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Secret Code Is Recording Every Keystroke You Make On More Than 400 Of The Most Popular Websites On The Internet

If someone secretly installed software on your computer that recorded every single keystroke that you made, would you be alarmed?  Of course you would be, and that is essentially what is taking place on more than 400 of the most popular websites on the entire Internet.  For a long time we have known that nothing that we do on the Internet is private, but this new revelation is deeply, deeply disturbing.  In my novel entitled “The Beginning Of The End”, I attempted to portray the “Big Brother” surveillance grid which is constantly evolving all around us, but even I didn’t know that things were quite this bad.  According to an article that was just published by Ars Technica, when you visit the websites that have installed this secret surveillance code, it is like someday is literally “looking over your shoulder”…

If you have the uncomfortable sense someone is looking over your shoulder as you surf the Web, you’re not being paranoid. A new study finds hundreds of sites—including microsoft.com, adobe.com, and godaddy.com—employ scripts that record visitors’ keystrokes, mouse movements, and scrolling behavior in real time, even before the input is submitted or is later deleted.

Go back and read that again.

Do you understand what that means?

Even if you ultimately decide not to post something, these websites already know what you were typing, where you clicked and how you were moving your mouse.

Essentially, it is like someone is literally sitting behind you and watching every single thing that you do on that website.  The following comes from the Daily Mail…

In a blog post revealing the findings, Steven Englehardt, a PhD candidate at Princeton, said: ‘Unlike typical analytics services that provide aggregate statistics, these scripts are intended for the recording and playback of individual browsing sessions, as if someone is looking over your shoulder.

This is fundamentally wrong, and if I am elected to Congress I am going to fight like mad for our privacy rights on the Internet.  Nobody should be allowed to literally monitor our keystrokes, but according to a brand new study that has just been released, 482 of the largest websites in the entire world are doing this…

A study published last week reported that 482 of the 50,000 most trafficked websites employ such scripts, usually with no clear disclosure. It’s not always easy to detect sites that employ such scripts. The actual number is almost certainly much higher, particularly among sites outside the top 50,000 that were studied.

“Collection of page content by third-party replay scripts may cause sensitive information, such as medical conditions, credit card details, and other personal information displayed on a page, to leak to the third-party as part of the recording,” Steven Englehardt, a PhD candidate at Princeton University, wrote. “This may expose users to identity theft, online scams, and other unwanted behavior. The same is true for the collection of user inputs during checkout and registration processes.”

I am calling on every website that is using this sort of code to cease and desist immediately.  This is a gross violation of our privacy, and Congress needs to pass legislation protecting the American people immediately.

And of course it isn’t just the Internet where are privacy rights are being greatly violated.  The CIA has developed software that can remotely turn on the cameras and microphones on our phones whenever they want, and they can also use our phones as GPS locators to track us wherever we go…

CIA-created malware can penetrate and then control the operating systems for both Android and iPhone phones, allege the documents. This software would allow the agency to see the user’s location, copy and transmit audio and text from the phone and covertly turn on the phone’s camera and microphone and then send the resulting images or sound files to the agency.

So just like the Internet, nothing that you do on your phone is ever truly private.

And would you be shocked to learn that our televisions can be used to spy on us as well?

Incredibly, they can even be used to monitor us when they appear to be turned off…

A program dubbed “Weeping Angel” after an episode of the popular British TV science fiction series “Dr. Who,” can set a Samsung smart TV into a fake “off” mode to fool the consumer into thinking the TV isn’t recording room sounds when it still is. The conversations are then sent out via the user’s server. The program was developed in conjunction with MI5, the British FBI equivalent of a domestic counterintelligence and security agency, according to the WikiLeaks documents.

We are rapidly getting to the point where nothing will ever be truly private in our society ever again.

Virtually everything that we do is constantly being watched, tracked, monitored and recorded, and with each passing day our level of privacy is being eroded just a little bit more.

If you don’t want your children to grow up in a world where “Big Brother” is omnipresent, now is the time to stand up and fight.  We can put limits on technology and start reclaiming our privacy, but that is only going to happen if we all work together.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Obamacare Rage: One Family Of 4 In Virginia Is Faced With Paying $3,000 A Month For Health Insurance

Could you afford to pay $3000 a month for health insurance?  Previously, Ian Dixon had been paying $900 a month for health insurance for his family of four, but thanks to changes in the Charlottesville insurance market, a similar plan will now cost him more than $3,000 a month.  When I first came across this story on Zero Hedge, I have to admit that I got angry.  I was angry at the Democrats for destroying our healthcare system in the first place, and I was angry at Republicans for failing to repeal Obamacare even though they have had almost a full year to do so.  Obamacare is financially destroying hard working families all over the nation, and Congress must take action immediately.

Originally, Ian Dixon was excited about Obamacare because he thought that it would mean that he could continue to provide health insurance for his family once he left his full-time job.  But now that he is facing a bill of more than $3,000 a month, all he is feeling is “rage”…

Ian Dixon, who left his full-time job in 2016 to pursue an app-development business, did so because the ACA guaranteed that he could still have quality coverage for his young family, he said.

But when the 38-year-old Charlottesville husband and father of a 3- and a 1-year-old went to re-enroll this month, his only choice for coverage would cost him more than $3,000 a month for his family of four, which amounted to an increase of more than 300 percent over the $900 he paid the year before. And this is for the second-cheapest option, with a deductible of $9,200.

“Helpless is definitely a good word for it,” Dixon said. “Rage is also a good word for it.”

The Democrats are certainly to blame for getting us into this mess, but if the Republicans don’t take action soon they will end up with full ownership of this debacle.

Only the exceedingly wealthy could afford these astronomical health insurance rates, and they certainly aren’t the ones purchasing health insurance on the exchanges.

Let’s look at another example.  A 55-year-old woman living in Charlottesville named Shawn Marie Cossette is horrified that she will now be paying $1,859 a month for a silver plan…

Among them was Shawn Marie Cossette, 55, who runs her own event and floral design business in Charlottesville. Last year, she purchased an Anthem silver plan for $550 a month for herself. This year, under Optima, a silver plan would cost her $1,859 monthly.

“It’s a huge percentage of my income,” she said. “I really believed in the ACA. I really feel everyone deserves the right to health insurance, but who can afford those prices if you don’t qualify for subsidies?”

The truth is that nobody can afford these rates, and silver plan premiums are projected to rise nationally by an average of 37 percent for 2018.

And that is on top of all of the other huge yearly increases that we have seen so far.

According to CNN, the average 27-year-old is now going to be paying almost $5,000 a year for a silver plan…

The steep rate hike means a 27-year-old will pay nearly $5,000 a year, on average, for the benchmark silver plan, upon which premium subsides are based. That’s up from $2,600 when the Obamacare exchanges opened in 2014. This is before subsidies are factored in, however.

Premiums are skyrocketing for a second year in a row. Rates rose 24% this year in the states using healthcare.gov.

How much pain does Obamacare have to cause before Congress finally does something?

Obamacare should have been repealed day one of the Trump administration, but the RINOs in Congress won’t let that happen.  We need to kick those RINOs out, and we need to send a new generation of leaders to Washington that will get things done.

Repealing Obamacare is the first step, but it won’t solve all of our problems.  We pay far more for healthcare than anyone else does by a very wide margin, and we desperately need to get healthcare costs down.

We also need to get health insurance premiums back to reasonable levels.  One way to do this would be to legalize the association buying plans that Rand Paul has been proposing.  By allowing large groups of people (the NRA would be one example) to band together to buy health insurance, that would give average citizens much more negotiating power with the health insurance companies.

I also very much like models such as direct primary care that cut health insurance companies out of the equation entirely.

Our healthcare system is deeply, deeply broken, and we need to get back to a system that is centered primarily on doctors and patients.

Because what we have right now does not work, and the rest of the world is laughing at our ineptitude.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Silicon Valley Exec Has Created A New Religion That Will Worship A ‘Godhead’ Based On Artificial Intelligence

I know that the headline sounds absolutely crazy, but this is actually a true story.  A Silicon Valley executive named Anthony Levandowski has already filed paperwork with the IRS for the nonprofit corporation that is going to run this new religion.  Officially, this new faith will be known as “Way Of The Future”, and you can visit the official website right here.  Of course nutjobs are creating “new religions” all the time, but in this case Levandowski is a very highly respected tech executive, and his new religion is even getting coverage from Wired magazine…

The new religion of artificial intelligence is called Way of the Future. It represents an unlikely next act for the Silicon Valley robotics wunderkind at the center of a high-stakes legal battle between Uber and Waymo, Alphabet’s autonomous-vehicle company. Papers filed with the Internal Revenue Service in May name Levandowski as the leader (or “Dean”) of the new religion, as well as CEO of the nonprofit corporation formed to run it.

So what will adherents of this new faith actually believe?

To me, it sounds like a weird mix of atheism and radical transhumanism.  The following comes from Way of the Future’s official website…

We believe in science (the universe came into existence 13.7 billion years ago and if you can’t re-create/test something it doesn’t exist). There is no such thing as “supernatural” powers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

We believe in progress (once you have a working version of something, you can improve on it and keep making it better). Change is good, even if a bit scary sometimes. When we see something better, we just change to that. The bigger the change the bigger the justification needed.

We believe the creation of “super intelligence” is inevitable (mainly because after we re-create it, we will be able to tune it, manufacture it and scale it). We don’t think that there are ways to actually stop this from happening (nor should we want to) and that this feeling of we must stop this is rooted in 21st century anthropomorphism (similar to humans thinking the sun rotated around the earth in the “not so distant” past).

But even though Way of the Future does not embrace the “supernatural”, they do believe in a “God”.

In this new religion, the worship of a “Godhead” that will be created using artificial intelligence will be actively encouraged…

The documents state that WOTF’s activities will focus on “the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed through computer hardware and software.” That includes funding research to help create the divine AI itself. The religion will seek to build working relationships with AI industry leaders and create a membership through community outreach, initially targeting AI professionals and “laypersons who are interested in the worship of a Godhead based on AI.” The filings also say that the church “plans to conduct workshops and educational programs throughout the San Francisco/Bay Area beginning this year.”

So how “powerful” will this newly created “God” actually be?

Well, Levandowski says that he envisions creating an artificially intelligent being that will literally be “a billion times smarter than the smartest human”…

“What is going to be created will effectively be a god,” he said. “It’s not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?”

He added, “I would love for the machine to see us as its beloved elders that it respects and takes care of. We would want this intelligence to say, ‘Humans should still have rights, even though I’m in charge.’”

But what if this “super-intelligence” gets outside of our control and turns on us?

What then?

I am not sure that Levandowski has an answer for that.

Other transhumanists also believe that artificial intelligence will grow at an exponential rate, but instead of AI ruling over us, they see a coming merger between humanity and this new super intelligence.  In fact, world famous transhumanist Ray Kurzeil believes that this will enable us to “become essentially god-like in our powers”…

Kurzweil and his followers believe that a crucial turning point will be reached around the year 2030, when information technology achieves ‘genuine’ intelligence, at the same time as biotechnology enables a seamless union between us and this super-smart new technological environment. Ultimately the human-machine mind will become free to roam a universe of its own creation, uploading itself at will on to a “suitably powerful computational substrate”. We will become essentially god-like in our powers.

And prominent transhumanist Mark Pesce takes things even further.  He in absolutely convinced that rapidly advancing technology will allow ordinary humans “to become as gods”…

“Men die, planets die, even stars die. We know all this. Because we know it, we seek something more—a transcendence of transience, translation to incorruptible form. An escape if you will, a stop to the wheel. We seek, therefore, to bless ourselves with perfect knowledge and perfect will; To become as gods, take the universe in hand, and transform it in our image—for our own delight. As it is on Earth, so it shall be in the heavens. The inevitable result of incredible improbability, the arrow of evolution is lipping us into the transhuman – an apotheosis to reason, salvation – attained by good works.”

Throughout human history, there has always been a desire to create our own gods or to become our own gods.

But no matter how hard these transhumanists try to run from death, it will eventually find them anyway, and at that point all of their questions about who God really is will be answered once and for all.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Democrats Have Filed Articles Of Impeachment, But We Aren’t Going To Allow Them To Impeach Trump

On Wednesday, a group of congressional Democrats filed five articles of impeachment against President Trump, and they say that they are doing this “because of great concerns for the country and our Constitution and our national security and our democracy”.  Of course this effort is probably not going anywhere because Republicans control both the Senate and the House, but it shows what could happen if the 2018 mid-term elections go badly.  If the Democrats are able to take back control of both the Senate and the House in 2018, they will attempt to impeach Trump.  And even if they get close to taking back control, they could potentially convince some establishment Republicans to join them in getting rid of the president.

Elections really matter, and just because someone uses the “Republican” label does not mean that they will stand up for Trump when push comes to shove.  For example, state representative Christy Perry just entered the race for the open seat in Idaho’s first congressional district, and she could end up being my most formidable opponent.  Unfortunately, her voting record is very liberal and she would not be someone that Trump could count on at all.  It is absolutely imperative that we fill this seat with someone that will be an ally of the president, and that is why Trump supporters all over the district are getting involved in my campaign.

The future of the Trump presidency hinges on what happens in 2018, because the Democrats have already shown us what they intend to do once they are back in charge.  The following comes from NBC News…

The five articles accused the president of obstruction of justice related to the FBI investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, undermining the independence of the federal judiciary and other offenses.

“We have taken this action because of great concerns for the country and our Constitution and our national security and our democracy,” Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., said at a news conference to announce the effort.

Cohen said he understands that Republicans hold the majority in the House and are unlikely to allow hearings on the impeachment articles. He said the group will hold occasional briefings to explain each of the five articles of impeachment and where they believe Trump ran afoul of the law or committed misdeeds that warrant impeachment.

If 2018 goes very well for pro-Trump forces, the threat of impeachment will go away entirely.

But usually the opposition party makes substantial gains in Congress during the first mid-term elections of a new presidency, and if we allow the Democrats to take back control of the Senate and the House in 2018, President Trump may not even make it to the 2020 election.

If you support President Trump, I hope that you will stand with pro-Trump candidates such as myself in 2018.

The left wants to cut Trump’s presidency as short as possible, but we aren’t going to let that happen.  Instead, we are going to make sure that he wins again in 2020, and we are going to do all that we can to get the Make America Great Again agenda fully implemented.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

California Residents On Edge After A Swarm Of 10 Earthquakes Hits Near The San Andreas Fault

Is the San Andreas Fault starting to wake up?  On Monday, a “swarm” of 10 significant earthquakes struck Monterey County, California.  The largest was a magnitude 4.6 earthquake that could be felt all the way over in San Francisco.  Of course this comes at a time when other portions of “the Ring of Fire” are starting to awaken as well.  For example, just yesterday I wrote about the alarming eruption of Mt. Popocatepetl that just took place down in Mexico.  For decades the west coast of North America has been relatively stable compared to the rest of the Ring of Fire, but now that is changing.

So should those living along the west coast be on alert?  Without a doubt, the shaking that happened on Monday definitely got a lot of attention…

A 4.6-magnitude earthquake rattled Monterey County on Monday and was felt more than 90 miles away in San Francisco, officials said.

The quake hit at 11:31 a.m. about 13 miles northeast of Gonzales, near Salinas, and was followed by nine smaller aftershocks, with the largest measuring magnitude 2.8, said Annemarie Baltay, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.

Some experts are trying to assure us that we have nothing to be concerned about, but others are claiming that an earthquake swarm such as this “dramatically increases the likelihood of a major quake in California”.  And not too long ago, the director of the Southern California Earthquake Center did admit the following…

‘Any time there is significant seismic activity in the vicinity of the San Andreas fault, we seismologists get nervous,’ Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, told the LA Times last year.

‘Because we recognize that the probability of having a large earthquake goes up.’

Hopefully the shaking on the west coast will settle down and this will turn out to be a false alarm.

However, seismologists have warned us that the 800-mile-long San Andreas fault “could unzip all at once” without warning someday.  The following comes from Fox News…

For years, scientists believed the mighty San Andreas—the 800-mile-long fault running the length of California where the Pacific and North American plates meet—could only rupture in isolated sections.

But a recent study by federal, state and academic researchers showed that much of the fault could unzip all at once, unleashing a rare, singular catastrophe. Now, insurers have used that research to come up with a new analysis of the damage that could be caused by statewide break of the San Andreas.

And just like we witnessed in Japan, a massive earthquake offshore could produce an enormous tsunami which could potentially “wash away coastal towns”.  The following comes from the Los Angeles Times…

If a 9.0 earthquake were to strike along California’s sparsely populated North Coast, it would have a catastrophic ripple effect.

A giant tsunami created by the quake would wash away coastal towns, destroy U.S. 101 and cause $70 billion in damage over a large swath of the Pacific coast. More than 100 bridges would be lost, power lines toppled and coastal towns isolated. Residents would have as few as 15 minutes notice to flee to higher ground, and as many as 10,000 would perish.

Scientists last year published this grim scenario for a massive rupture along the Cascadia fault system, which runs 700 miles off shore from Northern California to Vancouver Island.

Scientists don’t know exactly when it will happen, but they promise us that “the Big One” is coming someday.

And based on all of the shaking that has been taking place lately, we may be a lot closer to that day than many imagined.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Popocatepetl Violently Erupts, And Authorities Warn A Bigger Eruption Could Threaten More Than 20 Million People In Mexico City

Mt. Popocatepetl is one of the most important volcanoes on the entire planet, and yet most Americans are not familiar with it.  In ancient Aztec, Popocatepetl means “smoking mountain”, but to the locals the 5,426-meter-high volcano is simply known as “Don Goyo”.  A catastrophic eruption of “Don Goyo” would be a nightmare scenario for the more than 20 million people living in the Mexico City metropolitan area, and that is why authorities are watching Mt. Popocatepetl very closely at the moment.  In fact, we are being warned that the eruption that just took place could be a precursor to an even larger eruption…

Chilling footage showing the violent eruption emerged online amid fears there could be more.

A huge plume of smoke blasted three kilometres in to the air from the summit of Popocatepetl after a series explosions over the course of 24 hours.

Surrounding towns were blanketed with ash and debris and authorities are now warning a bigger eruption could threaten the 23.6million inhabitants in the Mexican capital, located just 35 miles (56km) away.

This latest eruption actually resulted in what is known as a “volcanotectonic earthquake”.  Such quakes are caused by the movement of magma, and scientists are very concerned about what that might mean.

“Don Goyo” has been spewing ash regularly since early this month, and at this point local residents are being told to remain indoors…

Locals have been warned to avoid outdoor activities and to keep doors and windows shut, and it is not yet clear when they can leave their homes.

It has been emitting ash since the beginning of the month, reports suggest, before a string of explosions.

Of course the activity at Mt. Popocatepetl has been ramping up for quite a while.  Back on September 19th, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake that affected Mexico City also triggered a minor eruption of the volcano.

But minor eruptions can be handled.  What we want to avoid is the kind of catastrophic eruption that has given Popocatepetl legendary status.  In fact, we are told that at one time enormous mud flows from the volcano buried entire Aztec cities…

Historians tell us that Popocatepetl had a dramatic impact on the ancient Aztecs. Giant mud flows produced by massive eruptions covered entire Aztec cities. In fact, some of these mud flows were so large that they buried entire pyramids in super-heated mud.

But we haven’t witnessed anything like that in any of our lifetimes, so it is hard to even imagine devastation of that magnitude.

In addition to Mexico City’s mammoth population, there are millions of others that live in the surrounding region. Overall, there are about 25 million people that live in the immediate vicinity of Popocatepetl. Thankfully, we haven’t seen a major eruption of the volcano in modern times, but at some point that will change.

Our planet is becoming increasingly unstable, and the magnitude 7.3 earthquake that just hit Iraq is yet more evidence of this fact.

A catastrophic eruption of Mt. Popocatepetl would be a disaster unlike anything North America has seen in centuries, and it would almost instantly collapse Mexico’s economy.

This isn’t getting a lot of attention from the mainstream media in the United States, but this is a major story.  Great shaking is taking place all along the “Ring of Fire”, and that potentially has dramatic implications for people living all over the globe – including the west coast of the United States.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Why Doesn’t The Left Give Our Veterans The Respect That They Deserve?

Our veterans deserve the very best, and yet way too often they get the very worst.  The Department of Veteran Affairs is a disaster, it takes forever to get claims processed, and VA facilities are often extremely dirty and poorly managed.  Rates of unemployment and suicide are far higher for veterans than they are for the population as a whole, and yet the left is strongly backing the NFL players as they disrespect our veterans when they refuse to stand for the national anthem.  There are more than 18 million veterans in the United States today, and more than 9 million of them (including my father) are over the age of 65.  As a society, it is time for us to make it exceedingly clear that we are not going to put up with mistreatment of our veterans any longer.

There was one promising sign on Sunday.  It is being reported that for the first time this season, every player stood for the national anthem…

No NFL players protested during the national anthem during Sunday’s early games, according to multiple reports.

The NFL Players Association unanimously passed a resolution earlier in the week calling for a moment of silence during Sunday’s games in honor of Veterans Day.

Players who previously knelt or raised their fists during the anthem stood this week. Tennessee Titans receiver Rishard Matthews walked onto the field holding hands with soldiers, then stood for the anthem, The Associated Press reported.

Hopefully this show of respect will continue in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, we have a ton of work to do in order to make things right for our veterans.

Things got especially bad during the Obama administration.  Obama did not make our vets a priority, and it showed.  At one point it was taking an average of seven months to get an appointment at a VA facility, and thousands upon thousands ended up dying as they waited for treatment that they desperately needed…

A leaked document shows nearly one-third of the 847,000 veterans in the Department of Veteran Affairs’ backlog died while waiting for treatment, amounting to more than 238,000 patients, according to documents obtained by the Huffington Post.

Are you angry yet?

And as I mentioned above, many VA facilities were found to be in absolutely horrific condition during the Obama years.  An ABC News investigation from a few years ago discovered the following conditions at facilities around the nation…

*Bathrooms filthy with what appeared to be human excrement.

*Dirty linens from some patients mixed in with clean supplies.

*Examining tables that had dried blood and medications still on them.

*Equipment used to sterilize surgical instruments that had broken down.

*Some patients were forced to beg for food and water.

*Veterans that were neglected so badly that they developed horrific bedsores and dangerous infections.

The federal government needs to get this fixed, because our veterans deserve far better treatment, and if I get elected I am going to fight for our vets as hard as I can.

During the Obama years, one study discovered that 22 military veterans were killing themselves every single day.

Just think about that.

At the time, that accounted for about 20 percent of all suicides in the United States.

And on any given night, about 200,000 homeless vets are sleeping in the streets.

We can do better than this, and we must do better than this.  Our veterans fought to defend the liberties and freedoms that we are enjoying today, and we all need to work diligently to make sure that they receive the respect, care and treatment that they deserve.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

One Year Ago A Miracle Happened

On November 8th, 2016 we witnessed the greatest miracle in the history of American politics.  Leading up to election day, virtually all of the experts were boldly assuring us that Hillary Clinton would be the next president of the United States.  Personally, I was quite alarmed about what a Hillary Clinton presidency would mean, because Clinton’s vindictiveness is legendary and my anti-Clinton articles had been seen by millions of people.  When Trump shocked the world by winning the election, it was like an entirely new day had just dawned in America.  If Donald Trump could become president of the United States, literally anything was possible.

President Trump has been visiting Asia this week, but on Wednesday he took a few moments to thank those that voted for him last November…

President Trump marked the anniversary of his 2016 presidential election win by remembering the “deplorables.”

“Congratulations to all of the ‘DEPLORABLES’ and the millions of people who gave us a MASSIVE (304-227) Electoral College landslide victory!” he tweeted Wednesday, featuring a photo of him and some of his aides aboard Air Force Once.

It has been 12 months, but it is still hard to grasp what happened on that historic night.  Nobody in the mainstream media seemed to believe that Trump had a chance, and his shock victory took almost the entire nation by surprise.  The following is an extended excerpt from an article that I published on the day after Trump’s victory entitled “Do You Believe In Miracles?”…

—–

After it was all over, I kind of stumbled around my home lost in my thoughts. I was happy, confused, hopeful, stunned and pensive all at the same time. Like so many others, what I thought I knew about politics turned out to be wrong. But in other ways, the election of Donald Trump has confirmed so much of what I know to be right about America.

Ultimately, it was the American people that decided this election, because the elite were doing their best to absolutely bury him.

Never before has the mainstream media been so openly biased against a major party presidential candidate. For months on end they dumped sewage on Trump, but it didn’t work.

Never before has a major party presidential candidate faced a civil war in his own party on the eve of the election. A whole host of big names in the Republican Party publicly announced that they would not vote for Trump, but it didn’t work.

Never before have we seen a bigger October surprise than the lewd tape from 11 year ago that came out and shocked the world. That would have instantly killed the campaign of any normal politician, but it didn’t kill Trump’s campaign.

From the very beginning it seemed like Trump was at war with almost everyone, and somehow he came out on top in the end.

He beat the Bushes and the Clintons.

He beat the Republicans and the Democrats.

He beat Hollywood and the mainstream media.

He beat the pollsters and the pundits.

He beat the never-Trumpers and the billionaire donors.

He beat Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Jay Z, Beyonce, George Clooney, Matt Damon and Lebron James.

He beat the forces of globalism, elitism and political correctness.

He beat CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and Barack Obama.

He beat them all.

—–

Millions of us that had worked so hard to get Trump elected were absolutely jubilant, but of course there were millions of others that were bitterly disappointed.  If you want to take a walk down memory lane, watch this YouTube video that shows a whole host of liberal talking heads melting down in the aftermath of Trump’s win.  They also knew that something had just fundamentally changed in America, and they were not happy about it at all.

Sadly, many Republican politicians have still not embraced Trump, and that is a huge mistake.

For example, many believe that Ed Gillespie’s huge loss in Virginia happened because he distanced himself from the president…

“Republican Swamp Thing Gillespie Rejected,” Bannon’s Breitbart News declared in a headline.

Gillespie “did not embrace me or what I stand for,” Trump tweeted from Asia.

The rush to destroy Gillespie — who borrowed some tactics from Trump but kept his distance from the president — points to an escalating fight within the party over whether candidates are better off courting Trump and his loyal base or keeping them at arm’s length.

As for me, I am proud to stand with President Trump, and pro-Trump voters all over the nation are getting involved in my campaign for Congress.

Of course Democrats are hoping that the Trump era will be over as soon as possible and that things will then go back to normal.

But that isn’t going to happen.  We are here to take our country back, and the Trump movement is only just getting started.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

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