Michael joseph mikey teutul

Trade with me

2024.05.14 01:11 Illustrious-Taro-648 Trade with me

Unreleased ids - [ ] Masšh & Adam Port feat. Ninae - All I Got (Original Mix) - [ ] Antdot & Maz - Corpo e Canção - [ ] Minha Prece (Soldera & Crazt Remix) - [ ] Tough Love (Betical Remix) - [ ] Antony P X Julie - Welcome To The Diamond Aura (C.Sorrentino & Tom S) - [ ] KIKO FRANCO feat. Moser Dyve - Last Night (Extended Mix) - [ ] Mayra Andrade - Terra da Saudade (Tato Remix) - [ ] Pablo Fierro - Kababo (Unreleased Version) - [ ] Daughter Of The Sun - Ankhoi Remix - [ ] Vertigo (Carlita Remix) - ANOTR, Abel Balder - [ ] Rolling Arodes - [ ] Pontos de Exclamação (VXSION Remix) - [ ] Marasi - Opera (Original Mix) - [ ] Nostalgia - Smack That - [ ] O Amor Te Dá - VXSION & Sone - [ ] Kimotion - SHIK SHAK SHOK (master 2) - [ ] Adieu X Amana (Maz Unreleased) (RBY edit) - [ ] Donna Summer - I Feel Love (VXSION Edit). - [ ] VXSION - Ouakam - [ ] VXSION - Walking on a Dream - [ ] Maz & Antdot featuring Jéssica Gaspar - Brisa [Sounds Huge V3 24 44] - [ ] Choplife Soundsystem & Mr. Eazi & Ami Faku - Wena (Maz (BR) Remix) - [ ] Maz (BR) x Stromae - Povoada x Alors On Danse (Flex Diamond Edit) - [ ] Curol, VXSION - I Really Love (Extended) [Nature Recordings] - [ ] Phonique - BAKKA(BR) - Guaraná (Original Mix) - [ ] TE AMO - LAZARE EDIT - [ ] Bun Xapa - Thibang Thibang - [ ] Bakka (BR), Berimbouse - A Hora é Agora Ft. Rafa (Original Mix) - [ ] Father Stretch - CS Remix - [ ] Davido - FEEL (Raffa Guido Remix) Master - [ ] Bobby Caldwell - What You Won't Do For Love (VICTHOR Remix) - [ ] Michael Jackson - Beat it (Shimza Remix) - [ ] Milky Chance - Stolen Dance (VXSION Extended Remix) V5 - [ ] Nick Morgan - Take My Heart - [ ] Candi Staton - Hallelujah Anyway (Larse VIP Edit) - [ ] Viva La Vida (Choujaa & Epsylon Remix) - [ ] Moojo - I Want Your Soul - [ ] Do For Love (Moojo & REMIND)) - [ ] Malive, Luiza Gogoia, Morgado - Quintal - [ ] Classy 101 - Maz & VXSION - [ ] A kele nat - &friends - [ ] Beach house - Marten Lou - [ ] La travesia - Samm touch - [ ] Where r u now - &friends remix - [ ] Jackie Brown - &friends remix - [ ] Downstream - Lazare - [ ] 7 Days (Alex Wann X Sparrow & Barbossa Remix) - [ ] Moojo ft Gabsy - Ze Roberto v final - [ ] Moojo, AWEN - Giant (Unreleased) - [ ] Ilanga - &ME (Unreleased) - [ ] Busta, Black Coffee - Mamakusa - [ ] Maz - Ndaciii - [ ] Maz - Emoriô - [ ] 6A 123 Donna Summer - I Feel Love (VXSION Edit). - [ ] Pippi Ciez - Sinnerman (Original Mix V1A) - [ ] Moojo , Carlita - Havana MASTER - [ ] Solomun - Never Sleep Again (Keinemusik Remix) - [ ] 04 AMERICAN BOY (BETICAL EDIT) - [ ] Nitefreak-Ezizweni - [ ] Moojo - Lisboa ( MIX MASTER VERSION ) - [ ] Rui Da Silva - Touch Me (Peace Control Remix) - [ ] Eran Hersh & Marasi - Sweet Dreams - [ ] &Me - Slaves - [ ] Black Coffee - Juju (Chaleee & Sammi Ferrer Escalation Remix) - [ ] Drake Feat Black Coffee - Get It Together (Samson Remix) - [ ] Simian Mobile Disco, Deep Throat Choir, &ME - Caught In A Wave (&ME Remix) - [ ] Toto - Africa (Rampa Edit) - [ ] Billie Eillish - Everything I Wanted (Marten Lou Remix) - [ ] Ikerfoxx (ES) - Superstar [V2] - [ ] Rihanna - Take Care (Moojo Nissa La Bella Edit) - [ ] Nightcall - Arodes - [ ] Sade - Kiss Of Life ( Peace Control Remix ) - [ ] Ivyson - Girassol (Tato Remix) - [ ] SOA - Vou Morar No Mar (Tato Remix) - [ ] Armandinho - Outra Vida (Moser Edit) - [ ] Moojo - Ms. Jackson - [ ] Home - CamelPhat (Samm Ajna Remix) - [ ] Caiiro & Moojo - Here We Are - [ ] Bottom - Mano, Ajna - [ ] Moon J, Nani - Quema - [ ] Yawanawa Sina Vaishu - Alok ( Maz Remix ) - [ ] Essamina - Victor Alc - [ ] Boogie Gasoline - Mochakk - [ ] Sawa Sawaa - Rampa, Msaki - [ ] Lana Del Rey - Video Games (Joris Voorn Edit) - [ ] Pippi Ciez - Sinnerman (Original Mix V1A - [ ] Wena - Maz Remix - [ ] KURA - Sentir Saudade (GUAPO & Antdot Remix) - [ ] Beyond Us(Alex Wann Remix) - [ ] Holy Ghost (SANTIAGO & THE KiDDO EXTENDED EDIT) - [ ] Bob Marley - Is This Love (DSF's Believe In U Edit) - [ ] Caiiro - Son Of Mar MP3 RIP2024 - [ ] Bo Bom - Moeaike - [ ] Manu Chao - Me Gustas Tu (Adam Valey, LALISA Edit) - [ ] In and Out of Love (Rivo Remix) - [ ] Would I Lie - [ ] Maz & VXSION feat. Temper Trap - Amana's Sweet Disposition (Claes Sommer Private Edit) - [ ] Chris Baker - Ride (Mind Against Remix) - [ ] Hoax (BE) x Hoodia - Dune (Paul's Dream) - [ ] GO LOW RAMPA EDIT - [ ] ǍSIR (BR) - Artemas - I Like The Way You Kiss Me - [ ] &friends, Joseph (CH) - Jackie Brown - [ ] Miracle (&ME edit) RIP - [ ] Palane & Badbwoy - Les Saints (Extended Mix) - [ ] Ajna & Nomvula SA - Astro (FINAL) - [ ] Phill Collins - In The Air Tonight (Marasi Edit) - [ ] Peaty, Soldera - Niafunke - [ ] Pull Out The Fire - Kashovski - [ ] Nico & Vinz - Am I Wrong (Bask & Sabo Limit Edit) - [ ] Tal Fussman - North - [ ] Cut It For Me - &ME - [ ] Skepta - Bullet From A Gun (Colyn Private Edit) - [ ] Paradise - Samm - [ ] Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence (Will Clarke Remix)
submitted by Illustrious-Taro-648 to AfroHouseUnreleased [link] [comments]


2024.05.14 01:11 Illustrious-Taro-648 Trade with me

Unreleased ids - [ ] Masšh & Adam Port feat. Ninae - All I Got (Original Mix) - [ ] Antdot & Maz - Corpo e Canção - [ ] Minha Prece (Soldera & Crazt Remix) - [ ] Tough Love (Betical Remix) - [ ] Antony P X Julie - Welcome To The Diamond Aura (C.Sorrentino & Tom S) - [ ] KIKO FRANCO feat. Moser Dyve - Last Night (Extended Mix) - [ ] Mayra Andrade - Terra da Saudade (Tato Remix) - [ ] Pablo Fierro - Kababo (Unreleased Version) - [ ] Daughter Of The Sun - Ankhoi Remix - [ ] Vertigo (Carlita Remix) - ANOTR, Abel Balder - [ ] Rolling Arodes - [ ] Pontos de Exclamação (VXSION Remix) - [ ] Marasi - Opera (Original Mix) - [ ] Nostalgia - Smack That - [ ] O Amor Te Dá - VXSION & Sone - [ ] Kimotion - SHIK SHAK SHOK (master 2) - [ ] Adieu X Amana (Maz Unreleased) (RBY edit) - [ ] Donna Summer - I Feel Love (VXSION Edit). - [ ] VXSION - Ouakam - [ ] VXSION - Walking on a Dream - [ ] Maz & Antdot featuring Jéssica Gaspar - Brisa [Sounds Huge V3 24 44] - [ ] Choplife Soundsystem & Mr. Eazi & Ami Faku - Wena (Maz (BR) Remix) - [ ] Maz (BR) x Stromae - Povoada x Alors On Danse (Flex Diamond Edit) - [ ] Curol, VXSION - I Really Love (Extended) [Nature Recordings] - [ ] Phonique - BAKKA(BR) - Guaraná (Original Mix) - [ ] TE AMO - LAZARE EDIT - [ ] Bun Xapa - Thibang Thibang - [ ] Bakka (BR), Berimbouse - A Hora é Agora Ft. Rafa (Original Mix) - [ ] Father Stretch - CS Remix - [ ] Davido - FEEL (Raffa Guido Remix) Master - [ ] Bobby Caldwell - What You Won't Do For Love (VICTHOR Remix) - [ ] Michael Jackson - Beat it (Shimza Remix) - [ ] Milky Chance - Stolen Dance (VXSION Extended Remix) V5 - [ ] Nick Morgan - Take My Heart - [ ] Candi Staton - Hallelujah Anyway (Larse VIP Edit) - [ ] Viva La Vida (Choujaa & Epsylon Remix) - [ ] Moojo - I Want Your Soul - [ ] Do For Love (Moojo & REMIND)) - [ ] Malive, Luiza Gogoia, Morgado - Quintal - [ ] Classy 101 - Maz & VXSION - [ ] A kele nat - &friends - [ ] Beach house - Marten Lou - [ ] La travesia - Samm touch - [ ] Where r u now - &friends remix - [ ] Jackie Brown - &friends remix - [ ] Downstream - Lazare - [ ] 7 Days (Alex Wann X Sparrow & Barbossa Remix) - [ ] Moojo ft Gabsy - Ze Roberto v final - [ ] Moojo, AWEN - Giant (Unreleased) - [ ] Ilanga - &ME (Unreleased) - [ ] Busta, Black Coffee - Mamakusa - [ ] Maz - Ndaciii - [ ] Maz - Emoriô - [ ] 6A 123 Donna Summer - I Feel Love (VXSION Edit). - [ ] Pippi Ciez - Sinnerman (Original Mix V1A) - [ ] Moojo , Carlita - Havana MASTER - [ ] Solomun - Never Sleep Again (Keinemusik Remix) - [ ] 04 AMERICAN BOY (BETICAL EDIT) - [ ] Nitefreak-Ezizweni - [ ] Moojo - Lisboa ( MIX MASTER VERSION ) - [ ] Rui Da Silva - Touch Me (Peace Control Remix) - [ ] Eran Hersh & Marasi - Sweet Dreams - [ ] &Me - Slaves - [ ] Black Coffee - Juju (Chaleee & Sammi Ferrer Escalation Remix) - [ ] Drake Feat Black Coffee - Get It Together (Samson Remix) - [ ] Simian Mobile Disco, Deep Throat Choir, &ME - Caught In A Wave (&ME Remix) - [ ] Toto - Africa (Rampa Edit) - [ ] Billie Eillish - Everything I Wanted (Marten Lou Remix) - [ ] Ikerfoxx (ES) - Superstar [V2] - [ ] Rihanna - Take Care (Moojo Nissa La Bella Edit) - [ ] Nightcall - Arodes - [ ] Sade - Kiss Of Life ( Peace Control Remix ) - [ ] Ivyson - Girassol (Tato Remix) - [ ] SOA - Vou Morar No Mar (Tato Remix) - [ ] Armandinho - Outra Vida (Moser Edit) - [ ] Moojo - Ms. Jackson - [ ] Home - CamelPhat (Samm Ajna Remix) - [ ] Caiiro & Moojo - Here We Are - [ ] Bottom - Mano, Ajna - [ ] Moon J, Nani - Quema - [ ] Yawanawa Sina Vaishu - Alok ( Maz Remix ) - [ ] Essamina - Victor Alc - [ ] Boogie Gasoline - Mochakk - [ ] Sawa Sawaa - Rampa, Msaki - [ ] Lana Del Rey - Video Games (Joris Voorn Edit) - [ ] Pippi Ciez - Sinnerman (Original Mix V1A - [ ] Wena - Maz Remix - [ ] KURA - Sentir Saudade (GUAPO & Antdot Remix) - [ ] Beyond Us(Alex Wann Remix) - [ ] Holy Ghost (SANTIAGO & THE KiDDO EXTENDED EDIT) - [ ] Bob Marley - Is This Love (DSF's Believe In U Edit) - [ ] Caiiro - Son Of Mar MP3 RIP2024 - [ ] Bo Bom - Moeaike - [ ] Manu Chao - Me Gustas Tu (Adam Valey, LALISA Edit) - [ ] In and Out of Love (Rivo Remix) - [ ] Would I Lie - [ ] Maz & VXSION feat. Temper Trap - Amana's Sweet Disposition (Claes Sommer Private Edit) - [ ] Chris Baker - Ride (Mind Against Remix) - [ ] Hoax (BE) x Hoodia - Dune (Paul's Dream) - [ ] GO LOW RAMPA EDIT - [ ] ǍSIR (BR) - Artemas - I Like The Way You Kiss Me - [ ] &friends, Joseph (CH) - Jackie Brown - [ ] Miracle (&ME edit) RIP - [ ] Palane & Badbwoy - Les Saints (Extended Mix) - [ ] Ajna & Nomvula SA - Astro (FINAL) - [ ] Phill Collins - In The Air Tonight (Marasi Edit) - [ ] Peaty, Soldera - Niafunke - [ ] Pull Out The Fire - Kashovski - [ ] Nico & Vinz - Am I Wrong (Bask & Sabo Limit Edit) - [ ] Tal Fussman - North - [ ] Cut It For Me - &ME - [ ] Skepta - Bullet From A Gun (Colyn Private Edit) - [ ] Paradise - Samm - [ ] Depeche Mode - Enjoy The Silence (Will Clarke Remix)
submitted by Illustrious-Taro-648 to unreleasedIDdeephouse [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:56 iggles4133 Help naming boy #5!

Looking for thoughts for boy #5. I put our list below but am open to suggestions.
Siblings are: Sean Patrick Brendan James (Jamie)
Off the list because of family: Ryan Conor Michael Owen Ronan Joseph
Our ideas: Thomas Liam Neil Gabriel (Gabe) Martin Daniel Francis
Last name ends in -er, similar to Porter. I don’t like first names ending in -er with our last name. What would you pick?
submitted by iggles4133 to namenerds [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:35 Contactunderground WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves

WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves
WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE?
J. Burkes MD 2018, edited 2023
One concept about the nature of the alleged UFO cover-up is that there exist quasi-governmental/quasi-corporate based clandestine cells sometimes described as “the control groups.” According to this proposition, these secret networks are keeping a lid on the UFO challenge by working behind the scenes to maintain what has been called “the UFO truth embargo.” This has involved a sophisticated psychological warfare program directed at the population in the form of a de facto policy of ridicule and denial.

Given that these control groups have also been working to reverse engineer UFO technology for over seven decades, it is conceivable that they have made significant advances. The extreme secrecy concerning such breakthroughs might have created what UFO historian Richard Dolan has called “a breakaway civilization.”

In 2017, a new openness on this subject has been allowed by elite power concerning this potentially destabilizing issue. This started with corporate media revelations about a secret Pentagon project studying UFOs. Since then, former, and current government officials have confirmed the reality of what are now called UAPs. Full disclosure of information about flying saucers is not what is happening. Instead, there has been an intensification of what non-human intelligence analyst Grant Cameron has called the US Executive Branch’s “gradual acclimatization program.” This involves allowing a mixture of some accurate information as well disinformation on this still highly classified subject to be released publicly. The gradual acclimatization program according to Grant Cameron’s analysis has for decades existed in parallel to the coverup.
Corporate, military, intelligence and political power brokers don’t operate as one on this issue. Different factions struggle over the speed at which the limited disclosure will unfold. In my opinion, as stated above, this issue, at the most basic level, still threatens all terrestrial elites, but not the Earth’s peoples.


Why do might the rich and powerful oppose an ET presence? The following are just a few of the reasons.

1.What we call flying saucers can apparently fly circles around “top gun” jet fighters, thereby showing the military to be impotent in securing terrestrial airspace.

  1. During ancient times the so-called aliens may have played a role in establishing all the major faiths. If the masses of believers on our planet started to accept this possibility, then it would threaten the power and influence of organized religion.

3.Alleged ET “free energy” generating/propulsion systems if downloaded into our technological culture under conditions of world peace would threaten the largest industries on our planet, the empires of oil and coal.

  1. In my opinion, the rich and powerful take great efforts to maintain a self-image that is an illusion of strength and invulnerability. An extraterrestrial presence could certainly challenge this self-image and the very concept of human sovereignty.

YOU CAN’T CONTROL AN ET THAT WANTS NOTHING

https://preview.redd.it/qyhzxp1fx80d1.jpg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c2cc51c1b751b8070885c7984521a4930b7cabb8
But what makes the control groups most afraid I suspect is that if UFOs are controlled by ETs, the alleged aliens don't seem to want anything. They often simply appear in the sky for a few moments and then disappear. This behavior transmits the simple-minded message, “Hello, we are here."

ET beings, as far as we know, are not engaged in mining operations on Earth. They don't play the stock market to get rich. They usually flee when approached by military jets. Their interactions with humans occur under conditions of secrecy. The so-called aliens come to us often at night. Our interactions are predominately mental and typically when we are alone, thus little objective documentation can be acquired during the close encounters.

THREATS OF VIOLENCE, BRIBERY, AND BLACKMAIL DON’T WORK WITH THEM.

From the “control groups” point of view, I imagine that the alleged ETs appear to be immune to the usual bag of tricks that the super-rich use to keep the rest of us in line. Maybe the “ETs” scare the control groups because unlike politicians they can't be bribed or blackmailed. It is hard to shoot down UFOs and they don't seem too troubled by all the bad publicity they get from Hollywood alien invasion fantasies.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT MIGHT BE ESSENTIAL FOR OPEN CONTACT WITH ADVANCED CULTURES.

The attached photo mime of a man walking with a small child in a forest suggests to me the following. Perhaps what we need on this planet is a simpler type of existence, one that allows us to be closer to nature. As in the image, walking in a beautiful forest might be far more fulfilling than the race to acquire wealth, power, and the mountains of things that our consumer culture tells us that we need. Thus, the man walking with a child in nature can’t be controlled because he wants nothing beyond a simple existence. I am suggesting here that the alleged ETs might want no things as well, placing them beyond the control of the ruling classes.

From my understanding of the spiritual teachings of Eckert Tolle, consciousness is no thing. It is an awareness that allows us to be awake and be aware that we are awake. It is infinite in its scope and universally experienced but can’t be defined by words. The ego however can be defined. According to Tolle it is a mind structure that is obsessed with form, both material things and thought forms. Identifying with form compels the ego to enhance itself by always wanting and sometimes getting more. For many of us this means more money, fame, sex, and for the ruling classes more control over others.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT COMBINED WITH PROGRESSIVE POLITICS MIGHT BE THE KEY.

What happens when more of us reject this plane of existence that the Buddha reportedly called "the nightmare of the day”? What happens when millions of us say the message of oneness that is promoted by all the major faiths applies to what for many appear to be technologically and spiritually advanced ETs operating here on Earth?

Well, I imagine you get a change in the mass consciousness that could facilitate getting rid of the control groups and the oligarchs that they serve. "Peace on Earth and in the Cosmos!" can be the slogan to link the UFO presence to achieving planetary unity based on principles of peace and cooperation. In my opinion, this can only happen when we embrace universal consciousness. That is not only our potential link to every intelligent being in the universe via telepathy, but also to the fabric of reality itself.


I offer an additional interpretation of the mime
“You can’t control a person who wants nothing.”

If consciousness is “no thing”, then those of us that ultimately identify with universal consciousness, rather than with the ego, can’t be controlled either.

Additional Comment by the Author:

In response to this blog, one reader asked the following question, "I guess the concept that it may take centuries is the part that escapes me, will the earth put up with us that long?"

Joseph Burkes MD: We often get confused with what I imagine are the "needs" of our planet to those of the rather self-destructive humans that now has reached eight billion in number. In a vision I had in Carlsbad Cavern, I saw the Earth as being like a beautiful woman that was full of life and proud of her creations. Our mother, the Earth, has the capacity to regenerate life on her surface despite the onslaughts of many epochs of extinction. This has been true in the past and will continue for hundreds of millions of years.
We are not destroying the planet. In a sense this notion is yet another expression of our incredible hubris to proclaim that we can. She will do just fine in the long run. I believe this is true even if we destroy our civilization and the survivors are reduced to conditions of barbarism, eking out a miserable existence in the few highlands that will sustain some primitive agriculture, or by hunting and gathering.
I have posted a blog about champion remote viewer Joe McMoneagle's remarkable vision of Earth civilization in the year 3000. It is written up in an important book called, "The Ultimate Time Machine." It is a lovely picture of a planet with only one tenth of our current population. According to McMoneagle’s remote view, humanity will live in environmentally sound small cities of no more than at most 100,000, Housing will be in concentric circles with green zones in-between them. Transportation to the city centers will all be underground, and recycling and reuse will reduce the level of pollution and waste to a minimum.


Alas, this is only one possible future and as Joe has pointed out, the future is changing all the time. So, let's be determined to work towards what was seen in retired Sgt. McMoneagle's remote view. Let's link the message of peace, environmental protection and social justice to a phenomenon that is inspiring a growing number of contact activists to celebrate sisterhood and brotherhood extended out into the Cosmos.

Comments:
Norman Michael Marburg Jr "The powers that be must wonder what to do with people who have traded ego for universal consciousness and who are happy with enough. They have nothing to sell us beyond our most simple needs. There is little need for governments and religions when a society values truth over policy and learns to live simply, patiently and compassionately with all beings. PS, there is a reason why Tolle carries the Tao Te Ching with him wherever he is. C. G. Jung quoted it of the in his later works. After years of reading it, study and my own experience, I am convinced that its tenets comprise the IOS for all advanced sentient beings of the universe."
Another comment agreed that “the only way to overcome the elitist control group that enslaves humanity is with combined connected consciousness,” but he wanted to know how such a radical transformation might occur?
Joseph Burkes Thank you (name deleted) for asking this central question? I have been posting this blog periodically for several years and I believe you are the first to ask "how such a radical transformation might occur?" Successful evolutionary movements typically achieve results over long periods of time. The tyranny of repressive ideologies, such as forced onto the masses by the feudalistic Catholic Church in Europe, was worn down by a series of developments that spanned centuries. The Protestant reforms that reflected the growing strength of business classes in combination with the scientific revolution created a new kind of society. In that pluralistic environment the Church fathers could no longer dictate their "truth" to the masses. In the former Soviet Union, it took just 70 years for a police state regime to fall apart. Unfortunately the Putin regime has reestablished many of the controls that existed under communism.
Our civilization is probably facing an existential crisis in the form of global warming and resultant climate change. Young people all over the planet are realizing this and they are starting to march demanding action. The problems we face cannot be solved by nation states, so some kind of just world government will hopefully replace what UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman called "the tribal warfare" waged by "Earthlings." Although opposed vigorously, especially in so called "red states", meditation is starting to be taught in some public schools. The popularity of modern Buddhist teachers like Eckert Tolle reflects this shift away from organized religion to a spirituality based on a more direct connection with universal consciousness.
Clearly a more complete answer to your question goes beyond what can be conveyed in the "word bytes" on social media, but I hope my blogs will give hints as to where we will need to go to turn things around. I imagine the struggle will not be easy and will unfold over centuries after much blood, sweat and tears have been shed.


For Additional blogs about the societal impact of a possible ET presence click on the links below:

Intelligence community whistleblower Victor Marchetti outlined the Establishment’s approach to UFOs in 1979. His analysis will help UFO truth activists explain the reasons for 80 years of US Executive Branch lying. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2023/06/09/four-decades-ago-a-whistleblower-outlined-the-rationale-and-methods-of-the-executive-branchs-ufo-coverup-that-continues-to-this-day/

If flying saucer intelligences threaten all terrestrial elites, but not necessarily the Earth’s people, then it is understandable that governmental response to UFOs is a counterintelligence one.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/dueling-paradigms-perhaps-a-counterintelligence-model-is-better-than-a-scientific-one-to-study-ufos/
The Leadership Crisis in ufology. In the UFO subculture there are few leaders, mostly celebrities. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2021/12/22/the-leadership-crisis-in-ufology/
What will it take to convince people that UFOs are important.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/what-will-it-take-to-convince-people-that-ufos-are-important/
“Science, Counterintelligence & UFOs”Researcher Val Germann wrote this important multi-part article in 1997. He has given me permission to repost his work.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/09/04/science-counterintelligence-and-ufos/
submitted by Contactunderground to Experiencers [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:29 Contactunderground WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves

WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves
WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE?
J. Burkes MD 2018, edited 2023

On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves?

One concept about the nature of the alleged UFO cover-up is that there exist quasi-governmental/quasi-corporate based clandestine cells sometimes described as “the control groups.” According to this proposition, these secret networks are keeping a lid on the UFO challenge by working behind the scenes to maintain what has been called “the UFO truth embargo.” This has involved a sophisticated psychological warfare program directed at the population in the form of a de facto policy of ridicule and denial.

Given that these control groups have also been working to reverse engineer UFO technology for over seven decades, it is conceivable that they have made significant advances. The extreme secrecy concerning such breakthroughs might have created what UFO historian Richard Dolan has called “a breakaway civilization.”

In 2017, a new openness on this subject has been allowed by elite power concerning this potentially destabilizing issue. This started with corporate media revelations about a secret Pentagon project studying UFOs. Since then, former, and current government officials have confirmed the reality of what are now called UAPs. Full disclosure of information about flying saucers is not what is happening. Instead, there has been an intensification of what non-human intelligence analyst Grant Cameron has called the US Executive Branch’s “gradual acclimatization program.” This involves allowing a mixture of some accurate information as well disinformation on this still highly classified subject to be released publicly. The gradual acclimatization program according to Grant Cameron’s analysis has for decades existed in parallel to the coverup.
Corporate, military, intelligence and political power brokers don’t operate as one on this issue. Different factions struggle over the speed at which the limited disclosure will unfold. In my opinion, as stated above, this issue, at the most basic level, still threatens all terrestrial elites, but not the Earth’s peoples.


Why do might the rich and powerful oppose an ET presence? The following are just a few of the reasons.

1.What we call flying saucers can apparently fly circles around “top gun” jet fighters, thereby showing the military to be impotent in securing terrestrial airspace.

  1. During ancient times the so-called aliens may have played a role in establishing all the major faiths. If the masses of believers on our planet started to accept this possibility, then it would threaten the power and influence of organized religion.

3.Alleged ET “free energy” generating/propulsion systems if downloaded into our technological culture under conditions of world peace would threaten the largest industries on our planet, the empires of oil and coal.

  1. In my opinion, the rich and powerful take great efforts to maintain a self-image that is an illusion of strength and invulnerability. An extraterrestrial presence could certainly challenge this self-image and the very concept of human sovereignty.

YOU CAN’T CONTROL AN ET THAT WANTS NOTHING

But what makes the control groups most afraid I suspect is that if UFOs are controlled by ETs, the alleged aliens don't seem to want anything. They often simply appear in the sky for a few moments and then disappear. This behavior transmits the simple-minded message, “Hello, we are here."

ET beings, as far as we know, are not engaged in mining operations on Earth. They don't play the stock market to get rich. They usually flee when approached by military jets. Their interactions with humans occur under conditions of secrecy. The so-called aliens come to us often at night. Our interactions are predominately mental and typically when we are alone, thus little objective documentation can be acquired during the close encounters.

THREATS OF VIOLENCE, BRIBERY, AND BLACKMAIL DON’T WORK WITH THEM.

From the “control groups” point of view, I imagine that the alleged ETs appear to be immune to the usual bag of tricks that the super-rich use to keep the rest of us in line. Maybe the “ETs” scare the control groups because unlike politicians they can't be bribed or blackmailed. It is hard to shoot down UFOs and they don't seem too troubled by all the bad publicity they get from Hollywood alien invasion fantasies.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT MIGHT BE ESSENTIAL FOR OPEN CONTACT WITH ADVANCED CULTURES.

The attached photo mime of a man walking with a small child in a forest suggests to me the following. Perhaps what we need on this planet is a simpler type of existence, one that allows us to be closer to nature. As in the image, walking in a beautiful forest might be far more fulfilling than the race to acquire wealth, power, and the mountains of things that our consumer culture tells us that we need. Thus, the man walking with a child in nature can’t be controlled because he wants nothing beyond a simple existence. I am suggesting here that the alleged ETs might want no things as well, placing them beyond the control of the ruling classes.

From my understanding of the spiritual teachings of Eckert Tolle, consciousness is no thing. It is an awareness that allows us to be awake and be aware that we are awake. It is infinite in its scope and universally experienced but can’t be defined by words. The ego however can be defined. According to Tolle it is a mind structure that is obsessed with form, both material things and thought forms. Identifying with form compels the ego to enhance itself by always wanting and sometimes getting more. For many of us this means more money, fame, sex, and for the ruling classes more control over others.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT COMBINED WITH PROGRESSIVE POLITICS MIGHT BE THE KEY.

What happens when more of us reject this plane of existence that the Buddha reportedly called "the nightmare of the day”? What happens when millions of us say the message of oneness that is promoted by all the major faiths applies to what for many appear to be technologically and spiritually advanced ETs operating here on Earth?
https://preview.redd.it/zuvka3ygw80d1.jpg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cd68cf46776d951c80e87852f77eeead66e1a5b7

Well, I imagine you get a change in the mass consciousness that could facilitate getting rid of the control groups and the oligarchs that they serve. "Peace on Earth and in the Cosmos!" can be the slogan to link the UFO presence to achieving planetary unity based on principles of peace and cooperation. In my opinion, this can only happen when we embrace universal consciousness. That is not only our potential link to every intelligent being in the universe via telepathy, but also to the fabric of reality itself.


I offer an additional interpretation of the mime
“You can’t control a person who wants nothing.”

If consciousness is “no thing”, then those of us that ultimately identify with universal consciousness, rather than with the ego, can’t be controlled either.

Additional Comment by the Author:

In response to this blog, one reader asked the following question, "I guess the concept that it may take centuries is the part that escapes me, will the earth put up with us that long?"

Joseph Burkes MD: We often get confused with what I imagine are the "needs" of our planet to those of the rather self-destructive humans that now has reached eight billion in number. In a vision I had in Carlsbad Cavern, I saw the Earth as being like a beautiful woman that was full of life and proud of her creations. Our mother, the Earth, has the capacity to regenerate life on her surface despite the onslaughts of many epochs of extinction. This has been true in the past and will continue for hundreds of millions of years.
We are not destroying the planet. In a sense this notion is yet another expression of our incredible hubris to proclaim that we can. She will do just fine in the long run. I believe this is true even if we destroy our civilization and the survivors are reduced to conditions of barbarism, eking out a miserable existence in the few highlands that will sustain some primitive agriculture, or by hunting and gathering.
I have posted a blog about champion remote viewer Joe McMoneagle's remarkable vision of Earth civilization in the year 3000. It is written up in an important book called, "The Ultimate Time Machine." It is a lovely picture of a planet with only one tenth of our current population. According to McMoneagle’s remote view, humanity will live in environmentally sound small cities of no more than at most 100,000, Housing will be in concentric circles with green zones in-between them. Transportation to the city centers will all be underground, and recycling and reuse will reduce the level of pollution and waste to a minimum.


Alas, this is only one possible future and as Joe has pointed out, the future is changing all the time. So, let's be determined to work towards what was seen in retired Sgt. McMoneagle's remote view. Let's link the message of peace, environmental protection and social justice to a phenomenon that is inspiring a growing number of contact activists to celebrate sisterhood and brotherhood extended out into the Cosmos.

Comments:
Norman Michael Marburg Jr "The powers that be must wonder what to do with people who have traded ego for universal consciousness and who are happy with enough. They have nothing to sell us beyond our most simple needs. There is little need for governments and religions when a society values truth over policy and learns to live simply, patiently and compassionately with all beings. PS, there is a reason why Tolle carries the Tao Te Ching with him wherever he is. C. G. Jung quoted it of the in his later works. After years of reading it, study and my own experience, I am convinced that its tenets comprise the IOS for all advanced sentient beings of the universe."
Another comment agreed that “the only way to overcome the elitist control group that enslaves humanity is with combined connected consciousness,” but he wanted to know how such a radical transformation might occur?
Joseph Burkes Thank you (name deleted) for asking this central question? I have been posting this blog periodically for several years and I believe you are the first to ask "how such a radical transformation might occur?" Successful evolutionary movements typically achieve results over long periods of time. The tyranny of repressive ideologies, such as forced onto the masses by the feudalistic Catholic Church in Europe, was worn down by a series of developments that spanned centuries. The Protestant reforms that reflected the growing strength of business classes in combination with the scientific revolution created a new kind of society. In that pluralistic environment the Church fathers could no longer dictate their "truth" to the masses. In the former Soviet Union, it took just 70 years for a police state regime to fall apart. Unfortunately the Putin regime has reestablished many of the controls that existed under communism.
Our civilization is probably facing an existential crisis in the form of global warming and resultant climate change. Young people all over the planet are realizing this and they are starting to march demanding action. The problems we face cannot be solved by nation states, so some kind of just world government will hopefully replace what UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman called "the tribal warfare" waged by "Earthlings." Although opposed vigorously, especially in so called "red states", meditation is starting to be taught in some public schools. The popularity of modern Buddhist teachers like Eckert Tolle reflects this shift away from organized religion to a spirituality based on a more direct connection with universal consciousness.
Clearly a more complete answer to your question goes beyond what can be conveyed in the "word bytes" on social media, but I hope my blogs will give hints as to where we will need to go to turn things around. I imagine the struggle will not be easy and will unfold over centuries after much blood, sweat and tears have been shed.


For Additional blogs about the societal impact of a possible ET presence click on the links below:

Intelligence community whistleblower Victor Marchetti outlined the Establishment’s approach to UFOs in 1979. His analysis will help UFO truth activists explain the reasons for 80 years of US Executive Branch lying. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2023/06/09/four-decades-ago-a-whistleblower-outlined-the-rationale-and-methods-of-the-executive-branchs-ufo-coverup-that-continues-to-this-day/

If flying saucer intelligences threaten all terrestrial elites, but not necessarily the Earth’s people, then it is understandable that governmental response to UFOs is a counterintelligence one.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/dueling-paradigms-perhaps-a-counterintelligence-model-is-better-than-a-scientific-one-to-study-ufos/
The Leadership Crisis in ufology. In the UFO subculture there are few leaders, mostly celebrities. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2021/12/22/the-leadership-crisis-in-ufology/
What will it take to convince people that UFOs are important.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/what-will-it-take-to-convince-people-that-ufos-are-important/
“Science, Counterintelligence & UFOs”Researcher Val Germann wrote this important multi-part article in 1997. He has given me permission to repost his work.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/09/04/science-counterintelligence-and-ufos/
submitted by Contactunderground to ContactUnderground [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:26 Contactunderground WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves

WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves
WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE?
J. Burkes MD 2018, edited 2023

On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves?

One concept about the nature of the alleged UFO cover-up is that there exist quasi-governmental/quasi-corporate based clandestine cells sometimes described as “the control groups.” According to this proposition, these secret networks are keeping a lid on the UFO challenge by working behind the scenes to maintain what has been called “the UFO truth embargo.” This has involved a sophisticated psychological warfare program directed at the population in the form of a de facto policy of ridicule and denial.

Given that these control groups have also been working to reverse engineer UFO technology for over seven decades, it is conceivable that they have made significant advances. The extreme secrecy concerning such breakthroughs might have created what UFO historian Richard Dolan has called “a breakaway civilization.”

In 2017, a new openness on this subject has been allowed by elite power concerning this potentially destabilizing issue. This started with corporate media revelations about a secret Pentagon project studying UFOs. Since then, former, and current government officials have confirmed the reality of what are now called UAPs. Full disclosure of information about flying saucers is not what is happening. Instead, there has been an intensification of what non-human intelligence analyst Grant Cameron has called the US Executive Branch’s “gradual acclimatization program.” This involves allowing a mixture of some accurate information as well disinformation on this still highly classified subject to be released publicly. The gradual acclimatization program according to Grant Cameron’s analysis has for decades existed in parallel to the coverup.
Corporate, military, intelligence and political power brokers don’t operate as one on this issue. Different factions struggle over the speed at which the limited disclosure will unfold. In my opinion, as stated above, this issue, at the most basic level, still threatens all terrestrial elites, but not the Earth’s peoples.


Why do might the rich and powerful oppose an ET presence? The following are just a few of the reasons.

1.What we call flying saucers can apparently fly circles around “top gun” jet fighters, thereby showing the military to be impotent in securing terrestrial airspace.

  1. During ancient times the so-called aliens may have played a role in establishing all the major faiths. If the masses of believers on our planet started to accept this possibility, then it would threaten the power and influence of organized religion.

3.Alleged ET “free energy” generating/propulsion systems if downloaded into our technological culture under conditions of world peace would threaten the largest industries on our planet, the empires of oil and coal.

  1. In my opinion, the rich and powerful take great efforts to maintain a self-image that is an illusion of strength and invulnerability. An extraterrestrial presence could certainly challenge this self-image and the very concept of human sovereignty.

YOU CAN’T CONTROL AN ET THAT WANTS NOTHING

But what makes the control groups most afraid I suspect is that if UFOs are controlled by ETs, the alleged aliens don't seem to want anything. They often simply appear in the sky for a few moments and then disappear. This behavior transmits the simple-minded message, “Hello, we are here."

ET beings, as far as we know, are not engaged in mining operations on Earth. They don't play the stock market to get rich. They usually flee when approached by military jets. Their interactions with humans occur under conditions of secrecy. The so-called aliens come to us often at night. Our interactions are predominately mental and typically when we are alone, thus little objective documentation can be acquired during the close encounters.

THREATS OF VIOLENCE, BRIBERY, AND BLACKMAIL DON’T WORK WITH THEM.

From the “control groups” point of view, I imagine that the alleged ETs appear to be immune to the usual bag of tricks that the super-rich use to keep the rest of us in line. Maybe the “ETs” scare the control groups because unlike politicians they can't be bribed or blackmailed. It is hard to shoot down UFOs and they don't seem too troubled by all the bad publicity they get from Hollywood alien invasion fantasies.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT MIGHT BE ESSENTIAL FOR OPEN CONTACT WITH ADVANCED CULTURES.

The attached photo mime of a man walking with a small child in a forest suggests to me the following. Perhaps what we need on this planet is a simpler type of existence, one that allows us to be closer to nature. As in the image, walking in a beautiful forest might be far more fulfilling than the race to acquire wealth, power, and the mountains of things that our consumer culture tells us that we need. Thus, the man walking with a child in nature can’t be controlled because he wants nothing beyond a simple existence. I am suggesting here that the alleged ETs might want no things as well, placing them beyond the control of the ruling classes.

From my understanding of the spiritual teachings of Eckert Tolle, consciousness is no thing. It is an awareness that allows us to be awake and be aware that we are awake. It is infinite in its scope and universally experienced but can’t be defined by words. The ego however can be defined. According to Tolle it is a mind structure that is obsessed with form, both material things and thought forms. Identifying with form compels the ego to enhance itself by always wanting and sometimes getting more. For many of us this means more money, fame, sex, and for the ruling classes more control over others.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT COMBINED WITH PROGRESSIVE POLITICS MIGHT BE THE KEY.

What happens when more of us reject this plane of existence that the Buddha reportedly called "the nightmare of the day”? What happens when millions of us say the message of oneness that is promoted by all the major faiths applies to what for many appear to be technologically and spiritually advanced ETs operating here on Earth?

https://preview.redd.it/xc7zjw63w80d1.jpg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5de449cd8af49389a22e0f029498a158b35163b4
Well, I imagine you get a change in the mass consciousness that could facilitate getting rid of the control groups and the oligarchs that they serve. "Peace on Earth and in the Cosmos!" can be the slogan to link the UFO presence to achieving planetary unity based on principles of peace and cooperation. In my opinion, this can only happen when we embrace universal consciousness. That is not only our potential link to every intelligent being in the universe via telepathy, but also to the fabric of reality itself.


I offer an additional interpretation of the mime
“You can’t control a person who wants nothing.”

If consciousness is “no thing”, then those of us that ultimately identify with universal consciousness, rather than with the ego, can’t be controlled either.

Additional Comment by the Author:

In response to this blog, one reader asked the following question, "I guess the concept that it may take centuries is the part that escapes me, will the earth put up with us that long?"

Joseph Burkes MD: We often get confused with what I imagine are the "needs" of our planet to those of the rather self-destructive humans that now has reached eight billion in number. In a vision I had in Carlsbad Cavern, I saw the Earth as being like a beautiful woman that was full of life and proud of her creations. Our mother, the Earth, has the capacity to regenerate life on her surface despite the onslaughts of many epochs of extinction. This has been true in the past and will continue for hundreds of millions of years.
We are not destroying the planet. In a sense this notion is yet another expression of our incredible hubris to proclaim that we can. She will do just fine in the long run. I believe this is true even if we destroy our civilization and the survivors are reduced to conditions of barbarism, eking out a miserable existence in the few highlands that will sustain some primitive agriculture, or by hunting and gathering.
I have posted a blog about champion remote viewer Joe McMoneagle's remarkable vision of Earth civilization in the year 3000. It is written up in an important book called, "The Ultimate Time Machine." It is a lovely picture of a planet with only one tenth of our current population. According to McMoneagle’s remote view, humanity will live in environmentally sound small cities of no more than at most 100,000, Housing will be in concentric circles with green zones in-between them. Transportation to the city centers will all be underground, and recycling and reuse will reduce the level of pollution and waste to a minimum.


Alas, this is only one possible future and as Joe has pointed out, the future is changing all the time. So, let's be determined to work towards what was seen in retired Sgt. McMoneagle's remote view. Let's link the message of peace, environmental protection and social justice to a phenomenon that is inspiring a growing number of contact activists to celebrate sisterhood and brotherhood extended out into the Cosmos.

Comments:
Norman Michael Marburg Jr "The powers that be must wonder what to do with people who have traded ego for universal consciousness and who are happy with enough. They have nothing to sell us beyond our most simple needs. There is little need for governments and religions when a society values truth over policy and learns to live simply, patiently and compassionately with all beings. PS, there is a reason why Tolle carries the Tao Te Ching with him wherever he is. C. G. Jung quoted it of the in his later works. After years of reading it, study and my own experience, I am convinced that its tenets comprise the IOS for all advanced sentient beings of the universe."
Another comment agreed that “the only way to overcome the elitist control group that enslaves humanity is with combined connected consciousness,” but he wanted to know how such a radical transformation might occur?
Joseph Burkes Thank you (name deleted) for asking this central question? I have been posting this blog periodically for several years and I believe you are the first to ask "how such a radical transformation might occur?" Successful evolutionary movements typically achieve results over long periods of time. The tyranny of repressive ideologies, such as forced onto the masses by the feudalistic Catholic Church in Europe, was worn down by a series of developments that spanned centuries. The Protestant reforms that reflected the growing strength of business classes in combination with the scientific revolution created a new kind of society. In that pluralistic environment the Church fathers could no longer dictate their "truth" to the masses. In the former Soviet Union, it took just 70 years for a police state regime to fall apart. Unfortunately the Putin regime has reestablished many of the controls that existed under communism.
Our civilization is probably facing an existential crisis in the form of global warming and resultant climate change. Young people all over the planet are realizing this and they are starting to march demanding action. The problems we face cannot be solved by nation states, so some kind of just world government will hopefully replace what UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman called "the tribal warfare" waged by "Earthlings." Although opposed vigorously, especially in so called "red states", meditation is starting to be taught in some public schools. The popularity of modern Buddhist teachers like Eckert Tolle reflects this shift away from organized religion to a spirituality based on a more direct connection with universal consciousness.
Clearly a more complete answer to your question goes beyond what can be conveyed in the "word bytes" on social media, but I hope my blogs will give hints as to where we will need to go to turn things around. I imagine the struggle will not be easy and will unfold over centuries after much blood, sweat and tears have been shed.


For Additional blogs about the societal impact of a possible ET presence click on the links below:

Intelligence community whistleblower Victor Marchetti outlined the Establishment’s approach to UFOs in 1979. His analysis will help UFO truth activists explain the reasons for 80 years of US Executive Branch lying. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2023/06/09/four-decades-ago-a-whistleblower-outlined-the-rationale-and-methods-of-the-executive-branchs-ufo-coverup-that-continues-to-this-day/

If flying saucer intelligences threaten all terrestrial elites, but not necessarily the Earth’s people, then it is understandable that governmental response to UFOs is a counterintelligence one.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/dueling-paradigms-perhaps-a-counterintelligence-model-is-better-than-a-scientific-one-to-study-ufos/
The Leadership Crisis in ufology. In the UFO subculture there are few leaders, mostly celebrities. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2021/12/22/the-leadership-crisis-in-ufology/
What will it take to convince people that UFOs are important.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/what-will-it-take-to-convince-people-that-ufos-are-important/
“Science, Counterintelligence & UFOs”Researcher Val Germann wrote this important multi-part article in 1997. He has given me permission to repost his work.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/09/04/science-counterintelligence-and-ufos/
submitted by Contactunderground to CE5 [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 21:24 Contactunderground WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves.

WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE? On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves.
WHY DO THE CONTROL GROUPS OPPOSE AN ET PRESENCE?
J. Burkes MD 2018, edited 2023

On social media pages I have posted articles discussing my assessment that an ET presence would threaten the rich and powerful, but not the Earth’s peoples. If this analysis is correct, then how might our rulers protect themselves?

One concept about the nature of the alleged UFO cover-up is that there exist quasi-governmental/quasi-corporate based clandestine cells sometimes described as “the control groups.” According to this proposition, these secret networks are keeping a lid on the UFO challenge by working behind the scenes to maintain what has been called “the UFO truth embargo.” This has involved a sophisticated psychological warfare program directed at the population in the form of a de facto policy of ridicule and denial.

Given that these control groups have also been working to reverse engineer UFO technology for over seven decades, it is conceivable that they have made significant advances. The extreme secrecy concerning such breakthroughs might have created what UFO historian Richard Dolan has called “a breakaway civilization.”

In 2017, a new openness on this subject has been allowed by elite power concerning this potentially destabilizing issue. This started with corporate media revelations about a secret Pentagon project studying UFOs. Since then, former, and current government officials have confirmed the reality of what are now called UAPs. Full disclosure of information about flying saucers is not what is happening. Instead, there has been an intensification of what non-human intelligence analyst Grant Cameron has called the US Executive Branch’s “gradual acclimatization program.” This involves allowing a mixture of some accurate information as well disinformation on this still highly classified subject to be released publicly. The gradual acclimatization program according to Grant Cameron’s analysis has for decades existed in parallel to the coverup.
Corporate, military, intelligence and political power brokers don’t operate as one on this issue. Different factions struggle over the speed at which the limited disclosure will unfold. In my opinion, as stated above, this issue, at the most basic level, still threatens all terrestrial elites, but not the Earth’s peoples.


Why do might the rich and powerful oppose an ET presence? The following are just a few of the reasons.

1.What we call flying saucers can apparently fly circles around “top gun” jet fighters, thereby showing the military to be impotent in securing terrestrial airspace.

  1. During ancient times the so-called aliens may have played a role in establishing all the major faiths. If the masses of believers on our planet started to accept this possibility, then it would threaten the power and influence of organized religion.

3.Alleged ET “free energy” generating/propulsion systems if downloaded into our technological culture under conditions of world peace would threaten the largest industries on our planet, the empires of oil and coal.

  1. In my opinion, the rich and powerful take great efforts to maintain a self-image that is an illusion of strength and invulnerability. An extraterrestrial presence could certainly challenge this self-image and the very concept of human sovereignty.

YOU CAN’T CONTROL AN ET THAT WANTS NOTHING

But what makes the control groups most afraid I suspect is that if UFOs are controlled by ETs, the alleged aliens don't seem to want anything. They often simply appear in the sky for a few moments and then disappear. This behavior transmits the simple-minded message, “Hello, we are here."

ET beings, as far as we know, are not engaged in mining operations on Earth. They don't play the stock market to get rich. They usually flee when approached by military jets. Their interactions with humans occur under conditions of secrecy. The so-called aliens come to us often at night. Our interactions are predominately mental and typically when we are alone, thus little objective documentation can be acquired during the close encounters.

THREATS OF VIOLENCE, BRIBERY, AND BLACKMAIL DON’T WORK WITH THEM.

From the “control groups” point of view, I imagine that the alleged ETs appear to be immune to the usual bag of tricks that the super-rich use to keep the rest of us in line. Maybe the “ETs” scare the control groups because unlike politicians they can't be bribed or blackmailed. It is hard to shoot down UFOs and they don't seem too troubled by all the bad publicity they get from Hollywood alien invasion fantasies.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT MIGHT BE ESSENTIAL FOR OPEN CONTACT WITH ADVANCED CULTURES.

The attached photo mime of a man walking with a small child in a forest suggests to me the following. Perhaps what we need on this planet is a simpler type of existence, one that allows us to be closer to nature. As in the image, walking in a beautiful forest might be far more fulfilling than the race to acquire wealth, power, and the mountains of things that our consumer culture tells us that we need. Thus, the man walking with a child in nature can’t be controlled because he wants nothing beyond a simple existence. I am suggesting here that the alleged ETs might want no things as well, placing them beyond the control of the ruling classes.

From my understanding of the spiritual teachings of Eckert Tolle, consciousness is no thing. It is an awareness that allows us to be awake and be aware that we are awake. It is infinite in its scope and universally experienced but can’t be defined by words. The ego however can be defined. According to Tolle it is a mind structure that is obsessed with form, both material things and thought forms. Identifying with form compels the ego to enhance itself by always wanting and sometimes getting more. For many of us this means more money, fame, sex, and for the ruling classes more control over others.

SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT COMBINED WITH PROGRESSIVE POLITICS MIGHT BE THE KEY.

https://preview.redd.it/pdt2u6zov80d1.jpg?width=225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4208aa378de8cda8120f9e8751de3522304c6a3e
What happens when more of us reject this plane of existence that the Buddha reportedly called "the nightmare of the day”? What happens when millions of us say the message of oneness that is promoted by all the major faiths applies to what for many appear to be technologically and spiritually advanced ETs operating here on Earth?
Well, I imagine you get a change in the mass consciousness that could facilitate getting rid of the control groups and the oligarchs that they serve. "Peace on Earth and in the Cosmos!" can be the slogan to link the UFO presence to achieving planetary unity based on principles of peace and cooperation. In my opinion, this can only happen when we embrace universal consciousness. That is not only our potential link to every intelligent being in the universe via telepathy, but also to the fabric of reality itself.


I offer an additional interpretation of the mime
“You can’t control a person who wants nothing.”

If consciousness is “no thing”, then those of us that ultimately identify with universal consciousness, rather than with the ego, can’t be controlled either.

Additional Comment by the Author:

In response to this blog, one reader asked the following question, "I guess the concept that it may take centuries is the part that escapes me, will the earth put up with us that long?"

Joseph Burkes MD: We often get confused with what I imagine are the "needs" of our planet to those of the rather self-destructive humans that now has reached eight billion in number. In a vision I had in Carlsbad Cavern, I saw the Earth as being like a beautiful woman that was full of life and proud of her creations. Our mother, the Earth, has the capacity to regenerate life on her surface despite the onslaughts of many epochs of extinction. This has been true in the past and will continue for hundreds of millions of years.
We are not destroying the planet. In a sense this notion is yet another expression of our incredible hubris to proclaim that we can. She will do just fine in the long run. I believe this is true even if we destroy our civilization and the survivors are reduced to conditions of barbarism, eking out a miserable existence in the few highlands that will sustain some primitive agriculture, or by hunting and gathering.
I have posted a blog about champion remote viewer Joe McMoneagle's remarkable vision of Earth civilization in the year 3000. It is written up in an important book called, "The Ultimate Time Machine." It is a lovely picture of a planet with only one tenth of our current population. According to McMoneagle’s remote view, humanity will live in environmentally sound small cities of no more than at most 100,000, Housing will be in concentric circles with green zones in-between them. Transportation to the city centers will all be underground, and recycling and reuse will reduce the level of pollution and waste to a minimum.


Alas, this is only one possible future and as Joe has pointed out, the future is changing all the time. So, let's be determined to work towards what was seen in retired Sgt. McMoneagle's remote view. Let's link the message of peace, environmental protection and social justice to a phenomenon that is inspiring a growing number of contact activists to celebrate sisterhood and brotherhood extended out into the Cosmos.

Comments:
Norman Michael Marburg Jr "The powers that be must wonder what to do with people who have traded ego for universal consciousness and who are happy with enough. They have nothing to sell us beyond our most simple needs. There is little need for governments and religions when a society values truth over policy and learns to live simply, patiently and compassionately with all beings. PS, there is a reason why Tolle carries the Tao Te Ching with him wherever he is. C. G. Jung quoted it of the in his later works. After years of reading it, study and my own experience, I am convinced that its tenets comprise the IOS for all advanced sentient beings of the universe."
Another comment agreed that “the only way to overcome the elitist control group that enslaves humanity is with combined connected consciousness,” but he wanted to know how such a radical transformation might occur?
Joseph Burkes Thank you (name deleted) for asking this central question? I have been posting this blog periodically for several years and I believe you are the first to ask "how such a radical transformation might occur?" Successful evolutionary movements typically achieve results over long periods of time. The tyranny of repressive ideologies, such as forced onto the masses by the feudalistic Catholic Church in Europe, was worn down by a series of developments that spanned centuries. The Protestant reforms that reflected the growing strength of business classes in combination with the scientific revolution created a new kind of society. In that pluralistic environment the Church fathers could no longer dictate their "truth" to the masses. In the former Soviet Union, it took just 70 years for a police state regime to fall apart. Unfortunately the Putin regime has reestablished many of the controls that existed under communism.
Our civilization is probably facing an existential crisis in the form of global warming and resultant climate change. Young people all over the planet are realizing this and they are starting to march demanding action. The problems we face cannot be solved by nation states, so some kind of just world government will hopefully replace what UFO Researcher Stanton Friedman called "the tribal warfare" waged by "Earthlings." Although opposed vigorously, especially in so called "red states", meditation is starting to be taught in some public schools. The popularity of modern Buddhist teachers like Eckert Tolle reflects this shift away from organized religion to a spirituality based on a more direct connection with universal consciousness.
Clearly a more complete answer to your question goes beyond what can be conveyed in the "word bytes" on social media, but I hope my blogs will give hints as to where we will need to go to turn things around. I imagine the struggle will not be easy and will unfold over centuries after much blood, sweat and tears have been shed.


For Additional blogs about the societal impact of a possible ET presence click on the links below:

Intelligence community whistleblower Victor Marchetti outlined the Establishment’s approach to UFOs in 1979. His analysis will help UFO truth activists explain the reasons for 80 years of US Executive Branch lying. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2023/06/09/four-decades-ago-a-whistleblower-outlined-the-rationale-and-methods-of-the-executive-branchs-ufo-coverup-that-continues-to-this-day/

If flying saucer intelligences threaten all terrestrial elites, but not necessarily the Earth’s people, then it is understandable that governmental response to UFOs is a counterintelligence one.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/03/dueling-paradigms-perhaps-a-counterintelligence-model-is-better-than-a-scientific-one-to-study-ufos/
The Leadership Crisis in ufology. In the UFO subculture there are few leaders, mostly celebrities. https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2021/12/22/the-leadership-crisis-in-ufology/
What will it take to convince people that UFOs are important.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/02/13/what-will-it-take-to-convince-people-that-ufos-are-important/
“Science, Counterintelligence & UFOs”Researcher Val Germann wrote this important multi-part article in 1997. He has given me permission to repost his work.
https://contactunderground.wordpress.com/2022/09/04/science-counterintelligence-and-ufos/
submitted by Contactunderground to AnomalousEvidence [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 20:01 briccccs Gorillas in the list

Gorillas in the list submitted by briccccs to tuesdayswithstories [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 19:12 0neArmedHerdazian Rate my team

Rate my team
32 team Dynasty PPR .5 RB & TE catch bonus
Current players drafted are bowers, Jer’Zhan Newton and Quinyon Mitchel. Next pick im between Rakestraw and Melton
submitted by 0neArmedHerdazian to SleeperApp [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 17:04 OttoVonBlastoid Nature Of A Homeless Musician: Epilogue: Onto The Next

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the NoP universe.

I'd also like to thank u/xskipy10 for their awesome fanart of the main cast as well as their recent Tohba meme and their fanart of Michael baysitting. You're work is a treasure!

Thank you as well to u/Accomplished-Golf-59 for his take on Michael, Teylim, and Tohba in his submission for the Banner Art Contest, and u/Spacer_Catgirl4969 for their awesome music video featuring a pixel-art Dohkar in his bar. Be sure to give ALL of these awesome creators your love and support.

And let's not forget u/Guywhoexists2812 who has been an awesome source of memes as well as sick pixel art, such as THIS and THIS!!!! And even THIS!!!!!! And how could I forget THIS!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!

Today, we join Khornel and Michael as they prepare for yet another protest show as they continue the fight against those abusing their power. LETTUCE...conclude...for now...

First

Previous

Songs Mentioned/Used: Gives You Hell by The All American Rejects

Memory Transcript Subject: Khornel, Krakotl Talent Manager Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137

Aaaand DONE!

I turned my head from side to side, inspecting my handiwork. While I still wasn’t QUITE as good at it as Ms. Teylim, touching up my feather dye was becoming easier and easier with practice. I’d even experimented a bit this time, and I was really liking how it turned out.

If only this crappy mirror wasn’t so smudgy.

Regardless of the state of the motel’s bathroom mirror, I was satisfied with the way I looked. My blue and newly touched up orange feathers were complimenting each other perfectly. And the slight hint of pink along the border definitely helped the whole spectrum of colors come together.

Perfect.

Once I was out of the bathroom, I sat down on the bed I was sharing and went through my bag to make sure I had everything.

Pad? Check!

Client contracts? Check!

Pens? Check!

Extra pair of glasses in case he forgets…again…

Check!

Credits for the fare? Eeeehhh, we can walk.

Other than that though, I had everything.

“Hey… Khorry?”

My crest perked up at the voice. I turned around to see Scolina working at the small table in the kitchen area.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Sorry… I know you’re about to leave, but could you…help me with this?”

I gave her a reassuring smile as I came over. Looking at the page she was working on, it seemed she’d gotten stuck on one of the problems for her math courses. Since she hadn’t received any education in the facility, she had a lot to catch up on, especially considering she was only a cycle younger than me.

“Oh, I see the problem. You were right to divide both sides of the equation here, but the problem is when you tried, you accidentally wrote the fraction upside down. Since you’re dividing the zero by something else, it should be on top.”

“So when I accidentally put it on the bottom-“

“You created an irrational loop because-“

“You can’t divide by zero.”

Scolina cradled her head in her paws, continuing to stare down at her homework.

“Thanks, Khorry. Sorry I’m so dumb.”

“Hey! Don’t you ever say that about yourself! You’re not dumb, ‘Lina. You’re just behind, and that isn’t your fault.”

“But…but I-“

“Listen, if I had a credit for every time I made a dumb mistake in just these past few months alone, we wouldn’t need to live here. Making mistakes doesn’t make you dumb, it just means you’re learning.”

She sniffled a bit before wiping away at her with her arm, the small pink sleeve that covered her scar soaking up any tears that were forming.

“Thanks, Khorry.”

I bent down and draped my wings around my sister, giving her a nice warm hug. After everything, while she DID have a very touching reunion with her father, the absence of her mother and the introduction of Trivah, Dailo, and Trilly was a bit too much change to deal with all at once.

So we all decided that she’d stay with us for now until she’d adjusted a bit. It was odd at first, to be sure, but I liked having her here. Grandfather adored her and I had to admit, having a little sister, at least unofficially, was something I was definitely warming up to.

“Always happy to help. Now, I’ll be working late tonight so be sure to get both yourself and grandfather to bed at a decent time, alright?”

“Okay. Bye-bye, Khorry.”

“Bye-bye, hatchling.”

I ran my beak through her head fur, preening out a small tangle and freeing a spine that was loose. Once I’d disposed of it, I turned to head out the door, but not before stopping at the other bed, where Grandfather was sat, listening to the radio. His expression instantly brightened as he heard me coming.

“Off to change the world again, Little ‘Nel?”

“I’m gonna try.”

“I know you will.”

I knelt down and gave him his hug as well. I missed this. After so long without him, every hug was a nostalgic treasure.

“And I’m not little anymore!”

“Perhaps not, but you’ll always be MY Little ‘Nel.”

“I know, Grandfather. I’ll be sure to make you proud out there.”

“You already do, my child. Now go. And be sure to tell that future Grandson-in-law of mine to run a comb through his head fur from time to time. I can’t even see and I can tell how scruffy he looks.”

I pulled away as felt my face turn warm, adding a splash of purple to the spectrum of color on my face.

“It’s not like that! WE’RE not like that! …Not yet, anyways…”

“Well, then tell him to hurry it up already! I want great grandpups before I die!”

CAW! CRAW!

“GRRRRGH!! NOPE! Not having this conversation! Goodbye! Love you!”

“Love you too! Best of luck today!”

“Bye-bye, Khorry!”

I barely heard the taunts of my family behind me as I stomped out the door and slammed it. After taking a moment to settle my feathers back down, I walked down the hall to the next door over.

Knock knock knock!

“It’s open!”

My mood instantly brightened from the kind, muffled, voice inside the room. I opened the door and was immediately greeted by the sight of Ms. Teylim making a meal, along with her adorable hatchling excitedly bouncing in his high chair.

“Khornel, dear!”

“NEWWY!!!”

I walked over at a brisk pace before kneeling down to give them both hugs.

“Where’s Michael?”

“He should be-“

SLAM!!!

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Lost track of time!”

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes as my scatterbrained best friend and business partner sprinted into the kitchen area and quickly grabbed a slice of strayu from the table.

“You ALWAYS lose track of time!”

As much as I wanted to scold him for not being ready by the time I got here AGAIN, we didn’t have the time.

“Let’s just get moving before we’re late.”

“Right! Let’s go!”

However, just as we were about to leave…

“Ahem. Forgetting something, my joey?”

Michael looked up for a moment and frantically began checking his pockets before looking back at Ms. Teylim. Her smug look said it all. After a quick facepalm, he immediately jogged back to the kitchen area and knelt down to give her a goodbye hug, as well as a peck on the cheek for good measure. Lucky…

“Muah! Bye, Ma! Love you!”

“Be careful!”

“We will!”

Once he broke free from the hug, he made one last side trip to Tohba’s high chair, already going to plant a kiss on the top of his head. Again, lucky…

“MIKEY!”

“Mmmmmmm-“

“HEEHYEHAHAHA! TICKWES!!”

“-mmmMUAH! Bye-bye, Bud! ¡Te amo!”

“BYE-BYE, MIKEY!!”

With his goodbye hugs and kisses out of the way he made his way over to me…

My turn?!

…Only to run right past me and out the door.

Awwwe… Phooey…

Dejected as I was, I chased after him and down the hall.

“What?! I don’t get a kiss, too?!”

“Buy me dinner first, Bird Brain!”

“UGH!! You’re the WORST!!”

Memory Transcript Subject: Dohkar, Venlil Militia Leader Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137

“COMMANDER ON DECK!”

STOMP!

My four brothers stood in a line in front of the bar, still as statues as I came down the stairs. I still wasn’t sure how to feel about most of them. While I left, they all stayed, and continued fighting for The Guild even when they knew what they were doing was wrong.

Still, I knew these men. They all trained with me, ate with me, stood by me…grew up with me, and now, they stood here, ready to fight with me. While I could never forgive them for standing by while the people I loved suffered, I am willing to let them prove they’re willing to change.

“At ease.”

I marched in front of them, inspecting each to make sure their garb and gear was in order. In some ways, it resembled their old Guild uniforms minus any actual environmental protection. However, instead of chrome, we wore the same white coloration of the APCs that had broken through the Guild Offices walls. Black boots, gloves and bandoliers offset the white of our suits. And finally, five stripes of bright, blazing, blue accented our new badges, reminiscent of not only the blue helmets of the UN troops that fought by our sides, but also the eyes of a particular human musician, one I was looking forward to hearing sing again.

“Alright men, in order for this rally to go smoothly, we need to be on our guard. My most recent talks with Tevis didn’t go quite as well as I’d hoped, but I did manage to get him to leave us be for the most part. While we WILL still have to deal with the Interim Guard being there, they won’t be coming nearly as armed or numerous as usual. They’re simply there to observe, nothing more. Keep your eyes on them, but don’t do anything rash, or let any of the civilians do so either.”

I turned and marched down the line once more. While I was itching to move onto individual orders, there was the Mazik in the room to address.

“Now, I know many of us are shaken by news of the archives on Talsk. Believe me, I am too, but that’s all the more reason for us to stay vigilant. The people are afraid, confused, and questioning everything. The Magistrate, on top of their normal nonsense, will be that much more desperate to keep control. It is our job to be the barrier between the people we serve, and those willing to use this crisis to exploit them. There will come a time to rest and collect our thoughts, but now is not that time. The people need us. This town needs us, and until that is no longer the case, we MUST remain strong.”

“SIR!”

Once I was at the end of the line again, I turned back around and began giving out individual orders, starting with-

“Bennic, out of everyone else in the squad, you’re currently the one with the best rapport with the people. I’m having you in charge of evacuation in case something goes wrong. Keep your eyes peeled for escape routes and be ready to begin herding everyone together at a moment’s notice.”

“Yes, sir.”

Next in line was Abra, our weapon specialist. Out of everyone, he was our best shot, even better than me. But he ALSO had one of the itchiest flamer fingers among us as well.”

“Abra, have you already made sure everyone’s gear is working properly?”

“Yes, sir. Every sidearm, baton, and smoke bomb we have is cleaned, checked, and functional.”

“Good, then I just want you to stay vigilant. Find some higher ground and keep an extra close eye on the Interim. The moment one of them tries something funny, I want to know.”

“And if they try harming the civilians?”

I furrowed my brow at him. I knew what he was getting at.

“Aim for NON-lethal, and make sure you have proof that THEY were the aggressors first.”

He gave a dejected chuff before responding.

“Yes, sir…”

What am I going to do with you, little brother?

Next was Ento, probably the only other Yotul here in town other than Teylim and Tohba, were they still here.

“Ento, were you able to make your last diagnostics check on the sound equipment last paw.”

“Yep! Everything on our end was working perfectly last I checked. We’ll still have to wait until they try connecting to know for sure, though.”

“Do everything you can to make sure it works. Leave the Interim and civilians to us.”

“Yes, sir!”

Finally, there was our medic, Canuck. Besides Bennic, this Zurulian was probably the one I was closest with growing up, if only because I’d always get the brunt of Albiel’s punishments when I’d stand up for the others, and it was usually Canuck patching me up.

“Canuck, in the case of an emergency, I want you to return to Dr. Forrik’s clinic. Since he’s still caring for his wife, I need you there getting everything ready in case something happens.”

“You sure you lot will be alright without me there?”

“We’ll be fine. The clinic will need you more than we will.”

“Yes, sir.”

With one last turn, I inspected my squad one last time.

“One last question.”

“What is it, Ben?”

“What about our…junior recruit?”

I sighed and looked back towards the staircase leading upstairs, just in time to catch a pair of suspiciously Nevok-shaped ears dip back from around the corner. I made sure to speak loud enough for him to hear me.

“He is to stay here and hold the fort. And he should bear in mind, I don’t just let ANYONE watch over MY bar. This is a large responsibility I’m trusting him with, and I trust he won’t let me down.”

The ears reappeared and solemnly nodded before retreating back up the stairs. Once I was sure my point was made, I turned back to my squad.

“Alright, if that’s all, we’ve got protestors to escort! Let’s move out!”

“SIR!”

Memory Transcript Subject: Khornel, Krakotl Talent Manager Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137

The Soulroot tram station was surprisingly bustling. I half-expected the place to be a ghost town like most places were after Cilani’s interview. But with the news breaking about the Farsul’s archives breaking, it seemed the people of Soulroot were out and about more than ever, either flocking to the many churches and chapels in the area, or simply deciding to pray at the Soulroot itself for answers…any answers.

“Damn. I always forget just how big that thing is.”

Speak of the devil…

We both gazed out the window of the tram car as it passed through the massive central park area of the city. In its exact center, dwarfing even the buildings surrounding the large, wooded park, was the city’s namesake: Kihri, The Soulroot. One of five massive Seraphim Trees spread across Venlil Prime.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe it was so close. I would’ve loved to have visited here.”

“Maybe we will when we have time.”

“I hope so.”

Once we passed the park, we turned back around and returned to our pads. He was working on another instrumental while I decided to pull up our current client list. I suddenly remembered something as soon as the list loaded and I saw the newest addition.

“Oh! By the way! I got us a new client!”

“Oh, sick! Who are they?”

“A restaurant in the next district over. It’s called The Lackadaisy. It IS an hour-long tram ride there, but it pays well, AND I got us a few perks as well.”

“OoooOOOoo! Like?”

“Like us getting to eat AND take out half off on the paws we play there. It might not be dinner, but I’d say half off lunch and take out once a week isn’t half bad.”

“You da bird, ‘Nel. When do we start?”

“You are scheduled to play during the lunch rush in two paws. We are to enter through the back entrance and meet with co-owners Sylvon and Kenta.”

“Sylvon and Kenta. Got it!”

Now approaching: Five Meadows

“This is our stop.”

We knew the tram wouldn’t take us all the way there. The Magistrate’s lockdown had seen to that, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t hang out by the border. In fact, the border that separated Soulroot and Five Meadows had become a popular gathering spot for people from both towns to “voice their displeasure”, which was exactly why we were here. With the lockdown of Five Meadows in effect, the war still ongoing, and the news of archives now made public, the people’s opinion of the local Magistrate was at an all time low. It was time to take advantage of that.

Once we exited the tram and saw crowds growing on both sides of the fence separating us from our home, we immediately spotted the makeshift soundstage we’d be using, as well as several figures on the other side garbed in white. They only got clearer once we got closer. Michael was even more excited to see them as I was.

“Heya Dohk!”

Dohkar, dressed in the new uniform of the Five Meadows Militia, greeted us with a warm smile, being sure to stay a decent distance away for the electric fence.

“Mike, Feathers, it’s good to see you two are alright.”

“Likewise, nice duds by the way. Totally doesn’t make you look like an oompa loompa or anything.”

“Watch it, Ape. I’ll have you know it was Trivah who made these.”

“Shit! Is she alright?”

“She’s fully recovered and here with her family. You’ll forgive me if I don’t call them over. The last thing I want is Trilly and Dailo trying to get through this fence.”

“No worries. Just tell them I said hi.”

A yotul garbed in the same uniform ran up to Dohkar and greeted us with a nod.

“Everything’s set up, you two. Once you're connected, let me know and we’ll do a sound check.”

“Right!”

Memory Transcript Subject: Michael Ruiz Andrews, Human Street Musician Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137

Breathe…focus…

Sometimes…I wonder if it was all worth it…

Breathe…focus…

In a lot of ways, life was the same as it was back on Earth. Here I was, stuck in a shitty apartment, well…motel room now, I guess. I still had a shitty landlord that hated my guts. I was still struggling to make ends meet, playing music I wasn’t all that crazy about for people I wasn’t all that crazy about. I still didn’t have any real direction to take my life in, or any real plans for the future. So…was it worth it?

Breathe…focus…

I’d lost almost everything I had. I lost my guitar, the only real thing I had to remind me of Dad, and everything he taught me. I lost pretty much all of my possessions. Hell, the only reason I had new clothes to use at all was thanks to the human embassy here in Soulroot. I lost my home a second time, just days after finally bringing myself to start calling it that. I even almost lost my life. My scar still itches from time to time just thinking about it. So…was it really worth it? Remembering all the pain, suffering, heartache, and loss I’d been through in these past few months, sometimes I really question it.

Breathe…focus…

But then…then I remember the GOOD times. I remember all the people I’ve met, all the songs and memories we’ve made together.

Breathe…focus…

I remember meeting Mom, and my baby brother. I remember singing for them for the first time. I remember sitting and eating breakfast with them, talking and laughing the early hours away. I remember watching Tohba and teaching him how to sing, just like Dad taught me. I remember meeting Dohk, his honest words and advice keeping me grounded when the world around me just didn’t make sense. I remember meeting ‘Nel, slowly but surely building a friendship and trust that I wouldn’t give for anything.

Hopefully she puts up with me long enough for me to finally be ready.

I remember all the strife and challenges I’ve gone through, knowing that I wasn’t alone for any of it. I remember all the things I’ve gained: A life, a family, a mentor, a partner…

A home…

Breathe…focus…

A home worth fighting for.

Breathe…focus…

A home worth living for.

Breathe…focus…

A home…worth playing for…

So breathe…focus…and play…

The speakers come to life with a chill beat, soft snares and shakers keeping the pace as the ambience builds. A triangle marks my entrance as I take over, plucking at Teyrin’s strings. I nod along with the bouncing melody, letting myself get into it. I see a few in the crowd begin swaying along as I begin to let my soul sing.

I wake up every evenin’…with a big smile on my face! And it never feels out of place!

It’s hard to not grin as I speak, letting the notes express my current mood perfectly. I make sure to give those Interim jerks guarding the border a smug look which they definitely don’t appreciate.

And you’re still probably workin’…at a nine-to-five pace! I wonder how bad that tastes!

When you see my face, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives you hell!

When you walk my way, hope it gives you hell, hope it gives yooou hell!

I turn to ‘Nel, standing up on stage singing next to me. There’s no one I’d rather be up here with.

Now, where’s your picket fence, Love? And where’s that shiny car? Did it ever get you far?

You never seemed so dense, Love! I’ve never seen you fall so hard! Do you know where you are?

When I’m up here…and I think about my old life on Earth…

And truth be told, I miss you… (Miss you…)

And truth be told, I’M LYIN’!!!

We turn to the closest Interim chump keeping us from our home.

WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!

WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!

WHEN YOU FIND A MAN THAT’S WORTH A DAMN AND TREATS YOU WELL!

THEN HE’S THE FOOL, YOU’RE JUST AS WELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!

I hope it gives you hell!

Memory Transcript Subject: Jerrick, Nevok Fugitive Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137

The mood of the song calmed for a moment. I watched the live broadcast just hoping nothing would happen. Everything going on was just so CRAZY. With the raid, the Magistrate taking over, and now the archives, it just made everything I did in the name of The Guild even more pointless.

Tomorrow, you’ll be thinkin’ to yourself, “Yeah, where did it all go wrong?” But the list goes on and on!

Everything I did for HIM…pointless…

And truth be told, I miss you… (Miss you…)

And truth be told, I’M LYIN’!!!

I hope you rot, Father…

WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!

WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!

WHEN YOU FIND A MAN THAT’S WORTH A DAMN AND TREATS YOU WELL!

THEN HE’S THE FOOL, YOU’RE JUST AS WELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!

Memory Transcript Subject: Michael Ruiz Andrews, Human Street Musician Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137

A figure stands in my periphery… I know who she is…

Now you’ll never see! What you’ve done to me!

She’s not my mother…

You can take back your memories, they’re no good to me!

“You’ll never be rid of me, Blue.” I know…

You can hiss all your lies! You can look me in the eyes!

With that sad, sad, look that you wear so well!

But that just means you get to watch as I live my life without you in it.

[Warning!: You Are About To Access Restricted Files: Continue?: Y/N…]

[The Following Is A News Broadcast Archived By Magistrate Intelligence…]

[The camera opens on a female, human, reporter with green eyes standing in front of an energetic crowd…]

“WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!!”

“AS YOU CAN SEE BEHIND ME, THE “FREE FIVE MEADOWS” RALLY IS WELL UNDER WAY!”

“WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!!”

“AND YOU CAN JUST FEEL THE ENERGY OF THE CROWD HERE!”

“WHEN YOU FIND A MAN THAT’S WORTH A DAMN AND TREATS YOU WELL!!!”

“ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE FENCE, IT APPEARS THAT THE RUMORED “FIVE MEADOWS MILITIA” ARE ACTUALLY HERE GUARDING THE PROTESTORS!”

“THEN HE’S THE FOOL!!! YOU’RE JUST AS WELL!!! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!!!”

“HOPEFULLY, WE’LL BE ABLE TO GET AN INTERVIEW! UNTIL THEN, JUST LISTEN TO THIS!!!”

Memory Transcript Subject: Michael Ruiz Andrews, Human Street Musician Date:[Standardized Human Time] February 2, 2137

Breathe…focus…and ROAR!!!

To my old life on Earth!

WHEN YOU SEE MY FACE, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL!
“GIVES YOU HELL!!!”

To the Federation killing my people!

WHEN YOU WALK MY WAY, HOPE IT GIVES YOU HELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
“GIVES YOU HELL!!!”

To the Magistrate holding my hometown hostage!

WHEN YOU HEAR THIS SONG AND SING ALONG, THOUGH YOU’LL NEVER TELL!
“YOU’LL NEVER TELL!!!”

To every last asshole who thinks I’m a monster for what I am!

THEN YOU’RE THE FOOL, I’M JUST AS WELL! HOPE IT GIVES YOOOU HELL!
“GIVES YOU HELL!!!”

To that monster who took my mom, rotting in whatever cell he’s being held in.

WHEN YOU HEAR THIS SONG, I HOPE THAT IT WILL GIVE YOU HELL!
“GIVE YOU HELL!!!”

And lastly, to that figure, that voice in my head telling me I don’t deserve a home…

YOU CAN SING ALONG! I HOPE THAT IT PUTS YOU THROUGH HELL…

The End
submitted by OttoVonBlastoid to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 16:55 OttoVonBlastoid Nature Of A Homeless Musician: FINALE: Part 8: The End Of An Era

Special thanks to u/SpacePaladin15 for creating the NoP universe.

I'd also like to thank u/xskipy10 for their awesome fanart of the main cast as well as their recent Tohba meme and their fanart of Michael baysitting. You're work is a treasure!

Thank you as well to u/Accomplished-Golf-59 for his take on Michael, Teylim, and Tohba in his submission for the Banner Art Contest, and u/Spacer_Catgirl4969 for their awesome music video featuring a pixel-art Dohkar in his bar. Be sure to give ALL of these awesome creators your love and support.

And let's not forget u/Guywhoexists2812 who has been an awesome source of memes as well as sick pixel art, such as THIS and THIS!!!! And even THIS!!!!!! And how could I forget THIS!!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much!

Today, we join Dohkar as he finally completes his mission and puts an end to the horrors of the Five Meadows Guild once and for all. Now all that's left...is to pick up the pieces...and prepare for whatever comes next... And finally...a family is made complete... LETTUCE...continue...

First

Previous

Songs Mentioned/Used: N/A

Memory Transcript Subject: Dohkar, Venlil Bartender Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137

I’m not sure what I expected to see or experience when I finally caught up to Albiel, but it wasn’t this. What I saw before me had me completely off-guard. Albiel, on the ground, with a plasma burn straight through his knee, and standing above him, was…

“Jerrick…put…the gun…down…”

I held my paws up, doing my best to talk him down. I hadn’t even SEEN Jerrick since the concert. Honestly, I hate him for what he tried to do to Mike, but looking at him now…all I felt as pity…

His fur was stained from dirt, grime, and stars know what else. Just like Teylim, he had a collar around his neck, and his ears weren’t so much as pinned back, as they were just play glued back from all of the filth he’d no doubt been wallowing in this whole time. Albiel really did just lock him away in a cell the moment her was no longer useful.

“HE DESERVES IT!!!”

“I know. Believe me, I know. But this isn’t the answer.”

Sure. I hated Albiel. I despised him. I detested him. And yes, I wanted to kill him, too. But for people like him, death alone isn’t enough. And it certainly wouldn’t help Jerrick in the long run.

“Jerrick, listen to me. You’ve been through this exact situation before. At the concert, remember.”

He flinched as soon as I mentioned that paw.

“You could’ve hit that shit dead on. You and I both know it. But you missed on purpose, didn’t you?”

Jerrick’s shaking got worse and worse. I could see the conflict happening behind his eyes. I could tell I was making progress when I saw the small twinkles building up in the corner of his eyes.

Poor kid… Just a kid…

“I…I-I just wanted a… j-just wanted him to-“

“Be a father. I know… That’s what we all wanted. We were just pups, with no one to love us, to care for us, to help us grow.”

At this point, I felt like I was talking to both of them now. I slowly took a step toward them, and then another, and another. I looked down at the pathetic monster at my feet. Bleeding…broken…and for the first time I think in his life…afraid…

“We didn’t want some ‘grand purpose’. We didn’t want to inherit some empire. We just wanted a family.”

I looked at Jerrick. I’d managed to get right next to him. I didn’t grab for the gun. I simply kneeled down beside him, and spoke calmly…

“That’s why you missed, isn’t it? You saw what Mike had. You saw what you’d be taking away from them.”

“It’s not fair… It’s just not fair…”

“It never is…but you have to understand that you CAN still have that. I’m the proof. If I was able to walk away, and have a chance at a life and a family, then so are you.”

For the first time, his eyes left his target and met mine. At that moment, I saw Jerrick for who he was, without any of the dogma, arrogance, or misplaced loyalty. He wasn’t an exterminator, PD patient, or a murderer. He was a child, just a child who lost his way.

“You didn’t have to pull the trigger then, and you don’t now.”

It was only then, that I held out my paw, and with more than a little hesitation, Jerrick handed it to me. Before I was tempted myself, I threw the thing down the hall. Before I could do anything else, I heard that same, smug, arrogant, if slightly choked up laughter coming from the absolute disgrace behind me. I turned to face my father, my abuser, my monster as his signature look of pride came back, his stupid horn glinting in the light of the building’s ceiling lamps.

“So that’s it, then? Just like that? Where is all that rage and fire I saw in your eyes, when I held that sub-sapient primitive in my grasp, and threatened to find and kill that spawn of hers?”

He’s baiting you.

I know.

“Even when you’re saving my life, you’re still a disappointment, Dohkar.”

“I’m not saving your life, I’m just prolonging your death.”

I held an arm out to shield Jerrick. I wasn’t going to let him bait me into attacking. Instead, I’d turn his stupid trick against him, and I wanted to make sure Jerrick was safe.

“You don’t deserve to die, Albiel. You deserve to LIVE, to sit in a cell and rot just like all the others whose lives you’ve helped ruin, and watch as everything you built crumbles down around you. You’re no leader. You’re just a pathetic disgrace to weak to stand on your own if you aren’t stepping on someone else to feel taller. And I’m going to make you live with that fact for the rest of your miserable life.”

And then, just a moment, the mask slips one last time…

“I’LL KILL YO-“

Whrp-prrrck!!!

Before he can lunge at us with the last of his strength, my tail wraps around his neck, and before he can choke out another word, his head is slammed into the ground…at just the right angle…to snap that horn of his at the base.

SLAM!!!

CRACK!!!

Just like that, it was over. Jerrick let out a shaky breath, staring down at our unconscious father figure. Before he broke down completely, I pulled him into an embrace. We just sat there, him crying, and me holding him in what was probably the first real hug he’d ever recieved.

“It’s alright, son. It’s over… It’s over…”

Eventually, he finally ran out of energy, and fell asleep. Once everything was calm, I placed a finger to my ear piece.

“This is 1-2 Dohkar. VIP subdued. Objective complete. Patients evacuated. Hostages secured. All hostiles neutralized. Mission accomplished. Over and out…”

Memory Transcript Subject: Teylim, Yotul Refugee Sponsor Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137

My head was slightly foggy. I was barely paying attention to what any of the medics around me were saying. All I knew was my leg hurt, my ribs hurt, my pretty-much-everything-else hurt…and I missed my joeys…

“There you are! I was hoping I could catch you before they moved you.”

I turned my head and saw a pleasant, familiar, face approaching the cot I was laid out on.

Heeheehee. Handsome face…

These painkillers must be really something…

“Dohkar! You’re alright.”

“Yeah… Mission accomplished. It’s finally over.”

“Good. Wait. W-what about Tohba, Michael, and Khornel? I heard them over the loudspeakers but-”

“Easy, Teylim. Don’t strain yourself. They’re fine. They’re already on the way here.”

My mind was instantly put at ease for the most part. My body protested as I took in a long breath and let it out in a relieved sigh. They were alright. My joeys were alright.

[Transcript Time Progression: 15 minutes…]

“So I don’t think I’ve EVER seen YOU cry before.”

“I’m never living that down, am I?”

“Oh, absolutely not. The great, brave, oh so stoic Dohkar putting on the waterworks for Little Ol’ Me!”

“Pfft. Please. I was just sobbing in despair over getting stuck with two pups to take care of.”

“Ha Ha.”

Before I could chuckle at our stupid banter, my body quickly reminded me why that was a bad idea.

Ow! Ow. Yep. Still hurts to laugh.

Dohkar looked up for a moment and looked off into the distance.

“Huh. Speak of the devil.”

“MAMAAAAA!!!!” “TEEEEEYYY!!!!!” “MS. TEYLIM!!!!”

MY BABIES!!

We need our joeys.

YES!

With some effort, I turned my head in the other direction, and almost broke down instantly at what I saw.

My joeys…all three of them. I felt a paw on my shoulder before Dohkar left.

“I’ll…leave you to it… I still have to visit Clem and a few others.”

After a moment, the soldiers guarding the field hospital let them through, and they immediately sprinted to my side. I couldn’t have them in my arms fast enough. After a solid minute of their voices combining into a jumbled slurry of “Are you okay”s and “I’m so sorry”s, things finally calmed down enough for a full conversation.

“Mama….”

“My precious…”

Michael slowly lowered my Tohba into my arms, and as soon as he clung onto me, it felt like a massive piece of my heart and soul had been restored. He was alive! He was safe! They found him! And now he was back in my arms!

“MAMA!!! MAMAAAAAHAAAAA!!!”

“I’m here, Precious. Mama’s here…”

It hurt. My body protested against the weight of my joey. My arms burned and my breaths were still ragged, but I didn’t care. I held onto my Tohba like I hadn’t held him in cycles, placing lick after lick on the top of his head. Once I was content with my grooming, I held an arm out to bring my other two joeys in.

“Michael… Khornel… Thank the stars, you two are alright…”

“Tey…” “Ms. Teylim…”

“I heard you two over the loudspeakers. You did so well. I’m so proud of you…”

We stayed like that for a while. As much as holding them hurt, I just didn’t want to let go. We did finally break free of our group hug however, when one of the soldiers came along and gave Khornel a salute.

“Are you Ms. Khornel?”

“Y-yes… That’s me…”

“One of the other patients is asking for you. Clem?”

“YOU FOUND GRANDFATHER?!”

“Yes. He’s currently receiving medical attention but he’s stable. I can take you to him if you like.”

Khornel jumped to her feet and almost sped off right there, but hesitated after looking back at the rest of us. Michael simply gave her a nod.

“Go. We’ll catch up.”

Every single feather she had ruffled in excitement before she let the soldier lead her away. I tried to listen as she got further and further away. Eventually, I was able to hear her.

“Grandfather!”

“Little ‘Nel! My Little ‘Nel!”

I couldn’t help but smile.

I’m so happy for you, Dear.

And speaking of dears, I looked back up at Michael. We were alone now, just the three of us. He’d been remarkably silent this whole time. Now though, once he was sure no one else could here, he broke down completely.

“I’m sORrY, TeY. I aM so, SO, SorRY…”

“Sssshhhh… It’s alright. Whatever for?”

“I sHouLD’Ve bEEn tHeRE. I ShOUld’Ve BeEN aT tHe hOUse. I shOuLdN’T hAve-”

“Hey… Hey… None of that… Michael, sweetie look at me…”

Michael sniffled and wiped away his tears, doing his best to hold it together. His bright blue eyes were filled with regret, regret that was entirely undeserved. All I had to do to prove it was point out the joey in my arms, fast asleep.

“You found Tohba. You kept him safe. You agreed to stay behind even if you didn’t want to. And when the time came, you all found a way to help without putting yourself or the others in danger. You could NOT have handled yourself better today.”

I strained to raise up my free arm and cup the side of Michael’s face in my paw, wiping away another tear streak with my thumb. I looked into my son's beautiful eyes with all the love I could muster.

“I am SO…proud of you.”

Without another word, he held my paw in his hand, nuzzling into it with his cheek. I finally had my boys with me again. And for the first time in a long time…everything felt like it was going to be alright…

Memory Transcript Subject: Tevis, Magistrate Intelligence Operative Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 16, 2137

I walked around the grounds of the field hospital. All around me, human medics and professionals were tending to the patients and hostages. The raid had been a success.

Albiel was in custody… UN Custody…

Many of the other exterminators were deaf from WHATEVER THE HELL that human did over the intercom.

I watched as a large Krakotl was led to one of the elderly patients by a soldier.

“GRANDFATHER!!!”

“Little ‘Nel!!!!”

The two embraced, the smaller Venlil running his claws through her feathers.

“My Little ‘Nel…”

“I missed you so much, Grandfather. I’m so sorry I let you get-”

“Don’t you dare blame yourself. I’m just glad you’re alright…”

I shook my head and continued moving. So that’s another family that will need housing. Pretty much every patient here is going to be a personal settlement case all on their own, with, more than likely, PLENTY to say about the state in which they were held in…

I watched a frantic looking Gojid enter the hospital constantly looking around.

“Scolina?! Has anyone seen my daughter?! Scolina?!”

The Gojid eventually made their way closer towards the Krakotl and old Venlil from before. One of the Gojid patients on a nearby bed seemed to hear his call.

“D…Daddy…?”

The two made I contact, and the younger Gojid was almost immediately tackle hugged by the elder.

“‘LINA!!! My sweet little ‘Lina, I’m so sorry!!!!”

“DADDY!!! DADDY!!!”

They broke away from the hug for a moment as the older Gojid looked in horror at the burn scars covering the girl.

“Oh, ‘Lina what did they do to you?”

“They…said it would fix me… Am… Am I fixed now, Daddy?”

Just hearing the words seemed to make the man break down entirely all over again.

“There was never anything wrong with you… I should never have sent you to this place… It’s all my fault…”

“Daddy…”

Judging from the girl’s speech patterns, she must’ve been taken in while she was a pup, which meant lots of special education as well as whatever this human “therapy” was.

What a load of sanctimonious-

I calmed myself before I could go on a rant.

After doing the rest of my rounds, watching more and more people reunite with their family members, I walked off and went make a call back to HQ. As far as I could tell, this was the rundown: The bar was now filled with dead and/or dying exterminators, the Guild Office was filled with dead and/or dying exterminators, Albiel was now in custody, there were still exterminators on the Guild roster that were MIA, pretty much all the patients were now out and able to give testimony, and I had a LOT more paperwork than usual to take care of.

Yep! Just about NOTHING has gone to plan.

Time to change that…

[Warning!: You Are About To Access Restricted Files: Continue?: Y/N…]

[The Following Is A Clip From A News Broadcast Archived By Magistrate Intelligence…]

[The clip opens up on a well-groomed Venlil reporter behind a desk with the logo of “Prime News”...]

“Tensions rise once more in the Soulroot District as events continue to heat up in their border village of Five Meadows. We here at Prime News have been following the events of what is now being labeled, ‘The Five Meadows Incident’ over this past month, starting with the failed assassination of a human refugee and seemingly ending with the temporary shutdown of the Five Meadows Extermination Guild as a whole. However, while the crisis with The Guild does seem to have passed, things are still not well in that small border town. We go now to our newest seeker, Rose McDermott, out in the field. Rose?”

[The camera changes to view a female human reporter standing in front of what appears to be a border checkpoint…]

“Thank you, Talen. As anyone who has been following this incident with us would know, just two weeks ago, I was just actually IN the town of Five Meadows, just outside the former Guild Office, watching as patients, hostages, and soldiers alike were treated for their injuries and traumas. However, before we could get any interviews, we were quickly escorted from the premises by Interim Guard officials. And while The Soulroot Magistrate HAS released a public statement regarding the situation, their actions have led many to question their intentions, this checkpoint behind me being one chief example. As said in their public announcement, The Magistrate is now enforcing a full lockdown of Five Meadows, stating their intent to track down any exterminators who escaped the raid on their office and are still considered, “at large”. However, after the events of the Five Meadows Incident, many incriminating recordings being leaked online, as well as the upcoming election, many are wondering if The Soulroot Magistrate truly had the people’s best interests at heart. Back to you, Talen…”

[The camera changes once more to show the Venlil reporter. They seem to take a breath before reshuffling the papers on the desk…]

“Now…you all watching are more than aware of my opinions on such things as Extermination Guilds and Predator Disease Facilities. But…this is a news station. We can’t just sit here blindly theorizing and getting lost in conjecture. My opinions aside, and leaving just the facts alone, it is clear that what has happened in this small town is nothing short of tragic. And we here at Prime News will continue to cover these events as they unfold. And to any who are in or even from Five Meadows, our hearts and minds go out to you, and we hope you remain strong in these uncertain times. This is Talen with Prime News…signing off…”

[Clip ends…]

Memory Transcript Subject: Teylim, Yotul Refugee Sponsor Date:[Standardized Human Time] January 24, 2137

“I’d like to thank you for joining us today, Ms. Teylim. I do hope you’re healing well.”

I gave a smile to the kind man on the monitor as I shifted on the motel room bed.

“Thank you. It’ll still be a little while before my leg is able to be walked on normally, but otherwise, I’m healing well. Thank you, Dr. Jacobson.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Now then, onto the reason why I asked for this group session. It appears there’s been a slight breakdown in communication between you and Michael…”

I gave a confused look to Michael, sat on the other bed in the motel room. He shifted uncomfortably and simply looked down at his hands.

“What kind of breakdown?”

“It seems that ever since things have been…brought out in the open between you two, he’s stated that he’s been experiencing ‘guilty’ feelings whenever trying to express affection.”

“Is this true, Michael?”

“It’s just… I don’t know what it is. I felt like…like I was wasting your time…”

“Wasting my time?”

“Tey… Be honest… When…exactly…did you start thinking of me like your son?”

I did my best to think back. Honestly, after the first time he sang for us was probably the first time I felt something like that, but at the time, I just thought it was leftover mom hormones from having Tohba.

“Honestly, the first time I felt something akin to motherly love for you was after you sang for us the first time. You just…looked so sad, lost, confused, and scared, and I just…gravitated towards it. Afterwards, things calmed down somewhat, but when I really started feeling it was Thanksgiving.”

“Oh. I wasn’t aware that you tried having Thanksgiving. It makes sense in a way, though. That holiday, along with Christmas the following month, have great emphasis on spending time with one’s family.”

Suddenly, a horrifying realization popped into my head.

“Oh no! Michael, we forgot to celebrate Christmas!!”

“Tey, it’s fine. All the present deliveries got canceled, anyways.”

“It is not ‘fine’! We are celebrating Christmas! I don’t care if I have to drag a tree into this room myself!”

“Ugh… Fine…”

After a moment of laughing at ourselves, Dr. Jacobson continued.

Well, we’ve established that one end of these feelings truly began around Thanksgiving. What about you Michael? When would you say you truly started seeing Teylim as a mother figure in your life?”

“Honestly…I don’t know… Not for sure, anyways. In some ways, it feels like she’s always been that way to me, but maybe that’s just because even after just meeting her, she was already treating me better than my own mom did.”

Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. A part of me was giddy that he’d apparently always thought of me as a mother to him, another part was completely shattered by just how much his birth mother had affected him. It was like hearing his tale of abuse all over again.

“I think…once I got used to actually calling her that in my mind, that was when the idea actually became real. That’s when I really started thinking about her as my mom. Not A mom…My mom… But even then, I just…couldn’t say it, no matter how hard I tried. Like I said, in some ways it just…always felt like she was my mom. So when I think about how long it took me to actually start acknowledging it and expressing it… I just…feel guilty. I wasted so much time…”

I turned and sat facing toward him. I couldn’t let him truly believe that.

“Michael, it could’ve taken three days, three months, or three years. I would’ve accepted your love whenever you were ready.”

“But you shouldn’t have had to! You shouldn’t have had to wait for me just to get over myself.”

“Michael…”

“The fact is…you were right. That egg donor that gave birth to me isn’t my mom…you are…”

My heart skipped a beat as he looked straight at me, my mind filling with just those last two words.

I…am…

“You’ve done more to raise, love, and nurture me in three months than my birth mom did in TEN YEARS. And you DESERVE a son that’s actually capable of accepting your love and giving it back. And I just…wasn’t able to do that…”

I felt my heart breaking more and more. I had no idea he’d been feeling this way, and I wanted nothing more than to help him through it.

“But that’s over now. I’m done blaming myself for something that wasn’t my fault. I’m done letting the words of a monster dictate what I am. That’s why I want to keep having sessions with you and Dr. Jacobson. I want to get better. So that I CAN be the son you deserve.”

Oh, Michael. If only you knew. You already are.

With some mixed feelings, I pulled over my satchel. There was something I’d been meaning to give him for a while now.

“Michael, you are already a wonderful son, one I wouldn’t trade for the world. I’ve already said that much. And I’m so happy you’re committed to getting better. There is nothing I want more than your happiness. When you were about to leave, before the concert, I was so scared I was about to lose you. The way you so easily gave up like that…it scared me. It felt like…like I failed.”

“Tey, I-”

That’s why…”

I slowly opened up my satchel and pulled out a small packet of papers. They were a bit torn and faded after fishing them out of the wreck that was my office, but I managed to find them.

“I got these for you.”

I handed him the papers and watched intently as he read them. I won’t lie, most of it is legal mambo jumbo that even I can’t fully understand, but I could tell exactly when he got to the important bit. I’d memorized that one beautiful line:

I, Teylim Andrews do hereby fully and officially acknowledge ________________ as my-

“Tey… Are these…adoption papers?”

“You’re only half right.”

He looked up from the papers, his eyes full of shock and awe.

“You ARE a full, legal, adult, by both human and Yotul standards, so I can’t technically ‘adopt’ you. BUT, what we CAN do, as legal, consenting adults, is BOTH agree to sign these papers, fully acknowledging each other as family, me as your mother, and you as my son. This does a LOT of weird, quirky things involving Venlil law, mostly involving inheritances and insurance. BUT the most important thing, is that by legally becoming a part of my family, the door is open to you for FULL. CITIZENSHIP. You won’t have to be a refugee anymore.”

Michael was speechless, just looking back down at the papers.

“Tey, I… I don’t know what to-”

“You don’t…have to sign if you don’t want to…”

He looked back at me, waiting to hear me out.

“At the time, I’d only gotten these to show you as proof, proof that I really AM serious about this. I truly DO see you as my own, Michael. And paper or no paper, that much will never change. I truly, completely, and purely…love you. And I want nothing more than for you to be happy…”

I looked down at my own paws. I knew that presenting him with this choice meant having to accept the fact that he might say no. So, I just curled in on myself and braced for it…just in case.

“But…I know that you’re still healing. I was going to give these to you after the concert. But then you got shot, and even after that, you were still recovering. I wanted to make sure things were slightly calm again before going through with it. Now, I know it’s a big decision and I completely understand if you don’t feel comfortable-OOF!!!”

Before I could even react, I was pushed backwards, fully wrapped up in a giant hug.

“MIchael! What are you-”

“I’ll do it… I’ll sign…”

With just those five words, I found myself struggling to find a response. My heart was racing and I couldn’t even tell if I heard him right.

“You… You mean-”

“I want to sign! I want to be your son!”

For a moment, I was still paralyzed. My rapidly wagging tail was the first part of me to move before I practically dove into him.

My son! MY SON! MY SON!

“OH, MICHAEL!!!!”

I couldn’t contain myself. I hugged. I squeezed. I nuzzled. I licked. I kissed. I held…my son. MY! SON! And soon, not even a government official would be able to say otherwise.

And then…as if I needed any more confirmation. He uttered four more words. Just four. Four words that I’d never heard him say before, at least not together, and not toward me. Still, hearing him say those four words…the last time I remember being that happy…was when my Tohba was born.

“I love you, Mom…”

Did he just call us…?

Mom… Mom… MOM MOM MOM MOM MOM!!! HE CALLED US MOM!!!

“I love you so much, my joey! Mama loves you so, so, so much! Never forget that.”

“Mom…”

Our lovely, perfect moment was then interrupted by the only thing that could’ve made it more perfect. A small, adorable yawn came from the small crib behind us.

“Mama…? Whad goin’ on?”

I turned to see Tohba peeking through the bars at us. It appeared our little moment had woken him from his nap.

“Hmmm… Tell me, Michael. Now that things seem like they’re becoming official, is there anything you’d like to say to young Tohba as well?”

“\sniff** Yeah… I think there is…”

I watched with bated breath as Michael walked over and plucked Tohba from his crib, before sitting next to me. Tohba, for his part, looked really worried, probably because we were both complete sobbing messes.

“Mikey zhad?”

“No, Bud. I’m not sad. I’m happy, happier than I’ve been in a long time.”

Tohba didn’t seem entirely convinced yet. He only seemed to get more worried when Michael composed himself and took on a somewhat serious tone.

“Bud? There’s something REALLY important you need to know. So, I need you to listen real close, okay?”

Tohba’s fear only seemed to grow. The last time Michael said something like that was when he left for Twilight Valley.

“Tohba… You…are the BEST…baby brother a guy like me could ever ask for. You hear me? The BEST…”

Tohba’s fear and worry seemed to go away for the most part, only to be replaced with partial confusion.

“Mikey…bwudhew…?”

We both almost broke again just from that one, adorable word. Michael was quick to confirm it, nodding frantically as he tried to hold it together.

“That’s right… And your big brother, Mikey loves you SO much, Tohba. SO…much… More than you’ll ever know…”

“Mikey…beeg bwudhew…”

Tohba seemed to take a moment to think, trying to truly comprehend the words he just said. Once he understood however, it was impossible to hide his excitement. His tiny tail became a blur behind him as his eyes lit up with glee. Before he could react, Tohba used his still developing hind legs to launch himself into Michael’s face.

“BEEG BWUDHEW!!!!”

“OH, JEEZ!”

In a flash, Michael was knocked onto his back, laughing as Tohba licked and nuzzled every inch of his face.

“MIKEY BEEG BWUDHEW! MAMA! MIKEY BEEG BWUDHEW!!!!”

That was it. That was what finally broke me. I sobbed openly and clapped as my Tohba shared the amazing news with me. Mikey IS beeg bwudhew.

Once his energy had wound down, Tohba saw fit to simply snuggle into Michael’s arms, letting out a long, contented sigh, as if anything that could’ve possibly been wrong in his tiny, perfect world had been made right again.

“Wuv you, Mikey… Wuv you Beeg Bwudhew…”

“I love you too, Bud. I love you so much.”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. I rushed forward…and held my boys in my arms. And in this one…perfect moment, I could only think one thing.

I love my boys. I love my family. I love my life.

Next
submitted by OttoVonBlastoid to NatureofPredators [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 16:23 Thick_Celebration660 Who Could Be The Next Philip Marlowe In Your Eyes, One of The Great Literary Characters Adapted Multiple Times on Screen, My Persona Choices are Michael Shannon and Joseph Gordon - Levitt (Include Pictures In Your Choices Please)

Who Could Be The Next Philip Marlowe In Your Eyes, One of The Great Literary Characters Adapted Multiple Times on Screen, My Persona Choices are Michael Shannon and Joseph Gordon - Levitt (Include Pictures In Your Choices Please) submitted by Thick_Celebration660 to Fancast [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 16:14 Leather_Focus_6535 The currently 124 offenders executed by the state of Oklahoma since the 1970s (warning, graphic content, please read at your own risk) [part 2, cases 63-124]

This is the second half of my list for Oklahoma's execution roster. As mentioned in the first part, I broke it in half to comply with reddit's character limitations. For the link to part 1, please click here.
The currently executed 124 offenders, cases 63-124:
63. Robert Knighton (~1960s-2003, lethal injection): In 1973, after being released from a 1968 armed robbery conviction, Knighton went on his first major crime spree. He stabbed and strangled several men and women during many robberies and home invasions. The only victim that was killed, 32 year old Coffier Day, was shot dead while Knighton was arguing with him in his home. Coffier's father, 53 year old Claude, was also injured in the shooting. Knighton's first crime spree ended when he kidnapped a married couple and their 6 year old daughter. They escaped when the wife and mother of the family attacked Knighton with a knife to protect her husband and daughter. The family then notified the police of their abduction. Knighton managed to secure a 30 year manslaughter conviction and a 10 year armed robbery conviction with a plea deal, and was released to a halfway house in 1989. There, he began dating a female addict and befriended a teenage boy. The trio embarked on a nationwide robbery spree together. In Missouri, they shot and killed 59 year old Frank Merrifield and his 40 year old stepson Roy Donahue while robbing their home, and stole guns and money from them. In Oklahoma, the trio fatally shot a couple, 64 year old Virginia and 62 year old Richard Denney, while carjacking them. Their rampage ended when a woman in Texas grow suspicious of them circling a neighborhood. Knighton had a long history of theft convictions dating back to his childhood, and joined the Aryan Brotherhood in prison. Behind bars, he frequently attacked black and Native American inmates out of racial hatred for them.
64. Kenneth Charm (1993-2003, lethal injection): Charm and his teenage cousin lured a family friend, 14 year old Brandy Hill, into their car. They raped Hill and tried strangling her with a towel. When that failed, the cousins bludgeoned her to death with a sledgehammer.
65. Lewis Gilbert II (1994-2003, lethal injection): Gilbert and his teenage accomplice committed at least 4 robbery murders in Missouri, Ohio, and Oklahoma, but he was executed for the killing of 37 year old Roxanne Ruddell. They ambushed and kidnapped Ruddell while she was fishing alone. She was robbed of $3 and her truck, tied to a tree, and shot to death. The pair also fatally shot Ruth Loader, a 79 year old Ohioan woman, while abducting her from her residence, and gunned down a Missouri couple, 86 year old William and 76 year old Flossie Brewer, in their home. Gilbert was also sentenced to death for the Brewer murders by the state of Missouri, but was incarcerated in Oklahoma State Penitentiary’s death row.
66. Robert Duckett (~1980s-2003, lethal injection): After breaking out of prison, Duckett was picked up hitchhiking by John Howard, a 53 year old store owner. Howard agreed to let Duckett stay with him until he could find a job. The pair soon had a failing out, and Duckett was evicted by his host. He retaliated by tying Howard up with wire and then beating him to death with a fireplace poker. Duckett made off with his car after he switched the license plates, and took several bank bags from his store. He had a long violent criminal history, which included several incidents of assault and robbery. One of the incidents involved the beating of an 83 year old man. Allegedly, Duckett was previously gang-raped by other inmates, and suffered from PTSD from the incident. His attorneys claimed that Howard’s sexual advances trigged those memories, and he was killed as a result of Duckett lashing out at them. However, the prosecution shot the argument down, citing that the murder happened after Duckett was evicted from the apartment.
67. Bryan Toles (1993-2003, lethal injection): Toles and his two accomplices forced themselves into the home of the Franceschi family, and shot and killed the family patriarch, 39 year old Juan, in a struggle. Juan's son, 15 year old Lonnie, was also murdered "execution style" out of fear that he could identify Toles and his accomplices. The only survivor of the attack was Norma, Juan's wife and Lonnie's mother, who escaped by hiding in her older daughter's bedroom.
68. Jackie Willingham (1994-2003, lethal injection): Willingham was a door to door salesman selling perfume in an office building. One women, 62 year old Jayne Van Wey, he tried to solicit rejected him despite his repeated offers. Angered by her "rude behavior", Willingham attacked Van Wey when they had a chance encounter near the building's restroom. He dragged Van Wey out of a stall after following her inside, slammed her head against the bathroom wall several times, and kicked her head. Reportedly, Van Wey choked to death on her own blood.
69. Harold McElmurry III (1999-2003, lethal injection): While under the influence of meth, McElmurry and his wife Vicki broke into a home that a WW2 veteran, 80 year old Robert Pendley, shared with his wife, 75 year old Rosa. Robert and Rosa were both quickly subdued and physically restrained by the couple. McElmurry clubbed Robert to death with a pipe in front of Rosa, who was forced to watch by Vicki. Vicki then held Rosa down as McElmurry stabbed her several times with scissors. After killing the Pendleys, the McElmurrys fled with $70 in cash, a pair of guns, and the victims' car. A few days after the murders, they were captured by border agents while trying to cross into Mexico.
70. Tyrone Darks (~1990s-2004, lethal injection): Darks rammed his ex wife, 26 year old Sherry Goodlow, off the road as she was driving with their 2 year old son. After Goodlow crashed, Darks pulled their son out of the wreckage, shot her to death, and then drove away with him. Just before she succumbed to her injuries, Goodlow managed to call and notify the police about her son’s abduction. The police confronted and arrested Darks at his home, and they found the boy unharmed in their search. Darks and Goodlow’s former marriage was marred with violence, and he was arrested on numerous occasions for assaulting her. On death row, Darks was involved in a scheme to defraud a foundation for 9/11 survivors.
71. Norman Cleary (~1980s-2004, lethal injection): While burglarizing an upper class home with an accomplice, Cleary shot and killed a housekeeper, 44 year old Wanda Neafus, and took her purse and a cane that her employers purchased from the Smithsonian Institution. Cleary had a long criminal history and was previously convicted of beating an 87 year old woman in her home.
72. David Brown (~1983-2004, lethal injection): For several years, Brown violently harassed his ex wife and her family. In one incident, Brown abducted his ex wife and 11 of her customers from a beauty saloon she owned, and held them hostage until he surrendered to police. He was able to leave custody on bond and went into hiding. A few years after the hostage crisis incident, Brown broke into his ex wife's family home and gunned down her father, 47 year old Eldon McGuire.
73. Hung Thanh Le (1992-2004, lethal injection): Le crept into the apartment of another Vietnamese refugee, 34 year old Hai Nguyen, and found him watching TV on the couch. He struck Nguyen from behind with a weightlifting bar, and continued stabbing him with a meat cleaver when he screamed his wife for help. Nguyen's wife phoned the police, and Le fled with the couple's safety deposit box that contained $36,000 and their wedding ring.
74. Robert Bryan (1993-2004, lethal injection): Bryan shot and killed his estranged aunt, 69 year old Mildred, dumped her body on his parents' property, and forged a $1,800 check to himself under her name.
75. Windel Workman (~1980s(?)-2004, lethal injection): Workman beat his girlfriend's daughter, 2 year old Amanda Holman, to death while babysitting her in their home. His ex wives reported that he had a history of child abuse and often violently spanked their children during their marriages.
76. Jimmie Slaughter (1991-2005, lethal injection): Fearing that she was going to tell his wife of their affair, Slaughter stabbed and shot his ex girlfriend, 29 year old Melody Wuertz, and their daughter, 1 year old Jessica. According to court documents, Slaughter mutilated both of their bodies, and he carved an "R" on Melody's stomach. He tried pinning the murders on a black man, but the investigators and the courts dismissed his allegations.
77. George Miller Jr. (1994-2005, lethal injection): During the robbery of a hotel, Miller attacked the auditor, 25 year old Kent Dodd, with a hedge shear and paint cans, and took $122 from the register. Dodd was severely beaten, had muriatic acid shoved down his throat, and was left to die. Just before he died of his injuries, Dodd gave a description of his attacker to the police that matched Miller. A massive amount of circumstantial evidence, such as wearing shoes that resembled the bloodstained footprints next to Dodd's body, a microscopic drop of blood found on his shoes that was tentatively linked to Dodd, his wife's testimony of his unaccounted absence from their home during the murder, and what appeared to be Dodd writing Miller's alias that he knew him by in his own blood, convicted him. Miller’s friends also reported that he was broke and begging them for money a day before the murder, and his wife mentioned him giving her the same amount of money that was stolen from the robbery a day after it happened.
78. Michael Pennington (1991-2005, lethal injection): Pennington shot and killed a clerk, 20 year old Bradley Grooms, while trying to rob a 7-eleven grocery store. He left empty handed when the register failed to open.
79. Kenneth Turrentine (1994-2005, lethal injection): Under the belief that they were stealing money from him for drugs, Turrentine shot and killed his sister, 48 year old Avon Stevenson, and his girlfriend, 39 year old Anita Richardson, during confrontations in their homes. He also gunned down Anita's two children, 22 year old Tina Pennington and 13 year old Martise.
80. Richard Thornburg Jr. (1996-2006, lethal injection): A month after he was shot by an unknown assailant, Thornburg and his accomplices sought revenge by abducting 5 men that he thought was responsible from a trailer. Three of the hostages, 51 year old James Poteet, 39 year old Tery Sheppard, and 24 year old Kieth Smith, were gunned down on the spot, and Thornberg forced the fourth to shoot the fifth with the threat of killing him if he didn’t comply. They then burned down the trailer with the wounded fifth victim still trapped inside, but he managed to escape with his life. Despite being forced to put all the blame on himself in exchange for being spared, the fourth hostage still went forward to the police.
81. John Boltz (1984-2006, lethal injection): To spite his estranged wife following an argument, Boltz attacked her son, 23 year old Doug Kirby, with a knife. Kirby was stabbed a total of 11 times, and he received several fatal wounds to his chest, stomach, and neck.
82. Eric Patton (1994-2006, lethal injection): Patton forced his way into the home of 56 year old Charlene Kauer after she refused his pleading for money. After dragging her around the house as he searched for valuables, Patton stabbed Kauer several times with many different blades objects at hand such as scissors, barbecue forks, and kitchen knifes. Although he confessed to the murder, Patton blamed it on alleged demonic possession and his cocaine addiction.
83. James Malicoat (1997-2006, lethal injection): Malicoat slammed Tessa Leadford, his 13 month old daughter, against a dresser. After she died from the beating, he tucked her into bed, and waited until his daughter's mother returned from work to take her to the hospital. The doctors found that Leadford had been dead for several hours at the time of her arrival, and discovered several injuries such as broken ribs, bite marks, abdominal bleeding, and facial bruising on her body. By his own account, he had abused Leadford on a daily basis. For her role in enabling her boyfriend's treatment of their daughter, Leadford's mother was convicted of first degree murder and given a life sentence.
84. Corey Hamilton (1992-2007, lethal injection): During the robbery of a restaurant, Hamilton shot and killed 4 employees, 26 year old Sandy Lara, 24 year old Stephen Williams, 19 year old Ted Kindley, and 17 year old Joseph Gooch, and made off with $2,000.
85. Jimmy Bland (~1975-2007, lethal injection): Bland shot his boss, 62 year old Doyle Rains, in the head over an argument regarding a borrowed car and dumped the body in a creek. He was previously convicted of killing a soldier, Raymond Prentice (age unknown), and abducting the man's wife and son at the age of 19. Bland served a 20 out of 60 year sentence, and murdered Rains a year after he was released.
86. Frank Welch (~1987-2008, lethal injection): In 1987, Welch attacked 28 year old Jo Cooper, who was 4 months pregnant with her second child, in her home. She was tied up with leather straps, raped and violated with plastic toys, and strangled to death. Cooper’s body was found laying near her infant son by her husband. Another woman, 32 year old Debra Stevens, was also bound, raped, and strangled to death in her home in a near identical fashion a few months later. Although both murders went unsolved for several years, Welch abducted and raped a woman in 1994, and he received a 45 year sentence for it. His DNA samples was collected and filed after his abduction conviction, and linked to both Cooper and Stevens’ murders in a 1997 test.
87. Terry Short (1995-2008, lethal injection): In an attempt to kill his ex girlfriend, Short blew up her apartment complex with a firebomb. She and her family managed to escape, but the blast killed Ken Yamamoto, a 22 year old Japanese exchange student. Yamamoto had no connections to the targeted ex girlfriend's family beyond him having the misfortune of residing in the same apartment.
88. Jessie Cummings Jr. (1991-2009, lethal injection): Cummings was a polygamist that had married and lived with two wives. Under his orders, Cummings’ wives shot and killed his estranged half sister, 46 year old Judy Mayo, and kidnapped her daughter, 11 year old Melissa. He bound his niece to his bed with handcuffs to be raped, and stabbed her to death.
89. Darwin Brown (1995-2009, lethal injection): While robbing a grocery store with three accomplices (including Billy Alverson and Michael Wilson), Brown tied up the clerk, 30 year old Richard Yost, with handcuffs, and then bludgeoned him death with a metal baseball bat. The killing was caught by security cameras, and the footage was used by the prosecution to secure the convictions of Brown and his accomplices.
90. Donald Gilson (1995-2009, lethal injection): Gilson routinely physically abused his live in girlfriend's 5 children (who were all between the ages of 8 and 12 years old). The youngest, 8 year old Shane Coffman, was beaten to death with a board for defecating on the living room carpet. He and his girlfriend then hid the body by stuffing it in a freezer. The body was kept inside it for 6 months until it was discovered by a sheriff's deputy investigating the family's abuse allegations. Gilson's girlfriend was spared the death penalty with a plea deal, and given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for her part in her son's abuse and murder.
91. Michael DeLozier (1995-2009, lethal injection): While camping with his friends, DeLozier ambushed another pair of campers, 60 year old Orville Bullard and 54 year old Paul Morgan, and shot them to death. They stole Morgan and Bullard's generator, pick up truck, and other camping gear. To cover up their tracks, DeLozier and his friends set their victims' campsite on fire, and severely burned the bodies.
92. Julius Young (1993-2010, lethal injection): For breaking off their relationship, Young beat his ex girlfriend, 20 year old Joyland Morgan and her 6 year old son Kewan, to death with a baseball bat in their apartment.
93. Donald Wackerly II (1996-2010, lethal injection): Wackerly and his wife ambushed and gunned down Pan Sayakhoummane, a 51 year old Laotian immigrant, while he was fishing in the Arkansas River. After he placed Sayakhoummane's body in the man’s own truck, he pushed into a river, and stole his fishing gear. A few months after the murder, Wackerly’s wife turned him in to the police.
94. John Duty (~1970s-2010, lethal injection): Duty was given a life sentence for abducting, raping, and non fatally shooting a female store clerk during a robbery. While incarcerated, he tricked a fellow inmate, 22 year old Curtis Wise Jr. into allowing himself to be tied up as a part of a hostage ruse, and then strangled him to death with shoelaces. At the time of his murder, Wise was serving a conviction for burglary and contributing to the delinquency of minors. Duty's execution caused some controversy for the use of pentobarbital, a drug more commonly utilized by veterinarians to euthanize pets.
95. Billy Alverson (1995-2011, lethal injection): Alverson assisted the above mentioned Darwin Brown and Micheal Wilson in the beating death of Richard Yost while robbing a convenience store.
96. Jeffrey Matthews (1994-2011, lethal injection): Matthews and his accomplice shot and killed his great uncle, 77 year old Otis Short, while robbing the man's home. In the robbery, they stole Short's truck, his .32 calibre pistol, and $500. The pair also slit the throat of Short's wife, but she survived her injuries.
97. Gary Welch (~1993-2011, lethal injection): During a fight over a drug shipment, Welch and his partner stabbed another dealer, 32 year old Robert Hardcastle, to death with broken glass bottles. He was previously convicted of battery with a deadly weapon, and was off on probation at the time of Hardcastle's murder.
98. Timothy Stemple (1996-2012, lethal injection): Stemple conspired with his girlfriend to murder his wife, 30 year old Trisha, for her life insurance policy. With the help of his girlfriend's 16 year old nephew or cousin [sources vary], Stemple beat Trisha with a baseball bat, and rammed her to death with his truck.
99. Michael Selsor (~1975-2012, lethal injection): Selsor and his accomplice went on a crime spree and robbed several convenience stores. During their robberies, the pair shot and killed two clerks, 55 year old Clayton Chandler and 20 year old Ina Morris, and injured two others in shooting and stabbing attacks.
100. Michael Hooper (~1992-2012, lethal injection): Hooper kidnapped his ex girlfriend, 23 year old Cynthia Jarman, and her children, 5 year old Timothy and 3 year old Tonya, from her boyfriend's residence. He shot all three of them dead, and buried the bodies in a rancher's field. According to court documents, Hooper was hyper-violent towards Cynthia in their year long relationship.
101. Garry Allen (1986-2012, lethal injection): Allen shot and killed his fiancee, 24 year old Lawanna Titsworth, during an argument at a day care she worked at. He fought with the responding officers trying to arrest him in an attempt to provoke a "suicide by cop" outcome. Despite the officers' best efforts to avoid harming him, Allen lost his eye from an accidental discharge. Due to claims of him having schizophrenia, Allen's execution was a source of controversy.
102. George Ochoa (~1993-2012, lethal injection): A Southside Locos gang member, Ochoa and another hoodlum shot and killed a couple, 38 year old Francisco Morales and 35 year old Maria Yanez, while burglarizing their home. The murders were witnessed by the couple's 14 year old and 10 year old children and stepchildren, who then phoned the police after the shooters' departure.
103. Steven Thacker (~1980s-2012, lethal injection): Thacker kidnapped 25 year old Laci Hill during a botched robbery of her home, and took her to a remote cabin to be raped. She was then strangled and stabbed to death. He fled to Missouri, fatally stabbed 24 year old Forrest Boyd while carjacking him, and used his car to hide out in Tennessee. After the stolen car broke down, Thacker called a tow truck to pick him up. When the driver, 52 year old Ray Patterson, found that he was using a stolen credit card, Thacker stabbed him to death as well. As a teenager, Thacker committed several acts of auto thefts and burglaries. He also engaged in inappropriate relationships with underaged girls, and was released from a Florida prison after serving time for a bad check conviction months before his murders.
104. James DeRosa (2000-2013, lethal injection): DeRosa and his accomplice tricked a couple, 73 year old Curtis and 70 year old Gloria Plummer, that he worked for on their ranch, into letting them inside their house. After they stabbed the Plummers and slit their throats, DeRosa and his accomplice stole $73 and drove away with their truck.
105. Brian Davis (2001-2013, lethal injection): Davis went searching for his girlfriend and their daughter when he found them missing from their home, and called his girlfriend's mother, 56 year old Josephine Sanford, about their whereabouts. Sanford dropped by the couple's residence after failing to find her daughter and granddaughter. At her arrival, she was raped, beaten, and stabbed to death by Davis. He then left the body in the house, drove off with Sanford’s van, and injured himself in a car accident. As Davis was high while driving, he was arrested for being under the influence. The detaining officers weren’t aware of the murder until Davis’ girlfriend returned to the home later that night, and called 911 after finding her mother’s corpse.
106. Anthony Banks (~1978-2013, lethal injection): In 1978, while robbing a grocery store, Banks shot and killed a clerk, 22 year old David Fremin. A year later, he abducted Sun Travis, a 24 year old South Korean immigrant, from a parking lot. He then sexually assaulted Travis in his car and shot her in the head. Although he was captured and convicted for Fremin's murder, Travis' killing went unsolved until a 1997 DNA test. Banks was originally sentenced to death for Fremin's murder, but it was lifted in favor of a life sentence. He was condemned for a second time after his conviction for Travis' murder.
107. Ronald Lott (~1980s-2013, lethal injection): A sexual predator of elderly women, Lott broke into the homes of 93 year old Zelma Cutler and 83 year old Anna Fowler after cutting off their power. They were tied up with cloth, anally penetrated, beaten, and suffocated to death with pillowcases. The case attracted controversy when another man was erroneously condemned for the murders, and he spent 11 years on death row until a 1997 DNA test linked the murders to Lott. At the time of the discovery, Lott was serving time for two rape convictions.
108. Johnny Black (~1984-2013, lethal injection): Black, two of his brothers, and two other men went looking for a man they feuded with for a fight. While they were crusing on the road, the group encountered a rancher, 54 year old Bill Pogue, and mistook him for their target due to them driving similar vehicles. They forced Poque off the road, pulled him out of his car, and stabbed him a total of 10 times. Pogue's son in law was also dragged out and attacked, but he managed to escape with his life. Black was previously convicted of manslaughter for shooting 49 year old Cecil Martin dead in an argument.
109. Michael Wilson (1995-2014, lethal injection): Wilson was the third participant in the above mentioned beating death of Richard Yost to be executed.
110. Kenneth Hogan (1988-2014, lethal injection): Hogan stabbed 21 year old Lisa Stanley to death while she was babysitting his children. According to autopsy reports, she was stabbed at least 25 times. Stanley had previously accused him of sexual misconduct, and prosecutors believed that she was killed during an argument over the allegations.
111. Clayton Lockett (~1992-2014, lethal injection): Lockett, his cousin, and another accomplice kidnapped 23 year old Bobby Bornt, 18 year old Summer Hair, and Bornt's 9 month son after burglarizing a home. After tying them up with duct tape, they forced their captives to lure a friend, 19 year old Stephanie Neiman, with a phone call. Neiman was also bound and initially survived getting shot multiple times. Out of frustration, Lockett buried her alive, and she succumbed to a combination of suffocation and her injuries. Lockett and his accomplices also gang-raped Hair and beat Bornt, but spared them on the forced condition of their silence. His execution was controversial, as Lockett convulsed for 45 minutes after being injected, and then died from a heart attack. He also had a long criminal history, and was first arrested for burglary as a teenager.
112. Charles Warner (1997-2015, lethal injection): Warner raped his girlfriend's daughter, 11 month old Adriana Waller, and shook her to death. His execution sparked outcry, as the wrong fatal drug was administered by mistake, and Warner complained of "burning pain" as he was being injected. With the botched executions of Lockett and Warner back to back, the state of Oklahoma delayed further executions until 2021.
113. John Grant (~1970s-2021, lethal injection): While serving a 130 year sentence for armed robbery, Grant stabbed a prison cafeteria worker, 58 year old Gay Carter, to death. He had a long criminal history dating back to the ag e of 11, had several previous convictions of theft and armed robbery, and frequently fought with and assaulted other inmates behind bars. Due to reports of "adverse reactions" to the lethal drugs, Grant's execution was scrutinized by a number of national media outlets.
114. Bigler Stouffer II (1985-2021, lethal injection): Stouffer shot and killed his ex girlfriend, 35 year old Linda Reaves, in her boyfriend's home for breaking up with him. Reaves' boyfriend was also seriously injured in the shooting.
115. Donald Grant (2001-2022, lethal injection): During a robbery of a hotel, Grant fatally shot, stabbed, and bludgeoned two employees, 43 year old Felicia Smith and 29 year old Brenda McElyea, and ran off with $1,500. He spent $200 of the stolen on paying for his girlfriend's bail.
116. Gilbert Postelle (~1998-2022, lethal injection): Postelle’s father was badly injured in a motorcycle accident, and they suspected that 57 year old James Anderson, 56 year old Terry Smith, 49 year old Donnie Swindler, and 26 year old Amy Wright were deliberately involved. Out a desire for vengeance, he recruited Postelle, his other son, and another man to kill them. All four victims were fatally gunned down in what was described as a “blitz attack” on their trailer. He was an addict and had several arrests for drug possession and manufacturing dating back to the age of 12.
117. James Coddington (1997-2022, lethal injection): After robbing a grocery store, Coddington went to the home of a friend and co worker, 73 year old Albert Hale, to ask for money. When Hale turned him down, Coddington retaliated by beating him with a claw hammer. Coddington stole $525 and went on to rob 5 more grocery stores. Hale was left alone with his injures for nearly an entire day until he was discovered by his son, and died in the hospital a day later.
118. Benjamin Cole Sr. (2002-2022, lethal injection): Out of anger that her crying interrupted his Nintendo game, Cole beat his daughter from his second wife, 9 month old Brianna, to death. He was previously convicted of abusing his son from a different marriage in California.
119. Richard Fairchild (1996-2023, lethal injection): Fairchild got into a fight with his girlfriend’s 17 year old daughter after making drunken sexual passes at her, and was enraged that she left with a cab driver. He took his anger out on the girl’s younger brother, 3 year old Adam Broomhall, and scalded him with a wall heater. He then repeatedly hit the boy, threw him against a table, and fatally hemorrhaged his head. Bromhall received over 26 blows during the beating.
120. Scott Eizember (2003-2023, lethal injection): Eizember snuck into his ex girlfriend's house to lie in wait for her. However, her roommates, 76 year old A.J. Cantrell and his 70 year old wife Patsy, arrived home earlier then she did. He shot and beat them both to death and then fled the scene.
121. Jemaine Cannon (1995-2023, lethal injection): Cannon was put in prison for assaulting an unidentified woman. He managed to escape and stabbed his girlfriend, 20 year old Sharonda Clark, to death in her apartment.
122. Anthony Sanchez (1996-2023, lethal injection): Sanchez kidnapped 21 year old Jewell Busken from her apartment complex, and then raped and shot her to death. He amassed a following from the anti death penalty movement for claiming that his father was responsible, but such notions were debunked following a 2023 DNA test that concluded Sanchez’s guilt.
123. Phillip Hancock (~1982-2023, lethal injection): In 1982, Hancock shot a drug dealer, 27 year old Charles Warren, dead in a dispute over stolen jewelry and was given a manslaughter conviction for it. He was released after serving a 2 year term. About 17 years later, he shot and killed 58 year old James Lynch III and 37 year old Robert Jett Jr. in a drug house. Despite an eyewitness account describing Lynch and Jett begging for their lives, the case attracted scrutiny when Hancock's attorneys claimed that the shootings were done in self defense.
124. Michael Smith (~2002-2024, lethal injection): A member of the Oak Grove Posse gang, Smith was responsible for two separate fatal shootings on the same day. In one of his murders, he killed Sharath Pulluru, a 24 year old Indian immigrant that worked as a clerk, while robbing a gas station. The other murder occurred when he tried to confront a gang member that he thought was a police informant in his apartment, and gunned down the target’s mother, 40 year old Janet Miller-Moore, when she refused to give away her son’s location. Smith was also given a life sentence for delivering a gun to a shooter that carried out another gang killing.
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2024.05.13 16:14 Leather_Focus_6535 The currently 124 offenders executed by the state of Oklahoma since the 1970s (warning, graphic content, please read at your own risk) [part 1, cases 1-62]

This is the list that I wrote for Oklahoma's execution roster since the nationwide reinstatement of capital punishment in the late 1970s. Something that should be mentioned is that given the nature of many death penalty related crimes, many of the descriptions contain very disturbing details. Please read at your own risk.
Florida's list is next, and I'll post my list for Texas once I've completed it. With Texas, I've currently finished 464 entries out of the 587 cases to date. That will probably take 7 or 8 posts for it all to be released, so I'll probably do two posts a day with Texas to avoid spamming the sub. At the end of this year, I'll repost the states that have conducted further executions with the updated information.
As with Missouri and Virginia, Reddit's maximum character count limitations forced me to divide Oklahoma's list into two separate parts. Here is the link to part 2.
The currently 124 executed offenders, cases 1 to 62:
1. Charles Coleman (~1950s-1990, lethal injection): A month after he was released on parole in 1979, Coleman broke into a house. While sacking it for any valuables, the homeowner’s brother and sister in law, 68 year old John and 62 year old Roxie Seward, walked in on him and were both shot dead. Coleman stole Roxie’s purse, several packets of frozen meat, and the homeowner’s watch during the burglary, and was arrested shortly afterwards. However, Coleman managed to escape custody, and went on a rampage that involved several burglaries, auto thefts, slitting the throat of a policeman in a failed murder attempt, the shooting death of 49 year old Russell Lewis Jr. in a carjacking, and the abduction of a deputy. The kidnapped deputy was rescued following an armed standoff with other police officers. Coleman had an extensive history of animal cruelty, armed robberies, assaults, and carrying concealed weapons convictions dating back to when he was 11 years old. He was also heavily suspected in the murder of his teenage girlfriend’s father, but was acquitted by the courts despite the prosecution’s strong belief in his guilt.
2. Robyn Parks (1977-1992, lethal injection): During a gas station robbery, Parks shot and killed Abdullah Ibrahim, a 24 year old Bangladeshi immigrant that worked as the attendant. According to Parks, he murdered Ibrahim for catching him using a stolen credit card.
3. Olan Randle (1980-1992, lethal injection): Randle invaded a home and shot the occupants, 41 year old Robert Swinford, Sinford's fiance 42 year old Averil Bourque, and Bourque's friend 38 year old Julia Lovejoy, dead. He took a pocket knife and several watches from the victims.
4. Thomas Grasso (~1970s(?)-1995, lethal injection): While living in Oklahoma, Grasso strangled 87 year old Hilda Johnson, the best friend of his girlfriend's grandmother, to death with her Christmas lights. He took $8 from her purse, several coins that added up to $4, and a television set that he sold for $125. Grasso then moved to New York, and strangled 81 year old Leslie Holtz for his social security check. The trialing arrangements caused some controversy, as the New York governors at the time were anti death penalty, and tried to prevent Grasso's extradition in favor of giving him a life sentence in their jurisdiction. Grasso had several previous convictions for theft and was fired multiple times for stealing from his jobs.
5. Roger Stafford (~1974(?)-1995, lethal injection): Stafford was condemned for killing at least 9 people in two separate robbery incidents with his brother and ex wife, though his ex wife claimed that he was involved with as many as 34 murders nationwide. The first convicted incident was when he and the ex wife carjacked and fatally shot a couple, 38 year old Melvin and 31 year old Linda Lorenz, and their son, 12 year old Richard. A few weeks after the Lorenz murders, Stafford stormed a restaurant and gunned down 6 employees, 56 year old Isaac Freeman, 43 year old Louis Zacarias, 17 year old Anthony Tew, 17 year old David Lindsey, 16 year old David Salsman, and 15 year old Terri Horst. One of Stafford's additional attributed victims was 20 year old Jimmy Berry, who was killed in the hold up of an Alabaman McDonalds, but he wasn't charged by the state due to his death sentences in Oklahoma.
6. Robert Brecheen (1983-1995, lethal injection): Breechen was involved in a feud over money with 59 year old Mary Stubbs and her husband. In an attempt to take what he perceived was owed to him, Breechen carried out a night time burglary of their home. While rummaging through the house, Breechen stumbled upon old Marie in her living room and shot her to death. The gunshots and screams awoke her husband, and he chased him away with his own gun.
7. Benjamin Brewer (1978-1996, lethal injection): Brewer raped his neighbor, 20 year old Karen Stapleton, in her home and stabbed her to death
8. Steven Hatch (1979-1996, lethal injection): Hatch and another assailant, Glen Ake, forced themselves inside the home that Richard Dougass, a 43 year old reverend, shared with his wife, 36 year old Marilyn, and their two children, 16 year old Brooks and 12 year old Lesile. The pair tied up the family and raped Lesile in front of her parents and brother. All four family members were shot, and Hatch and Ake ran off with $43 and the parents’ wedding rings. Richard and Marilyn were both killed in the shootings, while their children survived the attack. Ake was also initially condemned for the attack, but his sentence was overturned and resentenced to life following mental health concerns, and passed away from undisclosed natural causes in 2011.
9. Scott Carpenter (1994-1997, lethal injection): In a convenience store robbery, Carpenter stabbed the owner, 56 year old A. J. Kelley, in the neck, and hid the body in the minnow room. He filled his truck with $37 worth of gas from the pumps and drove away from the scene. His execution caused some controversy, as it was reported that Carpenter gasped and spasmed for 11 minutes after being injected.
10. Michael Long (1997-1998, lethal injection): Enraged that his coworker, 24 year old Sheryl Graber, refused him sex and started screaming for help, he stabbed her over 31 times. Long also shot and killed her son, 5 year old Andrew, for being a witness.
11. Stephen Wood (1992-1998, lethal injection): While heavily intoxicated, Wood stabbed two other homeless men, 46 year old Charles Stephen and 34 year old Charles Von Johnson, dozens of times each. He was given a life sentence for both of their murders. During his incarceration, Robert Brigden, a 59 year old former minister that was serving a 40 year sentence for molesting several girls between the ages of 4-14 in his congregation, moved into his unit after refusing to go into protective custody. Woods killed Brigden in a stabbing attack, and his sentence was escalated to death by the courts for it.
12. Tuan Anh Nguyen (~1982-1998, lethal injection): By all accounts, Nguyen was jealously possessive over his wife, 21 year old Donna. During one of their arguments over his behavior, he stabbed Donna, her 6 year old nephew Joseph White, and her 3 year old niece Amanda White, in their home and left the bodies to be found by the children’s parents. He fled to Arizona, groomed a 14 year old girl into an illicit “relationship”, and impregnated her. After he convinced her to move in with him, Nguyen physically and sexually abused the girl until she fled and went to the local police for help. Nguyen was then deported back to Oklahoma to face trial for Donna and the White children’s slayings, and was sentenced to death for them.
13. John Duvall (1986-1998, lethal injection): During a fight with his wife, 30 year old Donna, Duvall stabbed and suffocated her to death with a pillow.
14. John Castro Sr. (1983-1999, lethal injection): Castro carjacked Beulah Cox, a 31 year old Oklahoma State University student, after she picked him up hitchhiking and shot her to death. A few months later, Castro held up a restaurant with an empty pistol, and attacked the manger, 29 year old Rhonda Pappan, after forcing her to open the register. During their struggle, Pappan was fatally stabbed, and he took off with her purse. During his mid teens, Castro was allegedly molested by his mother. Castro's attorneys made the argument that his glimpses of Cox's buttocks reminded him of his mother's reported abuse, and he was triggered into attacking her for it.
15. Sean Sellers (1985-1999, lethal injection): In 1985, a then 15 year old Sellers tried to buy beer from a convenience store, but the clerk, 32 year old Robert Bower, denied him due to being underaged at the time. Sellers gunned him down in a fit of rage. A year later, Sellers shot and killed his mother, 32 year old Vonda Bellofatto, and stepfather, 43 year old Paul, in their sleep. Due to being 16 at the time of his conviction, Sellers remains the youngest condemned offender to have his sentence carried out in the post Furman era. He also attracted national media attention for claiming that his crimes were the result of demonic possession.
16. Scotty Moore (1983-1999, lethal injection): Moore was fired from a motel for undisclosed reasons. In retaliation, Moore and a cousin (whom he was dating at the time), assaulted the motel, and gunned down the desk clerk, 42 year old Alex Fernandez. According to court documents, the pair took a total of $97 in the robbery.
17. Norman Newsted (1984-1999, lethal injection): Newsted tricked Lawrence Buckley, a 26 year old cab driver, into picking him up. He shot Buckley dead and took his wallet. In an attempt to cover his tracks, Newsted placed the body inside the cab, and drove it into a creek near a local church. Despite his best efforts, Buckley’s cab and remains were discovered a day later by the church’s pastor.
18. Cornel Cooks (1982-1999, lethal injection): Cooks and his accomplice broke into the home of 87 year old Jennie Ridling. She was gagged, raped, and suffocated to death with gauze wrappings. According to autopsy reports, the pair abused her for over 2 hours. They then sacked the house for any valuables and left with her checkbook.
19. Bobby Ross (1983-1999, lethal injection): While robbing an inn, Ross fatally shot a police officer, 30 year old Steve Mahan, that tried to intervene.
20. Malcolm Johnson (~1970s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Johnson invaded the apartment of 76 year old Ura Thompson and sexually assaulted her. Thompson either died from having her chest compounded during the abuse or was suffocated by Johnson’s hands covering her nose. He seized several possessions such as furs, typewriters, purse, watch, rings, and a hand mirror, which were discovered by police in his residence during an unrelated investigation of a firearms possession charge. Johnson had an extensive criminal history, which included several convictions of rape, armed robberies, and burglaries. The case attracted controversy when it was discovered that the lead chemist in the investigation misconducted several of her other cases, and forged some of the evidence used in the trial. Despite the other overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Johnson’s supporters took the opportunity to push a narrative of his innocence.
21. Gary Walker (~1960s-2000, lethal injection): Walker abducted, raped, and murdered at least 5 women, 36 year old Margaret Lydick, 35 year old Jane Hilburn, 32 year old Janet Jewell, 25 year old Valerie Shaw-Hartzell, and 24 year old DeRonda Roy, and non fatally assaulted several other women and teenage girls. The victims were mostly strangled to death with their bras and panties. Some of them were forced to withdraw hundreds of dollars from ATMs before they were killed. He also strangled a man, 63 year old Eddie Cash, with an electrical cord while robbing his home. Walker had dozens of previous convictions for burglary, carjacking, drug possession, and carrying concealed weapons. Some of his earliest arrests occurred when he was a teenager.
22. Michael Roberts (~1988-2000, lethal injection): A career burglar, Roberts was condemned for murder of 80 year old Lula Brooks. She was raped and her throat was slit by an intruder in her home. Roberts' death sentence and execution has been contested, as he was convicted on his later recounted testimony alone. He claimed that the investigators tricked him into confessing with the promise of a plea deal that was allegedly withheld from him.
23. Kelly Rogers (1990-2000, lethal injection): Rogers’ girlfriend lured 21 year old Karen Lauffenburger into her apartment with a fake pizza order. They accosted her when she arrived with the delivery. After the couple forced Lauffenburger to hand to over the $40 she earned from the night's pizza deliveries and withdraw $175 from an ATM, Rogers raped and stabbed her to death. The body was left in Lauffenburger’s apartment and was found by her boyfriend.
24. Ronald Boyd (1986-2000, lethal injection): During a robbery spree of several gas stations and supermarkets, Boyd engaged in a shootout with the responding officers. A Master Patrolman, 32 year old Richard Riggs, was killed in the exchange.
25. Charles Foster (~1980s(?)-2000, lethal injection): Foster suspected a grocery store owner, 74 year old Claude Wiley, of making sexual advances at his wife. He arranged for her to entice Wiley to their home with an order. When he arrived with the delivery, Foster stabbed and bludgeoned him to death with a baseball bat. He a history of convictions involving threats and violence, though my sources didn’t disclose any specific details.
26. James Robedeaux (1978-2000, lethal injection): In 1978, Robedeaux strangled his first wife, 30 year old Linda, and plead guilty to a second degree murder charges. He was released after serving 6 out of a 25 year sentence despite an escape attempt. In the following year, he began a relationship with 37 year old Nancy McKinney while he married a different woman. During an argument, Robedeaux beat McKinney to death, dismembered her body with a saw and machete, and scattered the remains across the state. While being investigated for McKinney's murder, he was arrested for choking and beating his estranged second wife. The cases were incidental and kept separate by the courts.
27. Roger Berget (~1985-2000, lethal injection): Berget carjacked and abducted 33 year old Rick Patterson with an accomplice, and shot him dead. He also admitted to the beating death of a roommate, 40 year old James Meadows, on the behalf of the man's wife. As a trivial side note, Berget's brother Rodney was executed in 2018 by the state of South Dakota for killing a prison guard [for more information, please see Rodney Berget's entry under the South Dakota section of my states with less then 10 executions post].
28. William Bryson (1988-2000, lethal injection): To collect a $300,000 life insurance policy, Marilyn Plantz recruited her boyfriend Byrson and his friend to kill her husband, 33 year old James. Byrson and his friend ambushed Plantz in his house as he was coming home from work and beat him to death with a baseball bat. With the intentions of staging an accident, Marilyn ordered the pair to burn the body in the couple's pickup truck.
29. Gregg Braun (1989-2000, lethal injection): Across several states, Braun shot and killed 4 women, 48 year old Geraldine Valdez, 31 year old Gwendolyn Miller, 28 year old Mary Rains, 27 year old Barbara Kochendorfer, and one man, 54 year old Pete Spurrier, while robbing stores.
30. George Wallace (~1970s-2000, lethal injection): Known as "the Mad Paddler" due to his habit of spanking abducted preteen and teenage boys with a wooden paddle, Wallace kidnapped his victims by posing as a police officer. After duping his targets into thinking that they were being arrested, Wallace restrained them with handcuffs and leg chains. The captives were then sexually abused and shot or stabbed to death. His crimes were exposed when an 18 year old man he abducted escaped from him despite being shot and stabbed numerous times. By his own admission, Wallace murdered 18 year old Thomas Reed, 15 year old William Domer, 14 year old Mark McLaughlin, 14 year old Jeffrey Foster, and 12 year old Alonzo Cade.
31. Eddie Trice (1987-2001, lethal injection): Trice snuck into the home of 84 year old Ernestine Jones and raped her. After he beat Jones to death with numbchucks, he terrorized and extorted her cognitively disabled son of $500 with threats of killing him if he told anyone of the murder. The son was also assaulted with a hammer, and he received injuries to his right eye, right cheekbone, and his right forearm.
32. Wanda Allen (~1981-2001, lethal injection): In 1981, Allen got into a fight with her live in girlfriend, 21 year old Dedra Pettus, and shot her dead. Despite giving a bungled story about her being accidentally killed in a shootout with Pettus’ ex boyfriend to the investigators, Allen managed to secure a 4 year sentence for manslaughter after pleading guilty to a plea deal, and was released after serving two years. While incarcerated, she started dating a fellow inmate, 29 year old Gloria Leathers, and continued their relationship outside of prison. The couple’s relationship was marred with extreme domestic violence on Allen’s end. In one incident, Allen struck Leathers with a rake. In 1989, while they were arguing in front of a shopping center, Allen shot and killed Leathers. Leathers herself also had history of violence, and had a conviction for stabbing a woman to death. Allen and her defense team tried to use Leathers’ previous convictions to make a self defense argument, but that was shot down by the courts.
33. Floyd Medlock (1990-2001, lethal injection): 7 year old Katherine Busch went to visit her family's old apartment, which Medlock was residing in, by herself. Busch knocked on the door and Medlock let her inside after she begged for food. He then choked and sexually assaulted the girl, dunked her head in a toilet bowl, and stabbed her to death. The body was hidden in a nearby dumpster. Busch's grandmothers were staunch pro capital punishment and anti death penalty activists respectively, and their public feud over Medlock's sentence and execution attracted some media attention. Medlock also had an extensive criminal history despite being only 19 at the time of Busch's murder, and was previously arrested several times for indecent exposure, arson, armed robbery, and marijuana possession.
34. Dion Smallwood (1992-2001, lethal injection): Smallwood walked into the home of his ex girlfriend's adoptive stepmother, 68 year old Lois Frederick, without invitation. He had a tumultuous and often violent relationship with her adopted stepdaughter that she strongly opposed, and they broke up under her pressure. After an argument, Smallwood knocked Frederick unconscious with a croquet mallet, locked her in a car, and burned her alive in it.
35. Mark Fowler (1985-2001, lethal injection): To get back at his ex employers for firing him, Fowler and his partner, Billy Fox, stormed a supermarket that he used to work out. The pair rounded up 3 employees, Chumpon Chaowasin, a 44 year old Thai immigrant, 33 year old Rick Cast, and 27 year old John Barrier, at gun point. Their hostages were shot, clubbed, and stabbed to death, and they took over $2,7000 in cash and checks.
36. Billy Fox (1985-2001, lethal injection): Fox assisted the above mentioned Mark Fowler in robbing a supermarket and murdering 3 of its employees
37. Loyd Lafevers (1985-2001, lethal injection): Lafevers and his accomplice, Randall Cannon, kidnapped 84 year old Addie Hawley from her home. She was raped, trapped in the trunk of a car, and burned alive in it. Although she was rescued, Hawley died from her injuries 6 hours later. The pair stole Hawley's wedding ring and Lafevers gifted it to a stripper. As Hawley's nephew was a Colorado state senator, her murder gained some attention from media outlets.
38. Dorsie Jones Jr. (1979-2001, lethal injection): While drinking at a bar, a barmaid chastised Jones for carrying an unconcealed gun. He shot at her in a fit of rage, but missed and injured his female companion instead. Jones then turned his attention to the other patrons and fired on them. 48 year old Stanley Buck Sr. was killed in front of his 19 year old son, who was also wounded in the shooting.
39. Robert Clayton (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Clayton attacked 19 year old Rhonda Timmons while she was sunbathing near her apartment. She was raped, stabbed, kicked in the head, and strangled to death with her swimming suit. Her husband found Timmons' body laying next to their infant daughter, who was left unharmed. Clayton had a previous rape conviction in Tennessee and a robbery conviction in Texas.
40. Ronald Fluke (1997-2001, lethal injection): Out of despair that his gambling addiction drove his family to near poverty, Fluke shot and killed his wife, 44 year old Ginger, and their daughters, 13 year old Kathryn and 11 year old Susanne, while they were sleeping in their bedrooms. He initially attacked Ginger with a hatchet, but turned to shooting when she fought back.
41. Marilyn Plantz (1988-2001, lethal injection): The married girlfriend of William Bryson. As mentioned under Bryson's entry, Plantz arranged for him and his friend to kill her husband James to collect his life insurance policy.
42. Terrance James (1983-2001, lethal injection): While awaiting trial for a theft of government property charge, James and two accomplices strangled a fellow inmate, 25 year old Mark Berry, with wire out of their suspicions of him being a snitch. They then hung the body in an attempt to make it look like a suicide. Berry was another party in the theft of government property case, and James and his accomplices believed that it was his testimony that got them arrested.
43. Vincent Johnson (1991-2001, lethal injection): Johnson gunned down 44 year old Shirley Mooneyham in her home. The prosecution believed that Mooneyham's boyfriend arranged the killing to collect a life insurance policy, but he was acquitted at trial.
44. Jerald Harjo (~1980s-2001, lethal injection): Harjo snuck into the bedroom of 64 year old Ruth Porter, raped her, and suffocated her with a pillowcase. He then snatched Porter's car keys and drove off with her van. His past criminal history was extensive, and was in prison numerous times for burglary and autotheft.
45. Jack Walker (1988-2001, lethal injection): Disgruntled with the custody dispute over their then 3 month old son, Walker stabbed his ex girlfriend, 17 year old Shelly Ellison, and her uncle, 30 year old Donald, 32 and 11 times with an ice pick during a confrontation at their home.
46. Alvie Hale Jr. (1983-2001, lethal injection): Hale kidnapped 24 year old William Perry to extort a $350,000 ransom from his banking family. When the negotiations failed, Perry was shot dead, and Hale buried the body on his father's property.
47. Lois Smith (1982-2001, lethal injection): Smith, her son, and a female accomplice abducted her son's ex girlfriend, 21 year old Cindy Baillee, from an airport out of fear her testifying of his involvement in the drug trade. Baillee was taken to Smith's ex husband's house, and stabbed in the throat by her ex boyfriend while driving to their destination. Inside the home, she was taunted by Smith with a gun, and was shot 7 times in the chest and 2 times in the back of the head. While her son was reloading the gun, Smith jumped on and crushed Bailee's throat.
48. Sahib Lateef Al-Mosawi (1992-2001, lethal injection): Following a dispute over their newborn son's name, Al-Mosawi's estranged wife, 26 year old Inaam Al-Nashi, fled to the apartment of her uncle, 45 year old Mohammed. Al-Mosaw attacked the pair in the apartment and stabbed them to death. Inaam's sister was also stabbed, but she managed to escape with her life. The couple and their families were refugees from Iraq that were displaced by the First Persian Gulf War, and they fled into the United States.
49. John Romano (1985-2002, lethal injection): Romano and his accomplice David Woodruff robbed and murdered two of their acquaintances. One of the victims, 63 year old Lloyd Thompson, was attacked in his apartment. Thompson was held down by the pair while they stabbed him 22 times and served his spinal cord. The other victim, 52 year old Roger Sarfaty, was tied up, beaten, stabbed 5 times, and strangled to death in a jewelry store he owned. In the robberies, Romano and Woodruff stole several pieces of jewelry from Sarfaty, and took most of Thompson’s quarter collection.
50. David Woodruff (1985-2002, lethal injection): As mentioned under John Romano's entry, Woodruff took part in the robbery murders of Lloyd Thompson and Roger Sarfaty.
51. Randall Cannon (1985-2002, lethal injection): Cannon assisted Loyd Lafevers in abducting, sexually assaulting, and burning Addie Hawley alive in her car. Although he was acquitted of molesting Hawley, Cannon was still condemned for his part in the kidnapping and murder.
52. Earl Frederick Sr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): Frederick beat Bradford Beck, a 41 year old veteran that was crippled during his service in the Vietnam war, to death in his home after befriending him. He ransacked the house and dumped Beck's body in a field. A second murder, the robbery and shooting death of a Texan man, 77 year old Shirley Fox, was also tied to him. However, authorities in Texas withheld from prosecuting Fredrick due to his death penalty trial and conviction in Oklahoma. Both Fox and Beck had physical disabilities, which led prosecutors to the conclusion that Frederick intentionally selected and depredated on disabled men.
53. Jerry McCracken (~1980s(?)-2002, lethal injection): McCracken and his accomplice shot up a bar, killed 3 patrons and the bartender, and made off with $350. The victims that lost their lives were 41 year old Carol McDaniels, 37 year old Timothy Sheets, 34 year old Steven Sheets, and 27 year old Tyrrell Boyd. Months before the mass shooting, McCracken was paroled after serving time for stabbing 3 people in a bar fight.
54. Jay Neill (1984-2002, lethal injection): During a bank robbery, Neill disemboweled and nearly decapitated 3 tellers, 42 year old Kay Bruno, 25 year old Joyce Mullenix, and 19 year old Jerri Bowles. A group of 4 customers, consisting of 33 year old Ralph Zeller, a married couple, and their 14 month old daughter, unwittingly walked in on him, and he herded them into a backroom to be shot. Zeller was killed, the couple were wounded, and Neill left the daughter unharmed due to running out of bullets. Neill's boyfriend was given a life sentence for the robbery and murders, despite not being directly involved.
55. Ernest Carter Jr. (~1989-2002, lethal injection): After being fired from an autoshop, Carter robbed it with an accomplice, and fatally shot a security guard, 35 year old Eugene Manowski. The pair stole the shop's tow truck, and later tried to burn it with Carter's girlfriend to destroy any traces of the crime. Carter was also previously accused of burning a friend to death in the previous year, but the charges were dismissed.
56. Daniel Revilla (1987-2003, lethal injection): While babysitting his girlfriend's son, 13 month old Mark Gomez, in their home, Revilla broke the boy’s ribs in a beating and scalded him with boiling water. When he brought the boy to a hospital, Revilla gave a story that he accidentally hit Gomez’s head with a door handle, which was quickly seen through by the staff. According to the accounts of his girlfriend and her family, Revilla was violently abusive to Gomez, and they recounted incidents of him trapping the boy in a kitchen drawer, dunking him in cold water, folding him into a pull up bed, and hanging him by his ankles with duct tape.
57. Bobby Fields (~1990s-2003, lethal injection): Fields shot and killed 77 year old Louise Schem while burglarizing her home. She had tried to shot him with her .25 calibre pistol, but he wrestled the gun away from her, and gunned her down with it. His intentions was to steal Schem's television set to sell for cocaine, but left empty handed after losing his nerves with the struggle and murder. According to court documents, Fields had a previous robbery and assault conviction, and several arrests for drug possession.
58. Walanzo Robinson (1989-2003, lethal injection): A member of the Gangster Bloods street gang, Robinson shot and killed 26 year old Dennis Hill, an affiliate of a rival gang, in a turf war over drug sales.
59. John Hooker (~1971-2003, lethal injection): As a teenager in 1971, Hooker attended a party at a friend's house, and got into an argument. In a fit of anger, he fatally shot 18 year old Alta Lang, and wounded two other partygoers. Due to the witnesses refusing to cooperate with the investigation and being unable to prove any calculated intentions, Hooker was given a manslaughter conviction, and released a few years later. After he was paroled, Hooker started dating Sylvia Stokes, and fathered several children with her. Their troubled relationship lasted for 8 years, and ended when Stokes filed a protection order against him. In retaliation, Hooker lured Stokes and her mother, 53 year old Durcilla Morgan, into his apartment and stabbed them both to death.
60. Scot Hain (~1980s-2003, lethal injection): Hain carjacked and abducted a couple, 27 year old Michael Houghton and 22 year old Laura Sanders. After taking $565 and some bags of clothing, he forced them into the trunk of their car at gunpoint, and burned them alive in it. He had several previous arrests for robbery, and was involved with a number of rapes and attempted kidnappings months before the Houghton and Sanders' murders.
61. Don Hawkins Jr. (1985-2003, lethal injection): Hawkins kidnapped 29 year old Linda Ann Thompson and her two daughters, aged 4 years old and 18 months old, from a mall. Although his original intentions were to ransom off Thompson and her children, Hawkins gang raped the captive woman with his cousin and his girlfriend's teenage nephew, and drowned her in a lake. Thompson's children were spared and simply left with a babysitter. Hawkins and his accomplice then went on a nation wide rampage with his accomplice that involved the abductions and rapes of several grown women and teenage girls, hanging 31 year old David Coupez of Colorado in his home while robbing him, and countless other robberies.
62. Larry Jackson (~1984-2003, lethal injection): In 1984, Jackson shot and killed his girlfriend, 19 year old Freda Washington. He accepted a plea deal that dumbed down the charges to second degree murder, and was given a 30 year sentence for it. During his incarceration, Jackson started a relationship with 29 year old Wendy Cade. Despite her promises of marriage after his release, Cade left him for another man, and they got engaged. When Jackson was assigned to a prison work crew, he snuck out and went to confront Cade. Reportedly, the two had bought alchool, cocaine, and cigerates together and had sex in Cade's apartment. However, they got into an argument, and he slashed Cade's throat and stabbed her 31 times with box cutters. Jackson then left with her jewelry, watch, and the keys to her jeep.
submitted by Leather_Focus_6535 to TrueCrimeDiscussion [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 14:20 Atleett A portrait of Lutheranism in Prague, Czechia

A portrait of Lutheranism in Prague, Czechia
During this year's ascension period, I have travelled with my church choir (from Stockholm, Sweden) to perform in breathtakingly beutiful and history-rich Prague, capital city of Czechia (more commonly known as the Czech Republic) I would like to contribute with some information about Lutheranism in this country, and feel free to correct any errors. To begin with this region of Europe has deep links to the reformation. The proto-reformation of Jan Hus (whose followers became known as hussites) began here in the province of Bohemia with demands for masses in the vernacular language, communion under both forms, independence from Rome and reducing the number of sacraments to two. The movement was later eradicated by the Roman Catholic Church but once the Lutheran reformation started in nearby Saxony it was also very strong in these lands. Unknown to many, despite the fact that the region today has large Roman Catholic majorities (or plurality in the case of Czechia, the world's least religious country), at one point in history the vast majority of today's Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and even Austria was protestant. Although eventually all of it was brought back under the jurisdiction of Rome with the late counter-reformation in the year 1620. Later during the 1700s the modern moravian church was born in nearby Saxony by hussite refugees, hence the name (Moravia being the other major province of Czechia) Obviously, hussite and Lutheran ideas align much and there was affinity between the two. I believe Lutheranism spread more among the large ethnic sudeten German population while hussitism was more popular among the slavic Czech population. In the 1700s protestants regained some religious freedom and later in the 1800s religious equality. During the decades after Czechoslovakia gained it's independence from the Austrian empire in 1918, it seems the protestant churches grew much from roman Catholic converts and especially a break-away church from the roman Catholic Church that revived hussite teachings called "the czechoslovak hussite Church". In the year 1950 it represented 10,6 % of the population, which is one of the most extraordinary examples of mass conversions in Europe since the reformation. Mostly it seems to have been because of popular demand for a church that represented Czech sovereignty rather than the Austrian imperialism that many associated with the Roman Catholic Church. The united Reformed-Lutheran church with some hussite influences called the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren also almost doubled it's percentage of the population to 4,5%. Although the following decades of communist dictatorship dramatically reduced the percentage of self reported Christians of all denominations to a combined 11,7 % of the population in 2021. "mainline" protestants now only make up 0.6% of the population. Also, the expulsion of millions of ethnic Germans after World War 2 reduced the number of Lutherans. There is also a small Lutheran denomination primarily catering to the silesian polish minority in the northeastern parts of the country. This Sunday I visited four churches belonging to the United, Lutheran and Hussite denominations. The days prior we had also performed in two of them. They all happened to start at different times and are all in New Town (which is a part of the very old medieval city core) or it's vicinity so I was able to visit each one for a while.
  1. Salvator church or Church of Saint Saviour belongs (pictures 1-4) to the Evangelical Church of Czech brethren and is the biggest protestant church in the city, probably the country. It has a grand but simple design and was built by the Lutherans during the reign of Holy Roman emperor Rudolf II in the 16th or early 17th century but shortly afterwards protestants we're expelled from the country and the church turned over to the Roman Catholic Paulian order. Now it is protestant once again and it would seem to me it had a reformed/united profile rather than purely Lutheran since the service was very simple, and there was a podium rather than an altar. Only about 30 people attended the rather big church. It has an absolutely fantastic organ and renowned acoustics. Therefore many concerts are held there. Today it is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, and both it and the hussites have had female ordination for decades while the ECCB last year allowed for same sex marriages.
  2. Even though not Lutheran, I will include the hussite church of St Nicholas (pictures 5-9) located on the big square and epicentre of Prague's medieval city core. This baroque church was originally built as eastern orthodox and therefore has an interior of the more lavish kind and has a round shape where pews seem to have been added only later. My impression from the artistic style is that sometime in the early 1900s the icons and wall paintings must have been painted over with biblical motives, of high quality. The liturgy was also a bit more high church leaning than the first church. Communion, and more specifically communion in both forms for all is very central to the hussites and a chalice is the symbol of both their church and in the logo of the ELCB. Despite the country's Roman Catholic plurality, an enormous statue of Jan Hus occupies the main square (picture 5)and they seem to have a rebellious national identity in which Jan Hus and his followers fit in as national symbols. Because of theological and historical closeness, I have a high regard for hussites and have fantasised about a full communion of their church with mine, I don't know if there are any such plans but it wouldn't be far-fetched since they also are very ecumenically minded. Therefore it felt fulfilling to be able to partake in their communion for the first time in this small Christian denomination with old roots and a presence only in this corner of the earth. Gladly it was quite packed with people. Also, my choir had performed there the day before. (picture 9)
  3. The church of St Martin in the wall (pictures 10-12) is a small medieval church built in 1187 and with major parts from the 1300s and 1400s, hence it's gothic appearance. It is quite small and simple but has a very special, ancient ambience. It also plays an important role in the history of the reformation since it was a centre for hussite ideas and it was the first place in the country where communion was distributed in both forms. In 1784 it was closed and used as a storage space after Austrian emperor Joseph II had personally visited it and deemed it "dark, moist and aged". In 1904 it was bought by the city of Prague and renovated and after the first World War it was bought by the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren who still use it. The information posters emphasise a Lutheran heritage but with some sort of texts about hussitism. I would presume that since hussitism was largely eradicated and these parts of Europe were more Lutheran than Reformed, the main stream of the ECCBs theological identity and history would be Lutheran. The mass I visited was in the German language, which could also indicate that this parish specifically has a Lutheran heritage. It seemed to mainly cater to the modern German diaspora rather than the tiny native German speaking minority. For example the EKD hymnals was used. It was much more full of people than I expected, probably 60, but almost all of them were teenagers and probably some sort of church youth group visiting from Germany. (picture 11) They also have a Czech language service for young people in the evening. Two days earlier we sang at a concert there, the first part was us singing a traditional Swedish romantic repertoire about spring, summer and folk songs typical of the 19th century national romanticism and Swedish choir tradition. Even though they didn't understand a word, the czech audience was very sweet, supporting and applauding. Then a small but skilled czech choir continued with more religious themed music in Czech, Latin and English (picture 12). Even though we mostly didn't understand anything it was still very special to sit there and listen, in the ancient building with great acoustics a beutiful spring evening and I think everyone regardless if Swedish or Czech felt a bit closer to God.
  4. The Church of St Michael the Archangel (pictures 13-20) lies on one of many narrow old streets in the medieval city centre. It was built in the gothic period in 1369 and shares exterior similarities with Martin-in-the-wall although has a more baroque touch interior wise after a fire in 1717. This church also became Lutheran and was then transferred to the Roman Catholic Church in 1621. Emperor Joseph II ordered it to close in 1787 and it was bought by a merchant who gave it to the German protestants, who originally planned to demolish the tower because protestant places of worship were not allowed to have towers. However, gladly they were granted an exception. The stained glass windows features inscriptions in German (picture 20). Also note the Luther rose and 1517 commemoration altar candle (picture 19). The building belongs to the "Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in the Czech Republic" which is a purely Lutheran denomination that I couldn't find much information about. However it has both Czech, Slovak services and an international English language congregations that is small but active and close-knit, arranging bible studies and group trips for example. It gave the impression of an evangelical catholic profile with procession, liturgical vestments and signing of the cross. The clergy was American and it uses a hymnals that I believe was from the American LCMS (picture 17). Because of the intelligibility this was the only service I visited in it's entirety and I got a nice impression of the small congregation and the possibility for the small group of about 25 people from all different parts of the world to Lutheran worship.
submitted by Atleett to Lutheranism [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 06:30 omegacluster Album Anniversary List 2024-05-13

Today's anniversaries are:
2011
2014
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
submitted by omegacluster to ctebcm [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 06:00 Artistic-Project3062 Leon has the Kennedy Curse

Leon has the Kennedy Curse submitted by Artistic-Project3062 to residentevil4 [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 03:54 JustinFantasma I made a beautiful Poker Table Randomizer for Tournaments

I made a beautiful Poker Table Randomizer for Tournaments
Hey poker and fellow card game enthusiasts!
As someone who frequently hosts poker tournaments for a group of 20-30 people, I've often found the task of assigning seating a bit of a logistical nightmare. It's crucial to keep the seating fair and random, but doing this manually every time was becoming a hassle.
So, being a problem-solving software engineer, I decided to take matters into my own hands! I've developed a tool that not only randomizes seating arrangements but also makes it convenient to display on a TV for everyone to see. No more last-minute scrambles or accusations of biased seating!
Key Features of the Poker Seat Randomizer:
  • Fully Randomized Seating Fast: Ensures that seating assignments are fair and unbiased.
  • Display on TV: Plug laptop into TV to easily share and shuffle the seating arrangement in real-time during your meetups.
  • Customizable Options: Tailor the settings to fit the specific needs of your tournaments.
  • Simple to Use: Just input the names of players, and the tool handles the rest.
  • Good looking: Design looks good in my opinion, made an effort to make it visually appealing.
I'm really excited to share this tool with the community and would love for you all to give it a try at your next game night. It's free and will stay free at core feature level, I don't really benefit from sharing this too much besides maybe some more mailing list subs and people finding my other random projects lol.
Check it out here: https://fantasma.dev/poker-table-randomizer
Looking forward to making our poker nights smoother and more enjoyable. Shuffle up and deal!
https://preview.redd.it/uju0mll1n30d1.png?width=1685&format=png&auto=webp&s=4b23f726320663385bb14713109cda83881a0534
https://preview.redd.it/1xzlell1n30d1.png?width=1900&format=png&auto=webp&s=bfc0a060b03723c661a842a8ebf95eff1caaaa31
https://preview.redd.it/nmdiws0nn30d1.png?width=673&format=png&auto=webp&s=59516c6d22ea15103963cbe409ef1e7703dcaded
submitted by JustinFantasma to poker [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 01:19 tischler20 How’s it going

How’s it going
We were in the weeds, pretty sure we stopped seating people at one point, these wait times r crazy literally running out of everything
submitted by tischler20 to olivegarden [link] [comments]


2024.05.13 00:28 Peacock-Shah-III The Impeachment of Philip La Follette Peacock-Shah Alternate Elections

The Impeachment of Philip La Follette Peacock-Shah Alternate Elections
Blind former Senator and presidential nominee Thomas D. Schall, Chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic.
COMMITTEE FOR PRESERVATION OF THE REPUBLIC DEMANDS IMPEACHMENT OVER ARRESTS, Howard K. Smith, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, November 17th, 1950
PHILADELPHIA–Former Senator Thomas D. Schall and U.S. Representative Henry S. Breckinridge, Chairmen of the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic, an organization striving to unite opposition to the administration for the 1952 election, issued a formal statement yesterday afternoon endorsing the proposed impeachment of President La Follette on the grounds of the “violation of citizens constitutional rights,” echoing Ben Gitlow’s prior accusation that the President has sought to build “a dictatorship of executive orders.” Centering their call on the arrests of prominent leaders of the opposition, the Committee cited:
  • The April, 1949 arrest by federal agents of Congress of Industrial Organizations President John L. Lewis, who challenged the President in a narrow 1948 primary contest, and the subsequent arrest of Tony Boyle, Lewis’s erstwhile successor and formerly Fulgencio Batista’s nominee for the vice presidency of the nation. Apprehended on related charges of racketeering, both have been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Mr. Walter Reuther, having succeeded Lewis in leadership of the CIO, has sought to fundraise $500,000 to cover the organization’s legal fees.
  • The arrest of Benjamin Gitlow, late Progressive nominee for the presidency, in September of that year prior to a speaking tour intended to vituperate President La Follette. Sentenced on charges of forgery for his time under an assumed name while presumed dead after the New American Revolution, Gitlow has a remaining eight years in prison with the possibility of parole.
  • The arrests of Cuba Governor Fulgencio Batista, who found himself a distant second to La Follette in the presidential election, Santo Domingo Governor Rafael Trujillo, and his brother Hector on charges of racketeering and bribery. All have been sentenced to over 20 years in prison, with the arrest of Trujillo in particular notable for having sparked the alienation of William R. Hearst from the President.
  • The arrest of Virginia Senator Harry F. Byrd, brother of presidential candidate Admiral Richard E. Byrd, in 1950 on charges of bribery and racketeering. Byrd has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.
  • The federal investigation into New York Governor Robert Moses over the appointment of Tom Shanahan, convicted of bribery, to the New York Board of Planning, fueling the resignation of Governor Moses despite no evidence of wrongdoing on his part.
  • The arrest, on charges of embezzlement, of Senator William Lemke after his promise to campaign for the presidency against La Follette and his subsequent death, after thirty-three years in the United States Senate, on the floor of a jail cell.
FRENCH AMBASSADOR ADMITS ORDER TO ASSASSINATE BUTLER FROM LINDBERGH, Walter Winchell, The New York Daily Mirror, July 16th, 1951
WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA–Gaston Henry-Haye, French Ambassador to the United States from 1935, testified yesterday to the United States Select Committee to Investigate International Crime chaired by Senator Estes Kefauver (FL-TN) after several prior refusals to appear. The Ambassador testified under oath that he was instructed in 1937 to organize the killing of General Smedley Butler by Secretary of the Treasury Hugh S. Johnson as a means of preventing General Butler from mounting a primary challenge to President Lindbergh in 1940. The Ambassador stated that he is unaware of whether President Lindbergh himself had sanctioned the assassination, but to the sensation of the impeachers, further testified that it was President La Follette who had urged him, and others from within the Administration, to defy the subpoena.
The Ambassador’s testimony has buttressed that of Envoy Porfirio Rubirosa, his primary contact in the United States government, detailing an elaborate plot organized through General Raoul Salan involving the blackmail of Butler associate Yvonne Sadoul, whose husband Jacques, imprisoned for communist associations since the beginning of the Petain Regime, was threatened with execution unless Mrs. Sadoul would provide French agents with travel details of General Butler’s tour of Madrid. The Ambassador recounted a phone call from General Salan explaining how Jean Filiol, a member of the Petainist secret police working undercover as an agent of L’Oreal cosmetics, utilized his disguise to lure Butler in for assassination on the pretext of improved makeup for his television appearances.
President La Follette has responded by the investigation as a “witch hunt,” denouncing “McCarthyism” and citing the attacks upon economic advisor Leon Keyserling as evidence of the untrustworthiness of Speaker McCarthy. Addressing the possibility of impeachment, President La Follette stated at a press conference last Thursday that “when they go low, we will continue to aim high” as he affirmed his decision to appoint former President Lindbergh to lead the newly founded National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Senator Estes Kefauver interrogates Gaston Henry-Haye on the assassination of Smedley Butler.
United States House of Representatives Chamber, July 22nd, 1951
Stand up, impeachers!
The testimony of Ambassador Henry-Haye had left President La Follette in the crosshairs of Speaker McCarthy and, smelling blood in the water, McCarthy immediately struck for the kill. In typical fashion, the vitriolic Speaker would pillory moderates in a public statement claiming that "you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder” and label Father Charles Coughlin a “subversive” for a radio broadcast on the priest’s weekly program opposed to impeachment. Fearing the possibility of a parry from the executive branch, McCarthy would task Richard Nixon with leading the drafting of articles of impeachment immediately over the last weekend of June.
A conciliatory populist on his party’s left ever uncomfortable with Joseph McCarthy’s persona, Eduardo Chibas would ally with the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic to gather support for the impeachment, viewing La Follette as a tyrant. Speaking to the House in a broadcast covered live in Spanish in his native Caribbean, as Nixon and counsel Roy Cohn poured over treatises on constitutional law, Chibas would cite the arrest of Gitlow to declare that “the American people have been disgraced because power has won out over shame.” Three articles would be drafted within days for presentation to the House of Representatives, millions of Americans listening over the radio as the “voice of impeachment,” the voice of Nixon, presented them to Congress and the nation.
Article I: Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Philip F. La Follette, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposes of these agencies.
Article II: Without lawful cause or excuse, President La Follette directed Executive Branch agencies, offices, and officials not to comply with those subpoenas. President La Follette thus interposed the powers of the Presidency against the lawful subpoenas of the House of Representatives, and assumed to himself functions and judgments necessary to the exercise of the “sole Power of Impeachment” vested by the Constitution in the House of Representatives.
Article III: That said President La Follette, unmindful of the high duties of his office, and of his oath of office, in the year of our Lord, 1951, at Washington in the District of Columbia, unlawfully conspired with Charles A. Lindbergh, Secretary of the Air Force, to obstruct a lawful investigation by the United States Select Committee to Investigate International Crime.
Finally, echoing from the radios of the presidentially loyal Blackshirts mulling around the capitol building to millions of kitchen tables, Nixon’s voice thundered with the impeachment’s most famous line:
Stand up, impeachers!
A few enthusiastic young representatives like Mississippi’s Rubel Phillips, New Jersey’s Millicent Fenwick, and Massachusetts’s Henry Cabot Lodge would be the first to their feet, jumping to attention within seconds as their hands clutched railings or rose in salutes to the American flag. Within seconds, dozens more would begin to stand, socialist Norman Thomas alongside libertarian Suzanne La Follette as disabled Nebraskan Bob Dole used his good arm to carry paraplegic Michigander Harry Kelly and heed Nixon’s call. Surveying the chamber, one thing was clear: impeachment had a majority. The impeachers standing in victory, the tension of the vote would dissipate for the moment against the certainty of the result, with the most popular of the articles, the first, peaking at 291 votes for and a mere 178 against.
In an attempt to conciliate the disparate factions of the opposition, the tapestry of impeachment managers would run the gamut. Leading them, naturally, would be the “voice of impeachment,” Richard Nixon, with Progressive-Federalists also contributing aging former Judge John J. Parker of North Carolina, fiery Mississipian Rubel Phillips, irascible former prosecutor Harold Stassen of Minnesota, and Linwood Holton of Virginia, while veteran old lawyers Henry S. Breckinridge and Jouette Shouse would comprise the Liberty League contingent and McCarthyite conservative Thomas H. Werdel of California and socialist New Yorker Jacob Panken would represent the divisions within the Farmer-Labor opposition itself.
For the first time in American history, the President had been impeached.
In an advertisement purchased by the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic, Richard Nixon argues the case for impeachment in the court of public opinion.
MCCARTHY RESIGNS AS SPEAKER AFTER NEW WAVE OF OPPOSITION ARRESTS, Joseph Alsop, The Saturday Evening Post, August 14th, 1951
GRAND CHUTE, WISCONSIN–Speaker of the House Joseph McCarthy has formally resigned his office after being apprehended by state police this week at his Wisconsin home, where the nation’s most impressive demagogue was charged with sodomy in connection to his frequent attendance at the White Horse Inn, a known place of rendezvous for Milwaukee homosexuals. While initially vowing to hold onto his office and resist what he has dubbed “libel,” the loss of support from California’s young Richard Nixon signaled failure in an upcoming motion to vacate and is credited with triggering his resignation. McCarthy has accused the police investigation of having been under the influence of the La Follette family, all powerful in Wisconsin, while others cite as precedent the harassment of David I. Walsh for his homosexuality by President Luce that famously destroyed the Massachusetts’ Senator’s political career. However, like Walsh, many speculate that McCarthy may seek the presidency following his expected six month prison sentence.
In addition to McCarthy, the past two weeks has seen the arrest of several other notables who favored the President’s impeachment including, on charges of accepting kickbacks, J. Parnell Thomas (F-NJ), the irascible Chairman of the House Committee on Un-American Activities who famously called for an end to theater funding on the grounds that such constituted presidential propaganda; on charges of payroll fraud, Ernest K. Bramblett (P-CA); and Walter E. Brehm (P-OH) on charges of fraud. The arrests, however, seem to have galvanized the opposition, and this columnist’s opinion is that an outcome of removal is nearly certain.
Turncoat counsel Roy Cohn.
The Trial of the Century?
With Joseph McCarthy behind bars, President La Follette’s allies would fundraise for their leader’s defense, shocking the public by recruiting for the defense team the former counsel to the impeachers themselves: Roy Cohn. Brought in with a paycheck rumored to be over a million dollars, Cohn’s vicious persistence would be tampered by his insistence that La Follette supporters not engage in threats, arguing that doing so would alienate moderates. Cohn would be joined by another young lawyer, the son of a major Liberty League donor who had recently turned for La Follette and a friend of Vice President Musmanno’s: Robert F. Kennedy. In another attempt to appeal across the aisle, elite lawyer Clark Clifford would lead the defense, utilizing decades worth of Washington connections. Meanwhile, the President would use intermediaries such as General Trades Union President George Meany to appeal to liberal Senators such as Hubert Humphrey, arguing that, regarding the first article, the executive orders represented the nation’s best path to universal healthcare.
As Nixon and his cadre perorated eloquently on the values of democracy, Cohn, Clifford, and Kennedy would attempt to constrain the case to the bare intricacies of legal detail, avoiding grand speeches and matters of philosophy to argue narrowly for a decision to acquit. They would find sympathy in Chief Justice Hugo Black, as the former Commandant of the Blackshirts presided over the trial with a consistent willingness to defer to the requests of the defense on matters such as the rules of evidence. Their narrow arguments would target those fundamentally uncomfortable with the nation of a presidential removal as they sought to boil the decision to one of legal nuances rather than the nature of the republic.
With the President attempting to behave above the fray and portray himself as the statesman of the national revival to win the peace, his brother Bob Jr. would reluctantly join Clarence Dill in taking the lead in attempting to secure his acquittal. As journalist Herb Klein would report, the siblings’ relationship had been plagued by a growing chasm between the siblings, with Bob feeling his brother had gone too far. Yet, Bob, through private conversations as he insisted that the listener forget he was Majority Leader of the United States Senate, that a return to normalcy would be impossible if the drastic step of presidential removal was taken. Bob would seek to obtain promises from his brother that the presidency would step back if acquitted, removing Lindbergh from power and pausing the implementation of executive orders.
Central to the Wisconsin Senator’s mission of convincing would be Vice President Michael A. Musmanno. Slated for the presidency if La Follette were to be removed, Musmanno would portray himself as twice as radical. Speaking to a crowd of supporters in New York City, the Vice President would argue that Phil had “awoken in America a renaissance, a spirit to dare and accomplish that it has not known in decades,” Musmanno would claim that he heard the voice of god while praying at Mount St. Peter Church in his native Pennsylvania, instructing him to lead “the heroic work of the Blackshirts in their purification of American soil.” Musmanno would argue that “patriotic young men” required no warrants to raid the disloyal opposition, leading Bob Jr. to privately declare the Vice President “a dangerous man” who must not be let into the presidency, even momentarily, by a verdict of removal.
As Richard Nixon’s closing arguments to implored the men of the body once labeled “the most exclusive club in the world” to “follow the bloody tracks of treason,” Bob Jr. and Dill would arrange for printed copies of Musmanno’s remarks to be spread, continuing to build the argument that a continuing La Follette presidency was the safer option for democracy even as Jacob Panken dismissively reminded the legislators-turned-jurors that the Senate could remove a vice president as well. The President would appeal to Alabama’s Jim Folsom, reminding him of the federal government’s long disassociation with Alabama affairs and promising the reconciliation of Folsom on patronage affairs.
Meanwhile, letters from Progressive National Committee Chairman Osro Cobb would promise Henry Bone and Sid McMath bipartisan support in a re-election bid to counter the opposition of the President. Thus, as the day of the decision approached, the final decision would come down to wily Massachusetts’ independent J. Michael Curley, New Mexico Liberty Leaguer Henry F. Ashurst, Alabama reformer Jim Folsom, Georgia liberal Ellis Arnall, Arkansas’s Sid McMath, Nevada Landonite Walter Baring, and the Midwestern progressive Farmer-Laborite of Hubert Humphrey. Former Postmaster General Thomas Duncan would appeal on behalf of La Follette, reminding men such as Curley and Folsom of the looming ability of the administration to pursue the ever present corruption allegations surrounding both.
The radical antics of Vice President Michael A. Musmanno would turn several Senators against impeachment.
With 66 votes, the unthinkable would be put to action, and the President of the United States removed. 29 votes had been promised against removal, 63 for, as the nation’s eyes turned to the 7 in waiting. As each awaited the call of the Senate clerk to announce their votes, their thoughts on deciding the future undoubtedly raced to the past.
29 votes for acquittal. 63 votes for removal.
Walter Baring had been implored time and time again by Alf Landon to vote for impeachment, arguing that La Follette had the destruction of the Farmer-Labor right in mind. Baring had seen his ally Lister Hill driven from power as Speaker of the House for crossing the President, and he saw his chance to strike vengeance.
29 votes for acquittal. 63 votes for removal.
Henry F. Ashurst had been a friend of the La Follettes since the 1890s. He had visited Fighting Bob and spoken on his behalf as a Liberal when Aaron Burr Houston sought to destroy his support. He had watched Phil grow up, held the toddler in his arms that now sat in the White House. Michael Musmanno, to Senator Ashurst, was an ever unknown quantity. Bob had warned him of the danger of unknown quantities, and Phil, for all that Ashurst abhorred, was known. He would defeat the President at the ballot box, but he would not defy him now.
30 votes for acquittal. 63 votes for removal.
His commanding officer in the Third Pacific War, General David Shoup, visited Sid McMath the night before the vote. Shoup had pointed with abhorrence to the to the two million Japanese civilians left dead after the atomic bombings. Shoup’s words, utterances that had once been orders in their days in the Marines, echoed in McMath’s head; “All I can say is, any man that murders two million Japanese, when it might not even be their war, is not a good man. That is not the American way.”
30 votes for acquittal. 64 votes for removal.
Ellis Arnall had gotten a very different visit, a delegation of prominent state businessmen, the very men that had funded his campaign, promising desertion of not merely himself, but the state of Georgia, with a vote for acquittal. He thought of Vice President Musmanno’s words and reassured himself that democracy could be saved.
31 votes for acquittal. 64 votes for removal.
His name is Musmanno, but we call him Curly after you.” The family’s words as they held his young namesake stuck with J. Michael Curley. The working Irish and Italians of Boston and Worcester had two heroes: Michael A. Musmanno and him. He had defied the brahmins of Boston and Harvard, worn powdered wigs to their events to mock them gaily as he rose to absolute power in the city on the back of Revolutionary era redbaiting. Curley had been in the circles of power for a half century, but even in the twilight of his life, he hated men like Phil, born with a silver spoon. His place was among the ward bosses and the machines of politics, and he distrusted the tacit offerings of favors from Thomas Duncan, the implication that the prosecutors already hot on his tail for kickbacks, fraud, and graft might reconsider with a vote for acquittal. Already in 1946 when La Follette first was elected had he served his last prison term, a matter of months then, but he knew the road was coming to an end for him. Michael Curley had never denied being corrupt, but he would take the President down with him.
31 votes for acquittal. 65 votes for removal.
Jim Folsom had never lived in a democracy. Born under the reign of Milford W. Howard, he had seen his state grow beyond his wildest dreams, never realizing that he would one day govern it. He had, after all, been rejected by the voters as the reform governor, yet his machine persisted, even as the President sought to crush it. Big Jim had never seen himself in the Governor’s chair until it happened, but Senator Jim looked across the Capitol to that glimmering White House and knew that, within the Farmer-Labor Party, he would never have a way in if he turned against their standard bearer.
32 votes for acquittal. 65 votes for removal.
Hubert Humphrey was a pharmacist, not a lawyer. He had swept into office in 1942 on the back of the Luce Administration’s antagonism towards the very Thomas Schall who now led the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic, fully holding that “the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.” Humphrey had followed John L. Lewis in 1948, he had stood against Phil and nearly lost his career for it in 1950. Yet, the piercing arguments of Kennedy and Cohn remained alongside the nature of the impeachment. The reforms he had spent his life fighting for were finding their baptism in fire through the President’s executive orders. Bob, who had guided him when he entered the Senate and, in that friendly manner that made Bob the consummate politician his brother never was, continually checked in on him, had begged him to vote for stability, had used the forbidden word “civil war,” had pointed to the Blackshirts mulling beyond the armed security, and told him that Musmanno would be the Augustus to his brother’s Caesar.
33 votes for acquittal, 65 votes for removal.
Shouts from the gallery, journalists rushing out to announce the story as telephone and telegraph lines competed to relay the news first.
The presidency of Philip F. La Follette would live to fight another day.
The last photo of Eduardo Chibas.
The Final Radio Broadcast of Eduardo Chibas, October 27, 1951
“My words last Sunday did not have the resonance the very serious situation demanded. America needs to wake up. But my wakeup call perhaps was not strong enough.
America has a great destiny reserved in history. The happy coincidence of natural factors so favorable for a great destiny, together with the high quality of our people, awaits only the honest and capable endeavor of a team of government ready to perform its historical task. Such a team is not the present administration, corrupted to the core and disguised with new ways to cover up its shamelessness. Neither the false opposition of Batista who encourages the return of the militias with the cunning assistance of international communism; nor the scornful group of followers of Admiral Byrd. The only group of government capable of saving America is the Committee for the Preservation of the Republic with their anti-pact platform of political independence that accepts no transactions or settlements.
Come on compañeros! For economic independence, political freedom and social justice! Let's get rid of the thieves in the government!
People of America, stand up and march! People of America, wake up!
This is the final wakeup call!”
Other voices cut into the broadcast as chaos traveled over the airwaves.
"Tiene una pistola!”
“Párenlo! Estas loco?”
Millions of Americans widened their eyes as a crash ensued over the radio.
Eduardo Chibas had breathed his last.
Has American democracy?
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2024.05.12 22:50 Ambitious-Duck7078 Ballots for each party! That's a first for me. A Normal practice in Montana?

Ballots for each party! That's a first for me. A Normal practice in Montana?
I registered as "Democrat" when I did my voter registration back in '22. Out of the many states I've lived in, this is the first time I've received ballots for all three parties. Convenient, but I can see it being confusing.
submitted by Ambitious-Duck7078 to MontanaPolitics [link] [comments]


2024.05.12 22:35 EJC28 Vikings 2024 Draft Analysis Compilation

Round 1, Pick 10 - J.J. McCarthy, QB, Michigan:
NFL: The Vikings move up one spot to find their future at the quarterback position. McCarthy is a winner (SEE: 27-1 record as a starter at Michigan) and big-time playmaker with arm talent and athleticism. Head coach Kevin O’Connell routinely sets his quarterbacks up for success and it should be no different with McCarthy.
CBS Sports: C+. They had to fill the quarterback spot, so it makes sense to take McCarthy. I don’t love him as much as others do, but it will be interesting to see how Kevin O’Connell and gang will make it work.
ESPN: The Vikings had no Plan B in the first round. They knew they had to come away with a quarterback after letting Kirk Cousins depart via free agency. They set their initial sites on North Carolina's Drake Maye, who went to the Patriots at No. 3, before moving up one spot to No. 10 to make McCarthy the fifth quarterback taken in the draft. While McCarthy was not their first choice to succeed Cousins, the Vikings will put him into the best environment for success among any of the 2024 first-round quarterback class. He'll sit behind Sam Darnold, at least initially, while coach Kevin O'Connell applies his considerable quarterback development skills. McCarthy will also be in good hands with new quarterbacks coach Josh McCown. And when he does get on the field, McCarthy will have a terrific array of skill players around him, from wide receivers Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison to running back Aaron Jones and tight end T.J. Hockenson.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Knows the lyrics to the MAS*H theme song.
Round 1, Pick 17 - Dallas Turner, DE, Alabama:
NFL: Turner played in a high-leverage scheme under Nick Saban, so he should fit well into Brian Flores’ unit in Minnesota. Adding an athletic freak like Turner with great first-step quickness, bend and burst is huge for a defense that’s always challenging the IQ of opposing QBs.
CBS Sports: A. Love this move to go get Turner. He will be the best edge player in this class. The Vikings have had a lot of success with edge players and he fits with what Brian Flores wants to do.
ESPN: The Vikings benefitted from the early run on quarterbacks, and the record number of 23 offensive players taken in the first round, to get one of the best defensive players in this draft. Turner will further revamp a Vikings defense that bid farewell to four starters during the spring and signed three others. While versatility is important in defensive coordinator Brian Flores' scheme, Turner said that the team's initial ask of him will be simple: "Start rushing the passer as soon as I get off the plane."
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: His browser homepage is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Round 4, Pick 108 - Khyree Jackson, CB, Oregon:
NFL: Jackson is a later bloomer, having bounced around to several schools, and he'll turn 25 in training camp. But he has unusual length for a DB, at nearly 6-foot-4, and can be tried as a matchup piece for Brian Flores' defense.
CBS Sports: A. Alabama turned Oregon star. Reminds me of Xavien Howard as a prospect in that he’s a towering, physical CB with high highs and low lows. Tries to suffocate WRs at the line and reasonably effective doing so. Tackling is good. Quicker separators can get the best of fine. Precisely a Brian Flores type.
ESPN: The Vikings addressed the cornerback position after focusing on their front-seven during free agency. Jackson will be 25 when the season begins, but the team loved his height (nearly 6-foot-4), length (32 3/4 arm length) and instincts. The temptation is to consider him a multi-positional hybrid player at that size, but senior vice president of player personnel Ryan Grigson said: "We think he can be a hell of an outside corner." Jackson joins veteran Shaquill Griffin as the top two newcomers at the position.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Slept in a blanket fort throughout most of college.
Round 6, Pick 177 - Walter Rouse, OT, Oklahoma:
NFL: Rouse's run blocking is ahead of his pass protection, but the Sooners trusted him at left tackle more than former five-star recruit Cayden Green last year. Rouse has good experience at that spot and boasts ideal length, but he really hasn't played anywhere but left tackle and is a bit clunky in space.
CBS Sports: B. Classic Sooners blocker. Huge, clunky feet with plenty of power. Will torque defenders out of running lanes. Plays with strong grip strength. Not a tortoise getting out into space just won’t be a speciality in the NFL. Further ahead in pass protection but can be stretched beyond athletic limit by outside rushers.
ESPN: Rouse has extensive experience at left tackle, having started 52 games there during his college career at both Oklahoma and Stanford. He also showcased versatility at right tackle in the East-West Shrine Bowl, and that makes him a potentially valuable swing backup considering left tackle Christian Darrisaw has missed games for injuries in each of his three NFL seasons. Veteran David Quessenberry also re-signed after a year as the team's swing tackle.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: With the 1st pick of the 6th round, [team name] selects [positiion] [name].
Round 6, Pick 203 - Will Reichard, K, Alabama:
NFL: Our second specialist. Reichard is extremely accurate from 50 yards in, and he delivered a clutch 52-yarder in the Rose Bowl. With the new kickoff rules, Reichard's lack of booming leg strength might not be a problem, and playing more than half his games indoors also helps.
CBS Sports: C+. Multiple years of high-level accuracy, and his make percentage actually increased in each of three years. Big, not enormous leg. This is a need.
ESPN: Reichard has the inside track on replacing incumbent kicker Greg Joseph, who signed with the Packers as a free agent. O'Connell has said there will be a competition during training camp, and former XFL kicker John Parker Romo is already on the roster. But the Vikings were enamored with Reichard's field goal accuracy (6-for-7) in the pressure situations he faced in Alabama's playoff runs and believe he improved his kickoffs between 2022 and 2023 as well.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Played 2 seasons in Miami before realizing he was in Ohio.
Round 7, Pick 230 - Michael Jurgens, C, Wake Forest:
NFL: Jurgens probably has to make it as a center, lacking ideal power or movement skill. He's a bump-and-steer center who wins as much with his mind as with his physical gifts.
CBS Sports: B. Experienced center with reasonable burst off the line but no ability to sustain speed throughout the play. Power is there but can get overzealous and lunge, which hurts his balance and recovery ability. NFL-caliber size and length for the center spot.
ESPN: Jurgens was not invited to the combine or any all-star games, but senior vice president of personnel Ryan Grigson said the Vikings have been tracking him for several seasons. He was primarily a center but moved to guard during his final season at Wake Forest, proving to be "very productive," Grigson said. Proving that positional flexibility will be key for making the roster. The Vikings appear to be headed for a transition at left guard, where Blake Brandel -- a backup over the past few seasons -- is the favorite to start.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Dumped a garbage can of marbles down the stairs at school.
Round 7, Pick 232 - Levi Drake Rodriguez, DT, Texas A&M-Commerce:
NFL: He was playing at Southwestern Assemblies of God two years ago, so the leap in competition he'll face in the NFL will be significant. But his feisty, violent play style makes him intriguing.
CBS Sports: C+. Upfield rusher at defensive tackle who tends to make himself an easy target for interior blockers because of his high pad level and not always active hands. Showed some initial pass-rush plans but not a big counter type. Motor hums every play.
ESPN: Drake-Rodriguez came a long way to get drafted, something the Vikings considered heavily in their evaluation. He began his career playing football and baseball at Southwest Assemblies of God University, an NAIA school, and worked his way up. The Vikings loved his attitude during a visit and know "he doesn't take anything for granted" and "plays like a crazy man," according to senior vice president of personnel Ryan Grigson.
NFL Absolutely Not Fake News: Has additional 8mm film from Dallas, not the Kennedy thing just birds.
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