Yeah, I think we all know exactly who the "threat to Democracy Party is".





https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/18/i-b...watchlist/

Quote:Americans who shopped at sporting goods stores and bought religious books “like a Bible” were flagged through their banks as potential domestic terrorists, Rep. Jim Jordan revealed Jan. 17.


The federal government also flagged as potential criminals any transactions that involved the terms “MAGA” or “Trump,” the House Judiciary Committee chairman said. These Americans were tagged as possible “violent extremists” with zero due process or even notification of this criminalization of their constitutional rights to property, free speech, consent to their government’s activities, and religious exercise. The federal government even asked for surveillance of Americans’ messages on private payment apps like Zelle, a competitor to Venmo.




So if you’ve shopped at a sporting goods store, including Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops, Dick’s Sporting Goods, or myriad gun retailers, you could be flagged to law enforcement as “Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism.” All these retailers and dozens more appeared on a list Jordan found that a federal financial crime agency distributed to instruct bank employees in how to criminalize their fellow Americans’ religious and political ideas.

“In other words,” Jordan writes in a letter released yesterday, the federal government “urged large financial institutions to comb through the private transactions of their customers for suspicious charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.”

In the last year, I’ve shopped at multiple sporting goods stores. We have an active family, and I especially buy my kids outdoorsy Christmas gifts. This year, that included a tetherball set from Dick’s Sporting Goods and some camping gear for my oldest son.

A younger son received a $15 slingshot purchased at a local gun store this Christmas, so he can hunt squirrels. I also bought a son a pair of hiking shoes from Cabela’s a few weeks ago. Ooooh, look at the terror! He could kick people soundly with those!


Oh, and I can’t forget the other item of treacherous samizdat I bought in the last year: last Lent, I bought myself a Bible from ChristianBook.com, a terrorist-sounding site if I ever heard one. They sell other “extremist” gear like Bible commentaries, devotionals decorated with hearts, artsy Bible journals complete with marker sets, plush dolls, craft kits, and Jesus stickers.

When I — wearing snow boots, a winter hat, and mom jeans — went shopping at these retailers, I had no idea it could flag me as a “domestic terrorist” to my bank or federal law enforcement. I was just shopping, for completely legal goods. The only terror I meant was to squirrels. We don’t live in communist China, do we?

Turns out, benign, all-American consumerism by a completely peaceful and law-abiding citizen with zero criminal record or activity somehow threatens the people running my own country into the ground. What are they afraid of, and why do they hate Jesus so much?

Amazing how a totally nonthreatening mom of little kids scares these people, but they have zero qualms about the actual terrorists and foreign military plants certainly embedding themselves into the United States thanks to our wide-open border. But, you know, flagging moms buying hiking boots for their middle schoolers only takes a few keystrokes and PowerPoint presentations. Easy to pad the “terrorist” numbers with people like us and make a nincompoop-filled Congress believe they need to give lots more money to these power-mongering freaks who send the FBI after compliant daddies with seven kids and surveil devout Christians and angry moms and dads at school board meetings.


It’s way harder to go after the international drug cartels coordinating with communist China to infiltrate and destabilize our country via our southern border. That would take a lot more than a few keystrokes and secret fascist orders to highly cooperative “private” financial institutions. It might require going after high-level corruption rings within our own government. Nah. Go after the moms instead.

Take note, too, of the connection between the federal government searching for “MAGA” goods purchasers and President Joe Biden’s insistence that “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” He is not exaggerating the Democrat Party’s views. They believe that peaceful political opposition to them equals terrorism. “Silence is violence,” right?

The deepest opposition to Democrats comes from serious Christians, because Democrats’ cornerstone policies blatantly violate the Ten Commandments (and lots more, including much of the Bible’s book of Romans). This is why it makes sense for them to connect Bible-buying with dissent from their politics.

And Democrats want to criminalize dissent. You disagree with them, so you are a thought criminal needing punishment. This bank flagging system puts the massive weight of federal resources behind leftist cancel culture — that is to say, behind bloodthirsty mobs.

How different is this from Canada’s debanking of its own citizens attempting to have their voices heard by the government allegedly representing them? How is this different in kind from China’s social credit system? It’s certainly laying the groundwork for such totalitarian acts in this country. You have to identify the citizens infected with wrongthink before you can start punishing them.

All this is blatantly unconstitutional, but almost all federal agencies are intrinsically unconstitutional, and they control the federal government. Harshly worded letters and congressional hearings are better than nothing, but they are not even close to the horsewhipping Congress needs to give these agencies they allegedly oversee.

Sure, different name but it is Reforger.

NATO to hold biggest drills since Cold War with 90,000 troops


https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/nat...024-01-18/

Quote:BRUSSELS, Jan 18 (Reuters) - NATO is launching its largest exercise since the Cold War, rehearsing how U.S. troops could reinforce European allies in countries bordering Russia and on the alliance's eastern flank if a conflict were to flare up with a "near-peer" adversary.
Some 90,000 troops are due to join the Steadfast Defender 2024 drills that will run through May, the alliance's top commander Chris Cavoli said on Thursday.

More than 50 ships from aircraft carriers to destroyers will take part, as well as more than 80 fighter jets, helicopters and drones and at least 1,100 combat vehicles including 133 tanks and 533 infantry fighting vehicles, NATO said.
Cavoli said the drills would rehearse NATO's execution of its regional plans, the first defence plans the alliance has drawn up in decades, detailing how it would respond to a Russian attack.

NATO did not mention Russia by name in its announcement. But its top strategic document identifies Russia as the most significant and direct threat to NATO members' security.
"Steadfast Defender 2024 will demonstrate NATO's ability to rapidly deploy forces from North America and other parts of the alliance to reinforce the defence of Europe," NATO said.
The reinforcement will occur during a "simulated emerging conflict scenario with a near-peer adversary", Cavoli told reporters in Brussels after a two-day meeting of national chiefs of defence.

The last exercises of a similar size were Reforger - during the Cold War in 1988 with 125,000 participants - and Trident Juncture in 2018 with 50,000 participants, according to NATO.
The troops taking part in the exercises, which will involve simulations of getting personnel to Europe as well exercises on the ground, will come from NATO countries and Sweden, which hopes to join the alliance soon.
Allies signed off on the regional plans at their 2023 Vilnius summit, ending a long era in which NATO had seen no need for large-scale defence plans as Western countries fought smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.

During the second part of the Steadfast Defender exercise, a special focus will be on the deployment of NATO's quick reaction force to Poland on the alliance's eastern flank.
Other major locations of the drills will be the Baltic states which are seen as most at risk from a potential Russian attack, Germany - a hub for incoming reinforcements - and countries on the fringes of the alliance such as Norway and Romania.

Quote:At least seven people have been killed after Pakistan pounded Iranian "terrorist hideouts" in a wave of revenge missile strikes The airstrikes on the Sistan and Baluchestan province on Thursday morning come days after an Iranian drone strike left two children dead Pakistan's Foreign Ministry described their attack on Iran as a "series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes" "The action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large scale terrorist activities" "This is a manifestation of Pakistan's unflinching resolve to protect and defend its national security against all threats." The latest strikes add to exploding tensions in the Middle East as the Israel and Hamas war rages on and Iran-backed Houthi rebels cause chaos in the Red Sea.

Quote:The unprecedented breakdown in ties between Pakistan and Iran have raised an alarm in a region which is already under turmoil. Though Islamabad and Tehran weren't the best of friends, they did maintain significant economic and security ties. But from Iran being the first country to recognise Pakistan in 1947 to now the 2 countries striking in each others' territory, why exactly did ties deteriorate so much?

Surveillance since J6 has been ramped up by the unconstitutional idiots presently in charge directing their evil minions to spy on citizens.

I see it in chat as well. I was going to post this a few days ago but it wasn't "mainstream" yet. 

The Chinese are still performing massive Gain Of Function "research" on coronaviruses. Now they have managed to tinker with one that has a possible 100% mortality rate in "Humanized Mice".

The mice have Human traits, genetically modified to have human Ace2 receptors in order to closely mimic what it will do to a human host.

I haven't seen it in written stories but the traits of this mutant virus from the information given is Asymptomatic spread with the infected not knowing that they are carriers for a couple of days and infecting others. This appears to last for 2-3 days before you know you are sick, after which, massive invasion of lung and trachea tissue, the eyes and finally destroying the brain within about 7-10 days.

Don't worry though, it will never escape the lab.......

https://www.theblaze.com/news/chinese-la...nized-mice


So, let's speculate, what month are we getting our new Pandemic to trigger mail in voting or are they just going to start WW3 instead?

Fired up my Fire TV a few days ago and saw an offer for a 3-month free trial of Apple TV+ and thought that was nuts it was so long so hit the start trial button immediately. I'm so glad I did!

It was hard to know where to start with so many things I had heard or read about and so much sci-fi type stuff to choose from.

First I binged Monarch - Legacy of Monsters because Godzilla, of course! It place takes place in two eras, current day and in post war 1940s with Kurt Russel playing the modern day character and his son, Wyatt Russel playing the earlier character and it worked very well. I thoroughly enjoyed the story.



I tossed a coin on what to watch next and landed on Invasion. Centering around an alien invasion of earth, the story is told from the perspective of 4 groups of people in different parts of the world like the UK, Japan, America, Afghanistan and South America with their stories converging in the second season. I binged all of it with my only disappointment being the last episode as I thought there should have been one more to wrap everything up.



Continued next message because only 2 videos are allowed per post. Can we change that?

New TSM vid: "In the background of everything, global fertility is actually falling. Wonder why we're seeing so much immigration right now? The population is about to level and fall too. We aren't replacing ourselves, and hardly anyone is talking about it." Don't miss the ending 5 minutes.



The vid garnered over 1500 comments in 12 hours.


Supplemental links/vids:

Total fertility rate (CIA World Fact book)

Total fertility rate (UN Data)

Fertility rate: children per woman (Our World In Data)

Overpopulation: The Making of a Myth (90 sec vid)

2.1 Kids: Stable Population (2 min vid)

Quick thread - good laugh at least. I'm picturing him complaining about the tennis balls in Planet Earth Voice 

Why are tennis balls yellow?

Each morning I meet with my Management Team for a daily metric review, and I always start with a "fun fact" or weird historical story. This was today.

Quote:It was only until David Attenborough noticed while working for the BBC that it was difficult to see a yellow or white ball in colour television that change occurred.

The legendary nature presenter told Radio Times: 'I was controller of BBC2 in 1967 and had the job of introducing colour.

Opportunity knocks ? Once the population stops being afraid of dying the dictators days are numbered; at least I hope that rule holds true. I would like to see sniper groups armed and popping CCP heads of state. Stupid to go head to head with the PLA yet Mao was supplied (Russia) and toppled the National government after they were decimated fighting off the Japanese.

The largest margin ever recorded. Now if he can live until the final presidential election or stay out of jail and away from the corrupt DOJ.