Do Not Run For Federal Office!

By Brion McClanahan

This probably one of the hardest points to make for those interested in government reform, but if you want change, stay away from the Leviathan.

Unfortunately, that Siren sings a sweet song. It’s captivating. Every election cycle, someone interested in (supposedly) shrinking government mounts a campaign for federal office. Roy Moore provided the latest example.

Moore was a severely flawed candidate. That is why he lost. But losing did nothing to change the mess in D.C. Nor would anything have changed if Moore ended up in the win column. Had Moore won, the federal government would continue to grow in size, scope, and power. Moore may have even voted for some of it. See his positions on “national defense.”

Just look at Ron Paul’s career as another warning. Paul’s principled attack on the federal government did not net any lasting victory. The federal government was bigger and more oppressive than when he arrived in the swamp. He certainly had an impact in moving the idea of smaller government forward, but tangible successes were marginal at best.

This is why even he has shifted his focus away from the capitol and to the several statehouses. Think locally, act locally.

If you want to make an impact, run for state office and begin the process of removing consent. For all of his faults, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is threatening to refuse federal infrastructure money in order to thumb his nose at the Trump administration. This has been incorrectly labeled as a “progressive agenda.” It is more accurately the constitutionally correct position. Federal infrastructure spending has always been unconstitutional. Just ask Jefferson, Madison, or Monroe for starters. Of course, de Blasio is not doing it as a constitutional purist. His motive is entirely political, but it’s a start. More state and local officials need to stop slopping at the federal trough.

That is where a “Roy Moore” type candidate at the state level would be exponentially more effective. Just say no to federal power. Dan Fisher is running this type of campaign in Oklahoma. He made one of the funniest political ads in recent memory. Even if you don’t agree with him on the issues, his Oklahoma for Oklahomans model should be copied in every state, even by lefties who want more government. You can get it in your state, just leave the rest of us alone.

I talk about this is Episode 136 of The Brion McClanahan Show, the last episode of 2017. I’ll be back “on the air” the week of January 8.

Theft, Government Style

By Porter

As almost certainly you know already, the dollars in your bank [or wallet] are being stolen every day, no matter what your account balance may indicate. Just because the explicit numbers haven’t declined, doesn’t mean the implicit value hasn’t. Inflation is absolutely the most palatable tax for politicians, because it does its work in such professional silence. The government doesn’t even have to overtly tax at all to operate. It could simply print the necessary cash for its operations, as was precisely the case with Quantitative Easing. But do you think that would be getting Government for free?

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

Our "Ambassador" to the Kabuki Known as the "United Nations"

By Thomas DiLorenzo

A Russian comedian posed as the Prime Minister of Poland and put in a call to Nimrata Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the UN.  He made up the name of “Binomo” of a non-existent country that he said is in the South China Sea, and claimed that Putin interfered in the election there.  Nimrata assured him that she was fully aware of this latest outrage by the diabolical enemy of humanity, Putin.

Nimrata Haley once again proves what a dim-witted, egomanical jerk she is, which of course makes her the perfect neocon puppet and World War III instigator.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

For the Sheeple

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

Words to Live By

Yes Virginia; There WAS meddeling in the 2016 Election

The Deep State's "Insurance Policy"

By David Stockman. 

 

There was a sinister plot to meddle in the 2016 election, after all. But it was not orchestrated from the Kremlin; it was an entirely homegrown affair conducted from the inner sanctums---the White House, DOJ, the Hoover Building and Langley----of the Imperial City.

Likewise, the perpetrators didn't speak Russian or write in the Cyrillic script. In fact, they were lifetime beltway insiders occupying the highest positions of power in the US government.

Here are the names and rank of the principal conspirators: John Brennan, CIA director; Susan Rice, National Security Advisor; Samantha Power, UN Ambassador; James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence; James Comey, FBI director; Andrew McCabe, Deputy FBI director; Sally Yates, deputy Attorney General, Bruce Ohr, associate deputy AG; Peter Strzok, deputy assistant director of FBI counterintelligence; Lisa Page, FBI lawyer; and countless other lessor and greater poobahs of Washington power, including President Obama himself.

To a person, the participants in this illicit cabal shared the core trait that made Obama such a blight on the nation's well-being. To wit, he never held an honest job outside the halls of government in his entire adult life; and as a careerist agent of the state and practitioner of its purported goods works, he exuded a sanctimonious disdain for everyday citizens who make their living along the capitalist highways and by-ways of America.

The above cast of election-meddlers, of course, comes from the same mold. If Wikipedia is roughly correct, just these 10 named perpetrators have punched in about 300 years of post-graduate employment---and 260 of those years (87%) were on government payrolls or government contractor jobs.

As to whether they shared Obama's political class arrogance, Peter Strzok left nothing to the imagination in his now celebrated texts to his gal-pal, Lisa Page:

"Just went to a southern Virginia Walmart. I could SMELL the Trump support......I LOATHE congress....And F Trump."

You really didn't need the ALL CAPS to get the gist.
In a word, the anti-Trump cabal is comprised of creatures of the state.

Read the rest if you have a strong stomach

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

The Russian Tar Baby

By Gary Grindler

After only one month of Trump's counterpunches [against his enemies], most Americans are questioning the objectivity of Mueller and his team. The reputation of Mueller's team drops further every day. This is also facilitated by the fact that all the official charges put forward by the Mueller team so far are unrelated to either Trump or Russia. FBI agent Strzok (who was fired from Mueller's team for ardent anti-Trumpism) mentioned that this whole "Russiagate" against Trump started simply as an "insurance policy" for the Washington swamp in case of Trump’s win. Nobody needs to explain to Americans what it means.

Since it became known that it was agent Strzok, a Hillary supporter, who not only initiated the Russian investigation but also the termination of the case against Hillary Clinton for criminal negligence in possession of top secret documents, many are calling for the "investigation of investigators." Of course, the criminalization of American politics will make our country look and feel very similar to the proverbial banana republics. Nevertheless, the Democrats have made their choice in favor of this particular method of political vendetta.

If evidence is presented that the Obama administration used FSU disinformation [in the form of the notorious Trump/Russian dossier] to obtain permission from the secret FISA court to wiretap the Trump campaign, the reputation of the Democrats and Obama will be destroyed. It is no secret to anyone that the Watergate scandal has led to the fact that the use of government institutions to spy on political opponents has become a real political taboo in America.

The surrealism of the situation lies in the fact that the Russian attempt to influence the elections in America seems to have been confirmed. Republicans should have listened to the Democrats when they accused Russia of interfering in the election process in America -- the Democrats knew exactly what they were talking about.

They knew that this Russian attempt was carried out not through Donald Trump, but through Democratic supporters of Hillary Clinton.

Full article here

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

A Fading Glimmer of Hope for Peace

By Antonius Aquinas

After nearly a year of gaffes, provocations, threats, bombings, destabilizing arms deals, and, most recently, the disastrous decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, the sanest member of the Trump Administration, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, appeared to have begun a new and promising diplomatic direction in relations with tiny, beleaguered North Korea.

In a surprising statement given to a Washington think tank on December 12, Secretary Tillerson said:

We are ready to talk anytime North Korea would
like to talk.  We are ready to have the first meeting
without preconditions.  Let’s just meet.  We can talk
about the weather if you want.  We can talk about
whether its going to be a square table or a round table
if that’s what you’re excited about.  And then we can
begin to lay out a road map.*

He perceptively added that it was “unrealistic” for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons program.

Tillerson’s reasonable approach, however, did not sit very well with either his boss or the blood thirsty war hawks within the Administration who now have enough ammunition to force his removal, probably after the first of the year.  One of Trump’s top aides reportedly said Tillerson “hasn’t learned his lesson.”**

A couple of days later, and probably after a tongue lashing by the Chief Executive, Tillerson had taken back his earlier statement and was once again pushing the hardcore, neocon line declaring: “North Korea must earn its way back to the table.  The pressure campaign must and will continue until denuclearization is achieved.”***

The “preconditions” for any US-North Korean talks was spelled out by the Secretary of State: a “sustained cessation of North Korea’s threatening behavior” and that the “ultimate outcome [of the talks] would be for North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.”****

As an astute appraiser of the situation, Tillerson understands that the preconditions set by the US will never be agreed to by North Korea.  They would be insane to do so.  Kim Jong Un realizes what happens to regimes that renounce their nuclear weapons program – their leadership usually faces a grisly demise – see Iraq and Libya.

Why is it that the US should unilaterally set preconditions?  Doesn’t North Korea have any say in how negotiations should commence?  Wasn’t it North Korea that bore much of the destruction in the “police action” of the 1950s, when 10% of its population perished and only a few buildings remained standing in its capital after merciless American carpet bombing?
The effects of what the US did are still embedded in the North Korean psyche,  President Trump, who avoided military service during the Vietnam War due to a mysterious foot ailment, called it “pointless” to negotiate without preconditions which would in effect mean surrender for North Korea.

While anti-immigration proponents and border wall enthusiasts continue to press President Trump to fulfill his campaign promise, illegal immigration is still secondary to that of war and peace.  In fact, the two are linked.  A de-escalation of tensions in North Korea as Secretary Tilllerson’s path would most likely lead to would mean that the Trump Administration could concentrate more on domestic issues with the first priority being border security.

Secretary Tillerson’s level-headed thinking should be applied to other parts of the world that the US has poked its unwanted nose into.  A pull back in its role as global policeman would reduce the massive wasteful defense spending which would leave resources available for the domestic economy.

If, God forbid, war does break out on the Korean peninsula, the blame can be directly placed on the crazed war hawks of the Trump Administration up to and including the Chief Executive himself and not in the more moderate voices like Rex Tillerson. Not only would there be massive bloodshed and destruction from such a conflict, but it might lead to a general world conflagration.

Ultimately, however, even Rex Tillerson’s approach goes beyond what a true America First foreign policy should look like.  America has no business being involved in the political affairs of Korea.  Non-intervention, free trade, and cultural exchange are the principles of a true America First program.  Only when these ideals are adopted will the crisis on the Korean Peninsula be solved.

*Tyler Durden, “After Shocking Reversal Tillerson, North Korea Agrees ‘It’s Important to Avoid War.'”  Zero Hedge 12 December 2017.  http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/after-shocking-tillerson-reversal-north-korea-agrees-it-important-avoid-war
**Jason Ditz.  “Trump Allies: Tillerson Hasn’t Learned His Lesson.”  Antiwar.com  15 December 2017.  http://news.antiwar.com/2017/12/15/trump-allies-tillerson-hasnt-learned-his-lesson/
***Carol Morello, “In Reversal, Tillerson says N. Korea must ‘earn’ way back to talks.”  The Washington Post, 16 December 2017,  A9.
****Ibid.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

The House of Cards

By Robert Gore

History demonstrates that collectivist regimes which stifle economic and political freedom often turn to war, plunder, and empire building to mask their repression and failures at home. Doesn’t that describe the US government to a tee? It has military bases and deploys special operations forces all over the world. In the name of global order and fighting terrorism, it has engaged in more wars this century than any other government. To instill domestic “order,” the national security state surveils everyone, including a president-elect, and subverts the press.

Not only do wars add a lot of chits to the debt pile, but guess which generation gets to fight them? Not that the military is having trouble filling its ranks. It offers steady jobs with good benefits—hard to find in the private sector—for those who avoid getting killed or maimed.

It takes a while for those millennials who find their way into the private sector to discover how thoroughly it is dominated by the public sector. The meddling, stifling, counterproductive hand of government weighs on every important economic activity. In some jurisdictions kids can’t even sell lemonade without a permit. It takes time, experience, and investigation to discover another truth: regulation protects the entrenched and stifles the new and innovative.

The apotheosis is finance and banking. Central bank debt monetization and interest rate suppression promote government debt and add to the millennials’ load. The Fed is owned by the banks, buys their securities, promotes their cartel, and acts as their agent in Washington. Cheap money drives up the price of financial assets, which millennials by and large don’t own. Reams of legislation and regulation not only make it difficult to impossible for competitive new entrants, but are explicitly designed to ensure that members of the old guard don’t fail. When they nevertheless fail, they get bailed out.

It is the intellectual crime of the century to call this bastardized state of affairs capitalism or freedom. Capitalism—investment, production, and voluntary exchange—is what people do when they’re left to their own devices and are free to pursue their own legitimate interests. It was dealt a mortal blow in 1913 with the establishment of the central bank and income tax, and buried in the New Deal. It’s no surprise the left falsely labels the grotesque and failing mixed economy capitalism. It’s every failure can be ascribed to capitalism and used as a justification for more government.

What’s revolting is the rhetoric of capitalism’s so-called defenders. Conservatives ritualistically praise a “free market system” that hasn’t existed for decades. It’s useful cover: invoke the free market while supporting and profiting from collectivist skims and scams. From the dwindling ranks of true entrepreneurs and honest businesspeople the rhetoric snares some of the more gullible. However, even when the red team has full control of the government, it just keeps getting bigger, more intrusive, and more powerful, reminiscent of communism.

Read the entire essay

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

The US Police State is not "Coming" It Is Here

By Doug Casey

International Man

Is a police state in the US possible? Absolutely.
That’s because people are essentially the same the world over, regardless of their culture, religion, race, or what-have-you. A certain percentage of them are sociopaths.

There is a standard distribution of sociopaths across time and space. It’s a function of Pareto’s Law, better known as the 80-20 rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Another 20% are responsible for 80% of the crime. 20% of the population always winds up with 80% of the wealth. And so forth, through all areas of human endeavor. This observation can be represented by a bell-shaped curve—a “standard distribution”—with a small minority at each extreme, but the large majority in the middle. The people who will take us to a police state are sociopaths—criminal personalities who don’t respect the liberty or property of others. And sociopaths gravitate towards government, and eventually come to control it.

My view is that 80% of human beings are basically decent, get along, go along types. 20% are what you might call potential trouble sources, that can go either way. But then you take 20% of that 20% and you’re dealing with the sociopaths.

When social conditions reach a certain stage these really bad guys come out from under their rocks and take advantage of the situation. We’re seeing that right now in the US, across the political spectrum. Just as we’ve seen in the past in hundreds of places throughout history.

A major tipping point occurred sixteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, with the attacks in New York and Washington. They were disastrous. But not nearly as disastrous as the government’s reaction to them.

Among them the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Anybody that speaks German knows that a reasonable translation of Homeland Security is Geheime Staatspolizei, which is usually abbreviated to Gestapo. Anybody that goes through airline security these days should ask themselves, “Where the hell did they find these people? Didn’t they have jobs before they went to work for this moronic agency?” The answer is that there are people out there who like wearing costumes, are willing to boss, herd, interrogate, and go through the dirty laundry of their fellow citizens. They take their jobs seriously and you better not even look at them sideways. There’s no reason to believe it’s going to get better as they groove into their jobs, and their employer cements itself into place. More likely the trend will accelerate.

Is America currently a police state? Well, let’s see. You can still get in your car and go anywhere, although you might be stopped by the police and you might be detained if your papers aren’t in order. Or the officer thinks you’re not properly respectful. Or you have “too much” cash.

Was there any particular day that Germany became a police state in the 1930s? I’m not sure you can put your finger on any one particular day, even after Hitler was legally and democratically elected. It was a progression, with new laws, new regulations, new taxes every day. While more fear and hysteria were worked up among the populace. Kristallnacht didn’t occur the day after the National Socialists took power.

It’s a case of the frog being put in a kettle of water where the temperature is gradually raised to a boil. That’s what’s occurring in the US. After 9/11, in addition to Homeland Security, we got the Patriot Act, with, among other things, its suspension of habeas corpus. That means that the government can lock anybody up for any reason and not even have to tell them why. Accuse them of being an “enemy combatant”—a neologism that justifies anything, and is robotically and thoughtlessly accepted by Boobus americanus—and anything is possible. Including a trip to a CIA black site in some Third World hellhole. This is something I thought was settled in Western Civilization with the Magna Carta and King John. But we’re going backwards in most areas of personal freedom. And America, of all places, is leading the way—even while falling behind economically.
I don’t know if I can put my finger on exactly when we’re going to go over the edge, but if I was going to guess I would think the real catalyst is going to be the next 9/11-type event. And I don’t doubt it’s going to happen.

How are we any different than the Germans in the 1930s? This was one of the most civilized, best educated countries in Europe and they fell into the abyss. I suppose we’re a bit different. Americans are addicted to welfare, anti-depressant drugs, food, and electronic devices. That should certainly give us a better outcome…
There’s a joke I like to tell. Let me ask you this: Which is the gravest danger? Is it the ignorance, or is it the apathy of the average American today? Stumped? Here’s the answer: I don’t know and I don’t care.

Reprinted with permission from International Man.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

Alabama was the model for future stolen elections

by Jim Stone

ALABAMA CANNOT EVEN PROVE THE VOTES WERE COUNTED AT ALL.
I am sure by now everyone out there has seen the clear and sympathetic yet blatantly fraudulent explanation for how Moore lost. The explanation, which has been given by some MSM and even many “friendly” alt media types goes like this:
“Moore lost because he was a flawed candidate who was slandered and “we cannot allow this kind of slander anymore”. “People just could not get past the slander and believed he actually did it, and conservatives just could not bring themselves to put a molester in office”. “So not enough conservatives went out and voted, and with such a high number of blacks voting, Moore lost”.

This story sounds at least tenuously plausible, and if it works, “they” will use it. I cannot see how anyone who is real alt media would ever believe it, or publish it, especially when the court order which allowed the tally to be deleted immediately after the election was highly indicative of planned fraud and made it possible for election officials to publish a fully false, never counted “result”. If asked to prove they counted the votes, they can just say OOPS, we deleted the count.

Even our enemies in media are to a degree “acting sympathetic” and saying Gee, maybe that election was not fair because of the slander against Moore, but it happened, and we must accept the results. PROBLEM: It did not happen that way and if we “accept the results” a win is a win, and tyranny wins.

Here is what actually happened:

The false allegations against Moore were hugely and widely exposed LONG AGO and did not affect him at all. He completely rebounded. From all legit social media posts I have found, voter turnout by conservatives exceeded the 2016 election and Moore should have had more votes than Trump did. But they were votes that were never considered and never counted, because the vote totals that actually got used for the count were already decided by corrupt poll officials before the election, who then lied and said only a few turned up to vote.

HERE IS PROOF:

There is a cold hard reason why the Alabama supreme court made an unprecedented final hour decision to allow all accountability for the vote to be destroyed immediately after the election. Folks, the only way that would happen is if they blatantly stole the election before a single vote was cast, and the court was in on the steal. They knew it was such a landslide for Moore that people would seriously question his loss, and the only way to shut up critics of the “results” was to simply have no results they could question. I have seen even scamming alt media types say that deleting the electronic record did not matter. Question: IF IT DID NOT MATTER, WHY THE F*** WAS A FINAL HOUR DECISION MADE TO ALLOW IT? I have the clear and perfect answer here.

There was no count. And in the interim between now and any “recount,” these corrupt poll officials are going through all the ballots RIGHT NOW and are making the vote “correct”. With no electronic record left they will get away with it. This is a perfect model for stealing elections. It starts by simply lying about what the initial electronic tally was (or not making one at all), then they “delete” that tally, and then before a recount of anything on paper is done, they work overtime and make the paper match. They have a LOT more time to work on this than they did on election night, they will get it done.

It would be easy to explain it all away by saying the dead voted. I am sure they did. It would be easy to explain it all away by saying fraudsters came in from neighboring states and rigged it due to a lack of an ID check. I am sure they did. And it would be easy to explain this by saying they were busing people around to different polling locations. I am sure they did. But the landslide for Moore was so huge that even taking those measures did not cut it, and they feared they would not cut it, so they had everything in place to scam the vote entirely, behind closed doors, ahead of the election. The situation in Alabama is so blatant that it best matches the scenario of no votes being counted at all.

There is proof of that being precisely the case. At the end of the count, when it was supposed to be predominantly democrat votes getting counted, Moore stayed within a few thousand votes of Jones the whole way. THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE. If his base hated him enough to put it close at the time his opponent’s votes got counted, he should have been slam dunked into the trash. He was not. The tally simply ended within 0.04 percent of what it took to not trip an automatic recount. It was so hoaxed that only an AI could have managed it that well, UNLESS, OF COURSE, IT WAS ALL DECIDED AHEAD OF TIME, AND NO VOTES ACTUALLY GOT COUNTED AT ALL. THAT WOULD BE A GREAT REASON TO HAVE THE COURT ALLOW THE RECORD OF THAT COUNT TO BE “DESTROYED,” RIGHT? Now, if they are asked to prove they counted the vote, they can just say they deleted it. That makes sense.

FOLKS, IF THE COURT ALLOWED THE TALLY RECORD TO BE DESTROYED, YOU CAN’T PROVE A COUNT EVER HAPPENED.

THE ONUS IS NOW ON ALABAMA. PEOPLE NEED TO STAND UP AND DEMAND THEY PROVE THE VOTES EVER GOT COUNTED AT ALL. AND THEY CAN’T PROVE IT. THEY CANNOT PROVE IT.

There is no explanation for what happened in Alabama, so if anyone has one, don’t play stupid and accept it.

If even an alt media talking head says there was a way for Moore to have lost legitimately, and we believe it, we face a future in all elections that is JUST LIKE ALABAMA. If anyone in alt media says there was a way for Moore to have lost, they are either too stupid to remember what things were like a few days ago, or never paid attention, or most likely fake opposition.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

The Alternative Reality of Cultural Marxism

By Thomas DiLorenzo

Academic Rigor is Racist, Sexist, Homophobic says one Donna Riley, the dean of the school of “engineering education” (as opposed to real engineering) at Purdue University.  Academic rigor has too much “hardness,” “stiffness,” and “erectness,” says the apparently sex-obsessed Ms. Riley.  It is therefore a tool of oppression by “white heterosexual males,” who she characterizes as the root of all worldly evil in keeping with the standard cultural Marxist  mantra.  She calls for the abandonment of academic rigor in the teaching of engineering education at Purdue University in order to combat white heterosexual male privilege and oppression.

You would have “engineering education” at Purdue University.  The Purdue administration apparently picked Ms. Riley from what must have been a large list of candidates for the job based on her desire to destroy academic rigor in the engineering education program.  One wonders if there was any real engineering faculty input into the hiring decision.  Probably not, from such a white heterosexual male-dominated field.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ

BEYOND Fake News

The "Mainstream" US media has now moved beyond
fake news and is pushing its wishful thinking as real news:

By Glenn Greenwald

Friday was one of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time. The humiliation orgy was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, with countless pundits, commentators and operatives joining the party throughout the day. By the end of the day, it was clear that several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.

The spectacle began on Friday morning at 11:00 am EST, when the Most Trusted Name in News™ spent 12 straight minutes on air flamboyantly hyping an exclusive bombshell report that seemed to prove that WikiLeaks, last September, had secretly offered the Trump campaign, even Donald Trump himself, special access to the DNC emails before they were published on the internet. As CNN sees the world, this would prove collusion between the Trump family and WikiLeaks and, more importantly, between Trump and Russia, since the U.S. intelligence community regards WikiLeaks as an “arm of Russian intelligence,” and therefore, so does the U.S. media.

This entire revelation was based on an email which CNN strongly implied it had exclusively obtained and had in its possession. The email was sent by someone named “Michael J. Erickson” – someone nobody had heard of previously and whom CNN could not identify – to Donald Trump, Jr., offering a decryption key and access to DNC emails that WikiLeaks had “uploaded.” The email was a smoking gun, in CNN’s extremely excited mind, because it was dated September 4 – ten days before WikiLeaks began promoting access to those emails online – and thus proved that the Trump family was being offered special, unique access to the DNC archive: likely by WikiLeaks and the Kremlin.

It’s impossible to convey with words what a spectacularly devastating scoop CNN believed it had, so it’s necessary to watch it for yourself to see the tone of excitement, breathlessness and gravity the network conveyed as they clearly believed they were delivering a near-fatal blow on the Trump/Russia collusion story:

There was just one small problem with this story: it was wishful thinking fundamentally false, in the most embarrassing way possible. Hours after CNN broadcast its story – and then hyped it over and over and over – the Washington Post reported that CNN got the key fact of the story wrong.
The email was not dated September 4, as CNN claimed, but rather September 14 – which means it was sent after WikiLeaks had already published access to the DNC emails online. Thus, rather than offering some sort of special access to Trump, “Michael J. Erickson” was simply some random person from the public encouraging the Trump family to look at the publicly available DNC emails that WikiLeaks – as everyone by then already knew – had publicly promoted. In other words, the email was the exact opposite of what CNN presented it as being.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ under: you cant make this sh*t up

With "Friends" Like These...

...Second Amendment supporters don't need enemies

By Tho Bishop

On Wednesday, the Republican controlled house voted to further federalize gun laws in this country. While Ryan McMaken has noted the danger in further centralizing gun legislation, there is another deeply troubling aspect to this bill: it expands the ability of the Federal government to restrict Americans’ right to bear arms.

During the legislative process, the NRA supported merging the bill aimed at nationalizing concealed carry permits with another piece of legislation aimed at “fixing” the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS.) Obviously this legislation was inspired by the failure of the US Air Force to report the criminal record of Devin Kelley, who went on to commit a horrific shooting in Sutherland Springs, Texas. While the motivation to do something after this atrocity is entirely natural, unfortunately this bill is simply another example of the Federal government using its own failure to justify expanding its own power.


After all, the “Fix NICS” bill doesn’t seek to punish the US Air Force for its failure to properly process paperwork. Instead, it provides $760 million in additional funding for the Department of Justice to establish new guidelines to ensure compliance among Federal agencies. That funding can also be used “to ensure maximum coordination” between State government and Indian tribes with the NICS.
While the idea of bolstering the already existing Federal gun registry may strike some as relatively benign, it’s important to understand how it has been used in the past.
As Congressman Thomas Massie noted in his own criticism of the bill:

When President Obama couldn’t get Congress to pass gun control, he implemented a strategy of compelling, through administrative rules, the Veterans Administration and the Social Security Administration to submit lists of veterans and seniors, many of whom never had a day in court, to be included in the NICS database of people prohibited from owning a firearm. Only a state court, a federal (article III) court, or a military court, should ever be able to suspend your rights for any significant period of time.

While Republicans and supporters of the NRA may not fear the Trump Administration coming after their guns, it is obviously reckless to grant additional power and resources to future administrative states that may be quite hostile to the right to gun ownership. To put it simply, there is never a good reason to give Federal agencies the power the revoke an individual's ability to lawfully purchase a weapon without due process.
Further, if one needed an example of how dangerous it is to centralize gun legislation in Washington DC, look no further to what gun owners in states like Ohio and Hawaii are currently facing. Both states, having recently legalized the use of medical marijuana, have placed those who need it with the choice of either owning a gun or receiving life-improving medicine.

In 2011, the Federal government sent a letter to licensed gun dealers reiterating that marijuana users were prohibited from owning a gun – even if it they have a medical prescription. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this decision last year. Hawaii, which requires gun registration, has gone as far as to sending letters to permitted gun owners with marijuana prescriptions requiring they turn over their weapon. While the state is currently asking for “voluntary cooperation,” it could be a matter of time before it turns into compulsory compliance.

While the simplicity provided by nationalizing laws is an understandable appeal, especially if you’re a gun owner who frequently travels, political centralization is never the answer. By supporting this flawed attempt at “National Concealed Carry Reciprocity,” the NRA and their supporters in the House have sided with the power of Federal agencies over the Second Amendment rights of Americans.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ 

Book Review: Who Knew?

By Dorothy Cummings McLean 

Bombshell: Book claims Pope Francis expected Benedict’s abdication

December 6, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) – An explosive new book is claiming not only that Pope Francis is a power-hungry, manipulative dictator, but that he celebrated the abdication of Benedict XVI.

The Dictator Pope, by a pseudonymous author who calls himself Marcantonio Colonna, claims to describe what Pope Francis is like when his adoring public isn’t looking: “arrogant, dismissive of people, prodigal of bad language and notorious for furious outbursts of temper which are known to everyone from the cardinals to the chauffeurs.”

Despite the hidden identity of the author, the book has hit the bestseller list and received praise from seasoned Vatican watchers.

According to the book, Francis is a master manipulator, and was fully conscious of both attempts to have him elected pope. When the 2005 Conclave elected Cardinal Ratzinger instead, the formerly conservative Cardinal Bergoglio adopted a newly progressive stance in line with the theology of his backers. And it seems that he was privy to the resurrection of their plans when Benedict cut his own papacy short. According to Colonna:

“By the middle of 2012, a few insiders in the Curia knew that Pope Benedict was considering abdication; he had confided his intention to two of his closest associates, the Secretary of State Cardinal Bertone, and the papal secretary Archbishop Ganswein, and he had named the exact date: 28 February 2013.
“Cardinal Bergoglio’s communications with Rome were abruptly stepped up from this time, rising to hectic levels as the date approached. Sure enough, on 11 February 2013 Pope Benedict made his public announcement to the cardinals, and it took almost the whole world by surprise; not Bergoglio and his associates, however, as eyewitnesses discovered.
“On the day of the announcement itself, the rector of Buenos Aires cathedral went to visit his Cardinal and found him exultant. During their interview, the telephone never stopped ringing with international calls from Bergoglio’s allies, and they were all calls of personal congratulation. One Argentinian friend, however, less well informed than the others, rang up to ask about the extraordinary news, and Bergoglio told him:’You don’t know what this means’.”

Renowned Italian journalist and Vatican expert Marco Tosatti who writes for the Italian daily La Stampa, called The Dictator Pope  “important” and  “a panoramic view” of the historic events of the Bergoglian papacy so far. Robert Royal, editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing and papal watcher for EWTN, characterises The Dictator Pope as “far more probing and detailed than anything that has previously appeared” about Francis’ papacy.

Royal cautions that the book “sometimes stretches evidence,” but adds “the sheer amount of evidence it provides is stunning. About 90 percent of it is simply incontrovertible, and cannot help but clarify who Francis is and what he’s about.”

The United Kingdom’s most popular Catholic weekly comments that The Dictator Pope is “at times harsh,” but praises it saying it “draws on a wide range of material including confidential sources within the Vatican.”
The online book was made available in English on December 4. An insider’s view, it also delves into published articles and books about Francis--some of which have disappeared from Argentine bookstores--to explain the shadow side of the Bergoglio pontificate.

The “scheming Jorge Bergoglio” presented by The Dictator Pope is a startling contrast to the “humble Pope Francis” sold to the public from the date of his election by the world media. What effect the first will have on the second will be interesting to discover.

H/T Paula Deist via Lew Rockwell

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Only the Left Can Have its Cake After Eating It

By Monica Showalter 

Νot only are the Alaska natives seeing too many [polar] bears proliferating, so are the scientists who study them. Professor Susan Crockford of the University of Victoria has observed the proliferation of bears and far from saying they are endangered, she concludes they "are not at risk" which of course got her attacked by ideological leftists and those for whom global warming is a religion.

The Financial Post of Canada's Terence Corcoran notes this [polar] bear issue and the left's shifting story on it is a magic talking point for global warmers who go after anyone who deviates from their party line:

It’s all part of an escalating epic of polar bear junk science. It begins with a paper in which Amstrup, who heads the activist group Polar Bears International, and other climate scientists — including famed temperature hockey-stick maker Michael Mann — produce what must be one of the most pathetic scientific smear jobs in the already sorry history of climate change science smear campaigns. Also along for the hatchet job was Stephan Lewandowsky, an Australian psychologist who asserts that people who have doubts about climate policy are wacky conspiracy theorists who would also tend to believe the 1969 moon landing was faked.

So instead of starving, global warming is now causing bears to proliferate. We are supposed to be upset about it no matter what the truth is. It just goes to show that global warmers just can't get their stories straight. And they want to have their bears and starve them, too.

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Defender of Antifa

By Thomas DiLorenzo

If you are a violent communist criminal who screams at those with whom you disagree, calling them Nazis and beating them bloody, setting cars and buildings on fire, throwing urine and feces at people, throwing bricks and bottles at the police, and instigating riots then there could be nothing but purity and love in your heart according to the Soviet Poverty Lie Center (SPLC), which has refused to label “Antifa” as one of its “hate groups.”  The Singing Nuns are on its list, however, as is almost every conservative and libertarian organization in America.  The American Enterprise Institute was condemned by the SPLC for “mainstreaming hate” by sponsoring a public debate on immigration policy, a topic Americans have been debating since the Louisiana Purchase.  It was the SPLC, under contract with the Department of Fatherland Security, that advised during the Obama administration that anyone with a “Ron Paul for President’ bumper sticker should be considered to be a potential terrorist.  If Antifa is not a hate group, then there is no such thing as a hate group.

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I Can Hardly Wait...

By Thomas DiLorenzo

. . . to see who the new congresscritter from Detroit will be now that Congressman John Conyers, the poster boy for term limits, has resigned in disgrace after fifty-three years in the House of Representatives.  I assume that whomever it is will run under the campaign slogan, “What’s Good for Detroit is Good for America.”

Conyers resigned after admitting to being a pervert whose personal “war on women” included showing up for one-on-one office meetings with female staffers wearing only his boxer shorts, groping and fondling female employees in public, etc.  He said he resigned “to preserve my reputation” and endorsed his son as his replacement.  The people who elected all those Detroit politicians who have done such a fine job there over the past 50 years will undoubtedly put the younger Conyers into the job.  But just in case, his great-nephew has also voiced interest in the job.

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A "Happy" Ending...

 ... in ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ's happy little berg:


By Tom Knighton

A clerk at a Georgia convenience store is the latest example of a clerk successfully using a firearm in self-defense while at work. The Douglasville store is located in a bit of a bad neighborhood, apparently, so the clerk on duty was ready when a man entered the store with a gun.

A store clerk shot an armed robber at a Douglasville, Ga., Chevron gas station.
Located at 6590 E. Broad St./Bankhead Highway, the store clerk called 911 and told the dispatcher that the suspect pointed a handgun at him. The store clerk retrieved his own gun and shot the suspect inside the convenience store.
When officers arrived on the scene, they found the armed robbery suspect on the ground in front of the store, suffering from a single gunshot wound.
Regular customer, Darrell Haley, said he worried about the clerk he sees every day, with a smile, from behind the counter.
“The guy just come [sic] in like five minutes after I walked out; walked in with a gun–brandished a gun, said he was going to rob the place. [The clerk] pulled his and shot first. You know, self-defense,” Haley said, who lives just down the road from the gas station.
“Next thing I know the whole parking lot is lit up with cop cars, detective’s cars, everything–guy laying on the ground shot and it just worried me that it was my buddy.”

The clerk was uninjured. The suspect, 19-year-old Jailateef Williams, died at the hospital a couple of days later.

It doesn’t appear the clerk has been terminated, which is a nice change of pace. If he has, it hasn’t broken on the news yet, and it seems likely that it would have. After all, he appears to have been well-liked by the customers, with more than one referring to him as a buddy. Someone would have said something.

But this is yet another case where a clerk has been forced to defend themselves from an armed attacker. In fact, the idea of an armed attacker is so common that more than a few refer to convenience stores as “Stop-n-Robs,” a play on the name of many such places that use the “-n-” thing in their name and the activities such places are known for.

However, for whatever reason, many such places will not allow their clerks to carry their lawfully owned weapons for personal defense, a policy that may well have resulted in numerous deaths. How many were killed at work because they didn’t dare violate store policy?

The truth is that guns save lives. Armed citizens lawfully using their firearms to defend themselves or others keep people safe and they always have. Further, they always will.

It’s time store policies and anything driving them to change. Failing to do so will result in countless more deaths as innocent clerks will be murdered in cold blood because they’re too afraid of losing their job to carry a firearm in defiance of store policy.

Maybe it’s time for families to sue these stores when disarmed loved ones are shot while at work. Maybe that will change the underlying problems.

Is George Will finally Right?

By Laurence Vance

Concerning a case before the Supreme Court regarding sports gambling, [George] Will says that the Supreme Court should let states set their own sports gambling laws. This is a no-brainer since the Constitution nowhere authorizes the federal government to have anything to do with the regulation or prohibition of gambling on sports or anything else. I hope that Will and others who agree with him on this point will also say that states should make their own drug laws, but I suspect that that is not the case. And of course, as a libertarian, I must point out that even if these things were left up to the states, that would not mean that I would be happy. No state should make any laws concerning gambling or drugs.

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