Michael

son, brother, husband, father, grandfather,
sinner, but I keep trying

[4nt1p4tt3rn 🏴‍☠ Appalachistan Wolf Lodge #47 @4nt1p4tt3rn]

FYI:
The port on the upper right in the image, which is on the rear of the camera body, is the power feed.

It can be fed from a solar panel (usually mounted on the top of the pole), from electrical mains (usually run up the interior of the pole), or both.

The solar panel feeds into a charge controller -- a rectangular box on the underside of the panel, and the controller connects to the camera.

The mains wires would also feed into that controller, not directly to the camera.

Either way, disconnecting the cable running to the rear of the camera removes power. However, there's a 19Ah battery inside the camera housing itself, so removing the cable does NOT turn the camera off.

Just so you know.

[Sensurround @ShamashAran]

@Tim_Denning https://t.co/ro25Vc7KxG

This was your fault.

[Adam | Faithful Messenger @Adam_FaithfulM]

The disciples watched Jesus do many things.

They never once asked Him to teach them to preach, or heal, or perform miracles.

They asked Him one thing: "Lord, teach us to pray." (Luke 11:1)

His answer was about 60 words long.

And nearly every single line means far more than most people who recite it realize.

Line by line. 🧵

[chris richards @eastmamba]

Happy 4th 🇺🇸 #notAI #ykn #historicallyaccurate

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

A doughnut shop called Krispy Kreme. I was driving past when a red sign in the window lit up.

HOT NOW.

I have served three lords. None of them ever gave me an order that direct.

HOT NOW. Not "hot soon." Not "hot, when it is convenient for you." Hot now. A command. From the building. To me.

I pulled across two lanes of traffic. So did three other cars, which told me the building commands them as well, and that I had joined an army without learning its name.

Inside, a woman handed me a single warm doughnut. The glaze had not yet hardened. I had done nothing to earn it. I had simply obeyed the sign.

"First one's free when the light's on," she said.

So this is the wage. You obey the sign, you receive the warm thing. Discipline, rewarded instantly. No lord I ever served paid this fast.

I ate it standing up. I will tell you plainly: it was the softest thing I have put in my mouth on this continent. I understood, in that moment, why the army comes when the sign calls. I would come too. I have been coming ever since.

There are three Krispy Kremes within an hour of my home. I have learned the hours their signs light. The first at six. The second at six thirty. The third at seven. A man who leaves home at five fifty can obey all three before the workday begins.

My wife has asked why I smell of sugar at dawn. I told her I have taken an oath. She asked to whom. I could not answer, because the honest answer is "a sign," and a man does not like to say aloud that he has sworn his mornings to a sign.

But the sign said HOT NOW. What was I supposed to do. Read it, and keep driving? I am not made of stone.

[Dan Hightower @Danhightower]

Daycare calls me. That's never good.

For them.

Daycare: "your son hurt his elbow and won't move his arm. Can you come take him to a doctor's office?"

Me (ex Special Forces Medic): "A real doctor is on the way to you now. I am 6 mikes out. Alert me of status changes."

I arrive at daycare. I locate the patient. 21 month old male. Scene is not safe. I drag the patient to cover and concealment behind a seesaw, away from the other small terrorists in the AO.

I begin my assessment. Blood sweep negative for massive hemorrhage. Mental status: conscious and verbal but confused (answers "dada" when asked for blood type). One breath every 2 seconds. Bilateral rise and fall of the chest. Strong carotid pulse, strong bilat radial pulse.

Teeth and tongue intact no blood no mucus no dip or foreign objects. Eyes PERRLA, negative JVD/trach deviation, C-spine intact upon palpation.

Heart sounds strong upon auscultation. Percussion negative for hemo-T. Abdominal quads normal upon palpation. Pelvis negative for book sign.

Arms and legs negative for crepitus. However, Patient indicates discomfort in right arm upon palpation and supination/flexion of the elbow.

Nursemaid's elbow.

I begin interventions. Supination/flexion technique complete at 1215. Palpable clunk on successful reduction. I write the time on his chest in Sharpie. I tape a popsicle to his hand and tell the patient to suck but do not bite/chew. I write "1 x popsicle (10g sugar)" on his chest in Sharpie.

I reassess the patient after performing interventions then package the patient for handoff to daycare/higher level of care. I yell at daycare over the Blackhawk in my head: "21 month old male!!! Nursemaids elbow!!! Treated with supination/flexion technique at 1215!!! Patient has 1 x popsicle onboard!!"

Daycare: "sir please leave."

Me: "you should have called my wife."

[☩ 𝕁𝕄𝕋 ☩ @SecretFire79]

Recently, a fairly prominent editor of a “Catholic” publication decided to project publicly his disdain for the St. Michael prayer. It light of that and since it is now fair game, I will equally tell you my own disdain for the worthless drivel he espoused in that post🇻🇦

In 1949, a 13-year-old Lutheran boy started hearing devils scratching inside the walls of his house.

Three months later, St. Michael the Archangel spoke through his mouth and cast the demons into hell.

This is the true story that inspired The Exorcist. And almost none of it made the movie.

It started with a Ouija board.

His aunt was deep into séances and the occult. She taught him to use it. Then she died. And whatever answered through that board did not leave with her.

The scratching turned into pounding. Then words began appearing on the boy's skin, clawed in from the inside. HELL. EVIL. SPITE.

His parents called a spiritualist. Then two Lutheran pastors. Nothing worked. It only got worse.

As a last resort, they called a Catholic priest: Fr. William Bowdern, a WWII combat veteran turned Jesuit. He watched the boy himself. He was convinced. His archbishop granted permission for the full Rite of Exorcism.

That's when the real war began.

The boy became so violent it took five grown men to hold him down. He recoiled from holy water like it burned. He screamed in Latin, a language he had never learned. A six-inch image of the devil appeared in red on his leg. And he knew things no child could possibly know.

A priest named Fr. Raymond Bishop kept a daily diary of all of it. That diary is why this is one of the most documented exorcisms in history. Decades later, a man named William Peter Blatty read about the case and wrote The Exorcist.

But Hollywood left out the ending.

For weeks the priests fought. Some were losing hope. Then, on Easter Monday, a voice that was not the boy's roared out of him:

"Satan! Satan! I am St. Michael! I command you and the other evil spirits to leave this body, in the name of Dominus. Now. Now. NOW!"

The boy later described what he saw.

A blinding white light. A man in robes like scales, his hair moving in a wind no one else could feel. A fiery sword in his right hand. His left hand pointing down, to a pit of fire where the devil stood.

The devil fought. He resisted. Until St. Michael spoke one word: Dominus. The Lord.

At that, the demons were driven out screaming. The boy went still and said, "He's gone."

It was over. He was never tormented again.

And here's the part the movie would never tell you.

After it ended, the boy was received into the Catholic Church, and his family was won over too. A demon sent to devour one soul handed it straight to Christ instead. He even named his son Michael.

Michael's name is not a title. It's a question which means: "Who is like unto God?"

Lucifer said, "I will be like God." Michael answered with one act of humility, and that humility is what casts pride into hell. It's what he did at the dawn of time. It's what he still does today.

Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.

God permits evil for one reason: to draw a greater good out of it. That boy's possession may be the only reason he and his family ever met Christ. The enemy overplayed his hand. He always does.

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.

The boy was meant to be destroyed. Instead he was delivered, and his whole family with him. That's how God works.

Share this with a friend who loves St. Michael, or one who needs to be reminded the war is real.

If you want to read the real account: the primary source is the daily diary kept by Fr. Raymond Bishop, S.J., one of the priests present during the rite. The most thorough book is Thomas B. Allen's "Possessed: The True Story of an Exorcism," built from that diary and from interviews with Fr. Walter Halloran, one of the last living eyewitnesses.

[Michael @MCynicS]

@deaflibertarian That's amazing.

[0️⃣BlackBetty ⚓️ @BabyD1111229]

If you thought Flock cameras were concerning, meet what comes next.

A company called Leonardo has developed a system called ELSAG SignalTrace. It broke into public awareness just days ago and is already being marketed to law enforcement agencies across the country. It makes Flock Safety look modest by comparison.

Here is what SignalTrace does:

It clips sensors directly onto existing license plate reader cameras — the same poles, the same hardware already installed in your community. No new infrastructure required. A software and sensor upgrade is all it takes.

Every time you drive past one of these upgraded cameras, the sensor sweeps up the unique electronic identifiers of every device in your vehicle. Your cell phone. Your smartwatch. Your wireless headphones. Your fitness tracker. Your laptop. Your tablet. Your car's own infotainment system. Your tire pressure sensors. Your vehicle's Bluetooth hotspot.

And your pet's microchip.

Every one of those devices emits a signal. SignalTrace captures those signals, timestamps them, ties them to your license plate, and stores them in a searchable database for future investigative use. The result is what Leonardo calls an electronic fingerprint — a unique profile built not from your face or your name, but from the constellation of devices you carry with you every day.

Leonardo announced the ELSAG EOC Plus patent as early as May 2024, describing it as an electronic detection system for identifying people of interest through electronic device signatures. SignalTrace is the commercial product built on that foundation. The patent came first. The marketing came after. The sales calls are happening now.

Here is where it gets worse.

SignalTrace is explicitly designed to track vehicles even when the license plate cannot be read. If your plate is obscured, dirty, or misread — it does not matter. The system identifies your vehicle by the electronic fingerprint of the devices inside it instead. The plate reader becomes optional. The surveillance does not.

The strategic advantage for police agencies is adoption friction. SignalTrace can be pitched as an extension of an existing ALPR ecosystem rather than a wholly separate surveillance buildout. That is exactly what happened with Flock. License plate readers went in first. Video came later through a software update. Nobody voted on the expansion. Nobody was told. SignalTrace follows the same playbook — attach to existing infrastructure and expand what it captures without requiring a new procurement process, a new vote, or a new public conversation.

Who is Leonardo and why does their background matter?

Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions is not a Silicon Valley startup. It is the American subsidiary of Leonardo S.p.A. — one of the largest aerospace, defense, and security conglomerates in the world, headquartered in Rome, Italy. Recent public market estimates place Leonardo S.p.A.'s market capitalization at approximately €29.76 billion — roughly $32 billion USD. For context that is nearly four times Flock Safety's valuation.

Leonardo's US operations trace back to a joint venture with Remington Arms in 2004, became a wholly owned subsidiary in 2008, and in 2024 rebranded from Selex ES Inc. to Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions — a change the company said better reflects the synergy between its brand and the cutting-edge products it offers. Leonardo US has manufacturing facilities in Greensboro, North Carolina and software engineering in Brewster, New York. Its US arm holds contracts with US Special Operations Command and the General Services Administration. This is a major international defense contractor with a direct pipeline from special operations military applications to local American law enforcement.

The Italian government holds a significant ownership stake in Leonardo S.p.A. That means a foreign government — through a defense contractor — is selling surveillance technology to American law enforcement. If the Flock Safety story involves a CIA-seeded venture capital network, the Leonardo story involves a partially state-owned Italian defense conglomerate with US Special Operations Command contracts. Neither of these companies is what most Americans picture when their city council votes to upgrade the cameras on a street pole.

What is ELSAG — and why SignalTrace is more dangerous than it sounds.

ELSAG is Leonardo's license plate recognition product line — the company's core law enforcement technology that has been deployed across American communities for over two decades. ELSAG cameras are what you think of when you picture a standard license plate reader. Fixed cameras on poles. Mobile units mounted on patrol vehicles. Solar powered. Cellular connected. Reading plates and logging vehicle data.

ELSAG is already deployed in all fifty states. Virginia State Police is a documented customer. Leonardo holds statewide procurement contracts in New York, Maryland, New Mexico, Ohio, and Pennsylvania among others, and is listed on the federal GSA schedule available to agencies nationwide. Their cameras are already on street poles and patrol vehicles across the country — quietly, routinely, and largely without public awareness.

SignalTrace is not a new camera. It is not a new company. It is an upgrade — a sensor that clips directly onto ELSAG cameras already in the field and adds a new layer of data collection on top of the license plate reading that was already happening. The same pole. The same hardware. A new sensor attached to it that now also sweeps up every electronic device signal in every passing vehicle.

That is precisely what makes it so significant. The deployment barrier is almost zero. Any law enforcement agency that already has Leonardo ELSAG cameras can add SignalTrace capability without purchasing new infrastructure, without a new procurement process, and — depending on how their existing contract is written — potentially without returning to their city council for approval. Sound familiar? It should. It is the exact same function creep mechanism that allowed Flock Safety to add video streaming, vehicle fingerprinting, and AI people search to cameras that were originally sold as simple plate readers.

The infrastructure goes in first. The capabilities expand later. The public finds out last — if at all.

Leonardo's defense of the system sounds very familiar.

They say SignalTrace captures device signals but does not read the contents of communications. They say it stores data until a specific investigative request is made of the system by an investigator. They say it was designed to ensure it does not infringe on the rights of individuals.

That is the exact same argument Flock Safety makes about license plate readers. It captures plate numbers but not driver information. It stores data until law enforcement queries it. It was designed with privacy in mind.

Courts are still debating whether Flock's version of that argument is constitutionally sound after eight years of deployment and 80 plus cities canceling contracts. SignalTrace captures exponentially more data about exponentially more people — not just the vehicle but every person inside it and every device they carry. If the argument barely holds for plate readers, it almost certainly does not hold for a system that vacuums up every electronic signal emitted by every device in every vehicle passing a sensor.

The data retention problem.

With Flock we at least know the default data retention period is 30 days — though the contract language grants Flock a perpetual license to use that data regardless. With SignalTrace the situation is more opaque. Leonardo's product materials state that all data collected may be uploaded to the EOC server and archived for future queries and analysis — with no published retention limit. How long does Leonardo store your electronic fingerprint? Who has access to it? Can it be shared with other agencies or federal entities? Can it be purchased by data brokers? Leonardo's materials do not answer these questions. That silence is itself an answer.

The retail and private deployment problem.

Leonardo is actively marketing SignalTrace to shopping malls, retail centers, and private businesses — not just law enforcement. Their materials describe deploying SignalTrace in parking lots and inside shopping centers to track individuals involved in organized retail crime. By identifying and correlating electronic devices carried by suspects, retailers can gain critical insights into criminal patterns.

That means SignalTrace sensors could be on private property you visit every day — your grocery store parking lot, your shopping mall, your workplace — operated by a private company with no law enforcement oversight, no warrant requirement, no public accountability, and no notification to you. Your electronic fingerprint captured every time you park your car. Stored indefinitely. Shared with whoever the private operator decides to share it with.

The no-plate-needed problem — and what it means for pedestrians.

The implication of being able to track a vehicle by its electronic fingerprint without reading the plate goes further than most people realize. Deliberately obscuring your plate — which some people do to avoid surveillance — provides zero protection against SignalTrace. The sensor does not need the plate. It reads your phone.

More critically — the sensor does not know or care whether the device it is reading is inside a vehicle or in the pocket of a pedestrian walking past the pole. A person walking down the sidewalk past a SignalTrace-equipped camera is emitting the same Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals as a person driving past in a car. The system's sensors capture signals from whatever passes within range. Whether that includes pedestrian device capture is not addressed in Leonardo's public materials. The fact that it is not addressed is worth noting.

Does Flock plan to integrate or copy this technology?

No confirmed partnership between Flock and Leonardo has been announced. But four things are worth noting.

Flock already expanded into audio detection in October 2025 — their Raven devices now listen for human distress and alert officers when they detect screaming. Device signal detection is the next logical step in exactly the same direction. Flock's product roadmap has consistently expanded from vehicle data toward person data. Vehicle fingerprinting. FreeForm people search by physical description. Audio detection of human behavior. Electronic device fingerprinting would complete that progression.

Flock's Wing platform is specifically designed to pull third-party camera infrastructure into its ecosystem. If Leonardo's SignalTrace cameras are deployed in a city that also uses Flock, the data from both systems could flow into the same FlockOS platform without any formal partnership between the two companies.

Flock's Nova platform already combines license plate data with court records, jail records, CAD records, and commercially available personal data. Adding device signal intelligence to that profile would be consistent with what Nova is already designed to do.

And Flock's entire business model is built on continuous software-defined capability expansion through over-the-air updates. No new hardware. No public vote. Whether Flock is currently developing device signal detection capability is something we do not know. Whether the competitive pressure from Leonardo creates a powerful financial incentive for them to do so is not in question.

The constitutional problem is worse than anything we have discussed before.

The Fourth Amendment arguments against Flock center on the aggregation of license plate reads into a comprehensive record of your vehicle's movements. Courts are divided on whether that crosses the constitutional line.

SignalTrace does not aggregate your vehicle's movements. It aggregates your personal electronic identity — every device you carry, every signal you emit — and ties it permanently to a location, a timestamp, and a plate number. It does not track your car. It tracks you. Personally. Individually. Every time you pass a sensor, whether you are suspected of anything or not.

The legal issue is that public policy often treats each input separately — a plate image, a device signal, a timestamp, a location record. SignalTrace's purpose is to combine recurring signals into a searchable investigative profile. The Mosaic Theory argument we have made against Flock says that aggregated location data eventually reveals the whole of a person's life. SignalTrace is designed from the ground up to reveal exactly that — not as a byproduct but as the product.

The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether device signal collection at this scale requires a warrant. The courts have not yet caught up to Flock. They are further still from catching up to what Leonardo is now selling to law enforcement agencies in all fifty states.

Why this matters right now.

We are currently waiting on the City of Texarkana to respond to our public records requests about Flock Safety cameras already operating on our streets. We do not yet know how many cameras exist here, which features are active, or what data sharing agreements are in place.

What we do know is that the surveillance infrastructure being built across America — of which Flock Safety is the most visible example — is expanding faster than public awareness, faster than legislation, and faster than the courts can rule on it.

The cameras in our area are one node. SignalTrace shows you what the next node looks like. And the one after that. Each addition is sold as a modest upgrade to existing infrastructure. Each addition captures something your government previously could not capture without a warrant. Each addition happens without a public vote.

---

SOURCES

1. Leonardo US — ELSAG SignalTrace Product Page

https://t.co/HmnXStfH3V

2. Leonardo US — SignalTrace Product Sheet

https://t.co/DH3VLIpuOg

3. Leonardo US — Procurement Contracts

https://t.co/D4pBW7clAQ

4. CarBuzz — "Don't Like Car License Plate Readers Invading Your Privacy? It's About To Get A Lot Worse" (June 2026)

https://t.co/hd7j97eqHl

5. The Deep Dive — "Leonardo's SignalTrace Could Let Police Plate Readers Track Your Devices" (June 2026)

https://t.co/HvGl2xbkK2

6. Security Industry Association — Leonardo/ELSAG Member Profile

https://t.co/EzRYrc4MTH

7. DHS — Automated License Plate Readers Market Survey Report (June 2025)

https://t.co/XfJf84A3hA

8. Senator Ron Wyden / Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi — Letter to FTC regarding Flock Safety cybersecurity (November 2025)

https://t.co/etluNhx9np

🎩 Deflocking Texarkana

[Among the Wildflowers @deaflibertarian]

Dear Federal Education and Civil Rights Leaders,

As responsibility for programs serving Deaf and Hard of Hearing students is reassigned within the federal government, I urge your agency to recognize that Deaf education is not simply a special education issue. It is fundamentally a civil rights issue involving language, communication, and equal access to education.

For many Deaf children, the greatest barrier is not hearing loss itself, but the lack of full access to language and communication. Hearing children acquire language naturally through constant exposure in their homes, schools, and communities. Many Deaf children do not receive that same access, particularly when educational programs prioritize speech development without ensuring that a child has a fully accessible language.

American Sign Language (ASL) is the natural language of the American Deaf community and is the only fully accessible language available to many Deaf children. While various signed systems exist to represent English, they are not languages in their own right and often depend upon proficiency in spoken English. For many Deaf students, ASL provides the direct, complete, and accessible language foundation necessary for cognitive, social, emotional, and academic development.
Federal policy should recognize that language access means access to a complete language, not merely access to communication supports or manually coded versions of English.

I also urge your agency to recognize the important role of residential schools for the Deaf. Too often, residential placements are viewed as restrictive simply because they are separate from neighborhood schools. However, for many Deaf students, residential schools provide the least restrictive environment because they offer direct access to language, peers, teachers, role models, extracurricular activities, and school life without the constant communication barriers present in many mainstream settings.
A Deaf child who spends the school day relying on interpreters, struggling to follow group discussions, eating lunch alone, and lacking meaningful communication with peers may be physically included but educationally and socially isolated. In contrast, a residential school for the Deaf may provide direct communication throughout the day, opportunities for leadership, social belonging, and full participation in academic and extracurricular activities.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that placement decisions consider a child's language and communication needs. For Deaf students, this analysis should include:
• Access to a fully accessible language.
• Opportunities for direct communication with peers and staff. 
• Social and emotional well-being.
• Academic achievement and language development.
• The student's ability to participate fully in school life.

Residential schools for the Deaf should not be treated as placements of last resort. For many students, they are the most appropriate educational environment and the setting most capable of providing meaningful access to education.

As federal responsibilities are transferred, I respectfully request that your agency:
1. Recognize language access as a civil right.
2. Protect the right of Deaf children to acquire and use American Sign Language when appropriate.
3. Ensure that educational programs are evaluated based on actual access and outcomes rather than placement labels.
4. Preserve strong enforcement of communication access requirements.
5. Support a full continuum of placement options, including residential schools for the Deaf.
6. Consider language deprivation and communication isolation as significant educational concerns.
7. Ensure that Deaf students have opportunities for direct communication, not merely mediated communication through interpreters or technology. (Cont.)

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. Your weather report is performed as THEATER, and I have become a devoted patron.

In Japan, the forecast is read calmly. Rain tomorrow. Carry an umbrella. Farewell. Sixty seconds, a bow, the nation equipped.

Here, a man named Chip stands before a LIVING MAP, sleeves rolled to the elbow, and delivers the coming of a thunderstorm like news from a battlefield where he personally fought.

"Folks, I want you to look at this system moving in from the west—"

FOLKS. He addresses the entire region as kin. He sweeps his arm and the clouds OBEY HIS GESTURE. He warns of hail with grave eyes, then promises a beautiful weekend with the smile of a man delivering a peace treaty — both within ninety seconds, both with total sincerity.

And when true severe weather comes, America? Chip removes his jacket.

THE JACKET COMES OFF. And the entire state understands instantly: this is now serious. There is a doctrine of sleeves in your meteorology — unwritten, universally read. My neighbor glanced at the television, saw the bare forearms, and said, "Jacket's off. Better bring the grill cover in."

A NATION READING A MAN'S SLEEVES FOR SURVIVAL INSTRUCTIONS. We have early warning systems in Japan that cost billions, and I am no longer certain they outperform Chip's wardrobe.

Last week: hail. Chip stayed on air for hours. No jacket. Sleeves climbing toward the elbow like a rising river gauge. He tracked every cell. He told specific streets when to shelter. MY street. He said its name. A man on television guarded my street BY NAME until the storm passed.

Samurai have served lords for less devotion than Chip shows a cold front.

I watch nightly now. I have opinions about the rival station's radar. The radar is inferior. I trust Chip's seven-day outlook because he tells you when he is UNSURE — and a forecaster who admits doubt is a forecaster whose certainty means something. That sentence is free, America. Give it to your generals.

A man does not ask the storm to explain itself. He watches the sleeves, as his ancestors watched the sky.

Tonight Chip is in the full jacket, laughing with the sports desk.

Stand down, everyone. The realm is at peace.

The sleeves have spoken.

[Frank Brown @FrankBr05713205]

I teach auto shop at a small high school. We work on students cars, teachers cars, students parents cars and some community people cars. We only charge for parts and not labor, so we saved some people a lot of money last school year. This last school year we did 126 oil changes, 68 brake jobs, 85 alignments, 4 steering racks, 22 tune ups, 32 struts, 20 shock absorbers, 4 transfer cases, mounted and balanced 82 new tires, 4 timing chains, 15 valve cover gaskets, 14 thermostats, 4 radiators, 12 in tank fuel pumps, 8 EVAP canisters, 6 exhaust manifolds, 4 mufflers, 15 AC repairs including evacuate and recharge, 8 alternators, 22 batteries, 9 starters and so much more! Proud of those students I am!

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

250 years ago today, a man with four fingers missing from his left hand stood up in a sweltering Philadelphia room and said the words that could have gotten him hanged.
It is June 7, 1776. The Pennsylvania State House. The windows are shut against eavesdroppers despite the summer heat. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia rises from his chair.
He knows how to hold a room. They call him the American Cicero. Years before, a hunting gun had exploded in his hands and taken the fingers of his left hand clean off — and ever since, he has worn a wrapping of black silk over the ruin. He has learned to use it. When he speaks, he lifts that shrouded hand and lets the dark silk fall, and every eye in the room follows it.
Today he lifts it, and he reads three sentences.
The first is the one that changes the world: "Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
He is not asking a question. He is proposing that thirteen colonies stop being British.
John Adams seconds it before Lee has fully returned to his seat.
And then — nothing happens.
This is the part almost everyone forgets. There was no roar, no signing, no leap. Congress looked at what Lee had just put on the table and flinched. They voted to wait. Several delegations had no authority from home to take so enormous a step. Some men wanted alliances and a plan of confederation settled first. And some were simply afraid. They called a recess so the delegates could ride home and ask their people the unaskable question: are we ready to commit treason together?
Because that is what it was.
Every man who would eventually say "aye" understood the arithmetic exactly. There was no legal independence yet, no nation, no army that had won anything decisive. There was only a king with the largest military on earth and a very long memory. If the war was lost, the document they were debating became a confession. The punishment for that confession was a rope.
They knew it. They debated anyway.
The next day, Congress appointed a small committee to draft a statement explaining the decision, should they ever find the nerve to make it — Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Sherman, and Livingston. They handed the pen to the quiet Virginian, Thomas Jefferson. The famous parchment we frame on walls and read aloud every Fourth of July was, in a sense, the footnote. It exists to justify Lee's motion. The motion came first.
And here is the detail that ought to be carved somewhere.
When the final vote on independence finally came, on July 2, 1776 — Richard Henry Lee was not there.
His wife had fallen ill. Virginia was building itself a new government and needed him home. So the man who stood up and proposed American independence climbed onto a horse and rode away before the question he'd asked was ever answered. Adams stood in for him and carried the argument across the line.
He proposed it.
He didn't cast the vote for it.
He never seemed to mind who got the credit.
The resolution passed on the second of July. Adams was so certain that date would be remembered forever that he wrote home predicting Americans would celebrate it for all time with bonfires and parades. He was off by two days. We kept the fourth — the day the explanation was approved — and let the seventh, the day a man first dared to say it out loud, slip quietly out of the calendar.
But the courage was never really in the parchment.
The courage was in being first. In standing up in a closed room, lifting a maimed hand, and reading three sentences that made you a traitor the instant they left your mouth — with your name attached, in front of witnesses, before a single other colony had promised to stand with you. Then trusting that strangers would find the same nerve, and finish what you'd started, even if you weren't in the room

[Michael @MCynicS]

@PolitiBunny Siri stopped talking to my coworker after he told her off. She would only respond by text for about two weeks.

[🩺 Dr. Napervillain Bunny🐰 @Type07Safety]

Dear Virginia Gun owners:

Learn from Illinois residents who have experienced it first hand before your laws go into effect

[DK🇺🇸🦅🇺🇸 @1Nicdar]

Who remembers?

Never forget that over 33 years ago we learned the government will k*ll your dog, shoot your 14 year old son in the back and snipe your wife in the doorway while she holds your infant child.

Imagine being 14 years old, living off the grid in the Idaho woods in 1992.

You’re walking your dog when suddenly he growls and *bang*, the dog is shot and killed.

You look up and see a man in a Ghillie suit with a rifle pointed at you.

Fear grips you.

You pull your gun and fire.

You’re just defending yourself.

This is your home.

You run back toward your parents, only to be sh*t in the back and k*lled before you can reach them.

You never understand what went wrong or why.

The next day, a sniper fires again.

Your mother, standing in the doorway holding your baby sister, is hit in the head and k*lled instantly.

All of this started because your father Randy Weaver, sold two sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent and refused to become a government informant.

They gave him a false court date and set up armed surveillance at your home, waiting for the moment they could escalate.

Randy Weaver was a former U.S. Army Green Beret.

He served in the military before moving off the grid with his family in northern Idaho.

His military background added to the tension for federal authorities, because he was trained in weapons and survival, but it didn’t make him violent or a threat to anyone outside his property.

After an 11 day stand off with Randy and the baby inside with two dead bodies, the government was ordered to pay millions in settlements to Randy.

They were proven to be in the wrong for this deadly power trip.

But that doesn’t bring back a 14 year old boy or his mother.

Stay educated.

Some of our history isnt taught in school for a reason.

[Mike Bales 🫡🇺🇸 @MikeBales]

I'm a Christian who didn't wait until marriage.

I'm a Christian who has battled anger.

I'm a Christian who has put others down.

I'm a Christian who has lied to get their way.

I'm a Christian who has chased the wrong things.

I'm not a Christian because I "check all the boxes."

I'm a Christian because I'm weak and broken and need our Savior.

And with God’s grace each day, I become a better person. 🙏🏻✝️

[Ethan Brooks @alt_w_v_g]

I post a lot about the people I shadow

Never posted about someone who shadows me

He's there every morning before I log on

Every late night when I'm the last one in the building

He doesn't cc leadership when I mess up

Just quietly covers the balance

Every quarter I've come up short, he absorbs the liability himself

Never once asked for anything in return

So I finally looked at the terms

The buyer acquired 100% of the liability

The seller brought nothing to the table

And the buyer still closed

Unconditional

Turns out he signed it before I even knew there was a deal

My analyst tried to model the return

Said it doesn't work on a spreadsheet

Said the whole thesis is based on something he can't quantify

Told him welcome to the deal

Happy Easter

[Michael @MCynicS]

https://t.co/2UAttKUu7Q