From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle
Liberty, Liberally Volume II - Issue VIII
August 2022
Liberty, Liberally
Speak Freely Song Lyrics by Joshua Fryfogle
What’s In A Name? What does that even mean? I know what the acronym stands for: Republican In Name Only (RINO). But what does that really mean? The Republican establishment has been relegated to RINO status, but if they are the establishment, then that defines the term Republican; it’s irrelevant what we think Republicanism is, only what it actually is. It certainly is no longer literally about the ideals if Plato’s Republic. “Republic” is latin for ‘public affair’, but the Republican party is a private organization. The establishment Republicans, by the simple fact that they are the leadership for decades, means that they are the real Republicans.
republic (n.)
Literally res publica “public interest, the state,” from res “affair, matter, thing” (see re) + publica, fem. of publicus “public”. These new Republicans, that have only recently realized that the Republican establishment is dishonest, “deep state” Decepticons, have transformed themselves. They speak about issues that many of them helped to cause, by supporting the GOP for these recent decades, and then call the establishment Republicans “RINOs”. Still it’s obvious that this new dispensation of “Republicans” are a departure from the norm. So, isn’t it more appropriate to call these newly awakened, philosophical freedom fighters the Republicans in name only? The GOP establishment hasn’t changed. The average Republican has. These new Republicans, if they were being honest with themselves, and if they had a better understanding of the philosophy of freedom that they’ve only recently embraced, would know that the philosophy they’ve adopted is literally called “Liberalism”. The truth is, and it’s obvious from the words themselves, that ‘liberty’ and ‘liberalism’ are inherently intertwined. Those who call themselves Republican today, and who claim that the GOP is infiltrated with “deep state RINOs”, are
Use your words To be heard And love comes easily Trust and share If you dare And love will come to be
themselves the infiltrators. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, or a good thing... only that it is so.
It’s the charity of being friends It’s the knowing that in the end Everything we love depends If we... could speak freely
What about DINOs? You don’t hear people talking about Democrats In Name Only. However, there are many Democrats who have pushed back against the establishment DNC partisans. Among others, Tulsi Gabbard comes to mind. This weird reclaiming of the Republican Party, with the newcomers, with their new ideas, and with a renewed interest in the electoral process claiming to be the ‘real Republicans’ finds no analogue in the Democrat Party.
Use your words To be heard And love comes easily Trust and share If you dare And love will come to be It’s the empathy of being there It’s the knowing that someone cares Unrequited; unaware When we... should speak freely
If anything, the ‘real Democrats’ are more establishment than they’ve ever been. The few who push back on that establishment agenda are regularly dismissed as aberrant. Semantic discord has grown in recent years; it could be said that awareness of that semantic discord is all that has truly increased. People often get frustrated with these types of debates, that boil down to the meaning of the words we use, rather than the topics of conflict. I understand the frustration. As a wordsmith myself, I spend more time than most considering the meaning of words. But writing off any discussion that requires clarification of terms as ‘ semantic arguments’ pretends that semantic arguments are irrelevant.
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Nothing could be further from true. In recent years we’ve seen just how powerful the meaning of words can be, with most of our modern controversies being based on exactly that. Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) is a misnomer. It wrongly represents Republicanism, the private, partisan faction, as being restored by this new group of Republicans who have turned against decades of Republican policies. Then again, Republican is a misnomer from the start. This private organization is not a ‘public affair’. I believe that the improper use of language is a weapon that goes often unnoticed, but that time will reveal to be the ultimate weapon of control. When the people don’t have the common language to communicate their ideas, they cannot hope to reach any semblance of consensus.
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From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle
Volume II - Issue VIII
The corporate media, however, immediately seized upon the fact that the forensic auditors did a ‘recount’ and the results were within the predictable margin of error that is found in most elections. The question is why? Why would corporate media and political powers ignore the body of the report from the forensic audit, and misrepresent the initial recount as being the goal of the forensic audit? Why would all of the corporate press echo this false narrative?
Ballot Stuffing Arizona, A Case Study Written in December 2021 (Note: As a third party voter, voter integrity is something that I am usually concerned with, regardless of the controversy du jour. From 2016 until 2020, I remained open to the idea that Trump might have colluded with Russia to steal the election, as did the majority of mainstream media and partisan politicos. Since Biden’s election victory I’ve also remained open to the possibility that Biden’s election victory might have been tainted, but the politicos and partisan ‘news’ organizations are universally opposed to even considering the possibility. This disparity causes me further suspicion, not less. I worry, as a third party voter, that ongoing manipulation of our elections has increased to the point that it’s not just alienating third party voters, but Republicrat and Demican voters as well. Had I written about election integrity in 2017, R voters would call me a Clinton supporter. Writing this in 2021, D voters will surely assume I am a Trump supporter. Neither is true, and thus the disclaimer.)
Ballot stuffing is a phrase that we’ve come to use, colloquially, to represent a simple, common form of election fraud. It’s been depicted in pop culture, and described in history. It’s important that we take pause and consider that “ballot stuffing” is likely
August 2022
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Now that we’ve clarified what a recount is, what it does, and why, on to the subject at hand. In Arizona, in one county (Maricopa), they’ve almost completed a forensic audit of that county’s 2020 election. I say ‘almost’ because election officials have resisted turning over subpoenaed materials, and continue even now to refuse. Still, a few months ago the auditors of the election released a considerable report for public review. It is many pages long. When they did a presentation before the AZ Senate regarding their findings, it took many hours. At the beginning of that report, as a matter of course, they did some housekeeping. They explained that, while their forensic audit was always about the validity of the ballots themselves, and not about a simple recount of the ballots, they still performed a basic recount of the ballots prior to beginning their forensic investigation. This makes perfect sense, to simply make sure that they’ve received as many ballots as were publicly reported. Considering that the election officials of Maricopa County resisted and refused court orders - and continue to do so even now - it makes perfect sense that the
There is literally a report that is many pages long, that documents considerable evidence that more than enough votes were fraudulent than necessary to flip the presidential results for 2020. Not only were there enough fraudulent votes exposed by the forensic audit to overturn the outcome statewide, but this was only one county. The implications of this are of great public interest, yet the corporate media isn’t interested. However, from 2016 until 2020 the entirety of the media seemed extremely interested in election fraud, even treating it as a forgone conclusion. Now, I didn’t vote for Trump, and never have. I have always voted third party for the Presidential race. My interest in the outcome of this forensic audit is not because I want Trump to be President. It’s because I am keenly aware of the ongoing efforts of corporate media to prevent third party candidates from being heard. As a third party voter, I can’t help but be suspicious of the elections in our nation. My suspicions are not paranoia, nor partisan, but based on my experience in supporting candidates that aren’t allowed a voice by the corporate media. I’ve seen how the corporate media works to control election outcomes. The point of this essay is not to prove election fraud. I am not even asserting that the election was stolen by writing this, but I am pointing to the lockstep
lack of curiosity by the corporate media to look into this novel forensic audit in Arizona. I suspect that, as has always been historically true, ballot stuffing is the most common form of election fraud. That being the case, I believe that ballot stuffing has occurred without being noticed over the years. I suspect it might be systemic, this ballot stuffing scheme. That’s not paranoia, because there are literally laws in place, processes implemented in our elections, that are aimed at assuring public confidence in the outcome of elections in our nation. Of course there are. For four years, we heard the Clinton campaign, along with the entire establishment, assert that the 2016 election was stolen. Ad nauseam, they advertised the idea that Russia colluded with Trump to steal the election. After all that time, the exact opposite has been exposed. A Russian national (note: look up Igor Danchenko; his trial is scheduled for October 11, 2022) was just recently indicted, and this most recent indictment tied that Russian national back to the Clinton campaign. This indictment was the most recent, but two previous indictments, of an FBI agent and a lawyer, also implicated the Clinton campaign in a scheme to cast doubt on the 2016 election. While the corporate media were willing to pursue the baseless claims of Russia/ Trump collusion for four years, they are not curious at all about these real indictments of Clinton cronies. Neither are they curious about the body of the forensic audit report, only the first few paragraphs. Neither are they appropriately concerned about Ghislaine Maxwell - another Clinton associate - accused of child trafficking to rich perverts. C’mon, man.
Author Salman Rushdie Nearly Killed
33 Years After Fatwa Ruling
simply wrote a fictional book, could be nearly murdered, in public, on stage, by a man who wasn’t even born when the fatwa was first declared in 1988. Here are some pertinent quotes from Salman Rushdie that we would all do well to consider:
The author Salman Rushdie first became a household name when his controversial book, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988. His book is a fictional tale based on the life of the Prophet Mohammed. The book was widely banned in many countries, and the leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini, along with extremist, fundamentalist factions of Islam the world over, even declared a fatwa against the author in February 1989.
the most common type of election fraud - but why? Why would those who seek to skew election outcomes resort to stuffing ballots into the ballot box? Why not simply lie about how many ballots were cast? Why go to the trouble to create fraudulent ballots? It’s simple, really. If anyone raises concern about the outcome, if the outcome is within a certain margin of error, then the first thing that will happen is a recount of the ballots. Recounting ballots is quite common, in fact, because it is common for elections to be close - because the two-party system has overwhelmed the process. As a result of two-party dominance over our elections, close races are commonly decided by the simple recount. A recount, then, is not a tool to determine election fraud, except in those cases where the fraudsters are foolish and unfamiliar with finer points of election integrity. No, a recount is simply a tool to count the ballots one more time. This is because human error exists, not because of suspicion of fraud.
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auditors would would want to verify the count before moving forward with their forensic examination of their election. A recount was never the goal of the forensic auditors, who were investigating fraud. A recount is a common tool to correct human error - innocent human error that inevitably occurs from time to time. In fact, when a recount if performed because an election outcome was within a slim margin, it is more common to find minor discrepancies than to not. If it weren’t a close call, then we assume that these predictable and honest errors would not amount to enough to change the outcome. An audit as was performed in Maricopa was forensic in design. It’s important to understand what they mean by forensic. They were looking at the ballots themselves, one by one, looking for evidence that the ballot box was stuffed. Ballot stuffing being the common way that elections have been defrauded, and recounts being a means of determining honest human error and nothing else, the goal of the audit in Arizona was never to “recount” the ballots.
fatwa, in Islam, a formal ruling or interpretation on a point of Islamic law given by a qualified legal scholar (known as a mufti). Fatwas are usually issued in response to questions from individuals or Islamic courts. Though considered authoritative, fatwas are generally not treated as binding judgments; a requester who finds a fatwa unconvincing is permitted to seek another opinion. - Encyclopedia Britannica 33 years later, just this month, Salman Rushdie was attacked and stabbed 15 times, as he prepared with give a lecture in upstate New York. He is fortunate to be alive. He will likely lose an eye and suffer from nerve damage going forward. It’s important to note that, while we shouldn’t blame all Muslims for the extreme beliefs of the few, neither should we paint any group with that broad brush of bigotry. The danger of such doctrines as ‘repressive tolerance’ are as insidious and evil as any religious bigotry. Whether they be gay, white, police, activists, all people deserve to be held accountable for their own actions, and not those of the few extremists that manifest in all sub-groupings of humanity. Hadi Matar, 24 years old, of New Jersey, was the attacker. My heart aches at the thought that an author, who
“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.” Salman Rushdie “The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible." - Salman Rushdie Defend the right to be offended (openDemocracy, 7 February 2005) “Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.” - Salman Rushdie “Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read.” - Salman Rushdie “If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.” - Salman Rushdie “I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it.” - Salman Rushdie “To read a 600-page novel (referring to his on book, The Satanic Verses) and then say that it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.” - Salman Rushdie “How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.” - Salman Rushdie
From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle