Well, thank you very much. Good morning. Welcome to what I am confident is going to be the highlight of the Reagan National Defense Forum in 2023. I'm putting that out there, so it's got to be true now. All the pressure is on our panel. As you heard from our voice of God here, this is overlooking Monroe protecting the hemisphere and the homeland. Of course, Monroe is referring to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and just to geek out for a second here. I'm sure the amazingly smart people at Reagan knew this, but today is actually the 200th anniversary of the signing of the announcement of the Monroe Doctrine. It was December 2nd, 1823, and I think it's super cool that we get to sit here today and talk about it. It was, of course, when President James Monroe announced it in his annual message to Congress, and it was a declaration that foreign powers could not become involved in the affairs of independent countries in the western hemisphere. And at the time, of course, it was directed at European powers, but the threat has shifted in 200 years. So we have a terrific panel here today to address this and other things in the hemisphere. I have my order wrong, so let's see. We have Congressman Mike Walts. He's a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida. He's also a retired colonel in the National Guard and the First Green Beret elected to Congress. General Laura Richardson has been the commander of U.S. Southern Command for just over two years, I believe. And also important to our topic today, she was the commanding general of U.S. Army North, which is the service component command for U.S. Northern Command. We have General Paul Nakasoni, the commander of U.S. Cyber Command, the director of the National Security Agency, and Central Security Service Chief. I hope you get paid extra for three rolls. I'm just saying. I've got an agent. I can put you in touch with him. And then we have Joseph Lonsdale. He's a serial entrepreneur and one of the co-founders of Palantir, and he now runs ABC, which is a venture capital firm. So welcome all. I want to start with the... Well, this is a big topic, right? So let's start with a big question. What do you see as the biggest threat to the Western Hemisphere and to the U.S. homeland right now? And I'm just going to go right down the line, starting with Congressman Walts. Well, I'd have to say, I mean, right now in the present, it's the cartels that have essentially taken operational control of our southern border. And according to a number of estimates, control anywhere from 30% to 40% of Mexican territory. So if we're looking at more Americans dying each year, then we lost in Vietnam in 10 years through fentanyl and other types of illicit narcotics that are coming across one. Two, that these organizations are essentially paramilitary transnational crime organizations. They're not like the mafia. They're much more like ISIS, and we need to start treating them that way. When the Mexican army, the Mexican military, is fought to a standstill with armored vehicles, heavy weapons, their aircraft shot down when they try to go arrest a cartel member, that is a existential issue that is literally right on our border. So Representative Dan Crenshaw and I have proposed legislation to authorize the use of military force. I have to say with a strong caveat, no one is talking about invading Mexico. We are talking about our overwhelmed law enforcement, Customs and Border Patrol, and others that do not have access to assets like General Nakasone has in terms of offensive cyber, space, drones, and other types of methodologies. But the bottom line, Courtney, is we need to unleash military resources to take on what is now a national security problem. If you change the name from Jalisco in Sinaloa to ISIS in Al Qaeda, I don't even think we would be, frankly, having this debate. That's the shift we went from the 90s to the 2000s. I think that's the shift that we need to see now. Again, it's an authorization, but I think it will push very scarce resources towards this problem set. And we know how to take down networks. We've been doing it all over the world. We've done it in Colombia. We can do it in Mexico as well. General Richardson. So I would say for the Department of Defense, our number one pacing challenge is the People's Republic of China. And so that's at the top of our list. But make no mistakes that for our partner nations in the South America, Central America, and the Caribbean, transnational criminal organizations are at the top of their list of what they face every day. And I look at the instability and insecurity that they stir up and plow the ground. I mean, they've become way more powerful. Diversified their portfolio. It's not just trafficking of drugs. It's humans. It's illegal mining, illegal logging, illegal fishing. I mean, it's the whole portfolio. And a $300 billion revenue business annually. Very powerful. But then it's also what we've got to do better at is following the money. Us from Team USA and our interagency and following that money of how that money is laundered, cleaned, and then put right back into that very powerful system. But in terms of the People's Republic of China, I think through the Belt and Road Initiative is how they bring their authoritarian model under the disguise of a developmental model into the hemisphere. And that's how they bring their instruments of national power together under this communist government and why they're so effective looking like it's investment economically when really it's a lot of extraction at the end of the day. So Courtney, first of all, thanks for allowing us to be part of the best panel at Reagan. Fantastic. You're welcome. I would say that to really reinforce both the Congressman and General Richardson's point, the near-term threat for us I think is transnational criminal organizations. We need 100,000 people in our nation every year to drugs such as fentanyl. And as we think about what we need to be able to do to impact that, the near-term impact for me is the reauthorization of 702 to be able to ensure that we have the identified intelligence that can lead us to the types of mitigations that prevent that type of precursor and the type of chemical entering our nation. But the longer-term threat truly is the corrosive influence of both China and I would say Russia. Think about the diplomatic information, military, economic influences that both nations are having in our southern border and certainly in the hemisphere. If we think about it, our national security, our national prosperity, our national identity, I think it's tied very, very closely to this region and sometimes we forget that. And I think this is an opportunity certainly today as we talk about it to remind ourselves just how important that region of the world is to the United States. And just, this is a super smart audience here, but Section 702 of FISA, can you just explain what that means? Right, Section 702 of FISA. Expires this month, right, I believe? Expires on the 31st, which provides the ability for the U.S. government to collect information on foreign intelligence targets operating outside the United States that utilize U.S. communication systems such as e-mail and telephone. A critical capability that allows us to be able to ensure the protection of the United States, provide insight to our policy makers and support military operations. Mr. Lonsdale? Well, thanks Courtney. I'm honored to be up here with these amazing leaders. You know, from my point of view, unfortunately we really lack leadership from the top in our country to acknowledge these two threats and what needs to be done. Basically, the border should be a military issue. We have some of the best and brightest in our country running our military. We have capabilities that would be able to secure our border if we treated it like a serious defense issue and we have not. The transnational criminal organizations have their tendrils into Mexico, they have their tendrils into these local governments and they're killing Americans and it's very clear how we can stop them and lack leadership from both these last two administrations means that we're not doing it, first of all. And second of all, the other threat, I totally agree, both China and Russia are extremely involved in the politics of Central and South America. I was saying earlier, I was with the president of Columbia, with some friends who are very close to him, the former president of Columbia, El Duque, and the people they caught coming across their border involved in political rallies, involved in helping the far left there, where people sponsored by Russia, sponsored by Cuba, the same people who helped shift Chile to the far left. These are not just like local parties, these are our adversaries, realizing they can cause trouble for us and for the world and have crony governments that they can work with if they push these places to the far left. And we've lost confidence in ourselves because of former things we did in the 70s, 80s, 90s, where we no longer are involved down there nearly as much as we should be. And so we have these huge threats coming from our adversaries, breaking things in this part of the world. All right, let's take these issues one at a time. By the way, you can ask questions that will come up on this iPad here, but I don't know how you do that. So some way the audience can ask questions and we'll get to some of those later on. Let's take these issues one at a time, starting with China. General Richardson, since you were the one who first mentioned this, I guess can you walk us through how China's presence is changing in Southern Command's AR? Yeah, so thank you. It has definitely changed as a game changer. I think that, and as I've said and I've repeatedly said in this forum, actually at the Reagan Forum, that the investment and through the Belt and Road Initiative in the region, 22 of our 31 countries in the hemisphere are signatories of the Belt and Road Initiative. And again, I say that that's how they bring forward their instruments of national power, all wrapped in a tight, nice box that, again, looks to be investment in the region. But it's all of our critical infrastructure in the hemisphere. It's deep water ports. It's 5G telecommunications. It's safe city, smart city technology, aka population surveillance technology. It's space. Why do we have the most PRC space-enabling infrastructure in this hemisphere out of anywhere else in the globe? And looking to almost double in those space facilities in the near future. And so when you just look at that, the encroachment on the 20-yard line in our red zone to the homeland. As you talk about the Monroe Doctrine, hemispheric security is really, really important. We need to have this partnership doctrine where we are better partners and we're securing our hemisphere and shoring up and helping our partner nations and helping these democracies deliver for their people. I think that's really, really what's important because each and every day our strategic competitors are waking up figuring out how they're going to undermine democratic institutions and democratic governments. Why is China doubling its space infrastructure in your AOR? I mean, what are they using it for? I think that it's able to, with the vulnerability of the partner nations of the countries in this region because of the impacts. I say it's the residual impacts of COVID that are still lingering. And the 170 million people thrown into poverty, the 8% GDP decrease on average for countries, the high being an 18% GDP decrease for countries or for a country. They're still trying to dig out of the hole, so they're looking for how do they deliver for their people. You've got leaders, presidents that are in the seat for one term of four years. They're working on a stopwatch, not a calendar. And we've got to be able to deliver at the speed of relevance for the assistance that they need from our democracies and from our democracy here in the United States because their security is our national security as well. And I would say just the instruments of national power, diplomacy, information, military, which was what I bring to the table in economics. We were just listening to Secretary Ramondo's fireside chat and she's talking about how national security rests on our economic security. That's absolutely correct and what I've come to realize because our leaders in the hemisphere, they don't see what everything that Team USA is bringing to the fight. We are not bringing it. We have all-star teammates on Team USA, but we are not bringing our instruments of national power together, synchronized as a full-fledged team. We can do better at that because all the elements are there. Congressman Wallace, what do you see as the major threat from China in the hemisphere? Just to add a little color to what the general is talking about, case in point. Hurricane Dorian a few years ago comes barreling towards our coastline. It literally does a miraculous halt and then turn out into the Atlantic, but before it turned, it sat over the Bahamas for a devastating three days and just wiped out the northern islands. I just had the Bahamian foreign minister come see me and say, look, the Chinese ambassador there is very aggressive, is very effective. They are doing what they do in terms of taking key assets, whether it's port rebuilding or what have you, in exchange for aid. And at the end of the day, the Bahamians, because we really weren't present, we don't have an ambassador there at this point. They gave up their fishing rights as collateral. I mean, this is 60 miles off the coast of the United States. As collateral for some redevelopment aid in the wake of a hurricane, the United States should have been there. That's in Northcom. That's not in the general's AOR. But this is what they do over and over again, whether it's a space tracking station as collateral in Argentina, whether it's ports in Brazil. I mean, I think we need a real wake up call to the sense that roughly 30 to 35% of our food in the winter flows out of South Central America and into ports in Florida and ports in southeastern United States. Well, if you look at how many ports the Chinese are investing into, including on both sides of the Panama Canal, which is critical obviously to global shipping and our ability to reposition our fleet, they have their tentacles in so many areas, literally right in our own hemisphere. I have your placemat of all of the investments that they have made, whether it's port processing, whether it's ports, space tracking station, electrical grids, but they could have a devastating effect on our economy, on our way of life that I just don't think we collectively realize how interdependent we are economically, whether it's energy food or shipping or else wise with our southern hemisphere neighbors. General Akassoni, a couple of months ago you put out a warning about some potential Chinese malware that may have infiltrated U.S. infrastructure. Does the U.S. currently have evidence that China has right now prepositioned malware inside U.S. critical infrastructure? And why? Are they just waiting to use it?  We did talk about this in the spring of 2023 where we said we see Chinese activities in a number of different networks, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region, where they had positioned capabilities that we did not think were solely for intelligence gathering. So the question becomes, why are you in that critical infrastructure? But I think the important piece is what are we doing about it? And what we're doing about it is very similar to what we're doing with General Richardson is, how do we stay engaged? How do we have a series of partnerships? We in the hemisphere have sent two different hunt forward teams to defend forward capability that allows us to, at the request of a foreign government, see if there are adversaries on their networks and then be able to ensure that those adversaries no longer able to stay there. That's part of the partnering piece that I think we have to bring, not only as an all-star team, but as a consistent, persistent engagement with our friends and allies in the region. Is there now evidence that they actually are infiltrating U.S. critical infrastructure today right now? Beyond the warning that you put out in May, are they physically inside U.S. infrastructure? So we have given indicators in terms of this is the type of activity that the Chinese are conducting and a number of different activities throughout the world that system administrators and those that run computer organizations should be very cautious about. And you're confident that the U.S., whether it's the government or private industry, is able to detect that before it could potentially be able to? We do. And I think that's one of the really good news stories that we've been able to do, is how do you work with a series of partners, both public and private, to be able to say, this is what our adversaries are doing and we should be very worried about it and not necessarily classified channels, but how do we talk about this to the world? Joe, how can private industry work with the U.S. government on this problem? Are they doing enough? Is there enough coordination? This has been a positive trend over the last several years where it used to be that the companies that would run the cyber infrastructure for the most advanced technology companies, most advanced banks, and others would have almost no role in the U.S. government and they'd be entirely different companies that were winning all the contracts from the U.S. government and it's kind of like the animals that would evolve, like the Glopkos Island, if you put them on the mainland they would be slaughtered because that's kind of how the government technology was for a long time and fortunately in the last few years you are starting. And that's a little too glib. If you go back to the 1970s, 1980s, the NSA was way ahead of private industry, by the way. I grew up in an era in computer science where the NSA would do something and then the academics would figure out like 20 years later why they were doing it and so there were, I think if you go to the mid-century, there was the very best and brightest technology there and I think what happened, perhaps really the big shift was in the 90s is you had so many trillions of wealth being created and so many new advances in technology that a lot of these things in the private world in certain areas did get to be way, way ahead, like much more so than they ever were in the past from our perspective. And I think it took a while for the culture in the government to realize that and to say, oh wait a second, there is some stuff out there that these giant corporations are doing with people in Silicon Valley that is more advanced than us and I think you've seen that realization in some areas and you have seen them start to adopt more private things which is a positive trend. Congressman Wolts, do you think that the the U.S. is doing enough to protect critical infrastructure from cyber attacks? I think they're doing all they can from a defensive standpoint. I think the question to ask is do we need to move to a more of a deterrence model? An offensive model? An offensive model and a deterrence model much like the evolution that we had in nuclear warfare in the 1950s and 60s. I mean if we know that the Chinese Communist Party are putting capabilities in our rail systems in our ports in our nuclear infrastructure and otherwise not to collect information but to essentially damage that infrastructure and therefore our economy our way of life, do we think about that differently from a doctrinal standpoint is there much different than them putting a missile into that infrastructure or causing it to implode through cyber means, either way it's destroyed or incapable. So have we communicated from as a policy matter to the Chinese Communist Party that we can and will do this as well and take a mutually assured destruction approach because the old do we start flicking the lights in Beijing and send a very strong signal on our offensive capabilities to therefore we're having that same conversation in space in that new fighting domain as well I personally believe and the general knows far more than I do that we can only play so much defense we can't bat a thousand and that we have to really look at some paradigm shifts on making them understand that this would be mutually assured destruction if they went down that road as a preventative measure to hopefully prevent them from doing that. General Laxoni, you've sort of overseen what has been a shift from more defensive to some offensive cyber operations or at least acknowledging that the U.S. is conducting them over the last five or six years, around five years can you give us any sense of how much of your cyber operations are offensive versus defensive right now? So I think it's better to think about it in the thought process of an entire persistent engagement spectrum so everything you can do from defense to effect space operations is something that we can do today and I'm very confident in terms of not only being able to see the threat but also being able to react to the threat but also our adversaries knowing that we have incredible capabilities that if the President determines that's necessary that we would be able to utilize them so that whole perspective in terms of having a full spectrum operation is something we need to do well it's with a series of partners this is the interesting part of the domain where 95% of our critical infrastructure is with the private sector being able to operate with the private sector that's what we can do and this is what we've shown over the past several years one piece of critical infrastructure the Russians and the Chinese have unleashed their and I put in their quotes private sector often offensively our companies are coming to us and saying we are under a deluge in the economy of ransomware attacks and yet that offensive capability on our end is reserved in the government space heck is reserved in the title 10 space and so back to kind of Joe's analogy of the Galapagos do we have if we unleash Silicon Valley forward or they believed that we could I mean that is a very different conversation with all kinds of ramifications I get that but that's kind of where from an oversight and a policy standpoint on the Intel committee those are the questions I'm asking and nuclear mutually assured destruction it was very clear what each side could do to each other I don't know if our adversaries believe that we have the capability and the will to unleash that should they do it to us and therefore keep the peace and that's I think a question we need to continue to ask ourselves what do you think about that idea Joe this idea of I guess that to an adversary and can private industry or in some way be a part of that well I mean first of all I 100% agree you need to be standing up to them and calling them out China from their point of view is in a cold war I mean you had Chinese and Russian troops marching with the Mexican troop parades you know off right I live in Texas like right nearby our border recently you have China you know putting into the Huawei networks and spying on all these countries you have them buying up the ports financing elections to try to push in socialist governments that they could be friends with and control you know what we saw this last month with Iran is that when Israel was very clear with the backing of the US that you know if they were attacked from the north they would they would consider an attack not not not from your friends Hezbollah and Lebanon but from actually Iran itself and they deterred them because the Iranian mollus did not want to be assassinated you know and I think you have to be very very clear with China that if this if certain things happen that's what they're doing right now in Central America and it's hitting us or if you're supplying these things are coming into the US there's going to be an aggressive response in return and until we have the leadership to say we're going to actually call you out and respond they're going to keep hitting us through their proxies and they're going to keep doing what they're doing Joe mentioned the sort of the cyber attacks and the impact on democracy that's something that you see in the Southcom area quite a bit General Richardson can you talk to us about who is behind some of the cyber attacks that you see in your area? Well it's our strategic competitors that are trying to replace us in the hemisphere and be there for our partners act like they're being there for our partners when they probably cause the situation to begin with and so what we're doing on the Southcom side of the house and the Department of Defense is help our partner nation militaries and their public security forces with cyber operation centers with updated equipment with the training and things like that that help them bring up their level of being able to protect their networks but as the our strategic competitors are attacking their networks with the ransomware the hacktivist attacks very very severe and on all of their networks I mean you're talking the financial institutions healthcare I mean nothing is being spared and it's very sporadic it's with a lot of our countries and so cyber and being able to being able to protect themselves and their governments I mean we're really talking about sovereignty countries are very very proud and very very strong on their sovereignty for their nations but the cyber is a whole different ball game because there aren't alarm bells that go off in some cases until that your data has been snatched and then you're trying to you know you're being it's like a nap veransum right and you're having to pay some kind of a fee or whatever and the billions of dollars in fees that are having to be paid right now I'll just refer back to the 60 minutes interview with our FBI Director Ray and the 5I Intelligence Chiefs all coming together about a month ago doing an unprecedented interview talking about the importance of what the People's Republic of China is doing stealing data it's the number one global espionage threat to democracy that democracy has ever faced in our entire history if you have not watched it I recommend you watch that 10 or 15 minute interview talking about our data talking about how companies are US companies and might not be interested in geopolitical activities but geopolitical entities are interested in you and in order to protect our national security we have got to work as a team and we have got to put national security at the forefront because our data is being stolen I normally would never recommend watching anything but NBC News but actually I agree the 60 minutes spot was pretty good Joe did you want to add something? When we were at PayPal early on this is like 2021 years ago before it sold to eBay and the Chinese and Russian mafia literally then and these weren't necessarily state actors they were independent actors that were kind of sanctioned by the state tens of millions of dollars a year from us hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the sector they made a bunch of our competitors go bankrupt and this was a very profitable thing in those countries and when we found people stealing from us in the US you'd work with either the Secret Service or the FBI that you branches in charge of that and you'd arrest them and you take care of it we found them there and report to the governments it was very clear they were being protected by their governments and what was very frustrating to me is that is that you have very clear criminals based in those countries caught right handed stealing from us, clear evidence and nothing from a foreign policy perspective to say by the way stop stealing from us stop doing this we're going to sanction you we're going to punish you we're going to do something to hurt your country for doing this and that still seems to be the case today that when our countries are stolen from by these actors in those countries which by the way at this point we have lots of evidence that China has actually been creating groups of hackers helping them do this so it's like semi-state sanction these days and we'll find evidence and yet we still have these like trade agreements with China and there's no punishment of China while we lack leadership from the top of our country to like hit them back and deter these activities it just we just lack that leadership do you think why do you think that is we got a promise in 2013 from Xi that he would stop I couldn't resist so if I might I think that it's also we should talk a little bit about what has changed over the past five years this idea of persistent engagement how do we persistently engage with our adversaries not episodic not when we think we need to strike them hard every single day and this is where we need to enable and act our partners so it's the FBI it's Secret Service it's the State Department it's being able to bring these different levers of our government to bear as I mentioned working with General Richardson being able to deploy teams when a foreign country asks hey we need some assistance you know being their matters and showing up with a team from Cybercom to say we're here to help you is the way that we do business today and I think that it's also the ability to share information rapidly right it's being able to tell the private sector that hey they're the vulnerabilities right here this is a much more nuanced approach that we have to take to a very difficult problem this isn't always a nation state it could be non-nation state actors it could be hacktivists it could be a number of different proxies we need a very sophisticated strategy which we're operating now to be able to campaign against them at all times General Nakasani we're another critical infrastructure piece that we even talked about is the elections we're at T-minus 11-ish months away from the presidential election you may still be in the job at that point I don't know Senator River is not here so we're not sure if you're going to be able to retire or not but have you seen any attempts to influence the 2024 elections yet and are you able to say whether the U.S. is engaged in any offensive operations already to preempt them here's what I can say we haven't seen any attempts to answer your question first off but we're not waiting we've already at Cybercom and the NSA our election security group which is our fourth election going back to 2018 and our strategy hasn't changed we're going to gather intelligence we're going to share information we're going to take action and in terms of taking action that means everything from being able to provide unclassified reports of what our adversaries are doing to be able to work with a series of partners to be able to take down infrastructure that might be harmful to our democratic process I'm very confident as we operate part of a broader government team operating outside the United States that will have impact again I want to go to another thing that was brought up as one of the biggest threats to the hemisphere and that's drugs the flow of drugs from across the southern border Congressman Walts can you say why do you see you explained a little bit it's about the beginning but can you expand a little bit about why you see this as more of a military issue because I think if you're making the comparison between a Mexican cartel and ISIS many Americans would say well ISIS goes across the border and attacks people they may not necessarily see that as a fair comparison so why do you see it that way well because they're essentially these groups are operating in a paramilitary fashion I mean as I mentioned they have armored vehicles they have heavy machine guns they're able to fight a neighboring military to a standstill shoot down their aircraft in 2019 when the Mexican army went into arrest the son in the Sinaloa cartel a battalion's worth I mean 800 to 1000 cartel fighters surrounded the Mexican military fought them to a standstill and forced them to retreat so I we have to be careful with these with these distinctions I remember us running around the world in the 90s trying to arrest Al Qaeda transnational criminal group and it took 9-11 for us to think about it differently in the FBI at the time said well we didn't have enough evidence to hold up in US court therefore we didn't arrest some of the key leaders in Sudan and Somalia and elsewhere when a few years later we're taking them off the battlefield so I do think that our law enforcement entities are overwhelmed they need supporting assets like what General Nakasone and cybercom could provide we could have surveillance assets that could begin whether you're disrupting their financial flows you're disrupting their supply chains if their leadership is worried about where they're sleeping at night then they have a harder time moving against both our neighbor and us and look of course we have to have the cooperation of the Mexican government we didn't initially have the cooperation of the Colombian government when we launched plan Colombia when we made it clear that we're going to start moving unilaterally we'd rather move with you than without you that relationship changed heck Amlo refused just a few years ago to deploy his national guard but after some tough engagement he had 25,000 of his national guards men and women on his southern border and then finally look I think there's things in the non-military space we can and should be doing if we're talking about bringing supply chains home or at least getting them out of our number one peer competitor under the grips of China of course I'd prefer them to be in the United States but let's start incentivizing foreign investment into Central and South America through different types of incentive programs but when the only solution to get at the root causes is to spend four billion dollars when we know that between corrupt governments and the cartels they take anywhere to 30 to 40 percent off the top do the math you're actually fueling financially through our foreign aid packages often the very thing that we're trying to fight against so I think there's a lot of things we could do and I give general Richardson a lot of credit her and her team do so much with so little we are constantly fighting for her place within and that's not as much of a dig on the defense department as it sounds I mean they're stretched all over the world but I do think we need to make Southcom much more of a priority and then final piece it's not just our 2,000 mile southern border we have a 95,000 mile coastline and currently of the things that we see on radar coming by air or by sea towards our coastline we only have the assets to intercept 10 percent of them it's 90 percent left unchecked coming into across the Caribbean or southeastern United States or in the California southern coast so it is a right now I think there's some policy changes but there's also just a total dearth of resources that we should rethink do you think there's an appetite for an AUMF right now for that well you know there's flattery or what is it I don't know imitation is the best form of flattery I can tell you when we see the presidential candidates at least on my side of the aisle saying that that would be first and foremost in their new administration then I think so General Richardson Congressman Wall said that you don't always have all the resources you need I think you have about 2 percent of the total DoD ISR goes to Southcom covers about 17 percent of your needs I believe is that a roughly accurate so what do you think about this idea about potentially using the military in this manner along the southern border do you see it as could it potentially be helpful to use the military against I know it's a policy question but from a security perspective military resources military I just don't want anyone to think I'm sending the 82nd airborne and not an invasion of Mexico it makes for a good click headline that is not well let me ask it this way what about using the military for more training in South America do any of the allies ask for that do you think that could be valuable in this I think that the training that we already do the security cooperation training that we do with our military partners and our public security forces because a few of the countries don't have military forces that all goes to the professionalization of their force and their ability to counter the threats we've got to be able to help them or they need help and meet them at the speed of need and the speed of relevance for them I think that the training that we already provide helps with that I would say you know back to your question on the ISR and the ability to see our partner nations also have the same problem of being able to see threats and domain awareness and so innovation and technology is really really important in that perspective and just like to put a plug out that you know I advertise the Southcom AORS and Innovation Hub for the services for our Department of Defense to bring their technologies to the region gosh we're right my headquarters is right in Miami, Florida we can test it right there with Jaiat of South my Special Operations Command South my fourth fleet and we've been doing that actually very successfully so I put that out there because domain awareness being able to see threats and go after the threats to get after the malign activity obviously is really important. I want to put this to both General Nakasone and to Joe how can each of you respectively see helping fill those gaps those surveillance gaps that might support Southcom. Sure so you know Andrew was very first prox that came out with was perimeter security and you know it used to be it still isn't some places that the way they see if someone's come across the border is you drive a pickup truck this is not Andrew's solution this is the previous solution you drive a pickup truck I'm not kidding and you drive it and you smooth out the dirt and then you go look for footprints later to see if anyone crossed it like this is the state of the art that we are still using and that they've been using and you know it's become pretty clear to me that so the Andrew solution by the way is you put up towers that are very cheap their commodity cell phone towers you put radar and LiDAR and you use AI and cameras and you can watch within several miles of the border on the other side and you can get real time alerts and you can see the whole border and we've done this now for a large percentage of the border for some reason we've not done it for the full percentage of the border and it's become very clear to me this is not really a technology problem it's not it's really just a leadership problem do the people who run this country want to secure our border they want to see everything going on there or do they want there to be illegal immigration for whatever political reason they're allowing it and do we want to stop the 100,000 fentanyl deaths each year or do we want to allow that because it's part of our immigration strategy of one of the parties in charge like that clearly is what's going on because it's the border with the best technology and we're not doing it but why what's stopping the U.S. from adopting that technology because then we would because if we literally adopted inside everything going on and and secured it then you would cut off the illegal immigration and there's a lot of politicians in this country who do not want to cut off the legal immigration so it's a political choice not a policy choice we pretend it's a technology thing we pretend it's a capability thing but it's not it's very cheap it's very easy to see exactly what's going on the whole border it's not it's not expensive at all relative to our spending it's a tiny percentage of the spend and right now let's be honest we we know there's evidence there's a ton of our border guards and Port of Patrol being bribed the cartels it's a I think it's a crisis I think it's terrible as a Texan in Texas where we're furious about this we put up blockades and they and they come in and they and they cut the blockades let the immigrants in so I mean it's a very clearly a political choice being made to allow these people into our country General Acasoni is there more that can be done in this number one thing I would tell you Courtney reauthorized 702 it is the most important ability and authority reutilized in the intelligence community to be able to provide the type of insights that General Richardson needs what our policymakers need what we need to prevent the you know the the flow of Chinese precursors into the United States and fentanyl these are all things that 702 has allowed us to do and at the same time it's an authority that protects the civil liberties and privacy of Americans and I cannot emphasize that more it is an incredibly important authority we need to reauthorize but it keeps every time it comes up there's this fight and it feels like it always goes down to the wire because there is clearly a concern that it's it is a violation of civil liberties and I know there's that stat that you've given in the past that 99% of it is legitimately used but but the reality is because it's not transparent to the American people they don't know that so why I mean can you make the case here for why it is a fair it's used fairly and not violating people in this audience is well I would go back to the presidential intelligence advisory board that said it's the most transparent surveillance authority that any nation has ever deployed secondly I would tell you that there is a series of checks and balances particularly oversight on those of us that use it from the judicial the executive and the legislative branches and so we are obviously addressing this and we have to continue to make that case and I certainly appreciate the support of others that have been doing that as well I want to do one more to you congressman while it's about the border issue and who the migrants who are coming across who are they and where are they coming from well I know that's a big question the data that we have and this has been an ongoing fight between congress and DHS to actually get the data where are all of these people being sent I mean we have the highly publicized cases of Governor Abbott sending them to Chicago and sending them to New York and now both mayors with a fraction of what Joe Lonsdale and his fellow Texans are seeing have declared citywide emergencies Mayor Adams said this is going to be the destruction of New York with tens of thousands of migrants versus the millions that have come across so we don't fully know where everyone is going we do know that the FBI director is ringing the alarm bells that he is chasing nearly 200 cases off of the terrorist watch list that's an increase from 11 just in the previous administration and now nearly 200 they're not sure where everyone is and I fear God help us if we have another San Bernardino another pulse night club or you know God help us another 9-11 so it's not just a migration threat it's a counter-terrorism threat and it's just I mean 1 million per year 1 million God a ways that's 3 Jacksonville, Florida's per year being created somewhere and the stress on our over taxed school hospital infrastructure and other systems when I talk to a veteran who says I can't get what I need or I talk to an immigrant who came here legally waited in line and followed the system incredibly upsetting when you see others and heck I mean just to broaden it when we look at the withdrawal from Afghanistan when you have various groups unfortunately having to advise Afghans to take the migrant the humanitarian visa from Brazil and then migrate through our southern border to get to the United States to get away from the Taliban that is a broken broken system and you know finally I would say we have to solve the border issue before we can solve the other issues if you granted amnesty tomorrow for the 12 million illegal immigrants which I would not be for just for the record but if you did you're going to be in the same problem 5 to 7 years from now so I think Joe is right it's not a it's a political and leadership issue not a technology issue General Richardson we only have a few minutes left you testified that 42 of the 50 most violent cities in the world are in your AOR a couple of months ago what's the biggest contributor to that and how does that have a direct impact on North America does aggression lead to aggression? I think it absolutely does and I would chalk that up to the transnational criminal organizations and that huge diversified portfolio more powerful the 300 billion dollar annual revenue per year we have got to get after that but quite honestly like our strategic competitors the People's Republic of China Russia that's in the hemisphere as well the TCO's this region is very rich in resources and they have all discovered that and that's why the investment through the Belt and Road initiative I mean we've got 60% of the world's lithium and the lithium triangle is in this region PRC gets 75% of its lithium from this region gold, copper light sweet crude that was discovered off the shores of Guyana that's the fastest growing economy projected for the next 5 years at 25% GDP growth heavy crude in Venezuela but you have this huge irregular migration problem right now and the numbers are unprecedented they grow over a year but because of this families are on the move and it's only predicted to increase so with the potential I'll go back to the resources of the region over 50% of the soybean in the globe is from this region over 30% of the sugar beef, corn is coming from this region how do we help this region reach a potential to feed and fuel the world about 10 years ago there's not a lot of talk about this region being able to do that now there's not so much talk about that but when you talk about these resources that are there and we ask ourselves why the investment in all of the critical infrastructure by our strategic competitor the People's Republic of China so why is that well the resources are there this megaport that the PRC is building right now north of Lima Peru it takes 15 days to get food they get 36% of their food from this region it'll take 15 days off of that transit time from 35 days down to 20 they won't have to go to Mexico or go to San Diego before they go to China and that'll be just a direct shot why is that that's the PRC's plan gateway to Asia but where are we coming up with the alternative solution for all of the critical infrastructure and the contracts and the tenders that these countries put out why is it only the PRC that's doing that how are we mobilizing Team USA to come forward and to compete for these contracts and I would say with the administration's announcement of the APEP American Partnership for Economic Prosperity where 12 Latin American leaders were brought to the White House on the 3rd of November and so millions of dollars being channeled through the Inter-American Development Bank and the Developmental Finance Corporation into the hemisphere specifically for critical infrastructure is huge, it's a start but we got to do more, we got to double down and we got to see the importance of this regional hemispheric security doctrine that we need to put our foot on the gas and double down and it's a call to action Guyana and I'm going to take a question from here so that I don't get voted worse moderator for not taking a question from the audience someone asked about Venezuela looks like they might forcibly annex territory from a neighboring country it's Guyana how would regional partners respond to this and how would this impact US interest in the region I know there was the ICJ announcement yesterday or the day before but it doesn't seem like that might have any real teeth here and might be able to stop Venezuela from this referendum what do you think is going to happen so I would say that Guyana and the what's happening now with Venezuela and as they prepare to gain as Maduro tries to gain popularity in preparation for the national elections that are coming up it was good to see that that vote from the international court justice system was moved up to yesterday and they voted in favor of Guyana and so we'll watch very closely obviously the Guyana and the vulnerability of that nation and that Democratic partner is very important to the United States we only have about a minute left and I feel like I always we do these events and everyone wants to like leave and hide under their seats because we talk about all the threats that are to the homeland right now so I want to end on a positive note in general I'm going to put you on the spot I'm getting ready to retire I should say you're planning to retire the timeline is unknown Senator Toppleville is not here maybe after the football game today he'll be in a good mood and everything will start moving through but I just want to ask you after nearly four decades in uniform you've probably spent more time than just about anyone else in uniform focused on cyber issues for the United States I have no idea if that's true but that seems very plausible given how many years you've worked on the cyber issue what do you see as a potential bright spot and how the US is moving forward in cyber and I guess how things may be actually getting better well I think first of all just take a look over the past five years what have we been able to do we've been able to defend successfully for elections secondly we have a structure now that goes from the top of our government down to our military down to our broader interagency where there are actually cyber organizations responsible for what's going on CISA, FBI, NSA, Cyber Command these are all in place with the roles and responsibilities that are important then I think importantly we have really good outreach the beginning of extremely good outreach to partners whether or not they're academic partners private sector partners or foreign partners to be able to come together in a manner to be able to get after very very difficult threats it's a different environment today and we've been able to respond to that environment I think that's the really positive piece that I take from it will you miss being in uniform I will certainly miss it the people, no doubt being able to serve with general Richardson for well over two decades since we met each other at Leavenworth just a fantastic opportunity Leavenworth prison you met each other at did we make a little news here today thank you all so much and I have to say before we end that this is the first time in ten years at Reagan that there's been a panel completely focused on the western hemisphere to give you a sense of how this is an issue that is not only important right now but growing so thank you all thanks


Hey, what's up, YouTube? Today, I'm going to show you a simple trick to add value to your property. Not much of a value, but just as aesthetic appeal to your property to make renters more attracted to you running that out to them. I'm Zeke, and welcome to the Dream Green Show. This is my first property of the year in 2020. Happy New Year's. I'm going to show you around right quick, and I'm going to show you a simple little trick that you could do to make it more appealing to your renters. But let's take a look around. Hi, this is a three-bed room, one and a half bath. We have stainless steel brand new appliances in here that we're going to rent out. This is the living room area leading into the backyard, a sliding gate, and a high ceiling fan. New appliances. All right, so the towel on the floor is very simple, attractive to renters. No crazy colors on the wall. Kept it simple with plain colors, gray, or off-white. If we come down this way, we have our half bathroom right here to the right, one bathroom, and then it opens up to lead to the full bathroom, which leads to the master bath. All right, so we're going to take a look this way. We have a first bedroom, simple bedroom, a new ceiling fan, window leading to the outside, and also, come in, one closet for this bathroom. So we have a window and a closet for this one bedroom. Come this way right around the corner. We have room for appliances right here. We'll probably paint these gray to match the aesthetic of the rest of the house. Leading into our second bedroom, half window leading to outside as well to the backyard, I believe. Let's take a peek.  And then this one also have a walk-in closet with a new ceiling fan of appliances. So we wanted to keep everything pretty simple, nothing to really pop out, nothing crazy, simple door handles, all simple door handles. We didn't want different type of door handles. And coming here, this is the master bedroom. You have a walk-in closet. Hit the light. Hit the light. Hit the light. Hit the light. So we have a walk-in closet. Look how deep it goes all the way back. So put your shoes right here. Your girlfriend, wife, put your shoes. She's going to take up the whole closet. So don't worry about it, guys.  Let's turn it off. And this one has a leading to a window to the backyard. And I will show you guys the backyard in just a second on what we're working on. And this is the full bath. The full bath that I showed you guys, toilet, bathtub appliances. All right, so let's take a look at the backyard. Then I'm going to show you the simple trick that you can do to make your property more appealing. All right, and this is the backyard. And I must say, we spent pretty much the whole day raking up leaves and pine trees, combs, and all kinds of pine leaves all over the place. So we spend pretty much most of the time cleaning up the backyard. So this is the backyard. And I must have said about it last night. And here's the simple trick. All it is is a pressure washer. You want to come out to the driveway, lay down your chemical so you can lift all the dirt and grease. When you pull up to the house, the first thing that the renter is going to see or the potential renter is going to see is the driveway in the front of the house.  So I already kind of did the front half of the driveway. We take a pan, look at it right quick. So it was all dirty. It was greased up. And I went in with the pressure washer. And I did it. I left this part right here unclean so you guys could see the difference between the clean portion and the dirty portion of the driveway. So I'm going to clean this right quick for you guys so you can see exactly how I go about cleaning the front driveway. So when they pull up to take a look at the house, the driveway is going to be nice and clean for them. It doesn't really add value to the house, but it adds a state of appeal and more appealing for renters to want to rent your property. So let's go ahead and start cleaning up and pressure-roshering this part of the driveway. This is the final product guys, way almost. You just take a couple of minutes out of your day, cleaned up the driveway. Make it very presentable when they pull up. This is the first thing they're going to see. It adds a static value to your house. And hopefully your rental will be attracted at the house instead of looking at oil stains that's in the concrete. But other than that, this is Zeke. Bring you to Dream Green Show and I'm out.


The Vice-Chancellor Delta State University Abraka Professor Andy Oguyanga says the school's integrated data center will be used to implement online digitalization of transcript and other data, assuring that it will be delivered to students within 24 hours. The Vice-Chancellor made this statement while addressing newsmen at the institution's convocation ceremony. With the creation of the university in the 1920s, the institution has not had a database center for collection of transcript results which has created problems for students and the managers alike. The Vice-Chancellor Delta State University Abraka Professor Andy Oguyanga says the school will be used to implement online digitalization of transcript and other data, assuring that it will be delivered to students within 24 hours.


And certainly we just wanted to make sure that we, you know, provide the citizens out there with a nursing meal. We actually did over 200 bags of groceries, so we was able to feed over 200 families, which is a great, you know, on a ticket this time of year to make sure everybody got something to eat. We did something different this year. We were actually able this year to provide the meats as well. So not only did we provide them with the non-parasites, but we were able to provide them meats as well. And I would tell you, you know, we couldn't not have done this without, like, the help from Walmart, SAM, and even some old folks in the community, you know, that kind of pitched in. Even with our partners at Riston County, Dr. Thompson, who helped buy some of the meat. So we're very appreciative of that. I think with so many needs out there, you know, I think it really impacts the community in a positive way, because it kind of shows the community that, you know, not only did we fight the virus and respond to calls, but we care about the community and we care about their needs. So this is one way above hopefully we have put a positive impact on the community, showing how just how much we do care.


We have a construction update for Yukon Stryker today and honestly every day I go now it feels like something's done. The updates are going to be posted a little later in the days now because I like flying later in the day to get an overall view of what's going on. So in the track storage lot, again I'm pretty far away, they are loading the rest of the Imelmann onto flatbeds that will then probably be brought into the park tomorrow morning and you'll see why later on in the video and then they'll assemble probably the rest of the Imelmann tomorrow and Friday. If I were to take a guess the entire Imelmann may be able to be done by Friday. If it's not the entire Imelmann it'll be the part where it starts to pull out of the actual inversion that should be done by Friday. So going up as I fly up if you look very closely you'll notice something. Some of you already may know what Wonderland has done today or the construction team but a lot of you probably don't. So the Imelmann has started, the crane's a little in the way now, I'll get a better angle in just a sec but I'll get to a bit of the construction before I get to the Imelmann. So based off of what I'm seeing here not too much has been going on in that flat bit of land over by Timberwolf. The sheet piles are all in place, they've dug it out and we're just waiting for the actual footings to be dug. That is a very simple process and looking this far up we can't see that. So for all we know there are holes in place and I'll find out on Saturday morning for you guys. But based off of first glance there's nothing, no cement tracks, nothing poured in that area but I'll have a look there is some weird generator in the actual sheet pile dug out area down there so I'll have a look Saturday see if I can see anything but at this point you're probably noticing the giant Imelmann taking form coming out of the tunnel. So they got one support beam in, got two pieces of the Imelmann coming out and they actually have a v-frame ready to go up. It's assembled if you look really closely I'll get closer shots just a little later in the video so if you stick around you can actually see them fiddling around with the a-frame or v-frame sorry near the end of the video. So if you guys haven't stayed updated and you're looking at this video right now and you're going whoa when did the drop and lift get done? The drop and lift for Yukon Stryker is complete and it is massive honestly some of the best views of Yukon Stryker are from outside of the park seriously I mean that. If you're on Jane Street this thing looks impressive go to the corner of Jane and Major Mac if that's not good enough if you're on the 400 and you're not driving aka don't drive and look but this thing looks impressive from the 400 as well or if you're coming through that Wonderland drive off of Rutherford this thing looks impressive. The setting of Behemoth and Yukon Stryker together is absolutely gorgeous I'm actually working on a calendar of the construction of Yukon Stryker and the shots that I'm getting from different angles around the park are so impressive I hope you guys really like it but that aside this looks absolutely impressive look how massive that pull out of the drop is from the east and west side of Yukon Stryker it's absolutely insane so at this point you can probably see a bit of the v-frame sitting there in the grass it's really hard to spot because it almost blends in with the grass but you'll see them fiddling around with it in just a bit in fact I didn't realize they were fiddling around with it until I was getting ready to land but through the entire process they were like lifting it moving it so what that tells me is actually you can see them lifting it right now the a-frame v-frame sorry it is not an a-frame the v-frame support structure is going to be installed tomorrow then the two pieces of track will be installed so that's about half of the Imelmann if not a little more installed tomorrow and then on Friday they'll finish it off so it'll be inverted hopefully it all goes well and weather is good I know Friday's supposed to rain so fingers cross but by Friday because they usually stall about two pieces a day as seen here you have the support structure and two pieces installed it should be inverted it won't be complete by Friday but it will be mostly complete more than three-quarters of the way so we should get some really good angles on Saturday our last weekend of operation I'm debating getting a ticket to Howing Haunt for Wednesday because it's the last day I'll even be able to be in the park and I would love to get you know some last in-park footage before they close I know we're gonna have some behind-the-scenes tours in November and then closer to when it's opening so that will be awesome so yeah not much else has been going on I know that they've been fiddling around in the lift hill area they got the catwalk half the catwalks installed up top they still have that one outer turn portion that needs to go in and obviously they're working on the railings there's been one guy welding all the railings in for the lift hill getting them all done so that's super cool and you also have the separate team from the electrical company that they've hired they're on site next to Mindbuster installing all the electrical work for Yukon Stryker in the station area so they've been working on the transfer track the housing stations the station area and the actual storage building itself so the storage shed and then you have some guy that I've seen on weekends even working Saturday some days working down underneath the lift hill in that little generator area I don't know if he works at Wonderland or with Wonderland but there's usually one guy working down in that area so they're definitely in a hurry to get this thing ready I don't know what that means in terms of thing but it looks like Yukon Stryker and Copperhead Strike are scheduled to be complete construction by the end of December which is impressive so a lot of you in my other video were commenting on the speakers on top of the lift hill and saying that they're probably just for the lift spiel and I wanted to update you guys that that's not the case the lift spiel is not going to take place right before the drop and no other dive coaster other than Barron has speakers at the top of the lift hill on the pre-drop and the actual holding rate so these speakers are definitely for theming and I think it's pretty obvious and they're not for the lift spiel the fact that they have the speakers on the actual drop portion versus the lift hill tells you a lot and actually Cedar Fair has been heading in a direction of not necessarily having lift spiels on all of their coasters I know there's a couple coasters now that don't have lift spiels comment down below if you know what those ones are but yeah not too much else going on the in the land of Yukon Stryker we'll see more in person so anything in Timbrel Falls is very hard to see and usually I save that up those updates for my Saturday updates but those are gonna go so we're gonna be relying on the drone through winter up till January so the drone's gonna become very helpful and I just wanted to say thank you again for always watching these construction updates and sharing them because these are getting really popular almost every week the view count goes up on the construction updates so huge thank you to you guys so as always thanks for watching don't forget to hit that like button subscribe if you haven't and share this video for others to enjoy and stay tuned because it looks like we're gonna have some Yukon Stryker updates going forward a lot and we're gonna keep an eye out for Frontier Canada anyways have a good one guys bye


People living along the Napa River have experienced serious flooding since 1862. Napa Creek, flowing through the center of the city of Napa, is also flood-prone. While area residents are resourceful and resilient, the impact of flooding on their lives and property is substantial. In late December 2005, after a prolonged dry period, a large-scale atmospheric change caused a severe weather system to move a series of six critical storms into California. Ten inches of rainfall in 24 hours caused flooding in the city of Napa. These storms created the worst flood of record on Napa Creek, eight feet above flood stage. The river rose to 23 feet at the Lincoln Bridge, four and a half feet above flood level. This would be the first test for the city since the completion of many recent mitigation projects. This is a project that encompasses only over eight miles of river within the city of Napa. The far end has done a lot of reclaimed wetlands. We're seeing a lot of birds and wildlife coming back, which is exciting. During our recent flooding event, we called it our sponge. That was the area that was widened and made more accessible so that the water could flow through the community quicker and faster, and we definitely saw that with an advantage. Another part of our flood control project is doing terracing, letting the water flow where it naturally was going to flow or flood. We're just going to leave it as open space, it'll be terraced, and really an opening up of the river. We want the community to enjoy, be able to have access to the river. This project was brought about mostly because Napa has flooded 19 times over the last 50 years, so people were really fed up with the ongoing flooding year after year and the repetitive losses. So people were motivated to pass a half-cent sales tax to fund the local share of this flood project, and then the Corps of Engineers is funding the federal half. The project has benefits in terms of removing people from the flood plain, businesses and residences, but it also creates wetlands, terraces, and river trails that run the full length of the city. This area has been mostly completed, the 3rd Street Bridge, the soft-skill bridge, and the 1st Street Bridge over Napa Creek and Bypass. The river is flowing past us here today and underneath the 3rd Street Bridge. This area has been widened from about 155 feet to 350 feet at the 3rd Street Bridge, draining 270 square miles of the Napa Valley. The solution to the Napa River flood problem is watched closely by river communities around the world. The Napa project is a new way to think about an old problem. Its implementation proves that flood protection and environmental protection are not competing goals. The flood protection project was created by a community coalition of public and private sector and created a living river concept where the river is actually widened instead of channelized with large flood walls and levees. So by widening the river it gives it more room to pass through the city instead of through city streets. So the project started at the downstream end with 500 acres of wetland being created which helped lower the water surface elevations, terracing and bridge replacements up to downtown, which also continued that lowering of the water surface elevations and the benefits which keeps the river within the river banks. And then further upstream from here there will be more a bypass channel, bridge replacements and then some flood walls and levees upstream of there. The living river design has been described as a new paradigm for flood protection projects in the United States. Living river principles include reconnecting the river to its historic flood plain, allowing the river to meander as much as possible, retaining natural channel features like mud flats, shallows and sandbars, and supporting a continuous fish migration and riparian corridor along the river. To achieve these results, old dykes have been breached to restore tidal marshlands. Bridges were replaced, removing obstacles to water flow. Riverbank terracing is creating more room for large volumes of water to exit into the wetlands. A dry bypass channel will provide a shortcut for the river during high flood flows while sustaining the natural oxbow habitat. New dykes, levees and flood walls are being built to accommodate runoff behind existing flood walls. In the city, the first and third street bridges were raised above the 100-year flood plain to avoid debris accumulation around bridge pilings. And the river was widened and terraced along the banks, allowing floodwaters to flow out to the wetlands quickly so businesses can clean up sooner. This flood that happened just before New Year's Eve was a lot of water. I think more water than I've ever seen come through Napa. Much more than the past floods that I've lived through. It came through and flooded nearly every neighborhood, many that hadn't been flooded in the past. But by midnight it had receded down and the streets were starting to clear up. And by the next morning we came back and saw that we just need to spray it down, wash it up and get ready to see business continue. For the Napa River Flood Project to become reality, it was necessary for the community to come together and discover a common interest. A healthy river as a centerpiece of 21st century Napa. Our flood project is a collaboration effort community-wide. People knew we flooded, they knew there were problems with flooding and the core came in and did a design and it was one of the older designs that had walls and cement. And the people of the community said that doesn't feel like the right option for us. We think there's another way to do it. So the groups, the natural groups, the wildlife and fishing game got together along with people that were interested in the community and economic interest. And they said is there a way to design this project to make the community safe that also will give us these other amenities. When we started with the new design with the Living River concept, we realized that it was going to be a major project.  The business community was very alert to that but became very supportive as they saw the benefits that were going to take place. Many times people will go to the cheaper alternative and I have to say at this point biting the bullet when we did and starting to acquire lands that would allow this project to go forward was the best thing we did. And that's where they came up with the coalition process, brought all these groups together, created a design, worked with the core, were able to get it approved by the core. And then the real test for us was we had to go to the voters to ask for a half cent sales tax in order to fund our portion of the project. I think whenever you pass a sales tax and you're asking people to tax themselves that you have to make a very good case for your project and to show them the project you have is designed for them and will work for them. We ended up having a special election and the voters passed it and we're building it now. Part and parcel to having a very dynamic project like this flood control project is the attention that it has gotten from not only business owners and investors from the Napa area but also actually worldwide to come in and look at building new restaurants, hotels, office buildings and everything. We were in definitely a downward spiral before we really put our grips around flood control and decided to do something about it. So the benefits to the city are going to be astronomical and to the community it's going to provide a wonderful asset that will be a long-term attraction to the improvement of the whole downtown core. Measure A I think was successful because we were able to show the community that along with their funds that they were going to tax themselves for that we also were going to be able to have the funds from the Corps of Engineers to build the project and then we'd also incorporated funds from FEMA that were also going to help us incorporate in order to have the right project for our community. So that was a message that everybody could hear, could feel was the right one and they voted for it because they knew we had other partners. We're also standing at the confluence of the Napa River Napa Creek. FEMA gave a grant to the city of Napa to acquire six homes on Napa Creek and those homes have been acquired and demolished and they would have had three feet of flood water inside the houses if they had flooded and in about 2009 the Corps of Engineers has scheduled to come in and excavate terraces along Napa Creek as they've done along the Napa River. There's also two large culverts that are double 8 by 12 which will carry about half of the water in Napa Creek during the 100 year event. They also have replacement of several bridges. The Baron Street Bridge which is notorious for causing a lot of flooding in the area will be replaced with a pedestrian bridge which would be higher and allow the water to pass underneath. And then the other half of the flow would go down a culvert which cuts off the Oxbow area. Now this is going to be the key component because it will be dry most of the time allowing the community to use this as a very nice recreational amenity. Only when it rains and the flood waters reach a certain level will the water come over more or less a weir at the head end of the Oxbow bypass channel and then it will rush down the bypass and enter the river. This is such a key component because it was right there in the middle of the downtown where the river would start flooding, sheet flooding across and head into our entire business district. And the flood we had in January, the water was up less than 24 hours. The last flood we had in 86 that was up for three days makes such a difference when the citizens can get out and clean up right away. The cost of the 2005-2006 New Year's Eve storm damage was $114 million. Flood and storm damages in 1986 cost the city $185 million. Loss is avoided as a result of the mitigation projects totaled in excess of $70 million. One of the things that happens when you flood and you work with the FEMA program is they ask you to go through and create disaster plans and work together. That's been wonderful because we make departments plan together our public works department, our police, our fire. In terms of Living River concept and hazard mitigation what we would recommend is that the agencies work with the communities, flood control districts, resource agencies, federal government to come up with a plan that will not rely on high flood walls and levees that need to be maintained and can be vulnerable. Having a project like ours that's taken some years to finish people want to see progress and one of the things we've been able to show them is with some of the FEMA grants that we've been able to do some things ahead of the flood control project itself getting there. So we've been able to raise some homes out of danger. We've been able to do some other projects and people feel good like we're moving ahead. The Napa River project has given a whole new lease to this community. There's no question about it. We can put in nice amenities that people will want to come down and enjoy and it also makes it a wonderful experience for the people who live here. So it's having a number of impacts not just economic, there's the social impacts and then there's the environmental impacts which a living river can bring. The City of Napa has designed a new strategy to solve an old and pervasive problem and the results speak volumes about mitigation practices in this dynamic region. The river and the river town are learning a new way to live together.


Hi everyone Joe for jaskies case breaks calm coming at you with 2019 2020 panini obsidian basketball 12 box full case Pick your team number one our first full look at this all-card ship So big thanks everybody who got into the action. There's the full case right here Thanks everybody who got their teams straight up Appreciate that a lot of teams end up in number block randomizer. So we'll show you those lists in just a second Here is the Lakers warriors, etc. One right there, and I upload all those videos separately So there are instances where they'll be non numbered cards for these teams. They're probably usually be base cards Maybe some hits they'll all be collected as one lot and randomized to one person in the break I'm sure everyone saw that in the description Same with this group right here, too There's the results of that so yes, there could be a Zion base card not numbered It could be multiple But we'll collect those all as one lot and randomize them to one person in the break right here. It's off a little room here, maybe All right now we've done a handful of two box breaks of this yesterday We did some breaks of that yesterday, but this is our first full case look at it. I'm pretty excited and we've got We've got the jump on in the background ESPN so that's good Keeps the basketball theme here Rajan Rondo undergoing surgery on a fractured right thumb out six to eight weeks Dust off your Alex Caruso rookie cards ladies and gentlemen. That's more minutes for him Probably more minutes for Quinn Cook ACP etc. We've got John Morant on the front right there All right. Good luck everybody Coming up after this we'll go through some orders and we'll see We'll see what else we can get into I'm sure others I'm sure some things have been sold out or close to selling out So we'll add that to the schedule first come first serve First to fill first to break All that good stuff. I think so just one bottom card. Oh and a die cut one bottom card All right, there's Russell Westbrook for the Rockets.  Anyway, I don't remember this guy mark the set with the Clippers And Russell Westbrook reveals. I know this guy Chris Mullen on ex autographs Warriors warriors are a number blog team. He's the tallest player to ever play in the NBA. He's taller than taco fall or Bowl Bowl That's Warriors to That will be for Sean Maddock who won that spot in a chronicles break and the Westbrook is 15 out of 50 for Rick Farther than Sean Bradley you get it everyone here about the The NBA snitch line I think there's a hotline that you can call in and like Here we'll use this blank card right here and you can snitch on players who aren't following the bubble protocol rules or see Jim a column for Raymond and the trailblazers 7 7 7 6 Still pretty tall it's an illogallonari 71 out of 75 Okay, see for mark Yeah, there's a hotline an NBA hotline that you can call Gabe Where if like if you see like someone walking around with you know, not it's practicing proper social distancing Whatever the rules are for the NBA in the bubble There's Lonzo volcanic signatures for the pelicans you can call a hotline and An anonymously snitch on people All right, that's 23 out of 25 pelicans three That's a that's Steve Birch. She should be in the chat And we've got Lucas so much our first rookie jersey and autograph rookie patch auto for the Spurs Spurs Are a number block team? Spurs zero Is on this list here? Yeah Spurs zero Fred Williams Right so Doc Rivers made like a joke.  He's gonna snitch on coaches. He's gonna snitch on Snitch on John Morant Get all those guys in trouble So Nick Jaspy is saying Someone got suspended for ordering for getting door dash ordering door dash the other day Oh, they came in from a restaurant outside the limit They ordered for pickup and they went out So he had to go wow Ten day quarantine bang Atlanta Hawks seven Hawks are up here Hawks seven that'll be for Courtney Rashawn home over Sean Holmes. There's Alex Caruso six out of 25 There you go Lakers six That'll be for Tim Tyler Tim Tyler. Hold on to this Rondo broke his thumb Avery Bradley offed it out This guy's gonna get more. I don't think he's starting KCP will get the starter minutes But he's coming off the bench look at his net efficiency rating when he plays with LeBron Hold on to that one We've got Ricky Davis Galaxy autograph for the Clippers that'll be for Mark the bubble how much space are they? I don't know like a Five or six resorts worth of space plus golf courses three out of five Ricky Davis Mark Passett with the Clippers out of five and under get the train whistle All aboard the big-head Express The next hit is Steph Curry Wow warriors are a number-block team 11 out of 25 so warriors one Sean Maddock with warriors one nice It's a nice step shoot a picture of that All right next one Yeah, I saw that too James At Zion of some sort of family emergency left the bubbles. I think when he comes back He has like 10 day quarantine Yeah, I think he's gonna see any games But they've got it. It's like a almost the size of a small city That they have so they it's not like they're in like this tiny space the bubble makes it seem like it is small But it's not they got plenty of space But a lot of times there's just kind of a lot of golfing. I guess it's what some of the guys are gonna do There's Zach Levine for the Bulls 26 ass Bulls six is gonna be Patrick and there's Clay Thompson 40 out of 50 warrior zero is gonna be from Matthew Shearer Next one is Aaron holiday Jersey and autograph Pacers That'll go to that's a number-block team 38 out of 50 that goes to Josh Hendricks. No, I'm sorry Pacers around this list right here That goes to Nick Stober. There you go Nick. I heard in between James. I heard 10-day quarantines There's Pascal Siakam nice galaxy autograph for the Raptors Matthew T picked up the Raptors straight up. There's the number right there 24 out of 30 nice Yeah, I think there is an elect some sort of electronic Tracker, but I don't know if that's for the players who left to get door dash I think they've got like a little Batman decoder ring type thing Which has sensors inside that'll test like your heart rates, but more for like a health thing That yes, correct snitches do get stitches. It happens. It's a thing the only you're only supposed to snitch on like Court massive corporations who are like dumping poison into a local river or something like that's sweet That's that's snitching your fellow your fellow professional athlete. Maybe not Clay Thompson Warriors three is Gonna be Steve Birch.  There you go By the way Rex, did you see Nick Jaspie's message? There's Bonsie Wells Onyx autographs Blazers Raymond with the Blazers Blazing trails 42 out of 50 Oh Yeah, I forgot that too. I was busy telling you to look at Nick's message See Virch all aboard the big egg express Die cuts look they look really sharp to a little wrinkly on the penny sleeve there, but it's set and Kendrick Nunn six out of ten Nice obsidian auto for the heat heat are a number-block team. Nobody wants a heat Kendrick Nunn and Tyler a hero Probably could raise their stock the most of all the rookies in the playoffs Miami heat Is on this list here heat six Tim Tyler? Oh Nick was just asking for that that weird email that you got. I don't think that's how the song goes 22 out of 25 Marvin Bagley the third Kings and Rui Hachi more 11 out of 25 Because you mixed America the beautiful You're like oh Canada God shed his grace on the And crown oh boy with wizards one No, it's not you're re-transing the Canadian National Anthem If so, that's oh, if so, that's not that was not close at all Kings are a number-block team Kings to Jim Moran with that one No, no, no, he Rex he met he wrote a message in the chat saying for that weird email that you got With the ticket number or whatever and for that to us Jasky's case breaks at gmail.com Bruce Brown Detroit Pistons number block 10 out of 75 Pistons piston zero It is gonna be for Fred Williams and there's PJ Washington, Jr. 22 out of 25 hornets It's also a number-block team hornets to PJ Washington definitely has some upside Jim Moran PJ Washington auto nice. Thanks Rex So we can figure out what people are receiving You know, we're trying to set up a Sort of as we grow ladies and gentlemen You just got to get a little more organized with some customer service stuff We're fine now, but we want to be able to you scale up. You'll be noticing this a couple of different Just changes in the background on that These are all non numbered right here. We'll sort those out for the non numbered groups. There's Nikola Yokic 17 out of 50 Nuggets is Derek and Kyrie for the Nets at Steve 14 out of 25. We're attempting to future proof Will and Jared Allen nice lightning strike Lightning strike autograph for Steve. I Like that little lightning design right there, too That's what lightning sounds like 18 out of 35 in my head Steve with that one. Then we've got Dylan windler. Nice Dylan windler all we are Dylan and the windler Cavs 21 out of 25 calves one is on that list right here Shawn Matic. All right next box Good luck Ricky Rubio and a don'tage die cut Rubio's two out of 50 for the Sun's that'll be Sun's two Jim Moran with that one.  We've got shake Milton Shake shake shake shake shake shake shake your Milton shake your Milton 62 out of 75 for the Sixer Sixers to Jim and then we've got Chuma O'Keeke Five out of 99 Orlando magic magic number five number block team That will go to Jonathan Spears.   Let me just top of that. So do Rattle around here. All right, there's Dwight Howard Think someone snitched on Dwight Howard. It was like walking around not wearing a mask or something like that. Lakers Who's got my Lakers? That's a number block team 48 out of 49 Lakers 8 is Josh Hendricks. There you go Josh Hendricks Motorsports Although if you're in the bubble Shouldn't ostensibly and everyone's getting tested like 80 million times a day Wouldn't you assume that everyone's okay? So you don't have to wear a mask because everyone's being tested and if you're test positive then you're kicked out Maybe the asymptomatic vote, I don't know, but there's still ten Bruno Fernando Yeah, I guess you're right. All right. I guess you can't really just be too sure But even if you're asymptomatic you're still getting tested every day but I guess that one window between testing and a negative test and a Bruno Fernando Hawks. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't risk it either if you're trying to get a basketball season going Hawks zero, that's just the price to pay Hawks zero Matthew Shearer Yeah, I guess the worst thing would just be it's better to be over cautious. I suppose the worst thing would probably be Probably be a just be aggressive about testing Overtest if you will you know and then try to finish this season he has been saying that the family member was like a Was it was a medical matter? So hopefully everything's okay in the Zion camp. Jay Crowder 63 out of 99 for the Miami Heat. Heat 3 That will be for Steve Birch. There's Paula George for Mark and the Clippers. All right a couple more here There's Chuck Person, volcanic signatures Those ions aren't gonna be or those yannises aren't gonna be too common the G Let's just keep that in mind It'd be nice though 19 out of 25 for the Pacers Pacers are a number block team. So Pacers 9 is gonna be for Adam Cupperman. There you go, AK And then we've got Al Horford for the Sixers. Sixers are also a number block team on That same list as the last one.  All right two boxes to go This is not did not take as long as I thought it would all right nice I think we got some more pick your teams up on the site This is great stuff ladies and gentlemen We've got two box random teams and full case pick your teams give it a go Give it a shot on jaskiescasewrakes.com grab your team straight up and then Let's try to pull some pull some heat for you Here's some Suns for you 34 That goes to Suns for Matthew Shearer and we've got Gordon Hayward 21 out of 25 Celtics one Will be Sean Mattick. We've got Michael Cooper for the Lakers Nice old-school Laker 45 out of 50 or 60 45 out of 60 Lakers 5 is gonna be William Gilcrest William on the board and then we've got goga batadze Jersey and autograph for the Pacers 96 out of 99 Pacers 6 Will be for Patrick. All right next one my overall opinion of obsidian. I think it looks great Obsidian basketball. I think this is the first Season for obsidian baths usually obsidian football, right? So it's good to see Hoops get to get this treatment Designs great Love the colors Hits are nice strong checklist Yeah, I think they tease this in Chronicles basketball, right?  Maybe I like the obsidian design So but I know it's relatively new For basketball like it's technically here to all right Last one is gonna be Keldon Johnson spurs Spurs are a number block team Keldon Johnson Jersey and auto 69 nice out of 99 spurs nine Going to Adam Koperman And there you go ladies on no points or anything like that right perfect. Oh, I'd need to do a couple of randomizers So let's go back to the list itself. Do I have some new dice? I need some new dice So let's grab the Lakers number block first and oh I need a list Let's put them in here and let's randomize. This is for both lists two out of five seven times for each list one two three four five six I said seven right right and seven in the final time name on top is Paul there you go Paul You'll get any of the non numbered cards for that Lakers warriors heat blah blah blah group right there I'm sure there's some non numbered base cards that are in there. So there you go and Seven times for this next group right here with Fred down to Adam list randomizer So once again seven top name after seven gets the non numbered cards with that group of teams one two three four five Six and seven in final time after seven next over there you go So you might you might get a handful of extra cards going your way That's it folks nice full case break of 2019 2020 obsidian basketball more in the store on jazby's case breaks calm And I'll see you next time for the next one. Bye. Bye