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The State of Our Nation: Still Divided, Enslaved & Locked Down

By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”—Abraham Lincoln

History has a funny way of circling back on itself.

The facts, figures, faces and technology may change from era to era, but the dangers remain the same.

This year is no different, whatever the politicians and talking heads may say to the contrary.

Sure, there’s a new guy in charge, but for the most part, we’re still recycling the same news stories that have kept us with one eye warily glued to the news for the past 100-odd years: War. Corruption. Brutality. Economic instability. Partisan politics. Militarism. Disease. Hunger. Greed. Violence. Poverty. Ignorance. Hatred.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Brush up on your history, and you’ll find that we’ve been stuck on repeat for some time now.

Take the United States of America in the year 2021, which is not so far different from the United States of America during the Civil Rights era, or the Cold War era, or even the Depression era.

Go far enough afield, and you’ll find aspects of our troubled history mirrored in the totalitarianism of Nazi Germany, in the fascism of Mussolini’s Italy, and further back in the militarism of the Roman Empire.

We’re like TV weatherman Phil Connors in Harold Ramis’ classic 1993 comedy Groundhog Day, forced to live the same day over and over again.

Here in the American police state, however, we continue to wake up, hoping each new day, new president and new year will somehow be different from what has come before.

Unfortunately, no matter how we change the narrative, change the characters, change the plot lines, we seem to keep ending up in the same place that we started: enslaved, divided and repeating the mistakes of the past.

You want to know about the true State of our Nation? Listen up.

The State of the Union: The state of our nation is politically polarized, controlled by forces beyond the purview of the average American, and rapidly moving the nation away from its freedom foundation. Over the past year, due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic, Americans have found themselves repeatedly subjected to egregious civil liberties violations, invasive surveillance, martial law, lockdowns, political correctness, erosions of free speech, strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, government spying, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, etc.

The predators of the police state have wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government does not listen to the citizenry, refuses to abide by the Constitution, and treats taxpayers as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shoot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—remain armed to the teeth and act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies continue to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spy on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors make a killing by waging endless wars abroad.

Consequently, the state of our nation remains bureaucratic, debt-ridden, violent, militarized, fascist, lawless, invasive, corrupt, untrustworthy, mired in war, and unresponsive to the wishes and needs of the electorate.

The policies of the American police state continue unabated.

The Executive Branch: All of the imperial powers amassed by Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush—to kill American citizens without due process, to detain suspects indefinitely, to strip Americans of their citizenship rights, to carry out mass surveillance on Americans without probable cause, to suspend laws during wartime, to disregard laws with which he might disagree, to conduct secret wars and convene secret courts, to sanction torture, to sidestep the legislatures and courts with executive orders and signing statements, to direct the military to operate beyond the reach of the law, to act as a dictator and a tyrant, above the law and beyond any real accountability—were inherited by Joe Biden.

Biden has these powers because every successive occupant of the Oval Office has been allowed to expand the reach and power of the presidency through the use of executive orders, decrees, memorandums, proclamations, national security directives and legislative signing statements that can be activated by any sitting president. Those of us who saw this eventuality coming have been warning for years about the growing danger of the Executive Branch with its presidential toolbox of terror that could be used—and abused—by future presidents. The groundwork, we warned, was being laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the president—or whoever happens to be occupying the Oval Office at the time—thinks. And if he or she thinks you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides. In effect, you will disappear.

Our warnings continue to go unheeded.

The Legislative Branch:  Congress may well be the most self-serving, semi-corrupt institution in America. Abuses of office runs the gamut from elected representatives neglecting their constituencies to engaging in self-serving practices, including the misuse of eminent domain, earmarking hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracting in return for personal gain and campaign contributions, having inappropriate ties to lobbyist groups and incorrectly or incompletely disclosing financial information. Pork barrel spending, hastily passed legislation, partisan bickering, a skewed work ethic, graft and moral turpitude have all contributed to the public’s increasing dissatisfaction with congressional leadership. No wonder only 31 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing.

The Judicial Branch: The Supreme Court was intended to be an institution established to intervene and protect the people against the government and its agents when they overstep their bounds. Yet through their deference to police power, preference for security over freedom, and evisceration of our most basic rights for the sake of order and expediency, the justices of the United States Supreme Court have become the guardians of the American police state in which we now live. As a result, sound judgment and justice have largely taken a back seat to legalism, statism and elitism, while preserving the rights of the people has been deprioritized and made to play second fiddle to both governmental and corporate interests. The courts have empowered the government to wreak havoc on our liberties. Protections for private property continue to be undermined. And Americans can no longer rely on the courts to mete out justice.

Shadow Government: Joe Biden inherited more than a bitterly divided nation teetering on the brink of financial catastrophe when he assumed office. He also inherited a shadow government, one that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country. Referred to as the Deep State, this shadow government is comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes right now. MORE.

Media Has Seen Massive Traffic Drop Since Trump Left Office

Via True Pundit

Every major mainstream media outlet has seen a massive traffic drop since President Donald Trump left office, and though the media isn’t covering President Joe Biden as it did Trump, there may be other reasons why traffic has tanked.

The Washington Post’s media reporter Paul Farhi posted a graphic on Twitter showing a massive drop off in traffic for 25 of the best known mainstream print and broadcast media outlets, including his own employer. All but one showed a drop in traffic from June 2020 to June 2021. The only media outlet to show improvement over that time was Buzzfeed, though it’s unclear whether the traffic is solely related to news or their other ventures.

The outlet with the biggest drop in traffic over the past year was Forbes, which lost just over 60% of its traffic since last June, according to Farhi’s graphic. In June 2020, Forbes had 113,477,000 million pageviews, but this year, for the same month, the outlet received just 44,645,000 pageviews.

Here’s how other major outlets fared:

• The Wall Street Journal: -19.9%
• CNN: -20.1%
• Axios: -26.1%
• Fox News: -26.2%
• NBC News: -27.4%
• The Washington Post: -27.5%
• The Guardian: -32.5%
• The Hill: -32.9%
• The New York Times: -33.9%
• The Los Angeles Times: -39.1%
• Politico: -44.4%
• The Atlantic: -51.9%
• Time: 51.9%
• ABC News: -55.6%

Media outlets won’t cover the Biden administration the way it covered Trump, even though it could. Since Biden is a Democrat, his administration gets the benefit of the doubt and spin that Trump never received. MORE.

Democrat Who Featured In Infamous ‘Maskless Flight’ Pic Calls For “Universal Mask-Wearing”

Via Zero Hedge

Democrat Texas state Rep. Donna Howard, who appeared in the now infamous photo of maskless Dem lawmakers on a private jet, faced ridicule after she called for “universal mask-wearing.”

Howard was one of 60 Texas Democrats who boarded a jet to Washington, D.C., to skip out on a vote on Texas’ election reform bill. A photo of the plane cabin shows Howard and several other passengers not wearing masks.

Following the trip, where they met with U.S. officials, Howard along with 5 of her colleagues tested positive for COVID-19.

She subsequently tried to deflect criticism by remarking, “TSA exempts private, non-commercial flights from the mask requirement.”

“Unfortunately, the spike in infections from the delta variant became apparent immediately after our flight,” Howard continued.

“Had we known at the time, we would have worn masks.”

Now Howard is facing more mockery after she vehemently called for schoolchildren to be forced to wear masks in class.

“We need to follow the science here,” tweeted Howard. Texas needs to change course and allow for universal mask-wearing to prevent spread of the highly contagious delta variant, esp as children under 12 cannot get vaccinated yet.”

Apparently, Howard is really keen for kids to wear masks but not too bothered about covering her own face, even in close proximity to numerous other people inside a confined space.

“It’s OK when we do it!”

As we previously highlighted, Dr. Anthony Fauci wrote in a February 2020 that a typical store-bought face mask “is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material.”

His sentiment was echoed earlier this week by Dr Colin Axon, a SAGE advisor for the UK government, who told the London Telegraph that medics have given people a “cartoonish” view of how how microscopic viruses travel through the air, and the masks have gaps in them that are up to 5000 times bigger than COVID particles.

“The small sizes are not easily understood but an imperfect analogy would be to imagine marbles fired at builders’ scaffolding, some might hit a pole and rebound, but obviously most will fly through,” Axon said. MORE.

Former city council candidate to introduce ballot initiative creating ‘African American autonomous zones’ in DC

Via The Post Millennial

Former At-Large DC Council candidate Addison Sarter is expected to bring forth a ballot initiative that would look to create African American autonomous areas with in DC, which would have their own mayor and city council members.

According to WAMU reporter Martin Austermuhle, Sarter is expected to propose this ballot initiative, but did not give a timeline.

Sarter wrote about the initiative back in April, outlining what the African American autonomy Act of 2021 would entail.

The act would preserve East of the Anacostia River and the Langdon Park/Brentwood area in Northeast DC, as well as Colonial Village and Shepered Park in Northwest DC as historically black areas that would be covered under the act.

“These African American autonomous regions, would be turned into their own cities, with their own mayor and own city Councilmembers, operating separately and free from control by the present DC government,” wrote Sarter.

According to Sarter, east of the Anacostia is 90 percent African American, a place he calls “the perfect area for a African American autonomous region” due to its population demographic and its isolation from the rest of the city due to the 295 highway that runs along the river.

“To deny African Americans autonomous regions in DC, would be denying us our basic human rights,” wrote Sarter.

Sarter states that African Americans have the right to an autonomous region because they classify as indigenous people under the United Nations’ definitions. In the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights, they state that indigenous people have the right to autonomous areas.

According to the United Nations, indigenous people are defined as: “the descendants of those who inhabited a country or a geographical region at the time when people of different cultures or ethnic origins arrived. The new arrivals later became dominant through conquest, occupation, settlement or other means.”

Sarter claims that African Americans are indigenous people because” African Americans are descendants of Africans who inhabited West and Central Africa at the time when a people of different cultures and ethnic origins, known as Europeans, arrived. These Europeans later became dominant through their conquest to Africa known as the Atlantic slave trade and American slavery.”

He goes on to state that interest groups and those making the laws in these majority black areas do not live in the area, and that they were polluting neighborhoods and destroying low income housing, calling the matter a case of life or death.

Sarter explains that the act would not be segregation, that the initiative would not prevent people from traveling to either side of the river.

“I believe white people should also have the right to control the institutions in their community. They already do control. I believe Latinos and Asians should also have the right to control the institutions in their community as well,” Sarter states. “All races should have the right to control the institutions in their community. Unfortunately, African Americans continue to be systematically prevented from controlling the institutions in our communities. This is why this initiative is being proposed.” MORE.

Inspiring: US Women’s Soccer Team To Boycott Scoring Goals Until Racism Is Defeated

Via The Babylon Bee

TOKYO—People were stunned after the U.S. women’s soccer team lost to Sweden in the Olympics this week by a score of 3-0—until the team revealed they are boycotting scoring any goals until racism is defeated.

“Yeah, we didn’t score any goals against Sweden last night, but that was totally on purpose,” said star player and beloved activist Megan Rapinoe. “This isn’t the time to score goals—when America is still racist. We totally could have beaten Sweden but we decided as a team that no goals will be scored until complete equality has been achieved in America. Also, we demand a hefty raise.”

Onlookers were stunned during the second half of the game when Rapinoe dribbled the ball all the way to Sweden’s unprotected goal and whispered “This is for you, people of color,” before kicking the ball straight into the air and running headfirst into the goalpost.

“This may be one of the most powerful performances in the history of sports,” said Teen Vogue’s sportswriter who has never watched sports.

The U.S. Women’s team is demanding to remain in the Olympic tournament and promises to continue its streak of zero goals. Inspiring!

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on a world gone mad HERE.

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