Excerpts from a couple of essays in Tablet magazine

From “The Culture of Transgression,” by Michael Lind, July 31, 2023

Everywhere we see our political, cultural, and financial elites bankrolling activists to dismantle traditions. While flags and slogans celebrating racial or sexual identity are proudly displayed by Western governments and corporations, overt displays of national patriotism are regarded by establishmentarians on both sides of the Atlantic as vulgar and distasteful. Religions tend to be viewed with distrust and contempt by the trans-Atlantic elite, unless their premodern teachings have been modified into alignment with the views of the campus left. The Western canon, instead of being enlarged to include unjustly excluded authors, has been jettisoned, and liberal education has been replaced by ideological indoctrination in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI).

Iconoclasm is nothing new in history. The term was coined to describe the controversy over icons in medieval Byzantium, and has come to mean any attack on cherished traditions and familiar imagery. Radical Protestant reformers broke the stained glass and smashed the statues of Mary and the saints. The Taliban dynamited Buddhist statues in Afghanistan in 2001, and later ISIS destroyed many ancient Mesopotamian monuments and statues.

In most historic cases, programmatic iconoclasm has been temporary and accompanied or followed by the fabrication of new traditions and the imposition of new orthodoxies. In communist Russia, the statues of the czars went down and statues of Lenin and Stalin went up. ...

But the cancellation of the Great Books curriculum has not led to a new consensus canon featuring minority, female, and nonbinary authors along with a smaller number of “dead white males” who are deemed acceptable. Instead, much of the energy of woke jihadists goes into purging or censoring existing works of art and thought—rewriting the novels of Roald Dahl, for example—or randomly parachuting nonwhite or “queer” characters into movie remakes instead of creating something new.

The cultural ferment in contemporary North America and Europe does not feel like an interregnum between one cultural regime and a stable successor. It feels like a permanent revolution.

Put another way, the Western elite culture of transgression is an example of antinomianism, not iconoclasm. Unlike iconoclasm, antinomianism is not a temporary campaign of destruction of older iconography and traditions to clear the way for the imposition of new canons and orthodoxies. Derived from the Greek words meaning “against” and “law” or “norm,” the term antinomianism refers to the view that all laws and norms are oppressive always and everywhere, and that the act of transgression in itself is virtuous, if not holy. ...

At the moment, the fashionable justifications invoked by the elite antinomian vandals attacking Western society from within are climate change, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-homophobia, and “anti-fascism” as a catchall category. Upper-middle-class young men and women who throw paint at artistic masterpieces or glue themselves to trains claim they are defending the earth’s environment, but they could just as well say they are fighting white supremacy or patriarchy. They are acting out the ethos of a Western elite culture that believes the act of transgression itself is virtuous; the alleged goal of the transgression is merely an excuse.

Call it “the culture of transgression” of the dominant overclass in North Atlantic democracies. The three saints of transgression are the illegal immigrant, the transsexual, and the woman who proudly celebrates abortion. All three are idealized by our revolutionary ruling class precisely because they violate traditional norms—the traditional norm of patriotism, based on the legitimacy of the city-state or nation-state or kingdom and its laws and borders; traditional gender norms; and traditional family norms, which celebrate the capacity of women to give birth and to nurture their infants and of men to provide for them. Most of what is called “progressivism” today is really transgressivism.

y now the antinomians in Western nations have won their war against tradition in every realm. The members of the credentialed corporate-government-nonprofit-academic-media oligarchy, along with billionaire entrepreneurs and bankers who themselves are usually born into managerial-professional families, are almost all modernist in their aesthetics, libertine in their views of sex and recreational drug use, and dismissive of nationalism and patriotism and religion, which they regard as mental diseases of the lower classes. They work in offices designed by trendy “starchitects” decorated with abstract art, and often live in postmodern homes designed to be sterile, off-putting, and the very opposite of petty bourgeois comfort.

Having vandalized every premodern tradition, the elite antinomians of the modern West now don’t know what to do next. What should rebels against the bourgeoisie rebel against when the bourgeoisie has fallen?

The answer, it is increasingly apparent, is to rebel against the proletariat. Instead of shocking the bourgeoisie, our post-bourgeois managerial overclass now delights in shocking the working class. ...

Whatever working-class “normies” believe and enjoy, the most influential tastemakers of the trans-Atlantic ruling class denounce and seek to ban, using one of their three or four specious all-purpose justifications. ...

By declaring the democratic preferences of the working class a danger to society, the West’s oligarchs justify subjecting their enemies to pervasive surveillance and other counterextremism measures originally designed for foreign terrorist groups. ...

From “The Obama Factor,” by David Samuels, August 02, 2023

[Note: There’s a lot of (counterfactual) anti-Putin/Trump crap in this piece, which rather plays right into the very stuff the authors critique. Samuels is also offended by Obama’s supposed minimization of American exceptionalism, but he equates that exceptionalism with empire, which Obama clearly embraced (to great harm).]

... By then, it was clear to any informed observer that the Obamas’ continuing presence in the nation’s capital was not purely a personal matter. To an extent that has never been meaningfully reported on, the Obamas served as both the symbolic and practical heads of the Democratic Party shadow government that “resisted” Trump—another phenomenon that defied prior norms.... The election of Joe Biden in 2020 gave the Obamas even more reasons to stay in town. ...

Near the end of June, for example, Politico ran a long article noting Biden’s cognitive decline, with the coy headline “Is Obama Ready to Reassert Himself?”—as if the ex-president hadn’t been living in the middle of Washington and playing politics since the day he left office. Indeed, in previous weeks Obama had continued his role as central advocate for government censorship of the internet while launching a new campaign against gun ownership, claiming it is historically linked to racism. Surely, the spectacle of an ex-president simultaneously leading campaigns against both the First and Second Amendments might have led even a spectacularly incurious old-school D.C. reporter to file a story on the nuts and bolts of Obama’s political operation and on who was going in and out of his mansion. But the D.C. press was no longer in the business of maintaining transparency. Instead, they had become servants of power, whose job was to broadcast whatever myths helped advance the interests of the powerful. ...

At bottom, Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama [by David Garrow] is a tragic story about a young man who was deeply wounded by the abandonment of both his white mother and his Black father—a wound that gifted him with political genius and at the same time made him the victim of a profound narcissism that first whispered to him in his mid-twenties that he was destined to be president. It is not hard to see how Garrow has come to believe that Obama’s ambition proved to be toxic, both for the man and for the country. ...

My own read of Obama has always been that he was a skillful elite-pleaser with a radical streak that did in fact emerge from the anti-imperialist politics of the 1970s, the foundational claim of which was that equality trumps freedom. ...

Progressive theology is built on a mythic hierarchy of group victimhood which has endured throughout time, up until the present day; the injuries that the victims have suffered are so massive, so shocking, and so manifestly unjust that they dwarf the present. Such injuries must be remedied immediately, at nearly any cost. The people who do the work of remedying these injustices, by whatever means, are the heroes of history. Conversely, the sins of the chief oppressors of history, white men, are so dark that nothing short of abject humiliation and capitulation can begin to approach justice.

It goes to say that nothing about the terms of progressive theology is original. It is the theology of Soviet communism, with class struggle replaced by identity politics. In this system, Jews play a unique, double-edged role: They are both an identity group and a Trojan horse through which history can reenter the gates of utopia.

Ghettos were invented for Jews. Concentration camps, too. How can Jews be “privileged white people” if they are clearly among history’s victims? And if Jews aren’t white people, then perhaps lots of other white people are also victims and therefore aren’t “white,” in the theological sense in which that term gains its significance in progressive ideology. Maybe “Black people” aren’t always or primarily Black. Maybe the whole progressive race-based theology is, historically and ideologically speaking, a load of crap. Which is why the Jews are and will remain a problem. ...

[Obama] was the guy chosen by history to put something in the American goldfish bowl that made all the fish go crazy and eat each other: America’s emerging oligarachy cementing its grip instead of going bust. The rise of monopoly internet platforms. The normalization of government spying on Americans. Race relations going south. Skyrocketing inequality. The rise of Donald Trump. The birth of Russiagate. It all happened with Obama in the White House. ...

[The interview:]

DS: What do you see as the connection, if any, between the personal lives of powerful men and their public lives, based on your years of research on Dr. King, and your experience writing about Obama?

DG: I think one can in large part, in King’s case, say these were sort of two separate lives. Because he lived it that way. He lived it as two separate lives.

DS: Might one make the same case about Obama, but in reverse? It seems clear that Obama leads an exemplary, highly controlled private life, consuming exactly seven almonds while watching The Man in the High Castle or Draymond Green highlights on ESPN for stress relief.

DG: Right. Yes.

DS: In fact, I can make the case that Obama’s public life was the amoral part, beginning with the toleration of genocide in Syria and the extrajudicial killing of U.S. citizens, and extending to wide-scale illegal surveillance and spying, and his now becoming the spokesperson for gutting the First Amendment in favor of government censorship of large tech platforms. ...

DS: So Obama starts out as an eloquent opponent of the Patriot Act, etc., etc. By the end of his presidency, his people are unmasking intercepts of his political opponents every day, and the FBI is spying on Donald Trump.

DG: That’s right. ...

DS: What interests you most about Obama today?

DG: The number one thing about Barack this past five years is how completely he’s vanished.

DS: Why is he living in the center of Washington, D.C., then?

DG: Well, how much time is he spending there as opposed to Martha’s Vineyard? I have no idea.

DS: Between July Fourth and Labor Day, sure. The rest of the year, he lives in a large brick mansion in Kalorama. Doesn’t it strike you as weird that he’s an ex-president, he’s comparatively young, and he’s living in the center of Washington, D.C.? The original excuse was that Sasha had to finish school. Then you could say, “Well, the opposition to Trump needs a figure to rally around.” But now Sasha has graduated from USC, Trump is gone, Joe Biden was elected present, but he’s still there.

DG: I never see any mentions of him.

DS: Doesn’t that strike you as odd? I mean, I have heard from more than one source that there are regular meetings at Obama’s house in Kalorama involving top figures in the current White House, with Secret Service and cars outside. I don’t write about it because it’s not my lane. There are over a thousand reporters in Washington, and yet there are zero stakeouts of Obama’s mansion, if only to tell us who is coming and going. But he clearly has his oar in.

DG: I don’t follow the Iranian stuff super, super carefully, but I have been puzzled at the Biden administration’s continuing attachment to the Iran deal.

DS: The easy explanation, of course, is that Joe Biden is not running that part of his administration. Obama is. He doesn’t even have to pick up the phone because all of his people are already inside the White House. They hold the Iran file. Tony Blinken doesn’t.

DG: Rob Malley was the guy on that.

DS: Rob Malley is just one person. Brett McGurk. Dan Shapiro in Israel. Lisa Monaco in Justice. Susan Rice running domestic policy. It’s turtles all the way down. There are obviously large parts of White House policymaking that belong to Barack Obama because they’re staffed by his people, who worked for him and no doubt report back to him. Personnel is policy, as they say in Washington.

Which to me is a very odd and kind of spooky arrangement. Spooky, because it is happening outside the constitutional framework of the U.S. government, and yet somehow it’s been placed off the list of permitted subjects to report on. Which is a pretty good indicator of the extent to which the information we get, and public reactions to that information, is being successfully controlled. How and by whom remain open questions, the quick answer to which is that the American press has become a subset of partisan comms.

DG: I’m going back to something you said 20 minutes ago. From the get-go, I know enough intelligence community stuff that from the first time I saw it, I realized that Christopher Steele’s shit was just complete crap. It was bad corporate intelligence, even. It was nonsensical.

DS: What scared me back then was coming to understand that a new milieu had been created consisting of party operatives, the people in the FBI and the CIA who are carrying out White House policy, and the press. It is all one world now. And that’s something people still seem loathe to admit, even to themselves, in part because it puts them in a state of dissonance with this new kind of controlled consensus that the press maintains, which is obviously garbage. But if you question it, you’re some kind of nut. ... Now the question becomes, why are they still fixated on Iran after the Iran deal failed, its premises are exploded? And who are “they,” exactly?

DG: Well, for Barack, everything has to be a success. Everything has to be a victory. I mean, I’m not a health policy expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve always thought that the whole Obamacare thing was, in large part, a fraud. It’s a great achievement for the health insurance industry.

DS: Obama reluctantly started talking about health care because it was Hillary Clinton’s issue in 2008, and then they were like, “Well, you have to have a healthcare plan, because Hillary has her big healthcare plan.” It was like, “All right, fine, I’ll have one too.” ...

DS: I think future historians are going to look at the Obama presidency and see it as the moment when this new oligarchy merged with the Democratic Party and used the capacities of these new technologies and the power of this new class of people, the oligarchs and their servants, to create a new apparatus of social control. How far they can go with it, what the limits are … you see them trying to test it out every week or so. ... So if Obama is the first U.S. president from the periphery of empire, he’s also the first president from the billionaire-foundation-NGO complex, which makes him the perfect mediating figure between the progressive part of the party, the billionaires, and the security state. ...

DS: As someone who has been a serious student of this subject for the past 45 years, how consequential is the court’s decision to overturn Roe?

DG: It’s a class issue. That’s the number one thing. Even before Roe [and https://kirbymtn.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-threat-to-abortion-and-reproductive.html], if you were a woman who had your life together and could get yourself to New York, you were fine. If you had the time and the ability to buy yourself a plane ticket to New York City, you were fine. Anybody from the Rio Grande Valley needed to get, past tense, to San Antonio or Austin to get an abortion. And that’s what we’re looking at now, is that it’s a travel challenge, because there’s going to be this whole swath of states—Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas—where folks are going to need to get to New Mexico, Colorado, or Illinois. ...

[T]he problem with the reproductive rights movement, going all the way back to Mrs. Sanger in the teens and the ’20s, is that the activist population has no connection to the beneficiary population. Because the beneficiary population is generally poverty-class women who have messed-up lives—and, in some circumstances, abusive life situations. But they are working-class or poverty-class people for whom the ability to get out of Pittsburgh, just to use the local geography, to fly out of Pittsburgh, would be a humongous challenge for them. They can take the bus around Pittsburgh, but how do you get to the airport? How do you get a ticket? Where do you go? Do you have an internet connection at home? ...

DS: So how do you talk all this foundation-land, community-organizer shit and then preside over the transformation of the country into a Gilded Age oligarchy? Maybe I just answered my own question: Obama is the Magic Negro of the billionaire industrial complex. And targeting Jews as outsiders and pushing them outside the circle was the way that the Gilded Age oligarchy consolidated itself in America, back then and also now. ...

DS: [I]magine telling Harry Truman, “Hey, why don’t you sell that old house and buy three or four huge mansions in Martha’s Vineyard and Hawaii and Washington, D.C., and rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in sweetheart deals with big corporations while you’re vacationing on rich people’s yachts?” ...

DG: Everybody, especially white folks, thought that having a Black family in the White House would be cure for the legacy of American racism. Now there’s no question in anybody’s mind that on that score, that scale, the presidency was a total failure. But why are race relations, at least as people perceive them or imagine them, ostensibly well worse today post-Floyd than they were in 2008? ...

DS: [T]he point where race relations in America turned sour wasn’t with George Floyd in 2020; it was with BLM in 2014, and that’s squarely during Obama’s second term ...

DG: I think it’s inescapable that Barack’s success in ‘08 is rooted in white people seeing him as an easy ticket toward racial absolution. It’s a need that white people in this country have. And what we’re still seeing week after week now for these past two or three years, especially with places like the Times and the Post, is that this white need for absolution was not cured by the Obama presidency. ...

DS: The protagonists of the grand drama of race in America are the cultural and actual descendants of the Puritans, not Black people—who, as Americans, mainly desire the same things that other Americans do, like safe streets and decent jobs and health care and not to die prematurely from heart disease. White Puritans have more elevated concerns.

DG: Exactly. For them, 200-year-old statues are more important than five-year-old Black children. ...

DS: What do the Obamas and their circle have in common with each other? They are Ivy League people, who ran away from whatever they came from in order to become members of the credentialed elites, whose loyalty is to the system that gives them prestige—or rather, gives prestige to their degrees, of which they are the holders. Once they pair off and reproduce under the seal of Harvard or Yale, they may find it seemly to donate money to an NGO that offers microloans to female entrepreneurs in Pakistan. So why should Obama, the ultimate winner, carry on the charade that he’s part of a community, whatever that means, with these people? He’s happy to go on NPR and talk about meaning or Marilynne Robinson novels or whatever, to make the wine moms identify with him, so he can put one over on them. Just don’t ask him to visit the hospital when you get cancer, because he’ll be hanging out on someone’s yacht, with the other winners. ...

Agriculture (and Energy) Revolutions

The First, or Neolithic, Agricultural Revolution was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible. [Also the beginning of centralized government and social hierarchy]

The Second, or British, Agricultural Revolution, was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain arising from increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the hundred-year period ending in 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of population in England and Wales, from 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9 million by 1801, though domestic production gave way increasingly to food imports in the nineteenth century as the population more than tripled to over 35 million.

The Third Agricultural, or Green, Revolution is the set of research technology transfer initiatives occurring between 1950 and the late 1960s that increased agricultural production in parts of the world, beginning most markedly in the late 1960s. The initiatives resulted in the adoption of new technologies, including high-yielding varieties of cereals, agrochemicals, controlled water supply (usually involving irrigation), and newer methods of cultivation, including mechanization. … It contributed to widespread reduction of poverty, averted hunger for millions, raised incomes, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced land use for agriculture, and contributed to declines in infant mortality.

The energy for the Green Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers (natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon-fueled irrigation.

(above from Wikipedia)

Obviously, there have been adverse consequences for the environment and other animals, but you can't just outlaw it without an alternative in place (and support for the transition, eg, to large-scale organic agriculture) that can sustain what it created. But that's what much of the new "green" agenda is doing, particularly in energy, pushing (much) less efficient technologies (requiring more resources – both materials and land – and infrastructure) that are therefore even more harmful to not only people but also the planet as a whole.
 

Donald Trump statement on “The Sham Investigation”

Our nation is SUFFERING. Our economy is in the gutter. Inflation is rampant. Gas prices have reached an all-time high. Ships are unable to unload cargo. Families cannot get needed baby formula. We are an embarrassment around the world. Our withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster that cost us precious American blood, and gave $85 billion worth of the best military equipment on earth to our enemy.

Millions and millions of illegals are marching to the border and invading our country. We have a White House in shambles, with Democrats, just this week, declaring that Biden is unfit to run for reelection. And what is the Democrat Congress focused on? A Kangaroo Court, hoping to distract the American people from the great pain they are experiencing.

Seventeen months after the events of January 6th, Democrats are unable to offer solutions. They are desperate to change the narrative of a failing nation, without even making mention of the havoc and death caused by the Radical Left just months earlier. Make no mistake, they control the government. They own this disaster. They are hoping that these hearings will somehow alter their failing prospects.

A certain Democrat once said, “It's the economy, stupid.” Well, Democrats now seem to think that Americans are “stupid.” They are not. America is crumbling, and Democrats have no solutions. Our nation has no hope of change for the better under Democrat leadership. People are desperate. Rather than solving problems, Democrats are rehashing history in hopes of changing the narrative. During my time in office, our nation was thriving, our economy was strong, and the price of gas was very low. Above all else, we were respected, perhaps like never before. America prospered under the Trump Administration.

The Sham Investigation

The January 6th Unselect Committee is disgracing everything we hold sacred about our Constitution. If they had any real evidence, they’d hold real hearings with equal representation. They don’t, so they use the illegally-constituted committee to put on a smoke and mirrors show for the American people, in a pitiful last-ditch effort to deceive the American public ... again.

Our Constitution protects the right to confront accusers, honors the right to fair trials, and holds the right to legal representation as paramount in our justice system. Equal representation and the opportunity to offer rebuttal evidence is fundamental in our legal process. The Committee has obliterated those rights and is making a mockery of justice. They have refused to allow their political opponents to participate in this process, and have excluded all exculpatory witnesses, and anyone who so easily points out the flaws in their story.

MAGA witnesses were interrogated behind closed doors and ordered to not record their own testimony. Members of my staff, my friends, supporters, volunteers, donors, were subjected to hours upon hours of inquisition – oftentimes having nothing to do with January 6th. Their very lives were turned upside down for obvious reasons. They were told it was an ongoing investigation and any reproduction of the interrogation would be viewed as an attempt to interfere in the investigation. They were gagged, threatened, and in some cases ruined.

Yet, the Unselect Pseudo-Committee has coordinated with their media puppets to broadcast their witnesses on national television without any opposition, cross-examination, or rebuttal evidence. The American public has a right to know the truth and see every witness, but these corrupt officials are trying to force-feed the public with their politically opportune sideshow.

What are the members of this treasonous “Committee” afraid of? Why can’t they let the countervailing opinion be heard? Why are they hiding evidence from the public and only showing information that favors the Democrats’ tall tale? They’re afraid of losing the narrative, because their political opponents could easily show how the committee is lying to the nation and has stripped Americans of their rightful power.

Democrats created the narrative of January 6th to detract from the much larger and more important truth that the 2020 Election was Rigged and Stolen. Politicians from both parties, but mostly the Democrats, worked in conjunction with corporate elitists to strip Americans of our right to elect our own leaders. To do so, corrupt officials violated their own state laws.

The separation of powers is designed to make sure that no officials become dictators by granting the authority to make laws with the legislature and execute laws with the executive branch. No one office should have complete power. It must be separated among different offices. In 2020, separation of powers went out the window. The state executive branch, in both red and blue states, decided to completely ignore state laws, make up their own rules, and execute them. In other words, they became the little dictators our Constitution was designed to prevent.

They illegally inflated voter rolls, illegally allowed harvested and stuffed ballots, abused the use of mail-in ballots, physically removed Republicans from counting facilities, abused the elderly in nursing homes, bribed election officials with donations, stopped counting on Election Night, gave Democrats three extra days to harvest ballots, and demanded that the American people believe it was legitimate.

This entire charade of the Unselect Committee is a brazen attempt to detract the public’s attention from the truth. The truth is that Americans showed up in Washington, D.C. in massive numbers (but seldom revealed by the press), on January 6th, 2021, to hold their elected officials accountable for the obvious signs of criminal activity throughout the Election. Those who are supposed to be public servants are using the power of government against the people who entrusted them with the power. We’ve been betrayed.

Since the Unselect Committee refuses to allow their political opponents to participate in the hearings, the public likely won’t hear from the many patriots who contradict the lies being broadcast – at least not in these hearings. This is all a ridiculous and treasonous attempt to cover up the fact that Democrats rigged the Election and are siphoning Americans’ freedoms and power for their own benefit.

Without the ability to have political, legal, or witness representation from conservatives in this Kangaroo Court, it’s up to American patriots to arm themselves with the information. This hearing isn’t about January 6th, it’s about November 3rd, and here’s what happened.

Stop the Count

On Election Night, America watched as my lead grew and grew over Joe Biden, as I was set to claim another victory. By the morning of November 4th, the day after the Election, I led by 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania [1], 300,000 in Michigan [2], and hundreds of thousands in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin [3]. Then, the same “little dictators” who destroyed the separation of powers made the treasonous decision to stop counting [4]. These same states, who had counted millions of ballots in a single day, had to stop counting in order to count a few hundred thousand ballots over the next four days to call the race on November 7th [5].

Why would it take four more days to count a few hundred thousand votes when they had counted millions in one day? They needed time to traffic the ballots and manipulate the outcome of the Election. The Swamp was so determined to keep their stranglehold on power that they delayed the results of the Election so that they could find, manufacture, or produce more ballots, after they knew how many they needed to beat me. They cheated! There’s no reasonable explanation for why it took so much longer to count the few remaining ballots as opposed to the millions on Election Day – other than they needed to traffic more ballots, and it took four days to produce the ballots and do it. They couldn’t have done it without an elaborate ballot trafficking scheme.

Ballot Trafficking

Highly respected True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips showed the nation exactly what the Democrats’ illegal ballot trafficking scheme looks like. They spent years investigating election crimes, and their hard work provided America with the indisputable proof so many had been waiting for. True the Vote cooperated with Dinesh D’Souza to produce the blockbuster documentary 2000 Mules, which provides video evidence of the ballot trafficking scheme Democrats have created.

Engelbrecht and Phillips used geo-fencing data that they purchased to isolate and identify potential mules. Like drug mules, in this context, mules are those paid to illegally traffic ballots from nonprofits organizations and drop them into the ballot drop boxes. The search criteria they used was to isolate cell phone data that had been to 10 or more ballot drop boxes, while also visiting at least five identified nonprofit organizations during a two-week period [6].

There’s no legitimate reason for any individual to visit 10 or more ballot drop boxes. Why would anyone need to vote 10 times? Couple that with the idea that the same individuals are also visiting the offices of liberal nonprofits in the same time period.

At least one whistleblower at one of the nonprofits in Yuma came forward and confirmed that these organizations act as trafficking hubs for the mules to pick up the ballots to drop off at the drop boxes [7]. One woman in Arizona has already plead guilty to a Class 6 felony for participating in this ballot trafficking scheme [8]. And Democrats are getting tax write-offs for this behavior!

True the Vote and local law enforcement have the video surveillance showing the mules dropping many ballots into the drop box, which confirms the geo-fencing data that Engelbrecht and Phillips had gathered. This is the same surveillance evidence that the FBI has used to identify January 6th protestors [9]. In fact, the FBI has used this same type of evidence in 45 of the criminal cases against January 6th protestors [10].

Yet, the dishonest media puts experts front and center to tell America that True the Votes’ evidence is unreliable [11]. It’s the exact same evidence the FBI used against January 6th protestors! How can the evidence be an indispensable tool to identify January 6th protestors, but when applied to ballot traffickers, the science is unreliable and not precise? The hypocrisy is stifling! The Swamp has blown the bottom out of how low they’ll go to deceive the American public in order to keep their vice-grip on power. Thankfully, Americans are taking responsibility for what they believe, and simply no longer believe the narrative.

The truth is, according to Joe Biden, that the Swamp has created the “most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics” [12], and it centers around ballot trafficking.

The Math

The illegal ballot harvesting operation is an insult to the democratic process, but the kicker is the media feeding us the bogus line that this was the most secure election in U.S. history. What a load of bologna! The data shows us how compromised the system was. The math shows us that it changed the outcome of the Election.

Looking at just the known traffickers Engelbrecht and Phillips identified, the 2000 mules, we know they averaged 38 drop box visits averaging five ballots per box [13]. That totals 380,000 illegal ballots inserted into the Election via the drop boxes. We also know they targeted specific counties in order to impact the outcome of the Election. Many of those counties were separated by only a few thousand votes.

Based on the data, Georgia had 250 mules average 24 drop boxes with five ballots each, totaling 30,000 illegal ballots [14]. The margin of victory in Georgia was only 11,779, meaning that ballot trafficking alone would have changed the outcome of the state. There was a lot of other suspicious activity in Georgia, but the trafficking, by itself, was sufficient to change the outcome. Georgia’s 16 electors should not have gone to Biden.

A similar story occurred in Arizona. Two hundred identified mules averaged 20 drop boxes and five ballots each [15]. That’s a minimum of 20,000 illegal ballots. The margin of victory in Arizona alone was 10,457, meaning that ballot trafficking alone was enough to flip the state. Arizona’s 11 electoral votes should not have gone to Biden.

True the Vote identified 1,100 mules in Philadelphia alone, each averaging 50 drop boxes and five ballots per box. That’s 275,000 illegal votes. The margin of victory in Pennsylvania was only 80,555, meaning the ballot trafficking scheme in Philadelphia alone was enough to flip the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth’s 20 electoral votes should not have gone to Biden.

Those three states show that the illegal ballot trafficking scheme alone sufficed to change the outcome of the Election. But what about the other states?

Michigan had 500 mules identified, averaging 50 drop box visits, and five ballots per visit for a total ballot harvest of 125,000 ballots [16]. Biden’s margin of victory in Michigan was 154,188. That means the ballot harvesting scheme, at a minimum, narrowed the results so that operatives at the polls only needed to manufacture a little over 29,000 votes statewide. We all saw as citizens in Detroit protested outside the TCF center [17], because Republicans were excluded from the process in one of the most corrupt areas in the country [18]. What were they doing inside? Did they discard Republican ballots? Did they print new Biden ballots? No one has been allowed to investigate in Michigan.

Engelbrecht and Phillips identified 100 mules in Wisconsin that averaged 28 drop boxes and five ballots per box [19]. That’s 14,000 illegal votes. The margin of victory was 20,682. That leaves only 6,000 votes for Democrat operatives to make up by either adding Biden votes or discarding Trump votes. We know that Democrats abused the elderly in nursing homes that easily could have generated more than 6,000 illegal votes [20], likely more. They had to cheat in multiple ways to steal Wisconsin, but the evidence of foul play surpasses the margin of victory in Wisconsin by thousands of votes.

With just Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, and there were others, the Electoral College vote would have been Trump 279 to Biden 259. But they cheated. And now look where we are as a country!

But What If There Were More

What if True the Vote’s criteria to identify the mules was too conservative? Rather than using the requirement to identify someone who went to 10 drop boxes with five or more visits to the liberal nonprofits, what if they looked for people who went to five drop boxes? It’s highly unlikely that anyone would need to go to five drop boxes while also visiting nonprofits in the same time span. The data is astonishing! Rather than 2000 mules, the number jumps to 54,000 mules [21]! And how about if they widened the search even more? The numbers become astronomical, and the results would be a landslide victory for Trump. It is all on live tape produced by the government.

Continuing the conservative estimate of just three ballots per mule with 54,000 mules, the numbers spike tremendously. In Wisconsin, 83,565 illegal votes were trafficked, more than four times the margin of victory [22]. In Georgia, 92,670 illegal votes were trafficked, more than eight times the margin of victory [23]. In Pennsylvania, 209,505 votes were trafficked, more than double the margin of victory [24]. In Michigan, 226,590 votes were trafficked, tens of thousands of votes over the margin of victory [25]. In Arizona, 207,435 votes were trafficked, almost 20 times the margin of victory [26]. Using this slightly less conservative calculation, coupled with the geo- tracking data, the same used by law enforcement, I decisively won all of the contested states. The final electoral count should have been Trump 305 to Biden 233 [27].

It’s also highly likely that True the Vote did not uncover 100% of the mules, making the numbers much larger than a landslide in scope, and that there were many more mules out there affecting more of the Election than we realize. This was not a close Election.

Defying the Odds

There were 19 counties in the U.S. that voted for the winning Presidential candidate since 1980, they’re known as bellwether counties [28]. I won 18 of the 19 bellwether counties [29]. Eighteen of the 19 counties who consistently vote for the winning candidate voted for me, yet we’re supposed to believe that Joe Biden won the Election?

Joe Biden, a candidate who never left his basement and can’t speak without a teleprompter, outperformed Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their two high-charged elections [30]. Biden even outperformed Obama in black communities, but only in important swing states. Isn’t that amazing? It’s impossible.

Basement Biden earned more votes than Obama in Fulton County, Ga. (Atlanta) by 131,733 (53%), and Wayne County, Mich. (Detroit) by 1,917 (0.3%) [31], which are the two largest black populations in the United States [32]. Biden also earned more votes than Obama’s 2012 campaign in Cobb County, Ga. by 89,321 (52%) [33], and Oakland County, Mich. by 85,093 (24.4%) [34]. Either there’s a lot of black voters in America who identify more with Joe Biden than Barack Obama, or Democrats are stealing black votes – and we all know the answer to that.

Apparently, Joe Biden is twice as popular in Arizona as Barack Obama, even among black and Hispanic voters. Sleepy Joe earned a total of 1,040,774 votes in Maricopa County, Ariz. (Phoenix). That’s 508,490 more votes than Obama earned in 2012 (532,284), nearly doubling Obama’s 2012 performance in the key swing state. Biden’s unbelievable success of outperforming Obama continues in Las Vegas, Nev. [35], Madison, Wisc. [36], Green Bay, Wisc. [37], and a number of other cities across the country. It didn’t happen.

In Pennsylvania’s six largest counties, Biden supposedly outperformed Obama’s 2012 record setting numbers in Philadelphia by 46,766 (8.3%), in Allegheny County (Pittsburg) by 80,914 (23.2%), in Montgomery County 91,950 (40.4%), in Bucks County 45,114 (28.2%), in Delaware County 41,618 (25.2%), and in Lancaster County 28,739 (32.99%). The trend continues to many of Pennsylvania’s smaller counties [38]. Across the Commonwealth, Biden earned 550,781 more votes than Barack Obama in 2012 [39].

Zuckerbucks

Mark Zuckerberg contributed $419 million dollars to election initiatives around the country [40]. Supposedly, the money was used to make elections safer as a result of the China Virus (COVID-19). However, the money was not primarily used for China Virus protection, although some did go for that purpose. For example, in Wisconsin, the money was conditioned upon the five largest counties adopting a Democrat only initiative of the Wisconsin Safe Voting Plan (WSVP) [41]. The five key counties, Milwaukee, Kenosha, Madison, Racine, and Green Bay, became known as the “Zuckerberg 5” [42].

Zuckerberg funneled his money through the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), a liberal nonprofit based in Illinois, which received the lion’s share of the money, at least $350 million [43]. CTCL is a radical leftist organization filled with Obama Foundation fellows and Obama appointees [44]. Almost all of the money went to Democrat-run and controlled areas. Very little, for cosmetic purposes only, went to Republican areas. They threw us a bone.

According to the Special Counsel report in Wisconsin:45

“[A]nother election purpose existed as evidenced by the documents obtained by the Special Counsel. That other election purpose was to fuse together the CTCL, their allied private corporations, the Zuckerberg 5, and $8.8 million of private funding into joint operations in that group of cities, where the focus would be on facilitating increased in-person and absentee voting, particularly in their “communities of color.” See, e.g., App. 7-27 (WSVP). From the beginning, the purpose of the WSVP contract and its private funding was for the Zuckerberg 5 to use CTCL’s private money to facilitate greater in-person voting and greater absentee voting, particularly in targeted neighborhoods.”

Based on the Special Counsel’s report, liberal nonprofits funded by Zuckerberg – who was also trying to control the election narrative on his social media platforms – lied to the public about the real use of their money. Why would they need to lie if they weren’t doing anything wrong? Because they were doing something wrong and they knew it. They knew the money was conditioned upon their ability to control the election process. The Special Counsel further states in his findings [46]:

“Any agreement where a city’s election officials receive CTCL or other’s private money to facilitate in-person and absentee voting within a city facially violates Wis. Stat. § 12.11’s prohibition on election bribery under Wis. Stat. § 12.11.

”The CTCL agreement facially violates the election bribery prohibition of Wis. Stat. § 12.11 because the participating cities and public officials received private money to facilitate in-person or absentee voting within such a city. Any similar agreements in the 2022 and 2024 election cycle would also be prohibited election bribery.”

According to Wisconsin’s Special Counsel, the money was intended to impact in- person and absentee voting, which would have a direct impact on the outcome of the Election [47]. Also, according to Wisconsin’s Special Counsel – that’s bribery.

Zuckerberg should be criminally prosecuted. Election laws prevent individuals from donating more than $5,000 per year [48], yet Zuckerberg gave $419 million.

And it’s not just Wisconsin. CTCL provided funds, according to their form 990 they filed with the IRS, to 47 of the 50 states, plus Washington, D.C. [49]. For example, before the 2020 Election, the group gave $45 million to Georgia, $38.6 million to Texas, $25 million to Pennsylvania, $25 million to New York, $7.5 million to Ohio, $21 million to New Jersey, $16.8 million to Michigan, $21 million to California, and $5 million to Arizona, among others [50]. Did all the grants to the states have strings attached? Or was it just Wisconsin?

How unfair and illegal is this? How do you win an election against this? But we did, getting almost 75 million votes, the most in history for a sitting President.

Pandemic of Injustice

Beginning the night of November 3rd, Americans knew there was something wrong going on. Almost immediately, citizens around the country started filing lawsuits seeking information and clarification about the Election.

The year leading up to the Election had been a year of violent liberal assaults on cities around the country. Democrats made it known that they would rather burn cities to the ground than allow for a civilized political process. They knew their policies were failing, citizens weren’t buying their hype, and they were losing their influence. So, they spent the year creating an atmosphere of fear, and that’s the environment in which concerned citizens were forced to file their lawsuits.

Judges, including Justices of the United States Supreme Court, were scared. Some were political hacks who refused to be the sole arbiter of such a strong political issue. It was liberal fearmongering. Rumors circulated that the Justices devolved to shouting and argued intensely over how to handle the Texas v. Pennsylvania case [51]. Ultimately, the Justices yielded to the same fear mongering tactics Democrats had deployed for years. They punted and threw the case out on standing. Following their lead, every lower court threw the cases out on standing, and usually without barely even looking at them.

Some of the cases had well established grounds for standing, and one had even been in open litigation for 10 months before the court reversed itself and threw it out. Specifically, that happened in Georgia, where a court had ruled that the plaintiffs were entitled to review the original ballot images after granting them access to the files. Then, defendants stalled for months. Ten months after the initial filing, the court decided the plaintiffs no longer had standing [52]. What?!

On November 4th, 2020, Antrim County, Michigan announced that 16,047 votes had been cast and Joe Biden received 7,769 and I received 4,509 [53]. In 2016, I had received 62% of the vote in Antrim, making the 2020 results particularly surprising. Mr. Bailey, an Antrim County voter, made some phone calls and the Antrim County clerk double checked the results, and issued new results.

A closer look showed 18,059 votes cast in Antrim County [54]. Joe Biden received 7,289 votes, and I received 9,783, meaning I won 54% of the vote, which still seemed odd compared with the 2016 results. This also doesn’t account for the difference in the number of votes cast. Why were they short, and where did the new votes come from?

Antrim County checked a third time and found 16,044 votes cast and that Joe Biden received 5,960, while I received 9,748, winning 60.75% [55]. Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan Secretary of State asserted the error was simply a clerical error, because the clerk failed to update the Mancelona Township tabulator prior to Election Night for a down ballot race, and that the correct count was always on the tabulator tape. She insisted that the Antrim County Clerk simply made a mistake, and this was not a cause to look closer at every county in Michigan. Benson shut the discussion down, but Bailey continued to fight in court [56].

Matt DePerno, Bailey’s lawyer, aggressively pursued discovery in the case and successfully won a motion to audit the election machines in Antrim County. On April 9th, 2021, DePerno released an exhibit in the Bailey case, with additional findings from the experts examining the evidence, which found that, despite critics saying otherwise, the voting machines were connected to the internet, and the officials knew they were connected [57]. The exhibit produced email communications from Election Night discussing the terrible internet connection [58]. This also highlights the weird disinformation campaign waged immediately following the Election to dispel the belief that machines were connected to the internet, despite the fact that it was true [59].

Voting machines send the tallies, via the internet, to allow the totals to be counted faster. Connecting them to the internet does create some vulnerabilities, but does not mean any malicious activity actually took place. So why all the drama? Why all the hype from election officials across the country trying to convince the public the machines were not connected to the internet when they knew that they were? Why not just say that the machines were connected to the internet, but no security breaches occurred...if that was in fact true? Was it true?

DePerno continued to release exhibit after exhibit detailing technical specifics of anomalies and irregularities raising questions from the 2020 Election [60]. The corrupt media continued to ignore and bury the story, and hurled insults at DePerno and his case. The court eventually dismissed the case, but not based on any of the evidence DePerno had amassed. It dismissed the case on procedural grounds: the plaintiff was asking for an audit of the Election, and the Democrat Secretary of State told the court she had already conducted an audit. Therefore, the court ruled, the case was moot [61]. No evidence presented, no witnesses to testify. Just, case dismissed. As usual, saved by the court.

Cases around the country received the same treatment. Courts didn’t want to be the sole arbiter of such a massive political issue, but they also shouldn’t be afraid to do their job. State legislators, members of Congress, senators, governors, secretaries of state, and many other state and federal officials should do their jobs and protect their citizens’ right to vote. But, the Swamp runs deep. I guess that turning around an election was a step too far.

As we near the midterm elections, we’re watching the Swamp creatures circle the drain as true Americans step up to replace the corrupt Establishment with patriots who will fight for our freedoms.

The Establishment is holding on as tightly as they can to their power as they watch it slip from their grasp. Our country is in a nosedive. Americans are struggling to fill their gas tanks, feed their babies, educate their children, hire employees, order supplies, protect our border from invasion, and a host of other tragedies that are 100% caused by Democrats who obtained power through a rigged election, and the people of our country are both angry and sad.

Americans have very real pressing concerns about the basic necessities of life. What is Congress doing about it? They’re doing everything they can to ignore and distract from the very real pain that they have caused this country. They want to talk about anything but the 2020 Election results and the fact that they are the cause of our country’s problems.

Nobody brings this up, but as President, I suffered years of vicious lies, scandals, and innuendo concerning a fake and contrived narrative of Russia, Russia, Russia. The entire Russia Hoax was a concoction made up by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party. It was used as an excuse for her loss, but endured throughout my entire Administration.

It was a fake and fraudulent narrative, and now they’re trying to do it again.

Many other forms of cheating surfaced during 2020. Republican challengers were excluded from the process, bullied, and berated. Corrupt officials moved to centralize the vote count away from precincts, making it easier to cheat. Some areas are reported to have had more votes than voters! That raises some questions. These are only a few of the many forms of cheating that took place in, what I call, the Crime of the Century, and its cover up by the American media.

This is merely an attempt to stop a man that is leading in every poll, against both Republicans and Democrats by wide margins, from running again for the Presidency. The reason I am leading in the polls is because Democrats have caused record inflation, sky high gas prices, energy dependence on our adversaries, the education system is in crisis, illegal aliens are invading our border, the supply chain has crippled our way of life, parents can’t get baby formula, mandates have crippled businesses, and our way of life has been crushed by government regulations. The United States is being destroyed.

The Democrats know that I would correct all of this, and they are doing everything in their power to stop me – but we can’t be stopped. We have to Save America.

[sources]

1. https://www.pennlive.com/elections/2020/11/trump-is-up-big-in-pa-but-biden-remains-in-striking-distance-with-14m-ballots-to-count-reports.html

2. Navarro, Peter. (2021) The Immaculate Deception. Pg 4. https://peternavarro.com/the-navarro-report/

3. Id.

4. CNN, Fox Business, and NBC News announcements, collected in 2000 Mules at 00:02:42

5. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/

6. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:25:10

7. 2000 Mules at approximately 01:03:20

8. https://www.azag.gov/press-release/guillermina-fuentes-enters-guilty-plea-yuma-county-ballot-harvesting-case

9. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/05/opinion/capitol-attack-cellphone-data.html

10. https://screenrant.com/google-geolocation-capitol-riots-warrants/

11. https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-usa-mules/fact-check-does-2000-mules-provide-evidence-of-voter-fraud-in-the-2020-u-s-presidential-election-idUSL2N2XJ0OQ

12. Joe Biden - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGRnhBmHYN0

13. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:48:06

14. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:49:29

15. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:49:53

16. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:48:44

17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR08Np0hseY

18. https://rumble.com/vpokri-republican-workers-blocked-from-participating-in-2020-election.html

19. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:49:07

20. https://rumble.com/vpevd4-wisconsin-assembly-committee-on-campaigns-and-elections-nov-10-2021.html ;
https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen/media/1552/osc-second-interim-report.pdf

21. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:50:49

22. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:51:15

23. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:51:17

24. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:51:20

25. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:51:24

26. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:51:26

27. 2000 Mules at approximately 00:51:30

28. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_38192161-1b4b-4d96-a057-ee0726691742

29. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_38192161-1b4b-4d96-a057-ee0726691742

30. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-biden-popular-vote-record-barack-obama-us-presidential-election-donald-trump/

31. https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/michigan/ ;
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/michigan/

32. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/georgia/ ;
https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/georgia/ ;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large_Black_populations

33. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/georgia/ ;
https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/georgia/

34. https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/michigan/ ;
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/michigan/

35. https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/nevada/ ;
https://silverstateelection.nv.gov/county-results/clark.shtml

36. https://elections.wi.gov/sites/elections/files/County%20by%20County%20Report%20-%20President%20of%20the%20United%20States%20post%20recount.pdf ;
https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/wisconsin/

37. https://elections.wi.gov/sites/elections/files/County%20by%20County%20Report%20-%20President%20of%20the%20United%20States%20post%20recount.pdf

38. https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/pennsylvania/ ;
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/pennsylvania/

39. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/pennsylvania/ ;
https://www.politico.com/2012-election/results/president/pennsylvania/

40. https://nypost.com/2021/10/13/mark-zuckerberg-spent-419m-on-nonprofits-ahead-of-2020-election-and-got-out-the-dem-vote/

41. https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen/media/1552/osc-second-interim-report.pdf (pg 22)

42. https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen/media/1552/osc-second-interim-report.pdf (pg 23)

43. https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943242106/how-private-money-from-facebooks-ceo-saved-the-2020-election

44. https://www.techandciviclife.org/board-of-directors/

45. https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen/media/1552/osc-second-interim-report.pdf (pg 23)

46. https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen/media/1552/osc-second-interim-report.pdf (pg. 17)

47. Id.

48. https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/contribution-limits/

49. https://ballotpedia.org/Center_for_Tech_and_Civic_Life%27s_(CTCL)_grants_to_election_agencies,_2020

50. https://ballotpedia.org/Center_for_Tech_and_Civic_Life%27s_(CTCL)_grants_to_election_agencies,_2020

51. https://www.theepochtimes.com/supreme-court-responds-to-claim-that-john-roberts-shouted-at-other-justices-over-texas-lawsuit_3624378.html

52. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/judge-dismisses-georgia-lawsuit-alleging-fraud-2020-election-2021-10-13/

53. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20423487-bailey-v-antrim-county-complaint

54. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20423487-bailey-v-antrim-county-complaint

55. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20423487-bailey-v-antrim-county-complaint

56. https://www.depernolaw.com/bailey-documents---may-2021.html

57. https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/[9_ex_7_antrim_michigan_forensics_report_[121320]_v2_[redacted].pdf ;
https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/[12]_ex_10_penrose_1.pdf

58. https://www.depernolaw.com/uploads/2/7/0/2/27029178/[12]_ex_10_penrose_1.pdf

59. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/online-vulnerable-experts-find-nearly-three-dozen-u-s-voting-n1112436 ;
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/20423772/antrim-county-forensics-report.pdf

60. https://www.depernolaw.com/bailey-documents---may-2021.html

61. https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/18/michigan-judge-antrim-county-election-lawsuit/4980333001/

PDF: https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/06/Statement-by-Trump-1.pdf

Renewable energy undermine

Jeff Rice @EvolvingCaveman asked on Twitter: Hi @windwatchorg, Haven't you guys got anything better to do than try to undermine clean, green #RenewableEnergy? Enlighten us - what would you like to see make up our energy mix? Expensive nuclear? #ClimateChange causing #FossilFuels? @GeorgeMonbiot

National Wind Watch @windwatchorg answered:

The unfortunate fact is that renewable energy does not meaningfully replace fossil and nuclear fuels.

And such diffuse (low-density) sources as wind and solar require massive plants to capture even enough to make selling virtue-signaling green tags profitable.

That means wind and solar on an industrial scale necessarily have adverse effects of their own, particularly as they need huge tracts of previously undeveloped rural and wild land, including mountain ridge lines.

And being intermittent and, in the case of wind, highly variable, they still require backup, which is forced to run much less efficiently (ie, with more carbon emissions) than it could without having to contend with wind's erratic generation.

So for such utter lack of actual benefit coupled with substantial harm, no, we do not support wind and work to protect the environment from its depredations.

We advocate conservation, which reduces fossil and nuclear fuel use much more than wind and solar do.

Jeff Rice replied: I notice that you haven't answered my question...

National Wind Watch answered: That's a separate issue from National Wind Watch's mission to educate people about wind's shortcomings and harm. We do not take a position for any over any other except to note that wind is not a solution.

Jeff Rice: Campaign organisations have long recognised the need to promote solutions to the problems they campaign against. Your anti #WindPower campaign lacks substance and comes across as NIMBYism. It also looks like you are apologists for the #FossilFuels industry. #NIMBY

National Wind Watch:
‏
That is of course a risk we take. On the other hand, there are plenty of groups already proposing solutions, and those who question wind power represent people of very different views, from off-grid deep green to pronuclear free marketers.

Our role is to provide a resource for all of them on the issue of industrial-scale wind power. If people see that as being apologists for fossil fuels or giving comfort to climate skeptics or NIMBYism, that is a failure of imagination on their part.

It is a failure of environmentalists, driven by the "need to promote solutions", that they have forgot their role is to challenge and question solutions, especially those promoted by government and industry and banking in collusion.

Jeff Rice: Various forms of #RenewableEnergy are the solution! Although, do you think that we don't need to tackle #ClimateChange or air pollution? And as for renewables being supported by the establishment - what utter nonsense. Governments are very much wedded to #FossilsFuels!

National Wind Watch:

Wind and solar would be great if their benefits far outweighed their harm, but, as already noted, on a large scale their harm far outweighs their benefits, because they do very little to alleviate carbon emissions, pollution or fossil fuel dependency.

As to government support for wind, it is hardly a secret that subsidies, regulatory favoritism and special market structures are necessary for wind development.

Jeff Rice: Why do you think wind and solar DON'T reduce carbon emissions? A gross inaccuracy on your part.

National Wind Watch: How much have carbon emissions decreased with the massive industrialization of rural and wild places with wind turbines around the world since the 1990s? It's madness to continue.

Jeff Rice: Why you are wrong: It's a myth that wind turbines don't reduce carbon emissions

National Wind Watch: Goodall and Lynas point to a passing reduction of electricity generation from CCGT plants, not to any actual reduction of fuel use or carbon emissions.

Wind power does not reduce CO₂ emissions.

“In a wind-thermal system, production variations from the intermittent character of wind power results in an increase in system costs and a decrease in the efficiency of wind power as a means to reduce CO₂-emissions from the system. This effect gets increasingly pronounced with increased levels of wind power grid penetration and is due to the adjustment in production pattern of the thermal units to the variations in wind power production. As wind power grid penetration increases, the conventional units will run more at part load and experience more frequent starts and stops. Also, wind power may need to be curtailed in situations where the costs to stop and restart thermal units are higher than the difference in running costs of wind power and the thermal units. Thus, variations in wind power reduce the possibility of the power system to lower CO₂-emissions by adding wind power capacity to the system.”

—“Large scale integration of wind power: moderating thermal power plant cycling” by Lisa Göransson and Filip Johnsson, Wind Energy 2011; 14:91–105

-o-o-o-o-o-
Olaf Errwigge (Facebook) —

There is no argument that burning fossil fuel to generate electricity releases CO₂ into the atmosphere, or that using the wind to generate electricity does not. But it does not follow that adding wind to the grid reduces CO₂ emissions from other sources: Where there is little hydropower (no CO₂ emissions) to balance the highly variable wind, fossil fuel–fired generators are forced to work less efficiently, ie, with more emissions per unit of electricity generated. Furthermore, the best “balancing” plants for wind are open-cycle natural gas–fired turbines (OCGT), which can respond quickly enough to compensate for the continual changes of wind generation. But combined-cycle natural gas–fired turbines (CCGT) are substantially more efficient efficient, such that wind + OCGT may not represent lower emissions than CCGT alone. Thus, wind power’s manufacture, transport, and maintenance would indeed contribute to increased CO₂ emissions. And there is no benefit at all to weigh against its other adverse impacts on the environment, wildlife, and human neighbors.

Result: Wind + fossil fuel generation does not necessarily mean lower CO₂ emissions, particularly in the comparison of wind + open-cycle gas (necessary to quickly respond to wind’s continually variable generation) vs. the much more efficient combined-cycle gas alone.

And, of course, where there’s hydro, that’s the preferred source to ramp back as the wind rises: no CO₂ involved at all.

With virtually no benefits, wind power’s many adverse impacts – on the environment, wildlife, and human neighbors – not to mention its financial cost and the carbon and materials footprint of its manufacture, transport, and maintenance – are impossible to justify.

Also see:  “Why wind power does not substantially reduce emissions”

Wicker men

On Facebook, John Steppling shared Hiroyuki Hamada's post: August 31 at 7:09am [UTC] · A nice summation of all that is wrong with Hedges reactionary and historically distorted piece.

Hiroyuki Hamada: August 29 at 6:37pm · As a general rule we should all remember that the empire always wins when people chant "all violence must stop". That is how the scope and depth of imperialism, firmly guided by the wealth and power accumulation, manifests itself. And when there is a call for unity among the oppressed from such a perspective, we should regard it as a call to accept the wasting hierarchy of money and violence. That's basically what people like Chris Hedges do.

Here is a rather comprehensive analysis of Hedges' latest problematic essay.

What's Wrong with Chris Hedges view that ‘Antifa’ Mirrors the ‘Alt-Right’

John Steppling: September 2 at 2:37pm · amazing that historical revisionism of the worst sort is seen as weak critique. But i give up. And as authoritiarinism....uh....anti fa may be half informants at this point, and agent provocateurs...but authoritarian? Ok...im out. This is tedious beyond endurance. Hedges is a tool of Imperialism. Margaretk Kimberley was right, Bruce Dixon was right, phil and I are right, and Hiroyuki. Id think with that, just for openers, as a list of voices against hedges that people like Jonathan here would pause. Think a bit. And as the thought experiement goes. Of course there is a difference. Look...conflating fascism and anti fascism is the ploy of the state. Its working apparently. But im done with this topic. I swear. Out.

Olaf Errwigge: The problem is not "conflating" – the problem is who is actually fascist and who anti-fascist. The Weekend Wehrmacht wallows in the symbols of historical fascism but stand against the corporatist imperialist state. The Pink Putsch adopt the symbols of historical civil rights struggles but shut down demonstrations, suppress speech.

Lex Steppling: No hahah, that's not the problem in this case. In this case the fascist and the anti fascist are pretty clearly articulated. The other conflation happening, oddly, is that of antifa with liberalism.

Jonathan Berhow: Hiroyuki I respect and causes me to pause, which is why I read this and commented. I was hoping for a hard but fair, incisive critique of Hedges. This article wasn't it. It was more concerned with confirmation bias than analysis.

The authoritarianism to which I was referring was of the ideological, tribalist variety, not the kind that simply defers to a hetman.

Of course there is a difference, and I recognized it. But there are also significant similarities. To suggest a total, black and white difference is simplistic--at least in that it does not recognize the point on the political spectrum where left-right converge over issues of control over their group (and here is one aspect of authoritarianism) and over The Other. But insisting on a total difference does serve a purpose in regard to identity.

Is "conflating fascism and anti fascism" more or less "the ploy of the state" than instigating those with similar socioeconomic status to fight against one another instead of against those above them with serious power and money?

But here is the point of clarity: I'm not interested in being right, but in understanding this issue. Being right is a horse of a different color. And if that is what is most valuable to you, then we are not communicating and any analysis is irrelevant except to signify rightness and identity.

Olaf Errwigge: Lex Steppling — The conflation of antifa and liberalism would certainly be fair as all who don't daily express a hatred of Trump are conflated with white supremacists. (Hedges' main error is the latter conflation.)

Lex Steppling: Olaf, all you ever do is offer strawmen. You are creating composites of the people you don't like, and basing your arguments on them. As for being a Trump apologist, if you are, then yeah, fuck you, but then don't assume I have other political position...See More

Olaf Errwigge: You have just illustrated exactly what I described.

Lex Steppling: I have yet to see you actually say something. You want a safe space to be wrong, or turn the other cheek at state terror, then yeah, you wont find it with me. I'm engaged in this conversation because it's important, but you have literally not said anything of any substance.

Olaf Errwigge: State terror is real. Shutting down undesired political speech is part of it. Only one side is doing that, and it's not the "Trump apologists".

Lex Steppling: Are you more bothered by white nationalist murdering people in the street, or campus activists shutting down speeches by alt right figures? I'm genuinely asking. And yes, the right could give a fuck about free speech, they are concerned with one, and that's the their own race based ideology.

Olaf Errwigge: See, you're using one death in Charlottesville to condemn the entire "right". And you accuse me of straw man argument.

[Regarding Hedges’ column, Olaf Errwigge: August 28 at 5:06pm · If Hedges wants to slander the alt-right as having a lust for violence behind it, then he should similarly not limit his mirror to antifa but extend it to all of pseudoleftist enablers of the Democratic party. There are hateful thugs on both sides, driven by their respective sense of righteousness. But driving today's violence is the "liberal" side, that has dismissed half the country as irredeemable deplorables and thus "rationalizes" a purge, not just from public discourse and commerce but even physically. Like the Ukrainian coup and the Egyptian counter-revolution coup, it's violence in the name of making one lifestyle the only lifestyle, one way of thinking the only way. Populism is the enemy of liberalism, and so the latter has diverted the issue into this meaningless – though highly destructive – culture war. The mirror of Antifa is not the populist alt-right, but the reactionary Daesh.]

[John Steppling: August 31 at 6:11pm · Wow. Just wow.]

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They kept going on … John Steppling: September 1 at 4:51am · when I criticized hedges I ended up having to block several people. I was stunned. It is political immaturity. But its more. I had someone on my thread yesterday refer to the rise of national socialism and the "communist inquisition". So the propaganda and revisionism runs very deep. As does indoctrination.

Chris Hedges is a Public Menace

Olaf Errwigge: It was in 1978 that the Supreme Court agreed with the ACLU that however much one felt "attacked" by seeing a swastika, it is a symbolic form of free speech entitled to First Amendment protections and itself did not constitute "fighting words." But of course, now Trump is President, and the steady march of neoliberal corporatism and neoconservative imperialism since 1980 is suddenly a concern. Or is it the alt-right's opposition to it that people really can't deal with? Throwing the racist baby out with the populist bathwater.

Lex Steppling: It would be a lot easier for you if you were actually arguing with this imaginary person who believes we should do away with the first amendment and attack anyone with a differing viewpoint with sticks and shovels. You are debating points that nobody here has made. If you don't like people showing up in the streets and fighting each other, then go ahead and deem it distasteful, but enough with the red hearings and composite opposition.

Olaf Errwigge: From the posted article: ‘The self deputizing, vigilante, already quasi-death squads must be confronted. They must be forced to crawl back to their basements and hotel rooms. The threat is real, so must the resistance be. If we are to transform society more work than this need be done. If we are to prevent self deputizing death squads from roaming the street they must fear public gathering.’

In other words, public gatherings of people imagined to be "self-deputizing death squads" must be prevented, ie, the first amendment does not apply and violence is justified.

Lex Steppling: The last time they assembled, they murdered people.

Olaf Errwigge: One person murdered one person. Destroy the village, right?

Lex Steppling: You officially disgust me, and I'm happy I don't know you. Your a disgusting piece of shit. And the law doesn't protect murder, let alone assault, so you aren't even making sense other than to seem really committed to the notion that punching a Nazi is worse than letting one kill you or your loved ones. I'm pretty astounded. Your the type of person who would hide under a table while someone got the shit kicked out of them or worse by a group of people. Cowardly scummy old fuck.

Lex Steppling: John Steppling — this is the element youve apparently attracted. Fuck me im repulsed.

Paula Densnow: Collective punishment is illegal under international law. Why does that repulse you?

Olaf Errwigge: Stand your ground, now. Don't you see how much you sound just like what you purport to be against?

Olaf Errwigge: No, the law doesn't protect murder or assault – so why are you advocating it against an scourge that is only imagined?

Lex Steppling: You are both clearly armchair cowards. You don't know shit about international law obviously, and even if that was the case no one is calling for purges, this is literally about people showing up for brawls. But it obviously doesn't matter, your more concerned about a nazis face than you are the lives of the people they keep attaching and will co tongue to atrack, and have attacked and killed for years.

Olaf Errwigge: See, you're still at it: First, you call them all nazis, and second, you imagine they "keep attacking and will continue to attack and have attacked and killed for years". That is exactly the language of "self-deputizing vigilante quasi–death squads".

Lex Steppling: I'm not advocating it. But you don't like to actually read what people or saying or pay attention to the argument. And they are violent and are intent on making that clear by doing things like killing people. So I'm not sure what your committed to believing at this point

Olaf Errwigge: You charged me with being "committed to the notion that punching a Nazi is worse than letting one kill you or your loved ones", which is based on nothing I've written. Therefore, one must assume that you imagine Nazis as an active threat and advocate punching them to prevent it. To not see them as an active threat and therefore to not advocate shutting them down violently or otherwise is to be "cowardly", one gathers.

Lex Steppling: I did charge you with the former, cause that's what you said. As for the latter, that's more the imagined debate you keep participating in. Nazis are a threat to people's safety as they keep proving, whether a threat to the state or not, is a whole other question. But they have been shooting into crowds and bombing buildings and lynching people and moving people down with cars for years. So yeah, when they are around to see them as a threat is rational. And yes, on believe you to be a coward.

Olaf Errwigge: Please show me where I said it.

Lex Steppling: Every time to try to diminish their violence or pretend it's just a free speech issue while simultaneously condemning those who brawl with them in the streets you are doing just that

Olaf Errwigge: Lex Steppling — That is your view, not mine, because you are doing the opposite: exaggerating their violence and threat and relishing violently shutting them down.

John Steppling: ok...Olaf you are only trying to create red herrings in order to keep arguing. I have found you a fatuous troll in the past and now Im seeing it again. What exactly is it you believe? That somehow nazis are not a threat to anyone? They are and people, communities have the right to defend themselves. A bit like palestinians do, or any black american does. Or native american. The panthers obviously realized that. I never *avocate* violence. But creeps like Hedges, a guy who still parrots the new york times on all matters of foreign policy, are equating fascists and klansmen with black box and antifa. That is because hedges is anti leftist. If your political immaturity is such that you cant grasp that, then just go away. You are a fucking waste of everyone's time and Ive indulged many of you people for several days. You are trolls. I dont know you and know nobody who knows you. So explain who you are and what you believe or just go the fuck away.

Olaf Errwigge: John Steppling — I have myself criticized Hedges, about whom I generally agree with you. But in this case, I have criticized him because he makes the same error you do: exaggerating the violence and threat of public demonstrations by Trump supporters because of the symbolism of one very small faction. He does it to equate antifa with them. You do it to justify violence against them. That is all I have been saying, and it is you and Lex, unable to grasp that simple argument, who have been trolling me.

John Steppling: olaf....how do you know someone's psychology? Relishing? How do you know that? That sort of assumption is idiotic. If you think their violence is exaggerated. Fine. I dont think it is all that huge either, in comparison with the police in america. But ideologically they are identical. Prison guards, cops, KKK, the promise keepers...that sort of religious right...all of them are fascistic. Hyper nationalist, racist, and xenophobic. Also militaristic. It is my experience that when the police are NOT on your side, it becomes increasingly difficult to remain a pacifist.

Olaf Errwigge: John Steppling — Exactly. But all we've seen are massive actions to shut down tiny political rallies.

John Steppling: no, but you miss the point that the police are acting on behalf of the white klansmen etc. It may or may not be, often, political theatre. But there are obviously deeply entrenched racist structures of state and bureaucracy in the US, The prison system is one. These guys do initiate violence. I dont fear them directly, but im not there. Ask cornell west. So....if you are poor and black in the US, then those numbers are relative because you live in a system that reflects THOSE guys beliefs and not your own.

John Steppling: or vice versa. Those white racists are part of a structural system of of white supremacism. And it is deeply entrenched in the US. Im not sure europeans can fully grasp that. It is a daily reality for black people in the US. And cops are one with those white racists. Absolutely aligned with them. And so...talk of non violence is fine until you realize that it is non stop violence against black people and communities in the US. 24 hours a day.

Olaf Errwigge: It is nonstop violence against /all/ people and communities in the US. Racism thrives in that environment. But the issue at hand is the exaggerated (and misplaced) response to tiny political rallies in support of Trump.

Lex Steppling: ^"all lives matter lol

Olaf you are a troll whether you realize it or not. White nationalists showed up to blm rallies and ok one occasion shy 5 people there. They showed up to standing rock and pulled guns on people. They show up to immigrants rights rallies and once plowed a car into it. They did the same at a transgender march. Every progressive change ever made in this country has come from direct action, and in every case they have shown up and killed and named. I've made this point countless time and you choose to ignore it. They are a threat to the personally safety of people like me and many I know, and have. Even proving it for generations, and at the moment they feel particularly empowered. So if you choose to stubbornly continue to claim that they aren't a threat, or to call the violence exaggerated, then do it somewhere else. Cause right now you sound like and old racist piece of shit, and my guess is that you've never been out in the streets for anyone. My assumption is now that you have no idea what any of this looks like. its ok not to know, but it's not ok to keep talking when you don't.

Olaf Errwigge: Again, I agree, but the actual villains are not the ones being attacked. That only adds to the problem.

Perusing Hr. Errwigge’s Facebook page, one finds this (among much else of interest):

August 25 at 6:30pm · Fact check: "There are no nice Nazis." The fallacy in that statement lies in the unproven assumption that the people referred to are in fact "Nazis". They may in fact be "nice" people (at least no less so than others) who are being slandered as such.

It's a lazy trope. You can't say "There are no nice Democrats" or "no nice Sanders or Stein voters" or "no nice Republicans" or even "no nice Trump voters" (although the latter are very common memes in some circles (whose members no doubt consider themselves to be "nice")), so call them Nazis and you can.

And a comment he added:

This actually began during the election campaign, when people tried to block Trump's events. At the Democratic nominating convention, the crowds on cue shut down dissenting messages from Sanders supporters. It continued to the inauguration, when people tried to block access there, too. Yesterday a "Patriot Prayer" event in San Francisco was cancelled in the face of thousands of people ready to block it as "Hate". Today a "No to Marxism in America" event in Berkeley was cancelled for similar reasons, but some Trump supporters gathered and were met by more people calling them racist, white supremacist, KKK, and Nazi.

A later post: “As always, battles between the haves are fought by the have-nots.”

Update:  Hr. Errwigge has informed your editor that John Steppling "unfriended" him at some point after the above discussion.

Rare earths and wind turbines: Yes, it’s a problem

Despite wind industry lobbyists and apologists asserting otherwise, rare earth metals, particularly neodymium, are indeed extensively used in wind turbine magnets. (And then there’s lithium for the batteries in electric vehicles and grid storage facilities.*)

‘Permanent magnet machines feature higher efficiencies than machines with excitation windings (absence of field winding losses), less weight and the advantage of having no slip-rings and brushes. Machines above kilowatt range (and most below) employ high-specific energy density PM material, preferably of neodymium-iron-boron (Nd-Fe-B).’ —Wind Energy Systems for Electric Power Generation, by Manfred Stiebler, Springer, 2008

‘The data suggest that, with the possible exception of rare-earth elements, there should not be a shortage of the principal materials required for electricity generation from wind energy. ... Sintered ceramic magnets and rare-earth magnets are the two types of permanent magnets used in wind turbines. Sintered ceramic magnets, comprising iron oxide (ferrite) and barium or strontium carbonate, have a lower cost but generate a lower energy product than do rare-earth permanent magnets comprising neodymium, iron, and boron (Nd-Fe-B). The energy-conversion efficiency of sintered Nd-Fe-B is roughly 10 times that of sintered ferrite ... As global requirements for rare-earth elements continue to grow, any sustained increase in demand for neodymium oxide from the wind resource sector would have to be met by increased supply through expansion of existing production or the development of new mines. ... An assessment of available data suggests that wind turbines that use rare earth permanent magnets comprising neodymium, iron, and boron require about 216 kg [476 lb] of neodymium per megawatt of capacity, or about 251 kg [553 lb] of neodymium oxide (Nd₂O₃) per megawatt of capacity.’ —Wind Energy in the United States and Materials Required for the Land-Based Wind Turbine Industry From 2010 Through 2030, by U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, Scientific Investigations Report 2011–5036

‘Five rare earth elements (REEs)—dysprosium, terbium, europium, neodymium and yttrium—were found to be critical in the short term (present–2015). These five REEs are used in magnets for wind turbines and electric vehicles or phosphors in energy-efficient lighting. ... Permanent magnets (PMs) containing neodymium and dysprosium are used in wind turbine generators and electric vehicle (EV) motors. These REEs have highly valued magnetic and thermal properties. Manufacturers of both technologies are currently making decisions on future system design, trading off the performance benefits of neodymium and dysprosium against vulnerability to potential supply shortages. For example, wind turbine manufacturers are deciding among gear-driven, hybrid and direct-drive systems, with varying levels of rare earth content. ... Neodymium-iron-boron rare earth PMs are used in wind turbines and traction (i.e., propulsion) motors for EVs. ... the use of rare earth PMs in these applications is growing due to the significant performance benefits PMs provide ... Larger turbines are more likely to use rare earth PMs, which can dramatically reduce the size and weight of the generator compared to non-PM designs such as induction or synchronous generators. ... Despite their advantages, slow-speed turbines require larger PMs for a given power rating, translating into greater rare earth content. Arnold Magnetics estimates that direct-drive turbines require 600 kg [1,323 lb] of PM material per megawatt, which translates to several hundred kilograms of rare earth content per megawatt.’ — Critical Materials Strategy, by U.S. Department of Energy, December 2011

‘In the broader literature ..., concerns have been raised about future shortage of supply of neodymium, a metal belonging to the group of rare-earth elements that is increasingly employed in permanent magnets in wind turbine generators.’ —Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: a review of present knowledge and research needs, by Anders Arvesen and Edgar G. Hertwich, 2012, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 16(8): 5994-6006.

‘A single 3MW [direct-drive] wind turbine needs ... 2 tons of rare earth elements.’ —Northwest Mining Association

Also see:

• Rare earths, minerals used in windpower technology, could fall into short supply, Windpower Engineering & Development, June 4, 2013
• Wind turbine & generator magnets, First4Magnets (‘In every wind turbine and generator you will find one or more incredibly strong magnets. Simplified, the rotating shaft of a wind turbine is connected to one or more strong magnets, usually neodymium magnets, these magnets turn relative to an assembly of coiled wire, generating voltage in the coil.’)
• Neodymium magnets in wind turbines & generators, Stanford Magnets

And:

• Clean energy's dirty little secret, The Atlantic, May 2009
• Are rare earth minerals too costly for environment?, PBS News Hour, December 14, 2009
• In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale, Daily Mail, January 26, 2011
• Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages, The Guardian, August 7, 2012
• Rare earth mining in China: the bleak social and environmental costs, The Guardian, March 20, 2014
• Rare earths: Elemental needs of the clean-energy economy, Scientific American, October 13, 2010 (‘A massive wind turbine—capable of turning the breeze into two million watts of power—has 40-meter-long blades made from fiberglass, towers 90 meters above the ground, weighs hundreds of metric tons, and fundamentally relies on roughly 300 kilograms of a soft, silvery metal known as neodymium—a so-called rare earth. This element forms the basis for the magnets used in the turbines. "Large permanent magnets make the generators feasible," explains materials scientist Alex King, director of the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory in Iowa, which started making rare earth magnets in the 1940s as part of the Manhattan Project. The stronger the magnets are, the more powerful the generator—and rare earth elements such as neodymium form the basis for the most powerful permanent magnets around.’)
• The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust, BBC, April 2, 2015
• The dark side of renewable energy, Earth Journalism Network, August 25, 2016
• Poison wind, Today Tonight Adelaide, March 1, 2017 (‘Clarification: This story contains details of toxic pollution associated with the use of rare earths in the production of wind turbines, cars and household electronic items. We wish to clarify that the wind industry estimates one in five turbines in South Australia use rare earths. South Australia has approximately 40 wind farms operating or seeking approval, with almost 700 individual turbines. Using the industry’s figures, South Australia has in excess of 100 turbines which use rare earths, which is a very significant number.’)
• The big eco dilemma: How rare earth metals have become a thorn in the side of the green agenda, RT, July 31, 2021
• New evidence shows massive and rapid expansion of illicit rare earths industry in Myanmar, fuelling human rights abuses, environmental destruction and funding military-linked militias, Global Witness, August 9, 2022

*Lithium: “Industry experts expect demand for lithium from U.S. car manufacturers to increase tenfold by 2030. By then, they predict the U.S. will need 300,000 metric tons of lithium per year to make green vehicles and a wealth of electronic appliances. … But environmentalists note that it would create hundreds of millions of cubic yards of rock waste, and that next to the pit would be an “acid plant” using sulfuric acid — 5,800 tons daily — to process lithium. According to an environmental impact statement from the federal Bureau of Land Management, the mine would be an open pit 2.3 miles long, a mile wide and almost 400 feet deep … the mine would use about 3,000 gallons of water per minute.” —The cost of green energy: The nation’s biggest lithium mine may be going up on a site sacred to Native Americans, NBC News, August 11, 2022