Subverting the leviathan press the old fashoned way with a new fashioned twist.

Some seditionist old fart speaking at the July 4th parade in Westcliffe, CO, earlier this year.

It is with embarrassment that I am just now getting around to discharging some promises I made to myself and others on my trip in July out to Colorado. One story that I was fascinated to learn was that of George Gramlich's Mountain Publishing and the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel.

Like many rural places scattered across the country, the "traditional" community newspaper in Custer County, CO, was and is operated by owners with a decided liberal and Democrat party bias. Starting on 4 July of last year, Mountain Publishing was founded to provide a counterweight to this long-standing collectivist monopoly. As the paper proudly declares, the Sentinel is:

A newspaper to serve the good people of this county, surrounding counties and our neighboring communities located along the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. A newspaper with a conservative voice. A newspaper with "A DIFFERENT VIEW FROM THE SAME MOUNTAINS" than what is available now. A newspaper for all liberty and freedom loving citizens and patriots. We believe this is a much needed "CHOICE" in these beautiful, mostly rural, areas of Colorado. The Sentinel (also knows as a Sentry) is a Guardian. He watches over, protects, informs and warns us and others of danger. There are many current dangers to our liberties, freedoms and rights. So, first, we need to be informed, then we need to stand up for and be prepared to protect these liberties, freedoms and rights. Lastly, we need to remain vigilant. This newspaper will be our Sentinel and help us all do that.

And the amazing thing is that this weekly has been remarkably successful, with a business model that can be duplicated, I think, with good results in other places. With a lean and mean staff of just three paid staff and many willing volunteers, when I was there it had built up a circulation of 1100 that reaches well beyond the county, which according to the 2010 census had a population of only 4,255!

Printed on the presses of the nearby Pueblo Chieftan, in July the Sentinel had subscribers in 30 states all the while providing hard copy news and opinion to the local market. As George told me, "We provide a conservative/libertarian voice that isn't available in the liberal-owned papers that usual dominate in most areas. We cover local scandals that otherwise wouldn't be covered." Gramlich added with pride, "We have harnessed the power of the press" to the discomfiture of local politicians and especially the local Democrat party.

Instead of cursing the collectivist darkness, George urges others to emulate their success. "Get off your ass, start your own paper, and make it happen."

George welcomes inquiries from others interested in starting their own versions of the Sentinel. The Sangre de Cristo Sentinel and Mountain Publishing Company, Inc. are located at 610 Main St., Westcliffe, CO 81252. Their phone number is 719-783-3360.

Write-Up of the Canon City Patriot's Day Event in the Westcliffe Sangre de Cristo Sentinel.

 Patriot's Day Celebration : A Great Success

by George Gramlich

The Sangre de Cristo Sentinel

Westcliffe, CO.  April 24, 2015, Front Page

The 240th anniversary of “The Shot Heard Around The World” was celebrated in grand style last Saturday at Veterans Park in Cañon City with music and speeches by local, state and national political figures. April 19, commonly known as “Patriot’s Day,” commemorates the first shot fired at the British in Lexingtion, Massachusetts, in the Revolutionary War in 1775.

The event was organized by Mara and Jack Roberts of the Liberty Action Group in Pueblo West. Sponsors included the Sentinel, Warrior Kit in Pueblo West, and Raft Masters/Colorado Jeep Tours in Cotopaxi. Music was provided by George Rivera and his Fat Chance Blues Band who rocked the crowd from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. when the speech making began.  Joseph Santoro (U.S. Army, Retired) was the Master of Ceremonies for the event and led the audience with the Pledge of Allegiance at 1 p.m.

Speakers included former U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo, Colorado Senator Kevin Grantham, Colorado Representative James “Jim” Wilson, Chairwoman Becky Mizel of the Pueblo County Republican Party, Custer County Sheriff Shannon Byerly, nationally known patriot Mike Vanderboegh, founder of the Three Percent movement, author of the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog site and one of the sources that broke the Fast and Furious scandal a few years ago, and finally, the featured speaker, the founder of the Oath Keepers Organization (Oathkeepers.org), former U.S. Army paratrooper, and Yale scholar, Stewart Rhodes.

Mike Vanderboegh (who was the featured speaker at last year’s Southern Colorado Patriots Club entry in the Independence Day Parade in Westcliffe) energized the crowd with a rousing speech entitled, “The “Law” Versus the Rule of Law” where he expounded on the unconstitutional laws being passed all over the country and especially here in Colorado with our recently passed unconstitutional gun laws including the magazine ban. Near the end of his speech, Mike’s assistant opened a box and dumped fifty 30-round AR15 magazines in front of Mike on the grass. Mike then ended his speech with these words:

“Here’s a box filled with fifty misdemeanors -- magazines that mysteriously appeared in your state yesterday coincident with my arrival. Now these are “politician grade” magazines. We have smuggled hundreds of perfectly reliable magazines into Connecticut and Colorado over the past two years. We call those “freedom fighter” grade magazines -- you can bet your life on them. But politician-grade magazines. . . well, like politicians they are unreliable and probably won’t work as advertised. They are perfect, therefore, for presentation to anti-gun politicians.

What I am looking for here today is co-conspirators in liberty. I am looking for volunteers to take these misdemeanors, present them to the politicians in this state in whatever otherwise legal method that you choose, along with the message -- “This was smuggled into Colorado in violation of your law. Now that you’ve taken possession of it, why don’t you go arrest yourself?

So the alternative is yours -- will you join the nationwide conspiracy for liberty? It is not without risk, but somewhere the Founders will be smiling. And remember this -- THE ENEMIES OF LIBERTY CAN ONLY MAKE YOU A SLAVE TO THEIR APPETITES WITH YOUR OWN PERMISSION AND INACTION. The choice is yours. Do I have any volunteers?”

At that moment dozens of audience members rushed to the front of the dais and picked up every single one of the “illegal” magazines as the crowd roared with applause.

Finally, the featured speaker, Stewart Rhodes, rose to speak. Mr. Rhodes described the sacrifices that our militia members went through in the Revolutionary War and that victory was achieved because virtually all adult males in the northern colonies were militia members. He spoke eloquently of the need for us to support our sheriff’s posse as they represent the militia concept today. He encouraged all citizens to join the posse as it is the final bulwark for freedom and liberty.

The event concluded with Mr. Santoro leading the entire assembly in taking or re-taking our sacred Oath to the Constitution of the United States of America.

(Editor/GG: Next week we will be printing Mike Vanderboegh’s speech in it’s entirety. Be sure to check it out!)

Guest Post by George Gramlich - A III%'ers Last Hurrah

George Gramlich, Managing Editor of The Sangre de Cristo Sentinel in Westcliffe, CO sends us the following report on the Westcliffe Independance Day celebtration with a little civil disobedience twist.

A III%'ers Last Hurrah

Westcliffe, Colorado: On a beautiful 2016 Independence Day is southern Colorado, the final public act of civil disobedience by the founder of the III% movement, Mike Vanderboegh of Alabama, took place in front of hundreds of armed patriots. But Mike was not there.

Four years ago, members of the Southern Colorado Patriots Club (SCPC) decided to turn their section of the annual Westcliffe, CO. Independence Day Parade (sponsored by The Sangre de Cristo Sentinel newspaper and The Wild West Cowboy Church) into an armed protest against the unconstitutional anti-2nd Amendment laws passed by the democrat controlled Colorado legislature and signed by the leftist governor, Hickenlooper.

After a huge fight with the liberals in town, who, when it was discovered that the SCPC was going to carry long guns in their section, wanted to stop it, liberty prevailed after a mass public meeting that was right out of a Clint Eastwood western movie (hint: there were, gasp, many guns in the room). The word then got out in the West that something big was going to happen that July 4th in tiny Westcliffe (population around 400, on a good day). And big it was.

Normally the SCPC entry would have about 25 marchers or so. We knew we were going to get more, but how many, nobody knew. The parade started at 10 a.m. By 8:30 a.m. there was a huge traffic jam down the "Main" Street leading to the SCPC's rally point. And this is in an town with NO traffic lights and in the middle of almost literally, nowhere.

Hundreds and hundreds of patriots from all over the west (and a couple from Alaska) poured into the SCPC staging section, armed to the teeth with everything from AR15's, muskets, , pistols, shotguns, army trucks, jeeps, and even an armored personnel carrier topped with a full auto 50 cal. machine gun ("Ma Deuce"). (Hey, you never know.) The final count was over 500 participants. It was far bigger than ALL the other entries in the parade.

When the SCPC hit the pavement it stretched almost a mile long! Normally about six or seven hundred spectators showed up for the 30 minute parade. This year, around 5000 people arrived lining the streets often 5 or 6 deep. The crowd's reception to the patriots marching was simply overwhelming. Many wept on the side as multitudes of old Glory and Gadsden flags passed by carried by well armed American citizens. It is a day we will never forget.

Two years later we emailed Mike Vanderboegh, founder of the III% movement and author of one of the foremost patriot blog sites in the country, theSipseyStreetIrregulars.Blogspot.com, and asked him if he wanted to come out from his home in Alabama and march with us in the Independence Day Parade and give a speech at the rally at the end. Without hesitation, Mike said yes.

Mike stayed with us for two days. Marched with us. And gave a truly stirring speech at the end of the march inspiring many to become more active in the movement. To say we fell in love with this man is an understatement.

The next year we invited Mike to come to our Patriot's Day Celebration in neighboring Canon City, CO. to give a speech. (Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers was also invited and showed up.) Mike had a surprise for us. Sick with cancer, he drove solo from Alabama all the way to Canon City bringing a mysterious box with him.

At the end of his speech, Mike reached down and opened the box and explained to the crowd that the box contained a whole bunch of standard capacity, 30 round AR magazines that were now banned for sale or transfer in Colorado and that he, Mike Vanderboegh, had smuggled them into Colorado. Mike, the "Alabama Smuggler" was exposed.

He flipped over the box and the magazines fell to the ground in front of him, just off the stage. Dozens of patriots rushed to the spot and grabbed a souvenir magazine. Even a prominent local law enforcement official grabbed one! It was civil disobedience at its best. Mike got a standing ovation.

Forward to this year, May, 2016. Mike called us up and said he had a problem. He had a whole box of 30 rounders that were donated to him and he had wanted to go to, of all places, New York State, and repeat the smuggle and dump civil disobedience meme at a rally there. But he was too sick with cancer and couldn't do it. He said, "Do you guys have any ideas?" You bet we did.

A few weeks later a box from Alabama mysteriously arrives in Westcliffe, CO. In it were dozens of signed 30 rounders with the wording, "MBV III. Smuggler Prod. Co.". A beautiful sight it was.

So on Independence Day, July 4th, 2016, in Westcliffe, Co., Mike Vanderboegh, through his box of magazines, spoke to us one last time. With hundreds of patriots gathered around just before we began our march, the crowd was told the story of how the mags got there, Mike's cancer status, and a little history of his efforts here in Colorado. And with that done, the box was opened, and the contents poured on the ground.

A cheer went up and the crowd descended on the "Smuggler Prod. Co."'s box contents with many holding the grabbed mag up in the air with the righteous smile on their faces of true, Mike V. style, civil disobedience. I can see Mike smiling in his bed. We will remember this moment forever.

Thank you Mike. You have honored us again with your dedication and perseverance in pursuing a restoration of a free America. Even from your death bed.

We will walk with you again, Mike.

And we WILL prevail.

God Bless you, Sir.

And God Bless our Beloved America.

A New Sentinel on the Wall. "We ain't going nowhere."

George Gramlich, the Managing Editor of the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel in Westcliffe, CO, and his friends have been doing a bang-up job of reclaiming their local news market from the collectivists who have dominated it for the past half-century or so. I get his paper hard-copy in my PO Box to keep up on events, including the latest row from the lefties who run the opposing collectivist rag and their wailing over having lost the status of "paper-of-record" to the Sentinel. I spotted this article by George about the secret of their success and I pass it on to you as a template from doing the same thing in your areas of operation.

The Sentinel: Why, How and Now

by George Gramlich, Managing Editor

(This is a speech I prepared to give at the special Commissioners meeting last week. This meeting was set up for citizens to comment on the awarding of the contract to print the County's legal notices in the Sentinel (we were low bidder). There wasn't enough time to give it, but we thought our readers would appreciate it.)

I would like to spend a minute on why the Sentinel was started. Custer County is like hundreds, maybe thousands, of predominantly Christian conservative areas in our country that have a liberal newspaper monopoly. Why this has occurred in America is an interesting subject, but it is what it is. To alleviate this situation, some of us got together two years ago and talked about starting a conservative newspaper, with Christian underpinnings, for our county so that the majority of people living here would at least have a conservative alternative.

During our research phase, we realized that the 100 year old local community newspaper model wasn't going to cut it. We saw there was a reason that print newspapers were losing readership all over the country. They were boring and simply uninformative. Bowling scores, senior citizen lunch menus and white-washed, let's-get-along local news articles weren't cutting it anymore with the advent of the internet, talk radio and satellite TV. And we saw that for a vast majority of these liberal papers, it was Profit before Service.

We knew innovation was the key. So we built a new, fresh, business model based on a paid production and sales staff, voluntary citizen/taxpayer reporters, a commitment to reporting real community, Colorado, national and international news, an open and honest conservative viewpoint, a dramatic use of photo-journalism, and a utilization of the internet's enormous, honest, news sources that refuse to white wash the news like the traditional news outlets like Reuters and AP. It was time for a change and guiding our entire effort is the principle: Service Before Profit.

Being completely new to the business it was a rough start, but after only 18 months the Sentinel has become one of the most successful new community based weekly newspapers in recent Colorado history. We have met or exceeded every business goal and objective including readership and revenue.

Our volunteer, citizen reporters have simply been outstanding. Their reporting on local issues is fresh, hard hitting and written from the perspective of a fellow taxpayer neighbor rather than a paid reporter who doesn't want to make waves so that the paper doesn't lose subscribers. Boring, stylized, uninformative writing it is not.

Our reporting on our local government entities, the County, Westcliffe, and Silver Cliff, and Special Districts like the Clinic and Custer County Central School is extremely detailed, factual and is not afraid to report on controversial and contentious items. It is second to none in Colorado. Walk thru our school here and you can see dozens of the Sentinel articles and photo features plastered all over. That is community commitment. Service Before Profit.

These brave and dedicated reporters have informed the public, that even in Happy Valley here, there are problems and issues that have been buried for years due to a press that refuses to expose it.

Without these citizen reporters the public would have not have known of the absolute disaster that the clinic has been with its simply incredible mismanagement and poor vision that has resulted in untold wasted dollars and human agony.

Without these citizen reporters the public wouldn't have know that, in an otherwise excellent school here in Custer County, that the school is failing in its primary mission - that of academic performance. And failing badly.

Without these citizen reporters, the public wouldn't have known that the newest holy grail of liberalism, marijuana, legal and illegal, has literally created a war zone in the Copper Gulch area with Cuban and Mexican cartels, Texas biker gangs, and local thugs terrorizing the local citizens with gunfire and threats.

We are proud of our paper. After only 18 months, take any other local community newspaper and lay it side by side with ours. Our visual presentation, article mix, detailed and honest local reporting, our outstanding photo-journalism, our internet sourced Colorado, state, national, international, veterans, business, economic, political, and religious news outshines any paper I have seen.

Our non-local news sources are some of the finest available, including CNS News and The Daily Caller on general news; Zero Hedge, Karl Denninger, and The Mises Institute on business and economic news; Colorado Peak Politics, WatchDog.Org, The Blaze and Allen West on political news; nationals level evangelicals Bill Wilson and Paster Jim Modlish on religion and Colorado Chalkbeat and EAG News on the educational scene. I could go on but there are dozens more. People just don't read our paper and throw it away, they study it. That is called "content".

So we now have two newspapers in our community, a liberal one and a conservative one. It has resulted in a dramatically more informed public, which has been sorely lacking here in Happy Valley. It is a good thing.

A just a few quick points.

Some of the liberals here today who will talk are simply using this sealed bid, common sense, decision by Commissioners Kit Shy and Lynn Attebury as a foil to simply bash the Sentinel. They don't like our Clinic reporting, they don't like our school academic reporting, they think pot will save the world and saying the word "God" or "Jesus" offends their little hearts. And the list goes on. These aren't "concerned citizens". These are people who refuse to accept any opinion except their own, biased progressive viewpoint and wish to suppress any speech or press that doesn't agree with their views. And it makes them very angry to even have an alternate view available in the valley.

Our liberal friends seem outraged when we criticize their public actions. They immediately cry that they are being personally "attacked" when we are simply informing the citizens of their actions. It is a classic liberal technique to avoid responsibility by claiming that the criticism is personal.

Our liberal friends also seem to take offense when the Sentinel uses common, time-proven techniques of humor, parody, sarcasm, comedy and hyperbole to make our points. It seems it is ok for liberals to use it, but when applied to them, it is "offensive". Folks, if things like calling Governor Hickenlooper, Governor Chickenlooper, is offensive and out-of-line, you better stop taking yourself so seriously. I know it is hard for liberals to laugh, but come on, grow up a bit and appreciate some cutting humor.

There seems to be some confusion about how much money the county and our taxpayers will save with the Sentinels winning low bid on the public notices. There are two types of county based legal notices, statutory and non-statutory. Statutory is where a government entity pays (e.g., the county for a Treasurers Report) and non-statutory is where the county does the publishing but the notice is eventually payed by the taxpayers as the county will bill them (e.g., foreclosures). There is a different rate charged for each one.

If we use the figures provided by the Tribune for 2014, that of $3,745 for statutory and $11,534 for non-statutory, and the Sentinels low bids to compare (in each case, about a third of the Tribune's bid), the savings for 2014 would have been $2397 for statutory and $8074 for non-statutory, for a total savings of $10,471 for the county and our fellow taxpayers. Note that the Statutory notices are paid by county tax dollars and the Non-Statutory notices are paid by us citizens and businesses after the County bills us. Whether it is tax dollars or right out of our own pockets, it is still our money.

Also, it has been recently alleged that the Sentinel is overcharging the county because we are printing in larger type than what the bid specified. We have stated publicly and even in print last week, that we will be printing many of the notices in larger type so that the public can actually read them, at NO extra charge to the county or the taxpayers. For you Common Core journalists, we are billing at the bid print size and publishing at a larger print size. We have even revamped our website to post the notices on there for Free so if the thought of spending 50 cents on the Sentinel is a moral or ethical crime in your universe, you don't have to do it.

And finally, I want our liberal friends to hear this loud and clear. You can disparage our newspaper, you can mock the efforts of our outstanding volunteer citizen reporters, you can directly infer that my partner, Mary Seifert, one of the most honest and caring women I have ever met in my life, has committed crimes because she sold some real estate to her life long friend, Commissioner Kit Shy over the last decade or so, you can attempt to destroy our Constitution, you can try to take our guns and right to defend ourselves away, you can mock our papers Christian viewpoint and conservative values, you can even ridicule our God. And you know what? We will still pray for you.

With God's help, the Sentinel is here to stay, my liberal friends, so you had better get use to it, cause we ain't going nowhere.