Another resolution takes aim at use of Dominion electronic voting machines.
Lee County Republicans this week will consider resolutions demanding Florida outlaw electronic voting machines and federal agents. They will also consider whether to declare the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Economic Forum (WEF) as terrorist organizations.
The series of controversial resolutions will appear on the agenda for a special meeting to be held Sept. 14 at party headquarters. The meeting will be closed to the public, with only REC members permitted to attend.
Jonathan Martin, Chair of the Lee County Republican Executive Committee (REC), stressed that the resolutions do not represent the view of the REC unless and until a majority of members support adopting them.
“They are not necessarily a priority of the party until the party chooses to make them a priority,” said Martin, a likely incoming state Senator.
Martin said the resolutions were proposed at the last REC meeting, a contentious event that spanned four hours, but came up only after many members had already left and there was no longer a quorum.
Three members proposed four resolutions at that point, but with no ability to take a vote, a special meeting was called, Martin said.
One resolution came from Chris Quackenbush, a former School Board candidate and REC Vice Chair, who proposed an election integrity resolution attacking Dominion and ES&S voting machines. It explains in part that “other countries have abandoned the use of internet-connected voting systems to eliminate the potential of cyberattacks and fraud and reverted successfully to manual counting systems.”
That echoes claims made by former President Donald Trump regarding Dominion voting machines, though internal memos from Trump’s campaign show lawyers already knew allegations were untrue. The Lee resolution does not specify any accusations.
“The Lee County Republican Executive Committee urges Governor (Ron) DeSantis to use his executive authority to prohibit the use of electronic voting systems in the State of Florida,” the resolution reads. “We urge instead the use of paper ballots and manual counting systems.”
The most aggressive resolution comes from activist Dr. Joe Sansone, who details ways the “federal government has been weaponized against American citizens” including his example of the FBI raiding Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. It also details the controversial spending just approved to hire new IRS agents, as the resolution puts it, “for the purposes of terrorizing the American people.”
He also told Florida Politics he was motivated by the response to the Jan. 6 protest of the certification of the 2020 Presidential Election results.
“The FBI’s actions in the Jan. 6 protest as well as actions during the whole Trump administration has demonstrated the organization is a political arm,” Sansone said to Florida Politics.
“The current Congress and President have created 87,000 armed IRS agents which had a job description stating that they should be willing to use deadly force. These are not accountants. These are SWAT teams designed to target political opposition. They will likely be used to enforce social credit scores in the future. Also, there should be no Capitol Police in Florida. In the past, it was customary for federal agents to get permission of local law enforcement, usually the county Sheriff, to operate in the jurisdiction. After (President Joe) Biden’s weird NAZI Satanic-like speech where he criminalized over half the country, it should be evident that a recalibration of the relationship between the federal government and state governments is necessary.”
He also proposed a resolution taking aim at international organizations, and said Biden is also working nefariously with those groups. He wants the local REC to brand the WEF and the WHO as terrorists.
“Back in May, the Biden administration worked with WHO and attempted to amend the treaty granting WHO the power of global Martial law and the ability to force masks, lockdowns, and vaccinations, etc., in the case of a future pandemic. The amendments failed. Now WHO has a draft treaty for 2024 that is seeking to implement the same right to inflict global martial law. This is a direct attack on our right to self government and basic human rights,” he said.
“Regarding WEF: They are much like a secular end-times cult and believe the planet can’t sustain the human population and appear to be implementing a controlled demolition of human civilization. Klaus Schwab brags about penetrating governments with graduates of his young global leaders school in governments around the world.”
Martin said any REC member may propose resolutions, but that doesn’t mean they will win support of the entire party. He noted there’s no threshold that must be met for REC members to bring resolutions forward, and little that an individual has to do to become a member of the REC.
While Martin believes the priority of the party during an election year should be winning elections, his membership also wants to look at policy matters. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said. “Our priority should definitely be on getting candidates who show themselves to represent conservative values elected.”
Asked about whether adopting the resolutions could be seen as taking extremist positions, Martin stressed the topics have only been raised. Until a vote takes place, the language of the resolution should not reflect upon any institution or person besides the one who proposed the language.
Well, gosh, this is kind of embarrassing. For approximately the last two and a half years, I have been documenting, analyzing, and occasionally satirizing the so-called “New Normal,” i.e., the new, pathologized, official ideology that has been rolled out all across the planet by the global-capitalist ruling classes under the pretext of combating an apocalyptic pandemic … or at least that’s what I thought was going on.
As it turns out, I was totally wrong.
Apparently, the global-capitalist ruling establishment (or “GloboCap,” as I often refer to the unaccountable, supranational network of global corporations, banks, governments, and non-governmental governing entities that unaccountably govern our world) has not been rolling out a new official ideology, or pathologized form of totalitarianism, or not intentionally in any event.
No one has been methodically gaslighting anyone, or terrorizing anyone with propaganda, or censoring or segregating anyone, or coercing anyone to get needlessly “vaccinated” with any sort of dangerous experimental drugs, or consciously conspiring with anyone to do anything.
Everyone has simply been suffering from Mass Formation Hypnosis Disorder!
I know, you probably find this hard to believe, especially because I have been making precisely the opposite case for over two years now, but I saw it on the Alex Jones show! Mattias Desmet, a professor from Belgium, and “the world’s leading expert” on this new disorder, explained it all in meticulous detail.
According to Desmet, the way this disorder works is, people feel “lonely and isolated,” which makes them feel angry, but they don’t have anything or anyone to unleash their anger on, so they form a mass and hypnotize each other, and invent a new fanatical ideology that they all fanatically hypnotically believe in, which, at that point, their rulers, who are also hypnotized, have no choice but to go full-totalitarian, and hypnotize everyone even more, because that is what the hypnotized mass demands, so that they can finally unleash their anger on someone, i.e., those who have managed to avoid being hypnotized (one assumes with some special anti-hypnosis technology, but I don’t think Professor Desmet explained that part).
And, OK, before you hypnosis deniers start sending me emails denying the power of hypnosis to totally totalitarianize society, listen to Professor Desmet explain how surgeons in Belgium are routinely performing open-heart surgery on hypnotized patients without any anesthetic whatsoever! They just saw right through their breastbones with a sternum saw, ratchet open their rib cages with a sternal retractor, and start slicing into the patients’ hearts … and these patients don’t even flinch or anything! He has witnessed this with his own two eyes!
Or, all right, it seems he hasn’t actually witnessed this with his own two eyes. It seems he was actually just lying when he said that, which he confessed to in a lengthy Facebook post (after people pointed out that he had lied) in which he publicly wondered why he had lied, and then rationalized his lie with various excuses, and posted several misleading links in an attempt to suggest that he hadn’t actually lied, despite the fact that he had just admitted he did, and just generally tried to muddy the waters with a lot of awkward psychobabble.
But I don’t mean to cast aspersions. Professor Desmet is, after all, “the world’s leading expert” on “Mass Formation Psychosis” or simply “Mass Formation” or whatever you want to call this fairy tale that he and others have been peddling, not just on clown shows like Alex Jones’, but to massive audiences like Tucker Carlson’s …
Seriously now, I have been aware of Desmet’s theory for some time, but I had mostly held my tongue about it because (a) I considered it relatively harmless, and (b) I’m generally reluctant to tear another vocal opponent of the New Normal a new asshole. We get enough of that from the New Normal “fact checkers.” However, unfortunately, this “mass hypnosis” gibberish has gained enough traction that it has now become dangerous, so I need to do a little new-asshole-tearing. (Fanatical fans of Professor Desmet will probably want to navigate away at this point.)
Ready? OK, here we go.
What we’ve been experiencing for the past two and a half years — and arguably the last six and a half years — is not the result of “mass hypnosis.” The global-capitalist ruling establishment is destabilizing and restructuring societies, globally. The people that staged and published this photograph in January 2020 and lied to the masses about the Covid death rate (i.e., 3.4%) a few months later were not mass-hypnotized. They knew what they were doing.
Likewise, the people who went New Normal (i.e., the vast majority of most societies) were not “mass hypnotized” or in some kind of trance. They were simply looking out for themselves by conforming to the new official “reality.” This is standard behavior in totalitarian systems, and cults, and even non-totalitarian systems. I explained it this way in a recent interview …
“Totalitarianism can be imposed on any society if the government, or whatever structure rules it, controls the essential elements of power (i.e., the military, the police, the media, the culture industry, etc.). Once the transition to totalitarianism begins, you can count on roughly two thirds of the society either embracing it or acquiescing to it, not because they are in some vulnerable psychological state, but rather because they correctly perceive which way the wind is blowing and they don’t want to challenge the totalitarian regime and be punished for doing so. They are not hypnotized or under any other kind of spell. It’s pure survival instinct. … Not to put too fine a point on it, but most people are either perfectly content to conform to whatever type of society those in power impose on them as long as their basic needs are met, or they are not content [to do so], but they are cowards, so they stand by in silence. I don’t mean that as a judgment or an insult. Cowardice and the ability to abandon one’s principles (or not having any principles in the first place) are very positive traits to have if your goal is survival. When a society goes totalitarian or is otherwise occupied and radically transformed, it’s the rebels and dissidents who get lined up against the wall and shot, not the cowards and collaborators.”
I realize how harsh that sounds. It’s meant to, and at the same time, it isn’t. We are, all of us, capable of such cowardice and betrayal of our fundamental principles, given the right set of circumstances. Everyone has a breaking point. If you haven’t experienced yours yet … well, I hope you never do.
The point is, we are dealing with questions of power, not a psychological condition. Desmet’s theory pathologizes the political essence of totalitarianism, just like the official New Normal narrative pathologizes and displaces its political character, rendering it immune to political opposition, and rendering its opponents “conspiracy theorists,” or “paranoid,” or otherwise divorced from “reality,” thus stripping us of political legitimacy.
In this “Mass Formation” fairy tale, the political conflict disappears. The totalitarian system and those who resist it are replaced by a psychiatrist and a psychiatric patient. In this story, there is no one and nothing to fight. We just need to find a “cure” or a “treatment” for this bizarre new psychiatric disorder that keeps causing the masses to hypnotize each other and invent some new fanatical totalitarian ideology in order to alleviate the pent-up frustration caused by their loneliness and isolation by unleashing their rage on unhypnotized persons!
Or whatever … maybe I don’t understand the nuances of “Mass Formation” theory. I’m not a professional psychologist or anything. I’m sure one or two of Professor Desmet’s fans will be happy to explain it all to me, if they’re not too busy undergoing open-heart surgery without anesthetic. I wouldn’t want to interfere with that!
CJ Hopkins
September 11, 2022
Photos: InfoWars; Twitter; FOX News; The Guardian
DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., or its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Substack page, or his Patreon page, or send a contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our staff up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian sci-fi novel, Zone 23, or Volumes I, II, and III of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.
Florida Governor DeSantis Sends Two Planeloads Of Illegal Immigrants To Martha’s Vineyard
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis promised he would send illegal immigrants to progressive “sanctuary cities” earlier this summer – and now, according to Fox News, he’s fulfilling that promise.
DeSantis shipped two planes full of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday this week, according to Fox News, who posted video of the migrants getting off of planes at Martha’s Vineyard Airport in Massachusetts.
A statement from the Governor’s office confirmed the move: “Yes, Florida can confirm the two planes with illegal immigrants that arrived in Martha’s Vineyard today were part of the state’s relocation program to transport illegal immigrants to sanctuary destinations.”
A spokeswoman for DeSantis continued: “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies.”
“As you may know, in this past legislative session the Florida legislature appropriated $12 million to implement a program to facilitate the transport of illegal immigrants from this state consistent with federal law.”
DeSantis isn’t just set on Martha’s Vineyard, however, stating this week that migrants could also be sent “to other ‘progressive’ states whose governors endorse blatant violations of federal immigration law.”
“It is not the responsibility of Floridians to subsidize aliens to reside in our state unlawfully; we did not consent to Biden’s open-borders agenda,” he said.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said the migrants were being provided with “short-term shelter”. His spokesperson said: “The Baker-Polito Administration is in touch with local officials regarding the arrival of migrants in Martha’s Vineyard. At this time, short-term shelter services are being provided by local officials, and the Administration will continue to support those efforts.”
Wait until a couple more plane-loads arrive – how soon until President Obama’s favorite playground starts to look like San Francisco?
German Foreign Minister and Green Party member Annalena Baerbock promised that she would stand with Ukraine “as long as you need us” and explicitly said that she would be supportive of Ukraine “no matter what my German voters think,” even as Germans face freezing to death in winter due to energy shortages. She said that the sanctions against Russia over the war in Ukraine will remain instead of demanding a diplomatic resolution between Russia and Ukraine.Journalist Alex Christoforou said that EU leaders, including Joseph Borrell, the foreign minister of the EU, Jens Stoltenberg of NATO, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and French President Macron promote sacrifice by the European people in order to continue the war in Ukraine. The Green Party in Europe is pro-war and is following the neo-liberal model that also supports the corporate takeover of government. Christoforou said that Ukraine has been used for years for money laundering and wealthy elites are upset with Russian President Putin for disrupting their game.
Federal officials in the Biden administration have held secret and illegal censorship meetings with social media companies to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech, and to ban or deplatform those who share unauthorized views about COVID and vaccines
The evidence for this comes out of a lawsuit brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance and the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana (Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry) against President Biden, filed in May 2022
Monthly, a Unified Strategies Group (USG) meeting took place — and may still be taking place — between a wide variety of government agencies and Big Tech companies, during which topics to be censored and suppressed were/are discussed
Censored topics included stories involving COVID jab refusal, especially those involving military refusals and consequences thereof, criticism against COVID restrictions and their effects on mental health, posts talking about testing positive for COVID after getting the jab, personal stories of COVID jab side effects, including menstrual irregularities, and worries about vaccine passports becoming mandatory
Discovery documents obtained so far have identified more than 50 federal employees across 15 federal agencies, engaged in illegal censorship activities. Emails from the strategic communications and marketing firm Reingold also reveals outside consultants were hired to manage the government’s collusion with social media to violate Americans’ Constitutional free speech rights
In a September 1, 2022, article,1 the Post Millennial reveals how federal officials in the Biden administration have held secret censorship meetings with social media companies to suppress Americans’ First Amendment rights to free speech, and to ban or deplatform those who share unauthorized views about COVID and vaccines.
The evidence for this comes out of a lawsuit2 brought by the New Civil Liberties Alliance and the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana (Eric Schmitt and Jeff Landry) against President Biden, filed in May 2022.
During the discovery process, the plaintiffs sought to identify “all meetings with any social media platform relating to content modulation and/or misinformation,” which is how we now know that such illegal meetings did, in fact, take place.
Illegal Collusion to Suppress Free Speech
Monthly, a Unified Strategies Group (USG) meeting took place — and may still be taking place — between a wide variety of government agencies and Big Tech companies, during which topics to be censored and suppressed were/are discussed.
Censored topics included stories involving COVID jab refusal, especially those involving military refusals and consequences thereof, criticism against COVID restrictions and their effects on mental health, posts talking about testing positive for COVID after getting the jab, personal stories of COVID jab side effects, including menstrual irregularities, and worries about vaccine passports becoming mandatory.3 According to the New Civil Liberties Alliance:4
“… scores of federal officials … have secretly communicated with social-media platforms to censor and suppress private speech federal officials disfavor. This unlawful enterprise has been wildly successful.
Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has done — and is still doing — on a massive scale not previously divulged.
Multiple agencies’ communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies — pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed …
Communications show these federal officials are fully aware that the pressure they exert is an effective and necessary way to induce social-media platforms to increase censorship. The head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency even griped about the need to overcome social-media companies’ ‘hesitation’ to work with the government …
This unlawful government interference violates the fundamental right of free speech for all Americans, whether or not they are on social media. More discovery is needed to uncover the full extent of this regime — i.e., the identities of other White House and agency officials involved and the nature and content of their communications with social-media companies.”
Jenin Younes, litigation counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance added:5
“If there was ever any doubt the federal government was behind censorship of Americans who dared to dissent from official COVID messaging, that doubt has been erased. The shocking extent of the government’s involvement in silencing Americans, through coercing social-media companies, has now been revealed …”
Federal Agencies Involved in Free Speech Suppression
Documents obtained so far have identified more than 50 federal employees across 15 federal agencies, who participated in these censorship meetings or otherwise engaged in illegal censorship activities.6 This includes officials from:
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) Election Security and Resilience team
Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis
The FBI’s foreign influence taskforce
The Justice Department’s (DOJ) national security division
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence
White House staff (including White House lawyer Dana Remus, deputy assistant to the president Rob Flaherty and former White House senior COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt)
Health and Human Services (HHS)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
The Office of the Surgeon General
The Census Bureau
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
The State Department
The U.S. Treasury Department
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission
Emails from a strategic communications and marketing firm called Reingold7 also reveals that outside consultants were hired to manage the government’s collusion with social media to censor Americans. For example, Reingold set up a “partner support portal” for the CDC so that CDC officials could link emails to the portal for easier flagging of content it wanted censored by social media companies linked to the portal.
Big Tech Companies Involved in Government Censorship
On the private industry side, notable tech participants in the censorship meetings include:
Google
Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Reddit
Microsoft
Verizon Media
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Wikimedia Foundation
While some social media companies may have “hesitated” to censor on the government’s behalf at times, Facebook was certainly an eager beaver from the get-go. As early as February 2020, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in contact with the State Department, offering its services to help “control information and misinformation related to coronavirus.”8
As you might expect, the White House has not cooperated with discovery and have fought to keep communications secret — especially with regard to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s correspondence — claiming all White House communications as “privileged.”
However, executive privilege does NOT apply to external communications, so the plaintiffs called on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to “overrule the government defendants’ objections and order them to supply this highly relevant, responsive and probative information immediately.”
September 7, 2022, Judge Terry Doughty did just that. The Biden administration’s claim of executive privilege was rejected and Doughty ordered the White House to hand over any and all relevant records.9 That includes correspondence to and from Fauci, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and many others. According to the judge’s order, they have three weeks to comply.
Examples of Illegal Government Censorship
On Twitter,10 Missouri AG Schmitt has shared a long list of examples of government censorship, including one document in which Clarke Humphrey, COVID-19 response digital director at the White House, asked Facebook to take down the Instagram account “anthonyfauciofficial,” a parody account dedicated to making fun of Fauci.11 Facebook complied.
Schmitt also shared emails12,13 between a senior Facebook official and the surgeon general, stating, “I know our teams met today to better understand the scope of what the White House expects from us on misinformation going forward.” This email came on the heels of the surgeon general’s July 2021 “misinformation health advisory.”
The CDC also coordinated with Facebook, providing them with talking points to debunk various claims, including the claim that spike protein in the COVID shots is dangerous and cytotoxic. In a July 28, 2021, email, a CDC official provided Facebook with the following counter-narrative, taken straight from the “How mRNA Vaccines Work” section on the CDC website:14
“Messenger mRNA [sic] vaccines work by teaching our cells to create a harmless spike protein …” (Emphasis in the original.)
Fast-forward to mid-June 2022, and the CDC was suddenly less sure about the harmlessness of the spike protein.
Up until then, the words “harmless spike protein” had always been bolded, but in this June revision, they removed the bolding, along with an entire section in which they’d previously claimed that mRNA was rapidly broken down and spike protein did not last more than a few weeks in the body.15 Clearly, the truth was catching up to them and certain lies were getting too risky to hold on to.
CISA also reached out to Google, Meta (Facebook’s parent company), Microsoft and Twitter for help, shortly after the DHS’s Disinformation Governance Board was announced.16 Fortunately, public outcry put an end to this Orwellian Ministry of Truth before it got started.
When Censorship Becomes Election Interference
According to The Washington Times:17
“Details about the Biden administration’s conduct raised the hackles of Republican lawmakers. ‘Confirming that this is the most dangerously anti-free speech administration in American history AND that Facebook … is nothing but an appendage of the deep state,’ Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said on Twitter as he shared news of the court filing.”
Other lawmakers are also getting involved. In an August 29, 2022, letter18,19 to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Republican Sens. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin requested records of the government’s contacts with social media companies to ascertain whether the FBI and/or DOJ did, in fact, instruct them to censor information about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal by falsely referring to it as “Russian disinformation.”20
Zuckerberg has also been asked21 to provide any correspondence involving the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, especially as it pertains to the FBI’s instructions to censor this political hot potato — something he openly admitted in a recent Joe Rogan interview (see video above).22
Lawmakers Pursue Legislation to Penalize Gov’t Censorship
Three Republican House Representatives on the House Oversight and Reform, Judiciary, and Commerce committees — Reps. James Comer of Kentucky, Jim Jordan of Ohio, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington — have also introduced the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act23 (HR.8752), aimed at preventing federal employees from using their positions to influence censorship decisions by tech platforms.
The bill would create restrictions to prevent federal employees from asking or encouraging private entities to censor private speech or otherwise discourage free speech, and impose penalties, including civil fines and disciplinary actions for government employees who facilitate social media censorship.
While the U.S. Constitution clearly forbids government censoring and restricting free speech, HR. 8752 could be a helpful enforcement tool, as people might tend to think twice when they know there’s a real and personal price to pay.
A sunspot that is pointing straight towards Earth and is fast expanding has been seen by scientists. This sunspot has the potential to send an attack of solar energy our way in the coming days, according to Newsweek.
A few days ago, the sunspot, which was given the designation of AR3085 after the “active region” of the sun in which it first formed, was hardly a blip on the radar. According to SpaceWeather.com, it has now increased in size by a factor of ten, transforming into a pair of sunspots that each measure almost as far as the circumference of the Earth. This animation illustrates the progression of the spot over the course of about two days.
Credit: Spaceweather.com
According to SpaceWeather, a number of solar flares, which are huge bursts of electromagnetic radiation that snap off from the surface of the sun and blast forth into space, have been spotted “crackling” in the area. Solar flares are a type of solar activity that can be dangerous to earth if they are large enough.
The good news is that all of the flares that are occurring right now belong to the C-class, which is the weakest of the three classes of solar flares that government satellites monitor. In most cases, flares of the A-, B-, and C-classes are not powerful enough to have a discernible effect on Earth.
According to NASA, flares of the X-class have the potential to cause widespread radio blackouts, damage satellites, and knock out ground-based power grids.
If the spots continue to enlarge over the next several days, it is possible that they could emit more powerful flares that will go toward Earth. This could put satellites and communication systems in jeopardy. There is not, however, any immediate threat at this time.
On the surface of the sun, huge, dark patches characterized by intense magnetic fields may take the shape of sunspots. According to Space.com, the reason these areas, which often have a width comparable to that of planets, look darker is because they have a lower temperature than the rest of their surroundings.
They originate at areas of the sun’s surface where bands of the magnetic field get entangled and tight, so obstructing the passage of hot gas emanating from the inside of the sun and giving rise to colder, darker regions on its surface.
Solar flares are often caused by the accumulation of magnetic energy at the sun’s surface. When there are a greater number of sunspots present on the sun at a certain period, there is a greater chance that solar flares may occur.
There is a correlation between the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity and the frequency of sunspots and solar flares. This cycle alternates between times of high sunspot density and periods of low sunspot density around once every ten years or so.
It is anticipated that the next solar maximum, also known as the time of greatest sunspot activity, will occur in the year 2025. It is anticipated that during the days of the sun’s peak activity, as many as 115 sunspots would form on the surface of the sun.
Solar activity has been increasing over the last few years, and since spring of 2022, there have been a number of X-class flares that have swept across our globe, often occurring within a few of days of one another.
This trend is expected to continue for the foreseeable future. As time ticks away toward the next solar maximum, there is a good chance that there will be a greater rise in the number of sunspots and solar flares.
All the Data Amazon’s Ring Cameras Collect About You
The popular security devices are tracking (and sharing) more than you might think.
PHOTOGRAPH: FORTGENS PHOTOGRAPHY/SHUTTERSTOCK
IF YOU WALK through your local neighborhood—providing you live in a reasonably large town or city—you’ll be caught on camera. Government CCTV cameras may record your stroll, but it is increasingly likely that you’ll also be captured by one of your neighbors’ security cameras or doorbells. It’s even more likely that the camera will be made by Ring, the doorbell and security camera firm owned by Amazon.
Videos shared from security cameras and internet-connected doorbells have also become common on platforms like Facebook and TikTok, raking in millions of views. “Ring impacts everybody’s privacy,” says Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “Most immediately, it impacts the people who walk down the streets every day, where the cameras are pointing out.”
While Ring is far from the only maker of smart doorbells and cameras—Google’s Nest line is another popular option—its connections to law enforcement have drawn the most criticism, as when it recently handed over data without warrants. So, what exactly does Ring collect and know about you?
What Ring Knows About You
Whenever you use any tech, it’s collecting data about you. Spotify uses the data it collects to work out your mood, Slack knows how many messages you send. Ring’s products are no different. Ring’s privacy policy—running 2,400 words—and its terms of service detail what it collects about you and how it uses that information. In short: It’s a lot.
Ring gets your name, phone number, email and postal address, and any other information you provide to it—such as payment information or your social media handles if you link your Ring account to Facebook, for instance. The company also gets information about your Wi-Fi network and its signal strength, and it knows you named your camera “Secret CIA Watchpoint,” as well as all the other technical changes you make to your cameras or doorbells.
In March 2020, a BBC information request revealed that Ring keeps detailed records of people’s doorbell activity. Every doorbell press was logged. Each motion the camera detected was stored. And details were saved every time someone zoomed in on footage on their phone. In just 129 days, 4906 actions were recorded. (Ring says it does not sell people’s data.)
Ring can also collect the video and audio your camera records—the system doesn’t record all the time, but it can be triggered when it senses movement. Ring says its cameras can detect movement “up to 155 degrees horizontally” and across distances of up to 25 feet. This means there’s a good chance cameras can be triggered by people walking down the street or pick up conversations of passersby. According to tests by Consumer Reports, some Ring cameras can record audio from about 20 feet away.
Jolynn Dellinger, a senior lecturing fellow focusing on privacy and ethics at Duke University’s school of law, says recording audio when someone is on the street is a “serious problem” for privacy and may change how people behave. “We operate with a sense of obscurity, even in public,” Dellinger says. “We are in danger of increasing surveillance of everyday life in a way that is not consistent with either our expected views or really what’s best for society.” In October 2021, a British woman won a court case that said her neighbor’s Ring cameras, which overlooked her house and garden, broke data laws.
Ring’s privacy policy says it can save videos of subscribers to its Ring Protect Plan, a paid service that provides an archive of 180 days of video and audio captured. The company says people can log in to the service to delete the videos, but the company may ultimately keep them anyway. “Deleted Content and Ring Protect Recordings may be stored by Ring in order to comply with certain legal obligations and are not retrievable without a valid court order,” the privacy policy says.
Ring can also keep videos shared to its Neighbors’ app—an app where people and law enforcement agencies can share alerts about “crimes” and post their videos of what is happening around the homes. (There are rules about what people are allowed to post.)
Ring’s privacy policy and terms of service allow it to use all this information it collects in multiple ways. It lists 14 ways the company can use your data—from improving the service Ring provides and protecting against fraud to conducting consumer research and complying with legal requirements. Its privacy policy includes the ambiguous statement: “We also may use the personal information we collect about you in other ways for which we provide specific notice at the time of collection and obtain your consent if required by applicable law.” Ring spokesperson Sarah Rall says this could apply if the company added features or use cases that are not already covered by its privacy policy. “We would provide additional notice or get permission as needed,” Rall says.
While Ring’s privacy policies apply to those who purchase its devices, people who are captured in footage or audio don’t have a chance to agree to them. “Privacy, security, and customer control are foundational to Ring, and we take the protection of our customers’ personal and account information seriously,” Rall says.
Ultimately, you agree to give Ring permission to control the “content” you share—including audio and video—while you own the intellectual property to it. The company’s terms of service say you give it an “unlimited, irrevocable, fee free and royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide right” to store, use, copy, or modify content you share through Neighbors or elsewhere online. (Audio recording can be turned off in Ring’s settings.)
“When I went out to buy a security camera last year, I looked for ones only that did local storage,” says Jen Caltrider, the lead researcher on Mozilla’s Privacy Not Included, which evaluates the privacy and security of products. Caltrider says people should try to keep as much control of their data as possible and not store files in the cloud unless they need to. “I don’t want any company having this data that I can’t control. I want to be able to control it.”
How Ring Works With Police
Ring’s deals with police forces—both in the US and the UK—have proved controversial. For years, the company has partnered with law enforcement agencies, providing them with cameras and doorbells that can be given to residents. By the start of 2021, Ring had partnered with more than 2,000 US law enforcement and fire departments. Documents have shown how Ring also controls the public messaging of police departments it has partnered with. “There is nothing mandating Ring build a tool that is easily accessible and helpful to police,” Guariglia says.
Rings’ terms of service say that the company may “access, use, preserve and/or disclose” videos and audio to “law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties” if it is legally required to do so or needs to in order to enforce its terms of service or address security issues. Government officials could include any “regulatory agency or legislative committee that issues a legally binding request for information,” Rall says. For the six months between January and June 2022, Ring says it had more than 3,500 law enforcement requests in the US.
In December 2021, researchers at New York University’s (NYU) Policing Project released an audit of Ring’s relationship with law enforcement and the way its Neighbors app works. (Ring provided data to the audit’s authors about how the service functions.) The report details concerns that Ring could exacerbate police bias against Black and brown communities and notes a lack of transparency around how Neighbors works.
“We see a lot of risk in having police responding to calls about homeless people or low-level drug use,” says Max Isaacs, a staff attorney with the Policing Project and a coauthor of the audit. “When police are relying on private devices like Ring devices, it creates a democratic deficit, because now police can greatly expand their surveillance capabilities,” Isaacs says. Citizen-on-citizen surveillance, which Isaacs calls “lateral surveillance,” lacks scrutiny. “They can have thousands of cameras in a jurisdiction … without any legislative oversight.”
In response to the NYU audit, Ring said it made more than 100 changes to its service. These changes hint at how the app may have previously been misused by law enforcement agencies. Police are now required to use official accounts to request content about crimes, Ring will not donate devices to law enforcement bodies, and it will “no longer will participate in police sting operations.”
Ring also agreed to stop citing the impact its cameras have on crime—previous claims say it reduces crime in areas—until that has been verified by an independent study. “Ring also reviewed all of its marketing and social media materials to remove any claims about crime reduction,” the report says. The change that will do most to protect people’s privacy may be the introduction of end-to-end encryption, which means the company can’t access recordings of users who have the feature enabled. However, it isn’t turned on by default. Here’s how to turn it on.
Update 10:30 am ET, 8-5-22: Ring spokesperson Sarah Rall’s statement that the company “would provide additional notice or get permission as needed” pertains to other ways Ring may use your personal information, not to its data-retention policies.
I’m publishing this early, on a Sunday, because there’s a little bit of chatter on the internet about a very strange Russian television commercial that’s been making the rounds, mostly on YouTube. That in itself is worth some commentary, but we’ll get back to that later, as it forms part of today’s high octane speculation. I was first made aware of this commercial last Friday (Aug 12, 2022) during our members’ vidchat when someone first mentioned it, and another member chimed in and said that they’d also seen it.
After the vidchat I quickly went searching for the commercial, and any information that might corroborate that the commercial is genuine, and indeed a product of the Russian government. Welll, according to this article from the U.K. Express, the commercial is indeed genuine, so I’m going to throw caution to the winds and run with it:
Now in case you missed the commercial itself while you were watching Sean Vannity on Faux News, or whoever-it-is on SeeBS or whatever, here it is:
So in that short minute, the case for moving to Russia is reduced to the following 16 points:
(1) delicious cuisine: check, I have to admit that I miss my mother’s beef Stroganoff, although she wasn’t Russian (for that matter, I also liked her chicken paprikash, and she wasn’t Hungarian either, but Orban makes a good case too);
(2) Beautiful women: well, check, at least they seem to know what women are in Russia (beautiful or not), and the last time I checked, they’re not letting men swimmers compete against women swimmers just because the former “identify” as the latter, which makes one wonder if Ron De Santis is either Russian, or a Russian agent. His lack of gender confusion is…well, it’s just highly suspicious;
(3) Cheap gas: well, that’s probably a check. I don’t know, because I haven’t bought any gas in Russia lately, or for that matter, ever. I imagine, however, that the way the Germans are wincing, it’s probably true. I know it’s not nearly as cheap here as it was when Orange-Man-Bad was president.
(4) Rich history: check, Russia certainly has that, and with several intriguing nooks and crannies well worth exploring. Take it from me, because I used to teach Russian history in college.
(5) World famous literature: again, check, and probably several checks. Dostoyevsky alone would have put Russia on the literary map, and he’s just one of very many. And while we’re on the subject, isn’t it a bit ironic and creepy that Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard resembles more the modern USSA than it does Russia, they having gone through their “cherry orchard” dark ages-evil empire moment called the Soviet Union? Who can forget the fun and frolic with Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria, huh?
(6) Unique architecture: yup, check: they have everything from Byzantine, classical, and European to that unique style that can only be called “Soviet Modern Ugly”, sort of the Russian equivalent in spartan ugliness to the German Bauhaus school, only the Soviet style isn’t nearly as ugly. The only uglier style is the Obama Presidential Library Style that infects modern America.
(7) Fertile soil: well, a probable check here. Again, I don’t know, and I’m the last person anyone should ask, because after years of careful and studious neglect, I’ve managed to kill my mother’s old Swedish ivy plant. I know nothing about soil conditions, and particularly Russian soil conditions, except I do know that the Russian government doesn’t like GMOs, has banned than, and that this has to be good for the soil. That one factoid alone makes me extremely suspicious of Western motivations in backing the regime in Kiev (and yes, I’m going to keep spelling it and pronouncing it that way, just to be irritating).
(8) Cheap electric and water: again, a probable check, because I don’t know, I’m not there. That said, we do have a couple of members of this website who actually maintain rather spacious apartments in St. Petersburg (a city full of that unique architecture) and when they told me how cheap their rent was for such a large city, I was flabbergasted, so I can believe the cheap water and gas, though I suppose like everywhere else, it depends on local conditions.
(9) Ballet: ok, check. I’m not a big ballet fan as one might have guessed, probably for the same reasons I’m just not a big opera guy. But, once that’s on the record, the music itself has become part of the standard repertoire. Who of us haven’t heard The Nutcracker or Swan Lake? If you haven’t, well, then that sort of makes the commercial’s point: you’re a modern western cretin, and the commercial isn’t targeting you to move to Russia. Had I been in charge of making the commercial for the Russian government and its evil-super-criminal-genius-and-never-to-be-trusted-byzantine-mastermind Vladimir Putin, I would have stressed “Great music” rather than ballet, with perhaps a snippet of Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev playing in the background.
(10) Cheap taxi and delivery: well, a probable check on that one too, though I haven’t had to ride any Russian taxis or have any packages delivered in that country, although my guess is, yea, that’s probably true too.
(11) Traditional values: ok, check. You don’t get to dress up in outlandish costumery and purple hair, call yourselves “Pussy Riot”, and carry on in a lewd fashion in an Orthodox Cathedral and call it a “protest” without being clapped in the slammer; up to that point, apparently, it was ok to dress as outlandishly as your liked, and to call yourself whatever offensive name you wished; you just don’t get to do that in church.
(12) Christianity: ok, check. Granted, the Christianity in Russia is, well, Russian Orthodox by and large, but so what? When Kirill wakes up and realizes that the Church is missing a golden opportunity to put some real weight behind an Orthodox western rite complete with hierarchy, then who knows where that will lead. (Here’s a hint Kir: neither Antioch nor ROCOR know what they’re doing… dig in your archives long enough and you’ll find out what I’m talking about… have your people contact my people; let’s talk.)
(13) No cancel culture: well, ok, check, but with caveats: when are we talking about here? Certainly there was a lot of “canceling” being done under the aforementioned Mssrs Yezov, Yagoda, and Beria. But I grant the basic proposition: no one carted Pussy Riot off to a gulag; rather, one gets the impression that Pussy Riot would be entirely ok with putting the entirety of the Russian Church back in the gulag.
(14) Hospitality: check: this one deserves some ‘splaining. While I’ve not been to Russia, I have been around a lot of Russians, and yes, I can vouch for the hospitality. WARNING (and I learned this trick far too late to do me any good): don’t drink the vodka (the next point on the list). Claim that you’re an alcoholic. I’m still suffering a hang-over with a half-life of 243 years because I drank vodka with Russians, and I’ll still be suffering that hang-over long after I’m dead.
(15) Vodka: check (see point 14 above).
(16) An economy that can withstand thousands of sanctions. Well, ok, check. To listen to the western propatainment media tell it, Russia’s economy is on its last legs and will implode at any moment. Now, in my humble and uninformed opinion, that’s probably right up there with The Ukraine is Winning Hugely meme we’ve been watching. We’re supposed to be gloating that the Russian military is doing so poorly. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t, but I don’t see the American military anywhere close, and one wonders how its “reality fluid” approach to basic metaphysical categories would fare. If the captured American-and-NATO trained fascist military units are any indicator, then they wouldn’t fare too well. It was, after all, Russian 152mm cannon firing point blank into the Reichstag, and not German 15omm cannon firing point blank into the Kremlin, that ended the last little fascist saber-rattling episode, as I recall.
Finally, the commercial ends with a cheery “Time to Move to Russia” and then a not-so-cheery “Winter is Coming.”
Now I’ve taken a lot of time to review this commercial, because frankly, it intrigued me. Why produce such a thing at all? After all, Russian media has been all but totally banned in the west. In a way, it was easier when I was a boy to dial up the English language service of Radio Moscow than it is to tune into Russian television now. Why go to the production expense to produce such a commercial, when buying advertising time on Deutsche Welle or SeeBS or FAUX news or the Canadian Broadcorping Castration is a foregone negative conclusion? Why produce something that millions of people won’t see? Or rather, why produce something that the Western media and their masters won’t let millions of people see?
One obvious answer is that this commercial may be a typical dye-the-waters operation to see who is paying attention in the alternative media, and how the commercial circulates there. In which case, I’m happy to help. But the other possibility is that we’re also looking at the next phase of a campaign. If you’ve been paying attention to Russia lately, you’ll have noted that it’s not exactly on Mr. Globaloney’s bandwagon because it’s been insisting that there can be no global order that cancels national sovereignty, and more importantly, that global order does not arise without respect to culture and tradition. That’s a fancy way of saying that a merely technocratic approach to global order is doomed to failure. It’s a commercial deliberately designed to highlight the failures of the globalist cabal and their programs, and, indeed, to invite those who crave for an expression of traditional European culture to move to the one place where it still has a living expression, in spite of the best efforts of Bolshevik technocrats and their Pussy Rioting lackeys to crush it.
One can see this by contempleting the implied negative message of the commercial: (1) delicious cuisine, versus poor nutrition, “fast food” and eating bugs; (2) Beautiful women, versus not knowing what a woman is; (3) Cheap gas, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (4) Rich history, versus people that cannot even read and who do not even know, nor are taught, their own; (5) World Famous Literature, versus a population that can barely write and scrawl its own name; (6) Unique architecture; versus collapsing footbridges designed by “inclusive and diverse” committees; (7) fertile soil; versus soil polluted and corrupted, and robbed of nutritional value by “argibusiness”; (8) cheap electric and water, versus alleged President Joe Bidenenko; (9) Ballet, versus the bump-whump of subwoofers in vehicles drumming out a primitive jungle beat and screaming unrelenting iambic pentameter, for everyone to hear; (10) cheap taxi and delivery; versus lockdowns (11) Traditional values; versus collapsing reality and epistemological solipsism; (12) Christianity, versus hollowed out ecclesiastical institutions, bishopettes, mangled and gutted “liturgies”, “inclusiveness” and empty churches, (13) no cancel culture, or rather, a culture period, and one not apologizing for existing.
The bottom line that I’m suggesting here is that this commercial is not a one-off. It’s but the latest chapter in a long series of messages of culture and tradition and history that post-Soviet Russia has been sending. So far, they’ve been sending that message – at the popular level at least – mostly to their own population. In so far as they have sent that message to the West, it’s been to the Western leaders, who, of course, are stupid and tone-deaf and unable to hear it. But the western populations… they are a different matter. This is a serious message, addressed to them. And I suspect it’s only the first of many. There is even a carefully calculated geopolitical aspect to it, but I’ll leave that for you to guess, and perhaps take it up at another time.
Fraudsters are selling bots on Telegram that are designed to trick investors into divulging their two-factor authentication, leading to accounts being wiped out.
Crypto investors are being targeted around the country.
Dr. Anders Apgar, a Coinbase customer, said his account had a balance of more than $100,000 in crypto when it was hacked during a robocall
Dr. Anders Apgar was out for dinner last month with his family, and his phone would not stop buzzing. It looked like a robocall, so he tried to ignore it.
But the calls would not stop. Then his wife’s phone also started to ring.
“When she picks it up, a banner came across, a notification that says, ‘Your account’s in jeopardy,’” he said.
The warning, which he said was a text message, prompted him to pick up his phone. That was when the couple’s nightmare started.
It’s the kind of nightmare many crypto account holders around the country are facing as hackers target a boom in the industry, cybersecurity experts said.
The Apgars, who are both Maryland-based obstetricians, began investing in cryptocurrency several years ago. By December, their account had grown to about $106,000, mainly held in bitcoin. Like millions of investors across the country, their account is with Coinbase, the country’s largest cryptocurrency platform.
When Apgar picked up the phone, a female voice said, “Hello, welcome to Coinbase security prevention line. We have detected unauthorized activity due to failed log-in attempt on your account. This was requested from a Canada IP address. If this (is) not you, please press 1, to complete precautions recovering your account.” The call lasted just 19 seconds.
Alarmed, Apgar pressed 1.
He said he cannot remember if he manually entered his two-factor authentication code or if it came up automatically on his screen. But what happened in that moment led to his account being locked in less than two minutes. As Apgar has not regained access, he said he assumes the fraudsters stole most if not all of the crypto, but he can’t be sure.
“It was just dread and an emptiness of just, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t get this back,’” he said.
The Apgars were targeted by a particularly insidious type of fraud that takes advantage of two-factor authentication, or 2FA. People use 2FA, a second level of security that often involves a passcode, to safeguard a range of accounts at crypto exchanges, banks or anywhere else they carry out digital transactions.
Dr. Anders Apgar
CNBC
But this new type of fraud goes right at that 2FA code, and it uses people’s fear of their accounts being hacked against them. In taking action they think will protect them, they actually expose themselves to thieves.
The fraud tool is called a one-time password, or OTP, bot.
A report produced by Florida-based cybersecurity firm and CNBC contributor Q6 Cyber said the OTP bots are driving substantial losses for financial and other institutions. The damage is hard to quantify now because the bot attacks are relatively new.
“The bot calls are crafted in a very skillful manner, creating a sense of urgency and trust over the phone. The calls rely on fear, convincing the victims to act to ‘avoid’ fraud in their account,” the report said.
The scam works in part because victims are used to providing a code for authentication to verify account information. At first listen, the robocalls can sound legitimate — especially if the victim is harried or distracted by other things at the moment the call comes in.
“It’s human nature,” said Jessica Kelley, a Q6 Cyber analyst who authored the report. “If you receive a call that tells you someone’s trying to sign in to your account, you’re not thinking, ‘Well, I wasn’t trying to.’”
The bots began showing up for sale on messaging platform Telegram last summer. Kelley identified at least six Telegram channels with more than 10,000 subscribers each selling the bots.
While there is no official estimate on the amount of crypto stolen, Kelley said fraudsters routinely brag on Telegram about how well the bots have worked, netting for each user thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto. The cost of the bots ranges from $100 a month to $4,000 for a lifetime subscription.
“Before these OTP bots, a cybercriminal would have to make that call himself,” Kelley said. “They would have to call the victim and try to get them to divulge their personal identifiable information or bank account PIN or their 2FA passcode. And now, with these bots, that whole system is just automated and the scalability is that much larger.”
“Once the victim inputs that 2FA code, or any other information that they requested the victim put in their phone, that information gets sent to the bot,” Kelley said. The bot “then automatically sends it to the cybercriminal, who then has access to the victim’s account.”
She said criminals could “potentially steal everything, because with these transactions, they can do them one after the other until the amount is basically drained.”
In a statement to CNBC, a Coinbase spokesperson said, “Coinbase will never make unsolicited calls to its customers, and we encourage everyone to be cautious when providing information over the phone. If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from a financial institution (whether Coinbase or your bank), do not disclose any of your account details or security codes. Instead, hang up and call them back at an official phone number listed on the organization’s website.”
David Silver, another Coinbase customer, knew the company would not be calling him. He recently received a robocall saying there was a problem with his account.
“And immediately, it was an electronic voice that told me it was Coinbase Fraud Department,” he said. “And I immediately turned to the lawyer sitting next to me and said, ‘Start videoing.’ I knew instantaneously what this was and what it was going to be.”
Attorney David Silver
CNBC
Silver knew what the call was about because he is not just a Coinbase client — he is an attorney who specializes in cryptocurrency and financial fraud cases.
Silver pressed 1 and found himself on a live call. A person got on the line pretending to be a Coinbase employee.
“And they immediately started telling me things that I know are in violation of what Coinbase would do,” he said. “For instance, they will never ask for your password. They will never try and take over your computer.”
Silver asked if he could be sent an email verifying that the call was from Coinbase. The answer was no.
“And their answer was no because there’s only certain ways that you can mask the email coming directly from a domain that nowadays, the domain carriers such as GoDaddy, Google — it’s very hard to spoof email coming from the domains,” he said. “And they weren’t willing to send me the email. I would say that was my last shred of hope that they were legitimate is when I asked them to send me the email and they said no.”
After nearly seven minutes, Silver was asked to share his computer screen. He ended the call.
“I’m not surprised I got the call. But I do question how they had my personal cell phone number and where they’re getting that information to tie me to Coinbase,” he said.
Apgar said he wishes he had never answered the phone. To make matters worse, he has been unable to get his account access restored, he said. When CNBC reached out to Coinbase about the Apgars regaining access to their account, a company spokesperson said the matter was turned over to its security team.
Apgar said Monday that he had just responded to an email from Coinbase to help restore access to the account.
A new federal terror advisory contains a threat assessment that characterizes Americans who “mislead” others into questioning government-approved messages as being on par with terrorists. That is as anti-American messaging as could be imagined. America was founded on questioning governments, foreign and domestic. And that has been her saving grace, the reason for her unique success.
The assessment specifically identifies those who engage in “the proliferation of false or misleading narratives, which sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions” as “threat actors.” It also cites “widespread online proliferation of false or misleading narratives regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19” as having a deleterious effect on government institutions.
Actually, it’s the actions of government institutions that often have a deleterious effect on (people’s views of) government institutions…and on the people. But, no matter, our First Amendment rights are out the window. 1984 is here. “Wrong-thought” has been criminalized.
If not stopped—and reversed– this is the end of the Great Experiment and the Land of Opportunity.
So, fellow threat actors, what are we to do about this?
First off, we must realize that “misinformation” is what has typically been put out by governments since governments were instituted among men. The larger and more powerful the government in relation to the people, the more preposterous the misinformation, false narratives, outright lies, and other propaganda it will churn out. And the less it will tolerate dissent and independent thought. This is a historical fact. It was true of feudal kings. Offend the king and it could be “off with your head.” The Third Reich blamed all Germany’s troubles on the Jews. So it imprisoned and exterminated them. The Soviet Union killed millions of folks who didn’t toe the party line. Speak out against the government? Hello, “re-education” camp or gulag. And today we have Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, North Korea…and, of course, China. (How’s your “social credit score?” You might be about to find out.) China graciously exported the pandemic to the West, and it now appears many Western nations may be attempting to appropriate its system of government, as well. Talk about forgiveness and tolerance. Amazing. The governments of Australia, New Zealand, Austria, several other European nations, and even Canada and the United States have quickly and zealously headed down the road to tyranny.
Leftists in the U.S. are attacking the First and Second Amendments (among others). These are the essence and guarantor of our freedoms, respectively. They are marginalizing, canceling, and even incarcerating those who have the effrontery to challenge their narrative. Meaning their power. That is tyranny. That is terrorism. They are “threat actors.” And they do this while accusing Trump supporters, Christians, patriots, rednecks, Rogan listeners, Republicans, rural residents, truck drivers—and anyone else with whom they disagree– of being a “threat to our democracy.”
The truth is precisely the opposite, of course. They are the threat to our democracy. Demonstrably and inarguably. They want to squelch free speech and vigorous dialogue. They wish to take away your right to protect yourself and your family. They wish to pack the court. They wish to end the filibuster. Theywish to eliminate the Electoral College. We don’t wish to do any of those things to them or anybody else. Oh, and they locked us all down and masked us all up for the past two years.
There has been much talk of a Second Civil War or a Second American Revolution. Either, of course, would be tragic, insofar as violence and bloodshed are concerned. But what we really need, and what might help avoid either of the aforementioned, is a second Declaration of Independence. If our elite rulers knew—were absolutely convinced– that we will no longer accept their forays into tyranny and despotism, will no longer meekly acquiesce to their every wish and whim no matter how banal, damaging, or evil, perhaps we could start reclaiming and restoring “our democracy.” Peacefully.
I’ll even offer to write it.
It might go something like this:
“As Americans, we still hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. And that legitimate governments are instituted among men to secure these rights, not attempt to repeal them. We must never forget that just governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. These are the defining characteristics of America, the blueprint for this nation, and we will not throw our birthrights away. As our Founders noted, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. Indeed, when a government is trending towards absolute despotism, it is their duty to do so. For, as Americans, we owe it to our forefathers, ourselves, and our posterity to reclaim our former freedoms and see to a rebirth of our once blessed and unrivaled republic.
“The following are some of the abuses, injuries, and usurpations compelling us to make this Declaration:
“Our leaders have used a pandemic, that they partially paid for, to tell us that we couldn’t leave our houses. For the first time, they quarantined the healthy. They told us that we must wear a mask over our mouths and noses at all times, even indoors. They said we couldn’t visit our loved ones in hospitals or in hospice. Pure, unadulterated evil. They barred us from attending weddings and funerals. They informed many of us that our jobs are ‘not essential,’ even as they paid many not to work. Preposterous! They have fomented and excused months-long violent protests and riots by some which led to numerous deaths and billions of dollars in damage…while incarcerating without charge many who peacefully walked into our Capitol Building. They have unilaterally instituted a two-tier system of justice, where laws apply utterly differently to different people based on ideology. They have weaponized the FBI, CIA, DOJ, DHS, and IRS against the American people, and are now even attempting to do the same with our military. They have, through extreme incompetence or malevolence given succor to our enemies and created grave doubts in the minds of our friends and allies. They have decided not to tend to or defend our Southern border, leaving us wide open to criminals, drug and sex trafficking, and potential acts of terrorism. They do this because they wish to replace us, legal citizens, with those whom they can more easily control—and whom they can count on to vote for them in the future. Monstrous! Moreover, they have created conditions mandating that crime rates will surge across the nation, making all of us less safe. They have disabled our energy industry, making us once again dependent on foreign actors and adversely affecting our national security. They have mismanaged the economy, driving up inflation and diminishing our quality of life. They have—in myriad ways—caused absolutely needless pain and suffering for scores of millions of Americans, as reflected in the skyrocketing rates of substance abuse and suicides. All these are egregious and frightening acts signaling a descent into tyranny.
“Yet, whenever we have petitioned for redress, we have been summarily rebuffed. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. We have been mocked, scorned, canceled.
“Our leaders must know that we will not choose hopelessness and despair. We will not tolerate their arrogance, scorn, and contempt. We will, once more, be free.
“Therefore, we the citizens of the United States of America, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the universe for the righteousness of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare that, to this end, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.”
Jacob Ogles
regarding unsubstantiated widespread election fraud and COVID-19” as having a deleterious effect on government institutions.