“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert.” –J. Robert Oppenheimer
Welcome. Please visit this January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road, which are few but important.
2024 Presidential Election Map by County. (an uncertain credit) Let us Never Forget: our VOTES gave the Trump Administration a Mandate to FIX IT ALL.
Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1
We got our miracle. America is back.
Let us dedicate ourselves to the cleansing, healing, and rebuilding of our beautiful nation.
God will guide us. Prayers & thanks to God for President Donald J. Trump.
Rogue States.
Picking up from last week’s presentation, United Sovereign Americans (USA) states that they have the evidence for declaring 5 states as having “gone rogue,” as being out of compliance with the U.S. Constitution, as provably illegitimate:
18/ Illinois, New York, California, Pennsylvania and Michigan are rogue states. No one in those governments knows if their congressional representatives are legitimate. I don’t know, you don’t know, and neither do they. Certifying elections for Congress with millions of fictitious voters and votes is an act of defiance against the United States Constitution, and USA has gathered the proof, from the states’ own official records, that this is exactly what happened. – @UnitedSAmerican
Not only is all of the above true, but there are many other ways in which many of the states are failed. Bankrupt. Corrupt. And worse. The levels of dissatisfaction of the people in all of the states are sky high.
At this point in the conversation, it’s important to note that any discussions of states leaving the Union will need to overcome this ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. “Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1868)” which is summarized here:
The secession of the Southern states in 1861 sparked the Civil War. The Confederacy was defeated on the battlefield rather than in the courts. However, subsequent legal issues created by attempts at independence led the courts to express an opinion on the legality of secession. In Texas v. White, a dispute over a bond sale by the Confederate States, the Supreme Court ruled in 1869 that Texas’ secession had not been legal. According to the majority opinion, entry into the Union formed “an indissoluble relation”; it was “final,”“perpetual,” and left “no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through the consent of the States.”
As of this writing there are groups in Texas, California, Louisiana, Alaska, and New Hampshire that have as their stated goal to get their state to secede from the Union. However, it seems, without armed conflict, the only path for success involves a Constitutional amendment (which would require getting approval by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and being ratified by 38 states). This doesn’t seem very likely.
A New State.
What does the U.S. Constitution say about creating a new state? Article IV Section 3 of the United States Constitution says: “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
Reading this in the context of those groups wanting to form a new state from territory currently part of another state it would require: (1) consent of the old state, (2) consent of the new state, and (3) consent of Congress.
The history of the creation of West Virginia’s statehood should be instructive (ref: National Archives, WVencyclopedia.org). I’m going to try and create the “Cliff Notes” version of the difficult and contentious history of the creation of the new state of West Virginia.*
Virginia joins confederacy, seceding from Union.
Western part of Virginia doesn’t agree with leaving the Union, but there is no longer a legitimate old state government to get consent from.
Western Virginia deliberates and develops a “reorganized” government of Virginia made up of representatives from non-secessionist areas in the state of Virginia (from June of 1861 to May of 1862).
On May 13, 1862, the state legislature of the reorganized government approves the formation of the new state from the non-secessionist areas of Virginia and a government of the new state of West Virginia is formed. (This new state of West Virginia obviously “consents” to the formation of the new state.)
An application for admission to the Union is then made to Congress. On July 14, 1862, the US Congress adopts a statehood bill for West Virginia, which includes the condition of gradually freeing all blacks under the age of 21 on July 4, 1863.
President Lincoln signs the enabling act on December 31, 1862.
The revised constitution for West Virginia, which meets the demand for gradual emancipation, is adopted on March 26, 1863.
On April 20, 1863, President Lincoln issues a proclamation admitting West Virginia to the Union at the end of 60 days, on June 20, 1863.
*Please respond in the comments if there are errors in the above summary, I make no claims to know much at all of what I am writing about here.
Dear Wolf and kind readers: some of the above was built from text given to me from Brave AI’s summarizer. I have now gone to the referenced sources to check Brave’s work and updated the text where necessary for clarity and to give credit to sources.
Separatist Movements.
Will Trump will sew a 51st star on our flag?
Time will not permit going into much detail on the various separatist movements active today (for creating new states or redrawing of state lines), but a pretty detailed article “Splitsville: separatist movements are gaining steam in blue states” written by Dave Seminara (published in “The Spectator” in January of this year) covers some of it (reprint here). Dave muddies up some of the details, but it’s still a great place to start reading. From the article:
According to Grant Dahl, co-host of the Secession Speakeasy podcast, there are separatist … movements in Oregon, Illinois, Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Louisiana, California, Washington, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania.
The goals aren’t the same in each place — and some movements are far more serious than others. Dozens of counties in Illinois and Oregon, for example, have already voted in favor of some form of separation from their current states.
Apparently there are also movements in Michigan and Maryland, which are not in Dahl’s list.
Interesting Times.
Our Turn.
We can’t leave this to others. We can get informed on what has been found, what is being done about it, and what more needs to be done.
We can make a difference. And we must make a difference.
May God bless and guide you as you pray and take action for our nation.
Twitterati, etc.
And now for something completely different. @BretWeinstein might be an outlier in terms of your usual “trapline” on X (to borrow a term from another denizen of our tree, MarieUrsula), but he brings good insights to the table from time to time.
Prayer.
God Bless America, Land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam God bless America, My home sweet home.
Before I get into the meat of this controversial subject, I want to cover a bit of background. …. The three topics are, Oligarchs, Propaganda, and Astroturf Terrorism. Since those three are critical to understanding our current situation, I am going to make this a stand alone article.
OLIGARCHS
This author has a very good definition which applies nicely to the Banksters and Mercantilists. He is correct, together they form the oligarchs who are intent on controlling the world.
An oligarch is someone who has amassed immense wealth and converted it into political and social authority…
The question is how does one become an oligarch? The suggestion is that some achieve oligarch status due to their shrewd business acumen. Many people are astute in business but that alone is not enough to rise to the oligarchy.👉In order to be an oligarch you have to be accepted by the other oligarchs. If oligarchs oppose you, your business will probably be crushed, or at least severely restricted, and access to political authority or social influence will be stifled…👈
PROPAGANDA
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” William J. Casey, CIA Director.
This quote was originally spoken by Casey sometime in early February of 1981, at a meeting in the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing of the White House, at which the White House policy analyst Barbara Honegger was present (who was then acting as Assistant to the chief domestic policy adviser to the President). She then relayed it to her Godmother, the Senior White House Correspondent Sarah McClendon, who made the quote public without naming the original source, through the Radio host Mae Brussel. — LINK
The primary tool that the Cabal (oligarchs) use against us is propaganda. This is why the EU and WEF are pushing so hard to clamp down on the truth and to get censorship re-installed in the USA and around the world.
Countering online disinformation is one of the biggest challenges democracies face today.
The European Union is listening to the concerns raised and taking serious action to counter the phenomenon. Here are 10 things the EU is doing to tackle disinformation: …The EU has a dedicated team, whose job it is to identify examples of disinformation targeting the EU and its citizens….
…The letter was sent by Thierry Breton and was dated August 12, 2024.
Thierry Breton is a French business executive, politician, writer and the current Commissioner for Internal Market of the European Union. In the letter, Thierry warns Elon Musk, “You have the legal obligation to ensure X’s compliance with EU law and in particular the DSA in the EU.”
Since when do Americans have to comply with EU law?
And what right does the EU have to censor OUR political candidates?
Speakers: Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, Vera Jourová, Jeanne Bourgault, Brian Stelter
Description:
How can the public, regulators and social media companies better collaborate to tackle disinformation, as information pollution spreads at unprecedented speed and scale?
WEF’s Global Risks Report 2025 downplays economic threats while pushing disinformation fears to justify tighter control and global governance.
And then there was the absolutely CLASSIC LIE of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to President Trump and VP Vance.
We’ve had free speaks for a very very long time in the United Kingdom and it will last for a very very long time. – Starmer
Starmer gets the Trump stink eye.
Paul Joseph Watson showcasing Starmer’s lie. (9minutes) H/T Kea
In the USA, once the Central Bank was in place in 1913 the Cabal took over the media.
“In March, 1915, the J.P. Morgan interests, the steel, ship building and powder interests and their subsidiary organizations, got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential newspapers in the United States and sufficient number of them to control generally the policy of the daily press in the United States. LINK
…Obama might have slithered out of the White House without a flashy “legacy” tag, but he sure did leave a mess. It’s as if he was the Dems and Deep State’s MVP, playing a long game we’re still trying to wrap our heads around. He wasn’t just about making policy changes; he was on a mission to infiltrate every corner of our sacred institutions and flip them inside out for his—and their—advantage. Just look what he did by weaponizing the intel community, churches, health care, and so much more… back in 2013, he made a move to ditch the Smith-Mundt Act, basically rolling out the red carpet for propaganda in our national media. This wasn’t just a small change; it was a game changer for how stories are told and sold to us to this day…
Limited Hangouts
This is an absolutely critical concept because it is used to derail the curious.
Paperback sample link. Want to know what happened to California? CIA put LSD in the food of Americans from 1953 to 1963… DARN! Amazon will not allow me to link to the page with the sample so you will have to look at the samples for the kindle version and the paperback. (They are different.)
After reading that, I realized that it was very similar to Willing Accomplices: How KGB Covert Influence Agents Created Political Correctness and Destroyed America by former?? CIA Agent Kent Clizbe.Kent connected with me via Tony Heller’s site and gave me a free PDF of his draft over ten years ago. He even gave me his phone number! 🤔
In both cases our focus is directed towards the communists and NOT the Brits Fabian Society. Colonel Towner mentions the CIA uses the communists as their ‘Boogeyman’ in order to justify their regime change coups. The coups are NOT about ‘democracy’ but about helping the Transnational corporations, her ‘International Syndicate,’ acquire raw materials and cheap labor.
Whether these men know it or not they are purveyors of the type of propaganda called a ‘Limited Hang-out’
The best weapon you can have in the Second American Revolution is the ability to think clearly and critically. The Deep State has been working hard to keep Americans from real truth–from the inside job of 9-11, to the human trafficking and blackmail operations that keep our elected officials in tow, to the U.S. Patent Office theft of hundreds of patents from social media to free energy. What many people do not know is that it is legal to propagandize and terrorize Americans thanks to the NDAA…
One area of propaganda that you may not be aware of is something called controlled opposition, also known as limited or partial hangouts.
A limited hangout or partial hangout is, according to former special assistant to the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence AgencyVictor Marchetti, “spy jargon for a favorite and frequently used gimmick of the clandestine professionals. When their veil of secrecy is shredded and they can no longer rely on a phony cover story to misinform the public, they resort to admitting—sometimes even volunteering—some of the truth while still managing to withhold the key and damaging facts in the case. The public, however, is usually so intrigued by the new information that it never thinks to pursue the matter further.”…
….This question would go through our minds every time we would see a new false flag event plastered all over the media. Like many of you, we would think, “It has to be real, otherwise the government and participants would be engaging in treason.” But the narrative and the evidence never seem to match up.
…It even seemed that the “official story” that was “fed” to the news agencies was filled with holes on purpose. When 450 responders showed up in San Bernardino, including FEMA, ATF, Homeland Security, FBI, DoD, and all local agencies, within 14 minutes and had their lawn chairs and coolers set up while most of them walked around aimlessly with no worries in the world, we couldn’t take it anymore. We had always known that “false flags” usually precede severe military action and we couldn’t really imagine military action within US domestic borders since the military is not empowered to act against its own citizens.
Therefore, we decided to WAKE UP and study the false flag phenomena. Don’t presume to think this is just another conspiracy theory article. What you will read will chill you to the bone. We know this is a long article, but while you were sleeping much has been done to destroy your country. You need to see the immense work that is being done behind your back…
Astroturf Terrorism
‘Strategy of Tension’ It is important to understand this concept. The world we live in today operates on a strategy of tension. Most people do not know enough history to realize that if you look at a world map of 1910 and you look at a world map of 1950 there are a lot of ‘made-up countries’ that did not exist in 1910. — Colonel Towner
Colonel Towner goes on to say that after WWII when the maps of Europe and the Middle East were redrawn, incompatible groups were placed together in one country. This guaranteed conflicts within a country could easily be ignited.
….The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis
In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress – with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?
Why?
One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit….
I have already introduced Colonel Towner and Operation Gladio to the Qtree in other articles, this is another author who documents how Operation Gladio was revealed:
Operation Gladio was formally revealed in 1990 by the Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti in an official statement to the Italian parliament. By then, Gladio had already been exposed in the courts and elsewhere, but Andreotti’s ‘official’ revelations widely exposed the unpalatable reality. Italian investigations, into the ‘Years of Lead‘, revealed NATO’s hand in a series of terrorist atrocities that had taken place in Italy throughout the 1950s to the 1980s. These included bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and mass shootings by terrorist organisations. There is no doubt that elements within the NATO deep state were routinely using false flag terrorism to control and manipulate public opinion and shape policy.
This is not the speculation of ‘looney conspiracy theorists,’ it is proven, well documented historical fact…
Following the end of WWII, both the U.S. and British intelligence agencies…
The co-option of Nazi technological and scientific expertise was enabled through Operation Paperclip. Top Nazi scientists, intelligence operatives, engineers and military strategists were either protected from prosecution or resettled in the U.S. and elsewhere. Authorised by President Truman in 1946, who stipulated that no committed National Socialists should be co-opted, the secret operation nonetheless supported many fervent Nazis….
Valierie pointed to this Book: “Destroying America: The CIA’s Quest to Control the Government.”
Meticulously sourced and rife with documentation from beginning to end, DESTROYING AMERICA details the CIA’s quest to control the government and shows how one Presidential Administration after another supported the egregious corruption in the CIA and government. It shows how Members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, are intricately involved in CIA corruption.
CIA officers and CIA “assets” have been targeted for the Presidency in Presidential races from 1964 to 2016, and there have been CIA officers in Congress since the earlyi950s.
Over the years, CIA officers in Congress have risen through the ranks to become some of the most powerful and influential members of Congress. They have ranged across the political spectrum from the far left to the far right…
An interesting side note based on information that Colonel Towner brought up. Obama’s mother worked for USAID. The CIA funded foreign students that they radicalized and used as part of their Werewolf Units in their home countries. Now think of Barack Obama, Sr. and Lolo Soetoro. BOTH were subversives. SEE: 2010
We continue to mourn the untimely passing of our beloved compatriot DePat, known in real life as Susie Sampson, and also as author Patricia Holden.
Until we have a dedicated author for the Tuesday daily open thread, I will be posting “placeholders” like this one, which may or may not be spiced up with additional content.
Gudthots will take DePat’s old Thursday daily open thread.
Please notify me in advance if you would like to post anything in lieu of the Tuesday placeholder. We welcome all content – the topic doesn’t matter.
W
Hidden Colors, Rainbows and MAPs
Follow The Dichroic Rabbit – From the Roman Empire, through Cabal Kingmakers, to Ukrainian Bio Labs and Beyond
This is going to be a weird, if not wild post. And I’m bringing a friend!
In some ways it’s very “Gail” – in other ways it’s very “Valerie”. It’s also very “Steve” and a bit “para59r”. But I will try to keep it as WOLFM00N as possible, whatever that means.
Valerie said THIS on Thursday, March 6, 2025:
My response explains this very post and it’s odd title:
I will try to get through this quickly.
This cup Valerie is asking about, is well-described on Wikipedia:
By Chappsnet – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=142942126
The most magnificent of all ancient #Roman ‘cage cups’ is the 4th c. CE Lycurgus Cup, made of dichroic glass. In normal light, the glass appears milky green, when backlit, it glows a ruby red. The effect was achieved by adding silver and gold nanoparticles to the glass.
By Brit_Mus_13sept10_brooches_etc_044.jpg: Johnbodderivative work: Johnbod (talk) – Brit_Mus_13sept10_brooches_etc_044.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11549754
When viewed in reflected light, as in this flash photograph, the cup’s dichroic glass is green in colour, whereas when viewed in transmitted light, the glass appears red.
Dichroism – literally “two colors” – can come from a variety of physical phenomena.
The first time I ever saw this, during high school, it was also red-green dichroism – from chlorophyll. Yes – a simple suspension of chlorophyll in aqueous alcohol looks vivid green, until a flashlight is shown directly into it, in which case it glows RED from fluorescence of the chlorophyll.
Many phenomena will give rise to dichroism, which can be of many different kinds and degrees. All that is needed is for there to be a change in the spectrum of light leaving an object, which somehow depends on the specifics of the illumination of the object. “Di-” is used loosely, in that dichroism can include two or more – and includes “tri-“, “quatra-“, and even “poly-“.
Even more confusing, dichroism can refer to different lights being shined ONTO something together.
Steve has mentioned circular polarization of light. This can be used to investigate stereochemistry (the “handedness” of molecules) using a phenomenon/technique called circular dichroism. A.k.a. CD.
To be almost too brief, CD is this. An equal mix of right-handed and left-handed light (thus dichroic) will notice the difference between right-handed and left-handed molecules, as well as the difference of either of these from unhanded molecules. CD can thus tell you about the handedness of a sample.
Note that an actual human heart is “handed”, but an idealized one is not.
So – “dichroism” is used two ways – for both (1) two (or more) kinds of light leaving an object, and (2) a sort of reverse scenario, in which two kinds of light impinge upon an object simultaneously. Wikipedia states it like this:
In optics, a dichroic material is either one which causes visible light to be split up into distinct beams of different wavelengths (colours) (not to be confused with dispersion), or one in which light rays having different polarizations are absorbed by different amounts.[1]
So now let’s answer, very specifically, Valerie’s original question: how does the Lycurgus Cup work? Well, I found a great answer. I don’t regard this as “settled science” – but this is very likely close to the truth.
The dichroic effect is achieved by making the glass with tiny proportions of nanoparticles of gold and silver dispersed in colloidal form throughout the glass material. The process used remains unclear, and it is likely that it was not well understood or controlled by the makers, and was probably discovered by accidental “contamination” with minutely ground gold and silver dust. The glass-makers may not even have known that gold was involved, as the quantities involved are so tiny; they may have come from a small proportion of gold in any silver added (most Roman silver contains small proportions of gold), or from traces of gold or gold leaf left by accident in the workshop, as residue on tools, or from other work. The very few other surviving fragments of Roman dichroic glass vary considerably in their two colours.[7]
The glass
It is estimated that to a conventionally composed Roman glass flux 330 parts per million of silver and 40 of gold were added: “These particles were precipitated as colloids and form a silver-gold alloy. When viewed in reflected light the minute metallic particles are just coarse enough to reflect enough of the light without eliminating the transmission. In transmitted light the fine particles scatter the blue end of the spectrum more effectively than the red end, resulting in red transmission, and this is the colour observed. Since it is impossible that the Roman artisans managed to add these incredibly low levels of silver and gold to the volume of the glass used to make the vessel deliberately, the levels were probably added at higher levels to a larger volume of glass-melt, and increasingly diluted by adding more glass.”[8] The particles are only about 70 nanometers across,[9] and embedded in the glass, so they cannot be seen by optical microscopy, and a transmission electron microscope is needed instead.[10] At this size they approach the size of the wavelengths of visible light, and a surface plasmon resonance effect takes place.[11]
TL;DR – the highly dilute metal nanoparticles interact with visible light, scattering blue and transmitting red. The result is greenish reflection and reddish transmission.
One other thing.
Although I can’t get into the details, my early learning about dichroisim is connected to my knowledge of “occultish things in academic science”. Thus, I was immediately calling for backup by Suspicious Cat as soon as I knew we were talking about dichroic glass.
Suspicious Cat – TheseTruths.jpg
The fact that the artistic subject of the Lycurgus Cup is mythology about what Aubergine refers to as “the old gods” is just a hint of the attraction this stuff holds for the more idolatrous humans.
Check out the cup’s recent history. COUGH, COUGH, COUGH.
The early history of the cup is unknown, and it is first mentioned in print in 1845, when a French writer said he had seen it “some years ago, in the hands of M. Dubois”.[41] This is probably shortly before it was acquired by the Rothschild family.[42] Certainly Lionel de Rothschild owned it by 1857, when the touring Gustav Friedrich Waagen saw it in his collection and described it as “barbaric and debased”.[43] In 1862 Lionel lent it to an exhibition at what is now the Victoria and Albert Museum, after which it virtually fell from scholarly view until 1950. In 1958, Victor, Lord Rothschild sold it to the British Museum for £20,000, £2,000 of which was donated by the Art Fund (then the NACF).[44]
The cup forms part of the museum’s Department of Prehistory and Europe rather than the Greece and Rome Department, and was previously on display, lit from behind, in Room 50. In 2015 it was on display with the new display of the Rothschild donation of the Waddesdon Bequest in Room 2A, with a changing internal lighting source that shows the colour change very effectively, though only one side of the cup can be seen. By October 2015 it was back in the re-opened Room 41.
While Room 41, where it was then displayed, was closed for refurbishment, from November 2012 to August 2013 it was on display with other British Museum pieces at The Art Institute of Chicago‘s Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman and Byzantine Art,[45] where it was very effectively displayed in a free-standing case, lit from above with changing light so that the colour change was clearly visible.[46][47] It is considered able to travel to important exhibitions and in 2008 was exhibited in “Reflecting Antiquity, Modern Glass Inspired by Ancient Rome” at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, in 2003 at the Hayward Gallery in London in “‘Saved! 100 Years of the National Art Collections Fund”, and in 1987 in “Glass of the Caesars” in the British Museum, Cologne, Milan, and Rome.[48]
Oh, this fascination with dichroism doesn’t just start or end with the Roths.
Consider scarab beetles, many of which show dichroism due to nanostructural layering in their shell materials. Here is the rainbow scarab:
Interestingly, there is good evidence that such beetles, in which increasing color has to be balanced with decreases in structural strength, have undergone evolution of their shells primarily for color, rather than strength.
The corporate headquarters of Amazon.com in Seattle, Washington, incorporates dichroic glass into the exterior of its high-rise building, reflecting light into various colors that depend on the time of day.[9]
The Museum at Prairiefire in Overland Park, Kansas,[10] which opened in May 2014, is devoted primarily to natural history. It borrows displays from larger museums and hosts at least two major traveling exhibits per year. Its striking glass exterior was designed to reference the intentional prairie fires[11] that were an integral part of farming life in Kansas. The glass is dichroic, which means that its color changes with the light of the day. The museum is itself a work of art.[12]
OK – let’s take a look at these.
Amazon first.
The dichroic glass is basically one tower in one building in a huge complex located in Arlington, VA, located conveniently close to CIA and Babylon On The Potomac. This is the SECOND headquarters campus of Amazon, after the first in Seattle.
The 22-story Jasper tower (left) features an iridescent, color-changing coating and the 22-story Merlin tower (right) is designed with metal fins and a color-shifting pearlescent coating. Photo by Jim Cunningham.
Nice dichroic glass they’ve got all over the place, in a kind of mock stained-glass way.
Notice the “optical illusion” windows, suggesting a third dimension that is not there. The symbol of Meta (Zuckerberg, Facebook) does a similar thing. See if you can visualize in your head, how the weird symbol makes more sense in 3 dimensions.
Prairiefire appears to be the name of a development district in the Eastern Kansas suburb of Overland Park, including a park, a wetlands, a shopping center, and the aforementioned museum.
ANYWAY…..
Surely they wouldn’t refer to themselves as “The MAP” – right? Because that would be…….
OK. But surely they wouldn’t advertise any connection to the company that built biolabs in Ukraine, connected to pedophile Hunter Biden and his USAID-partnered (yes, read the link) company Metabiota or whatever – I mean…..
OK, yeah, but surely they wouldn’t throw all this stuff together with “let’s attract kids with dinosaurs” and…..
OK, but they DEFINITELY don’t have a huge focus on a preschool program for…..
LOOK! Just because you wander near any of this “naturalist/materialist-interesting” stuff, and you kick it over, and a bunch of things that sure look like creepy-crawlies run out in all directions, doesn’t mean we need to be suspicious – right? RIGHT?
OK. I am just gonna be blunt. This operation in Kansas may be perfectly innocent – as pure as the driven snow. And with my love for natural history, I am bound to think it’s a wonderful place. I have always loved dinosaur museums for kids. But my grandkids ain’t goin’ inside this place (or even outside) unless I am sitting IN THAT CLASSROOM watching every dang second of every dang minute of every dang day. Because if this place ain’t CATNIP FOR PEDOS, I don’t know what is.
SIGH.
And with that, I yield the floor to my fellow QTreepers. Have a great Tuesday!
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
Our various sister sites, listed in the Blogroll in the sidebar
Our beloved country is under Occupation by hostile forces.
Daily outrage and epic phuckery abound.
We can give in to despair…or we can be defiant and fight back in any way that we can.
Joe Biden didn’t win.
And we will keep saying Joe Biden didn’t win until we get His Fraudulency out of our White House.
Wolfie’s Wheatie’s Word of the Week:
wallflower
noun, adjective
a color which is yellowish red
an attribute of being colored yellowish red
a light purple color marketed by Sherwin-Williams
a genus of flowering plants, Erysimum, in the family Brassicaceae (mustards)
a shy, unassuming person
Used in a sentence
Whether wallflower is yellow-to-red or purple seems to depend upon the circumstances.
Shown in a picture
Shown in a different picture
But wait! Some wallflowers show the other wallflower!
MUSIC!
Wallflowers. Just can’t get away from them!
But wait! There’s moar!
THE STUFF
So what do you think about going to Mars? I can tell you, the crowd at Trump’s inauguration was incredibly enthusiastic. I was cheering BIG TIME. But let’s look at it more critically – both sides of the question. We’ve learned from Trump – always cover the downside. Listen to the critics, and think about what they say.
Welcome. Please visit this January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road, which are few but important.
2024 Presidential Election Map by County. Let us Never Forget: our VOTES gave the Trump Administration a Mandate to FIX IT ALL.
Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1
We got our miracle. America is back.
Let us dedicate ourselves to the cleansing, healing, and rebuilding of our beautiful nation.
God will guide us. Prayers and thanks to God for President Donald J. Trump.
Federal Crimes
We pretty much already knew that the elections were not being run lawfully. Marly Hornik of United Sovereign Americans knows the law. Let’s take a look.
1/ SECURING LIBERTY IN AMERICA Marly Hornik, co-founded the national election validity organization, United Sovereign Americans, with cyber and election security subject matter expert Harry Haury. Her presentation warning fellow Americans of the constitutional and legal disaster of our elections, made at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on March 3, 2025, is contained in this thread:
2/ The current election process nationwide is an uncontrolled, unmonitored catastrophe that is producing false returns. The last bastion of freedom on Earth is at risk of being destroyed forever, as early as 2026. Under President Trump’s decisive leadership, we see the proof that our own government has been selling out our kids’ future by stealing trillions of dollars per year from the American people, making us pay for their often-twisted agenda. Nowhere have officials betrayed us as badly as in our elections, nationwide.
3/ USA is the first organization to measure election misconduct as defined under criminal law, to deeply study Supreme Court precedent, and document the scale of defined election fraud nationwide. After years of law enforcement meetings, official reports, legislative hearings, criminal referrals and staggering trial-ready evidence, massive election fraud is still being illegally certified as accurate. Asking whether election officials are bad people is irrelevant—their job is to prevent fraud, and they are legally required to prove it to us. That’s what we pay them for. Twenty-one Chief Election Officials have been fully briefed, nine have been sued, and every last one has proven disloyal to the sovereign they serve—the American people—and disloyal to the contract we made with our government, the United States Constitution.
4/ USA has tracked tens of millions of individual felonies. We were the first to discover and document the algorithms and central vote manipulation. We filed our detailed data with states, the FBI, Homeland Security, and the DOJ under the previous administration, and filed nine federal lawsuits demanding that election commissions follow the law. And what did we prove? Every last federalized state election official believes they are the sovereign, and they are the one who chooses our representatives. Every last one. They are perfectly content to continue violating our Constitution down to the root.
5/ Our founders were masters of philosophy. They said the job of a government is to protect the gift of life. Our government guarantees individual sovereignty, within the boundaries of a social contract. To fix our election problems, we must work inside this structure, or we will damage our gift in anger and undisciplined haste.
6/ The first sentence says we secure the blessing of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. The second sentence says all power to make laws is vested in Congress. The third sentence says that the people of the several states shall choose those lawmakers. Period. They work for us. If valid elections were not the key to securing liberty, the Constitution would be written in a different order.
7/ And that is why election officials who ignore and break federal law are prosecuted as criminals. When they register false voters, accept and count illegal ballots, certify false tallies, and destroy or hide records, they sacrifice our future in their arrogance, and they can land in federal prison. The job of an election official is to act in honor for our country. It’s not for the weak.
8/ A voter registration record cannot contain false or invalid information. If a record is not 100% legitimate, it is suspicious. Before it can be added to the official list of voters, it must be scrutinized according to strict legal process.
9/ USA audited the official state records of the certified 2022 midterms, in 21 states. We found 29 million material errors in the official lists of voters. Voters registered before they were born, registered after voting in federal elections, voters named asterisk, voters with no name at all, or blank addresses. Garbage data. How did they get this bad?
10/ Now let me show you what we found in California’s infamous 2024 election: 9.5 million times, the control process failed at registration. This is not clerical error, this is criminal. When the voter rolls are broken, it is criminal election fraud. You can’t “clean” them. They cannot be trusted, nor used to secure a world power against enemies, foreign and domestic.
11/ In New York, the control process broke 5.8 million times. Elections secure the law; if elections have no law, we have no law.
12/ Here are the sickening facts regarding California’s actual vote in 2024. The only legal way for these voters to vote was via provisional ballot. Did California accept 5.5 million provisional ballots in 2024, and adjudicate each one according to the law? That’s one in every three voters who voted. How can they not know who one third of their voters are?
13/ They can’t. California broke the third sentence of the Constitution, and illegally certified 52 members for the United States House of Representatives, plus Adam Schiff. We need to stop maligning voters we disagree with, and start putting criminals in jail.
14/ New York illegally certified 26 members of the House of Representatives, and Senator Gillibrand. Who are each of these people working for? We’re not saying none of them were chosen by the people. The problem is no one knows. Why are we accepting that for our loved ones and our country? Is that the life you were created for? The theft of legitimate representation is a heinous crime.
15/ We took it one step further. USA studied the identity of the voters ourselves. Our attorneys hired a private investigator. Searching in three unique commercial law-enforcement tools, used to find people precisely in space and time, we could not find 993,000 voters in California’s midterm. Nearly a million voters who don’t exist had their votes counted. Nearly half a million voters who don’t exist had their votes counted in Pennsylvania. You’re looking at 8.5 million illegal votes. No one bothered to verify them. Our country is under attack. We put people in jail for a handful of fake ballots, yet these crimes have so far gone unpunished.
16/ USA is strongly in favor of voter ID. It will make the election officials’ job much easier, which protects them and protects America. But as you can see here, it will not fix the entire process of an election. There are numerous control points within the election system under direct attack. They must all be secured and only USA knows how to do it, mostly using current law.
The first step in a legal process is to follow critical national security infrastructure law, FISMA, and implement the Risk Management Framework. The entire system must be subject to rigorous threat testing, exactly as it is going to be used. Risk-limiting audits conducted by election officials are a fraud on the people. The voting system is a digital border of our country that must be continually monitored for dynamic, evolving attacks. We are securing the multi-trillion-dollar economy of the dominant world power, and our great-grandchildren’s inalienable rights.
Next, we must train all election personnel in threat assessment and process control, at every polling site. Then we can begin registration of verified, qualified voters. Nothing else can pass through the control point. USA found 29 million instances where this control broke. This means the states have no idea who is in their voter rolls. After that is voter ID at the polls, here. If you want to get rid of mail-in ballots, a great idea, that’s here. But every mail-in ballot goes through this judging table, and if it fails, the ballot is supposed to be thrown out. That control point broke in Pennsylvania in 2020, and Arizona 2022, among many others. If we get rid of the machines, that’s here. Scanning errors must be scrutinized here, chain of custody here, and if aggregate error exceeds the legal limit, the election fails here.
If we made it this far, we can start reporting to the media. But every single record from every county and polling site must now be reviewed by the Chief Election Official. When they certify a mixed state and federal election, this one clerk, of whom there are only fifty in the whole country, attests that the state and federal governments are both legitimate and duly authorized republican governments. They better be certain, because they can be held personally responsible when they commit perjury.
USA is in complete agreement with President Trump. We love the President’s idea of a constitutional amendment for a national election holiday, using manual voting systems. But after years of meticulous research done out of devotion to country, while countless undisciplined screamers have profited off USA data and discoveries, acting like suspicion and opinion are equal to hard evidence, we still lack the votes. We need strategy, not theatrics. To pass an amendment, we have to have a valid election in 2026. We can’t pass it with imposters living in our House and Senate.
17/ In 1868, ten states were barred from voting on the fourteenth amendment. Three states were denied Electoral College votes. Why? Because they betrayed the union. They went rogue, and Congress refused to recognize their delegates. Congress called them “territories of the United States,” and ignored their governments until they complied with the Union.
18/ Illinois, New York, California, Pennsylvania and Michigan are rogue states. No one in those governments knows if their congressional representatives are legitimate. I don’t know, you don’t know, and neither do they. Certifying elections for Congress with millions of fictitious voters and votes is an act of defiance against the United States Constitution, and USA has gathered the proof, from the states’ own official records, that this is exactly what happened.
19/ In these Supreme Court decisions, election officials went to federal prison. Read the prosecution guidelines. False voters, false votes and false tallies are all defined federal election fraud since 1873. Election officials are not allowed to take their orders from the Brennan Center; they must follow the law.
20/ The United States Department of Justice under Attorney General Bondi must immediately open a criminal investigation of this digital invasion, prosecute those responsible, and compel the states to follow legal process in 2026. Our right to legitimate congressional representation was stolen in 2022 & 2024. We cannot repeat this and have the rule of law. But we don’t just need to investigate blue states. This problem is in Ohio and Florida, it’s in Georgia and Texas. We have lost control of our elections everywhere and it’s a crime against our country. We must enforce the law—or the defense of inalienable rights on Earth may end. Today, we remind the DOJ that we gave them the proof starting in 2021. We look forward to Attorney General Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Bove making great strides to fix this disaster. United Sovereign Americans is standing by to assist in every way we can.
21/ We are already working with states and congress members loyal to our country to upgrade our election security laws to the current reality. We are taking the offensive against the denial of our civil rights with personal lawsuits against the most egregious actors in the country. unite4freedom.com/
22/ We are offering an election validity training conference this April in St Louis, Missouri. Will you join us in securing legitimate representative government in 2026, and beyond? No one is above the law. Those who have declared war on our liberty, our children, and our families, will be held accountable. No one is allowed to usurp and destroy the blessing of liberty in America. https://unite4freedom.com/securing-2026-the-usa-solution-april-2025-conference/
We can’t leave this to others. We can get informed on what has been found, what is being done about it, and what more needs to be done.
We can make a difference. And we must make a difference.
May God bless and guide you as you pray and take action for our nation.
Twitterati, etc.
@DataRepublican isn’t just working to open up our ability to see into the public data in a meaningful way as some kind of a job or hobby. For her, it’s about all those who have served and suffered in wars for our nation. And her work is making waves with the thieves who are robbing our country blind. So they sent the dox-dogs after her. Looks like she has had to leave her home and is in an undisclosed location under the protection of the Cajun Navy.
God bless her, and her family as they pay the price for doing a good work.
Who is paying the foot soldiers that do the hits (doxxing)?
@DataRepublican’s Awesome Tool for New Testament Text Confirmation
But, those attacks won’t stop this courageous, brilliant, and compassionate woman. Now that her name is known, what does she do? She shares her Christian faith and access to an amazing tool she has created. Jennica (@DataRepublican) says about her work:
This website is an aggregated cross-reference between the early Church fathers (up to the Nicaea Council of 325 A.D.) in Ante-Nicene Fathers as originally hosted by Christian Classics Ethereal Library, inspired by the e-Catena. I have mirrored the legacy website here, as it contains structural hyperlinks and formatting that are not present in the current edition. The intent of this website is to visualize the evolution of the NT canon’s popularity.
The authors/groupings of the translated works in each volume are as follows (note that volume 9 is missing). You can drill down by volume or jump directly to a NT book.
ANF-02: The Pastor of Hermas, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, Writings of Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria
ANF-03: Tertullian
ANF-04: Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Origen
ANF-05: Hippolytus, Cyprian, Caius, Novatian
ANF-06: Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dionysius, Julius Africanus, Anatolius and Minor Writers, Alexander of Cappadocia, Theognostus of Alexandria, Pierius of Alexandria, Theonas of Alexandria, Phileas, Pamphilus, Malchion, Archelaus, Alexander, Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, Alexander, Methodius, Arnobius
ANF-07: Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius Urbanus, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, Clement, Nicene Council, Early Liturgies
ANF-08: The Twelve Patriarchs, Theodotus, Clement of Rome, Pseudo-Clementine Literature, Apocrypha of the New Testament, The Decretals, Memoirs of Edessa, Ancient Syriac Documents, Remains of the Second and Third Centuries
ANF-10: Works Connected with the Gospels, Apocalypses and Romances, The Epistles of Clement, Origen
Color gradients are based on the percentage of times a particular author or set of writings referenced a book of the New Testament. This helps establish the relative influence of specific NT books with the author(s). [link to view table]
God Bless America, Land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam God bless America, My home sweet home.
Colonel Towner has mentioned on more than one occasion that God is guiding her. If she’s speaking and she comes to a dead end, someone in her audience pipes up with “Have you read…” and she is off and running again. The same has happened to me. I was wondering how I was going to move forward on the Mercantilismtheme and pull a lot of threads together.
I have only listened to half a dozen or so of the 40-plus Gladio videos by Colonel Towner and Alpha Warrior. It is a daunting task to catch up, especially if I am going to transcribe at least a few parts of them. Yesterday my curiosity bone got the better of me, and I skipped ahead and listened to the first USAID video. Towards the end Colonel Towner said she would be covering Benghazi, and I thought she meant USAID Part II. So I skipped around listening to parts of the video looking for the Benghazi section, and landed in a spot where she mentioned she would be interviewing a survivor of the USS Liberty. I already knew something about the USS Liberty. With curiosity driving me and a bit more hunting I found The Colonel’s Corner Rumble Channel. I was so angry after listening to the first minutes, I posted a few bits to Sunday’s Dear MAGA: 20250302 Open Topic
I still don’t buy that [prisoner murders] as being the reason for the attack on the Liberty. It’s too small-potatoes. IMO that rationale is post-failure disinformation from both Mossad and the USG, meant to muddy the waters. One of many bogus reasons that were floated.
IMO there was a concocted plot by Johnson (who was truly evil) and elements in Israel who wanted America to enter the war [THAT is the kind of reason they needed – like 9/11] and thought that an attack on am American ship would be just the thing he needed to get us in. The attack failed to take out the radio, and the betrayal of our own troops by Johnson failed.
IMO Johnson and his bad actors and allies were behind all the assassinations and false flags like Gulf of Tonkin.
Thus, I simply can’t blame the Israeli government, when our own was involved, too – and was arguably WORSE. AND – at the same time – none of this justifies the Palestinians, the Arab attackers, the terrorists, or the attack on Israel.
Johnson was an evil POS, who would gladly sacrifice a boat of innocent men for politics. FUCK HIM and everybody who plotted with him – American and Israeli.
These people have not quit, and they will not quit. I lay both 9/11 and Ukraine (WWIII, if they can get it) at their feet.
Wolfie was correct I got taken-in by the Prisoner massacre Limited Hang-out although Colonel Towner does mention it towards the end as one of the reasons. I had heard about the massacre several weeks prior to listening to the video. After reflecting on the entire video, and hearing Phil Tourney’s plea that the TRUE story be told, I decided to write this article.
If you want the short and sweet version of WHY the attack on the USS Liberty:
Israel is considered one of the most important countries that import rough diamonds, and the most prominent countries that export polished diamonds. Most of these diamonds come from African countries such as South Africa, Liberia, Congo, Ivory Coast amongst others. These countries are directly linked to groups committing massacres against civilians in order to obtain diamonds, and trade with these diamonds leads to the death of tens of thousands of people annually in the countries of origin. The sale and export of these diamonds are linked to major arms deals, the creation of civil wars and financing the fighting groups. This has caused the diamond trade in Africa to be called the dirty trade, the jewels are called “blood diamonds” because the blood of thousands of Africans is shed in order to extract and market them…
This is from a UK publication with a decidedly Muslim slant. Therefore we have to see if there is supporting evidence.
The diamond industry of Israel is an important world player in producing cut diamonds for wholesale. In 2010, Israel became the chair of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme.[1] As of 2016, cut diamonds constituted 23.2% of Israel’s total exports and they were the country’s biggest export product, amounting to 12% of the world’s production.
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First, I urge everyone to actually listen to what this man has to say. (1hr 11 minutes)
I do not have the time to write a full transcript so a few key points… DARN IT! Oh well I got sucked in and did more of a transcript than I planned. So, as usual, I am going to split the material into two articles.
Very Rough Transcript. I am not going to put it in quotes.
3 minutes to 12 minutes: Colonel Towner mentions Lyman Lemnitzer, commander of the United Nations forces in the Korean War (1955–57.) He was Kennedy’s Joint Chief of Staff from 1960 to 1962. Kennedy wanted to get rid of him, but instead of firing the SOB, Kennedy, not knowing what NATO was up to, sent him to serve as the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe of NATO from 1963 to 1969. THIS IS WHILE NATO assassins were deployed to Texas. [He was one NASTY piece of work! GC]
Towner explains that de Gaulle and Kennedy were trying to oust the UK from Africa where the UK and Israel were stealing all the diamonds. Egypt and the Suez Canal were the buffer protecting Israel from retaliation by Africa. Egypt was under British control from 1882 to 1922. When Egypt gained independence, Nasser took control of the Suez Canal FROM the UK. So the UK moved to the Port of Aden in Yemen. Yemen is STILL fighting a two-front war today. Towner then goes into how the CIA was spying on the communication of most countries including Egypt. Therefore they KNEW Egypt was sending troops to help Yemen just prior to this travesty.
15 mins – Phil Tourney said Israel got antsy and started the war early, that is why we took off as quick as we did. The rest of the crew and I figured this was planned out probably a year in advance. We were set-up by our own government. We were going into a war zone and asked for destroyer escort twice and were denied by NoName’s Father, Admiral John Sidney McCain Jr.
16 mins – Col Towner interrupts and say this is typical of the CIA & US Navy. They did the same thing to the USS Indianapolis in the pacific during WW II when they took the warheads over there. They left them without an escort KNOWING the subs were going to get them and then court-martialed the surviving Captain. The Navy is one of the most cruel ass… that has ever existed! … Phil’s story is NOT an isolated incident. This is why history is so important.
17 mins – Phil: We were 12.5 miles off the coast of the Sinai. (June 6th) We were ALWAYS in international waters. June 7th we see Israeli DC3s. We saw & waved at the pilots & they waved at us. Saw them on the 8th They were taking pictures of us. We only had four 50 caliber machine guns. We picked up messages that Israel KNEW we were an American Ship. We had a brand new flag and the ship had just been refurbished so it had a newly painted name.
21 mins – Phil Tourney starts describing the attack… You cannot imagine what they did to us. Rockets, cannons, napalm, machine guns… every [operational] antenna they hit on the first pass. Within 3 seconds every antenna and every water tight door above the water line was destroyed. One antenna that was out of commission was not destroyed. The air attack lasted for 25 minutes. They used unmarked black planes. [French made.] At least 12 planes and 30 sorties. On the first pass they shot down the US flag. Sailors put up another brand new one. Shot that down. Put up HUGE holiday flag that stayed up. During those 25 minutes the ship got a message out by repairing the last antenna.
25 mins — Col Towner points out that those sailors went out while those planes were raining fire to put up a flag so it was a KNOWN attack on an American ship in international waters. THIS IS CRITICAL TO THE STORY. [She explains the Flag is very important because it means you cannot call it a mistaken ID -GC]
26 min Phil: Our radio message was picked up as far away as Vietnam. The 6th Fleet picked it up. Captain Tully of the USS Saratoga immediately launched aircraft to come to our aid. They were called back by [US Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara. A few minutes later Captain Tully & Captain Ingen of the USS America went to launched planes again. Before they could get underway, President Johnson got on the air and said RECALL THOSE GOD DAMN PLANES, I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT A FEW DEAD SAILORS, I WILL NOT EMBARRASS MY ALLY!
Phil:So how did he know who was attacking us if WE DID NOT KNOW?
So that right there tells you we were set up to be sunk by the Zionist State in order to bring us into WW III.
29 mins — Colonel Towner points out that the USS Liberty’s actual mission was to spy on the African countries trying to free themselves from the US and European piranhas. The sacrifice of the USS Liberty was about setting up a regime change in Egypt and destroying the evidence of the spying.
30 mins – Phil: The Aircraft attack was followed by an attack by 3 torpedo boats with the Star of David. The boats fired five torpedoes from 1000, 800 yards away. Two went aft, one hit the communication spaces, don’t know where the others went. Colonel Towner suggests it was to get rid of evidence. The attack went on for another hour and a half. The total attack lasted 2 hours. Help was only 40 minutes away but the US government would not allow help. They left us for 17 hours. The USS America and the destroyer USS David finally showed up…. We had 34 dead and 174 wounded….
34 min — Phil: The Israeli torpedo boats continuously circled the ship, firing 50-caliber machine guns and armor-piercing rounds into us. We thought we were going to sink. We put the most seriously wounded into the three life rafts we had left. The Israelis shot two of them out of the water and took the last on board their boat as a trophy of their kill. [REMEMBER THOSE BOATS WOULD HAVE THE NAME AND USA DESIGNATION PRINTED ON IT!!! SEE: 46 CFR § 199.176 – Markings on lifesaving appliances.current — GC]
Also lifeboats are protected and the Israelis DAMN WELL KNEW IT!
2149 The protection of ‘small craft employed … for coastal rescue operations’ is not surprising, because they have long rendered assistance to those in distress at sea, whether civilians or wounded, sick or shipwrecked persons protected under the applicable provisions of international humanitarian law. In numerous States, rescue craft were, and continue to be, operated by coastal municipalities, private associations, individual volunteers or State organs, whether the armed forces or other governmental institutions. The vessels employed for life-saving purposes range from rowing and rubber boats to technologically sophisticated craft that can operate far off the coast and in difficult sea conditions…..
a. Additional Protocol I
2168 While Article 22(3) of Additional Protocol I does not modify the substantive protection afforded to coastal rescue craft, it removes an important procedural requirement of the Second Convention, by providing that:
Small craft described in Article 27 of the Second Convention shall be protected even if the notification envisaged by that Article 27 has not been made.The Parties to the conflict are, nevertheless, invited to inform each other of any details of such craft which will facilitate their identification and recognition….
They wanted NO SURVIVORS. It was the grace of God, the Hand of God that kept that ship up. We were just his servants that day. He deserves all the credit. Jesus Christ does. He kept us alive for moments like this. To tell the truth. — Phil Tourney
36 min — Colonel Towner makes clear that command knew that the USS Liberty was under attack. She says that within 5 minutes of the attack, via relays, London, Spain (where the ship was launched from), the Secretary of Defense’s office, the White House, CIA, NSA… would ALL KNOW that the USS Liberty was under attack, AND FOR SEVENTEEN HOURS THE US GOVERNMENT DID NOT DO A FUCKING THING TO HELP THEM!
37:30 Phil: Two days after the attack we were headed to Malta which is 1,000 miles away. We have a 40X40 torpedo hole in our side. The closest port was Crete [~400 miles or less – GC]. We never could figure that one out.
Flag admiral Isaac Kidd & his Jag officer came on board and interrogated what crew was left aboard the ship….
We are in sick bay, he takes off his stars and tosses them on the table. He says I know you guys have been thru hell but I have got to get this while it is fresh in your mind. Tell me everything that happened…. Then he said, I am putting my stars back on. I had asked him, “Admiral how come you did not send help?”…
He puts his stars back on and said:
I am going to tell every one of you Sons of Bitches. And he got right in my face. If you ever breath a word about what you just told me, any of you, I will make sure you end up in prison or worse!! Do you know what WORSE MEANS? [Phil explains it means DEAD. -GC]
Yes sir I do…. I didn’t talk of it for 18 years.
I had to sign an agreement I would never sue Israel or the USA and they gave me $200 bucks for my signature and said SIGN IT!
42 Min — Colonel Towner tells why they were sent to Malta instead of Crete. Crete is part of Greece. Greece is part of NATO and NATO is who attacked you guys. You would have talked to Greek citizens and all of this would have been exposed. Malta has always been used since WWII to hide their criminally. Because it is isolated everything around you was controlled. No one was allowed access that was not a part of the scheme. That could not have happened in Crete. Phil agrees.
We were there for 33 days. Lists damage. There was NO [REAL] investigation. By orders of John McCain & LBJ it was called mistaken identity…. Every one from LBJ to Trump has bought that crap….
We were sent there to be sunk by Israel so they could blame it on Nasser and Egypt. And Israel would have taken over the entire Middle East. The land grab they are doing now would have happened then.
46 min — Col Towner Holds up book Operation Cyanide[2003 by British journalist Peter Hounam] He documents the B-52s sitting on the tarmac being given the ready mission to start their engines to fly. This was BEFORE the first bombing [of the USS Liberty] ….
Phil: If you write congress be ready to be lied to… they never investigated…
As Thomas Massie said Everybody’s got an AIPAC handler and I guess they had them back then too….
Phil is correct. American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs was founded in 1951 It later changed it’s name to American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC]Source Watch:
49 min — Col Towner. So that brings us to the last point. During the last five years there have been three instances revealed. The Ross Setter massacre that happened on June 8th of 1967. The Mass grave on the West Bank, which Israel turned into a national park. Another mass grave was discover on 5 June, which would have been part of the 6 day war. And the E-L-E-L-A-R-I-S-H massacre. That one happened… where the USS Liberty was. They were sailing in Egyptian international water right north of this town El Arish. This is where the Israelis murdered prisoners of war and buried them…. So during the course of their surveillance of this war zone Mass Murder by the IDF was happening along the coast.
This is not isolated. It was just like we did in Vietnam, in Nicaragua, in Guatemala. The USA has done this as well. We have buried people in mass graves. It happened in Cambodia. The CIA unleashed terrorists that resulted in casualties that resulted in mass graves. This is what Israel was participating in and it is my summation that because of the SIGINET, the advanced capability, all that information would have been picked up by the linguist and transmitted.
THIS IS CRITICAL. There would be no denying that the USA and all of NATO knew the atrocities that Israel was committing and the USS Translators, not the crew were instantly murdered when that torpedo hit that boat. They would be the sole surviving people who could attest to those atrocities….
Who benefited from it?
Israel ended up with All of Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula. They go to war again in 73 and then they have a peace settlement in 1979. The massacre in the Golan Heights happened right after the USS Liberty was taken out. That is not unlike what just happened with the Hamas Attack on Israel on October 7. It was not an immediate response to Gaza, just like for Israel, it was not an immediate attack in response. Well they did the initial attack in Egypt, but they did it at the same time all over. They’re conquering all of the surrounding area.
That is what it is ALWAYS ABOUT. It is a DIVERSION OVER HERE to go over here.
[What Col Towner is talking about is an incident in one middle east country is then used to attack several others. We just saw this with Gaza, the attacks spread to Iran, Jordan, Syria and Yemen. When everything is over, Israel will end up expanding into more areas. LINK– GC]
You have to understand they have an ultimate goal. Any one who is in the way of that ultimate goal is fair game for being killed.
54 min — Phil: We were sacrificial lambs, the soldiers were sacrificial lambs and the goal was a land grab…. Our goal is to tell the truth…. They got paid MORE MONEY BY THE UNITED STATES then they ever did in their existence FOR MURDERING AMERICAN SERVICEMEN on the high seas doing what their government had ordered them to do.
Talk about this is the first time they are able to get the word out and this is not the first betrayal. The press never helped us, the government never helped us, Congress never helped us. No one came to help us.
IN FACT THE AMERICAN LEGION? We had 2 men there… 5 or 6 years ago. [to set-up] a booth handing out our stuff about the USS Liberty. They would not let us have a booth. We sent a $1,000 for the booth. They said they never got the check. So we said OK we will pay cash or credit card… Then they said NO!! YOU CANNOT HAVE ONE!
56:30 Col Towner: The American Legion is notorious for being part of the collusion of the CIA to STIFLE VETERANS ISSUES.
Phil : Absolutely. Glenn… tore his American Legion Card up and sprinkled it on a woman’s chest, her boobs. He did not throw it at her. So they arrested him for assault and put him in jail. He still has it on his record. The USS Liberty is BANNED from ever attending any of their meetings….
Col Towner: Let me ask you something that was in Peter’s [Hounam] book. He documents the fact that a USS submarine was basically shadowing you guys and that there was also a Russian submarine that watched the torpedo portion of this. And I have read other accounts of this that they gave up the final attack on sinking the USS Liberty because now there were other witnesses.
58:20 Phil: that could very well be so. The USS Amberjack, [Gato-class submarine – GC] we heard filmed it. And the USS Andrew Jackson [Lafayette-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine – GC] was there also. And as you mentioned a Russian submarine that was ready to hit Israel, only minutes away if everything went as planned. They were going to Nuke Israel for what they were doing to Egypt. Us not sinking put a wrench in their plans. I bet they are still scratching their heads…
59 min — Col Towner: I have done a lot of research into Gladio and Gladio being basically regime change overthrow with over 90 of them successful since WWII. Over 400 of them attempted.
What you always find looming in the background, like when we were trying to do it in Algeria and several Eastern European countries immediately after WWII. The Soviet Union had spies everywhere and they were able to thwart most of it… The story of the Russian sub, after knowing what I know about the Soviet Union always seeming to be one step ahead in protection … When I read about the Russian sub, I thought “Well that is interesting,” because I wonder if they were actually there because they knew what NATO was going to do to the USS Liberty and if they would have used it for blackmail. If the Liberty had sunk, they would forever have had the ability to control a whole bunch of different things, They would have had blackmail material. And maybe they used it anyway because they KNEW WHERE IT ORIGINATED FROM.
1hr 1 min — Phil: Absolutely. They knew exactly what was going on. Russia is not stupid….
…..
Commenter BridgetGrayposted photos of the USS Liberty.
…Jets armed with nuclear bombs were actually scrambled from the carrier USS America with orders to nuke Cairo. Once Defense Secretary McNamara and Lying Bastard Johnson realized that the Liberty had not sunk, and that U.S. eyewitnesses were not only alive, but were actually communicating with other American ships, the U.S. jets carrying the nukes were recalled to their carrier by direct orders from McNamara and Johnson….
After reading this I now understand why Dr Roberts has no love of Israel.
This article is based entirely on documented sources and on interviews with six USS Liberty survivors, as well as Captain Ward Boston and Bill Knutson, the executive officer of the USS America fighter squadron dispatched on the first aborted rescue mission.
For a number of years Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was my colleague at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Tom… expressed to me his concern that US politics and foreign policy was in the clutches of Israel and that America was being led into war with the Arab Middle East. Admiral Moorer and the State Department and Pentagon at that time did not think that war with the Arab countries served the interests of the United States. However, Admiral Moorer thought that the war could not be avoided because of the hold Israel has over the US government.
What convinced him of this was Washington’s cover-up of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty which resulted in 208 killed and wounded Americans. Tom was disheartened that Admiral John S. McCain Jr…. for career reasons had cooperated with the cover-up. Tom worried that careerism had destroyed the integrity of the US military…
I had already seen that Admiral Moorer’s prediction that Israel would have us in war against the Arabs had come true. I still hear his bitter statement that “no American president can stand up to Israel.” Tom was deeply wounded by the betrayal of the US Navy by the Commander-in-Chief. The Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff was powerless before the Israel Lobby.…
The US government’s official position on the USS Liberty corresponds with Israel’s: The attack was unintentional and a result of Israeli blunders. This is the official position despite the fact that CIA Director Richard Helms, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Assistant Secretary of State Lucius Battle, and a long list of US Navy officers, government officials and Liberty survivors are on record saying the Israeli attack was intentional…
Survivors with whom I spoke said the attack was the easy part of the experience. The hard part has been living with 40 years of official cover-up and betrayal by the US government. One survivor said that he was asked to leave his Baptist church when he spoke about the Liberty, because the minister and fellow church-goers felt more loyalty to Israel than to a member of the congregation who had served his country. His church’s position was that if our government believed Israel, the survivors should also….
…on June 8, 1967 two A-4 bomber aircraft loaded with nuclear bombs were dispatched from the aircraft carrier USS America, bound for Cairo with orders to drop those bombs on that city.[1]…
…According to Mike Ratigan, who served on board that carrier as a center-deck catapult operator responsible for maintaining the catapult in working order. He remembered the call to general quarters (battle stations) in the early afternoon of June 8, 1967, later learning that this was due to the attack on the Liberty. The A-4 bombers were each fitted with two bombs having a gold-colored tip, a type that he had never seen before: “I’d never seen that particular type of ordnance, and as we had gone into Condition November (notice of imminent nuclear war) subsequent to being in general quarters, it was definitely not a drill. Marine guards were escorting the A-4, and that was a very unusual experience. I’d never seen anything like that in the four years that I was in the Navy as a Cat operator.”….
We continue to mourn the untimely passing of our beloved compatriot DePat, known in real life as Susie Sampson, and also as author Patricia Holden.
Until we have a dedicated author for the Tuesday daily open thread, I will be posting “placeholders” like this one, which may or may not be spiced up with additional content.
Gudthots will take DePat’s old Thursday daily open thread.
Please notify me in advance if you would like to post anything in lieu of the Tuesday placeholder. We welcome all content – the topic doesn’t matter.
W
Some Thoughts on Art, Science & Religion
I’ve promised that I would talk about certain things dealing with science and religion, but in the process, I realized that I would likely need a “pre-talk” for reasons I’ll make clear.
I have also been engaged in activities in the art world, which made me realize that “my liberal friends” are in a very similar situation to us – and yet it’s almost unknown to people here. I want to talk bout that, too, because it might help people to see something analogous to our own problems afflicting somebody else.
SO – let me get to the point in a few paragraphs, if I can.
I want to start off by addressing my fellow believers in God.
I believe something very simple, which you likely agree with, but which may seem baffling to some.
I believe that it is more important to be right about the existence of God, than to be right about anything else, particularly the worldly truths of what we call “science”.
There are many reasons behind this, including numerous citations from both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a basic acceptance of the central message of Jesus Christ. As a follower of Christ, I not only believe the following as a consequence of accepting his authority on the topic – I find it “true in practice” as a biblically consistent part of His teachings.
“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Some might say to me “Who are you, to be accepting this for any reason BUT authority?” – To which I would reply “I’m a human who God made skeptical – so I test everything!”
Anyway, my immediate point is that I am going to be talking about things which might conflict with other people’s deeply held religious beliefs. If so, then I invite you to ignore me, and to ignore what I will have to say. I will not be offended. While some may believe that testing belief strengthens it, others do not, and I refuse to pick a side in that fight. I invite YOU to make a choice – hear me or ignore me.
Inside you is a child, and I don’t want that child to stumble.
OK? Good! Let’s move on.
One of the things that I have noticed with my “liberal art friends” (some of whom may be “liberal arts friends” as well) is that they have ALL LEFT TWITTER/X. They are all on BlueSky now. They have chosen a walled garden – a plantation – where they can censor each other off the platform as hard and unfairly as they want.
They are now fully in an echo chamber, and they can no longer hear us.
I am not actually sure what needs to be done next. X is much more peaceful, now that so many leftists have left.
The main thing which I have noticed among these BlueSky leftists, is the almost supernatural effect that the “trans narrative” has on them. It is a necessary virtue signal that MUST be adhered to by even the most open-minded and otherwise scientific BlueSky leftists.
This is where I begin to see a great truth. Almost everybody has “science” they don’t like and don’t believe, but which other people, often a majority, do believe.
In fact, it gets even finer. BIOLOGY bothers almost everybody. And even worse, there are people who come up with bad solutions to the “bother” – many people are then attracted to the bad solutions – and together they form what one could call “pseudoscience movements”.
It’s a mess – am I right?
Well, I will do my best.
Anyway, please stay tuned for more some interesting science. Which I invite you to ignore, or even suggest you ignore, if questioning your beliefs gets in the way of your salvation.
Joe Biden never won. This is our Real President – 45, 46, 47.
AND our beautiful REALFLOTUS.
This Stormwatch Monday Open Thread remains open – VERY OPEN – a place for everybody to post whatever they feel they would like to tell the White Hats, and the rest of the MAGA/KAG/KMAG world (with KMAG being a bit of both).
OK, this is interesting – a mixture of Jefferson Airplane, epic music, and Matrix visuals.
Which led me to another…..
Which led me back to the original. Which seems very strange now.
THE STUFF
Why is AI being used to create fake stories about Elon Musk?
I find this sort of fake story to be much more annoying that AI country music.
OK – let’s wash that away with some reality – the study of “perfect” numbers! (I may have played this topic before, but whatever – let’s play it again!)
Six is a pretty cool number – but 28? And 496? And (2^82,589,933 – 1)?
We should all remember Deplorable Patriot and Wheatie as we push forward with the fight. This is NOT over by any means.
Fight! Fight! Fight! Because JUSTICE must be served on those who foisted the “Vax” shit on us. And for all the other things they have done to this country.
You failed to pay attention to this advice. You went out of your way to do the opposite. You chose to rub our faces in it, imprison those who dared complain, and even to kill our people. Now you shall pay just a tiny fraction of the real price, Ratfuckers.
What is it that feeds our battle, yet starves our victory?
RINO scum. Like Murkowski and Collins.
That’s OK. We go around ’em for now.
January 6 Tapes Reminder
OK…I’m sick and tired of reminding you to no effect, Speaker Johnson, so I’ll do the more emotionally satisfying thing and call you a cowardly, lying, fraudulent sack of diarrhetic monkey shit.
Johnson, you are a cowardly, lying, fraudulent sack of diarrhetic monkey shit!
A Caution
Just remember…we might replace the RINO candidates. (Or we might not. The record is mixed even though there is more MAGA than there used to be.) But that will make no difference in the long run if the party officials, basically the Rhonna McDaniels (or however that’s spelled–I suspect it’s RINO), don’t get replaced.
State party chairs, vice chairs, secretaries and so on, and the same at county levels, have huge influence on who ultimately gets nominated, and if these party wheelhorses are RINOs, they will work tirelessly to put their own pukey people on the ballot. In fact I’d not be surprised if some of our “MAGA” candidates are in fact, RINO plants, encouraged to run by the RINO party leadership when they realized that Lyn Cheney (and her ilk) were hopelessly compromised as effective candidates. The best way for them to deal with the opposition, of course, is to run it themselves.
Running good candidates is only HALF of the battle!
Biden Gives Us Too Much Credit
…we can move on to the next one.
Apparently Biden (or his puppeteer) has decided we’re to blame for all of the fail in the United States today.
Sorry to disappoint you Joe (or whoever), but you managed to do that all on your own; not only that, you wouldn’t let us NOT give you the chance because you insisted on cheating your way into power.
Yep, you-all are incompetent, and so proud of it you expect our applause for your sincerity. Fuck that!!
It wouldn’t be so bad, but you insist that everyone else have to share in your misery. Nope, can’t have anyone get out from under it. Somehow your grand vision only works if every single other person on earth is forced to go along. So much as ONE PERSON not going along is enough to make it all fail, apparently.
In engineering school we’re taught that a design that has seven to eight billion single points of failure…sucks.
Actually, we weren’t taught that. Because it would never have occurred to the professors to use such a ridiculous example.
Justice Must Be Done.
The prior election must be acknowledged as fraudulent, and steps must be taken to prosecute the fraudsters and restore integrity to the system.
Nothing else matters at this point. Talking about trying again in 2022 or 2024 is hopeless otherwise. Which is not to say one must never talk about this, but rather that one must account for this in ones planning; if fixing the fraud is not part of the plan, you have no plan.
Kamala Harris has a new nickname since she finally went west from DC to El Paso Texas: Westward Hoe.
Lawyer Appeasement Section
OK now for the fine print.
This is the WQTH Daily Thread. You know the drill. There’s no Poltical correctness, but civility is a requirement. There are Important Guidelines, here, with an addendum on 20191110.
We have a new board – called The U Tree – where people can take each other to the woodshed without fear of censorship or moderation.
And remember Wheatie’s Rules:
1. No food fights 2. No running with scissors. 3. If you bring snacks, bring enough for everyone. 4. Zeroth rule of gun safety: Don’t let the government get your guns. 5. Rule one of gun safety: The gun is always loaded. 5a. If you actually want the gun to be loaded, like because you’re checking out a bump in the night, then it’s empty. 6. Rule two of gun safety: Never point the gun at anything you’re not willing to destroy. 7. Rule three: Keep your finger off the trigger until ready to fire. 8. Rule the fourth: Be sure of your target and what is behind it.
(Hmm a few extras seem to have crept in.)
Spot Prices
All prices are Kitco Ask, 3PM MT Friday (at that time the markets close for the weekend). (Note: most media quotes are for the bid…the price paid by the market makers, not the ask, which is what they will sell at. I figure the ask is more relevant to people like us who wish we could afford to buy these things. In the case of gold the difference is usually about a dollar, for the PGMs the spread is much wider.)
Well gold got beat with the ugly stick this week, particularly Thursday and Friday, dropping almost 80 bucks since last Friday.
Silver got beat with the butt-ugly stick; notice that the gold:silver ratio went up even as the gold price went down, meaning silver went down harder.
Silver is on sale right now folks!
*The SteveInCO Federal Reserve Note Suckage Index (FRNSI) is a measure of how much the dollar has inflated. It’s the ratio of the current price of gold, to the number of dollars an ounce of fine gold made up when the dollar was defined as 25.8 grains of 0.900 gold. That worked out to an ounce being $20.67+71/387 of a cent. (Note gold wasn’t worth this much back then, thus much gold was $20.67 71/387ths. It’s a subtle distinction. One ounce of gold wasn’t worth $20.67 back then, it was $20.67.) Once this ratio is computed, 1 is subtracted from it so that the number is zero when the dollar is at its proper value, indicating zero suckage.
Welcome. Please visit this January 1st daily thread for the rules of the road, which are few but important.
2024 Presidential Election Map by County. Let us Never Forget: our VOTES gave the Trump Administration a Mandate to FIX IT ALL.
Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. — Galatians 5:1
We got our miracle. America is back.
Let us dedicate ourselves to the cleansing, healing, and rebuilding of our beautiful nation.
God will guide us. Prayers and thanks to God for President Donald J. Trump.
Can We Watch?
The ability to watch the process of an election–from beginning to end–MUST be intentionally designed into the process. Otherwise, it’s just as prone to sleight-of-hand as a magician’s trick.
As Bev Harris (BlackBoxVoting.org) explained, we want to validate who can vote, who did vote, what each voter marked on each ballot, and how all elections materials are tracked and secured.
Provision for observers at each stage of the process is part of what gives legitimacy to our elections.
Election Observers, the Theory.
In theory, at every step of the process, open and transparent access for observers from each interested party should be expected and provided for. Not just when it’s convenient for the elections officials and their staff.
Any resistance to making provision for observers MUST be considered as suspicious at best, possibly a sign of guilt, and always an indication of maladministration of the election process.
You may remember poll workers taping up sheets of cardboard to block the view of the poll during the 2020 elections. I’ve heard reports of similar behavior in other places since then. Didn’t some group have a way to send on the spot reports to them when these types of things were happening during the 2024 election?
Voter Rolls.
If voter rolls are not freely visible to every citizen, if there is not an audit trail for how rolls change over time, if list maintenance procedures are not transparent, then there is room for hidden fraud. You might just want to check what level of access and transparency your state provides for your voter rolls.
“Maintaining an accurate voter registration list is essential to protecting election integrity. Keeping voter registration lists up to date is a continual process that includes adding new eligible voters, updating voter registration information when a voter moves and removing ineligible voters. The process of adding, updating and removing voters is referred to as list maintenance.” — Election Assistance Commission
As mundane as keeping a list up to date would seem, apparently even a lowly voter roll can aid and abet rigging an election. Or elections. Lots of elections.
Voters in New York State are identified by two identification numbers. This study has discovered strong evidence that both numbers have been algorithmically manipulated to produce steganographically concealed record attribute information. One of the several algorithms discovered has been solved. It first utilizes a mechanism nearly identical to the simple ‘Caesar Cipher’ to change the order of a group of ID numbers. Then, it interlaces them the way a deck of cards is arranged to create a ‘stacked deck’. The algorithmic modifications create hidden structure within voter ID numbers. The structure can be used to covertly tag fraudulent records for later use.
Election Observers, state-by-state.
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) provides a brief, “Policies for Election Observers.” You can find just about everything you would want to know about your own state’s policies at this link.
Political parties, candidates, citizen groups and independent organizations may deploy observers or watchers to witness election processes in the U.S. Generally, the purpose for these observers is to provide a layer of protection or transparency and to learn from and improve processes, which vary considerably by state. This webpage covers relevant laws and practices for multiple types of election observers nationwide.
In reviewing this brief, I didn’t see anything about allowing observers or insight into mail-in ballot drop boxes, or handling by the USPS. Seems like a problem. As President Trump reminds us all the time, mail-in ballots are “not good.”
Recent Changes to State Laws.
I found the list of recent legislative actions regarding election observers to be an interesting way to get a sampler of what states are focused on these days. Here they are:
Modifications to who can be an election observer of any kind:
South Dakota HB 1182 (2024) allows members of the public to observe voting and counting processes at polling places and requires that polling places be arranged so that poll watchers can see and hear what is going on.
North Dakota SB 2292 (2023) clarifies that any individual beside a candidate on the ballot may be an election observer if they inform the election inspector of their intent to serve.
Louisiana SB 74 (2022) clarifies that those who require assistance with voting may serve as poll watchers.
Oklahoma HB 3321 (2022) requires poll watchers to serve in person and not via electronic devices.
Utah HB 387 (2022) Permits preregistered voters (those who are under 18 years old) to serve as poll watchers, permits poll watchers to observe the ballot curing process and requires ballot adjudication in larger cities to be projected on a screen large enough to be viewed by watchers.
Arizona SB 1835 (2021) requires poll watchers to be registered voters in the state.
Texas SB 1 (2021) requires a training program for poll watchers and requires watchers to present a certificate of completion when reporting for observation. The law adds to the list of processes that poll watchers can observe all activities relating to closing a polling place, ballot signature verification, ballot curing and voter assistance efforts. SB 1 also requires poll watchers to take an oath, establishes a penalty for election officials who knowingly refuse to accept a valid certificate for observation, permits election officials to call law enforcement for the removal of a poll watcher who is in violation of the law, and establishes legal remedies for watchers who believe they were unlawfully prevented from observing election processes.
Nebraska LB 1055 (2020) established the role of a poll watcher as either a registered voter of the state or an individual representing a state-based, national or international election monitoring organization. The bill went into effect after the November 2020 elections.
New York AB 1525 (2019) permitted any political committee supporting or proposing a ballot proposal to have watchers in any general, special, town or village election and any party committee and any candidate on the ballot to have three watchers for each election district in a primary election.
Utah SB 94 (2018) consolidated multiple terms for poll watcher (voting poll watchers, counting poll watchers and inspecting poll watchers) to the generic term “poll watcher” and permitted poll watchers to observe various aspects of the process.
Arkansas HB 2138 (2017) prohibited a member of the state or county board of election commissioners from serving as a poll watcher.
California AB 2021 (2016) clarified that international election observers may have uniform and nondiscriminatory access to all stages of the election process that are open to the public.
Tennessee SB 1945 (2016) prohibited the appointment of a candidate’s spouse to serve as an election observer.
Montana HB 529 (2015) prohibited a candidate from serving as a poll watcher.
New York AB 5075 (2014) prohibited candidates for public office in a given election from acting as poll watchers.
Alaska HB 104 (2013) required that poll watchers be U.S. citizens.
Modifications to the process of becoming an observer:
Arkansas HB 1457 (2023) establishes a poll watcher bill of rights, requires poll watchers to be qualified electors of the state and receive training before an election.
New Mexico SB 180 (2023) requires poll watchers to attend training before accepting appointment.
Nebraska LB 1055 (2020) established an accreditation process for observers. The bill went into effect after the November 2020 elections.
Arizona SB 1054 (2019) increased the amount of time before an election for nonpartisan observers to apply to observe at a counting center. Only three persons or groups may observe activities at the counting center and are chosen by lot from those who apply.
Louisiana HB 563 (2019) required that a list of watchers be filed with the clerk of the court in each parish where a candidate will have watchers if the office is in more than one parish.
New Mexico HB 407 (2019) amended the definition of watchers to include an election-related organization or any group of three candidates for election in a statewide election and outlines which aspects of the process may be observed.
Mississippi HB 467 (2017) added a credentialing process and code of conduct for partisan poll watchers.
Virginia HB 1333 (2015) specified that the state or district chairman may designate authorized representatives of political parties if the county or city chairman is unavailable to do so.
Wisconsin AB 202 (2014) required all authorized observers to sign in at the polling place and provided for observation areas of not less than 3 feet or more than 8 feet from the voter check-in table.
Arkansas HB 1551 (2013) required the state board of elections to certify at least one state election monitor for each congressional district, and HB 1551 (2013) required training for certified state election monitors.
Texas SB 160 (2013) required election officials to provide poll watchers with identification to be displayed by the watcher at the polling place.
Modifications to which aspects of the election process may be observed:
Colorado SB 276 (2023) establishes poll watcher guidelines for primary and special elections and prohibits poll watchers from taking photos and recording inside the election office or polling place.
Montana SB 93 (2021) permits poll watchers to observe at mail ballot deposit locations (drop boxes).
Texas HB 1128 (2021) clarifies that poll watchers may be present in polling places, at meetings of early voting ballot boards and in central counting stations.
Arkansas SB 488 (2021) allows poll watchers to inspect voter statements and ballots during an election, even though these documents are protected under the state’s public records law.
Florida SB 90 (2021) requires poll watchers to wear identification badges while observing and allows each political party and each candidate to have one watcher with viewing access to ballot signature verification.
Hawaii HB 1248 (2019) enacted mail voting across all counties for all elections and included a section allowing poll watchers to be present at voter service centers.
Maryland SB 5 (2015) permitted authorized partisan and nonpartisan observers, and any others who wish to be present, to observe the canvass process.
Virginia HB 319/SB 537 (2012) specified that partisan observers may be close enough to the voter check-in table to be able to hear what is being said, but that observation shall not violate the secret vote or otherwise interfere with the election.
Our Turn.
We can’t leave this to others. We can at least try and get informed on what has been found, what has been done about it, and what more needs to be done.
We can make a difference. And we must make a difference.
If you care about building a lasting and resilient nation, consider yourself on the job. What would be the 5 bullet points in your status report for this week?
Twitterati, etc.
Andrew Paquette (mentioned above) is a refreshingly creative mind to engage with. His latest substack, “X marks the spot,” about trying to get to X, then Grok, might be an interesting read for those of us still trying to get in the gate. One of the replies also gives more ideas for what to try when wanting to open the door into their walled garden.
Prayer.
God Bless America, Land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her Thru the night with a light from above. From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans, white with foam God bless America, My home sweet home.