Secret Spy Drone Flights Over San Diego Raise Concerns

The skies are clear for General Atomics to test fly a new military-grade drone over San Diego, reported Voice of San Diego.

The Federal Aviation Administration is currently evaluating General Atomics' proposal to fly the Predator, better known as the MQ-9B Reaper, but for domestic affairs purposes has been renamed as the SkyGuardian.

The drone is massive, has a wingspan of 79 feet, and weighs 12,500 pounds. The pilot run above the city, located on the Pacific coast of southern California, could set a new precedent for the US, one where civilian airspace will include military-grade drones as a new form of surveillance - the defense contractor calls the drone, "persistent eye in the sky."

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/secret-spy-drone-flights-over-san-diego-raise-concerns

Antifa Torches 100-Year-Old Elk Statue in Portland Because Racism and George Floyd

Antifa terrorists torched a racist Elk statue last night in Portland.

Here is the statue in 1900.

Last night violent leftists burnt the Thompson Elk to the ground.

Around 200 antifa terrorists and far left militant protesters gathered at the Portland Justice Center on Wednesday night and torched the elk statue.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/antifa-torches-100-year-old-elk-statue-portland-racism-george-floyd/

Racist Elk?

It’s Not Left vs. Right, It’s Big vs. Small

Global corporations make token payments to anti-racism activists in the United States while funding the Chinese Communist Party’s racist dictatorship and sowing the destitution that causes unrest at home.

The primary contradiction in our society, the fault line that defines our politics and economy, is not Left versus Right. It’s big versus small.

Anyone surprised to see corporate America (an anachronism in itself) kowtowing to cultural Marxism is trapped in the old Left-Right map that tells us “capitalists oppose Marxists.”

But today’s landscape is dominated not by capitalists but instead by corporatists—and by any objective assessment, corporatism and socialism are birds of a feather.

Take John Kenneth Galbraith, the darling economist of the 1950s and ’60s. He posited a triumvirate of big business, big labor, and big government efficiently managing American society for endless affluence. No need to worry about a cold or hot war with the Soviet Bloc. In the “New Industrial State” he envisioned, the bureaucracies of Soviet Communism and Western corporatism would converge.

A half-century earlier, G. K. Chesterton noted little difference between (nominally capitalist) corporate bureaucracy and socialist bureaucracy. Insofar as a socialist society “was criticized as a centralized, impersonal and monotonous civilization, that is an exact description of existing civilization . . . [T]he unification and regimentation is already complete . . . Capitalism has done all that Socialism threatened to do. The clerk has exactly the sort of passive functions and permissive pleasures that he would have in the most monstrous model village . . . exactly the tastes and virtues he could have as a tenant and servant of the state.”

Centralized ownership of property and the means of production are hallmarks both of corporatism and Marxism. Both corporatism and socialism stand in opposition to a truly humane and free society founded on faith and privately owned, widely distributed property.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis believed the consolidation of ownership pursued by Wall Street financiers was the socialist’s best friend.

“Just as Emperor Nero is said to have remarked in regard to his people that he wished that the Christians had but one neck that he might cut it off by a single blow of his sword, so they say here: ‘Let these men gather these things together; they will soon have them all under one head, and by a single act we will take over the whole industry,’” Brandeis observed.

We are closer to that beheading now than many realize.

Small Business on the Brink

Small business startups are at a historic low. The Kauffman Foundation, citing its own research and U.S. Census data, reports the number of companies less than a year old as a share of all businesses had declined by nearly 44 percent between 1978 and 2012. MIT researchers found the four largest companies in the average industry had a significantly larger share of sales in 2012 than they did in 1982.

The consolidation of the financial industry coincides with consolidation in other industries. Small regional banks have been the prime lenders to small businesses, and as these banks get swallowed up or regulated out of existence, the independent businessman goes down with them.

Self-described progressives tend to be happy with this development. They profess to be for the little guy, but that does not include the owners of little businesses, a group that tends to be conservative. As opposed to small businesses, big corporations readily fall in line with the leftist social justice orthodoxies.

The long list of large companies giving millions to the Black Lives Matter movement is just the latest manifestation of the Left’s long-running alliance with corporatism and distrust of small holdings.

Historically, progressives and reformist liberals regarded small business as the enemy. They regarded monopoly as an inevitability, and the regulated monopoly was their preferred economic model. Gabriel Kotko documents how Progressive Era regulation served to entrench rather than dislodge big business and big finance.

The first generation of progressives considered the corporation to be more modern, efficient, and therefore more desirable than the small independently owned shops and workshops, which they saw as backward and dirty. There was more than a whiff of racist, anti-Catholic, and anti-immigrant bias to their ideology.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/01/its-not-left-vs-right-its-big-vs-small/

Marcellus Wiley delivers passionate argument against NBA painting 'Black Lives Matter' on courts

'I don't know how many people really look into the mission statement of Black Lives Matter, but I did'

ESPN reported this week that the NBA plans to paint "Black Lives Matter" on its courts when the season resumes, in reaction to players' insistence "that the fight for racial equality and social justice be a central part" of the league.

But Fox Sports 1's Marcellus Wiley says that is "not a good idea," and gave an impassioned speech on his show explaining why.

What are the details?

During a discussion on Wiley's "Speak for Yourself," he argued against the NBA's purported plan to paint "Black Lives Matter" on their courts, pointing to the organization's political goals as to his reasoning.

"There's a problem when you start to go down this road of freedom of expression, freedom of speech, and how much social space is allowed for those who don't support in that same space," Wiley argued. "And that's where I wonder where this is going to go in terms of identity politics. We know what identity politics does—it divides, and it polarizes. No matter how you want to look at it, that's just the effect of it no matter how great the intentions are. We all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Wiley read from BLM"s mission statement, voicing concern over the movement's declaration that they "dismantle the patriarchal practice," and "disrupt the western-described nuclear family structure requirement."

The former NFL player and Ivy Leaguer explained:

When I know statistics, when I know my reality—forget statistics, I knew this before I went to Columbia [University] and saw these same statistics that I'm going to read to you right now.

Children from single parent homes versus two parent homes: The children from the single parent homes (this was in 1995 I was reading this) [are] five times more likely to commit suicide. Six times more likely to be in poverty. Nine times more likely to drop out of high school. Ten times more likely to abuse chemical substances. Fourteen times more likely to commit rape, 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.

I knew that. You know why I knew it? Because a lot of my friends didn't have family structures that were nuclear like mine, and they found themselves outside of their dreams and goals and aspirations. So when I see that as a mission statement for Black Lives Matter, it makes me scratch my head .

When I also see their mission is to eradicate white supremacy. In 2020, ,white supremacy is the mission. Woo, that's a lot of digging through minutiae right there. I'm on a show that I'm hosting with another black guy who is hosting with me who replaced another black guy, and that's just one example of it. So, I understand, I respect your space, I respect what you're protesting for. But will you respect others who don't support that same protest?

https://www.theblaze.com/news/marcellus-wiley-delivers-passionate-argument-against-nba-painting-black-lives-matter-on-courts

Duckworth to Block Promotions for 1,123 Military Officers Unless Esper Promotes Vindman

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) announced Thursday that she would block the promotions of 1,123 senior military officers until Defense Secretary Mark Esper promises that he will promote Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who is believed to have communicated with the “whistleblower” that sparked Trump’s impeachment.

Her office called the move “unprecedented” but said it came in response to reports of “political interference in military matters” by Trump — the commander in chief.

The statement said Trump “may be seeking” to retaliate against Vindman for testifying against him. During the impeachment hearings, Vindman testified that he was listening to the call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and later talked about it to others — including an intelligence official believed to be the whistleblower.

Vindman notably showed up for his testimony in a military uniform that he was not required to wear. An Army spokesman confirmed that Vindman was only required to abide by the dress code of the NSC, where he wore civilian attire. The left praised Vindman as a hero.

Duckworth said in a statement:

When I showed up at basic training, it didn’t matter who I was, all that mattered was that I could shoot straight and whether I was capable of leading when it was my turn to be the platoon leader—that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Our military is supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy. It is simply unprecedented and wrong for any Commander in Chief to meddle in routine military matters at all, whether or not he has a personal vendetta against a Soldier who did his patriotic duty and told the truth—a Soldier who has been recommended for promotion by his superiors because of his performance. I won’t just sit by and let it happen, and neither should any of my colleagues. This goes far beyond any single military officer, it is about protecting a merit-based system from political corruption and unlawful retaliation.

The hold on promotions includes everyone above the rank of colonel, except for the Pentagon’s chief operating officer nominee.

The statement by Duckworth’s office said the senator would lift her hold on the nominations if and when Esper provides written confirmation of:

— Whether the Army Competitive Category promotion board for Lieutenant Colonel (O5) to Colonel (O6) included Lt. Col. Vindman among its selection for promotion to O6,

— If so, whether the Army included Lt. Col. Vindman on its list of promotions to O6 that it sent to the Pentagon, and

— If so, whether Secretary Esper or his designee will (or has) submitted a list of Army promotions to O6 to the White House for approval that includes (or included) Lt. Col. Vindman.

Duckworth’s office said her decision was based in part on Trump’s threats to use active-duty forces to quell “peaceful civilian protests,” using Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley in a “photo op,” and deploying military helicopters to “intimidate American civilians.”

The statement also accused Trump of insisting on “honoring traitors” who raised arms against the union to “maintain their ability to enslave and kill Black Americans” — a reference to Trump opposing renaming military bases named after Confederate military leaders.

Her statement came on the same day the Atlantic reported that 2020 Democrat nominee Joe Biden is vetting Duckworth as a potential running mate.

Duckworth’s move puts Esper in an awkward situation. Esper is already on thin ice with Trump, after he publicly opposed the deployment of active duty forces in response to violent protests that at the time were engulfing cities across the nation in response to the death of George Floyd.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/02/duckworth-to-block-promotions-for-1123-military-officers-unless-esper-promotes-vindman/

Florida’s Ron DeSantis Makes E-Verify Mandatory for Public Employers

Florida Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed into law this week a statewide mandatory E-Verify law that will ban public employers from hiring illegal aliens over American citizens and legal immigrants.

DeSantis had lobbied since November 2019 for the state House and Senate to pass mandatory E-Verify for all employers — public and private — with no exemptions for industries. Florida Republican lawmakers, though, quickly gutted the plan, giving exemptions to the tourism and agriculture industries.

Eventually, the legislation was watered down to only apply to public employers, being state agencies and private businesses that are contracted to do work for those agents. The law, which went into effect this week, prevents illegal aliens from being hired by those employers over Americans.

DeSantis’s original mandatory E-Verify plan, applying to all employers, had huge support across racial, class, and party lines.

A St. Pete Polls survey in February revealed that about 60 percent of Florida voters supported the policy, including more than 56 percent of Hispanic Americans, 77 percent of Republicans, and 60 percent of swing voters.

In states that have implemented mandatory E-Verify, the program has resulted in fewer jobless Americans, the most recent study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has found.

Mass immigration has direct impacts on the nation’s working and middle class, who are forced to compete for U.S. jobs with millions of newly arrived illegal and legal immigrants every year. Annually, the current immigration system gives green cards to about 1.2 million mostly low-skilled foreign nationals and work visas to another 1.4 million foreign nationals.

Though the big business lobby and corporate interests claim that the labor pool must be expanded to provide them with a never-ending flow of foreign workers, more than 35.1 million Americans today remain unemployed, underemployed, or out of the labor force, though all want full-time employment.

In a state like Florida, where immigrants make up about 25.4 percent of the labor force, American workers have their weekly wages reduced by perhaps 12.5 percent.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/02/floridas-ron-desantis-makes-e-verify-mandatory-for-public-employers/

NY County Issues ‘Costly’ Subpoenas to People for Refusing to Talk to Coronavirus Contact Tracers

Officials in New York’s Rockland County announced on Wednesday that they had issued subpoenas to eight people allegedly infected by the coronavirus for refusing to speak with contact tracers voluntarily.

“The health of our county” will not be “compromised because of ignorance, stupidity, or obstinance,” Ed Day, the county executive, told reporters.

“Failure to comply will be costly: $2,000 per day,” Patricia Rupert, the county’s health commissioner, added, referring to the subpoenas, according to the Hill.

Officials are using the subpoenas to compel the people to talk with the contact tracers about contracting the COVID-19 disease at a June 17 party in Clarkstown, located north of New York City, Rubert said.

She indicated that the eight people had declined interview requests to determine who else they were in contact with and prevent them from further spreading the virus.

In echoing frustrations expressed by health officials across the country, Rupert said the infected partygoers are not answering their phones or refusing to talk when contact tracers reach them.

“Unfortunately, I am now forced by these circumstances to send subpoenas to the individuals who are required to cooperate with us,” Rupert said.

Day claimed that his colleagues do not want to get anyone in trouble.

They only want to speak to them to find out who else might have contracted the disease to keep it from spreading, he argued.

“We want people to do the right thing for their neighbors,” and voluntarily speak to health officials, Day said.

However, he said, the people’s refusal to talk had forced the county to resort to subpoenas.

Rupert said the host of the party in question had coronavirus symptoms but held the event anyway.

She told reporters:

We are not receiving the necessary cooperation when we contact those who are positive for COVID-19 or those who had been at some of these gatherings. My staff has been told that a person does not wish to or have to speak to my disease investigators. They hang up, they deny being at the party, even though we have found their name from another party attendee, or a parent provides us with the information.

“Many do not answer their cell phones and do not call back,” she added. “Sometimes, parents answer for their adult children and promise that they have been home consistently when they have not been. This must stop.”

According to public health officials, contact tracing is essential to stemming the COVID-19 spread. The process involves interviewing people who have contracted the deadly and highly contagious disease about who they have been around.

Health officials say the goal is to notify those people and require them to quarantine for 14 days to stem the disease’s spread.

Local news outlets claim officials in Rockland are struggling to contain a coronavirus infection cluster that began at the June 17 party.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/07/02/ny-county-issues-costly-subpoenas-to-people-for-refusing-to-talk-to-coronavirus-contact-tracers/

UK: 746 Arrested Plus Huge Haul of Guns, Grenades, Cars, Cash Seized In ‘Biggest Ever Law Enforcement Operation’

British authorities have arrested 746 suspects, seized tens of millions in cash, dozens of firearms and high-value cars, 2 tonnes of drugs, and even grenades in the country’s “biggest ever law enforcement operation”.

The operation followed the infiltration of a the EncroChat encrypted communications network used by organised criminals to arrange drugs deals and lethal “hits” on criminal rivals and others, connected to an illegal trade reaching across Britain and Continental Europe to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

EncroChat, according to the Motherboard team at Vice News, had been used gangsters to conduct their illicit business “in granular detail, with price lists, names of customers, and explicit references to the large quantities of drugs they sold” — believing that the fact their communications were “encrypted on the devices themselves” meant they were immune to interception by the authorities.

Ultimately, their faith in the technology proved to be misplaced. Law enforcement in France and the Netherlands “penetrated the EncroChat network, leveraged that access to install a technical tool in what appears to be a mass hacking operation, and had been quietly reading the users’ communications for months” — and passed that information to the authorities in the United Kingdom in a breakthrough Britain’s National Crime Agency (NCA) compared to the cracking of Germany’s Enigma code by British and Polish cryptographers during the Second World War.

The NCA, which “created the technology and specialist data exploitation capabilities required to process the EncroChat data”, according to an official press release, had supported regional police forces and other agencies including the Border Force, Her Majesty’s Prison Service, and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to conduct investigations for a period of around two months.

The mass raids appeared to follow EncroChat realising they had been compromised on June 15th and sending a message to users “urging them to throw away their handsets” — just days after Scottish police had used EncroChat intel to shut down an illegal drugs laboratory in Rochester, England, and seize 28 million tablets of so-called “street valium” implicated in hundreds of deaths in Scotland.

Announcing the bust on social media, Home Secretary Priti Patel said the authorities had seized:

£54m cash

77 firearms

1,800 rounds of ammunition

4 grenades

55 high value cars

2 tonnes of drugs

According to The Guardian, the seized firearms included “an AK-47 assault rifle, submachine guns, handguns” — which had evidently been criminally obtained despite Britain’s draconian gun control legislation.

Moreover, the NCA — which is roughly equivalent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States — believes the busts have prevented a number of mob hits, included but not limited to gangland “executions”.

“This was criminals talking about how they were going to see off their competition”, explained NCA director Nikki Holland

“They range from the removal of limbs through to acid attacks and shootings,” she explained.

“It wasn’t a case of going and shooting someone, some of them wanted to do really incredible things to them before getting to that point.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/07/02/guns-grenades-cars-cash-seized-in-britains-biggest-ever-law-enforcement-operation/

Delingpole: Black Lives Matter – the Backlash Begins…

In the UK, at least, the worm has turned on Black Lives Matter.

A month ago, you could scarcely move for politicians, academics, sportsmen, showbiz luvvies and other members of the wankerati flaunting their allegiance to this apparently noble cause…

But today, as quickly as they embraced it, it now seems that they can’t dissociate themselves from it fast enough.

The BBC, formerly one of BLM’s champions (obvs.), has now forbidden its presenters and guests from wearing Black Lives Matter badges. (Quite a turnaround given that only last month, the BBC was busy pretending that the violent BLM riots which resulted in the injuries of 27 police officers were ‘largely peaceful’).

Sky News — arguably even more woke than the BBC — has made the BLM badges optional, where before they were compulsory (!) for its sports pundits.

According to the Mail:

Sky Sports allowed their pundits to decide whether to wear Black Lives Matter badges before going on air last night – with Patrice Evra ditching his first, before Jamie Redknapp followed suit, MailOnline can reveal today.

Redknapp and Evra along with host Kelly Cates and commentator Gary Neville were not wearing the badges during Sky’s coverage of Brighton and Hove Albion v Manchester United in the Premier League last night.

It came after the Premier League distanced itself from the movement, but players in yesterday’s match still ‘took the knee’ before kick-off and had ‘Black Lives Matter’ on their sleeves after George Floyd’s death in the US in May.

Among other people and institutions to backtrack, as Victoria Friedman has reported for Breitbart, are Northumberland County Council, Hertfordshire Police, and, of course, Labour opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer (who, less than a month ago, was famously pictured ‘taking a knee’ to BLM).

Meanwhile, Britain’s increasingly woke Armed Forces have shown a rare bit of moral courage by banning soldiers from taking the knee.

This sudden turnaround is pleasing, of course. And a vindication to those of us, such as Nigel Farage, who said right from the start that BLM is a political organisation whose hard-left aims had inexcusably been played down by the mainstream media.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/07/02/delingpole-black-lives-matter-the-backlash-begins/

Brooklyn Man, 36, Arrested After Burning Down His OWN HOUSE While Setting Off Illegal Fireworks In His Driveway

FDNY Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro announced today that Fire Marshals arrested Damien Bend, 36, for arson in connection with a house fire ignited by illegal fireworks on June 24, 2020. The incident was captured by cameras in the vicinity of the premises.

“Illegal fireworks pose significant dangers to the safety of New Yorkers and their property,” said Commissioner Nigro. “Our Fire Marshals will continue to actively enforce the laws relating to illegal possession and sales of fireworks in New York City.”

On June 24, 2020, FDNY responded to 1709 East 51 Street, Brooklyn for reports of a fire on the first floor of a 2 ½ story home. The incident took 12 units and 60 members to bring under control. Fire Marshals subsequently conducted an investigation and determined that the fire was incendiary. Video footage obtained of the incident shows Bend igniting pyrotechnics in the driveway when a burst from one of them entered an open window on the first floor. Bend continued to set off the remaining fireworks before entering his house to retrieve more.

Bend is charged with arson in the fourth degree and will be prosecuted by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.

In the last nine days, Fire Marshals have arrested 17 people and confiscated approximately $36,700 worth of illegal fireworks. Fireworks are illegal in New York City. FDNY urges all New Yorkers to call 311 to anonymously report the use, delivery, or sale of fireworks.

https://breaking911.com/brooklyn-man-36-arrested-after-burning-down-his-own-house-while-setting-off-illegal-fireworks-in-his-driveway/

>>9832353

Lets nail these fuckers to the wall

Code Pink Plans Rallies in California on 4th of July While the Rest of the State Not Allowed to Hold Family Gatherings

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) on Tuesday announced he will be rolling back the state’s reopening due to the surge in Coronavirus cases.

On Wednesday, Newsom shut it down.

Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Orange County on Wednesday were ordered to close indoor operations at restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, zoos and museums.

Here is the list of sectors to close operations including wineries and tasting rooms and the impacted counties:

Conveniently, Gavin Newsom’s vineyard, Plumpjack Winery, located in Napa Valley is open for business.

Napa Valley is not being targeted by Newsom.

And the far left is not worried about the lockdowns.

They will be out protesting this weekend on Independence Day.

And they will be trashing the USA.

Sick people.

But the law breakers will be out in force.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/07/code-pink-plans-rallies-california-4th-july-rest-state-not-allowed-hold-family-gatherings/