Metaphors, ticking bombs and climate change

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We should beware of allowing figures of speech to distort the debate.

Since linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson published their monograph Metaphors We Live By in 1980, scholars have devoted considerable attention to the use of metaphor as a cognitive tool that enables people to apply what they know from their direct physical and social experience to understanding more abstract things.

For example, a common metaphor used with respect to argumentation is that “argument is war”. This metaphor shapes our way of viewing and talking about arguments, so that it is not uncommon to hear people say things like “He won that argument,” “I attacked a weak point in his argument” or “My argument got shot down at the last board meeting.”

The very way an argument is conceptualized is shaped by this metaphor. An argument can of course be seen in other ways than as a battle, but we use this concept to shape the way we think of argumentation and the way we go about arguing.

Because metaphors make abstract things concrete, they are a powerful tool for influencing the way that people think of certain things and phenomena. For instance, the common conception of demographic growth is heavily shaped by the metaphor “population growth is a bomb”, which was popularized by Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book entitled The Population Bomb. The implicit content conveyed by this metaphor is that population growth is a powerful force which has been suddenly unleashed and which is expanding rapidly in all directions, destroying everything around it.

In actual fact, peak world population growth was reached in 1963 with an annual growth rate of 2.3 percent. In 1968 when Paul Ehrlich published his book, it had already started to decline. Since then the increase of the world population has slowed every year and today is only growing by 0.9% per annum, as the graph below shows.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE OUR WORLD DATA INFOGRAPHIC: World population growth, 1700-2100.

If one were to propose a metaphor to describe what is actually happening population-wise, a much more appropriate one would be that of a boat sailing up a large river which has cut its engines and is now drifting upstream on its initial inertia but is gradually slowing as the current of the river acts upon it. In only 50 years from now, the boat will stop moving upstream and start to be pushed back downstream.

Recently, the bomb metaphor has started to be applied to climate change. Its very first recorded use in relation to this issue was in a report by the Stockholm Environment Institute published in 1988 intitled “The Greenhouse Effect: Impacts on Nordic Countries and Possible Remedial Measures.” However, we are hearing more and more frequently that “the climate bomb is ticking.”

On the other hand, climate scientists have determined that the warming effect of each molecule of CO2 decreases logarithmically as its concentration in the atmosphere increases.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW CO2COALITION INFOGRAPHIC: CO2 Concentration, C, in ppm.

This is why there was no runaway greenhouse warming when the concentration of CO2 was approaching 20 times that of today during the Cambrian period about 500 million years ago. This inconvenient truth is kept very well hidden and is rarely mentioned, as it undermines the theory of future catastrophic climate change.

On top of this, water vapour, not CO2, is Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas, and is responsible for about half of the greenhouse effect.

In the light of these facts, a more apt metaphor for the impact of CO2 on the rise of global temperatures would be that of an ocean liner with a balloon full of hot air attached to its prow.

AUTHOR

Patrick Duffley

Patrick Duffley is Professor of English Linguistics at Université Laval, in Canada. More by Patrick Duffley

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Man Accused Of Murdering Five ‘Execution Style’ Was Previously-Deported Illegal Immigrant, ICE Says

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The shooter who allegedly murdered five individuals, including an 8-year-old child, in “execution style” killings Friday immigrated to the U.S. illegally, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson confirmed to the Daily Caller News Foundation

The suspect, Mexican national Francisco Oropesa Perez-Torres, 38, was previously ordered to be removed by an immigration judge on March 16, 2009, ICE said. ICE removed him on March 17, 2009, the spokesperson said.

Oropesa Perez-Torres is currently at large after being accused of murdering five of his neighbors, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Daniel Enrique Laso Guzman, 8; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31 and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18.

Oropesa Perez-Torres returned to the U.S. illegally at an unknown time and location, ICE said. He was arrested and removed by ICE in September 2009, January 2012 and July 2016.

The suspect was also sentenced to jail time for driving while intoxicated in January 2012, according to ICE.

The Cold Spring Texas Sheriff’s Office has issued a warrant for Oropesa Perez-Torres’ arrest for homicide. He is also wanted by the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s office for the shooting.

The shooting occurred Friday evening when neighbor Wilson Garcia asked Oropesa Perez-Torres to stop shooting his rifle so his baby could sleep, according to The New York Times (NYT). Oropesa Perez-Torres then allegedly walked to Garcia’s home and fatally shot Garcia’s wife, son and the three other victims with his AR-15 before fleeing.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Good News for Florida Voter Integrity

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This is very good news indeed for voter integrity in the Sunshine State.

Court overturns most of judge’s ruling on 2021 Florida elections law

By Dara Kam

TALLAHASSEE — An appeals court on Thursday overturned the bulk of a federal judge’s ruling that a 2021 Florida elections law was intended to discriminate against Black voters, finding that he relied on “fatally flawed” analyses and “out-of-context” statements by legislators.

The Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved the elections law as GOP leaders across the country pushed to make voting changes after former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020.

The law imposed new restrictions on mail-in voting and voter-registration groups and prohibited people from giving snacks and drinks to voters waiting in line to cast ballots.

Chief U.S. District Judge Mark Walker last year ruled that the law, challenged by voting-rights groups, was intentionally intended to discriminate against Black voters. The judge also made the rare move of putting the state under a process known as “preclearance,” meaning that he would have to approve any changes to certain parts of state elections laws.

But Thursday’s split ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Walker’s decision “does not withstand examination.”

“The district court relied on fatally flawed statistical analyses, out-of-context statements by individual legislators, and legal premises that do not follow our precedents,” Chief Judge William Pryor wrote in a 79-page decision joined by Judge Britt Grant. “On the contrary, examining the record reveals that the finding of intentional discrimination rests on hardly any evidence.”

Judge Jill Pryor issued a dissenting opinion.
While Florida had a relatively smooth 2020 election, Republicans in 2021 said changes were needed to help ensure future elections would not have issues such as fraud. The law (SB 90) included restrictions on ballot drop boxes, such as requiring boxes to be manned by employees of the supervisor of elections and limiting their use to early-voting hours.

The law also required voter-registration groups to return completed applications to elections supervisors in the counties where applicants live and imposed a 14-day deadline for submitting the forms.

The League of Women Voters of Florida and a number of Black and Hispanic advocacy groups went to federal court to challenge the measure, alleging that it was an effort to restrict minority voters from accessing the ballot.

In his March 2022 ruling, Walker found that “every single challenged provision has a disparate impact on Black voters in some way.”
The state “has repeatedly, recently, and persistently acted to deny Black Floridians access to the franchise,” the judge wrote.

But Thursday’s decision said that, “from the start,” Walker “erred,” adding that judges must remain mindful “of the danger of allowing old, outdated intentions of previous generations to taint (Florida’s) legislative action forevermore on certain topics.”
The state’s “more recent history does not support a finding of discriminatory intent. The only pieces of legislation cited by the district court that were adopted since the year 2000 offer no support for its finding of discriminatory intent,” the majority opinion said.

In her dissent, Jill Pryor said Walker, in a “thorough and well-reasoned order, committed no reversible error.” Jasmin Burney-Clark, the founder of an organization that is one of the plaintiffs, called Thursday’s ruling disappointing.

“Today, the appeals court has assisted Florida Republicans in silencing Black and Brown Floridians, but attacks to suppress our voices are nothing new, and we will adapt, organize, and overcome until we are heard and we are represented,” said Burney-Clark, the founder of Equal Ground.

Thursday’s ruling also disputed Walker’s conclusions “about the close relationship between racial identification and political affiliation” among Floridians. Walker found that “for white and Black voters in Florida, separating race from politics only works in science fiction.”

But William Pryor wrote that “the Supreme Court has warned against conflating discrimination on the basis of party affiliation with discrimination on the basis of race.”

The appeals court found that the parts of the 2021 law imposing restrictions on drop boxes and on voter registration by third-party groups were not intended to discriminate against Black and Hispanic voters and did not violate the federal Voting Rights Act.

“In sum, based on this record — and even in the light of the deferential standard of review we must apply to the findings of fact — the district court clearly erred in finding that the challenged provisions were enacted with discriminatory intent in violation of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. As a result, we reverse the decision of the district court in part,” Thursday’s ruling said.

But the appellate panel also ruled that part of the law prohibiting people from “engaging in any activity with the . . . effect of influencing a voter” outside of polling places was “unconstitutionally vague.” Plaintiffs argued the provision would prevent people from giving food or water to voters waiting in line to cast ballots.

“How is an individual seeking to comply with the law to anticipate whether his or her actions will have the subjective effect of influencing a voter? Knowing what it means to influence a voter does not bestow the ability to predict which actions will influence a voter. As a result, the district court correctly determined that this phrase in the solicitation provision ‘both fails to put Floridians of ordinary intelligence on notice of what acts it criminalizes and encourages arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, making this provision vague to the point of unconstitutionality,’” Thursday’s ruling said.

The appellate panel put that part of the 2021 law on hold and sent the issue back to Walker “for further proceedings.”

While Republican lawmakers argued the changes in the 2021 law was necessary to make the state’s elections more secure, Walker decided that was a “justification” for discrimination because voting fraud is rare in Florida.

But Thursday’s ruling called Walker’s analysis flawed, saying that court precedent “does not require evidence of voter fraud to justify adopting legislation that aims to prevent fraud.”
Florida lawmakers “passed a bill that supporters argued would safeguard the integrity of elections against non-imaginary threats. The wisdom of the Legislature’s policy choices is not ours to judge,” William Pryor wrote.

©2023 Royal A. Brown III. All rights reserved.

 

REP. BYRON DONALDS: There Is No Doubt Trump Is The Right Choice For America

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A recent visit to a pizza parlor in Ft. Myers reminded me why endorsing Donald Trump for president was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

The crowd there went wild, chanting “Trump, Trump, Trump!” This is what Paul McCartney must have felt traveling the world during Beatlemania. Americans don’t just love President Trump because he can be funny and entertaining. They have a bond with President Trump because of the results he delivered in the White House.

Voters miss low gas prices, global stability and a commander-in-chief that cared about their problems. The country is desperate for a change in leadership.

The choice will be clear and simple for voters come November 2024. Who did the job better as president of the United States, Donald J. Trump or Joseph R. Biden? Who do you trust to turn this country around? Voters will head to the polls with inflation, crime, the indoctrination of their kids, instability across the globe and the economy on their minds.

There is no doubt Trump is the right choice for America.

Not only is Trump the right choice over Biden, but his experience enables him to hit the ground running on day one. This is why I endorsed President Trump over Gov. Ron DeSantis. I’m looking for somebody who can come in on day one and get America back on track.

I know many other Republican voters want the same. Experience matters and no other Republican has the experience President Trump has.

Polling consistently shows that over seventy percent of Americans think our nation is on the wrong track and for good reason. Biden reversed all the successes of the Trump administration.

Our border has been opened to millions of unknown people. Roughly five times more illegal immigrants have been documented crossing our southern border under Biden than under President Trump. This includes a massive spike in terror watch list members entering our nation.

The open border is being taken advantage of by Mexican drug cartels that flood our nation with poison. The amount of fentanyl entering into our country has increased 900%. These deadly drugs are causing a historic amount of overdose deaths. Biden has blood on his hands.

Biden has demonized and targeted the energy industry. Under President Trump, America became a net exporter of oil for the first time, now we’re begging tyrants like Nicholas Maduro for oil.

President Trump brought stability to the world stage. Under Biden’s leadership, we’re now on the precipice of World War 3 in Ukraine. Meanwhile, China is negotiating with Brazil and other countries to subvert the dollar.

They’re becoming way more aggressive with Taiwan. China is doing this because they see weakness with the current commander in chief — Joe Biden.

It’s not just about the past. President Trump is looking ahead to the future with a series of bold policy proposals.

He’s already released a series of policy proposals under his Agenda47. These policies will rebuild the greatest economy in history, unleash energy dominance, secure our border, combat the war on drugs impacting countless families, restore safety, renew American strength and leadership, and defend law and liberty.

President Trump made America great once. He will make America great again. He has a proven record of doing it.

Byron Donalds represents Florida’s 19th Congressional District.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

REP. BYRON DONALDS

Contributor

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

ABC Censors RFK, Jr.

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ABC heavily edited its interview with Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Thursday because it didn’t like what he said about vaccines. In doing this, ABC demonstrated that it thinks the people who are unfortunate enough to watch the network are too stupid to think for themselves or evaluate truth claims on their own. It also showed that it thinks Leftist “news” outlets properly have the authority to determine what the American people see and hear and what they do not. The Left is growing increasingly censorious and authoritarian; RFK Jr. is a lone voice on the Left standing against this trend, and so it’s no surprise that he would fall victim to it along with an increasing number of patriots.

ABC’s Linsey Davis poisoned the well from the start, introducing Kennedy as “one of the biggest voices pushing anti-vaccine rhetoric, regularly distributing misinformation and disinformation about vaccines, which scientific and medical experts overwhelmingly say are safe and effective based on rigorous scientific studies.” Then ABC cut Kennedy’s own words about the vaccines, not allowing him to make his case. The network did, however, did show a part of the interview where Kennedy was discussing opposition among his own family to his views on vaccines.

Davis was upfront about the network’s censorship of the video, explaining:

We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines. Data shows that the Covid-19 vaccine has prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths from the disease. He also made misleading claims about the relationship between vaccination and autism. Research shows that vaccines and the ingredients used in the vaccines do not cause autism, including multiple studies involving more than a million children and major medical associations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

Davis also said: “We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.” Yet Davis’ own claims were unproven. Kennedy’s own website, The Defender, features an April 14 article with the headline: “45 Times as Many Deaths After COVID Shots in Just 2 Years Compared With All Flu Vaccine-Related Deaths Since 1990, Data Show.” The subtitle: “The authors of a peer-reviewed meta-analysis of national and international COVID-19 vaccine adverse events during the first two years of the rollout said their findings highlight the importance of reevaluating public health policies that promote universal mass injection and multiple boosters for all demographic groups.” Did Davis offer any specific refutation of these claims? Of course not. ABC just did its best to ensure that the public didn’t hear about them at all.

In the portion of the interview that aired, according to a report in the Daily Caller Friday, Davis challenged Kennedy “over his claims that there is a correlation between vaccinations and autism.” Davis asserted that what Kennedy was saying had been “debunked.” Kennedy asked: “Wait a minute, who debunked it?” Davis replied: “We have not seen any kind of scientific connections from the CDC, the World Health Organization…” Kennedy said: “They’re captured agencies.” Indeed. They reflect the establishment line rather than letting the truth lead them where it may. For her part, Davis doesn’t seem to have bothered to refute that, either. Censorship is so much easier.

Kennedy charged that what ABC did was actually illegal:

47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor Presidential candidates but Thursday, ABC showed its contempt for the law, democracy, and its audience by cutting most of the content of my interview with host Linsey Davis leaving only cherry-picked snippets and a defamatory disclaimer. Offering no evidence, @ABC justified this act of censorship by falsely asserting that I made “false claims.” In truth, Davis engaged me in a lively, informative, and mutually respectful debate on the government’s Covid countermeasures. I’m happy to supply citations to support every statement I made during that exchange. I’m certain that ABC’s decision to censor came as a shock to Linsey as well. Instead of journalism, the public saw a hatchet job. Instead of information, they got defamation and unsheathed Pharma propaganda. Americans deserve to hear the full interview so they can make up their own minds. How can democracy function without a free and unbiased press? As President, I will free FCC from its corporate captors and force the agency to follow the law by revoking the licenses of networks that put the mercantile ambitions of advertisers ahead of the public interest. #Kennedy24

RFK’s confidence that Linsey Davis was herself shocked by the censorship was a trifle naïve. Censorship is the hallmark of the contemporary Left. But he is standing against it: “I don’t believe that we should be the party of war. I don’t believe that we should be the party of Wall Street. I don’t believe that we should let neocons dictate our foreign policy and I don’t believe in censorship, for starters.”

Sounds great. But will the Leftist media establishment let the American people hear him saying it?

AUTHOR

Robert Spencer

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Convicted MAN Who Raped Children To Be Sent to Woman’s Prison After Changing Pronouns to ‘She/Her’ During Sentencing

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A man convicted of the horrific sexual abuse of a 7-year-old girl abruptly changed his pronouns to “she/her” while being sentenced to life in federal prison for the crime.

Every convicted rapists will be declaring themselves ‘women.’

America is sick to its very soul.

Convicted Pedophile Changes Pronouns To “She/Her” During Sentencing For Abuse Of 7-Year-Old Child

By Anna Slatz, Redux News, April 28, 2023:

Content Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of child sexual abuse as reported in court testimony. Reader discretion is appreciated.

A convicted pedophile appears to have declared a transgender identity while being sentenced for the horrific sexual abuse of a young girl.

On February 23, Robert William Perry II was sentenced to life in federal prison following a conviction for the aggravated sexual abuse of a minor. The victim, a 7-year-old girl for whom Perry was responsible, was abused over the course of one year while in Perry’s care.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Perry would coerce the girl into performing sex acts in exchange for candy, toys, and the opportunity to play video games in what Perry termed as a “man cave,” a closet where he regularly played video games and watched pornography. The abuses took place from 2017 to 2018 on the Muscogee Nation reserve in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The child eventually divulged some of the details of her ordeal to a school friend, and the conversation was overheard by another student who immediately went to a teacher and reported what she had heard. The Oklahoma Department of Human Services was contacted, and the victim was interviewed by a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. The girl was hesitant to speak about what had happened because Perry had told her to “keep secrets,” but she would go on to draw pictures of what had happened to her.

Perry was initially arrested and charged in 2018 and he was convicted in an Oklahoma state court in 2020, but the conviction was later dismissed because the state lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute the case. In the United States, only the federal government or tribal councils have jurisdiction to prosecute cases that occur in Indian Country that involve Native American defendants. Because Perry is Indigenous and the crime had been committed on Muscogee land, the case was turned over to the federal government.

During a hearing in May of 2022, his victim testified in federal court as to what had happened to her.

Reduxx has reviewed a transcription of the child’s testimony and is withholding identifying details out of respect for her privacy.

While in court, the girl explained that Perry had a closet where he played video games and smoked. Perry would take her into the closet when there was no one else in the home.

The child detailed that Perry would tell her to strip naked and kneel on the floor, and she would be instructed to take his genitals into her mouth. The girl, who was 11 when she gave her testimony, said Perry would force his penis into her throat and it cause her to choke, among other abuses which included Perry touching and licking her genitals. After sexually abusing the girl, Perry would give her Jolly Ranchers or Starburst. The abuses happened regularly after school.

Perry was found guilty on counts of aggravated sexual abuse of a minor in Indian Country and for abusive sexual contact of a minor in Indian Country.

Perry was sentenced in February of 2023, and, shortly after, the U.S. Department of Justice amended their press release, noting that Perry now went by “she/her” pronouns. Previous releases had described Perry as a “man.”

Court documents reveal that Perry’s change in gender identity appears to have been declared around the same time he was being sentenced to life in prison for his crimes. A sentencing outcome signed by the judge in the case requested Perry be sent to a medium security facility in the Tulsa area with explicit provisions for “gender-care treatment programs.”

Other than the sentencing document, Perry’s gender identity was never mentioned during the trial.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Saul Alinsky’s Eight Steps to Topple a Nation Matches Perfectly Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda

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A reader sent us a link to Vassar Bushmills website that listed Alinsky’s eight steps to topple a nation. We realized after seeing them that they match the policies of the current administration and the Democrat Party.

According to Discover the Networks Alinsky:

  • Identified a set of very specific rules that ordinary citizens could follow, and tactics that ordinary citizens could employ, as a means of gaining public power
  • Created a blueprint for revolution under the banner of “social change”
  • Two of his most notable modern-day disciples are Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Discover the Networks reports,

In the Alinsky model, “organizing” is a euphemism for “revolution” — a wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is the systematic acquisition of power by a purportedly oppressed segment of the population, and the radical transformation of America’s social and economic structure. The goal is to foment enough public discontent, moral confusion, and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that Marx, Engels, and Lenin predicted — a revolution whose foot soldiers view the status quo as fatally flawed and wholly unworthy of salvation. Thus, the theory goes, the people will settle for nothing less than that status quo’s complete collapse — to be followed by the erection of an entirely new system upon its ruins. Toward that end, they will be apt to follow the lead of charismatic radical organizers who project an aura of confidence and vision, and who profess to clearly understand what types of societal “changes” are needed.

Read more.

Remember that Barrack Hussein Obama began as a “community organizer” before becoming a politician.

According to Vassar Bushmills,

Think of these [eight steps] as “fronts” in a war; Western front, Eastern front.  These are all the fronts the Enemies of the United States have set up and been fighting for at least the past 50 years—all on your front steps and at your front door.

You simply don’t have time to sit and complain about how the elected officials you trusted have let you down.

There are hundreds of way you can send them all a message every day that you have taken these issues in hand and will be doing something about daily, and not just the next election day. [Emphasis added]

Here’s Vassar Bushmills’ list of Alinsky’s eight steps to topple a nation:

  1. Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people
  2. Poverty — Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
  3. Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.
  4. Gun Control — Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.
  5. Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).
  6. Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children learn in school.
  7. Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
  8. Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Alinsky’s Political Theory Becomes Public Policy

Ayn Rand famously said, “The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.”

Today the uncontested absurdities of Alinsky have now become in 2023 the laws, policies and politics of the land.

Here’s how these eight steps have gone from political theory to public policy:

  1. Healthcare — Government control of healthcare began with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) enacted by the 111th United States Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. This government control of healthcare was greatly expanded during the Covid pandemic via government mandates.
  2. Poverty — The cost of living has increased under the Biden administration. Click here for a Cost of Living Calculator. Put in a city run by Democrats and one run by Republicans, e.g. San Jose, CA and Sarasota, FL, and see what you get.
  3. Debt — According to USGovernmentSpending.com the federal debt is $31.46 trillion. In 2019 the federal deficit was $984 billion and has grown steadily ever since to the present deficit of $31.46 trillion.
  4. Gun Control — Biden, his administration, the Democrat Party and various supporters want not just gun control, like in Chicago, but a repeal of the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
  5. Welfare — USGovernmentSpending.com reports welfare spending for “FY 2023 total US government spending on welfare — federal, state, and local — is “guesstimated” to be $141 billion, including $536 billion for Medicaid, and $677 billion in other welfare. Total US government estimated spending for 2023 is $9.70 trillion, including a budgeted $6.37 trillion federal, a “guesstimated” $2.19 trillion state, and a “guesstimated” $2.17 trillion local. TOTAL: $10.73 trillion in 2023.
  6. Education — The public school system has been taken over by proponents of the most radical and egregious policies including: teaching child what to think, not how to think; promoting Critical Race Theory; promoting the LGBTQIE+ agenda including grooming of underaged children for perverts pedophiles and pederasts and causing for the first time a drop in the national IQ in history. This does not include the indoctrination of our children K-20 in the tenants off Marx, Lenin and Alinsky doctrines. Parents who speak out about what is taught to their children are labeled “domestic terrorists. Finally, Minnesota just gave the state power to take kids away if parents don’t approve of gender mutilation surgery.
  7. Religion — In 1962 Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962), was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court ruled that it is unconstitutional for state officials to compose an official school prayer and encourage its recitation in public schools, due to violation of the First Amendment. This also led to governments banning prayer in the public square.
  8. Class Warfare — Using the Biden administration’s diversity, inclusion and equity guidelines individuals, corporations, non-profits and all levels of government must determine race and gender in all aspects of their lives, businesses, lending and hiring practices.

©2023 Vassar Bushmills. All rights reserved.

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Politics and Its Coming Destruction

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The forming of the United States government introduced what has been called ‘representative government’, wherein citizens may seek, and be elected to, positions in a Congress where they are to represent the thoughts and wishes of those citizens living in a certain district of a state.

I believe the Founders, nearly all of whom were descended from England, where only a monarchical system had existed for centuries, and representation of the people was absolutely NOT allowed, had dreamed of establishing a new form of government that eliminated any undue influence or control by a very small segment of the citizens, mostly the aristocratic and moneyed class. However, they soon learned that the old would not easily give way to the new.

Politics as a Means to Virtuous Living and Happiness?

From the article, “Aristotle: Politics” in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the author of said article stated,

In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) describes the happy life intended for man by nature as one lived in accordance with virtue, and, in his “Politics”, he describes the role that politics and the political community must play in bringing about the virtuous life in the citizenry. (emphasis mine)

Aristotle’s “Politics” also provides analysis of the kinds of political community that existed in his time and shows where and how these cities fall short of the ideal community of virtuous citizens. (emphasis mine)

It is apparent that Aristotle, 350 years before Christ, understood that politics was intended to be a system of governance that provided the means of living a happy and virtuous life. The deception about politics as a system of governance was obviously present in the time of Aristotle.

The second president of the US, John Adams, stated that “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Despite the beauty and soundness of our Constitution, those who were present when it was written realized its potential shortcomings, in that it was written as, and intended to be, a basis upon which to create an atmosphere allowing for, and promoting, a virtuous life, the only atmosphere needed to find true happiness (Honesty demands that one consider whether true happiness can ever be found in a wholly non-virtuous atmosphere). Our Constitution has little to no positive influence in the lives of immoral, non-virtuous persons; in fact it would seem that its very existence enrages them and encourages the immoral and non-virtuous people in their attempts to destroy that magnificent document.

I base my opinion above on the fact that our current group of politicians who ALL swear an oath to uphold and defend the United States Constitution, almost immediately, and usually covertly,  search for any way possible to skirt around it and even to do away with it entirely.

Political Delusion Leads to God’s Wrath

My definition of ‘politics’, based on info found in The Free Dictionary, is “The use of underhanded crafty schemes, plots, intrigues and deceitful plans, methods, or series of maneuvers (machinations and intrigue) in obtaining any position enabling one to do or act (with power), providing the capability of control, domination or command.

The political actions provided in this definition are most certainly NOT limited to governmental politics, although there is likely no government on earth that has managed to remain unscathed from the damage caused by these actions. No, politics has found its way into nearly every sector of life that involves human interaction. Once introduced and accepted as ‘normal’, it becomes as ingrained in all human interactions as it has in the government(s).

Based on what I perceive to be the dismal lack of a true understanding of politics on the part of most Americans, coupled with the danger that political tactics, and the politicians who employ them, brings to the citizens of the United States, especially among most of the Christian population, I feel it is critical to try to explain, from a layman’s point of view, that the ‘practice’ of politics is a whole lot more than campaigns and races for public offices in city, state and federal governments.

Several prominent people from the past have stated something which I truly believe:  “voters and their votes do NOT determine the outcome of elections, MONEY determines the outcome of elections”. From that truth, a serious question  must then be asked: “What is the source of the money, the hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of US dollars that are poured into political campaigns that 1) determine the candidates, and 2) determine the eventual winners of the elections?”

Once you have the answer to that important question, you must then ask, “what is the end  goal of those who provide the MONEY?”

American politics has become a system based on lies and deception that is being used to create, or transform, a government or institution, formerly based on TRUTH, into one that accepts and uses lies and deceptions as though they WERE truth. The very foundation of the American political system is deception and MONEY, lots and lots of MONEY!

The purpose of these lies and deceptions is to produce a state of delusion in the minds and hearts of men so that they will no longer be able to separate truth from a lie. Once people are deluded, those who produce the delusion seem to believe they are quite safe from any resistance to the lies produced. In many cases, they are right. The system, and its participants, work hard to protect themselves against truth-seekers.

The end result of the political process fro those who adhere to it is described in Romans chapter one: “a reprobate mind, a state wherein one becomes morally depraved, unprincipled, and predestined for damnation”.

The Politics of the “Trump Era”

A short discussion of the Trump presidency seems to be in order here.

It appears (to me) that Donald J Trump, when running for POTUS in 2016 made several critical missteps. First, he seems to have believed that he was being welcomed into a camp of approximately 260 ‘friendly’ politicians in Congress who identified as “Republican”, and was being opposed by a camp of approximately 275 ‘Unfriendly’ Congressional politicians who identified as Democrat. If that had been the case, he might have had a somewhat fair chance to succeed in his proclaimed agenda to “Make America Great Again”.

But alas, the odds were much worse than the numbers indicated and he was far outnumbered since most of those who identified as Republican were in fact RINO who were actually closely aligned with the Democratic Party and its principles (or lack thereof). That made the numbers more like 500 to 1, at least at first appearance.

However, Trump, though an accomplished and very successful businessman, was a rookie politician suffering from serious ‘political naiveté. His naiveté, coupled with his glaring narcissism, the most evident flaws he exhibited as a man, allowed his critical decisions as POTUS to be swayed by those who played to his ego and narcissism, caused him to designate, as his cabinet members, those who were thought to be competent and loyal to conservative, republican principles, as well as loyal to him, but were actually card-carrying members of the DC swamp, that quagmire wherein dwell those whom Trump swore to remove by draining that swamp. He failed to realize that even had he drained that swamp, either partially or completely, it is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the REAL money powers of the world: the globalists, big pharma drug dealers and industrial military complex, heads of giant worldwide corporations, and wealthy banking families who, along with the Democrats, were as solidly against Trump as were those congressional RINOs who so easily fooled DJT. I imagine that Trump thought his entry into the political world would be as easy as was his entry, as a much younger man, into business that led to his many successes in that realm.

Trump obviously placed the bulk of his trust in men, one of which was himself. Believing the urgings to trust family members with their somewhat covert individual agendas, he surrendered his own MAGA agenda to forces over whom he had little to no control. The total count of friendly vs unfriendly combatants may never be known, but with so many poor choices as advisers, it is likely closer to 600 to 1.

Before going to war, one should always endeavor to know his enemy and that seems to have been another of Trump’s biggest flaws. Not only did he NOT know who his enemy was, he accepted the advice of those very close to him who convinced him that his choices were consistent with his agenda. As a consequence, when the political bullets started flying, he was constantly being bombarded with what many might consider “friendly fire’, which in politics is a misleading term: There are no friends in politics.

Throughout his presidency, he again and again named more DC swamp critters to advise him and every one selected only added to the “friendly fire” he was receiving. By the time his presidency ended in January 2021, the endless friendly fire left Trump resembling the iconic Al Capp cartoon character, “Fearless Fosdick”, who was consistently being hit by (sometimes) friendly fire, leaving him with large round holes in many parts of his body https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fearless+fosdick+cartoon&t=ffab&iax=images&ia=images.

Fosdick seemed to be truly confused as to who were his friends and who were his enemies due to a failure to understand who his enemies were.

Ronald Reagan often used the phrase “Trust but verify” and seemingly tried to stick to it, but unlike Reagan, DJT, with little to  NO verification, unwisely trusted many who offered no basis for why they should be, or even could be, considered worthy of his trust.

Trump’s failure to understand and recognize the true nature of those who he considered ‘loyal friends’ does not excuse those sleezy politicians, both Republican and Democrat, who utterly betrayed his trust and that of the American people who elected Trump.

The Coming Wrath of God

Paul wrote a very detailed letter to the believers in Rome that provides a look at how God views the foolish positions men take in direct contradiction to His word, and GOD’S WORD IS TRUTH. So the positions taken by many of the political leaders of the world in these perilous times are ‘lie-oriented ‘ and directly against TRUTH. The words of Romans 1:18 say this: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold (suppress) the truth in unrighteousness”.

No one in this present period of time has ever experienced “the Wrath of God”. But it is plain that the time wherein the truth is completely suppressed by the unrighteous WILL see His wrath revealed to all who oppose God and His word. The revealing of His wrath will not be simply toward the politicians who are elected or appointed political leaders, but to ALL who use politics to further an evil agenda that mocks and resists God. The “invisible politicians”, the corporate heads and the global bankers whose institutions control large segments of the financial systems in every nation will NOT escape the wrath of a righteous God.

The adoption of a system governed by lies has changed our nation into one that trains and encourages its citizens to accept as true, whatever they are fed by government officials, academics and the media, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence that it is completely UNTRUE. This is the perfect dictionary definition of delusion: “A belief held in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, that is resistant to all reason” (The Free Dictionary).

Unfortunately, the current ‘encouragement’  to accept the lies and deception is likely to evolve into physical ‘force’ as more and more people who are becoming aware of the lies that have led to the diminishing and eventual loss of our freedoms and liberties, decide to push back against the tyranny that uses deceptions and lies to push their agenda.

When encouragement becomes force, the political system then is, or will become, one that denies truth and attempts to replace ALL truth with lies; when such a system succeeds in doing so, any liberties that were thought to have been ‘endowed’ by a creator are easily removed by those who perpetuate the false political system.

You might think that those living under such a system would rebel against it and demand the return of those stolen liberties, but by the time the system is entrenched using lies that lead to a state of delusion, and truth is banished, those who should have rebelled and demanded a return of liberty are living under such delusion that they cannot easily be reached by truth, if they can be reached at all. They have succumbed to the lies and deception and have rejected the very existence of truth. This is the very nature of deception and with the assistance of a corrupted, wholly-owned, mainstream media that has become a communication/propaganda arm of the system, the ability to resist the deception decreases with  the passing of time as more and more people allow themselves to become comfortable with the deception.

Conclusion

God, who created the earth and mankind who inhabits it, STILL has the plan that was in His mind from the very beginning: to have a family of people, whom He will love as sons and daughters, who will return His love, and reverence  Him as Father. However, His love does not mean that any human who has rejected His love and His truth will be able to take part in that plan.

The perilous times in which we now live were mentioned by Paul in his second letter to Timothy (2 Timothy 3:1-9) and in that letter Paul spoke of the characteristics of the people he described as “lovers of their own selves”. In verse nine, he states, “But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men….”.

The folly God speaks of is that of subverting the word of God, replacing HIS truth with a lie. Paul offered the perfect description of such people and their fate in Romans 1:18 – 2:9. That fate is sure and likely will be sudden.

God is STILL God and He will have the final say. And His wrath is coming on the corrupt world political system and all who live by it.

He will soon shake all in heaven and on earth; everything that can be shaken will be shaken. Anything that remains will stand in awe and reverence of God. All that falls will have experienced the wrath of God toward all unrighteousness, leading to utter destruction.

Maranatha

©2023 Bud Hancock. All rights reserved.

Who coined the term ‘Deep State’? And what does this term mean today?

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To answer the question: “Who coined the term ‘Deep State’?”

We need to understand: What is the deep state?

To answer the question: “Who are the people in the deep state?”

We need to know what does this term mean in the year 2023 and exactly who’s behind it?

The Turkish phrase derin devlet which translates into “deep state” was created in the early part of the 20th century. Derin devlet is a “secret government” buried deeply within the visible government?

Curiously, it was candidate Donald J. Trump who borrowed from Turkish history. Donald J. Trump spoke of a “Deep State” embedded deeply within the government bureaucracy – and centered in the Department of Justice – which actively worked to defeat him in 2016 and then sought to undermine him once he won the presidency.

Who coined the term ‘Deep State’?

In his book Last Rites for a ‘Pure Bandit’: Clandestine Service, Historiography and the Origins of the Turkish ‘Deep State’ published in 2010 Ryan Gingeras wrote the term “Deep State”,

[G]enerally refers to a kind of shadow or parallel system of government in which unofficial or publicly unacknowledged individuals play important roles in defining and implementing state policy.”

On April 10th, 2017 in a Daily JSTOR article Matthew Wills wrote,

This concept of a deep state, Gingeras continues, is used to “explain why and how agents employed by the state execute policies that directly contravene the letter and spirit of the law.” Breaking the law, of course, often means employing criminals. Gingeras, a specialist in organized crime in Turkey, looks at the underbelly of the Turkish deep state to examine how alliances between generals, statesmen and “narcotic traffickers, paramilitaries, terrorists, and other criminals” are formed. 

[ … ]

Essentially, dirty work needs dirty workers: so a clandestine force was recruited from paramilitary and criminal elements during the chaotic years of the first quarter century of the [20th] century.

Read full article.

Who are the people in the Deep State today?

Today we have federal agents, the DoJ, FBI, DoD generals, statesmen and women from all parties, narcotics traffickers, paramilitaries, terrorists and other criminals that are part of the “Nuevo Deep State”.

These “Nuevo Deep Staters” include:

  • Eco-terrorists, elected officials, the Department of Energy, NASA, corporations and non-profits who are pushing the Green New Deal.
  • Social justice organizations, including educators K-20, media, social media, corporations, government officials, generals, that promote an “anti-white” narrative using the mythical Critical Race Theory and racist the New York Time’s 1619 Project.
  • The LGBTQIE+ radicals who using the diversity, inclusion and equity myths to further the chemical and physical castration of American underaged children.
  • Public school teachers, school board members, superintendents who promote the LGBTQIE+ radical ideology by teaching it to American children, especially young and impressionable children.
  • Public school librarians and public school media specialists who insist on have pornography on their book shelved that depict graphic sexual acts between children and between children and adults.
  • Organizations such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter who are paramilitary organizations that have caused extensive chaos, burned down entire communities, attacked their opponents and either attempted or actually murdered those who they deemed a threat to the deep state.
  • Nation states such as China, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, North Korea, Cuba et. al. who are dedicated to supporting the deep states efforts to destabilize the American Constitutional Republic and replace it with a one-party system. Some of these nation states interfered in every election since 2016.
  • Global governance organizations including the United Nations, World Economic Forum, World Health Organization and others involved in the “Great Reset”.

The Bottom Line

The Nuevo Deep State’s mission is gaining and keep power. It is designed to undermine Judeo-Christian based religions, the individual, the traditional family and the American republic.

Without this the Deep State understands that it will go the way of the former Soviet Union. The Deep State have added new words to the political lexicon like “woke”. It is taking away words like male, female, white, children, boy, girl and replacing them with hundreds or categories of genders and words like homophobic, racist, Islamophobic and fascist.

For the Deep state to win good men and women must do nothing to stop it. They must look the other way while the Deep States takes away more and more of their liberties.

Good men and women must look the other way when their children are taught that they aren’t little boys and little girls anymore. Good men and women must look the other way when their neighbors and friends are imprisoned for attending a peaceful rally or supporting a particular political ideology.

Good men and women must submit.

The Nuevo Deep State demands it.

Today, the Nuevo Deep State stretches from the school house to the White House.

As George Orwell warned in his book “1984″,

“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”

The Deep State continues to attack President Donald J. Trump, but you see the Deep State isn’t after him. It is really after we the people.

You see we are the Winston Smith’s of today.

Thus ends the lesson on the Orwellian Nuevo Deep State.

©2023 Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Dr. John Coleman: The Club Of Rome & The Satanic Trans-Delusional Agenda

The Government’s Sprawling Effort to Censor [True] Information During the Pandemic

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In July 2022, Twitter permanently suspended Rhode Island physician Andrew Bostom after awarding the epidemiologist and longtime researcher at Brown University a fifth strike for spreading “misinformation.”

A July 26 tweet alleging that there was no solid evidence Covid-19 vaccines had prevented any children from being hospitalized—”only RCT data we have from children reveals ZERO hospitalizations prevented by vaccination vs. placebo”—was apparently the final straw.

The funny thing was, it appeared Bostom’s tweet was true.

Dr. Anish Koka, a cardiologist and writer, said he was initially skeptical of Bostom’s claim. But after speaking with him for more than an hour, he realized Bostom was citing the government’s own data, a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) briefing document that included randomized controlled trial (RCT) data on children.

“…Dr. Bostom’s tweet appears quite correct as per the FDA documents,” Koka wrote on Substack. “In the RCTs available, there does not appear to be evidence that the vaccine prevented hospitalizations.”

Bostom’s permanent suspension was one of many anecdotes shared by journalist David Zweig in a December Twitter Files thread viewed by more than 64 million people, which exposed how the government worked with Twitter to try to “rig the Covid debate.”

It turns out this was not the only one of Bostom’s tweets that was true but was nevertheless flagged for “misinformation.”

“A review of Twitter log files revealed that an internal audit, conducted after Bostom’s attorney contacted Twitter, found that only 1 of Bostom’s 5 violations were valid,” Zweig notes. “The one Bostom tweet found to still be in violation cited data that was legitimate but inconvenient to the public health establishment’s narrative about the risks of flu versus Covid in children.”

In other words, all five of Bostom’s tweets that had been flagged as “misinformation” were legitimate. At the very least, four-out-of-five were, and that’s according to Twitter’s own internal audit.

How this happened was partially explored by Zweig, who explained Twitter’s convoluted censorship process, which relied heavily on bots, contractors in foreign countries who lacked the expertise to make informed decisions, and Twitter brass who carried their own biases and incentives. This structure led to a predictable result.

“In my review of internal files,” writes Zweig, “I found countless instances of tweets labeled as ‘misleading’ or taken down entirely, sometimes triggering account suspensions, simply because they veered from CDC guidance or differed from establishment views.”

The CDC had effectively become the arbiter of truth.

This is alarming for at least two reasons. First, for anyone familiar with the government’s track record on truth, there’s reason to be skeptical of putting any government agency in charge of deciding what is true and false. Second, the CDC has been, to put it kindly, fallible throughout the pandemic. Indeed, the agency has been plagued with so much dysfunction and made so many crucial mistakes that its own director announced less than a year ago the organization needed an overhaul.

So there’s some reason to believe that Bostom and people like him—including epidemiologists like Dr. Martin Kuldorff (formerly of Harvard) and mRNA vaccine creator Dr. Robert Malone—were being suspended, banned, and de-amplified simply because Twitter was poorly situated to determine what was true and what was false.

There’s reason to doubt this claim, however.

Months after Zweig published his report on the Twitter Files, journalist Matt Taibbi published a separate deep dive exploring the Virality Project, an initiative launched by Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center.

The project, which Taibbi described as “a sweeping, cross-platform effort to monitor billions of social media posts by Stanford University, federal agencies, and a slew of (often state-funded) NGOs,” is noteworthy because officials made it clear that a goal was not just to flag false information, but information that was true but inconvenient to the government’s goals. Reports of “vaccinated individuals contracting Covid-19 anyway,” “worrisome jokes,” and “natural immunity” were all characterized as “potential violations,” as were conversations “interpreted to suggest that coronavirus might have leaked from a lab.”

In what Taibbi describes as “a pan-industry monitoring plan for Covid-related content,” the Virality Project began analyzing millions of posts each day from platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Medium, TikTok, and other social media sites, which were submitted through the JIRA ticketing system. On February 22, 2021, in a video no longer public, Stanford welcomed social media leaders to the group and offered instruction on how to join the JIRA system.

In contrast to Twitter’s previous internal guidance, which required narratives on Covid-19 to be “demonstrably false” before any censorship actions were taken, the Virality Project made it clear that information that was true was also fair game if it undermined the larger aims of the government and the Virality Project.

Specifically noted were “true stories that could fuel [vaccine] hesitancy,” personal testimonials about adverse side effects of vaccination, concerns over vaccine passports, and actual deaths of people following vaccination, such as Drene Keyes.

As NBC noted in 2021, Keyes, a 58-year-old black woman, died after receiving the Pfizer vaccine in February 2021. Described as an “elderly Black woman” by the Virality Project, Keyes’s death became a “disinformation” event after it garnered attention from “anti vax groups”—even though no one denied that she died within hours of taking the vaccine.

No autopsy was conducted on Keyes and there’s no way of knowing if the vaccine caused her death. But merely raising the possibility could have resulted in a ban. Officials at the Virality Project warned platforms that “just asking questions”—at least the wrong questions—was a tactic “commonly used by spreaders of misinformation.”

Ironically, Taibbi notes, the Virality Project itself was often “extravagantly wrong” about Covid science, describing breakthrough events as “extremely rare events” (a fact it later conceded was wrong) and implying that natural immunity did not offer protection from Covid.

“Even in its final report, [the Virality Project] claimed it was misinformation to suggest the vaccine does not prevent transmission, or that governments are planning to introduce vaccine passports,” Taibbi writes. “Both things turned out to be true.”

‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’

It’s clear that the Virality Project’s primary purpose was not to protect Americans from misinformation. Its goal, as Taibbi notes, was to get the public to submit to authority and accept the state’s Covid narrative, particularly the pronouncements of public figures such as Drs. Anthony Fauci and Rochelle Walensky.

The official policy can be summed up in the immortal words of Colonel Nathan Jessup, the villain portrayed by Jack Nicholson in Aaron Sorkin’s popular 1992 film A Few Good Men: “You can’t handle the truth.”

It’s important to understand that public officials, just like Col. Jessup, genuinely believe this. Jessup utters these words in anger in a wonderful monologue, after he is baited by Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) into telling the court how he really feels. Similarly, the Twitter Files reveal a program designed to control information—even true information—because it serves the state’s plan.

The last word—plan—is important, because it calls to mind Ludwig von Mises’s warning about those seeking to plan society.

“The planner is a potential dictator who wants to deprive all other people of the power to plan and act according to their own plans,” Mises wrote. “He aims at one thing only: the exclusive absolute preeminence of his own plan.”

‘Sometimes They Are Five’

Mises’ words apply perfectly to the Virality Project, a program designed specifically to get people to submit to the government’s narrative and objectives, not their own. The preeminence of the plan is so important that it requires censoring information and targeting individuals—as the Virality Project did—even if it’s true.

It’s difficult to overstate how Orwellian this is.

In Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston Smith, the protagonist of the story, says, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four.”

Absent any context, the quote doesn’t make much sense. But it’s important to understand that Orwell saw statism and politics as forces destructive to the truth. His own brushes with state propaganda during the Spanish Civil War left him terrified that objective truth was “fading out of the world,” and he saw the state as inherently prone to obfuscation and euphemism (regardless of party).

“Political language,” he wrote, “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Within the context of Nineteen Eighty-Four, the meaning of Winston Smith’s words becomes crystal clear. Saying “two plus two makes four” might be an objective truth, but sometimes objective truth runs counter to Big Brother’s plan. Winston Smith is a slow learner, state agents tell him, because he can’t seem to grasp this simple reality.

“How can I help it? How can I help but see what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”

“Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder.”

Many people who lived through the Covid-19 pandemic likely can identify with the terror of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Orwell’s fear that objective truth is “fading out of the world.” We witnessed public officials say things that were demonstrably false and face no consequences, while Andrew Bostom and countless others were exiled from public discourse because they said things that were true, but ran counter to the state’s narrative.

Fortunately, in large part because of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, we now know how this happened.

“Government, academia, and an oligopoly of would-be corporate competitors organized quickly behind a secret, unified effort to control political messaging,” Taibbi writes.

All of it was designed to control information. And in doing so, the state—which actually attempted to create a “Disinformation Governance Board,” which critics promptly dubbed a Ministry of Truth—created an environment hostile to free speech and truth.

Ironically, despite the egregious abuse delivered upon the truth over the last three years in the name of fighting “misinformation,” polls show roughly half of Americans believe social media companies should be censoring such material from their sites. Few seem to realize this will almost certainly involve those with influence and power—especially the government—deciding who and what are censored.

This is a recipe for disaster. History shows there’s no greater purveyor of falsehood and propaganda than the government itself. The Twitter Files are a reminder of that.

AUTHOR

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. (Follow him on Substack.) His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune. Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Shaking of the International Political System

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“See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” — Hebrews 12:25-27 KJV

The writer of Proverbs stated: “These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.” Proverbs 6:16-19 KJV.

Anyone who has followed politics for very long will testify that the six characteristics listed in this proverb provide a perfect description of politics, and MOST politicians. I call them the “Six Pillars of Politics”. Without their presence in the system, it would cease to exist.

St. Paul, who wrote nearly two thirds of the  New Testament, wrote this to Timothy: “But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.” 1 Timothy 6:9-10 KJV

Inherent in the very nature of politics is its tendency to surround those who participate in it, with an “atmosphere of greed”; that greed can be for money and fame, or power and control. In either case it reveals itself in those who allow that foul system to shape, determine, and eventually expose, their true nature, whether good or evil. If good, that nature will not soon remain, as the working of greed will change it into something sinister and corrupt.

And corruption in politics is NOT an American phenomenon, it can be found in every political system in every nation on earth.

The First Politician

The words in Proverbs chapter six, above, appear to be a perfect description of the spiritual creature we know as Satan. He was so proud that he imagined himself to be equal with God, he was a chronic liar (Jesus called him the father of all lies), he has been responsible for shedding the blood of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of humans (only God knows the true number), through the hands of his human minions who allow him to use their physical bodies on this earth, his heart devised the wicked imagination that he could war against and defeat God, he is said to be roaming the earth, looking for anyone whom he may devour. He is called ‘the accuser of the brethren’, and he definitely works hard to create divisions among the Church. Satan is THE quintessential politician.

Even though God had clearly spelled out His rules for their behavior to Adam and Eve, and also made clear the penalty for breaking them, they allowed themselves to fall victim to a politician, even though they had the TRUTH, straight from the mouth of God.

Satan cleverly used a serpent to be his ‘mouthpiece’ when approaching Eve regarding whether or not God had spoken truth to her and Adam. He used lies, questioning the very word of God in his effort to deceive her and gain the control and authority man had been given. His trickery and lies worked and, through lies anddeception, Satan established his kingdom on earth, becoming the first politician, thus making him the first known liar in history and the ‘pattern’ for all politicians in the future.

If you question whether all politicians are liars, do your own research, as I did, to determine what is the true definition of politics. If you can find any good in the corruption of politics, please let me know.

Political Effect on the Nations

I would estimate that the majority population of every ‘developed nation’ has some knowledge of the ‘political system’ that governs their nations. Whether a ‘democracy’, a ‘theocracy’, a dictatorship or empire, you can be sure that it was established by political means, using lies and deception and possibly physical force, and is constantly being re-enforced by the same political means.

Throughout history, nations have been destroyed and millions of lives have been forfeit through the actions of one, or a few, politicians. Every war ever fought has been the result of politics, and most, if not all, were planned events, meant to enrich those who became extremely wealthy by providing the means of war: guns, ammunition, artillery, tanks, ships and aircraft along with the fuel needed to run them, as well as the food and medicines needed when soldiers are wounded. The ‘global war-mongers’ always come out on top while the nations, wherein the wars are fought, lose EVERY TIME.

The involvement of politicians from many western nations in the corruption of Ukraine is evidence of this.

The Politics of the Russia/Ukraine War

From the White House to the US Congress and federal bureaucracies, to the Governors mansions of many states, they ALL seem to desire their own gain of wealth over that of the people who vote for them and pay their bloated salaries.

The recent news item that major American oil producers, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron and Halliburton are meeting with Ukrainian officials, with the desired result being the oil companies will be allowed to take over control of Ukraine’s oil production offers solid proof of the statement above. This will result in hundreds of millions of dollars in profit flowing into the coffers of these giant oil corporations. This is a perfect example of the political power of major corporations, and how they use that power for profit.

When the fiasco in Ukraine is over, there will have been millions of lives negatively affected and many totally destroyed, while the same group of global “war apparatus providers” will rush in to “help the nations recover” from the bloodbath they mostly started and underwrote. This is one of the many effects that politics has always had and will continue to have until it is no longer present on this planet.

Politics, regardless of what it might have been when this nation actually had some ethics and morals in government (many, many years ago), has become merely a system whereby evil people do their evil and then hide behind the dark curtains of the legalese jargon and mumbo-jumbo their ‘attorneys’ spout that keeps challenges against  their evil tied up in courts for months, perhaps even years. The dark curtains are built into, and are an integral part of, the party structure and platforms, and the marketing of the candidates they run for office in either party. They were created solely for that purpose.

God LOVES justice and set it into the heart of our Founders to form a constitutional republic based on laws, on rights, with justice, providing liberty for all, but the politicians use of the nation’s “justice system”, even though legal (based strictly on man’s law), points to the foulness of those who use it in a way that would have our Founders doing flip-flops in their graves.

The underhanded strategies, machinations and deceitful stratagems that are so deeply imbedded in the foul practice of politics are not “one-sided”, meaning they are not used by only one political party. They are mostly the same for any and all political parties and they were designed to do one thing: win at any cost, no matter who might be harmed.

The Republicans love to tout their moral high ground, their conservativeness, you might say their ‘righteousness’, in their political processes, but they are no different from the Democrats, Independents or any other political party. All the political parties in the world exist to enrich themselves by engaging in illegal, immoral and unjust behavior, by controlling the money that is extracted from the citizens of the nations through unlawful taxation, as well as through the massive ‘private’ donations they receive from their controllers.

And just as a reminder, there are far more ‘hidden’ politicians, those who sit in the boardrooms and offices of multinational corporations and the major banks of the world, who use underhanded, devious political strategies and devices to achieve their goals, than there are those who sit in parliaments, congresses and other institutes of governance in the nations. These are the REAL politicians, the ones who, by their possession and use of their huge monetary holdings, have the REAL power and control over the nations.

When God starts the shaking, the fall of these politicians and their part of the whole system will be worldwide and earth-shaking in its magnitude.

The End of Politics

I will make a simple statement, which I personally believe to be true, and which is plainly supported by the Bible: “The earth, the skies, the sun, moon and stars were all created by God and all these plainly reveal the creator”.

I know there is a group of people who will refuse to ever believe that, preferring to accept the widely held view (among atheists) that some ‘big bang’ occurred some unknown hundreds of millions of years ago and eventually, somehow, produced everything we see. To their explanation  of our presence on this planet I say: Hogwash.”

God will always have the final say about everything that humans will ever believe, think, say or criticize. He has tolerated man’s increasing rebellion, disobedience and apostasy far longer that I would have believed possible. Even if man fails to recognize the eternal fact that God WILL have the final say, that failure to recognize it will NOT change it: God has the final say……period. In His perfect time, he will step in and make the decision to end, for all time, the corrupt and destructive international political system.

To reiterate the Bible’s statement regarding the six things that God hates, A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren”, I am, and long have been, highly expectant that a totally righteous God will NOT tolerate these continued “pillars of politics” much longer.

God is perfect in all His ways and those ways are much higher that any human ways. His timing is also perfect and, when HIS time is right, He will do as He has promised and He WILL shake the foundations of international politics and that corrupt system WILL cease to exist.

I do not question just HOW God  will ‘shake the things that can be shaken’; being God, He always does what is right and in the right way. We who study end-times Bible prophecy realize just how close we are to the end of the Church age, a time when major world-wide changes are going to take place. The arrival or the advent of the Antichrist will certainly have major impacts on all political systems that are currently governing nations. That event will most definitely be a part of God’s shaking.

He has set aside a seven year period, called the Tribulation Period, Daniel’s 70th week, and that period of time has several definite purposes. One is to judge the world and his plans for judgement are already set. That seven years will be a time of GREAT shaking on the entire earth and its inhabitants. Anything that cannot be redeemed out of the shaking, will be destroyed. Another definite purpose of that time is to deal with God’s chosen earthly people, the Jews. Their previous rejection of Jesus Christ as their Messiah has set them on a collision course with God and the majority of them will not survive that collision.

Also, as the Antichrist will represent the evil and unrighteousness of all the previous empires on earth, all of which were politically controlled, God will deal with that ugly, corrupt system with finality.

Nothing sinful or unrighteous will be allowed to continue into the 1000 year reign of Jesus Christ on the earth. As a popular rock star famously wrote, “Gonna be a whole lot of shaking going on”, and the result will NOT be pleasant for those who experience it.

Conclusion

For way too long, Satan has had his way with the human race, at least those who are not believers and do not allow Christ to govern their lives. Satan’s evil system of politics, a system that has NEVER produced any positive results on earth, has been used to gain control over individuals and nations and has been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions, if not billions of people, from the time of Adam right up to the present day.

God, who lives outside of time, established a pattern of time in the creation account detailed in Genesis 1-2. One day is the same as 1000 years to God. Based on the pattern established, God gave man a “six day lease” on this earth, six days, or 6,000 years to prove his ability to govern himself using the authority given to him by God. History readily proves that all efforts at self-government for the past nearly 6,000 years have been a complete failure.

God certainly knew that man’s efforts would fail, so why did He not just add a few years out of a sense of pity for man? Because God knew that, without Jesus Christ being in complete control, man would not be able to successfully govern himself even if he were given a million years, and therein is proven God’s mercy for man. He will stop the time clock on the exact day man’s lease is up and install the only man capable of governing the entirety of mankind: King Jesus, the Messiah, the Son of God.

Be watchful for the shaking that is even now starting. It may seem to start slowly, but when it reaches its crescendo, the entire system will collapse in a moment. I say, bravo! Let the shaking begin. The earth has been groaning for the arrival of God’s shaking for thousands of years and will, along with all mankind, rejoice to see that wonderful day!

Maranatha!

©2023 Bud Hancock. All rights reserved.

Watch as Elon Musk Explains the ‘Woke Mind Virus’ to Bill Maher

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk explained to HBO host Bill Maher Friday night why he believes the “woke mind virus” poses an existential threat to civilization, citing threats to merit and free speech.

“You have talked about this woke mind virus in really apocalyptic terms,” Maher said to Musk. “I don’t — you should explain why you don’t think it’s hyperbole to say things like it’s pushing civilization towards suicide. First of all, what is the woke mind virus?”

“I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech,” Musk responded. “So, those are two of the aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous, is that it’s often very anti-meritocratic, and you can’t question things. Even the questioning is bad.”

WATCH:

Maher asked Musk where the “woke mind virus” that Musk viewed with concern originated.

“I was trying to figure out where it’s coming from. I think it’s actually been a long time brewing, in that it’s — I think it’s been going on for a while, and the amount of indoctrination that’s happening in schools and universities is I think far beyond what parents realize,” Musk said.

Musk closed the deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion on Oct. 27, seeking to create a “common digital town square” on the site, according to the Wall Street Journal. Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon later claimed the suspension of the satirical site over a March 15 tweet linking to a satirical post calling Rachel Levine, a transgender woman who serves as assistant secretary for Health at the Department of Health and Human Services, “Man of the Year,” was one of the reasons Tesla CEO Elon Musk chose to buy the site.

The contents of school curricula became a hot-button political issue in 2021 as parents protested the use of critical race theory, which holds that America is fundamentally racist, and teaches people to view every social interaction and person in terms of race.

Parents across the country also raised objections to books with sexually explicit content in recent years, prompting some states to act to remove them from schools.

“I sort of came to realize this somewhat late, but the experience that we had in high school and college is not the experience that kids today are having, and hasn’t been for, I don’t know, ten years, maybe 20 years,” Musk said.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

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The 8 Ways The Government Rigged The Election and Shielded Joe Biden From The ‘Laptop From Hell’

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There is conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact. This election coup is a vast left-wing conspiracy fact.  The entire intelligence community made sure Joe Biden was installed. They decided the 2020 election.

8 Ways Government Shielded Joe Biden From The ‘Laptop From Hell’

By: Margot Cleveland, The Federalist, April 28, 2023

While team Biden lying about ‘Russian disinfo’ is dirty politics, government’s assistance in burying the scandal is election interference.

Biden and his backers lied to Americans that the Hunter Biden laptop was “Russian disinformation.” While that might merely qualify as dirty politics, our government’s assistance in burying the scandal constituted election interference.

Though we don’t yet know the extent of government involvement in the info ops, the evidence already indicates eight potential actions taken to protect Biden from what former President Donald Trump and others have since called the “laptop from hell” and hand him the White House.

1. Feds Seized Laptop, Shushed Mac Isaac

Americans might never have known of the extensive evidence of the Biden-family pay-to-play scandal contained on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop if John Paul Mac Isaac hadn’t copied the hard drive before handing it over to the FBI. Likewise, had Mac Isaac, who owned the Delaware repair shop where Hunter Biden had abandoned the computer, cowered to the alleged threat made by an FBI agent, the scandal would have been buried too.

According to Mac Isaac, in December 2019, two federal agents arrived at his Wilmington store to retrieve the laptop, following the issuance of a subpoena. Attempting to lighten the situation, Mac Isaac claims he quipped, “Hey, lads, I’ll remember to change your names when I write the book.”

Mac Isaac maintains that while one agent, Wilson, continued to walk toward the door, “Agent DeMeo paused and turned to face me.” Mac Isaac alleges the agent replied: “It is our experience that nothing ever happens to people that don’t talk about these things.”

In his later-penned book, “American Injustice: My Battle to Expose the Truth,” the computer repair store owner wrote that the incident left him wondering if he was “being paranoid or had what the agent just told me been a direct threat, or at best a thinly veiled one?”

The FBI’s seizure of the laptop represents the government’s first effort to quiet the Biden family pay-to-play scandal, with the alleged threat to Mac Isaac another early attempt by a government official to protect Joe Biden.

2. FBI Made Laptop Off Limits

Of course, had the FBI seized the laptop for investigative purposes, that would have been a different matter, but the evidence suggests that was not the reason agents removed the computer.

Consider the timing: The FBI was alerted to the existence of the laptop in October 2019, when they were reportedly told that, in addition to pornography, the computer contained information “dealing with foreign interests, a pay-for-play scheme linked to the former administration, [and] lots of foreign money.” The FBI, however, waited two months before obtaining a subpoena for the laptop.

Then, upon seizing the laptop, according to multiple whistleblowers, the “local FBI leadership told employees, ‘You will not look at that Hunter Biden laptop.’” The whistleblowers further alleged that “the FBI did not begin to examine the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop until after the 2020 presidential election — potentially a year after the FBI obtained the laptop in December 2019.”

These facts strongly suggest the FBI seized the laptop to protect then-candidate Joe Biden by keeping the contents secret.

3. FBI Presumably Gave Inaccurate Briefing

If, as the whistleblowers claim, the FBI did not review the laptop until after the 2020 presidential election, the government’s pre-election defensive briefings for Biden would have been inaccurate. It is even possible intelligence agencies falsely told Biden the laptop — or possibly the Post’s reporting on it — was Russian disinformation.

The FBI’s alleged failure to review the laptop until after the election would also have prevented the government from advising Biden about the video of Hunter telling a prostitute in 2018 that he believed a group of Russians had stolen another laptop from him. By failing to give Biden complete and accurate defensive briefings, the government gave the campaign “plausible deniability.” The FBI also eliminated the need for Biden to get ahead of the story by “coming clean” on any of the laptop’s scandalous details — something a politician not assisted by the government would do.

4. Government Sources Lied to Media

While the government’s first three assists to the Biden campaign occurred behind the scenes and were more subtle, FBI officials evidently intervened publicly after the New York Post broke its first story on Oct. 14, 2020.

First came the Oct. 15, 2020, “leak” to Russia-collusion hoaxer Ken Dilanian, who ran an “exclusive” at NBC, reporting that “federal investigators are examining whether emails allegedly describing activities by Joe Biden and his son Hunter and found on a laptop at a Delaware repair shop are linked to a foreign intelligence operation.” The next day, USA Today similarly reported the FBI’s supposed involvement in investigating whether a Russian influence operation was behind the disclosure of the Hunter Biden emails. On Oct. 17, 2020, USA Today reiterated that the “federal authorities” are investigating whether the laptop is “disinformation pushed by Russia.”

Leaking to help a political campaign is bad enough, but worse is that while unnamed government sources told select outlets the FBI was investigating the laptop as a potential “disinformation campaign,” the FBI was doing no such thing. It already knew the laptop was real and not hacked.

5. Other Leaks Pushed ‘Russia Disinfo’ Narrative

The government also helped the Biden campaign build the false Russian-disinformation narrative with other leaks. On Oct. 14, 2020 — the same day as the New York Post’s first Hunter Biden laptop story — the New York Times reported U.S. intelligence analysts “had picked up Russian chatter that stolen Burisma emails” would be released as an “October surprise.” “Burisma, of course, was the Ukrainian energy company that paid Hunter nearly $1 million to sit on its board during his father’s final year as vice president.”

According to the Times, “intelligence analysts” feared “the Burisma material would be leaked alongside forged materials in an attempt to hurt Mr. Biden’s candidacy.” The leak and this spin prepared the public to disregard the laptop, or to assume the more damaging documents were “forged.”

The Washington Post pushed similar leaks, with the outlet reporting on Oct. 15, “U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence.” This leak helped bolster the Biden campaign’s claim the laptop was Russian disinformation since Giuliani had provided the hard drive to the Post.

In fact, in responding to the media about the laptop scandal, Andrew Bates, then a Biden campaign spokesman and the director of his “rapid response” team, consistently spun the scandal as one about Giuliani’s supposed connection “to Russian intelligence.” These other government leaks gave the Biden campaign more cover.

6. Government Pressed Social Media to Censor

In addition to leaking false claims to the media, the government interfered in the 2020 election by priming Big Tech companies to censor the laptop story.

Americans first learned of this scandal last August when Facebook’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, told Joe Rogan, “The FBI basically came to us, some folks on our team, [saying,] ‘Hey just so you know, you should be on high alert.” According to Zuckerberg, the FBI told Facebook that “we thought there was a lot of Russian propaganda in the 2016 election,” and “we have it on notice that basically there’s about to be some kind of dump similar to that so just be vigilant.”

Zuckerberg said that, based on the FBI’s warning, Facebook treated the New York Post’s bombshell story as “potentially misinformation, important misinformation.” Then, while Facebook worked to determine the authenticity of the laptop, it “decreased its distribution of the story by making the story rank lower in the news feed.”

While Facebook merely decreased distribution of the explosive reporting, Twitter barred sharing of the story — and it was the government’s warnings of a “hack and leak” operation that prompted the censorship.

As Yoel Roth, Twitter’s then-head of trust and safety, explained in a letter to the Federal Election Commission, “since 2018 he had regular meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and industry peers regarding election security.” And “during these weekly meetings, the federal law enforcement agencies communicated that they expected ‘hack-and-leak operations’ by state actors might occur in the period shortly before the 2020 presidential election, likely in October.”

The government’s “prior warnings of a hack-and-leak operation and doubts about the provenance of the materials republished in the N.Y. Post articles,” Roth explained, led its Site Integrity Team to conclude “the materials could have been obtained through hacking,” and thereby block the sharing of the story.

The government’s repeated warnings led, at a minimum, Twitter and Facebook to censor the story. Yet after the story broke, when Facebook asked Laura Dehmlow, the FBI’s section chief for the Foreign Influence Tax Force, about status of the laptop, she refused to comment.

The FBI’s failure to correct the tech companies’ misapprehension that the laptop was either disinformation or part of a hack-and-leak operation contrasts with how the government handled other inquiries. For instance, when asked by Facebook to fact-check information for the platform, Brian Scully, an official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, “responded with an explanation of why the government believed that the report was misinformation violating Facebook’s terms of service.”

7. Potentially More Government Interference

It’s possible the FBI did more behind the scenes to prompt censorship of the laptop story, such as by feeding Twitter false leaks, as the government did with legacy media outlets.

Of particular concern is FBI Agent Elvis Chan’s Oct. 16, 2020, email directing two high-level Twitter executives to monitor their Teleporter messages for two important documents. The content of those documents, transmitted via the FBI’s secure Teleporter system, remains a mystery, but the timing is suspect.

Also disconcerting is the role Jim Baker had in pushing Twitter to censor the story. Baker, who was previously the FBI’s general counsel, worked at Twitter as a deputy general counsel during the relevant time. On the morning of Oct. 14, 2020, after the Post story broke, Baker pushed for Twitter to err on the side of caution by banning the coverage. That same day Baker arranged a phone conversation with Matthew Perry in the FBI’s Office of General Counsel.

Both Chan’s email to Twitter and Baker’s conversation with the FBI Office of General Counsel provided another opportunity for the FBI to interfere in the 2020 election by feeding Twitter fake intel. Of course, the communications could instead be unrelated to the laptop scandal and the timing merely coincidental.

Another potential for government interference came when the 51 former intelligence officials joined together to pen their public statement declaring the laptop story had all the hallmarks of a foreign disinformation campaign. While we now know the Biden campaign’s role in prompting that letter, it is unknown whether any current government officials assisted in the efforts.

8. ‘Twitter Files’ Show Potential Military Connection

Another potential connection between the government and the laptop info ops came from the latest “Twitter Files” released earlier this week. In Andrew Lowenthal’s “Twitter Files 20” thread, he revealed an email referencing the “2020 U.S. Elections Tabletop Exercise,” sent from an individual connected to Harvard Law School to two individuals connected to Harvard’s Intellectual Property in Cyberspace program, as well as a slew of individuals with military email accounts.

Significantly, CCed on the email were individuals from organizations that had participated in the Aspen Institute’s “Tabletop Exercise” that prophetically used a “hack-and-leak” “October Surprise” involving Hunter Biden to game the media’s supposedly “appropriate” response to the release of Biden communications. Thus, this email suggests a connection between the military and some of those who participated in Aspen’s exercise. The timing of the email is also striking: It is dated Oct. 20, 2020 — the day after the 51 former intelligence officials released their deceptive statement framing the laptop as Russian disinformation.

What role, if any, our military had in pushing the hoax remains to be seen. But what is already abundantly clear is that our government helped peddle the Democrats’ info ops on the American public.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DUMPING THE DOLLAR: Argentina Abandons U.S. Dollar. Will Pay for China Imports in Yuan

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No media coverage. The biggest stories of the day are censored from the American public, leading sheep to slaughter. The dollar as the main world currency is a pillar of our strength and power. More countries are mulling a similar move.

Another defeat for the Biden Administration by China. Little to no coverage on this story from the mainstream media, who continue to supress information about the Biden Administration’s incompetence. A vote for the Biden Administration in 2024 is a vote for China to rule the world, and to downgrade the United States into a second rate power like Britain & France.

Argentina Shuns U.S. Dollar: Will Pay for China Imports in Yuan

By SIMON KENT •

Argentina struck a deal with Beijing on Wednesday to stop using U.S. dollars to pay for Chinese imports and embrace the yuan instead.

The measure, driven by Argentina’s leftist President Alberto Fernández, is designed to relieve the South American country’s dwindling dollar reserves, AP reports.

The deal further enhances China’s rise on the world stage and the diminished role of the U.S. on a host of fronts under President Joe Biden.

After reaching the agreement with various companies, Argentina will use the yuan for imports from China worth about U.S.$1.04 billion from next month, accelerating trade with China as Beijing seeks to gain a further foothold in South America.

In November last year Argentina expanded a currency swap with China by $5 billion in an effort to increase its yuan reserves.

Read more.

Iraq To Drop Dollar In Trade With China

By ZeroHedge, February 23, 2023:

  • Iraq’s central bank is set to allow trade with China to be settled in yuan.
  • Iraqi imports from China have previously been financed in U.S. dollars.
  • Last year, US regulators began enforcing controls on transactions by Iraqi commercial banks which caused a dollar shortage in Iraq.

The Iraqi central bank announced Wednesday that, for the first time, it plans to allow trade from China to be settled directly in yuan instead of the US dollar to improve access to foreign currency.

“It is the first time imports would be financed from China in yuan, as Iraqi imports from China have been financed in (US) dollars only,” the government’s economic adviser, Mudhir Salih, told Reuters.

According to a statement released by the Iraqi central bank, carrying out transactions in the Chinese currency would boost the balances of Iraqi banks with accounts with Chinese banks. However, this option depends on the size of the central bank’s yuan reserves.

A second option to boost local banks’ yuan balances would involve converting US dollars held in the central bank’s accounts with JP Morgan and the Development Bank of Singapore (DBS) to yuan before paying the final beneficiary in China……

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

GDP Shows Economy Slowing in First Quarter of 2023

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Economic momentum is slowing, amid higher interest rates and a banking crisis, new gross domestic product report shows. The U.S. economy wobbled in the first months of 2023. But no worries, the Democrat media axis will cheer on these Biden ‘successes.’

There is very little growth in the Biden Administration’s putrid economy. The American economy grew at 1.1 percent in Q1 of 2023. By contrast, Communist China’s economy grew by 4 percent in the same period.

GDP growth shows slowing economy in the first quarter of 2023

By Fox News, April 28, 2023

Gross domestic product (GDP) increased in the first quarter of 2023, beating the odds of a recession yet again, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

Real GDP increased at an annual rate of 1.1% in the first three months of this year, after rising 2.6% in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to the BEA’s advance estimate released on Thursday.

The increase in real GDP was driven by consumer spending, exports, federal government spending, state and local government spending, and nonresidential fixed investment, the BEA reported. Growth in the first quarter was offset by a slowdown in new single-family home construction and private inventory investment, the BEA said.

Read more.

AUTHOR

Geller Report Staff

RELATED ARTICLE: DUMPING THE DOLLAR: Argentina Abandons U.S. Dollar: Will Pay for China Imports in Yuan

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.