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Wednesday, February 3, 2021

The Docent's Memo (2/3/2021)

VIDEO: "Cascadia: The Earthquake that will Destroy Westcoast America"--Geographics (25 min.)
Space weather can induce strong currents through the power grid, damaging and disabling the network. Previous work produced idealized estimates of the worst‐case‐scenario space weather event and its impact on Earth. This study uses state‐of‐the‐art computer models to further investigate the worst‐case‐scenario space weather storm and the effects on the Earth's surface. The rate of change of the magnetic field, a proxy for the induced current, is calculated. The previous work only considered the equatorial region; at mid and high latitudes, it is now found that the rate of change of the magnetic field can exceed the equatorial values by a factor of 10 or more. The latitude and longitude about the globe most strongly affected by such a storm is also investigated. This result exceeds values observed during historic extreme events, including the March 1989 event that brought down the Hydro‐Québec power grid in eastern Canada.

I was asked by a brother paratrooper to develop a short training for his wife and daughter. He was rightfully concerned by the 537% increase in carjackings, most targeted at women driving alone.  I never say no to a brother, so I did a hasty training design and delivered it (separately, on two different occasions) for his family. I thought it might be interesting to students of training design to consider how I did this as an example of critical path design applied to a practical training problem.

He discusses what he did--it is worth your time to read and learn. Also, Marcus has described some of his upcoming book projects as well as answering questions from some his readers. 

  • Could you defend yourself against this type of attack? "Suspect arrested in deadly attack on 84-year-old man in San Francisco"--KTVU. This attack involved a young (19 yo) athletic black man,  Antoine Watson, running full speed into a small and elderly (84 yo) Tai gentleman, Vicha Ratanapakdee, who apparently didn't notice Watson until Watson was probably about 21 feet away (or something like that). The victim looks like he froze, but he probably wouldn't have had time to draw a weapon even if he was experienced; and had he been able to use a weapon against Watson it might not have made any difference as momentum would have carried Watson into Ratanapakdee. Unless you were the size of a line backer, and particularly considering the size and age of Ratanapakdee, the best initial defense would have been to move to one side, perhaps using your arms to push Watson off balance so he fell--the important thing to keep in mind is that being much larger and already moving, Watson's momentum is greater than anything a small person will be able to match and is going to be dangerous in and of itself. A larger person (i.e., the hypothetical line backer) might have been able to brace himself and blocked with an arm or elbow, or grabbed Watson's head and twisted or thrown Watson down using his momentum against him. In short, if it is illegal in football, it may be useful in defense in this situation.
  • "Optimizing Cold Weather/Winter Training"--Defensive Training Group. The author discusses getting ready for cold weather training, noting that mistakes that might make you uncomfortable in other seasons can be deadly in the depths of winter.
  • "One-Handed Survival Shooting Techniques – Necessary or Fluff?"--Shooting Performance. The author, Michael Seeklander, notes that there are two main reasons for shooting one-handed: (i) one hand or arm is injured; or (ii) one hand or arm is otherwise engaged (e.g., holding something or someone). He discusses some considerations regarding access to your firearm and spare magazine, setting up your carry system, and why you need to learn multiple techniques for shooting and reloading one-handed. An excerpt:
When accessing your gun (draw process) with one hand occupied, your preference should be drawing with your strong hand. Get in the habit of having your strong (gun) hand available and using the other hand for non-pertinent tasks.  If you do this, the strong hand draw process should really not change much from your normal draw, except the second hand will not be placed on the gun.  If you violate this principle of keeping your strong hand free, you might find yourself set up for failure if you have to access your firearm. I can draw my firearm with both hands, but certainly prefer to draw with my strong hand given a choice! 

 

A whole lot of one-handed shooting going on (Source)

    Some additional thoughts: First, it really helps to have a lighter or well-balanced weapon if you have to shoot one handed; I would not want to try and shoot a Desert Eagle, for instance, with only one hand. Second, shooting one-handed used to be the norm, so there are a lot of old references to handgun shooting that may be helpful. I find it easier to shoot one-handed by blading my body so my gun, body, and support-hand are in a line, similar to a fencing stance. This might not be best practice if you use body armor, but it certainly can reduce the target size if someone is shooting at you from the direction you are aiming (although it also puts all the vitals in a row if they should connect!). Third, in old books and illustrations, you may see someone shooting a revolver single-handed with the arm significantly bent. This works fine with revolvers (and the Bisley and many European revolvers were actually designed to shoot in this manner), but it can induce malfunctions if you try to shoot an auto-loader in the same fashion. 

    It was widely used as an afield carry revolver, even a medium game hunter. For home and camp defense, it was an excellent choice. By the 1980s, the cartridge had found its way into the five-shot cylinders of most makes of concealed carry revolvers. In some forms of handgun competition, the round was right at home. And of course, the .357 magnum was the modern peace officer's choice in on-duty service armament.

    If this isn't versatility, I don't know what is. ...

And, as he mentions, there is the added versatility to the weapons as well since you can shoot .38 Special out of firearms chambered for .357 Magnum. But I think the .44 Magnum/.44 Special and .45 Colt are also very versatile, especially if you handload.

Shortly after Winchester released the Model 1886, they rolled out the .50-110 Winchester cartridge. First introduced in 1887, the .50-110 Winchester (also known as the .50-110-300), used the same nomenclature as similar cartridges of the day and fired a 300gr, .50 caliber bullet on top of 110 grains of black powder. The original black powder load propelled the cast lead bullet at about 1,600fps (1,720 foot pounds of energy), which was one of the most powerful loads available at the time. Winchester later released a high velocity 300gr load using smokeless powder (2,245fps and 3,300 foot pounds of energy).

The article also notes that modern loads shot out of modern rifles, such as the +P load produced by the Grizzly Cartridge Company, can propel a 525gr bullet at 1,850fps for 3,989 foots pounds of energy. 

  • "What Shot Size Should You Use?" by Jo Deering, NRA Women. A primer on the different sizes of shot used in shotgun shells, and for what the different sizes are typically used. From the article:
    ... Shot size ranges from #9, which is tiny and will have hundreds of pellets in a shell, down to #1 and then B, BB, BBB and the rarely seen T, which are larger still than #1 size shot. Then there’s an entire range of buckshot sizes, all of which are even larger than T shot. Buckshot comes in sizes #4 Buck (the smallest buckshot), #3 Buck, #2 Buck, #1 Buck, 0 Buck, 00 Buck and 000 Buck, which has pellets that are a whopping .36 inches in diameter and generally fits only eight to 10 pellets in a single shell.

    Generally speaking, larger shot hits harder and penetrates more deeply on game. Larger shot is for larger targets and smaller shot is for smaller targets. The more individual shot pellets in a pattern, the higher the chance that at least one will strike the target. With large shot at a longer range, a target (bird or clay) can “slip through” the holes in the pattern because it has fewer pellets to “dodge.” Pattern density is highly determined by choke tube selection ....
A shotgun to a home defender is like a cellphone to your teenage child: Even though they might not want to, at some point they’re going to have to put it down. Trouble is, in a defensive situation, you seldom want to part ways with your shotgun, but yet at some point you’ll need to use your hands to do something else—like calling 9-1-1 or shepherding a child—so a sling is needed. ...

These are all arguments for using a handgun. 

    More than 700 high-school students aged 12 to 16 were asked to rate their attractiveness, and those who gave themselves a high score were found to be significantly more likely to get involved in drug-dealing, vandalism or shoplifting.
 
    Researchers from Bowling Green State University in Ohio predicted that people who considered themselves ugly would have lower self-esteem and score highest as trouble-makers. 

    But the opposite was true, leading them to suggest it could be because good-looking pupils attract larger groups of friends, applying more peer pressure.

It seems to me, although I can't put my finger on it now, that other research has shown that criminals have higher than normal self-esteem, but a lower time preference. The same likely applies here: people that rate themselves as good looking will obviously have high self-esteem; but we know from other research that attractive people get treated better than less-attractive people, which may result in spoiled teens and, consequently, a low time preference.

 

VIDEO: "My 2021 Bikepacking Gear List"--Darwin onthetrail (17 min.)
A look at some outdoor/BOB gear from a non-tactical mindset. A full list of the equipment is provided in the description as well as a link to where it can be purchased online.
    Let’s start with Jason Hornady, vice president of Hornady Manufacturing,  who flatly stated that when it comes to hoarding-induced shortages, “Ammunition is the new toilet paper. Last week I met a guy on a deer hunt who was shooting Hornady .33-378 loads. He said he’d managed to buy 20 boxes of it—expensive stuff, by the way—and in fact had bought 20 boxes for each of his guns. I asked ‘how many guns?’ and he said, ‘I have 12, so 2,400 rounds. It cost me over $3,000.’ The big problem here—we’ve seen it before, but not like this—is folks panic thinking they won’t be able to get any more and so buy more than normal. Like they did with .22 rimfire a few years ago. And primers before that. And that’s the cause of this shortage.

    Hornady continued, “In fact we saw [demand indicators] in the fall of 2019. First when Walmart stopped selling high-consumable ammo, and later when protests to Virginia’s incoming anti-gun legislature made the news. We saw a pretty good lift [in sales] in December 2019, were up 18 percent in January, and 18 percent in February. That came a few months after the ‘bearded one’ [Jason’s dad, company president Steve Hornady] had been yelling at me about having too much inventory on hand.

    “In March, we were up 86 percent and that did it—the inventory was gone. We literally emptied our building. Since then, the sales increase is back to 15 percent a month because that’s all we can manage. Literally, we make it one day and ship it the next.”
    • Related: "What Is Driving The Shortages Of Ammunition?"--Captain's Journal. Herschel quotes a long passage from an AllOutdoor article describing the crazy prices people charged, and which people are paying! The author of that article concludes:
The ammo crisis is hard to understand, given manufacturers’ reports that ammo production is at top capacity. There have been local news reports of the Winchester rimfire factory in Oxford, MS running full blast. If so, where in the heck is all the ammo going? Even the big box stores are out of ammo, too, including Walmart and Bass Pro Shops here locally.

Herschel then discusses the situation in his area, relaying what he learned from an employee at Academy Sports:

    Buyers know when the trucks come, and when they do, there is no telling what they will bring, what caliber, or how much.  But it’s usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and he told me folks start lining up at around 0230 hours on all three of those days.

    He said, “If you’re not here in line by 0600, you won’t get any ammo.” 

I've watched some videos from firearm YouTubers as well, including: "The Truth about the Ammo Shortage" by TheFirearmGuy; "Where is All The Ammo?" by Graham Baates; and "Wasn’t Prepared For These Gun Show Ammo Prices - Jan 2021" by Florida Patriot. As you can see from the Florida Patriot video, at least at the gun show he attended, there is plenty of ammo available if you are willing to pay the high prices. But Graham Baates raises some good points as well, which is that unlike the prior ammo drought, we are not seeing huge government orders for ammunition (although I would note that some of those government contracts are still being fulfilled) nor large amounts being expended in foreign wars (yet!); and that even with the 9 million or so new gun buyers, they are not likely to be buying more than a few boxes of ammo each. 

    My thoughts on it are this: COVID, the riots this past spring and summer, and anxiety about the election drove a surge in demand; and because suppliers were not able to keep up with demand, the inability to buy ammo caused and is causing a significant number of people to buy more than they normally would have; and the continued shortage caused the profiteers to move in and started buying up everything they could get their hands on because they knew they would make a killing reselling the ammo. The only way it will stop is when ammo buyers start to draw a line and say they aren't going to buy ammo for above normal prices, reducing demand, and allowing supplies to catch up and drive down the prices. 

    • Related: "Keefe Report: On the Front Lines of the Ammo Shortage" by Mark Keefe, American Rifleman. Information from Jason Vanderbrink, president of Federal Premium Ammunition, CCI-Speer and Remington Ammunition. Basically, the ammo companies are trying to ramp up production, but apparently have had issues with employees missing work due to COVID infections. Also, he addresses the shortage of primers for reloaders:
    Primers are on everyone’s mind these days, and I have personally witnessed friends who usually buy a few here or there stocking up with literally tens of thousands. One has accumulated enough that I think Federal might be tempted to buy some back from him. He has what is likely several lifetimes worth of primers in his shop, safely and properly stored, but every one he bought is one less in commerce anymore.

    The thing you have to realize about primers is they are really only made in four places in the United States: Federal in Minnesota, CCI in Idaho, Remington in Arkansas and Winchester in Mississippi.  As demand for loaded ammunition increases, the primers that would go to handloading consumers end up being run through the factories producing loaded ammunition. And primer capacity is something that cannot be easily increased. As Jason points out, if Federal needs those primers for loaded ammunition, they cannot be diverted to handloaders.
  • "More Guns Than Ever Sold During Month Of Capitol Riot, FBI Background Checks Suggest"--Forbes (h/t KA9OFF). Per the article, "[t]he FBI reported that background checks for firearms purchases exceeded 4.31 million in January. That is the largest monthly tally since the FBI started keeping track in 1998, and the first time the count has topped 4 million."
  • "I Am Not a Soldier, but I Have Been Trained to Kill"--Wired (h/t Marcus Wynne).  The author, Rachel Monroe, is horrified to have learned that Americans can actually take classes in which they learn to defend themselves with firearms. It didn't stop her from participating, however. I, on the other hand, am horrified that people can go to classes where they are taught that they can heal themselves and others with rocks and channeling some mysterious power in the universe (e.g., reiki). But that is (or was) the great thing about America--you could indulge in your interests as long as you didn't harm other people. 
    The funny thing is that Monroe appeared to have enjoyed or, dare I say, felt empowered by most of the training. She related that "[t]he heft of the Glock on my hip, which had felt foreign at first, soon became familiar, almost comforting," and, later, describing her experience in a shoot-house:
 
When it was my turn, I stood outside the fun house’s front door, my hand gripping the pistol and my heart scudding in my chest. At Gunsite, the scenarios were fake but the bullets were real, and it was difficult to know how nervous to be. I flung open the door and began to move through the house, taking down bad guys. A month earlier, just being in the same room as a gun would have been enough to put me on edge. Over the past five days, though, I had shot many hundreds of rounds; I could now draw from the holster in one fluid movement and reload the Glock without looking. I still had a bad habit of jerking the trigger in anticipation of recoil, but at certain moments, like when I stepped across the threshold of the fun house’s final room and saw a swarthy man holding a gun to little Timmy’s head, my focus narrowed and my hands and eyes and weapon synced up in a benevolent conspiracy, and I shot the bad guy right in the ocular cavity. It was hugely satisfying, and it felt—I don’t know how else to describe it—like being right.

Basically, she is afraid that by learning such skills, it will encourage or cause people to actually make use of such skills whether legally justified or not. (It is not just her; this is similar to the thesis advanced by Dave Grossman in his book On Killing on why crime rates increased so dramatically in the 1970's and 80's). Of course, this is all hokum. Gun owners--particularly those with CCLs--are more law abiding than police. (See also here). Moreover, and Monroe glossed over this, people that are serious about learning to use firearms for self-defense--even if taking "tactical" classes--are also serious about learning gun safety, the law of self-defense and when it is appropriate to display or use a weapon. Thus, these classes are teaching people to be safer with firearms. If she thinks these classes will inspire someone to commit violence, it is because it makes her feel more likely to commit violence.

VIDEO: "Earth Rotation Changes | Advanced Catastrophism"--Suspicious Observers (3 min.)
  • "A Bleak Assessment"--Captain's Journal. A look at Matt Bracken's three possibilities for where the U.S. is headed, as well as how the split is occurring. I've noted before that the reason that we see such a decisive split among the body politic is because we are witnessing the separation of the wheat and tares as Christ warned us. The divisions we witnessing are not just different perspectives on political issues, but explicitly different moral views and practices.
  • Speaking of bleak assessments, it appears that gun control will be a key issue this year. "Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) plans to make gun control a 'top priority' for the Senate Judiciary Committee under his leadership," according to an article from the Washington Free Beacon. The article explains:

    Democrats enjoy a slim majority in the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris able to cast tie-breaking votes, a partisan split that makes sweeping, new gun-control legislation difficult to pass. Durbin's control of the Judiciary Committee, however, will allow him to shape America's legal landscape. His ability to shepherd President Joe Biden's judicial nominees to federal courts could play a decisive role in numerous gun-rights cases. The committee also oversees federal law that regulates firearms, including the federal gun background check system.

    The Free Beacon also notes that "Durbin has a long history of supporting new gun-control legislation, including bans on the sale of AR-15 rifles and opposing judges with a history of questioning strict gun-control laws." 

        One of the bills that is getting attention this year is H.R. 127 proposed by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas). It essentially bans poor people and Trump supporters from owning firearms. That bill would require a national registration of all firearms and makes that registry open to the public, requires licensing to own a firearm (including a separate special license for owning a military style firearm) and mandatory firearms training to obtain or renew such license, requires payment of $800 for a mandatory insurance policy, and that, among other things, you have to undergo a psychological evaluation (which will be even more money). It appears that the general license would need to be renewed every 3 years, and the military style firearm license would need to be renewed every 2 years. The bill would also outlaw certain types of ammunition, including all ammunition of .50 caliber or larger (so goodbye to .500 S&W, .50 AE, .500 Beowulf, etc.), and magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds. 

        Similar bills to this are regularly filed but rarely get anywhere. This time may be different. Not only will a gun control nut be in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee as discussed above, but on January 6, normal people bared their teeth to the elite, and it has them scared. The last time anything like this happened was the Bonus Army in 1932, which resulted in the National Firearms Act. 

        The argument this time around is laid out in an op-ed by Sharon Risher in the Washington Post under the title, "Guns are white supremacy’s deadliest weapon. We must disarm hate." She begins with the standard "humanize the author" opening:

        The defining photograph of the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6 was that of a man strolling through the broken halls of our national Capitol, amid the smashed windows and assorted rubble of the failed coup, proudly brandishing a Confederate flag on his shoulder and hoping to overturn an election decided largely by Black voters. It’s an image that tells the story not only of Jan. 6 or of the Trump presidency, but also of all the steps that led to that moment — the whole history of hate in America captured in one frame.

        For me, the echoes of that picture reverberated back nearly six years, to the day my mom — Ethel Lee Lance — was shot and killed while praying in Charleston’s Mother Emanuel Church along with eight other Black Americans, including two of my cousins and one of my close childhood friends. In the months leading up to that tragic day, my mom’s killer posed for pictures with the Confederate flag, sometimes even slinging it over his shoulder just like that insurrectionist in the Capitol did.

    She goes on to relate other instances where so-called white supremacists have shot people of color, and proclaims that "if the Confederate flag is the primary symbol of white-supremacist hate, the gun is its deadliest weapon." She then continues:

    But the truth is that taking down symbols of hate means very little unless we also disarm people who are inspired by them — and on that front, our nation has lagged woefully behind. We’ve failed to pass any significant federal gun-safety bill in the past 25 years; we’ve allowed armed extremists to brandish long guns at state capitols and intimidate peaceful protesters, and our background-check system remains riddled with gaps and loopholes. ...

    We are looking at a dangerous combination of frightened politicians and the anti-gun equivalent of religious zealots wanting to blame 100 million gun owners for the failings of a handful of people; essentially asserting that because a few white supremacists owned firearms (which they used to commit crimes), anyone that owns firearms is a white supremacist. Is this where Risher wants to go? Because one could just as well argue that since blacks are disproportionally responsible for violent crime, including being the majority of mass shooters (see, e.g., this recent news article of yet another mass shooting by a black youth that got another *yawn* from the media and gun control lackies), black people should be banned or required to purchase mandatory crime insurance. This would likely enrage Sharon Risher, but that is the equivalent of the argument she is advancing. 
    But Risher is not the only voice suggesting a link between firearms and the event of January 6. In a HuffPo article, "How The NRA Helped Foment An Armed Insurrection At The Capitol," Christopher Mathias asserts that "[n]ine supporters of former President Donald Trump, all arrested on weapons charges in connection with the storming of the U.S. Capitol, had 'enough ammunition to shoot every member of the House and Senate five times,' according to a startling new report on the role of firearms in the Jan. 6 insurrection" published by Everytown for Gun Safety. (Strangely, there is no mention that the only person shot was Ashli Babbitt who was killed by Capital Police). Mathias continues:

    “We believe the NRA, like former President Trump, like some members of Congress, deserves blame for what led to Jan. 6,” Nick Suplina, the managing director of law and policy at Everytown, told HuffPost.

    “You don’t get to Trump inciting an insurrection without an NRA laying the groundwork for all these years,” he said.

    For decades, Everytown’s report argues, the NRA has shamelessly deployed over-the-top rhetoric and conspiracy theories about “mass civilian disarmament and looming authoritarianism” to get people to turn against even modest gun control measures, in turn helping radicalize a generation of American armed extremists.

Under that theory, everyone that has sponsored or supported radical gun control legislation, such as H.R. 127, also helped radicalize the alleged extremists that entered the Capitol Building and contributed to the so-called "insurrection". After all, if the NRA should be held accountable for spreading over-the-top rhetoric and conspiracy theories, what should be done to the people that gave substance to that rhetoric and those conspiracy theories? Arrest everyone at Everytown! Slap Bloomberg in jail! Remove Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee from office! They are all insurrectionists.

    The concern over growing numbers of hate groups is also political theater. The Daily Mail reports that there were 838 active hate groups in the United States in 2020, down by over 100 from 2019 and down nearly 200 from 2018's record-high.

    ... After the Sandy Hook shooting, both New York and Connecticut passed laws requiring owners of "assault weapons" to register those weapons. Forbes reported in 2015 that of the estimated 300,000 owners of such weapons in Connecticut, the state only received 41,347 applications (i.e., about 14%). It was estimated that New York had approximately 1,000,000 residents that would need to register weapons under the state's SAFE Act. Actual registrations were 44,485 (4.4%).

     New Jersey recently enacted a law banning magazines of more than 10-rounds, violation of which was a felony. According to one article on the subject, "[t]he 180-day period expired on December 11, and not a single magazine has been turned in to any local law-enforcement agencies[.]" That is an estimated million people that decided that they would rather be considered felons than comply with a stupid law. Colorado has also banned “assault weapons,” “high-capacity” magazines, and “bump stocks” with little affect. The same article reports:
[L]aw-abiding citizens living in Boulder owned approximately 150,000 now-offending firearms. They needed to be “certified” under the law’s grandfather clause by December 27 or fines and jail time would be applied to those newly minted miscreants. As of December 1, the Boulder Police Department had certified just 85 of them.
     The Guardian decided to take a look at the effectiveness of Colorado's and Washington's prohibition of private transfers of firearms (i.e., requiring that all firearms transfers undergo a background check, effectively requiring transferors to go through a licensed firearms dealer). It found:
       More than three years later, researchers have concluded that the new laws had little measurable effect, probably because citizens simply decided not to comply and there was a lack of enforcement by authorities. 
       The results of the new study, conducted by some of America’s most well-respected gun violence researchers, is a setback for a growing gun control movement that has centered its national strategy on precisely the kind of state laws passed in Colorado and Washington. A third, smaller state, Delaware, passed a background check law around the same time and did see increases in the number of background checks conducted, the study found. But a similar background-check law in Nevada passed in 2016 has also run into political hurdles and has never been enforced.

The defining photograph of last summer's insurrection in Minneapolis (source)

    The last two weeks [i.e., the two weeks following the Stop the Steal rally] have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting “terrorism” that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This trend shows no sign of receding as we move farther from the January 6 Capitol riot. The opposite is true: it is intensifying.

    We have witnessed an orgy of censorship from Silicon Valley monopolies with calls for far more aggressive speech policing, a visibly militarized Washington, D.C. featuring a non-ironically named “Green Zone,” vows from the incoming president and his key allies for a new anti-domestic terrorism bill, and frequent accusations of “sedition,” “treason,” and “terrorism” against members of Congress and citizens. This is all driven by a radical expansion of the meaning of “incitement to violence.” It is accompanied by viral-on-social-media pleas that one work with the FBI to turn in one’s fellow citizens (See Something, Say Something!) and demands for a new system of domestic surveillance.

    Underlying all of this are immediate insinuations that anyone questioning any of this must, by virtue of these doubts, harbor sympathy for the Terrorists and their neo-Nazi, white supremacist ideology. Liberals have spent so many years now in a tight alliance with neocons and the CIA that they are making the 2002 version of John Ashcroft look like the President of the (old-school) ACLU.

Later Greenfield reports:

    Meanwhile, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) — not just one of the most dishonest members of Congress but also one of the most militaristic and authoritarian — has had a bill proposed since 2019 to simply amend the existing foreign anti-terrorism bill to allow the U.S. Government to invoke exactly the same powers at home against “domestic terrorists.”

    Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new “domestic terrorism” laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because — just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws — their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition. 

    Of 17 groups listed in asking 5,360 adults who will gain or lose influence in President Biden’s administration, evangelicals came up last. Some 50% said they would lose, while just 9% said gain.

    On the gain side, 65% said black people would gain influence, the highest in the survey. It was 79% when Obama entered office.

    Women were expected to have the second-most gains, followed by gay people.
This bill will be used to set up a witch-hunt for mainly white people in America, mostly white males. Half the country will be considered guilty. It will be used to destroy businesses, steal property, incarcerate those that oppose the state narrative, separate families, to censor speech at every turn, and even murder. Ex-CIA head, John Brennan, came up with a list that included as he put it, “an unholy alliance of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.” In this planned legislation, whiteness is vilified, as the bogeymen are white supremacists, white nationalists, and supposedly those that that are guilty of ‘hate’ crimes, hate crimes being anything thought ‘offensive’ by idiot leftists, progressives, and globalists. None of this is qualified of course, and this pending bill is just as vague in its description of the targeted class. All these people and more should be silenced, “reprogrammed,” and eliminated according to those supporting this act that is nothing less than a plan to prosecute false sedition.
    We. as Civilians, are armed like no other Nation on Earth. We are even better armed now, than we were even ten months ago, due to the fears of what China Virus anarchy might bring. Can Resident Biden and his Communist lackeys in the Congress take those arms away from us? They can try, but if we let them do it without a fight, we deserve the chains they will shackle us with.

    Millions of Americans are better prepared to feed, protect and support their families now, than they were ten months ago, thanks to the China Virus. I know personally, I was prepared before the China Virus scare started, and I am even more prepared now. Anyone who hasn’t prepared due to just that one event, let alone the others we’ve seen in recent months, is a foolish troglodyte, who deserves what they get. Don’t tell me you’re poor and couldn’t make any preparations. There are many preps that just require some sacrifice, ingenuity and extra effort to boost your level of preparedness over what you might have had already.
    • Related: "The Anti-Materiel Rifle (AMR)" (Part 1) (Part 2)--American Partisan. Part 1 describes the AMR and what it can do. Part 2 describes how to employ the AMR, including tactics and security options for getting the most from the AMR without the fire team being unnecessarily put into danger.
  • Another anti-gun Fudd and BLM rube self-identifies: Ryan Busse, formerly a vice-president of Kimber, has penned an op-ed opposing a "constitutional carry" bill in Montana. In his op-ed, "Being pro-gun also means being pro-responsibility," Busse begins by making sure that you know that he is one of the hunter-elites but even with his love of [expensive] firearms, he doesn't think that commoners should be able to carry one around without a license or mandatory training. He explains:
I know first hand that we need to minimize the likelihood of violence, not increase it. This spring my young son was attacked in Kalispell by armed “Second Amendment Patriots” at a local peaceful demonstration. They used their guns to frighten and intimidate. I stepped in to defend my son and it slowly diffused, but the situation could have gone very wrong. I shudder to think what might have happened if alcohol or the emotion of late night college parties would have been involved.

No mention, of course, that nothing of the sort has occurred in other states with constitutional carry.
 
    But, with that statement, we now we have more clarity as to Busse and what type of person is he. The only protest of which I could find any mention that would fit the description was a Black Lives Matter protest held on June 6, 2020, in Kalispell. According to news reports, the protest was peaceful notwithstanding (or maybe because of) armed men from the Flathead Patriot Guard who where there to keep the peace. The article reads, in part:

    When the protesters arrived at Depot Park, they were met by high-powered rifles, carried by men who said they were there to keep the peace. What followed was more than four hours of peaceful protest and a sense of cautious optimism on a rainy Saturday night in downtown Kalispell.

    More than 1,000 people demonstrated to support the nationwide Black Lives Matter movement, a significant turnout in Flathead County where the U.S. Census Bureau estimates the population is 95 percent white. Protesters kneeled for more than eight minutes in memory of George Floyd, the unarmed black man whose killing was caught on video in Minneapolis late last month, and chanted slogans from “no justice, no peace” to “black lives matter.” They waved signs and crowded sidewalks for more than a block in downtown Kalispell, and their presence inspired a cacophony of car horns, squealing tires, thick black exhaust and emotional reactions, both in support and opposition to their cause, from vehicles driving by on U.S. Highway 93.

    But the uneasy dynamic between emotional protesters and heavily armed citizens hung in the humid air all night. The armed group of mostly men arrived at Depot Park hours before the protest was scheduled to begin, with many circling the Flathead County Veterans Memorial in an effort to protect it from an attack from an “outside entity.” At least some of the people who came armed were connected with the Flathead Patriot Guard, a group founded “to fight radicalism and protect what’s near and dear to us such as our families, local and small businesses, veterans memorials, historic landmarks, law enforcement and civilians alike.”

    So, the first thing we've learned is that Busse is a supporter of the BLM movement--he wasn't just there to chaperone his son, I'm sure--ergo, he is a Leftist.

    Second, he doesn't seem very honest. He says that his son was attacked by people using their guns to frighten and intimidate. But the article from a newspaper obviously friendly toward the protesters reported that "[t]here were no significant confrontations between the protesters and the 'peacekeepers,'" and "[t]he Kalispell Police Department had several uniformed officers on hand for all of it, and they stepped in to diffuse a handful of verbal skirmishes." That doesn't sound like anyone was attacked. Perhaps Busse meant that his son was verbally "attacked", but he doesn't say that and that isn't the impression he gives in the article which insinuates brandishment, maybe even assault or battery. So, at a minimum, he portrayed the situation as much worse than it was.

    Frightened of the potential backlash, Kimber immediately released a statement distancing it from Busse. It read, in part: "The author of this article, Ryan Busse, is no longer an employee of Kimber and has not worked for Kimber since August of 2020. His statements and opinions expressed regarding the opposition of Montana House Bill 102 are not authorized by or attributable to Kimber." But he did work at Kimber when he attended the protest in support of BLM with his son, and he was a vice-president, which begs the question of whether Kimber has provided monetary support to BLM or Antifa.

VIDEO: "The Truth About GameStop… According To Wall St"--Awaken with JP (10 min.)
Main Street, for the first time in recent memory, finally stuck it to Wall Street. Bolstered by an online forum nearly four million strong, droves of everyday “retail investors” sent GameStop shares soaring, delivering billions in losses to hedge funds that bet they would tank. Call it the GameStop Gambit, the Reddit Rebellion, the Retail Revolt, or Occupy II—no matter the name, it’s a modern-day tale of David versus Goliath, and it signals the potency of vigilante populism.
Here are some reasons I am so accurate over the years. This is partly how I think:

1) I work as if I have autism...travel around and talk with anyone. Look. See. Accept patterns as I can find them, not as I wish they should be, or as others tell me to see. (We see what we think we see...and so we’ve got to constantly fight that tendency.)

2) Constantly reworking my paradigms so that they become predictive. If your paradigm of how things are is always yielding bad predictions, you’ve got to rework the paradigm. Often, just tweaking the paradigm helps. Other times, you’ve got to toss out the entire paradigm. My paradigms on Lin Wood, etc., is that they were just creating hot air. But if they turned out to be accurate, I would adjust paradigm and keep adjusting until it became predictive.

3) Guard against Cognitive Dissonance: everyone is subject to making massive mistakes based on CD. Including me. Guard against CD as if your life depends on it. Because it does.

4) Guard against projection. Difficult, but doable.

5) Don’t be a mindreader. The moment I hear someone say to me, “You think...”... My estimation of their judgement and intelligence plummets. Nobody knows what I think. I don’t know what you think. But we can find patterns. We can create paradigms based on experience that are predictive, but ultimately we don’t really know what each other thinks and feels.

But then he adds this ominous comment: "My current paradigm is proving highly predictive. There are 'forces' that are working to cause us to fight each other to the point of civil war." 

  • "Clarity in Trump’s Wake" by Angelo Codevilla, American Greatness. Codevilla observes that the United States is now ruled by a classical oligarchy, and describes the transformation into an oligarchy over the period from the 1920s through 2016 when a wrench, in the form of Trump and his supporters, was thrown into the works. The resulting backlash has sowed the seeds of destruction in the ruling oligarchy:
    Disdain for the “deplorables” united and energized parts of American society that, apart from their profitable material connections to government, have nothing in common and often have diverging interests. That hate, that determination to feel superior to the “deplorables” by treading upon them, is the “intersectionality,” the glue that binds, say, Wall Street coupon-clippers, folks in the media, officials of public service unions, gender studies professors, all manner of administrators, radical feminists, race and ethnic activists, and so on. #TheResistance grew by awakening these groups to the powers and privileges to which they imagine their superior worth entitles them, to their hate for anyone who does not submit preemptively.

    Ruling-class judges sustained every bureaucratic act of opposition to the Trump Administration. Thousands of identical voices in major media echoed every charge, every insinuation, non-stop and unquestioned. #TheResistance made it ruling-class policy that Trump’s and his voters’ racism and a host of other wrongdoing made them, personally, illegitimate. In any confrontation, the ruling class deemed these presumed white supremacists in the wrong, systemically. By 2018, the ruling class had effectively placed the “deplorables” outside the protection of the laws. By 2020, they could be fired for a trifle, set upon in the streets, prosecuted on suspicion of bad attitudes, and even for defending themselves.

    Because each and every part of the ruling coalition’s sense of what may assuage its grievances evolves without natural limit, this logic is as insatiable as it is powerful. It is also inherently destructive of oligarchy.

    Enjoyment of power’s material perquisites is classic oligarchy’s defining purpose. Having conquered power over the people, successful oligarchies foster environments in which they can live in peace, productively. Oligarchy, like all regimes, cannot survive if it works at cross-purposes. But the oligarchy that seized power in America between 2016 and 2020 is engaged in a never-ending seizure of ever more power and the infliction of ever more punishment—in a war against the people without imaginable end. Clearly, that is contrary to what the Wall Street magnates or the corps of bureaucrats or the university administrators or senior professors want. But that is what the people want who wield the “intersectional” passions that put the oligarchy in power.
    In the 1950s, the FBI used to boast that whenever the Communist Party or one of its front groups met, a majority of attendees were undercover FBI agents. The FBI already knew that the Communists were the enemy. Its infiltrators were there to disrupt and discredit them. Alas, today’s FBI places red-state conservatives in the same category once occupied by the Reds.

    This is not to say that the FBI manufactures and runs pseudo-conservative groups so as to discredit conservatives. Not quite. In every way, its undercover agents are pale shadows of what they were in the ’50s. But involvement with infiltrated groups naturally tempts the FBI to control them and even to entrap them. 

    The FBI’s increasing preference for political action over bona fide investigations is part of its overall decadence—laziness, incompetence, and eagerness to integrate with the ruling class as much as the CIA. During my years with the Senate Intelligence Committee, I did my best to discourage this corrupt trend.

    “Profiling”—socio-political formulae that foreordain the enemy—is the bureaucratic mechanism that ensures the Bureau sheds responsibility, stays on the right side of power, and saves intellectual effort. Like much of what the oligarchy does, it is based on what it claims is “social science”—read: what “everybody” at the A-list dinner party believes. Follow the correct profile and, though you may not always be right, you can never be wrong.

    Why did the FBI pay attention to Martha Stewart and not to Jeffery Epstein? Why does it worry about “white supremacists” who have never been videoed burning down a city and not about BLM, whose members did? Perhaps because BLM’s leadership also received more than $1 billion in corporate donations? Why did the FBI crucify Richard Jewell for allegedly having planted a bomb at the 1996 Olympics, an error for which the U.S. government ended up having to pay him millions in damages? Why, contemporaneously with 9/11, when letters containing anthrax were mailed to various American public figures from a place frequented by the 9/11 hijackers, did the FBI refuse to consider that the main known source of weapons-grade anthrax—Iraq—was involved, and instead spent years incompetently trying to railroad American researchers, ending up having to pay damages and leaving the case unsolved ? Because the FBI’s long-standing profile indicts white, conservative Americans.

    Penetrating, and otherwise surveilling the target, follows from profiling. Penetration is a legitimate tool of investigation, a bet that undercover agents will find useful truths. But penetration pursuant to profiling becomes a means of manufacturing appearances to validate prejudice. And that naturally leads to using the penetrators to bring forth the behavior that would validate the penetration—in other words, to provocation and to spreading the government’s most convenient lies.

On an unrelated note, did the infiltration of Communist organizations actually lead to the rise of a socialistic oligarchy in the United States like the German police infiltration of Socialist organizations eventually lead to the rise of the National Socialist Worker's Party in Germany? 

    Catholic World Report has published a blockbuster interview with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, formerly the head of the Catholic Church’s doctrinal office (before the more liberal Pope Francis dismissed him), in which Müller has shocking but important things to say about this.  The cardinal said:

“Now the U.S., with its conglomerated political, media and economic power, stands at the head of the most subtly brutal campaign to de-Christianize Western culture in the last one hundred years.”

That quote comes from a response the cardinal gave when asked for his view on Joe Biden presenting himself as a faithful Catholic, despite his long record of being in favor of unrestricted abortion:

Cardinal Müller: There are good Catholics even in the highest Vatican positions who, in their blind anti-Trump sentiments, put up with everything or play down what is now being unleashed in the U.S.A. against Christians and all people of good will.

Now the United States, with its conglomerated political, media and economic power, stands at the head of the most subtly brutal campaign to de-Christianize Western culture in the last one hundred years. They play down the lives of millions of children, who now fall victim to the worldwide, organized abortion campaign under the euphemism of “right to reproductive health”, by referring to Trump’s character faults.

An otherwise highly respected confrere reproached me, saying that I must not fixate on abortion. For now that Trump has been voted out, this eliminates the much greater danger that that madman might push the nuclear button. I am convinced, however, that individual and social ethics has priority over politics. It crosses a line when faith and morals are reckoned by a political calculus. I cannot support a pro-abortion politician just because he builds public housing, as though I had to put up with what is absolutely evil on account of something relatively good.

More:

Kath.net: Given the pro-abortion positions of the new President, can and should American Catholics simply and obligingly go along with his calls for “unity” and the healing of wounds?

Cardinal Müller: Reconciliation is the gift that God has given us through Jesus Christ. Precisely for Christians in politics this should also be a standard for their speech and actions. But an ideological rift in society is not overcome when one side marginalizes, criminalizes and destroys the other, so that in the end all institutions from the media to the international firms are now ruled only by representatives of the capital-socialist mainstream.

In the United States, as in Spain now, the Catholic schools, hospitals and other non-profit institutions supported with public funding are being compelled to implement immoral policies; if they refuse they are closed. Even the most naive must be able to tell by now whether the talk about reconciliation in society was meant seriously or was only a propaganda trick.

The very same ones who talk about it at the top of their lungs should examine themselves critically about their own contribution to the division. The slogan, “If you won’t be my pal, I’ll smash in your skull,” is not the right path to reconciliation and mutual respect.

Read the whole thing. As I've said before, we are witnessing the separation of the wheat from the tares. Best be sure that we are part of the wheat which is preserved and not the tares which will be burned.

    Violence, then, is really only justified when there is no other recourse, when speech is shut down, when public opinion no longer matters, when elections are decided, as alluded to by Stalin, not by those who vote, but by those who count the votes. And when you cross that line, it’s not an issue of “protest and go home” but it’s war. Don’t kid yourself that it’s anything else. The war might be justified, but it remains a war and you are an enemy combatant to the powers that be. They might just treat you as a criminal if they don’t want to acknowledge the war. Or they may go ahead and acknowledge the war and brand you a traitor. In either case, you are pledging “your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor” to that cause.

    If you aren’t ready to do that, then keep your protest peaceful, and stay far away from those who do not.
    I accuse—in no particular order—Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ nominee and frequent Wuhan, China visitor/collaborator Dr. Anthony Fauci; the Democrat Party (aka the “party of science”) and their nauseating, self-congratulatory leadership; the mainstream media and all their pompous, even more self-congratulatory “ships at sea” from the New York Times to CNN; Dr. Birx and whatever bureaucrat from the CDC was showing his/her face this week; the endless echo chamber in practically every health department in all fifty states; the foreign health departments that largely echoed that echo chamber; Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York (more of him in a moment); Governor Whitmer of Michigan; that atrocious governor of Nevada whose name I can’t remember or bother to look up…. I could go on… all of whom participated in what has emerged to be what is indisputably the greatest national, no, international, health disaster of our time—the Hydroxychloroquine Scandal.

    This shameful distortion of medical science was emblematic of how politics not only crept into the treatment of the CCP virus, it bludgeoned that treatment and resulted in untold thousands, perhaps millions, of deaths while simultaneously making life unbearable for an even greater number across the globe—in fact, for practically everyone.

    All of those mentioned above either dismissed or heavily downplayed “hydroxy”—a cheap anti-malarial drug, also used for lupus, that had been around for decades and is known to have minimal side effects—for the treatment of COVID-19.

    Why? As most of us are aware, a man they thought an ogre, whom they despised, who knew nothing of science, recommended it—President Donald J. Trump—so it had to be disdained.

    And yet hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) apparently did and does work in many instances, if taken early in the illness.

    This was known way back in June 2020 when the esteemed British medical journal Lancet retracted its support of a dubious study it had published opposing the use of HCQ.

    “We all entered this collaboration to contribute in good faith and at a time of great need during the COVID-19 pandemic. We deeply apologise to you, the editors, and the journal readership for any embarrassment or inconvenience that this may have caused.”

    This apology, made eight months ago, was largely ignored by the mainstream media because it didn’t fit their narrative. And, worse yet, it might have benefited the nefarious Trump.

    At the same time, many independent doctors were insisting that HCQ was working for them with real patients. They were similarly dismissed by a rabid press that had neither the inclination nor skills to investigate. (Laura Ingraham, to her credit, featured several of these doctors on her cable show.)

    Meanwhile, thousands, if not millions, died across the globe who needn’t have.

    How many we will never know but it’s a safe assumption a good number could have been spared.

    The pervasive use of this drug might not have entirely saved us from COVID, but it could arguably have reduced the pandemic to the level of a bad year of flu.

    Whatever the truth, an apposite description for what happened might be outrageous.

    And now the equally-esteemed American Journal of Medicine in its January 2021 edition has finally admitted the same thing. HCQ often worked. Immediate administration of the drug while the patient was still at home showed significant benefits, they said.

    Where were they during the Year of the Pandemic?

    Oh, never mind. Politics is more important.
    Back in October 2014, the US government had placed a federal moratorium on gain-of-function (GOF) research – altering natural pathogens to make them more deadly and infectious – as a result of rising fears about a possible pandemic caused by an accidental or deliberate release of these genetically engineered monster germs.

    This was in part due to lab accidents at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in July 2014 that raised questions about biosafety at US high-containment labs. 

    At that time, the CDC had closed two labs and halted some biological shipments in the wake of several incidents in which highly pathogenic microbes were mishandled by US government laboratories: an accidental shipment of live anthrax, the discovery of forgotten live smallpox samples and a newly revealed incident in which a dangerous influenza strain was accidentally shipped from the CDC to another lab.

    A CDC internal report described how scientists failed to follow proper procedures to ensure samples were inactivated before they left the lab, and also found “multiple other problems” with operating procedures in the anthrax lab. 

    As such in October 2014, because of public health concerns, the US government banned all federal funding on efforts to weaponize three viruses – influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

    In the face of a moratorium in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci – the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and currently the leading doctor in the US Coronavirus Task Force – outsourced in 2015 the GOF research to China’s Wuhan lab and licensed the lab to continue receiving US government funding.

    The Wuhan lab is now at the center of scrutiny for possibly releasing the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and causing the global Covid-19 pandemic.

But instead of being charged with crimes against humanity, "Dr. Anthony Fauci Getting Hollywood Treatment in Nat Geo Documentary That Praises Him as ‘Hero’" reports Breitbart. 

    Preliminary provincial findings of a nationwide census now underway indicate that population growth in 2019 plunged to a 60-year low, despite Beijing’s move in 2016 to abandon its notorious “one-child” policy.

    The 14.65 million newborns recorded across China last year were a third lower than the annual average throughout the 1990s and 2000s when the strict population control policy was still in place, initial nationwide census findings show. 

    China Business News recently reported that China had 142 million fewer births between 1990 and 2019 compared with the proceeding 30 years of population growth, based on National Statistics Bureau population database statistics.

    During the 1960s, nearly 240 million Chinese were born with a gross birth rate of 43.6%. The sharp demographic decline since 1990 comes despite the fact that the enforcement of the “one-child” birth control policy, in place since 1979, slackened off during the period before being scrapped altogether in 2016.

    Annual new births started to slip below 20 million from 1998, while total births in the 2000s dropped to 162 million, 45.9 million fewer than in the 1990s. If current trends continue, China’s population will peak at 1.44 billion in 2029 before entering “unstoppable” decline, according to a Chinese Academy of Social Sciences study released last January. 

The peak in 2029 is just the coasting effect from higher population growth in prior decades. Based on the data in the article, it appears that China crossed a threshold in the 1990s of declining births. That means that the pool of military age men would have started to decline in the 2010s if not earlier. China's primary rival, despite what the media feeds you, is India which still has a growing population and is rapidly expanding its military capabilities. Another potential rival may well to turn out to be an alliance of Islamic states across central Asia headed up by Turkey.

VIDEO: "Turkey Assembles Multi National Islamic Army - The West's Greatest Fear"--Nelson Walters (9 min.)
  • Since we are on the subject of Turkey, here are some articles from the past few years discussing Turkey's ambitions in creating an Asiatic hegemon--it may well be a new super-power forming beneath our nose. 

    Today’s Turkey and Central Asia countries are a part of a vast community: The Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic and linguistic groups extending from the Mediterranean to Siberia. The Turkic language family comprises over 30 languages, with a whopping 170 million native speakers of some kind of Turkic language.

    Beyond Turkey itself, with 60 million Turks , there are five Turkic ‘Stans: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Moreover, there are Turkic minorities as far afield as eastern Russia and western China.

    The 19th century Ottoman Empire promoted the nationalistic concept of “Pan Turkism.” However, at that time, the waning Ottomans were unable to compete with the rising Russians, the dominant force in Central Asia. Ankara’s opportunity came after the collapse of the USSR in 1999.

    Fast forward to the 21st century, and a newly confident and prosperous Turkey, the largest and the most powerful of Turkic nations, is spreading its influence, boosting its economic clout and seeking to asset leadership.

He continues:

    Today’s Turkey and Central Asia countries are a part of a vast community: The Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic and linguistic groups extending from the Mediterranean to Siberia. The Turkic language family comprises over 30 languages, with a whopping 170 million native speakers of some kind of Turkic language.

    Beyond Turkey itself, with 60 million Turks , there are five Turkic ‘Stans: Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Moreover, there are Turkic minorities as far afield as eastern Russia and western China.

    The 19th century Ottoman Empire promoted the nationalistic concept of “Pan Turkism.” However, at that time, the waning Ottomans were unable to compete with the rising Russians, the dominant force in Central Asia. Ankara’s opportunity came after the collapse of the USSR in 1999.

    Fast forward to the 21st century, and a newly confident and prosperous Turkey, the largest and the most powerful of Turkic nations, is spreading its influence, boosting its economic clout and seeking to asset leadership.

Using trade, shared linguistic and cultural roots, and increased ties, Turkey hopes to replace or subvert Moscow’s “Russki Mir” (“Russian World”) paradigm and China’s Belt & Road initiatives. 

    Since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, social, economic and political union of the Turkic Speaking states became one of the main issues in the agenda for the regional geopolitics.

    Turkey’s position on Central Asian countries during the Soviet years was clear. As a NATO member, Turkey was trying to cautiously flirt with Moscow while keeping in mind the potentially close cultural ties after the possible breakdown of the USSR. 

    Thus, dreams about the unity of the Turkic World remerged once again after the dissolution of the socialist empire and the famous motto “Unity in language, thought and action” by the Crimean intellectual Ismail Gaspirali became the ideological driving force for future actions.

    In 1991, Turkey was the first country to recognise the independence of the Turkic states and promised political and economic guidance to Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

    As a result, the very first Summit of the Heads of Turkic Speaking States in 1992, held in Ankara, was quite promising. Progressive ideas like the free movement of goods and services, foundation of common investment and development bank, integration of communication systems and the most importantly, using Turkey as main transit hub in the delivery of the hydrocarbon exports of newly independent states were set as a target. 

    However, these goals were not met due to several disruptions and noticeably because of the ongoing invasion in Nagorno-Karabakh by Armenian forces, isolationist foreign policy of Turkmenistan and low-level relationship between Ankara and Tashkent during the reign of the late Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

    However, cultural cooperation did not slow down. The foundation of the International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY) in 1993 was a big step towards future political cooperation attempts even though its mission is limited to the non-political bonding of Turkic speaking communities from all over the world. Nevertheless, a political and diplomatic entity was necessary to establish the economic and geopolitical goals stated in the final declaration of the Ankara Summit.

    The process accelerated when the Nakhchivan Agreement of 2009 initiated the Turkic Council. Since its emergence, the Council had high aspirations and tried to cover a wide range of issues from infrastructure and logistical projects between member states to cooperation in business, education and sports.

    • "How Iran and Turkey Compete in Central Asian Trade" by By Omid Rahimi and Ali Heydari, The Diplomat. This February 2020 article initially looks at Iran's expanding connections and trade with the Central Asian "stans" before shifting it attention to Turkey:

    Meanwhile, Turkey has enjoyed a comfortable position among Central Asia’s post-Soviet trade partners. According to the OEC, in 2017 combined trade (import & export) with Kazakhstan was $2.35 billion, $1.49 billion with Uzbekistan, $1.4 billion with Turkmenistan, $351 million with Tajikistan, and $442 million with Kyrgyzstan.

    Western sanctions on Iran impeded its pivot to Eurasia, with Turkey enjoying an advantageous opportunity as a result. For example, a former official at Iran’s Communications ministry explained that Turkey has occupied part of the Iranian ICT market in Central Asia. All this has happened, however, with Iran presenting Turkey a shorter, faster, safer and cheaper route to Central Asia (in comparison to northern routes from the north Caucasus). This has led to Turkey’s increasing dependence on Iranian transit routes to Central Asia. According to a report of Iran’s Customs Administration (IRICA), Turkey’s trade with CIS countries through Iran in 2019 was 1.08 million tons. In 2016, this figure was only 565,000 tons. In a way, Iran has been a noteworthy “bridge” for Turkey’s trade with Central Asia. 

    The dependency stemming from this  “bridge” relationship has given Iran a degree of geographical leverage to take advantage of in regional trade rivalries. In October 2014, just a year before the sanctions were suspended under the JCPOA, Iran increased transit tariffs for Turkey, by multiplying the rate to distance in kilometers from 0.32 to 0.8. Subsequently, in January 2015, Iran announced that it would no longer provide fuel to Turkish trucks. Can Acun, an analyst from the Foundation for Political Economic and Social Research, explained that Iran was perhaps trying to increase Turkey’s costs for its exports. He characterized the two countries’ relations as a “rivalry” and added: “Iran is also trying to get Turkish goods markets in Central Asia.” 

    Turkey began more seriously pursuing Trans-Caspian projects after the first “bridge contest.” In January 2015 a trade official announced Turkey was considering alternative ways to cross the Caspian Sea to avoid delays along the route across Iran. There were plans to carry about 25,000 trucks (approximately 450,000 tones of cargo) annually over the Caspian Sea using ferryboats and Ro-Ro ships from the newly constructed Alat port in Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan’s Turkmenbashi port. Ata Serdarov, Turkmenistan’s ambassador to Turkey confirmed the plan. It could cover all Turkish trade to Central Asia without crossing Iran. In 2017, Ankara signed another similar agreement with Kazakhstan and then in February 2018, joined coordination committee for “Trans-Caspian International Transport Route” which established in 2013 by Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan. 

    However, the 100 percent growth of Turkish cargo crossing Iran to former Soviet states from 2016 to 2019 proves that during the last five years, the alternative route has not worked properly. In fact, Turkey’s transit dependence on Iran has also increased. Problems with developing alternative routes are rooted in disputes between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan on Caspian resources, and more importantly, the lack of a dispute settlement body within a legal regime. Nonetheless, “The Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea” signed in August 2018 by the sea’s littoral states paved the way for more Trans-Caspian initiatives, and renewed hope in Turkey.

    Iran’s indirect response to Turkey’s efforts in this “bridge contest” has been providing transit initiatives to land locked Central Asian states such as the Ashgabat Agreement (a multimodal transport agreement between India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Oman, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for creating an international transport and transit corridor), Iran-Kazakhstan-China transit corridor, from Caspian port on Iran’s Bandar Anzali to Aktau (Kazakhstan) and then to China’s Urumqi, the connection of Iran’s second railway to Central Asia thorough Incheboron (opened on December 2014 by the presidents of Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan) and recent negotiation for a railway corridor that links Tajikistan to Turkey through Iran, as a part of ECO agreements. The initiatives aimed promotion of “bridge role” to Central Asia, based on geographical advantages. The result will indirectly counterbalance the Trans-Caspian projects.  

    • And from earlier this year in "Biden and Erdogan Are Trapped in a Double Fantasy" at Foreign Policy, Asli Aydintaşbaş and Jeremy Shapiro discuss how Turkey and Washington have distorted and unrealistic views of each other. But this part was particularly telling to me of Turkish ambitions:

    Turkey certainly has played an important and sometimes troubling role in a wide variety of foreign-policy issues that have preoccupied Washington over the last several decades. Turkey held up NATO’s southern flank during the Cold War, supported its factions in the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, denied the prospect of a second front in the 2003 war against Iraq, and served as the front line in the campaign launched in 2014 against the Islamic State. It has played key roles in Afghanistan as a NATO partner, in the Cyprus and the East Mediterranean as a protagonist, and even at times attempted to mediate between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In recent years, it has started to participate in proxy wars in Somalia, Syria, and Libya. In all these efforts, from a Washington perspective, Turkey failed to fully align with U.S. efforts and proved, at best, a troublesome ally.

    These roles in key U.S. foreign-policy priorities justifies attention to Turkey. But even with (or perhaps because of) all the attention, U.S. officials tend to interpret Turkish actions through their impact on U.S. foreign policy rather than as the policy of an actor in its own right. U.S. officials show little regard for the idea that Turkey, like nearly all countries, sees itself as a destination rather than a bridge. As Turkey grows more self-confident, it sees itself not as a geopolitical prize but as an independent actor, seeking to hedge against dependence of all sorts and carve out a foreign policy that speaks to its own domestic political needs rather than its role in some American-defined global struggle.

 Elsewhere, the authors note that there is a strong sense of Turkish exceptionalism among Turks. 

    Roughly 1 million tons of cargo are to be transported via rail between Turkey and Iran this year, Turkish authorities said on Jan. 26. 

    The Transport and Infrastructure Ministry said in a statement that a recent memorandum of understanding signed in a gathering of railway representatives in Turkey's capital Ankara on Jan. 12-13 would open a new era for the transit railway.

    Despite the novel coronavirus pandemic, three train services were run daily between Turkey and Iran in 2020, transporting 564,000 tons of cargo, according to the statement.

    The statement also announced that freight trains would also run between Turkey and Pakistan via Iran on a common tariff between the three countries. It added that talks are still ongoing to set this tariff.

    With a recently completed railway between Iran and Afghanistan, it will now also be possible to transport freight between Turkey and Afghanistan.
    The TCG Istanbul, launched Saturday as the first frigate and largest warship domestically designed and manufactured by Turkey, is an excellent example of the country's progress in the defense and naval industries. The ship was produced through close public-private cooperation, the efforts of all main and subcontractor companies and the contributions from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

    The Istanbul Frigate (F-515) was developed within the scope of the country’s National Ship Project (MILGEM) as the fifth vessel manufactured under the project, while the sixth and seventh vessels are on the way, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Saturday during the launching ceremony. The TCG Istanbul, which includes different features than the previous four corvettes, is a product of 70% local production.

    Erdoğan said that Turkey is among the 10 countries that can design, build and maintain their own warships.

    “We will bolster our naval power in five years with five major projects,” Erdoğan stressed.

 

VIDEO: "Tucker: Democrats mobilize US military to suppress domestic opinions"--Fox News (12 min.)

    According to legend, the Union Army shipped a consignment of gold, 26 or 52 bars weighing 50 pounds each, from Wheeling, W. Va., to Philadelphia. The gold never reached its destination and was lost or stolen, so the legend goes. The story has fascinated treasure hunters for 157 years.

    Cluck and his clients are deeply skeptical about the FBI’s claim that it found nothing during the Dent’s Run dig. Cluck said the fact that the FBI’s Art Crimes Division was involved in the probe and the veil of secrecy the feds tossed over the matter just adds to their suspicions.

    He said the feds sealed the documents in the case under a claim it is an ongoing criminal investigation.

    Cluck has said his clients were told by the feds that a ground-penetrating survey commissioned by the FBI before the dig began indicated something big, maybe even gold, was buried in the Dent’s Run area.

    “They had 50 agents there…We have witnesses that they were there all night with armored cars. So, what are we supposed to believe?” Cluck said. “We are convinced that they found gold.”

If the U.S. Government is the true owner, then the gold would belong to the government (unless an insurance company paid out on the loss and is subrogated to the recovery), but the secrecy suggests that maybe it wasn't turned over to the Treasury Department as it should have been. 

    Five people were arrested and 19 bikes were impounded after hundreds of cyclists took over the roadways in Modesto.

    You couldn’t miss it. First gathering at a local park, the group steadily grew to around 300 cyclists who then rode out into the streets, according to the Modesto Police Department.

    “To me, it’s just the lack of respect for the law, that’s all,” said cyclist Daniel Alba.
    Even in the midst of a COVID-19 pandemic, there’s no stopping this year’s Super Bowl LV showdown between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

    While the winner of the Vince Lombardi Trophy is up for grabs, we already know the biggest losers: the hundreds of young girls and boys—some as young as nine years old—who will be bought and sold for sex, as many as 20 times per day, during the course of the big game.

    “The Super Bowl is kind of deemed as the weekend to have sex with minors,” said Cammy Bowker, founder of Global Education Philanthropist.

    It’s common to refer to this evil practice, which has become the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns as child sex trafficking, but what we’re really talking about is rape.

    Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States. It is estimated that the number of children who are at risk of being bought and sold for sex would fill 1300 school buses.

    Yet as shocking as those numbers may be, this COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in even greater numbers of children being preyed upon by child sex traffickers.

    According to a recent study on human trafficking during the pandemic by Thomson-Reuters and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, school closures due to the pandemic, which have forced children out-of-school and subjected them to more online exposure, have made them especially vulnerable to sexual predators.

    The internet, with its web cams and chat rooms—a necessity for virtual classrooms—has become the primary means of pimps targeting young children.

    “One in five kids online are sexually propositioned through gaming platforms and other social media. And those, non-contact oriented forums of sexual exploitation are increasing,” said researcher Brian Ulicny, who co-wrote the Thomson-Reuters study.

    It’s not just young girls who are vulnerable to these predators, either.

    According to a USA Today investigative report, “boys make up about 36% of children caught up in the U.S. sex industry (about 60% are female and less than 5% are transgender males and females).”

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2 comments:

  1. KA9OFFFebruary 3, 2021 at 3:59 PM

    Excellent as usual...and thank you for the mention last week!

    ReplyDelete

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