Wednesday, June 2, 2021

Last Call For A Meatier Strike On The Net

Another week, another major cyberattack on US infrastructure, this time with the operations of the world's largest meat processor, JBS, being the target, shutting down all of its US plants.

A cyberattack on JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, forced the shutdown of all its U.S. beef plants, wiping out output from facilities that supply almost a quarter of American supplies.

All of the company’s fed-beef and regional beef plants were forced to shutter, and all other JBS meatpacking facilities in the country experienced some level of disruption to operations, according to an official with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

JBS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The union represents workers at the company’s plants in the U.S.

Slaughter operations across Australia were also down, according to a trade group, and one of Canada’s largest beef plants was idled. That comes after a weekend attack on the Brazilian company’s computer networks, according to JBS posts on Facebook, labor unions and employees.

It’s unclear exactly how many plants globally have been affected by the ransomware attack as Sao Paulo-based JBS has yet to release those details. The prospect of more extensive shutdowns worldwide is already upending agricultural markets and raising concerns about food security as hackers increasingly target critical infrastructure. Livestock futures slumped, while pork prices rose.

Hackers now have the commodities industry in their crosshairs with the JBS attack coming just three weeks after Colonial Pipeline Co., operator of the biggest U.S. gasoline pipeline, was targeted in a ransomware attack. It also happened as the global meat industry battles lingering Covid-19 absenteeism after recovering from outbreaks last year that saw plants shut and supplies disrupted.

The White House offered assistance to JBS after the company notified the Biden administration on Sunday of a cyberattack from a criminal organization likely based in Russia, White House Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Tuesday.

There have been more than 40 publicly reported ransomware attacks against food companies since May 2020, said Allan Liska, senior security architect at cybersecurity analytics firm Recorded Future.
 
Expect meat prices to skyrocket as we head into summer grilling season, and that's the point: to hang higher prices at the pump, at the grocery store, and at restaurants around the neck of President Biden.
 
Ask cui bono, who benefits from the crime the most, and you'll find your perps. 

Hint, one is orange, and the other is very, very red.

Trump Cards, Con't

With his Second Civil War Tour 2021 kicking off this weekend in North Carolina, Trump is dropping his blog page.

Former President Donald Trump’s blog — a webpage where he shared statements after larger social media companies banned him from their platforms — has been permanently shut down, his spokesman said Wednesday.

The page, “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” has been scrubbed from Trump’s website after going live less than a month earlier.

It “will not be returning,” his senior aide Jason Miller told CNBC.

“It was just auxiliary to the broader efforts we have and are working on,” Miller said in email correspondence.
 
The blog wasn't sufficiently feeding the dark, cavernous maw of his eternal narcissistic hunger. His event tour will get him on the news as much or more so than President Biden though, because our media is broken, and everyone knows it. It's what Trump needs to survive, it's what the media outlets have been craving, and the whole thing will be an utter mess.

Trump wants to be shadow president, and everything is there for that to happen.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

As Donald Trump revives his hate rallies starting this week in NC at the state's GOP convention, it's important to note that the recent talk of "coups" and "reinstatement" by his revanchist revenants appears to be idle boasting, but of course, it's anything but.

Former President Donald Trump has been telling people he thinks he'll return to the White House as the sitting president by August, the New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted on Tuesday.

Haberman, who broke some of the biggest stories of the Trump administration and has been covering him for decades, added that Trump had been "laser focused" on election audits in states whose results he is still trying to overturn.

The anti-democratic conspiracy theory has been bubbling up in fringe conservative media for several months. It has no basis under the Constitution or any legitimate legal framework.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has been a prominent proponent of the theory.

The former Trump attorney Sidney Powell also floated the idea at a QAnon conference over the weekend.

Read more: Low-paid Capitol Hill staffers are moonlighting for Starbucks and Door Dash. They're fed up with unlivable salaries that hinder diversity and kneecap careers.

The anticipation of a Trump reinstatement on a certain date could spread further among the most dedicated Trump supporters. The calls to help overturn the 2020 election on January 6, for example, gained steam through a pro-Trump bus tour by a fringe group and led to the insurrection at the Capitol.

Lindell has said August is when he would go to the Supreme Court to present evidence he's acquired — evidence he's said would be so convincing that the justices would be forced to reject the 2020 election result.

A podcast from the former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has amplified the conspiracy theory, as Lindell and others have gone on the show to promote it with minimal pushback.
 
Trump kept telling us January 6th was going to happen, now he's telling us that early August will happen.
 
Maybe this time we should be ready for the violence?