Monday, January 31, 2022

"A Shadow Ex-President" & His "Cult-like Movement"

From Brett Samuels' 1-31-22 THE HILL article entitled "Psaki: Trump Raising Jan. 6 Pardons, Overturning Election a Reminder He's Unfit":

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Monday said former President Trump's comments over the weekend in which he floated pardons for Capitol rioters and complained that the 2020 election was not "overturned" were a reminder of how unfit Trump is for office.

"He defended the actions of his supporters, who stormed the Capitol and brutally attacked the law enforcement officers protecting it. I think it’s important to shout that out and call that out," Psaki said at a press briefing when asked about Trump's comments and potential reforms to the Electoral Count Act.

"He even attacked his own vice president for not, in his words, having overturned the election," Psaki continued. "And it’s just a reminder of how unfit he is for office. And it’s telling that even some of his closest allies have rejected those remarks as inappropriate in the days since."

Trump at a rally in Texas on Saturday said if he ran for reelection and won in 2024, he would treat those convicted of crimes connected to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riots "fairly," adding, "If it requires pardons, we will give them pardons, because they are being treated so unfairly."

Hundreds of people have been arrested and sentenced in connection with the Capitol riots, when a pro-Trump mob violently overwhelmed law enforcement and stormed the complex in a bid to stop the certification of Joe Biden's electoral victory.

On Sunday night, amid talk in Congress of reforming the Electoral Count Act, Trump argued that former Vice President Mike Pence should have unilaterally "changed the outcome" of last November's election, his clearest admission to date that he wanted the results completely thrown out so he could remain in power.

To read Samuels' entire article, click HERE.

From Will Bunch's 1-30-22 PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER column entitled "At Texas Rally, Trump All But Promised a Racially Charged Civil War If He’s Indicted":

For a nation that’s awakened every morning for nearly two years to a Groundhog Day of pandemic and paranoia, the scenes from Donald Trump’s latest comeback rally on Saturday at a fairground in the East Texas flatlands of Conroe could certainly numb the American mind with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

The mile-long line of Trump fanatics, braving the January prairie chill to see the twice-impeached ex-president and passing rows of vendors, including the occasional Confederate flag. Then the viral clips of the true believers — the woman in her Trump 2024 hat expounding that the “Joe Biden” currently in the White House is fake and that the real one was assassinated at Gitmo in March 2019, another woman peddling a book containing all of Trump’s tweets before he was banned from Twitter, and the guy peddling doses of the quack COVID-19 cure ivermectin while lashing out at anyone wearing a mask for trying to "save Grandma" [...].

[T]he man who’d occupied the White House little more than one year ago delivered one of the most incendiary and most dangerous speeches in America’s 246-year history. It included an appeal for all-out mayhem in the streets to thwart the U.S. justice system and prevent Trump from going to jail, as the vise tightens from overlapping criminal probes in multiple jurisdictions. And it also featured a stunning campaign promise — that Trump would look to abuse the power of the presidency to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

It’s impossible for me to understate or downplay the importance of this moment, and I hope that my colleagues in the media — who too often over the last year have craved or even pretended about a return to the politics of “normal,” when we are nowhere near normal — will wake up and see this. Of course, Biden’s presidency deserves our full scrutiny, with praise for what’s gone right (an economic boom) and criticism for what’s gone wrong (broken promises on climate and student debt). But while Biden is seeking to restore democratic norms, a shadow ex-president — unpunished so far for his role in an attempted coup on Jan. 6 — is rebuilding a cult-like movement in the heartland of America, with all the personal grievance and appeals to Brownshirts-style violence that marked the lowest moments of the 20th century. On the 89th anniversary of the date (Jan. 30, 1933) that Adolf Hitler — rehabilitated after his attempted coup — assumed power in Germany, are we repeating the past’s mistakes of complacency and underestimation?

To read Bunch's entire article, click HERE.

Sunday, January 30, 2022

ROBERT GUFFEY APPEARS ON THE INDEPENDENT RIOT!

This past Friday, on January 27th, the latest episode of James Duncan's INDEPENDENT RIOT podcast featured Part One of a two-part interview with Yours Truly. Part One focuses on my third book, CHAMELEO (2015), and the second part will focus on my eighth book, OPERATION MINDFUCK: QANON & THE CULT OF DONALD TRUMP (2022), which is due to be published within the next few months. To hear the entire ninety-minute-plus interview, click HERE.


Saturday, January 29, 2022

Art Spiegelman Reacts to MAUS Being Banned

From Chris Boyette's 1-28-22 CNN report entitled "A Tennessee School Board Removed the Graphic Novel 'Maus,' About the Holocaust, From Curriculum Due to Language and Nudity Concerns":

"Maus," the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the experiences of Holocaust survivors that was recently banned by a Tennessee school board, has made the Amazon best-seller list.

As of Friday night, a hardcopy version of the serialized work by Art Spiegelman was listed as the online retailer's #9 top seller.

Earlier this month, "Maus" was removed from an eighth-grade English language arts curriculum by the McMinn County, Tennessee, Board of Education over concerns about "rough, objectionable language" and a drawing of a nude woman.

The board voted 10-0 to remove the book from the curriculum, saying it should be replaced, if possible, with another book without content deemed objectionable.

"Maus" is a graphic novel by Spiegelman, a comic artist, that follows his Jewish parents in 1940s Poland from their early experiences of anti-Semitism to their internment in Auschwitz. The novel is intercut with the young author's attempts to coax the story out of his father as an old man. It depicts Jewish people as mice and Nazis as cats.

The minutes of the January 10 meeting show McMinn County Director of Schools Lee Parkison addressed the board about the book before voting took place.

"The values of the county are understood. There is some rough, objectionable language in this book and knowing that and hearing from many of you and discussing it, two or three of you came by my office to discuss that," Parkison said.

Parkison said he spoke to an attorney and suggested redacting the profanity and the drawing of the woman, according to the minutes posted on the school board's website. But the board discussed concerns over copyright issues they may face for altering the book.

Ultimately, the board reached the unanimous vote to remove the book after discussing other aspects surrounding the decision, including state regulations, the core curriculum and the possibility of finding a book to replace "Maus."

CNN has reached out to Parkison and all members of the McMinn County School Board for further comment on the decision.

"I'm trying to, like, wrap my brain around it," Spiegelman said on CNN's "New Day" when asked for his reaction in an interview Thursday.....

To read the entire article, click HERE.

'Maus' Author Reacts to His Book Being Banned (1-27-22):

 

Chuck Palahniuk Reacts to FIGHT CLUB Being Censored

From Patrick Brzeski's 1-26-22 HOLLYWOOD REPORTER article entitled "‘Fight Club’ Author Chuck Palahniuk Says China’s Censored Ending Is Actually Truer to His Vision":

The author also said that he saw the irony in many Americans’ angry response to China’s actions, given that his books are banned in many locations across the U.S.

“What I find really interesting is that my books are heavily banned throughout the U.S.,” he said. “The Texas prison system refuses to carry my books in their libraries. A lot of public schools and most private schools refuse to carry my books. But it’s only an issue once China changes the end of a movie? I’ve been putting up with book banning for a long time.”

He also said that having his work revised in ways he can’t control is nothing new to him.

“A lot of my overseas publishers have edited the novel so the novel ends the way the movie ends,” he said. “So I’ve been dealing with this kind of revision for like 25 years.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Saturday, January 22, 2022

Mysterious Drone Incursions

From Brett Tingley's 1-15-22 TheDrive article entitled "Mysterious Drone Incursions Confirmed Over Sweden's Nuclear Facilities":

Swedish law enforcement officials have confirmed that unidentified drones have been seen in the airspace over multiple nuclear power facilities early in the evening of Friday, January 14. An investigation has been launched by Sweden’s National Operations Department (NOA), but so far no suspects have been identified.

The Swedish Police Authority say the drones were seen over two separate nuclear facilities: one in the city of Forsmark and another over Oskarshamn. There are reports that a third nuclear facility at Ringhals had similar incursions, but Swedish police have yet to confirm that drones were in fact seen there. According to Reuters, the facility at Forsmark is the nation’s largest producer of energy.

According to the official website of Sweden’s Swedish Police Authority, Polisen.se, the NOA oversees national-level investigations and operations and is the “national point of contact for the Swedish Security Service, the Swedish Armed Forces, and the National Defence Radio Establishment, and is responsible for managing sensitive information relating to terrorism and signals intelligence.”

Swedish TV station TV2 reports the drone seen at Forsmark was thought to be “a larger model that can withstand wind as it blew hard in the area.” The drone was first seen by a guard as it hovered over the facility before heading away east towards the island of Gräsö. Authorities reportedly used helicopters to try to locate the alleged drone, but were unsuccessful. Swedish national public television broadcaster SVT posted a video filmed by a motorist reportedly showing a drone over the Ringhals nuclear power plant, but that alleged incursion remains unconfirmed by Swedish authorities. The 27-second video appears to show a bright single point of light in the sky, but little can be made of it [...].

The United States has seen its share of unidentified drone incursions lately. We previously reported on an absolutely bizarre drone incursion above the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona which remains unexplained to this day. U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) documents show that Palo Verde is far from the only nuclear facility to have had such incursions and that as many as 60 different drone sightings took place at 24 nuclear power facilities between 2015 and 2019. The NRC and National Nuclear Security Administration appear to be finally taking the situation seriously by making moves to deploy anti-drone systems at sensitive sites.

A more widespread series of unidentified drone sightings occurred above wide swaths of the American west in late 2019 and 2020, similarly ending without conclusive evidence about the drones’ operators revealed to the public. The Navy has also experienced mysterious drone swarms in some of its most sensitive training areas near home waters. Extremely peculiar drone incursions that have occurred near or over highly surveilled U.S. military bases in urban areas remain unsolved. Even America's most critical missile defense sites have not been immune to highly suspicious drone incursions

To read the entire article, click HERE.

"'UFO' and 'Shadow People' Seen Near US Air Force Base"

From John Bett and Michael Moran's 1-13-22 MIRROR article entitled "Man Saw 'UFO' and 'Shadow People' Near Nuclear Weapons at US Air Force Base":

An airman has witnessed a ' UFO ' while he was guarding nuclear weapons at a US Air Force base - adding that he's seen 'shadow people' at similar installations.

Former USAF nuclear weapons technician Adrian Reister said that between 2003 and 2007 he was stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, where he would guard, maintain, and move nuclear weapons.

He said that while performing his duties, he saw a glowing 'orb' hovering above a nearby treeline before flying off, as the Daily Star reports.

Adrian, 37, said that it couldn't have been one of their planes as he knew them all extensively, and he added that while he was training at a similar station he came face-to-face with a terrifying 6ft 'shadow person' [...].

He said: 'I saw what I can’t really describe as other than a black mass in the shape of a person standing at 6ft. Not really a shadow but something that was slightly blurry and didn’t reflect any light.'

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Monday, January 17, 2022

Robert Welch & the John Birch Society

From Edward H. Miller's 1-9-22 LOS ANGELES TIMES Op-Ed piece entitled "Today’s Right-wing Conspiracy Theory Mentality Can Be Traced Back to the John Birch Society":

As the years passed, [Robert] Welch’s theories grew wilder. He eventually concluded that communism was just another name for the conspiracy begun by the Bavarian Illuminati in 1776. He also said that the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bilderbergers (a group that sought to foster dialogue between Europe and North America) were the puppet masters of U.S. foreign and economic interests. The [John Birch Society] also called for the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations and for the impeachment of Chief Justice Earl Warren.

In the 1970s, the John Birch Society became even more influential. Despite a widespread belief that the “responsible” right of William F. Buckley had purged the conservative movement of the Birchers, Welch was never excommunicated. His style of American conservatism remained potent.

In those years, Welch broadened the society’s focus by opposing abortion, high taxation and sex education — issues that propelled the Reagan revolution. Bircher Lewis Uhler was instrumental in passing Proposition 13 to reduce California’s property taxes in 1978.

All the while, Welch continued to press his extreme theories.

In the 1970s, Americans began receiving some confirmation that perhaps conspiracies weren’t really as rare and nutty as they seemed. In 1973 and 1974, Watergate demonstrated that a president could secretly abuse his constitutional authority. Americans learned that more government officials had spied for the Soviet Union and had worked with mobsters in an unsuccessful effort to kill a foreign head of state. The CIA turned out to have conducted LSD experiments on Americans. After a while, anything seemed plausible. Over the years that followed, the number of people who said they trusted the government plummeted.

Welch is important today because, beginning in the 1980s and continuing on, his world has become ours. The depth of his influence on the transformation of the Republican Party — and therefore on America — has never been fully appreciated. His style of politics remained extremely potent after his death in 1985.

Reagan espoused conspiracy theories, such as his claim that Gerald Ford staged assassination attempts against himself to win sympathy votes. In the 1990s, partisanship became more central, ideology more crucial. On the radical fringe of the far right, private militia members armed themselves to the teeth. Both major parties, they claimed, wanted to end American sovereignty.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Friday, January 14, 2022

Injectable Nanosensors

From Ian Taylor's 7-24-21 SCIENCE FOCUS article entitled "The Injectable Nanosensor That Will One Day Read Your Thoughts":

A new kind of injectable biosensor might one day be able to read your thoughts or let you communicate with nothing but your mind. Researchers behind NeuroSWARM3 say its gold-plated nanosensors, which are the size of a single viral particle, could travel through the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier. Once inside the brain they would act like a kind of antenna, turning neural activity into optical signals that could be wirelessly sent to an external device.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, believe that in the shorter term it could help scientists better understand the mysteries of human cognition. Longer term, potential applications sound like the stuff of science fiction: composing messages with your thoughts, controlling exoskeletons with your mind, the ability to monitor neurological disease with no invasive procedures.

“NeuroSWARM3 can convert the signals that accompany thoughts to remotely measurable signals for high precision brain-machine interfacing,” said A Ali Yanik, co-author of the study.

The technology works by tapping into the electrical signals that neurons use to send information to each other. This happens when humans do just about anything, including moving and thinking. NeuroSWARM3 is a new way to monitor that electrical activity. In fact, Yanik’s latest research shows that it’s sensitive enough to pick up the activity of individual brain cells.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Sheriff Bianco & the Oath Keepers

From Scott Neuman's 10-6-21 NPR article entitled "California Sheriff Defends His Past Membership in the Extremist Oath Keepers Militia":

The sheriff of California's Riverside County, outside Los Angeles, has acknowledged that he once briefly belonged to the extremist Oath Keepers militia in 2014 after emails from the group were leaked online.

In an interview, Sheriff Chad Bianco sought to downplay his past affiliation with the organization, while also insisting that the aims of the Oath Keepers — which has emerged as one of the largest groups in the far-right patriot militia movement — have been misunderstood. In August, 17 Oath Keepers members were indicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"I don't even remember joining," Bianco, who was elected in 2018, told member station KPCC in excerpts from an interview published on the LAist website.

He maintained that "what happened at the Capitol was completely wrong," but that the Oath Keepers — which the Southern Poverty Law Center says has "trained for a revolution against the state" — are not anti-government. He blamed the Jan. 6 violence on "a few fringe people."

To read the entire article, click HERE.

From Frank Stoltze's 10-21-21 LAIST article entitled "California Attorney General Says Riverside Sheriff's Defense Of Extremist Oath Keepers Is 'Disturbing'":

Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and expert in homegrown violent extremism, said an investigation by the state’s attorney general is in order to examine how Bianco’s defense of the Oath Keepers is affecting his department — the fourth largest sheriff’s agency in the country.

“Is it a problem, how deep does it go, is it affecting policies, is it affecting behaviors?” he said.

“Organizations mirror their leadership,” said Southers, who teaches at USC’s Price School of Public Policy.

Bianco’s defense of the group “overtly sends a message to the people that are under his command” that it’s okay to be a member, Southers said. “We already know we have a challenge of law enforcement being recruited by Oath Keepers in particular.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

MOTHER JONES: "'Seditious Conspiracy' Charges Against Oath Keepers Mark a Major Advance in January 6 Investigation"

From Dan Friedman and Mark Follman's 1-13-22 MOTHER JONES article entitled "'Seditious Conspiracy' Charges Against Oath Keepers Mark a Major Advance in January 6 Investigation":

FBI agents on Thursday arrested Stewart Rhodes, the founder of far-right Oath Keepers, and charged him with seditious conspiracy, the Justice Department announced. The sedition charge marks a major and largely unexpected advancement in the federal investigation into the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Rhodes was taken into custody in Granbury, Texas, according to his lawyer, Jon Moseley, who was on the phone with Rhodes about plans for him to be interviewed by the House select committee investigating January 6, when the FBI called. “The FBI special agent said they were outside and he needed to come out with his hands up and be arrested,” Moseley said.

The DOJ also charged 11 other Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy. Most of those group members already faced other charges related to storming the Capitol on January 6, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding—the congressional counting and certification of electoral votes. The sedition charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, were new and represent the first use of such laws against alleged January 6 participants or planners.

The allegations suggest that the DOJ may be expanding its prosecutions to focus on people who helped plan but did not directly take part in the attack.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Sunday, January 9, 2022

"Invisible Predators" in NEXUS MAGAZINE

The current issue of NEXUS MAGAZINE contains my latest article, "Invisible Predators: Strange Creatures, Secret Weapons, and Shadow Biospheres" (a follow-up to my 2015 book CHAMELEO), in which I examine the history of humanity's interaction with ostensibly invisible entities while acknowledging the technological, back-engineered aspect of such phenomena in recent decades. The article includes several quotes from Richard Schowengerdt, the Project Chameleo inventor who recently passed away. (As CHAMELEO chronicles in some detail, Schowengerdt was awarded a patent for an electro-optical camouflage system that has had a profound impact on military intelligence in recent decades.) I was very much looking forward to personally handing Richard a copy of this latest issue, but alas it was not to be.  

"Invisible Predators" appears on pp. 52-62 of the January-February 2022 issue (Vol. 29, No. 1). NEXUS is available from Barnes & Noble or any well-stocked newsstand. Print copies of this issue of NEXUS are available HERE. Downloadable copies are available HERE.

Saturday, January 8, 2022

Peter Matthiessen & Bigfoot

From Jeff Wheelwright's 7-1-19 LITHUB article entitled "On Peter Matthiessen’s Lifelong Fascination with Bigfoot":

In September 1976, Peter Matthiessen took me aside at a family wedding in Seattle. He was 49 and at the acme of his ambidextrous literary powers. Far Tortuga, his finest novel, about a doomed voyage of turtle hunters, had been published the year before, and his next book, set in the Himalayas, would be The Snow Leopard, his finest work of nonfiction.

I had mentioned to Peter that my wife and I were headed for Vancouver, B.C., on a short vacation. Looking at me meaningfully, my uncle said that while we were in Vancouver we should go to a private screening of a film that he would arrange for us. The brief footage, he explained, showed a sasquatch or what was believed to be a sasquatch walking in the woods of northern California.

I was surprised, for I had no inkling of his interest in Sasquatch, aka Bigfoot: the large, hairy, hominoid creature reputed by some not very reputable people to lurk in the forests of the Northwest. Sensitive to scoffers, Peter had told almost no one about his fascination with Bigfoot. Indeed, he could have told me, but did not, that earlier in the summer, while driving in the backcountry investigating reports of Bigfoot, he’d seen a tall, bipedal figure run across the road and disappear into the trees. 

To read Wheelwright's entire article, click HERE

And to read more about Peter Matthiessen's personal library of Bigfoot books, click HERE.

NEW REPUBLIC: "Jeffrey Epstein Chose New Mexico for a Reason"

From Matt Farwell's 8-15-19 NEW REPUBLIC article entitled "Jeffrey Epstein Chose New Mexico for a Reason":

If there’s a secret, New Mexico will try to keep it. The Land of Enchantment has gotten a lot of practice over the years, well before the now-late Jeffrey Epstein purchased the Zorro Ranch south of Santa Fe. The world’s first nuclear weapon, code name “Gadget,” was detonated in New Mexico on July 16, 1945.* Tourists can now visit the Trinity Site on the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range to view the epicenter of a highly secret government conspiracy involving top physicists called the Manhattan Project. Trinity is a 111-mile straight line from Zorro Ranch. Consider what lies within this way: Find a map. Make Epstein’s New Mexico operation the center. Put the Trinity site at the edge of its radius. What else is secret and radioactive and inside that circle? Did New Mexico’s other secrets throw off enough chaff to keep Epstein off the radar?

Last month, I went to New Mexico to see what secrets I could find within the circle. Santa Fe, 23 miles away from Zorro as the crow flies, is the oldest colonial capital city in North America, one with a twisted history. The historic center of this small city in the foothills of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains is the Plaza, an open-air park with a Haagen-Dazs at one corner. This was once a drugstore, Zook’s Pharmacy, that doubled as a base for Russian espionage; in between filling prescriptions and ringing up customers, deep cover Stalinist spies here plotted the death of Leon Trotsky and later coordinated efforts to steal the secrets of the atomic bomb from Los Alamos (distance from Zorro Ranch: 50 miles).

There are dozens of other strange things in that circle. There’s the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West, a selective international boarding school in Montezuma founded by Armand Hammer and Prince Charles, originally a resort hotel built on a hot springs sacred to the Jicarilla Apache, the previous inhabitants of the Sangre De Cristos. Bill Richardson—who in recently unsealed court records was named by accuser Virginia Roberts Giuffre as a participant in Epstein’s illegal sexual abuse ring—claimed to be a lecturer at the United World College in 2001–2002, between his stints as Bill Clinton’s secretary of energy and New Mexico’s governor. Richardson only showed up once that the students were aware of, to publicly hobnob with Queen Noor of Jordan and Greece’s Prince Pavlos in advance of his gubernatorial run. (I was a student at AHUWC at the time; I recall that Richardson accurately called me a smart-ass.)

There are also the sites where the Catholic Church hid pedophile priests in local parishes, until a tsunami of lawsuits from victims forced New Mexico’s largest diocese to file for bankruptcy last June. One of those places is in Jemez Springs, an isolated resort town in the middle of a melange of federal ranges, Pueblo nations, and national forests. (Distance from Zorro Ranch: 50 miles.) Here, the Catholic Church still operates one of two treatment centers in the United States for pedophile priests. They are treated by fellow members of the cloth who belong to an order called the Servants of the Paraclete—the paraclete, of course, being the Holy Ghost. One wonders about the mental health care available for the victims, or whether they will ever really rely on the paraclete again.

We travel inside the circle, from one abusive church to another. A little over 80 miles northwest of Zorro Ranch is Trementina Base, a bunker and vault complex owned by the Church of Spiritual Technology—an elite order within Scientology—with hardened rooms storing L. Ron Hubbard’s writings. Hubbard’s thoughts on Thetans will survive anything, as they’re reportedly inscribed on etched steel plates in titanium containers filled with inert argon gas. The location is hardly secret, since the CST’s logo, two interlocking circles with diamonds, can be seen in aerial photos, carved into the high desert scrub, ostensibly to help guide Hubbard’s spirit back to its new body—whenever that happens. “Once Hubbard adopts a new body, he’s expected to make his way to one of the CST bases,” a Trementina Base insider told the Village Voice in 2012. “That’s where he’s supposed to be raised and be taken care of.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

GUARDIAN: "Whistleblower Warns Baffling Illness Affects Growing Number of Young Adults in Canadian Province"

From Leyland Cecco's 1-2-22 GUARDIAN article entitled "Whistleblower Warns Baffling Illness Affects Growing Number of Young Adults in Canadian Province":

A whistleblower in the Canadian province of New Brunswick has warned that a progressive neurological illness that has baffled experts for more than two years appears to be affecting a growing number of young people and causing swift cognitive decline among some of the afflicted.

Speaking to the Guardian, an employee with Vitalité Health Network, one of the province’s two health authorities, said that suspected cases are growing in number and that young adults with no prior health triggers are developing a catalog of troubling symptoms, including rapid weight loss, insomnia, hallucinations, difficulty thinking and limited mobility.

The official number of cases under investigation, 48, remains unchanged since it was first announced in early spring 2021. But multiple sources say the cluster could now be as many as 150 people, with a backlog of cases involving young people still requiring further assessment.

“I’m truly concerned about these cases because they seem to evolve so fast,” said the source. “I’m worried for them and we owe them some kind of explanation.”

At the same time, at least nine cases have been recorded in which two people in close contact – but without genetic links – have developed symptoms, suggesting that environmental factors may be involved.

One suspected case involved a man who was developing symptoms of dementia and ataxia. His wife, who was his caregiver, suddenly began losing sleep and experiencing muscle wasting, dementia and hallucinations. Now her condition is worse than his.

A woman in her 30s was described as non-verbal, is feeding with a tube and drools excessively. Her caregiver, a nursing student in her 20s, also recently started showing symptoms of neurological decline.

In another case, a young mother quickly lost nearly 60 pounds, developed insomnia and began hallucinating. Brain imaging showed advanced signs of atrophy.

The Vitalité employee, who asked not to be named because they were unauthorized to speak publicly and feared repercussions for speaking out, said they decided to come forward because of growing concerns over the speed with which young people have deteriorated.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

Thursday, January 6, 2022

A Trumporium of Insurrection Updates (and Related QAnonsense)

January 6th would be an appropriate day to listen to Steven Snider's 5-24-21 interview with James Scaminaci III regarding the role of the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys in the January 6th insurrection. To hear the entire one-hour-plus interview on THE FARM PODCAST, click HERE.

What follows is Steven Snider's description of the show:

Here I'm joined by former civilian military intelligence officer James Scaminaci III to breakdown the events of January 6th. Up to this point I had been reluctant to label Jan 6th a full-blown coup attempt. But Scaminaci makes a compelling case that this is very much what happened, with the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys orchestrating the assault. Over the course of this interview we cover the background of the Oath Keepers; the command & control structure used by both groups that day; their battle plan; and most importantly, explain what the objective was. From there, we get into whether the security was adequate, the strange series of events involving General Charles Flynn (the brother of Michael) on the 6th, and a general account of the military's behavior that day.

And here are some related links....

1) From Jose Pagliery and Roger Sollenberger's 1-5-22 DAILY BEAST article entitled "Will the Oath Keepers Founder Spill on the Jan. 6 Organizers?":

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, has the power to burn some top right-wing personalities who pissed him off. It’s unclear if he’ll actually do it.

Members of the Oath Keepers, the far-right militia group which featured prominently during last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol, feel betrayed by the headliners of the protests that day—names like Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, and Ali Alexander. According to the Oath Keeper’s lawyer, those organizers of the Jan. 6, 2021, rally asked the militia to stand guard for them on that fateful day.

If that’s really the case, it could introduce even more culpability for those GOP figures.

But Rhodes hasn’t decided yet whether he’ll answer questions at his upcoming testimony before the Jan. 6 committee, according to a person familiar with this thinking.

Rhodes was slated to appear before the House panel in a closed-door hearing this week, according to an attorney with direct knowledge of the arrangement, but the testimony was postponed for unclear reasons. If and when Rhodes does appear, though, he could shine a light on a number of key questions for investigators. Rhodes has information about the planning, coordination, and intent of organizers, as well as any possible preparations for violence and connections to government officials. 

To read the entire article, click HERE.


2) From Paul Brandus' 1-5-22 MARKETWATCH article entitled "Civil War in the United States Is Far More Likely Than You Think. In Fact, It May Have Already Begun":

What’s eye-opening here is that when you look at the 200-plus civil wars since 1946 and their root causes, it sounds eerily like America right now.

“People have a false impression that it is the most down-trodden, the poorest, the most discriminated against who tend to start civil wars,” [Professor Barbara] Walter says. “In reality, that’s not true. The people who tend to start civil wars are what experts call ‘sons of the soil.’ These are citizens who had either been dominant politically and culturally but were now in decline, or who had once had power and had lost it. This group believes that the country belongs to them, that they have the right to be in power, and when they lose it, they find it incredibly disconcerting.”

Walter adds: “They’re very resentful of groups that are ascendant, and they’re the ones who tend to mobilize and fight to try and re-establish control.”

As I’m listening to Walter, the images that immediately come to mind are of the torch-bearing white men marching through Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017, shouting “blood and soil” and “Jews will not replace us.” Remember them? The angry white men waving Confederate flags and a few Nazi swastikas? This is a bullseye example of the political and cultural decline of once-dominant groups that have sparked conflicts elsewhere.

To read the entire article, click HERE.

3) From Freddy Cruz's 12-2-21 Southern Poverty Law Center article entitled "White Nationalists, Jan. 6 Protesters and QAnon: What You Need To Know About Border Vigilantes Along the Border":

As some vigilantes in Arizona continue preying on migrants, Hatewatch has learned the identities of some these far-right extremists.

In July, the Southern Poverty Law Center sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security alerting them to the militia presence at the border. Through a review of social media content, Hatewatch has learned culprits have included at least two QAnon adherents, four Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol rioters, a snake oil salesman and an antisemitic militia group that is attempting to recruit on the forum of the notorious white nationalist site Stormfront.

As reported by Hatewatch in July, the antigovernment militia group Veterans on Patrol (VOP), led by Michael “Lewis Arthur” Meyer, continues to operate alongside vigilante organizations in Pima County, Arizona. The vigilante network Meyer dubbed the “border coalition” has attempted to intercept and detain migrants in the desert. A closer look at United People of America (UPA), one of the initial organizations affiliated with VOP, has revealed UPA’s attempts to recruit border volunteers from Stormfront, one of the earliest and most prominent white nationalist sites [...].

The man at the helm of the border coalition is Michael “Lewis Arthur” Meyer, a former QAnon devotee who has tried to distance himself from the movement while continually espousing QAnon conspiracy theories. Meyer, who is not a veteran, leads VOP, a vigilante group that is known for mischaracterizing migrants using racist tropes while claiming that humans, weapons and drugs are being trafficked into the U.S. via the Tohono O'odham Nation Reservation, a Native American reservation in Southern Arizona.

This belief that a Tribal Nation engages in the trafficking of migrants is a long-standing claim of some on the far right. Militias piggyback on anti-Indigenous messaging that insinuates that tribal governments are failing and that they even cooperate with domestic and international criminals. Figures such as Elaine Willman have made a career out of promoting the idea that tribal governments should be erased in the name of national security. Willman, who has written books on the topic of dismantling sovereign tribal nations, helped popularize conspiracy theories that frame immigration and tribal nations as two of the greatest existential threats to the U.S. In Arizona, Meyer and his ilk are peddling similar conspiracies as they conduct their daily operations around the Tohono O'odham Nation Reservation.

Today, VOP’s mission, which originated in Three Points, Arizona, has slowly spread to other areas such as Sasabe, Arizona. Since launching the “border coalition,” Meyer has continued to peddle the notion that the migrant crisis is being “orchestrated” by the Biden administration, as well as other QAnon conspiracies. These include the idea that the “deep state” is responsible for the crisis, that migrants are looking to harvest the organs of children and that the situation at the border constitutes an “invasion” [...].

Meyer isn’t the only vigilante at the Southern border who continues to perpetuate QAnon conspiracies. Rebecca Ferland, leader of the group AZ Desert Guardians, has similarly espoused QAnon talking points while engaging in border activities earlier in the year. Ferland, who also goes by the name “Becky,” was one of the initial border leaders to join Meyer’s “border coalition.” Over the last few months, she has continued to peddle the false claim that U.S. sponsors for migrant children are also registered sex offenders [...].

Alongside white nationalist and QAnon adherents, the border has also attracted several Jan. 6 rioters. This includes Christie Hutcherson, founder of the pro-Trump group Women Fighting for America (WFFA); Tim Foley, leader of the anti-immigrant militant group AZ Border Recon; a UFO conspiracy theorist named Paul Flores and Shawna Martin, a far-right MAGA activist and VOP volunteer.

Hutcherson, a far-right religious zealot, first broke into the spotlight earlier this year when she spoke in front of a large pro-Trump crowd on the eve of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Hutcherson, a proponent of “The Big Lie,” frequently conflates her religious and political beliefs regurgitating the notion that God chose Trump to run the country for four more years. According to Right Wing Watch, Hutcherson also claimed to be a member of the Family Research Council, a SPLC-designated anti-LGBTQ hate group. On the WFFA website, the group states its mission is to “assist women from all walks of life to push back on the daily attacks on the nuclear family and defend American values.”

To read the entire article, click HERE

(If you'd like to access the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Map, which tracked 838 hate groups across the U.S. in 2020 alone, click HERE.)


4) From William Saletan's 12-15-21 SLATE article entitled "The Chilling Lesson of Mark Meadows’ Text Messages":

The more we learn about what Donald Trump and his aides heard and did on Jan. 6, the more clearly we understand his corrupt intent. The latest revelations come from newly disclosed text messages sent to Mark Meadows, Trump’s then-chief of staff, that afternoon. The messages show that Trump’s family, his media allies, and people inside the U.S. Capitol begged him to call off the attack but were ignored for most of the day. And they confirm that Meadows, who has refused to testify in the Jan. 6 investigation and now faces possible indictment for contempt of Congress, was at the center of what unfolded that day.

But the messages also clarify a standoff that took place in the middle of the afternoon. Shortly after 2:30, Trump sent out a tweet urging his followers to “stay peaceful.” That tweet has been cited as proof that he tried to end the crisis. But the texts, combined with other evidence, show that trusted figures in Trump’s orbit were asking him to do more. They wanted him to tell the rioters to leave the Capitol and go home. On the surface, this looks like a small difference. But Trump refused to do it. Why?

The simplest answer is that, as his prior behavior demonstrated, he saw the mob as leverage in a last-ditch effort to overturn the election.

To read the entire article, click HERE

5) From Barton Gellman's 12-6-21 ATLANTIC article entitled "Trump's Next Coup Has Already Begun":

Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, to produce the required effect. The winner will be declared the loser. The loser will be certified president-elect. 

The prospect of this democratic collapse is not remote. People with the motive to make it happen are manufacturing the means. Given the opportunity, they will act. They are acting already.

Who or what will safeguard our constitutional order is not apparent today. It is not even apparent who will try. Democrats, big and small D, are not behaving as if they believe the threat is real. Some of them, including President Joe Biden, have taken passing rhetorical notice, but their attention wanders. They are making a grievous mistake.

“The democratic emergency is already here,” Richard L. Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UC Irvine, told me in late October. Hasen prides himself on a judicious temperament. Only a year ago he was cautioning me against hyperbole. Now he speaks matter-of-factly about the death of our body politic. “We face a serious risk that American democracy as we know it will come to an end in 2024,” he said, “but urgent action is not happening.”

For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their party’s national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft. Elected officials in Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and other states have studied Donald Trump’s crusade to overturn the 2020 election. They have noted the points of failure and have taken concrete steps to avoid failure next time. Some of them have rewritten statutes to seize partisan control of decisions about which ballots to count and which to discard, which results to certify and which to reject. They are driving out or stripping power from election officials who refused to go along with the plot last November, aiming to replace them with exponents of the Big Lie. They are fine-tuning a legal argument that purports to allow state legislators to override the choice of the voters.

By way of foundation for all the rest, Trump and his party have convinced a dauntingly large number of Americans that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response.

Any Republican might benefit from these machinations, but let’s not pretend there’s any suspense. Unless biology intercedes, Donald Trump will seek and win the Republican nomination for president in 2024. The party is in his thrall. No opponent can break it and few will try. Neither will a setback outside politics—indictment, say, or a disastrous turn in business—prevent Trump from running. If anything, it will redouble his will to power.
 
As we near the anniversary of January 6, investigators are still unearthing the roots of the insurrection that sacked the Capitol and sent members of Congress fleeing for their lives. What we know already, and could not have known then, is that the chaos wrought on that day was integral to a coherent plan. In retrospect, the insurrection takes on the aspect of rehearsal.
 
To read the entire article, click HERE 
 
6) Jordan Klepper vs. Iowans Who Think Trump Won | The Daily Show (10-18-21):


Wednesday, January 5, 2022

"Committee of Mystery" in OCCULT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE #8!

My new short story, "Committee of Mystery," has just been released in OCCULT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE #8! Here's the publisher's description of the latest issue...

We return! This issue is packed with both fiction and non-fiction – including lots of reviews – in fact we have the first in a semi-regular column, Dicing With Death, which will cover games of some relevance. Once again we’ve sought out tales which show the sheer breadth of the sub-genre. If you think ‘occult detectives’ are simply a few Victorian amateurs, an out-of-luck noir PI in a trench-coat, or a bit of urban fantasy, you must have missed our earlier issues. In these pages, we range across time and continents, from worrying peculiarities to outright horror.

Authors include Melanie Atherton Allen, Brandon Barrows, Rebecca Buchanan, Robert Guffey, Rhys Hughes, D.G. Laderoute, Paul StJohn Mackintosh, Andrew Neil MacLeod, Jonathon Mast, Uchechukwu Nwaka, C.L. Raven, Carsten Schmitt, I.A. Watson and Cristina L. White. With cover art by Stefan Keller and interior illustrations by Autumn Barlow, Mutartis Boswell and Andy Paciorek.


If you're at all interested, you can buy a copy of OCCULT DETECTIVE MAGAZINE #8 right HERE!