A Quick Run Around the Web (1/28/2020)

"THE SUN | Plasma Climate Forcing Finale"--Suspicious Observers (18 min.)

• New Woodpile Report. He comments on the coronavirus outbreak:

Coronavirus isn't Ebola or the Black Plague, it's this year's flavor of the flu. Before this strain appeared, the CDC says  from October 1, 2019 to mid-January of this year there have been 8,200 to 20,000 flu deaths in the US. The average per year is about 36,000. Coronavirus won't be all that special until we see numbers substantially above these.

• "The Great Pestilence Panic of 2020"--PJ Media. Another article critical of the emphasis given to this most recent coronavirus outbreak. The author writes:

      I'm going to write a longer article on the disease, but here's the short version. nCoV is about as transmissible as the 'flu. Transmissibility is measured by a number R0, which is basically an estimate of the number of people who will be infected in the future from each current case. This is computed using a model that fits to the number of cases.

     The first estimates gave nCoV an R0 estimate of 3.6 to 3.8, but that was quickly revised downward to around 2.6.

     Now, even 2.6 isn't great. You want a number less than one — that means it's going to die out on its own. But, by comparison, influenza is somewhere between 2 and 5, and measles between 12 and 18.

     When it was first identified, all 41 patients were already sick enough to be admitted to hospital, and of those, 13 went into the ICU and six died.

     Genetically, 2019-nCoV is most similar to Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and also similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). Both of them caused severe respiratory distress in some patients, and MERS-CoV in particular was fatal in about a third of diagnosed cases. All three are similar to coronaviruses in wild bats in China and the middle east.

     Now it's time for a short interlude on interpreting numbers. MERS was fatal a third of the time among diagnosed patients. But SARS, MERS, and now nCoV are often either asymptomatic or cause mild cold-like symptoms. Right now, mortality in nCoV is running around 5 percent among diagnosed patients. Neither number reflects what it would be if we included all the people who "had a cold" and never had the virus tested.

• Coronavirus News:

• "Germany, Japan, and Taiwan Report First Coronavirus Cases in People Who Haven't Visited China"--Gizmodo. From the article:

      Germany, Japan, and Taiwan have all reported the first cases of a new SARS-like virus in people who haven’t recently visited China. The announcements, made on Tuesday, come as the number of confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV worldwide reached 4,587 and the death toll hit 106.

     The first person to contract the virus in Germany reportedly got it from a “Chinese colleague” while the two were attending a work training session in the state of Bavaria one week ago, according to German state media outlet DW. The 33-year-old patient, who’s from the town of Starnberg, roughly 18 miles from Munich, was infected by a woman who had been in Wuhan recently to visit her parents. The man, an employee of car parts supplier Webasto, is in a “medically good state,” reports DW.

     In Japan, a man in his 60s has also contracted the new coronavirus, according to Japanese news outlet NHK. The unnamed man has not recently traveled to China, but reportedly works as a tour bus driver and came in contact with tourists from Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, at least twice this month.

     The Japanese patient lives in Nara prefecture in western Japan and first developed symptoms on January 14 and was hospitalized on January 25, according to the Strait Times. The man’s condition has not been released.

     Taiwan, which has eight confirmed cases of the virus, also reported its first case of human-to-human transmission outside of China. The patient is a man in his 50s was infected by his wife who had recently been working in China. The man is in stable condition, according to a new report from Reuters. Taiwan has placed restrictions on people traveling from China and now bans the export of facemasks as it tries to control the spread of the new virus.

• "Coronavirus outbreak: Mongolia closes China border"--Fox News. Malaysia and North Korea had previously closed their borders because of the outbreak. 

• "China coronavirus: Hong Kong medical experts call for ‘draconian’ measures in city as research estimates there are already 44,000 cases in Wuhan"--South China Morning Post. 4682 confirmed cases with 106 confirmed deaths (the latter all in China).  

• "Villages across China are BARRICADING themselves in with brick walls and creating make-shift checkpoints to stop outsiders spreading the killer coronavirus rapidly sweeping across the country"--Daily Mail.  

• "Wuhan coronavirus: China will contain ‘demon’ outbreak, Xi Jinping says as death toll mounts"--South China Morning Post.  "...  Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert and head of a national panel set up to deal with the crisis, said the outbreak might peak in the next week or 10 days, and the fatality rate was expected to fall."

• "Wuhan seafood market may not be source of novel virus spreading globally"--Science. The key part:

The paper, written by a large group of Chinese researchers from several institutions, offers details about the first 41 hospitalized patients who had confirmed infections with what has been dubbed 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). In the earliest case, the patient became ill on 1 December 2019 and had no reported link to the seafood market, the authors report. “No epidemiological link was found between the first patient and later cases,” they state. Their data also show that, in total, 13 of the 41 cases had no link to the marketplace. “That’s a big number, 13, with no link,” says Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University.

• "Health officials: 2 people in New Hampshire being tested for coronavirus."--Boston 25 News.

• "CDC Splits With China on Coronavirus Spread as Possible U.S. Cases Hit 110"--The Daily Beast. The CDC does not believe the virus is as contagious as the Chinese report, and specifically that they have seen no evidence that it can be transmitted before a patient shows symptoms. 

• "New coronavirus can cause infections with no symptoms and sicken otherwise healthy people, studies show"--Stat News. The article reports on a study published in the Lancet:

One key finding: It’s not only people with other health conditions that are getting sick, the researchers reported. Some of the fatal cases caused by the virus have been among people with underlying diseases like diabetes, liver disease, and hypertension, but the majority of the first 41 patients infected with the disease in Wuhan were healthy. The researchers noted that SARS infections similarly did not only affect people with other conditions.

• "CDC reveal officials are testing 110 US patients for China's killer coronavirus that has struck five Americans so far and nearly 3,000 victims worldwide"--Daily Mail. 

• "China scrambles to contain 'strengthening' virus"--Reuters. From the article:

     China's National Health Commission Minister Ma Xiaowei said the incubation period for the virus can range from one to 14 days, during which infection can occur, which was not the case with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

     SARS was a coronavirus that originated in China and killed nearly 800 people globally in 2002 and 2003.

     "According to recent clinical information, the virus' ability to spread seems to be getting somewhat stronger," Ma told reporters.

• "First clinical studies show new coronavirus similar to SARS"--UPI. The article reports:

Similar to the 2003 SARS outbreak in China, most patients who came down with the Wuhan coronavirus were healthy, without any chronic underlying health issues. And symptoms also resembled those of SARS, said Chinese researchers led by Bin Cao, from the China-Japan Friendship Hospital and Capital Medical University, both in Beijing.

• "Wuhan mayor admits 'withholding information' about the coronavirus outbreak after revealing FIVE MILLION residents had left the city before it went into lockdown"--Daily Mail.  

• Related: "Wuhan Mayor Admits: Five Million Left Before Virus Lockdown"--Breitbart. 

• "Ivory Coast tests first person in Africa for coronavirus"--CNN. According to the article, the unnamed student is believed to have pneumonia and not coronavirus (although coronavirus makes its victims susceptible to pneumonia). The student was coughing, sneezing and experienced difficulty breathing when she disembarked from her flight from China (meaning that everyone on the flight was potentially exposed).

• "Scientist who simulated the global impact of a coronavirus outbreak says ‘ the cat’s already out of the bag’ and calls China’s efforts to contain the disease ‘unlikely to be effective’"--Market Watch.

      Toner, an M.D. and researcher at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, took part in a simulation, undertaken in partnership with the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, that posited such a disease could kill 65 million people within 18 months under the right circumstances.

     Coronaviruses, with SARS and MERS among that group, are infections of the respiratory tract that can lead to illnesses like pneumonia or the common cold.

     Toner told Business insider during an interview that he hasn’t completed research on the current strain of the Wuhan coronavirus, known as 2019-nCoV, but said that the death toll could run in the millions if the influenza were resistant to modern vaccines and was as easy to catch as the common flu.

• "Virus-hit Wuhan has two laboratories linked to Chinese bio-warfare program"--Washington Times. Even if the virus didn't escape from these labs, the possibility that it might have done so might have prompted the initial effort to cover up the outbreak. Anyway, the article mentions:

      One ominous sign, said a U.S. official, is the that false rumors since the outbreak began several weeks ago have begun circulating on the Chinese Internet claiming the virus is part of a U.S. conspiracy to spread germ weapons.

     That could indicate China is preparing propaganda outlets to counter future charges the new virus escaped from one of Wuhan’s civilian or defense research laboratories.

• "Virginia and Rhode Island Still Frisky on Gun Control Despite Rally"--The Truth About Guns. Virginia continues with its passage of anti-gun bills and rejection of bills that would have protected gun rights.

• Related: "Writing Off Gun-Owners"--Don Surber. "If you write off 43% of the voters, you had better be sure the other 57% are in your corner because math says you need 89% of them."

• Related: "Negroes With Guns: The Untold History of Black NRA Gun Clubs and the Civil Rights Movement"--Ammo.com. "It’s not that black gun ownership is 'good' per se or deserves to be lauded any more than white or Hispanic or Asian gun ownership. The point is that people who are in danger, or at least feel that they are, will often reach out to firearms to protect themselves – especially if state actors seem reluctant or incapable of enforcing the law and protecting them and their families. In this sense, the desire for weapons for self-defense isn’t just a universal impulse, it’s also a basic democratic right."

• "States File New Lawsuit to Block Distribution of 3D Gun Files"--The Truth About Guns. Quoting from an AP article:

      Attorneys general in 20 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit Thursday challenging a federal regulation that could allow blueprints for making guns on 3D printers to be posted on the internet.

     New York Attorney General Tish James, who helped lead the coalition of state attorneys general, argued that posting the blueprints would allow anyone to go online and use the downloadable files to create unregistered and untraceable assault-style weapons that could be difficult to detect.

     The lawsuit, joined by California, Washington and 17 other states, was filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle. It is likely to reignite a fierce debate over the use of 3D-printed firearms and is the latest in a series of attempts by state law enforcement officials to block the Trump administration from easing the accessibility of the blueprints.

Notice the forum shopping: a district court in Washington state and within the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, rather than bringing the case in the District Court for the District of Columbia.

• Related: "Homemade .380 submachine gun (ES, Brazil 25/11/19 )"--Impro Guns. This guy didn't need a 3D printer.

• "Heavy Hitters Dish on their Home-Defense Gun Choices"--Recoil. The author asks Dan Brokos, Daniel Horner, Matt Jacques, and Jared Reston, all of whom have extensive military and/or SWAT experience, about what they use for home defense and why. Brokos is the only one to use a handgun (a custom Glock 19), the other four use 5.56 caliber AR style rifles.
• "The Funniest Post You’ll Ever Read About Alternative Investments"--Wilder, Wealthy and Wise. Think of your preps as an investment. From the article:

      I recalled reading another article a few years ago about a financial writer showing up on the Tonight Show™ with Johnny Carson, so I looked for the interview and found it – a whopping 200 people had watched it, even though it had a glimpse of Susan Sarandon while she was still cute and before her eyes popped out of her head like they were trying to escape.  The writer that Johnny was interviewing was Andrew Tobias.  Johnny said in passing:  “I like how you said that if you had $1000, you should invest in tuna.”

      Tobias responded:  “If you want to make 40% tax free on $1000 you can . . . if you buy tuna fish . . . and shaving cream on sale, and get a case discount.”  The audience didn’t laugh – they were living in pretty uncertain times and the advice was serious.

Read the whole thing.

• This looks interesting: "Beretta’s 21A Bobcat will Soon Come with a Threaded Barrel"--The Firearm Blog. This Shooting Illustrated article seems to suggest that the Tomcat--a .32 ACP model--will also be available with a threaded barrel.
• "See-All Open Sight Review: Can it Put Up a Fight V.S. Red Dots?"--The New Rifleman. As the author notes, "[t]he See-All is a very small, robust, reflex-type optical sight that can be mounted to a weaver or picatinny rail.  It does not require batteries and is available with or without tritium for night viewing, with either a traditional cross-hair or a triangle-type reticle." He continues:

How the sight works is very curious.  I say it is a reflex-type optic because although it is used like a reflex sight, it does not have a glass “screen” upon which the reticle image is projected.  Instead it uses a very small magnifying lens to focus the user’s eye on a tiny neon green edge glow polycarbonate element with the reticle printed on it. This magnifying lens is cut in half so that the reticle is seen through the bottom half of the lens, and the target is seen over the top. The eye sees both the target and the reticle in the same plane and the sight is free from noticeable parallax.  It is classified as an “iron” sight because it does not use electronics nor magnify the target image. It is fully adjustable for elevation and windage and comes with small allen head wrench.

Overall, the sight worked well, according to the review, and is a very compact sight. The primary issue with the sight is one that is similar to that of reflex sights that automatically adjustment to light level: it is not possible to see the reticle when shooting from inside a dim area at a target in a bright area because there isn't enough ambient light to illuminate the reticle. The author paired it with an ACOG on an offset mount, which interests me because I also have an optic on an AR that has a short eye-relief that makes it impossible to mount standard backup sights because I need to have the optic so far back on the rail.

• "Federal Hydra-Shok Deep 380 Auto"--Tactical Wire. This merely republishes the Federal press release, but Federal claims that it meets FBI requirements for bare gel and through heavy clothing.
• "SHOT Show Range Day: Walther CCP M2 .380 Is Here"--The Truth About Guns. The author relates:

      The CCP M2 .380 is a soft shooting gun…a crazy soft shooting gun. The CCP in 9mm was already a soft shooting, easy racking gun. The CCP M2 .380 takes that ease to a whole new level.

     The gun barely moves. The soft coil system from Walther has been a widespread success for reducing recoil. This system reduces recoil and makes shooting a small gun quite pleasant. Take a system designed for 9mm and shrink into a .380 ACP gun and you get one of the softest shooting centerfire subcompact handguns on the market.

• Some other Shot Show items that attracted my attention and might interest you as well: Wilkinson Tactical was showing off an AR style 12-gauge shotgun and teasing that future development will allow the lower to be used with an AR-10 style upper; Meprolight was showing off a heads-up display type of red-dot that links to an app on your phone and provides different reticles (saving the zero for different weapons), compass, digital leveler and (soon) a shot counter; Recover Tactical was showing off their new Glock arm brace; Black Aces Tactical was showing off a pump-action bullpup shotgun using detachable box magazines; Rock Island Armory was also showing off its new VRBP-100 bullpup shotgun using detachable box magazines, but this one was semi-auto.
• "No One Is Coming To Save You"--Active Response Training. A look at how poorly trained police officers are in unarmed combat or how to detain a suspect. Closing remarks:

The reality of the situation is that most cops won’t become competent fighters unless they train on their own time in a contact-based martial art.  Only five to ten percent of officers choose to do that.  That means 90-95% of the cops out patrolling the streets can’t fight any better than the average untrained citizen.

• From Saturday--Puerto Rico continues to get hit with earthquakes: "Puerto Rico hit by a 5.0 quake amid ongoing seismic activity"--NBC News. From the article, "A 5.0 magnitude earthquake hit southern Puerto Rico on Saturday at a shallow depth, raising concerns about unstable infrastructure in a region that has been hit by quakes every day for nearly a month." 
• Good thing that the British allowed themselves to be disarmed so there would no longer be violent crime: "Record High Knife Crime Recorded in Britain"--American Greatness. The article reports: "Police-recorded offenses involving a knife or sharp instrument rose to 44,771, figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show. There were 617 homicides last year in England and Wales, with 40 per cent of those murders being committed with a knife or sharp object, Breitbart reports."
• "AGAINST ALL ODDS: A Tale of Two Bivvies"--SWAT Magazine. A review of the SOL Escape Lite Bivvy and the Escape Pro Bivvy. The Escape Lite is 5.5 ounces and made of a fabric that allows moisture to escape while protecting you from the elements, but also reflects about 70% of your body heat. The Escape Pro is claimed to retain 90% of your body heat, and is larger (coming in at 6 ounces). Because of the waterproof nature of the fabric used in the Escape Pro, the author decided to make his serve double-duty as a liner for his pack. The author continues:

      ... The idea of having a waterproof top and bottom bivvy that remains breathable for about two ounces more was very intriguing to me.

       I don’t own a sleeping bag. I made my own backpacker’s quilt or blanket, which is like a sleeping bag sewn up to calf level and turned sideways like a blanket. It also doesn’t have a zipper and only goes up to my chin. This eliminates the weight of a full bag with heavy zipper, yet allows me to use my existing clothing to cover my head for warmth. Being inside a bivvy traps all the heat in, especially when the bivvy is a mummy style.

      This is a common ultralight hiker’s sleep system for thru-hikers doing the long trails for weeks or months at a time.

• An undesirable outcome: "A 4-year-old who was accidentally shot while play-wrestling with his father has died, police say"--CNN. From the article:

      A 4-year-old Indiana boy who was accidentally shot in the head while play-wrestling with his father has died, authorities said.

      Tripp Shaw died Thursday morning as a result of his injuries, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said.

      Tripp and his 36-year-old father were play-wrestling in their home in Bloomington on January 19 when the man's concealed handgun slipped from his back and went off, the sheriff's office said.

      The shot struck both of them in the head. The father is expected to recover, according to the sheriff's office.

The New York Post has a few more details: 

Tripp Shaw was injured Sunday night when a Glock semi-automatic handgun that his dad had tucked in the small of his back discharged while they played wrestled on a bed in their Bloomington home....

According to USA Today, the elder Shaw had the handgun "tucked into his pants" when the incident occurred. The Glock is not a gun you can just shove into your pants.

"Introduction to the Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization"--History With Cy (10 min.)

• They really do hate you: "NBC News Goes Full Fascist: Voting for 'Racist' Trump Is 'Not Only Immoral but Illegal'"--PJ Media. This article concerns an op-ed published by NBC authored by Noah Berlatsky under the title: "Trump voters motivated by racism may be violating the Constitution. Can they be stopped?" Berlatsky begins his op-ed with this liberal "axiom": "If the Trump era has taught us anything, it's that large numbers of white people in the United States are motivated at least in part by racism in the voting booth." He concludes:

It's difficult to address injustice, however, if you're unwilling to say injustice exists. Politicians and pundits, Republican and Democratic alike, have been unwilling to reprimand voters or hold them accountable. But voters are not well-intentioned innocents who are helplessly manipulated by malevolent leaders. They make important decisions as constitutional actors, for which they have moral responsibility. Racist voting isn't an accident. It's a choice that may violate the principles of our Constitution and our legal system. We should say so, and then we should find ways to reduce the harm it causes.

Along the way he describes different methods to make sure that elections come out the way liberals want. And, of course, there is no mention of how minorities--particularly blacks--overwhelmingly vote by race.

• "'I’m Saddened by the White Man’s Emasculation'--An African intellectual sets the record straight." by Raymond Ibrahim at Front Page Magazine. Ernest Tigori, an Ivorian intellectual and political activist, exiled in France, and winner of the 2017 Nelson Mandela Prize for Literature, gave a lecture concerning his new book “L’Afrique à désintoxiquer” (“Detoxifying Africa”). In it, "he explains why it is crucial to lead Europe out of repentance for its alleged crimes in Africa, and lead Africa out of infantilization." Also, "[r]egarding Europe, Tigori warns that uncontrolled migration from the South to the North shore of the Mediterranean may destabilize it beyond repair and that ethnic wars could well be looming on the horizon."
• "DNA Tests at Border Reveal Many Cases of Deception by Illegal Immigrants"--Epoch Times. Believe it or not, illegals are lying about whether children accompanying them are part of their families. I know, I'm as shocked as you are that someone trying to circumvent the law would be dishonest. Anyway, according to the article, "[c]hildren are being rented, sold, and recycled by smuggling organizations to circumvent a loophole in U.S. law that requires anyone with a child to be released within 20 days." And in one recent case, a woman purporting to be the mother of a child was caught spitting into the child's mouth in order to fool a DNA swab test.
• To protect and serve: "NYPD cop ‘taunted his autistic eight-year-old son who died of hypothermia for being cold after he was starved, beaten and forced into a freezing garage overnight’"--Daily Mail. This was not the officer's first rodeo: child investigative services investigated a similar incident, except involving the officer's older son who had been forced to sleep in the freezing garage. 
• "When Will Conservatives Understand That It’s Not a Contest of Ideas?"--American Greatness. It's the will to power:

      This is how the game works. It’s not a contest of ideas, it’s a competition for jobs. As leftists take over human resources offices, reduce the number of conservatives on the faculty to less than 3 percent, make appointments to political office contingent upon compliance with political correctness, and exile troublemakers and nonconformists such as James Woods and Charles Murray, the game as conservatives used to understand it is over. Conservatives lost the war of positions long ago. Woods is a great actor, but so what? Murray is one of the great social scientists of our time, but no academic department would have him.

     For the Left, outcomes trump procedure just as politics eclipses intelligence, conscientiousness, and competence. One thing I saw in more than 30 years in academia was that while leftists on the faculty were not always the brightest bulbs in the room, they often managed to populate university and department committees where policies were created and passed. While we were teaching and researching; they were reshaping the institution. We were getting on with our work, pushing our individual careers, getting our names in print, and believing we were advancing the field and the school. They were taking over. Put it this way: We were clueless, they were canny.

     Donald Trump understands this. That’s one reason the Left despises him. He typically doesn’t bother to debate ideas and ideals, but this is not anti-intellectualism, as the liberal says. It is, instead, his awareness that politics is now, first and foremost, a battle of persons, not ideologies or tax rates or trade.

• "Trump at the March for Life Seals Irrelevancy of Never Trumpers"--PJ Media. Trump is the first sitting president to attend the March for Life, because "more progressive" Republican presidents didn't want the optics of being seen attending a pro-life rally.
• "The Deep State Tapestry of Deceit is Beginning to Unravel"--American Thinker. From the article:

      The plot was simple. The Obama administration, in 2016 and before, wanted to preordain the 2016 electoral outcome. What better way to do this than to spy on the rival presidential campaign? Since spying is illegal, a pretense was needed.

      That’s where the Steele Dossier came in. The DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, and top Obama administration officials colluded with multiple foreign governments to fabricate opposition research on the Trump campaign alleging treasonous activities. This allowed the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page, and likely others as well.

      The Obama administration colluded with foreign governments to influence an election. How ironic that this is exactly what President Trump was impeached for, and why he is a “dictator” and an “existential threat to democracy”. Can you say projection?

The tapestry is not unraveling, but only a small bit of one corner is frayed. 

• Speaking of foreign interference in an American election: "Meghan Markle wants to become more 'politically engaged' and could even intervene in the U.S. presidential election"--Daily Mail. 
• "Top FBI Agent Died After Uncovering Hillary Clinton Funneled Billions of Tax Dollars from State Dept. to Clinton Foundation and Cronies"--True Pundit. An excerpt:

      So we’re finding that deceased top FBI Special Agent Sal Cincinelli (alleged public suicide) was a member of a team that was investigating the Clinton Foundation and had witnessed and investigated the fact that large amounts of money were being moved by Hillary Clinton through the Clinton Foundation, coming in coming out, that trace back to the State Dept. during the time that she was Secretary of State.

     This is the first time or the first proof that anybody has that she was actually taking money from public money from the State Dept. while she was Secretary of State and moving it around to her cronies linked to the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton cartel and Cincinelli was part of the FBI who was looking into this.

• "The Grubby Corruption of Our Power Elite"--American Greatness. Money quote: "'What makes so many people angry at Washington,' Schweizer writes, 'is the fact that those with political power get to operate by a different set of rules than the rest of us.'" And some get fabulously wealthy doing so. Que Joe Biden:

      The image Joe Biden has always cultivated is of a man of humble origins and working-class sympathies. But the reality is that he sits like a spider at the center of a web of financial interests that his two brothers, Frank and James, his sister, and his son Hunter and daughter oversee and profit from. They did quite well during the more than three decades that Biden was a U.S. senator.

     But as Schweizer dryly notes, when Barack Obama picked Biden as his running mate in 2008, “it boosted the Biden family fortunes to another level. Now suddenly there were opportunities on a global scale. The executive branch offered an abundance of power to leverage, and the value of the Biden family’s commercial deals, especially those of Hunter, James, and Frank, would skyrocket.”

• Gail Heriot writes at Instapundit: "The bigger and more complex government becomes, the more conflicts we can expect between religious conscience and the duty to comply with the law." Read the whole thing.
• "MOMS DEMAND-BACKED MISSOURI PROSECUTOR ALLOWED KC NIGHTCLUB MURDERER TO WALK FREE ON A FELONY WEAPONS CHARGE"--Dana Loesch. The prosecutor in question is Jean Peters Baker, who also serves as the Chairwoman of the Missouri Democratic Party.
• Anonymous Conservative writes:

      There is no country with these people. This is a hostile external force occupying real America. Also interesting is the Luciferian themes around the system. Lucifer felt the people could not be trusted and wanted an angel assigned to each human to watch them, and control them, so they couldn’t sin, in a sort of supernatural surveillance state, which he claimed he wanted for good. But the force of good stops him, so he tries to rule now on his own, through covert exertion of influence and the application of temptation to the weak (think of Cabal and Epstein, Weinstein, etc). Those lured in with the promise of their dreams being fulfilled, think they are getting the deal of a lifetime, but once under Lucifer’s thumb, it isn’t so great, which makes me think of Amy Robach, who probably thought she hit gold when offered the deal and the money and the fame, but then ended up having to stop to compose herself as she teared up after she heard Epstein was killed, because she knew she could just as easily be next if she didn’t do what was demanded of her. Of course you can’t do all that openly, so you have to hide, and trick the populace into thinking you don’t exist, because if what you are up to gets out, the people will immediately unite and set about destroying you, because on the whole the people are good. You offer deals to the lesser individuals to get them to serve your mission too, and they will trade their own fate and personal destiny for some immediate personal benefit, but you lie to them as well. It is really uncanny. And I will say, there is a strange, almost religious quality to Cabal’s ground operatives, who seem like their allegiance is almost religious in its loyalty. I get the feel with them it is more than just blackmail or bribery. And finally, you are known as a trickster and the father of lies. Over the last few years I have realized just about everything I believe in was a lie. It was all illusions and deceptions. It is how they work. And of course the motives are similarly murky. Lucifer claims he is doing it for good, and it just happens to amass power for him, and give him the manpower to fight his opposition. Likewise, they make the same case in the infrastructure, and probably with the same underlying, real motivations.

      Q has implied that one, we may find technology has rendered the spiritual somewhat more materially characterizable, and that more material spiritual world may play a much bigger role in what is going on than we would think. If so, it would be entirely unsurprising to find Lucifer was at the top of the hierarchy in the domestic intelligence world these days, perhaps in a very real, far more material sense than we would think possible in the old paradigm. Clearly the game plan of Cabal, the global domestic intelligence infrastructure, is drawn almost directly from his playbook. Just interesting given we keep hearing about satanic cults ruling the world, and see the symbolism everywhere. It is not just rumors and symbolism, but the actual structure of the machine is remarkably metaphoric as well, to the point it really could be a real, material outgrowth of it.