The Trump Administration or Junta?

To describe the current US political landscape as conflicted would be an understatement. Nominally the Left is gearing up for an all out battle royale with Trump, one which is allegedly personal. After all, longtime Clinton insider Sidney Blumenthal has made dark charges in Europe concerning a coup d'etat carried out by "right wing FBI agents" to deny Hillary the presidency. Not to be out done, the alt-right has chalked up the rather suspicious mass protests that have broken out in the wake of Trump's victory on a plot by Obama, the Clintons and George Soros to stage a "color revolution" in these United States.

On the other hand, the Establishment has quietly been lining up behind Trump, the stock market has vigorously rallied since the election and Trump is finding little difficulty in forging alliances with the Republican Party hierarchy that he allegedly opposes. Just last week Trump tapped revered Republican insider Reince Priebus as his Chief of Staff. This week Trump is meeting with 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, much despised by the Tea Party crowd and whom Trump frequently clashed with during the elections, to potentially discuss Romney taking on the post of Secretary of State.

Romney

While the alt-right is no doubt chewing nails over these developments, they likely still have a warm, fuzzy feeling over the appointment of Breitbart executive Steve Bannon as "chief strategist" and Trump's proclamations that Bannon would share power in his cabinet with Priebus. Bannon is a beloved figure in the alt-right that some credit with spearheading Trump's "surprise" victory. The mainstream media, whom Bannon likely dealt a mortal blow to during the election, has decried him as a bigot and misogynist. Bannon seems to relish this type of attention if recent proclamations he made such as "Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power" are any indication.

Bannon

Of special interest to readers of this blog are no doubt Trump's selections for National Security Advisor and CIA director. As to the former, the president's National Security Adviser is one of the most powerful figures in the entire cabinet and a major indicator of the foreign policy the administration will be perusing. Former NSAs such as Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezenski and Condoleeza Rice all wielded enormous influence in the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Carter and Bush II, respectively. Kissinger and Rice parlayed their turns as the National Security Advisor into the even more prestigious post of Secretary of State. 

Typically the National Security Advisor is a civilian with a minor military background groomed in the Ivy League and having spent time with one of the major foreign policy think tanks such as the Council on Foreign Relations or the Brookings Institute before assuming the post. Kissinger, Brzezenski, Rice, Frank Carlucci and McGeorge Bundy all fall into this category. Even National Security Advisors such as Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft with strong military backgrounds come from the same type of privileged background. 

This is one of the reasons why the Establishment media is having such a meltdown over the appointment of General Michael T. Flynn as Trump's National Security Advisor. Flynn is a highly controversial career military intelligence officer with few ties to the Ivy League or elite think tanks. Indeed, Flynn has come as being rather contemptuous of the foreign policy put forth by such institutions and their acolytes.

Flynn

The general is most well known now for having been Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), but he first rose to prominence for his work with General Stanley McChrystal, the infamous commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) during the Bush II years. His working relationship with McChrystal dated back before their JSOC days.

"Flynn, who was McChrystal's deputy at the 18th Airborne, deployed with him to Kabul, where her served as director of intelligence for CJTF 180. Known in his early years as a hard-partying surfer, Flynn was commissioned in 1981 as an army second lieutenant and became an intelligence officer, doing multiple tours at Fort Bragg. He participated in the 1983 invasion of Grenada and the invasion of Haiti in the early 1990s. He spent his career working on sensitive military intelligence programs and building up systems for developing intelligence collection in 'denied' areas. As McChrystal rose, Flynn rose with him. When McChrystal returned to Washington, Flynn returned to command the 111th Military Intelligence Brigade, whose members would, among other activities, deploy, 'equipped with low density systems' such as unmanned aerial vehicles 'to continue operations throughout the world.' This period marked a dramatic uptick in the use of a variety of drones that would later become central weapons in Washington's wars. Flynn would be on the knife's edge of the intelligence technology that would be at the center of the mounting, global kill/capture campaign."

(Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, pg. 105)

McChrystal

Novel uses of drones were not the only "innovations" that Flynn introduced to the Pentagon's arsenal. He, along with McChrystal, established an intelligence gathering infrastructure known as by the acronym F3EA.

"McChrystal and Flynn's fusion approach to gathering intelligence relied on an infrastructure for targeting known by the acronym F3EA: Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, and Analyze. 'The idea was to combine analysts who found the enemy (through intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance); drone operators who fixed the target; combat teams who finished the target by capturing or killing him; specialists who exploited the intelligence the raid yielded, such as cell phones, maps, and detainees; and and the intelligence analysts who turned the raw information into usable knowledge,' wrote McChrystal. "By doing this. we speeded up the cycle for a counterterrorism operation, gleaning valuable insights in hours, not days.' "

(Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, pg. 145)

A key component of this rapid intelligence gathering were "enhanced" interrogation methods that allegedly produced results in a more timely fashion than "standard" methods.

"Strategically, Flynn and McChrystal were hailed as geniuses. But the whole system was ultimately dependent on human intelligence, not technology. And with an incredibly diverse spectrum of insurgents attacking the occupation forces, that was a major challenge. It was this urgent need for HUMINT and the pressure from the White House and the Pentagon to produce results to crush the insurgency (which they had declared did not exist) that would lead to a brutal regime of abuse and torture of detainees held by JSOC. Unsatisfied with the pace of interrogations being conducted by the CIA and other US agencies in the early stages of the Global War on Terror, Rumsfeld and Cambone developed a parallel rendition and detention program to the CIA black sites authorized under Greystone. The new Special Access Program went by various code names, including Copper Green, Matchbox and Footprint. With only some two hundred people read into the Special Access Program (SAP), the highly classified program put Stephen Cambone's private intel shop in the Pentagon on steroids..."

(Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, pg. 145)

Here are some more details about the infamous "Special Access Program" (SAP):

"As the Iraqi insurgency erupted in August, Secretary Rumsfeld reportedly acted with characteristic decisiveness by ordering his special access program operatives into Iraq, inserting them into military prisons with the authority for harsh interrogation beyond Army regulations. Operating under the code name Copper Green, Rumsfeld's SAP, which included the CIA, soon ran into serious problems. The team focused, in part, on interrogations at Abu Ghraib, where, over Karpinski's objections, the CIA concealed some thirty ghost detainees who were logged into the system. Whether they were SAP or ordinary CIA, Karpinski began seeing mysterious operatives, whom she called 'disappearing ghosts,' around the prison in late 2003, who masked their identities with aliases and civilian clothes. Besides employing the usual psychological tactics, these interrogations reportedly introduced the practice of forced nudity and explicit photography, on the theory that 'Arabs are particularly vulnerable to sexual humiliation.' But by late fall of 2003, senior CIA officials were recoiling from the abuses at Abu Ghraib, saying, in the words of a former intelligence officer, 'No way. We signed up for the core program in Afghanistan --pre-approved for operations against high-value targets --and now you want to use it on cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets.' And in a reference to the Vietnam War's Phoenix program, the sourced added, 'We're not going to use our guys to do this. We've been there before.' As the CIA quit the SAP on advise of its lawyers, others in the intelligence community became concerned that the Abu Ghraib interrogations might compromise what they viewed as an effective covert operation..."

(A Question of Torture, Alfred McCoy, pgs. 132-133)

one of the most notorious images to come out of Abu Ghraib

As I noted before here, the "enhanced" interrogation methods employed at Abu Ghraib and other "black sites" in the Global War on Terror were very much based upon the ARTICHOKE program that was originally initiated to investigate "special" interrogation methods. While ARTICHOKE is commonly linked to the CIA, it is important to remember (as noted before here) that the Pentagon was very much a partner in this program and incorporated many of the methods devised in this program into its own interrogation methods. This is noteworthy in no small part because the CIA appears to have become weary of the methods employed by Flynn and McChrystal. While the CIA is often depicted as controlling SAP, it was in fact run by the above mentioned Stephen Cambone out of the Pentagon.

It is also interesting to note that the head of ISIS was interred at Abu Ghraib at some point during 2004, when Flynn and McChrystal's operations were at their peak. It is suspected that other ISIS leaders did time at this facility as well. Given the possibility that these men may well have been subjected to "behavioral modification" techniques at Abu Ghraib, it puts Flynn's obsession with ISIS in a new light. He may have good reason to pin the rise of ISIS on Obama if in fact some rather unorthodox "interrogation" techniques were employed on the leadership during his watch. Certainly this sounds better than tasking the man who may have played a key role in indoctrinating the ISIS hierarchy with defeating the network. But moving along.

While Fynn's appointment as National Security Advisor was fairly predictable (Trump had considered Flynn as his possible VP pick at one point, so it was rather inevitable that he would have a role in the administration) his choice for CIA head is far more curious. Thus far Trump has largely appointed loyalists to key positions. But his nomination for CIA director, Mike Pompeo, had no real ties to Trump prior to the nomination. He was close to Trump's VP, Mike Pence, however. And like Pence, Pompeo is very close to the infamous Koch brothers. Here are some details about Pompeo's ties to the Koch brothers:

"Another defender of the committee was Mike Pompeo, a freshman Republican from Koch Industries' hometown of Witchita, Kansas, who was closely entwined with the billionaire brothers that he became known as the 'congressman from Koch.' The Kochs had once invested an undisclosed amount of money in the aerospace company that Pompeo had founded. By the time he ran for office, the Kochs were no longer investors in his business but had become major backers of his candidacy. Their corporate PAC and Americans for Prosperity also weighed in on his behalf. After his election, Pompeo turned to the company for his chief of staff, choosing Mark Chenoweth, a lawyer who had worked for Koch Industries' legislative priorities --opposition to Obama's plans to create a public EPA registry of greenhouse gas polluters and a digital database of consumer complaints of unsafe products..."

(Dark Money, Jane Mayer, pg. 276)

Pompeo

Already the Establishment media is in a tale spin over these developments, alleging that the CIA has been taken over the Kochs. Hardly, but there maybe a more stealth coup taking place.

Trump appeared to have vigorous backing from the CIA leading up to the election. As I noted before here, it was especially significant that former CIA director James Woolsey, one of the most well-connected spooks out there, threw in with Trump. As such, I expected a CIA veteran to be tapped for the post and initially Trump seemed to be going in this direction if the rumors of a Jose Rodriguez nomination were any indication. But instead he opted to go with Pompeo, a choice that has apparently puzzled some intelligence insiders. After all, Pompeo seemingly has no prior ties to the CIA.

He does, however, have ties to the US Army. Pompeo graduated from the US Military Academy and spent five years in the Army as part of the Armor Branch. He left the Army in 1991 and founded Thayer Aerospace in 1997 (with ample capital from the Koch brothers), a company that received numerous defense contracts. It is thus likely that Pompeo has longstanding ties to the Pentagon and may have even been groomed for his eventual role in the private sector.

Essentially, the top four posts in a president's administration for shaping foreign policy are the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of the CIA and the National Security Advisor. With the likely nomination of General James Mattis as the Secretary of Defense, Trump is thus staffing three of these four posts with military men. One of them, Flynn. has strong ties to the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), an organization that ran into conflict with the CIA during the Bush II years.

"It was during this period that Rumsfeld, Cambone and JSOC ran roughshod over the 'covert' versus 'clandestine' divide and did so with the backing of the White House. The Pentagon began defining 'coordination' with the CIA as giving the Agency a seventy-two-hour heads-up that the JSOC would be conducting an operation, and Cambone altered the definition of military 'deployment orders ,' which are required to be provided to Congress. Cambone issued new guidelines that asserted the right of Special Ops Forces to 'conduct clandestine HUMINT operations' before alerting Congress. Not only was the CIA being boxed out of operations it historically he;d sovereignty over, but the use of the JSOC to conduct intelligence operations kept Congress even further at bay. Combined with the Copper Green program, this effectively meant that JSOC was free to act as as a spy agency and a kill/capture force rolled into one. Even some well-connected Republican allies of the White House were disturbed by what they were witnessing. 'Operations the CIA runs have one set of restrictions and oversight, and the military has another,' a Republican member of Congress 'with a substantial role in national security oversight,' told the Washington Post. 'It sounds like there's an angle here of, "Let's get around having any oversight by having the military do something that normally the [CIA] does, and not tell anybody." That immediately raises all kinds of red flags for me. Why aren't they telling us?' "

(Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, pg. 171)

Essentially the JSOC set itself up as the Pentagon's very own rival to the CIA's Special Activities Division (SAD), historically one of the most powerful branches of the Agency. A part of the Directorate of Operations (which long dominated the Agency going back to the Office of Policy Coordination days) SAD is where some of the Agency's most notorious assets such as Theodore Shackley, Thomas Clines and Ed Wilson cut their teeth. Under Mike Flynn's tenure, the Defense Intelligence Agency also unveiled the Defense Clandestine Service, effectively the DIA's answer to SAD. Thus, Flynn seems to have a longstanding history of eroding the CIA's covert operations authority.

All of this strongly indicates that the Pentagon is making a major power play in the Trump administration. Thus far it appears to dominate Trump's foreign policy team and may even be attempting to totally take over covert operations from its sometime rival, the CIA. This may explain why elements of the "liberal CIA" appear to be spearheading the protests against Trump.

Just how much of a divide exists between the CIA and Pentagon is highly debatable, however, as they both seemed to be on board the Trump train during the elections. But the decision to tap Pompeo instead of Rodriguez is certainly eyebrow raising in the context of Trump's other appointments. The distinct possibility exists that the Pentagon will wield unparalleled power in the Trump administration and rival factions within the elite may not be especially enthusiastic about this prospect.

All Over But the Screaming

The "unthinkable" has officially happened: Donald Trump was declared the forty-fifth President of these United States during the early morning of November 9, 2016 (November 9 is a day with much significance in the Nazi underground, as I noted before here). This researcher had already seen the writing on the wall nearly two months ago: As despicable as Trump might be, Hillary was simply unelectable and the scandals that rocked her campaign in recent weeks only further underscored this point.

Of course, everyone and their sister in the conspiracy racket thought that Hillary was a shoe-in and that there was no way an "outsider" candidate like Trump could prevail. This is of course nonsense --Trump clearly had close ties to the deep state from way back, as I noted before here. Behind his campaign was the far right Center for Security Policy, which played a key role in Bush II's presidency and is the successor network to the infamous American Security Council (ASC, addressed at length before here). While being somewhat eccentric, Trump was more than acceptable to the deep state. Hillary may well have had ample backing from the Overworld (i.e. the banking and insurance interests) but the power of this faction has been declining for years now. With Trump, the deep state has managed its biggest coup since Reagan, who was elected on a similar 'anti-Establishment platform and who was also put over the top by a deep state-orchestrated "October Surprise."

remember this clown?

Trump may even had received covert support from the Overworld, elements of which appeared to be coming increasingly disillusioned with Hillary's foreign policy objectives (noted here). As I recently noted on the Secret Sun, this researcher believes that the elite were working from the perspective that the next four years were going to be a disaster when selecting candidates for this year's election. Between the economy, growing civil unrest and an increasingly unstable world, things are a powder keg that only needs the right spark.

Whoever walked into the Oval Office against this backdrop would almost surely be a one term president. As such, two fading political dynasties were wheeled out before the public and even then, dissent had gotten to the point that Jeb Bush could never even get his campaign off the ground while Hillary was given about all she could handle from Bernie Sanders. Into this vacuum emerged a real estate mogul who spent much of the last decade working as a entertainer who presented himself as a crusader against the discredited status quo. This all worked extremely well in 1980 with a professional actor, so it should hardly be surprising that Trump now has "President-elect" before his name.

Hillary is of course highly connected in her own right, with her own deep state supporters. But clearly someone in this faction did not want her in the presidency. This may have been due to a perception of her as "damaged goods", a revolt against her neo-con driven warmongering against Russia by the national security apparatus (similar to 2006's "Generals' Revolt" against the civilian neo-cons in the Bush II regime) or possibly even her musings on the UFO question. Regardless, it had to be something pretty serious for someone like Blackwater-founder and deep state hatchet man extraordinaire Erik Prince to come out and link to pedophile rings in the days leading up to the election.

Erik Prince

And of course, the Establishment also stands to benefit from a Trump presidency in one glaring way: the American populace is already getting restless and if the next four years are every bit as disastrous as I suspect they will be, a Clinton presidency would have firmly left the elite holding the bag for it. But with an "outsider" candidate like Trump in the spotlight, they get to bide their time in the shadows and wait to see how things play out. If Trump flames out (about a 99% possibility), they can retake the (public) reigns of power in 2020 from the deep state with little fuss. The deep state will of course already be back in the shadows by this time, their agenda already completed (whatever that may be) and once again the obsession with "neo-liberalism" will take center stage. At least, this is probably the hope of many would-be master of the universe today. But I suspect no one really knows where we're going from here, only that it will constitute very interesting times.

A Rock of Ravens

As regular readers of this blog may be aware, your humble writer is in the process of moving. This adventure began on September 9, 2016, when I departed Florida, my home for nearly a quarter of a century. It entered into a new stage on October 31 when I purchased a new house (yes, the closing was on Halloween). While I don't normally do blogs that revolve around myself, I've been rather struck by a lot of the history and curious synchronicities surrounding my new home.

Of course even the dating is rather apt. Over two thousand years ago September 9, 9 A.D. witnessed the storied defeat of Varus by a confederation of Germanic tribes under the control of the Roman-trained military officer Arminius at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest. This was one of the most stunning defeats the Roman Empire ever experienced, one that had a profound effect on the course of the Empire. This battle would later play an enormous role in the emerging German nationalism of the nineteenth century and would develop a practical cult around it during the Nazi era (Himmler and several of his mystics in the SS were obsessed with the battle). Given the amount of time this blog has dedicated to exploring esoteric Nazism, I suppose there is a certain symmetry to the date. And Halloween needs no explanation.

The character I purchased the house from has a certain spooky air about him. I shall refer to him as "Pete" due to his striking similarity to the character of Pete Martell (Jack Nance) in the soon-to-be-revived Twin Peaks. This individual is a dead ringer right down to the look, the voice and the outdoors man air to the point that I was tempted to ask him if he had ever met anyone named David Lynch or Mark Frost a time or two.

Pete Martell

"Pete" is a well traveled individual who had had filled the house with various treasures from around the world. He has a special interest in Buddhism and Hinduism and owned many exotic religious pieces from the Far East. During the turbulent 1960s he had been drafted, went to Vietnam and then ended up in San Francisco in 1967, right on Haight-Ashbury no less. He claimed that no less than Janis Joplin had babysat his daughter for a time. I was rather dubious of this bit, but he could certainly spin a yarn.

Pete can tell many others about his travels around the world, which were frequent. The house was littered with pictures of him across the Far East, before the Great Pyramid of Giza and at Al-Khazneh, among man others. My girlfriend and I asked him several times what he had done for a living and he skillfully evaded the question every time. We had begun to suspect something spooky when one of his former neighbors, who had lived near him for nearly thirty years, made a curious unsolicited statement: Pete had worked for the government, had traveled frequently and had never offered any details concerning his work. While he was well liked, many neighbors suspected his work was highly classified.

While doing my own digging, I realized Pete had lived in Arlington, VA during the 1980s while the cabin we purchased from him was being built. His old address did not appear to be far from the Pentagon. Certainly the possibilities are endless. But moving along.

The house is located a little off of U.S Route 50, which stretches from West Sacramento, California to Ocean City, Maryland, and features such destinations as Kansas City, St. Louis and even Washington, D.C. The stretch through Nevada is known as "The Loneliest Road in America" while the one in my new location runs through the Appalachian Mountains, with much of it paralleling the historic Northwestern Turnpike. The turn off is between Romney, West Virginia and Winchester, Virginia. This was one of the bloodiest stretches of the Civil War, with both towns be hotly contested by the Union and the Confederacy.

Interestingly, Romney features the largest of the remaining Indian mounds in West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle in the form of the Indian Mound Cemetery. It is believed to have been to have been constructed by the mysterious Hopewell peoples. As I've noted before here, West Virginia has witnessed a lot of high weirdness, and Indian mounds frequently appear against the backdrop.

The land that Recluse's new home resides upon was originally owned by Lord Fairfax and was deeded to Dr. James Craik in 1766. Craik was George Washington's personal physician while Fairfax had first encountered Washington when the future president was but 16. Fairfax employed him as a surveyor for three years. Naturally both Fairfax and Craik were prominent Freemasons. There is some speculation that Fairfax first introduced Washington to Masonry.

Lord Fairfax (top) and James Craik (bottom)

"Pete," the former owner, dubbed the cabin "Ravens' Rock." This was allegedly due to the rocks at the top of a nearby mountain barring this same name. This would apparently not be the only rock formation on a mountain or location in West Virginia being named Raven Rocks. Curiously, there is also a highly secret military facility in Pennsylvania called Raven Rock Mountain Complex. Effectively it is a nuclear bunker that serves as an "underground Pentagon." It contains emergency operating centers for the US Army, Navy and Air Force. Allegedly, the "War Room" is located here.

Beyond the potential intelligence allusions, the raven itself is also littered with symbolism. The great Tech-Gnostic provides some interesting insights:

"Throughout the ages, birds have been harbingers of fortuitousness... of consequence. Owls, crows and especially the crow’s big brother… the Raven… have foretold of ominous events. It is widely known that a gathering of crows is known as a 'murder of crows.' It may not be as well known that a gathering of Ravens is called a 'Conspiracy of Ravens.'...

"Common ravens have coexisted with humans for thousands of years. Over the centuries, they have been the subject of mythology, folklore, art, and literature. In many cultures, including the indigenous cultures of Scandinavia, ancient Ireland and Wales, Bhutan, the northwest coast of North America, and Siberia and northeast Asia, the raven has been revered as a spiritual figure or 'Trickster' god."

Here are some more insights into the associations of the raven in folklore:

"In Ancient Greece, too, the raven was a solar bird sacred to Apollo. Although Puharich says that the eagles determined the sitting of the omphalos at Delphi, Strabo states that this task was performed by ravens. At least both birds have this in common, that they acted as messengers of the gods and performed prophetic roles. Ravens were also attributes of Mithras, and these were believed to be endowed with the power of casting evil spells.

"Ravens are common features of Celtic legend, in which they played prophetic roles. The Psuedo-Plutarch was undoubtedly based himself upon Gaulish tradition, translated Lugdunum (the Celtic name for Lyons) as 'Ravens' Hill' rather than the accepted 'Lug's Hill', since a flight of ravens had shown the city's founders where to build.

"In Ireland, the war-goddess took the name of 'Bobd' or carrion-crow and often appeared in this shape. The crow is the nocturnal aspect of the raven and in Ancient Greece was sacred to Athene while, as we have seen, the Raven was Apollo's bird. 

"In any case, ravens play a fundamental part in the Welsh tale, 'The Dream of Rhonabwy': when Arthur's men slaughtered Owen's ravens, the surviving birds reacted violently and in their turn hacked the soldiers to pieces. Ravens still occupy a respectable place in folklore... The birds were sacred to the Gauls and in German mythology were the companions of Wotan (Odin).

"In Scandinavian mythology, two ravens perched on Odin's throne, Hugin {Mind} and Munnin {Memory}, and a pair of wolves crouched beside the god. The two ravens stand for the creative and the two wolves for the destructive principle..."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pgs. 789-790)

The raven clearly has an extensive association with prophecy and creation. Many Native American Demiurges also take on the form of the raven. Beyond this, ravens also figured prominently in the symbolism of alchemist.

"Alchemists have always associated the stage of putrefaction, where matter becomes black, with the raven. They call this stage 'the Raven's Head': it is leprous and must be bleached by 'bathing seven times in the waters of Jordan'. These are imbibitions, sublimations, cohobations or digestion of matter, all practiced under the lordship of fire alone. This is why the black bird is so often depicted on the pages of ancient treatises of Hermetic lore..."

(Dictionary of Symbols, Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant, pgs. 790-791) 

Putrefaction, in the form of nigredo, is the first stage of alchemy's "Great Work." The Great Work is symbolically supposed to represent the journey of rebirth. The nigredo stag represents the death of the old self so that something new can spring forth. Certainly this is rather apt for my present situation. One stage of my life is finished and another is just beginning.

The world may be going more and more mad every day, but even dreams can shine forth in these dark days. I've long dreamed of writing before a roaring fire and I fulfilled it this evening. It is a small dream, but big things often have small beginnings. This is good to keep in mind as the final days of the US Election come upon us. Be wary dear reader but remain hopeful all the same.

NOTE: New posts on this blog may be scarce for the next month or so. The process of getting settled into my new home will be time consuming and will seriously cut into my writing time, but I shall do my best. Certainly there may be more than a few current events in the near future that will warrant comment. At worst, regular posts should be back again by early December. Until then, stay tuned.