INTRO:

• China completely surrounds Taiwan with its warships in a drill that its communist dictators admit was designed to punish Taiwan’s outspoken new president.
• Mysterious drones have been spotted flying around one of the U.S. military’s most sensitive air bases. 
• One Western country is dialing back its drive to create a cashless society.
• Joe Biden is sending U.S. troops to Israel.
• And FEMA gets caught spreading a phony rumor that an armed militia was hunting FEMA employees in the area.

All these stories and more when the Worldview Report begins, right now!

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Good evening and welcome to the Worldview Report.

China began a huge military drill Monday that involves the complete surrounding of Taiwan. 

The Chinese communists have employed a record 125 aircraft, as well as its top-of-the-line new aircraft carrier and ships, in large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands.

The drill will simulate the sealing off of key ports in a move that underscores the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, officials told the Associated Press.

The AP reports that China made clear that the exercise was meant to punish Taiwan’s president for his recent comments rejecting Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the self-governed island.

The drills came four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day, when Taiwan’s president said in a speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan and declared his commitment to “resist annexation or encroachment.”

China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement:

“This is a resolute punishment for (the Taiwanese president’s) continuous fabrication of Taiwan independence nonsense.”

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said 90 of the aircraft, including warplanes, helicopters and drones, were spotted within Taiwan’s air-defense identification zone. 

Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s security council, said at a forum in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital:

“Our military will definitely deal with the threat from China appropriately. Threatening other countries with force violates the basic spirit of the United Nations Charter to resolve disputes through peaceful means.”

Taiwan’s Presidential Office also called on China to “cease military provocations that undermine regional peace and stability and stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”

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Mysterious drones have been spotted flying around one of the U.S. military’s most sensitive air bases, leaving defense officials and local authorities stumped as to who is behind the unmanned aerial vehicles zipping across the sky around a major U.S. air base.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that U.S. Air Force General Mark Kelly wasn’t sure what to make of reports that a suspicious fleet of unidentified aircraft had been flying over restricted airspace above Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. 

Kelly, a decorated senior commander at the base, got on a squadron rooftop to see for himself. He joined a handful of other officers responsible for some of the nation’s most advanced jet fighters, including F-22 Raptors. 

What they saw affirmed the reports and yet they had no good answer for the Wall Street Journal as to who is controlling the drones and what type of data they may be gathering.

The drones have appeared shortly after sunset during a period of more than two weeks, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The drones also appeared in December last year, according to the report, pulling in officials across the Pentagon, FBI and the Defense Department's specialized office for investigating unidentified aerial phenomena.

One senior official based at Langley told The Journal that multiple drones headed across Chesapeake Bay and further south toward the city of Norfolk. They reportedly traveled across Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval port and the main base for the Navy's vaunted SEAL Team Six. Unless the drones are an imminent threat, by law they cannot by shot down near military bases.

Officials haven't determined if the drones belong to enthusiasts or are operated by countries such as Russia or China, according to the report. U.S. officials are not convinced that hobbyists were behind the controls, with the drones flying in a pattern and using a frequency band not associated with easily bought, commercial drones, The Journal reported.

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The Daily Caller, citing a Wall Street Journal article, reports that the Chinese government is conducting espionage on such a broad scale that Western governments are struggling to keep Beijing’s spying in check.

SHOW TWEET

https://x.com/DailyCaller/status/1808810633414185007

In just the last month, the FBI said that Chinese government-linked hackers breached 260,000 internet-connected devices across the U.S. and Europe, while federal officials alleged that a former top aide to Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was a Chinese agent. And a congressional report found that Chinese-made cargo cranes at America’s ports contained technology that would allow China to control them discreetly, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

We’ve also reported previously here at the Worldview Report that Chinese technology placed in U.S. automobiles could be used to send data back to the CCP.

Western intelligence agencies are sounding the alarm and asking the public to be vigilant for possible Chinese spying, but deep economic ties between China and the West are making espionage detection a difficult task, the Daily Caller reports.

China’s network of state-backed hackers is enormous, and it is thought to outnumber the FBI’s cyber personnel by a ratio of about 50-to-1, with some estimates calculating that China may have as many as 600,000 people working on cyber operations, according to the WSJ.

China has hacked into U.S. energy and water utility infrastructure, which is concerning some in Washington who worry that the Chinese government could seriously disrupt those crucial services if China tries to take Taiwan by force, according to the WSJ. Chinese hackers also managed to install malicious software inside India’s power grid amid a 2021 border dispute between the two countries, and they may have also compromised telecommunications infrastructure in Guam, an island in the Pacific Ocean that hosts a major U.S. military base.

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In a major U-turn in the global war on cash, the government and central bank of Norway, one of Europe’s most cashless economies, are seeking to slow or even reverse the mass abandonment of cash, reports Nick Corbishley of financial website Naked Capitalism.

Only 3% of Norwegians used cash in their latest purchase in a physical shop, according to a recent central bank survey.

In a bid to change that, a new amendment to Norway’s Financial Contracts Act came into force on October 1st that bolsters citizens’ rights to pay with cash in retail settings. The new legislation should sound the death knell for all the “we only accept credit cards” signs plastered on shop windows throughout the country, reports the Norwegian online newspaper Nettavisen.

Norway’s central bank explains on its website how the new amendment will clarify customers’ right to pay in cash.

Section 3-5 (1) of the Central Bank Act stipulates that banknotes and coins issued by Norway’s central bank are legal tender and must be accepted at retail shops.

In June 2024, the Norwegian legislature enacted an amendment to Section 2-1 of the Financial Contracts Act, clarifying consumers’ right to pay with cash.

Exceptions to the new law include sales made through vending machines and transactions that exceed 20,000 kroner, the equivalent of $2,000.

The central bank explains that retail businesses refusing to abide by this change in the law could face financial penalties. Fines may be imposed if businesses willfully violate a person’s right to pay in cash.

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Ken Silva of Headline USA reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency told hurricane relief workers in Rutherford County, North Carolina, to stand down after receiving a phony rumor that an armed militia was hunting FEMA employees in the area.

SHOW TWEET

https://x.com/JD_Cashless/status/1845872583968768053

The Substack account Hotshot Wake Up first reported FEMA’s stand-down order on Sunday, reporting that FEMA sent out communications to Incident Management Teams, telling them to “stand down and evacuate immediately” in Rutherford County, North Carolina.

The Washington Post reported later on Sunday that the notification came from an official with the U.S. Forest Service, who said FEMA had given the order to all federal responders in Rutherford County. The message stated that National Guard troops “had come across two trucks of armed militia saying they were out hunting FEMA.”

The Post admitted that “it was unclear whether the quoted threat was seen as credible.” And sure enough, Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office debunked the rumors in an email to Headline USA on Monday.

It turns out a lone 44-year-old man allegedly made a comment on Saturday about possibly harming FEMA employees in the Lake Lure and Chimney Rock area. But no militias were involved, the sheriff’s office told Silva.

The suspect, William Jacob Parsons of Bostic, North Carolina, was arrested and charged with Going Armed to the Terror of the Public. He was allegedly armed with a handgun and a rifle. Parsons received a $10,000 dollar secured bond, and was released later the same evening from the Rutherford County Detention Center, the sheriff added.

“The initial report stated there was a truckload of militia that was involved. However, after further investigation, it was determined Parsons acted alone and there were no truckloads of militia going to Lake Lure,” the sheriff concluded in his press release.

But that didn’t stop FEMA from halting work in an area that continues to reel from Hurricane Helene, which has killed at least 250 people there.

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The Daily Mail reports that Joe Biden will send U.S. troops to Israel along with an advanced anti-missile system to help bolster the country's air defense.

Biden said the move was meant to defend Israel after Iran fired over 180 missiles at the country on October 1st.

Around 100 American troops will be deployed in Israel to operate the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, which is a critical part of the U.S. military's layered air-defense systems.

The THAAD system is used for anti-ballistic missile defense and could bolster Israel’s already formidable Iron Dome defense system. 

The move comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is weighing up an expected retaliation against the Iranian attack but the U.S. has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East.

Biden has publicly voiced his opposition to an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear sites and his concerns about a strike on Iran's energy infrastructure. 

As noted by the Daily Mail, a U.S. military deployment to Israel is rare outside of drills given Israel's own military capabilities. According to the Department of Defense, the U.S. last had boots on the ground in Israel back in 2019 when they carried out training exercises with the same THAAD system. 

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With the end of the Biden administration in sight, liberal pundits seem to be striving to prove that the only difference between a lawbreaker and a law-abiding citizen is the ability to get away with the crime. 

Constitutional Attorney Jonathan Turley reports that popular figures on the left, from Michael Moore to Keith Olbermann, are calling on Joe Biden to commit overtly unlawful acts in his final 100 days in office, including targeting his political opponents.

In a posting on Substack, Moore told Biden it was time to yield to temptation and check off a liberal 13-item bucket list of demands, tossing aside questions of legality or constitutionality. He wrote:

“You’re not done. You’ve still got 100 days left in office! And the Supreme Court has just granted you super powers — AND immunity! You don’t answer to anyone. For the first time in over 50 years, you don’t have to campaign for anything. You have full immunity! No kidding! No joke! That’s not hyperbole! You can get away with anything! And what if anything means everything to the people?”

The list includes emptying death row by ending the death penalty, canceling all student and medical debt, halting weapons shipments to Israel, declaring the Equal Rights Amendment a constitutional amendment, and granting clemency to nonviolent drug offenders.

Turley notes that many of the items on Moore’s list could only be fulfilled by knowingly gutting the Constitution and assuming the powers of a monarch. That includes just canceling all student and medical debt in defiance of both the courts and Congress.

Others, such as Keith Olbermann, have added to the bucket list.

Olbermann has called on Biden to target political opponents like Elon Musk with deportation, stating: “If we can’t do that by conventional means, President Biden, you have presidential immunity. Get Elon Musk the F out of our country and do it now.”

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In a message to employees, Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg announced that the company is reducing the size of its total workforce by 10 percent. 

That means Boeing is cutting roughly 17,000 jobs, including executives and managers, over the coming months. 

Ortberg, a new CEO who took over in August, explained that the company has to make structural changes to ensure it can stay competitive and deliver for its customers over the long term.

Ortberg announced the upcoming layoffs in the midst of a machinist strike that had shut down production in most of Boeing's plants, including the ones manufacturing its best-selling plane, the 737 Max. 

Around 33,000 union machinists are involved in the strike, which has been going on since mid-September. As AP explains, that's had a big impact on Boeing's pockets, since it gets paid for half of what a plane costs after it delivers a customer's order.

In addition to the layoffs, Ortberg announced that Boeing will delay the development of its 777X planes due to the challenges it has faced in development, along with the ongoing work stoppage. It now plans to deliver the new wide-body planes in 2026 instead of 2025.

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Time now for our nightly Worldview Report commentary.

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten expressed surprise Monday at the degree to which young black men are abandoning the Democratic Party.

Former President Barack Obama urged black men to support Kamala Harris for president while speaking last Thursday at a Pittsburgh-area campaign office.

Obama said he believes a reason for their reluctance to back Kamala is that they “aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.” 

Harry Enten, CNN’s senior data reporter, said Obama was mistaken in his criticism because young black men aged 18-44 have increasingly been leaving the Democratic Party over multiple elections, especially those in which the opposing candidate is Donald Trump.

WATCH VIDEO

https://rumble.com/embed/v5gdyix/?pub=rze3r

So, there at the end, you see Kamala Harris is also losing black women voters. There is no way she can win given these numbers, at least not if we have a free and fair election. 

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and so many others on the left are saying the U.S. needs to crack down on so-called disinformation, especially regarding elections and the allegations that they are rigged. 

They know we no longer have free and fair elections and they’re moving to seize the high ground in the coming battle, in the courts and in the courts of public opinion, over Kamala’s pending installation and whether it is truly representative of the people’s choice.

That does it for this edition of the Worldview Report. Thanks for watching and supporting this broadcast. 

Until next time…