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Over the years, I have received reports of alien-implanted objects, seeded tumors, and the transmission of chronic and terminal diseases. As well, other experiencers were cured of sickness and afflictions by alien beings...including cancer, crippling rheumatoid arthritis and birth defects. So, what is the real alien agenda? Is it simply nondiscernible experimentation that results in good and bad effects? I am offering a few interesting emails I've collected from readers and others seeking answers:"Hi - This story involves an unidentifiable metal implant found in the cheek of a family member. This was found by Parkland Hospital in Dallas Texas by X-Ray and MRI. This thing, whatever it is, was not something that we were ever previously told about nor was it anything associated with why he was receiving care at Parkland. They noted it several times and did not make any conclusions. Parkland made no mention of this thing to us or him. I discovered the reports of the implanted object after getting his medical files from Parkland from a private physician. The reports simply state there is a "metallic foreign body present in the right cheek". Oddly, the VA hospital in Dallas made no note whatsoever of the object in their MRI or X-Ray reports, yet there are numerous reports in the Parkland files. There is no wound accompanying the metal object. Our relative cannot feel it and did not know it was there.This was discovered in May 2010 after he fell at home and the EMTs took him to Parkland where extensive testing was done and then approximately four days later he was transferred by ambulance to the VA hospital in Dallas.He is retired and over the years I have wondered many times if the military implanted something in his body. He never was in battle or explosions but his job in the military was classified. I do know families of military guys who have said civilian hospitals found strange metal implants in such places as the mastoid area of their loved ones.We really don't know what to think about this or the UFO issues. We just want to know what this thing is and if anyone out there has any information on these implants. At this time we have no idea if it should be included in any surgical removal plan or not. He is old and physically frail now but his mind is clear as a bell, and of course we are wondering if that thing showed up in the films years ago and nobody said anything. I'd like to pull all those records. All of the other metallic items noted on the films such as clamps and wires from heart surgery were correctly and readily identified. Not that thing in his cheek. Please contact me if you have any info. I'd appreciate it very much. Thank you." G-----Here is an interesting email I received from an experiencer in the UK in January 2009:"On January 22nd I had a major operation. They opened a 13 centimetre section of my spinal cord and removed a tumour. The doctors say they have never, in thousands of operations, ever seen a tumour like it.It looks like a salamander and has clearly defined eyes and a tail. I took a picture of it with my cell phone camera.It may be what was responsible for the weird visions I had of the nature of the universe. Since it was on my spinal cord it was directly attached to my brain.As I said before, it has what appears to be eyes and a mouth and the doctors reported some hard matter (spine?) in the tail of the creature. It was 8.3 cm long.I have asked the doctors for hi rez pictures. It has been sent to a lab for testing but results are not expected for 10 days. However, one of the doctors told me the tail seemed to have a bony structure in it. That is not something you would expect to find in a tumour made of nerve cells. Also, you can see what look like eyes. This really is bizarre.By the way, I feel just fine except for the fact they sawed open my back-bone." J-----The next three inquiries were sent by abduction / alien encounter experiencers:"Lon, I am writing to tell you of what my wife has gone through. She had a tumor between her shoulder blades that she could feel moving under her skin. When the tumor was removed it weighed 30 pounds and had tentacles and was moving on its own. The doctor said it was a lypoma tumor. The only other thing that she was told is that they shipped it to the Mayo Clinic. My wife has had abduction experiences in her past. I am almost 100% certain that the so called tumor that she had was a direct result of those experiences. Thank you very much for the informative post as it has showed the both of us that she is not alone.Sincerely, EF"-----"Hi, there. I wanted to write and share one of my experiences and perhaps see if anyone knew of anything like it.I've had so many similar experiences it's difficult to relate them. Especially since, many times, I just get "weirded out" and tired of trying to figure it out, or embarrassed by speaking about something that's happened that no one understands and so I deliberately force myself not to think about it. So here goes!I had an experience many years ago in broad daylight with my then sister-in-law and many neighbors where we all watched an extremely large UFO for over an hour as it passed over from north to south, from the mountains north of San Bernardino, CA, over Riverside, and continued south. We were sitting on my apartment balcony waiting for our husbands to come home from work one summer day and noticed a strange looking dark cloud in the distance. The sky was clear except for this one huge, dark cloud. We watched as it moved fairly quickly from far to near and tried to figure out why it was there. The appearance, sound, altitude, speed, and direction of movement were all anomalous. It was black as a thundercloud and flashed ocassionally but as it got closer, it was clearly lit from within with a strange pulsing yellow orange light and bright flashes, like lightning but there was no thunder afterwards. It only "hummed" loudly with a very deep resonance. It looked almost identical to a huge storm cloud but at the same time not "normal". From my experience of watching aircraft and falling bodies all day in my skydiving days I would say it was pretty low in the sky, maybe 2000 feet at most. It was surrounded by vapor that roiled around the body and drifted at the edges but never dissipated like a real cloud. The appearance was like an imitation of a cloud, with the exception of the low, loud hum and didn't fit with the weather which was dry, hot, and with just the beginning of the usual evening breeze that blew in from the coast, west to east. We talked and watched the thing along with our neighbors in the complex who stopped to watch also. Some people were pulling into the parking lot from work and as they noticed us staring, they would join us and discuss it too before going about their business. We turned on the news to see if anything was being mentioned since this object was probably the size of a small block and so many were watching it. Nothing ever was reported. It was so strange but at the same time no one seemed at all troubled by it! We mentioned as we discussed it that even if we reported it, we'd never find out what it was and it would be pointless so why bother!I sometimes think about it though and wonder what it was. Maybe someone else has seen it also or something like it. The year was between 1987 and 1989 because of where I lived, I'm thinking probably 1987. I was in Riverside, CA at the time. Because it was coming from the high desert area I just assumed it was something the military was doing but, man, it was just gigantic and why would it look like a cloud? One thing I always thought about too is the huge number of people I knew who were present at the time who became seriously ill shortly after, including myself and my sister-in-law. She developed a form of thyroid disease that I can't recall now but it caused her eyes to bulge terribly and I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. My youngest daughter who was at home and present has thyroid disease also, while my oldest who wasn't in the area is not affected. Several children in the area developed rheumatoid arthritis or other serious illnesses, like seizure disorders, also. Weird.Regards, LAF"-----"Hello. Four years ago I experienced a horrific alien abduction that lasted 3 days. Several weeks after the incident I noticed that I had a very stiff neck when I would wake in the morning. Eventually, the pain increased to the point where it bothered me all the time. I went to my physician and had X-rays and a CAT scan where it was determined that a foreign object that was made of a metallic material was embedded in vertebrae very near my spinal cordTo make a long story short, I had surgery to remove the object. The surgery was performed at the Long Beach VA Hospital in California. I had requested that the object be preserved because I wanted to have it analyzed. I was told that the object was 'lost' after surgery but I was later told by an attending nurse that it was immediately shipped off to an Army research facility. She said that she got a look at the object which was about a half inch in length and was made of a black colored metal. She also said that the object was difficult to capture during surgery and seemed to 'move' away from the surgical instruments." P-----The following is a witness report that was originally posted on the MUFON CMS. I received some follow-up information later. The abductee seems sincere and states that he contacted others before filing with MUFON. It's an intriguing account. LonIndiana - 12/10/2009:In December, I was working away from home on a 24 Jobsite Operation in Indiana. I resided in an apartment 20 miles from the job site in a adjacent small town. One night I went home at an odd hour for my shift, and instead of a 7 pm to 7 am shift, I worked till 3 am. I went back to my place, and was in bed an hour or so later.The next thing I know, I woke up sometime just before the sun started rising after having an extremely intense dream. A dream that I was somehow abducted from my rented second floor apartment, and taken aboard a alien craft. Everything in my memory is very foggy but there are specifics that are quite vivid.Unlike the abduction scenarios that I have heard of, I was brought aboard a ship (I have no idea how I got there) but felt at peace and calm. I wasn't forced into some examination, nothing was forced upon me.Their faces are distorted in how I saw them at the time, and in my memory. Of the 4-5 aliens that might have been there in the room with me, I can only remember the face of one of them. A Reptilian type, or a race trying to disguise their appearance to me by looking Reptilian. But the one that I remember was looking intensely at me. It was big, probably 6 and a half feet tall, muscular, with a body suit over his chest that looked like metal, and like some superhero's costume. The suit outlined the strong pectorals and muscles of its abdomen. It looked very strong, as if it could pick me up and throw me a hundred yards. It was a light shade of green on the front, and the color darkened as it went to his backside. It's outfit was of a yellowish color. It was intense, no emotions on its face. But I could feel it being slightly hesitant towards the decision by the others to give me this mission. (obviously by now I have done enough research to look at photos/drawings and read up a little bit on different alien beings that are supposedly out there).They spoke at length to me about some very important things, much of which I cannot recall. I am a pretty fervent mediator, and they asked me to do a 'standing mediation' for them, which a few seconds into it, they seemed pleased by what I could do. In the process of our discussion, I was asked to help them, fully given a choice. Apparently, I agreed to their mission and then they showed me to a stainless steel type of tub, and showed me this small yellow and blue submarine looking device. It was about an inch tall and 3 inches long, and with a push of a button a thin long spiraling wire came whirling a foot or more out of the tip of it. On the tip of the long wire was a scary looking triangular shaped barb. I was more amazed than shocked, then told to get into the tub that was full of some gelatinous mixture.Though up to that point I had been calm, I was beginning to get rather nervous. I reluctantly got into the tub, and they put the little machine into the KY Jelly type substance and it slowly, but relentlessly, came at me. Once it was close enough to me, I tried to push it away with my hands but it just kept coming. I had a undeniable feeling that it was trying to get to my 'johnson'. Once the thing was close, I have a blackout in my memory.The next thing that I remember is that I am out of the tub, away from it and back to being calm. They are telling me to ready myself to go back and that they will erase my memory of the incident. I was confused as to why they wouldn't want me to remember everything that I was supposed to do. They told me to look for a sign in the sky, then they gave me the idea that memories of this event should eventually come back, and even more info would possibly come back with time.The next thing I know I am back in my apartment. I woke up slowly, I wasn’t startled or even thinking about the dream though I knew I had dreamed. I then had a cigarette, and went to the bathroom to urinate. While standing there in the bathroom light, I notice something peculiar on my 'johnson,' but thought it to be a regular old vein or something...but when I touched it, it felt hard like a thin steel cable, about a 1 mm thick. It seemed to be about 2 inches long. (I was to investigate further in the coming days and find out that it is much longer, even going under my pelvis bone) I was perplexed by it, but thought that I was not going to do anything about it at the moment, so I might as well try to sleep and deal with it later. I'd keep an eye on it as I wasn't at home and didn't want to go to any doctors round that area. I went back to bed, as I felt exhausted.Upon falling asleep, I had a dream, a very vivid color dream. In the past I have had a good handful of vivid dreams (dreams of my wife before we met, the death of a cousin, etc)...and this dream was of that caliber in detail to me. I wont bore you with the details, but let’s just say that the government and the feds were after me, and it might have been tied to me having this mechanism looked at by a doctor or untrustworthy person. I have a wife and a family. I cannot put them in jeopardy over this.But it doesn't end there. When I woke in a cold sweat from the dream of being tracked and chased down, I kept hearing this noise outside my apartment door. I actually heard the noise earlier when I had been up before, but was so tired then, that nothing could have stopped me from sleeping. But now, as I tried to go back to sleep, the noise was irritating. So I opened the door to my apartment to see the two large windows at the top of the stairs were totally pulled open. This is on what must have been the coldest, windiest night during the Winter. I found it very odd, but made no particular connection to anything. By now the alien dream I had prior was not even something I was thinking about...like any old dream one might have.So here is where the last string from this life changing night gets tied. That next night at work, when I plugged my computer in and went to my Yahoo home page, there was a headline that immediately stood out at me. I clicked on it. It happened to be the Norway Spiral clip, that had just happened on Dec 10. While I watched this clip, I was suddenly frozen with shock, flushed with fear, and remembered that I was to see a 'sign in the sky'. Seeing the, at that time unexplained incident, suddenly had me remembering the odd implant in my 'johnson' and the upstairs windows that were oddly flung open in the middle of the night, along with the crazy dream/abduction I had experienced.So there is the story of that night. There is actually much more to the story, but I'd like to at least make contact with you, before I go more into more detail.UPDATE:As far as what this 'thing' in my 'johnson' does, I'm still not sure though all sorts of unexplainable things have been happening. One of which is that I no longer get sick. In fact many ailments that I had previously, persistent heartburn, gastritis, even 2 bad teeth that needed crowns have disappeared. My wife has been sick twice, and even while being with her all day, I have not caught her sicknesses. The one constant, is that this implant is still there, ever present. Though in a way, I am doing my own studies of how this affects me, I would entertain the idea of having some trustworthy people do some examination of it. Nothing too crazy like trying to remove it. I fear it would be impossible to do without endangering my life.What I can tell you, is that it wraps round the tip of my 'johnson,' and must go all the way back to my spine, because a week after first getting the implant, I suffered from horrible almost debilitating lower back pains for a month. The back pains then simply vanished, and I have yet to have any since. I recently went to a urologist to have the implant examined, but oddly enough, the implant has slowly been sinking deeper into the flesh and is now almost undetectable unless my 'johnson' happens to be in an 'excited' state. Most particularly, the day I went to the doctor, the implant was seemingly gone. The urologist couldn't feel anything, and to his knowledge what I explained to him didn't make medical sense. Yet, later that night while having intercourse with my wife, sure enough, there it was again. She doesn't seem to mind it.NOTE: I attempted to make further contact with the abductee approximately 3 months after my initial contact. The email address had been closed. I traced a residential address associated with the email one was living at the address as of October 2010. No forwarding information was available. LonCasebook: Alien Implants (Whitley Strieber's Hidden Agendas)The Alien Abduction Files: The Most Startling Cases of Human Alien Contact Ever ReportedThe Aliens and the Scalpel : Scientific Proof of Extraterrestrial Implants in Humans (New Millennium Library, V. 6)Alien Nightmares: Screen Memories of UFO Alien Abductions: Abducted by Aliens for Decades**********PHANTOMS & MONSTERS VIDEO LIBRARYPOLL: WHAT DO YOU THINK? Vote & comment on paranormal, cryptid & unexplained mysteries!NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES - CLOSE TO THE SCYTHE | LIVE CHAT | Q & A (PROFOUND REAL-LIFE PERCEPTIONS)LISTEN TO NARRATIONS OF PHANTOMS & MONSTERS REPORTS & CASES - PLEASE SUBSCRIBE, LIKE & SHAREPHANTOMS & MONSTERS RADIO Podcasts on SpotifyPHANTOMS & MONSTERS READING LISTCHICAGO MOTHMAN / O'HARE BATMAN YouTube PlaylistHave you had a sighting or encounter?Contact me by email or call the hotline at 410-241-5974Thanks. LonJOIN AMAZON PRIME - Unlimited Movie/TV Streaming& FREE 2-Day ShippingRegister a SNAP EBT CardTry Audible PlusBigfoot and Other Cryptid Videos on YouTubeLYCANS! - PENNSYLVANIA'S CRYPTID CANINES UPDATE'KILLER BIGFOOT' HUNTED BY U.S. SPECIAL FORCES / GLIMMER MAN / MANTIS HUMANOIDSCRAWLER HUMANOIDS - GRUESOME INVADERS! (REAL EYEWITNESS ENCOUNTERS!)WEREWOLVES: DO THEY EXIST?'DOGMAN IN OUR YARD!' - AN OHIO FAMILY'S 12-YEAR SAGA WITH CRYPTID CANINESHey, folks. Thanks for the congrats on 'The Mothman Revisited' episode on Unsolved Mysteries. As a result, we are receiving more sighting reports and are very excited and grateful for the new information!I sincerely thank the Unsolved Mysteries team and Netflix for allowing us to tell the world about this phenomenon.If you have information about this or any other cryptid or unexplained sighting or encounter, please feel free to contact me by email or at 410-241-5974. Thanks again! LonCHICAGO MOTHMAN / O'HARE BATMAN YouTube PlaylistChicago / Lake Michigan Winged Humanoid Regional Interactive Map----------Become a Phantoms & Monsters Radio member - just $2.99 monthly, and receive these perks. Thanks for your support!-Members-only live chats-Exclusive members-only videos-Priority reply to members' commentsHave perks suggestions? LMK-----YOUR SUPPORT IS APPRECIATED! THANKS

News Pacific Rim Arrival and Shadow & Bone Writer to Work on Pacific Rim Prequel Series How did that rift in the earth open up, anyhow? By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on August 19, 2024 Screenshot: Warner Bros. Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Warner Bros. Eric Heisserer, the writer behind Arrival (the film adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life”) and Netflix’s Shadow and Bone series (based on the Grishaverse books by Leigh Bardugo), has set his eyes on his next project. According to Variety, Heisserer and Carmen Lewis—his producing partner at their company, Chronology—has signed a deal where they will bring IP owned by Legendary to the screen. Their first effort appears to be a prequel series set in the universe of Pacific Rim, the franchise that began with Guillermo del Toro’s 2013 film, where Charlie Hunnam and others don mecha suits to fight kaiju that come out of a fissure in the Pacific Ocean. In del Toro’s movie and the sequel that followed it, the rift is already a part of everyday life. This prequel series would presumably showcase what happened (and potentially how it happened) when that inter-dimensional portal to a land full of large monsters first opened. “Eric is a multitalented, prolific creator whose track record of critical and commercial successes speaks for itself,” Jason Clodfelter, president of Legendary Television, said in a statement to Variety. “We are thrilled to launch our partnership with Eric, Chronology, and Carmen, with a new entry in the epic, globally popular Pacific Rim universe. We are certain their vision will make for an enthralling expansion to Legendary’s beloved franchise.” No news yet on when the series will make its way to production, much less to a screen near you. [end-mark] The post <i>Arrival</i> and <i>Shadow & Bone</i> Writer to Work on Pacific Rim Prequel Series appeared first on Reactor.

CHICAGO—As delegates and the media descend on the Windy City for the Democratic National Convention, Kamala Harris not only has to energize the base; she also has to convince the rest of America that she can mend a moribund economy and keep order as parts of the country seem hell-bent on chaos. That is, Harris has to convince voters she can do better than her boss, Joe Biden, has done. That’s a tall order for a vice president who has been as unavailable in 2024 as Biden was during the 2020 campaign. At least Biden had COVID-19 as an excuse for working from his basement. I have sympathy. Probably the most important thing a vice president can do is not upstage the president. Considering how low-energy Biden has been in his term of office, Harris had to make sure that she didn’t look as if she was trying to elbow the old man off the path. As a woman who didn’t have decades of Washington experience—she was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016—she didn’t move into the veep’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory and enter the office with a weighty portfolio on foreign affairs that she could use to establish her national security chops.  Then came the Biden-Trump debate. Followed by Biden’s announcement that he would not run for reelection. And suddenly Harris is supposed to be someone else. She’s supposed to go from wallflower to firebrand—and convince Americans that she should be in charge after she spent three years being barely visible. So a month after it became clear she would head the Democratic ticket, Harris still has not given a real press interview. (That didn’t stop Time magazine from putting her on the cover, but that’s another issue.) If the economy were better, Harris could concentrate on abortion and “social justice” issues. But Americans are anxious about their own and their children’s future. So, Team Kamala is talking up “an opportunity economy.” The campaign released a plan to make housing more affordable—by promising first-time homebuyers $25,000 to purchase a starter home. (If you saw how student loans drove up college tuition, you can guess what this scheme could do to the real estate market.) Don’t get me started on what she’d do to grocery prices. No wonder Harris is not talking to the press. Even The Washington Post editorialized that her economic package “squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.” You see in this campaign the desire to placate rather than dazzle. Hence the pick for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as running mate. He’s so nonthreatening. Back to the housing scheme, the problem is, Harris is not known as an economic thought leader. She’s a lawyer. Her passion belongs to social issues and abortion politics. Maybe it all changes this week and Harris knocks it out of the park with an impassioned argument for the leftist causes she holds dear. But Harris has a problem. She’s from California. She doesn’t really know how to argue with conservatives. She’s never really had to. So what I’m seeing is a campaign that has two messages: First, Harris is not Donald Trump. Second, Harris is not Biden—or is she? COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Kamala Harris Is No Joe Biden. Or Is She? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Representative Chip Roy, chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, is calling on FBI Director Christopher Wray to explain discrepancies between his testimony to Congress and Justice Department prosecution data. Wray testified to Congress on July 24 that the FBI has focused more attention on pro-abortion violence against pro-life facilities since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. “Since the Dobbs decision,” he said, “actually more of our abortion-related violent extremism investigations have focused on violence against pro-life facilities as opposed to the other way around.” Roy, a Texas Republican, reminded Wray in a Monday letter that since January 2021, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has charged 24 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act cases against 55 defendants, according to DOJ data first reported by The Daily Caller. In the letter, first obtained by The Daily Signal, Roy emphasized that only two of those 24 cases originated from attacks on pregnancy resource centers. And those two cases involved only 5 defendants. “This data is particularly troubling in light of the fact that there have been at least 90 individual cases of attacks on pro-life organizations and pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the Supreme Court’s draft opinion for the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case,” he wrote. President Bill Clinton signed the FACE Act into law in 1994. While FACE protects both abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers, President Joe Biden’s DOJ has heavily enforced the law against pro-lifers since the June 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. 2024-08-19 Roy to Wray re FACE Act testimonyDownload “The fact that the Department’s own data shows that a mere 8 percent of FACE Act cases filed by the Biden-Harris administration are against agitators at pregnancy resource centers would seem to belie your assertion that a majority of ‘abortion-related violent extremism investigations have focused on violence against pro-life facilities’ following the Dobbs decision,” the congressman added. Roy’s letter calls for Wray and the FBI to provide documents “sufficient to substantiate” his assertion that the FBI has undertaken more pro-abortion violent extremism incidents than otherwise since May 2, 2022. Kristen Clarke, the head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, heads up enforcement of the FACE Act. Following a report from The Daily Signal, Clarke recently admitted that she hid an arrest and its subsequent expungement from investigators when she was confirmed to her Justice Department post. The president’s critics have accused the Biden/Harris administration and the DOJ of weaponizing the FACE Act against pro-lifers while failing to charge pro-abortion criminals for the hundreds of attacks on pregnancy resource centers since the May 2022 leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating Roe would soon be overturned. Some, among them Roy and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, have called for the repeal of the FACE Act, arguing that it serves no purpose but to target pro-life activists. “The Biden administration is using the FACE Act to give pro-life activists and senior citizens lengthy prison terms for nonviolent offenses and protests—all while turning a blind eye to the violence, arson, and riots conducted on behalf of ‘approved’ leftist causes,” Lee told The Daily Signal in May, when a number of pro-life activists were sentenced to prison time. “Unequal enforcement of the law is a violation of the law,” Lee added at the time, “and men and women who try to expose the horrors of abortion are being unjustly persecuted for their motivations.” The FBI did not respond to requests for comment for this story. The post EXCLUSIVE: Congressman Calls FBI Director’s Bluff, Demands Evidence of Investigations Into Pro-Abortion Violence appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Editor’s Note: Protests are building at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In May, The Daily Signal’s Jarrett Stepman wrote a short history of the 1968 DNC where—just like today—a Democrat incumbent president stepped down for a vice president. The party was deeply divided over the Vietnam War and today is divided about the war in Gaza. Vice President Kamala Harris is running on the “politics of joy.” Hubert Humphrey also ran with the slogan “The Politics of Joy” in 1968. Back then, riots by leftwing activists in Chicago disrupted that message of joy and unity. Are we seeing a repeat this week? The following is Stepman’s write-up, originally published on May 19. Will we see a repeat this summer of the infamous 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention that devolved into chaos and anarchy? This year’s convention is, like 1968, set to take place in Chicago and social unrest is percolating on the Left, to say the least. In a recent interview on Fox News, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn.—who challenged President Joe Biden in the Democratic Party presidential primary—said that given our current course of events, history is likely to repeat itself. “I’m afraid this is looking awfully like 1968 with a lot of anger and angst and disenfranchisement that I think are going to play out on TV this summer, and it’s going to be awfully contentious,” Phillips said on Wednesday. In 1968, anti-Vietnam War and various other far-left protesters descended on the Windy City to protest the party’s presidential nominating convention. Illinois delegates hold a banner touting Chicago Mayor Richard Daley on the convention floor on Aug. 29, 1968, the final day of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. (Photo: Pictorial Parade/Archive Photos/Getty Images) The situation escalated when then-Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, a Democrat, had enough and unleashed the Chicago Police Department on the protesters. The media at the time strongly criticized the Chicago Police Department, but many Americans strongly sympathized with the authorities, who desperately sought to restore order. The events of the convention likely swayed a lot of voters concerned about violent radicals taking over their cities. Many in the media sided with the protesters, while the American people largely sided with the police. Democratic Party delegates hold placards at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, held at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago in August of that year. (Photo: Archive Photos/Getty Images) The chaos was likely one of the reasons Republican Richard Nixon defeated Democrat Hubert Humphrey in November 1968. Preelection chaos created by the Left led to the “silent majority” delivering Nixon a resounding victory. Given the protests we’ve seen across the country in recent months and the pressure the Left is putting on Democrats over Israel’s war in Gaza, it’s hard not to think that this year’s Democratic convention could see similar protests. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that safety is a “top priority” for the convention, but he’s hardly the law-and-order mayor that Daley was. In fact, Johnson has supported defunding the police, has openly sympathized with the anti-Israel protesters, and even made it clear that he’s nothing like Daley. As my colleague Tony Kinnett noted, Johnson has said he’s a different kind of Democrat. In a certain sense, Johnson’s attitude is a sign that in the long-term, the New Left factions that protested in Chicago in 1968 “won.” (More on that later.) While prominent Democrats and members of the media insist that 2024 won’t be like 1968, it’s difficult not to see that a storm is potentially brewing. There have already been significant protests at Chicago universities, pro-Palestine groups have sprung up around the city (some spouting chants like “Death to America!”), and a large group of anti-Israel protesters raised a Palestinian flag near where the Democratic convention is set to take place Aug. 19-22.  There’s no question that Democrats are already getting nervous about what might happen. The 1968 convention was a seminal moment in both the history of the Democratic Party and the United States. It signaled a long-term takeover of the party and various other institutions by the New Left.  Given that the comparisons will continue to be made, it’s worth looking back at what happened 56 years ago. New Left Organizes to Sow Chaos In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson had elected not to seek a second term despite winning a landslide in 1964. Even though the Vietnam War had been conducted by Democratic presidents, the party had turned in an antiwar direction. This became a flashpoint for a party that had become increasingly divided. The common narrative of the Chicago Democratic National Convention in the years that followed was that it was a “mostly peaceful” protest of the Vietnam War, broken up by a brutish and out-of-control Chicago police force. That’s not exactly accurate. The reality is that the well-organized protesters were looking to pick a fight to bolster their cause, as historian Stephen F. Hayward described in his book, “The Age of Reagan: The Fall of the Old Liberal Order, 1964-1980.” “The Chicago police reacted to a calculated provocation,” Hayward wrote. “And, like the case of fighting schoolchildren, where the second child to strike a blow is the one usually caught by the teacher, the media caught the police reaction and attributed it as the cause of the violence.” Hayward explained how plans to disrupt the convention began as early as December 1967 and were the product of three main groups. Those groups were the Youth International Party, or the “Yippies”; the National Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, or “Mobe”; and the Students for a Democratic Society, the SDS. The factions had slightly different agendas for what they wanted to pull off in Chicago. The Mobe generally wanted a peaceful protest to take place, though it wasn’t exactly averse to causing mayhem—and potentially, violence. “It would be a mistake to think that the fight against the war can be won in the ballot box,” said Mobe leader David Dellinger. “It still has to be won on the streets.” The Yippies wanted something more like a giant street festival. They announced a plan to put LSD in the Chicago water supply. Chlorine treatment of the water would have neutralized any threat to the Chicago population, but the Chicago police took the threat seriously enough to put officers in front of the city’s filtration plants. The Students for a Democratic Society were looking for a fight. Hayward noted that the reasons the SDS was looking to ratchet up violence is that they saw liberal antiwar presidential candidates like Robert F. Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy as a threat. For leaders of this movement and others on the far Left, the entire American system needed to be overthrown. They weren’t looking for peace in Vietnam; they were looking to overturn the American way of life and government. While the three factions plotted different tactics to achieve their goals, they were nevertheless united behind a larger agenda. They wanted to sow chaos as much as possible so that they could eventually shove their more moderate cohorts on the Left aside and take the reins of power. They wanted to agitate, disrupt, and put the most pressure possible on Democrats to bend to their will. Humphrey frequently mentioned on the campaign trail that he wanted to bring the “politics of joy” to the country. The activists were having none of it. “We are coming to Chicago to vomit on the ‘politics of joy,’” SDS leader Tom Hayden wrote before the convention, “to expose the secret decisions, upset the nightclub orgies, and face the Democratic Party with its illegitimacy and criminality.” Days of Rage Given the other events of 1968, it isn’t hard to see why the Democratic convention became a mess in hindsight. Two riots had already taken place in Chicago earlier in the year. Civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot in April and Robert Kennedy was assassinated in June. Many college campuses had been in turmoil in the spring. Student protesters had practically shut down Columbia University and occupied Hamilton Hall before being cleared out by the New York Police Department in late April. Yes, I’m still talking about 1968 here, not 2024. By August, the mood was still deeply unsettled. The Democratic race came down to Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Edmund Muskie of Maine. While the party had conceded a great deal to the antiwar wing, it wasn’t nearly enough to appease the activists. There were late attempts to move the convention to Miami, but they didn’t come to fruition. Johnson, who remained a powerful influence in the party, was alleged to have said that “Miami is not an American city.” The show went on. The 1968 convention was set to take place for four days in Chicago’s International Amphitheater, starting on Aug. 26. Before the events kicked off, protesters began gathering in the city. Daley was hesitant to issue permits to the protesters, but consented to let them gather miles from the convention in Lincoln Park. He then changed his mind and ordered Chicago police to implement an 11 p.m. curfew. Again, while many of the about 12,000 protesters who showed up in the city likely wanted to conduct a peaceful protest, the organizers knew that it would be easy to manipulate the situation to initiate violence. More from Hayward: [H]ard-core leaders of the Left knew it would be easy to manipulate the situation into a violent confrontation with police—and be able to blame the police.  Chicago’s police were notoriously aggressive toward protesters and rioters. [Daley] had famously ordered his police to “shoot to kill” arsonists and looters during the riots that followed King’s assassination in April. (It should be noted, however, that no one was shot during the convention riots.) Once the protesters had been pushed out of Lincoln Park, all hell began to break loose as the protesters violently clashed with police, who used tear gas and billy clubs to disperse the crowd. It wasn’t just police clashing with the protesters. Daley brought thousands of National Guardsmen into the city, too, with the governor’s consent. Violence continued to ramp up around the city as the protesters continued to clash with police, and members of the media got caught up in the melee. Aug. 28 saw the most significant day of violence at the so-called “Battle of Michigan Avenue,” which was televised live. That night, Humphrey secured the nomination as police clashed with protesters who had attempted to march on the convention. Authorities put up barricades around the convention site and tightened up security even further for the final day of the convention, where protesters twice tried to get into the convention hall, but were rebuffed. Hundreds of protesters and police officers suffered injuries during the scrums and authorities arrested more than 650 people. Though many prominent Democrats blamed Daley for the violence that took place, Daley naturally disagreed. He argued that calling on the police and National Guard was necessary to suppress people who were intentionally creating violence and disorder.  Daley gave a speech addressing what had happened. “In the heat of emotion and riot, some policemen may have overreacted,” he said. “But to judge the entire police department by the alleged action of a few would be just as unfair as to judge our entire young generation by the action of this mob.” Daley further said that while he didn’t condone any violent actions, he also would not permit a “group of violent terrorists to menace the lives of millions of people, destroy the purpose of this national convention, or take over the streets of Chicago.” Chicago Mayor Richard Daley confers with President John F. Kennedy, a fellow Democrat, in the Oval Office of the White House on July 11, 1962. Daley was still mayor six years later during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. (Photo: Arnie Sachs/CNP/Getty Images) The Aftermath SDS leader Hayden said that the result of the Chicago protests was “100% victory in propaganda” and said he hoped that what happened in Chicago would be repeated around the country whenever Humphrey showed up at a campaign stop. From the perspective of the New Left activists, the chaos was seen as a victory. The fact that several prominent members of the media were injured in the events was a bonus that would lead to sympathy and positive coverage for their cause, or so they said. But attitudes around the country were hardly universal. Most Americans sided with Daley and the police over the activists, and many thought the police should have been even more proactive. “A poll taken shortly after the riots found that 71 percent of Americans thought Chicago’s security measures were justified; 57 percent thought the police had not used excessive force, while 25 percent thought the police had not used enough force,” Hayward wrote. In a sense, both the activists and their most stalwart opponents benefited politically from the Chicago convention. The moderate wing of the Democratic Party continued to lose power and influence. The party was forever changed by what had transpired, and popular narratives took hold that the activists were on the right side of history, while the authorities were simply reactionaries. On the flip side, a rising coalition on the Right—fed up with the urban chaos and intentional agitation—would deliver the White House in a landslide to Nixon. The post Is This Year’s Democratic Convention Going to Be a Repeat of 1968? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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