Thursday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning Deplorables.

One Nation Under House Arrest: How Do COVID-19 Mandates Impact Our Freedoms?

By John W. Whitehead

We have become one nation under house arrest.

You think we’re any different from the Kentucky couple fitted out with ankle monitoring bracelets and forced to quarantine at home?

We’re not

Consider what happened to Elizabeth and Isaiah Linscott.

Elizabeth took a precautionary diagnostic COVID-19 test before traveling to visit her parents and grandparents in Michigan. It came back positive: Elizabeth was asymptomatic for the novel coronavirus but had no symptoms. Her husband and infant daughter tested negative for the virus.

Now in a country where freedom actually means something, the Linscotts would have the right to determine for themselves how to proceed responsibly, but in the American Police State, we’ve only got as much freedom as the government allows.

That’s not saying much.

Indeed, it’s a dangerous time for anyone who still clings to the idea that freedom means the right to think for yourself and act responsibly according to your best judgment.

In that regard, the Linscotts are a little old-school in their thinking. When Elizabeth was asked to sign a self-quarantine order agreeing to check in daily with the health department and not to travel anywhere without prior approval, she refused.

“I shouldn’t have to ask for consent because I’m an adult who can make that decision. And as a citizen of the United States of America, that is my right to make that decision without having to disclose that to somebody else,” said Elizabeth. “So, no, I wouldn’t wear a mask. I would do everything that I could to make sure that I wouldn’t come in contact with other people because of the fear that’s spreading with this. But no, I would have just stayed home, take care of my child.”

Instead of signing the blanket statement, Elizabeth submitted her own written declaration:

I will do my best to stay home, as I do every other time I get sick. But I cannot comply to having to call the public health department everytime that I need to go out and do something. It’s my right and freedoms to go where I please and not have to answer to anyone for it. There is no pandemic and with a survival rate of 99.9998% I’m fine. I will continue to avoid the elderly, just like PRIOR guidelines state, try to stay home, get rest, get medicine, and get better. I decline.

A few days after being informed that Elizabeth’s case was being escalated and referred to law enforcement, the Linscotts reportedly found their home surrounded by multiple government vehicles, government personnel and the county sheriff armed with a court order and ankle monitors.

“We didn’t rob a store,” Linscott said. “We didn’t steal something. We didn’t hit and run. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

That’s the point, of course.

In an age of overcriminalization—when the law is wielded like a hammer to force compliance to the government’s dictates whatever they might be—you don’t have to do anything wrong to be fined, arrested or subjected to raids and seizures and surveillance.

Watch and see: just as it did in China, this pandemic is about to afford the government the perfect excuse for expanding its surveillance and data collection powers at our expense.

On a daily basis, Americans are already relinquishing (in many cases, voluntarily) the most intimate details of who we are—their biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.

COVID-19, however, takes the surveillance state to the next level.

There’s already been talk of mass testing for COVID-19 antibodies, screening checkpoints, contact tracing, immunity passports to allow those who have recovered from the virus to move around more freely, and snitch tip lines for reporting “rule breakers” to the authorities.

As Reuters reports:

As the United States begins reopening its economy, some state officials are weighing whether house arrest monitoring technology – including ankle bracelets or location-tracking apps – could be used to police quarantines imposed on coronavirus carriers. But while the tech has been used sporadically for U.S. quarantine enforcement over the past few weeks, large scale rollouts have so far been held back by a big legal question: Can officials impose electronic monitoring without an offense or a court order?

More to the point, as the head of one tech company asked, “Can you actually constitutionally monitor someone who’s innocent? It’s uncharted territory.”

Except this isn’t exactly uncharted territory, is it?

It follows much the same pattern as every other state of emergency in recent years—legitimate or manufactured—that has empowered the government to add to its arsenal of technologies and powers.

Read the entire article HERE.

Gun Control Is Dead

Via American Greatness

There’s simply no way Americans will tolerate being disarmed in the face of soaring violent crime, riots, and a neutered police force.

his summer has answered the question, “why would somebody ever need an AR-15 or a high-capacity magazine?” As the Left continues to advocate for ending private ownership of military-style rifles, Americans can also see that powerful rifles are turning up in the possession of violent rioters and looters. In this video, one can clearly see Raz Simone, then a noted leader within Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”, handing out an expensive, tricked-out AR-15 to a complete stranger. Simone somehow went from an Airbnb host to a Tesla-driving, arsenal-distributing mogul in the space of a few weeks.

As shown in this video, a militant left-wing militia group called NFAC (literally, “Not Fucking Around Coalition”) staged an armed protest in Kentucky during which an accidental discharge wounded three people. Their black attire and paramilitary appearance bore a chilling resemblance to their predecessors-in-spirit from 1930s Italy.

Why do these leftist protestors suddenly have access to expensive weapons? One answer may be China.

In May, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized approximately 10,000 assault weapons parts in Kentucky. According to the Epoch Times, U.S. customs officials have seized a staggering 5,300 gun parts shipments from China in 2020, up from 31 shipments in 2019. For emphasis, that’s not 5,300 parts that were seized, but 5,300 shipments of parts that federal authorities intercepted.

On a bipartisan basis, law-abiding whites, blacks, Democrats, and Republicans see the rising violence as a threat to their families. In deep-blue Minnesota, for example, gun stores are emptying out, particularly of ammunition, as fearful citizens wait as long as four hours to purchase a gun. Across the nation, background checks, which were well on their way to an all-time record earlier this year, have almost doubled when compared to this time last year.

The AR-15 uses .223 caliber ammunition and manufacturers can’t keep up with the current demand. One out of every five firearms purchased in the United States is an AR-15. The National African American Gun Association (NAAGA) saw a surge in membership of approximately 5 percent in just 36 hours after the George Floyd video surfaced. In that same 36 hours, sales to NAAGA members of .223 caliber ammunition increased by 27 percent.

Then, of course, there is the McCloskey incident which seems to confirm that leftist politicians really do want to make citizens helpless in the face of the mob.

Read the entire article HERE.

Crash the Economy, Burn the Cities, Infect the People: the Evil Plan to Remake America

By Mike Whitney

The American people are under attack, the country is under attack, and democracy is under attack. At present, the enemy is conducting a three-pronged assault on the presidency the objective of which is to remove the existing administration and install their own sock-puppet replacement. This has been the goal from the very beginning although the great swirl of events has confused many as to the true nature of what is actually taking place. What we are seeing is a dirty tricks campaign (Russiagate) inflated into a full-blown, scorched earth, winner-take-all assault on the presidency.

Ostensibly, the target of the attack is Donald Trump, the brash New York real estate tycoon who was swept into office in November 2016. The real target, however, is the office itself, the universally-recognized “seat of power” which the enemy believes should remain under the control of the people who own the country. These are the ruthless oligarchs whose octopus-like tentacles are wrapped around Wall Street, the MSM, the courts, the Congress, the Democratic Party, and powerful elements within the National Security State. They own it all and they have no intention of putting it up for grabs by honoring the results of an arbitrary and scattershot election that failed to produce the outcome they sought.

Once again, this isn’t about Trump, it’s about the unscrupulous people behind the scenes who have secretly worked the levers of power for the last 4 years in order to roll back the 2016 elections and install the candidate of their own choice. If the new revelations about Obama’s involvement in the spying operation aimed at removing Trump from office have not yet convinced you that senior-level officials (in the administration, the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the DNC and MSM) were all actively engaged in a coup on the elected government, then you should probably stop reading this article now and put your head back in the sand where it belongs. This is for the people who know how to pick through the disinformation and figure out, in broad terms, what is actually going on. And what’s going on is a cold-blooded, take-no-prisoners power struggle, pure and simple.

The Confluence of Destabilizing Crises; Coincidence or Calculated Treachery?

At present, the country is beset by multiple crises: A public health crisis (Covid-19), an economic crisis (Ballooning unemployment and impending Depression), and widespread social unrest. All of these crises are real but–at the same time– all of them are clearly being manipulated for political advantage. The presidency is just one of many targets in this vast operation, in fact, the entire society is being leveled and made-over before our very eyes. Every institution down to public education and the nature of work itself is being challenged, revised and callously savaged. Our history, our icons, our heroes, our customs and our traditions are all under fire. We’re no longer one people sharing a mutual culture, background and ideology, but contemptable slave traders and racists undeserving of basic security, undeserving of respect, and undeserving of even our own account of how the country was formed, who assisted in its creation, and upon which principles the state was built. All of that is now being wiped clean, erased by faceless group of scheming elites who operate behind the smokescreen of media propaganda, political chicanery and, now, a “racial justice” movement.

Do you believe as I do that most of these crises will miraculously vanish just hours if not days after the November balloting? Suddenly a life-saving vaccine will appear from the ether, the legions of BLM activists will decide to pack it in and go home, and the economy will magically rebound when the Dems take office promising another round of grueling austerity followed by lavish handouts to Wall Street. Is that too cynical or are our rulers really devious enough to concoct such a plan?

That question would be better put to the tens of thousands of victims of US barbarism around the world. They’re the ones who understand the lengths to which these mercenary puppet-masters will go to tighten their grip on power to ensure that US multinationals continue to rake in obscene profits. As Harold Pinter opined in 2005 in his Nobel acceptance speech:

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.”

Only it’s not so witty when the weapons are turned on Americans themselves and we suddenly find our own tenuous existence in the globalist crosshairs. No one really expected that, but then, here we are.

Have you watched the escalating street violence in Seattle and Portland? Have you wondered why the police have stood down while black-hooded thugs destroy public property, topple monuments and launch attacks on police precinct headquarters? Have you wondered why the mayor and media continue to applaud the hooliganism and downplay the vast destruction to public and private property? Is this really about George Floyd, police brutality and racial justice or is this a premeditated insurrection executed by DNC shock troops aimed at destabilizing the country in order to get rid of Trump and usher in an authoritarian police-state?

Who is served by BLM-generated violence and destruction? Who benefits from Antifa? A comment by an anonymous reader at The Unz Review summed it up pretty well. He said:

“Antifa is supported by the State. FBI and CIA have long term contacts with them and they are allowed to operate as a street militia for Neoliberalism against people the State actually hates. The plan was to cause a civilian massacre to be used against Trump, so far that has not panned out.

It is a joke. Antifa could be rolled up in days if the State turned against them. Antifa operates with impunity on social media and chat servers because the FBI views them as friendlies. This could change if Antifa ever did anything against the System, but for now they are the attack dog of the Deep State.”

There’s no doubt that the government knows who these troublemakers are. There’s also no doubt that the riots and looting are part of a political agenda aimed at spreading chaos and racial violence far and wide in order to convince the weary public that the country is rapidly devolving into an ungovernable free-fire zone. Of course, the danger for the Democrats is that they might overshoot their goal and persuade voters that they’re stealthily spearheading the nation’s descent into mayhem. And that’s where the media comes in, it’s their job to shape the narrative by removing the Dems fingerprints from the murder weapon. So far, the strategy appears to be working.

In short, the widening social unrest is not a spontaneous eruption of pent-up indignation over the treatment of blacks in America. It’s part of a sinister political ploy to beat Trump and to discredit his mainly-white, working class supporters from the de-industrialized American heartland that have been pummeled by the Democrats immigration and free trade policies for the last 30 years, and who now represent the biggest obstacle to the globalist plan to reduce the economy to rubble, rewrite the nation’s history, and reassemble the state so that balanced budgets and the free movement of Capital are adopted as the government’s primary organizing principles. In other words, elites are prosecuting a war on America to pave the way to Capitalist Valhalla, the majestic temple of the insatiable Monopolists.

Read the entire article HERE.

Fauci urges Americans to wear goggles for added COVID-19 protection

Via The New York Post

Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested that people wear goggles or face shields as an added measure of protection against contracting the coronavirus, according to a report.

“If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it,” Fauci, 79, the top US infectious disease expert, told ABC News Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton on Wednesday.

When asked if eye protection will become a formal recommendation at some point, he said, “It might, if you really want perfect protection of the mucosal surfaces.”

Fauci, a member of the White House pandemic task force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained the rationale for the measure.

“You have mucosa in the nose, mucosa in the mouth, but you also have mucosa in the eye,” he said. “Theoretically, you should protect all the mucosal surfaces. So if you have goggles or an eye shield you should use it.”

He added that while goggles and eye or face shields are “not universally recommended” at this time, “if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quietly Replaced With Cardboard Cutout

Via The Babylon Bee (Satire)

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Amid the coronavirus pandemic, many institutions are getting creative when it comes to bringing people together despite everyone having to stay apart. Sports teams have begun using virtual audiences or cardboard cutouts to simulate a real, live audience sitting there watching a game.

This gave Democrats an idea. They replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg with a cardboard cutout several weeks ago for reasons unknown, and no one has been the wiser.

“No one has noticed so far,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. “We’re hoping to keep Ruth ‘Paper’ Ginsburg, as we affectionately refer to her, on the Supreme Court bench until a Democrat is elected president.” According to Pelosi, Ginsburg is doing fine and is resting comfortably and no one should worry about her, and Trump definitely doesn’t need to replace her.

As an added benefit, the cardboard version of Ginsburg hasn’t arrived at nearly as many terrible constitutional interpretations as the real version has over the years.

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on politics and culture HERE.

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