November 2020 – The Pull Of The Land

The First Thanksgiving Declaration, Governor William Bradford

November 27, 2020November 27, 2020 Richard Barnes

“Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

“Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the daytime, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”

William Bradford

Ye Governor of Ye Colony

That first formal declaration was three years after their arrival, when practices and habits had begun to solidify. However, the very first Thanksgiving was in 1621, most likely in November, a year after their arrival. In that year’s winter, their first, about half their company perished, including their first governor, John Carver, who died in April:

“He was buried in the best manner they could, with some vollies of shott by all that bore arms; and his wife, being weak, dyed within five or six weeks after him.”

All previous burials had been done in secret because they did not want the Indians to know how alarmingly depleted their number was becoming. This was the first burial done openly.

During that year they made a treaty with the Indians, the Wampanoag, which treaty was honored by both parties for decades, until Plymouth Colony had ceased to exist, having been folded into the Massachusetts colony.

From Bradford’s journal:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor [he always wrote in the third person] sent four men on fowling, that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms. King Massasoit, with some ninety men, we entertained and feasted with for three days. They went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by goodness of God, we are so far from want.”

The words of our Lord Jesus Christ certainly apply to the Pilgrims: “Ye are the light of the world”.

Bradford seemed to sense the portentousness of their voyage, their survival, and their prosperity, when he wrote:

“Thus out of smalle beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand [Who] made all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousands, so ye light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sorte to our whole nation; let ye glorious name of Jehova have all ye praise.”

The character of the Pilgrims is worthy of emulation by us all today, 400 years after their arrival.

Most of all, the attitude of gratitude. Entire families had died; many survivors had lost loved ones and friends. But they knew, they sincerely knew, to be grateful.

They honored God and God honored them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

P.S. If you’d like to read about Squanto, please see my 2019 Thanksgiving post (Squanto).

Signing of the Mayflower Compact (see here for more on that event).

William Bradford (1590 – 1657), Governor of Plymouth Colony.

Artist rendition of the First Thanksgiving

The Smartmatic Story: From Venezuela With No Love

November 27, 2020November 27, 2020 Richard Barnes

The previous post told about the 2004 recall elections in Venezuela and the evidence of fraud in such.

The Epoch Times has published a riveting article by Roger Simon, which alludes to those elections. I encourage all to read. By the way, if you want to be informed by well-written stories, especially about the recent elections, I recommend The Epoch Times. The article below is behind the paywall, but their fees are very reasonable and worth every penny.

As you will see, if Mr. Simon cannot independently confirm something, he is upfront about it.

These are times that try men’s souls. We should be well informed. The article below helps us in that regard.

The Smartmatic Story: From Venezuela With No Love

Roger L. Simon

The Epoch Times

Many have debated, and Rudy Giuliani only vaguely explained on Lou Dobbs’ show by saying they had “different theories” of the case, why the Trump legal team separated from Sidney Powell.

Occam’s Razor has a simpler explanation: What Powell is investigating—complicated trans-national computer fraud, involving multiple countries, not just the United States, with immense implications for the democratic system worldwide—takes considerably longer to explicate and prove than the time available to question a presidential election before votes are certified and the Electoral College meets.

This was corroborated by discussions I held with two men in a position to understand a great deal of this fraud that they say originated in and still emanates to a great degree from Venezuela (with a little help from Cuban, Iranian, and Hezbollah friends, possibly others).

These men wish to remain anonymous because they fear for their safety operating in foreign territory as they frequently do.

One of them is a former CIA officer who served in the Directorate of Operations and as chief of station in several countries. The other is of Venezuelan birth and lives in the United States.

In recent years, in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and others, they have worked to “flip” leaders and military personnel inside the Venezuelan and Cuban establishments, many of whom were involved with or had information about the extensive narcotics trade undertaken by those two countries as well as Iran and Hezbollah.

This billion-dollar criminal enterprise, particularly regarding Hezbollah in this instance, was on the brink of an exposure and prosecution that was ultimately ignored, as Politico reported, by the Obama administration on the urgings of the mullahs in order to protect the then-incipient Iran Deal.

Some of what these men told me can be authenticated, some not for reasons beyond anyone’s control at the moment. I leave it to readers to decide for themselves.

Nevertheless, for the record, and to understand what we are dealing with, the following members of the Venezuelan leadership are currently indicted in the United States for narcotics trafficking: President Nicolas Maduro, National Assembly leader Diosdado Cabello, petroleum minister Tareck El Aissami, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, former intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal, and Venezuelan Army Chief of Staff Vladimir Padrino.

To give an idea of the extent of the crime, notorious Mexican “narcotrafficante” El Chapo was said to be worth $1.2 billion. Diosdado Cabello, I was told by one of my informants, is worth in excess of $20 billion! That puts him up there among the richest people in the world. Mix petrodollars—Venezuela, in whatever condition, has one of the richest oil fields on the planet—with drug dollars and you have a lucrative cocktail.

Smartmatic

The two men spoke with me about the origins of the Smartmatic system, which they analogized in some respects to 9/11, mentioning that it was another example of how we tend to underestimate our adversaries, in this case their computer capabilities.

With China and Russia to worry about, Venezuela has been more or less off our radar, but, given the figures above, it shouldn’t be. Their ruling class—not their people, clearly—has enough working capital to do as much damage as anyone.

More than a mere Banana Republic, they are a growing criminal state with tentacles reaching into Colombia and across the Atlantic into one of the major parties of our NATO ally Spain, I was told.

But back to Smartmatic.

In 1998, socialist Hugo Chavez, on his way to being maximum leader for life, changed the constitution of his country, allowing him to serve a six-year term instead of five—with the caveat that if 20 percent of Venezuelans were to sign a petition demanding a recall, an election would be held.

To the surprise of Chavez, such a petition was forthcoming and his attempt to invalidate the signatures failed.

A system had to be invented to guarantee the caudillo’s victory in the forthcoming presidential recall referendum.

Enter Smartmatic, a company founded in Delaware in April 2000 by three young Venezuelan engineers.

January 2004, a Venezuelan government agency, the New York Times reported, invested $200,000 in a technology company owned by those same three.

A Businessman’s Investment

According to the gentlemen I talked with, that money came from a businessman who had been approached by Cuban intelligence to make the needed investment in the nascent Smartmatic in order to improve their technology to the necessary level.

(NB: Since Chavez, Cuban intelligence has had a near total control of significant Venezuelan actions, including the selection of Maduro to replace Chavez when he died from cancer, according to my sources.)

This same businessman, I was told, has ”flipped” and is currently under protection by one of our agencies—presumably the DEA—in a foreign country where he is giving evidence in a criminal prosecution of the Venezuelan government.

We can hope information is also being gleaned that we can all learn from. One of the regrettable aspects of the U. S. government is that our agencies like the DEA still seem to compartmentalize. As far as is known, the Department of Justice is not yet involved.

This businessman is the second to make affidavits on this matter after the Venezuelan military officer cited by Sidney Powell a couple of weeks ago.

Shortly after this businessman’s investment (August 2004), Hugo Chavez won the referendum only to have it denounced as fraudulent by local civil-rights organizations.

This last is corroborated in an extensive English-language interview by Debbie D’Souza of Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan civil rights leader and politician, who has been the subject of persecution.

Among other things, Ms. Corina Machado recounts the formation of Súmate, an ad hoc group that was able to muster the necessary signatures for the recall election in a single day (Feb. 2, 2003), garnering a total of 3 million when only 2.4 million were necessary.

But that was an extraordinarily happy interlude in the tragedy that is Venezuela. A Bolivian friend of mine, a recent visitor to the country, told me he saw starving people in their streets resembling images from the Holocaust.

Ownership

But back again to Smartmatic. Who owns it?

It’s unclear, although it putatively started in the United States (See above.) By 2006 it was used in disputed elections in Argentina, apparently to fix them, and in 2011 it was set up in the United Kingdom by no less than deputy UN secretary-general Lord Malloch-Brown, “who took up leadership positions of [George] Soros’s funds and institutes in 2007.”

Hmmm…

Equally important, a 2006 WikiLeaked email tells this story:

“Smartmatic has claimed to be of U.S. origin, but its true owners — probably elite Venezuelans of several political strains — remain hidden behind a web of holding companies in the Netherlands and Barbados. … The company is thought to be backing out of Venezuelan electoral events, focusing now on other parts of world, including the United States via its subsidiary, Sequoia.”

Beyond the initial three engineers, Smartmatic, and then Sequoia, had at least thirty anonymous investors, including, possibly, a then Venezuelan vice-president, as found in WikiLeaks’ system at CARACAS 00002063 001.2 OF 004.

Dominion

But where does Dominion fit in? Weren’t they the ones with the U. S. voting machines?

Well, in 2010, after working more than five years for Smartmatic, the former vice president, development at Sequoia who was also their chief software architect, Eric Coomer, went over to Dominion Voting Systems as vice president of U.S. engineering.

Coomer is an active participant in something called the IEEE common data format for election systems. It’s all enmeshed.

Responses by Dominion/Smartmatic/Sequoia people have been from deliberately opaque to nauseating public relations. Only true forensic computer research will solve anything, not to mention abandoning computer voting altogether (probably the right approach).

Mysteries abound, as, no doubt, Sidney Powell would agree. No matter what level of Kraken she releases, there may always be more.

One of those alleged by my sources, and one that I cannot check, is that someone high up in the Democratic National Committee is a “former” Chavista.

Sabotaging Our Election

Another surrounds a trip taken to Mexico City on Oct. 21, 2020, by Ambassador Richard Grenell—a man tremendously admired by my sources and by me.

Amb. Grenell went there to meet with Jorge Rodriquez, the brother of now Venezuelan vice-president Delcy Rodriquez (see the list of indictments above). Jorge is a man, we can assume, of tremendous wealth and something of a “power behind the throne,” as is his sister Delcy.

As the New York Times explains, amidst its predictable huffing and puffing about the State Department not having been informed of the meeting, the purpose was to negotiate the departure of Maduro and company, thus freeing the Venezuelan people from their long national nightmare.

It was a laudable goal, surely, but bound for failure for reasons unknown to Amb. Grenell. (I contacted him to discuss this, but he demurred.)

According to my sources, Rodriquez was well aware at that point that his country’s leadership was participating in the sabotage of our election through their computer system.

That made any negotiation moot, but more than that Rodriquez truly despised the United States to such an extent he would want no part of an agreement.

Grenell would have no reason to know this, said my sources, but Jorge’s hatred would have been motivated by more than the usual anti-Americanism. It had vengeance attached. Although Jorge himself could now fairly be called what’s known as a “boligarch” (today’s wealthy Venezuelan businessmen—Bolivar revolution oligarchs), his father was a communist guerrilla who, many years ago, was killed.

Jorge blames the CIA.

As I type this, word has come that Sidney Powell is about to release her first “Kraken,” concerning voter fraud in Georgia. As I wrote the other day, win, lose or draw, her grievances must be aired for our sake, but more for our children and grandchildren.

Something has gone seriously wrong.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are “The GOAT” (fiction) and “I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already” (nonfiction). Find him on Parler @rogerlsimon.

The 2004 Elections in Venezuela: Nothing New Under the Sun

November 21, 2020November 21, 2020 Richard Barnes

The 2004 recall elections in Venezuela is the event former president Jimmy Carter stamped with the Carter Good Housekeeping Seal of approval. He went on to observe future Venezuela elections, declaring the “election process in Venezuela is the best in the world” [sic!].

Millions of people in the land of my birth were mocked and rebuked for not accepting the results, for being sore losers, for harming democracy, and worse. After all, Jimmy Carter had spoken and Venezuelans were said to respect and love him. And they did. And that made the hurt much worse: betrayal stings deepest when coming from a friend.

Given the current polemics, I’ll stick largely to “mainstream media” in their reporting on that fateful 2004 recall election in Venezuela.

You be the judge as to any parallels.

The New York Times (NYT) reported in August 16, 2004, “We categorically reject the results,” said Henry Ramos, spokesman for the Democratic Coordinator, the umbrella of 27 political parties that opposes the government. In a televised announcement soon after the meeting, he said: “They have perpetrated a gigantic fraud against the will of the people.”

“Opposition leaders reached this morning by phone, insisted that the new computerized voting system had been tampered with …. But the O.A.S. and the Carter Center said that the results could not have been manipulated.”

NYT reported on October 29, 2006, “The federal government is investigating takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez. The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, The Smartmatic Corporation, trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations.”

“Smartmatic was a little-known firm with no experience in voting technology before it was chosen by the Venezuelan authorities to replace the country’s elections machinery ahead of a contentious referendum that confirmed Mr. Chávez as president in August 2004.”

Suspicions were raised because the evidence, including unprecedentedly huge demonstrations [rallies] across Venezuela calling for the peaceful ouster of Chávez and the election of his opponent seemed to point to the dictator’s defeat. In Venezuela, millions marched and rallied for the opposition. The election results, with incredible precision flipped the expected results.

The shock was palpable. I still recall talking with folks who were reeling as if from a totally unexpected blow.

It simply made no sense.

I recall mathematicians challenging the results, especially in areas where it was well known Chávez had weak support, yet the voting machines showed him running strong. The mathematicians found “a very subtle algorithm” that appeared to adjust the vote in Chávez favor.

Computer scientists and well respected pollster, Penn, Schoen & Berland, who conducted exit polling, all found evidence of vote flipping based on statistics and thorough mathematical analyses. In the case of the exit polling, which was extensive, the recall was succeeding 60-40. The certified results were the exact opposite: a “statistically impossible” 40-point swing. That is six times the margin of error in terms of vote shift. “We are talking here of many standard deviations away from the expected result. That result is about as likely as Osama Bin Laden agreeing to be on Bill O’Reilly’s show in person tomorrow night.”

Other anomalies in that election were multiple voting sites where hundreds of machines had identical voting totals, all with the exact same differential between the “Yes” and the “No” votes. Another statistical impossibility.

As added insurance for a favorable outcome, pro-Chávez groups cordoned off voting centers and allowed only their voters to cast ballots or physically assaulted anti-Chávez groups.

The New York Sun reported in February, 2007, “Astonishing as it may seem to Americans who believe the contention by Mr. Chávez that he won both elections by a landslide — 58% to 42% in the recall and 61% to 39% in the presidential election — the studies show that since 2003, Mr. Chávez has added 4.4 million favorable names to the voter list and “migrated” 2.6 million unfavorable voters to places where it was difficult or impossible for them to vote.”

Analyses were performed in 2006 and again in 2011, all concluding that the elections were fraudulent. (The generally liberal Wikipedia has a helpful article under “2004 Venezuelan recall referendum.”)

But the Carter Center was unmoved.

The McClatchy Newspapers reported on March 24, 2009 [emphases mine], “The CIA … has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela … and a raft of concerns about the machines’ vulnerability to tampering….”

“Appearing last month before a U. S. Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, Fla., a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his allies fixed a 2004 election recount, an assertion that could further roil U. S. relations with the Latin leader.”

“In a presentation that could provide disturbing lessons for the United States, where electronic voting is becoming universal, Steve Stigall summarized what he described as attempts to use computers to undermine democratic elections in developing nations. His remarks have received no news attention ….”

“Stigall told the Election Assistance Commission … that computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results.“

“Susannah Goodman, the director of election reform for the citizens’ lobby Common Cause, said … ‘We can no longer ignore the fact that all of these risks are present right here at home … and must secure our election system by requiring every voter to have his or her vote recorded on a paper ballot.”

I’ve linked to the article below for readers who might be interested in learning more.

James Madison famously wrote, “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary…. you must … oblige [government] to control itself.”

Hence the almost fanatical care the Founders took to create myriad checks and balances to keep civil government and its agencies in check.

Josef Stalin is reported to have said something along these lines: “It’s not the number of votes that count, its who does the counting.”

Sadly, the Venezuelan people were unable, and are unable, to check on the officials doing the counting, including the programming of the machines.

And that is a problem.

Because men are not angels.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article24530650.html

McClatchy Newspapers March, 2009 report on the CIA analyst presentation.

The 2004 recall was preceded by unprecedented rallies and demonstrations across the country.

Former U. S. president, Jimmy Carter (left) with the late Venezuelan president. Carter’s praise for the Venezuelan “election process” was effusive.

November 11: 1918 and 1620 (Written on November 11, 2020)

November 12, 2020November 12, 2020 Richard Barnes

All the best to our veterans and their families today.

As most Americans know, or should know, this day was once known as Armistice Day, commemorating the ceasing of hostilities of World War I (“The Great War”) at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. It was renamed “Veterans Day” in the USA in 1954.

But that’s not the November 11 I’d like to address in this post.

Earlier today, as I was beginning to put these thoughts on paper, my younger daughters shared a quote by Ronald Reagan: “We are never defeated unless we give up on God.” That further reminded me of today’s topic: The Mayflower Compact, which was signed on November 11, 1620, 400 years ago today.

America’s history, including the constitutions of the 13 colonies, the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the constitutions of the states simply cannot be understood if we ignore the covenantal nature of our founding.

Although 20th century historians began to insist that ours was an “Enlightenment” founding, and by that, they meant a secular founding, the truth is otherwise, and is far more interesting and meaningful.

Some date The Enlightenment around the mid-17th century, either with Descartes’ declaration, “I think, therefore, I Am” in 1637, or Newton’s Principia Mathematica in 1687; however, the Enlightenment is mostly identified with the French philosophes and atheists such as Voltaire. Perhaps we should date it according to most French historians, somewhere between 1715 – 1789, meaning the period between the death of Louis XIV until the French Revolution.

Modern historians swoon over this period, assuring us that we inherited religious toleration, separation of church and state, not to mention our very liberties from this Age.

But “by their fruits ye shall know them”.

The fruits of the Enlightenment are most evident in the French Revolution and its progeny, including the blood soaked South American revolutions of the 19th century, the Russian Revolution of the early 20th, and various and sundry others, mostly characterized by bloodshed, tyranny, and chaos.

For more on the French Revolution see July 14 and More on July 14.

The United States owe their liberties and religious toleration and much more, not to the Enlightenment but to the Protestant Reformation. It is not for nothing that the German historian, Leopold von Ranke, wrote, “Calvin was virtually the founder of America.” American historian, George Bancroft, agreed, “He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.”

To take only one example, the Puritan divine, Richard Baxter, wrote in 1659:

“And where his [the ruler’s] Covenants with his people limit him, he hath no power in the exempt points: e. g. if he be restrained from raising taxes without the people’s consent, if he yet command the payment of such taxes, he doth so not by Authority: for neither God nor man did ever give him Authority thereto.”

These and words such as these were very familiar to the Founders, the preachers, and the people in the American colonies for a century before 1776.

Ambrose Serle, secretary to British General Howe in New York City, wrote to the British Secretary of State in 1776 telling him that the American Revolution was ultimately a religious war. And Serle was no ordinary observer. He knew whereof he spoke. But he was one of many who made this observation. A Hessian soldier fighting for England said, “Call this war, dearest friend, by whatsoever name you may, only call it not an American Revolution, it is nothing more nor less than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion.” A later historian, John C. Miller, who specialized in America’s early history, wrote, “To the end, the Churchmen [Church of England] believed that the Revolution was a Presbyterian-Congregationalist plot.”

There are many such references, including comments from King George himself, who believed that the rebels were Presbyterians.

There is much, much more, but the above is enough to note the importance of the Mayflower Compact.

The Compact was signed by all on the Mayflower and predated the earliest date of the Renaissance by decades, and the more accepted dates, by a century. It was not an Enlightenment document but rather a most covenantal, Christian one.

In brief, the Mayflower was blown 300 miles off course by a storm and, instead of arriving in Virginia, she anchored off the coast of Massachusetts. And that was a major problem because they now were under no one’s immediate jurisdiction. Rebellion and “we’ll-do-as-we-please” began almost immediately to foment within her bowels.

We must remember that of the 102 passengers on the ship, only 41 were true Pilgrims, religious separatists. The others, whom the Pilgrims called “strangers”, were merchants, craftsmen, indentured servants, and orphaned children. This was the primary source of the rapidly rising anarchistic impulses.

The Pilgrims huddled together amongst themselves and drew up an agreement, a sacred “covenant,” making them a “civil body politic” and promising “just and equal laws.” They had already done this as a congregation of like-minded believers; however, they now had 61 persons who did not belong to their group. Hence, their political document which all signed, even the indentured servants.

This document was signed before they left the ship and quieted those “strangers” who were making “discontented and mutinous speeches.” It was designed to stop the impulse of every man or woman to do as he or she pleased, or to succumb to the spirit of every-man-for-himself.

The Pilgrims knew that for their colony to be successful, they needed folks to be law abiding and productive.

And so, on November 11, 1620, 400 years ago today, the Compact was signed.

And, in my opinion, this goes a long way to explaining why Plymouth Colony was long-lasting, remaining faithful to her Compact until 1691 when they became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony. By contrast, the famous Jamestown Colony was characterized by disastrous governments and was even abandoned in 1610, although later settled once more.

Calvin Coolidge said this about the compact, 300 years after its signing:

“The compact which they signed was an event of the greatest importance. It was the foundation of liberty based on law and order, and that tradition has been steadily upheld. They drew up a form of government which has been designated as the first real constitution of modern times. It was democratic, an acknowledgement of liberty under law and order and the giving to each person the right to participate in the government, while they promised to be obedient to the laws.

“But the really wonderful thing was that they had the power and strength of character to abide by it and live by it from that day to this. Some governments are better than others. But any form of government is better than anarchy, and any attempt to tear down government is an attempt to wreck civilization.”

The first words of the Compact are: “In the name of God, Amen.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, “To destroy a country, you must first cut off its roots.”

Let us commit to teaching America’s history aright to our children and grandchildren.