Independent media, news reporting, analysis, opinion, forensic historical research presentations. From a Libertarian to Anarcho-Libertarian Anti-Federalist perspective.
Christopher Bunch, 14 years old, died on Aug. 14, 2018 of complications from a rare neurological disease called Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis (ADEM). The teenager began experiencing symptoms, including headaches, nausea and vomiting, on Aug. 6. He spent much of the next two days sleeping.12 On Aug. 8, Christopher’s parents became concerned that their son’s health had seriously deteriorated. “His progression went from zero to one hundred in a matter of four hours,” said Elijah Mendoza Bunch, Christopher’s father.12
Christopher was taken to University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital in Iowa City for treatment. Soon after being admitted to the hospital, the boy began to lose the ability to breathe on his own and suffered complete paralysis on the left side of his body. He was put on anti-seizure medication. On Aug. 11, Christopher underwent surgery to relieve swelling in his brain, but he remained in critical condition and was placed on life support until he passed away two days later.123
Physicians diagnosed Christopher with ADEM—a disease that causes inflammation of the central nervous system and. ADEM “typically affects children and may be preceded by a viral or bacterial infection.” It can also “occur after a vaccination, with symptoms ranging from confusion, drowsiness or coma, unsteadiness, vision issues, trouble swallowing or weakness of the arms and legs.”123
Christopher had apparently received the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine Gardasil three weeks prior to his death. ADEM is a reported side effect of Gardasil. It is listed in the Gardasil package insert.4567
Intellectual Conservative | Dan Phillips
Posted on 12/10/2006, 3:34:41 PM by Luis Gonzalez Paleoconservatism is informed by certain philosophical presumptions that differ markedly from the presumptions of neocons and most modern conservatives.
Have you ever noticed how enthusiasts of all sorts frequently speak a language that is completely unintelligible to the rest of us? For example, computer geeks . . . err . . . enthusiasts have their own language as do gear heads . . . err . . . hot rod enthusiasts. Wonkish political obsessives like me are guilty of the same thing, I am afraid. I don’t know a gigabyte from RAM or a header from a flathead, but I can rattle off the various shades of conservatism in Rainman-like fashion.
I was reminded of this tendency recently when I published an article on paleoconservatism and abortion. The article was originally published at Intellectual Conservative, and later published at several mainstream, GOP-oriented conservative websites. It made some very controversial assertions so I expected to get feedback. Well I did. Most of it was positive. Some of it was not. But what surprised me was that most people weren’t taking issue with my controversial assertions. Instead, many seemed to be unfamiliar with the term paleoconservative. I was surprised because my article appeared on conservative oriented political websites. I assumed paleoconservative would be a term familiar to those who frequent such websites. Well you know what they say about assuming. I was also disappointed. That many conservative internet surfers didn’t know what a paleoconservative is is an indication that my side seriously needs a marketing campaign.
As a result, I have decided that a little Conservatism 101 is in order. I will attempt to explain the origin and history of the movement now called paleoconservatism, and how it differs from “regular conservatism,” for lack of a better term. But perhaps more importantly, what does this movement have to offer us that regular conservatism does not?
First of all, this is a topic about which a book could easily be written, and some have. It is not my intention to be exhaustive or to reinvent the wheel. For a more exhaustive treatment, see the Wikipediaentry on paleoconservatism. I know Wikipedia can be a bit hit and miss, but the paleoconservative entry is fantastic. (No I did not write it.) It was updated recently, and the first half is particularly well done. Several other books and magazines have been written that address this subject, and I will provide internal links to helpful resources.
Since most readers will be familiar with the tenants of “regular conservatism,” it may be easiest to describe paleoconservatism by how it differs from the more mainstream variety. First a little history.
Prior to World War II, there existed a coalition often referred to now as the Old Right. The Old Right was a collection of traditionalist and libertarian politicians, writers, businessmen, scholars, etc. who composed the loyal opposition to the Left which was ascendant at the time. The ascendant Left was represented most obviously by Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal. Perhaps nothing resembling a “movement” as we know it today existed back then, but the Old Right did what it could given the tenor of the times.
NeoConservatism Defined -
The Old Right differed from the modern conservative movement in that it opposed foreign military intervention and favored a policy often derisively referred to as isolationism. The Old Right opposed American entry into World War I and World War II. On that note, the most prominent organization of the Old Right was the America First Committee (AFC) which was organized to prevent US entry into WW II. (The AFC was populated by a lot of anti-war leftists as well.) The conservative argument for opposing foreign intervention and entanglements is that it is not America’s responsibility to be a global policeman. Foreign adventuring necessitates big government, big spending, the sacrificing of liberties at home, and of course places American troops in harm’s way.
The Old Right also opposed, generally with limited political success, FDR’s New Deal. They believed his New Deal programs were wasteful, not authorized by the Constitution, and ineffective and counterproductive to reviving the depressed economy.
Some elements of the Old Right also opposed what they saw as a trifecta of insults to freedom and the Constitution that took place in 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment which authorized the Income Tax, the Seventeenth Amendment which mandated the direct election of Senators, and the creation of the Federal Reserve. (Tax protestors don’t scold me. I am aware that many believe the Sixteenth Amendment was not passed appropriately by the States and/or doesn’t authorize an individual income tax. That debate is beyond the scope of this article.)
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and American entry into the War, non-intervention fell out of favor. When the hot war ended, America was faced with a Cold War attempting to halt the global expansion of Communism and Soviet influence. The “modern conservative movement” (MCM) as it is often called arose after WWII and after the start of the Cold War. Unlike the Old Right, the MCM supported a strong internationalist foreign policy as a means of combating the Soviet menace. Some recognized foreign intervention as inconsistent with the traditional conservative support of small government, but felt the Soviet threat warranted a temporary alteration in principles. A small contingent on the Right, led by Murray Rothbard among others, continued to resist the call for an aggressive foreign policy to contain Communism, but they were in the minority. (The merits of their argument deserve an additional column as well.)
You might wonder, “If the Old Right is characterized as pre-WWII, then would it not be accurate to designate the post-war alternative as the New Right instead of the more cumbersome modern conservative movement?” There is a related movement called the New Right but it is not an entirely analogous term. The MCM is generally conceived as originating and coalescing in the 50’s especially around the issue of the Cold War. Seminal events in its genesis would be the publication of Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind in 1953 and the founding of National Review in 1955. The New Right refers to that coalition that flourished after the Barry Goldwater campaign. Perhaps I am splitting hairs, but the term MCM seems to better encompass the decade or so before what is usually conceived of as the official beginning of the New Right. For the purposes of this article the MCM will indicate the post-war conservative movement that is to be distinguished from the Old Right.
Another element of the post-war anti-Communist, anti-Soviet forces were ex-leftists who had grown disillusioned with the excesses of Soviet Communism. Beginning in the 70’s they started to leave the Democratic Party in frustration over the emergence of radical liberalism, especially the counterculture, the perceived direction of the party with the McGovern nomination, and the perceived weakness of the Democrats on foreign policy. This group included Irving Kristol and others frequently associated with the advent of neoconservatism, a term I suspect the average reader is more familiar with.
Since they were ex-liberals, the neoconservative element of the MCM was generally supportive of a broad social safety net. They were comfortable with New Deal programs such as Social Security and FDR’s economic interventions. Most were supportive of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and the Civil Rights movement, although most opposed quotas.
The Old Right was, as I already pointed out, hostile to Roosevelt and the New Deal. Some of the conservative elements that made up the original MCM did not support the New Deal or economic intervention either. This was true of both the traditionalist elements and the libertarian elements of the fledgling MCM. But by the mid-50’s it was generally assumed by most conservatives that the New Deal was a fait accompli, so serious opposition to it was dropped. This was partially based on pragmatic political concerns, but it was also felt that opposing the Soviets was the paramount issue, and they should not waste political capital or alienate potential allies with less urgent issues. A pragmatic consensus quickly arose that opposing settled leftist gains such as Social Security was a political loser, so they were essentially taken off the table.
The transformation from isolationist Old Right to interventionist modern right has been much observed and commented on. The de facto adoption of political pragmatism over rigorous adherence to principles as a defining component of modern conservatism has been less commented on, and I will devote a future article to discussing the far reaching implications of that decision.
So the neoconservatives were pro-intervention, supported a social safety net, were comfortable with some government intervention in the economy but supported free-trade and liberal immigration policies and were generally socially conservative. While the depth of their commitment to social conservatism has been questioned by some, they were clearly anti-counterculture which they saw as a radical and anti-American threat.
A question: does what the neoconservatives supported initially sound familiar to anyone? It actually sounds very much like the agenda of the MCM and the GOP of today. More on that later.
The MCM has always been a coalition of rather diverse elements who were united in their opposition to the radical Left as much or more than they were united in their common goals and philosophy. One element was the traditionalists personified by Russell Kirk and Richard Weaver. Another element was the economic libertarians personified by Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. Traditionalists placed less faith in free-markets and rejected economic reductionism. They denounced the libertarians as hidebound ideologues. The libertarians denounced the traditionalists as too friendly to the state and rejecters of reason. But both factions opposed federal government expansion although perhaps for somewhat different reasons, and both opposed the economic and cultural collectivists on the Left. The fusionists, whose main spokesmen at the time was Frank Meyer of National Review, tried to chart a middle course. Fusionism is described by Donald Devine of the American Conservative Union as advocating “libertarian means to traditional ends.” Whether fusionism was a coherent intellectual philosophy or just an attempt to reconcile a diverse coalition is a matter of much debate among partisans on all sides.
But whatever fusionism might have lacked as a coherent philosophy, you could argue that the MCM that emerged was generally fusionist in its orientation, socially and culturally conservative but libertarian on economics. All sides supported limited government, tax cuts, minimal government intervention in the economy, and a strong national defense. (Actually it could be argued that a strong national defense is neither traditionalist nor libertarian nor fusionist, but its support by most was a product of the Cold War times.)
Also holding the movement coalition together was near unanimous agreement on the strategy of political pragmatism mentioned above with the GOP as the chosen vehicle, and a fear of the Democratic Left. The near unanimous consensus that the GOP should be the vehicle of choice was facilitated by the slow but sure shift of once conservative Democrats in the South to the GOP starting with the Goldwater campaign in ’64.
So what the heck is a paleoconservative and where do they belong in this grand scheme? Many paleos, whose beliefs coincide largely with the Kirk-style traditionalists, would gripe that they were really a barely tolerated part of the coalition from the beginning, but there was at least a general civility. The late paleocon, Sam Francis, claimed that the neocons were at first welcomed into the movement as useful allies, but tensions between the traditionalists and the newly grafted neocons soon rose. The traditionalists charged that the neocons were still unrepentant leftists. The neocons charged that the traditionalists were backwards looking reactionaries.
Things really came to a head at the start of the Reagan administration, as the spoils were being divvied up. Traditionalists, who had been a part of the MCM from its inception, expected a piece of the pie. The Johnny-come-lately neos were accused of trying to get all the spoils for themselves. Things really got ugly concerning the appointment of Mel Bradford to head the National Endowment for the Humanities. Mel Bradford was a traditionalist extraordinaire. He was also a proud Southerner. One aspect of the traditionalist element has been respect for the inherent conservatism of the Southern tradition. Russell Kirk recognized it, Richard Weaver recognized it, and Mel Bradford recognized it. The Southern Agrarians, who had been an element of the Old Right, had eloquently articulated it in their book I’ll Take My Stand. These men recognized that the South had always served as a traditionalist brake on the grand designs of Northern progressives. The neos did not want Dr. Bradford to get the job. To them he was hopelessly behind the times. Their choice was William Bennett, so they set out in a rather nasty way to tarnish Bradford’s reputation. They especially focused on his veneration of the South and his traditional Southern view of the merits or lack thereof of Lincoln. Of course accusations of racism were hurled, and this was an early harbinger of things to come. (Note the hysterical and hyperbolic reaction of the neocons to Trent Lott’s Strom Thurmond remark.) This incident among others confirmed to the traditionalists that their suspicions had been right from the beginning; the neocons really were a type of leftist instead of a type of conservative, since free and easy accusations of racism are too often the first recourse of the left.
The term paleoconservative was coined around this time by either Thomas Fleming and/or Paul Gottfried originally as a joke. Paleo, as a prefix meaning old or ancient, was to designate the opposite of neo meaning new. Even though it was initially coined as a joke, the term caught on. Some paleos have objected to the term, suggesting it invokes images of dinosaurs. It may well be true that the term was embraced and used by the paleos' enemies because they saw it as unflattering. At this point we are probably stuck with the term. It is now routinely used by both its proponents and its detractors. Personally, I kind of like the term. As a proud traditionalist, I am perfectly comfortable with a word that invokes ancient or old as opposed to a word that invokes the new. Such an attitude I’m sure appalls the progressives.
In the 80s, the term paleoconservative was still mostly used in-house by conservatives “in the know.” It began to be used by a broader audience during the lead up to the first Gulf War. The MCM had been characterized by support of foreign intervention in the struggle against the Soviets. With the Soviet threat diminished or eliminated, the paleos sought to revert back to the traditional conservative position of avoiding foreign intervention. The neos, however, saw America, as the lone remaining superpower, as having an international opportunity/responsibility to shape the world in America’s interests and ostensively in a way that would benefit all.
The paleoconservative movement as we know it today synthesized and galvanized around opposition to the first Gulf War. For the paleos, that war was not our fight. American foreign policy should focus on safeguarding America and protecting American’s vital national interests, not punishing acts of aggression around the world.
The most prominent paleoconservative public face was Pat Buchanan. He articulated for the masses the three areas where paleos are most commonly recognized as differing from “regular conservatives.” They were early strong opponents of immigration, a position which is now becoming in vogue. They were skeptical of the benefits of free-trade, and favored a policy of “economic nationalism.” They were particularly weary of free-trade deals that they believed sacrificed our national sovereignty such as NAFTA and GATT. And of course, they opposed most foreign intervention.
You can see how paleoconservatism came to be largely defined by its positions on issues where it was at variance with the neocons and the rest of the conservative movement and the GOP, especially on the triad of issues mentioned above. The paleocons believe the conservative movement has been nearly entirely co-opted by neocon ideology or “neoconized,” if you will. The less flattering characterization that is often used is that the movement had been “hi-jacked” by the recent interlopers. As far as the “official position” of the conservative movement, they are correct, although many grass-roots conservatives support the paleoconservative positions. They just lack an organized or effective voice. This is especially true on immigration, where the Establishment’s support of “comprehensive” (read “guest workers”) immigration reform and reluctance to support an enforcement only policy, is very much at odds with the conservative base.
In my paleoconservative article that inspired this follow-up, I wrote:
While paleos are often distinguished by their opposition to foreign intervention, immigration, and free trade, what really sets them apart from other conservatives is much deeper than just policy. They differ on significant underlying philosophical presumptions. One helpful way of looking at this difference is to ask where paleoconservatives draw the “it has all been down hill since then” or alternatively the “those were the good ol’ days” line in the historical sand. Paleos generally reject the Enlightenment in whole or in part. They reject Lockean “contract theory” and the concept of “natural rights” out right.
This essay has been an attempt to place paleoconservatives in a historical context, and to focus on how they differ from other conservative on important policy issues. In this light you can see that paleoconservatives are a continuation or recovery of the traditionalist element of the Right that has been there from the beginning. In many ways it has more in common with the Old Right, especially the Southern Agrarian element, than it does with the modern right. Many commentators have noticed this commonality.
However, as I stated in the passage above, the underlying differences are much deeper than mere differences on certain issues. Paleoconservatism is informed by certain philosophical presumptions that differ markedly from the presumptions of neocons and most modern conservatives. It is a hard concept to initially get your arms around for the uninitiated, but once you understand the presumptions the positions on issues naturally follow. It is not just a hodge-podge of policy differences. Likewise, the neocons have their own different set of underlying philosophical presumptions. While the modern Right generally takes positions on the issues similar to the neocons, it is not at all clear that all conservatives entirely understand what philosophy they are buying into.
It will be through trying to illustrate these core philosophical differences, not just debating the merits of free-trade vs. fair trade, that a broader understanding will be fostered of how the sides differ and what each has to offer with regard to addressing the problems we face as a nation today, and where we went wrong in the past.
I will leave the complicated and perhaps cumbersome discussion of each side’s underlying philosophy for later essays. I hope this essay has adequately laid the historical framework.
These appear to be the continuation of live-fire exercises the Marines were carrying out last week at al-Tanf, which officials said were intended as a “warning to Russia,” after Russia warned they planned to act against Islamist factions in the area.
Pentagon officials today described the exercises as a “show of force,” saying that they want to demonstrate the ability of US forces to “respond to any threat to our forces within our area of operations.”
The US has warned a 55 km radius around al-Tanf is off limits to all other forces, though they’ve done little to prevent al-Qaeda forces from setting up shop in the area. It doesn’t appear the al-Qaeda forces were directly involved in the exercises, but they’ll clearly be the beneficiaries of the US preparing to “defend” the area from Syria and Russia.
There is no timetable for the operation in the south, but Russia informed the US it would be happening last week. This is likely to be a confrontation on the long-term US presence in Syria.
While US forces in Syrian Kurdistan are there at the behest of Kurdish officials, the Tanf base appears to serve little purpose, beyond giving the US a little presence in the southeast corner, where they can pick fights with any pro-government forces who get too close.
So it begs to question: Why are we even there? Why are we involved? Why are we essentially protecting Islamic extremist radical Jihadis?
The answer - the same plan of PNAC - The Project for a New American Century and more of Israeli Wars to destabilize and balkanize the middle east putting American troops in harms way for absolutely NO BENEFIT to the United States.
Spenser Rapone, the communist cadet who wore a Che Guevara t-shirt at his West Point graduation, has reinvented himself as an anti war activist evangelizing for a communist revolution. Following separation from the military in June, the former U.S. Army 2nd Lieutenant has broken his silence, and moved to New York City to start a career as a Marxist commentator on a mission to recruit new comrades.
TruNews is on the air! TruNews is God’s answer to Satan’s fake news. TruNews is the world’s leading news source that reports, analyzes, and comments on global events and trends with a conservative, orthodox Christian worldview. Our vision is to build a global news network that provides a credible source for world news, events, and trends while giving respect and honor to Christians of all major denominations — Evangelical, Orthodox, Anglican, Catholic, and Protestant. We believe Christians need and deserve their own global news network to keep the worldwide Church informed, and to offer Christians a positive alternative to the anti–Christian bigotry of the mainstream news media. Like David vs. Goliath, Rick Wiles is a citizen reporter who decided to take on the Big News Media. Starting with a $7,500 donation in May 1999 to launch the first radio program, Rick’s faith in God and steadfast determination has overseen the growth and development of TruNews into an internationally recognized source of credible news and information in a world where nothing seems to make sense anymore. Rick’s professional career was in media marketing and advertising sales. Throughout his early years, God’s hand silently guided him to be in employed in the latest new media. While in his early 20’s, Rick’s first media job was with a new FM radio station in the days when AM was still king. In 1980, he blazed a path as a pioneer in local cable television advertising when CNN and ESPN were new start-up channels on cable TV. As a sales manager, he launched one of the first cable advertising interconnects in the nation. He was hired in 1984 by the Christian Broadcasting Network as the first National Cable Marketing Manager for the new CBN Cable Network which later became the Family Channel. In 1995, Paul F. Crouch hired Rick as the Marketing Director for Trinity Broadcasting Network where Rick repositioned the TBN brand inside the cable industry — and played an important role in negotiating the early contracts to launch TBN on DirectTV, DISH, and the former PrimeStar DBS systems. Rick resigned from TBN in September 1998 after receiving a dramatic call from God to full–time ministry. Have questions? Please send an email to info@trunews.com. We are here to pray for you. Whatever may be on your heart, no matter how big or small the burden, someone is waiting to stand with you in prayer.
On September 11, the US-led coalition and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced that the SDF is kicking off a military operation to eliminate the ISIS-held pocket of Hajin in the Euphrates Valley. According to a coalition spokesman, the SDF ground advance will be backed up by coalition air and artillery strikes.
Hajin and nearby villages are the only remaining major ISIS stronghold in Syria, which the terrorist group actively uses to carry out attacks on the eastern and western banks of the Euphrates. Previously, the SDF repeatedly announced that it’s going to clear the pocket. However, by September 11, no real efforts had been taken in this field.
If the Hajin pocket is seized by the SDF, the US-backed fore will finally be able to declare the eastern bank of the Euphrates free from ISIS, at least technically.
More than 100 US Marines were sent as reinforcements to the US—led coalition garrison in the area of al-Tanf, according to a September 8 announcement by the Pentagon. Many MSM sources described this move as a self-defense effort amid the growing tensions between Russia and the US in the war-torn country.
On September 11, the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation in Syria stated that militants have already started filming a chemical weapons attack in the city of Jisr al-Shugur in the province of Idlib.
“According to the information received from inhabitants of Idlib province, militants are now filming a staged provocation in the city of Jisr al-Shugur, where “chemical weapons” are depicted as being used by the Syrian army against civilians. The film crews of several Middle Eastern TV channels arrived in Jisr al-Shugur in the morning, as well as the regional affiliate of one of the main American television news networks,” the Center said.
The plot reportedly envisages staged scenes showing members of the White Helmets pretending to help civilians “after the Syrian army allegedly used the so-called barrel bombs with poisonous substances”.
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It is a very sad day for Patriots everywhere. a friend and brother to many in the fight for freedom, Leo Stratton has passed on to the Lord Jesus Christ. A contributor to The Red Elephants, a freedom activist and someone who stood the line against the morons of Antifa, Leo was a proud American and he will be sorely missed.
Portland based videographer and MAGA supporter Leo Stratton died in a truck wreck early Wednesday morning at the age of 50. Well known for his YouTube channel under his own name, Stratton was a proud Trump supporter in the middle of a communist stronghold. Over the past handful of years, he chronicled the far left wackjobbery by filming the anti Trump protesters and writing for the website Red Elephants. He also spent considerable time covering the Bundy/Hammond/Finicum protests and rallies. His videos and stories have been featured on several websites, including here on the Gateway Pundit. Here’s one of his more popular videos that went viral:
Stratton and his wife, Shelley, won a trip to see Trump’s inauguration in January of 2017. They recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. A Go Fund Me page has been set up by one of the local Patriot Prayer/Proud Boy members to help pay for the funeral and other costs. The post Conservative Activist & Videographer Leo Stratton: 1968-2018 appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
WASCO COUNTY, OR (KPTV) - A semi driver died as a result of injuries sustained in a fiery crash on Interstate 84, according to Oregon State Police.
The crash happened on I-84 near milepost 74 at around 1:50 a.m.
OSP said an investigation revealed a commercial truck was eastbound in the slow lane when it drifted off the roadway, hit a rock embankment and caught fire.
The driver died as a result of injuries, according to OSP. The driver was identified by police as 50-year-old Leo Stratton of Portland.
The eastbound lane of I-84 will be closed during the crash investigation and removal of the truck.
OSP was assisted at the scene by the Wasco County Sheriff's Office, Mosier Fire Department, Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue, and the Oregon Department of Transportation.
Photographs
of the red/gray chips found in the WTC dust from a study conducted by a
team of international scientists and published in a peer-reviewed
journal.
An
examination of the two opposing hypotheses for the destruction of World
Trade Center 7 rules out the official explanation of fire-induced
collapse.
According
to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), videos of
the collapse of the 47-story World Trade Center 7 on September 11, 2001
show the building succumbing to a fire-induced progressive collapse.
Many independent researchers and scientists, however, including over
1,400 professional architects and engineers who have signed a petition calling for a new investigation, disagree, pointing to evidence that it was deliberately brought down in a controlled demolition.
Despite
the dramatically different conclusions drawn, there does exist
widespread agreement on both sides on a number of important questions.
Proponents of both hypotheses agree that the damage to WTC 7 sustained
from the impact of debris from the collapse of the north tower (WTC 1)
was not an initiating or determinative factor in the collapse. Both
sides also agree that the system of transfer trusses and girders in the
building that allowed it to be constructed above the Consolidated Edison
New York electric power substation played no role in the collapse, that
hypothetical fuel oil fires from tanks stored in the building for
emergency generators was not a causal factor, and that the office fires
did not result in any significant loss of strength of the building’s
load-bearing steel columns.
While NIST
initially denied that the building achieved gravitational acceleration
during its collapse in its draft report for public comment, it was
forced to acknowledge that this was indeed the case in its final report
after high school physics teacher David Chandler submitted his own
analysis showing that the building collapsed at free-fall for
approximately 2.5 seconds, and that there was a sudden onset of
free-fall. According to NIST, the period of free-fall was 2.25 seconds.
To
illustrate, what this means is that for 8 stories, or more than 100
feet, the building fell at the same rate as would a bowling ball dropped
from the same height and falling through the air.
Proponents
of the controlled demolition hypothesis argue that elementary laws of
physics rule out the fire-induced collapse hypothesis. They point out,
for example, that the law of conservation of energy dictates that
free-fall means all of the building’s potential energy was converted to
kinetic energy, which means there was no energy remaining to do the work
of buckling the columns, as is required by NIST’s hypothesis. The
corollary is that there must have been some external source of energy
acting on the columns for this free-fall to have occurred.
NIST
argues in its final report that the rate of collapse was consistent
with its computer models. However, language that the collapse was
consistent with physical principles that existed in the draft report, in
which NIST denied free-fall, was removed from the final report, in
which free-fall is acknowledged.
Photographs
of the red/gray chips found in the WTC dust from a study conducted by a
team of international scientists and published in a peer-reviewed
journal.
Independent researchers
point to other evidence that NIST failed to account for in its
hypothesis, such as the presence of active thermitic material in the
dust from the collapses of the World Trade Center buildings, consistent
with nano-thermite. This material was found in four separate samples of
the dust collected from four separate locations following the collapses.
An international team of scientists issued a paper of their study of these red/gray chips found in the dust in the peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal in 2009, though to date, there remains a blackout on the topic in the mainstream U.S. media.
The
material found in the dust is not a naturally occurring substance, but a
manufactured material of highly advanced technology. The Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, working under the auspices of the U.S.
Department of Energy, has released a paper noting that by controlling
the composition of energetic materials at the nano-meter scale, a more
efficient chemical reaction can be produced, with applications for
making explosives. The thermite reaction is specifically cited as an
example. A publication of the U.S. Department of Defense has similarly
pointed out that energetic materials produced on the nanoscale, such
nano-thermite, has applications for “high-power, high-energy composite
explosives”.
The ability of thermite to
cut through steel has long been known. It involves a chemical reaction
between aluminum and iron oxide, which produces aluminum oxide and
molten iron. When sulfur is added to the thermite mixture, it is known
as thermate. Conventional thermite, however, is an incendiary, while
nano-thermite, or super thermite, results in a much more efficient
chemical reaction, with much more explosive results, as noted by the
Departments of Energy and Defense.
Also a
“signature” of the WTC dust is the presence of iron-rich micro-spheres,
which shows that the iron must have been molten prior to or during the
destruction of the World Trade Center buildings, with the surface
tension of the liquid forming a sphere before cooling and solidifying in
that shape. Yet NIST itself points out that fires did not burn at
anywhere near the temperature required to melt iron or steel. Such
spheres are a known byproduct, however, of the thermite reaction.
A photograph of a steel sample recovered from WTC 7 from Appendix C of the FEMA report.
And
while NIST claims that no steel was recovered from WTC 7, it could not
have been unaware of a sample that was recovered and studied by a team
from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The steel had been severely
corroded, showing signs of intergranular melting and sulfidation, with a
“swiss cheese”-like appearance. The New York Times referred to
this piece of steel as “Perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the
investigation”, and the team’s findings and recommendations for further
study were published as Appendix C of the report of the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Although NIST was tasked with
carrying out the recommendations of the FEMA report, it ignored Appendix
C altogether and implicitly denied the very existence of this steel.
Dr.
Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, a professor at the Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, who
headed up a separate effort with funding from the National Science
Foundation to investigate the steel and recover important evidence, also
recovered a piece of steel from WTC 7. He described steel flanges that
“had been reduced from an inch thick to paper thin” to the New York Times. “Parts of the flat top of the I [of the “I-beam”], once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized,” he observed.
The
reason so little steel was recovered from WTC 7 is that it was quickly
destroyed after having been removed from the site during the search and
rescue operations. Engineers across the country were outraged by the
destruction, prompting Bill Manning, editor-in-chief of Fire Engineering magazine, to write an editorial lambasting the official investigation under FEMA as “a half-baked farce”.
In
stark contrast, in testimony at the Hearing Before the Committee on
Science in the U.S. House of Representatives, the head of the FEMA
investigation, Dr. Gene Corley, expressed little concern about the
destruction of evidence and denied that it hampered the investigation.
Corley’s
insouciance about the destruction was further contrasted by Manning’s
prescient conclusion that “if they continue in such fashion, the
investigation into the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount
to paper- and computer-generated hypotheticals.” Indeed, the NIST report
itself observes that its WTC 7 investigation was conducted with no
physical evidence, and its hypothesis relied entirely upon computer
models.
While the removal of debris from
the site of the World Trade Center disaster, or Ground Zero, was normal
and necessary, the destruction of evidence from a crime scene is a
felony offense under U.S. law. Yet no government or law enforcement
agency has sought to hold anyone accountable for the destruction of the
steel and other evidence from the WTC.
Another
unsolved mystery about the collapse is the prolonged fires that burned
under the rubble for months afterward, despite a number of rainfalls and
the round-the-clock efforts of firefighters to extinguish them. Many
credible witnesses, including scientists and engineers, reported seeing
molten iron or steel at the site.
Red hot metal being lifted from the WTC debris (Photo: Frank Silecchia).
When
asked about this phenomenon, NIST investigator Dr. John Gross responded
by denying not only that there was molten iron or steel, but that he
had even heard any such reports. Yet one witness who described seeing
“hot spots of molten metal” at Ground Zero was Mark Loizeaux, president
of Controlled Demolitions, Inc., who was contracted to remove debris
from the site and was also a consultant for the NIST report. Dr.
Astaneh-Asl was also among those testified to having seen “melting of
girders”.
While the official response to
this and other testimonial evidence is to dismiss it, proponents of the
alternative hypothesis have suggested the possibility that ongoing
chemical reactions from the use of thermitic materials might help to
explain why the fires could have burned for so long, despite several
rainfalls and firefighters’ best efforts, and how such temperatures
could have occurred in the oxygen-starved environment under the rubble.
There
are other holes in NIST’s hypothesis apart from its failure to account
for the physical and testimonial evidence. It requires, for example,
that fires were raging in the northeast area on the 12th floor, and it
input data assuming this scenario into its simulations. Yet the NIST
report itself states that fires only burned in any given area for 20-30
minutes before moving on, and NIST extensively documents the fires from
photographic and video evidence, showing that the fire had burned
through this area and already moved on, burning towards the west end of
the floor at the time of the collapse at 5:20 pm.
Apart
from the unscientific approach of inputting data according to an
assumption contradicted by their own evidence, NIST also assumed its own
worst-case scenario for maximum fire temperature and duration, and
carried only that scenario forward into its final computer analyses.
NIST has also refused to release its computer data for others to verify
and reproduce their results — a remarkable rejection of the scientific
method for an agency claiming to have used science to prove the
fire-induced collapse hypothesis.
Ph.D.
chemist F. R. Greening, who does not accept the controlled demolition
hypothesis and has debated it with its proponents, stated in comments on
the NIST draft report, “The main problem with the NIST fire simulation
appears to be the calculated duration of the fire on the 12th
and 13th floors of WTC 7…. In view of the fact that NIST appears to have
overestimated the intensity and duration of the fires in WTC 7,
particularly on floors 12 and 13, it follows that the heating of the
structural steel is also overestimated in the WTC 7 Draft Report. This
is fatal to the overall validity of NIST’s collapse initiation
hypothesis….”
The NIST hypothesis is
that fires on the 12th floor caused thermal expansion of 13th floor
beams in the northeast of the building. As a result of this thermal
expansion, shear studs, which make the beams composite with the metal
decking and concrete floor slab above, failed. The expanding beams then
pushed a girder spanning between the core and perimeter columns, causing
its welds and connections to fail and the girder to rock off its seat
where it was attached to the northeastern-most core column, number 79.
This failure resulted in the local collapse of the 13th floor. The
floors below, where beams were also weakened due to heat from the fires,
could not sustain the impact, and so a cascading series of floor
failures resulted. Column 79, unsupported laterally over nine stories,
buckled. Column failure then progressed through the core, from east to
west, and, as load was transferred to the perimeter columns, the entire
building began to move downward as a single unit.
This
is what one may witness in videos of the collapse of WTC 7, according
to NIST. The FEMA report noted that the building “imploded”, and NIST
lead investigator Dr. Shyam Sunder stated that because the core failed
first, due to fire, followed by the perimeter columns, “you get the
impression it was like a controlled demolition”.
Many
architects, engineers, scientists, firefighters, scholars, and other
groups of independent researchers calling for a new investigation argue
that the alternative hypothesis better explains all the available
evidence. They offer a perhaps simpler explanation for what one
witnesses in videos of the collapse: it appears to be a controlled demolition because it was.
Nebraska U.S. Senator Ben Sasse revealed Sunday he is considering
leaving the Republican Party over record-breaking spending and
government growth.
“I think I’ve been saying for three years that I conceive of myself as
an independent conservative who caucuses with the Republicans,” Sasse
tells CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But frankly, neither of these parties
have a long-term vision for the future of the country.
Sasse tells CNN he is considering switching parties from Republican to “unaffiliated.”
“There’s massive stuff happening in America, and these parties are
really pretty content to do 24-hour news cycle screaming at each other,”
said Sasse. “The main thing that the Democrats are for is being
anti-Republican and anti-Trump, and the main thing Republicans are for
is being anti-Democrat and anti-CNN.”
“Neither of these things are really worth getting out of bed in the
morning for - I think we should be talking about where the country’s
going to be in 10 years,” said Sasse. “I’ve been saying for a long time
these parties need to reform and have a future-focused vision and we’re
not there yet.”
“I probably think about it every morning when I wake up and I figure
out, ‘Why am I flying away from Nebraska to go to D.C. this week, are we
going to get real stuff done?,’” said Sasse “So I’m committed to the
party of Lincoln and Reagan as long as there’s a chance to reform it.”
Sasse appeared on CNN Sunday after tweeting Saturday he was considering leaving the GOP.
“I switched my party from Democrat to no-party this week as I see that
to be part of the solution. Have you considered following suit?,” a
Twitter user tweeted to Sasse.
“yep — regularly consider it (except the “from Dem” part),” Sasse replied.
Sasse has been an outspoken critic of runaway spending, debt and
government growth, as well as hostility to conservative intellectualism,
under a Republican House, Senate and President.
Sasse is one of the most conservative senators in American
history, with a 99% lifetime rating from the American Conservative
Union, a near-perfect rating from Gun Owners of America and a 100%
pro-life rating from the National Right to Life Committee.
Rep. Brooks said 15 million illegals in the U.S. have resulted in Democrats picking up just shy of two dozen congressional seats.
Conservative Daily Post - Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Alabama,
said that there are roughly 15 million illegal aliens in the United
States, and that it has resulted in the Democratic Party picking up 20
additional congressional seats across several Blue states. As such, he
and his state are suing the federal government to exclude illegal
residents from the census counts.
During an interview with Breitbart News, Brooks
said states counting illegal aliens into the total population for
districts when dividing electoral college votes and congressional seats
is a direct violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
But he warned that this has been a practice for many years, and it could
have irreversible effects on the U.S. electorate. Brooks
also argued that Alabama and several other states are currently suing
the federal government for counting illegal aliens — rather than legal
citizens — for congressional apportionment to divide up of electoral
college votes during elections.
“We’re probably in the neighborhood of about 15 million illegal
aliens in America now. 15 million comes out to roughly 20 congressional
seats and 20 electoral college votes. Each congressional seat has
roughly 700,000 to 800,000 people in it,” Brooks said.
When asked about a solution to this catastrophic event, which has
been happening for years and could dramatically reshape the U.S.
electorate for decades to favors Democrats, Brooks said Congress is the
problem.
The Alabama
Republican said that if Congress continues dividing congressional seats
and electoral college votes based on every individual in districts —
including illegal aliens — the Democratic Party could easily pick up 20
congressional seats.
Here’s part of what he told Breitbart News:
“So, if you count illegal aliens in the Census for the
purposes of distributing political power, that’s the number of
congressmen per state or … the number of electoral college votes per
state, you’re talking about … 20 electoral college votes and congressmen
that are taken from states that follow our laws, that help our border
patrol agents, and help our ICE agents … shifting those 20 congressional
seats and 20 electoral college seats to states like California that
have large numbers of illegal aliens in them.”
“I personally believe that’s wrong, on a policy level, but I also
believe it violates the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment to
the United States Constitution because it dilutes the voting power of
citizens who live in states that don’t harbor an enormous number of
illegal aliens”
Brooks comments should not be taken lightly, as this process obviously favors Democrats and could strip away dozens of congressional seats from the Republican Party.
In fact, many conservatives understand that the Constitution was
designed to prevent salve-holding states an inordinate amount of power
over the nation, and understand that the same ‘population’ tactics are
being used today by democrat controlled areas.
Brooks is arguing that when Congress divides congressional seats and
electoral college votes based on all persons in a district, they
currently include an estimate of how many illegal aliens in with the
total figure.
Given this is primarily happening in Blue states, he argues, this process has been allowing the Democrats to gain more congressional seats.
This could also play a big role in the Left’s efforts to retake the House in November’s midterm election.
Many Americans share Brooks’ concerns, and have been applauding
efforts from the Trump administration to combat illegal aliens
registering and casting votes in American elections.
Most Americans believe that Brooks’ dire warning is something everyone should take very seriously.
