SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt

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Here is SurvivalBlog’s News From The American Redoubt. This weekly column features news stories and event announcements from around the American Redoubt region. We also mention companies of interest to preppers that are located in the region. The emphasis this week is on pro-gun Wyoming.

Region-Wide

In recent data from The Tax Foundation, most of the American Redoubt States rank well, as usual: 2018 State Business Tax Climate Index

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Likewise, in safety rankings, most of the American Redoubt States rank very well: 2017’s Safest States in America. Note that Montana and Wyoming were dinged for road safety in part because they have so many long stretches of highway with 80-mile per hour speed limits, some severe winter weather at the higher elevations, and so many deer and elk collisions. Otherwise, they’d be near the top of the list.


Idaho

Wolf Trapper Certification Classes Scheduled in Coeur d’Alene

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Some video shot west of Coeur d’Alene: Air 4: Post Falls Dam. (Thanks to D.B. for the link.)

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Reader T.Z. sent news about a company headquartered in Ketchum, Idaho: Clothing Company Founder Finds Out it’s Not a Great Idea to Call His Fox Viewing Customers ‘Idiots’. JWR’s Comment: Something tells me that this company won’t be “getting rich off” many SurvivalBlog readers.

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The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”. Mexican violence continues to escalate and now the Federal government has decided to get involved again. Must be election time.

Eating Freeze Dried Food

The latest from Commander Zero: Real world eating of decades old freeze-dried food. This is a collection of posts where various bloggers have opened and eaten older freeze dried foods and reported on it. If you have old freeze dried foods in your pantry that you are wondering about, you might want to check this out.

Venezuela

The Associated Press has an article (sent in by reader B.H.) that continues the update on how desperate Venezuelans are getting. Drivers of trucks are getting held at gunpoint while hordes of people loot the food they may be carrying to processing plants or distribution points. These truck drivers are only making the equivalent of $100/month and it is now one of the most dangerous jobs there is. Inflation has the price of foods doubling every few weeks and the government is showing its usual stupidity by blaming supermarkets and ordering them to lower their prices. Let’s blame the symptom for the illness.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“The Jacksonians were libertarians, plain and simple. Their program and ideology were libertarian; they strongly favored free enterprise and free markets, but they just as strongly opposed special subsidies and monopoly privileges conveyed by government to business or to any other group.” – Murray Rothbard

Ruger PC9, 9mm Carbine, by Pat Cascio

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The all-new and improved Ruger PC9, 9mm carbine is under review. And this may just be the hottest selling firearm on the market right now.

When Ruger Originally Came Out With PC9

Some years back, Ruger www.ruger.com came out with a PC9, 9mm carbine. However, the one draw back was that it only took magazines from Ruger handguns. While not necessarily a bad thing, many shooters wanted more; they wanted a compact little carbine that would take magazines from other gun makers. Still, the original PC9 was a hot-seller, and after it was discontinued demand was crazy. Used models were selling for more than a thousand dollars, believe it or not.

Demand for PC9

As I write this, in the middle of January, 2018, Ruger can’t begin to keep up with demand for the PC9, not even close. My local gun shop that I haunt has 20 of these firearms on order. However, the distributor has no idea when they will have the guns in stock and ready to ship. Yet, daily customers come in asking if they have a PC9. I will go out on a limb here and predict that, if Ruger can keep up with supply and demand, they will sell a million PC9 carbines this year!

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Economics & Investing For Preppers

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Here are the latest items and commentary on current economics news, market trends, stocks, investing opportunities, and the precious metals markets. We also cover hedges, derivatives, and obscura. And it bears mention that most of these items are from the “tangibles heavy” contrarian perspective of JWR. (SurvivalBlog’s Founder and Senior Editor.) Today’s focus is on some recent predictions from economist Peter Schiff.

Precious Metals:

The Precious Metals Week in Review — January 26, 2018

 

Forex:

Next, at Forex Crunch: EUR/USD Forecast Jan. 29 – Feb. 2 2018

 

Commodities:

Moving on to this as Seeking Alpha: Commodities Recap For The Week Of Jan. 26, 2018

 

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The Left’s Vindictive Databases: For Blaming, Shaming, Defaming, and SWATting

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A key tactic of The Left is to demonize their political opponents. They have become increasingly sophisticated at this since the turn of the 21st Century. Most recently they have assembled voluminous databases on “Right Wing”, “Alt-Right” , and “Hate Groups.” But by lumping together legitimate conservative political activists (such as Tea Party groups) and right to life groups in the same lists as racists, bigots, the KKK, and assorted anti-Semites, they have besmirched the reputations of nearly everyone who opposes the socialist agenda. Some of the latest generations of databases can safely be called Vindictive Databases.

A new article in Wired magazine describes the level of database automation that The Left are now employing: Meet Antifa’s Secret Weapon Against Far-Right Extremists. This article reveals a large database called Whack-a-mole. This tool automatically mines data from Facebook, based on keywords like “patriot” and “anti-Obama” without applying human analysis. Therefore, a considerable percentage of the 400,000 “far right extremists” flagged by this system are surely false positives. And even more alarmingly, the key creator of Whack-a-mole publicly admitted that she has shared some of the database information with the Antifa radicals.

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Letter Re: What Is It That Will Really Help You Survive TEOTWAWKI?

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Hugh,

I wanted to let folks know how deep this goes.

The writer is very prescient in identifying the threat(s). In March, I lost my job. I had worked at this corporation for 19 years, but did not survive the political culture. In early November, I lost the love of my life to a devastating disease.

While I have large stockpiles of beans, bullets, and band-aids – enough to provide for my own family plus many others for a long time – these were two things that I didn’t see coming, and was totally unprepared for.

I’m struggling to deal with the unexpected and life-altering losses. Mentally and spiritually I was blindsided. I’m recovering, but it’s very difficult, and these events exposed a hollowness in my heart that I didn’t even know existed. While I had prepared for every natural and political threat (or so I thought), I wasn’t spiritually or mentally prepared for these events.

Depression? Yes. Survivor’s guilt? Yes. Being overwhelmed with the rush of financial and legal details that have to be dealt with? Oh yeah.

So the author’s advice about preparing yourself mentally and spiritually is spot on. I’m trying to move on with my life, while ensuring that our children are provided for and as a family we transition to the next chapter of our lives successfully. Hopefully, things will work out well. – J.P.

The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods:

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SurvivalBlog presents another edition of The Survivalist’s Odds ‘n Sods— a collection of news bits and pieces that are relevant to the modern survivalist and prepper from “HJL”.

South African Farm Murders

South Africa has an increasing incidents of white farmers being murdered. The government is classifying them as “robberies gone wrong”, but Lauren Southern investigates and asks how you can accidentally rape for days, accidentally torture an entire family, accidentally cut someone’s eyes out? The crimes are taking on a far more brutal nature than crimes in most of the world. In this video, Lauren interviews a crime scene cleaner, but is unable to get answers to many questions because of confidentiality rules the cleaner has in working with the government. This is what TEOTWAWKI looks like when the government sanctions and hides the racist behavior. (Warning: Some graphic images)

Destruction by Debt

Reader G.P. sent in this video from Greg Hunter interviewing Nomi Prins who talks about how debt will be the ultimate destructor of the global system. Global debt levels are at their all time historic highs. Central bankers have rigged the world economic system and are plundering your productivity. The top three central banks hold 14 trillion in assets with a total of about 21 trillion assets in all central banks. They are the primary buyers of bonds, inflating the assets and fabricating money.

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The Editors’ Quote of the Day:

“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone. And when even was now come, his disciples went down unto the sea, and entered into a ship, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them. And the sea arose by reason of a great wind that blew. So when they had rowed about five and twenty or thirty furlongs, they see Jesus walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto the ship: and they were afraid. But he saith unto them, It is I; be not afraid. Then they willingly received him into the ship: and immediately the ship was at the land whither they went.” – John 6:15-21 (KJV)

Preparedness Notes for Saturday – January 27, 2018

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January 27th is commemorated at International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Never again!

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This is also the birthday of the late Helen Chenoweth (born, 1938, died October 2, 2006). She was a controversial Republican congresswoman from Orofino, Idaho.

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As most SurvivalBlog readers are aware, we recently published the autobiography of Rynier Kruger, a Christian missionary in northern Thailand. It is titled: My Thailand Calling.

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SurvivalBlog Writing Contest

Today features another entry for Round 74 of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest. The nearly $11,000 worth of prizes for this round include:

First Prize:

  1. A $3000 gift certificate towards a Sol-Ark Solar Generator from Veteran owned Portable Solar LLC. The only EMP Hardened Solar Generator System available to the public.
  2. A Gunsite Academy Three Day Course Certificate. This can be used for any one, two, or three day course (a $1,095 value),
  3. A course certificate from onPoint Tactical for the prize winner’s choice of three-day civilian courses, excluding those restricted for military or government teams. Three day onPoint courses normally cost $795,
  4. DRD Tactical is providing a 5.56 NATO QD Billet upper. These have hammer forged, chrome-lined barrels and a hard case, to go with your own AR lower. It will allow any standard AR-type rifle to have a quick change barrel. This can be assembled in less than one minute without the use of any tools. It also provides a compact carry capability in a hard case or in 3-day pack (an $1,100 value),
  5. Two cases of Mountain House freeze-dried assorted entrees in #10 cans, courtesy of Ready Made Resources (a $350 value),
  6. A $250 gift certificate good for any product from Sunflower Ammo,
  7. Two cases of Meals, Ready to Eat (MREs), courtesy of CampingSurvival.com (a $180 value), and
  8. American Gunsmithing Institute (AGI) is providing a $300 certificate good towards any of their DVD training courses.

Second Prize:

  1. A Model 175 Series Solar Generator provided by Quantum Harvest LLC (a $439 value),
  2. A Glock form factor SIRT laser training pistol and a SIRT AR-15/M4 Laser Training Bolt, courtesy of Next Level Training, which have a combined retail value of $589,
  3. A gift certificate for any two or three-day class from Max Velocity Tactical (a $600 value),
  4. A transferable certificate for a two-day Ultimate Bug Out Course from Florida Firearms Training (a $400 value),
  5. A Trekker IV™ Four-Person Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials (a $250 value),
  6. A $200 gift certificate good towards any books published by PrepperPress.com,
  7. RepackBox is providing a $300 gift certificate to their site.

Third Prize:

  1. A Royal Berkey water filter, courtesy of Directive 21 (a $275 value),
  2. A large handmade clothes drying rack, a washboard, and a Homesteading for Beginners DVD, all courtesy of The Homestead Store, with a combined value of $206,
  3. Expanded sets of both washable feminine pads and liners, donated by Naturally Cozy (a $185 retail value),
  4. Two Super Survival Pack seed collections, a $150 value, courtesy of Seed for Security, LLC,
  5. Mayflower Trading is donating a $200 gift certificate for homesteading appliances, and
  6. Two 1,000-foot spools of full mil-spec U.S.-made 750 paracord (in-stock colors only) from www.TOUGHGRID.com (a $240 value).

Round 74 ends on January 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry. Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.

Reindustrialization After The Fall- Part 2, By Redneck Granddaddy

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Yesterday, we took inventory of the situation two years after the balloon went up after the fall, and we realized that things could be pretty challenging. However, with charcoal and a forge, the problems we mentioned wouldn’t be such a dilemma. Yesterday, I shared several options for how to make charcoal. Today, I will share how to make a forge and more tips for smithing. So, let’s get started.

Masonry Forge

Boy you are ambitious to look at a masonry forge! That’s okay. Depending on your particular situation, this might be easier and or better for you. A masonry forge cannot be moved, so it needs to be built in a barn or a purpose built smithy. Whatever kind of charcoal forge you build, the thing will have the same four parts– the stand, the pan, the blower, and the pipes.

First, you need a blower pipe. I use black pipe (as in un-galvanized) if possible. This is the same stuff you will find in the wall behind the kitchen sink. Using a one and a half inch or two inch sized pipe is fine. You will need a tee, two caps, a nipple, and two runs about ten or twelve inches long and whatever you need to adapt to your blower. If you are building now, before the fall, twenty dollars at Ace Hardware gets you a two-speed bathroom blower and the aluminum hose. To build, size the base to fit your needs or the availability of materials, but leave access to your blower pipe. I recommend a three-sided box.

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