Request for Information (RFI) – Weekly SITREP

I don’t think people appreciate or understand how useful your request is as a delivery of unfiltered, grass roots reporting. Maybe they are put off because it takes some thought and effort, but should realize that if thwy don’t have current info just mark the category as TBD

REPORT DATE 11-8-23

General Location: Southern California

Food Price / Shortages: Walmart is my main indicator where they have entire categories missing and will extensively rearrange product to cover the gaps. Driving northward along the 5 freeway reveals vast swaths of empty land littered with dead trees or patches of weeds due to water delivery being throttled. Protest signs along the highway attack Newsom for diverting agricultural water to dead end environmental efforts.

Fuel Prices / Shortages: Calif. has the highest state gas tax rate of 77.9 cents per gallon and California’s local taxes make up about 13% of the price of a gallon of gas.

Unusual Military Movement: Extensive USAF, NAVY and USMC aircraft based war games in the skies above USN China Lake and off the southern coast. Some war games involved Australian Air Force jets and tankers. (monitored via UHF AM scanner radios)

Civil Unrest / Crime: Crime continues to ramp up and the “pro Palestine” crazies are probably recycled Antifa hoodlums looking to cripple large cities. “Smash & grabs” continue to increase as liberal DA’s decline to prosecute the looters.

Interesting Local News / Events: “California Inflation Relief Checks” of $600 will be distributed as part of the Governor’s blatant vote buying effort

Public Service Interruptions: California’s PUC continues to throttle profits of the electric utilities so utilities’ infrastructure investment is lower as the grid ages. Outages have become more numerous. SoCal Edison spends more time trying to convince customers to use less electricity than they do on upgrading their old infrastructure. Mandated by law in 2018, California is attempting to force a foolhardy shift to zero-emission electricity by 2045. On the flip side, California’s far-left environmentalists methodically oppose every large solar project in the desert. Cities are cutting the cord with coal-fired power plants in Utah and elsewhere without accounting for the inability of “green” electric plants to provide electricity at night or without wind.

Changes in Patterns of Life: $5+ gas prices throttle vacations and general movement while California wastes billions of tax dollars on the doomed “bullet” train. Despite California’s anti-gun stance, more homeowners are arming themselves and occasionally the news media will actually publish a story about successful self defense incidents.

Any additional observations or comments: Many of the items I have noted are ongoing to California so in the future I will try to note unusual activity such as the massive war games (Large Force Exercises) that originated out of Nellis AFB in Nevada but extended well into SoCal.

General Location: Northeast PA

Food Prices/Shortages: Prices are consistently high. Inflation has hit places like Aldi more than say Giant because Aldi can charge more and not lose customers because it was dirty cheap to begin with. Base items have gone up and have stayed up. Meats are consistently high, but do end up on clearance as they just don’t move off the shelf like they used to.

Fuel Prices/Shortages: No change in current baseline.

Ammo prices/shortages: it is available retail, but it’s not consistent as far as what is available. You’re not going to find 77 grain 5.56. It’s mostly priced for the average consumer, which is your 55 grain fmj. The cheapest you can get.

Military Movement: Nothing unusual, as there is a national guard facility nearby.

Interesting Local News/Events: In the off year election, no candidate that was campaigning would advertise their political party. Some democrat candidates were advertising themselves are “fiscally conservative” on their campaign signs. The local democrat parties made it a point to have good looking women as candidates. Sex sells after all. Local GOP was essentially out to lunch, didn’t take calls and didn’t seem to care one way or the other. Red county complacency at its finest. The conservative people were a mixed bag. Some were juiced and trying to pound the pavement, and others think voting next year is the only thing they have to do.

Another thing that is periodically popping up is that local television news has mentioned more than once about drag queen events getting “threats” and how local LE is making it point to protect them. No different than what I saw in SE PA, but some people here are shocked that the boys in blue are protecting the other side.

The day after the election, more people were at the gym than usual. It could be nothing, it could be something, but it was an interesting data point. How many people are consistently at the gym at 5 AM on a Wednesday?

Civil Unrest/Crime: Not my direct area but an area I’m in daily has a heavy antifa presence and they seem a little uppity at the moment. It hasn’t risen to the level BLM did in Philly three years ago though.

Public Service Inerruptions: None to speak of.

Changes in patterns of life: No real changes in daily activity.

Other information: Well, there is a public range close by with a pretty amount of decent ranges you can shoot at. More hispanic front platers with things that aren’t legal in their state, and even Chinese who don’t speak English have been there. The Chinese in particular, four men. All slender. Shooting m4 rifles. The rifles themselves had red dots on them, no IR lasers on their rifles to speak of. It seemed to be very basic practice.

There have been more of the good side going as well, and it’s good to interact with the like minded.