90 Miles From Tyranny

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

Tales From the Swamp: How a Republican Senator’s Son Partnered With a Liberal Dark Money Group To Sink Voter ID Expansion

Andy Blunt / WikimediaCollin Anderson • May 18, 2022 5:00 am

A George Soros-linked dark money behemoth has a peculiar partner in its bid to sink voter ID expansion in Michigan—a group of Republican operatives led by a sitting Republican senator's son.

Over the past year, liberal dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent $2.5 million opposing a Republican-led petition drive to expand Michigan's voter ID requirements. Nearly $400,000 of that money has gone to Groundgame Political Solutions, a shadowy consulting firm that a trio of Republican operatives—including Sen. Roy Blunt's (R., Mo.) son, Andy Blunt—privately launched in May 2021, corporate filings show.

The firm, which Blunt first registered in Delaware before expanding it to 10 other states, functions as a stealthy subsidiary to Blunt's public-facing canvassing company, HBS+. The setup has allowed Blunt and his partners, fellow Republican operatives Gregg Hartley and Meghan Cox, to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from deep-pocketed liberals without alienating their conservative clients.

The revelation shows just how far liberal operatives are willing to go to tank the ongoing voter ID expansion effort in the Great Lakes State. In at least one case, for example, the Sixteen Thirty Fund used its Republican allies at Groundgame to pay canvassers tens of thousands of dollars not to work on the issue.

That ploy saw Groundgame reach a November agreement with a Michigan petition gatherer that paid him $50,000 not to work on any "election reform" issue. Cox personally signed the contract, which the petition gatherer called a "scheme to pay off circulators not to engage" in the voter ID initiative. Just one day before Cox sealed the deal, Groundgame received a $56,000 payment from an equally shadowy political action committee, Protect MI Vote, that the Sixteen Thirty Fund bankrolls to fight voter ID in Michigan. According to campaign finance disclosures, that payment went to Groundgame through a Jefferson City, Mo., address registered to Blunt's consulting firm, Husch Blackwell Strategies.

Blunt, Hartley, and Cox did not return multiple requests for comment. All three have professional ties to Blunt's father. Blunt managed his father's Senate campaigns in both 2010 and 2016, while Hartley from 1997 to 2003 served as then-congressman Blunt's chief of staff. Cox, meanwhile, has directed field efforts for the Republican senator, her online bio states.

The three operatives teamed up to launch...

Visage à trois #245

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

Three Additional Bonus Videos:

Health authorities say it’s not due to COVID infections.

Health authorities in Scotland have launched an investigation after a mystery surge in deaths of newborn babies, the second time the phenomenon has been recorded in the space of six months.

A report by the Herald newspaper highlights the “very unusual” spike in deaths of babies, with the alarm being raised after 18 infants died within four weeks of birth in March.

That same control limit was also breached in September last year, when 21 neonatal deaths were reported, the first time this had occurred since records began.

“The neonatal mortality rate was 5.1 per 1,000 live births in September and 4.6 per 1,000 in March, against an average of 1.49 per 1000 in 2019,” reports the newspaper.

Public Health Scotland (PHS) said the deaths could not have been down to chance, while the cause behind the previous spike in September also “remained a mystery.”

The report notes that vaccination uptake has increased in expectant mothers and that COVID infections during pregnancy are associated with a higher chance of...

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #412

Can pee help feed the world?

Engineer Fabien Esculier has never forgotten his grandmother's unconventional approach to gardening -- in fact, it has inspired his career.

Human urine may seem like a crude way of fertilizing plants in the era of industrial agriculture, but as researchers look for ways to reduce reliance on chemicals and cut environmental pollution, some are growing increasingly interested in the potential of pee.

Plants need nutrients -- nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium -- and we ingest these through food, before "excreting them, mostly through urine", said Esculier, who runs the OCAPI research program in France looking at food systems and human waste management.

This presents an opportunity, scientists think.

Fertilisers using synthetic nitrogen, in use for around a century, have helped drive up yields and boost agricultural production to feed a growing human population.

But when they are used in large quantities, they make their way into river systems and other waterways, causing choking blooms of algae that can kill fish and other aquatic life.

Meanwhile, emissions from this agricultural ammonia can combine with vehicle fumes to create dangerous air pollution, according to the United Nations.

Chemical fertilisers also create emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide, contributing to climate change.

But the pollution does not just come directly from the fields.

"Modern-day sanitation practices represent one of the primary sources of nutrient pollution," said Julia Cavicchi, of the United States Rich Earth Institute, adding that urine is responsible for around 80 percent of the nitrogen found in wastewater and more than half of the phosphorus.

To replace chemical fertilisers, you would need many times the weight in treated urine, she said.

Could human urine play a role in making agriculture more sustainable? STR AFP/File

But she added: "Since the production of synthetic nitrogen is a significant source of greenhouse gases, and phosphorus is a limited and non-renewable resource, urine diverting systems offer a long-term resilient model for human waste management and agricultural production."

One 2020 study by UN researchers found that global wastewater has the theoretical potential to...

Official figures show there has been a 67% increase compared to the historical average in the number of people aged 15 to 44 suffering heart attacks, cardiac arrest, myocarditis, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases since this age group was first offered the Covid-19 injection in Scotland.

And further analysis shows this issue is actually getting worse, with the numbers for 2022 so far revealing a 73% increase against the historical average.

Meanwhile, data published by the Office for National Statistics show that between January 2021 and January 2022, double vaccinated 18 to 39-year-olds in England were on average 92% more likely to die than unvaccinated young adults of the same age.

This is either a terrible coincidence or the smoking gun that proves the damage the Covid-19 injections have done and are doing to the population.

It is now well known that a possible severe consequence of getting the Covid-19 injection is that one may develop either myocarditis or pericarditis, or in some cases both. We know this because the authorities have had to admit it occurs, although as expected have downplayed it as extremely rare. This probably means it is much more common than people realise.

In simple terms, myocarditis is an autoimmune disease that causes inflammation of the heart muscle. This inflammation enlarges and weakens the heart, creates scar tissue and forces it to work harder to circulate blood and oxygen throughout the body. (source)

Whilst Pericarditis is an autoimmune disease causing inflammation of the pericardium, a sac-like structure with two thin layers of tissue that surround the heart to hold it in place and help it work.

Here’s how both autoimmune diseases have affected people in the USA according to...