How our elections were - and are - stolen

 

American Thinker has a fascinating article showing the machinations and shenanigans underlying our supposedly "democratic" elections.

After the 2020 election results stopped in the middle of the night and vote trajectories magically changed when they fired up again, thousands of people, just like you, didn't buy it.  They formed armies of canvassers in 35 or more states.  They did something that has not been done at scale in the history of the country: they started checking voter rolls.

They did more.  They filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests at unprecedented levels.  Secretary of state offices, once a murky sinecure, had to answer real questions about what was going on. 

Here's what popped out.

Leftists are different from you and me.  Unlike us, they care that every vote is cast, and if you do not cast your vote, they will do it for you.  And they did.  At scale.

In one Midwestern state, voter rolls costing tens of thousands of dollars were bought by a billionaire leftist every month for over a year.  Why would someone buy a list that doesn't change much?

Voter lists show people who move.  They show people who never or seldom vote. 

The white hat canvassing team built a query for one state: "voters who voted in 2020 who never voted before."  Guess what!  265,000.

In the same state, thousands of people came forward with stories that when they showed up to vote, they were told someone had voted for them.  Get the picture?

In a southwestern state, in its second-largest city, there was a 21-day daily tabulation of cast ballots.  Once a ballot is cast, it should not be changed.  Not here.

When the millions of cast votes across over 21 snapshots were compared, thousands of ballots had been altered.  Some were minor alterations, like a slight name change.  Others were more interesting — like when someone voted in person, but his vote was later changed by an absentee ballot.

It gets better.

Those FOIA requests are mining gold.  Our midwestern state has documents showing that the state election organization gave online access to a leftist group for weeks during the voting.  Citizens had to pay over $20,000 for one snapshot of the voter roll.  Leftists could, and did, access it online throughout the process.  For free.

And access it they did.  Witness statements are being gathered, lots of them, that in the largest city, election officials were trading cell calls about how many votes were needed, and someone was then providing the phantoms to meet the quota.

They knew the names of the phantoms — they had direct access to who voted, who didn't, and who was likely to never show up.

This is not exclusively a blue-state phenomenon.  

In a deep red state, canvassers found more traditional phantoms. 

There were the 21 people at the fraternity house.  Nothing to see here — until they sorted them by age.  All these kids were active voters, many voted, and their age range was from 115 to 57.  Some frat house.

These red-state canvassers went deeper.  They showed that the phantoms did not vote en masse in the 2020 presidential election.  Phew!  Feeling better.  But wait.  They vote in droves in state, county, municipal elections.

Aha — here was another interesting pattern, never seen before.

This deep red state that voted for Trump by double-digit margins did not call out its phantom army when it could not move the needle.  When local, state elections were up, well, those people voted — even the 21 at the county jail and the 41 registered at the Recreation Commission.

In earlier American Thinker articles, we created the phrase "sovereign fraud."  That means your government is in on it.

As more than 35 state citizen organizations now are using the most advanced search and big data technology to look into voter rolls, and cross-check them with churches, R.V. parks, fictitious street locations, they are concluding the office of secretary of state is corrupt, incompetent, or often both.

There's more at the link.

This data, of course, excludes the possibility (or should that be probability?) of vote totals being manipulated by the machines and software that count them.  When you add that into the equation, the odds of a truly democratic, will-of-the-voters result become very thin indeed.

The question is, what can - and what will - be done about this?  It's all very well to uncover the scale of the problem;  kudos to those who are doing so.  However, that's not enough.  How do we stop it?  How do we prevent such fraud from recurring in future?  In particular, how do we use this information to verify the 2022 and 2024 elections?  If we solve the problems identified in the article, will that be enough to ensure free and fair elections - or will we also have to decertify the machines and software previously used, and replace them with more accurate, less manipulable alternatives?  Will the powers that be allow that to happen, or will they ensure that as many methods for electoral fraud as possible remain viable?

Peter

The trials and tribulations of dealing with bureaucrats

 

Dave Freer, fellow expatriate South African and author, has been fighting bureaucrats in Australia for years over some land he bought and the house he built on it.  He writes about his misadventures (some of them, anyway) in a recent blog post.  Reading it, it looks like Australian bureaucrats have taken official obstructionism to new levels... but US bureaucrats are nothing to sneeze at in the tear-your-hair-out stakes.

I've been fighting the bureaucrats for the best part of two years over my work-related injury back in 2004.  Medical benefits for its long-term after-effects were cut last year, without any explanation.  I've been going back and forth with those involved all this time, trying to figure out what happened and solve the problem.  Finally, just yesterday, I received a letter that looks as if it'll at least partly resolve the issues.  It's been month after month of beating my head against a bureaucratic brick wall.  To call it "frustrating" is a monumental understatement!  Still, all that effort appears to have paid off, at least in the short term.  I somehow suspect it won't be a long-term resolution, but we'll deal with future hurdles when we come to them.

I suppose, at its most basic level, the problem is one of sheer numbers.  In past generations, there were never enough people to overwhelm administrative systems.  Bureaucrats could shuffle papers around fast enough to cater to the needs of most of those who came to them.  Nowadays... not so much.  The populations of our urban centers have grown so much that their sheer numbers overwhelm service offices;  and the slow, steady decline in the quality of our education system means that many of those seeking assistance, and many of those administering it, no longer have a clear understanding of what they're doing, and how, and most importantly why they're doing it.  It's become just a long, endless round of filling out forms, getting them rubber-stamped, and then issuing more forms for the next stage in the process.  What used to be done by a single clerk during a single visit is now often spread over several visits, each to a different person.

A friend has recently experienced a bureaucratic Catch-22.  She needs to get her son a picture ID, so that he can travel by air and get a learner's license.  However, to get a state picture ID, she needs him to have a Social Security card.  He doesn't, because he's never had one issued before;  but Social Security offices are closed across the nation as a precaution against COVID-19.  It seems that due to documentation issues, without an in-person consultation, her son can't get a Social Security card, even though he already has a Social Security number.  The state bureaucrats won't accept a Social Security number as valid unless it's on a valid Social Security card - so they won't issue him a picture ID.  Result:  his parents have to drive him long distances from time to time, or find other ways to get him where he needs to go.

I will say this, though:  Texas state bureaucrats are among the nicest and most friendly of their ilk I've ever encountered.  There seems to be a strong culture throughout this state's government that their job is to make citizens' and residents' lives easier, not more complicated.  It's generally been a pleasure dealing with them, even if there have been obstacles to be overcome.  My previous experience with state bureaucrats in Louisiana (execrable!) and Tennessee (slow and laborious) was not good;  but coming to Texas has been an eye-opener as to how things could and should be done.

What about you, readers?  I'm sure many of you have your own horror stories about dealing with bureaucrats (and perhaps some pleasant surprises, too).  How about sharing them with us in Comments?

Peter

Education in California: the latest field for financial fraud?

 

I was frustrated to read this article at the College Fix.

The California Community Colleges system is being overwhelmed by thousands of fake students, or “bots,” applying and enrolling in classes to scam money from financial aid.

Kim Rich, a criminal justice professor at Pierce College, first noticed the issue during the summer semester in June 2021, when she discovered multiple “students” in her online class exhibiting suspicious behavior: submitting work done by someone outside the class, registering for the same courses, and using profile photos pulled from the internet.

Since then, Rich says she has experienced “roadblock after roadblock” in bringing the issue to the administration’s attention. The district seems not to care, even though, as she previously told The Epoch Times, Rich believes between one-third to one-half of enrolled students could be fake.

. . .

Rich’s guesses are confirmed by official numbers from the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which determined that approximately 20 percent of the traffic for the systemwide student application system, CCCApply, is “malicious and bot-related.”

On August 30, the Chancellor’s Office issued an update requiring colleges within the CCC system to report monthly metrics on registration and financial fraud starting September.

. . .

While Rich said she suspects the issue started in the spring, Joe Moreau, vice chancellor of technology for the Foothill-DeAnza Community College District, said he believes it began as early as Fall of 2020.

“Our district has been tracking potential fraud for quite a long time, almost a year now,” he told The College Fix in a telephone interview. “We began to see suspicious activity last fall. And then we really began to hone in on it starting in about January.”

There's more at the link.

I'm not surprised, particularly because this seems to affect online classes in particular - in other words, those where no student has to be physically present with the lecturer, so their claims about themselves can't be verified in person.  It's like California's COVID-19 relief payments, or its unemployment benefits.  Both programs have lost literally billions of dollars due to fraud, lax administration, and computer systems designed to streamline applications, but ignore basic safeguards and don't get enough information to confirm the authenticity and credibility of those applying.

(I'll be very surprised if this sort of thing is limited only to California's community colleges.  I'll lay long odds that you'll find something similar in the University of California system - perhaps even in some high schools, where the number of pupils is so great that the administration can't keep up with them.  I'd also like to know how widespread the problem may be in the USA as a whole.  I'd say California may be the worst affected, but I won't be surprised to hear many other states are as well.)

California taxpayers should be up in arms about this, but the silence from them is deafening.  Why is it that they allow their politicians and bureaucrats to get away with allowing such fraud, at their expense?  Can anyone explain, please?  Here in Texas, the explosion of anger from taxpayers if they learned about such fraud would probably be enough to sweep from office all those responsible.  Why not in California?

Peter

The most epic prank I've seen in years...

 

... and yes, it's schoolboy-type humor, but it still makes me laugh my ass off!  A tip o' the hat to Aesop at Raconteur Report for finding it first.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:  seagulls on laxatives!

Troll level:  epic!

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 86

 

Gathered from here and there over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

My first new book in two years is now available!

 

(To those waiting for my traditional Monday morning "Memes That Made Me Laugh" post, it's coming!  Check back shortly after 9 a.m. Central time.)

The fifth volume in my ongoing Ames Archives series of Western novels has just been published, in e-book and paperback.  It's titled "Silver In The Stones".  (A grateful tip o' the hat to fellow author, blogger and good friend Alma Boykin for coming up with that title.)  The cover image is, as always for this series so far, one of Frederic Sackrider Remington's works.

The blurb reads:

What comes with a silver boom? Backstabbers, claim-jumpers and con men - and that’s just the start.

Walt Ames is working hard to keep his horse ranch afloat and his transport business in motion when silver is discovered on his property. It’s going to take cunning, determination and more than a little luck to investigate the claim while others are trying to kill him for it.

Can he keep his business and integrity intact, or is everything Walt loves going to fall prey to the perils of a silver rush?

For a foretaste of what it's about, I published two excerpts from it in prior "teaser" blog posts, here and here.

This is a very important book for me, because it's the culmination of two years of hard work to get back into the writing game.  After suffering a heart attack (my second) in November 1919, followed by two bouts with COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, my writing muse took an extended vacation and left me hanging.  It was a difficult time, because I depend on my writing to make a living.  Fortunately, I had some reserves, and sold a large chunk of my gun collection.  Your support through several raffles last year helped bring in enough to keep body and soul together.

I tried hard to keep writing, even though the medications I was using and general physical lassitude often made this difficult.  I found that I would often get bogged down in a particular book if I focused on it for too long, so I started working on up to six books at the same time.  If I found myself blocked on one, I'd shift to another, work a few days on it, then try a third.  That helped me to work through the mental and physical blocks, and produce at least some output.  As a result, all of those books are now well on the way to completion, and I hope to publish one every couple of months over the next year or so.  There are two new series (probably trilogies) among them, plus a number of continuation volumes of existing series.

This novel required a huge amount of research.  It touches on so many critical historical elements that I spent literally months going into them before I began writing.  (My wife described in an article yesterday some of the research we did in Colorado.  That trip was to prepare for this book and the next one, which will deal with the "railroad wars".  I traveled most of the routes described in this book, and saw most of the mining locations mentioned, both existing and "ghost" towns.  I learned a lot.)  Every fact I've mentioned in this book is historically accurate.  I hope you'll enjoy its wider, more in-depth look at the issues around the Wild West, compared to the usual "shoot-'em-up" scenarios found in pulp Westerns.

I'd like to ask for your help, please, readers, in two ways.

1. I hope you'll buy and enjoy the book.  Please leave an honest review on Amazon.com as soon as you finish it.  Amazon's promotion of books on its site depends to a large extent on the number of reviews each receives, with 50 reviews being pretty much a minimum for any serious boosting.  (That's actual reviews, not just a star rating without an accompanying review).  I'll be very grateful if you'll leave honest feedback there.
2. As I said, I've taken two years to come back from some pretty serious health issues, during which time my "visibility" in the indie book market has fallen away.  I really need help boosting the publicity for "Silver In The Stones", and being an independent author, I don't have a big-name publisher to do it for me.  Your help will be invaluable.  I'll be very grateful if you'll please mention this book (and my other forthcoming ones) on your social media accounts, in your blogs, and to your friends.

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

I hope you enjoy "Silver In The Stones".  Stand by in January, God willing, for my next book, Volume 6 of the Maxwell Saga, titled "Venom Strike".

Peter

Sunday morning music

 

A brief musical interlude this morning, because we have guests staying with us, and I have to run off and make food appear for a hungry six-year-old who doesn't do very well with the concept of "Wait!"

Last week, courtesy of a reader who sent me the link, I came across a Tom Lehrer comedy song that I hadn't heard before.  Given that it's currently hunting season for several species, it seems appropriate for this time of year.

That certainly reminds me of the casual attitude of far too many hunters.  When I first came to this country, and was appointed pastor of a rural parish in Louisiana, I was installed on the first Sunday in October - the opening day of squirrel season.  I was wondering why at least half the male congregants came to service wearing camouflaged overalls, with shotguns in the rear windows of their pickup trucks.  Was it in case I preached a poor sermon?  No - they were going hunting after church, while their long-suffering wives took the kids home.

A few weeks later, on the opening day of deer season, a rifle bullet struck my (small, flimsy) rectory.  Nobody came to apologize, or inquire after damage or casualties.  I immediately put the church grounds (including the woods behind our buildings) off-limits to hunters.  There were lots of complaints, but after I showed people the hole in my building, they stopped arguing.  From then on, every year as long as I stayed there, our woods filled up with squirrels and deer at the start of every hunting season, and stayed full until it ended.  I had fanciful visions of rows of now-protected deer thumbing their noses at every passing car with a rifle in the rear window!

Ah, yes.  Hunting season in America - one of the sacred seasons in the calendar, ranking above Advent and Lent, and pretty much on a level with Eastertide!

Peter

Saturday Books & Snippet: The lies of Dr Fauci and the medical-pharmaceutical complex

 

Before I get into today's snippet (which is staggering in its implications), I want to mention a Black Friday and Thanksgiving weekend book sale organized by Hans G. Schantz.  More than a hundred independent authors, including yours truly, have priced one or more of their books at 99c or less for that period.  Many are free.  If you want to pick up some fresh reading material at a bargain price, click over to Hans' place and see if anything interests you.

Now, on to today's snippet.

Robert Kennedy Jr. has written what may be the most important book to be published on the COVID-19 pandemic since it started.  It's titled 'The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health'.

I cannot emphasize too strongly how important this book is.  It completely uncovers and exposes every scrap of evidence out there, showing that Dr. Fauci and the medical-pharmaceutical industry have coordinated their response to the COVID-19 pandemic and have systematically tried to destroy the reputation of medications that are effective against it, instead reaping a harvest of billions of dollars for their vaccines that are considerably less effective and much more dangerous to the health of recipients.

To call the book's allegations "explosive" is a massive understatement.  If they can all be proven in the public forum, they will cause such an eruption of public fury that those responsible might be lynched en masse.  Certainly, any politician who's been part of their cabal should be run out of office and never again trusted for any position more responsible than deputy assistant acting unpaid dog-catcher.

Right now, over Thanksgiving weekend, the Kindle edition of this book is only $2.99.  I regard it as absolutely essential reading for every American - and, for that matter, every citizen of this world.  It's mind-boggling in its implications.  You owe it to yourself to get this book, read it, and learn the full dimensions of the conspiracy against us by those profiting from the COVID-19 pandemic.  It's horrifying in its totalitarianism and cynical disregard for anything other than a warped, twisted ideology driven by profit.

My problem this morning is to select a snippet that will convince you of how important this book is to understanding where we are, how we got here, and where we go to get out of this mess.  There's so much "meat" in its pages that I find it almost impossible to choose.  I'll settle for the transcript of one interview that makes it clear how much interference the "establishment" has created to prevent the truth coming out.  To drive home the utter disregard for facts, and for human life, demonstrated by the powers that be, I've highlighted several sections with a yellow background.

Dr. [Tess] Lawrie, a world-renowned data researcher and scientific consultant, is an iconic eminence among global public health scientists and agencies. The Desert Review has deemed her “The Conscience of Medicine” because of her reputation for competence, precision, and integrity. Lawrie’s consulting group, the Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy, Ltd. performs the scientific reviews that develop and support guidelines for global public health agencies, including the WHO and European governments, as well as international scientific and health consortia like the Cochrane Collaboration. Her clients have included a retinue of virtually all the larger government regulators now involved in the suppression of IVM and other repurposed drugs.

At the end of December 2000, Dr. Lawrie happened on a YouTube video of Pierre Kory’s Senate testimony on ivermectin. Her interest piqued, Dr. Lawrie conducted a “pragmatic rapid review” between Christmas and New Year’s to validate the 27 studies from the medical literature that Kory cited, assessing each of them for quality and power.

“After a week, I realized it was a go. IVM’s safety was well-established as a widely used dewormer,” she told me. “I was startled by the magnitude of its benefits. Its efficacy against COVID was consistently clear in multiple studies. I thought that all these people were dying and this was a moral obligation—this drug should have been rolled out.” Dr. Lawrie dispatched an urgent letter to British Health Minister Matt Hancock on January 4 with her Rapid Review attached. She never heard back from Hancock. But in a suspicious coincidence, someone leaked a meta-review by WHO researcher Andrew Hill to the Daily Mail. Three days later, Hill posted a preprint of his study. In the one month since he testified enthusiastically beside Dr. Kory in favor of ivermectin before the January 13 NIH panel, Hill had made a neck-wrenching volte face. Cumulatively, the seven studies in Hill’s original meta-review still showed a dramatic reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients receiving IVM. The leaked version of Hill’s meta-review included all the same papers that formerly supported his gung-ho promotion of IVM as a miraculous cure for COVID. Hill had altered only his conclusions. Now he claimed that those studies comprised a low quality of evidence, and so although they yielded a highly positive result, Hill assigned the result a “low certainty.” He could then declare that WHO should not recommend IVM without first performing long-term, randomized placebo-controlled studies that would require many months if not longer. “Someone got to him,” suggests Kory. “Someone sent him the memo. Andrew Hill has been captured by some really dark forces.”

On January 7, Dr. Lawrie summarized the overwhelming evidence from her Rapid Review in a video directed at British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, urging him to break the logjam and roll out IVM immediately. Her video, says Dr. Kory, was “absolutely convincing.” She forwarded the video appeal to the British and South African Prime Ministers on January 7. She heard nothing from either.

. . .

The following week, she spoke to Hill again, this time by Zoom.

The Zoom call was recorded.

. . .

Dr. Lawrie asked Hill to explain his U-turn on ivermectin, which his own analysis found overwhelmingly effective. “How can you do this?” she inquired politely. “You are causing irreparable harm.”

Hill explained that he was in a “tricky situation,” because his sponsors had put pressure on him. Hill is a University of Liverpool virologist who serves as an advisor to Bill Gates and the Clinton Foundation. “He told me his sponsor was Unitaid.” Unitaid is a quasi-governmental advocacy organization funded by the BMGF and several European countries—France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Brazil, Spain, the Republic of Korea, and Chile—to lobby governments to finance the purchase of medicines from pharmaceutical multinationals for distribution to the African poor. Its primary purpose seems to be protecting the patent and intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies—which, as we shall see, is the priority passion for Bill Gates—and to insure their prompt and full payment. About 63 percent of its funding comes from a surtax on airline tickets. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation holds a board seat and chairs Unitaid’s Executive Committee, and the BMGF has given Unitaid $150 million since 2005. Various Gates-funded surrogate and front organizations, like Global Fund, Gavi, and UNICEF also contribute, as does the pharmaceutical industry. The BMGF and Gates personally own large stakes in many of the pharmaceutical companies that profit from this boondoggle. Gates also uses Unitaid to fund corrupt science by tame and compromised researchers like Hill that legitimizes his policy directives to the WHO. Unitaid gave $40 million to Andrew Hill’s employer, the University of Liverpool, four days before the publication of Hill’s study.

Hill, a PhD, confessed that the sponsors were pressuring him to influence his conclusion. When Dr. Lawrie asked who was trying to influence him, Hill said, “I mean, I, I think I’m in a very sensitive position here. . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie, MD, PhD: “Lots of people are in sensitive positions; they’re in hospital, in ICUs dying, and they need this medicine.”

Dr. Hill: “Well. . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “This is what I don’t get, you know, because you’re not a clinician. You’re not seeing people dying every day. And this medicine prevents deaths by 80 percent. So 80 percent of those people who are dying today don’t need to die because there’s ivermectin.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “There are a lot, as I said, there are a lot of different opinions about this. As I say, some people simply. . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “We are looking at the data; it doesn’t matter what other people say. We are the ones who are tasked with . . . look[ing] at the data and reassur[ing] everybody that this cheap and effective treatment will save lives. It’s clear. You don’t have to say, well, so-and-so says this, and so-and-so says that. It’s absolutely crystal clear. We can save lives today. If we can get the government to buy ivermectin.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Well, I don’t think it’s as simple as that, because you’ve got trials. . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “It is as simple as that. We don’t have to wait for studies . . . we have enough evidence now that shows that ivermectin saves lives, it prevents hospitalization. It saves the clinical staff going to work every day, [and] being exposed. And frankly, I’m shocked at how you are not taking responsibility for that decision. And you still haven’t told me who is [influencing you]? Who is giving you that opinion? Because you keep saying you’re in a sensitive position. I appreciate you are in a sensitive position, if you’re being paid for something and you’re being told [to support] a certain narrative . . . that is a sensitive position. So, then you kind of have to decide, well, do I take this payment? Because in actual fact, [you] can see [your false] conclusions . . . are going to harm people. So maybe you need to say, I’m not going to be paid for this. I can see the evidence, and I will join the Cochrane team as a volunteer, like everybody on the Cochrane team is a volunteer. Nobody’s being paid for this work.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “I think fundamentally, we’re reaching the [same] conclusion about the survival benefit. We’re both finding a significant effect on survival.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “No, I’m grading my evidence. I’m saying I’m sure of this evidence. I’m saying I’m absolutely sure it prevents deaths. There is nothing as effective as this treatment. What is your reluctance? Whose conclusion is that?”

Hill then complains again that outsiders are influencing him.

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “You keep referring to other people. It’s like you don’t trust yourself. If you were to trust yourself, you would know that you have made an error and you need to correct it because you know, in your heart, that this treatment prevents death.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Well, I know, I know for a fact that the data right now is not going to get the drug approved.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “But, Andy—know this will come out . . . It will come out that there were all these barriers to the truth being told to the public and to the evidence being presented. So please, this is your opportunity just to acknowledge [the truth] in your review, change your conclusions, and come on board with this Cochrane Review, which will be definitive. It will be the review that shows the evidence and gives the proof. This was the consensus on Wednesday night’s meeting with 20 experts.”

Hill protests that NIH will not agree to recommend IVM.

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Yeah, because the NIH is owned by the vaccine lobby.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “That’s not something I know about.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Well, all I’m saying is this smacks of corruption and you are being played.”

Dr. Hill: “I don’t think so.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Well then, you have no excuse because your work in that review is flawed. It’s rushed. It is not properly put together.”

Dr. Lawrie points out that Hill’s study ignores a host of clinical outcomes that affect patients. She scolds Hill for ignoring the beneficial effects of IVM as prophylaxis, its effect on speed to PCR negativity, on the need for mechanical ventilation, on reduced admissions to ICUs, and other outcomes that are clinically meaningful. She adds, “This is bad research . . . bad research. So, at this point, I don’t know . . . you seem like a nice guy, but I am really, really worried about you.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Okay. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s a difficult situation.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “No, you might be in a difficult situation. I’m not, because I have no paymaster. I can tell the truth . . . How can you deliberately try and mess it up . . . you know?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “It’s not messing it up. It’s saying that we need, we need a short time to look at some more studies.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “So, how long are you going to let people carry on dying unnecessarily—up to you? What is, what is the timeline that you’ve allowed for this, then?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Well, I think . . . I think that it goes to WHO and the NIH and the FDA and the EMEA. And they’ve got to decide when they think enough’s enough.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “How do they decide? Because there’s nobody giving them good evidence synthesis, because yours is certainly not good.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Well, when yours comes out, which will be in the very near future . . . at the same time, there’ll be other trials producing results, which will nail it with a bit of luck. And we’ll be there.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “It’s already nailed.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “No, that’s, that’s not the view of the WHO and the FDA.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “You’d rather… risk loads of people’s lives. Do you know if you and I stood together on this, we could present a united front and we could get this thing. We could make it happen. We could save lives; we could prevent [British National Health Service doctors and nurses] people from getting infected. We could prevent the elderly from dying.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “These are studies conducted around the world in several different countries. And they’re all saying the same thing. Plus there’s all sorts of other evidence to show that it works. Randomized controlled trials do not need to be the be-all and end-all. But [even] based on the randomized controlled trials, it is clear that ivermectin works… It prevents deaths and it prevents harms and it improves outcomes for people . . . I can see we’re getting nowhere because you have an agenda, whether you like it or not, whether you admit to it or not, you have an agenda. And the agenda is to kick this down the road as far as you can. So . . . we are trying to save lives. That’s what we do. I’m a doctor and I’m going to save as many lives as I can. And I’m going to do that through getting the message [out] on ivermectin. . . . Okay. Unfortunately, your work is going to impair that, and you seem to be able to bear the burden of many, many deaths, which I cannot do.”

Then she asks again.

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Would you tell me? I would like to know who pays you as a consultant through WHO.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “It’s Unitaid.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “All right. So who helped to . . . ? Whose conclusions are those on the review that you’ve done? Who is not listed as an author? Who’s actually contributed?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Well, I mean, I don’t really want to get into, I mean, it . . . Unitaid . . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “I think that . . . It needs to be clear. I would like to know who, who are these other voices that are in your paper that are not acknowledged. Does Unitaid have a say? Do they influence what you write?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Unitaid has a say in the conclusions of the paper. Yeah.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Okay. So, who is it in Unitaid, then? Who is giving you opinions on your evidence?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Well, it’s just the people there. I don’t . . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “So they have a say in your conclusions.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Yeah.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Could you please give me a name of someone in Unitaid I could speak to, so that I can share my evidence and hope to try and persuade them to understand it?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Oh, I’ll have a think about who to, to offer you with a name…. But I mean, this is very difficult because I’m, you know, I’ve, I’ve got this role where I’m supposed to produce this paper and we’re in a very difficult, delicate balance….”

Dr. Lawrie interjects: “Who are these people? Who are these people saying this?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Yeah . . . it’s a very strong lobby . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Okay. Look I think I can see [we’re] kind of [at] a dead end, because you seem to have a whole lot of excuses, but, um, you know, that to, to justify bad research practice. So I’m really, really sorry about this, Andy. I really, really wish, and you’ve explained quite clearly to me, in both what you’ve been saying and in your body language that you’re not entirely comfortable with your conclusions, and that you’re in a tricky position because of whatever influence people are having on you, and including the people who have paid you and who have basically written that conclusion for you.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “You’ve just got to understand I’m in a difficult position. I’m trying to steer a middle ground and it’s extremely hard.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Yeah. Middle ground. The middle ground is not a middle ground… [Y]ou’ve taken a position right to the other extreme calling for further trials that are going to kill people. So this will come out, and you will be culpable. And I can’t understand why you don’t see that, because the evidence is there and you are not just denying it, but your work’s actually actively obfuscating the truth. And this will come out. So I’m really sorry . . . As I say, you seem like a nice guy, but I think you’ve just kind of been misled somehow.”

Hill promised he would do everything in his power to get ivermectin approved if she would give him six weeks.

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Well, what I hope is that this, this stalemate that we’re in doesn’t last very long. It lasts a matter of weeks. And I guarantee I will push for this to last for as short amount of time as possible.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “So, how long do you think the stalemate will go on for? How long do you think you will be paid to [make] the stalemate… go on?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “From my side. Okay . . . I think end of February, we will be there six weeks.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “How many people die every day?”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Oh, sure. I mean, you know, 15,000 people a day.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Fifteen thousand people a day times six weeks . . . Because at this rate, all other countries are getting ivermectin except the UK and the USA, because the UK and the USA and Europe are owned by the vaccine lobby.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “My goal is to get the drug approved and to do everything I can to get it approved so that it reaches the maximum. . . .”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “You’re not doing everything you can, because everything you can would involve saying to those people who are paying you, ‘I can see this prevents deaths. So I’m not going to support this conclusion anymore, and I’m going to tell the truth.’”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “What, I’ve got to do my responsibilities to get as much support as I can to get this drug approved as quickly as possible.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Well, you’re not going to get it approved the way you’ve written that conclusion. You’ve actually shot yourself in the foot, and you’ve shot us all in the foot. All of . . . everybody trying to do something good. You have actually completely destroyed it.”

Dr. Andrew Hill: “Okay. Well, that’s where we’ll, I guess we’ll have to agree to differ.”

Dr. Tess Lawrie: “Yeah. Well, I don’t know how you sleep at night, honestly.”

At the conclusion of the January 14 BIRD conference, Dr. Lawrie delivered a monumental closing address that should be recorded among the most important speeches in the annals of medical history. Dr. Lawrie spoke out at considerable personal risk, since her livelihood and career largely rely on the very agencies she targeted for criticism.

Dr. Lawrie began by endorsing the miraculous efficacy of IVM.

Had ivermectin been employed in 2020 when medical colleagues around the world first alerted the authorities to its efficacy, millions of lives could have been saved, and the pandemic with all its associated suffering and loss brought to a rapid and timely end.

Dr. Lawrie told the audience that the suppression of ivermectin was a signal that Pharma’s pervasive corruption had turned a medical cartel against patients and against humanity.

The story of ivermectin has highlighted that we are at a remarkable juncture in medical history. The tools that we use to heal and our connection with our patients are being systematically undermined by relentless disinformation stemming from corporate greed. The story of ivermectin shows that we as a public have misplaced our trust in the authorities and have underestimated the extent to which money and power corrupts.

Dr. Lawrie called for reform of the method used to analyze scientific evidence.

They who design the trials and control the data also control the outcome. So, this system of industry-led trials needs to be put to an end. Data from ongoing and future trials of novel COVID treatments must be independently controlled and analyzed. Anything less than total transparency cannot be trusted.

Dr. Lawrie called out the corruption of modern medicine by Big Pharma and other interests and attributed the barbaric suppression of IVM to the single-minded obsession with more profitable vaccines.

Since then, hundreds of millions of people have been involved in the largest medical experiment in human history. Mass vaccination was an unproven novel therapy. Hundreds of billions will be made by Big Pharma and paid for by the public. With politicians and other nonmedical individuals dictating to us what we are allowed to prescribe to the ill, we as doctors have been put in a position such that our ability to uphold the Hippocratic oath is under attack.

She hinted at Gates’ role in the suppression.

At this fateful juncture, we must therefore choose: will we continue to be held ransom by corrupt organizations, health authorities, Big Pharma, and billionaire sociopaths, or will we do our moral and professional duty to do no harm and always do the best for those in our care? The latter includes urgently reaching out to colleagues around the world to discuss which of our tried and tested safe older medicines can be used against COVID.

Never before has our role as doctors been so important, because never before have we become complicit in causing so much harm.

Finally, Dr. Lawrie suggested that physicians form a new World Health Organization that represents the interests of the people, not corporations and billionaires, a people-centered organization.

There's so much more in the book that it's impossible to summarize.  All I can say is, if you want the facts about how the treatment of COVID-19 has been politicized and monetized, causing literally hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths worldwide and paralyzing nations and regions, you need to read this book.  It's utterly horrifying in its steady drumroll of incontrovertible evidence about what's been going on.

THIS BOOK IS ESSENTIAL READING.  I can't put it more strongly than that.

Peter

Yet another variant of COVID-19?

 

So we have yet another variant of COVID-19 to worry about. Why am I not surprised? And why am I even less surprised by the SHOCK! PANIC! HORROR! reaction of the authorities? They’ll use this new variant to pursue even more of the same VACCINATE! ISOLATE! SUBMIT! OBEY! DON’T THINK FOR YOURSELF! shtick that they’ve been foisting on us since the pandemic began.  I'm sure we'll see the rushed development of yet another booster for the vaccine, which we'll all be pressured to take - despite the known and very serious health risks associated with the present vaccines.

Yes, COVID-19 is a serious risk to our health:  but that's nothing new or strange. We’ve known about coronaviruses since the 1960’s. They ALWAYS evolve, ALWAYS mutate into new forms. Consider the common cold. It’s nothing more or less than a coronavirus! Every season, the cold virus is slightly different than the one before – that’s why nobody’s ever developed an effective vaccine against it. (Influenza, with very similar symptoms to colds, is a virus, but not a coronavirus.)  We've had SARS and MERS, all precursors to COVID-19, and we've beaten them and/or learned to live with them.  We'll do the same again.

When you see this sort of fuss and bother, don’t be surprised. COVID-19 will mutate from now until the end of time, assuming it hangs around (and there’s every prospect that it will). We are extremely unlikely to be able to develop a “one-size-fits-all” vaccine that stops all future variants of it. Like the common cold, we’ll have to learn to live with it – and guess what? There are already remedies that allow us to do that.

Ivermectin (IVM) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) have been proven repeatedly to be effective against COVID-19.  (HCQ was also used to treat SARS and MERS.) Additional medications like azithromycin and doxycycline, plus supplements like zinc, vitamins and (allegedly) quercetin, also contribute to a rapid recovery. Effective protocols for prophylaxis and treatment of COVID-19 have been known for some time, and have been widely circulated and applied. (I’ve had two bouts with COVID-19 myself, and applied those protocols with complete success, despite being subject to several enhanced risk factors.  In anticipation of future bouts with the disease, my medicine chest contains almost all those medications and supplements.)

One is also forced to wonder . . . is the fuss about a new variant an attempt to find an excuse for the literally thousands of cases of people being afflicted with serious heart disease and other ailments, shortly after being vaccinated?  Do a search for the number of first-class athletes and sportsmen who've collapsed during an event, and been taken to hospital with critical illnesses that have sidelined them ever since.  The numbers will astonish you, if your search engine lets you find them.  (Some (coughGooglecough) will censor the results.)  The same goes for children suddenly coming down with myocarditis and pericarditis.  These are not childhood diseases - but suddenly cases are multiplying among vaccinated kids.  Do your own research, and ask yourself:  would a new, allegedly more dangerous COVID-19 variant be a convenient fig-leaf for the authorities to cover up what's going on?

Ultimately, if you find officialdom panicking about a new variant of the coronavirus, ask yourself why that should be. We know COVID-19’s going to evolve, precisely because it’s a coronavirus, and they always evolve. The panic is partly because they don’t want new variants to spread, sure: but we know they will spread eventually, no matter what we do to contain them.

The panic is designed to scare us into obeying the powers that be, yet again.

Don’t be fooled.

Peter

The Ahmaud Arbery trial: Justice was served, just as it was in the Rittenhouse trial

 

I've seen a fair amount of negative comment about the guilty verdicts for the three defendants in the Ahmaud Arbery murder trial.  I think such comments are not only misplaced, but display a fundamental misunderstanding of the law in almost every jurisdiction.

The law does not give anyone a license to play vigilante, which is what the three men just convicted were clearly doing.  They admitted as much in their own words.  Even worse, from their point of view, they admitted it to police while they were being questioned, but before they had a lawyer to advise them.  There's a reason defendants are advised to say nothing to the authorities before they've consulted their defense attorney.  The three men in this case ignored that time-honored advice, and it came back to haunt them.

In most US jurisdictions, citizens do have a right to make an arrest - but only when they see a serious crime being committed in their presence, and are in a position to immediately stop that crime, or prevent the escape of the perpetrator, by detaining him until arresting officers arrive on the scene.  If they see someone after the commission of the crime, even if they suspect he's the guilty party, they do not have that certain knowledge - only suspicion.  They can call the police, describe him, describe his vehicle, tell them where he is and where he's going, and so on - but they do not have the right to "play cop" and arrest him, because the element of immediacy is lacking.  Jurisdictions vary in how they word their legislation to that effect, but the general principle is usually as I've described it.

Too many people get carried away by their sense of macho.  "I'm capable of doing it, so I'm gonna do it!"  Sadly for them, that's simply not true as far as the law is concerned.  We should be grateful for that - otherwise we'd have wannabe cops springing up like mushrooms all over the place.  The history of vigilantism offers many examples where innocent persons have suffered under "mob law" because there was no attempt to establish the facts of the matter.  I've seen that personally in other parts of the world, and it's sickening.  (I described one such incident in an earlier blog post.)

There does appear to be evidence that Ahmaud Arbery may have been guilty of theft immediately prior to his death.  However, we'll never know for sure now, because he was killed before he could be tried and convicted.  Those who murdered him have now been convicted themselves, largely on the basis of their own prejudiced attitudes and ill-advised admissions.  They broke the law, they admitted to it, and they've been convicted of it.  Whether or not Mr. Arbery was guilty, that's as it should be.

Peter

Good point!

 

Recce Rifleman posts this image from social media:

However, he believes it leaves something to be desired:

Please point to one societal collapse from the past 200+ years where these skills trumped combat skills.

This point is certainly not putting down skills of growing food and general "survivalism," but is pointing out that combat skills have been mandatory in every collapse in recent history.

Good point!

I'd like to confirm his perspective.  I've seen societal collapse in ways that are infinitely worse than anything we've experienced (so far) in the USA.  I've traveled through most of sub-Saharan Africa, and seen civil wars and conflicts, actual wars, tribal conflicts, and what have you.  I've "been there and done that" for years, and written about some of that in these pages from time to time.  I'm here to tell you, those with food, fuel and other supplies are always, repeat, ALWAYS targeted by those who have weapons.  It's a fact of life.  I've never, ever seen a situation of unrest or collapse where "those who have" got away unscathed from "those who have not".

This applies to both individuals and mobs, and to both gangs and governments.  If you have something they want or need, they will come after it - and after you, if you don't give it up right away.  This can be a nasty surprise to those who think the rule of law will protect them.  The rule of law is only skin deep.  In fact, the forces of "law and order" will be among the first to come after the "haves" when things go pear-shaped.

• Do you really believe, when everyone's short of everything, that the cops and other officials won't come door to door, demanding to inspect your kitchen and pantry, and confiscating your "excess" supplies under "emergency powers"?  All too often, those powers already exist, even if they've never been used.  Check out your town's and state's emergency legislation, and see for yourself.  They can - and, in my experience in other countries, they will - commandeer everything they need.  Jerry cans of fuel?  Propane cylinders?  Kerosene heaters?  A nice pickup truck?  Your building, even if it's your home?  If they decide they need it, they'll try to take it from you - and, in an extreme emergency, they'll jail, even shoot you if you don't give it up.  See what happened after Hurricane Katrina, and learn from it.  That was mild compared to some situations I've encountered.
• In an emergency, do you really believe that "hoarding" (which any sensible person would describe as "prepping" today) won't be declared a crime in the same league as murder, rape and child molestation, with those guilty of it to be punished?
• Do you really believe that officials won't first apply confiscated stolen food and other supplies to their own needs, before they distribute any to the general public?  "We have to make sure that emergency and essential workers and their families have enough food, clothing and fuel.  Anything less would harm the community!"  Yeah, right... and it's amazing how many people, particularly seat-warming bureaucrats and elected office-holders, will suddenly classify themselves as "emergency and essential workers", and make sure they get theirs ahead of everybody else.  If we did the same, what will you bet that we won't end up in jail for it?
• While officials are doing their thing, do you really believe that the "golden horde" - the mass of people who have very little or nothing - are going to sit back and wait for what they need to be delivered to them?  I'll lay dollars to donuts that the mob will come after those who have what they want.  If you live anywhere near a poorer neighborhood, particularly our inner-city ghettoes, you are going to be targeted for what you have by those who don't have it.  They regard themselves as entitled to it, and they'll try to take it - and if you try to stop them, you'll be accused of racism, "abusing your privilege", selfishness, greed, and anything else that comes to their fevered minds.  They will not leave you alone - and in this day and age, officialdom may well side with them, regardless of what the law has to say.  Sadly, in many places, the rule of law is now more often encountered in the breach rather than the observance.

If you think those things won't happen, you're living in cloud cuckoo land - a fool's paradise.  I've seen them all, repeatedly, in many countries, and I fully expect to see them here as well if things go any more wrong than they are already.

The only time - I say again, THE ONLY TIME - I've seen the "haves" come out of such a conflict relatively intact (albeit usually with at least some damage and casualties) is when they applied a Biblical concept:

When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace.

It's up to you to defend, protect and preserve your family and loved ones, and the supplies and tools they need to survive and thrive.  If you don't, nobody else will.

What's more, you probably won't be able to do that on your own.  If a mob comes down the street, looting and burning, one or two individuals won't be able to hold them off.  It'll take cooperation, coordination and working with others to defend everybody's property and possessions.  You need to be thinking about and planning for that now, while there's still time to do so - and also taking into account the danger that the authorities may side with the mob, and may not want you to defend yourselves.  Beware surveillance technology that might be used against you.

The meme at the start of this article proclaimed, "We will only survive with benevolent skilled communities working together".  True - provided those benevolent skilled communities are also ready, willing and able to defend themselves and their members.  If they aren't, they'll be plowed under by the mob.

I'm not expecting total societal collapse anytime soon;  but I am expecting limited, localized collapse in some urban centers, particularly those with a broad mass of impoverished people who are dependent on one or more forms of state aid (EBT, food stamps, welfare, Social Security, whatever) to survive.  I predict disruptions in those forms of aid, particularly as aid budgets are overstressed by millions of illegal aliens and others who refuse to work.  Couple that with stores closing due to theft and other factors, and entire neighborhoods may run short of essentials.  That may lead to unrest and turmoil in those areas, and those evils may spread from there to neighboring suburbs and towns.  Look for them to be aggravated and intensified by ideological and political agitators such as Black Lives Matter, Antifa and their ilk;  and look for police to back off and let them riot, due to pressure - if not direct orders - from local administrations.

If I'm wrong about all that, great!... but if I'm not, you'd best start thinking right now about how that might affect you, and how you're going to deal with it.  If you live near such areas, I'll lay odds it's coming to you sooner or later.

If you aren't already reading Recce Rifleman's blog, I recommend it.  He's very focused on the practical rather than the theoretical, and I find myself nodding approvingly at a lot of what he has to say.  I've learned rather too much for comfort in the School of Hard Knocks, over the course of rather too many years.  From that background, I'd say he's right on the money more often than not.

Peter

Thanksgiving 2021

 

Despite all the "woke" nonsense that's permeated our country, there's still a great deal to be thankful for this year.  I'm particularly grateful to God for my wife, our friends, the area we live in, and the blessings of being able to live relatively normal lives despite the disruptions causing such harm to so many areas.  May they stay far from us!  If they don't, well, I'm also thankful that we've been able to prepare to fend them off by whatever means may be necessary.

I hope you have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving day.  To remind you of how lucky you - and all of us - are, here's a couple of Thanksgiving memes.

(A tip o' the hat to Kim du Toit for that last one.)

Peter

If you insure through USAA, you might want to check the status of your account...

 

... because it appears some of their customers are having problems.  Beans, blogging at Chant du Depart, describes what he found.

So, there I was, Saturday, planning on holiday meals and planning bills (like car tag renewals and such) and while reviewing my bank statement (on-line, I'm not a total Luddite) and lo and behold, something was missing.

Utilities - check.
Cable/Internet - check.
Rent - check.
Death insurance - check.
Scamazon - check.
Food, food, food, food - check, check, check, check.
Drugs (legal variety) - check.
Car insurance - 
Car insurance - 
CAR INSURANCE!!!???? 

Lo, and behold, the wondrous USAA of which I have been a valued and happy member, thanks to Dad and Mum, for a very long time, has not dunned my account for October or November.

. . .

USAA lady - "Hello, how can I help you?"

Me - "Why have you not dunned my account for October and November?  And does this mean I no longer have car insurance?"

USAA lady - "Well, (goes onto short but clearly understandable explanation of how USAA has gone to new computer system and they migrated most data over, like phone numbers, addresses, email addys, shoe sizes, but not billing info)."

Me - "Just my billing info?  Because that would be my usual luck."

USAA lady - "No, a lot of billing info."

Me - "So you've been answering a lot of these calls?"

USAA lady - "Yes."  Deep remorseful sigh...

There's more at the link.

Of course, I immediately called USAA, and found that our insurance premiums had been debited as usual.  However, our account was no longer listed as "verified", which meant I had to do that at once, otherwise our December premiums would not be withdrawn on time.  That's in hand right now.

Full marks to USAA for sorting out the potential problem as soon as I queried it;  but it's not so good that I had to find out about it through a third-party blog on the Internet.  If you insure through USAA, you might want to give them a call to make sure that everything's on the up and up with your account.

Thanks, Beans, for the heads-up.  It was very timely.

Peter

Wide-area surveillance comes to your city and town

 

I'm sure many of my readers are familiar with the "Gorgon Stare" program.  Briefly, it developed an early wide-area surveillance technology that could observe up to dozens of square miles of any given area, using only one (unmanned or manned) aircraft to carry the sensor(s).  It allows its operators to track an individual, or a vehicle, or a given property, over time, to see who goes there, who leaves, who meets who, which route(s) they follow, what vehicles they use, where they go next, and so on.  It was initially used to trace those planting improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has since been developed to track anything or anyone, anywhere in the area under surveillance.  Its current capabilities are classified, but undoubtedly exceed those of the latest published specifications.  There are many more such systems in existence, including some that are probably so highly classified they're unknown to the public.

The beauty of Gorgon Stare and similar technology, from the point of view of intelligence collectors, is that it doesn't have to target anyone in particular.  It targets everyone it can see.  Their every action, interaction and movement is available to be called up and studied for months or years after the event, if necessary.  No search warrant is needed, either, because the surveillance is not specifically directed against an individual or place.  They just happen to be caught up in the general data capture.  If, later, evidence is needed against them, it's already been captured and can be retrieved in seconds.  Modern computer storage, retrieval and analysis systems make the process effortless.

The recent revelation of almost two terabytes of police surveillance data, gathered through the use of such systems, demonstrates that we have no real privacy left outside our homes.  Wired reports:

The transparency activist group Distributed Denial of Secrets, or DDoSecrets, posted a 1.8-terabyte trove of police helicopter footage to its website on Friday ... The footage ... shows helicopters operating during the day and at night, capturing everything from vistas high overhead to cars lined up at a McDonald's drive-through, and individuals standing in their yards or on local streets. The leak illustrates the inherent risk of collecting and retaining sensitive footage that could be breached.

. . .

The vast majority of the leaked footage appears to come from the Dallas Police Department ... A smaller subset of the data appears to come from the greater Atlanta area ... Georgia State Patrol did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment by publication. GSP’s Aviation Division has 15 helicopters and one Cessna 182 airplane used for operations that include search-and-rescue missions. On its website the division lists other activities, including “aerial photography” and “aerial surveillance.”

. . .

... law enforcement agencies have used helicopters in aerial surveys and monitoring for decades. But the footage released by DDoSecrets illustrates how effective helicopter-mounted cameras can be at capturing extremely sharp and detailed video close to the ground. Helicopters can also carry heavier surveillance equipment than what can be affixed to basic quadcopters or other types of low-cost drones.

“People think of police helicopters as traffic copters, but they're so much more than that,” DDoSecrets’ Best wrote. “They carry technology that lets police watch people who have no idea they're being watched. It's important for people to understand what police technology is already capable of and what it could be capable of soon. There can't be informed discussions or decisions otherwise.”

There's more at the link.

Consider that the FBI had aerial footage of the Kyle Rittenhouse affair, in high definition, that it and the prosecution hid from defense attorneys until literally the last minute - and then only provided them with a low-resolution version of the footage.  They used the high-resolution original in an effort to sway the jury to see things their way.  This was unconscionable, of course;  along with the prosecution's many other deliberate errors, I hope and trust it'll lead to the disbarment of more than one of their attorneys.  Nevertheless, the mere existence of that footage reveals that the authorities knew a lot more about the Rittenhouse affair than they were willing to let on.  I'm willing to bet that sending aircraft or UAV's to obtain such footage of any area affected by riots or demonstrations is now standard operating procedure for Federal and state law enforcement agencies, and for major urban police departments as well.

Consider, too, what this means if you take steps to defend your property and/or your neighborhood against the approach of a threatening mob.  If such surveillance footage is taken of your area (and you have to assume it will be, in a high-tension situation), the authorities will be able to watch every move you make outside your home.  If you form groups;  if you openly carry weapons;  if you coordinate your movement and activities using short-range radios or cellphones that can be intercepted (see my first blog post this morning);  any or all of that information can and probably will be used against you.  Imagine standing in the dock, hearing the prosecutors say this about you:

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this was not self-defense at all, but a planned, premeditated attack on a group of peaceful demonstrators.  Ignore their signs and shouted slogans - those are irrelevant!  Look, we have footage of the defendant gathering with other criminals, all openly carrying weapons and getting into obviously prearranged positions.  They set an ambush on a suburban street, into which the victims walked without warning, to be slaughtered without mercy by vigilante domestic terrorist racist killers like the man in the dock this morning!"

If you think that interpretation won't be placed on the footage by politically correct, "woke" prosecutors, you must have been asleep or unconscious over the past couple of years.  See my articles from last year:

Self-defense under a justice system

that's no longer on your side

No, I wasn't being alarmist -

rather, I wasn't alarmist enough

That's the reality of what we face today, and the reality of the evidence prosecutors can and will deploy against anyone who dares to defend himself, his family and his home against the mob.  That doesn't mean we should not defend ourselves, of course.  It merely means that we'll have to "box clever" and plan ahead.

• Consider ways to move from your home to an interdiction point without exposing yourself to surveillance;  or, if that's not possible, consider ways to disguise yourself so that you won't be recognized.  COVID-19 "plague masks" are a good start.  So are umbrellas, raincoats, ponchos or anything else that breaks up the outline of your body.  Consider pebbles in your shoes to change the way you walk, because gait analysis can reveal your identity as surely as your face.
• Don't carry what are obviously weapons, or containers that are the right size to conceal weapons.  Rather position them ahead of time, in secure "stashes" where they're unlikely to be found.  Just in case some are found, it's not a bad idea if they're "off paper":  weapons that can't be traced back to you, and don't have your fingerprints on them or the ammunition, etc. they contain.  Multiples of such weapons are useful, in case one or more is found and/or confiscated and/or held by police for ballistics tests.  (Preferably leave no material behind that can be tested.  Fragmenting ammunition is very hard to test for rifling and other marks, and brass catchers are your friend!)
• Consider combining with friends to deceive surveillance.  Let's say 5 of you need to get together in a group.  If 20 people leave their homes at the same time, and walk around a neighborhood, passing and re-passing each other, exchanging burdens, forming small groups then splitting up again, using cover such as trees and the shadows of buildings to change direction... it may not stop surveillance, but it'll make it a lot more difficult to follow people and know what they're doing.  A technology that can back-track suspects may be able to unravel such maneuvers, but only after the fact.

There are many other ways to protect yourself, including certain technologies and accessories that those with recent military service will know more about than I.  Learn from them if you get the chance.

Peter

A massive police operation proves, yet again, that NO electronic communication is secure

 

I'm cynically amused by those who believe that an allegedly "secure" or "private" electronic communications facility - an encrypted cellphone, an e-mail service like Protonmail, a commercial encryption program, or whatever - will preserve their electronic privacy.  That's a pipe-dream.  Today, anyone - not just police or governments, but private citizens too - can buy software to penetrate just about any "secure" electronic communications you can imagine.

That's just been demonstrated in a major international police operation.  Note how "tame" hackers assisted their efforts.

The gangsters plotting to assassinate a judge thought they were leaving nothing to chance. But cops hundreds of miles away were on to them thanks to a stakeout with a modern twist.

Using supposedly impregnable encrypted phones, the Serbian hit men discussed earlier this year how wind direction and distance could affect the sniper’s bullet and planned their getaway. Unbeknown to them, their messages were also flashing up on the computer screens of a secret police team in Belgium that had hacked into the messenger service, called Sky ECC. The Belgians warned police in Serbia, who whisked the judge to safety.

The infiltration was a signature success in efforts by authorities across the world to counter encrypted communications—a powerful new tool for criminal gangs to hide their identities and hatch plans in secret.

. . .

Law-enforcement officials say infiltrating Sky was the largest of several recent strikes against encrypted platforms. Authorities gathered roughly one billion messages from tens of thousands of Sky-enabled devices world-wide, which could feed investigations for years. Belgium has detained more than 500 suspects and seized 88 metric tons of cocaine, already exceeding last year’s record haul.

“Sky was monstrous,” said Scott A. Albrecht, who served as the DEA’s attaché in Belgium until July. “It was so global and such a volume of messages.”

. . .

Sky, through its website and a network of resellers, offered Apple, Google and BlackBerry handsets loaded with sophisticated encryption software and with their GPS, cameras and microphones disabled. Messages were automatically deleted after 48 hours if the contact wasn’t reachable, and devices could be wiped remotely. Sky billed the platform as impenetrable and offered a prize of up to $5 million to anyone who could hack it.

. . .

Authorities tracked a Sky server to northern France and worked with officials there to gain access. At first, they could only see the metadata, including the nicknames of users and the names of group chats, but not the messages. Then, an international team of hackers from as far afield as Australia found a way to decrypt roughly half of the three million daily messages.

. . .

The messages and photos pinging across the world astounded even experienced investigators. Users, confident in the platform’s impregnability, shared pictures of corpses, severed heads and other body parts, as well as bricks of cocaine and stacks of cash. One user sent a photograph to demonstrate he had carried out an order to torture a victim. When one enforcer in a Western European country couldn’t find the man he was supposed to pummel, he received new instructions: “Here are pictures of the wife. You can break her legs” ... “Normally in an investigation, you have to dig a lot to find a small piece of gold,” said Belgian Federal Prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw. “Here, we had an open gold mine.”

There's more at the link.

Similar reports have been received from around the world in recent years.  If police forces can achieve such success, you'd better believe that the criminal world, and those who have good enough reason to want to penetrate personal Internet and communications security (including private detectives), can do the same.

That applies particularly to those opposed to the Biden administration's ideology, policies and actions.  They may think they can discuss countermeasures privately, but I guaran-damn-tee them that their communications are open to any scrutiny anyone in authority cares to apply.

Before and during World War II, the communications services of the German Wehrmacht (military) had a saying:  "Alle funkverkehr ist Landesverrat".  It translates as "All radio traffic is high treason".  They were right, because even if not decoded or decrypted, message traffic always reveals something of interest to the enemy.  It might be the frequency or volume of messages;  the radio frequency(ies) used to transmit and/or receive them;  the personal Morse code "signature" of an operator;  pattern analysis of traffic;  the whereabouts of transmitters, often revealing the existence of a unit or regional headquarters, or that it's moved to a new location;  and so on.  Thanks to the experts at Bletchley Park, Britain also had access to a great many coded messages that the Germans blithely assumed were completely secure.  Only many years after the war was it revealed that their signals had been penetrated to so vast an extent.

The same thing can be said today about any communication about any sensitive issue.  Unless conveyed by "sneakernet", using entirely trustworthy methods of transmission, the message is not secure - and even then, if a package is intercepted or a messenger is interrogated, all bets are off.  When cellphones can be triggered remotely, and download apps without your knowledge or permission, and Trojan horses or viruses such as Stuxnet can be used to infect your computer, there is no such thing as electronic privacy any more.

In this day and age, you might want to keep that firmly in mind.

Peter