Aug 01

OVERREGULATION: Climbing Mount Rainier requires two separate government permits and a “Recovery Fee”

MOUNT RAINIER, the highest mountain in the State of Washington and the most glacier-covered mountain in the contiguous U.S., is a mecca for mountaineers in the Pacific Northwest.

But government regulations are higher than the snows on the mountain. Those seeking to summit the peak must obtain TWO separate permits: a “wilderness permit,” and a “climbing permit.” Additionally they must pay a “Climbing Cost Recovery Fee.”

A permit is generally issued for groups of two or more who disclose sufficient information about themselves and their plans. Teams must generally disclose the exact route they intend to use on the mountain as well as a description of their gear.

Climbing solo is prohibited without an actual letter from an NPS official. One must APPLY for the permit by pitching one’s climbing history and abilities. (And Rainier is by no means an extreme or technical climb.)

GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS PUT CLIMBERS AT RISK
This year, the NPS has limited commercial guide companies that normally operate on the mountain (citing the coronavirus panic). Consequently, there is less placement of ladders and safety ropes across dangerous crevasses.

The permit requirements and prohibitions on solo climbing have likely put hundreds of climbers at risk. Many have attempted to sneak up the mountain on dangerous routes or by dark of night to avoid government detection.

IT IS NOW ILLEGAL TO PIONEER NEW OR UNUSUAL ROUTES IN MOST CASES

Overregulation on mountains such as Rainier make it illegal to pioneer new or unusual routes in many circumstances. Prior generations of climbing pioneers were REWARDED by presidents, kings and prime ministers. Mallory was part of a Royal British expedition; Hillary was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his Everest success. But modern governments seek near-total control; and control means exploration is unlawful.

Charlie Bell, who solo-pioneered a risky climb of Rainier’s West Rib in 1961, found it “paradoxical that Bonatti got a medal for his Matterhorn solo and I paid a $50 fine for my Rainier solo.”

Aug 01

America died from overregulation. The only way out is deregulation on a massive scale

by Roger Roots, JD, Ph.D., Founder of Lysander Spooner University

During the 150 year period between 1830 and 1980, the American people became the greatest innovators in world history, launching countless new inventions which propelled humanity through frontiers of knowledge, space and discovery.

More recently, however, American ingenuity has been choked nearly to death. PayPal founder Peter Thiel has given speeches throughout the world about the decline in human ingenuity under ever-growing government.

Humans are actually moving slower today than they did 30 years ago. The last Concorde jet airliner–capable of flying at Mach 2–was grounded in 2002 due to expenses related to regulation. Mankind went to the moon in 1968 but can’t return due to government regulations.

The Empire State Building was built during the Great Depression in 1 year, but the new Freedom Tower topped out in 2014 took 11 years to build. The Golden Gate Bridge was built in 4 years during the 1930s, but an on-ramp to the Bridge recently took 6 years to build due to government regulations.

Government regulations are killing businesses and keeping thousands of new ventures from launching. The number of companies on the New York Stock Exchange has actually DECLINED over the past 30 years.

Regulations have stopped the number of new medicines from increasing.

This is despite an expansion of understanding regarding human biology and science. When the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on government research universities and medical development is factored in, the rate of new drug inventions has been rapidly DECLINING due to government regulation.

Jul 22

Is Drudge Report now CIA?

The U.S. government is the world’s largest advertiser. It spends hundreds of millions annually to announce and promote its positions and claims. And this above-ground spending pales in comparison to the government’s secret spending.

It was revealed during the Frank Church Senate hearings in the 1970s that the CIA spent one-third of its budget on spreading propaganda and pro-government information through major media outlets. Many major media voices are in the pay of the CIA and other agencies. The Church Committee revelations ended without Congress enacting any laws or limitations on the propaganda authority of America’s deep state.

Now, in 2020, as government seeks to spread a unified message of panic regarding coronavirus (a disease which poses no more than about a 4/100ths of 1% mortality risk for people of good health under 70), numerous major media platforms and channels have visibly transformed into government panic outlets.

The Drudge Report, one of the internet’s highest-traffic news aggregator sites, has become one of the web’s loudest COVID panickers. Link after link on most days on Drudge are dedicated to the coronavirus scare. And almost nowhere on the site are there any mentions of counterinformation.

At one time, Drudge Report was a mix of contrarian articles and unusual viewpoints that were hard to find. It was clear that the site’s founder and owner, Matt Drudge, was a libertarian with an eye for exposing government cover-up and exaggeration. The hugely influential website at one point regularly clocked over 1 billion page views per month.

But in recent months, according to Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute, “the site has become more or less indistinguishable from a standard mainline legacy media site. It has consistently carried articles and headlines that promote Russiagate hysteria and pro-FBI, pro-CIA positions.” “It is now, for all practical purposes, a sister site to CNN.com or The Atlantic.”

Matt Drudge himself (the site’s founder) has remained mum regarding the site’s shift in content.

CNN reported on the sharp change in October 2019 and unsuccessfully attempted to get Matt Drudge to comment. Several sources have reported that Matt Drudge may have secretly sold the site.

In the period following the changes of 2019, traffic metrics for the Drudge website showed Drudge Report lost almost 30 percent of its traffic in just 90 days, losing rank from #632 in global internet engagement to #844 and declining in December 2019. The site’s readership briefly rebounded in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic escalated, but continued to decline to new recent lows afterwards.

Jul 20

Oregon Bundy defendant Sean Anderson now clinging to life in an unknown hospital; Government agents riddled his face and body with bullets after a “traffic stop” but are not releasing dash- or bodycam footage

Sean Anderson, one of the last four occupiers of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon in 2016, was recently riddled with bullets by multiple law enforcement agencies after a traffic stop. Government agents are spinning the story as a confrontation with the militia activist, but have thus far refused to release any dashcam or bodycam imagery of the incident.

Anderson has reportedly survived the shooting but is hospitalized and blind from multiple rounds in the face. FBI agents have reportedly threatened Anderson’s wife to keep Anderson’s location secret from the public.

Anderson became famous for his role in the 2016 citizens occupation of the Refuge near Burns, Oregon. After the roadblock killing of LaVoy Finicum by Oregon State Police and FBI agents on January 26, 2016, almost every occupier fled the Refuge or surrendered. Anderson and his wife Sandy, along with Jeff Banta and David Fry, maintained their protest until the final (41st) day even as they were surrounded by hundreds of state and federal agents.

Both Andersons faced numerous federal charges and were preparing to go to trial in February 2017 when federal prosecutors offered them misdemeanor plea agreements. (Banta and Fry were acquitted of all charges along with Ammon and Ryan Bundy, Shawna Cox, Neil Wampler and Ken Medenbach, in October 2016.)

Sean Anderson has maintained a public profile as a community activist since the Bundy case. Last week, he spoke at an Idaho event aimed at informing the public about the government’s coronavirus disinformation.
Now Idaho State Police claim Anderson “led multiple law enforcement agencies on a high-speed pursuit in Lewis County, Idaho (in the southern panhandle near Washington State).

Officials claim a Lewis County deputy attempted to pull Anderson over on Highway 12 at about 2:45 a.m. Saturday for “an apparent equipment violation.” They claim Anderson led them on an hour-long chase which ended in Ferndiand, Idaho County where they say “shots were fired.”
Idaho State Police officials declined to answer reporters’ questions about how many shots were fired or who shot first. It appears the agency is seeking to spin the encounter as a gun battle with Anderson. But the incident must have been filmed by multiple dash and body cameras, and the agency’s refusal to release any footage belies the government narrative.

And now there are reports that the FBI has threatened and intimidated Sandy Anderson into keeping Sean’s hospital location a secret from the public. Government agents are desperately seeking to keep a lid on the story, and even their official press release has declined even to name Anderson as the person involved.

STAY TUNED!

Jul 16

Facebook “Fact Check” claims coronavirus death rate is false–ignoring science and CDC reports and citing some quotes from Fouci

With few exceptions, social media “fact checkers” are used by major media platforms to replace inconvenient (to government) facts with pro-government talking points.

Now Facebook is attaching a “misleading” stamp on posts that point out that the coronavirus death rate is in the range of tenths of 1% or lower.

The “fact checkers” claim “The exact mortality rate of COVID-19 in the United States isn’t yet known. Outcomes depend on many factors, from the level of strain on the health care system to an infected person’s health history and age.”

But of course those variables are already factored into death rates as found by such institutions as Stanford University and Wake Forest University.

Both universities, researching coronavirus antibodies in populations thousands of miles from each other, found that the coronavirus death rate is around 1/10th of 1%–essentially the same as the common flu.

The Stanford research found that for people of normal health under 70, the death rate is around 4/100ths of 1%.

Two months after Stanford released its findings, the CDC reluctantly admitted that the findings were correct and coronavirus mortality rates are similar to flu in all age groups.

Jul 12

Modern pro-government “conservatism” was created by the CIA

The great LewRockwell.com writer Charles Burris has some keen insights into the development of modern pro-government “conservatism.” As government grew throughout the twentieth century, a strain of “conservatism” arose which seemed to support this vast new growth of government programs while quibbling at the margins with tax rates, or advocating more imprisonment or ever-more-powerful surveillance.

“From the time before the American government’s formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism.”

“For the past 70 years, “responsible public policy debate” has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.”

“It was “former” deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony “conservative movement.””

The CIA also founded Regnery Press, the largest “conservative” book publisher.

William J. Casey (future CIA DIRECTOR) drew up the incorporation papers for National Review, and served as its long-time legal counsel.

Years later, Buckley was outted as a CIA operative by former CIA agent William Sloane Coffin (Skull and Bones 1949). Coffin was a long-time colleague of George H. W. Bush (Skull and Bones 1948) when they both attended Phillips Andover Academy and later Yale together.

Jul 11

Government vampires seek extreme tax increases

Government’s unquenchable thirst for money and power continues despite America’s cratering economy.

Throughout the government’s COVID-19 impositions, no one at local, state or federal levels has lost a paycheck. Many government employees have received their paychecks in spite of having no work whatsoever to do.

But the cratering economic stability of the country is already causing major shortfalls in expected government revenues.

For states like Texas, Alaska and New Mexico which depend on oil revenue to balance their budgets, finances are declining rapidly.

Alaska is projecting an $815 million shortfall in revenues in the coming fiscal year, and New Mexico could see a $1.5 to $2 billion drop.

Nashville Mayor John Cooper is openly proposing raising property taxes by 32% in order to correct an estimated $250 million budget shortfall.
Dallas, TX is looking at a proposed 8% increase in property taxes.

Jul 11

Matt Ridley: the Planet is in great shape

British science writer Matt Ridley has an optimistic view of the Earth’s future. Ridley points out that the Earth has been getting greener and healthier, probably due to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere–thanks to humans.

Forests and trees have been increasing. The Earth now has significantly larger areas dedicated to forests, wilderness, and wildlife habitat.

Many species that were once endangered are now numerous and thriving. Ridley discusses the increasing numbers of western tragopan birds in India. The birds appeared headed toward extinction just decades ago. Now they are protected in a vast national park and refuge area in India.

Jul 09

English Government professors call for imprisonment of climate doomsday questioners

“When those seeking power can’t convince the populace of the merits of their ideas, they start putting people who disagree in jail, hoping that fear will keep the rest in line.” So writes Anthony Watts of Wattsupwiththat.com.

Watts will surely be one of the first people arrested and imprisoned if professors at the University of Exeter have their way. In an article in The Carbon Brief titled “How climate change misinformation spreads online,” several Exeter professors advocate fines and imprisonment for people publishing “climate misinformation” online. They justify their call for imprisonment by claiming tremendous harm from “misleading information that is created and spread with intent to deceive.”

Watts notes that “This isn’t the first time such wild calls for criminalization of contrary climate opinion have been made.” Lawrence Torcello, a liberal arts professor at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY, wrote in an essay at The Conversation that climate scientists who fail to communicate the correct message about “global warming” should face trial for “criminal negligence.”

Jul 06

500,000 middle class New Yorkers flee the City after government COVID impositions

New York City, once the world’s flagship of commerce and capitalism, is now a sewer of government control, rioting and misery.

New York’s governing officials ordered most businesses closed for months.

A story in the Daily Mail reports that 500,000 New Yorkers–disproportionately hard-working middle-class residents–have already fled the Big Apple.

Streets once teeming with tourists are virtually empty. Shops and restaurants are boarded up to protect against looters. Hotels are closed. According to one resident: ‘New York has become a place where the soup kitchens are full and skyscrapers are empty.’

The Broadway theatre district sits in darkness, unlikely to open before next year. The subway, which once carried 750,000 commuters a day, is mainly deserted. In Times Square, a handful of street vendors offer hand-sanitiser and face masks in place of knock-off designer sunglasses and bags.

“A statewide moratorium on evictions, in place since March, expires on August 20, when tenants will be expected to pay back owed rent. A restaurant owner who declined to be named said: ‘I will close for good and move to a cheaper part of the country.’”

“With no reliable forecast when tourists might return, up to a third of the city’s small businesses – including 186,000 shops – could fail.”

According to figures released by the New York Police Department, for the first six months of this year, there were 176 murders, an increase of 23 per cent on the 143 killed during the same period last year.

The number of shooting victims has gone up 51 per cent to 616 this year. In June alone, there were 250 shootings compared to 97 in the same month last year. Month-on-month, burglaries are up 119 per cent and car thefts up 48 per cent.