Day: July 2, 2020

The June 29, 2020, Lost Horizons Newsletter

…where real knowledge– and actual solutions– intersect with real Americans!

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Hey, People!! Last chance to RSVP for the 13th (and very possibly final) Declaration Day Party, July 4, 2020!!

And, HEY, II! Please don’t just read what I post here (or anywhere), and nod your head sagely or approvingly and then move on to other things. I don’t post in order to affirm your sense of things. I post in order to equip you with perspectives and arguments with which to educate others, and in the expectation that you will forward my posts to other people (or direct them to those posts). PLEASE do those things.

We won’t win by YOU knowing what I present. We will win by LOTS OF OTHERS knowing what I present.

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How Stupid Do They Think We Are?- Part II

Pretty stupid, indeed, it would seem, as the renewed C19 panic-mongering continues…

BY THE END OF THIS PAST JANUARY, AT LEAST, millions of Americans had been exposed to C19. As I have observed in relevant part elsewhere (on April 13):

“Social distancing” did nothing. At least, as far as stemming any spread of infection is concerned. [Same with masks.]

Long before the “six feet away” stuff [or masks] had become a 24/7 shamanistic drumbeat on every mainstream media outlet, Covid-19, purportedly even-more virulent than the flu, must have spread at least as far as had that more mundane, somehow not panic-inducing disease during the same time. Here is what that means:

By March 14 the US CDC estimated 38,000,000 to 54,000,000 cases of flu since October, 2019— just in the USA. The vast majority of those cases began during the same period that Covid-19 had reportedly been active at that point.

Thus, by March 16– BEFORE the “shelter in place” martial law impositions that sprang up like evil liberty, prosperity, and rule-of-law-destroying toadstools– it can confidently be concluded that far more than 36 – 51 million Americans had already been infected with Covid-19.

Understand, during the three month period prior to March 16, fully a billion people flew on airplanes from everywhere to everywhere— including tens of millions to all points in the USA from places like Wuhan, Italy, EVERYWHERE. Eventually there was a limited restriction on entry of travelers from Wuhan put in place, but it didn’t go into effect until January 31, only imposed a 14-day quarantine, and didn’t apply to US citizens or residents.

The next one (limiting entry from travelers from Iran) wasn’t until February 29. A few more concerning travel from certain places in Europe only went into effect March 14 (and another concerning Brazil took effect in late May).

Plainly, late March “shelter in place”, “social distancing” and “masking” edicts and other associated martial law impositions did nothing to mitigate whatever threat “the pandemic” presented. THEY WERE ALL TOO LATE TO KEEP THAT THREAT FROM BEING FULLY REALIZED.

So, with 36 – 51 million C19 cases going by March 16 (again, the day before the “shelter in place” nonsense began)– the bulk of them having run their dire course during the three prior months– how many deaths from C19 purportedly occurred during that period in the USA?

97.

Yes, just 97.

Look at the following table from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (the first column, with the figures in bold, is the only one that counts here):

Continued…

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Russia Paying Taliban To Thwart The “Peace Deal”? Not Likely.

Let’s apply the ancient wisdom of, “Cui bono?”…

IT’S BEEN BREATHLESSLY REPORTED this past weekend that unnamed sources in the “intelligence community” have asserted that Russia offered bounties to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan to target American soldiers during the peace talks meant to end the US struggle in that particular Asian quicksand. No evidence to support the assertions has apparently been offered or asked for.

I can’t say this isn’t true, from any personal knowledge; and I can’t say it couldn’t be true. either. Anything is possible, and however much Vladimir Putin has proven himself a world statesman of great stature over the last twenty years, US provocations have been relentless and serious enough to test the character of a saint, much less that of someone responsible for looking out for the interests of his country.

BUT IT SEEMS TO ME THAT SUCH AN ACT BY RUSSIA would entail considerable downside potential for very little upside. On the other hand, Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin and others of their ilk have a very big downside looming in the prospect of a US withdrawal from the 20-year ordnance-burn gravy-train, and a very big upside on the table both in keeping that withdrawal from happening and in fomenting (or perpetuating) hostility against Russia. The same could be said for any others with an interest in keeping the US encirclement of Iran in place, such as Israel, which certainly would not shrink from a false-flag operation to accomplish that end.

Indeed, the US “intelligence community” itself– also not one to eschew staging a false-flag event– has a definite interest in smearing Russia, as a best-defense-is-a-strong-offense play while its past several years of “Russiagate” fabrications continue to suffer scrutiny. This would be a variation on the Clinton campaign re-direct of attention off the damning content of the DNC emails released by WikiLeaks in 2016 and onto the fictional offense of a Russian “hack” to acquire them.

Continued…

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Other Voices

The “Deadly” Hydroxychloroquine Publishing Scandal

How the world’s top medical journals were cynically exploited by Big Pharma.

SOME GREAT JOURNALISM by Elizabeth Woodworth, with a very important afterword by Yours Truly. Don’t miss any of this, friends. We are not in a time suited to surfing– this is a time calling for serious intake, serious resolution and serious follow-through.

Read carefully, share widely, and stand tall.

Continued…

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And, of course, as always:

Illuminating Anniversaries For This Week!

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“I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves…too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country–when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'”

-Senator Carl Schurz, October 17, 1899

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How to get in touch with me, and how to keep in touch with me.

Please don’t leave me just preaching to the choir!

We both want to restore liberty and the rule of law in our lifetime, so share, share, share!

 

Mistakes are bound to happen as you explore barbecue cooking, but they are a part of the BBQ adventure. Here are five rookie mistakes to avoid:

• Being in a hurry. If you want fast, cook a grilled cheese. If you want barbecue, chill out. Slow is the essence of barbecue. Cooking at low temperatures for a goodly amount of time is what makes barbecue barbecue and makes the meat melt in your mouth.

  Before you cook, put some thought into how much time you’re going to need, how you want to season or sauce your product, and the sides you want to serve with it. Good planning makes you less likely to get distracted when your meat needs you most.

• Taking meat from the fridge to fire. Putting meat onto the grate right from the refrigerator adds a lot of cold air to your smoker, and that’s likely to lead to condensation of creosote from the charcoal. The creosote floats up via the smoke and onto your meat, adding an undesirable flavor and texture. So let your meat sit at room temperature for about an hour before cooking. Most recipes count on your doing so and advise cooking times that are based on the meat starting at about room temperature.

  Letting meat rest at room temperature for more than an hour is a bad idea. When it gets too warm, it also becomes susceptible to bacteria.

• Adding sauce too early. Two mainstays of barbecue sauces, sugar and tomatoes, have low heat tolerance and cook faster than meat. Apply these types of sauces too early and you’ll end up with a burnt, black, crackling coating before the meat is done. So wait until the meat is almost finished cooking before you add a sweet sauce with tomatoes. A minute or two on each side of the meat over a low to moderate flame is all the time the sauce needs to add taste and texture.

• Poking holes into the meat. Don’t use a fork to move the meat. You want to keep the precious juices inside the meat, so use tongs. Stab it, and you provide a sure route for the juices to ooze out, taking with them any hope you had for great barbecue.

• Forgetting rest time: Slice into the meat before giving it a chance to rest, and you lose almost half the juices. Meat juices go where the heat is lowest, so give them a chance at your cutting board and they run for it. Allow the meat to rest after you take it off the heat: The juices will be reabsorbed by the proteins that set them free in the first place. Cut into a well-rested piece of meat, and you find tender juiciness rather than a puddle around your desiccated pork chop. 

By Fletch Daniels

In many parts of the country, Republicans cannot even put a bumper sticker on their cars without fear of violent retaliation.

June 30, 2020 (American Thinker) — Cultural tyranny reigns in America, the last step before full-fledged political tyranny.

Lurking beneath the surface of virtue-signaling leftists are tyrants seeking to exert their will over those they despise. The defining leftist culture enables them to ruthlessly use all the power at their disposal, both real and imagined, to enforce a single acceptable viewpoint on society.

In some geographic areas, this is more obvious than in others, but no area will ultimately be spared. This week, my wife volunteered during the Virginia Republican primary. As people came by the booth to get information on the candidates, she offered these Republican voters an opportunity to sign up for yard signs. Most whispered that they could never put something like that up in their neighborhood. That’s understandable. Unless a family is willing to stand guard 24/7 over their property, a Trump bumper sticker or sign here is a risky proposition at best.

And so the Northern Virginia neighborhoods surrounding us are dotted with almost exclusively Democrat yard signs and the ubiquitous and unintentionally ironic “Hate Has No Home Here” signs that blare that their homes are sanctuaries of vile hatred and small-minded contempt.

When people can’t put a bumper sticker for their preferred candidate on their car, they have suffered a loss of liberty. No Republicans who have paid even a little bit of attention expect the prevailing powers in Democrat areas to safeguard their property or even their lives and liberty. The very reason for establishing a government has been upended. In this area, liberty-minded people almost operate like a secret society, sending quiet signals to one another.

Democrats in this country do not feel they need to hide their political allegiance or culturally approved viewpoints. Most never shut up about it, believing they are speaking truth to power, even as they bask in the approval of the corrupt and wicked power centers.

Nobody gets to sit this one out. The cultural enforcers expect everyone to parrot their talking points publicly, to destroy all resistance, forcing dissenters to grovel in submission. That’s the whole idea behind the “silence is violence” aggression. Cultural violence is quite the opposite of silence; it is forcing people to say what no sane person should believe in order not to be destroyed.

Few stand against this pressure, which is why nearly all major companies and organizations have come out with quisling statements of support of the name of a vile Marxist organization like Black Lives Matter. It’s why Hillsdale College’s response was so notable because it was a rare exception to the rule. (This was not surprising coming from one of the only places in America still putting up statues to honor our tremendous heritage of liberty when the cultural zeitgeist is to rip them all down and start at a Marxist Year Zero.) Hate groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter operate quite freely in this environment, serving as the cultural shock troops and the terrorist wing of the cultural tyrants who have taken over the Democrat party.

Consider just a few of the displays we’ve watched over the last few weeks. A football coach had to apologize for wearing a One America News sweatshirt…in Oklahoma. We watched as most of our senior military leaders bowed before their cultural masters. We watched as statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Scott Key, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and even an assortment of abolitionists either were destroyed or came under attack, even as discussions of replacing the National Anthem erupted from the propaganda and activist cultural tyrants.

We watched as the weaponization of the federal bureaucracy by a U.S. president against a president of the opposite party was unveiled before our eyes to a massive shrug by the seditious media, who see it as a wonderful use of state power by their fellow leftist travelers in the bureaucracy. They are smug in their belief that they can use their cultural power to protect the perpetrators, whom they regard as heroes.

We even watched as a sports league that caters to a conservative audience was complicit in perpetuating a crazy Jussie. We observed an emboldened social media giant censoring the president of the United States for promising to protect Americans.

We also watched what I believe is the vilest propaganda campaign of my lifetime, when every cop in America was slandered as a racist with barely a protest. The guardians of civil order, who put their lives on the line every day, often under unimaginably difficult circumstances, to protect their fellow Americans, are being demoralized and hounded out of service. This has created the fertile ground for a massive increase in lawlessness that will result in a significant rise in the deaths of black Americans, showing that black lives matter not a lick to those claiming that name.

I wish I had a dollar for every American who uttered the phrase “never in my lifetime did I expect to see…” over the last few weeks. We are living in the upside-down when patriotism is outlawed, the vilest of criminals are celebrated, and brave law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line daily are slandered as the worst of society so thoroughly that it descended into evil farce, when a kid’s show, Paw Patrol, came under attack since it is apparently racist to have a positive police character in a children’s show.

This is war, and the left is playing to win. Anyone who doesn’t get that by now, to include most of the NeverTrumps, is either irredeemably stupid or an active collaborator. Every pillar of cultural power in America, including the unholy trinity of academia, the media, and government, has declared cultural war on at least half the country. Yet NeverTrumps reserve almost all of their scorn for those with the audacity not to drop to their knees and surrender.

It is long past time for Republicans to fully understand the enemy and take up this fight. The phrase “silent majority” has been bandied around quite a bit in the last couple weeks. Americans are silent because the cultural tyrants ensure there is a price to pay for any peep of sane protest, which is also why Republican voters are undercounted in polls.

The problem is that the silence enables the leftists to continue to drive the narrative and normalize ideas and behaviors that would have been considered unfathomable just a few short years ago while winning more converts, which shrinks that sane majority. It is their toxic ideas that are being force-fed to every young person in America, and we are paying a heavy price for that.

I’d like to see far more people vocally pushing back against the mob within their social circles. Every person who pushes back emboldens others to do the same. There also needs to be a sustained and concerted effort to retake academia, the true center of gravity whose main product that it is returning to America is Marxist cultural tyrants.

The culture war matters when you are living in a cultural tyranny. If you believe Andrew Breitbart, that politics is downstream of culture, we are getting dangerously close to losing everything, including our liberty.

Fletch Daniels can be found on Twitter at @fletchdaniels.

Published with permission from the American Thinker.