THOSE 'OTHER' AMERICANS

'Craven' Mitch McConnell condemned for 'shockingly racist' remarks about Black voters
Travis Gettys
January 20, 2022

McConnell

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell was widely criticized for suggesting Black Americans were not fully American.

The Kentucky Republican spoke to reporters Wednesday after two Democratic senators refused to go along with a plan to change Senate rule to overcome a GOP filibuster of voting rights legislation, and he was asked what he would say to voters of color who are concerned about their access to the polls before November's midterm elections.

"Well, the concern is misplaced," McConnell said. "Because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans."

McConnell's remarks were quickly condemned online.

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DEFINITION OF A FIFTH COLUMN

GOP Texas governor candidate: It would be 'cancel culture' to fire campaign staffer with white nationalist ties

Brad Reed
January 19, 2022


Don Huffines, a Texas Republican gubernatorial candidate who is running a primary challenge against incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott, is refusing to fire a campaign staffer who has in the past been allied with avowed white nationalists.

As Huffington Post reports, Huffines is standing by right-wing activist Jake Lloyd Colglazier, who was once a featured speaker at an America First conference organized by Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, and who once claimed that the white "race is dying."

In an interview with Huffington Post, Huffines said that he wouldn't give in to "cancel culture" by firing Colglazier.

“He has done fieldwork for my campaign," the Texas Republican explained. "I have 12 field offices across Texas and over 70 people on payroll with my campaign. If I were to go through the social media history of any young Texan I would find something I disagree with. My campaign will not participate in cancel culture.”

As Huffington Post explains, however, Colglizier's ties to white nationalists go beyond a few problematic tweets.

In a January 2020 livestream, for example, he explicitly said his goal was to infiltrate the Republican Party to make it more friendly toward white nationalist views.

“We need to get into positions of authority, or within close proximity of positions of authority,” he said. “We need to get into positions of institutional power so that we can enact policies that can prevent or stymie demographic change, so that we can continue to gain institutional power, so that we can restore historical America.”

Fifth column

A fifth column is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in favor of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an external force.

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  Wikipedia

WATCH: Former Trump advisor struggles to explain why his 'free speech' platform booted a white nationalist

Bob Brigham
January 20, 2022

Screengrab.

Longtime Donald Trump advisor Jason Miller is struggling to explain why his new social media platform, Gettr, banned prominent white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes.

Gettr bills itself as a "brand new social media platform founded on the principles of free speech, independent thought and rejecting political censorship and 'cancel culture.'"

But Fuentes, who was subpoenaed by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol, was banned.

“What is the point of a free-speech alternative to Twitter...that doesn’t even honor free speech?” Fuentes asked.

Podcaster Tim Pool this week asked Miller about how his company is enforcing its free speech standards.

"Bro, I don't think you've got an argument here, man," Pool said.

"It sounds like complete bullsh*t," he explained. "So it's really difficult for me to like, to understand exactly what he did wrong. The issue for me is that when I asked you, you don't seem to know either."

No more yurts. Orcas Islanders want affordable places year-round


CREDIT: COURTESY OF OPAL COMMUNITY LAND TRUST »

JAN 19, 2022 

BY
Brandi Fullwood
Libby Denkmann

If you can find a place to live and work on Orcas Island you’re set. But workers and business owners don't want more yurts, cabins, and tents. They want creative solutions for after the big tourism season.

The idyllic horseshoe-shaped island boasts beautiful skylines, lush forests, pristine lakes, and short distances to the beach.

“It’s a different way of life compared to much of the mainland,” says Amy Nesler, a Communications and Stewardship Manager for San Juan Islands Visitor Bureau.

For residents and workers, it’s not enough to be beautiful. Affordability is a key concern year-round and seasonally.

“There's been a lot of economic stress because tourism is one of our biggest industries,” says Nesler. She says Covid 19 is not the sole reason behind challenges, “some of it is just normal flux of trying to run a business on an island.”

Residents point to short-term rental sites like Airbnb and VRBO as a popular scapegoat. But, resident Gillian Smith, writes in an email that it's hard for the community to reach a consensus on whether short-term rentals actually pose a risk.

“Locals hoping to make money from the short-term rental industry don't want to lose the ability to profit off of their properties,” Smith she says, “ many have pinned their hopes, plans for the future, retirements on being able to do so.”

Smith says regardless of the arguments, new solutions are needed.

Amy Nesler agrees, “we don’t necessarily have the zoning areas to create a new neighborhood” she says. Nesler offers that the Island should seek out creative solutions, “maybe we need to build some tiny homes instead of condos.”

Seasonal workers, employers, and fellow islanders are navigating the landscape trying to find places to live, sometimes giving up comfort.

Temporary housing solutions are a dime a dozen. Yurts, tents, trailers, and cabins are a norm for many employees seeking temporary employment in the summer. And, if you move jobs, you likely move housing as well.


“You might find people who have been living on Orcas who have never had an Orcas address,” says Jammal Williams. He says life on the Islands revolves around a scarcity of housing

.

CREDIT: COURTESY OF JAMMAL WILLIAMS

Williams worked on Orcas Island in the winter of 2018 and 2019. At that time he lived in employee housing. He found work as a cook, housekeeper, and casual fine dining server.

In the summer of 2021, he tried to move back to the San Juan Islands. He planned to move to Friday Harbor. He found three jobs but had no luck with housing.

“My credit score wasn’t high enough and the landlord wasn’t comfortable renting to me,” he says.


He is currently based in Houston, Texas taking care of family.

Employee housing meets the needs of many workers. For businesses that can afford it, it’s a tangible solution.

Jocelyn Cecil, the co-owner and manager of Hogstone Wood Oven in Eastsound on Orcas Island, says her business is taking on the challenge.

CREDIT: KUOW/BRANDI FULLWOOD


For the upcoming season, Hogstone aims to rent and subsidize condos to their employees.


“If we don’t take a small hit” she says “we may not be able to have anyone work for us.”

Hogstone Wood Oven is temporarily closed until spring due to renovations.

CREDIT: COURTESY OF JOCELYN CECIL

Currently the restaurant employs two people–Jocelyn Cecil and Jay Blackinton. Ideally, their restaurant would have fifteen workers. However, Cecil says it's been harder to find people to work who can also find housing.

Potential employees have offered to live outside in tents.

“It’s very admirable,” Cecil says, but working long hours in a restaurant and going home to sleep outside or in tents is not what they want for employees. “It’s hard on your body, it’s hard on your brain,” she says.

Hogstone employees have had to live in substandard housing in the past.

“We’re looking forward to the 2022 season being a touch more normal.”

Lisa Byers the Executive Director of OPAL Community Land Trust says it is not ideal to link work and housing. “If you leave your employer you lose your housing” Byers says.

OPAL Community Land Trust is a non-profit organization in Eastsound, on Orcas Island. They provide and create permanently affordable housing options.

Byers has worked with OPAL for twenty six years. She says the organization is working to meet rental needs now more than ever. But that need is overwhelming.

“The local housing market doesn’t work for wage earning people,” Byers says.

San Juan County has the second lowest wages in the state.

“It is a wonderful place,” she says, “but it's got some hidden dark sides.”

Orcas Island

Orcas Island is the largest of the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest, which are in the northwestern corner of San Juan County, Washington.

NO SHAME

More Republicans Take Credit For Infrastructure Funding They Voted Against

Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson touted "game-changing" funding aiming to modernize locks and dams on the Mississippi River — even though she voted against it.

By Igor Bobic
01/19/2022 


With money starting to flow in for new projects around the country thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law Congress approved last year, more Republicans are attempting to take credit despite the fact that they opposed the legislation.

In a press release issued by her office on Wednesday, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) touted “game-changing” funding of $829 million announced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that is aimed toward modernizing locks and dams on the Mississippi River, which borders her Eastern Iowa district.

“Over 60 percent of our nation’s grain exports travel through this lock and dam system, and it is a massive economic engine for the entire state,” Hinson, a freshman member of Congress, said in a joint statement along with a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the area who voted for the bill.

“That’s why I helped lead a bipartisan group of my colleagues in urging the Administration to prioritize funding for these essential upgrades. I’ll always fight to ensure Iowans’ taxpayer dollars are reinvested at home in Iowa,” she added.

But back in November, before the $1.2 trillion measure passed into law, Hinson called the bill “a raw deal for Iowans” and “spending at its worst.” She also objected to the fact that the bill had been linked with the passage of the Build Back Better Act, the Democratic social spending and climate legislation that has now stalled in the Senate.

“Congresswoman Hinson opposed the infrastructure package because it was tied to trillions of other spending in the House,” Sophie Seid, a spokeswoman for the congresswoman, said in a statement to HuffPost. “Since the bill was signed into law, this money was going to be spent regardless. If there’s federal money on the table she is, of course, going to do everything she can to make sure it is reinvested in Iowa.”

Only 13 House Republicans voted for the bill, which includes funding for roads, bridges, highways, railways and ports.

Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), two lawmakers who did vote to pass the bipartisan infrastructure law, joined Hinson in Wednesday’s press release touting the Army Corps of Engineers funding.

“When I voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill, I was voting for exactly this type of federal support for critical infrastructure that Iowans depend on,” Grassley, the senior Iowa Republican, said in a statement.

Another Republican, Rep. Kay Granger (Texas), similarly hailed over $400 million announced by the Army Corps of Engineers on Wednesday that will go toward flood control efforts in Fort Worth ― funding that wouldn’t be possible without the bipartisan infrastructure law she voted against.

Sovereign Citizen Ideology Increasingly Seeping into QAnon
January 19, 2022


Sovereign citizen guru Bobby Lawrence appeared on QAnon conspiracy theorist Ann Vandersteel's show, SteelTruth, on June 1, 2021, where he discussed how to become an American State National. Source: Rumble

More than a year after Q’s final post and the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., a small but growing number of QAnon adherents are openly embracing the beliefs of the anti-government extremist sovereign citizen movement.

From October 2017 until December 2020, QAnon adherents anxiously awaited messages from “Q,” an anonymous figure whose posts on 4Chan and 8Chan purportedly revealed secrets about the “Deep State” actors who secretly control the U.S. government and how Donald Trump would bring these individuals to justice. Despite Q’s numerous failed prophecies and Trump’s unsuccessful attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, many QAnon followers still brace themselves for the restoration of the “Republic” that will come when Trump ultimately returns to the presidency and subsequently takes down the “Deep State.” However, the silence of Q has made some QAnon adherents more receptive to other fringe voices and conspiracy theories, including the sovereign citizen movement.

The sovereign citizen movement is a 50-year-old anti-government movement whose adherents believe in a conspiracy theory that in the 19th century, a shadowy group of conspirators began infiltrating the original, lawful government and subverted it into an illegitimate and tyrannical de facto government that’s been using secret contracts to enslave all Americans. Sovereigns claim that people can in effect “divorce” themselves from this illegitimate government, which thereafter has no jurisdiction or authority over them. Sovereign citizen gurus use pseudolegal language to teach followers their theories and tactics. The movement has become known for its “paper terrorism” harassing tactics, for scams and frauds, and for violence ranging from armed standoffs to shootouts to acts of terrorism.

The conspiratorial anti-government views of the sovereign citizen movement mesh well with QAnon followers’ belief that the current Biden administration is illegitimate. One person who has actively merged these views is Bobby Lawrence, a sovereign citizen guru based in Pennsylvania who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2018. Over the course of 2021, he has forged close ties with QAnon influencers, especially conspiracy theorist Ann Vandersteel and the husband-and-wife couple Allen and Francine Fosdick, hosts of the QAnon show, Up Front in the Prophetic.

Lawrence teaches sovereignty with a QAnon bent, urging his followers to become “American State Nationals” before Trump is reinstated as president. “American State National” is one of many terms that sovereign citizens use to distinguish themselves from citizens under the jurisdiction of the illegitimate, de facto government. “Trump is working on the ‘Fall of the Cabal’ which will allow our Constitutional Republic to Rise again, however the newly partially restored Constitutional Republic will need We The People of restored status via ‘The Great Awakening’ to fill and function in the newly partially restored Constitutional Republic,” Lawrence posted to Telegram in October 2021. “This will only be accomplished via We The People reclaiming our Birthright by becoming American State Nationals... As the number of American State Nationals and one of the People increases, so will the Function of the [sic] our Constitutional Republic. It will start at the absolute local level (you and your neighbors) and then grow and grow and grow.”

Ann Vandersteel, a right-wing conspiracy theorist who has championed QAnon and the widely debunked “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, began working with Bobby Lawrence to “correct” her citizenship status in July 2021. Sovereign citizens believe that by filing a series of pseudolegal documents, one can opt out of the so-called “Fourteenth Amendment citizenship” that the government created to control them and “regain” their sovereign status, becoming immune to the laws and authority of the illegitimate federal government. On January 9, Vandersteel announced on Telegram to her 38,000 followers that she had completed the process and had officially become an “American State National.” Vandersteel has promoted Lawrence’s work repeatedly throughout the latter half of 2021, and Lawrence appeared on her show, SteelTruth, in June and July 2021, where he discussed how to become an American State National.

More recently, Vandersteel discussed the importance of becoming an American State National during her appearances at Clay Clark’s Reawaken America tour stops in San Antonio and Dallas in November and December 2021, telling the audience during her November speech, “When you become an American State National, you're now giving, saying, I don't want the privileges of being a citizen of the United States. I want to be a resident alien national in this country, part of the constitutional republic from which this country was founded. I'm taking back my rights as a free people not to be privileged to live under the United States federal bureaucracy.”

Vandersteel also encouraged listeners to look into the works of Bobby Lawrence and David Straight, another popular sovereign citizen guru, during her speeches. Following the Reawaken America conference in November, former general and Trump administration official Michael Flynn, who has embraced the QAnon movement, shared a link to Vandersteel’s speech on Telegram, writing that, “this is a superb education on our rights.”




On January 9, Ann Vandersteel posted to Telegram that she was officially an “American State National.” Source: Telegram

Vandersteel isn’t the only QAnon conspiracy theorist connected to Lawrence. Since September 2021, Lawrence and Allen and Francine Fosdick, the Pennsylvania-based hosts of the QAnon show Up Front in the Prophetic, have co-hosted four “State National” seminars with Lawrence, with a fifth one planned for February 2022 in North Carolina. During these seminars, which have averaged around 50 attendees each, Lawrence taught audience members about the importance of becoming an “American State National” and how to do so.

Sovereign citizen guru David Straight also spoke at a seminar that the Fosdicks and Lawrence co-hosted in Pennsylvania in December 2021. Lawrence appeared on the Fosdick’s show three times in 2021, where he reiterated the importance of becoming an American State National and peddled various conspiracy theories about Trump still being president.



From L to R: Allen and Francine Fosdick, hosts of the QAnon show Up Front in the Prophetic; sovereign citizen guru Bobby Lawrence and his wife, Teah; sovereign citizen guru David Straight and his wife, Bonnie; and Elena and Jim Murphy, friends of the Fosdicks, at a December 2021 “State National” seminar in Fairfield, Pennsylvania. The “Civil Peace” flag draped over the table is a fictious flag commonly used by sovereign citizens, who think it is the original and legitimate flag of the United States. Source: Telegram

Sovereign citizen beliefs have also seeped into the broader QAnon community. Unable to accept President Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, some QAnon adherents began promoting a sovereign citizen-linked conspiracy theory that former president Donald Trump would return to power on March 4, 2021, succeeding former president Ulysses S. Grant as the 19th president of the United States. Many sovereign citizens believe an 1871 law turned the United States into a “corporation,” rendering every president and law passed since then as illegitimate. The ratification of the 20th Amendment in 1933 changed the date of the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20.

More recently, during a Telegram voice chat hosted by QAnon influencer John Sabal (“QAnon John”) on December 17, 2021, disgraced attorney Lin Wood, who has openly embraced QAnon conspiracy theories, invoked a sovereign citizen-linked claim about the U.S. “corporation” tinged with antisemitic beliefs about the banking system. “From a legal standpoint, the United States of America is a corporation, and we were born as assets of the corporation. And then after they took us over, they imposed an income tax on us,” Wood told listeners in response to a question asking if the U.S. is a corporation. “I'd like to think that there's a bankruptcy that's either been filed or will be filed, that will relieve us of all this artificial debt that we have incurred from the Rothschild banking industry and the Federal Reserve System.” Wood’s “born as assets” statement may be a reference to the common sovereign citizen belief that the government has converted American birth certificates to stock certificates to pay debts to international bankers.

As QAnon adherents continue to grapple with Trump’s election loss and the fallout of the Capitol insurrection, sovereign citizen beliefs – which recognize the current U.S. government as illegitimate – present QAnon adherents with additional “evidence” to support their belief that the Biden presidency is illegitimate, as well as a pathway to “free” themselves from this perceived illegitimate government. Given the flexibility of the sovereign citizen movement and its pseudolegal tactics, it is quite possible that increasing numbers of QAnon adherents will find sovereign citizen ideas attractive in the future.

THERE ARE PRACTICIONERS OF THIS FAKE PERSONAL SOVERIGNTY MOVEMENT IN ALBERTA AND BC

A Newly Discovered Fossil Could Be The Answer to Darwin's 'Abominable' Mystery


Florigerminis jurassica. (NIGPAS)

NATURE
CARLY CASSELLA
16 JANUARY 2022

Scientists in China say they have found the oldest flower bud in the fossil record, finally aligning the fossil evidence with the genetic data suggesting flowering plants, or angiosperms, evolved tens of millions of years earlier than we initially thought.

The team hopes their discovery will help "ease the pain" around a nagging, centuries-old mystery that Charles Darwin once called "abominable".

If the oldest unambiguous fossil flower is no older than 130 million years old, then how come angiosperms began to dominate ecosystems just 20 to 30 million years later? How had they evolved such great diversity that quickly?

It was a puzzle that had bothered Darwin greatly, but he never found the answers he wanted. In the past few years, however, some crucial pieces have fallen into place.

In 2016, scientists in China announced the discovery of a "perfect flower" dating back to the Jurassic, more than 145 million years ago.

The fossilized plant, called Euanthus, not only had petals, but it also had sepals (the leafy bit at the base of a bud), as well male and female reproductive parts, including an ovary similar to modern flowers.

In 2018, another fossilized flower was found in China, and this one, called Nanjinganthus, was about 174 million years old. Like a modern flowering plant, its seeds were completely enclosed in an ovary.


Not all botanists, however, are convinced these are true angiosperms. Some argue these plants are too primitive to be considered flowers, while others think their structures are too complex for a gymnosperm, an older type of plant with unenclosed seeds and lacking a flower, like a conifer.

The new fossilized flower bud, found in China and dubbed Florigerminis jurassica, could be the transitional stage researchers have been looking for. It was found at a deposit dated more than 164 million years ago, and it's still in excellent condition.

The plant's stem is connected not only to a flower bud but also to a fruit and a leafy branch – a trio of data that is especially rare. Below, the arrow points to the flower bud, while the top right depicts the fruiting body, and the bottom right image shows the bud.

Florigerminis jurassica. (NIGPAS)

Because flowers are such delicate structures, they are notoriously difficult to find in fossils preceding the Cretaceous. Previous attempts to uncover the origin of flowering plants have been described as an "unbroken record of failure".

F. jurassica is a one-of-a-kind discovery. Not even Nanjinganthus has been found with an intact flower bud, just a flower.

The fruit on F. jurassica adds even more support to the idea that this is, in fact, an early angiosperm, and not a gymnosperm.

No doubt, there will be some experts who disagree, but the authors think their results demand a "rethinking of angiosperm evolution".

The study was published in Geological Society, London, Special Publications.