Border Lines

Here in Texas the southern border is always important to us. But maybe more than usual lately, since the Supreme Court said, “Sure, if your way of securing the border is to cut through and remove barriers, you can do that,” and sort of failed to point out, “If you’re actually securing the border, that is.” Anyway, here we are in the state with the biggest border—and big in every way—and our president is kind of threatening war against us citizens of Texas.

meme found on Facebook

There’s a demonstration of sorts going on this week. Truckers are gathering. I think as of Thursday they're already in Texas and will be splitting up into three convoys, one going down to Eagle Pass, the furthest going to San Ysidro, on the border in California, and a third to Yuma, Arizona.

Glenn Beck talked with Donica Hudson, the media liaison for the Take Our Border Back Convoy on his Wednesday radio show. After the setup that was J6, people are wary of a trap. But she assured him they’re being careful. This is a call for prayer down near the border. And they’re stopping 20 miles or so from the actual border, so they can’t even accidentally get in the way of the work of border agents and national guard troops. They are threatening to sue for defamation anyone who accuses them of violence or criminal intent. And they are making sure everyone understands the peaceful purpose and excludes anyone even talking about violent actions.

Jason Buttrill shared footage of the convoy from Tuesday night.
It seemed to be mostly family vehicles, rather than tractor trailers
at that point. People were cheering with flags from the roadside.
Screenshot from here.

Will that be enough to protect them? I hope so. We should see within a few days whether it’s possible for patriots to still do a peaceful demonstration in this country.

But there’s reason for concern.

On Monday’s weekly Onward podcast, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, of 2000 Mules fame, were talking about their recent visit to the border. Engelbrecht is a native Texan (she started True the Vote here in Houston, but lives somewhere rural now). So after all that was going on, they decided to go see for themselves what the border looked like. They started the story with this:

Gregg Phillips: We met people that were down there that are deeply involved in the protection of the border. And, uh— But they were also very candid. And, um, there was this definite feeling that there was a deal that had been made—

Catherine Engelbrecht: We were told, unequivocally, we were told that was the term that was used: “There has been a deal made.”

Phillips went on to call it a “military deception. It was an intel op.” He said they created a stage, or circumstances, to look a certain way when they brought in celebrities, which included Lt. Governor Dan Patrick in this case. (Catherine laughed at the idea she was considered a celebrity.) What they didn’t see on this visit was a lot of border crossing traffic, and it made them wonder what was going on. As you might expect, this was not normal.

He said that, later, they learned a lot of things. First he talked about the wall. There are pieces of it, 20 feet high, that didn’t fully keep out determined invaders. Those were built around 2008, when George W. Bush felt pressure to do a little something about the border before the end of his presidency. The top was such that it didn’t deter climbing, so those are no longer made. Trump walls were 30 feet tall, with barriers atop them, and fewer gates (gates are used by landowners to get from one side of their land to the other, when the wall is built a mile or so inland from the border or river). But the interesting part was about the “deal.” Here’s Gregg Phillips’ telling of the story:

Gregg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht talk about their
trip to the Texas border. Screenshot from here.

GP: What happened was, a deal had been made between the Biden administration, potentially the state of Texas, and the Mexican government to keep the migrants back for a while, to create this photo op, to tamp down the situation where— It was military deception, is what it was. And they’re not supposed to do that in the United States, but they were.

He said that the soldiers and border patrol were already working together; there isn’t a big standoff happening. And, during this visit, there wasn’t even the usual daily expected crossings.

GP: Well, guess what. There were 15,000 of them at the southern border of Mexico that were released last Saturday, to come north. So, what they’re setting up there, in our opinion—in my opinion; maybe Catherine will want to speak for herself—what I believe they’re setting up here is, this truckers’ convoy that arrives at the border sometime this weekend, and I think there’s some movement in the other states as well, but let’s just talk about Texas for a minute. Many many many trucks, and many many people and patriots are going to go to the border, a little bit like we did, just to see— You know, stand up for, not just Texas, but for the United States.

So, think about what’s happening here. While all these photo ops are going on, there’s nothing. So, the Biden administration kind of gets a win with that. Maybe even the Tex— I don’t know who wins, but this was basically a fake win-win scenario. The fact that no one was there, coming through that open gate, or swimming through the river, or anywhere else that we could find. The reason was, the Mexican government held 15,000 of them up at the southern border.

Now they’re coming this way. So you can imagine how we feel, at the confluence of events, knowing that many of our friends, people we know, people we admire, people we support, are getting ready to pack up, get in their trucks, and head on down to the border. And, with this idea that, well, it’s softening a little bit; everything’s OK. They’re going to get down there and all of a sudden 15,000.

Not just 15,000 suddenly showing up, but 10,000 Chinese. Reporter Michael Yon is their source on this:

Up to 10,000 Chinese came through the Darien Gap in Panama in the ten days prior to us getting down there. So, from last Friday [January 26], the ten days prior, 10,000 fighting-age Chinese came through the Darien Gap, and up through Columbia, up through Panama, up through the Gap—it’s a jungle area, one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Chinese emerging from the Darien Gap, December 30, 2023,
footage filmed by Michael Yon, screenshot from here

Michael Yon, Catherine adds, has been “putting up maps of what he’s seen, and explaining the movement in Panama, which will give more context to what Gregg is saying.” They’re building camps to house them in before they come across. Phillips goes on:

GP: You’ve got 10,000 potential Chinese. You’ve got a total of 15,000 people that were released at the southern Mexico border to come north, toward the United States. They’re all going to collide at the same time in some of these points of entry, particularly Eagle Pass. And both north and south of there. And it just feels like, it feels like chaos at this juncture, and that they’re trying to sow chaos. And our concern for all of our friends heading down there is, it feels a little J6-ish to us. It feels like, you know, Biden needed a win; Abbott needed a win; the Mexican government needed a win; and the Chinese need to get their people up here. It just seems like a bit of a perfect storm.

They’re concerned for national guard troops, for the border patrol agents—both sides in the supposed conflict, but regardless of orders are both about protecting the border.

Gregg Phillips takes what seems like a tangent to talk about Secretary of DHS Mayorkas, which is actually related.

GP:  Mayorkas, before he—we’re going to pass more information on this—but before he became Secretary of DHS, he was on the board of an NGO. That NGO has an office building at the Darien Gap, literally 50 yards from what’s called euphemistically “China Camp,” where all the Chinese are coming up through the Gap and being facilitated by this NGO. Mayorkas has been seen down there on drone footage, arriving at the camp, going to the NGO, and then back again.

Just speculation here, but it looks as though the US head of the Department of Homeland Security is facilitating the movement of fighting-age male Chinese to come to the US border and enter our country. That’s what it looks like. Phillips calls him “a complete bad guy” and deserving of impeachment, if anyone ever was. He also believes Mayorkas is the one who “concocted this whole scheme to get the win for Biden, the win for Abbott, the win for Mexico, and create this environment where there’s going to be a potential conflict at Eagle Pass sometime next week, or later this week, when all the truckers and all the patriot types get down there.”

People have been asking Gregg and Catherine what patriots can do, so they asked their contact down at the border. His answer was one they agree with:

GP: The only thing that’s going to stop this— It’s not going to be razor wire on top of unused containers—although that’s pretty— I’ve walked around that for a bit; that’s pretty effective. But the only thing that’s going to stop this is some president—President Trump—actually deporting these people. As soon as they start deporting the people that are somehow making their way across, sending them back wherever they came from, back to China, back to Nicaragua, back to wherever they’re going—Venezuela, Cuba, wherever they’re coming from—only deportation is going to stop this. Mark my words. Nothing else will stop this.

They want a war. They want an internal war over this. But even that isn’t going to stop what’s happening. The only thing that’s going to stop it is putting these people back on a plane, and instead of flying them to Chicago, fly them to Caracas.

You have to wonder why a thinking person would want invaders to flood in across our borders, and would hope something might spark a kinetic war. But, then, we don’t have a thinking person in the White House. We have a power monger there, surrounded by power mongering minions.

Anyone going to the border, be careful. Be on the lookout for traps. Be nonviolent. Putting pressure on government bad guys could be a good thing. It brought needed attention in Canada and The Netherlands. But neither of those places ended well for the truckers or farmers, because of the tyrants in power. We live in what is supposed to be a constitutional republic, with the rule of law. But we have tyrant leaders right now as well. So, if you’re bravely joining others to make your voice heard, again, just be aware and be safe. We want to see you safely back home afterward.

On a side note, the Harris County sample ballot is finally available. There are 13 propositions at the end of the Republican ballot. Numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 12 all relate to illegal immigration and border security. The people of Texas are trying to get this message across—peacefully.

Additional Resource:

·        “How China and the UN are Fueling the Invasion of America” Tucker Carlson interviews Bret Weinstein, February 1, 2024. 

Acting Locally Against Worldwide Evil

We live in troubled times. If you read Revelation (which I do), you might think, you haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait. But, while we face a mostly non-kinetic war, it is a war nevertheless. It is raging in our country and worldwide. We know how it turns out in the long run; that’s the point of Revelation. But it’s how to live now, and what to expend our energy doing, that is the question—or at least the question I’m looking at today.

This isn’t really a post about election integrity; that is just the story behind the point. So, here we go.

On Monday nights I frequently listen to Catherine Engelbrecht’s podcast on Locals.com (also found a couple of other places). Election integrity has been a big issue of mine since at least 2010. That was when her organization True the Vote started—locally, here in Houston, Texas. This week she told her story of how they got started.

Catherine Engelbrecht on her weekly podcast.
screenshot from here

She and a handful of friends (I don’t know all the names, but I have gotten to know some of them) met at a pub and talked about what they could do to make things better in the community. This was around 2008. One of the first things they decided to do was work an election, something she and others hadn’t done before. Then they got back together and talked about their experiences. Some of them had had a good experience, doing their civic duty, in and around people of different political beliefs, but all trying to do a good job.

But others had a different experience. This was a primary election (so I’m assuming around March 2008, a presidential election year). Our friends were working the Republican polls right next to the Democrat polls. Often such places are separated, placed in different rooms, or maybe different hallways of a school. But sometimes circumstances put them in the same room; I’ve experienced both.

There were a number of people who came in and confided to their Democrat clerk or judge, “I don’t remember who I’m supposed to vote for,” and the Democrat poll worker would tell them. In the open. Clearly illegal.

This would affect the Democrat voters, but not the Republicans, so why worry? Because, if that is what they were doing while they were being watched, who knows what they were doing where they weren’t being watched.

Anyway, by 2010 Engelbrecht and friends had formed True the Vote, a 501(c)3, to recruit and train poll watchers—not workers, but observers. I think it was within their first year, 2010, the first time I was a poll watcher, trained by True the Vote. 

True the Vote flyer, from 2011. Image first used here.

I had previously worked as a clerk at the polls a couple of times. I had also been a delegate to the district and state conventions multiple times by then—in multiple states I had lived in. I had taken my homeschooled kids to the state capitol to do citizen lobbying many times. I had been an active citizen. But clearly the election integrity problems needed to be addressed. They were serious. So I stepped up, with an army of volunteers.

I was a poll watcher for several elections. Then, in 2014 I became a precinct chair and have worked the polls ever since. Typically I have someone else (lately it has been my husband) be the Presiding Judge, and I am a clerk, because I can’t handle the 17-hour day arriving at 5:30 AM to get the polls open at 7:00, so I come in later and stay through take-down and return of equipment and ballots.

Since the Democrats took over Harris County elections in 2018, we have had one disastrous election after another. After their elected county clerk stepped down in 2020 (worries about COVID, she claimed, but there was a lot of suspicion of fraud), the county commissioners court (democrat majority) took elections out of the hands of the elected county clerk and gave it to an appointed elections administrator. The ones they chose were disastrously awful—incompetent to the point of it looking deliberate. As Alan Vera used to say, “Incompetence is the perfect camouflage for malfeasance.” In our 2022 election they failed to provide ballot paper to a number of polling locations—coincidentally in high Republican areas. Ours would have run out of paper along with the many others, but our tech support happened to have an extra couple of boxes in his vehicle, and he gave us one. Without it, we would have run out long before the county elections people delivered another box just an hour before closing. 

The map, built by Russ Long, showing that polls without
enough paper coincided with Republican voting locations. 
Screenshot from here. 

from an HCRP meeting February 13, 2023, showing where voters were
turned away from polling places for lack of ballot paper

The state legislature got rid of the elections administrator for counties of our size (specifically, really, just our county) and returned our elections to the county clerk this year. The clerk is still a Democrat, because we haven’t won a county-wide election since they took over the elections, coincidentally. For this November’s election, we got notified that my husband is assigned as the AJ (alternate judge) at our usual polling location. We have always been the PJ (presiding judge). This privilege is based on who the precinct voted for as governor; my precinct voted for Governor Abbott, the Republican, so we are entitled to be the PJ, which means running the polling location and hiring the workers. The AJ is there to provide oversight from the opposing party, and typically gets to bring along a clerk if we are allowed to hire enough people. This privilege is according to state law, so the County is breaking the law. By depriving us of our entitled PJ status, it means I and the others who regularly run our polls—and we do it better than most, because of our experience—will not get hired. I gather we’re not the only precinct they’ve done this to.

There’s an HCRP (Harris County Republican Party) meeting on Monday; I’m hoping they’re going to deal with this problem, which I and others have reported. Who knows what other fires need to be put out, a mere month before election day.

This is a long way of saying—after a couple of decades of doing my civic duty—and more than a decade of doing a whole lot more than most—our situation is still dire, probably worse than when we started. This is even though we, as the public, are more aware than we have ever been. We can be censored and labeled as domestic terrorists for saying so, however. The Biden administration is pushing for even more censorship of messages they do not approve of.

Engelbrecht was telling her story Monday to get people to see that they don’t need to set out to create a national organization or movement. They just need to act locally. That is what she did. And the Lord led her and others, one step after another, to do more—until they became a target on the national stage in this fight for free and fair elections.

Yes, act locally. Do what you can.

But we are in the midst of the book of Revelation. Do not expect that your efforts will be what it takes to bring back our constitutional republic, as much as we want that.

La Bête de la Mer, a medieval tapestry depicting John the Revelator
seeing the dragon and the sea beast from Rev. 13,
used previously in this post

My purpose in this post today is to encourage—myself and others—to do what we can, regardless. We’re not living in times that allow us to be comfortable. But we also do not live in times where our all-out effort will win the day. The Savior alone will win the day. Our part is to make sure we are fighting the war on His side. We do not want to be on the wrong side, nor can we be on the sidelines, as though we don’t care which side wins.

We’re not talking about political sides here. We are talking about choosing good over evil.

Election illegalities are a small part—with sometimes a large outcome, as we saw in the 2020 presidential election—of the overall war against evil. We’re seeing unprecedented things: the indictment on specious charges of a former president/current presidential candidate. The current office holder shows obvious signs of dementia but is insisting he’s running again, while an impeachment inquiry is open—because of the obvious, large, tangled web of influence peddling, which I would term treason, if I had a say.

The UN just met this past month, attempting to give large and sweeping powers—giving up our sovereignty—to the very World Health Organization that lied and failed us (purposely?) during the COVID pandemic. Who in their right might would think it’s a good idea to give more power to a worldwide entity that has already proven themselves untrustworthy?

These issues are all national or global. We can give our opinions to lawmakers, but that’s about the limit of our power on that level. So, locally is where we can have the biggest impact. And there’s plenty to deal with at the state and local level. Besides election integrity, there’s:

·        Education

·        Parental rights

·        Child trafficking

·        Drug trafficking

·        Border security (in a border state where the federal government has purposely failed us)

·        Crime and punishment

There’s plenty more. Very locally, there’s the school board and the HOA board. I talked about our school board race in my last post. Tonight was a work session of the school board, ahead of Monday’s official public meeting. I tuned into the livestream for a while, but my attention wandered. (This post wasn’t done, for one thing.) Paying the needed attention to school issues could be a full-time endeavor.

Today, while I was walking my dog, I had a conversation with an HOA board member, about the two board races up for election this year. She’s a nice, retired lady, a year into being on the board, willing to hear what neighbors have to say, but also a bit frustrated that more people don’t step up to make things better in our very local community. I live in a “newer” section of the neighborhood, where we’ve been for 24 years. She is in an older section, been there 32 years. While I feel safe walking our streets, even in the dark, she no longer feels that way at her end of the subdivision. There’s a house on her street where they’re pretty sure drug deals are going on. People are wondering if not just drug trafficking, but also human trafficking is happening there. We’ve heard about a lot of catalytic converter thefts in the neighborhood, as well as tire thefts. As the neighborhood ages, more of it turns into rentals, with less upkeep of the property and, unfortunately, more propensity for crime. Homeownership doesn’t always prevent crime, but it’s a signal of more care for the property, and a lot of good goes along with that (which is just one reason the idea that by 2030 you will own nothing is disturbing). There are discussions between the HOA and the MUD (municipal utilities district) about whose money should be used for what projects. Money is involved—our very local money.

But there is only so much a person can give their attention to. The more local, the more it is likely to affect your daily life, so you might want to focus there. But, as Catherine Engelbrecht was suggesting, you probably do need to look around and ask God, “What would you have me do?” Then take a step, connect with others, inform others, work together for the good of the community. If you accomplish something good in your community, it might stave off the influx of evil from a less local source.

In the community circles where I’ve served, I’ve met a lot of really good, committed Christians, giving tirelessly to make things better. They are an example and inspiration to me. I am “not weary in well doing” (Galatians 6:9), but I am often physically weary, facing limitations of age and health. So I have to ask more judiciously what the Lord would have me do. Writing and sharing information here is just one thing, and it’s very small. I’m continuing to participate in various ways when I can, within my limits.

I trust that, while what I do will never be enough to change the world, it makes me a little better. And all of us making ourselves a little better—that will sustain enough good in the world to help us survive until Babylon falls and our Savior reigns.

Our tools of defense during that great fall will be faith, patience, and courage[i]. That is what we are strengthening in ourselves during this time when doing our little part is never enough to bring Babylon down. That will happen. What we’re doing is protecting ourselves from falling with those evil forces.

Simply, look around you and do daily the good the Lord leads you to do.

 

---

[i] Richard Draper and Michael D. Rhodes, The Revelation of John the Apostle, © 2016, p. 941. This is an excellent commentary on Revelation, carefully explaining translation from the Greek, done by Brigham Young University professors, with added insight from other Latter-day Saint scriptures and writings. It is nevertheless their opinion and not necessarily the views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The book is long and detailed, and I do not understand the Greek, but the commentary is enjoyable to read, and I would appreciate such a commentary on a great many other books of the Bible.

We Are at War

War comes in various shapes and sizes, and temperatures. Some are comparatively small, others big. Some are cold, others kinetic. Some are wars of ideas. Maybe all are wars of ideas. Ideas like, what is good and what is evil—and which are we choosing? We’re in one of those right now.

Back in the 60s there was a saying, “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” It never made sense, because if nobody is warring, there is no war. But if one side is warring and the other side isn’t defending itself, you just have a takeover by the warring party. So, if someone is warring against you, you either succumb or fight back.

We’re being warred against. Many of us are fighting back—in non-kinetic, non-violent ways. We spread the message. We campaign. We vote. We work the polls. Some of us fight in the courts. Some of us fight in the legislature—if we’re not in the legislature, we testify and do citizen lobbying. We speak up. We make our voices heard. And meanwhile we live peaceful, productive lives in our communities.

The other side is using less lawful tactics. They censor. They propagandize like crazy. That is, they lie. They falsely accuse—in fact, if they’re accusing us (their opponents), you can assume they’re doing what they’re accusing us of. They harness business, media, unions, schools, NGOs, agencies, and anything else they can finagle to do their bidding.

They thwart free and fair elections. We have an election underway, with early voting running through tomorrow, and election day coming next Tuesday. And all of the thwarting is evident. However, in our war against evil, we have upped our game—more training, more poll watching, more calling them out. And yet, here’s an example of what this war looks like.

Gregg Phillips and Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote
were arrested for not revealing a source
image from True the Vote found here

Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote (which started here in Houston and trained me in poll watching over a decade ago), and Gregg Phillips, a fellow researcher, turned over information to law enforcement identifying the company Konnech as having stored personal data of millions of US election workers on a server in China. CEO Eugene Yu has been arrested on criminal charges in the case; he is a naturalized US citizen, if I understand correctly, but is nevertheless a spy for the CCP.

The fact that charges were made means that verifiable information was provided and corroborated. But Konnech filed a defamation suit against True the Vote and all involved. The thing is, it’s not defamation if the claims are true, and the fact that charges have been filed make it very likely that what was said about them was true. In other words, Engelbrecht and Phillips did not make false claims, so a defamation lawsuit ought to be dismissed. Instead, the judge in the case is insisting that they provide the names of their sources.

And Monday Engelbrecht and Phillips were jailed for contempt of court. Here’s a good metaphor:

“Let’s imagine that a drug dealer facing criminal charges filed a lawsuit in civil court to make the cops provide the name of a source inside his organization. Would anyone think for a moment that would be a reasonable request? Would anyone have any doubt as to the fate of the informant if he was identified?

That’s how ludicrous this is and how obscene.”

                              —Sam Faddis, former CIA operations officer, writing in AND Magazine

Let’s look a little closer at the timeline. I’m getting most of this from a True the Vote email newsletter, as well as some recent news stories.

January 2021     True the Vote learned of the illegal breach of personal information to the CCP by Konnech. Recognizing the seriousness of the breach, they immediately turned over their information to the FBI. It turned out Konnech was already on their radar. They continued to cooperate with the FBI for 15 months.

April 2022           Catherine was told by a Texas-based FBI agent that the Washington, DC, office was now involved in the case. The FBI agent told her it was possible the FBI would now be targeting them, and their best way forward was to go public with their information.

August 2022       Engelbrecht and Phillips held a meeting in Arizona, called “The Pit,” an audience including citizen researchers, journalists, and law enforcement personnel, to whom they divulged their story publicly for the first time.

September 2022              Michigan-based company, Konnech, filed suit against True the Vote for defamation, racism, and xenophobia, based on their making their findings public. The court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), which required providing the names of all individuals who were involved in the discovery of poll worker data in China.

October 4, 2022               Following a grand jury convened in Los Angeles, Konnech CEO, Eugene Yu, was indicted in California on charges that included fraud, embezzlement, and a data breach that resulted in the theft of the personal information of election workers in LA County. The arrest was announced by LA District Attorney, George Gascon.

October 7, 2022               Attorneys for Engelbrecht and Phillips made an initial appearance in federal court in Houston to answer the civil lawsuit filed by Konnech. It was at this hearing that the judge issued a highly unusual order requiring Engelbrecht and Phillips, through their attorneys, to reveal the name of the individual who originally presented them with the poll worker data on the server in China. Their attorney reluctantly complied and revealed the name of that one individual.

October 27, 2022             Engelbrecht and Phillips appeared in federal court in Houston, at which point they intended to demonstrate that there was a criminal matter in LA County regarding Eugene Yu and Konnech—which would mean the defamation case could be dismissed. The judge refused to consider this essential fact and further directed Engelbrecht and Phillips to reveal publicly the name of yet another individual who had been in the hotel room where Phillips had viewed the poll worker data in January 2021. Engelbrecht and Phillips offered to cooperate with the court and Konnech’s lawyers by providing the name of this individual under seal. The judge refused this offer. At the end of a long day of testimony, the judge found Engelbrecht and Phillips in contempt of court. They were provided an opportunity to “cure” the contempt on Monday, October 31, at 9:00 AM by announcing the name of this individual in open court. If they did not “cure” it, they would be immediately remanded into custody by the US Marshals.

October 31, 2022             Engelbrecht and Phillips refused to name the individual who was in the hotel room in January 2021, because this person was not involved in the sourcing of the poll worker data, and they strongly believe that this individual’s life would be in danger if his name were to be revealed publicly. They were immediately remanded to the custody of the US Marshal’s Service and remain in federal prison.

In any normal case, the defamation suit would have been dismissed. In parallel cases where journalists or researchers have been jailed for not revealing a source, it was at least on the pretext that it was preventing law enforcement from verifying the evidence they needed to proceed with their investigation. That is clearly not true here.

The judge doesn’t even seem concerned with how political it looks to do this false imprisonment a week before the important Midterm Election, for which True the Vote is a clearinghouse of training for poll workers, poll watchers, and any other election observers who see election laws being broken. They couldn’t wait two weeks to avoid the appearance of political shenanigans?

post on Catherine Engelbrecht's Locals.com account November 2, 2022
linking to the updates of election violation reports, of which the leading
problem is ballot drop boxes

The logical conclusion is that this judge, along with Yu and other players, is fighting on the side against truth and freedom.

Engelbrecht’s friend Dinesh D’Souza, who directed the movie 2000 Mules, based on their research, suggested in his Tuesday night podcast, we pray for them of course, but not to worry about them. They will be fine. Some years ago he underwent political persecution that ended up in his spending time in prison for a violation that should have been limited to a fine, if anything. He said he learned a lot, and it actually raised his profile so that he could share his ideas with more people than before. He hopes that will be the case for Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips.

We can’t not fight in the courts, because to not fight is to succumb. But it is definitely not a fair fight. So getting the word out, spreading the message that compares freedom to tyranny, is essential.

In that fight we are shut down at every turn by those warring against us. But truth rises. Truth wins.

Meanwhile there are battle to be fought all around, and not all will be won, as we would hope.

Another such casualty in the fight for truth this week was Dr. Peter McCullough. Not dead. Just another attempt to silence him. He has been one of the most published and outspoken doctors (also here and here) in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, who developed an effective protocol early on, shared by millions and found to be effective. He’s a cardiology specialist and was among the first to connect the rise in myocarditis in young people to the so-called vaccine.

Dr. Peter McCullough testifies to the Texas Senate HHS Committee March 11, 2021
screenshot from here

After decades of stellar work and spotless record, all of his credentials have been stripped from him. He was not given due process. He was not given a chance to defend himself, or even to learn the reasons; he was coldly informed in an email. In a message about it, Dr. McCullough said,

I was terminated as the Editor-In-Chief of Cardiorenal Medicine and Reviews in Cardiovascular Medicine after years of service and rising impact factors.  There was no phone call, no board meeting, no due process.  Just e-mails or certified letters.  Powerful dark forces are working in academic medicine to expunge any resistance to the vax.

Yesterday I was stripped of my board certifications in Internal Medicine and Cardiology after decades of perfect clinical performance, board scores, and hundreds of peer reviewed publications.  

None of this will stop until there is a “needle in every arm.”

I don’t know what this means for him going forward. He is of an age that retirement is an option—but that would be a tremendous loss for the public. While he might be prevented from seeing patients (it would be hard to get insurance without credentials), he might still be able to do research and publish findings. And he could still continue his online work and speeches and interviews. So we shall see. But I’m sure it’s intended to be a warning signal to any other medical professional who dares to go against the powers of those warring against truth and freedom.

We will win some battles in this war. Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter may be a good thing for freedom of speech, although not quite fully realized in time for the Midterm Election.

And speaking of the Midterms, we may have a rare number of victories next Tuesday. Biden’s ominous and odd speech the other night seemed to portend a repeat of the worst—don’t expect the count to be complete for several days (so that they can dump in enough unreal main-in ballots to change outcomes they don’t like); and beware of violence breaking out (is that a threat against us disguised in an accusation toward us, disguised as a call for peace?) Weird.

I don’t know what it means. But I do know in this war between freedom and tyranny, the tyrants will not give up easily. And they have already proven, many times over, that abiding by the law is a limit on us, not them.

In the final end, we win the war. We’d better keep that in mind as they continue their attacks in this war many only recently realized we had to fight.

It's Not Over

Don’t go insane. You can get mad, but don’t go mad.—Andrew Klavan 

I was going to debrief our pretty good poll working experience, and then get on with the insanity. But this was too long. Let me just say, one of our new workers was pleasantly surprised; no one got angry all day. If you run things smoothly, you can avoid irritable voters—while preventing fraud.

There’s a long list of voting irregularities and outright fraud in Harris County. Observing from afar, my lawyer son says, “Your County Clerk belongs in jail.” But we’ll save that list for another day. Lawsuits are underway. But today, the national election is more at issue.

President Donald Trump, Thursday press briefing
screenshot from here

 

Sharpie-Gate

One voter fraud situation I have personal knowledge of is Sharpie-gate. We first heard of it from Mr. Spherical Model’s brother in Arizona. There were polling places in multiple states that handed out Sharpie permanent markers to use to mark paper ballots. Sharpies can bleed through, and that causes problems for the optical readers. And the ballots get rejected.

A friend said online that, from now on, if it doesn’t come from Reuters, she doesn’t want to hear it. No more news from friends’ Facebook posts or blogs. While I question her choice of authoritative news, I offer my anecdotal report anyway. When I mentioned this on a Facebook thread, I got called out for spreading rumors from a friend’s Facebook post. But that’s not what I was doing; I was sharing direct knowledge from an extended family member, and I hadn't yet heard of it anywhere else. So to me it wasn’t rumor. More news came out later—so the attack guy probably should have held his peace for a while.

My BIL took his marked absentee ballot to the polling place and turned it in as his vote, and his counted; they have a place you can go to online to check whether your vote is accounted for. His wife filled out her ballot at the polling place, using the Sharpie marker provided by poll workers. When she checked online, hers had been rejected. In addition, they have multiple relatives around the state who had the same issue. Those in Democrat areas had no problem; those in Republican areas had their votes rejected. It’s a small sample, but enough to make them personally suspicious.

My SIL was able to cure her ballot (verify it and get it counted) by Thursday morning, but at least three other relatives have not been able to get theirs counted yet as I write this.

Arizona Republican officials give press briefing Thursday
screenshot from here

Arizona has a hotline for people to call and report when they have this problem. It looks like, at least for those complaining, they will eventually be able to cure their ballots. It just may take a while. And the expectation is that, eventually, Trump wins Arizona’s 11 electoral votes.

·         Check your BALLOT STATUS HERE: https://my.arizona.vote/AbsenteeTracker.aspx

·         IF it says “cancelled,” file a COMPLAINT HERE: https://www.azag.gov/criminal/eiu

Catherine Engelbrecht, on the True the Vote podcast, said she first heard about the Sharpie problem from hotline reports out of California, North Carolina, and Michigan. It was when the calls started coming from Arizona, and then Nevada, that she realized it wasn’t an anomaly; it was widespread. She said, 

Now, there’s new details coming in on this. And as I said at the top of this broadcast, this is raw, right, so we don’t have some of the details that we will have throughout the day that will help glue some of this together. But what we have been told is that there was a company, particularly in Michigan, that was responsible for passing out Sharpies. That’s one data point. Another data point, out of North Carolina was that some of the Republican election workers—and you may have seen this in our Twitter feed late last night—the authorities had the sheriffs called in on them, sheriff’s, law enforcement called on them for trying to not use Sharpies, and using ballpoint pens instead, because it wasn’t spoiling the ballots.

We’ll see how that turns out. But, yes, poll workers saw the Sharpies were spoiling ballots, so they went and got ballpoint pens, and someone called the cops on them—for making sure their voters’ votes were not spoiled! I’d like to know who called the cops and what crime did they claim had been perpetrated.

 

Mail-in Ballots

On Andrew Klavan’s show, he wryly headlined his post with this: 

If only someone had predicted that mail-in voting would be a chaotic mess!

Of course we knew this would be the outcome. The only scenario that would not have worked out this way would have been a decisive, unquestioned, fairly counted Biden win. We knew that wasn’t going to happen. The multitudes at Trump rallies, compared to pathetically few at the purposely scarce Biden appearances, told us that.

I know this was a misspeak,
but we heard him say it and not correct it.
image found here

What we’re seeing play out is the Democrats’ plan A. They pushed every form of ballot chaos they could, well ahead of time.

One of the main points of contention is the counting of mail-in ballots. This is a new thing, special for this election. And they’re ripe for fraud; they’re missing most of the safeguards of in-person voting.

Yes, there are a few states who do it relatively successfully. They have a process in place, with years to have worked out issues. In particular, they clear out their voter rolls completely every two-year election cycle. People have to re-register or they do not get a ballot, and their registration includes their signature. They have a system of identifying that the enclosed ballot belongs to the registered voter who received it. (Still, I hear reports of people I know who have gone to the polls in person only to find that someone else had already voted in their name.)

There’s nevertheless a span of time when the ballot is “in the mail” and could be tampered with, or “lost.” So it will never be as secure as in-person. There’s also no way to have observers verify that the voter wasn’t intimidated or coerced or influenced as they filled out their ballot. That’s why absentee ballots are typically a last resort way of voting, reserved for those who cannot make it to the polling place in person—not on election day nor during early voting. It’s a courtesy for elderly voters and for active military, so it’s usually a small, manageable number that are not likely to sway an election.

But the places that do mass mail-in successfully do not send out ballots to people who have long since moved, or died, or never existed, or never registered in the first place. In our county, where the county clerk printed ballot applications to send out to every voter (because he couldn’t get away with sending actual ballots to uncleared voter rolls) spent millions on the printing, and then was prevented by law from sending them out to people who had not requested them. Still, he sent probably a million. Some households got several ballots more than the number of people living there.

President Trump warned about this months ahead of time. And the experience of many places in primary and runoff votes showed they could not—maybe ever—determine the outcome of the election in a timely and just manner. The sudden use of mail-in ballots—especially without the legislature putting safeguards in place—is dangerous and probably illegal.

The news media use President Trump’s warning against him, saying he’s stirring up lack of trust in the process.

Not so. There is a fairly simple solution to lack of trust: transparency. You have observers from both parties view every interaction with every ballot, and work together to determine the eligibility of each vote.

But that’s not what we’re seeing. We’re seeing Democrats thwart the observation. Purposely. Intentionally. Breaking the law by denying access. (See video here from the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan.) 

The Democrats are acting like people trying to steal the election—with the added bonus of causing loss of trust in the system.

The President is resolute. I’m glad to see it. And he explains it well. This isn’t about him or any other particular candidate winning; it’s about us, the American voters, having our votes counted accurately.

Democrats keep saying “Count every vote.” Republicans are saying “Count every legal vote.” It echoes the immigration fight: “The Republicans hate immigrants,” versus the truth: “Republicans welcome legal immigrants.”

Let me put it this way, every illegal vote that is counted disenfranchises a legal vote. Notice which party is intent on disenfranchising voters.

Fox News screenshot, found here

 

The Suspicious Six

So, the Sharpie states seem to be among the suspicious six: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. [Other states, including New York, used Sharpies, maybe without issues. I’m wondering about differences in the paper used, or in the optical scanners.] All six have Democrats in charge of voting. All six had President Trump leading or quickly gaining—until around 3:00 AM (Eastern?) Wednesday morning. Then they stopped counting. For several hours.

I can’t emphasize enough how odd this is. You don’t stop the counting in the middle of the process. Ever. For any reason. I think it was Georgia that claimed their pause had to do with a pipe that burst—far away from the counting location and having no effect on it. Hmm. I’m unaware of any rational explanation from any location. Then, when they opened up again, suddenly there were huge Biden gains. As though they had just happened to come upon some surprise boxloads of votes, all of which went to Biden.

I found this on Facebook, an unofficial news source, but I think it’s well stated, by Jan N. Freeland: 

How come the people processing the ballots suddenly couldn't process anymore ballots at the same exact time in the same states in different time zones? Did they all have their break times synched with each other across the USA? Did they all have to go home at the same exact time? Why, for hours, weren't any of these missing ballots being tallied up?

One thing you learn when investigating is that coincidences need to be carefully examined, in the event of multiple coincidences happening at the same time, which points to a non-coincidence.

What we are seeing now is a carefully orchestrated backup plan; it is far too planned out to be a coincidence.

There were areas where, in entire townships, only single digits of votes went to Trump—in areas where he won last time. I defy you to find a voter who went for Trump last time but not this time. Let alone an entire township. It doesn’t happen. It’s such a statistical anomaly that you can say it cannot happen—except by voter fraud. Incidentally, during the 2000 Florida recount there were entire precincts without a single Bush vote—except for some spoiled ballots that got thrown out. So, yes, we’ve seen this before.

Also consider this, from Joy Pullman at The Federalist:    

It would be mystifying if Republicans won more seats in the House, retained the Senate, and picked up state legislative seats, all while the same voters voted against Trump. Trump has solidified his support among Republican voters and enjoys a massive approval rating from them he didn’t have in 2016, and expanded his coalition to more working-class and minority voters this year. This is not a blue wave year. This is a year that the blue wave of 2018 appears to be receding.

Yet we are supposed to believe the same media-Democrat complex that fed us wildly erroneous polls all year, and runs false information operations on us about coronavirus, the Russia hoax, and everything else they can use to steal power, that this blue wave’s evaporation did not at all affect the top of the ticket?

Something is amiss.

tweet from Mollie Hemingway

 

The Lawsuits

Our new State Republican Executive Committeewoman, Deborah Kelting Fife, was one of the original members of Catherine Engelbrecht’s True the Vote team. They’re the ones that taught me poll watching and ballot security law, back in 2010. Deborah says that Catherine

has offered assistance in reconciling votes across the Nation. Without going into detail, it would be a very simple process to electronically determine the number of times people voted, deceased votes, or felons, or illegals, or people that have moved out of the State, etc.

Trump wants to count every LEGAL ballot.

I know True the Vote is not the only group. If you have evidence of voter fraud issues or irregularities, here are some places to report:

·         True the Vote Election Integrity Hotline or 855-702-0702

·         Jay Sekulow, ACLJ Election Hotline 

·         Trump/Pence, Defend Your Ballot 

·         Brandon Straka, #StopTheSteal 

Rudy Giuliani said this about the President’s lawsuits: 

When these mail-in ballots that you know are highly suspicious anyway, this form of balloting has always been considered the most prone to fraud—that’s according to the New York Times when it didn’t apply to candidate President Trump—well, we were supposed to be allowed by law to observe the counting of the ballots. Now, observe means, to any intelligent person, being able to look at it. The way that it’s interpreted by the Democrat crooked machine of Philadelphia is that the observers can be 20 or 30 feet away, never able to see the ballot itself. Never able to see if it was properly postmarked, properly addressed, properly signed on the outside—all the things that often lead to disqualification of ballots, or make it easy to dump 50,000 totally fraudulent ballots, because they’re not observed. This went on for 20 hours. While all of you thought there was some kind of legitimate count going on here in Philadelphia, it was totally illegitimate.

Does it make a difference? It wouldn’t if people were honest. So, yes, it makes a difference. For example, in Wisconsin, the location of at least one of the President’s lawsuits, after a pause in counting suddenly 120,000 ballots show up. We have no way of knowing from where, or whether they’re legitimate at all. Because observers weren’t allowed to observe. That’s where they’re putting boards on windows so spectators can’t even look in.

According to Catherine Engelbrecht, even Democrat observers around the country are calling in to complain that no one is allowed to observe. Backroom shenanigans are being carried out. Vote counts aren’t just showing gradual rises, they’re showing vertical rises in favor of Biden. That doesn’t happen.

image found here

 

My Plan

Don’t give up on our beloved 233-year experiment in self-rule; our constitutional republic is a gift from God, worth preserving, whatever the cost.

Pray hard. Pray for God’s intervention in this darkness that is too heavy for us to bear alone.

Pray that every single incident of voter fraud is uncovered and made known—with consequences to follow. Pray for President Trump, and Vice President Pence, and their families. Pray for those working to uncover the voter fraud and bring it to light.

Pray that those who vote another way will see the corruption on their side and realize it doesn’t represent their beliefs; welcome them when they break away.

When you get up off your knees, take action. Spread the word. Volunteer. Bear one another’s burdens. And be of good cheer. Whatever comes, God’s plans will include you and your choice to serve Him.

Freedom of Speech Is Priceless

There’s been bias in media for a very long time. I think it was probably 1989, maybe earlier, when Rush Limbaugh gave new life to AM radio by using it as a platform for conservative talk. He did that because there wasn’t another platform for those opinions. There was mainstream news, which by comparison today may have appeared nonpartisan, but even then it wasn’t.

Eventually Fox News got started, with a bias toward conservatism—from its commentators. But the news is still pretty centrist. It’s just that anyone who wanted a Democrat or progressive slant could get that on ABC, NBC, CBS, and then CNN, then MSNBC, and in the New York Times and just about any other newspaper.

There are some of us who get tired of being fed news that we know is slanted, so that we have to search elsewhere to get the real story. While it would be preferable to get the actual truth straight up, since journalists are human that might be too much to ask; if so, then next best is knowing up front the bias of the presenter, to allow the listener to cautiously sift out the bias.

The internet has been good at opening up conversations—also for opening up contentious arguing. But that’s a risk you take when you have free speech.

Those who’ve had control of the message for all these many decades are up in arms now about the lack of control over the message that gets out to the masses. Because—obviously, from the last presidential election—that has consequences.

So there have been covert efforts to quash non-sanctioned messages. And now we’re also seeing overt efforts.

Among the covert efforts, from within the Obama administration, was the weaponization of the IRS against conservative groups.  The court case for True the Vote is about to be settled, about eight years in. The IRS did indeed target them illegally. Founder Catherine Engelbrecht said this about it: here. [Correction added 6-20-2019: there's an additional video I intended to link to, from June 6, 2019, here.]

True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht
screenshot from here

Meanwhile, the overt efforts are heating up. It sort of heated up some months back with shock jock/conspiracy theorist (and non-conservative) Alex Jones being banned. There were people who spoke up—not because they agree with anything he says, but because the reasons for banning speech were just wrong. If you’re not calling on people to act violently, or doing some other of a very short list of illegal speech (making threats, libel, slander), then what is the reason? And if the reason is arbitrary, who is safe?

Lately Steven Crowder has been attacked. YouTube demonetized him. That means his videos, which he places on a platform that allows for them to bring in money through advertising can no longer do so. The purpose is to prevent him from having the resources to speak. If he were actually inciting violence or doing some other illegal speech (see short list above), that would be understandable for YouTube to do. But, after investigation, they find that he has not violated their platform rules.

Steven Crowder, of Louder with Crowder
image from here

YouTube is a private company; they can set up their own rules, but they admit he has not violated them. Nor has he violated any laws. But they decide—because they don’t like his message, or maybe his tone—that they are demonetizing him anyway.

There’s a bit more to the story. The progressive/socialist “news” outlet Vox complained about Crowder—for using terms to describe one of their commentators that the commentator uses to describe himself. Vox put pressure on YouTube.

Ben Shapiro and friends talked about this last week. One aspect is that the leaders of the Big Tech platforms support Democrats and their progressive/socialist agenda, so they’re willing to give in to pressure toward their natural leanings. But there’s also this, which is even more insidious:

The mainstream media that are proclaiming day in and day out that Donald Trump is an existential threat to the press—people like Jim Acosta who are doing books about how Donald Trump is calling them an enemy of the people, and therefore he’s trying to shut down freedom of the press. These people are all in. I mean, all in, in trying to get Big Tech to censor people. Vox is a supposed journalistic outfit. It is a pseudo-journalistic trash heap. Their editor-in-chief put out a letter explicitly saying, “We know that Steven Crowder didn’t violate any of your rules. That’s why we are telling you, as an editorial newspaper, we are telling you that you should change your rules.

In recent Senate hearings Google president Sundar Pichal responds to questions concerning employee behavior during the 2016 election. Senator Jim Jordan questions him regarding a four-page memo, written the day after the November 2016 election by Eliana Murillo, Google’s head of Multicultural Marketing, concerning her work with the Latino vote. The memo talks about Get Out the Vote efforts, which aren’t a problem, but then the memo indicates they were only targeted in key states for a specific outcome—which means for political purposes. Sundar’s response is that they have found no evidence—but the evidence is the memo before them that he’s being asked about.

Again, Google is a private company and can set its own rules. However, right now those rules apply to it as an open platform; if it is not essentially randomly open, but is favoring or disfavoring based on content, then it cannot continue to be treated as an open platform.

That’s the case with YouTube as well. Is it an open platform or a content curator?

Facebook has been facing these questions for a while. Facebook jail is a real thing. People I have known have been put in it. That means their specific content is removed and no longer seen, or it may mean they cannot post anything for a certain amount of time, usually a day or a week. The punishment happens without notice, and often without explanation. There’s supposed to be an appeals process so a person can learn why they were barred from posting, but it doesn’t seem to be because of any identifiable—and thus avoidable—reasons.

Recently it was leaked that Facebook has a “hate agent”status they apply to users based various bits of data from on and off the platform. It’s a guilt by association formula. If you appear in photos with someone they deem hateful, without knowing context for your being there, that can get you labeled. So can comments about immigration, particular tattoos, being neutral about someone Facebook thinks you should disapprove of, or saying something in private that is later made public that Facebook deems unacceptable.

The attempt is to draw a circle of association around actual haters or violent groups to claim a person should not be heard. This is an extension of what the Obama administration did when it created a terrorist watch list that included things like being in a Tea Party, or being patriotic. I think I checked 28 boxes on their list, as a conservative Christian grandmother with nothing more that a couple of traffic tickets on my lifetime record. It’s how you get crazies saying that Ben Shapiro (Orthodox Jew, conservative) is a white supremacist leader of the Alt-Right. (The actual Alt-Right criticized Shapiro more times than any other media person last year.) It’s how you get them saying Candace Owens is all about white privilege (she’s black).

In other words, you can’t trust their algorithm, because you can’t trust people who believe that only their ideas should be allowed.

One of the things Facebook has been doing lately is to alter your feed. They notice if you’re getting “too much” content from one point of view, and then they send you similar content from a different point of view. They’re trying to keep people from being radicalized, they say. That is a little creepy, but it would be mostly innocuous—except that it’s aimed only at correcting people who see conservative content. The thing is, conservatives see opposing viewpoints all over the place. 

Meanwhile, there are those on the Democrat/progressive/socialist side who seem to be unaware that it’s possible for thinking, functional people to differ from them.

It turns out that Pinterest, our personal online bulletin board, where we go for crafts and food and other interests, has joined other Big Tech monitors of speech. They recently fired a whistleblower, Eric Cochran, for coming forward about their censorship of conservative voices. Specifically, they labeled Lila Rose and her pro-life organization, Live Action, to be porn, so they could ban it. There isn’t anything in it that could be construed as porn; they lie. They also removed Zero Hedge and PJ Media. Bible verses—a common use for Pinterest—are also considered too “sensitive” to be allowed.

I think Ben Shapiro is right; the opposition to freedom, prosperity, and civilization are trying to control the message, to keep anything they disagree with from getting out to the people. And the intensity at this time is tied to the upcoming 2020 presidential election.

We saw it with Obama, with the IRS attacks that affected the 2012 election and beyond. Only now, most of a decade later, when that administration is no longer in office, does a resolution come.

Suggested solutions include regulating the Big Tech companies. But we know that greater regulation on big businesses—which are regulated according to how those big companies want, and pay their lobbyists to get—support only the big companies and cause barriers to entry for startups.

Another suggestion is to break up the big companies, the way the phone companies were broken up some decades ago.

An alternative is to start—and support with subscriptions—alternative platforms. Glenn Beck’s The Blaze and Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire, both with subscription fees, have been attempting that. But to reach beyond their current subscribers, they depend on YouTube and Facebook to allow their content to be seen.

Jordan Peterson announces Thinkspot.com
image from here

Another announcement last week was from Jordan Peterson, who has been working to develop an alternative subscription free-speech platform called Thinkspot.com, which will not limit speech beyond legal limits. It will be an anti-censorship version of Patreon. No censoring content based on using a “wrong” word or having a “wrong” opinion. This is meant to be useful both for content providers and for responses, to encourage dialogue. There will be rules, such as a minimum comment length, to encourage deeper thinking. As Peterson puts is, “If minimum comment length is 50 words, you’re gonna have to put a little thought into it. Even if you’re being a troll, you’ll be a quasi-witty troll.”

My preferred solution is whatever best allows truth to flourish. I don’t have a lot of money to spare, but if the subscription is worth it, I’m willing to pay a bit to make it happen. Because our freedom of speech is priceless.