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The Snake Oil of Social Distancing, Face Masks and Contact Tracing

May 25, 2020/in Culture War, Elections, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Science, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Kelleigh Nelson

“The propaganda of communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are simply hunger, envy, death.” – Heinrich Heine, German poet

“Scientists do not collect data randomly and utterly comprehensively. The data they collect are only those that they consider *relevant* to some hypothesis or theory.” – J. David Lewis-Williams, South African archaeologist

“In dealing with the Communists, remember that in their mind what is secret is serious, and what is public is merely propaganda.” – Charles E. Bohlen, U.S. Diplomat

“Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Our entire nation has been shut down by hysteria and fear. If you think this is all about your health you’re mistaken. It’s all about getting a Democrat back in the White House.

Americans have complied, with wearing masks, social distancing and sheltering at home. Our country is destroyed and our debt is impossible to repay. Christian churches were not allowed to open, (like China). People are arrested for not wearing masks, staying 6 feet apart, or opening their businesses in a still locked down state. That’s not freedom! That is communism!

In North Carolina a federal judge said unequivocally that, “There is no pandemic exception to the Constitution of the United States or the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.” Yet throughout the country, we are seeing fascist tactics instituted by those in power.

The only way we get rid of this virus is with immunity. Only those with compromised immune systems or the elderly should have been sheltered, the rest of the economy, businesses, schools, restaurants, etc. should have remained open. The media won’t report that 98 percent of those who contract this Chinese bioweapon disease recover, and that cheap drugs are available to Americans who get Covid-19.

Remember, those selling the panic are the same ones selling the vaccine. Bill Gates, Fauci, Birx and other New World Order globalists all have interests in promoting a vaccine and drugs that will increase their billions and to hell with saving American lives. Senator Rand Paul rightfully claims Fauci’s policies have emasculated the medical care system and ruined the economy.

Dr. Paul is right. Fauci and his globalist friends promoted “national suicide” hoping to bring America down to the level of other third world countries.

Anthony Fauci was photographed with a coterie of globalist elites in 2001 at the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy event. The unassuming government bureaucrat was present alongside such titans of globalism as Ted Turner, David Rockefeller, George Soros, and Bill Gates Sr. Records reveal that Gates Sr. was a board member of Planned Parenthood prior to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, and Bill Gates himself said in a video clip that his father was the “head of Planned Parenthood.”

How easily we have snowballed into a full-fledged Marxist/fascist nation, with political dictators releasing criminals from prison and imprisoning those who refuse lockdown orders.

Resistance to Tyranny

A Mississippi church fighting the lockdown order was burned to the ground and a disturbing message was left in the parking lot that made mention of the congregation’s fight to worship freely as the church fought a government-imposed stay-at-home order. “Bet you stay home now you hypokrits,” the painted message said.

It is reported that at least 60 sheriffs in more than twelve states are publicly opposing unconstitutional orders issued by governors. That’s not enough, but most Americans are indoctrinated mental cripples who can’t think for themselves.

Of course, you will not see any feature stories about the “resistance” in America. To the contrary, major media and local governments are lambasting all such actions as ludicrous, short-sighted, selfish and harmful…….bah humbug! What the global governance crowd has accomplished in just a few short weeks is astounding. And too many fell for it.

Truth and Lies

In an important article by Dr. David Williams, he discusses the truth and lies about Covid-19. Although there is a central author, it is being written on behalf of multiple physicians in West Alabama and will be distributed through multiple medical offices. It should be read by every American.

LIES: Covid-19 is more dangerous than influenza. Yearly flus globally kill far more than Covid-19. We have slightly over 2 million confirmed Covid-19 cases globally. By comparison, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (Google Influenza Update-NCBI), influenza is responsible for up to a billion infections annually. Flu season is basically from the start of October until April. At the flu’s three-and-a-half-month mark, that works out to 583 million cases globally. Even accounting for the fact COVID-19 is underreported that is a huge difference.

The fact one doesn’t know they have it makes Covid-19 more dangerous. Influenza and other viruses also are infectious while asymptomatic.

We don’t know much about Covid-19. We vaccinate domestic animals from coronaviruses and there are four types of colds that are coronaviruses and sometimes they are deadly as with SARS and MERS.

Truth: The Chinese bioweapon, Covid-19, is an actual medical disease that will lead to tragic deaths. Respiratory failure is a terrible way to die. That is true if that death is due to asthma, COPD, pneumonia, influenza, and more. And it’s true that the virus is more dangerous to the elderly and immunocompromised, but everything is more dangerous to these individuals.

It is now almost impossible for anyone in the general public or general medical community to know the actual number of deaths from Covid-19. Numbers have been purposely inflated.

The media as a whole has grossly misrepresented this disease and used fear to hype the hysteria. This amounts to psychological warfare. Media will continue to fight reopening this country by stating “experts” predict a spike in deaths if we do so.

This is not a medical crisis, but a political crisis. Covid-19 has been treated as a world-ender and it’s not remotely close. The current policies instituted by our local, state, and national governments are causing greater health problems than the virus ever will. And that’s the key…the destruction of our economy is only part of it…totalitarian control and vanquishing our God-given civil liberties is the ultimate aim. (h/t Lucy)

Social Distancing

There’s a reason that “social distancing” wasn’t a buzzword common to the American lexicon prior to 2020. There’s very little science behind “social distancing” at all. Sadly only a few Americans had a gut feeling they were being manipulated.

Where in science does it say that keeping a distance of six-foot space between healthy people, even outdoors is based on scientific fact? It is an arbitrary suggestion and we all hopped to it and did as our totalitarian leaders told us to do. Stores have markings where you stand…we have been conditioned to accept without evidence. Some grocery aisles even have arrows that you can only enter one way, so you wouldn’t get close to anyone passing in the other direction! Yes, we’re programmed sheep.

“It turns out,” Julie Kelly writes at American Greatness, “as I wrote last month, “social distancing” is untested pseudoscience particularly as it relates to halting the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. On its website, the CDC provides no links to any peer-reviewed social distancing studies that bolster its official guidance.”

There’s a reason for the lack of peer-reviewed studies on the CDC website. She continues, “The alarming reality is that social distancing never has been tested on a massive scale in the modern age; its current formula was conceived during George W. Bush’s administration and met with much-deserved skepticism.”

“People could not believe that the strategy would be effective or even feasible,” one scientist told the New York Times last month. A high school science project—no, I am not joking—added more weight to the concept.

“Social distancing” is very much a newfangled experiment, not settled science. And, Kelly writes, the results are suggesting that our “Great Social Distancing Experiment of 2020” will be “near the top of the list” of “bad experiments gone horribly wrong.” The history of science, sadly, is littered with bad experiments gone horribly wrong.

There will be plenty of soul searching after this crisis abates: demanding to know the scientific rationale for keeping us six feet apart when people needed each other most should be at the top of the list.

Face Masks, False Sense of Security?

If you are elderly, ill, or have a compromised immune system you might just want to shelter at home until there is immunity throughout America, just as you would do in flu season.

For others wearing masks, they represent indoctrination and subjugation. It is also the very elimination of your personhood, or individuality. The masked faces are making everyone into dehumanized objects…and afraid of everyone else. You’ve succumbed to control or as Dennis Prager states, “a dress rehearsal for a police state in the name of global warming.”

The lunatic CDC, which Dr. Birx says she doesn’t trust, is telling us that when schools open, every teacher must wear a mask. Forcing people to breathe their own CO2 is deleterious. Even the frauds in the WH press corps dump their masks when the cameras stop running. Sweden believes masks offer a false sense of security.

Dr. Russell Blaylock warns that not only do face masks fail to protect the healthy from getting sick, but they also create serious health risks to the wearer. The bottom line is that if you are not sick, you should not wear a face mask.

We believed that this pandemic (media and government’s name for Covid-19) would act like other respiratory viruses in terms of its spread among communities. After months of studying the virus and how it behaves, Dr. Blaylock tells us there is little to change this perception.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams has doubled down on his advice against healthy people wearing face masks to protect themselves from coronavirus, saying that wearing one improperly can “actually increase your risk” of getting the disease. But pressure from above told him to change his story. The false narrative is sickening. Betsy McCaughey says our homemade masks aren’t doing squat.

Choose your poison, wear a mask or not. For me and mine, we breathe fresh air.

Contact Tracing

Most folks have seen H.R.6666, a perfect number for this despotic pile of dung. It was introduced by Bobby L. Rush (D-Il) on May 1^st, 2020. (Years back, Rush formed the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party.) His bill calls for $100 billion in funding for 2020, and hiring thousands of government employees as the new “brown shirts.”

Alex Newman’s latest article in the New American regarding Contact Tracing states, “Under the guise of fighting the coronavirus, governments across the United States and beyond are partnering with shady organizations connected to the Clintons and George Soros (Chelsea Clinton sits on the board of Partners in Health) to deploy Orwellian “contact tracing” schemes involving technology and tens of thousands of new government workers to track everyone. Families may be forcibly separated. And military forces and war-like rhetoric are already being used as the effort to shred all vestiges of privacy advances. At least one world leader even suggested putting microchips under children’s skin to track them.”

Titled TRACE, “Testing, Reaching, And Contacting Everyone,” it officially embeds the snitch culture. The bill states that the Secretary of Health and Human Services “may award grants to eligible entities to conduct diagnostic testing for Covid–19, to trace and monitor the contacts of infected individuals, and to support the quarantine of such contacts.” The bill goes on to explain that this will be accomplished by mobile health units and “testing individuals and providing individuals with services related to testing and quarantine at their residences.”

H.R.6666 would give government the authority, if a government official suspects that you have been exposed to Covid-19, to place you under house arrest or remove you from your home and place you in indefinite quarantine.

House Bill H.R.6666 and the corresponding Senate Bill S.3624 must be stopped.

The authoritarian police state is already here. Gov. Abbott of Texas has said he wants a total of 4,000 tracers for his state. Washington Governor Jay Inslee indicated that people who refuse to cooperate with contact tracers or refuse coronavirus testing won’t be allowed to leave their homes even to go to the grocery store or pharmacy. My so-called Christian conservative Governor Bill Lee is onboard with this insanity and believes he needs to hire 2,000 tracers.

What is your governor doing?

Conclusion

Keeping the economy open would have brought us total immunity throughout the country by now and the virus would be gone. America is paying heavily, but most politicians don’t care, and they’re now obfuscating the much higher collateral deaths and damage caused by the false narrative of the World Health Organization (WHO). Dying because of delayed surgeries, suicide because of loss, overwhelmed 911 calls because of domestic abuse, businesses going out-of-business and jobs that will never come back…we’re not “better safe than sorry.” We’re sorry!

The lockdown was radically ineffective and destructive, and it doubled the deaths of Americans. We must open everything up again and go back to normal, and not a “new normal.” Unfortunately, almost half of the shutdown-induced layoffs will be permanent.

This virus was not only planned and executed to destroy Trump’s economy, but there were ancillary plusses to destroying America and her elderly. Those elderly knew real freedom, unlike today’s youth whose education has been dumbed down since the 1880s.

Behind the mask of America’s freedom lie millions of Marxist/Leninist politicians. We’ve been sold the “snake oil” by WHO’s globalist comrades Fauci, Birx and Redfield, appointed by Coronavirus Task Force Chair, VP Mike Pence.

Economic Lockdowns Kill People–Yes Literally

May 25, 2020/in Culture War, Economy, Featured, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

It’s important to understand that the trade-off isn’t just the economy vs. lives. It’s also lives vs. lives.

A recent Bloomberg article discussed the opposing arguments in the debate over COVID-19 lockdowns. The article described the epidemiological way of thinking versus the economic way of thinking. In the simplest terms, epidemiologists think in terms of reducing the spread of disease, while economists think in terms of balancing trade-offs.

While expert epidemiologists are much needed during a pandemic, if we fail to think as economists, we may find ourselves with policies that cause more pain and deaths than necessary. It is also important to understand regarding the present crisis that economists do not only deal with trade-offs between lives and economy as the Bloomberg article asserts. But rather, we also deal with lives versus lives—both without lockdowns and with them. That is, COVID-19 causes deaths, but so do lockdowns, although it is somewhat more difficult to see them in the latter case.

These casualities will be more visible if we view the lockdowns through the lens of economics.

Economists have long understood the “it takes a village” concept in a radical sense. A global division of labor and many of us specializing in incredibly niche lines of work make it possible for 7.6 billion people to survive at once. A great real-world demonstration of this comes from a TED Talk in which a young man describes how he bought the cheapest electric bread toaster he could find (costing under four British pounds) to reverse engineer it in order to make a toaster of his own from scratch. Once he disassembled it, he found that it had about 400 parts (wires, springs, screws, plastic casing, among many others) from manufacturers all over the world.

Making a simple toaster from scratch, he learned, is much more difficult than he had imagined. But he kept trying, finding that he had to go into mines to extract his own iron, copper and mica, convert the iron ore into steel, make his own plastic casing from potato starch (as he had no oil to begin with), and so on. After a number of months of trying to make his electronic toaster, the final product turned out to be completely unworkable—not to mention, an aesthetic disaster.

But let us step back to review the “unseen.” The manufacturers of those 400 or so electronic parts in the store-bought toaster could not possibly know all of the final goods in which their electronic parts were ultimately used. They had buyers of their products, who distributed and exported the products, who sold to industrial supply companies in various markets, who sold to other manufacturers, who often exported further, and so on. That is, from manufacturer to consumer, products exchanged many hands—forming a “globe-spanning web of interconnectedness” and made possible through the price mechanism. As F.A. Hayek once put it:

[We] are all working for people whom we do not know and are being supported by the work of people we do not know… Profit is the signal which tells us what we must do in order to serve people whom we do not know.

Now we must elaborate on the previous point made about dealing with the loss of real flesh-and-blood human lives—not only in the absence of lockdowns but also because of them.

It is not only that people need money as the fruit of their labor in order to buy food for survival (which is true). It is also not only that the highly destructive inflationary and high-debt policies embraced by governments around the world in response to COVID mean that we will all suffer a great deal financially, which has a downward push on human life expectancy (as people living in more affluent nations live longer), and an upward push on infant mortality rates (as less affluent nations have higher infant mortality rates). It is also not only that there will be additional deaths caused by depression from job loss, suicides, substance abuse, and the like (so-called “deaths of despair”).

It is that we as contributors of labor, capital and ideas cannot possibly know the extent to which our individual contributions plug into that intricate and delicate “web of interconnectedness” and the ramifications of our forced removal of those contributions through government-imposed lockdowns.

Remember those electronic parts that go into toasters? Medical equipment needs many of these same parts. But as the manufacturers of these parts around the world are not able to know all the ways in which their products are ultimately used in final goods, they would hardly be in a position to lobby their respective governments to allow them to continue production as approved “essential” businesses during lockdowns. As a result, we see increased scarcity of medical equipment, which is particularly counterproductive for the current pandemic.

To be clear, the economic way of thinking does not lead us to dogmatically disfavor lockdowns simply because we find them inconvenient. What economic thinking does is moves us beyond merely thinking in terms of the immediate consequences to also considering the long-term consequences. It moves our attention beyond merely what is easily seen and reported by heads of state each night on television (number of COVID-related cases and deaths during a lockdown) and has us also consider what is unseen: including deaths caused by lockdowns. We cannot possibly support the lives of 7.6 billion humans on earth if we are not allowed to produce. It takes a global village to make it all work—not the “intelligent design” of mere mortals in the halls of power.

COLUMN BY:

Emile Phaneuf

Emile holds a Master’s degree in Economics from Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala, an MA in Political Science and BA in International Relations from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. He is from the USA but resides in New Zealand and is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society.

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Big-City Schools: Where America’s Most Vulnerable Kids Languish

May 25, 2020/in Culture War, Education, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by John Eidson

Democrats and Republicans alike say they’re fully committed to seeing that every child receives a quality education. Bipartisan agreement notwithstanding, school children in urban America have gotten the short end of the learning stick for a long, long time. How can anyone defend the following statistics?

In 2010-2011, public schools in the nation’s capitol spent$29,345 per pupil — nearly $600,000 per each classroom of 20 students — yet the District’s 8^th graders finished dead last in a nationwide proficiency test in math and reading.
According to a 2015 report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 96 percent of 8th graders in Detroit’s public schools tested not proficient in math, and 93 percent tested not proficient in reading.
According to a 2017 investigation by Project Baltimore, 13 of the city’s 39 public high schools had zero students who tested proficient in math. Zero! Of the 3,841 students in the remaining 26 high schools, only 14 tested at or above proficiency in math, less than one-third of one percent.

For a half-century running, Democrat-run urban schools have robbed minority children of a realistic chance for a decent education. In addition to earning an F-minus in their assigned duty to adequately educate students under their care, the three school districts named above have something else in common: they all are run by highly-paid Democrat administrators whose foremost priority is catering to the demands of teachers unions, one of the Democratic Party’s most loyal constituencies.

In school systems with teachers unions exist, Democrats look the other way as the interests of teachers take precedence over the interests of children. And no wonder. The overwhelming share of union dues paid by teachers is money-laundered straight through to the coffers of the Democratic Party. According to a Brookings Institution study, nearly 99% of teachers union political donations in 2012 went to Democrats. In 2016, teachers unions gave $43 million to Democrats, $260,000 to Republicans.

Teachers First, Children Second

Once sub-standard teachers have tenure, a Herculean effort is required to get rid of them. The teachers-first, children-second pecking order in the school systems cited below exists in virtually every urban school district in America, where a king’s ransom of precious educational funding is frittered away to protect bad teachers.

New York City public schools operate 16 reassignment centers, also known as “rubber rooms.” Rubber rooms are off-campus facilities where teachers accused of incompetence or gross misconduct are warehoused, as their glacial, union-mandated appeals process drones on, often for years. While receiving full pay and benefits, teachers in rubber room limbo spend each six-hour day napping, reading magazines, playing cards or other leisure activities. Despite constant complaints that it would do a better job of educating minority children if only it’s given more money, the city’s bloated and incompetent public school system squanders $150 million a year paying hundreds of unionized teachers to do little more than kill time while waiting to find out if they’ll be fired. Wasting $150 million would be one thing if the city’s public schools did even a minimally acceptable job of educating disadvantaged minority children, but New York City has some of the sorriest public schools in America.
Getting rid of bad teachers is so difficult in Democrat-run school districts that Milwaukee’s public schoolscameup with a mitigation plan called The Dance of the Lemons. Because teachers union contracts protect all teachers, including those deemed unfit to teach, school principals in Milwaukee found it virtually impossible to fire bad teachers. To cope with the problem, principals hold a meeting at the end of the school year, where one principal swaps his or her worst teachers in exchange for another principal’s worst teachers, with both principals hoping the lemons they get won’t be as bad as the lemons they swapped. How are the interests of students served when unfit teachers are shuffled around from one school to another in an endless game of musical chairs where every bad teacher gets a seat?
New York City and Milwaukee aren’t the only places where unionized, Democrat-run schools fail miserably at adequately educating minority children. A 2010 investigation by L.A. Weekly found that the Los Angeles Unified School District spent$3.5 million trying to fire seven teachers for poor classroom performance. Only four of the seven were eventually fired at the end of their union-mandated appeals process, which dragged on for an average of five years at an average cost of $875,000 per fired teacher. Despite blowing through enormous sums of education funding, Los Angeles public schools graduated just 44% of its high school students in 2006, making it one of the worst-performing school districts in America. Graduation rates in Los Angeles have since improved, but only after the Democrat-controlled California Department of Education changed its formula for determining graduation requirements.

Inexcusably sorry public schools in Democrat-run cities are nothing new. They’ve existed continually for the last half-century, with millions of minority students left unprepared to succeed in later life.

The High Cost (to Students) of Bad Teachers

Just as it’s true that good teachers can have an extraordinarily positive impact on the future lives of their students, it’s also true that bad teachers can cause lasting harm to the futures of their students.

According to a study cited by Eric A. Hanushek, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, “a high-value-added teacher in grades 4-8 has a noticeable impact on subsequent long-term outcomes, including college attendance, earnings and family creation.” How can young adults who were stuck with sub-standard teachers in the public schools they attended possibly do well in later life? To be fair, socio-economics also plays a role in poor outcomes, but which party is responsible for the welfare-for-votes policies that inevitably lead to broken homes, generational poverty and chronic despair?

School Choice to the Rescue

How can our society help urban students get out of rotten public schools, and into the same kind of safe, high-performing private academies attended by children of affluent families? The surest way is through federally-funded school choice vouchers.

Unfortunately, the mutually back-scratching alliance between Democrats and teachers unions blocks school choice at every turn. In doing so, their unholy confederation wreaks unmitigated havoc on inner city communities by robbing generations of urban children of a realistic shot at a decent education.

Although Democrats and teachers unions know better, they say private schools aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Anyone who thinks that should ask the two brothers in the video below. Their story should be the story of every disadvantaged child in America.

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Decoration Day, A Day of Remembrance

May 25, 2020/in Commentary, National Security, Policy, Politics/by Kelleigh Nelson

“The soldier above all others prays for peace, for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” – Douglas MacArthur

“Americans never quit.” – Douglas MacArthur

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.” – Douglas MacArthur

There are only two holidays a year that bring me to tears. The first is Decoration Day (now Memorial Day) and the second is Independence Day, July 4th. In 2011, I wrote an article entitled Real Americans. I told of the loss and heartbreak I felt when I saw the flags waving and heard the firecrackers. The loss of what we once had and what we have become was overwhelming. I regained hope with the election of President Donald J. Trump, but I still fear for my nation because so many who wish to destroy our freedoms are now political leaders.

Commemoration to Soldiers

Decoration Day started with a commemoration to the fallen Union soldiers of the Civil War. In the South, southern ladies’ groups commemorated the fallen soldiers on different days than the holiday of the north. However, by the 20th century, all American soldiers who had fallen in war were remembered on the last Monday in May, originally May 30th.

Decoration Day meant placing flowers on the graves of the fallen, but soon became a memorial for all family members who had passed. Those who know the real meaning of the holiday visit the cemeteries not only to decorate the graves of fallen American soldiers, those who served our country, but also to remember our deceased ancestors.

Decoration Day was officially changed to Memorial Day by Federal law in 1967. On June 28, 1968, the Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved four holidays, including Memorial Day, from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30th date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.

This has no doubt changed the tenor of the Remembrance Day into one of a spring-into-summer three-day weekend holiday, which has caused the solemn honor of the original commemoration to be lost. Japanese Nisei, Daniel Inouye, Hawaii’s former Senator, and a WWII veteran had tried every year to return the holiday to May 30th.

The three day holiday of commemoration has become one of barbeques, picnics, baseball and swimming. It is no longer a day of solemn remembrance of our nation’s loss. When I think of all those who have served, I remember those in my own dear family.

Old Glory

The Memorial Day flag is to be raised briskly to the top of the pole at dawn and then lowered to half-mast until noon. This is done in remembrance. At noon, the flag is again raised to the top of the pole for the remainder of the day.

My maternal grandfather served in the Army as a cook in WWI. His two sons, my mother’s older and younger brothers both served in WWII in Europe and in Germany respectively. I remember my uncle Bob telling me about how he hitchhiked across Czechoslovakia to see his cousin, Norm, who was also in the Army. Uncle Bob was a medic and he would never talk about his service in WWII.

My paternal grandfather graduated from the Presidio (officer’s training) in 1917 with the Army Cavalry. I still have the humorously written program for his graduation dinner. His degrees were in international law and French. He married my grandmother that same year and went off to war. His older brother, James, was also a soldier in WWI. In a nine-page typewritten letter my great-grandfather, who was a Baptist preacher and physician, wrote to the church he founded in Bozeman, Montana, he mentioned how his wife worried and prayed for her two sons in France. Here is a photo of my grandfather on his beloved horse, O’Hara.

My grandfather remained in the military for many years. I obtained his military records through my former congressman. He was retired prior to WWII, but after Pearl Harbor and at the age of 50, he re-enlisted. He was in charge of a German prisoner-of-war camp for a year or so. The photos of this camp and the inmates look as though it was a great holiday for the Germans. These original photos were at my friend, Harry Mazal’s Holocaust Library in San Antonio, Texas, but after Harry’s death, the University of Colorado Jewish Studies bought the library. At the close of WWII, my grandfather, Colonel George Byron Morse, was in charge of the MPs at Nuremburg. His Army Cavalry uniform and his boots are also in Colorado along with documents and photos. Here is a photo of my dear friend Harry in his beloved library. My library is filled with books that Harry sent me that no one else could get.

A number of years back, probably 10 years ago, I got a call from an elderly woman in California. I had written something about my grandpa moving to CA. She said when she was a young girl, she was one of the equestrians in the Rose Bowl parades, and it was my grandfather who taught all of them how to ride in that parade. She told me they all loved him.

The Nisei

After the war, my paternal grandparents were very concerned about the second-generation Japanese Americans who fought on our side during WWII, the Nisei. My grandmother, Stella Dolan Morse, was the inspiration for a veteran’s hall for them and the Nisei Veterans’ Memorial Hall was born. My grandfather brought it to fruition and his picture still hangs prominently in their veteran organization.

The 100th/442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of approximately 14,000 Japanese American soldiers, became the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in American history. Among their many awards, they earned eight Presidential Citations, over 9,000 Purple Hearts, and 21 Medals of Honor.

The 100th/442nd fought many battles. One of the most historic was the Rescue of the Lost Battalion in October 1944, when the unit led a heroic drive through German lines in the Vosges Mountains to rescue 211 surviving soldiers of the 36th Texas Division. For this the governor of Texas named the Nisei soldiers “Honorary Texans.”

In 1945, the courageous actions of the 100th/442nd were critical in breaking the German Gothic Line. They fought the Germans through intense combat and liberated towns such as Bruyeres, Biffontaine, and Belvedere. They also helped free Holocaust victims from Dachau concentration camp.

Approximately 6,000 Japanese Americans served in the Pacific Theater in the Military Intelligence Service (MIS) of the US Army. These soldiers utilized their knowledge of the Japanese language and culture to defeat the Japanese military in the Pacific. General Douglas MacArthur’s intelligence chief, Major General Charles A. Willoughby, estimated that these contributions shortened the war by at least two years and saved countless lives in the process. For this, the MIS was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation.

When my retired, aging, California grandparents needed assistance, the Japanese were there to help them in every way. At their funeral masses, the priests were both Japanese. The eulogies from these brave Nisei are simply beautiful and showed what great love these Japanese American war heroes had for my paternal grandparents.

The Presidio Today

The Presidio today is nothing like what my grandfather would envision. Congress voted in 1989 to end the Presidio’s status as an active military installation and on October 1, 1994, it was transferred to the National Park Service, ending 219 years of military use and beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use. Sadly, that use is now part and parcel of the UN Agenda 2030 program of destroying national sovereignty and our liberties. In 1996, the United States Congress created the Presidio Trust to oversee and manage the interior 80% of the park’s lands, with the National Park Service managing the coastal 20%.

In 1993, the Gorbachev Foundation USA was invited to sink roots at the Presidio as part of the post’s conversion from the headquarters of the 6th U.S. Army to a national park.

From the website, Mikhail Gorbachev, Creatively Marketing Global Communism, comes this statement regarding Gorbachev’s State of the World Forum, “Former Soviet Communist Party boss Mikhail Gorbachev, founder of the State of the World Forum six years ago, used a $5,000 per person gathering of the world’s political and business elite to plea for the United Nations to adopt a Soviet-style “central authority” to manage the world’s business and environmental concerns.”

And this,

“The collapse of the Soviet Union as presented in the western media was a fraud. The Soviet Union didn’t collapse and communism didn’t die. They just reorganized, and we see it today in our American Congress. This is Gorby’s goal for the United States…and that’s what the UN program of regionalization is about. The movement is to dissolve the United States as a nation and then to break it up into areas of regional governance under an unelected continental government similar to the European Union.”

If my grandparents on both sides, who fought in WWI and WWII for American freedoms knew of Gorbachev’s group in the Presidio, they would roll over in their graves. They would never have believed it would happen, nor would they ever have believed we’d be fighting undeclared wars and passing unconstitutional laws. Think about Obamacare, The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Homeland Security, Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Patriot Act, to name just a few of the hundreds of thousands of illegal and unconstitutional laws, acts, and executive orders. My mother would never have believed it, much less my grandparents. In fact, my grandparents never even heard of a “Trillion-dollar debt,” which is now as high as $30 trillion.

Undeclared Wars

To say it more succinctly, here is a letter my dear friend Ruth wrote in comment of the article, The Price of Freedom, “This Memorial Day, I mourn the lives of the tens of thousands of our troops, who are maimed and disfigured. I mourn the lives of the troops still stuck in the hell holes of Afghanistan and Iraq and those engaged all around the world in illegal interventions and wars of aggression, greed and empire building. I grieve for the returning veterans, whose minds are so broken, upon contemplating the horrors they have witnessed and the true nature of these wars, they are committing suicide in shocking numbers. Those who gave all, may be the lucky ones.

Unfortunately, these brave young men and women are not fighting for our freedom; they know it, and you know it. They are fighting to stay alive. They are mere pawns of the Military Industrial Complex. We need to follow what President Trump said, and bring all of them home now.”

This is what President Trump said he wanted to do, and it is why when he said the troops in Syria were to come home, General Mattis signed the order, but then resigned from the Trump administration. We have an enemy on our soil, and we are not fighting that enemy.

We need those soldiers not just on our southern border, but we need them educated by men like General Michael T. Flynn who knows how we can win the global war against radical Islam and its allies. Former FBI Agent, John Guandolo of Understanding the Threat is an amazing resource who can help us save our country from infiltration and destruction.

Conclusion

I grieve for my nation, for her soul, and for her people who are too busy watching Dancing with the Stars and American Idol to see what has happened to our beloved country and who daily fail to fight to keep the freedoms our founders gave us.

I grieve because we’ve thrown God out of every facet of American society. I grieve because we think nothing of murdering 64 million babies in their mothers’ wombs. I grieve because I see the losses. I grieve because I know too much, and I grieve because so few are fighting to save her…our once great America and her God-given freedoms. I grieve, I mourn, and I weep and I’m still fighting to save her. Unless more Americans stand up for truth, righteousness, liberty and freedom, I’m afraid all is lost. Dear God in heaven, I grieve, and I keep working and praying. With the Chinese flu virus, we are seeing what the communists within our country desire for her future.

This Decoration Day, remember all those who gave everything, remember those who came home hurt both physically and mentally, remember all our veterans, and help them, not just with prayers, but with funds that care for these men and women who have served our country willingly. There are countless wonderful organizations that help our soldiers…give to them, and in so doing, you give to those who need it the most.

VIDEO: Election Judge Pleads Guilty to Ballot Stuffing for Democrats

May 25, 2020/in Courts & Law, Elections, Must Read, News, Politics, Regulation, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

A former elected official in Philadelphia who accepted large payments from a political consultant to stuff ballot boxes for Democratic judicial candidates has pleaded guilty as part of a continuing federal investigation.

The Justice Department announced Thursday that Domenick J. DeMuro, 73, who was an election judge in South Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deprive city voters of their civil rights by fraudulently stuffing ballot boxes in the 2014, 2015, and 2016 primary elections.

DeMuro, a judge for the 39th Ward, 36th Division, also pleaded guilty to violating the Travel Act, which forbids use of any facility in interstate commerce—in this case, cellphones—with the intent to promote certain illegal activity—in this case, bribery.

The Justice Department said the case is part of an ongoing investigation by the FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

The judge of elections is an elective office and a paid position in Pennsylvania municipalities responsible for supervising the local election process.

“DeMuro fraudulently stuffed the ballot box by literally standing in a voting booth and voting over and over, as fast as he could, while he thought the coast was clear,” U.S. Attorney William McSwain of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said.

“This is utterly reprehensible conduct,” McSwain said. “The charges announced today do not erase what he did, but they do ensure that he is held to account for those actions.”

During his guilty plea hearing, DeMuro said an unnamed political consultant gave him directions and paid him money to add votes for certain Democrats who were running for judicial office. Their campaigns had hired the consultant.DeMuro also admitted to casting illegal votes for other candidates for federal, state, and local offices at the consultant’s request.Prosecutors said the political consultant solicited monetary payments from his clients in the form of cash or checks as “consulting fees,” then used some of the money to pay election board officials, including DeMuro, to tamper with the election results. DeMuro said payments ranged between $300 to $5,000.In a press release, McSwain said:

Voting is the cornerstone of our democracy. If even one vote is fraudulently rung up, the integrity of that election is compromised. I want the public to know that this investigation is active and ongoing, and my office is taking every possible step that we can to ensure the integrity of the upcoming primary and general elections in the nine counties of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Citizens of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania should be confident of election integrity, said Capt. Leo Hannon, director of the special investigations division of the Pennsylvania State Police.

“As this investigation clearly illustrates, the Pennsylvania State Police will relentlessly pursue any breach of the sacred trust bestowed upon our public officials,” Hannon said in a prepared statement. “Our agency is proud to partner with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Attorney’s Office, and the United States Department of Justice as a whole to root out corruption at any level of our government.”

The probe is a positive step forward in prosecuting voter fraud, said former Justice Department lawyer J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, an election integrity group.

“Right now, other federal prosecutors are aware of cases of double voting in federal elections as well as noncitizen voting,” Adams said in a written statement, adding:

Attorney General William Barr should prompt those other offices to do their duty and prosecute known election crimes. Those who are considering election crimes should take note of U.S. Attorney McSwain’s work. Now, they have something to fear before they violate federal election laws.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

University of Florida pro-Palestinian group falsely accuses ‘Zionists’ of ‘ethnic cleansing’ Palestinians from 1947 to 1949

May 24, 2020/in Culture War, Education, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jihad Watch

None of that really happened, of course. Nor did any of Ihmoud’s other claims. Israeli troops did not engage in “systematic massacres and evictions during the destruction of Palestinian villages in 1948.” As The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process shows, the Arabs, for the most part, left Israel because they were ordered to do so by Muslim Arab leaders. The Arab Higher Committee actually exhorted Arabs to leave the new State of Israel, and they obeyed in large numbers.

This action had been contemplated for a considerable period: in May 1946, fully two years before the State of Israel proclaimed its independence, Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, secretary-general of the Arab League, stated that “Arab circles proposed to evacuate all Arab women and children from Palestine and send them to neighboring countries, to declare ‘Jehad’ and to consider Palestine a war zone.”

When the war came, many of the Arab Muslims left of their own accord, to the consternation of others who were determined to wage jihad. The Arab newspaper Ash Sha’ab, based in Jaffa, lamented on January 30, 1948, that “the first group of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live else- where…. At the first sign of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle [jihad].”

Others left because the plan to get the Arabs out of harm’s way until the Jews were destroyed and Israel was defeated was being implemented. The Economist magazine reported on October 3, 1948: “Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit…. It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades.”

The Jordanian daily Falastin complained on February 19, 1949, that “the Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees.”

The Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station confirmed this on April 3, 1949: “It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees’ flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem.” The Egyptian daily Akhbar el Yom on October 12, 1963, reported that the grand mufti had issued the same call to Arabs to leave: “The 15th May, 1948, arrived…. On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead.”

The Jordanian daily Al Urdun reported on April 9, 1953: “For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs…. By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy.”

“U. of Florida Pro-Palestine Club Posts Antisemitic Messages to Social Media,” by Tom Ciccotta, Breitbart, May 17, 2020:

The University of Florida’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine posted several antisemitic messages on Instagram this week. The group previously came under fire after they were accused of hurling antisemitic remarks at a campus guest lecturer from the Israeli Defense Force.

The Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Florida came under fire this week for a post on Instagram that accused “Zionist forces” of engaging in an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians between 1947 and 1949.

“Rooted in 19th century Zionist thought that called for the est. of a Jewish state on indigenous Palestinian land. Passed in Nov. 1947, UN Resolution 181 divided land between Palestinians and Jews. In March 1948, the Plan Dalet military strategy enforced by Israeli Parliamentary force that called for the “destruction of villages,’” the Instagram post from Friday reads.

Student protesters from the Students for Justice in Palestine reported hurled anti-semitic remarks at guest lecturer Yoni Michanie, an Israeli Defense Force reserve member during an event in November. The protesters reported called Michanie a “Nazi” and a “war criminal” during the event. Michanie shared a video from the event on Twitter in November….

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TEXAS: Naval Base Shooter was Syrian Jihadist, See How He Became a ‘New American’

May 24, 2020/in Culture War, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Ann Corcoran

First, here is an account of what happened on Thursday.

From WFXR-TV:

Group: Texas naval base shooter voiced support for clerics

The suspect killed during what the FBI is calling a “terrorism-related” attack at a Texas naval air base voiced support for hardline clerics, according to a group that monitors online activity of jihadists.

The gunman tried to speed through a security gate at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, opening fire and wounding the sailor, a member of base security, U.S. officials told the AP. But she was able to roll over and hit a switch that raised a barrier, preventing the man from getting onto the base, the officials said.The attack Thursday at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi wounded a sailor and left the gunman dead. The gunman was identified on Friday by the FBI as 20-year-old Adam Salim Alsahli of Corpus Christi. He had been a business major at a local community college.

Other security personnel shot and killed the attacker.

More here.

So, if you are guessing it was a student visa that permitted him to be living among us, you would be wrong.

Todd Bensman, writing at the Center for Immigration Studies describes one more way that our immigration system is too loose making us vulnerable to those arriving here from Islamic regions of the world and wishing to harm us.

A new national security vulnerability

The Syria-born attacker killed Thursday morning during an apparent jihad-inspired attack on a Texas naval air station was neither a resettled refugee nor an asylum-seeker who slipped through security vetting. Instead, CIS has learned that he fell under an immigration category unusual for foreign-born extremists who have attacked inside the United States.

Adam Alsahli, 20 at the time of his death Thursday, was already a U.S. citizen when he moved from the Middle East to Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2014 with his mother (and likely several siblings) at the height of the Syrian civil war, by virtue of his father’s American citizenship, according to two sources familiar with the family’s immigration status.

The attacker’s 75-year-old father, Salim Alsahli, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1984, the sources told CIS, and subsequently seems to have sired a family back in Syria that included Adam Alsahli’s birth in 1999.

Although his children and their mother were born in and resided in the Middle East, the father’s U.S. citizenship conferred U.S. citizenship on Adam Alsahli, since he properly registered a declaration at a U.S. embassy or consulate office overseas. That apparently happened with Adam Alsahli because by the age of three, in the year 2002, he was granted an American passport that was repeatedly renewed over the years, sources said.

In 2014, at the height of the civil war inside Syria, Adam and at least his mother moved to the United States. The mother is currently a legal permanent resident who has a pending application for U.S. citizenship, the sources said.

With an American citizen father anchored inside the United States, Adam Alsahli, his siblings, and their mother would not have entered any refugee resettlement pipeline, nor would they have had to apply for asylum, processes that would have required fairly extensive security vetting. Adam Alsahli, then about 15 years old, would have been moved right to the front of the line with almost no security vetting; likely the same would have been true of his mother and siblings.

Little is known at this point about Alsahli’s interest in Islamic extremist theology or connections to foreign groups, as the FBI continues an investigation. Nor is it yet known where the family was living prior to entering the United States in 2014.

To learn more continue reading.

Allen West Hospitalized After Motorcycle Accident Near Waco, Texas

May 24, 2020/in Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by The Daily Caller

Retired Army LTC Allen West was hospitalized Saturday after a motorcycle accident near Waco, Texas.

Angela Graham West, the former Florida congressman’s wife, posted news of the accident on Facebook and announced that she was en route to the hospital.

https://www.facebook.com/TheRepublicanCoffeeCornerWithAngela/posts/2977196032361168

Team West here. We are getting more information about this, but right now, we just ask for your prayers and positivity.

As we get more information, we will provide updates. #PrayersForAllen https://t.co/uw7tMogjEm

— Allen West (@AllenWest) May 23, 2020

UPDATE: Team West here with an update. LTC West is now at the hospital and undergoing assessment.

As we learn more we will continue to provide updates.https://t.co/LUobBk42lm #PrayersForAllen

— Allen West (@AllenWest) May 24, 2020

Law enforcement informed the team that West had been cut off by a car, after which he collided with another motorcycle.

“He was transported by helicopter to the hospital, where he is currently in stable condition and undergoing assessment,” West’s team tweeted.

UPDATE:

1/2 According to law enforcement on the scene, a car cut LTC West off, resulting in two motorcycles colliding, one of which was his. He was transported by helicopter to the hospital, where he is currently in stable condition and undergoing assessment.#PrayersForAllen

— Allen West (@AllenWest) May 24, 2020

The team asked for prayers and promised to provide additional information as soon as possible.

2/2
Family and members of Team West are at the hospital, and we will continue to provide updates.

We appreciate the support and kind notes and solicit your continued prayers. #PrayersForAllen

— Allen West (@AllenWest) May 24, 2020

West is currently campaigning to become Texas’ Republican Party Chairman. He had been returning home from a Saturday morning rally in Dallas when the accident occurred.

COLUMN BY

VIRGINIA KRUTA

Associate Editor The Daily Caller.

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The Betrayal and the Programming behind Covid 19 – A UK Perspective [Part 2]

May 24, 2020/in Elections, Healthcare, Must Read, Policy, Politics/by Shirley Edwards

To read Part 1 of The Betrayal and the Programming behind Covid 19 – A UK Perspective click here.

(These are my views as a woman living in England, on how the culture and spirit of my country has changed over 50 years. Why the country does not feel protected or strong any more, how it has lost, and is losing it values and decency, and how we are daily losing our free speech.)

“Eli: You know what’s the good thing about no soap, you can smell a hijacker from a mile away.” – Movie: The Book of Eli, 2010

The Gospel Of Salvation Those Not Saved Being Saved

Being Lost Sweet Odours

Some years ago, a friend sent me a clip from an SNL (Saturday Night Live) skit labelled Red Flag perfume by Chanel. It was an insightful and funny send up of the advertising industry for perfume, but in particular it depicted how people can make fools of themselves and others by attempting to use charm and trickery.

The Red Flag symbolism which is also meant to signal a warning, also reminded me of an article I once wrote called The London Red in which I exposed London red buses being used to advertise and promote LGBT rights and the counter attack by a reparative therapy organization being condemned by the then London mayor, Boris Johnson, who is now our Prime Minister.

Over the years, in my own small way, along with so many others, I have continued to raise my own Red Flags, but it also doesn’t mean to say that sometimes I haven’t fallen victim to some of the charm or the tricks that change agents and seducers can use in order to steal energy or make you subservient to their own particular motives or agenda at times.

During the Covid-19 exercise many flags have been raised which have been well researched and documented. Sometimes they are called false flags. However, all flags, both good and bad, can alert us to the very cruel way that innocent or uninformed people can be seduced, divided and conquered, and how clever advertising which also includes fear mongering and very confusing statistics, all mixed together like a very poison perfume can over-ride our sensibilities and our rational view at times. Somewhere out there is the genuine aroma, a combination of notes and a synergy labelled Truth.

Red Flag

One of the very first flags to be raised in relation to Covid-19, should have been why the UK Government was demonstrating reliance on the predictions of the possible mortality rate forecasted by Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College? Professor Ferguson, who before his resignation had sat on the governments Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, already had a long history of exaggerated predictions in relation to the possible outcomes of an infectious disease.

In 2002, he predicted up to 50,000 people would die from Mad Cow Disease from beef. (177 died)

In 2005, he predicted up to 200 million people could die from Bird flu (282 people died worldwide)

In 2009, he predicted up to 65,000 UK deaths from Swine flu (457 died).

However, it was in 2001, that the Imperial College team were responsible, due to their forecasts, for the culling of 6 million cattle, pigs and sheep which cost the UK an estimated £10 billion. It is an issue which was very controversial at the time with farmers asking if the slaughter of all livestock was necessary. A full report on the Foot and Mouth disease of 2001 can be viewed in the footnotes.

Whilst some people believe that Professor Ferguson has possibly saved lives through his recommendations on the Foot and Mouth disease and our present day Covid-19, there is no scientific data that can prove lives have been saved. The question remains on why our government will still repeat that it is relying on ‘scientific data’ for its actions?

Red Flag

I suppose another red flag was the Prime Minister initially announcing to the public that they were to wash their hands for 20 seconds to the tune of ‘Happy Birthday’. I did find the instructions quite endearing to start with but only because of his unique personality. I think I might have been fooled. Had our previous prime minister suggested this, it would almost have certainly been a patronizing order from a parent to a child. However, the almost innocent way he encouraged this changed quite rapidly. Why?

From a rational request to wash hands with soap and water more often and more thoroughly, an incessant demand became more apparent as the days passed by.

We now have a country which is becoming paranoid about disinfecting ourselves and every single surface that we touch. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder may be on the rise. I believe we may now need a study of the effects that this has had on some of the population which will be funded by the taxpayer.

Red Flag

Another red flag to be raised has almost certainly been the social distancing which everyone has been expected to carry out in order to ‘save lives’. A more appropriate term would have been physical distancing. However, more importantly is how the actions from the term ‘Lockdown’ which was invented in a Californian prison system in 1973, has been so readily accepted!

In regards to the actions of a lockdown in a prison situation or a terrorist/shooter attack, lockdowns may be acceptable, but to enforce lockdowns under the possibility of a virus which may or may not harm someone based on low numbers of people who die from Covid-19 has more serious consequences and should have been questioned beforehand based on any scientific data that could have been provided which proves its effectiveness on locking down healthy people in relation to quarantining ill and vulnerable people instead. No such science was presented. No statistics were provided beforehand on the economic damage to a country.

According to some mental health research, which has pointed out the obvious, almost a quarter of adults have felt severe loneliness during the time of enforced lockdown and according to a leading psychiatrist and president of the Royal Society of Medicine Sir Simon Wessely:

“Some people will develop psychiatric conditions, mental health conditions. There will be a rise in depression. For some people, there will be specific stressors — the anxiety of either believing that you might be infecting the people you’ve been quarantined with — or been infected yourself”.

Whilst TV programming promotes happy family gatherings through the use of the latest technology, it is reported that the World Health Organization has reported they are ‘deeply troubled’ by the spike in domestic violence towards women and children during lockdown. I do not know if they are at all concerned about the abuse towards men, but the question should be why are ‘experts’ concerned after an event which should have been thought through more carefully before implementing a lockdown?

Red Flag

The rapid removal of many you tube interviews and face-book accounts, together with any relevant information which researchers may want to listen to or read about in order to further their knowledge on infectious diseases has raised yet another red flag.

Interviews which have included the research carried out by many eminent doctors and scientists in relation to Covid-19 have not been exempt from this attack.

Not only is there an army of companies collecting consumer behaviour and predictive analytics ever day but there are also forces deciding what you can watch or listen to on very basic information which is not obscene in any way, but only contrary to another organization’s view. This is an attack on free speech.

It has also been reported at the UK Government briefing by Defence Staff General Sir Nick Carter that the 77th Brigade has been countering misinformation online relating to Corona virus.

The 77th Brigade are a combined regular and reserve unit of the British Army. Their website states:

“77th Brigade is an agent of change; through targeted Information Activity and Outreach we contribute to the success of military objectives in support of Commanders, whilst reducing the cost in casualties and resources”.

Their website also states that they specialise in non-lethal forms of psychological warfare, using social media including face book and twitter to fight with information in response to external factors, like Russian misinformation.

Unfortunately, the mis-information that our own government has received and given out has not created any confidence that they possess the correct information.

Too many Red Flags

The conclusions that result from so many red flags too numerous to mention can sadly only result in one conclusion and outcome.

My views are that a quick return to normal and not a ‘new normal’ would be needed. However, sadly, even then there would never be the same trust. Civilizations are usually completely broken down so that they can be built up in a different way and too much damage has been done. The whole exercise has hit at the heart of every person who has smelled the dodgy synthetic perfume of deceivers. Who is who and what is what has been a game in which only God knows the outcome. We should listen to Him more.

The incentive to start afresh, to be creative individuals and independent and to provide for ourselves and our families need not be lost. Rise up, watch, wait and listen.

“For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.” – 2 Corinthians 2:15

VIDEO: 5 Questions for the Press

May 23, 2020/in Courts & Law, Elections, Policy, Politics, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

It doesn’t get much better than this.

After a 6 minute barrage of the same question pertaining to the safety of opening community Churches and houses of worship from the biased liberal media, Kayleigh McEnany stunned reporters by flipping the press conference on its ear asking if any “good journalist” had “taken it upon themselves” to pose a question about the Obama administration’s federal crime and felony offense to “unmask Gen Michael Flynn?”

WATCH:

We need a national day of remembrance for the reputations of journalists that died while in the line of the Press Secretary’s fire.

May they all Rest In Peace.pic.twitter.com/4CxqeRmVOZ

— BDW (@BryanDeanWright) May 22, 2020

Why Conservatives and Liberals Are Responding to COVID-19 in Such Different Ways [+Video]

May 23, 2020/in Culture War, Economy, Elections, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Liberals and conservatives are approaching the COVID-19 pandemic through very different moral frameworks.

In a 2008 TED Talk, psychologist Jonathan Haidt said the worst idea in psychology is the notion that humans are born as a “blank slate.”

Like the cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, Haidt was rejecting the notion that the human mind is a blank slate at birth, an idea that can be traced to thinkers from Aristotle, to John Locke, to B.F. Skinner and beyond.

“Developmental psychology has shown that kids come into the world already knowing so much about the physical and social worlds and programmed to make it really easy for them to learn certain things and hard to learn others,” explained Haidt, a Professor of Ethical Leadership at NYU’s Stern School of Business.

Citing research from the brain scientist Gary Marcus, Haidt said the initial organization of the brain essentially comes with a “first draft.” Studying the anthropological and historical records, Haidt found that five pillars of morality exist across disciplines, cultures, and even species:

care/harm
fairness/reciprocity
loyalty/betrayal
authority/subversion
sanctity/degradation

What’s interesting is that these moral pillars differ sharply across ideological lines in America today. Haidt found that both conservatives and liberals recognize the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity values (though liberals value these a little more than conservatives). Things change, however, when examining the three remaining foundational values—loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation. While conservatives accept these moral values, liberal-minded people tend to reject them.

The difference is extraordinary, and it helps explain the different ways Republicans and Democrats are experiencing the coronavirus. In May, a CNBC/Change Research survey found that while only 39 percent of Republicans said they had serious concerns about COVID-19, 97 percent of Democrats said they had serious concerns.

While some of the divergence could stem from the fact that blue states have been hit harder by COVID-19 than red states, Haidt’s research would suggest that another reason Democrats are more concerned is because liberals have an intense appreciation of the care/harm moral pillar.

Indeed, the preeminence of the care/harm moral can be found in the rhetoric of many progressives.

“I want to be able to say to the people of New York, ‘I did everything we could do,’” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced in March. “And if everything we do saves just one life, I’ll be happy.”

The care/harm moral is even found in the latest social media emojis. Last month, as USA Today reported in an exclusive story, Facebook rolled out its new “care” emoji.

“The new Facebook reaction—an emoji hugging a heart—is intended as shorthand to show caring and solidarity when commenting on a status update, message, photo or video during the coronavirus crisis that allow users to express how much they care about others,” the paper reported.

Cuomo’s language (and to a lesser extent Facebook’s emojis) suggests that, for many, care for others is the preeminent virtue. As such, efforts to protect people must be taken above lesser social considerations.

Understanding the different moral framework conservatives and liberals are using helps us understand why blue states have taken a much more aggressive approach in efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19.

As The Atlantic explains, with a few exceptions, such as Ohio, Republican governors have been much more reluctant to impose sweeping restrictions on their residents than states led by Democratic governors. While governors in these states no doubt value care/harm, their moral framework likely gives them a heightened concern of other social considerations, particularly civil liberties.

The lockdowns, the Constitution Center explains, have threatened many of America’s most cherished civil liberties—the freedom to assemble, the right to purchase a firearm, the ability to freely travel, the freedom to attend church or visit a reproductive health facility. They’ve also put thousands of companies on a path toward bankruptcy by prohibiting them from engaging in commerce.

These infringements tend to be viewed as reasonable to liberals, who emphasize the care/harm moral but are less likely to recognize the sanctity/degradation moral. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, for example, said he never even considered the US Constitution—a document considered sacrosanct by many Americans—when he issued his lockdown order.

“That’s above my pay grade,” Murphy told Tucker Carlson in April. “I wasn’t thinking of the Bill of Rights when we did this. We went to all—first of all—we went to the scientists who said people have to stay away from each other.”

Similarly, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer saw no problem in suspending the Freedom of Information Act to prevent outside groups from assessing the model state officials used to justify locking down the entire state.

Those who view civil liberties and constitutional rights as sacred, however, are less than comfortable with such an approach. They will be less inclined to sacrifice sacred principles to support sweeping state efforts to protect people (and are probably more likely to see such efforts as counter-productive).

To be sure, some progressives do see civil liberties as sacred, and some of them have expressed dismay and bewilderment that so many progressives, in their enthusiasm for the care/harm moral, have abandoned civil liberties.

“[The COVID-19 crisis is] raising serious civil liberties issues, from prisoners trapped in deadly conditions to profound questions about speech and assembly, the limits to surveillance and snitching, etc.,” the progressive journalist Matt Taibbi recently wrote in Rolling Stone. “If this disease is going to be in our lives for the foreseeable future, that makes it more urgent that we talk about what these rules will be, not less—yet the party I grew up supporting seems to have lost the ability to do so, and I don’t understand why.”

If Haidt’s theory is correct, the reason is liberals and conservatives are, generally speaking, approaching the COVID-19 pandemic through divergent moral frameworks.

After all, the argument isn’t whether we should protect people.

“In any country, the disagreement isn’t over harm and fairness,” Haidt says. “Everyone agrees that harm and fairness matter.”

The argument isn’t even over how to best balance the care/harm moral with other considerations.

The disagreement is over whether efforts to protect individuals from COVID-19 should be balanced against other considerations—including constitutional and economic ones—at all.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

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The CDC’s Guidelines for Back-to-School Under COVID Sound Traumatizing

May 23, 2020/in Culture War, Education, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Parents may prefer to continue homeschooling and distance learning.

When schools reopen in the US amidst the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, they will be even more restrictive than they already were. Schools have long controlled students’ movements and imposed constraints on where they can go, when, and with whom. With virus concerns, those controls will increase in quantity and intensity.

NPR recently proclaimed that “disruption from the pandemic constitutes an ‘adverse childhood experience’ for every American child.” While many children are sad to be away from their friends and activities, being home with their family members for a prolonged period of time is hardly an “adverse childhood experience” for most American children. Returning to schools with extreme virus control and social distancing measures, however, could very well be traumatic for many kids.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its recommendations for school reopening, including encouraging daily temperature checks and/or symptom checking, face coverings for all staff and children over two, desks spaced six feet apart, staggered schedules, no cafeteria or playground use, installed partitions and physical barriers, no field trips, no toy sharing, and restrictions on outside visitors, including parents.

As images emerge from countries around the world that have reopened schools, US parents are getting a glimpse of what extreme social distancing measures could look like here, including the latest from Chinese schools in which social distancing “wings” are strapped onto children’s backs to ensure that they stay far apart from each other. It’s no wonder that a new RealClear opinion poll found that 40 percent of parents intend to choose homeschooling or virtual schooling for their children when the lockdowns end. And many European parents are refusing to send their children back to school.

These strict social distancing efforts at schools arise as more evidence suggests that children are largely spared from the dangers of COVID-19 infection. Even as concerns have risen recently over a Kawasaki-like inflammatory disease related to COVID-19 that has impacted some children, the risk appears miniscule. According to The Wall Street Journal:

A study in the journal Lancet last week reported 10 children with the inflammatory syndrome in Bergamo, Italy—the city with the highest rate of fatalities and infections—about 30 times higher than the normal incidence. Most were older and suffered more severe cardiac symptoms than those typically found with Kawasaki. But the authors also estimated that probably no more than 0.1% of children who had been exposed to the virus were affected. All hospitalized patients had been discharged, and the authors recommend treating patients with steroids to calm their immune system.

The Journal article goes on to state:

During these times parents and doctors need to be especially vigilant. But as a society we also need to keep in mind that the risks to children from the coronavirus are small, especially relative to others. The Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity projects that children under 15 are 6.83 to 20.07 times more likely to die of the flu or pneumonia than coronavirus—assuming 150,000 COVID-19 fatalities in the U.S. this year—and 128 times more likely to die of an accident.

We should care deeply about children’s health and safety, but like much about this pandemic, it’s important to make sure that the response isn’t more damaging than the virus itself. Many parents and educators are rightfully concerned about children’s mental health during these lockdowns, but when lockdowns end and schools reopen, children’s mental health could be worsened with extreme social distancing measures that remove any of the potentially enjoyable pieces of schooling, such as playground time, extracurriculars, and gathering with friends.

Stripped of these accessories that can often compensate for the more oppressive parts of conventional schooling, it’s not surprising that some parents and students would choose to continue with homeschooling or virtual learning until the pandemic ends.

COLUMN BY

Kerry McDonald

Kerry McDonald is a Senior Education Fellow at FEE and author of Unschooled: Raising Curious, Well-Educated Children Outside the Conventional Classroom (Chicago Review Press, 2019). She is also an adjunct scholar at The Cato Institute and a regular Forbes contributor. Kerry has a B.A. in economics from Bowdoin College and an M.Ed. in education policy from Harvard University. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and four children. You can sign up for her weekly newsletter on parenting and education here.

Having Problems at Facebook, Twitter and Google? Thank the Southern Poverty Law Center!

May 23, 2020/in Culture War, Elections, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Ann Corcoran

“The SPLC routinely smears conservatives and other critics of left-wing identity politics because that’s how the group makes money.” – Author Peter Hasson

Most of you know that, but just in case, the Capital Research Center posted a nice little update story of where thing stands with the Southern Poverty Law Center after it was forced to give the boot to its longtime leader Morris Dees.

(See my SPLC files here, and at RRW here.)

The article features Peter Hasson’s new book with the great cover—The Manipulators—about how Big Tech often uses the SPLC to police speech.

Embarrassment About SPLC Should Be Shared by Others (II)

After the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Ala., fired its founder Morris Dees and publicly admitted that he mistreated people—reportedly on the basis of race and sex—we wrote last June about how some embarrassment surrounding that which occurred there should probably be shared by other organizations who relied on the discredited group’s work for longer than they should have. At the time, these groups included GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and the Amalgamated Foundation—which purport to provide information that can be used to evaluate the quality of nonprofits, like SPLC.

Daily Caller News Foundation senior investigative reporter Peter J. Hasson’s new The Manipulators: Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Big Tech’s War on Conservatives reminds us of yet others who should perhaps share in the embarrassment, as well.

For many years, as Hasson overviews, the high-profile SPLC has liberally used its “hate-group” and “extremist” designations to unfairly label conservative groups and individuals, as it was engaging in questionable financial practices and fundraising tactics. After Dees’ departure, public scrutiny was more widely brought to bear on its behavior.

As part of that scrutiny, more than a few former SPLC employees and journalists from the Montgomery Advertiser reported that SPLC’s longtime tacit acceptance of Dees’ behavior was always something of an open secret.

After the scandal, SPLC retained attorney and onetime Michelle Obama chief of staff Tina Tchen, to conduct an investigation into what had been going on there. The work of Tchen—who many believe tried to influence the Cook County (Ill.) State’s Attorney earlier last year to drop 16 felony charges of disorderly conduct against Jussie Smollett for his fraudulent allegation of a racist, anti-gay attack—has not been open. There has been no “Tchen report” (or summary of one) released by SPLC, at least as of this writing.

“The SPLC is a once-respected discrimination watchdog that has long since devolved into a smear-mongering fundraising mill,” according to Hasson, and now often assists Big Tech campaigns to police speech.

“The SPLC routinely smears conservatives and other critics of left-wing identity politics because that’s how the group makes money,” he observes. “Ultra-wealthy leftists write massive checks to the SPLC to demonstrate their wokeness because the SPLC is to identity politics what Planned Parenthood is to abortion.” In fact, “SPLC’s fear-mongering is a lucrative operation, and one that’s tax-exempt to boot. The SPLC has more than $400 million in assets, including a cool $90 million stashed in offshore funds”—a number that The Washington Free Beacon reports is now $162 million.

Read it all.

This post is filed in my Charity Fraud category.

RELATED VIDEO: Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the SPLC.

Biden to Blacks: ‘You Ain’t Black’ if You Don’t Vote For Me

May 23, 2020/in Culture War, Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by Discover The Networks

REMEMBER:

Racist Joe Biden in his own words: “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.” pic.twitter.com/xLjWB4iLNM

— For America (@ForAmerica) May 22, 2020

At the close of a virtual interview Friday with Breakfast Club co-host and rapper Charlamagne tha God, White House hopeful Joe Biden astonishingly declared that if black Americans don’t support him over President Trump in the November election, “then you ain’t black.”

Watch:

After Charlamagne ended with “It’s a long way until November, we’ve got more questions,” Biden added, unsolicited, “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

“Imagine if Donald Trump said this,” Donald Trump, Jr. tweeted in response. The media would be apoplectic.

This witless statement perfectly crystallizes what Democrats — especially white Dem leaders — think of black Americans: that if you don’t stay on the leftist plantation, you’re not really black. That is how Democrats keep blacks in chains today — by threatening potential runaways with ostracism from the black community, by tarring-and-feathering them as race traitors. It’s condescending and blatantly racist, and it reveals just who Joe Biden and his party are.

Claiming That Voter ID Laws Are Evidence of Racism and Hatred

During a Black History Month event on February 25, 2014, Biden expressed frustration with a recent Supreme Court ruling that had struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act that required certain (mostly Southern) jurisdictions with a pre-1965 history of voting suppression to pre-clear any changes in their voting laws (such as the implementation of Voter ID requirements, or changes to early-voting or same-day-voting regulations — with the Justice Department. Biden also claimed that new voter ID laws in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas were evidence of “hatred” and “zealotry.” Said the Vice President:

“At least 11 states have introduced legislation recently requiring voters to show ID at the polls, making existing voting laws more restrictive. Lawslike in North Carolina which imposed a new photo ID requirement, shortening early voting, and eliminating same-day registration and early voting. These guys never go away…. You guys [African Americans] know it, but it’s an important lesson for me. Hatred never, never ultimately goes away…. The zealotry of those who wish to limit the franchise cannot be smothered by reason…. This fight has been too long, this fight has been too hard, to do anything other than win — not on the margins, but flat-out win.”

To learn more about Biden, click on the profile link here.

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VIDEO: President Trump Declares ‘Houses of Worship’ as ‘Essential Services’

May 23, 2020/in Culture War, Elections, News, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Religion/by Dr. Rich Swier

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump has declared houses of worship “essential places that provide essential services,” saying they should be opened up right away and governors who get in the way will have to answer to him. “Some governors have deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential but have left out churches and other houses of worship.

It’s not right,” said Trump. “So I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential. The people are demanding to go to church and synagogue, go to their mosque – many millions of Americans embrace worship as an essential part of life.”

WATCH:

Resistance to Tyranny

Truth and Lies

Social Distancing

Face Masks, False Sense of Security?

Contact Tracing

Conclusion

Teachers First, Children Second

The High Cost (to Students) of Bad Teachers

School Choice to the Rescue

Commemoration to Soldiers

Old Glory

The Nisei

The Presidio Today

Undeclared Wars

Conclusion

A Note for our Readers:

Group: Texas naval base shooter voiced support for clerics

How the Corpus Christi Jihadi Attacker Entered the United States

Red Flag

Red Flag

Red Flag

Red Flag

Too many Red Flags

Embarrassment About SPLC Should Be Shared by Others (II)

Claiming That Voter ID Laws Are Evidence of Racism and Hatred