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Dear KMAG: 20250219 BRITISH TRADE & DAILY THREAD


When I wrote about Mercantilism last week I mentioned merchant princes and bankers. I neglected to mention transport. You can not have trade without transporting trade goods from one place to another. If you look at American Indians, they had trade routes and used humans, canoes, dogs & camelids for transport. In Eurasia they were lucky enough to have donkeys, camels, horses, oxen and even elephants as beasts of burden. On top of that was the use of the wheel. However the favorite method was by water, to the point rivers were modified and canals were built. Even today water is a preferred method of transporting large amount of goods. And the corollary is you need SAFE trade routes.

Going back in time, to the Khazars and before, you have the Silk Road–a network of trade routes.

THE SILK ROAD

The History of the Silk Road Trade and Cultural Exchange:

BY Umair Waseem [He seems to have other interesting articles.]

The Silk Road was a network of trade routes that connected the East and the West. It spanned across Asia, reaching parts of Europe and Africa. Over the centuries, it played a vital role in the exchange of goods, ideas, and culture. This historic route was not just about commerce; it was also about bridging distant cultures.

Origins of the Silk Road:

The history of the Silk Road traces back to the Han Dynasty of China around 130 BCE. The route started as an overland and maritime network. It connected the great cities of China to Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. The earliest motivation was the need for silk.

The term “Silk Road” was coined by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen in the 19th century. The term actually refers to the trade of silk, which was one of the most valuable goods traded along the route. However, many other products, such as spices, precious metals, and textiles, were also exchanged.

Key Trade Routes and Expansion:

The Silk Road was not a single road but a network of routes that connected regions….

The Role of Empires in the Silk Road:

There were a number of great powers that helped in the establishment and defense of the Silk Road. The first of these was the Han Dynasty of China, which established strong trade ties with Central Asia. This enabled the empire to dominate the eastern part of the Silk Road and ensure safe passage for goods and people.

The Roman Empire also played a crucial role in the trade along the Silk Road. Even though the Romans never managed to dominate the entire route, their demand for luxury goods such as silk helped propel the trade. The Persian Empire served as an intermediary between East and West, facilitating trade and communication.

The Mongol Empire, under Genghis Khan and his successors, revived the Silk Road. They provided protection and stabilization along the routes, which became a hotbed for merchants to once again trade as they wanted….

Decline of the Silk Road:

…👉the Silk Road began its decline by the 15th century.👈 The reasons why this occurred were several: the rise of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century… 👉Ottomans controlled much of the Silk Road in key parts that made it arduous for Europeans to access Asian markets.👈

….the discovery of the maritime trade route made it the efficient way to go. Maritime explorers began to explore sea routes to Asia bypassing the Silk Road totally as it had become an overland road. This led to a decline in trade patterned along the Silk Road accompanied by political instability and attacks….

So the Silk Road trade routes were very important to various empires in the Old World and ESPECIALLY to the people who made money off of trade, that is the bankers and the Merchant Princes. I am going to leave the British East India Company and its tie-ins to another article.

The Brits, as a naval power, were very, very interested in the Middle East. They were also interested in an overland route thru the Middle East.


Treaty of Çanak, (Jan. 5, 1809), pact signed between the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain at Çanak (now Çanakkale, Turkey)


…the Treaty of Çanak offered security to the British against the entry of the Russian fleet from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean. It also reaffirmed in full Great Britain’s capitulary rights (trading and consular privileges) in the Ottoman Empire, while its secret provisions provided that the British assist the Ottomans in the event of a French declaration of war against them.

(PDF) the 1838 Anglo/Ottoman Commercial Treaty

This agreement expanding British trade rights in Ottoman Empire.

ENTER THE FRENCH


The British and the Ottoman Middle East, 1798-c.1850

In 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt. This was intended to be a blow against the fast-expanding British Empire in India and a major extension into Asia of the war for global dominance between the British and French. Napoleon’s move highlighted to the British the importance of the region between the Mediterranean and India and particularly the large part of it ruled by the Ottoman Empire. In the next fifty years the British became preoccupied with strengthening their position in these lands by using their sea power in the Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf to frustrate their French and also increasingly their Russian rivals. This Special Subject [Course] tells the story of British activities in, attitudes to, and experiences of the Ottoman Middle East in this period, particularly in relation to Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Baghdad. 👉The British could not seize these territories because their international strategy depended on trying to keep the Ottoman Empire alive,👈 but most observers believed that it would shortly collapse and that it was essential to ensure political, economic 👉and moral influence in advance of that point.👈 The course’s ultimate objective is to trace the connections between political, cultural and religious activities in these territories: territories which were not just of strategic, diplomatic and naval significance but also of enormous interest to travellers seeking an understanding of classical and biblical history – and indeed adventure and exotic ‘Oriental’ experiences….

…a great discussion about British political and economic interests, leading among other things to the 1838 Anglo-Ottoman trade treaty (week 5); the invasion of Syria and Palestine in 1840-1 by British troops and agents, 👉resulting in the protection of designated religious minorities👈…


OK, I want to stop here and look at what the Rothschilds were doing in the 1800s during this time period since they funded most of the European countries and their wars.

Do not forget one of the Rothschilds was a French Banker. The Bank of France was established in 1800. However Napoleon never trusted the Bank of France and he believed that France had to break free of debt. “..The Bank of England was quick to oppose him. By financing every nation in his path, they reaped enormous profits from the war. (Warning bells should be sounding for those of you drawing correlations between that and the international actions of the U.S. since World War II). Profit From War. Prussia, Austria and Russia all fell heavily into debt in their attempts to stop Napoleon….”

Nathan Rothschild funded the Napoleonic Wars.


…Nathan knew Napoleon had lost the Battle of Waterloo before the English monarchy. With this information in hand, Nathan spread the rumor that Napoleon had won and that everyone on the English Stock Market should start selling their useless English money. Rothchilds’ agents were then able to purchase nearly the entire English Stock Market at incredibly low prices, thus controlling the entire English market before everyone found out that England, in reality, had beaten Napoleon.
👉As of 2015, the English government is still paying back money owed to the Rothschild family from this Napoleonic fraud…👈


That article has since been re-written and updated as of Aug, 1 2024. All mention of the English government owing the Rothschilds money is gone. The current author is Jennifer L. Cook who got her start in editorial work in London as a researcher for three industrial relations journals. Her Education: University of California at Santa Cruz.

A QUICK TIMELINE


Also see: Timeline – European 19th – Early 20th Century Middle East Intervention and Middle East Uprisings

1858 — The Suez Canal was an immensely profitable investment by the Rothschild family. The family basically owned the British banking system and had funded all the British war efforts throughout the 19th century. Because the Suez Canal was built with slave labor, the Brits did not want their name associated with the building of it. Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, (Jewish BTW) had N M Rothschild & Sons act for the British Government instead. Disraeli was a close personal friend of Lionel de Rothschild. LINK

1881 – Assassination of Tsar Alexander II in retaliation for his help during the US Civil War. It was also the start of the Jewish Pogram in Russia in retaliation for the Jewish Socialists murdering the Tsar.

1882 -1918 — The Rothschilds began to buy land in Palestine. The Rothschilds had international power as they lent money to all governments. By 1918, one-twentieth of Palestine’s fertile lands belonged to the Rothschilds. — Who sold Palestine?

Remember these Jews were refugees because Jewish Socialists, financed by the Rothschilds, had assassinated the Tzar and Russians took out their anger on the entire Jewish community. Also, exactly WHO owns Israel NOW if the Rothschilds bought the land?

1895 — London School of Economics was founded by Sidney Webb. Among its major contributors: the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, and Mrs. Ernest Elmhirst, the widow of J. P. Morgan partner Willard Straight, who founded the socialist magazine New Republic. — The Fabians, the Round Table, and the Rhodes Scholars

The Fabian co-founders, the Webbs, founded the London School of economics with a bit of financial help from Nathan Rothschild. [ALL references are now gone…]

More recently Evelyn de Rothschild was a governor of LSU.

The Rothschild Family: An Evil Dynasty Poised to Rule the World, Or Just Simply a Banking Powerhouse?

Although the following article is an ‘approved’ viewpoint, it has a few very interesting bits. Today I am looking at the Middle East connections.

Their Influence on European Industrialisation

Given their geographical banking control and massive wealth throughout the 19th century, the Rothschild family pioneered international high finance during the industrialisation of Europe and were instrumental in supporting railway systems across the world and 👉in complex government financing for projects such as the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal was another immensely profitable investment by the Rothschild family…👈

British recognized the canal as an important trade route, they objected to the use of forced Egyptian labour to build it, and perceived the French project as a threat to their geopolitical and financial interests.

So, over a span of eleven years, starting on December 15th, 1858 the Suez canal was built. The Rothschild’s basically owned the British banking system at the time since they funded all prior British war efforts throughout the 19th century. Thus, In 1875, the London banking house of N M Rothschild & Sons advanced the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. They effectively acted for the British Government, and paid a sum of £4,000,000 to purchase Suez Canal shares. Disraeli was a close personal friend of Lionel de Rothschild, and according to legend, this was transacted on a gentleman’s agreement, with no documentation, a technically unsecured loan for a sum of over £550 million today.

Basically, England recognized the huge economical gain of purchasing shares in this trans-continental shipping route, but they did not want to be recognized for supporting the forced labour (slavery) that was implemented in order to build the canal….

Napoleon invades Egypt

The Suez Canal  was primarily built by France, with Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French diplomat, playing a key role in obtaining the political and financial support. Construction began on April 25, 1859, and the canal was completed and officially opened on November 17, 1869. With the US cotton coming back on the market after the Civil War, the price of Egyptian cotton fell allowing the Rothschilds to move in and take the Egyptian shares. (I lost that link)

The map below illustrates just how critical control of the Suez Canal is. As I go deeper into this please keep that map in the back of your mind.


The Suez Canal Crisis of 1956 & The Rise of the US

In 1956, the president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal, which had mostly been owned by British and French investors. This canal was a major part of ocean-going shipping and allowed ships to pass into the Mediterranean from the Red Sea, effectively linking Europe to the Indian Ocean and trade from Asia. Swiftly, Israel, Britain, and France moved to intervene and invaded Egypt. Against the background of the Cold War and the anti-colonialism movement, the aggressive actions by Israel, Britain, and France heightened tensions with the Soviet-backed Arab states in the Middle East….

In 1798, a French general named Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire, with some 30,000 troops. Napoleon’s successful invasion and seizure of Cairo, the capital city, was quickly noticed by the British. With Napoleon’s massive army helpless on land, the British destroyed the French fleet in the Mediterranean. Moving by land, France faced another crippling blow when the British allied with the Ottomans to thwart Napoleon’s plans to take Syria. After just over a year in Egypt, Napoleon returned home to France, where he began seizing power as a dictator.

British interest in Egypt began in the 1860s due to two events: the US Civil War (1861-65) reducing the amount of cotton exported to Britain from the American South, and the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869. Swiftly, Egypt moved to increase cotton production, which would be bound for the textile mills of England.

👉The Suez Canal also benefited the British, as ships could now pass through the Mediterranean to reach India. At this time, India was Britain’s most valuable colony.👈 This began a political tug-of-war between Britain and France regarding which European power would “control” Egypt…..

Between the 1880s and World War I, Britain came to dominate more and more of Egypt’s affairs. Officially, Egypt was under the control of the Ottoman Empire, and the outbreak of hostilities between the Allied Powers (which included Britain) and the Central Powers (which included the Ottoman Empire) allowed Britain to seize control of Egypt. This year, 1914, saw Britain seize the Suez Canal and declare Egypt a protectorate. After World War I, Egyptians began fighting for independence, which was granted in 1922. However, British troops remained in Egypt until 1929, when they withdrew. The Suez Canal zone, similar to the Panama Canal zone in Central America, remained under British military control….

July 1956: Egypt Nationalizes the Suez Canal

In July 1952, a coup overthrew king Faruk I of Egypt, and one of the main plotters was a young man named Gamal Abdel Nasser. Three years later, Nasser was Egypt’s undisputed leader and positioned his country as one of the leading nonaligned states, meaning it was neither a formal ally of the United States nor the Soviet Union. However, Nasser was not a true Marxist and focused more on Arab nationalism and decolonization than socialism. On July 26, 1956, he announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal. This violated a 1954 agreement that said the Suez Canal Company would not be transferred to Egyptian control before 1968.

On October 29, 1956, Israel began its invasion of Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula and defeated opposing Egyptian forces. The Israelis advanced toward the Suez Canal from the west using ground forces. This conflict between Israel and Egypt was not shocking, as Egypt had been one of the several Arab states to fight against Israel in the Arab-Israeli War of 1948. The United Nation’s creation of a new Jewish territory in November 1947, using the land of British Palestine, was seen as an encroachment on Arab sovereignty. In May 1948, just as the new nation of Israel declared its independence, war broke out between it and neighboring Arab states.

Israel won its war for independence, but intense hostility lingered. Egypt prevented Israel from using the Suez Canal, motivating Israel to wrest the canal from Egyptian control. As Israeli forces pushed toward the canal in autumn of 1956, a trap was sprung by Britain and France against the Egyptians. Having plotted ahead of time with the Israelis, Britain and France called for a cease-fire by both sides in the growing war. When Nasser rejected this cease-fire, as was anticipated, Britain and France had an excuse to engage militarily….


Remember the Brits had ALSO promised the SAME LAND to the Arabs as to the Jews in return for revolting against the Ottoman Empire.

THE BRITISH PROMISED THE ARABS THIS

THE REAL BRITISH PLANS


WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED

Back in 1915, the British needed the help of the Arabs in defeating the Ottoman Empire in World War I. In a set of letters called the ‘McMahon–Hussein Correspondence,’ they promised the Arabs that if they rebelled against The Ottoman Empire (which had sided with Germany in the war), that they would get their own independent state (as depicted in the first map above). However, at the very same time the British made this promise, there was clandestine agreement in the works with France and Russia to carve up the Ottoman Empire amongst themselves. This was known as the ‘Sykes-Picot Agreement.’ Suffice it to say, the territory promised to the Arabs was not a part of their bargain. Then to make matters even more confusing, there was a third – and completely separate agreement with the Zionist community called the ‘Balfour Declaration’, promising the Jews their own ethno-state within the borders of Palestine.

So with these three contradictory agreements all made at the same time, it was clear that somebody was going to get deceived. In the end, the British promises to  the Arabs were a fraud.

The Arabs fought and died for the British, thinking that they would gain their independence as a reward for their sacrifice. Yet what ended up happening instead, is that the British and French marched into their territory and claimed the remains of empire for themselves.

And we wonder why there is a festering hatred for non-Muslims in the Middle East?


Also of interest is Arthur Balfour of the Balfour-Declaration that promised a Jewish homeland in the Middle East.


[Balfour]…..who was president of the Society for Psychical Research [Linked to the Fabians.– GC] (AC Doyle, William Gladstone) from 1893 and PM of the UK from 1902 to 1905. He was a nephew of Robert Cecil. He was educated at Eton College (under William Johnson, accused of pedophilia) and Trinity College Cambridge like Cecil agent Aleister Crowley… He was a member of the Royal Society and Eugenics Education Society with Oddfellow Winston Churchill, Margaret Sanger, Cyril Burt, Hans Eynsenck (student of Burt), Madison Grant, John Harvey Kellogg, Roger Pearson (Order of Malta), John Maynard Keynes, Frederick Osborn (APS, Pioneer Fund), William Beveride (British Welfare State of the Fabians), Havelock Ellis and Julian Huxley (founder of WWF) as president.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I think at this point you can see why the Brits had a vested interest in trade routes through the middle east. AND that they were willing to fight to get control of those routes. Given India has played a central role in this drama, I am going to use an article by Frontier India News Network

All you should know about the Israeli Ben Gurion Canal project

The Israelis are promoting a Red Sea-Mediterranean Sea waterway, the Ben Gurion Canal, as a rival to the Suez Canal. As per the Israelis, the distance between Eilat, a southern Israeli port and resort town on the Red Sea near Jordan, and the Mediterranean is not long and is in fact similar to the distance of the Suez connection between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

Although it poses a direct threat to Egypt’s Suez Canal but Suez Canal is shorter than the Israeli route and the Suez Canal rarely reaches 100 meters in height making it a better option. At the same time, Israel says this route is good for the ships which are unable to transit the Suez Canal due to restrictions on the size of the ship.

History of Canal proposals via Israel


👉In the mid-1800, the British considered the proposal of a canal to the Red Sea via the Dead Sea. In 1855, Rear Admiral William Allen FRS, an English naval officer and an explorer proposed an alternative to the Suez Canal titled “The Dead Sea – A new route to India.”👈 But William Allen did not know that the dead Sea was much below sea level. His idea was that a canal that would connect the three water bodies, Red Sea, Dead Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, would be cheaper than the projected Suez Canal. The US toyed with the idea of digging a canal opposite the Suez Canal in 1963. It was recommended in a memo submitted by Lawrence Livermore Patriot Laps in the US as a response to the decision taken by the Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to nationalize the Suez Canal in 1956. The controversial plan was revealed to the world only in 1994. The controversial US proposal involved 520 nuclear blasts to excavate more than 160 odd miles through Israel’s Negev desert, instead of traditional methods. The contentious proposal also noted that the project will be aggressively opposed by the Arab states. The canal would connect the Mediterranean Sea with the Gulf of Aqaba (also called the Gulf of Eilat) and thus the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The Modern Proposal

The idea of Ben Gurion canal has surfaced at a time when the Abraham Accords have radically changed the political landscape of the sensitive region. On 20th October 2020, the unthinkable happened when the Israeli state-owned Europe Asia Pipeline Company (EAPC) and the UAE-based MED-RED Land Bridge inked an arrangement to use the Eilat-Ashkelon pipeline to move oil from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean.

On 2 April 2021, Israel announced that work on the Ben Gurion Canal is expected to begin by June 2021. The initial reference to the Ben Gurion Canal was published about two years back in Hebrew language publications. As per the sources, Israel will build the canal from Eilat on the Red Sea to Mediterranean….


GlobalResearch: Video: Israel Destroys Gaza to Control World’s Most Important Shipping Lane? The Ben Gurion Canal Linking the Eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf of Aqaba

Incisive and carefully documented geopolitical analysis by Richard Medhurst pertaining to the building of the Ben Gurion Canal linking the Eastern Mediterranean to the Gulf of Aqaba. 

The Ben Gurion Canal Project was initially a “secret” (classified) U.S. project formulated in 1963 by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory LLNG, a strategic think tank (focussing on nuclear radiation) on contract with the U.S Department of Energy. The LLNG project was formulated in response to the nationalization of the Suez Canal in July 1956 by President Gamal Abdel Nasser (1956-1970). Its intent was to bypass the Suez Canal.

According to the “classified” document prepared by the LLNG (1963) quoted by Business Insider, July 2023, a strategic plan was envisaged:

“to blast an alternative Suez Canal through Israel using 520 nuclear bombs”.

The plan consisted in using 520 buried nuclear explosions “to help in the excavation process through the hills in the Negev Desert. The document was declassified in 1993”.  I have not been able to consult the “declassified” LLNG document.

The declassified document is acknowledged in Richard Medhurst’s video. 

This U.S. plan, first negotiated with Israel in the 1960s is of utmost relevance to unfolding events in Palestine.

It’s objective is to achieve US-Israeli Maritime Dominance against the people of the Middle East. In the context of a broader US-led Middle East War, the Ben Gurion Canal Project is part of America’s hegemonic military agenda. It is consistent with Netanyahu’s “Plan to Wipe Palestine Off the Map”: 

The Ben Gurion Canal will give Israel in particular and other friendly nations the freedom from blackmail arising out of access to the Suez Canal.

Arab states have been leveraging the Red Sea to pressure Israel and in response, Israel has decided to gain more control of the Red Sea. These African countries have cultural and economic affinities with the Arab states. One of the main military benefits for Israel is that it gives Israel the strategic options as the Ben Gurion Canal will totally take away the importance of Suez for the US military if needed in the aid for Israel.

Israel aims to push Egypt further into a corner by eliminating Suez in the global trade and energy corridor and becoming a global trade and energy logistics center.

Experts are of the opinion that this situation will shake the strategic-energy balance of China’s Belt and Road Project initiative in the Mediterranean, along with the Strait of Hormuz, which is the transfer point of 30 percent of the world’s energy. The Ben Gurion Canal would have the solid backing of the West. (Eurasia Review, November 7, 2023, emphasis added)

President Biden is broadly supportive of the Israeli led genocide. Visibly what is at stake is a U.S. hegemonic project which seeks the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland and the appropriation of all Palestinian lands.

According to Yvonne Ridley:

👉“The only thing stopping the newly-revised [Ben Gurion Canal] project from being revived and rubber-stamped is the presence of the Palestinians in Gaza. As far as Netanyahu is concerned they are standing in the way of the project”👈 (Yvonne Ridley, November 10, 2023, emphasis added)….

Puts an interesting spin on the current Gaza war does it not? And then you can add in this:

Why Israel Created Hamas — Swiss Policy Research

Insider insights into the creation of Hamas – and other designated terrorist groups.

* * *

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.” – Benjamin Netanyahu (2019)

“In the visible dimension Hamas is an enemy, in the hidden dimension it is an ally.”
– IDF Major General Gershon Hacohen (2019)

“Israel started Hamas. It was a project of Shin Bet.”
– Charles Freeman, US diplomat and ambassador (2006)

* * *

A. Why Israel helped create Hamas

Since the founding of Hamas in 1987, Israeli, American and Palestinian officials have repeatedly acknowledged that Israel did indeed help create and fund the Islamist group.

The point made by many of these officials is not that Israel “allowed” the rise of Hamas or that Hamas emerged in response to Israeli “occupation” of Palestine. Rather, their point was and is that Israel’s intelligence agencies actively helped create and finance the Hamas group.

As the officials cited below make clear, the overall goal of supporting Hamas has been to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state and avert the implementation of a two-state solution to the Palestine question. From Israel’s perspective, a two-state solution would reduce Israel’s territory to the internationally recognized pre-1967 borders, prohibit any future territorial expansion, and prevent the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.

More specifically, supporting the Islamist Hamas group has served several Israeli objectives at once: first, it undermined Yasser Arafat’s secular nationalist PLO; second, it helped prevent the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Accords; third, it undermined the Palestinian National Authority and isolated Gaza from the Westbank; fourth, it impeded Western support for the Palestinian cause; and fifth, it justified Israeli (counter-)attacks on Palestinian territory…


Given the above and the desire for the new canal, this Jerusalem Post article makes sense.

With that as background, these articles by a French socialist clicks into place.

First, what does he mean by ‘Straussians’?

William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard is one of Leo Strauss’s acolytes. “…Strauss was a German Jewish émigré who arrived in the United States during the rise of fascism in Germany…. He instilled a cult-like devotion in his students—who became known as the Straussians…” LINK

The coup d’état of the Straussians in Israel

by Thierry Meyssan French journalist and political activist of the Left.

March 7 2023

While observers predicted a war of Israel against one of its neighbors, the Hebrew State is not attacked from anywhere. It has opponents, but no enemy, except itself. Its political organization is not defined by any constitution and is therefore easy to overthrow. The Straussians, who are in power in the State Department and the White House, are now driving the change of its regime. [He is talking about Biden -GC] Demonstrations are taking place throughout the country to prevent the country from becoming, in the words of a former Mossad director, “a racist and violent state that cannot survive. But it is probably already too late...

Most of the Federalist Society’s adherents are just conservative or libertarian lawyers. They were only concerned with family law and economic law. However, within the Society, a small group became involved in international politics. It is this group that influences Israel today. In the United States, it first succeeded in making “American exceptionalism” triumph .  [4].

This school of thought refuses to apply international treaties in domestic law; judges the behaviour of others harshly, but absolves Americans who do the same on principle; and refuses to allow any international jurisdiction to take an interest in its internal affairs. In short, it believes that, for religious reasons, the United States is not comparable to other states and should not be subject to any international law…. (See TheseTruths comment from  February 17, 2025)

The other major struggle of this Federalist Society group was to overturn the “non-delegation doctrine. American jurists believed that the separation of constitutional powers did not allow the executive to encroach on the privileges of the legislature and to define the criteria for the application of a law. Now, the opposite is true: the separation of powers prohibits the Legislative branch from interfering with the activities of the Executive branch. The Congress thus loses its power to control the White House. It is on the basis of this sleight of hand that President George W. Bush was able to launch a series of wars and to generalize torture.

The links between this Federalist Society group and the Israeli Likud are not new. In 2003, Elliott Abrams organized the Jerusalem Summit with the participation of almost all Israeli political groups. He said that there would be no peace in the world until Israel crushes the Palestinians’ demands…

Bezalel Smotrich sees the Arabs as wild animals that must be tamed by force. But the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, approaches the issue from a different point of view. For him, God gave the land to the Jews who must expel the Arab squatters from it. Regardless of the points of view, all members of the coalition agree on one thing: the government is sovereign and should not be restricted by laws. This suits Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under judicial investigation.

👉What is going on in Israel is not just about Israelis and Palestinians. Elliott Abrams is a historic Straussian, even more so than the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and his deputy, Victoria Nuland. It is therefore foreseeable that if the “reform” of the Israeli justice system continues, the new regime will be fully aligned with the positions of the Straussians.👈 For the time being, Israel refuses to send arms to Ukraine according to the principle of General Benny Gantz: “No Israeli arms should reach the mass murderers of Jews”. The risk of an alliance between Ukrainian “integral nationalists”, American “Straussians” and Israeli “revisionist Zionists” has never been greater [6]. The United States has just banned the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, from visiting its territory. They still sanction his racist remarks, but for how long?


Do not forget that Kissinger was an agent of the Brits. LINK And the upsurge of Islamic orthodoxy-whether of the Iran variety, or that of the more commonly known Muslim Brotherhood, or the Jamaati Islam of Pakistan, or even the mystical Sufi brotherhoods of Asia-is a project of the City of London. After all war is so very, very profitable.

The second article by Thierry Meyssan.

September 12, 2024

The recent general strike in Israel is not just a demonstration against the rhetoric that we shouldn’t negotiate with terrorists and that the IDF will release the hostages held in Gaza. It marks the beginning of a realization that Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is not defending Jews. While Jewish Israelis are not yet aware of the ethnic cleansing in Gaza, they are becoming aware of the anti-Arab pogroms in the West Bank. Gradually, they are beginning to admit that their enemies are not their neighbours, but are among them. These are the revisionist Zionists.

….As a result, the question we’ve been asking since mid-November[1]is also starting to resonate with Israelis:
👉 what if Benyamin Netanyahu wasn’t incompetent, but an accomplice in the attack?👈


I think we can make a very good guess as to the answer, Yes Netanyahu was fully on board with allowing the attack and the ‘Standown’ of Israel troops. Given 9/11 that should sound very familiar.
…..
Since a lot of this has to do with the Rothschilds, I want to also add para59r comments to the end of this article.

“…last Wednesday brought in some solid evidence that suggests the Rothschilds are SATANIC rather than benign.

https://twitter.com/para59r/status/1828443065595408669


“Oh and of course she didn’t mind people associating Baphomet with Satanism. The Rothchild’s loved that sort of thing.”

American Stories: When in the Course of human events – Part 7

Wait a minute. I just remembered that I told readers that Benjamin Rush was a hero for helping Federalist John Adams and Anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson to reconcile. That must mean those two strong willed, highly intelligent American patriots had a falling out? I thought they were great friends? What gives?

Continental Congress

The two first met at the Continental Congress and began working together in the Committee of Five that wrote the Declaration of Independence. There was a strong mutual respect as each saw the strengths of the other. The tall, handsome, wordsmith Jefferson and the short, more portly, born leader, extroverted Adams hit it off. Per worldhistoryedu.com,

Adams admired Jefferson’s eloquence and writing skills, and Jefferson respected Adams’s fierce advocacy and leadership. Their collaboration during the drafting of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 marked a high point in their relationship. Adams even suggested Jefferson for the task of writing the Declaration because of his “masterly pen.” This period of cooperation laid the foundation for their future interactions, though the seeds of their eventual rivalry were already present in their differing temperaments and political philosophies.

Per historyhit.com,

When Jefferson’s wife, Martha, died in 1782, Jefferson became a frequent guest at the home of John and Abigail Adams. Abigail said of Jefferson that he was “the only person with whom my companion could associate with perfect freedom and reserve”.

During the war both were sent as diplomats to Europe. For a time Adams worked with Benjamin Franklin in France, but they grew to despise each other. Franklin had decades of experience and a polished ease in social situations that fit in well in Europe while Adams was brash and direct. They separated and Adams was sent to Holland. Meanwhile, Jefferson served as Governor of VA and was nearly captured at his home in Monticello. Over time and as the war ended, Adams resumed the lead role in negotiating the Treaty of Paris.

The tensions between the two began well after the war was won and the Treaty of Paris signed. After signing Adams headed to London and Jefferson was dispatched to Paris to begin efforts to restore normalized relations for the new nation. From the time they had first met through their years in Europe, they exchanged many of the 380 letters accorded them in their lifetimes. It was what happened when they returned to America with the finalizing of the Constitution that caused the rift.

Both had very different views over the primary role of a federal government. As noted previously, Adams was a Federalist who strongly believed in a dominant centralized government and was very suspicious of the French Revolution. He was a student of classical world history and saw how great nations fell when they lost order and experienced chaos. He feared the people having too much freedom from democracy. He was also more oriented to populated urban areas.

On the other hand Jefferson was Anti-Federalist who believed in decentralization of government, who saw no reason to abandon relations with the French. He preferred an agrarian based nation and was all in on democracy for all. He believed in the basic goodness and wisdom of the common man from his experiences within the Enlightenment period. A link to an explanation of that is below.

https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/enlightenment

As both Adams and Jefferson dug in deeper in their beliefs and actions, their letter writing to each other slowed dramatically. With the POTUS election of 1788 each battled for the role of VP under President George Washington. Adams was the victor. At that point the publicly drawn battle lines between the two became more pronounced. The respect and friendship they once shared soured.

Adams and Jefferson ran against each other for POTUS in 1796 after Washington’s retirement. Once again Adams was the narrow victor. However, the rules provided for Jefferson to be the VP.

Awkward! 😆

Undeterred with the loss, Jefferson and his Democratic Republican party supporters stayed on the offensive and used the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 by the Federalists as proof of how removed Adams and his party had become from the will of the people. SOUND FAMILIAR?

So what were the Acts all about that caused the ruckus?

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/alien-and-sedition-acts

At this point, please do not make the mistake of drawing a parallel of the Federalists kicking out the aliens as the same as what is happening today. The aliens of yesteryear were not here to overturn the government and were in fact here legally. They were invited here to become citizens in a young country bursting with opportunities that was expanding westward in need of workers and settlers. This is why the period of residency before becoming a citizen was only 5 years. The fearful reaction of the Federalists to this population growth in other regions of the country drove the passage of the Acts that increased the residency requirement to 14 years among other onerous, controlling provisions. They knew the newer citizens would not be interested in more control from a central government and would be attracted to the Democratic Republicans’ promise of liberty and a decentralized government. It was an attempt to keep the status quo and the Federalists in power. SOUND FAMILIAR?

Today’s Uniparty throws in millions of illegal ballots in key races and areas. It is a current version of the Federalist operatives who gamed the system to stay in power. Different method, same result. The parallel you can draw effectively is that the will of the people won out in 1800 just as it did on November 5, 2024. Thomas Jefferson won the POTUS role in 1800 and Adams was defeated. It was called The Revolution of 1800 as it was a dogfight between the two camps. Personal attacks and partisanship ruled the campaigns. It got ugly. At one point James Madison joined forces with Jefferson to promote states rights.

The election actually ended in a tie between Jefferson and Aaron Burr. It was finally determined in the House of Representatives for Jefferson. The oppressive Acts subsequently expired or were repealed. With the loss Adams retreated from government and politics. He returned to his farm in Quincy, MA and largely withdrew from public life.

Jefferson went on to served two terms successfully. Both Adams and Jefferson had very little contact with each other and held resentments. In 1812, the friend of both, Declaration signer Benjamin Rush, took the big step to restore their relationship. He had been saddened by their lack of communications as well as the effects it had on the nation as a whole. After conversations with both over the years he took it upon himself to approach Adams about the prospects of reconciling with Jefferson. Adams agreed and sent a short cordial letter to Jefferson. That was all it took for the two to resume their friendship. Over the next 14 years they wrote each other often, discussing a wide variety of subjects that included politics, philosophy and personal matters.

Their words revealed a deep mutual respect and a shared sense of history and their involvement in it. They discussed their disagreements and were even humorous about their past behavior. They bridged their divide and reconciled as people. It was a very meaningful event for America that these two patriot giants could settle their differences and remain bonded in friendship and love of country. Again, it may have been the most important act Benjamin Rush took out of an incredible number of important acts he undertook in his storied life.

How appropriate that both Adams and Jefferson died on the same day; July 4 ,1826 – Independence Day. The last words of Adams were, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” He was mistaken: Jefferson had died five hours earlier at Monticello at the age of 83.

Shivers.

Let’s move on to more signers.

John Hart

I am going to go with 1713 as John Hart’s birth year primarily because it is the year Congress officially recognized, although other sources state 1711 and other years. In reality they do not know with certainty. What they do know is that his father was Captain Edward Hart and that John was born in Stonington, CT. His father was in the local militia that was active in the French and Indian War as well as being a farmer, public assessor and justice of the peace. The family relocated to New Jersey early in his life and he was baptized in a local meeting house that is now a Presbyterian Church, although it appears his family had some association with Baptists as John deeded some land to them to build a church on in 1747.

John married Deborah Scudder in 1741. They went on to have 13 children together. He held a county position beginning in 1750 and by 1761 was elected to the NJ Colonial Assembly where he served for ten years. His primary occupation was a farmer and earned the name “Honest John Hart” from within the state. As a patriot he was appointed the state’s Committee of Safety as well as the Committee of Correspondence. As the First Continental Congress was formed he was chosen as one of the representatives of the state. That led to him being one of the first sent to the Second and as a result an approver and signer of the Declaration of Independence.

As the war came to New Jersey, The British sought him out as a signer as well as Speaker of the Assembly in NJ. As this was happening his wife lay dying in their home. He refused to leave until she breathed her last, then departed for the nearby Sourland Mountains he had hunted for many years even though he was well into his sixties by that time. He remained for a year until the threat of the British had passed there before returning home and finding that they had severely damaged his property. In the summer of 1778 he offered his farm along with other local farm owners to become the staging and planning area for General Washington’s 12,000 man army. He and Washington dined together while camped there. However, before the year was out he experienced life threatening kidney stone attacks that left him in great pain until his death six months later in 1779.

Honest John Hart literally gave all of himself and his possessions for the cause of liberty without regard to its cost. He was a great America Patriot.

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Born St. Luke’s Parish, SC in 1746, Thomas Heyward. Jr., was from a wealthy plantation owning family that were known for growing tidal rice. His father was Col. Daniel Heyward. He was educated at home in classical studies and Latin, while later being trained in law locally and in England. While in England he observed that the Brits there viewed the colonists as their lessers, which angered him. He continued to travel Europe and saw that the lives of luxury around him stood in contrast to the simple lives of the farmers he liked at home. It made a distinct impression on him.

When he returned in 1772 he soon married Elizabeth Matthews, daughter of Col. John and Sarah Matthews. The couple had six children together although she passed away in childbirth in 1782. Only one survived to adulthood.

When the Stamp Act was passed Heyward was its most vocal critic. He began to rise in patriot circles, much to his loyalist father’s dismay. At one time the Heyward family were the largest slaveholders in America, so his beliefs about independence ran contrary to long held family interests. In 1775 he was elected to the General Assembly and subsequently to represent the state in the First Continental Congress. His father warned him of the consequences, but was unable to dissuade him. However, prior to his father’s death in 1777, the two reconciled.

He became a Declaration signer as well as later, a signer of the Articles of Confederation. In 1778 he returned home to take over operations of the family plantation after his father’s death the previous year. He assumed control of a small artillery militia and was wounded in battle, from which he recovered. He was subsequently captured in the Battle of Charleston and sent to St. Augustine with other officers. He was later sent to Philadelphia in a prisoner exchange near the end of the war and was nearly killed when he fell over board of the prison ship. After the exchange, it was not long until his wife died during childbirth. He had lost his wife, his plantation had been destroyed, his slaves ad other possessions taken away, and yet, he continued to serve as a judge and in the affairs of his state including the writing of the state Constitution until his retirement in 1798. His personal life recovered with his second marriage to Elizabeth Thomas, daughter of Col. Thomas and Mary Elliot Savage of Charleston. They had three children together. Heyward passed away in 1809 having fulfilled his life’s mission of serving his country as a great American Patriot.

Lessons From The Life Of Thomas Heyward

Picture yourself as a young man born into southern plantation society and wealth, whose family is aligned with the Crown. Life has been plentiful. Your family is highly respected in the community and state. Slaves work the fields and serve throughout the mansion and grounds. You have been afforded an elite classical education at home that has led to an apprenticeship and training into the law. Your parents see your abilities and send you to England to complete your education and training in law. You spend the next five years traveling Europe and then realize as you set sail for home that you do not care for those people or the lives they represent.

This leads to getting sideways with your father as you have determined that liberty is the only path for the colonies. You go your own way, though fortunately reconciling with him before he passes. Over the ensuing years you give your all for the cause that includes your freedom as a prisoner of war and nearly your life on multiple occasions. You go from being shot to being imprisoned to nearly drowning from going overboard on the voyage that was to take you to freedom. Then you lose your wife in the childbirth of one of your six children, only one of whom survived. All of this only to return home after the war to find your family’s plantation in ruins and all of the slaves gone, most of whom having been sent to Jamaica.

Instead of throwing your hands up in surrender, you rebuild your life. You become a judge and continue to be active in state affairs. You marry again and have children. And the one constant through it all remains your commitment to the service of your country and your memories of having signed the greatest document in American history.

Thomas Heyward was a man of qualities and flaws like all of us. However, his life illustrates his commitment to our nation no matter the cost. It is a strong lesson for all who would be patriots.

Conclusion

I only have time for two signers this week. I have finally recovered from Flu A and much work remains on the project for the kids’ house. I will likely skip a week before restarting the series as I want the content to continue to reflect our nation’s return to its patriot roots with the Golden Age upon us.

I am in awe over what PDT, JD, Elon, cabinet members and supporters are delivering. It is literally a long held dream come true for this old head and heart. I wanted it so badly for the children and grandchildren, so they could carry the day and fight well into the future. Our America First MAGA leaders get it. They have the spirit and the will of our 1776 Sons of Liberty coursing through their veins. I am so proud to be an American again.

May God continue to bless our united efforts to restore and lift up the republic for His glory and the good of His people.

Dear MAGA: 20240216 Open Topic

This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.

It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.

In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.

We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.

Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.

In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion printed here: 
https://www.theqtree.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

On this day and every day –

God is in Control
. . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . .
Keep Looking Up

Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.

“This day is holy to the Lord your God;
do not mourn nor weep.” . . .
“Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,
and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared;
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not sorrow,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Be Kind

In this day of entitlement, self-promotion, and impersonal, virtual relationships, many people have forgotten what it means to be kind to one another. To Christians, who are called to become like Jesus Christ, the Bible teaches, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31–32, ESV).

The apostle Paul told the Ephesians to put away six sinful attitudes and behaviors: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice. Bitterness is an inward frame of mind that refuses to forgive. Wrath and anger are combined here to refer to violent outbreaks of uncontrolled human rage. Clamor speaks of shouting and loud quarreling. Slander means evil speaking, and the Greek word translated “malice” implies wickedness, which is at the root of all the other sins listed here. All these practices to be rejected center on our relationships with others.

In place of these things, believers are to put on kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness. These three virtues also deal with interpersonal relationships. In the original Greek, the phrase rendered “be kind to one another” literally means “keep on becoming kind toward one another.” The graciousness of God, which is also found in Jesus Christ, shows us what it means to be kind to one another. Because God acts kindly toward us, we are to behave the same way toward others. Because Christ offered grace as the basis for our forgiveness, so too should we.

Being kind to one another is not optional for the people of God (Micah 6:8; Zechariah 7:9; 1 Peter 3:8). In the very next verses, Paul instructed the Ephesians to “imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God” (Ephesians 5:1–2, NLT). Walking in love means following the example of Jesus Christ.

Paul reiterated the teaching on kindness to the Colossians: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (Colossians 3:12–14). Paul mentioned several virtues that believers were to clothe themselves with or “put on”: compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love. Again, these all have to do with personal relationships.

Compassion and kindness are closely linked. Compassion can be defined as “heartfelt sympathy or empathy toward those who are suffering or in need.” Kindness is the helpful spirit that sees someone else in need and is motivated to respond through good deeds. Kindness is the tangible action that results from compassion. Kindness goes beyond mere words; it translates into helping and serving one another (Acts 28:2).

Kindness is one of the attributes of God (Titus 3:4), one of the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22), and one of the proofs of a faithful minister of the gospel (2 Corinthians 6:6). Being kind to one another is how we show love: “Love is patient, love is kind” (1 Corinthians 13:4).

Being kind to one another involves caring for others, bearing their burdens, and valuing them above ourselves (Romans 12:10; Galatians 6:2; Philippians 2:3). Kindness motivates us to speak life and encouragement to others instead of death and discouragement (Proverbs 16:24; Ephesians 4:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:11). Expressing support and affirmation instead of condemnation is characteristic of kindness (Proverbs 15:4).

Being kind to one another means finding a way to forgive rather than blame (Matthew 5:7; Luke 6:36; 10:37; James 2:13). Perhaps the most stunning example of this is found in God’s supreme act of kindness that provided for our forgiveness and salvation when He sent His Son to die for us on a cross: “Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?” (Romans 2:4, NLT; see also Romans 11:22; Titus 3:4–7).

2025·02·15 We Will Have Justice Daily Thread

What is it that feeds our battle, yet starves our victory?

January 6 Tapes?

Where are the tapes? Anyone, Anyone? Bueller? Johnson??

Paging Speaker Johnson…this is your conscience calling you out on broken promises.

Evading Reality

Many things the Left believes are simply not true. Right now the focus is on the size and scope of our government, and the many many billions of dollars the government has been spending on no-one-knew-what. None of that money is going to a key role of government. Which, after all, has the sole purpose of protecting rights.

And if you, Leftist Lurker, want to dismiss this as dead white cis-male logic…well, you can call it what you want, but then please just go fuck off. No one here buys that bullshit–logic is logic and facts are facts regardless of skin color–and if you gave it a moment’s rational thought, you wouldn’t either. Of course your worthless education never included being able to actually reason–or detect problems with false reasoning–so I don’t imagine you’ll actually wake up as opposed to being woke.

As Ayn Rand would sometimes point out: Yes, you are free to evade reality. What you cannot do is evade the consequences of evading reality. Or to put it concretely: You can ignore the Mack truck bearing down on you as you play in the middle of the street, you won’t be able to ignore the consequences of ignoring the Mack truck.

And Ayn Rand also pointed out that existence (i.e., the sum total of everything that exists) precedes consciousness–our consciousnesses are a part of existence, not outside of it–therefore reality cannot be a “social construct” as so many of you fucked-up-in-the-head people seem to think.

So much for Leftist douchebag lurkers. For the rest of you, the regular readers and those lurkers who understand such things, well here we go for another week of WINNING against the Deep State.

I confess that the novelty has not worn off.

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.

Yes, we won this time around. Not only did we win, we got to KEEP that win instead of having it stolen from us.

But no one should imagine that that’s the end of electoral fraud. Much work needs to be done to ensure it doesn’t just happen again next time around. And incidentally to rescue those states currently in the grips of self-perpetuating fraud, where the people who stole the last election, make sure it’s easier to steal the next one.

This issue, though it’s not front-and-center right now, is not going away, and if we ignore it, we’ll pay the price. See the article above about the consequences of evading reality.

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.

Kitco Ask. Last week:

Gold $2,861.10
Silver $31.89
Platinum $984.00
Palladium $990.00
Rhodium $5,025.00
FRNSI* 137.406-
Gold:Silver 89.718-

This week, markets closed as of 3PM MT.

Gold $2,883.10
Silver $32.22
Platinum $984.00
Palladium $992.00
Rhodium $4,975.00
FRNSI* 138.470-
Gold:Silver 89.482-

Gold went up nicely this week and closed in the 2920s Thursday. And then it got beaten with the ugly stick on Friday, dropping 45.60. Although silver took a hit on Friday, also, it wasn’t as bad so this week we see the gold:silver ratio dropping just a bit. Still it’s nowhere near the 83-ish range it was in not so long ago.

*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.

The Final Experiment Fallout

The fallout continues.

Jeran is now a glober. To those who have been following this for years (and no, I am not one of them), it’s simply stunning; they could never have imagined it. Austin Witsit has been trying to figure out how he got “fooled” which means he is looking for excuses to remain a flat Earther. It’s an interesting study in psychology. They both saw the same things. One had an epiphany, the other is burrowing deeper into the bullshit that the sights ought to have blasted away.

But of late something else has caught my attention. A South African who goes by the name “Flatzoid” is running hard to be the most obliviously stupid person on the face of the Earth. And yes he has quite a bit of competition from a lot of people on the Left, but from what I see he is up to the challenge.

[Take for instance the fact that he is South African, yet hasn’t noticed that the sun doesn’t rise and set where it should (i.e., to the northeast and northwest) if flat Earth were correct. He once even attempted to measure its sunrise position, and did so on video so people could see he was using a method guaranteed to introduce error. Sure enough he got an answer a few degrees off, loudly trumpeted that the globe earth couldn’t make the prediction…and ignored the fact it was many times further off any conceivable flat earth prediction. Not that they actually make predictions that aren’t just copying off of Globe Earth’s paper during the test.]

It’s referred to as the “upper left” award by the globe defenders; this is an allusion to the Dunning-Kruger effect, which is commonly depicted on a graph like this:

The “upper left” is the peak of stupid but confident, or even arrogant. In this case Flatzoid has accused people far more knowledgeable than he is of being incompetent, and has said so to them in online meetings and debates.

In the case I’m thinking of his target is an Aussie engineer (with almost the same education background that I have), who goes online by “Critical Think” (which makes it very hard to find his channel).

This video is a reaction by an engineer, to the debate between Fkatzoid and Critical Think.

(Warning: You are about to see the worst case of Dunning-Kruger ever. Fkatzoid has no comprehension of the experiment, no actual conception of what it means to control variables, no conception of measurement error, and is so smugly confident he knows more than Critical Think that it can be infuriating at times.)

Flatzoid was on the list to be invited to The Final Experiment, but complained (as his excuse not to go) that he never received an invite. Will Duffy told him (in a livestream) that that was because his email did not appear on his youtube channel page. Flatzoid hastily went to add it so he could claim it had been there all along, but fatfingered his name and it showed as fkatzoid@<whatever the provider was>, so now he’s often called fkatzoid by Globe defenders.

Critical Think was not only invited, but actually did go on the Final Experiment. And he did something very interesting. He brought a very accurate electronic scale with him, along with its test weights. He has been taking those things to various places (like Malaysia), himself lives in (IIRC) Brisbane Australia, and had it with him in Chile–Santiago and Puntas Arenas. And of course Union Glacier camp in Antarctica.

What was he hoping to prove? He was hoping to validate the WGS-84 model of the Earth’s shape. Earth is a very slightly oblate spheroid (not enough so to look “squashed” in pictures–in fact proportionately speaking it easily meets the specs for cue balls) on account of its rotation. This has two effects on the gravity: 1. At the poles you are closer to the center of the Earth than you are at the equator, so you should feel very slightly stronger gravity. 2. The centrifugal effect of the rotating earth should reduce the net gravity on the equator, because the centrifugal effect partly counteracts the pull of the Earth’s mass. #2 is by far the larger of these two effects.

How does one check this? By measuring the force of gravity in different places using the same masses.

You can do this with a scale…but it has to be the right kind of scale. And you have to know how to use it.

And in order for this to make sense, you must understand the distinction between weight and mass. Which Flatzoid clearly does not.

Mass is the amount of “stuff” in an object, and it manifests as a resistance to forces applied to it. You can feel this by trying to push on objects. (Don’t try to lift them for this part.) To wipe out the effect of friction, pick the object up, hold it in your hand, then move your hand toward or away from you. If the object is massive enough you’ll definitely feel it “resisting” the force you’re applying.

This resistance is the same everywhere. Here on Earth. Anywhere on earth. In outer space. You’d feel it even in orbit on the ISS. The Moon. Mars. Jupiter (if there were a surface to stand on). And so on. The same.

Weight on the other hand is the force exerted on the object. The weight of something is actually the force with which it is being pulled, by the Earth.

This is why you can weigh differently on (say) the Earth and the Moon, even without a trip to the bathroom on the way from one to the other, in other words, even though your mass stays the same. The force exerted by gravity is different, and weight is the force.

The distinction usually doesn’t matter for us “groundhogs” here on Earth. Hence there’s a tendency even for STEM people working their STEM jobs to conflate the two. Pounds are actually a unit of force, but it’s not hard to find references to something called “pounds mass” in, say, rocketry, where a lot of the industry stuck with the US Customary System until fairly recently–it’s the mass that on the surface of the earth weighs one pound. (Oh and by the way our customary system is not the “imperial” system as I’ve heard many people call it lately: if you don’t believe that note the difference in volume measurements. A US gallon is smaller than an Imperial one.) So it’s quite correct to say that 100 lb (when she is on Earth) woman weighs 16.5 lbs on the Moon.

The kilogram, the SI unit, is actually a unit of mass. But people are happy to talk about things weighing a kilogram, really meaning (whether they realize it or not): weighing as much as a kilogram does on Earth. (The SI unit of force is the Newton, and to be truly correct, a kilogram of mass weighs 9.8 Newtons. But absolutely no one makes a scale reading in Newtons, though pressure measurements (“pounds per square inch” to us) and torque do reference Newtons.)

Let’s not forget we’re eventually getting back to Fkatzoid vs. Critical Think.

There are two ways to measure “weight” (one of them actually measures mass). 1) A balance beam scale. This is the conceptually simplest variant:

This works by comparing the force exerted by gravity on whatever it is you want to weigh, against the force exerted on known weights. If the two pans are in balance (as indicated by the long vertical bar pointing up from the pivot point), the two forces are equal, and therefore the two weights are equal. For this kind of scale, though, there’s a bonus: You also know the two masses are equal. It can actually be used to measure mass. It would work if you took it to the Moon; the mass of your object would be the same as the mass of the known weights in the other pan, and you will get the same reading.

There are more complex versions of this, including ones with sliding weights where the known weight is moved closer or farther, to balance things like having people of two different weights on a seesaw. The lighter one has to move further out.

If you remember those scales at your doctor’s office with the sliding weights, that’s this kind of scale; it’s set up so that you “hang” from a place very close to the pivot, while the sliding weights are further away; they therefore exert more leverage and a balance can be struck without actually putting something as heavy as you are on the balance beam.

The second kind of scale essentially measures the compression or stretching of a spring (or some other device sensitive to force) caused by gravity pulling on whatever it is you’re weighing.

Springs (et. all.) do their thing in response to a force, so these scales measure force. Take a 1 kilogram mass and a scale like this (that reads off in kg though it should technically read off in Newtons) to the moon and it will read 165.4 grams, not 1000 grams. That’s because it’s really measuring a force then, under the assumption it’s being used in Earth’s gravity, converting to read in kilograms. (If you are ever in such a situation, don’t be fooled into thinking the mass has changed.)

Your bathroom scale, the scale you use to measure ingredients in the kitchen, the scale at the deli and the scale at the post office are all this type (unless you’re like me and bought a used medical scale). If you reload you may have a balance beam scale of some type for the powder.

OK, so now to Critical Think’s experiment. He has a scale…of the second type, and it came with a kilogram mass.

Normally, you’d set up the scale, turn it on, make sure it zeros…and then you calibrate it. How? you put the kilogram mass on it, and push a button, which tells it that the force it is detecting right now is from local gravity acting on a one kilogram mass. It’s then smart enough to know what to do if it feels twice that force: it will tell you that what you’ve put on the scale has a mass of two kilograms. Likewise for any other mass: read out in proportion to that force which it has been taught means there’s a mass of one kilogram.

Why the need to calibrate the scale? Because if you don’t, it will be thrown off by the slight differences in the Earth’s gravitational field. Mountaintops, latitude, depressions like Death Valley or the Dead Sea, etc. will all change the force ever so slightly, and by calibrating the scale, you get it to correct for that.

What if you move the scale to another location, and don’t calibrate it? Your mass readings will be off by a bit, because the force you measure isn’t the same. It’s a small amount, a few hundredths of a gram per kilogram, but nonetheless measurable by Critical Think’s scale.

So this is what he did: He calibrated the scale at home. So in his house, the weights read 1000 g. He then takes the scale and weights somewhere else, and repeats the measurement without calibrating the scale. So the 1 kilogram mass now weighs a bit more or a bit less, and the difference is actually due to the difference in gravity.

On returning home, you weight your kilogram mass again to make sure the scale actually did hold its initial calibration. If the scale doesn’t read 1000 g again, something actually fell out of adjustment in the scale.

Critical Think’s data (multiple weighings of the known mass at each site), by the time you do the stats work that every scientist must do with their data, confirms the WGS-84 ellipsoid combined with the rotation of the Earth.

But it’s key: for this to work, you must not calibrate the scale at the other locations. Otherwise all you’ve done is show that the scale will report 1000g every time you calibrate it.

This is totally, completely beyond Fkatzoid’s comprehension. He insists that because Critical Think did not calibrate the scale at each location, the entire experiment is worthless–oblivious to the fact that the point of the experiment was to use the same calibration in different areas.

Furthermore Fkatzoid has no conception of measurement error. Critical Think took multiple readings at each location, and averaged them. This is standard operating procedure when taking data, because of measurement error. However, when this came out in the conversation, that the multiple readings had all been slightly different from each other, Fkatzoid triumphantly declared all of the data worthless, because it wasn’t “repeatable.”

And finally, Fkatzoid insists that temperature and humidity are factors that must be taken into account. Why? Because. Because what? Because. It turns out that Critical Think actually checked these beforehand, by varying the temperature and humidity at home and seeing what effect they had on the scale (by again, calibrating once then measuring under different temperatures and pressures–and noting that they had no significant effect, so he could from that point forward ignore them so long as he stayed within the operating temperature range of the scale. This point, too, is completely lost on Fkatzoid.

He’s trying to argue about basic science with an experienced engineer. Not that experienced engineers are automatically right by any means, nor are they necessarily geniuses. But engineering is where the scientific rubber meets the road in a way that’s visible to everyone. All branches of engineering must study and understand physics at a bare minimum (many branches have to go into other disciplines like chemistry as well), and they must apply it to solve real-world problems.

If the physics they understand doesn’t have a close relationship to reality, their solutions can’t work. And sometimes they “don’t work” badly enough to kill people. The Romans knew this. Their engineers would have to stand under the arches they designed, as the blocking for construction was removed. If the engineer had messed up…he died. Better him than someone who had trusted him.

There are certainly plenty of examples of engineering failures in history. (Engineers get to learn about them!) But even those who fail when pushing the envelope understand the basics.

Fkatzoid never had to learn any science past the third grade level (complete with all of the oversimplifications made to get the basic concept across) and it shows here. I don’t think I’ve every seen someone more obliviously but arrogantly ignorant than Fkatzoid.

And in the wake of the Final Experiment, he’s one of the leaders of the Flat Earth movement.

No Geology This Time

I will try to write something up this weekend, for next weekend.

Health Friday 2.14.2025 Open Thread: Special Valentine’s Day Edition — Dark Chocolate!

The above image is courtesy of See’s Chocolates and Google Images.

Health Friday is a series devoted to Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. Today’s offering is a Special Edition in honor of Valentine’s Day. However, the discussion is not limited to what is presented here: It is an Open Thread.

There are Important Wolf Moon Notifications, the Rules of our late, good Wheatie, and certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They are linked here.

Yours Truly begins the exploration of the delicious, highly-desired, and — surprise! — nutritious, beneficial food known as Dark Chocolate, here: https://nutritionsource.hsph/harvard.edu/food-features/dark-chocolate/. Yes, dark chocolate has a long and “rich” (no pun intended) history. The ancient Mayans discovered chocolate (what we would call “dark chocolate”) and drank it as a bitter concoction that was sometimes mixed with herbs. From the Harvard article:

The Mayan culture actually used chocolate for currency and for trade. Only members of the royal family and of the nobility were permitted to drink or otherwise consume chocolate. Please see: https://www.newsweek.com/ancient-maya-used-chocolate-money-1001513, “Ancient Mayans Used Chocolate for Money”, 29 June 2018.

When the Spanish Conquistadors discovered what is now Mexico, they began to send chocolate back to Europe. At first, again, it was used there among royal and noble classes as a beverage or as a food item that was chewed. In fact, King Louis XIV of France would send for shipments of chocolate from Mexico for his Spanish-born Queen, Marie Therese, which were packed in roses and herbs to “keep them fresh.” Over time, the availability and consumption of dark chocolate began to increase among all levels of society.

Dark chocolate has several important health benefits. One example of an article that describes these benefits is here: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-health-benefits-dark-chocolate, “7 Proven Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate — Healthline.”, 13 July 2022. The seven benefits:

Dark chocolate is packed with nutrition: A 100-gram bar of dark chocolate with 70% – 85% cocoa has, among other things, 11 grams of fiber and 66% of the daily recommended amount of iron.

Dark chocolate is a strong source of antioxidants, as it contains polyphenols (compounds found in plant foods) and flavanols (a subgroup of flavinoids.)

Dark chocolate can lower blood pressure and help blood flow in the body.

Dark chocolate raises the HDL (“good” cholesterol) level in the body, while also lowering the damage that some forms of LDL (“bad” cholesterol) can do to the body.

Dark chocolate may reduce the risk of heart disease, due to the lowering of the LDL damage as described above.

The flavanols in dark chocolate can help protect the skin from sun damage.

Dark chocolate may help to improve brain function in older persons, while at the same time, assisting in blood flow to the brain in younger persons.

However, there are a couple of negative aspects about dark chocolate of which consumers should be aware. The first is that Lead and/or Cadmium (heavy metals) can be added into the manufacturing process. Please see here: https://health.ucdavis.edu/blog/good-food/dark-chocolate-health-benefits-the-good-and-the-bad-to-this-sweet-treat/2023/02, 14 February 2023. There is an embedded link in this article to a Consumer Reports piece regarding high Lead and/or Cadmium levels that were found in certain brands of dark chocolate. The second drawback is that the same 100-gram bar of Dark Chocolate described above also contains about 43 grams of fat. Please see here: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/dark-chocolate, “What are the benefits of dark chocolate?”, by Jamie Eske, 25 October 2023.

There are scientific papers published on Dark Chocolate. Here is an example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9589144/, ‘Dark Chocolate: An overview of its biological activity, processing, and fortification approaches”, Sharmistha Samanta, et al., 15 October 2022. Below is the Abstract of the paper:

And, from the same paper, Figure 2, on the health benefits of Dark Chocolate:

Finally, a recipe, courtesy of Lorraine Elliott, for Dark Chocolate Energy Bars:

Yours Truly is not advocating that people consume Dark Chocolate as their principal source of antioxidants, fiber, and so on. On the other hand, the above facts may come in handy to rebut allegations along the lines of, “Well, Dark Chocolate is just fattening and can hurt your arteries” from persons who do not know the information in today’s offering. “Moderation is the key.”

Happy Valentine’s Day to all! Peace, Good Energy, Respect: PAVACA

Dear MAGA: 20250209 Open Topic

This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.

It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.

In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.

We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.

Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.

In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion printed here: 
https://www.theqtree.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

On this day and every day –

God is in Control
. . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . .
Keep Looking Up

Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.

“This day is holy to the Lord your God;
do not mourn nor weep.” . . .
“Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,
and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared;
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not sorrow,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

God’s Grace is Sufficient

Grace is “undeserved favor.” The grace of God is His granting of good things to those who only deserve punishment. The word sufficient means “adequate” or “enough.” Grace being sufficient speaks of the grace of God that grants salvation, preservation, and everything else that the believer needs in this life and in the life to come.

Sufficient grace is a description of the grace of God as revealed in Scripture. The only time the two words are used together in Scripture is in 2 Corinthians 12:9. Paul had some form of physical affliction that caused him real difficulty. No doubt he thought he would be able to serve the Lord more effectively if he did not have this physical ailment to slow him down. He says he asked the Lord repeatedly to take it away from him, but the Lord’s answer was “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In other words, in this case, God showed grace to Paul not by removing the ailment but by giving him the ability to endure it. In response Paul says, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

The concept of sufficient grace is that God’s grace is adequate (sufficient) for anything we need. First, we need salvation and forgiveness of sin. God’s grace provides that for all who will accept it. Then, the believer needs grace to live the Christian life. God’s grace is sufficient here whether the believer experiences poverty or plenty, pain or pleasure. Often, Christians wonder how they could possibly survive persecution and hardship they have read about in other times or hear about in other places. A Christian might wonder, “If I had a gun to my head, would I deny Christ?” If all that was at work was human determination, it might be a toss-up at best. But the Christian can rely on the fact that God’s grace will be sufficient for the hardship when it arrives, even if it may not be in evidence before.

No Christian is inherently sufficient. Every Christian, left to his own devices, would fail miserably. “Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God” (2 Corinthians 3:5). When the time comes, God’s grace will be sufficient to carry the believer through whatever he or she may encounter. By focusing on the sufficient grace of God rather than human frailties, Christians can face the future with confidence. With Paul, Christians can enthusiastically embrace their own insufficiencies, knowing that these insufficiencies will push them toward the all-sufficient grace of God.
xhttps://www.gotquestions.org/sufficient-grace.html

We suffer down here for our few years
With pain, sorrow, anguish and tears.
But for all of these painful ways,
Peace and Joy flood eternity’s days.

American Stories: When in the Course of human events – Part 6

Now would be an excellent time to pay honor to a great American who is probably enjoying the show in our nation from Heaven.

America is back! God bless America and all freedom loving people worldwide.

Time To Get Into The Weeds

This is an appropriate time to discuss Federalism versus Anti-Federalism. Since our leaders in the national experiment called the United States of America back in the day were playing hard, fast and for keeps; we should be made very aware of what was involved. If you have not spotted the truth of this issue still being in play today along with a nasty fight between the political forces aligned with PDT versus the Uniparty, then you need to take a dose of cold reality. The parallels are amazingly similar. Below is a primer to get you started.

https://thisvsthat.io/anti-federalists-vs-federalists

For more detailed information,

https://constitutioncenter.org/media/files/4.5_Primary_Source__Who_were_the_Federalists_and_the_Anti-Federalists__.docx_.pdf

Now, extend what you learned or were reminded of and apply it to America today.

Do you consider the federal government your friend and partner, or, the potential usurper of God and/or Constitution granted rights as an American?

If you believe the former, you are probably a Federalist. If you believe the latter, you are probably an Anti-Federalist.

Do you believe the federal government should be involved in curing the perceived weaknesses of society and righting perceived wrongs of equal rights for all classes of citizens, or, do you believe that responsibility to redress should be left to local citizens and/or related state and local authorities?

The former is Federalist, the latter is Anti-Federalist.

If a power or authority has not been assigned by the Constitution to handle a subject or concern of importance to the nation, do you believe it is a federal or a state responsibility per the Constitution to address?

Yup, Federalist or Anti-Federalist.

We could continue the game, but you probably get the point. The founding fathers worked through the subjects between them and delivered our Constitution and Bill of Rights as the answer to the desires of both sides. Which is the exact same positions we still fight over today for many of the same reasons they did. Let’s review the officially long deceased Federalist Party and what it represented per an accurate Wiki description. Who does that party resemble today?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Party

Yup, it describes the current Democrats and Uniparty in general.

Now lets look at the Anti-Federalist movement as it never officially became a political party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Federalis

Backers of the Anti-Federalist movement formed a political party called the Democratic Republican Party with Thomas Jefferson as its leader. These Anti-Federalist influenced backers were for smaller central government, states rights, less regulation, lower taxes and the abolition of slavery. As the years passed the Federalist Party became the limited party of the elites in the New England and eventually died. With Andrew Jackson’s rise to power and the Presidency, the Democratic-Republican Party split with Jackson on the Democratic party side supporting individual and states rights rivaling a coalition formed primarily of remaining Republicans and Anti-Mason Party supporters into the Whig Party. It was led by Henry Clay supporting Federalism and greater power of Congress over the President.

The 1850’s brought the demise of the Whig Party with their support of slavery and elitism. That led to the rise of the Republican Party and eventually Abraham Lincoln and the anti-slavery forces. This Grand Old Party (GOP) as it became known, arose from the Union’s victory in the Civil War. The party typically dominated federal politics for several decades afterward. The Democratic Party became the broad based party of conservatives and agriculture rooted in the “solid south” as well as other scattered segments. As backers of states rights, they generally opposed the anti-slavery changes. They would occasionally win control of houses of Congress along the way.

Fast forward to today. My, oh, my how things change!

We are back to Federalists being Uni-party elitists with cobbled together minority segments in the Democrat Party and RINO’s versus the Anti-Federalists being the rapidly growing, populist America First MAGA segment of the GOP that is all about operating as a republic with states rights being important.

What has happened since our nation’s founding and today is a continuous morphing between these primarily Federalist versus Anti-Federalist viewpoints. America and its politics have never been one thing or the other throughout its history. Yet, the tension remains from the negotiations surrounding the interpretation of the Constitution and with the accommodation provided by the Bill of Rights.

As things stand today, did the Democrat and RINO Uniparty exceed their authority by claiming powers over subjects, issues and people that are not enumerated in the Constitution? Of course they did and still attempt to do. That is why EO’s and EA’s have been flying out of the Oval Office in droves under President Trump already. To increase their power and reach, central governments tend to naturally grow and extend their tentacles increasingly into the business of the people. That is not a question, it is a fact demonstrated over thousands of years in governments all around the globe.

Can a fully decentralized republic adequately defend itself against foreign and domestic forces and enemies without central governance and leadership? Probably not very well in America as the independent states may opt out of their responsibilities and enter into disputes with each other as well as the federal government. There would be no hammer to cover all aspects of government in place to force them back into compliance. Our strength as a nation against foreign powers is in unity, not division.

As a result the pendulum of change has swung both right and left since the Constitution’s ratification in 1788 and implementation in 1789. The excesses of the Uniparty activities in our times are obvious and the reason Donald Trump is POTUS. Very few are willing to admit it, but the Constitution still has problems that the Anti-Federalists foresaw. The compromise over the Bill of Rights did not go far enough. It addressed some of the major issues of the day that would probably survive as time passed. But as we have subsequently learned over time it left gaping holes of how to prevent and penalize federal government overreach when they venture into powers and authorities that are not enumerated. When transparency is the law, those in federal authority have rarely provided it without prodding, outright threats or legal actions. Attempts to permanently change the responses have been unsuccessful at times, just as Anti-Federalists predicted could happen.

The truth is the development and use of political parties has stymied our nation’s progress frequently. The tension of partisanship that is built into the system can help, but it also can hinder as we have seen repeatedly in our times. We will touch more on this and the life of James Monroe in particular down the road in this series.

The partisanship has led our nation into the long overdue corrective phase today that Anti-Federalists of old would celebrate. We populist, American First, MAGA, states rights, kill the Fed, modern day Anti-Federalists won the election despite the current day, Federalist, Uniparty cheating the elections as they have for at least a century. Too big to rig got it done, however, that should not have been required. As a law abiding nation our citizens could choose to be honorable and have integrity. Unfortunately, the past 235+ years years since Constitution implementation reveals the truth that honesty and honor are not always present or enough. One of the primary reasons for that is radical partisanship. Many throw up their middle finger on reasoning and consensus building, two ingredients that are required for effective leadership.

Which is why the theme of the POTUS Trump administration has been “common sense“.

Strengthening constitutional enforcement issues could be a meaningful answer as well as satisfying the obvious need for honest, accurate elections. When one side or the other goes rogue or overreach becomes the modus operandi while in control, they can choose to enforce or not enforce the provisions of the Constitution and related law with minimal blow back because of the mockery they have made of law enforcement activities and the judiciary. We have seen this blatantly demonstrated in the past three decades with the weaponization of the DOJ and Intelligence Community (IC). Political gain replaced bipartisan administration of the law in the highest offices of our land.

President Trump and America First supporters aim to change all of that. We are already seeing a great deal of Anti-Federalist approaches to powers not enumerated and a great deal of leverage applied. President Trump, cabinet, and all supporters are going back to the original intent of the Massachusetts Compromise we discussed in a previous part. That compromise led to that key state’s ratification of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Some of the actions President Trump is intentionally taking will end up on the desks of the SCOTUS due to lawfare by the Uniparty if they are not codified through actions of Congress. We will have clarity on which to base future steps soon. As that happens it will be critical to gain even more patriot control over Congress in the future as the Uniparty will be fighting against us with all they have. There are more amendments to the Constitution that are necessary to assure our nation’s viability for centuries to come.

If history is our guide, political parties based on partisanship control will eventually die and morph into something else. That is exactly where the Democrat Party finds itself today. The GOP through POTUS Trump and supporters morphed from the party of big business to the party of the people over a couple of decades. What signaled that change was coming was when the Democrats lurched left. The Solid South left the party and have become GOP stalwarts.

Given a personal choice of one side or the other, I think readers know I am an Anti-Federalist in my core. Power and money corrupt and nowhere is that seen in a greater display than in our nation’s Capitol. I have personal experiences during my career on which to base my position. I also recognize that in regard to the powers that are enumerated to the federal government, we all must support without reservation as long as the activities are legally conducted. They are not mutually exclusive positions.

On we go to discuss more signers of the Declaration of Independence. We will look at a leader of both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists as well as one who help reconcile both sides to make it all happen as it did.

George Read

Born in 1733 in North East, MD, George Read was born to John and Mary Howell Read. His father was an Englishman from a family of great wealth. He moved to the colonies and bought a large estate in Cecil County, MD. With six others he went on to found the City of Charleston on the Chesapeake Bay. While there he held numerous military offices.

Soon after his birth, George’s family moved to an estate in New Castle, DE. He went to school with American Patriot Thomas McKean at Rev. Francis Allison’s Academy in New London, PA at age 15. He then studied law in Philadelphia, passed the bar in 1753, and moved back to New Castle to establish his law practice. In 1763 he married the daughter of an Anglican Church rector, Gertrude Ross. They joined the Episcopal Church there. They had three sons; George Jr., William and John.

He was appointed as the Crown Attorney General of three counties in DE by the governor. He remained in that position until he joined the first Continental Congress in 1774. Read preferred that the colonists find common ground with the British and loyalists. When it became time to vote on the Declaration of Independence he voted against it. This caused Rep. Caesar Rodney from the state to ride all night to break the tie for DE to approve the Declaration. However, when it came time to sign it, George Read did so in support.

With the future of the United States on the line in the Revolutionary War. He returned to serve in DE, but soon learned of the capture of the Continental Congress President John McKinley. He was nearly captured himself in Philadelphia, but escaped and served as President of the Congress for six months. He recruited men for the military and helped in the defense of the colonists during the period wile serving in the Legislative Council after the end of his term. He then returned to his home and activities in the state legislature. He took one year away to recover his health.

He was called into service again by DE with the work towards the approval of the Constitution. He was a leader in the fight for a strong federal government, advocating at one point for the abolition of states altogether. None of his fellow representatives agreed with him, so he moved on to protecting the rights of small states versus their larger neighbors. Once those rights were assured he led the approval of the vote for the Constitution for which DE was the first to ratify. In leading these efforts Read became a major voice in the Federalist Party.

The DE General Assembly elected Read to be a U. S Senator in 1789. He served there until 1793. He strongly supported George Washington and believed in centralization, including the creation of a national bank. He left the Senate when appointed the Chief Justice of the DE Supreme Court and served there until his death from heart problems in 1798. His wife passed away five years later. His son George Read, Jr. became the first U. S. Attorney for DE. His grandson, Read III, became the second. He had two brothers serve as officers in the Continental Army and Navy respectively.

George Read was a highly influential American Patriot who gave his all and left a family legacy of doing likewise.

Richard Henry Lee

In addition to prominent Anti-Federalists John Hancock and Samuel Adams, there was Richard Henry Lee. Born in Westmoreland County, VA in 1732, Lee came from a long line of aristocratic military officers, diplomats and politicians in his family. His parents were Colonel Thomas Lee and Hannah Harrison Ludwell Lee. Lee was sent to England to study and during the period both of his parents died in 1750. He continued in Europe until 1752 when he returned home to settle the estate of his parents with his siblings. In 1757 he was appointed justice of the peace and a year later elected into the House of Burgesses, serving until 1775. Also in 1757 he married his first wife, Anne Aylett, with whom he had six children with four surviving. After her death in 1768 he married Anne Gaskins Pinckard a year later. The couple had seven children together of whom five survived.

Lee was strongly in favor of independence and was a founder of the VA Committees of Correspondence. However, he was not in the tar and feathers promoters. He preferred boycotts and verbal persuasion in a gentlemanly manner. In 1766 he authored the Westmoreland Resolution that was against the enforcement of the British Stamp Act. Among those who signed it were several of George Washington’s family members. He was even more actively opposed to the Townshend Acts. He was selected by VA to attend the First Continental Congress. It was Lee who brought the motion for independence in the Second Continental Congress is 1776. The key part of his resolution read,

“Resolved: That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

He had returned to VA prior to the actual vote, but returned in time to sign the Declaration. Later in 1783 he was selected as the President of the Congress. He served for a year and was selected as U. S. Senator from 1789-1792.

Lee strongly supported states rights and a reduced presence of the federal government. He was very active in the Anti-Federalist movement and instrumental in the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. His proposal of the language of the 10th Amendment was adopted substantially as he presented it. With the compromise, he backed the ratification of the Constitution and had high regard for the performance of George Washington through the years. He soon grew to appreciate the Constitution as he saw how it actually performed. He passed away in 1794 at age 62 with his wife passing away two years later at age 48. He never fully recovered from an overturned carriage accident in 1791. Within the founding fathers as a group, he was considered as important as the bigger names of Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.

Richard Henry Lee was a great American Patriot.

Roger Sherman

One of the patriots who was critical to building consensus between Federalists and Anti-Federalists, large states and small states, providing a compromise that led to the House and Senate structures as well as other meaningful agreements was Roger Sherman. Born in Newton, MA in 1721, Sherman was the son of farmers. His parents, William and Mehetabel Sherman, moved when he was two years old to Stoughton. Sherman had little formal education outside of grammar school and his father’s library. He was also taught by his Harvard educated parish minister, Rev. Samuel Dunbar. His first job was as a shoemaker.

After his father died in 1743, he moved to New Milford, CT with his mother and siblings. He opened a cobbler store with a brother. He became the county’s surveyor two years later. This helped him save money to later purchase land and earn a good reputation among county residents. He married Elizabeth Hartwell in 1749. She passed away in 1760. He then married Rebecca Prescott in 1763. Between the two wives they had 15 children, 13 of whom lived to adulthood. He published a successful almanac for eleven years as well as studied law. He passed the bar exam in 1754. He became very involved in church and civic affairs, resulting in his election as town clerk of New Milford. He was also elected to the CT House of Representatives for several terms during the period. He was named a justice of the peace in 1762 and a judge in 1765. From that position he was named Justice of the CT Superior Court for the next 23 years. During this time he was also appointed Treasurer of Yale College and taught religious studies there for years.

He represented CT in both the first and second Continental Congress. He was one of the Committee of Five who drafted the Declaration of Independence. His involvement continued into the production of the Articles of Confederation and a member of the related Congress. As such he also became a signer on the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War.

Sherman attended the Constitution Convention with no preconceived positions. He actually preferred amending the Articles of Confederation as he saw the problem with it being primarily the lack of the ability to enforce its provisions. (SOUND FAMILIAR?) 😂

Sherman was the definition of a nationalist and viewed his state in isolationist ways. He saw it being essentially self sufficient and aligned with his religious (Puritan) views. Even then he foresaw the future end to slavery in America (SOUND FAMILIAR?) So, he worked to encourage compromises between the two sides even though he was personally anti-slavery. He was a very active participant in legislative and development sessions no matter the project or meeting. He was not an eloquent speaker as he was described as being very direct and terse in his many presentations. This led to him not being quoted as much as others as well as the fact he did not keep extensive journals of his activities.

He was also an opponent of “paper” money. He saw a national currency of same being a future problem to the individual states.

Roger Sherman was largely responsible for the current organization and voting functions of Congress. He forged a compromise, the Connecticut Compromise, through the Grand Committee he formed to deliver a compromise between the large and small states that would balance the interests of both more fairly. He went on to serve as a U. S. Representative and later, as a U. S Senator of his state until his passing from typhoid in 1793. The great American theologian Jonathon Edwards preached his funeral. His wife, Rebecca, passed away in 1813.

Roger Sherman was the only person in our history to sign all four major documents of the United States from our period of founding; the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U. S. Constitution. His more famous contemporaries Jefferson, Adams and Madison had deep admiration for the man and held all of his works in high regard.

Conclusion

A Federalist, an Anti-Federalist, and a Consensus Builder walk into a bar…

OK, start to a bad joke. However, this has been how America has evolved over many years by building consensus among dissimilar individuals who are linked by the common bonds formed from our great Declaration of Independence.

May God bless America.

Health Friday Open Thread 2.7.2025: Lack of True “Informed Consent” and the COVID-19 “Vaccines”

The above vintage image of vaccine vials and vaccine syringes is courtesy of Shutterstock and Google Images.

Health Friday is a series devoted to Big Pharma, vaccines, general health, and associated topics. As today’s post speaks to the disaster of the COVID-19 BTI (Bioweapon Toxin Injections, aka the “vaccines”), Yours Truly dedicates it to the memory of all persons, or whatever age or location, who have passed away from the negative effects (direct or indirect) of the the COVID-19 “vaccines”, no matter whether the deceased were COVID-19 “vaccinated” or not.

A special note for today’s post: Of your charity, please pray for the repose of the soul of our good DePat (Deplorable Patriot), Susan P. Sampson. Her Funeral Mass is to be held tomorrow, Saturday 8 February, at the St. Roch Roman Catholic Church in St. Louis, Missouri, at 10AM Central Standard Time. Of your charity, please pray for the repose of the soul of Yours Truly’s “fully vaccinated and boosted” brother, Sam. His Memorial Service is to be held tomorrow, Saturday 8 February, at the Peeples Valley Baptist Church in Cartersville, Georgia, at 2PM Eastern Standard Time. Thank you.

Requiem aeterna dona eis, Domine; et Lux Perpetua luceat eis. Requiescant in pace. Amen.

However, the discussion is not limited to what is presented today: It is an Open Thread.

There are Important Wolf Moon Notifications, the Rules of our late, good Wheatie, and certain caveats from Yours Truly, of which readers should be aware. They are linked here.

Today’s post begins here: https://bailiwicknews.substack.com/p/labeling-deceits-and-omissions-and, “Labeling deceits and omissions, and fake informed consent for vaccines and other legalized biological and chemical weapons.”, by Katherine Watt, 29 January 2025. In this post, Ms. Watt describes the lack of transparency and honesty in several areas of these topics, among them: One, in the labeling of the modRNA COVID-19 “vaccines”; and, Two, in the lack of detailed informed consent documents for people who want to take (or are “mandated” to take) injections of the COVID-19 modRNA “vaccines.” Ms. Watt traces this trail of lies and deceit back at least 1902. Below are some screenshots from her article related to the COVID-19 “vaccines”:

Ms. Watt makes it clear that “our betters” do NOT want the people who took / who continue to take, the COVID-19 “vaccines” to really know what is in the “modRNA” of the injections.

There is another issue regarding the lack of true informed consent regarding the COVID-19 “vaccines” — the fact that the FDA has made it virtually impossible for COVID-19 “vaccinated” people who become “vaccine”-injured, acquire an illness after being “vaccinated”, or even die from the negative effects of these bioweapon injectables, to be able to sue the “vaccines” manufacturers, those who administer these “vaccines”, entities who “require” or “mandate” the taking of these ‘vaccines”, or agencies of the Federal government who push these “vaccines.” The FDA has done this by making BOTH the Emergency Use Authorization AND “full approval” applicable to the COVID-19 “vaccines” in use, thereby “insulating” the above entities and persons from liability.

For example: the “2024-2025 COVID-19 Vaccine” by Pfizer-BioNTech and by Moderna. The FDA issued the following on 22 August 2024: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-and-authorizes-updated-mrna-covid-19-vaccines-better-protect-against-currently, “FDA Approves and Authorizes Updated mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines to Better Protect Against Currently Circulating Variants”. Below are screenshots from this announcement:

Next screenshot:

Followed by:

Finally:

The FDA approved the use of COMIRNATY (Pfizer-BioNTech) in people OVER 11 YEARS OF AGE. The FDA also authorized the use of “Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (2024-2025 Formula” to be used in people FROM 6 MONTHS THROUGH 11 YEARS OF AGE. Also — notice that the COMIRNATY approval was granted to the GERMAN partner of PfizerUSA (BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH); and that the “Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (2024-2025 Formula” authorization was granted to Pfizer Inc.

But wait, there’s more! Under the “magic” of legalese and bureaucratic obfuscation, here are the links to the websites that the FDA and Xavier Becerra (then-head of HHS) used to perform the “sleight of hand” to grant EXEMPTION FROM LIABILITY to the makers of the “2024-2025 Formula COVID-19 Vaccines” for BOTH the “approved” AND the “authorized” formulations of these injectables. It’s all under the PREP Act:

One: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/12/11/2024-29108/12th-amendment-to-declaration-under-the-public-readiness-and-emergency-preparedness-act-for-medical. “12th Amendment to the Declaration Under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act for Medical Countermeasures Against COVID-19”, 11 December 2024.

Two: https://www.fda.gov/emergency-preparedness-and-response/mcm-legal-regulatory-and-policy-framework/emergency-use-authorization.

Regarding a current “Informed Consent” document for the general public, Yours Truly found the following from a search that began here: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/index.html, which eventually (via being “redirected” from other CDC websites that are now shut down with the “The page you are looking for doesn’t exist”-type error messages) led to this: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/current-vis/covid-19.htmlCDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/covid-19.html. It turns out that the “Informed Consent” handouts for patients / caregivers appear to be basically a “Pablum” version of government and/or “vaccine” manufacturer misinformation, disinformation, and downright lies, about the COVID-19 BTI (Bioweapon Toxin Injections, aka the “vaccines”) that the patient is going to have injected into their body (or that parents / guardians are going to have injected into the body of a minor child.)

Let’s look at some screenshots of this FDA-issued Fact Sheet for recipients and caregivers for the EUA-granted “Pfizer-BioNTech 2024-2025 Formula COVID-19 Vaccine” for children 6 months of age to 11 years of age, as an example. The FDA document is found here: https://www.fda.gov/media/167212/download.

Screenshot One:

The COVID-19 pandemic Public Health Emergency declaration in the United States was ended on 11 May 2023: https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/end-of-phe.html. There is no “currently a pandemic of COVID-19”, per the CDC itself.

Screenshot Two:

The COVID-19 “vaccines” do not “prevent” an infection of COVID-19. In fact, COVID-19 “vaccinated” persons have a much higher chance of coming down with COVID-19. Please see: https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/breaking-sixth-study-confirms-negative, “BREAKING — Sixth Study Confirms Negative Efficacy of COVID-19 mRNA Injections”, by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH, 4 February 2025. The only items, in Yours Truly’s opinion, in the screenshot above that might prompt a medical professional to stop and question whether or not the child should take a COVID-19 “vaccine” would be: an allergy to PEG-2000DMG (one of the lipid nanoparticles in the “vaccine”) or to any of the ingredients of the “vaccine”; a history of myocarditis and/or pericarditis; or has a bleeding disorder. On the other hand, in fact, pregnant women are “encouraged” to take a COVID-19 “vaccine”; and, that immunocompromised persons are “permitted” to take an “extra dose” of a COVID-19 “vaccine.”

Screenshot Three:

So much important information and disclosures regarding the ACTUAL “safety record” of the COVID-19 “vaccines” (for example, the data at https://www.openvaers.com/covid-data); the ACTUAL “clinical trials” data that, for example, Pfizer-BioNTech gave to the FDA regarding the serious Adverse Events reports on BNT162b2; and other items, are missing. The OpenVAERS link takes one to the “Red Boxes” Adverse Events reports and statistics for the COVID-19 “vaccines.” Recall that VAERS receives fewer than 10% of reports of Adverse Events.

How many parents / guardians would go through with having their child (children) COVID-19 “vaccinated” if they knew, for example, that the ingredients and mechanisms of these bioweapon toxin injections change the DNA in their body? Please see: https://doctors4covidethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/causality-article.pdf, Slide 14.

Screenshot Four:

Which, again, mention nothing of the ACTUAL data as reported at OpenVAERS. Instead, there appears to be a strong effort to minimize the ACTUAL potential for serious Adverse Events to occur after taking a COVID-19 “vaccine.”

Yours Truly was able to find a “Consent Document” for persons over age 18 to read and to sign prior to taking a COVID-19 “vaccine”: https://www.gannon.edu/media/gannon-university/content-assets/documents/health-center/GannonUniversity-ScreeningAndConsentForCovid-19Vaccine.pdf. But, even here, there is no presentation of the ACTUAL data from, for example, OpenVAERS regarding serious Adverse Events reports about the COVID-19 “vaccines.” How many persons over age 18 would take a COVID-19 “vaccine” if they were told in advance that these bioweapon toxin injections cross the Blood-Brain Barrier and can induce multiple types of neurological damage? Below are images of the “Consent Document”:

Please also see: https://www.theqtree.com/2024/10/18/health-friday-10-18-2024-special-edition-neurological-effects-of-the-covid-19-vaccines-physical-and-psychological/.

How many persons would take a “2024-2025 Formula COVID-19 Vaccine”, or have such a “vaccine” injected into their child (children), under ANY circumstances, if they knew in advance that these bioweapon toxin injections were either ONLY “tested” on lab mice; or, were “approved” and/or “authorized” based on “manufacturing and nonclinical data”? For this last is exactly what happened with the “2024-2025 Formula COVID-19 Vaccines.” Please refer back to the FDA announcement of 22 August 2024 further up in this post. Here is the salient portion of this announcement as it regards this “2024-2025 Formula”:

THERE. MUST. BE. JUSTICE.

Peace, Good Energy, Respect: PAVACA

American Stories: When in the Course of human events – Part 5

Saratoga. Everything hinged on Saratoga. From history.com we have the following:

“British strategy in 1777 involved two main prongs of attack aimed at separating New England (where the rebellion enjoyed the most popular support) from the other colonies. To that end, General John Burgoyne’s army marched south from Canada toward a planned meeting with Howe’s forces on the Hudson River. Burgoyne’s men dealt a devastating loss to the Americans in July by retaking Fort Ticonderoga, while Howe decided to move his troops southward from New York to confront Washington’s army near the Chesapeake Bay. The British defeated the Americans at Brandywine Creek, Pennsylvannia on September 11 and entered Philadelphia on September 25. Washington rebounded to strike Germantown in early October before withdrawing to winter quarters near Valley Forge.

Howe’s move had left Burgoyne’s army exposed near Saratoga, New York, and the British suffered the consequences of this on September 19, when an American force under General Horatio Gates defeated them at Freeman’s Farm in the first Battle of Saratoga. After suffering another defeat on October 7 at Bemis Heights (the Second Battle of Saratoga), Burgoyne surrendered his remaining forces on October 17. The American victory at Saratoga would prove to be a turning point of the American Revolution, as it prompted France (which had been secretly aiding the rebels since 1776) to enter the war openly on the American side, though it would not formally declare war on Great Britain until June 1778. The American Revolution, which had begun as a civil conflict between Britain and its colonies, had become a world war.“

At one time, France actually had a spine. The colonists rejected their oppressors and earned the assistance of the long time British enemies, France. What is not remembered often is that Spain entered the conflict as an ally of France. America owed Spain a debt of gratitude for what they did to assist. They provided critical supplies and funding. They were in their own conflict with the British and saw it as an opportunity to further weaken their enemy so that that could retake Menorca, which was successful a few years later.

Win-win-win for the colonies, France and Spain. An enemy of my enemy is my friend.

But let’s take a closer look at General Horatio Gates in the fall of 1777, the reported hero General who changed everything for the colonies. From mountvernon.com:

“When British troops under the command of Major General John Burgoyne invaded New York in 1777, Gates’ army defeated Burgoyne twice, on September 19, 1777 and October 7, 1777. Gates’ troops forced Burgoyne to surrender his 5,700 man army near Saratoga on October 17, 1777. This victory, a major turning point of the American Revolution, convinced France to form an alliance with the Americans against Great Britain in 1778.

Tensions between Gates and General George Washington grew immediately following Saratoga, after Gates informed Congress directly of his victory rather than informing his Commander-in-Chief. Washington was further angered that Gates did not promptly return troops sent to help Gates during the New York campaign. General Washington was also convinced that Gates played a role in the Conway Cabal in late 1777, which was a supposed plot to remove Washington from command and replace him with Gates. In November 1777, Gates became president of the Board of War and technically became Washington’s superior. Bickering continued between the two men as Gates drew up plans for an invasion of Canada without consulting Washington.“

Wait… what? There was dissent in the highest ranks during the Revolutionary War? Somebody got the big head after battle victories? Somebody decided to posture for personal career gain like our political and military idgits do today? Tell me it isn’t so! What is this about a “Conway Cabal” being involved? Enjoy reading the backbiting of some of our founding fathers in the link below. Be sure and click on the second page prompt at the bottom left of the first page.

https://www.ushistory.org/march/other/cabal.htm

As if Benedict Arnold was not enough, Gen. Gates played politics and showed his pompous azz in the middle of our fight for independence. But in the ultimate “what goes around comes around” result, the following explains what happened next. Unfortunately it came with a heavy cost of lives for the colonists.

“In the spring of 1778, Gates returned to field command in the north, controlling troops in New York and Massachusetts. Gates took command of the Southern Army in South Carolina in July 1780 to meet the British army that had invaded that state earlier in the year. Abandoning the cautious strategy he employed against Burgoyne in 1777, Gates marched his army toward the British troops in Camden, South Carolina, despite the fact that his men were running low on supplies. This action led to the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780, which was one of the largest American defeats of the war. As the American troops retreated, Gates left the battlefield and abandoned his army, riding nearly 200 miles in three days. Accused of cowardice, his reputation was ruined. Gates was removed from command in October 1780.

Congress briefly reinstated Gates into the army in the summer of 1782, but after uneventful service he left for the final time in 1783. In 1790 Gates sold his Virginia plantation, freed his slaves, and bought an estate in New York called “Rose Hill Farm.” He ended his career serving one term in the New York legislature from 1800-1801. Gates died on April 10, 1806.”

Proverbs 16:18 – Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall. We have seen this scripture proven true countless times over the years. We should always heed these wise words.

Time for more signers. Let ‘s go with one of the players in the Conway Cabal debacle.

Benjamin Rush

The most celebrated physician in America post Revolutionary War was Benjamin Rush. He was born in Byberry, PA in 1745. He was born to merchant John Rush and Susana Hall, the middle of seven children. His father died when he was six and he was sent with a brother to live with an aunt and uncle two years later so they could receive an education. He studied under Dr. Samuel Finley at the West Nottingham Academy. Not long after that he graduated at age 14 with a BA degree from the College of New Jersey, which became Princeton later. For the next five years he apprenticed under Dr. John Redman in Philadelphia before accepting an opportunity to study at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland for three years, where he earned an M. D. degree. While there he became fluent in French, Italian and Spanish. He returned to America in 1769 and opened a medical practice while also teaching chemistry at the University of Philadelphia (UPenn – there it is again). Later in life he published the first American textbook on chemistry.

Rush joined the Sons of Liberty soon after his return from Scotland. He was so respected that Thomas Paine consulted him about content in his Common Sense book. He represented PA when he signed the Declaration. In a letter to John Adams he recalled the signing in a similar manner as fellow signer William Elery. Per Wiki, he wrote the following,

He described it as a scene of “pensive and awful silence”. Rush said the delegates were called up, one after another, and then filed forward somberly to subscribe to what each thought was their ensuing death warrant. He related that the “gloom of the morning” was briefly interrupted when the rotund Benjamin Harrison of Virginia said to a diminutive Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, at the signing table, “I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes and be with the Angels, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.” According to Rush, Harrison’s remark “procured a transient smile, but it was soon succeeded by the Solemnity with which the whole business was conducted.”

He served in the Continental Congress as well as in the war in the field with the Philadelphia militia. He laid the foundation for battlefield treatments of the Continental Army during this time. For a period he served as Surgeon General in the Continental Army’s Middle Department until the lack of medical supplies and underreporting of casualties by officials caused him to make the ill fated Conway related comments, after which Washington asked him to resign. He regretted what he said greatly. Per Wiki, in another letter to John Adams in 1812 he stated, “He [Washington] was the highly favored instrument whose patriotism and name contributed greatly to the establishment of the independence of the United States.” Rush also successfully pleaded with Washington’s biographers Justice Bushrod Washington and Chief Justice John Marshall to delete his association with those stinging words.

Benjamin Rush accomplished an incredible amount in his life in the post revolutionary period. Perhaps the greatest was facilitating the reconciliation of two of the great founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. He had lifelong friendships with both as well as other signers.

A biographical summary is linked below and you will probably be as amazed by his accomplishments as I was.

https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/benjamin-rush

On a personal level Benjamin Rush was a devoted Christian. He believed (as I do) that the United States of America was the work of God: “I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that the Union of the United States in its form and adoption is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament”. In 1798, after the Constitution’s adoption, Rush declared: “The only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in Religion.” He had involvement in several denominations through the years and assisted Richard Allen in the formation of the AME Church at one point.

He had married Julia Stockton in 1776. The couple had thirteen children, nine survived past one year. One son, Richard, went on to become part of the administrations of the presidencies of James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincey Adams, Andrew Jackson, James Polk and Zachary Taylor. Benjamin Rush died of Typhus Fever in 1813 at age 68. Julia, 14 years his junior, lived until 1848. Both remained faithful to the Lord and their country throughout their lives.

Benjamin Rush was an incredible American Patriot who left a legacy that continues to this day.

Joseph Hewes

Born in 1730 in Princeton, NJ to Society of Friends (Quaker) parents. He also graduated from the College of New Jersey (Princeton). He left the area soon after and joined a family member’s mercantile business in Philadelphia. He attended Quaker meetings while there and apprenticed in the business. He learned of business opportunities in the port town of Edenton in North Carolina, so he moved and formed a company with Charles Blount there that succeeded for a time. However, the death of his fiancee soured him on life as well as the business, which was dissolved. He recovered and partnered with a local attorney, Robert Smith. His business ventures began to flourish. He owned many properties, warehouses and became involved with shipping at the port; owning multiple ships, sloops and brigs. He created a rope walk to be used between ships as well developing and selling rope and related products to the shipping industry.

Over the years he became a justice of the peace and later was elected into the NC Assembly. He remained active as a Quaker and at one point was believed to have joined the Anglican church. Many historians report he believed as a deist.

He became more and more involved in the independence movement. He joined the NC Committee of Correspondence and represented the state in the Continental Congress. He actively supported the Suffolk Reserves, which called for a termination of trade with Great Britain in 1774. He was sold out to the causes of the colonists and independence. Ultimately this led to his signing of the Declaration.

For a month afterwards he visited his mother back in Princeton, NJ. The gravity of the situation had begun to weigh on him. Per Wiki, “Hewes wrote “I had the weight of North Carolina on my shoulders within a day or two of three months. The service was too severe. I have sat some days from Six in the morning till five, and sometimes Six in the afternoon without eating or drinking. My health is bad, such close attention made it worse. …Duty, inclination and self preservation call on me now to make a little excursion in the County to see my mother. This is a duty which I have not allowed myself to perform during almost nine months that I have been here.” Towards the end of September Hewes returned to Edenton for rest and recuperation.

Hewes fully realized what was to come from the Declaration. He assisted in training the NC militia and began preparing ships for Naval use. In truth, some of this work had been done well before the signing of the Declaration as he saw the course the colonists were on would lead to war. He was appointed to a marine committee that began outfitting of privately owned ships with guns. He even leased one of his brigs to the marine committee in the Continental Congress with the committee providing him insurance for potential loss.

In the late 1770’s his health began to suffer as he dealt with continuous head aches. He served in the Continental Congress until mid 1779 despite a group of fellow marine committee members objecting to the money he made while providing marine services to the country. He returned to office with the NC Assembly and continued to represent the state in the Continental Congress. He returned home from the Congress in October 1779 due to his health. He passed away a month later at 49 years of age.

Joseph Hewes never married. The earlier loss of his future wife was too much for him to overcome. As a result he had no children. Her loss had led him to throw all of his efforts into his business ventures and service to our country in the Revolutionary War period. He was a self made man of great wealth who remained committed to the cause of independence unto his death. In his honor and in a demonstration of respect, members of Congress wore crape on their left arms for one month after his death.

Joseph Hewes was a true, devoted American Patriot.

William Williams

Born in Lebanon, CT in 1731, William Williams was one of ten children of Congregationalist Church minister, Solomon Williams and wife, Mary Porter Williams. He studied both law and theology at Harvard and graduated in 1751 as well as studying the ministry with his father. Four years later he served in a local militia in the French and Indian War. He returned and opened a store in Lebanon. He never owned slaves as he felt it was morally wrong.

At nearly 40 years old he married Mary Trumbull who was about 15 years younger. She was the daughter of CT Royal Governor Jonathon Trumbull. Trumbull went on to serve as the second Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives. William and Mary went on have three children together. He took the job of town clerk, a position he held for 44 years.

Williams spent over two decades as a representative in the CT House of Representatives. He was elected Speaker in four of those years. He was strongly for independence as he was a member of the Sons of Liberty, on the Committee for Correspondence as well as the Council for Safety. At one time he anonymously had a satirical letter published in the local newspaper that confronted the King and his actions. He became an even more fierce opponent to the Crown after the Coercive Acts of 1774. He was elected to replace Oliver Wolcott as a representative from CT in the Continental Congress one week after the Declaration was formally announced, so he did not get to vote. However, he arrived in time to be a signer. Following this act he resigned his militia commission as a Colonel to serve in the Congress. He also served as a county judge for 28 years beginning in 1776.

Williams refused to sign the Constitution. He was opposed because Article VI banned religious tests for government officials. As a devout Christian and Congregationalist Deacon he felt it was a necessary requirement. He lived a life of dignity with a humble attitude and consistency that he felt was necessary for government officials. He lived his entire life as an example for Christ and for America. During the war, he closed his business, gave generously of his time and contributed much of his wealth for the cause. He regularly opened his home for military members to stay and rest.

In his latter days Williams read, meditated and prayed. He passed away at age 80. The day of his death, August 2, was exactly 35 years to the day from the date he signed the Declaration. His wife, Mary, passed away 20 years later.

William Williams was the epitome of a Christian servant leader and American Patriot.

Conclusion

As we wind our way through the Declaration signers, we come across stories such as these with Gates, Conway, Washington and Rush that remind us that nothing in life happens in a linear progression of goodness. Sometimes it all comes across as a soap opera. Yet, somehow the hand of God always has appeared at the right time to steer us in a direction that restores our destiny. Indeed, we are going through such a resurgence of the American spirit today.

It is interesting to me that an active faith in God, in a higher power, always seems to be the catalyst that drives the renewal.

In this story we have two devout Christians and a probable deist from different states who were working on the same team as patriots and signers of the Declaration of Independence. They gave their all for America, just as American First MAGA is doing today.

May God continue to bless America.

Dear MAGA: 20250202 Open Topic

This Rejoice & Praise God Sunday Open Thread, with full respect to those who worship God on the Sabbath, is a place to reaffirm our worship of our Creator, our Father, our King Eternal.

It’s also a place to read, post, and discuss news that is worth knowing and sharing. Please post links to any news stories that you use as sources or quote from.

In the QTree, we’re a friendly and civil lot. We encourage free speech and the open exchange and civil discussion of different ideas. Topics aren’t constrained, and sound logic is highly encouraged, all built on a solid foundation of truth and established facts.

We have a policy of mutual respect, shown by civility. Civility encourages discussions, promotes objectivity and rational thought in discourse, and camaraderie in the participants – characteristics we strive toward in our Q Tree community.

Please show respect and consideration for our fellow QTreepers. Before hitting the “post” button, please proofread your post and make sure your opinion addresses the issue only, and does not confront or denigrate the poster. Keep to the topic – avoid “you” and “your”. Here in The Q Tree, personal attacks, name-calling, ridicule, insults, baiting, and other conduct for which a penalty flag would be thrown are VERBOTEN.

In The Q Tree, we’re compatriots, sitting around the campfire, roasting hot dogs, making s’mores, and discussing, agreeing, and disagreeing about whatever interests us. This board will remain a home for those who seek respectful conversations.

Please also consider the Guidelines for posting and discussion printed here: 
https://www.theqtree.com/2019/01/01/dear-maga-open-topic-20190101/

On this day and every day –

God is in Control
. . . and His Grace is Sufficient, so . . .
Keep Looking Up

Hopefully, every Sunday, we can find something here that will build us up a little . . . give us a smile . . . and add some joy or peace, very much needed in all our lives.

“This day is holy to the Lord your God;
do not mourn nor weep.” . . .
“Go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet,
and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared;
for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not sorrow,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

A Good King

Josiah was the king of Judah from approximately 640 to 609 B.C. His reign in Jerusalem is discussed in 2 Kings 22–23 and 2 Chronicles 34–35. Josiah was a godly king and known as one of the world’s youngest kings; he began his reign at age 8 after his father was assassinated. A highlight of Josiah’s reign was his rediscovery of the Law of the Lord.

Second Kings 22:2 introduces Josiah by saying, “And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD and walked in all the way of David his father, and he did not turn aside to the right or to the left.” In the eighteenth year of his reign, he raised money to repair the temple, and during the repairs the high priest Hilkiah found the Book of the Law. When Shapan the secretary read it to Josiah, the king tore his clothes, a sign of mourning and repentance (2 Kings 22:10–11).

King Josiah called for a time of national repentance. The Law was read to the people of the land, and a covenant made between the people and the Lord: “The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant” (2 Kings 23:3).

Many reforms followed. The temple was cleansed from all objects of pagan worship, and the idolatrous high places in the land were demolished. Josiah restored the observance of the Passover (2 Kings 23:2–23) and removed mediums and witches from the land.

Second Kings 23:25 records, “Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses, nor did any like him arise after him.” God’s wrath would later come upon Judah due to the evil King Manasseh had done (2 Kings 23:25), but the judgment was delayed because of Josiah’s godly life and leadership (2 Kings 22:20).

Much can be learned from Josiah’s life that is positive.

Josiah shows the influence a person can have from a very young age. Even children have enormous potential to live for God and to have great impact.

Josiah lived a life fully committed and obedient to God and was blessed for it.

Josiah properly responded to God’s Word. By the time he became king, the Scriptures had long been neglected, and Josiah’s heart was smitten by the failure of his people to honor God’s Word. Josiah had Scripture read to the people and made a commitment to live by it.

“‘Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken . . . I also have heard you,’ declares the Lord” (2 Kings 22:19).

A promise God made to the Children of Israel which, reasonably, could also be applied to God’s Children: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

May it be so with us.