 billion in waste, fraud, abuse and duplicative payments – and that’s just what agencies were able to report.

Adjusted for inflation, the figure grows to $986.2 billion – almost a trillion dollars lost through improper payments!

That’s the worst for any president since reporting began in 2004, even when adjusting for inflation.

NOTE: Perhaps unsurprisingly, the single-year record came during the fog of Covid, as enormous amounts of cash were shoveled out quickly by Congress. Fiscal year 2021 say $281.4 billion in improper payments, which we now know includes Covid-related aid that was subject to massive fraud.

BY AGENCY

As Open the Books first reported in RealClearInvestigations, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wasted $87 billion in improper payments, more than any other government entity. Medicare reimbursements to health providers had a 7.7% mistake rate this year, the worst since percentages were first reported in 2019.

Another $4 billion was sent to recipients who had issues regarding their citizenship, including $824 million in unemployment insurance from the Department of Labor.

The government also sent $346 million to dead people, mostly because the Office of Personnel Management continued to send benefits to retirees who are no longer alive. That’s the highest amount since at least 2021.

The Treasury Department is working to rectify the problem of payments sent to dead people, having reported it recouped $31 million in such payments in five months. It did so simply by gaining access to the Social Security Administration’s federal death database. It’s amazing what can happen when the left hand simply knows what the right hand is doing! That said, Open the Books has reported $3.6 billion in Covid stimulus checks went to dead people. As our CEO, John Hart, told FOX News, “There are miles to go before we break even.”

Other Covid-era programs continued to have some of the worst improper payment rates. Roughly 25%, or $2 billion, of loans forgiven under the Paycheck Protection Program this year were paid improperly.

The data was released on Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving, leaving little time for negative coverage before families began breaking bread.

For comparison, Biden leaves office with an overall mistake rate of 5.42%, slightly higher than President Trump’s 4.94% in his first term. Still, Trump presided over $846.8 billion in improper payments, adjusted for inflation as of last October.

Now, he has an opportunity to make good on the war on waste.

SEC's Final Clawback Rules: What to Know | WorldatWork

So, as long as President Trump is signing Executive Orders, he needs to sign yet another that stands up a task force that pursues investigations and ‘clawback’ taxpayer money as much and as fast as can happen.

Media Critical that Trump has not Fixed the Price of Eggs

Posted on January 28, 2025January 28, 2025 by Denise Simon

VP J.D. Vance sat for an interview with Margaret Brennan where she questioned him regarding all the executive orders but the price of eggs are too high..Mr. Vice President?

Exactly where was the media for the last four years?

So to be sure, while VP Vance did a relatively good job in answering why the price of eggs are high…he did miss the moment to call out CBS and other media regarding the Biden ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ which has not brought down the price of anything. Furthermore, not one single Republican voted for that law, why you ask?

After the expert at Forbes took a long look at the IRA, here are their major takeaways:

The Inflation Reduction Act is a slimmed-down version of the Build Back Better bill, which aimed to make historic investments in the nation’s social safety net. The new bill makes the largest investment in combating climate change in U.S. history, lowers the cost of prescription drugs and raises taxes on corporations.

Here are the big provisions:

Creation of a 15% corporate minimum tax rate: Corporations with at least $1 billion in income will have a new tax rate of 15%. Taxes on individuals and households won’t be increased. Stock buybacks by corporations will face a 1% excise tax.

Prescription drug price reform: One of the most significant provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act will allow Medicare to negotiate the price of certain prescription drugs, bringing down the price beneficiaries will pay for their medications. Medicare recipients will have a $2,000 cap on annual out-of-pocket prescription drug costs, starting in 2025.

IRS tax enforcement: The IRS has been sounding the alarm for years about being underfunded and being unable to deliver on its duties. The bill invests $80 billion in the nation’s tax agency over the next 10 years.

Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidy extension: Currently, medical insurance premiums under the ACA are subsidized by the federal government to lower premiums. These subsidies, which were scheduled to expire at the end of this year, will be extended through 2025. Approximately 3 million Americans could lose their health insurance if these subsidies weren’t extended, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Energy security and climate change investments: The bill includes numerous investments in climate protection, including tax credits for households to offset energy costs, investments in clean energy production and tax credits aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

The bill passed with all 50 Democratic votes in the Senate on Aug. 7. Democrats were able to secure two key votes, from Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), after the pair opposed earlier versions of the bill. Sinema, the last party holdout, expressed support for the bill after the carried-interest loophole provision was dropped.

Nothing reduces the price of eggs Margaret….but what did the Biden White House admit about the Inflation Reduction Act really? It was all about climate change.

On August 16, 2022, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, marking the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history. With the stroke of his pen, the President redefined American leadership in confronting the existential threat of the climate crisis and set forth a new era of American innovation and ingenuity to lower consumer costs and drive the global clean energy economy forward.

This guidebook provides an overview of the clean energy, climate mitigation and resilience, agriculture, and conservation-related investment programs in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, including who is eligible to apply for funding and for what activities.

Pass this along to VP Vance when you get a chance please….