Category: Informational

The American Mind: The Truth About America

From the editors at The American Mind – The Truth About America.

Trump is right: only patriotic American history can heal our deep wounds.

This week we reprinted a series of speeches given at the White House Conference on American History. As we noted, the conference was the first of its kind. On the one hand, it’s remarkable no one in power ever thought to host such a thing. On the other, it’s possible no one has ever needed one quite so much as we do now.

President Trump and his distinguished guests—among them several affiliates, friends, and one current board member of the Claremont Institute—defended things it would have been laughable to defend during much of our country’s history. Not because those things are indefensible, but because they have not been seriously up for debate except in our worst and most fractious moments. These things were once the core of our national consensus, the context within which we had all our other discussions and debates.

“On this very day in 1787,” said Trump, “our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was the fulfillment of a thousand years of Western civilization. Our Constitution was the product of centuries of tradition, wisdom, and experience. No political document has done more to advance the human condition or propel the engine of progress.”

There is no such thing as pride in or love for America without some version of this foundational belief. Either you think the regime described in our Constitution can work, is noble, and represents a serious advance in the history of nationhood, or you think America ought to be transformed beyond recognition.

We at the Claremont Institute are dedicated to proving, emphatically and without qualification, that a full endorsement of our country’s principles is not only a patriotic act but, intellectually and morally, an unimpeachable one. That entails insisting that the history of our country is one of dedicated human striving toward the highest ideals, and the most prudent political enactment of those ideals, possible on this earth.

Our country was not founded in racism—it was in fact conceived as a uniquely ambitious effort to abolish racism and destroy its intellectual foundations in the West once and for all. That project, over time and through much tragic hardship, has been successful beyond even what its architects may have dared to hope. The cost of that success—in patient intellectual effort, in wrenching expenditure of blood and treasure—has been enormous. But it was worth the cost and would have been worth more. America is a wonder of the world.

This is not what many Americans today think, because it is not what they have been taught. The results of a dedicated, decades-long effort to undermine the foundations of America’s faith in itself are now visible. Today that effort is led most visibly by Nikole Hannah-Jones of the New York Times’s 1619 Project, but insidiously supported by Critical Race Theory training sessions in board rooms, small businesses, and until recently the halls of federal government agencies around the country. There is a diabolical genius to the way this effort has proceeded, in that it has involved both brute intimidation—in the form of cancel culture and its attendant threats of unemployment or unpersoning—and psychological subversion—in the form of an attack on our nation’s history.

It is this latter and more serious offensive against American civic life that President Trump has undertaken to countermand with his 1776 Commission for the promotion of patriotic education. Like the Progressives and Marxists who went before her, Hannah-Jones and her co-conspirators seek to erode American confidence in the basic goodness of our regime. If the Times, the Pulitzer Center, the ruling class, and their various minions can persuade us that the founders are not to be trusted—that they were disingenuous about their aims, that their timeless truths were actually self-serving lies, that the Constitution they composed has fallen fatally out of date—then they will convince us to commit national suicide all on our own.

The effectiveness of that approach is visible already in the insurrectionary violence that now routinely convulses American cities. Such violence is, by Hannah-Jones’s own admission, exactly what she wants and knows how to achieve. As many speakers at the White House Conference pointed out, it is the long subversion of American History—from the elementary school level on up to the universities—that has at last born this bitter fruit of civil unrest.

Trump is wise to fight this domestic terrorism on its own terms—to root Critical Race Theory out of federal training sessions at the heroic urging of Claremont alumnus Christopher Rufo, for example, and to insist that Americans be taught the real history of their country once again.

An objection frequently made to such efforts by both useful idiots and partisan hacks is that remaking American education somehow amounts to propagandistic indoctrination or even a breach of the First Amendment. This is a spectacularly puerile response. As Plato and Aristotle taught, all education just is shaping the soul to love some things and avoid others. Those aversions and loves, once engrained in the hearts of the young, find their expression through the political life in which those young grow up to participate.

Our school system already indoctrinates our nation’s youth in a most dishonest and dangerous manner. Since Howard Zinn’s ridiculous People’s History of the United States became standard in American high schools, and the AP U.S. History curriculum took its cue from Zinn’s calumny, we have been teaching children to hate our country by allowing radicals to lie through their teeth about it: they’ve taught for many years now that America is racist and evil at its core.

There is no alternative now or ever but to teach the opposite, that is, the truth: that America’s history is a story of triumph, that the country we live in is the world’s greatest hope even now, that she is worthy of nothing but love and, if it comes to it, the very extremes of self-sacrifice. We commend President Trump and his team for boldly leading after so many others failed to do so. But more remains to be done—much more.

In his Farewell Address, President Ronald Reagan catalogued his successes—and, by his own admission, his one great failure. In his day, he said, “We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American, and we absorbed almost in the air a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions.” If not from family and neighborhood, “you could get a sense of patriotism from school” or even “from the popular culture.”

But as America was “about to enter the ’90s,” Reagan noted that “Younger parents aren’t sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children.” “An informed patriotism,” he said, “is what we want”—but “are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?”

In the aftermath of the “Reagan Revolution,” Reagan himself warned that “our spirit is back, but we haven’t reinstitutionalized it.” He went out of his way to note that “well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style” for the creators of culture.

Reagan then warned: “If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are. I am warning of an eradication of that—of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.” The American spirit is now in crisis precisely for this reason.

In response, as Reagan said, “We’ve got to teach history based not on what’s in fashion but what’s important.”

In every high school classroom, in every boardroom, in every university, we must fight at every level to restore America’s sense of herself. If we lose this fight, we lose America. But we can yet win.

President Trump points us in the right direction.

The Conversation: How 3 Prior Pandemics Triggered Massive Societal Shifts

The Black Death created massive labor shortages

Macalester Professor Andrew Latham writes How 3 prior pandemics triggered massive societal shifts at The Converstation.

Before March of this year, few probably thought disease could be a significant driver of human history.

Not so anymore. People are beginning to understand that the little changes COVID-19 has already ushered in or accelerated – telemedicine, remote work, social distancing, the death of the handshake, online shopping, the virtual disappearance of cash and so on – have begun to change their way of life. They may not be sure whether these changes will outlive the pandemic. And they may be uncertain whether these changes are for good or ill.

Three previous plagues could yield some clues about the way COVID-19 might bend the arc of history. As I teach in my course “Plagues, Pandemics and Politics,” pandemics tend to shape human affairs in three ways.

First, they can profoundly alter a society’s fundamental worldview. Second, they can upend core economic structures. And, finally, they can sway power struggles among nations.
Sickness spurs the rise of the Christian West

The Antonine plague, and its twin, the Cyprian plague – both now widely thought to have been caused by a smallpox strain – ravaged the Roman Empire from A.D. 165 to 262. It’s been estimated that the combined pandemics’ mortality rate was anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the empire’s population.

While staggering, the number of deaths tells only part of the story. This also triggered a profound transformation in the religious culture of the Roman Empire.

On the eve of the Antonine plague, the empire was pagan. The vast majority of the population worshipped multiple gods and spirits and believed that rivers, trees, fields and buildings each had their own spirit.

Christianity, a monotheistic religion that had little in common with paganism, had only 40,000 adherents, no more than 0.07% of the empire’s population.

Yet within a generation of the end of the Cyprian plague, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the empire.

How did these twin pandemics effect this profound religious transformation?

Rodney Stark, in his seminal work “The Rise of Christianity,” argues that these two pandemics made Christianity a much more attractive belief system.

While the disease was effectively incurable, rudimentary palliative care – the provision of food and water, for example – could spur recovery of those too weak to care for themselves. Motivated by Christian charity and an ethic of care for the sick – and enabled by the thick social and charitable networks around which the early church was organized – the empire’s Christian communities were willing and able to provide this sort of care.

Pagan Romans, on the other hand, opted instead either to flee outbreaks of the plague or to self-isolate in the hope of being spared infection.

This had two effects.

First, Christians survived the ravages of these plagues at higher rates than their pagan neighbors and developed higher levels of immunity more quickly. Seeing that many more of their Christian compatriots were surviving the plague – and attributing this either to divine favor or the benefits of the care being provided by Christians – many pagans were drawn to the Christian community and the belief system that underpinned it. At the same time, tending to sick pagans afforded Christians unprecedented opportunities to evangelize.

Second, Stark argues that, because these two plagues disproportionately affected young and pregnant women, the lower mortality rate among Christians translated into a higher birth rate.

The net effect of all this was that, in roughly the span of a century, an essentially pagan empire found itself well on its way to becoming a majority Christian one.
The plague of Justinian and the fall of Rome

The plague of Justinian, named after the Roman emperor who reigned from A.S. 527 to 565, arrived in the Roman Empire in A.D. 542 and didn’t disappear until A.D. 755. During its two centuries of recurrence, it killed an estimated 25% to 50% of the population – anywhere from 25 million to 100 million people.

This massive loss of lives crippled the economy, triggering a financial crisis that exhausted the state’s coffers and hobbled the empire’s once mighty military.

In the east, Rome’s principal geopolitical rival, Sassanid Persia, was also devastated by the plague and was therefore in no position to exploit the Roman Empire’s weakness. But the forces of the Islamic Rashidun Caliphate in Arabia – which had long been contained by the Romans and Sasanians – were largely unaffected by the plague. The reasons for this are not well understood, but they probably have to do with the caliphate’s relative isolation from major urban centers.

Caliph Abu Bakr didn’t let the opportunity go to waste. Seizing the moment, his forces swiftly conquered the entire Sasanian Empire while stripping the weakened Roman Empire of its territories in the Levant, the Caucasus, Egypt and North Africa.
Troops clash in a 14th-century illustration of the Battle of Yarmouk.
Muslim forces of the Rashidun Caliphate captured the Levant – a region of the Middle East – from the Byzantine Empire in A.D. 636. Wikimedia Commons

Pre-pandemic, the Mediterranean world had been relatively unified by commerce, politics, religion and culture. What emerged was a fractured trio of civilizations jockeying for power and influence: an Islamic one in the eastern and southern Mediterranean basin; a Greek one in the northeastern Mediterranean; and a European one between the western Mediterranean and the North Sea.

This last civilization – what we now call medieval Europe – was defined by a new, distinctive economic system.

Before the plague, the European economy had been based on slavery. After the plague, the significantly diminished supply of slaves forced landowners to begin granting plots to nominally “free” laborers – serfs who worked the lord’s fields and, in return, received military protection and certain legal rights from the lord.

The seeds of feudalism were planted.
The Black Death of the Middle Ages

The Black Death broke out in Europe in 1347 and subsequently killed between one-third and one-half of the total European population of 80 million people. But it killed more than people. By the time the pandemic had burned out by the early 1350s, a distinctly modern world emerged – one defined by free labor, technological innovation and a growing middle class.

Before the Yersinia pestis bacterium arrived in 1347, Western Europe was a feudal society that was overpopulated. Labor was cheap, serfs had little bargaining power, social mobility was stymied and there was little incentive to increase productivity.

But the loss of so much life shook up an ossified society.

Labor shortages gave peasants more bargaining power. In the agrarian economy, they also encouraged the widespread adoption of new and existing technologies – the iron plow, the three-field crop rotation system and fertilization with manure, all of which significantly increased productivity. Beyond the countryside, it resulted in the invention of time and labor-saving devices such as the printing press, water pumps for draining mines and gunpowder weapons.
Townspeople flee the city for the countryside to escape the bubonic plague.
The Black Death created massive labor shortages. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

In turn, freedom from feudal obligations and a desire to move up the social ladder encouraged many peasants to move to towns and engage in crafts and trades. The more successful ones became wealthier and constituted a new middle class. They could now afford more of the luxury goods that could be obtained only from beyond Europe’s frontiers, and this stimulated both long-distance trade and the more efficient three-masted ships needed to engage in that trade.

The new middle class’s increasing wealth also stimulated patronage of the arts, science, literature and philosophy. The result was an explosion of cultural and intellectual creativity – what we now call the Renaissance.
Our present future

None of this is to argue that the still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic will have similarly earth-shattering outcomes. The mortality rate of COVID-19 is nothing like that of the plagues discussed above, and therefore the consequences may not be as seismic.

But there are some indications that they could be.

Will the bumbling efforts of the open societies of the West to come to grips with the virus shattering already-wavering faith in liberal democracy, creating a space for other ideologies to evolve and metastasize?

In a similar fashion, COVID-19 may be accelerating an already ongoing geopolitical shift in the balance of power between the U.S. and China. During the pandemic, China has taken the global lead in providing medical assistance to other countries as part of its “Health Silk Road” initiative. Some argue that the combination of America’s failure to lead and China’s relative success at picking up the slack may well be turbocharging China’s rise to a position of global leadership.

Finally, COVID-19 seems to be accelerating the unraveling of long-established patterns and practices of work, with repercussions that could affet the future of office towers, big cities and mass transit, to name just a few. The implications of this and related economic developments may prove as profoundly transformative as those triggered by the Black Death in 1347.

Ultimately, the longer-term consequences of this pandemic – like all previous pandemics – are simply unknowable to those who must endure them. But just as past plagues made the world we currently inhabit, so too will this plague likely remake the one populated by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The Burning Platform: The Only Thing Systematic Is the Destruction of America

From The Burning Platform, The Only Thing Systematic Is the Destruction of America, Part I and Part II.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!” – Upton Sinclair

Image for post

Upton Sinclair was describing willful ignorance based upon who butters your bread. The rampant corruption of our society, as power has been consolidated into fewer and fewer hands, has resulted in our political, financial, cultural and economic systems being captured by a billionaire class who use their wealth to dictate the path we are forced to follow – or lose everything.

The sociopath class include the Silicon Valley social media titans, the billionaires running the six mainstream media companies, the rogue billionaires like Soros and Bloomberg who fund chaos and foment insurrection, the Deep State surveillance agency operatives like Clapper, Brennan, Comey and Mueller doing the bidding of the oligarchy, Wall Street criminals like Dimon, Paulson, and Blankfein doing god’s work, and last but certainly not least – Powell, Yellen, Bernanke and slimy Kashkari priming the pump for the never ending systematic pillaging of the nation’s wealth.

When you witness what passes for legislators at the Federal, State and Local levels, you must weep for our future. These pathetic excuses for leaders display none of the qualities a citizenry would want in those they have elected to manage our governmental affairs. They are bought off hacks, lacking any intellectual honesty, and selling their votes to the highest bidder. They lie, misinform, steal, and do the bidding of the monied interests who selected them because they are pliable dupes without an ounce of courage or forethought about the long-term best interests of the people they are supposed to be representing.

We are far from the republic Franklin and his fellow patriots gave us, and as Franklin foreshadowed, we were unable to keep it. As the fledgling republic devolved into a mob democracy, with the Federal government grabbing more power during the Civil War, the banking cabal seizing control of the nation’s finances in 1913 with the creation from Jekyll Island, the growth of the welfare state with FDR and LBJ doing the most damage, the metastasis of the military industrial complex, the elimination of privacy after the Patriot Act surveillance state execution, and now the final countdown to Armageddon as the state, media conglomerates, Wall Street criminals, mega-corporations, and billionaire oligarchs use this purposefully over-hyped flu pandemic to consolidate their power, wealth and control over a dumbed down, iGadget addicted, fearful, easily manipulated, compliant populace.

There is no Deep State - Econlib

Most people go through life not questioning the motivations of their political, financial, economic and religious leaders. They naively believe they have achieved their positions of power because they have earned it through hard work, intellectual superiority, and moral authority. Most people are not sociopaths. They are just trying to steer around the potholes of life, raising families, earning a living, finding some enjoyment, leaving a positive legacy and trusting those in positions of power are looking out for their best interests.

They are wrapped up in their day to day existence, so are not vigilant in monitoring what political, financial and corporate power players are plotting to further reduce their liberties, freedom, and bank accounts. After decades of government school social indoctrination dumbing down of the masses, relentless propaganda propagated by the corporate media mouthpieces of the Deep State, endless technological and sports distractions, and being lured into crushing levels of debt by Wall Street and Madison Avenue, the masses are incapable of critically assessing how they have been systematically screwed by the ruling class.

Even with the self-imposed economic depression initiated by politicians, at the behest of captured self-proclaimed medical “experts” and college drop-out techno-geek billionaires (Bill Gates), resulting in tens of millions (mostly blue collar and service industry workers) being put out of work, there are still 147 million employed Americans. That’s up 14 million from the April pandemic low, but to provide some perspective, it’s at virtually the same level as late 2007 just before the Wall Street/Fed created financial collapse.

Considering there are 260 million working age Americans in the country, with 26 million employed part time, 9 million self-employed and 21 million government workers paid for by the 91 million full-time wage earners, you understand why wage earners can be intimidated into “not understanding something” because their livelihood depends upon them pretending to not understand the truth.

Current Employment Statistics - CES (National) : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The propaganda phrase “we’re in this together” is another Orwellian doublespeak example, as there are 10.7 million less private industry workers than a year ago, but the number of government workers is amazingly up by almost 200,000. So much for sharing the pain. The other dichotomy is between college graduate white collar workers who can work from home and the mostly low paid service industry workers who “serve” the white-collar workers. The number of college graduate workers is up by 1 million in the last year versus down 9.3 million for all other workers. These pandemic lockdowns have devastated the job prospects of blacks, teenagers, and anyone working in the hospitality industry. We are not in this together.

Give Me Liberty. | We are NOT in this Together | wearenotinthistogether.com

The Federal Reserve actions have only benefited their Wall Street constituents and the .1% who own most of the financial assets in this country. The poor, blue collar workers, waitresses, bartenders, savers, and senior citizens (who avoided being sentenced to death in nursing homes by Cuomo and his fellow Democrat governors) have been thrown under the bus once again. The rich get richer and the poor are thrown a $600 bone and told to obey and stay like a good dog.

The Sinclair quote is even more apt in relation to the latest narrative being used by the powers that be to divide us and create chaos. The false story line of “systematic racism” is being used as a cudgel to beat us into submission and compliance. The only thing systematic is the organized and well-funded traitorous endeavor by Soros and his ilk to undermine the basic moral tenets of our society in order to institute a Marxist new world order in the U.S., Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and eventually the entire world.

They want to destroy our past by tearing down statues and promoting fake history like the NYT promoted 1619 Project. They publicize and promote division and racial strife by publicizing the few murders of blacks by whites, while ignoring the daily slaughter of blacks by other blacks in Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia and the other Democrat run urban ghetto kill zones. The lawlessness and savagery in black inner cities with black on black crime is ignored by the left-wing politicians who run these cities and their media mouthpieces. There is clearly something systematic about what has happened, but it’s not due to systematic racism.

How the 1619 Project slandered America

The term ‘systematic’ has been in vogue lately because the propagandized narrative since a black felon dying of a fentanyl overdose was videotaped being kneeled upon by a white cop with a history of abusing citizens has been “systematic racism” is the single most important problem in America, keeping black people from getting ahead and resulting in them fearing for their lives, as cops and white people target them because they’re black. Once the narrative was unleashed, the leftist mainstream media carried the ball with a misinformation campaign, and the domestic terrorist organizations BLM and ANTIFA were funded with millions of dollars from Soros and other leftist billionaires to riot, loot, burn and destroy cities across America in the name of racial justice.

Corporate America latched onto the narrative, along with sports leagues, Hollywood elites, and every virtue signaling toady in America. Anyone questioning the narrative with facts is cancelled, attacked and destroyed by the mob of willfully ignorant lemmings. A white person’s salary now depends upon them apologizing for being white and kneeling before BLM and begging for mercy because they are systematically racist.

The dictionary definition of systematic is:

done or acting according to a fixed plan or system; methodical in procedure or plan; presented or formulated as a coherent body of ideas or principles.

The “systematic racism” narrative has absolutely no factual basis. Are there racists in our society? Sure. There are white racists, black racists, Latino racists, and Asian racists. Harvard, Yale and other elite Ivy League institutions have been cited by Federal authorities for racist policies against Asians and whites. If systematic racism is keeping blacks from succeeding why are there numerous examples of whites pretending to be minorities (Pocahontas Warren, Jessica Krug, Rachel Dolezal, Shaun King) in order to get an advantage in their career advancement?

Rachel Dolezal, ex-NAACP leader: 'I identify as black' - CNN

Since the implementation of LBJ’s Great Society, trillions of taxpayer funds have been spent to boost the lives of black America, with a phenomenally detrimental impact on their lives. The creation of the welfare state has enslaved the black community in dependence and squalor. Incentivizing out of wedlock children has resulted in over 70% of all black children being raised in fatherless households.

Even though urban school districts spend $12,000 to $16,000 per student, the majority of blacks are matriculated into society unable to add, subtract, spell or speak the English language. Their urban enclaves are drug infested homicide zones, with young fatherless black men killing each other at an astounding rate. Chicago has at least 50 shootings every weekend, with nary a white shooter. It seems black lives don’t matter to other blacks. But, when a black rapist is shot by police while reaching for a knife, the BLM and ANTIFA terrorists use it as an excuse to loot, riot, kill white Trump supporters, kill cops, and generally act like savages.

This entire contrived fairy tale shows all the signs of being systematic, but the methodical plan being implemented has nothing to do with racism or justice. The Davos elitist lords have been emboldened by their success since 9/11, as they have utilized every crisis as an opportunity to further their agenda of consolidating power, wealth, and control over the plebs.

This pandemic “crisis” is being used as an opportunity to reset the world in a manner most beneficial for the Davos billionaires, by exploiting pandemic fear, engineered social chaos, a fake climate crisis and economic anxiety to implement a corporate fascist world order, disguised as a green new deal, MMT, socialist paradise. The apparently incomprehensible actions of left wing politicians, DA’s, the corporate media, surveillance state bad actors, compliant central bankers, and emboldened billionaires over the last few months begin to make sense when you realize it is part of the plan.

As we have learned over the last decade, conspiracy theorists have been proven right, time after time, as a coup against a duly elected president has been revealed through texts and incriminating documents; Snowden and Assange revealed the illegal surveillance program conducted by unaccountable spy agencies; JP Morgan and other criminal banks have admitted to rigging precious metals, bond and stock markets; Soros has funneled tens of millions to elect far left District Attorneys who refuse to enforce the law and prosecute violent criminals; a captured left wing judge attempts to prosecute an innocent man who was setup by Obama’s FBI hacks; and Bloomberg is using his billions to buy the votes of tens of thousands of black and Hispanic ex-convicts in Florida to steal the presidential election…(continues)

Click here for Part II.

AmRRON Field Training Exercise — 3 Oct 2020

From the AmRRON (the American Redoubt Radio Operators Network):

AmRRON-wide (and visitors) FTX, Saturday, October 3rd, 2020

Scroll to the bottom for the printable PDF of this posting and exercise instructions
AmRRON CORPS (Paid members) Log in to the Corps Forum and look for the ‘FTX3 / Oct 3’ thread

To learn all about setting up and using JS8Call Check out these videos:

>>>>> JS8Call: Weak Signal Chat and Networking
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H1AhJxnI0w

>>>>> JS8Call – Keyboard to Keyboard on FT8…for those of us that miss PSK
>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaRmFGMdsfg

Print and/or Download the FTX-3 PDF Document:
https://amrron.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/AMRRON-FTX-3-final.pdf

End of the American Dream: Will 2020 Election Be Beginning of the End for Our System of Government?

Michael Snyder at the End of the American Dream blog writes about how lost faith in our electoral process could be the end of our republic in Will The 2020 Election Be The Beginning Of The End For Our System Of Government?

Most Americans assume that our system of government could never fail, but the truth is that it is failing right in front of our eyes.  In order for our system of government to work, people need to be able to believe that their votes will count and that the outcomes of our elections will be fair.  For over 200 years, most Americans did have faith in the system, but now things are rapidly changing.  Here in 2020, we appear to be heading for a hotly contested result in the presidential election, and many on the losing side are inevitably going to believe that the election was stolen from them.  And day after day we just continue to see more examples that indicate the security of our elections is being compromised on a widespread basis.  Not too long ago, I wrote about the military ballots for Trump that had been discarded in a dumpster in Pennsylvania and the ballots that were discovered in a ditch in Wisconsin.  And now today I came across a report about how memory sticks that are “used to program Philadelphia’s voting machines” were stolen from a warehouse…

A laptop and several memory sticks used to program Philadelphia’s voting machines were stolen from a city warehouse in East Falls, officials confirmed Wednesday, setting off a scramble to investigate and to ensure the machines had not been compromised.

Though it remains unclear when the equipment was stolen, sources briefed on the investigation said the items vanished this week. The laptop belonged to an on-site employee for the company that supplies the machines. It and the USB drives were the only items believed to have been taken.

We will want to watch the results coming out of Philadelphia very carefully, because the winner of Pennsylvania is probably going to win the presidency.

In 2012, 100 percent of the vote went to Barack Obama in precinct after precinct in Philly, and it will be very interesting to see if a similar pattern emerges during this election.

Elsewhere, James O’Keefe has just exposed an absolutely shocking “cash-for-ballots harvesting scheme” in Minnesota.  Apparently people were being paid lots of money to collect absentee ballots from elderly individuals and fill them out for preferred Democratic candidates.  The following comes from a Newsweek report…

“Just today we got 300 for Jamal Osman,” Mohamed says in the video. “I have 300 ballots in my car right now.”

“Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. Look, all these are for Jamal Osman.”

Mohamed can be seen showing white envelopes on his car’s dashboard in a video from July 1. Later in the Project Veritas video Mohamed says, “Money is the king in this world… and a campaign is driven by money.”

How can an election be legitimate when there is this sort of vote buying going on?

And now with tens of millions of ballots going through the mail in 2020, it is going to be easier to “harvest” ballots than ever before.

I just have such a bad feeling about what is going to happen in November.

For weeks, the mainstream media has been trying to convince us that President Trump will probably have a lead on election night but that Joe Biden will win once all of the mail-in ballots are finally counted.

Of course it could take a really long time for all of those ballots to be counted, and meanwhile all sorts of monkey business could be happening in the background that we don’t know anything about.

In the end, one side is going to end up bitterly disappointed and will feel like the election has been stolen.  If Trump wins many Biden supporters will believe it was because all of the votes were not fairly counted, and if Biden wins many Trump supporters will believe that there was widespread fraud involving mail-in ballots.

We could very easily end up with a scenario where both candidates are declaring victory, and that could set up a very ugly constitutional crisis.  In one of his recent articles, James Howard Kunstler detailed one way that this could all play out…

  • The complicit newspapers and cable news channels publish polls showing Joe Biden leading in several swing states, even if it’s not true.
  • Facebook and Twitter amplify expectations of a Biden victory.
  • This sets the stage for a furor when it turns out that he loses on election night.
  • On cue, Antifa commences to riot all around the country. Meanwhile, a mighty harvest of mail-in votes pours into election districts utterly unequipped to validate them.
  • Lawfare cadres agitate in the contested states’ legislatures to send rogue elector slates to the electoral college. The dispute ends up in congress, which awaits a seating of newly-elected representatives on January 4, hopefully for Lawfare, mostly Democrats. Whoops…!
  • Turns out, the Dems lost their majority there too. Fighting in the streets ramps up and overwhelms hamstrung police forces in Democratic-run cities.
  • January 20 — Inauguration Day — rolls around, and the Dems ask the military to drag Trump out of the White House “with great dispatch!” as Mr. Biden himself put it so nicely back in the summer.

I do believe that Trump will have a lead on election night.

In fact, it could be a very big lead.

Trump has been trashing voting by mail for months, and this is going to encourage most of his supporters to vote in person.  In fact, during the first presidential debate Trump once again talked about potential problems with mail-in votes…

In the final segment of the contentious debate between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, Trump launched into an extended argument against mail voting, claiming without evidence that it is ripe for fraud and suggesting mail ballots may be “manipulated.”

“This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” the president said of the massive shift to mail voting prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.

And the Republican National Committee has also been making disparaging statements about voting by mail…

‘We always expected to be behind at this point as Democrats have made it their mission to push for an all-mail election that brings fraud and chaos into the system,’ said Republican National Committee spokesman Mike Reed. ‘You’ll see Democrats predominantly vote by mail, and our voters will come out in droves to vote in person, especially on Election Day.’

Those that follow my work on a regular basis already know how I feel about voting by mail.  I believe that Americans should be required to vote in person whenever possible, because voting by mail just opens up so many opportunities for things to go wrong.

And many on the left are starting to realize this too.  For example, the following comes from a recent article by Derek Thompson…

Mail votes require several steps, and different steps in different locations, including postmarking the ballots, signing in various places, and using the proper number of envelopes. For that reason, it can confuse first-time voters, and even experienced voters used to queuing at local high schools. Two studies of the 2018 midterm elections in Florida and Georgia found that young and minority voters are especially likely to have their mail ballots rejected.

For most of 2020, Democrats have been relentlessly promoting voting by mail, but now they are beginning to understand that could result in hundreds of thousands of their votes being thrown out.  In fact, it is being reported that more than half a million votes were “disqualified” during the 2020 primaries…

In the 2020 primaries, more than 550,000 mail and absentee ballots were disqualified, a much higher number than four years ago. The problem is especially severe in some swing states. More than 23,000 mailed ballots were rejected in the presidential primaries in Wisconsin—more than Donald Trump’s margin of victory in that state in 2016. Deep-blue districts have had the same problem: New York City alone threw out more than 84,000 ballots this primary season.

In the end, Democrats could be sabotaging their own efforts by pushing mail-in voting so much.  If Democrats vote by mail in much higher numbers than Republicans, they will also likely have their votes disqualified in much higher numbers too.

Right now, Democrats are requesting mail ballots at a much higher rate than Republicans are in quite a few key swing states…

Of the more than 9 million voters who requested mail ballots as of Monday in five critical states where the data is available – Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa – 52 percent were Democrats, 28 percent were Republicans, and 20 percent were unaffiliated.

Additional internal Democratic and Republican Party data obtained by The Washington Post shows a similar trend in Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, the paper reported.

Many Republican operatives are deeply concerned about these numbers, but perhaps they shouldn’t be.

If Republicans show up in person at the polls in tremendous numbers, that could give Trump an enormous lead on election night.

Of course Joe Biden will definitely not concede no matter how large the lead looks, and that will set the stage for weeks of legal wrangling over the counting of votes in multiple states.

Ultimately, we will probably have to wait a long time to see if the Democrats can come up with enough “mail-in ballots” to overcome Trump’s lead.

But this process is not going to be good for our nation no matter who ends up winning.

In fact, it is likely that millions of Americans will be so turned off by what happens that they will lose faith in the system permanently.

And once faith in our system is gone, it will be nearly impossible to get back.

AIER: James Buchanan’s Normative Vision Fifteen Years Later

This article from Art Carden at AIER delves into some political philosophy reflected in the writings of James Buchanan – James M. Buchanan’s Normative Vision Fifteen Years Later. What does it mean to be a conservative vs a classical liberal? What does it mean to be equal? What are the roles of economists and social scientists?

“It is not who governs but what government is entitled to do that seems to me the essential problem.” ~ Friedrich Hayek, “Why I am not a conservative”

Sixty years ago, Friedrich Hayek published The Constitution of Liberty. To it was appended a short postscript titled “Why I Am Not a Conservative.” Fifteen years ago, James M. Buchanan published a short volume titled Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism. At just over one hundred pages, it might look like a quick read. The appearance is deceiving. Buchanan turned 86 in 2005, and Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative is a mature statement of how he thinks the world “should” be in light of a very long career wrestling with the most fundamental principles of social organization. It’s a compact statement from a serious thinker who wrote for the ages.

The book collects short essays published after his twenty-volume Collected Works appeared in 1999. This means there is some repetition, but this does not detract from his overall message. Throughout, it shines with the convictions of a man who took his own ideas seriously and, perhaps more importantly, took others’ ideas seriously.

Buchanan consistently rejects the idea that the economist’s role is to develop a social owner’s manual for those at the top of the moral, political, and economic hierarchy. It is, rather, to identify the principles facilitating cooperation among moral and political equals. Buchanan’s normative vision doesn’t flatter anyone with the notion that they are better than anyone else. To the extent he opposed noblesse oblige, it was on the grounds that no one is noblesse.

Buchanan frames the institutional question in terms of a disagreement between Plato on one hand and Adam Smith on the other. As he puts it on pp. 4-5 (emphasis added):

“We may personalize the discussion here, even if loosely, as the continuing debate between Plato on the one hand, and Adam Smith on the other. Plato had no misgivings about classifying human beings along a hierarchy of superiority. To Plato, some persons are natural slaves; others are natural masters. For Adam Smith, persons are natural equals, and one of his familiar references is to the absence of basic differences between the philosopher and the street porter.

“The issue is not one as to whether persons differ; the issue is whether or not persons differ in their potential capacities as participating members of a body politic. What could be the basis for any presumptive classification that would elevate some persons above others? By what criteria are the hierarchical classifications to be made? What transcendent values inform any such criteria? And, importantly, who is to establish the ordering?

“The liberal faces no such questions as these, since he accepts more or less without conscious deliberation the Smithean presumption of natural equality. The conservative acknowledges the challenges posed by such questions, and I suggest that implicit acceptance of the hierarchical interpretation of human beings is a distinguishing feature of the stance described by this rubric. The conservative almost necessarily infers that persons who stand higher in the hierarchy should possess differentially higher authority in matters of governance. The natural fit is with aristocracy.”

He returns to these themes again and again. That people differ in tastes and talents is so obvious as to barely deserve mention. That they differ in tastes and talents does not, however, mean that some are fit to rule while others are fit only to obey. There is nothing in the nature of the philosopher that makes him fit to rule over the porter. “The Smithean presumption of natural equality” is an indispensable part of Buchanan’s vision.

Buchanan works at the level of fundamental ideas about social organization and begins, always and everywhere, with the presumption of equality. As he writes on pp. 105-106, “I remain disinterested in efforts to analyse social structures that presume a hierarchical classification among persons and groups. And this attitude persists despite the disturbing, and increasingly encountered, claims about biological evidence for differentiation.” As he puts it on p. 27, “…markets, as efficient generators of the values desired by participants, also fail if, prior to each transaction, persons must identify the trading partner by some discriminatory mark.”

The book is peppered with references and allusions to the “some animals are more equal than others” doctrine in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Buchanan has little use for the doctrine as he concerns himself throughout the book with the implications of the idea of equality among natural equals. Equality is characteristic of desirable social processes, not an outcome produced by those processes. He arrives at sometimes-severe conclusions: implicit in many benevolent and altruistic schemes is the notion of latent inequality and natural hierarchy in which the morally and intellectually enlightened–the philosopher-kings, or our betters–decide on our behalf and care for us the same way they might care for “dependent” animals (cf. pp. 8-9,50). To be a person, to Buchanan, is to be more than just another mouth to feed. It’s to be a responsible moral agent with all that entails.

The role of the status quo is one of the more interesting elements of Buchanan’s normative vision, and it’s where he parts ways from conservatives. The fact that it’s the status quo as such, he argues, does not have any special meaning, but the way people accept or at least acquiesce to it still might be informative: “Acceptance rather than continuing contestability offers evidence that should not be ignored” (p. 3). In a world where obvious injustice persists, this will leave many readers cold; however, this is one of the areas where Buchanan is “slippery,” as Michael Munger calls him. For institutional change to be sustainable, as Barry Weingast has argued in several places, the de jure distribution of power cannot deviate too much from the de facto distribution of power. This seems like a matter of prudence in holding one’s nose and accepting an unhappy trade-off rather than a question of abstract justice: in various places, Munger offers the example of Chile and notes that democratization would have been short-lived had the functionaries of Pinochet’s junta government been brought to “justice.” They likely would have responded with a military coup, and Chile would not be a liberal, democratic member of the OECD.

This notwithstanding Buchanan is at least a little “constructivist” in that he is optimistic about prospects for human improvement. He emphasizes two conditions for a well-functioning free society: autonomy (enough people have to want to be free) and reciprocity (enough people have to see others as rights-bearing, dignified moral equals). While he acknowledges that this is not the case and hasn’t typically been the case historically, he is nonetheless optimistic about people’s ability to “perfect” themselves, at least a little bit, by adopting and promulgating “puritan” ethics (see, for example, his 1994 book Ethics and Economic Progress and this paper).

One thing that comes out loud and clear in Buchanan’s work is that he does not see social science as a tool of social engineering insofar as statecraft, for Buchanan, is not a question of which levers to pull and which buttons to push in order to generate a specific outcome. Rather, statecraft asks how societies develop and enforce bodies of rules making it possible for moral, intellectual, and political equals to cooperate advantageously without one person or group of persons being subservient to the “more equal” animals a little higher in the social hierarchy. We are lost, Buchanan thinks, when a critical mass of people see the state as a way to enrich themselves at the expense of others.

As befits a volume that borrows the title of Hayek’s “Why I Am Not a Conservative,” Buchanan devotes a lot of space to commentary on Hayek and his vision. He notes in applying his own work on moral communities and moral orders that “…the Hayekian moral order does contain important communitarian elements, even if these are different from those that are familiarly stressed” (p. 72). We are individuals in that, as Buchanan argues elsewhere, the individual is the fundamental and irreducible unit of consciousness. As individuals, however, we live in and strive for community. This means, therefore, that there are ethical prerequisites for cooperation and coordination. He emphasizes autonomy and reciprocity. He doesn’t seem to think Hayek appreciates these the way he should.

Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative lays out a subtle, complex, and principled vision for a functioning society of equals. Autonomy and reciprocity, he argues, are necessary for peace, order, and prosperity, but at the same time he doesn’t see it as his role to deconstruct society and rebuild it along these lines. Buchanan is critical of radicals who would force others to be free, or who would seek liberal ends by illiberal means. On one hand, Buchanan has a very clear social idea in mind. On the other hand, he isn’t willing to burn it all down and try to replace it with a constructed order he finds appealing. His contractarianism is too radical for that. As he writes (p. 20), “The classical liberal violates his own principles if he thinks of himself as philosopher-king.” It’s certainly not the role Buchanan sought for himself.

Mises Institute: Self-Defense and “Taking the Law into Your Own Hands”

From Lew Rockwell at the Mises Institute Self-Defense and “Taking the Law into Your Own Hands” is about defending yourself and property from violence when “the law” will not. When “the law” abandons the people, is it vigilantism to defend yourself? The answer is, of course, no it isn’t, as self defense and defense of your property is legally authorized.

The riots in Louisville are only the latest in a long string of violent, raging mob riots by the criminal Marxist BLM movement, their mostly white “antifa” thuggish allies, and assorted looters. In this case, “Two police officers have been shot in Louisville, Ky., amid riots following the announcement of an indictment in the shooting of Breonna Taylor. Louisville chief of police Robert Schroeder confirmed that the officers were shot and were taken to a local hospital. Schroeder told reporters that one of the officers was undergoing surgery but in stable condition, while the other was alert and stable. Police have arrested one suspect in the shooting…after a grand jury charged just one of the officers involved in the shooting of Taylor in a botched drug bust. Rioters clashed with police throughout Louisville, burning trash cans and calling to defund the city police department.”

Last May, hundreds of businesses in the Twin Cities—Minneapolis and St. Paul—were damaged or looted during four days of unrest. In Los Angeles, “National Guard troops arrived in the nation’s second-largest city overnight after a fourth day of protests Saturday saw demonstrators clash repeatedly with officers, torch police vehicles and pillage businesses. Mayor Eric Garcetti said he asked Gov. Gavin Newsom for 500 to 700 members of the Guard to assist the 10,000 Los Angeles Police Department officers. ‘The California National Guard is being deployed to Los Angeles overnight to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city,’ said the mayor, who ordered a rare citywide curfew until Sunday morning. Firefighters responded to dozens of fires, and scores of businesses were damaged. One of the hardest-hit areas was the area around the Grove, a popular high-end outdoor mall west of downtown where hundreds of protesters swarmed the area, showering police with rocks and other objects and vandalizing shops.” About 3,000 protesters demonstrated in Brooklyn  and were pushed back by NYPD officers releasing chemical mace after the protests turned violent. A woman was arrested and charged with attempted murder after she threw a Molotov cocktail into an occupied police car.

Things are likely to get worse. A story in the New York Times, a paper very sympathetic to the BLM hoodlums, admits that rioters plan to assault suburban white areas. They will demand that the white residents, who are often elderly, bow down to them and surrender their homes. “Nearly four months after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, some protesters against police brutality are taking a more confrontational—and personal—approach. The marches in Portland are increasingly moving to residential and largely white neighborhoods, where demonstrators with bullhorns shout for people to come ‘out of your house and into the street’ and demonstrate their support. These more aggressive protests target ordinary people going about their lives, especially those who decline to demonstrate allegiance to the cause. That includes a diner in Washington who refused to raise her fist to show support for Black Lives Matter, or, in several cities, confused drivers who happened upon the protests.”

Ordinary Americans cannot rely on the police to protect them. In many cases, left-wing governors and mayors have ordered the police to stand down. For them, solidarity with the rioters is more important than the lives and property of decent citizens. We have seen the absurdity of rioters being called “peaceful protestors” when videos show cities aflame. When the police do their duty and counter the violence of the black thugs, they are vilified as racists, indicted, and even shot at and killed. In these circumstances, they are hardly likely to stay on the job. If the police don’t protect you, you have no legal recourse, and in some places, police won’t even investigate cases of looting. “’Neither the Constitution, nor state law, imposes a general duty upon police officers or other governmental officials to protect individual persons from harm—even when they know the harm will occur,’ said Darren L. Hutchinson, a professor and associate dean at the University of Florida School of Law. ‘Police can watch someone attack you, refuse to intervene and not violate the Constitution.’ The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government has only a duty to protect persons who are ‘in custody,’ he pointed out.”

What, then, are we supposed to do? In an interview on the Tucker Carlson Show on September 23, Danny Coulson, a retired deputy assistant director of the FBI, condemned the rioters. But he thought that there was something even worse than the burning and looting, and this was the main reason he condemned them: their actions might lead to “vigilante justice.” People must not take the law into their own hands—that could lead to chaos. Instead, we must unify around support of the police.

His advice is useless, and it rests on a false premise. How can we support the police when they aren’t protecting us? His advice is like urging us to put out a fire with a hose unattached to a hydrant. The false premise is that vigilante justice is bad. Is it? Let’s look at the definition of the term: “Vigilantism is the act of enforcement, investigation or punishment of perceived offenses without legal authority. A vigilante (from Spanish vigilante) is practitioner of vigilantism.”

In other words, you are a vigilante if you exercise your basic right of self-defense without the permission of the predatory state that supports the rioters and looters. In fact, if people defended and protected themselves, the result would not be chaos, but a far better system than we have now. As the great Murray Rothbard explained, people in a free market society would defend themselves by hiring private protection agencies. The agencies would compete to provide the services customers want, rather than cater to the whim of a mob or promote venality and power seeking, as officials of the state do now. As Murray again and again stressed, the free market is always better at supplying goods and services than the state, and protection and defense are no exceptions.

He explains in For A New Liberty, “Free-market police would not only be efficient, they would have a strong incentive to be courteous and to refrain from brutality against either their clients or their clients’ friends or customers. A private Central Park would be guarded efficiently in order to maximize park revenue, rather than have a prohibitive curfew imposed on innocent—and paying—customers. A free market in police would reward efficient and courteous police protection to customers and penalize any falling off from this standard. No longer would there be the current disjunction between service and payment inherent in all government operations, a disjunction which means that police, like all other government agencies, acquire their revenue, not voluntarily and competitively from consumers, but from the taxpayers coercively. In fact, as government police have become increasingly inefficient, consumers have been turning more and more to private forms of protection. We have already mentioned block or neighborhood protection. There are also private guards, insurance companies, private detectives, and such increasingly sophisticated equipment as safes, locks, and closed-circuit TV and burglar alarms….Every reader of detective fiction knows that private insurance detectives are far more efficient than the police in recovering stolen property. Not only is the insurance company impelled by economics to serve the consumer—and thereby try to avoid paying benefits—but the major focus of the insurance company is very different from that of the police. The police, standing as they do for a mythical ‘society,’ are primarily interested in catching and punishing the criminal; restoring the stolen loot to the victim is strictly secondary. To the insurance company and its detectives, on the other hand, the prime concern is recovery of the loot, and apprehension and punishment of the criminal is secondary to the prime purpose of aiding the victim of crime. Here we see again the difference between a private firm impelled to serve the customer-victim of crime and the public police, which is under no such economic compulsion.”

Private law enforcement isn’t just a theoretical idea, as we can see from British and American history. In Britain, “Throughout the period 1674 to 1829 many victims of crime were able to identify and apprehend the culprits before contacting a constable or a justice of the peace to secure their arrest….Londoners continued to help apprehend suspected criminals. As the Proceedings frequently illustrate, cries of ‘stop thief!’ or ‘murder!’ from victims often successfully elicited the assistance of passers-by…[V]ictims frequently paid thief-takers to locate and apprehend suspects. Moreover, the difficulties the authorities had in identifying and apprehending criminals led them to offer rewards to those whose arrests led to the conviction of serious criminals, and pardons to accomplices who were willing to turn in their confederates. Increasingly, ordinary Londoners left the task of securing criminals to people who were motivated to do so by the prospect of financial or other rewards.”

We see the same thing in America. “The development of policing in the United States closely followed the development of policing in England. In the early colonies policing took two forms. It was both informal and communal, which is referred to as the ‘Watch,’ or private-for-profit policing, which is called ‘The Big Stick’….These informal modalities of policing continued well after the American Revolution. It was not until the 1830s that the idea of a centralized municipal police department first emerged in the United States.”

Danny Coulson was horror stricken about people hiring private bodyguards, but what is wrong with that? We should support our basic right to self-defense. This is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, but our rights don’t depend on the state and its constitution. By the way, the recently sainted Ruth Bader Ginsburg wanted to end the individual right to keep and bear arms. Our rights come from natural law, and only the free market can enforce them and protect us.

American Partisan: Low Intensity Conflict SitRep

Author Angery American writes a Low Intensity Conflict Sitrep for American Partisan, detailing his observations about the conflict roiling America.

Far Left insurgency showing signs of development

In November 2018, I put forth the theory that the development of “Combat Support” and “Combat Service Support” classes would be the surest and most important indicator that a Far Left insurgency was, in fact, developing.

What we’re talking about is called a “tooth to tail” ratio. Doctrinally, the Army’s tooth-to-tail ratio is somewhere around 1:7; that is, seven support personnel for every one gunfighter. Conventional combat arms troops in the field require sustainment for their operations. They need food and water, ammunition, vehicle repair, radio communications, intelligence, medical support, and a host of other services that they can’t provide for themselves. Combat support and combat service support provide the services and sustainment to maintain operations.

Traditionally, combat support class includes support like intelligence, signal (communications), chemical, and military police. The combat service support class includes services like finance, quartermaster (supply), and transportation (logistics), among others.

Nearly two years ago, I was seeing little in the way of dedicated operational support classes among Far Left groups. Previous indicators showed that Far Left groups involved in violence and destruction were either self-funded or funded through social justice organizations, which provided protest materials, along with mobilization and organization of activists for cover. The equipment, such as shields, drums, bull horns, firearms, incendiaries, and other accessories, carried or used in these demonstrations and riots were likely self-provided. Those involved in violent and destructive activities, such as antifascist black bloc groups, largely did double duty, to include their own support activities. While this is still the case in many places, we are seeing indications that these groups have and continue to develop more advanced capabilities. The best indicator of a developing Far Left insurgency is the establishment of these combat support and combat services support roles, which will better enable violence and destruction into the future. (What follows is a draft version of this report and contains only partial findings.)

Combat Support

Intelligence: From doxxing Far Right activists, to gathering information on the disposition of law enforcement and their tactics, techniques, and procedures, Far Left activists since at least 2016 have emphasized the importance of intelligence. Information gathering and sharing occurred in two places: 1) online, where virtual support from like-minded activists across the country was a crucial part of intelligence operations; and 2) within closed and mostly secure affinity groups, where intelligence continues to be disseminated in-person or digitally. In the past year, antifascist and other Far Left groups have progressed in their intelligence capabilities to include real-time intelligence gathering during demonstrations and riots. There are indications that some of these groups are utilizing real-time or near real-time mapping (or “battle tracking”) during these events, as well. Dedicated reconnaissance and surveillance, however rudimentary, feeds situational awareness and provides early warning during skirmishes with law enforcement. It’s important to note that scouting — fixed or mobile reconnaissance and surveillance — has been developed into a role and responsibility of its own, away from the larger body of activists. This indicates that a distinct combat support class has developed.

Signal/Communications: While Far Left groups have relied on social media for propaganda and non-secure communications, they’re increasingly reliant on more secure means of communication. Popular digital communication tools such as Signal, RiseUp, Telegram and other email and instant messaging platforms feature more secure transmissions and/or end-to-end encryption. We’ve also observed the use of VHF/UHF radios during demonstrations, although this mode of communication is highly susceptible to interception and direction finding; a noted security vulnerability. The use of SMS text messaging or instant messaging apps like Signal (and others) have become popular. Security best-practices often include instructions for participants to use burner phones, or to avoid bringing their personal cell phones with them altogether. This could indicate that dissemination of intelligence is the responsibility of a limited number of participants. It likely indicates that many of these groups routinely rely on reach-back capability for their real-time intelligence and situational awareness, and that a signal/communications combat support class has developed.

There are reports circulating that the DHS has been using technology like Stingray units to clone the phones of protestors and have developed a very detailed picture of the leadership of ANTIFA and BLM. The reports claim this is al leading up to the use of the Insurrection Act to start a widescale roundup of key member of both organizations. The problem with this idea is this, the President cannot invoke the act, it takes Congressional approval and considering the current composition of the House, that is highly unlikely to ever happen.

However, it is good to see the feds taking these groups seriously and working to take them down.

Combat Service Support

Finance: The funding of Far Left insurgent activities has been subject to wide speculation. As previously stated, their operations are largely self-funded through personal income, crowdfunding, or other donors. Some have suggested that these groups are receiving formal funding or even external (foreign) support. Because we lack access to financial transactions, it’s difficult for us to determine how much of these reports and/or rumors are true. At least some of these groups likely receive funding that trickles down through social justice organizations. Yet many of these groups rely on crowdfunding, which is run by specific members, potentially indicating the development of a finance class.

In every insurgency there are those looking to profit. The founder of Atlanta BLM has been arrested for fraud and money laundering. It’s alleged that Sir Maejor Page has been charged after using $200K in donations to the group for personal use. From purchasing himself a house to tailored suits. There have been other cases of individuals misusing or even fraudulently soliciting donations on behalf of the group.

Quartermaster: As many recently saw via viral videos of a U-Haul in Louisville, Kentucky dropping off signs, shields, and other materials to activists, at least some of the supply for Far Left insurgencies is becoming centralized, indicating the development of a quartermaster or supply class. In several instances, shields and other products used in violent and destructive behavior have been put together via assembly line. In other cases, Far Left insurgency participants have used crowdfunding to purchase both offensive and defense materials for use during demonstrations, which further indicates that a supply class may be developing.

Transportation: I’ve personally witnessed the use of vans, either personally-owned or rentals, to drop off and pick up antifascist black bloc participants. During 2017’s “Battle of Auburn,” which turned out to be pretty tame, I followed the Atlanta Antifascists black bloc back to the parking lot of a nearby Burger King, where group members took off their gear, drank bottled water from a case, and eventually departed in a beige van with Georgia plates. During one instance in Dallas, I witnessed what was likely a rental van providing transportation and logistics for a small black bloc contingent. There have been widespread and sometimes unsubstantiated claims of antifascist activists being bussed into events. That said, there have been several confirmed cases of mass, centralized transportation, which may indicate that a transportation class is developing.

Why this matters

From Summer 2016 through 2019, I maintained that a low grade, low intensity conflict had already started and was ongoing. That conclusion was and continues to be directly supported by a multitude of evidence from the period. Starting in Spring 2020 through the Summer, and now entering the Fall, we’ve undoubtedly entered a period of accelerating conflict. Given that Far Left insurgent capabilities are advancing, there’s a growing risk of much more advanced disruption, which I’ll explain in a future special Early Warning report.

In the meantime, the Intelligence Requirements I’ve been primarily concerned with answering is 1) When and how will this low intensity conflict accelerate?, and 2) What can we expect during a period of worsening low intensity conflict? (In other words, just how bad are things going to get?)
Lastly, we have one event in particular that took place this weekend that concerns me. Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys had previously announced a rally in Portland, scheduled for Saturday, 26 September. This week, the City of Portland denied an assembly permit for the group. If Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys show up, this will be the first major event since Aaron Danielson was murdered almost one month ago. While the shooting event angered the Portland area’s right wing contingent, desired responses were mixed. Some called for de-escalation, while others advocated retribution for Danielson’s murder. This is a situation where additional armed political violence could occur.

HYRBID-INSURGENCY

In these reports I have been detailing the events and actions of the current insurgency. From the outside it appears to be social unrest over police actions, a natural reaction by the people to perceived injustice. However, if we dig a little further, things get muddy pretty damn quick.

As stated previously, a hybrid-insurgency consists of non-state actors working in consort with State actors. In this case, there are two states at play (and maybe more), China and elements of the Democratic party. This is a worst-case scenario. A foreign nation attempting to replace our form of government with assistance from inside that very government. And for most people, they have no idea what is really going on as the majority of the media outlets across the nation are complicit in the action.

Proof of this is a recent report in the Washington Post which claims that Putin is overseeing a campaign to discredit Biden, because, you know, Putin and Trump have a bromance going on. The real problem is the article is written and submitted as fact with the only proof being, a Washington Post reporter was told something by a CIA asset. There are a couple of reasons for this, one of which is the CIA really wants to restart the old Cold War. The other is, they really, really want Trump out of office.

In the first essay I wrote on the insurgency I listed the three sides of the struggle, the Marxists, the .Gov and the Right. The Right sees itself as standing up for the government, defending the ideals the nation was founded on. The Marxists see the government as a tyrannical regime that needs toppled to install a workers paradise, much like… well, I can’t think of one. Then there’s the government.

One of the most dangerous issues with all this is that the government is actually more afraid of the Right, the ones throwing their support behind them, than they are of the Marxists. Proof of this can be found in the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer event held in Portland over the weekend.

The Proud Boys applied for a permit for their gathering and were denied, the city citing COVID restrictions on gatherings. Let that sink in. Not only were they denied a permit, when they said they were coming anyway, the Governor called in the State Police to deal with them and also opened the ruled of engagement. Police in Portland have been banned from using tear gas and impact munitions against protestors in the city for some time. That was changed when the Proud Boys arrived on the scene. Police were given full authority to use those tools once again.

And while the event went off without an issue, the two sides never came into contact with one another, it shows a very clear signal as to who is supporting who. When taken into consideration with the fact the DOJ still sees Right-Wing Extremism as the greatest threat to the nation, we on the Right, should take notice and remember that fact. For, if this does indeed go kinetic, and I can see nothing stopping it at this point, there will be both opportunity and disaster in the offing.

Obviously, if the Marxists win, we are screwed. If we win though, there is opportunity for real change. Restoring our Republic should be the highest priority. Our allegiance should not be to politicians or even party, but to our nation. We are a Democratic Republic. Rather, we once were and that is the foundation this country was built upon. But through apathy and attrition, we are far removed from that today.

I will predict now, that should the Right prevail the .Gov will move quickly to dispose of any leaders that rose to the top to win the fight. As I warned earlier, exercise caution, less we become the useful idiots. With victory over the Marxists we will need to turn out attention to the real reforms our nation needs. Term limits, first and foremost, will prevent the sort of condition our country is currently in. As well as the repeal of all laws that limit or turn a right into a privilege. Numerous federal agencies with no Constitutional provisions need to be shut down. The two party system should be abolished. These are but a few of the real reforms we need.

The sad thing is, it’s these very reforms that so many Americans, regardless of political affiliation, believe in, that will make the government we support in the upcoming clash to turn its attention on us. During the hostilities the .Gov will go to great lengths to show its support for those defending it. It will pay lip service to the many changes, reversion is a better term, that the people will demand. The real danger will be when victory is achieved and the .Gov is still in a war fighting position. It is then, if we are not vigilant, that they will turn their focus on those that fought to support them.

CONFLICT WARNING

Caucasus: In previous reports I covered the growing tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Over the weekend the growing tension erupted into conflict. While it is still unclear exactly which side initiated the conflict, it appears Azerbaijan is responsible. A missile barrage kicked off the conflict which quickly escalated into exchanges of artillery, airstrikes and ground forces engaging in direct combat. Armenian forces claim to have destroyed three Azerbaijani tanks, shot down two helicopters and three drones. Video footage backs up the destruction of the armor, seen being struck and burning on the mountainous terrain.

Armenia has declared a state of war and is mobilizing its military. In response, Turkey has called for Armenia, which is majority Christian, to cease offensive operations, blaming them for the hostilities. It is also reported that Turkey has moved some of its proxy troops from Syria into Azerbaijan. If this is true, it is a major escalation and a sign this could quickly develop into a broader conflict. The international community, including Russia which has interests in the region, have called for a cessation of hostilities and negotiations to begin.

Upcoming Event Calendar

03 October: Unsilent Majority march (Washington, D.C.)

03 October: Black Gunz Formation (Lafayette, LA)

06 October: National Night Out for Safety & Liberation (BLM) (Minneapolis, MN)

09 October: We Will Not Go Quietly (BLM) (Bedford, PA)

31 October: The Modern Revolution (Insurgence USA) (Salt Lake City, UT)

— END REPORT

Chris Weatherman, also known as Angery American, is the author of the Survivalist series of books. The first book in the series, Going Home is a sensational hit. He’s twice been listed on the USA Today Best Sellers list. To date he has sixteen published works. He also appeared in season one of History Channel’s Alone series.

Chris has been involved in prepping since the 90’s and practices primitive skills as well as modern survival that focuses on being prepared with the proper equipment. He travels the country appearing at expos and prepper focused events to meet with readers, sign books and occasionally speak. In addition to these events his travels also allow him to meet and train with people all over the country.

You can find him on Face Book at Angery American. On Twitter at The Angery American and on Instagram as Angery American. He also has a YouTube channel under the same name. Feel free to reach out, as he enjoys meeting and talking with those interested in survival in all its forms.

Chris currently lives in Florida on the edge of the Ocala National Forest with his wife of twenty-six years and his thirteen year old daughter Little Bit.

WSJ: Grocers Stockpile, Build ‘Pandemic Pallets’ Ahead of Winter

In this article from the Wall Street Journal, some grocery stores are reported to be returning, at least temporarily, to an inventory system more similar to the old warehousing method, rather than the newer just-in-time delivery system, in order to avoid shortages of important items this winter. Grocers Stockpile, Build ‘Pandemic Pallets’ Ahead of Winter

Grocery stores and food companies are preparing for a possible surge in sales amid a new rise in Covid-19 cases and the impending holiday rush.

Supermarkets are stockpiling groceries and storing them early to prepare for the fall and winter months, when some health experts warn the country could see another widespread outbreak of virus cases and new restrictions. Food companies are accelerating production of their most popular items, and leaders across the industry are saying they won’t be caught unprepared in the face of another pandemic surge.

Southeastern Grocers LLC secured holiday turkeys and hams over the summer, months before it normally starts inventory planning, said Chief Executive Anthony Hucker. And grocery wholesaler United Natural Foods Inc. has loaded up on extra inventory of cranberry sauce, herbal tea and cold remedies, said President Chris Testa.

“We started talking about Thanksgiving in June. That’s earlier than we ever have,” he said.

Associated Food Stores recently started building “pandemic pallets” of cleaning and sanitizing products so it always has some inventory in warehouses, said Darin Peirce, vice president of retail operations for the cooperative of more than 400 stores. The company is establishing protocols so it can better manage scenarios of high demand.

“We will never again operate our business as unprepared for something like this,” he said.

These changes, a reaction to the sudden and massive shortages grocers experienced in the spring, amount to a shift from the just-in-time inventory management practices that have guided the fast-moving retail business for decades.

Now, food sellers are stockpiling months, rather than weeks, worth of staples such as pasta sauce and paper products to better prepare for this winter, when people are expected to hunker down at home. Ahold Delhaize USA, SpartanNash Co. SPTN -0.31% and others say they are buying more food as soon as they can, stocking warehouses with wellness and holiday items. Many retailers are expanding distribution capacity, augmenting warehouse space and modifying shifts.

They say they want to be ready for a potential Covid-19 surge that experts are warning could hit as soon as this fall, as daily reported cases are increasing again in many states after falling in the summer. More than 200,000 people have died from the coronavirus in the U.S.

A fresh increase in demand in the event that officials reinstate restrictions on restaurants or workplaces would also run up against the normal holiday boom in grocery sales, further elevating demand for items like baking products, pasta, meat and paper towels.

Back in March, “we didn’t know what we didn’t know,” said Chris Lewis, executive vice president of supply chain at Ahold Delhaize’s Retail Business Services.

Ahold Delhaize, owner of the Giant and Food Lion chains, already has its holiday inventory in its warehouses. The grocer is also storing 10% to 15% more inventory than it did before the pandemic to ensure it won’t run out of fast-selling items.

Industry executives say they don’t think a potential wintertime burst in grocery demand will be as extreme as it was in March, when people panic-shopped, fearing grocery-store closures or food shortages. Consumers are better prepared this time around, said Sean Connolly, chief executive of Conagra Brands Inc. CAG +0.48%

Some retailers are also betting that recent investments in warehouses and e-commerce will help them meet demand for home deliveries in the coming months.

Still, some products such as cleaning wipes and canned vegetables remain hard for stores to obtain, partly because of continued high demand and because manufacturers are still trying to keep up. Some manufacturers are worried they will lose production capacity if infections break out among their workers or if other issues, such as lack of child care, prevent people from working… (continues)

Organic Prepper: Supply Chain Is Broken and Food Shortages Are HERE

Robert Wheeler at The Organic Prepper writes The Supply Chain Is Broken and Food Shortages Are HERE.

If you are a reader of this site, you might be more interested in the food supply chain than most, at least when things are good. So, if you have been paying attention recently, you might find that there have been some severe disturbances in that supply chain.

Several months ago, the immediate disruptions began at the beginning of the COVID-19 hysteria, when factories, distribution centers, and even farms shut down under the pretext of “flattening the curve.”

As a result, Americans found necessities were missing on the shelves for the first time in years. Items like hand sanitizer and Clorox wipes were, of course, out of stock.

Soon other items became noticeably missing as well.

People began to notice meat, and even canned vegetables and rice were soon missing from the shelves. Most of this was simply the result of mass panic buying, although “preppers” were blamed for “hoarding.” Therefore, people who had not been prepping all along and were suddenly caught with their pants down.

But that’s not the whole story.

Manufacturing and packaging facilities and slaughterhouses shut down due to intrusive totalitarian government reactions to an alleged pandemic. Combined with panic buying, those facilities’ ability to replace what was bought up was drastically reduced. As a result, consumers were forced to wait weeks before buying what they needed (or wanted) again. Even then, they had to show up in the morning.

We are still experiencing those shortages, though better hidden. As anyone who shops regularly can tell you, you can find what you need, but you may have to go to three stores to get it, where one would have done in the past. In this article, you’ll find some advice about dealing with the limited varieties of inventory that people are currently noticing at stores.

War launched on the economy by state governments put millions of Americans out of work.

Now, when most rational people would be happy to have a job at all amid such high unemployment, they were prepared to stop the machine’s wheels from working.

Workers suddenly started to organize, strike, and walk off the job conveniently when the food supply was already broken. Of course, these workers had not organized or initiated a strike at any time before when working conditions were bleak, and wages were low.

While extraordinary times beget extraordinary reactions, the timing of the newfound sense of workers’ resolve cannot go unnoticed.

At the same time, we witnessed farms dumping thousands of gallons of milk down the drain, meat producers slaughtering animals and burying them, and farmers destroying crops all over the country and the world.

The reason for this is two-fold.

First, many major producers would not want a glut of their product on the market and see their prices dropdown.

Second, with the totalitarian measures forcing the shut down of restaurants across the country, many farms and producers lost a massive part of their market, thus destroying it.

A government genuinely concerned with its people’s health would have bought that produce and either distributed it or freeze-dried and stored it for the coming apocalypse.

Indeed, the Trump administration attempted this with some very minor success and high cost. Food banks at least benefited. But the damage to the food supply was already done.

And then came the winds.

As time moved forward, we saw devastating straight-line winds blow across places like Iowa, destroying massive amounts of crops and farming infrastructure, effects rarely advertised on mainstream media outlets.

Following those winds, we saw massive wildfires along the West Coast’s entirety from Washington to California and as far east as Colorado, South Dakota, and Texas.

One need only take a look at the map at fires seemingly heading east, burning up prairies and farmland all along the way to see that the food chain will experience yet even more hiccups once the smoke has cleared.

But while leftists claim the fires are the natural result of “climate change” and conservatives blame lack of adequate forest management (which has some merit), both completely ignore the fact that close to ten people were arrested for setting these fires.

Repeatedly, arsonists are being arrested for starting blazes though the motive is unclear. Those of us who have studied history, however, can speculate with some certainty.

But these problems are not unique to the United States.

Countries all over the world are experiencing supply chain problems. Australia, for instance, is about to run out of its domestic rice supply by December entirely.

Now, here we are, with winter fast approaching and the food supply decimated. The world’s population is walking around masked and terrified of getting within six feet of another human, and the cities all across America are on fire with violent riots.

Communists and the inevitable response are clashing in the streets and threatening to turn in to a possible American Civil War 2.0. What role will hunger play in this scenario?

At the moment, we can’t say for sure.

But what we can say with certainty is that this will be a very long, very trying winter.

Food shortages are coming, and they aren’t too far away.

You do not have much time left before the items you can grab now are gone and gone for good. Here are some tips for shopping when there aren’t many supplies left on the shelves, and here’s a list of things that are usually imported from China that we haven’t been receiving in the same quantities (if at all) since the crisis began.

Many of the readers of this website will be prepared, no doubt, but others won’t. Not only do we advise you to prepare – but we also advise you to be ready for the unprepared.

Have you seen shortages in your area? Do you still have quantity limits on certain purchases? Some areas seem better stocked than others.

Beauty Beyond Bones: Where Is God?

In Where Is God? at Beauty Beyond Bones a young New Yorker wonders if lettings us sleep in the bed we made.

When I first moved to New York City some ten years ago, whenever I was feeling lost or alone, I would always go take a walk by the river. And as the gentle breeze would kiss my cheek, I would always envision that as a touch from God, giving me comfort and guidance that everything is going to be okay.

Fast forward to yesterday. Same river. Same girl, only slightly older, seeking guidance, only this time – the wind was gale force gusting the entire time. To the point that my hat flew off four different times.

This memory didn’t hit me until I was nearly home, feeling absolutely exhausted from battling the wind for an hour. And that’s when I realized: if God was giving me a kiss on the cheek when I felt lonely back then, what is He trying to communicate now, with His incessant hurricane gusts?

And that’s when I got to thinking about the current state of this world. For the past seven months now, it’s as though the entire world has been in a free fall. I mean, think about it. Starting with Australia’s wild fires; to the global pandemic; we been prohibited to go to church; we’ve lost jobs, education opportunities and loved ones; and now a horrific hurricane season; wild fires ravaging California, and our country is politically tearing itself apart at the seams with riots, violence, and unrest.

Taking an inventory is a sobering exercise that makes me question: where is God?

Really. Where is He in all of this? Hasn’t He heard the cries of His children? Can’t He see our suffering? Are our prayers falling on deaf ears?

Later last night, a certain gentleman and I were driving through the streets of Manhattan. And all throughout the city, the NYPD had baracades up, and swaths of cop vans and patrol units stationed at various landmarks: The Met, Times Square, Trump Tower, etc – all in preparation for the outcry of protesters and potential rioters in response to the news from the tragic and heartbreaking Breonna Taylor case.

It felt like a scene out of the apocalypse. Deserted streets, except for flashing cop lights. Meanwhile, my Citizen crime app pinging, notifying us of large groups of protestors blocking the Manhattan Bridge, and overtaking Washington Square Park, and elsewhere.

I thought, is God withdrawing Himself from us?

His children are hurting, and where is He?

I got home and turned to the Bible. Because – not that I was feeling all end-times-y/Revelation now, or anything – but I was curious as to other times when God hid His face from His children.

And what I found shook me to my core. Jeremiah 11:14 states: “Therefore do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer on their behalf, for I will not listen when they call to me in the time of their trouble.”

You see, Israel had fallen into rampant paganism, idolatry, and polytheism, and so as a result, God was allowing them to experience life with their false idols, and without Him. Zechariah 7:13 – “As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear.”

Could it be that we are the modern day Israel? Has our society’s collective dismissal of God finally caught up with us?

We have created idols in our own time, and we’re seeing it play out to the n’th degree. Politics has become a religion for so many – to the point where we’re raising up Ruth Bader Ginsberg to deity-status. We’ve replaced religious morals and ideals with party platforms, and agendas that are a far cry from biblically influenced.

We’ve made idols of our sexual identity and our gender expression, and worship material possessions, professional athletes and celebrities. We’ve replaced striving to be right with God, with virtue signaling to be right in the eyes of others.

Why is it more socially acceptable to recite the lyrics to “WAP,” than it is to pray in public, or say “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Could it be that God is allowing us to sleep in the bed we’ve made for ourselves?

Could it be that God is allowing His absence to be acutely felt – not just spiritually – but now, thanks to COVID, even physically – so that we may come to learn to actually appreciate it?

I’m asking, because I genuinely desire to know. It feels as though my prayers are a broken record, and each day brings with it a new set of issues and quandaries.

And I’d like to know what you think: what do you make of the current state of the world? Are we the modern day Israel?

Is God withdrawing? Are we needing repentance? Do people really even care, let alone notice?

To close, I want to just offer a prayer – a pleading for God’s presence to be felt. Perhaps, like the hurricane gusts of wind I felt yesterday at the river, God is screaming out to us, and yet we have been refusing to hear? And if that’s the case, I pray our ears be opened and our hearts made receptive to the not-so-subtle whisper of our Father.

I pray for peace in this nation. I pray for healing of the broken, hurting hearts, frustrated with current realities and injustices. And I pray for the leaders of this nation, that they would seek to unite the people of this great nation, and respect all life – from conception to natural death.

“This is what the Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.” Ez 37:5

Zero Hedge: Trump to Nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett To Supreme Court

Zero Hedge, citing the NY Times, opines on the likely nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and likely opposition to her because of her religious beliefs.

Trump’s likely nominees to replace RBG on The US Supreme Court – 7th Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, 11th Circuit Judge Barbara Lagoa, and 4th Circuit Judge Allison Jones Rushing – have, according to sources who have leaked their information to The New York Times, been narrowed down to Judge Amy Coney Barrett:

President Trump has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the favorite candidate of conservatives, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and will try to force Senate confirmation before Election Day in a move that would significantly alter the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court for years.

Mr. Trump plans to announce on Saturday that she is his choice, according to people close to the process who asked not to be identified disclosing the decision in advance. The president met with Judge Barrett at the White House this week and came away impressed with a jurist that leading conservatives told him would be a female Antonin Scalia, referring to the justice who died in 2016 and for whom Judge Barrett clerked.

Barrett is the most feared by liberals, some of whom concede that she has “a topnotch legal mind.”

Many have focused on Judge Barrett’s devout catholicism – and therefore the abortion debate…

“She is the perfect combination of brilliant jurist and a woman who brings the argument to the court that is potentially the contrary to the views of the sitting women justices,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion political group, who has praised Mr. Trump’s entire shortlist.

Additionally, as NYT noted earlier in the week, liberal groups have been sounding the alarm over Judge Barrett for two years because of concerns over how she might rule on abortion and the Affordable Care Act.

“Amy Coney Barrett meets Donald Trump’s two main litmus tests: She has made clear she would invalidate the A.C.A. and take health care away from millions of people and undermine a woman’s reproductive freedom,” said Nan Aron, the president of Alliance for Justice, a liberal group.

In a 2017 law review article written before she joined the appeals court, Judge Barrett was critical of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s 2012 opinion sustaining a central provision of the Affordable Care Act, saying he had betrayed the commands of textualism. “Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute,” she wrote.

The court will again hear arguments on the fate of the law in November, and Judge Barrett’s article suggested that she would give its challengers a sympathetic hearing.

However, in one of her most revealing opinions, Barrett took an expansive view of the Second Amendment – dissenting to the right of two colleagues who were appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

In the world of conservative judges, she has particularly strong credentials. Judge Barrett began clerking for Justice Antonin Scalia 22 years ago, and her fellow clerks are quick to say she was his favorite. She graduated summa cum laude from Notre Dame Law School and joined the faculty in 2002, earning praise from colleagues as an astute scholar and jurist even if they did not always agree on her jurisprudential premises.

But, as a reminder, Alan Dershowitz notes that when Judge Barrett came before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary for her nomination to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Senator Diane Feinstein generated considerable controversy when she said to Barrett:

“The dogma lives loudly in you.”

This was a reference to Barrett’s deep Catholic faith. Under our Constitution, Senator Feinstein’s statement crossed the line. Ours was the first Constitution in history to provide that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”

Although Feinstein did not explicitly impose a religious test, she suggested that personal religious views — which she called dogma — might disqualify a nominee from being confirmed.

That would clearly be unconstitutional.

But then again… when did pursuing anything ethically or legally challenged ever stop the current suite of Dem leaders from pursuing their task of ‘Never-Trump’ and ‘Never-anyone-Trump-wants’.

However, in this case, barring some unforeseen disaster, there appears little Democrats can do – despite the threats – to delay a vote on Barrett, solidifying a right-leaning shift to the court for a generation.

Doom and Bloom: Cyclospora Infection (Food Contamination)

The Altons at Doom and Bloom Medical have an article up on Cyclospora Infection.

Food contamination is a constant concern in the United States, especially from imported produce. In normal times, U.S. citizens take for granted the ability to buy bananas in Montana in February. As long as we import food, we must be especially careful to eliminate subtropical and tropical pathogens from our food.

A number of different disease-causing organisms especially put humans at risk; one of these is Cyclospora cayetanensis. From May to late August, 2020, more than 1100 laboratory-confirmed cases of food contamination due to Cyclospora (known as cyclosporiasis) were reported in 34 states. In most cases, fresh imported produce, especially greens and vegetables, were identified as likely origins.

Cyclospora is a one-celled parasite that is a natural inhabitant of the tropics and subtropics, where it seems to cause outbreaks that are seasonal in nature. The U.S. cases, however, occurred in people who had not recently visited the tropics before symptoms began.

THE LIFE CYCLE OF CYCLOSPORA

Cyclospora is spread by people ingesting food or water contaminated with feces containing Cyclospora oocysts (essentially a thick-walled fertilized ovum). Unlike some similar parasites, however, the oocyst needs time (usually, at least 1–2 weeks) after being passed in a bowel movement to become infectious. Therefore, it’s unlikely that Cyclospora can be passed directly from one person to another. More likely, the oocysts contaminate crops or water sources.

SYMPTOMS OF CYCLOSPORIASIS

Exactly how food and water becomes contaminated with Cyclospora oocysts isn’t  fully understood but, once the oocysts “hatch” in the human body, the microbes enter the intestinal wall. Some symptoms then begin to manifest. They start an average of 7 days after ingestion of the infective version of the oocyst and can include the following:

  • Watery diarrhea (most common)
  • Loss of appetite
  • Low-grade fever
  • Weight loss
  • Cramping
  • Bloating, increased gas
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Fatigue

A typical case would cause watery diarrhea, with frequent, sometimes explosive, bowel movements. Vomiting, body aches, headache, fever, and other flu-like symptoms may be noted. Interestingly, some people infected with Cyclospora have no symptoms at all.

If untreated, the illness endures for a few days, but some cases last a month. Some victims experience improvement and then relapse several times during the progress of the infection. Although not life-threatening, long-term fatigue and other problems are a possibility.

The Complex Life Cycle of Cyclospora

TREATMENT

Once the organism is identified in a stool sample, cyclosporiasis can be effectively treated with the combination sulfa drug trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX). The usual regimen for adults is trimethoprim (TMP) 160 mg plus sulfamethoxazole (SMX) 800 mg (one double-strength tablet) twice daily for 7–10 days. The veterinary equivalent is FISH-SULFA FORTE. No effective alternatives have been identified yet for those allergic to sulfa drugs. In this case, most immune-competent people will recover without treatment and with good hydration.

 

PREVENTION

Avoiding any food or water that might be contaminated with feces is the best way to prevent infection.  Routine chemical disinfection is less effective for Cyclospora than for most other bacteria or parasites.

Fruit and vegetable handling basics include:

1)Washing hands with soap and warm water after touching fruits and vegetables. Also, be sure to clean cutting boards, dishes, utensils, and counter tops between the preparation of meat, poultry, and seafood and fruits and vegetables.

2)Preparing all fruits and vegetables thoroughly under running water before eating, cutting, or cooking. Remove any damaged or bruised areas on fruits and vegetables. Firm items like cucumbers or melons should be scrubbed with a clean brush dedicated to the purpose.

3)Storing properly by refrigerating cut, peeled, or cooked fruits and vegetables within two hours (preferable sooner). Separate the storage of fruits and vegetables and raw meat, poultry, and seafood.

It should be noted that routine chemical disinfection is less effective for Cyclospora than for most other bacteria or parasites. No vaccine exists and immunity isn’t long-term: Recurrence of infection is not uncommon if re-exposed.

(Note: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) has a special advisory called: Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards for Fresh Fruits and Vegetables.

Joe Alton MD

Charles Carroll Society: Why America Is Coming Apart

The Charles Carroll Society writes about similarities between Breonna Taylor and Gary Willis. I’ve said many times that I wish conservatives and liberals could realize that most of what they both protest against is evil grown from the same root of unrestrained government. It is to the government’s benefit that the two sides blame each other instead. Here is Why America is coming apart | The Story of cops & 0 dark 30 #BreonnaTaylor

It is dark in the early morning.  An American citizen is in bed.  Law enforcement arrives at an American citizen’s home to serve a warrant. They are entering a home they never visited. The encounter in this citizen’s house leads to the police shooting the citizen to death. Later the state found the shooting was justified. Procedures were modified, but the same type of warrants are being served today. Breonna Taylor? No, Gary Willis.

You see, law enforcement was serving a “red flag” warrant on Mr. Willis. The state was seizing all of his guns and kicking him out of his home; a home he had shared with his own family for 20 years. Gary Willis of of Ferndale, Maryland decided he would rather die on his feet, in his home then let the United States Government and the State of Maryland size his guns and take away his home. [Bard Note:  So few people care about Gary Willis, I can not even find a photo of the man.  If anyone has it, please send me a link in the comments below, so  we can at least remember him here on the CCS.]

And this is one reason America is coming apart. Our lack of empathy. Most of the people screaming “say her name” have never heard of Gary Willis.  But I would assume many support Red Flag laws because they do not like firearms or the men who own them.  Many on the Patriot Right who understand the horrible infraction on Natural Rights of Red Flag laws, are not overly sympathetic to the plight of Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker.

All of my life, I have felt relatively alone. A black kid from Chicago’s inner-city, the first male in my family to graduate college, live overseas, collect two red cents to his name. Black conservative.  Black Roman Catholic.  I feel the absolute rage of the state breaking into anyone’s home over an absolute useless “war on American drug users.”  Yet “getting rid of all police” is utter nonsense.  As I watch our government fail, once again, I feel like I am the only one who can see the fact that both Breonna Taylor and Gary Willis were killed by the same state, in their homes.  In both cases, it was immoral.

Breonna Taylor was no saint. If you want to know how involved she was take a look at some actual reporting at Tatum Report.  He apparently got a report from a detective which was also given to the grand jury leaked to his site.  Per Tatum’s reporting, Breonna’s car were seen at a “trap house” or drug house numerous times. Photo evidence is in the link.  The police suspected that the trap house would have drugs or money delivered to Breonna Taylor’s home.

The police had the right house [Bard Note:  I got that wrong on social media previously] but they had not charge Breonna Taylor with any crime. They had a No Knock Warrant but allegedly didn’t use it.  They were unaware of Breonna Taylor actually breaking any law, although she was around some unsavory people.  I do not know what Breonna Taylor was doing for money after being fired from being an Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT), but there is every evidence that she was somehow involved with people who were themselves involved in the illegal drug trade.

Kenneth Walker who was her live in boyfriend was a legal gun owner.  He knew that Breonna’s ex-boyfriend was dangerous.  It was 0300 in the morning.  He admits that he heard knocking, but he says he did not hear the police announce themselves.  I believe him, there is a good chance that we would not hear what the hell someone said at the front door either.  Kenneth Walker says he hears banging at the door, and no announcement.  He returns to his bedroom, retrieves his legally owned handgun.  When the door shatters inward, he fires one “warning shot.”   Allegedly he hits an officer.  His attorneys say there is evidence that he did not hit the officer, but that the officers hit each other.  The officers fire 40  – 50 shots into the house, hitting Breonna Taylor six times killing her.  Kenneth Walker is not hit at all. 

There is a lesson here. First there are no warning shots. The minute you decided to pull the trigger, you must keep firing until the “threat is neutralized.”  That is the only way to survive a gun fight. The other lesson is: Kill. Anyone. Who. Forcibly enters. Your. Home.

I am also certain Gary Willis was no saint. His own family had called the police. They claimed that Mr. Willis was an alcoholic and “harassed” the other family members living in the home. There were many arguments over the care of their mother, who also lived in the house. In my opinion, Gary Willis’ family bears the ultimate responsibility for his killing.  If they had figured out how to handle their problems without calling the police, the police would not have killed him.

Republicans will often fall for “destruction of character” argument. Gary Willis was a bad guy because of this. Breonna Taylor was a bad woman because of that. These arguments fall utterly flat. Implying bad people deserve to be killed in their homes.  I think most Americans, and probably a good percentage of Republicans, are thoroughly sick of your lost war on drugs.  “Flushing drugs down the toilet” is not worth people’s lives.

Killing American citizens in their homes is not making us safer.  And no matter if these people are problems, did they deserve to die defending themselves in their homes against the state?  Be careful what you wish for Christian Patriot.  Law Enforcement obey the State.  And when the State is in the hands of President Kamala Harris, whose house do you think they will be breaking in at 0 dark 30?

Even if these people are unsavory, waking them up in their home at 0 dark 30 and killing them if they resist is immoral.  We must find a better way.  And until the Left cares about what happened to Gary Willis, and the Right cares about Breonna Taylor, this nation will continue to break come apart.