The Letter Read Round the World

You have probably heard about the friendly letter Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent to Biden earlier this week. It’s worth a read, so I include it here. 

Governor Greg Abbott's letter, found here

I’m in Texas, so I might be more aware of things going on in Texas than people elsewhere. But this one is important beyond our great state.

Texas has the longest boundary with a foreign nation, Mexico, which is generally on friendly terms with the US, since that separation by Texas in 1835—as a result of Mexico’s tyrannical leader who stomped on their guaranteed constitutional rights (yes, Mexico had a constitution, which their president ignored, a pattern we may see being repeated here). And then the US won the Mexican-American War 1846-1848. Since then the two nations have been at peace. Mexico has not been generally as prosperous as the US. As a result, their people have often come to the US to find work. Migrant farm workers are among these. They can be hardworking, honest people—when they come here legally. And there are plenty of legal immigrants with education and skills as well, whom we welcome.

The problem has been with people who come in illegally. There is a substantial difference between legal and illegal. Law-abiding Americans welcome a manageable number of legal immigrants and legal resident aliens. While we may agree that the process for legal immigrants could be improved and streamlined, the problem at our southern border is mostly unrelated to that process.

 

Just Dealing with the Invasion

What we have is an invasion. It includes enemies of the state from around the world. It includes drug traffickers—including the deadly fentanyl. It includes human traffickers—slave traders of enforced labor slavery and also child sex slavery. The Biden administration, nor the Obama administration of the past, will explain why they want to allow these enemies in.

Here in Texas, we have been calling this an invasion for a good long while. And we’ve been complaining about our governor taking so long to make that declaration. We’re glad he’s done it. And we add, “What took you so long?”

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick speak with Glenn Beck, January 24, 2024
screenshot from here

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick talked with Glenn Beck in an interview Wednesday, and he backed up the governor. He said that a lot of things had been going on behind the scenes. The governor’s administration wasn’t inactive.

One of the things behind the scenes was legislation that became law in December, after the latest special legislative session (I think there were four special sessions after the regular biennial session that closed in May, but I lost count; Lt. Gov. Patrick just called it the umpteenth special session).

At our Cypress Texas Tea Party meeting on Wednesday, we heard from State Rep. Tom Oliverson, giving a report on legislation passed this year. He highlighted three bills, and shared interesting stories. Then, even after the Q&A, he added one more thing, which happens to be the bill Lt. Governor Patrick referred to. So this is Rep. Oliverson:

One more little factoid for you, because this was late breaking news. So, you know, the border bill that we just passed—I heard some of you talking about the border and all this kind of stuff. So, what the law says now, under state law, is that, if DPS catches you crossing you over the border not at a port of entry, you may be arrested on the spot, charged with a class B misdemeanor, which means you can and will go to jail.

However, the judge has the ability to basically waive those charges and essentially, I guess, whatever that process is… I don’t know. But you basically give them a pass and say, “We’re going to wipe these charges out, but only if you agree to go back to Mexico today.” So that’s how the law is now.

Now, obviously, the legal process is going to play out here. But, just so you know, if you hear on TV, well, DPS [Department of Public Safety] is arresting people, that’s because the law we just passed a couple of months ago says that they can be arrested. And the other thing is, if they do it more than once, they can be charged with a felony, and then they can spend a lot of years in jail….

So they would get arrested; they would be charged; they would have a court date, a trial; they would be held. And then they’ll serve their time in jail, and then we’ll turn them over to customs. So the disincentive for somebody who’s crossing into our state illegally is, “If I get caught by DPS, at a bare minimum, I’m going to spend six months in jail before I even see a customs and patrol agent. And if I’ve done it more than once, I may go away for years.” After which time we’ll turn them over to customs. So that’s how that works.

Texas has to act. We have millions of illegal aliens flowing into our state. Some of them get bussed or flown to elsewhere in the country—that’s done by the US government; Texas only did that with a few busloads to get media attention. The government is doing it quietly every day, and dumping them in troubled US cities, even up north, all those “sanctuary cities”—Chicago, New York, etc.—which are now complaining that they’re not equipped to handle all these people.

Still, the feds are leaving far more than can be handled in small border towns without resources to deal with such an influx. Meanwhile the US government is insisting they get free housing, free transportation, free healthcare, free public education—at taxpayer expense. (Meanwhile, legal immigrants go through years of red tape and paperwork and court costs; you’d think they were trying to discourage legal immigration and encourage illegal immigration.)

This is purposeful. I can’t say definitively what the purpose is, but it’s intentional.

 

Razor wire along the Texas/Mexico border,
screenshot from here

The Vacated Injunction

The lead-up to Governor Abbott’s letter was the Supreme Court 5-4 ruling that vacated (removed) the injunction against the federal government to keep them from interfering with Texas border patrol agents.

SCOTUS ruling that the injunction is vacated.

Let’s get a little clarity on that. The Texas national guard has been putting up razor wire, concertina wire, to prevent access on the US side of the Rio Grande. This will force invaders to go to ports of entry. At ports of entry, the US government is still just letting them in and sending them out into the country, but at least there’s a process happening there. At other places, there’s no tracking. And there’s also the risk of death for the invaders. A number of them have drowned in the river, which would have been totally avoided by going to a port of entry.

The Biden administration’s border agents had been going in and cutting the razor wire—to give access to invaders. Texas filed an injunction to stop them, which was granted by Justice Alito on December 19, 2023. The federal government appealed, asking that the injunction be removed.

It’s obvious that removing barriers to allow access is not securing the border, which the US government is required by law to do—one of the few enumerated powers granted to the federal government, and they go out of their way to not do it, and to thwart anyone who tries to do it on their own.

The SCOTUS ruling, which is pretty wrongheaded, only removed the injunction. In other words, it said the administration could carry out its policies at the border as it sees fit. Let me reword that: the federal government is allowed to determine its methods for securing the border and protecting American sovereignty. However, removing barriers and encouraging invasion cannot be construed as securing the border. Texas has a right to secure borders. So, in essence, the ruling allows the federal border agents to do their actual job; it does not stop Texas from doing that job when they fail to.

The SCOTUS ruling did not say that Texas had to allow the federal border agents to come in and remove borders that Texas had set up. There is not, to date, an injunction against any actions by Texas. There are complaints from the feds that Texas ought to let them go in and remove the barriers, without any hindrance.

But why should we?

When the states grant powers to the US government, they have to have those powers in order to grant them. They do not lose the right to self-protection by “hiring” the federal government to carry out that duty.

That is what Governor Abbott has spelled out so nicely in his letter.

25 states stand with Texas in its right to self-protection,
image found here

This is the kind of standoff that the brink of war might look like. I don’t want war to happen. I can’t even envision that happening. As of today we have a majority of states, 25, standing with Texas (all the states with Republican governors except Vermont). Really, how could a commander-in-chief rally troops to kill their fellow citizens—so that the federal government could tear down our borders and invite invaders in? How can they spin that? I’m sure they could find a mendacious way to spin it, but I don’t think it will fly—any more than using SWAT teams to arrest “dangerous domestic terrorists” who are actually peaceful, country-loving grandmas. Good people know that is just wrong.

President Trump suggested that the supporting governors should send some of their own state National Guard troops to Texas to add support. That’s probably a good idea. It has been done before, at times when there were particular crisis points; I think at least Oklahoma and Florida had done so.

President Trump suggests supporting states send guard troops to Texas,
screenshot from here

National Guard troops are under the command of their various state governors—unless and until the President calls them into action. Anti-American, anti-Texan, Democrat “heroes” Joaquin Castro and Beto O’Rourke are of course calling for the President to federalize the Texas National Guard. The claim is that Governor Abbott is using the Texas National Guard to defy a Supreme Court ruling. But, as we went through above, Texas has no requirement to defy. The ruling only said the feds could be allowed to do their job. Governor Abbott correctly identifies the feds as not doing their job, and so Texas will do it.

Until there is a Supreme Court ruling saying Texas cannot put up razor wire on its border or otherwise act to protect its border, Texas can and will continue its self-protection. No such ruling is imminent. And if it were to come, Texas—and those other supporting states—would be within their constitutional rights to defy that order and protect themselves anyway. I think Governor Abbott explained that pretty clearly, citing the portions of the US Constitution at issue.

Texas has the “Come and take it” flag, from the Battle of Gonzales, daring the enemy Santa Anna to retrieve a cannon they’d borrowed four years earlier. 

A replica of the infamous "Come and Take It" flag
from the Battle of Gonzales hangs in the state capitol in Austin, Texas,
image from the Houston Chronicle.

There is less conflict between federal border patrol and Texas DPS and National Guard than you might think. There is a particular park the feds are not being allowed into, near Eagle Pass, because they were doing harm to the border. But they can do their business everywhere else. They are not harmed or hindered. They’re stirring up conflict. It’s just that the administration doesn’t want Texas interfering with its plan to destroy America by erasing the southern border and letting our enemies pour in.

 

Additional Resources

·        “Republican governors DRAW THE LINE on Biden’s border invasion” Glenn Beck, January 25, 2024.       

·        “26 States REBEL Against Biden Administration,” Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov, January 26, 2024. 

·        “Civil War Echoes: Unpacking Governor Abbott's Defiance in the Texas Border Clash” The Patriot Nurse, January 25, 2024. 

·        “The Secret Network Helping Biden Fuel the Border Invasion | Ep 329” Glenn Beck, January 24, 2024.  (This video includes the interview with Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.)

·        “Texas Declares INVASION and REJECTS Federal Government's Border Authority” Robert Gouveia, January 25, 2024. 

·        “‘Installing MORE BARRIERS’: Texas SLAMS SCOTUS razor wire ruling” Glenn Beck, January 24, 2024. 

·        “Biden should know better than to start a fight with Texas” by Don Huffines, in The Telegraph, January 26, 2024.

·        “What Happens if Joe Biden Tries to Take OverTexas National Guard?” by Ewan Palmer, Newsweek, January 26, 2024. 

Censor, Indict, Execute

Tucker Carlson, in his December 18, 2023, podcast, talked with Seth Dillion, head of The Babylon Bee, a parody news site, with a subtitle, "Fake News You Can Trust." I love The Bee. They’re not only funny; they’re also, sometimes accidentally, more accurate than the mainstream news. It’s especially funny when they get fact checked, as though the story were real—because reality is so bizarre, it’s hard to exaggerate enough to satirize it.

The Babylon Bee's front-page headlines online today (January 18, 2024)

The Bee got taken down from Twitter, shortly before Elon Musk bought the company. They had responded to the real news of biological male Rachel Levine being named the Time Magazine Woman of the Year, by naming this biological male the “Man of the Year.” This was considered hate speech, and a violation of community standards by Twitter. It was, in fact, an incentive for Elon Musk to make the purchase and make an effort to restore freedom of speech.

The Babylon Bee's tweet image, found here

In their discussion, Dillon and Carlson were talking about who you’re allowed to criticize or mock, and who you’re not. Dillon was mainly talking about comedy, and then speakers on college campuses. And then Tucker got a little more serious.

SD: It has nothing to do with being offended. This whole thing, you know, the hypersensitive, the people getting up in comedians’ faces, or charging the stage to slap them in the face if they make a joke they don’t like, the, you know, “Don’t bring your speaker to our campus, because we need a safe space here, and this will offend people.” They’re not— It’s all fake outrage. Because they’ve learned that fake outrage can be used as a tool to bludgeon you into silence and submission.

TC: That’s exactly right. If they would censor you, they would kill you. Period. You don’t censor a peer, another citizen, another human being. You censor your slaves. You censor someone you consider less than human. So, if censorship doesn’t work, they’d indict you. If that doesn’t work, they would kill you. It’s just a very obvious continuum.

Tucker makes a strong point here. They think of you as lesser, not worth respecting. And if you are interfering with their agenda in some way, they think they are justified in eliminating the interference.

We’ve seen it before.

I recently reread a youth novel, Echo, by Pam Muñoz Ryan (in preparation for my private book club with my grandson). The story is divided into three distinct segments. The first takes place in pre-WWII Germany. A boy, Friedrich, lives with his father, who is taken by the Nazis to a hard labor camp, because he has the wrong ideas. He is a musician and has invited longtime musician friends to form a chamber string ensemble. One is a Jew. Another is a Nazi, it turns out. He refuses to play until the Jew is expelled. Friedrich’s father tries to point out that music is their shared interest; can’t they let their differences go? But the Nazi refuses, and turns in Friedrich’s father as a Jew lover. That is enough to get one “cancelled” in that culture.

Friedrich has an older sister, who had been away at nursing school. During that absence, she has become totally loyal to the state. It’s hard to determine if those are her deeply held beliefs, or beliefs she has adapted out of expediency and necessity to advance in her career. But it becomes impossible for the family to speak or write anything to her that might show their former disagreement. She does take some risk later to help rescue her father (with a bribe), so maybe she wasn’t totally brainwashed.

While the book is fiction, it is based on a real time and place. The threats of silencing, indicting (using the law to incarcerate), and even execution were very real.

 

Seth Dillon, of The Babylon Bee, talks with Tucker Carlson
screenshot from here

Tucker and Dillon spend some time talking about the direction of power. The silencing of someone for hate speech is presented as someone bullying the marginalized, or with less power. You’re only allowed to punch up. Punching down is not fair, or moral. So those in power use this assumption against people; it’s their way of wielding power. We’re supposed to think of someone like Rachel Levine, who went through private schooling and a privileged life, who holds one of the highest positions of power in the government as US Assistant Secretary for Health, as someone downtrodden and marginalized. That’s hard to stomach. Such a person—with all that power—does something that is supposed to make all the difference: present themselves as the gender they biologically are not. And if we object, or even laugh, that power hammers down on us.

As Tucker and Dillon point out in their conversation, someone who can have someone cancelled for making a joke about them or criticizing them in any way is the person with the power.

Here is an off-the-top-of-my-head list (likely incomplete) of the groups, people, or ideas that you’re not allowed to mock or criticize:

·        Trans people (people who present as a gender not aligned with their biology)

·        Homosexuals

·        Blacks

·        Marxists (for example, Black Lives Matter)

·        Elites (by education, money, fame, or government authority)

·        Muslims

·        Palestinians

·        Obamas

·        Bidens

·        Clintons

·        Feminists

·        Pro-Abortionists

·        Medical experts aligned with Big Pharma

The elites deciding on this list and cancelling people for not aligning with their agenda are not the marginalized; they are the power-mongering tyrants.

Here’s the list of people they give permission to marginalize:

·        Christians (particularly Catholics and Latter-day Saints, who believe they have divine authority)

·        Jews

·        Conservatives

·        Constitutionalists

·        Trump and Trump voters/supporters

·        Whites

·        Males

·        Asians

·        Large families (probably 3+ children)

·        Stay-at-home mothers

·        Parents who speak up at school board meetings

·        Pro-lifers

·        COVID skeptics

·        Vaccine hesitant

·        Election Integrity concerned

You get the idea.

Back in 2015 I wrote about the many ways the Obama administration had labeled people like me as domestic extremists. Apparently being a good citizen is extreme. I think the label now is not just extremist, but domestic terrorist, thus the many SWAT raids on harmless citizens. 

Seth Dillon admits that, truthfully, he would prefer Twitter prison to real prison any day. But they did make a sacrifice as a company. They could have deleted the Tweet and been reinstated. But Dillon said he didn’t think they should have to. It was an admission that they had been hateful and in violation—when a great many haters and evil people are allowed to stay on the platform. It was wrong to give in. But it was, clearly, not a good business decision. Twitter had been a source for a lot of their traffic, and that was lost.

They have soldiered on, which I appreciate. I get them in my inbox, and never spent much time on Twitter (pretty much only to find Tucker Carlson), so I actually see more of them than ever. Add to that their sister publication, Not the Bee, which shares news so ludicrous you can’t believe it’s not satire.

We need to stand up and speak truth. The hope is, if enough of us stand up to the censorious tyrants, they will not be able to silence us all. If we can defeat them at the censoring stage—before they move on more than they already have to the indicting/imprisoning stage—then maybe we can altogether prevent the execution stage.

What We Know Now, Three Years Later

We just passed the third anniversary of what we are told was the worst attack on our country since Pearl Harbor, maybe since the Civil War. You know, that time hundreds of thousands of Americans attended a peaceful rally at the Capitol, and a few got out of hand, but they killed no one. Except, there was an unarmed young woman shot by Capitol police. And another woman was apparently beaten to death, but they blamed it on drugs to cover the facts. And zero officers or anyone else was killed by the protesters, but an officer who died the next day of unrelated natural causes was spun as a beating death by protesters. You remember that one? That really big lie?

Patriots gathered on January 6, 2021
screenshot from here

There were some things we knew within days, or at least a short time after that J6 2021 event. I wrote a piece on January 14, 2021, which I think stands up fairly well. Estimates of a million attendees have been reduced. I don’t know how many there really were, but at least several hundred thousand. The officer said to have died by being beaten was not. Officer Sicknick was fine all that day; he died the following day of a heart attack, which medically seems unrelated. There was an additional death of a woman in the crowd, Rosanne Boyland, that was not a medical event, but more likely a beating by some officers (other officers and crowd members tried to rescue her). But I wrote this conclusion to that piece, and I think it’s basically still proving true:

Based on what I’ve pieced together, I have what I think happened. I think the President called patriots to Washington to encourage the legislature to protest the electoral votes in the states known to have voting results that should not have been certified before the evidence was considered. I think a million people showed up to support him in doing that very thing. I think bad actors saw this as an opportunity to do damage to Trump and to his supporters. These include agent provocateurs, possibly Antifa and BLM, and also Pelosi and/or others who left the Capitol vulnerable, possibly by coordinating with those APs.

Several news outlets—the independent conservative ones—put out pieces this week, on or near the anniversary. They corroborate my assumptions from three years ago. And they add more evidence, and show how the regime has used this event as a weapon against their political enemies (We the People).

It Was a Trap

Tucker Carlson did an interview with Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana. You might remember Higgins from a year ago when he questioned FBI Director Christopher Wray about whether there were FBI assets dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol building before the doors were opened to the public on January 6, 2021. It was a direct yes-or-no question. Director Wray obfuscated. Higgins said, “It should be no.” But the Director continued to claim he wasn’t allowed to divulge anything about how or when the FBI uses assets (informants, undercover agents).

Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, asking questions of 
FBI Director Wray a year ago,
screenshot from here

Higgins didn’t ask that question in ignorance. He knew they had assets inside the Capitol before doors were opened—so they could guide the crowds to the areas where it would look like they had the most nefarious intent, such as the House Chamber or the Speaker’s office.

Here’s some of what Rep. Higgins told Tucker:

I’d seen evidence, even at that time, that the FBI had embedded themselves into various groups online, across the country, of Americans who were essentially voicing their concerns and airing their grievances with each other about COVID oppression. Those Americans were targeted by the FBI—almost universally Republicans and largely Trump supporters. But the FBI worked undercover to infiltrate those conversations and become a significant part of those individual Americans’ communications.

And when you dig into the evidence that we’ve had revealed through some criminal cases that I’ve followed, and worked with the families of J6 political detainees and Americans that have been persecuted for their involvement in the Capitol that day, some of that evidence shockingly reveals that the FBI agents that were operating undercover within the online groups across the country were the first ones to plant the seeds of suggestions of a more radical occupation of the Capitol. And they were sort of testing the waters of who amongst that group would begin acknowledging that, “You know, maybe we should do that. Maybe we should plan for an occupation like that.” But if you look at the origins of those conversations, they were started by the FBI undercover guy that was operating inside the group….

So Americans gathered at their own Capitol to appropriately air grievances and protest at their Capitol. But embedded amongst their number was an FBI asset that had been working from within their group online for many months. So this was the level of manipulative effort that the FBI invested into American citizenry and our assembly online to exercise our rights under the First Amendment, to talk to each other about whatever we want to talk about, including the insidious oppressions of COVID that we were suffering across the country.

Tucker pointed out that this is entrapment. Indeed. Later Tucker asked how many FBI assets are we talking about: 10? 20?

Rep. Higgins says no, and gives a much higher number:

No. Based upon some very conservative but, like, hard investigative effort—evaluation of the numbers, from putting together eyewitnesses, and videos and affidavit statements, and whistleblower statements, and court records that have been revealed through individual criminal cases where J6 defendants have been prosecuted and smart attorneys have forced admissions by the DOJ and the FBI. But those admissions have been sealed within the parameter of that criminal case by protective order, by the judge, so that I can’t share them, but I’ve seen them. So, real hard objective and conservative estimates would put the number of FBI assets in the crowd outside and working inside at well over 200.

Rep. Clay Higgins talks with Tucker Carlson,
screenshot from here

In that huge crowd, there was violence. And I don’t mean in any way to minimize that. But violence was the goal of the instigators. And yet, after all the persecutions and prosecutions, they’ve come up with almost no cases of violence—and zero cases of insurrection, as of last March. Robert Gouveia had gone through court records and put together a list. There may still be more cases coming, as persecutions will continue “until morale improves.”

Even among those listed cases, most would be thrown out if they were held anywhere but in a DC court, where impartial juries are about as common as unicorns. But, if I understand Gouveia's March 2023 numbers, there were a total number of 950 people (in fact, I think they hit the 1,000 mark recently) charged with a total of 1774 crimes, 90% of which are “entering the Capitol,” regardless of being invited in by police, so there was no intent to do wrong, and misdemeanor trespass is the most you could charge. Only two categories are violent, both of which could also apply to not-actually-violent or not-seriously-violent offenses (flag poles and even water bottles were considered weapons; no guns or knives were found). But we’ll count them. There are a total of 383 of these. That’s 21.6% of the total charges filed.

If we use Rep. Higgins conservative 200 figure (he believes it’s much higher), FBI assets' numbers were 21% of those 950 people charged. Not that they charged, of course. But comparing numbers, it took almost a ratio of one FBI asset for every five people they were able to urge into the Capitol or appear to do something wrong.

We don't have numbers of how many were trying to prevent the provocateurs from stirring things up. It's a safe assumption, I believe, that no violence would have taken place without the FBI’s agent provocateurs.

Fascist Oppression Stories

The Epoch Times put out a Part II of their documentary on The Real Story of January 6; it came live on the anniversary, this past Saturday. [You might want to start with Part I from July, and they have other coverage as well.] Reporter Joseph Hanneman covers a lot of stories. A number of them are what we’d call typical American patriots who are being persecuted by our government, as if we were a fascist regime. 

There’s the Munn family, five of them, parents and teenage daughters, who went to the Capitol that day, from their home in Texas. They had big questions about the nefarious elections (as we all still do) and went there to hear President Trump and voice their grievances. They were not violent. They got caught up in a crowd moving toward and into the Capitol. They were smashed up against a window that had already been taken out. So the dad crawled through and helped the others through, and their plan was to find a safe place to wait out the storm of people, and then get out. They are being labeled domestic terrorists. Their case, at this point, is that they are on probation. They lost their jobs and have had to drive hours away to get employment. They have received death threats. So they are moving to another state, pending permission from probation officers at each end. 

They were raided by a SWAT team in the early morning, and forced out without getting any belongings or even being allowed to dress. They found later that the FBI had planted listening devices in the home, which they discovered by accident, because the devices were interfering with their internet.

This device was discovered by the Munn family in their home. Reporter
Joseph Hanneman had a former-FBI friend identify it.
screenshot from here

Huge resources were diverted from all other focuses of the FBI to the “domestic terrorist threat.” There were whistleblowers, who tried to go through all the proper channels, and were terminated for doing so, but their testimonies nevertheless got to Congress. They have faced loss of their careers, loss of their belongings (one was in the middle of a move, and the government confiscated his stored belongings). They reported that, while there are appropriate times for using a SWAT team, that should never happen with non-violent people, particularly people who are cooperating with investigators. And yet this is what they were being ordered to do.

There was one story of a man who was at the Capitol on J6, Ronald Colt McAbee, now held for two years, before finally getting a trial, which will be appealed. Since he was non-violent and not a flight risk, they expected him to get out on bond, but the judge rejected that request. His wife wasn’t allowed to see him or talk with him, but just recently she was able to visit him for an hour. He was a trained police officer there that day, and did what he could to prevent damage. He was one who tried to help Rosanne Boyland when she was dying. For that he was charged with obstruction or some such “danger” to the country.

J6 prisoner Colt McAbee with his wife,
screenshot from here

These cases aren’t over. By calling them domestic terrorists, the prisoners lose their rights as Americans. That’s why the designation is being used. This was intended for actual terrorists, acting as nonuniformed combatants, a designation intended for war times when enemies infiltrate as spies.

Speaking of misusing intended laws, calling this event an insurrection is a huge lie. Insurrection is making war against the country—essentially instigating civil war, trying to overthrow the government. That is what the 14^th Amendment referred to, to prevent leaders of the Confederacy from shortly afterward trying to become President of the nation they had insurrected against. What happened on January 6^th, despite the instigated violence, was the most pitiful attempt at insurrection in the history of nations. No weapons. No interference with official proceedings, even, which simply concluded later the same evening. No government officials harmed or even endangered. And even what happened seemed to have been staged—and lied about to look worse—by the Deep State.

When Tucker asked Rep. Higgins who was behind it, he said this:

The combination of several of the most extreme liberal, anti-Trump, anti-America-First factions that were in positions of authority within our federal law enforcement organizations and the Democrat party across the country.

It will be a matter of finding these factions and rooting them out. That is the only way to get our country back, because right now we are under their fascist dictatorship. Higgins points out that, even though they can recommend charges in Congress, they depend on the Department of Justice to carry out prosecutions. And the current DOJ is complicit in the whole mess.

Death That Fateful Day

There was another video this week, updating information about Ashli Babbitt. Her estate (I believe her husband and parents) have filed a wrongful death lawsuit. And it has some useful information in discovery. The video is Greg Kelly, for Newsmax, January 5, 2024. Kelly has followed this case for a while, and brings out several details from the lawsuit.

Ashli Babbitt was guided by police to the door where she was eventually killed,
screenshot from here

He showed video of Ashli, peacefully walking to the Capitol after the conclusion of the President’s speech at the ellipse near the White House. Kelly says:

First of all, you saw Ashli Babbitt on January 6th. We’ve showed you this picture before. She’s not an insurrectionist. She went to engage in well-protected First Amendment speech and to see President Trump. She was at that ellipse rally, which is peaceful, which was calm. And then with others. Yeah, she walked over to the Capitol. Walked over. It wasn’t a stampede. It wasn’t a raid. She walked peacefully to the Capitol. 

And this is new. You see, nobody knew actually how she got in there. We still haven’t seen the videotape. But we know this: She didn’t break in. She wasn’t part of a crew that broke windows and stormed in. We know this: two undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers followed close behind Ashli as she climbed the stairs to the West Terrace. Two undercover Metropolitan Police Department officers were there. Why didn’t they stop her? If she were a threat? You know what? She wasn’t a threat. 

And everybody was walking in at one point on January 6th. Ashli entered the Capitol on the Senate side long after others had done so. Once inside, according to the lawsuit, Ashli encountered a female Capitol Police officer who directed her to walk south towards the House side. And you know what? Everything I found in this lawsuit corresponds to other evidence we’ve already seen. Here’s Ashli Babbitt, walking through the rotunda, and you know what? She actually does look just like a tourist. Yeah. Peacefully. Listening to law enforcement. Following their instructions.

There’s an oddity Kelly shows video of, at the door to the House chamber, where Ashli was ultimately shot. There are three officers there, standing near the doors, protecting the House chamber from being entered. There’s a big crowd there, seeming agitated. (We’ve seen video of agent provocateurs among them before.) These three officers, “First, Officer Kyle Yetter on the left, Sergeant Timothy Lively in the middle, and Officer Christopher Lanciano on the right.” They have been ordered to guard the door. But then, with the crowd there, the three suddenly, and quite casually, leave. For a coffee break? Why?

Three Capitol Police officers who were guarding the door
left the scene just before the door window was broken.
screenshot from here

As soon as they leave, there is a guy who begins pounding on the window in the door, and breaks it. This is the window Ashli Babbitt is stepping through when she is shot and killed.

She has no weapon. She is not dangerous looking, as a trim, 5’5” female. She’s off balance, working her way through the window, with a backpack on. An officer on the inside (since the officers, who were treating her and the others outside as non-threatening, had left) could have quickly flex cuffed her, held her aside to deal with later, and dealt with anyone else who came through the window—which would have been one unarmed person at a time.

That would have been normal police procedure. But that is not what was done.

Lt. Michael Byrd is shown in video, earlier, weapon drawn while walking through the House Chamber. This is already against protocol. There is no reason at that point to have a gun drawn. The doors are locked. The House members have been evacuated. Who is he drawing his weapon to fire on? The lawsuit quotes Capitol police policy: “Firearms may be withdrawn from their holsters only when officers are preparing for its expected, prudent, and lawful discharge, to protect themselves or others from imminent death or serious physical injury.”

 

Lt. Byrd is shown on video in the House Chamber with gun drawn,
screenshot from here

Ashli Babbitt wasn’t a threat of imminent death to anyone. No one heard Byrd give any warning. No, “Stop or I’ll shoot.” Nothing.

Sometime later he sat down with Lester Holt on a news program, and, as Greg Kelly points out, probably incriminated himself.

Holt: “When you fired, what could you see? Where were you aiming?”

Byrd: You’re taught to aim for center mass. The subject was sideways, and I could not see her full motion of her hand or anything. So I guess her movement, you know, caused the discharge to fall where it did.”

He didn’t see her hands, so there was no mistaking something for a gun; he admits he saw no gun. There had been no reports of guns or weapons used elsewhere that day. There was no expectation that she would have one. And she wasn’t in a position to use one anyway. He wasn’t in imminent danger. He didn’t give warning. He used lethal force at close range, hitting her in the head. And he got praised and promoted for this act of murder.

There’s more. Byrd told investigators that there were 80-90 people he was protecting in the House Chamber; there were only about 6, all officers plus a couple of House members with military experience. So he was either woefully unaware of his surroundings or he lied.

One minute after shooting Ashli Babbitt, at 2:45 PM, according to the lawsuit, Byrd made a radio call saying this: “We got shots fired in the lobby. We got shots fired in the lobby of the House chamber. Shots are being fired at us. And we’re prepared to fire back at them. We have guns drawn. Please don’t leave that end.”

Transcript of the radio call from Lt. Byrd one minute
after shooting Ashli Babbitt,
screenshot from here

This implies that the officers were being fired upon. That is a lie. There was only one shot fired: Byrd shot Ashli Babbitt. This call makes it appear he recognized he had made a bad shoot and was trying to cover it up by claiming it was necessary in a wild shootout.

Byrd has a history of misuse of his firearm—besides once leaving it in a public restroom. Discovery in the lawsuit reveals that he fired while off duty. As Kelly tells it,

Well one day, when he was off duty, his car was stolen. According to the lawsuit, Byrd just started shooting at the car: “Lieutenant Byrd’s police powers also were revoked for a prior off-duty shooting into a stolen moving vehicle in which the occupants were teenagers or juveniles.” The stolen vehicle was Lieutenant Byrd’s car.

That’s not the way you use deadly force. Might be tempting, certainly for— But not for a law enforcement officer. You don’t start shooting at a car that was stolen. Not if you’re a professional law enforcement officer.

And then there’s this: “Lieutenant Byrd fired multiple shots at the fleeing vehicle in a suburban area. Stray bullets from Lieutenant Byrd’s firearm struck the sides of homes nearby. An official investigation found that Lieutenant Byrd’s use of force was not justified.” So we had a record of this. Yet he was still employed by the Capitol Hill police. That’s a problem.

There’s more, certainly, that could be told about J6. And eventually maybe it will be. What we thought happened three years ago, there’s more and mounting evidence for: peaceful Americans were set up to be blamed for violence; when not enough violence happened, the tyrants persecuted the peaceful Americans anyway.

We are in a fascist tyranny. We might be able to recover our country. If so, it will take some brave standing up against the bullies. And it will have to happen this year, while we still have plenty of memory of our freedoms.

Predicting the Future: More Bad or Good at Last

I am not particularly good at predicting the future. But here we are at the beginning of a new year. So why not?

It seems to me things could go either of two ways: more bad, or good at last. Of course I would prefer good at last. And we know the good will come at last (read Revelation). But timing isn’t up to me.

my favorite New Year quote

More Bad

It’s a presidential election year, and it’s a strange one. The leading Republican candidate—by overwhelming percentage points, such that no one else really needs to bother—is former President Donald Trump. Maybe the challengers are hanging on in hopes of something untoward happening to Donald Trump, or because they think their “next in line” status might boost them to the VP slot, which is not going to be offered to Mike Pence ever again. Or maybe they are simply oblivious to reality, blinded by their own glaring narcissism.

That means the upcoming primary election for the Republicans will be fairly simple. It’s only two months away (with some variation by state). It should go smoothly, if polling is even in the ballpark of accurate.

And yet, the desperation of the Democrat (and anti-Trump Republican) efforts to prevent the obvious and inevitable is startling. I lose count, but I think there are five lawsuits against Trump underway right now, timed to interfere with the primary season and the rest of the election year. (Read more here.) You would think that, in even a single unprecedented lawsuit against a former president—who is currently a candidate—evidence would have to be so overwhelming that no one would even question the verdict. And yet, every single case is a ticky-tack, invented “crime.”

For example, Trump supposedly committed fraud—according to New York State—by overestimating the value of his Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, which he used to secure business loans. The court’s estimate of that property is preposterously low. The banks who loaned money based on Trump’s estimate were satisfied with the estimate, might have estimated the value even higher, and regardless were willing to make the loans—which were repaid with interest. So there is a disagreement about the value of a property; there was no fraud. There was no one harmed or injured monetarily or otherwise. There is no crime. And it certainly was no business of a New York state court to invent one just so they could prosecute the former President and current presidential candidate during the critical election year.

Another one, the classified documents case, is a disagreement about whether the former President can possess his own documents, or whether the National Archives should hold them. And they used a SWAT team at the former President’s residence, attempting to make it look like he was in the act of selling America’s secrets to enemy nations. (I wrote more here.)

The FBI spread out materials on the floor and implied President Trump
was mishandling classified materials, during the Mar-a-Lago raid, August 2022,
image from Wikipedia

Meanwhile, multiple stashes of classified documents were found in the possession of Biden—from when he was VP and a US Senator—both positions that did not entitle him to take any classified documents away from a secure location. And there is evidence, particularly in the University of Pennsylvania stash, that China paid for Biden to have a position there, where he never taught a class or did anything to merit millions of dollars, but coincidentally staffers paid for by Chinese donations just happened to get hired on by the Biden administration. Did the Chinese get access to those documents in exchange for their payments? Or did they just get influence?

I’m not an investigative reporter. If I know about these things, then they are known by other reporters (read more here; also, John Sullivan did good reporting on the University of Pennsylvania/China connection), and by government officials.

What I’m saying is, those who do the wrongdoing are desperately trying to retain their power, and greatly fear a return of President Trump—now that he knows their secrets, because of their conspiring so obviously against him and against the American people.

So, how far will they go? Every time they indict Trump, his poll numbers go up. The American people—and especially conservatives—are law-abiding. So the assumption had been, if he’s indicted, and especially if he’s convicted of something—anything—then his base will abandon him. And that hasn’t happened. People who care about the rule of law aren’t fooled by people who use lawfare as a weapon against them.

If the lawsuits won’t work, there’s taking him off the ballot. But that can’t stand, because it disenfranchises hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of voters in each of those states—for no legal reason. We have had presidential candidates on the ballot when they were in prison. We have had presidential candidates who have been accused of crimes. That is not a constitutionally disqualifying factor. This will probably be decided by the Supreme Court. Although it’s always worrisome when the preservation of our Constitution depends on the opinions of nine unelected judges, at least we have more somewhat-conservatives on the Court—because of Donald Trump.

The attempt to invoke the 14^th Amendment—which was intended to prevent leaders of the Confederacy from running for US President right after the Civil War—requires convincing the country that President Trump committed insurrection—while he was President (thus insurrecting against himself), engaging in investigations into the legality of the election, which it is his duty to protect. They have to label an event that wasn’t an insurrection, just to stir people up, and they have to convince people that asking for peaceful assembly—and later “go home in peace”—was really telling people, by dog-whistle message, to attack the government and stage a coup. Except, there isn’t even an accusation of insurrection in any of the court cases or impeachments against him—because there wasn’t an insurrection.

Meanwhile, there was this insurrection in the US Capitol, which included a US Congresswoman. And this one in the California State Capitol. Don’t expect to see consequences for the participants in these unlawful acts. 

So, if taking him off the ballot fails, what else will they try? If they truly believe Trump is Hitler—and their rhetoric certainly portrays him that way (despite the lack of millions of deaths, or authoritarian rule, as they are attempting)—would they try to assassinate him? Tucker Carlson has mentioned it. Others probably as well. But would the Deep Staters dare do that, when it is so obvious that they are conspiring against him?

They aren’t clear, logical thinkers. So I wouldn’t put it past them. But I hope not.

They might try stealing the election again. But usually that only works when the margin of error is small, and when it can be turned by a limited number of places—as in 2020. With 10-point leads, any election tampering—especially when we’re watching, because we saw what they did before—is going to be clumsy and obvious.

So what else will they try? Another pandemic, so serious that they have to “call off the election for the sake of our safety”? I don’t think we’ll buy that, after all the COVID lies. Will they come up with some other disaster?

I don’t know what to picture. But if more bad continues, I can’t envision an election actually happening in November.

My Patriot Supply, among others, is predicting a "black swan event" in 2024,
image from here

I’m not the only one wondering these things. People are starting to use the term “black swan event,” meaning something unforeseen and unpredictable will happen. (There was this mention by Catherine Herridge a little over a week ago. This came up on social media group today; the interviewee suggests it might take the form of a major cyber attack in October.) The thing is, you shouldn’t be able to expect a black swan event, but we’re using the term in predictions—because it’s so likely they’ll try to come up with something, since for them another Trump presidency would end life as they know it (they term this “ending democracy,” in hopes that will fool people).

Meanwhile, we need to keep calm and carry on, as the saying goes.

Good at Last

What if good at last actually happens. What might that look like?

In our country, maybe Biden will become too nonfunctional for them to trot out “Weekend at Bernie’s” style. This seems a likely possibility between now and November. The other possibility is that the growing evidence of his influence peddling as a family business will be seen for the treason that it is, and he will be thrown out. Then what? By law, his VP would be required to step in for the remainder of the term. But that is such a distasteful possibility, I think those now covering for and propping Biden up are assuming they can do that endlessly.

Or maybe his failure will come right about at the time of the Democrat convention, and they’ll just throw out all the Dem Primary votes in the country and come out of the convention with whomever the Deep Staters want—an absolute failure such as Gavin Newsome (note his debate with Ron DeSantis) or the never-run-anything-in-her-life-but-is-a-perfect-shill-for-Barack, Michelle Obama. With only two months in front of the people, maybe they could hide how ineffectual, Marxist, and America-hating she is.

OK, none of that looks like good at last yet.

What if the Deep State got completely uncovered—all the names, all the information? And they all had to leave in disgrace? Every last conspirator against the Constitution! Sweet justice! That would be nice.

Do I picture it happening? It is happening.

This week a list of Epstein names came up. This wasn’t the “black book”; according to Kash Patel, that’s being held by the FBI—for, um, security purposes. This was just the Ghislaine Maxwell trial transcripts with names no longer redacted (except names of victims, which are still redacted). There may be a few new names, but so far nothing earthshaking. Headlines declared that Trump was on the list, but that was for the ignorant. If you read, you find out he is exonerated. He never went to the island. He expelled Epstein from Mar-a-Lago years before Epstein’s first trial. Trump cooperated with investigators into Epstein. And testimony from witnesses in the trial, after being asking repeatedly if they had seen Trump at any of Epstein’s places, was that they had never seen him.

screenshot of X post of summary of massive
election fraud in the 2020 election

Another news item today is the disclosure of election fraud evidence—by Trump. An X account of KanekoaTheGreat was forwarded to me.  This very long thread starts with an overall summary of the import of this information. Then it goes into a more detailed summary of problems in Georgia. There’s so much wrong with that election that it should never have been certified. That’s as far as I’ve read so far. But next come Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan. I’ve been following election fraud details all along (read here, here, here, here, here, and here), but these include things I hadn’t been aware of.

The evidence has been there, and accumulating, all along. It has never been allowed to be shown in court—where the American people could see it. So it appears Trump is doing what he does: taking it directly to the people. Expect mainstream media to ignore it.

At some point, though, things have to be made right. The description in Revelation is that Babylon falls in an hour (Revelation 18). And the Savior fights His own battles—actually, it looks like, despite any actual battles being carried out in Armageddon, in the end, His power is so great that the battles are simply ended. Possibly His glory “burns” the wicked (symbolically or literally, or maybe both).

And then the survivors (the decent, upright people of the earth) will establish order according His righteous rule.

That will happen. This year? I don’t know. But, with our world in the mess it’s in, this would be a good time for rescue. And there are some reasons to consider the possibility. For one, there’s a war going on in Israel; that seems like it could escalate any moment into Armageddon.

There’s an eclipse coming up in April—the third in a series over the US, the combined paths of totality forming an aleph, the first letter of the ancient Hebrew alphabet. The first was September 2017, the second October 2023. The April 8, 2024, eclipse falls on the eve of Nissan 1, the beginning of the Jewish new calendar year. Maybe that’s a significant sign in the heavens. It’s not too far into the future for us to wait and see.

Three eclipses over the US form a Hebrew letter aleph,
image is a screenshot from here

We did that for the 1290 days mentioned in Daniel 12, counting from the closing of the temples worldwide in March 2020 until October 7, the day of the Hamas attack on Israel. Counting the 1335 days mentioned in the next verse of Daniel—guessing that was a concurrent count, rather than sequential—took us to November 21, 2023, when there was a temporary ceasefire to return many of those who had been kidnapped. Was that a big enough thing for Daniel to have mentioned all those centuries ago? I don’t know. I’m continuing to watch and wait.

Incidentally, five months from November 21 takes us to the eve of Passover, April 21, 2024, which seems significant. What could happen in five months? Revelation 9 mentions a time of torment for five months: “and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man.” It’s going to sting. But not to fear if you’re among the righteous, described as “grass of the earth,” “any green thing”, or “any tree,” along with those who have covenanted their allegiance to God, “have the seal of God in their foreheads.”

So there’s going to be something that stings the unrighteous. They’ll want to die and be unable to. I don’t know how to picture this. Descriptions of the “sting” include locusts shaped like horses prepared for battle (armored swarms), with crowns (royalty or government power), hair of women, teeth of lions. I don’t know what that all means. But these scary stinging locust plagues, as John the Revelator saw them, “had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.”

We’re a month and a half into this particular five months, since November 21^st, and I don’t see this plague stinging the unrighteous. But maybe it is happening in a way I don’t see or understand. Or (more likely) maybe that five-month plague will happen some other time.

Still, things are happening. There are earthquakes, floods, lightning strikes, solar flares, volcanic eruptions. More than usual? You have to know what’s usual. YouTuber Christian Homestead puts all kinds of things into a spreadsheet—including various natural disasters. It’s accessible in the description of each of his videos. It looks to me like these sorts of disasters are becoming more frequent, and maybe more intense.

One point Jared of Christian Homestead makes is that, however things happen, they’re likely to look natural, such that people who don’t want to believe can ascribe some other explanation—like climate change, for example.

Mr. Spherical Model has pointed out that, if the Second Coming is to “come as a thief in the night,” then looking for really obvious events that everyone can see is probably not going to work.

It may be more like the wise men who looked for the Star of Bethlehem. They knew what to look for, and approximately when to expect it. Other people who were not looking probably shrugged and thought, “Huh, that star is kind of bright. I don’t remember that one being there,” and then going back to their oblivious lives instead of celebrating the Savior’s birth.

What we should expect is that the Second Coming will come in a time of great evil (check). When evil is called good and good is called evil (check). When there are “beasts,” one representing collusions of power spreading across the globe, supported by a second, lying beast that makes the first beast seem powerful. I’d say the Deep State and its corollaries around the world, supported by a combination of media and academia that lie to support the other “beast” is about as clear as any of the symbolic descriptions in Revelation (so, check).

That means the world not going to get better on its own. It’s not likely to get better just because many of us are working in our communities—and working with governments at all levels—to make things better. We need to do those things. But it’s more to declare our allegiance to God than it is to personally win the war against evil.

So, predicting this year: either more bad will keep happening—and we’ve grown accustomed to things not being made right. Or good at last will happen, and all things will be made right, which I think will only happen if this is the year the Savior returns. That would be the brightest outlook for a year that otherwise looks to be both frustrating and scary.

As a line from one of our hymns says, “There is hope smiling brightly before us, and we know that deliverance is nigh.”

May this be the year that we witness good at last.