Sunday, May 31, 2015

The cone of silence continues, but if you have any photos of the Salem rally, please forward them to me via email. And, later, an apology.

Met a lot of folks yesterday, friends old and new. I particularly enjoyed meeting American patriot "Old Fart" and his wife. Last night I got more sleep than I've had on any two nights since I left Birmingham. We're headed today to a speech on the boardwalk at Coos Bay, and hopefully I'll get a chance to dip my toe in the Pacific, which I have never seen before. I also cannot thank enough the readers and supporters who pressed gas money into my hands, expressing appreciation for my work and the hope that I will continue. It is humbling beyond belief and I choked up more than once.
The organizers' media plan apparently failed, as we got no coverage from local television and I saw not one local print reporter either. In fairness, my own stop-gap media plan failed as well with arrangements I thought I had for media filming inexplicably falling through. This was a bitter blow, and must be ranked as a major fail of my own. I feel acutely that in my failure to break the cone of silence that the media continues to enforce on the armed civil disobedience movement in the face of well over two years of unprecedented actions by activists all over the country, I have let y'all down. My hope was that this time we could force them to notice. We did not.
There are some great photos out there, though, and I hope those readers who took them will forward some to me so that I may post them here. The computer I am using here in the hotel has no sound, so I cannot review the fragmentary videos of my speech that are coming in. I'll try to do better this evening after I make the stop in Coos Bay. We'll be traveling there shortly this morning and thence on to the Sugar Pine Mine outside Medford for some fact-finding to see how we may assist them in their fight with BLM thuggery.
We'll probably spend the night tonight there and will continue on to Salt Lake City sometime tomorrow where we'll be staying the night at a faithful reader's home. If there's anyone in the SLC area who would like to meet me when I get there, please drop me an email. After that, it's on to Albuquerque to meet Bob Wright and other folks. Keep me in your prayers.
Cone of silence notwithstanding, I'm going to try to ensure that this trip is not a waste of readers' contributions. I am always cognizant that I have a solemn responsibility to get the most out of their sacrifices and those of the activists "behind enemy lines" in the front-line states of the war against tyranny. Keep them in your prayers as well, especially the Liberty For All activists from Washington state like Anthony and Maria Bosworth and Kit Lange as they go back north to get ready for the background-check-free Arms Expo in Yakima on the 20th. Courage does not often come in much bigger bunches than that demonstrated by these magnificent liberty fighters.
(LATER: Please note, especially those of you with whom I have "missed connection" on the way out, that we were traveling through country that for the majority of time I was in an electronic black hole and could not get a signal on my Boost ghetto phone. It was extremely frustrating. This caused me to, quite frankly, "stand up" folks that I wanted to meet. I make no excuses because I should have done more to anticipate and avoid this problem, but we were whippin' the horse pretty hard in order to make sure we made it in time for Salem. My abject apologies to the folks I disappointed. You are right to be angry I failed to do what I intended to do, what I promised to do.)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sir, I wish to someday have the honor to shake your hand. Thank you for your courage, selflessness and sacrifice.
Prayers sent

Anonymous said...

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." -- Helmuth von Moltke the elder

Anonymous said...

Keep on keepin' on.
Nobody here was angry that we missed out on the honor of hosting you and your co-driver.
The ribs, potato salad and other fixin's were delicious. The offer to put you up has no expiration date. The next time you pass near Riverton, WY ....
I had warned the folks hereabouts that you might be road weary and not up for a lot of socializing. There was a bit of disappointment, but no anger. We were concerned for your safety - had local roads closed for days due to rock slides that took out railroad tracks and covered the highway in several feet of debris.
Fantastic speech!
Am sending a little sumpthin sumpthin to help with the expenses.

FedUp said...

There are two kinds of Boost:
The old Boost, run on Nextel's IDEN network, that didn't have good nationwide coverage and Sprint had been actively shutting down ever since they acquired Nextel.

The new Boost, on Sprint's CDMA network, does not roam onto Verizon's CDMA network, and in many states does not have the coverage of Verizon or ATT. It's a pretty good network in the places where you can connect to a tower, but it runs at a higher frequency and each tower has less range than Verizon's, especially if there is something in the way, like a car body.

I'd look into getting on a Verizon MVNO like Tracfone or Straight Talk for traveling.

If you really, really must get through whenever possible, get yourself a pair of original Tracfones with roaming coverage, not Android (which only works on Verizon towers), in both ATT and Verizon flavors.

A cheap way of getting non-roaming Verizon coverage for a year and getting 1.2Gb of smartphone data and 20 hours of talk time:
www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-Galaxy-Centura-Android-with-1200-Minutes-Text-Data-Included-Tracfone-/151371088197

Here's 5 months and 10 hours of talk time, with coverage on Verizon and Verizon's roaming partners, for $40:
www.ebay.com/itm/Brand-New-LG-305C-with-600-Minutes-and-Triple-Minutes-for-Life-for-Tracfone-/151421379015

Another 5 month / 600 minute deal, this one on ATT's GSM network with roaming onto T-Mobile and others:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Manufacturer-Refurbished-LG-800G-with-600-Minutes-and-Triple-Minutes-Tracfone-/151400415990

Anonymous said...

Verizon works almost everywhere. GSM does not.
You should consider getting yourself a Verizon Prepaid hotspot such as a Jetpack. Sold at Walmart. They are prepaid, 4G, just as fast as a wired internet connection and work most everywhere. If you cant afford it and if you want one, reply to this and Ill send you one or for security concerns Ill send you a gift card and you can get it yourself.

Anonymous said...

TheOregonian/OregonLive, AP:
http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2015/01/hundreds_of_gun-rights_activis.html

Statesman Journal, Gannet:
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/2015/02/09/hundreds-gather-outside-capitol-building-gun-rally/23136141/

A

Anonymous said...

Oregon is a liberal stronghold. The media probably conspired to not report anything. Maybe next time, you could throw a 'wet tee shirt' contest. Even liberal reporters find it hard to resist a "nice pair". Or something else outrageous that they would want to cover. Maybe a contest to find the best patriotic two piece bikini, (with some buxom females shoe-horned into them of course). A little light-hearted sex sells in the country. Use it.

Unclezip said...

You'll have the pictures I took by tomorrow, friend. It really enjoyed meeting with you, and your speech was spot on. Be safe, and watch for sharks.

Anonymous said...

Every step in the right direction is one more step for freedom!

Rivenshield said...

What was attendance like? Give us a rough head count.

Anonymous said...

I remember your last 'screw up' where you missed a social obligation or some-such in Ohio(?) and because of that you ended up at Bundy Ranch where your judgment kept those meth-heads out of the area of operations. I thought, 'that was the Lord's hand there' and I am thinking it now.

God bless.

35WD said...

Oregon is, and is not, a liberal stronghold. Depends on where you are. If you are speaking of Portland (Washington, Multnomah and parts of Clackamas County), Salem, Eugene, Ashland and parts of Bend, you are talking the Peoples Republic. Almost anywhere else, where the industry is ranching, farming, timber (what little there is left) and anything else built around hard work, you will have to put some real effort into finding an Obama sticker.

I am, unfortunately, located in the Greater Portland area. When I go to Eastern Oregon to hunt and fish, I do my level best to avoid admitting I am from Portland. It does not make a very good first impression.

There are few bears, cougars and cows in the Portland area. However, the large bloc of liberal voters in this enclave pass laws that adversely effect cougar hunting (no dogs or bait), bear hunting (no dogs or bait), and cattle grazing in the rest of Oregon. As a result the cougar and bear populations are exploding and killing the game populations. We have government employees telling you how to graze your cattle on your private ground.

The only good thing to come from the cougar restrictions is that the ODFW has expanded cougar season so it runs from January 1 through December 31. You are entitled to purchase one tag, no draw. If you fill it, the ODFW encourages you to purchase another.

Don't get me started on the biodiesl mandates.