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Bill’s Guest Information for Friday 3/26/21
6:35 Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, www.DailyTorch.com and www.GetLiberty.org with this week’s “Swamp Update” and analysis from DC.
7:10 Greg Roberts with www.RogueWeather.com and today’s Outdoor Report
7:20 Dr. Carol Lieberman
www.expertwitnessforensipsychiatrist.com
https://terroristtherapist.com
Twitter: @DrCaroleMD
Forensic Psychiatrist Says President Biden’s First News Conference Confirms It’s Time For The 25th Amendment
Website: http://caroleliebermanmd.com/
8:35 Sam Jacobs with www.ammo.com
Deplatformed: How Big Tech and Corporate America Help Subvert the 1st and 2nd Amendments
ammo.com/articles/deplatformed-big-tech-companies-subvert-second-amendment-social-media-guns
- Deplatformed: How Big Tech and Corporate America Help Subvert the 1st and 2nd Amendments
Anyone familiar with the Bible is familiar with the Mark of the Beast: Without this mark, no man may buy or sell.
Regardless of one’s religious faith or lack thereof, there is an illustrative case in this biblical story: When one cannot buy or sell, one is metaphorically up the creek. Short of producing everything one needs oneself, buying and selling are necessary parts of virtually every modern person’s life.
In our modern world, we can begin to see a sort of Mark of the Beast: While ideas and even objects aren’t banned, they are increasingly difficult to come by, not due to government fiat, but due to the machinations of corporations hostile to the American values of freedom.
One can be in favor of the free market while recognizing a simple truth: There is no way that America’s Founding Fathers would have sat on their hands while five corporations dominated American discourse and commerce. It is hard to imagine, for example, the Founders suffering a single private bank processing most of the payments in the United States and refusing to do business with gun merchants. Alternately, one can scarcely imagine that the Founders would have sat still for three companies – all of them hostile toward American values and the Constitution – dominating political discourse and deplatforming anyone who opposed them.
This is the situation in which we find ourselves as a nation today: Guns are not illegal, but private companies will make it increasingly difficult to buy, sell or own them – up to and including pulling your bank account. You have all the freedom of speech you like, but prepare to be deplatformed or have your voice buried by large tech corporations with their thumb on the scale of American discourse.
As the American economy has become more corporatist – such that the market is controlled by the interrelation between monolithic mega-corporations, Wall Street and the state – and less capitalistic and dynamic, the American press and economy are now being dominated by forces hostile toward the American public and American values.
No less an authority than James Madison warned Americans that the First Amendment alone was not enough to protect free speech. In Federalist No. 47 and Federalist No. 51, he argued that the separation of powers was necessary to protect free speech by preventing one branch of government from accumulating too much power at the expense of the others and, indeed, the rest of society at large.
This is an important point to remember when considering the First Amendment implications of Big Tech and its war on free speech and gun freedom. The Founding Fathers did not live in a world where a few large corporations had more power than the (incredibly limited and power impoverished) government had, either at the federal or the state level. It’s doubtful that they could have conceived of such a thing.
But they did carefully consider the problem of centralized power as it pertained to the rights enshrined in the Constitution. At the end of the day, the Constitution is just a piece of paper with no ability to enforce itself. What’s more, if the Founders did not address the notion that the private sector could meaningfully and substantially circumvent rights for all Americans, it was simply because they could not conceive of such a thing, not because they were writing the private sector a blank check.
Corporate Big Brother: Banks as Gun Control
Who needs to pass gun control laws anymore? The left can simply appeal to payment systems, banks and processors as a method of non-state gun control.
Case in point: Andrew Ross Sorkin’s December 2018 article decrying credit card companies for “financing” mass shootings. As with many arguments from the left, the premise is flawed, but very simple: Because eight out of 13 shootings that killed more than 10 people in the 2010s involved a credit card purchase (though, as always, it is worth asking what counts as a mass shooting and what is being left out of the tally – more on this here), credit card companies have a responsibility to step up and stop allowing their customers to make purchases for firearms using credit cards.
This effectively amounts to a request for banks to begin surveilling the legal economic activity of their customers.
It’s not far-fetched to consider that some mass shootings have been facilitated by credit card purchases. The Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen as well as Aurora theater shooter James Holmes used credit cards to purchase the weapons and ammunition they ultimately used to commit mass murder.
But mass shootings, particularly those not part of urban gang warfare, are incredibly rare, despite the overwhelming amount of media attention paid to them. What’s more, while statistics for such would be difficult to formulate, the vast, overwhelming majority of firearms and ammunition purchases made with credit cards are made by law-abiding citizens for entirely legal purposes. For most Americans, firearms purchases can be a spike in their normal spending for the month. And what of it? The call for credit card companies and other payment processors to monitor the economic activity of law-abiding citizens would cause an outrage if the government were to do it, so why is the American public supposed to sit still for an invasion of their privacy simply because a private company is performing the surveillance?
Anyone who has ever made a firearms purchase knows that the bill can add up quickly. The oft-demonized AR-15 can easily top $4,000 when the price of a scope, rifle case and a decent cache of ammunition are added to the bill. Even a humble handgun purchase can quickly hit over $1,000 when a good holster and ammo are tacked on. This means that millions of Americans purchasing firearms for no reason other than recreation or self defense are going to have their personal finances investigated by a corporate Big Brother, with all the lack of transparency one can expect from a massive bank whose starting premise is “guilty until proven innocent.”
The attempt by the left to get banks to snoop on legal purchases amounts to nothing more than the stigmatization of the exercise of one of the rights enshrined in our Constitution. And while some would argue that the Constitution only limits the government’s actions, it must constantly be asked why we should allow for such an intrusion into our private lives simply because a private company is doing it.
“If you don’t like it, just make your own credit card company.”
Hardly.
Corporate Gun Control and the Mark of the Beast
After the Parkland Shooting, the American media entered into another round of its “something must be done” (read as: your guns must be taken away) propaganda. One result of this was some of the biggest banks in the United States dropping or scaling back their relations with gun manufacturers.
JPMorgan Chase’s Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake crowed to reporters that the company’s relationship with firearms manufacturers “have come down significantly and are pretty limited.” Bank of America announced its intention to stop extending credit to business clients manufacturing “military-style weapons.” One must, of course, ask if this applies to companies engaged in supplying the United States military itself or the increasingly militarized police found in our nation’s cities.
Bank of America stopped short at stigmatizing the retailers who sell such weapons. Citigroup, however, took the step of requiring any of its business partners to restrict firearms sales to those over the age of 21, as well as those who have not passed a background check. They also barred their partners from selling so-called “high capacity magazines” and bump stocks, which were later banned.
Amalgamated Bank went perhaps the furthest of all, refusing to invest any of its assets in companies involved in the manufacture of “firearms, weaponry and ammunition.”
This leads into another aspect of corporate gun control: Not only is the left demanding that big banks snoop around in your legal purchases, the banks are also starting to make it more difficult for gun manufacturers to obtain the financial services banks would never dare to deny to any other law-abiding company simply on the basis of what they sell.
There is, of course, consumer push-back. For example, the somewhat successful boycott of Dick’s Sporting Goods after it ceased selling so-called “assault weapons.” But Dick’s is still in business and still not selling scary black rifles. And while you can do your business with a competitor, it still doesn’t change the fact that the message has been sent: Companies can remove legal items from their shelves in a politicized fashion with virtually no meaningful consequences.
There is also the growing specter of private companies banning customers from carrying in their stores. Huffington Post compiled a list of seven companies who do not want legal firearms being carried in their businesses. Outback Steakhouse was at the center of a story where a law enforcement officer was asked to leave because he was carrying, something that he is required to do when he is in uniform. Salesforce, a popular software platform for online retailers, will no longer do business with companies who sell virtually all forms of semi-automatic weapons.
Microsoft has put language in its Code of Conduct that prevents users from using them “in any way that promotes or facilitates the sale of ammunition and firearms.” This is another sweeping example of corporate attempts to infringe upon America’s Second Amendment rights. There is nothing illegal or immoral about owning, selling or promoting firearms. Indeed, the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment.
This is a form of corporate coercion that shows the limitations of simply relying upon the Constitution and the free market to ensure one’s rights are respected. It’s hard to imagine that the Founders would simply have thrown up their hands and accepted that corporations were making it impossible for them to exercise their rights simply because there was nothing “unconstitutional” about it.
Beyond this, however, there are two rather frightening developments.
The first is several liberal state governments skinning the cat from the other end. Rather than making it difficult or impossible to purchase firearms, they are going after the National Rifle Association. While many well-meaning people in the Second Amendment movement consider the NRA to be weak tea (and not without good reason), the fact remains that the NRA is the most public and prominent opponent of gun grabbers. The fall of the NRA at the hands of gun grabbers (as opposed to more principled pro-Second Amendment groups) would spell disaster for gun rights in America, setting a precedent that would be used against other organizations protecting gun freedom.
The State of New York, led by Andrew Cuomo, has started attacking insurance programs offered by the NRA to its members. He has also attempted to threaten every insurer and bank in the state to not do business with the NRA. It is important to remember that the banking industry is largely centered in New York, meaning that the governor of that state has an outsized influence on how banking is done across the nation.
Another chilling example of corporate coercion goes beyond the Second Amendment and into the First: Popular veteran rights and gun blog “No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money” was removed from Blogger, a blogging platform owned by Google, on the grounds that it “promoted or sold regulated items.” The website was later restored with the explanation that it was removed by an automated system.
PayPal, the biggest payment processing system on the Internet, cannot be used for any exercise of your Second Amendment rights, nor to pay for dissident thinkers’ services such as Stefan Molyneux and Alex Jones or even Wikileaks. One is not obligated to support or defend the beliefs of any of these people or groups to see that a dangerous precedent is being set. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) has an extensive list of companies and brands that have instituted anti-firearm corporate policies or have supported further strict legislation.
These are neither the first nor the only times that Big Tech and corporate America have attempted to censor conservatives, libertarians, pro-gun freedom forces and others with opinions to the right of John McCain. Some have argued, not without solid evidence, that Big Tech is involved in a full-throttle war against conservatives and free speech on the Internet. We’re inclined to agree.
Big Tech’s War on Free Speech
There is a war against free speech and Big Tech is the one waging it. Congress has looked into this, with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas leading the charge, not allowing Facebook and other Big Tech companies to weasel out of answering hard questions that the public has about censorship on the Internet.
It’s less true to say that Facebook, Google and other Big Tech platforms “lean left” than it is to say that they push a globalist, neoliberal, corporatist line that eschews any sort of values or ethics other than growth. Edward Abbey has said that the philosophy of growth for the sake of growth is also the philosophy of the cancer cell.
The Big Tech war against free speech is nothing new and there have been canaries in the coal mine for years. Everyone remembers MILO being shown the door on Twitter for a dubious accusation that he led a mob against actress Leslie Jones. But the real test case was not him, it was hacker and troll Andrew Auernheimer, commonly known by his handle “weev.”
weev (always lowercase) is difficult to defend because he has unpopular viewpoints. To wit, he has a large swastika tattooed on his chest. However, proponents of the First Amendment and free speech shouldn’t be concerned with what weev thinks or says, because what he thinks or says is irrelevant to whether or not he has the right to think it and say it. But Twitter and other Big Tech platforms were smart in choosing such an ideological pariah to test the waters.
There is a direct line to be drawn from the deplatforming of weev on Twitter to the unpersoning of Alex Jones to the shadow banning and outright deplatforming of conservative voices all across the web. Mainstream, establishment conservatives have done themselves a disservice by attempting to defend themselves against deplatforming on the basis that “I’m not a Nazi” for two reasons.
First, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Nazi or not. All legal speech should be allowed on social media, or else Big Tech is an editorial content curator, which makes it liable for anything that is posted on there. This means that your ex-spouse lying about how you missed Little Timmy’s baseball game on Facebook can be construed as defamation, for which Facebook is liable because they didn’t remove the status update. Facebook’s pretense that it is a content-neutral platform, a claim that is patently false, is what protects it from being sued every time someone lies about someone else on the platform or from being hauled into court every time that ISIS uses WhatsApp to coordinate an attack.
But the other reason is that for many on the left, there is not a tangible difference between weev, MILO, Alex Jones, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Wayne LaPierre, Ted Cruz, Ben Sharpiro or the President of the United States. Anyone to the right of John McCain is seen as either a literal fascist, a fascist apologist, or a gatekeeper who opens the door to fascist ideology.
Big Tech will not stop at deplatforming actual, self-avowed fascists, nor will it stop at conspiracy theorists, edgy conservatives, or even “respectable” centrist types like Dave Rubin. To throw the far right under the bus in the hopes of satisfying Big Tech’s blood lust is a strategic mistake – it legitimizes the entire process of deplatforming, which will eventually swallow up anyone who believes in the Constitution and the rule of law. Big Tech and the left either see no difference between you and a Nazi, or pretend not to because it’s politically expedient.
This is doubly important because of how many Big Tech companies are actively spying on their users. The EFF maintains an annual detailed list of who is telling the government about its users and their data, who informs users that the government is sniffing around about them, and who even bothers to disclose their data retention policies.
What this means is that if and when the federal government begins compiling a list of “potential right-wing terrorists” or “right-wing extremists” (to the extent that they do not already maintain such lists), they will have a ready-made mine of data from Big Tech, who have shown themselves to be more than willing to cooperate with the federal government, with minimal or no arm-twisting on the part of the feds. Take, for example, the Philadelphia synagogue shooter. Self-proclaimed “free speech” platform Gab was more than willing to hand over all the data they had about his account to the feds without even being asked.
Sure, no one wants to be in the position of defending a synagogue shooter. But the point is that these platforms, even the ones who allegedly have your back, have shown themselves willing to roll on their users provided enough of a fever is whipped up in the press.
Conservatives Censored on Social Media
It’s worth showing just how many mainstream, run-of-the-mill conservatives have been censored by Big Tech – it’s not just the MILOs and the weevs of the world who are being shown the door. Indeed, we believe that these types are censored not out of any actual desire to suppress so-called “hate speech,” but instead to act as a test case for setting the precedent for suppressing legal speech. Here are some examples that are worth considering:
- Pastor Rich Penkoski: This pastor runs a popular Facebook page, “Warriors for Christ.” He was suspended mid-sermon for criticizing the rainbow flag. He was previously banned for calling an atheist a liar and sharing verses from the Quran that called for the killing of non-Muslims.
- Over Two Dozen Catholic Pages: In July 2017, Facebook banned several Catholic pages with millions of followers. Most were based in Brazil. Facebook removed the pages without explanation.
- Rep. Marsha Blackburn: Not even elected officials are immune from social media deplatforming. Facebook removed an ad for Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign that attacked pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood.
- Alveda King: Facebook removed paid ads from Martin Luther King’s niece Alveda King for her documentary on Roe v. Wade.
- Ryan T. Anderson: Twitter refused to run several ads from Christian radio stations for an upcoming interview with Ryan T. Anderson. Anderson is a critic of transgenderism and radical gender ideology.
- Robert Spencer: The head of JihadWatch.org, a website covering radical Islam, was removed from social media and even had his credit cards canceled. He also claims that Google buries him in results for searches about “jihad.”
- Brian Fisher: The President of the Human Coalition notes that this anti-abortion group has had prayer apps removed from the Apple store and has had its content repeatedly removed from Twitter despite taking pains to ensure that all of it is within Twitter’s narrow, anti-First Amendment guidelines.
- PragerU: PragerU is very much the picture of mainstream, run-of-the-mill, completely non-edgy conservatism on the Internet. Despite this, they repeatedly have their content removed from YouTube. Dennis Prager, head of PragerU, is suing YouTube. He notes that Delta Air Lines couldn’t say “conservatives can’t fly with us,” but YouTube, ostensibly a neutral platform, is effectively allowed to say that conservatives can’t use their services.
- David Kyle Foster: David Kyle Foster is a leader in the “ex-gay” movement, a group of Christians who claim that their religion has “cured” their homosexuality. His Vimeo channel, featuring over 700 personal testimonials, was pulled from Vimeo for being “hateful.”
Even the Declaration of Independence has been removed from Facebook as “hate speech” due to their “filtering program.” Yes, really. Nor is it only conservative groups who have been targeted. Moderates and leftists who don’t toe the party line – like Andy Ngo, Tim Pool and Michael Tracey – have likewise been targeted by deplatforming and shadowbanning.
Deplatforming is not limited to social media. Chase Bank has been accused of depriving conservative voices of banking services. This returns us to the Mark of the Beast notion: What good is free speech if banks – banks – can keep you from receiving payments. And how far off are we from seeing conservative voices deprived of their ability to pay?
Imagine showing up at the grocery store and finding out that your money’s no good because you have a concealed carry permit. Sound far-fetched? So would have having your bank account closed for being a conservative activist.
The Great Conservative Purge of 2021
Deplatforming on the Internet went to a much more disturbing level in the wake of the 2020 election and the breaching of the capitol building by protesters on January 6, 2021. This event, much like the attack of September 11, 2001, began to be used as a pretext for increasing encroachment on the civil liberties of ordinary citizens, not limited to a mass purge of Twitter users.
Some of the more egregious examples of how Big Tech moved to constrain free speech on the Internet are worth calling out. The elephant in the room was the removal of President Donald Trump from Twitter, as well as Facebook, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), Pinterest and even Spotify. While there is no evidence that the big tech companies colluded with one another in an attempt to silence the president, it is suspect on its face due to the outwardly coordinated nature of the deplatforming.
The attack on President Trump was not limited to his social media accounts. Trump’s primary lender, Deutsche Bank AG, announced that it would no longer have any dealings either with Trump personally or with his companies. Signature Bank closed the president’s two personal banking accounts. Payment processor Stripe prohibited donations to the president’s campaign (Stripe had previously shut down the account of alternative social media site Gab).
Conservatives on Twitter reported that they were losing tens of thousands of followers in the span of hours as conservatives, libertarians and patriots were removed from the platform. ZeroHedge reported on its Twitter account that over 70,000 accounts were suspended on Friday alone.
The deplatforming of the president was denounced not just by conservatives in the media and Congress, but also by German Chancellor Angela Merkle, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and key Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. One can safely assume that these people were not motivated by their undying love of President Trump, but by broader concerns about crackdowns on freedom of expression.
At the same time, Parler, an alternative to Twitter that was pitched primarily to conservatives who were deplatformed, was removed from the Google Play and Apple app stores before it had its web hosting denied entirely by Amazon. Again, three companies with no accountability to the public who were elected by precisely no one removed an entire platform of communication from the Internet with, as far as anyone knows, no means for appealing the decision.
Salesforce announced that it was “taking action” against the Republican National Committee. Specifically, Salesforce has moved to “prevent its use of our services in any way that could lead to violence.” However, this seems to include any questioning of the results of the 2020 election, which, it is worth pointing out, is not fully accepted as valid and fair by a significant portion of the American electorate. Specific numbers on this vary, but it is worth referring to several polls to paint a picture of just how widespread the view that significant election fraud took place in 2020:
- A Rasmussen poll found that 30 percent of Democrats believed there was fraud in the 2020 election.
- A Politico poll found fully 79 percent of Trump voters believed the election was stolen. Given that 74 million people voted for Donald Trump, this equates to over 58 million voters.
- The same poll reported that only 38 percent of Trump voters accept the results of the election. Again, using the same numbers, this means that over 45 million Americans do not see the 2020 election as being legitimate.
- 70 percent of Republicans do not believe that the election was free and fair according to a Politico / Morning Consult poll.
All of this adds up to one simple fact: A significant portion of Americans, amounting to tens of millions of voters on both sides of the political spectrum, do not believe that the 2020 election was legitimate. Does Big Tech plan to deplatform all of them? How many will be fired for their jobs for not kowtowing to the official line on the 2020 election? How many will lose their banking services? If the alleged “most powerful man in the world” can have his access to social media and banking denied, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Ron Paul, the kindly physician who is known for, among other things, his principled opposition to wars of aggression, was removed from Facebook after he posted an article in opposition to Big Tech deplatforming. Former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, had a video removed from YouTube without explanation on the same day. Steve Bannon had his YouTube account removed entirely. Arfcom, one of the most popular gun websites on the entire Internet, had its hosting from GoDaddy, an Amazon Partner, removed without warning or explanation. Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling had his insurance cancelled because of his social media presence.
There was never any reason to believe that the deplatforming of select individuals would end with the deplatforming of a few “outre” individuals with ideas that, as the saying might go, “everyone agrees have ideas that are beyond the pale.” Indeed, the recent wave of Internet deplatforming shows precisely why freedom of speech – even for ideas that one might find loathsome – is important. The trial balloons that have been floated over the last few years were actually canaries in the coal mine. It was the process of acclimating the public to the idea that people could be exiled from social media and deprived of a means to communicate for no reason other than saying something that rubbed unaccountable tech moguls the wrong way.
The social media crackdown appears to be a prelude to something far more ominous. Elected officials, particularly those on the Democratic side, referred to the trespassing at the capitol building as “terrorism” and called for more robust investigation and prosecution of acts of “domestic terrorism.” With the president of the United States himself, leading conservative media figures and, indeed, entire platforms being thrown off of the Internet, there is every reason to believe that when elected officials talk about “domestic terrorists” they are speaking of people who have not broken any laws and whose only crime is being critical of a corporate-neoliberal regime that now rules America without meaningful opposition.
Indeed, we can already see the storm clouds circling. A number of participants in the January 6th protests who did not breach the capitol building reported that they returned to their jobs to find out that they had been fired for participating in a lawful and peaceful protest. This didn’t begin in January – all the way back in October, a woman was fired for attending a Trump rally.
The specter of government power in the form of a new “anti-domestic terrorism” law, Big Tech deplatforming and socioeconomic pressure being leveraged against any and all critics of the new regime is very real. This union of corporate and government power, coupled with street-level violence and ostracization, is the very essence of fascism.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? i.e., Who Watches the Watchers?
Of course, it’s important to ask for a list of left-wing groups who have been banned from social media. But somehow, left-wing groups – even those who violate the terms of service, such as several accounts dedicated to doxing right-wing accounts and inciting violence against conservatives, libertarians and others on the right – are allowed to operate with impunity.
Indeed, it is worth asking who decides what is against the rules at Facebook, Twitter, etc. There is an answer to this question: For Twitter, it’s a “Trust and Safety Council” comprised of 12 left-wing groups and one conservative group you’ve probably never heard of: The Network of Enlightened Women. The 12 left-wing groups include the Anti-Defamation League and GLAAD, both of whom have labeled mainstream conservative groups as “hate groups.”
For Facebook, they rely upon a “fact-checking” process that leverages Snopes and PolitiFact as impartial “fact checkers.” YouTube uses the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center, both left-wing groups known for their attacks on mainstream conservative organizations. Facebook, for its part, deleted 57 of over 200 “hate groups” demanded by the SPLC in August 2017.
What Is To Be Done?
The question after reading this becomes: What should be done, if anything?
It’s difficult to imagine a situation where government interference in Big Tech is going to have the desired outcome. The result might be more and greater censorship than existed before. However, it is worth noting that Sen. Ted Cruz, not exactly known as a proponent of Big Government, has been at the forefront of attempts to hold Big Tech accountable for its censorship of conservative voices on the Internet.
But it’s quite possible that new laws and regulations are not required. What is instead required is a more rigorous enforcement of the laws and regulations that are already on the books. To wit: Are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube content-neutral platforms or are they editorial platforms? If the former, then it would seem that their case for being able to censor legal speech on their platforms is legally flimsy. If the latter, then they are responsible for everything posted on their platforms by every user. Similarly, if Google is intentionally manipulating its results to yield a politicized result, that is likely in violation of existing telecommunications statutes.
The American shift from capitalism to corporatism has had dire unintended consequences: Power has coalesced in both Washington, D.C. and many tech and media companies, such that the latter can undermine American rights and manipulate American political opinion with impunity, while the former abdicates its oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
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03-26-21 Bill Meyer Show Guest information
6:35 Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, www.DailyTorch.com and www.GetLiberty.org with this week’s “Swamp Update” and analysis from DC.
7:10 Greg Roberts with www.RogueWeather.com and today’s Outdoor Report
7:20 Dr. Carol Lieberman
www.expertwitnessforensipsychiatrist.com
https://terroristtherapist.com
Twitter: @DrCaroleMD
Forensic Psychiatrist Says President Biden’s First News Conference Confirms It’s Time For The 25th Amendment
“Biden’s news conference was painful to watch, impossible to follow and make sense of, and an embarrassment for our country. But, he did accomplish one thing: he ‘united’ the country by making them realize that it is time for the 25th Amendment,” warns Carole Lieberman, M.D., M.P.H., America’s Psychiatrist. Dr. Lieberman works as a forensic psychiatrist/expert witness who has testified in hundreds of cases – including ones in which she had to determine mental competency. She has been warning America about Biden’s encroaching dementia – which is now worsening at an alarming rate. “As is typical for people with encroaching dementia, President Biden’s ability to answer questions in ways that make sense declined, the longer he tried to answer questions. As he was tiring and going past his pre-planned answers, he was obviously more lost his train of thought. In fact, he again said, ‘Where am I here?'”
Website: http://caroleliebermanmd.com/
8:35 Sam Jacobs with www.ammo.com
Deplatformed: How Big Tech and Corporate America Help Subvert the 1st and 2nd Amendments
ammo.com/articles/deplatformed-big-tech-companies-subvert-second-amendment-social-media-guns
- Deplatformed: How Big Tech and Corporate America Help Subvert the 1st and 2nd Amendments
Anyone familiar with the Bible is familiar with the Mark of the Beast: Without this mark, no man may buy or sell.
Regardless of one’s religious faith or lack thereof, there is an illustrative case in this biblical story: When one cannot buy or sell, one is metaphorically up the creek. Short of producing everything one needs oneself, buying and selling are necessary parts of virtually every modern person’s life.
In our modern world, we can begin to see a sort of Mark of the Beast: While ideas and even objects aren’t banned, they are increasingly difficult to come by, not due to government fiat, but due to the machinations of corporations hostile to the American values of freedom.
One can be in favor of the free market while recognizing a simple truth: There is no way that America’s Founding Fathers would have sat on their hands while five corporations dominated American discourse and commerce. It is hard to imagine, for example, the Founders suffering a single private bank processing most of the payments in the United States and refusing to do business with gun merchants. Alternately, one can scarcely imagine that the Founders would have sat still for three companies – all of them hostile toward American values and the Constitution – dominating political discourse and deplatforming anyone who opposed them.
This is the situation in which we find ourselves as a nation today: Guns are not illegal, but private companies will make it increasingly difficult to buy, sell or own them – up to and including pulling your bank account. You have all the freedom of speech you like, but prepare to be deplatformed or have your voice buried by large tech corporations with their thumb on the scale of American discourse.
As the American economy has become more corporatist – such that the market is controlled by the interrelation between monolithic mega-corporations, Wall Street and the state – and less capitalistic and dynamic, the American press and economy are now being dominated by forces hostile toward the American public and American values.
No less an authority than James Madison warned Americans that the First Amendment alone was not enough to protect free speech. In Federalist No. 47 and Federalist No. 51, he argued that the separation of powers was necessary to protect free speech by preventing one branch of government from accumulating too much power at the expense of the others and, indeed, the rest of society at large.
This is an important point to remember when considering the First Amendment implications of Big Tech and its war on free speech and gun freedom. The Founding Fathers did not live in a world where a few large corporations had more power than the (incredibly limited and power impoverished) government had, either at the federal or the state level. It’s doubtful that they could have conceived of such a thing.
But they did carefully consider the problem of centralized power as it pertained to the rights enshrined in the Constitution. At the end of the day, the Constitution is just a piece of paper with no ability to enforce itself. What’s more, if the Founders did not address the notion that the private sector could meaningfully and substantially circumvent rights for all Americans, it was simply because they could not conceive of such a thing, not because they were writing the private sector a blank check.
Corporate Big Brother: Banks as Gun Control
Who needs to pass gun control laws anymore? The left can simply appeal to payment systems, banks and processors as a method of non-state gun control.
Case in point: Andrew Ross Sorkin’s December 2018 article decrying credit card companies for “financing” mass shootings. As with many arguments from the left, the premise is flawed, but very simple: Because eight out of 13 shootings that killed more than 10 people in the 2010s involved a credit card purchase (though, as always, it is worth asking what counts as a mass shooting and what is being left out of the tally – more on this here), credit card companies have a responsibility to step up and stop allowing their customers to make purchases for firearms using credit cards.
This effectively amounts to a request for banks to begin surveilling the legal economic activity of their customers.
It’s not far-fetched to consider that some mass shootings have been facilitated by credit card purchases. The Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen as well as Aurora theater shooter James Holmes used credit cards to purchase the weapons and ammunition they ultimately used to commit mass murder.
But mass shootings, particularly those not part of urban gang warfare, are incredibly rare, despite the overwhelming amount of media attention paid to them. What’s more, while statistics for such would be difficult to formulate, the vast, overwhelming majority of firearms and ammunition purchases made with credit cards are made by law-abiding citizens for entirely legal purposes. For most Americans, firearms purchases can be a spike in their normal spending for the month. And what of it? The call for credit card companies and other payment processors to monitor the economic activity of law-abiding citizens would cause an outrage if the government were to do it, so why is the American public supposed to sit still for an invasion of their privacy simply because a private company is performing the surveillance?
Anyone who has ever made a firearms purchase knows that the bill can add up quickly. The oft-demonized AR-15 can easily top $4,000 when the price of a scope, rifle case and a decent cache of ammunition are added to the bill. Even a humble handgun purchase can quickly hit over $1,000 when a good holster and ammo are tacked on. This means that millions of Americans purchasing firearms for no reason other than recreation or self defense are going to have their personal finances investigated by a corporate Big Brother, with all the lack of transparency one can expect from a massive bank whose starting premise is “guilty until proven innocent.”
The attempt by the left to get banks to snoop on legal purchases amounts to nothing more than the stigmatization of the exercise of one of the rights enshrined in our Constitution. And while some would argue that the Constitution only limits the government’s actions, it must constantly be asked why we should allow for such an intrusion into our private lives simply because a private company is doing it.
“If you don’t like it, just make your own credit card company.”
Hardly.
Corporate Gun Control and the Mark of the Beast
After the Parkland Shooting, the American media entered into another round of its “something must be done” (read as: your guns must be taken away) propaganda. One result of this was some of the biggest banks in the United States dropping or scaling back their relations with gun manufacturers.
JPMorgan Chase’s Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake crowed to reporters that the company’s relationship with firearms manufacturers “have come down significantly and are pretty limited.” Bank of America announced its intention to stop extending credit to business clients manufacturing “military-style weapons.” One must, of course, ask if this applies to companies engaged in supplying the United States military itself or the increasingly militarized police found in our nation’s cities.
Bank of America stopped short at stigmatizing the retailers who sell such weapons. Citigroup, however, took the step of requiring any of its business partners to restrict firearms sales to those over the age of 21, as well as those who have not passed a background check. They also barred their partners from selling so-called “high capacity magazines” and bump stocks, which were later banned.
Amalgamated Bank went perhaps the furthest of all, refusing to invest any of its assets in companies involved in the manufacture of “firearms, weaponry and ammunition.”
This leads into another aspect of corporate gun control: Not only is the left demanding that big banks snoop around in your legal purchases, the banks are also starting to make it more difficult for gun manufacturers to obtain the financial services banks would never dare to deny to any other law-abiding company simply on the basis of what they sell.
There is, of course, consumer push-back. For example, the somewhat successful boycott of Dick’s Sporting Goods after it ceased selling so-called “assault weapons.” But Dick’s is still in business and still not selling scary black rifles. And while you can do your business with a competitor, it still doesn’t change the fact that the message has been sent: Companies can remove legal items from their shelves in a politicized fashion with virtually no meaningful consequences.
There is also the growing specter of private companies banning customers from carrying in their stores. Huffington Post compiled a list of seven companies who do not want legal firearms being carried in their businesses. Outback Steakhouse was at the center of a story where a law enforcement officer was asked to leave because he was carrying, something that he is required to do when he is in uniform. Salesforce, a popular software platform for online retailers, will no longer do business with companies who sell virtually all forms of semi-automatic weapons.
Microsoft has put language in its Code of Conduct that prevents users from using them “in any way that promotes or facilitates the sale of ammunition and firearms.” This is another sweeping example of corporate attempts to infringe upon America’s Second Amendment rights. There is nothing illegal or immoral about owning, selling or promoting firearms. Indeed, the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment.
This is a form of corporate coercion that shows the limitations of simply relying upon the Constitution and the free market to ensure one’s rights are respected. It’s hard to imagine that the Founders would simply have thrown up their hands and accepted that corporations were making it impossible for them to exercise their rights simply because there was nothing “unconstitutional” about it.
Beyond this, however, there are two rather frightening developments.
The first is several liberal state governments skinning the cat from the other end. Rather than making it difficult or impossible to purchase firearms, they are going after the National Rifle Association. While many well-meaning people in the Second Amendment movement consider the NRA to be weak tea (and not without good reason), the fact remains that the NRA is the most public and prominent opponent of gun grabbers. The fall of the NRA at the hands of gun grabbers (as opposed to more principled pro-Second Amendment groups) would spell disaster for gun rights in America, setting a precedent that would be used against other organizations protecting gun freedom.
The State of New York, led by Andrew Cuomo, has started attacking insurance programs offered by the NRA to its members. He has also attempted to threaten every insurer and bank in the state to not do business with the NRA. It is important to remember that the banking industry is largely centered in New York, meaning that the governor of that state has an outsized influence on how banking is done across the nation.
Another chilling example of corporate coercion goes beyond the Second Amendment and into the First: Popular veteran rights and gun blog “No Lawyers, Only Guns and Money” was removed from Blogger, a blogging platform owned by Google, on the grounds that it “promoted or sold regulated items.” The website was later restored with the explanation that it was removed by an automated system.
PayPal, the biggest payment processing system on the Internet, cannot be used for any exercise of your Second Amendment rights, nor to pay for dissident thinkers’ services such as Stefan Molyneux and Alex Jones or even Wikileaks. One is not obligated to support or defend the beliefs of any of these people or groups to see that a dangerous precedent is being set. The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) has an extensive list of companies and brands that have instituted anti-firearm corporate policies or have supported further strict legislation.
These are neither the first nor the only times that Big Tech and corporate America have attempted to censor conservatives, libertarians, pro-gun freedom forces and others with opinions to the right of John McCain. Some have argued, not without solid evidence, that Big Tech is involved in a full-throttle war against conservatives and free speech on the Internet. We’re inclined to agree.
Big Tech’s War on Free Speech
There is a war against free speech and Big Tech is the one waging it. Congress has looked into this, with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas leading the charge, not allowing Facebook and other Big Tech companies to weasel out of answering hard questions that the public has about censorship on the Internet.
It’s less true to say that Facebook, Google and other Big Tech platforms “lean left” than it is to say that they push a globalist, neoliberal, corporatist line that eschews any sort of values or ethics other than growth. Edward Abbey has said that the philosophy of growth for the sake of growth is also the philosophy of the cancer cell.
The Big Tech war against free speech is nothing new and there have been canaries in the coal mine for years. Everyone remembers MILO being shown the door on Twitter for a dubious accusation that he led a mob against actress Leslie Jones. But the real test case was not him, it was hacker and troll Andrew Auernheimer, commonly known by his handle “weev.”
weev (always lowercase) is difficult to defend because he has unpopular viewpoints. To wit, he has a large swastika tattooed on his chest. However, proponents of the First Amendment and free speech shouldn’t be concerned with what weev thinks or says, because what he thinks or says is irrelevant to whether or not he has the right to think it and say it. But Twitter and other Big Tech platforms were smart in choosing such an ideological pariah to test the waters.
There is a direct line to be drawn from the deplatforming of weev on Twitter to the unpersoning of Alex Jones to the shadow banning and outright deplatforming of conservative voices all across the web. Mainstream, establishment conservatives have done themselves a disservice by attempting to defend themselves against deplatforming on the basis that “I’m not a Nazi” for two reasons.
First, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Nazi or not. All legal speech should be allowed on social media, or else Big Tech is an editorial content curator, which makes it liable for anything that is posted on there. This means that your ex-spouse lying about how you missed Little Timmy’s baseball game on Facebook can be construed as defamation, for which Facebook is liable because they didn’t remove the status update. Facebook’s pretense that it is a content-neutral platform, a claim that is patently false, is what protects it from being sued every time someone lies about someone else on the platform or from being hauled into court every time that ISIS uses WhatsApp to coordinate an attack.
But the other reason is that for many on the left, there is not a tangible difference between weev, MILO, Alex Jones, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Wayne LaPierre, Ted Cruz, Ben Sharpiro or the President of the United States. Anyone to the right of John McCain is seen as either a literal fascist, a fascist apologist, or a gatekeeper who opens the door to fascist ideology.
Big Tech will not stop at deplatforming actual, self-avowed fascists, nor will it stop at conspiracy theorists, edgy conservatives, or even “respectable” centrist types like Dave Rubin. To throw the far right under the bus in the hopes of satisfying Big Tech’s blood lust is a strategic mistake – it legitimizes the entire process of deplatforming, which will eventually swallow up anyone who believes in the Constitution and the rule of law. Big Tech and the left either see no difference between you and a Nazi, or pretend not to because it’s politically expedient.
This is doubly important because of how many Big Tech companies are actively spying on their users. The EFF maintains an annual detailed list of who is telling the government about its users and their data, who informs users that the government is sniffing around about them, and who even bothers to disclose their data retention policies.
What this means is that if and when the federal government begins compiling a list of “potential right-wing terrorists” or “right-wing extremists” (to the extent that they do not already maintain such lists), they will have a ready-made mine of data from Big Tech, who have shown themselves to be more than willing to cooperate with the federal government, with minimal or no arm-twisting on the part of the feds. Take, for example, the Philadelphia synagogue shooter. Self-proclaimed “free speech” platform Gab was more than willing to hand over all the data they had about his account to the feds without even being asked.
Sure, no one wants to be in the position of defending a synagogue shooter. But the point is that these platforms, even the ones who allegedly have your back, have shown themselves willing to roll on their users provided enough of a fever is whipped up in the press.
Conservatives Censored on Social Media
It’s worth showing just how many mainstream, run-of-the-mill conservatives have been censored by Big Tech – it’s not just the MILOs and the weevs of the world who are being shown the door. Indeed, we believe that these types are censored not out of any actual desire to suppress so-called “hate speech,” but instead to act as a test case for setting the precedent for suppressing legal speech. Here are some examples that are worth considering:
- Pastor Rich Penkoski: This pastor runs a popular Facebook page, “Warriors for Christ.” He was suspended mid-sermon for criticizing the rainbow flag. He was previously banned for calling an atheist a liar and sharing verses from the Quran that called for the killing of non-Muslims.
- Over Two Dozen Catholic Pages: In July 2017, Facebook banned several Catholic pages with millions of followers. Most were based in Brazil. Facebook removed the pages without explanation.
- Rep. Marsha Blackburn: Not even elected officials are immune from social media deplatforming. Facebook removed an ad for Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign that attacked pro-abortion group Planned Parenthood.
- Alveda King: Facebook removed paid ads from Martin Luther King’s niece Alveda King for her documentary on Roe v. Wade.
- Ryan T. Anderson: Twitter refused to run several ads from Christian radio stations for an upcoming interview with Ryan T. Anderson. Anderson is a critic of transgenderism and radical gender ideology.
- Robert Spencer: The head of JihadWatch.org, a website covering radical Islam, was removed from social media and even had his credit cards canceled. He also claims that Google buries him in results for searches about “jihad.”
- Brian Fisher: The President of the Human Coalition notes that this anti-abortion group has had prayer apps removed from the Apple store and has had its content repeatedly removed from Twitter despite taking pains to ensure that all of it is within Twitter’s narrow, anti-First Amendment guidelines.
- PragerU: PragerU is very much the picture of mainstream, run-of-the-mill, completely non-edgy conservatism on the Internet. Despite this, they repeatedly have their content removed from YouTube. Dennis Prager, head of PragerU, is suing YouTube. He notes that Delta Air Lines couldn’t say “conservatives can’t fly with us,” but YouTube, ostensibly a neutral platform, is effectively allowed to say that conservatives can’t use their services.
- David Kyle Foster: David Kyle Foster is a leader in the “ex-gay” movement, a group of Christians who claim that their religion has “cured” their homosexuality. His Vimeo channel, featuring over 700 personal testimonials, was pulled from Vimeo for being “hateful.”
Even the Declaration of Independence has been removed from Facebook as “hate speech” due to their “filtering program.” Yes, really. Nor is it only conservative groups who have been targeted. Moderates and leftists who don’t toe the party line – like Andy Ngo, Tim Pool and Michael Tracey – have likewise been targeted by deplatforming and shadowbanning.
Deplatforming is not limited to social media. Chase Bank has been accused of depriving conservative voices of banking services. This returns us to the Mark of the Beast notion: What good is free speech if banks – banks – can keep you from receiving payments. And how far off are we from seeing conservative voices deprived of their ability to pay?
Imagine showing up at the grocery store and finding out that your money’s no good because you have a concealed carry permit. Sound far-fetched? So would have having your bank account closed for being a conservative activist.
The Great Conservative Purge of 2021
Deplatforming on the Internet went to a much more disturbing level in the wake of the 2020 election and the breaching of the capitol building by protesters on January 6, 2021. This event, much like the attack of September 11, 2001, began to be used as a pretext for increasing encroachment on the civil liberties of ordinary citizens, not limited to a mass purge of Twitter users.
Some of the more egregious examples of how Big Tech moved to constrain free speech on the Internet are worth calling out. The elephant in the room was the removal of President Donald Trump from Twitter, as well as Facebook, Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), Pinterest and even Spotify. While there is no evidence that the big tech companies colluded with one another in an attempt to silence the president, it is suspect on its face due to the outwardly coordinated nature of the deplatforming.
The attack on President Trump was not limited to his social media accounts. Trump’s primary lender, Deutsche Bank AG, announced that it would no longer have any dealings either with Trump personally or with his companies. Signature Bank closed the president’s two personal banking accounts. Payment processor Stripe prohibited donations to the president’s campaign (Stripe had previously shut down the account of alternative social media site Gab).
Conservatives on Twitter reported that they were losing tens of thousands of followers in the span of hours as conservatives, libertarians and patriots were removed from the platform. ZeroHedge reported on its Twitter account that over 70,000 accounts were suspended on Friday alone.
The deplatforming of the president was denounced not just by conservatives in the media and Congress, but also by German Chancellor Angela Merkle, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and key Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny. One can safely assume that these people were not motivated by their undying love of President Trump, but by broader concerns about crackdowns on freedom of expression.
At the same time, Parler, an alternative to Twitter that was pitched primarily to conservatives who were deplatformed, was removed from the Google Play and Apple app stores before it had its web hosting denied entirely by Amazon. Again, three companies with no accountability to the public who were elected by precisely no one removed an entire platform of communication from the Internet with, as far as anyone knows, no means for appealing the decision.
Salesforce announced that it was “taking action” against the Republican National Committee. Specifically, Salesforce has moved to “prevent its use of our services in any way that could lead to violence.” However, this seems to include any questioning of the results of the 2020 election, which, it is worth pointing out, is not fully accepted as valid and fair by a significant portion of the American electorate. Specific numbers on this vary, but it is worth referring to several polls to paint a picture of just how widespread the view that significant election fraud took place in 2020:
- A Rasmussen poll found that 30 percent of Democrats believed there was fraud in the 2020 election.
- A Politico poll found fully 79 percent of Trump voters believed the election was stolen. Given that 74 million people voted for Donald Trump, this equates to over 58 million voters.
- The same poll reported that only 38 percent of Trump voters accept the results of the election. Again, using the same numbers, this means that over 45 million Americans do not see the 2020 election as being legitimate.
- 70 percent of Republicans do not believe that the election was free and fair according to a Politico / Morning Consult poll.
All of this adds up to one simple fact: A significant portion of Americans, amounting to tens of millions of voters on both sides of the political spectrum, do not believe that the 2020 election was legitimate. Does Big Tech plan to deplatform all of them? How many will be fired for their jobs for not kowtowing to the official line on the 2020 election? How many will lose their banking services? If the alleged “most powerful man in the world” can have his access to social media and banking denied, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Ron Paul, the kindly physician who is known for, among other things, his principled opposition to wars of aggression, was removed from Facebook after he posted an article in opposition to Big Tech deplatforming. Former Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, had a video removed from YouTube without explanation on the same day. Steve Bannon had his YouTube account removed entirely. Arfcom, one of the most popular gun websites on the entire Internet, had its hosting from GoDaddy, an Amazon Partner, removed without warning or explanation. Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling had his insurance cancelled because of his social media presence.
There was never any reason to believe that the deplatforming of select individuals would end with the deplatforming of a few “outre” individuals with ideas that, as the saying might go, “everyone agrees have ideas that are beyond the pale.” Indeed, the recent wave of Internet deplatforming shows precisely why freedom of speech – even for ideas that one might find loathsome – is important. The trial balloons that have been floated over the last few years were actually canaries in the coal mine. It was the process of acclimating the public to the idea that people could be exiled from social media and deprived of a means to communicate for no reason other than saying something that rubbed unaccountable tech moguls the wrong way.
The social media crackdown appears to be a prelude to something far more ominous. Elected officials, particularly those on the Democratic side, referred to the trespassing at the capitol building as “terrorism” and called for more robust investigation and prosecution of acts of “domestic terrorism.” With the president of the United States himself, leading conservative media figures and, indeed, entire platforms being thrown off of the Internet, there is every reason to believe that when elected officials talk about “domestic terrorists” they are speaking of people who have not broken any laws and whose only crime is being critical of a corporate-neoliberal regime that now rules America without meaningful opposition.
Indeed, we can already see the storm clouds circling. A number of participants in the January 6th protests who did not breach the capitol building reported that they returned to their jobs to find out that they had been fired for participating in a lawful and peaceful protest. This didn’t begin in January – all the way back in October, a woman was fired for attending a Trump rally.
The specter of government power in the form of a new “anti-domestic terrorism” law, Big Tech deplatforming and socioeconomic pressure being leveraged against any and all critics of the new regime is very real. This union of corporate and government power, coupled with street-level violence and ostracization, is the very essence of fascism.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes? i.e., Who Watches the Watchers?
Of course, it’s important to ask for a list of left-wing groups who have been banned from social media. But somehow, left-wing groups – even those who violate the terms of service, such as several accounts dedicated to doxing right-wing accounts and inciting violence against conservatives, libertarians and others on the right – are allowed to operate with impunity.
Indeed, it is worth asking who decides what is against the rules at Facebook, Twitter, etc. There is an answer to this question: For Twitter, it’s a “Trust and Safety Council” comprised of 12 left-wing groups and one conservative group you’ve probably never heard of: The Network of Enlightened Women. The 12 left-wing groups include the Anti-Defamation League and GLAAD, both of whom have labeled mainstream conservative groups as “hate groups.”
For Facebook, they rely upon a “fact-checking” process that leverages Snopes and PolitiFact as impartial “fact checkers.” YouTube uses the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center, both left-wing groups known for their attacks on mainstream conservative organizations. Facebook, for its part, deleted 57 of over 200 “hate groups” demanded by the SPLC in August 2017.
What Is To Be Done?
The question after reading this becomes: What should be done, if anything?
It’s difficult to imagine a situation where government interference in Big Tech is going to have the desired outcome. The result might be more and greater censorship than existed before. However, it is worth noting that Sen. Ted Cruz, not exactly known as a proponent of Big Government, has been at the forefront of attempts to hold Big Tech accountable for its censorship of conservative voices on the Internet.
But it’s quite possible that new laws and regulations are not required. What is instead required is a more rigorous enforcement of the laws and regulations that are already on the books. To wit: Are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube content-neutral platforms or are they editorial platforms? If the former, then it would seem that their case for being able to censor legal speech on their platforms is legally flimsy. If the latter, then they are responsible for everything posted on their platforms by every user. Similarly, if Google is intentionally manipulating its results to yield a politicized result, that is likely in violation of existing telecommunications statutes.
The American shift from capitalism to corporatism has had dire unintended consequences: Power has coalesced in both Washington, D.C. and many tech and media companies, such that the latter can undermine American rights and manipulate American political opinion with impunity, while the former abdicates its oath to defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
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Thursday, 3-25-21 Bill Meyer Guests Information
6:50 Noel Paul Stookey, better known as the “Paul” of the seminal 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary, continues to embrace his role as an elder statesman of what was once referred to as “protest music.” This week Neworld Multimedia released his latest album JUST CAUSES, a carefully curated compilation of 15 Stookey tracks, each bearing a theme of social concern.
7:10 Perry Atkinson of The Dove TV and Radio, and we discuss their horrendous experience with “Cancel Culture” as YouTube bounces them off the platform…a loss of 15,000+ Videos and News Reports.
7:35 Wayne Winegarden is a senior fellow in business and economics at PRI and director of PRI’s Center for Medical Economics and Innovation.
In the new book, NO WAY HOME: The Crisis of Homelessness and How to Fix it with Intelligence and Humanity, Policy Economist, Wayne Winegarden and his fellow authors examine the causes of homelessness with a focus on unaffordable housing, poverty, mental illness, substance addiction, and legal reform. It examines the state and local policy environment to determine ways in which housing policy, social service programs, and employment opportunities interact to exacerbate, perpetuate, or reduce homelessness.
8:35 State Senator Art Robinson – update on the 6 Senators who walked, and the 6 senators who DID NOT.
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Wednesday 3-24-21 Bill Meyer Guests Information
6:35 Eric Peters, automotive journalist at www.EpAutos.com
Today’s featured articles and discussion topics are
“Environmentally Friendly” – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/22/environmentally-friendly/
California’s Deciders – how they control the cars “we” can buy
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/24/californias-deciders/
7:10 State Senator Dennis Linthicum reporting from the Salem Senate – Shutdown or not?
8:10 Marc Morano, Former senior staff member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, publisher of www.ClimateDepot.com, author of “Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal is Even Worse Than You Think” which is out this week. He produced the Climate Hustle, and Climate Hustle 2: Rise of the Climate Monarchy.
Marc Morano, author of Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal is Even Worse than You Think (releases March 23) exposed this study on his website ClimateDepot.com. The frightening part is that climate lockdowns supported by this study are being embraced by american climate activists calling for a global lockdown of COVID proportions every two years for the next decade.
Their justification? “for the world to keep within safe limits of global heating’.
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Tuesday 3-23-21 Bill Meyer Guests Information
6:35 Damien Schiff, a senior attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, on the Cedar Point Nursery v Gould Supreme Court case (argued on Monday)
Union activists shouldn’t get a special pass to trespass
Early one morning in 2015, hundreds of workers at Cedar Point Nursery were startled when union activists came into their place of business, yelling into bullhorns and demanding that the workers join the union. On Monday, Pacific Legal Foundation will argue at the Supreme Court that property owners have the right to keep activists off their property. |
https://pacificlegal.org/labor-unions-shouldnt-trespass-private-property/
https://pacificlegal.org/case/cedar-point-nursery-v-gould/
7:10 State Representative Kim Wallan – Updates on the current state of the State House – the Covid shutdown of the legislature.
7:35 Former State Senator and current Josephine County Commissioner Herman Baertschiger – the walkout issue – he was on KATU television Sunday taking on State Senator Rob Wagner over the issue, watch it here
8:10 State Senator Art Robinson digs into the rumors surrounding the walkout and other going ons at the state legislature.
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Monday 3-22-21 Bill Meyer Guests information
6:35 Hampton Conway III, is the Executive Director of the Movement Ministries. Hampton is a father of ten and an educator of many. He has over 20 years of experience in education and even more in ministry and in service to others. Hampton is passionate about using his gifts and talents to uplift and inspire others. Drawing from his own experience as a battered husband and as a father of 10 children who also endured abuse, Hampton helps others to effectively deal with all forms of domestic violence. www.MakeMoves.org On Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/makemoves.org
8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers, retired professor of business law at SOU, and noted author and historian . Here is today’s “Where Past Meets Present” profile:
The Wolf Creek Inn
By Dennis Powers
Built in 1883 as a prime stop on the Applegate Trail–including those traveling the Oregon Stage Coach line between Portland and Sacramento–the Wolf Creek Inn is twenty-five miles north of Grants Pass; it has sheltered weary travelers longer than any other hotel in the Pacific Northwest. The large wooden, two-story building with high-pitched roofs, a colonnaded front porch and upper deck, and wider back has nine guest rooms (and two bunkrooms), complete with dining, reading, and lounging facilities.
Merchant Henry Smith had the premises built with the lodgings advertised as a “first-class traveler’s hotel.” It was named the Wolf Creek Tavern, an old English term for a hotel or lodging that served food. Smith also accumulated large land holdings in the 1880s, and he planted orchards still in existence. The large apple and pear trees next to the Inn and north of the dining room date back to an orchard planted in 1885. The Wolf Creek Inn changed over time from a stagecoach stop, then as a cowboys’ and miners’ lodging with a hot meal and clean bed, and then to automobile travelers with celebrities.
Jack London stayed at the Inn in 1911 for several weeks, while he worked on the porch and hiked for a break through the forests behind it. During this time, he wrote a short story entitled “The End of the Story.” He also completed his novel “Valley of the Moon” during another stay. Jack London’s room is on the second floor at the front, and it shows now much as it would have then. A trail near Wolf Creek winds its way to a peak named for Jack London, owing to the time he spent in this area. The summit overlooks Wolf Creek Valley and the tiny town of Wolf Creek.
During the 1920s and 1930s, numerous celebrities visited the Inn, including Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Orson Wells. Best known for his role as Rhett Butler in “Gone with the Wind,” Gable was a good friend of the innkeeper in the 1930s and several times just stopped by. He enjoyed fly fishing in the Umpqua River a few miles away, staying before and after he married his wife, Carol Lombard.
When the Inn needed repairs, the State of Oregon acquired it and land on Wolf Creek’s north bank in 1975 to preserve the historic hotel. Reviewing the original floor plans, wall coverings, and its history, carpenters and craftsmen rebuilt the structure to bring back the look and feel of the mid 1920’s. The process took four years and the restored Inn is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Although closed for three years for further renovations and reopened in 2017, the Inn offers different activities, including dinner theatre (with even ghost tours owing to tea cups that spin, lights turning on and off, and the piano playing at night)–all located in the town of Wolf Creek, 1/4 mile from I-5 at Exit 76.
Sources: J.D. Finn: Offbeat Oregon History “Wolf Creek Inn was writing retreat for Jack London”, at Inn’s Past; “Wolf Creek Inn” at Website; John Stoeckl, “Spooky Seasons: Wolf Creek Inn of Ghosts,” Mail Tribune, Oct. 30, 2020 at Ghost Stories.
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MONDAY 3-15-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
TUESDAY 3-16-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
WEDNESDAY 3-17-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
THURSDAY 3-18-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
FRIDAY 3-19-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
Thursday 3-18-21 Guest Information
6:35 Gregory Wrightstone, geologist and Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition, and author of “Inconvenient Facts: The Science Al Gore Doesn’t Want You To Know”.
Biden Pushes Green Energy As Informed Environmentalists Abandon ItREAD GREGORY WRIGHTSTONE’S ARTICLE: |
7:35 Brad Fay, Southern Oregon PBS, Don Gentry, Chair of the Klamath Tribe, and Dr. Alex Gonway, Sr. Fish Biologist for the Tribe. Tonight at 8:30 is the debut of the documentary KILLING the KLAMATH.
8:10 Michael Calder, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. It is at Berkeley, pouring over government documents, Calder wrote his thesis which became his book, JFK vs. CIA: The Central Intelligence Agency’s Assassination Of The President.
The hardcover version of the book is available at Barnes and Noble and independent bookshops. I’m reading it and finding it VERY compelling and thorough.
Bill’s Guest Information for Wednesday 3-17-21
6:35 Eric Peters, automotive journalist from www.EPAutos.com
Googled By Ford – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/17/googled-by-ford/
The “Safe Car” – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/15/the-safe-car/
Lexus Hybrid Review – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/16/2021-lexus-nx300h/
7:40 Jim Pauley, President & CEO of the National Fire Protection Association.
Nfpa.org/wildfirepolicy
The National Fire Protection Association has launched “Outthink Wildfire™”, a comprehensive strategy to address America’s wildfire crisis that lays out five key policy changes that need to be made at the federal, state, and local levels and, if followed, will end the destruction of communities by wildfire over the next 30 years.
The five tenets of Outthink Wildfire™ that must occur at all levels of government that will make it easier for communities to foster collaboration, enact change, achieve resilience, and protect themselves from wildfire:
- Require all homes and businesses in the WUI to become more resistant to ignition from wildfire embers and flames
- Ensure that current codes and standards, as well as sound land-use practices, are in use and enforced for new development and rebuilding in wildfire-prone areas
- Work with all levels of government to increase resources for vegetative fuel management
- Ensure fire departments that serve WUI communities are prepared to respond safely and effectively to wildfire
- Help the public understand its role in reducing wildfire risk and providing communities with the tools to take meaningful action
8:10 Carole Lieberman, M.D., M.P.H. (‘America’s Psychiatrist’), a board-certified Beverly Hills psychiatrist
Stress & Anxiety Caused By Smartphone Use Revealed In New Study Tel Aviv University’s Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine carried out a new study claiming that the excessive time spent on social media or on mobile phones leads to an increased chance of pain in jaw and mouth-muscles, teeth-grinding, sleep problems, fatigue and drowsiness during the day. About 600 participants participated in the study which included secular Jews (mostly smartphone users) and a group of ultra-Orthodox Israelis (those who use a phone without an internet connection). |
Bill’s Guest Information for Tuesday 3-16-21
6:35 Sommer Porter, Executive Liaison at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) says the CBS Grammys broadcast contributed to the sexual exploitation of women by glamorizing prostitution and stripping. The performance by Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion showed the two women and backup performers wearing thongs and lingerie, dancing on a stripper pole, and crawling around and twerking on a bed together.
“In a performance that could have been cut from a hardcore pornography film, CBS allowed a glamorization of stripping and prostitution to be broadcast in front of a national audience – a portion of which were children – for no other reason than for TV ratings,” said Dawn Hawkins, senior vice president and executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. “Despite the ‘popularity’ of the song performed by Cardi B. and Megan Thee Stallion, CBS should have never allowed this kind of explicit performance to happen at the Grammys.”
7:35 Josephine County Commissioner Herman Baertschiger
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Bill’s Guest Information for Monday 3-15-21
7:10 State Senator Art Robinson
8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers, “Where Past Meets Present” segment.
The Golden Ghost Town of the Valley
By Dennis Powers
Near forgotten and desolate, the ghost town of Golden lies a few miles east of Wolf Creek in Josephine County. Its weathered-brown, old clapboard structures stand in mute testimony to a long-ago era. At its peak in the late Nineteenth Century, the town originally known as “Goldville,” was home to some 200 folks. Most were earning their living from the gold taken out from Coyote Creek directly across from the settlement.
Prospectors had worked the creek since the 1850s, but it took Reverend William Ruble and his wife Ruth in 1890 to establish the town. Ruble had purchased nearly all of the mining claims east and west of Golden; his sons, Schuyler and William, mined the shallower ground and leased the deep portions of the creek to other miners.
The town sprung up with a general store, post office, homes, two churches, a school, orchards, and mills to pulverize the rock and extract gold. Owing to the activity, the Oregon-California Stage Company detoured there to deliver mail, passengers, and goods; the town was a center for miners who didn’t live there but worked the surrounding area. With religion a major theme, no saloons were allowed; imbibers traveled to nearby Wolf Creek where they built a dance hall. The church-minding folks also came there to picket the place and its rowdiness.
The miners worked the deposits until the gold finally played out. By the 1930’s, the easy-to-mine gold had been exhausted and the town rapidly declined. What’s left now are a deserted residence, the church, general store, carriage shed, and other structures, but the old buildings still exude their charm, including the weathered church with its exquisite bell tower. The story, however, doesn’t end here.
A minister’s son, Melvin Davis, built a 2,800-square-foot lodge in 1930 on four acres located one mile from the now deserted town; he moved an 1880s guest house and the historic school from Golden to there, and mined the nearby wetlands. An African-American–Mr. Ivan St. John–purchased the holdings in 1989 after the site had traded hands several times. St. John was a homeopathic doctor, a trance medium, and alchemist who had co-founded the Philosopher’s Stone, an occult bookstore in San Francisco. (Alchemy is the “science” of turning base metals, such as lead, into gold or silver.)
When St. John in 1988 sold his bookstore interest, he bought the Davis property, known for its precious gold holdings. St. John died in 2005, but he didn’t leave any known heirs. The Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation owns and manages the town as a Heritage site. The ghost town was placed in 2002 on the National Register of Historic Properties.
To see this nostalgic place with its deep Oregon history, drive on Interstate 5 to the Wolf Creek (Exit 76), approximately 25 miles north of Grants Pass. Wind back to the right and drive up Coyote Creek Road for 3-1/2 miles through the forests. You’ll find the cluster of old buildings on the left; the mined Coyote Creek area and wetlands are to the right (across the paved road). The small cemetery next to the church was in an episode from the TV series, Gunsmoke, where grave marker props were added. Although no one is buried there, psychics believe the town to be inhabited by “residual and intelligent spirits.” Golden is one of the best mining-era ghost towns in Southern Oregon in a rural setting that is easily accessible.
Sources: Gary Swanson, “ActiveRain: Ghost Town of Golden, Oregon,” at Golden, Oregon (With Images); Bill Kettler, “Snapshot: The Church at Golden,” Mail Tribune, February 16 2011; see also Rick Dancer, “Golden, Oregon: A Ghost Town that Keeps on Living,” at Video on Golden.
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MONDAY 3-08-21 PODCAST 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
TUESDAY 3-09-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
WEDNESDAY 3-10-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
THURSDAY 3-11-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
FRIDAY 3-12-21 PODCASTS 6AM – 7AM – 8AM
NEW PARODY SONG TO DOWNLOAD – “Dirty Covid”
Bill’s Guest Information for Friday 3-12-21
6:35 Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, www.DailyTorch.com and www.GetLiberty.org Today we talk the Biden speech, and how the child tax credit could help parents help their children escape the failing government school system.
7:10 Outdoor Report with Greg Roberts from www.RogueWeather.com
7:20 Steve Yancey with Skypark Insurance – Does Home Insurance cover terrorism?
8:10 Melissa Henson, program director of the Parents Television Council.
Disney has given the thumbs up to explicit TV content, writes the Parents Television Council. Despite its recent decisions to remove certain movies or TV programs like The Muppet Show from kids’ profiles on Disney+, the company appears to be doubling down on explicit or sexualized content on its other streaming platform, Hulu.
Disney-owned Hulu, which currently streams sexualized child-themed programs like A Teacher, about a married teacher who seduces one of her students, and PEN15, a suggestively titled “teen comedy” that included a scene of an adolescent girl masturbating in front of a mirror, has announced that it is adding yet another sexualized, child-themed series to its programming slate, Sex Appeal. Described as a “teen comedy,” Sex Appeal centers on high-schooler Avery Hansen-White whose boyfriend wants to take their relationship to the next level, so she sets out to master the “mechanics of love.” Two more questionable series in development for Hulu include Bitches and Punk Ass Bitch.
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Bill’s Guest Information for Thursday 3-11-21
8:10 Rachel Dawson, Policy Analyst at Cascade Policy Institute
Hydroelectric power is renewable; it’s time legislators recognize that
Cascade Policy Institute March 3, 2021 0
By Rachel Dawson
Oregon has always been a national leader in providing clean energy to ratepayers due to our hydroelectric dominated energy portfolio. In 2018, around 54% of Oregon’s electricity use resource mix was zero-emitting.
The current renewable portfolio standard (RPS) does not reflect this reality.
Oregon’s RPS was established in 2007 and created a requirement for how much of our electricity must come from “renewable” sources. The target for 2020 was 20%, even though over half of the electricity Oregon consumes is renewable. In 2016 the RPS target was raised to 50% by 2040. Currently, only PGE, PacifiCorp, and EWEB are required to be compliant with the law.
Eligible resources for Oregon’s RPS include: wind, solar, wave, tidal and ocean thermal energy, geothermal, biomass, and hydroelectric built after January 1, 1995. Notably missing from this list are nuclear and legacy hydroelectric. Unlike intermittent solar and wind resources, nuclear and hydro are reliable and do not need to be curtailed or backed up by baseload power as solar and wind often are.
Senate Bill 540, sponsored by Senator Fred Girod, would change that. This bill specifies that all electricity generated by a hydroelectric facility, no matter the facility’s age, can be used to comply with the RPS. Oregon’s RPS needs to account for the region’s legacy hydroelectric resources and the deep decarbonization already in place in most rural areas in Oregon. Legislators should vote yes on SB 540.
Rachel Dawson is a Policy Analyst at Cascade Policy Institute, Oregon’s free market public policy research center.
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Bill’s Guest Information for Wednesday 3/10/21
6:35 Eric Peters, automotive journalist at www.EpAutos.com
Today’s topic, among many – Why Just Sell a Car, When the Car Manufacturers can sell YOU – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/08/why-just-sell-you-a-car-when-they-can-sell-you/
The Daily Diaper Report – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/09/diaper-report-3-9-21/
7:35 Kevin Starrett, Oregon Firearms Federation www.OregonFirearms.org
What’s the status of the nasty Gun Bills in the legislature? – https://www.oregonfirearms.org/2021-firearms-bills
8:10 David Kirk West – area independent Film Maker and video journalist. He has produced a expose’ video of area journalist Brad Smith’s alleged bullying behavior, and how local Talent Mayor Darby Ayers Flood appears to be a big supporter, according to David. Here’s the YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjj2G-YwUrk&t=422s
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Bill’s Guest Information for Tuesday 3-09-21
6:35 Ken Braun, Senior Investigative Researcher, Capital Research Center
Almost a century ago the film industry was in its infancy and the Russian communist Vladimir Lenin predicted he could win the world for Marxism if he could just control the movies. One left-wing billionaire appears to be using Lenin’s business model to sell an anti-capitalist environmental agenda with such propaganda blockbusters as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the similarly awful An Inconvenient Sequel, Slay the Dragon, and Promised Land. CRC’s Ken Braun exposes Participant Media in a four-part series here.
Influencewatch.org
https://capitalresearch.org/article/dragging-hollywood-even-further-left-part-1/
https://capitalresearch.org/article/dragging-hollywood-even-further-left-part-2/
https://capitalresearch.org/article/dragging-hollywood-even-further-left-part-3/
https://capitalresearch.org/article/dragging-hollywood-even-further-left-part-4/
8:35 Linda Lochard local author –
NEW BOOK SHOWCASES HARDSHIPS AND HOPE OF BRAVE PIONEERS WHO VENTURED NORTHWEST FOR A BETTER LIFE IN OREGON TERRITORY IN 1840s
Author Writes Novel After First-Hand Experience on a Wagon Train During a
Grueling Re-Enactment of People Traveling Along the Applegate Trail
SOUTHERN OREGON — Linda Lochard’s passion for Oregon history inspired her to write a historical novel about her real-life experience on a wagon train along a treacherous route that 80 people followed in 1846 as an allegedly safer alternative to the Oregon Trail.
Life Along the Applegate Trail: A Tale of Grit and Determination by Linda D. Lochard debuts on March 8, 2021, in hardcover, paperback, and ebook.
The book is available for pre-order now, and Linda is available for interviews such as this one on a local TV station.
The new release from Two Sisters Writing & Publishing will mark International Women’s Day.
“I wanted to tell a story that highlights the hope that these people had as they traveled into unknown territory while braving harsh weather, bears and cougars, and threats of Indian attacks,” says Lochard, a Medford resident who was Director of the Visitors and Convention Bureau Director when she took the wagon train trip.
“I also wanted to celebrate the strong women who endured tremendous hardships while giving birth and taking care of children and husbands, as well as cooking during their six-month trip through the blazing heat of the desert and the frigid temperatures on the rugged mountain passes.”
Lochard skillfully balances the grim scenes of death, fear, and anxiety about the unknown with happy moments of dining and dancing, as well as romance between the main characters, the beautiful widow Questa and a gentlemanly cowboy, Chase Gunner.
The idea for Linda’s first book began to evolve in 1993 when she helped plan the 150th Anniversary celebrations of the Oregon Trail and the Applegate Trail. As the Visitors and Convention Bureau Director, as well as a member of the Oregon Trail Board of Directors and the Applegate Trail Coalition, she traveled on a wagon 31 days during a 51-day journey that re-enacted the 1846 Applegate Trail trip.
The experience earned her Travel Oregon’s Frank Branch Riley Heritage Tourism Award and inspired her to write her own story, as real and as rich as many of the “characters” she discovered, either by their diaries or during the re-enactment.
Linda’s book is ALSO available at the Oregon Books and Games Store in Grants Pass. And Barnes and Noble in Medford.
Find her on www.facebook.com/Lindalochardauthor
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Bill’s Guest Information for Monday 3-8-21
6:35 Lawrence W. Reed – In his book, Was Jesus a Socialist? economist and historian Lawrence W. Reed demolishes the idea that Jesus called on earthly governments to redistribute wealth or centrally plan the economy – or even to impose a welfare state.
More about Larence at www.LawrenceWReed.com
7:10 Outdoor report with Greg Roberts at Rogue Weather
7:20 Jackson County Sheriff Nate Sickler talks gun grab “What-ifs”, homeless, jail capacity and issues and more topics.
8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers, “Where Past Meets Present”, and today’s profile is Zane Grey!
Zane Grey
By Dennis Powers
By the time Zane Grey first came across Southern Oregon and the Rogue River, he was an acclaimed writer who loved fishing, adventure, and the outdoors, but could travel anywhere he wanted in that search. Born in 1872 in Ohio, he studied dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship and graduated in 1896.
He decided to practice dentistry in New York City, as he wanted to be in the publishing center. As Dr. Zane Grey, he began writing in the evening as he soon became bored as a dentist. At the same time, he played with several minor league teams in the late 1890s, including the Newark-New Jersey Colts; in 1905, he married Lina “Dolly” Roth and they had three children.
His first book (which he wrote, illustrated and published) was “Betty Zane” (1903), then “Spirit of the Border” (1906), and his third was “The Last of the Plainsmen” (1908). His first western came next, “The Heritage of the Desert” (1910), which quickly became a commercial success and gave him the freedom to travel and write for a living. His best-known novel, “The Riders of the Purple Sage,” was published in 1912 and became one of the most successful Western novels of all time.
Zane Grey first traveled to Southern Oregon in 1917 with his wife, and then by himself two years later to the Rogue River. Although he had little luck fishing, his party caught dozens of steelhead. He spent several months in the next year fishing the Rogue. His return in 1925 was coupled with ambitious plans to travel the upper reaches of the Rogue in custom-made boats. His trip through the rapids proved dangerous, and when his boat grounded, Grey was badly bruised. He considered the trip, however, was worth it.
He fell in love with the fishing, the wilderness, and the adventure. Grey bought a mining claim the next year on the Rogue at remote Winkle Bar (30 miles northwest of Grants Pass) in the Lower Rogue River canyon. As the government owned the land, the only way he could acquire any rights was by a mining claim. There, he would write and fish.
He and a fishing guide in 1926 then built a crude one-room cabin of peeled logs and hand-split shingles for his wilderness retreat. He felt that the pristine Rogue was a remnant of what America had been. He said that he spent “one of the briefest and happiest days I have ever had” on the Rogue River near Winkle Bar, despite that he didn’t get one single bite while fishing.
Returning throughout the 1920s, Zane Grey wrote about the river and his experiences. His 1925 drift-boat trip down the lower Rogue ended in a chapter of his “Tales of Fresh Water Fishing” (1928). His novel “Rogue River Feud” was published in 1929, and the main character was the Rogue River—for which he made the Rogue famous.
Amazon’s description of the book is: “ON A WILD, ROUGH OREGON RIVER, HE FACED A MAN’S TRUEST TEST: Soldiering had left Keven Bell wounded and adrift, until he returned to Grant’s Pass to find his reputation savaged. The unsavory Major Atwell had spread rumors that Keven was a violator of women and a coward, to boot. Traveling down river, Keven escaped the lawmen hot on his trail, only to kill a man in self-defense. His fate seemed sealed—until a beautiful woman came to his aid with one invincible weapon!”
Over time, Grey felt he was losing his solitude there as more fishermen passed by, so in the mid-1930s he decided that the North Umpqua River would be his Oregon fishing river. He suffered a stroke in 1937 from which he never fully recovered and died in 1939 at age 65. He was a prodigious writer and his publisher had in hand various manuscripts that were published after his death. Zane Grey was the author of over 90 books and nearly 50 were made into films.
After Grey’s death, the Haas family of San Francisco (of Levi Strauss fame)—and at one time owners of the Oakland A’s baseball team—purchased the old Zane Grey cabin. Haas family members built modern cabins on the property, but the public was allowed to walk around the cabin, provided they only took pictures. The Trust for Public Land in 2008 acquired the 32 acres and the buildings from the family, and then sold this to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, thus continuing public access. The cabin was nominated and accepted into the National Register of Historic Places.
Zane Gray’s love for fishing was his passion; his writing for books, movies, and magazines allowed him to fish.
Sources: “Wikipedia: Zane Grey,” at Zane Grey; Jeff LaLande, “The Oregon Encyclopedia: Zane Grey (1872–1939),” at More on Zane Grey; Associated Press, “Trust sells Zane Grey cabin on Rogue River to BLM,” The Oregonian, May 18, 2008, at Rogue River Connection; Mark Freeman, “Zane Gray Made the Rogue Famous,” Mail Tribune: Our Valley, April 26, 2020 at Fishing and Writing.
8:40 – J. Austin Gold and Silver Buyer‘s Mark Hutto – the latest on the really odd silver markets right now, and the “Short Squeeze”
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MONDAY 3-01-21 PODCASTS 6AM 7AM 8AM
TUESDAY 3-02-21 PODCASTS 6AM7AM8AM
WEDNESDAY 3-03-21 PODCASTS 6AM7AM8AM
THURSDAY 3-04-21 PODCASTS 6AM7AM8AM
FRIDAY 3-05-21 PODCASTS 6AM7AM8AM
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NEW PARODY SONG – “Dirty Covid”
Bill’s Guest information for Friday 3/5/21
6:35 Rick Manning, President of Americans for Limited Government, and today we talk the new jobs report.
7:20 2nd District U.S. Congressman Cliff Bentz and Cliff and I dig into the legislation rolling through Congress…Unfortunately, most of it isn’t good.
INTERESTING READ – Here is a compilation of Oregon Health Authority death statistics by county from 2016 to 2020. The increase in death from 2016 to the 2020 Covid year is not nearly as dramatic as the government would have us think. Is the crushing of private sector economies, education, and social stress, suicides, etc, a fair and proper response? (This list is raw numbers, not adjusted for population growth) Read the pdf here: Oregon Deaths by County 2016-2020
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Bill’s Guest Information for Thursday 3-4-21
6:35 Joe Guzzardi, analyst with Progressives for Immigration Reform
Beware: Universities, Big Biz Endorse Amnesty
By Joe Guzzardi
Once again, the big guys, those with money, power and influence, are ganging up on the little guys, Americans struggling in the neverending pandemic shutdown to earn a sustenance-level income.
As is too frequently the case, immigration, and specifically President Biden’s U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, is the focal point of the ongoing lopsided battle of the elite versus the working classes. At the February 19 New England Business Immigration Summit (NEBIS), Harvard’s president, Lawrence S. Bacow, along with biotech executives and other higher education leaders gathered virtually to urge Congress to pass the amnesty legislation that Biden promised as a candidate.
The group urged Congress to grant citizenship to illegal aliens as well as to deferred action for childhood arrivals and temporary protected status recipients. Conference participants also want the federal government to issue more employment-based visas to overseas workers which President Trump paused because of COVID-19 concerns (still valid), and to restore refugee levels to the pre-Trump totals of 100,000 or more annually.
David Greene, Maine’s Colby College president, said that only an immediate immigrant infusion can save New England. Greene’s statement is an insult to unemployed and underemployed New Englanders. For his part, Bacow wants more opportunities for international students to remain in the U.S. for employment, a consequence that, if realized, would come at the expense of U.S. college graduates.
Whenever big names like NEBIS smooth-talkers get together openly to advocate for more legally present immigrants, an age-old ploy that dates back at least to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, their objective is to convey to and sway the public that when so many prominent, successful people agree on a single government policy, in this case amnesty, they must be right. After all, an elitist “summit” has rendered its pro-amnesty verdict – case closed!
In truth, immigration expansionist advocates are misguided, and if their encouragement to Congress succeeds, millions of new, lifetime-authorized workers will join the pandemic-crippled, automation-driven economy. To begin with, no one knows the size of the illegal immigrant population that Biden has vowed to reward with amnesty. Former Department of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen admitted on national television that DHS is clueless about whether there are 11 million or 30 million illegal aliens in the U.S. If Nielsen doesn’t know, then nobody does. Even the lowest estimate, 11 million, plus DACAs, TPS and more employment visas would mean that the labor market will be flooded with a minimum of 12 million legal workers who will provide the cheap labor that employers covet.
At NEBIS, David Barber whose family founded Barber Foods, a Maine-based food company, insisted that Maine “doesn’t have enough people to fill their jobs.” In a 2017, $4.2 billion transaction, Tyson Foods acquired Barber Foods’ parent company. Barber’s claim about not enough Mainers to fill jobs is false.
A few years ago, during a similar worker shortage allegation, the Bangor Daily News published a story titled “Amid Foreign Worker Shortage, Bar Harbor Businesses Turn to Local Workers.” Readers reacted with vehemence. They concluded that “after crying for years” about how Maine businesses will fail without the foreign workers used for years to hold down wages, employers now admit that they’ll need to hire locals. Employers should offer higher wages to their neighbors – the traditional solution to filling jobs – before hiring from abroad.
Universities are, like private-sector employers, money-driven. International students who attend public universities pay out-of-state tuition fees that greatly exceed instate tuition. The nearly 1 million foreign-born students, 52 percent Indian and Chinese, enrolled in public colleges contribute to the financial well-being of those institutions. On average, annual out-of-state tuition costs $15,000 more, a gap that grows wider every year.
Historically, an international student who entered the U.S. on an F-1 student visa would return home after graduation. Today, however, the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows science, technology, engineering and math students to gain employment in well-paid, white-collar jobs for periods up to three years following graduation. DHS estimates that more than 200,000 F-1 visa holders, about 20 percent of the international student enrollment, are working with OPT authorization. Biden’s amnesty proposes automatically granting a Green Card to every STEM graduate.
Follow the money trail, the old saw, applies to immigration advocacy. Proponents want cheap labor and higher profits, even if those goals hurt Americans. Biden’s amnesty, examined closely, offers nothing to improve Americans’ lives, but is from its first page to the 353rd deliberately calculated to harm.
Joe Guzzardi is a Progressives for Immigration Reform analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
8:10 Chris Luz, former mayor of Phoenix – thoughts on the passing of Carolyn Bartell
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Bill’s Guest information for Wednesday 3-3-21
6:35 Eric Peters, automotive journalist from www.EPAutos.com
The War on Gas Pumps – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/02/making-it-easier/
Why the Corolla is the Best Car Ever https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/03/2021-toyota-corolla/
Kristi Noem Nails it – https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2021/03/01/the-principled-difference-could-make-all-the-difference/
7:10 Dr. Michael Busler is a public policy analyst and a Professor of Finance at Stockton University where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Finance and Economics. Today we talk about the growing inflation threat. WEBSITE: muckrack.com/michael-busler
On Facebook, search for Funding Democracy to get all his columns.
7:35 Jackson County Commissioner Colleen Roberts digs into the Covid Comments, the struggle to reopen.
8:10 Patrick M. Wood, is the Founder and Director of Citizens for Free Speech, a nationwide non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and defending the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
BIO: Wood is also the Editor of Technocracy News & Trends, a world-wide journal dedicated to critical analysis of Technocracy and globalization. Wood has authored four books, including Technocracy Rising: The Trojan Horse of Global Transformation and Technocracy: The Hard Road to World Order.
WEBSITE: www.citizensforfreespeech.org
ABOUT: Citizens for Free Speech (CFFS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 2018 and dedicated to preserving free speech and enabling citizens to exercise their rights as guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
Local activism is the spirit of Free Speech in America. We believe in the role of the citizen stakeholders in their local communities, and encourage active involvement in local processes, boards and elections. We provide hands-on and personal training in the actual exercise of the First Amendment.
“CFFS promotes successful local activism by showing its members how to effectively communicate and exercise their First Amendment rights in every public or private situation. We mobilize our members to achieve success in their local communities by giving them tools, strategies, training and encouragement to restore civility in the civic arena and to teach others to do the same.”
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/Patwood
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/citizensforfreespeech
TWITTER: @StopTechnocracy, @citizens_free
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COMMENT TO JACKSON COUNTY re COVID!
Jackson County Board of Commission needs your comment re the Governor’s COVID restrictions, and how they’ve hurt you. Comment by Emailing BoC-CAO_Admin@jacksoncounty.org . (Deadline NOW is 5pm WEDNESDAY) Greens and Lefties will say how much they LOVE the chains and destruction Governor Brown has imposed. Let the board know what YOU think, thanks! Here’s my comment, re-submitted Monday…I had used a bad stat in the original comment, and have corrected it: Commissioners, Governor Brown’s foot dragging and continued moving of the reopening “goal posts” has harshly damaged so many local businesses, including mine in southern Oregon and MUST end. You have more than adequately responded to the Governor’s emergency, and the recent self-extension of her emergency powers makes it clear to me that this is not about a true emergency, but a power grab designed to crush the productive, while amassing more power to Oregon’s “executive”. One example of how well the county has responded to the emergency: The 112 to date Covid-related deaths so far, while tragic, are a mere fraction of the 2500 or so average deaths per year in our county. Preliminary data from the Oregon Health Authority has total deaths in Jackson County for the year 2020 at 2,632. This is a minor increase in deaths, and it is unknown if this slight rise in deaths is due solely to the virus. Arguably many of these death statistics are people who died WITH, not necessarily OF Sars-CoV-2. This needs balanced against the horrific toll of continued destruction of our children’s future, the increasing atomization of social and familial relationships, and the crushing of private sector business and tourism, along with the resulting impoverishment and dependency these continued restrictions will bring. That the Governor has just given herself ANOTHER 2 months of emergency authority is lunacy. End this charade, stand tall, and reopen, a la Florida. Thank you. I also respectfully request that the comment period be extended. I did not learn of the open comment period until Saturday, and no doubt other southern Oregonians didn’t get the word in time, even though they might wish to comment further. Bill MeyerMedford, Oregon GUEST INFORMATION FOR TUESDAY 3/2/21
6:35 Spencer Raley, Director of Research at Federation for Immigration reform
https://www.fairus.org/issue/amnesty/america-last-biden-mass-amnesty-worse-us-history
Biden’s proposed mass amnesty is worse than every other amnesty attempt in U.S. history, according to a new report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
7:45 Josephine County Commissioner Herman Baertschiger – Discussions among the board on how to reopen, and the challenges.
8:35 Dr. Hugh McTavish, founder and executive director of Covid Sanity. www.Covid-Sanity.org He says without a doubt the restrictions and damage have been more devastating than COVID itself. Dr. McTavish says the long-term impact of COVID restrictions will be far worse than the pandemic. He says it has been devastating the cost will be one we will be paying for years. Worse he says many medical experts know that the restrictions they advocated have devastated the mental health of millions. He expects that we will see an increase in long-term depression among many Americans, increased suicides, and more anger and violence.______________________________GUEST INFORMATION FOR Monday 3/1/21
6:35 Dr. Anne Hendershott, Professor of Sociology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, has been warning people about the dangers of the Equality Act for the past two years. Read Dr. Hendershott’s latest on Crisis Magazine – The Equality Act, Anti-Woman, Anti-Catholic
Additional thoughts from the Dr. – “Ignoring concerns about the threats to the civil rights of women and to the religious liberty rights of religious institutions, Democrats in Congress and President Biden are promising to use the Equality Act to promote a long list of transgender rights. However, the misnamed Act would in fact eclipse women’s rights and the rights of people of faith. If passed by the Senate, the ‘Equality’ Act will effectively invalidate all states’ attempts to protect female athletes who will be forced to compete against biological males who believe they are females.
8:10 Dr. Dennis Powers, retired professor of business law at SOU, and author of “Where Past Meets Present”. Today’s historical profile:
Craig Howard: SOU’s Premier Football Coach
By Dennis Powers
Craig Howard took over the SOU head football job in 2010. In his first year, he led the perennially losing Raiders to a record of 5-5; the next year they made their first appearance in the NAIA quarterfinals in a decade and were the Frontier Conference champions in their first year in this league. In 2014, the team won the NAIA football championship (beating Marian, 55-31), becoming the first team to win its last three games away from home. For his efforts, he was named the Rawlings NAIA Coach of the Year.
In December 2015, his SOU team headed into its second consecutive NAIA championship game. Although the team lost to Marian (the Indiana team they beat in 2014), they were not expected to even reach the finals—having lost three All-Americans, including Austin Dodge, their quarterback who set NAIA records, and now NFL All-Pro kicker, Aldrick Rosas. During their back-to-back runs to the title game, the Raiders knocked off two top-ranked teams, a second-ranked team and a third-ranked team–all on the road. Under Howard, the Raiders led the NAIA in offense in 2012, 2013, and was second in 2014.
He grew up in Grants Pass and played football at Grants Pass High School as a linebacker, once having 35 tackles against Medford High. Heading to Linfield College in Portland, Craig continued as a 165-pound linebacker, playing from 1970 to 1973. Three times, he was named as Linfield’s Most Inspirational Player.
His coaching career started at Roseburg High School with defensive coordinator (“DC”) positions at Oregon Tech (1978-1981) and Portland State (1982-1983), with head coaching (“HC”) positions at Bend and Jesuit High School (a private Catholic high school in Portland). He was the DC at Oregon Tech again (1987-1989)–coaching under then football coach, Danny Miles. As head coach in 1992, he lost that position when it dropped its football program due to budgetary problems.
Loving his profession, Howard left for Florida and coached there for sixteen years. He was the HC for six years (2002-2007) at Nease High School (Ponte Vedra Beach/Palm Valley area), and then at Columbia High School (Lake City, Florida) from 2008-2010. He then left for SOU.
Howard’s teams were 76-23 over his last eight years at Nease and Columbia High Schools. He led the Nease squad to the state title game three times, winning a state championship in 2005. His star pupil at Nease was Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, and during a five-year stretch he not only coached Tebow, but 45 players who went on to play Division I football. Over his last three years at Columbia High, Howard’s teams broke 30 school records.
Although he knew football, Howard won over players and parents with inspiration. When he spoke at a banquet prior to the 2014 NAIA championship game in Daytona Beach, Florida, people from both teams were so moved by his words, that they rose and gave him a standing ovation.
Legendary Oregon Tech basketball coach Danny Miles, who coached football with Howard at OIT during the 1980s, said that before games, Howard would often dim the locker-room lights, turn on “Rocky” music at a high level, and then introduce the starting lineup to the team. “The kids would leave the dressing room crying.”
“He could have been Billy Graham if he wanted to be a preacher. He can fire people up,” said Gary Mires, Howard’s high school football coach at Grants Pass. “He should be a preacher, in fact, the way he can really get a lot of people behind him.”
After his last year coaching in 2016, his teams were 50-23 with the Raiders, giving him the best win percentage (.685) in school history. Craig Howard passed away at his Ashland home in January 2017 at age 64 after a day of recruiting. He had lived the life that he loved.
Sources: Nick Daschel, “Southern Oregon’s inspirational coach Craig Howard: ‘He could have been Billy Graham’“, The Oregonian/OregonLive, December 18, 2015, at Craig Howard; Nick Daschel, “Nearly dead as a program four years ago, Southern Oregon rallies to play for NAIA championship,” The Oregonian/OregonLive, December 19, 2014, at SOU Football; Tim Brown, “Craig Howard, Southern Oregon University football coach, dies at age 64,” The Oregonian/OregonLive, January 20, 2017, at Coach Howard.
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