Short version: the drugs Truvada®, Descovy® and Apretude® have led the sodomites to have mostly (physically) consequence free hook ups again, as if it was in the pre-AIDS era.
Don't believe me, well, check out the government's own material on the subject here: https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/hiv-prevention/using-hiv-medication-to-reduce-risk/pre-exposure-prophylaxis
Also, debate terrain theory vs germ theory in another thread please. Same with if HIV causes AIDS.
They would almost certainly escape into the wild and breed with native or natural species, creating problems like how asian beetles are replacing ladybugs, and earwigs spread like an invasive species, not to mention African honeybees displacing other species of bees.
*hat tip Ace of Spades blog
The "Justice" Department selectively prosecutes, as tons of historical evidence shows, as most recently shown with the J6 defendants getting the book thrown at them and that TV show guy's staff getting a pass. This is baseline from there we have to draw some conclusions based on some new data.
There are all sorts of new leaks that the "FBI is at a critical juncture in the investigation" of Hunter Biden and other such trial balloons being floated about. They are making it out like they are going to do something. Of course, they had the laptop for years and did nothing, so this is highly suspect to say the least. And further, they know if the GOP takes the House or Senate it will be investigated by them anyway.
If he's charged, and it leads to an eventual trial or guilty plea, it will be used as the pressure to push Biden out of office. The guy has covid they said, and just said on national TV he has cancer.
At a minimum, they get out ahead of the GOP investigations, making them seem proactive, and further, it keeps them from having to share information with Congress due to it "being part of an ongoing investigation". Coward GOPers don't fuck with intelligence agencies, they have 7 ways from Sunday to get back at you.
Gnostic arrogance from knowledge, especially knowledge that most people do not have, and conspiracy theorists
In the early days of Christianity, there was a heretical group called the Gnostics, who believed that secret knowledge was the key to salvation. You see, they thought they had special knowledge about how the world really worked, and that everyone outside the group didn’t, and thus couldn’t be saved. They were similar to the cults of the Egyptian god Isis that were popular in the Roman Empire at the same time, which promised power through secret knowledge. If you see similarities to the Free Masons here, you’re not alone.
I’m concerned that the conspiracy theory community (here and elsewhere), rather than looking skeptically at the world and seeking objective truth, is getting a gnostic arrogance about themselves. Be aware of this hubris. Just because you have figured out that XYZ that the conventional wisdom says is not correct, it doesn’t make you a better person, it just gives you better outcomes in life. Your mission, if there is one that is (that’s another debate), should be always seek truth as objectively as possible, and share it with others. If they refuse to listen, because a life of lies is a more comfortable one, shake the dust from your feet and move on.
After a get your attention side jaunt about a bear used to set up her analogy, Naomi Wolf lays out the current situation with the vax and its consequences, and digs more into its origins and why it's being pushed.
Her conclusion? The coof vax is a Chinese weapon:
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/07/facing-beast-dr-naomi-wolf/
"How better to cripple the world’s other superpower than by destroying our American front lines and our American next generation, with tainted, murderous vaccines, flowed easily enough into the West via (not even that many) shell companies and cutouts? How easy to do the same to Western Europe, to Canada and Australia, as a whole?
Take all of the above and consider that the virus originated in China; and now all of the testing apparatuses, as well as millions of the vaccines, the catastrophically damaging or lethal “solutions” to the virus, also all originate from the same folks; the same leadership cadre who brought the world forced abortions, citizens welded into their homes, Uighur concentration camps, and organ harvesting.
I made the case in my new book The Bodies of Others that a transnational group of bad actors - including the WEF, The WHO, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, tech companies and the CCP — used the pandemic to crush humanity and in particular to destroy the West.
With the provenance of the vaccines and tests, you can see yet another mechanism, yet another core methodology of this warfare.
Mapping these points of evidence, I think you may start to see what I see.
This all means, of course, that we are staring into the abyss right now.
Traumatized or not, we all need to snap out of denial.
We let our adversary come too close to us. Into our very bloodstreams."
If it's obvious to anyone with a telescope, that at least Jupiter is a sphere, why would Earth be flat?
One answer I hear from flat earthers is that other planets are round, but not Earth.
The other answer is that space is some sort of projection, and you're not seeing planets are all.
To much of an outsider.
From Ace of Spades:
"Note/Correction: Deb Heine tells me the pic of a bunch of little girls with their feet on a man's naked chest, in the above link in the article by VodkaPundit, is not a picture of Hunter Biden. It was posted on the 4chan threads discussing the Hunter Biden leaks, but many of the 4chan posters are claiming it's a "fed post," a deliberately false posting designed to poison the well so that all information posted there can be claimed to be false."
"Despite being portrayed as a “right-wing nationalist”, Abe was always a globalist creature, who “sought to increase Japan’s international profile by expanding ties with NATO, the EU, and other organizations beyond the Asia-Pacific region.” He also “attempted to centralize security policy in the Prime Minister’s office by creating the Japanese National Security Council to better coordinate national security policy, and by ordering the first National Security Strategy in Japan’s history. Based on the American body of the same name, the law to create the NSC was passed in November 2013 and began operating the following month when Abe appointed Shotaro Yachi as Japan’s first National Security Advisor.”
He was, in short, a man of the world machine."
https://voxday.net/2022/07/08/clown-world-loses-another-clown/
My uncle, a solitary man in an out of homelessness his whole life, but who in his 60s had finally gotten his act together. With age typically comes at least some wisdom.
He thought he had pneumonia, and goes into the hospital. They test him for covid, and he pops positive. Nobody was there to run interference, and before long he was on a ventilator.
I get the phone call from the hospital as the emergency contact, with some officious bureaucrat pressuring me like a used car salesmen to let them to allow them to pull the plug. Apparently, his organs were shutting down, and there was no chance of recovery. The only way that happens is with Remdesivir.
Poor bastard, never stood a chance.
“Never letting a crisis go to waste” is a rule in politics. Bills are pulled out of back drawers and dusted off, introduced in the novel environment. Yet why did 2012's Newtown shooting not result in gun control but 2022 did? The Senate, then as now, was split 50/50.
Three reasons why we got gun control this time:
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The Tea Party takeover in 2010 meant the House was pro-gun. In 2022, it was pro-gun control.
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A weakened NRA that is pale shadow of its former self.
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President Trump’s supporters’ ability to look past his compromises on policies dearest to them. He was for red flag laws, but his supporters didn't turn on him. He thankfully abandoned the idea.
SCOTUS rules against warrantless seizure of guns while man is in hospital for suicide evaluation BY DEBRA CASSENS WEISS
MAY 17, 2021, 11:01 AM CDT
In a unanimous opinion Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against police who seized a man’s guns without a warrant while he was in the hospital for a suicide evaluation.
Police cannot justify the warrantless search and seizure based on the “community caretaking” exception to the Fourth Amendment, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his opinion for the high court.
The Supreme Court had recognized the exception in a 1973 case, Cady v. Dombrowski, in which police searched the trunk of a car that had been towed after a crash.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday in a challenge by Edward Caniglia, who retrieved an unloaded gun during an argument with his wife, put it on the table and said, “Why don’t you just shoot me and get me out of my misery.”
Caniglia’s wife ended up spending the night at a motel. When she called her husband the next day, the wife was unable to reach him. She called police in Cranston, Rhode Island, for a wellness check.
Caniglia agreed to go to the hospital but only after police allegedly promised that they wouldn’t confiscate his firearms. Police entered Caniglia’s home and took two guns.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Boston had ruled against Caniglia, ruling that the community caretaking exception applies to homes and cars. The Supreme Court disagreed.
The 1st Circuit’s community caretaking rule “goes beyond anything this court has recognized,” Thomas wrote. “What is reasonable for vehicles is different from what is reasonable for homes. Cady acknowledged as much.”
In a concurrence, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the decision Monday implicates but does not address “red flag” laws that allow police to seize guns pursuant to a court order to prevent harm to oneself or others.
Alito also mentioned another category of cases involving warrantless searches of a home to ascertain whether a resident is in urgent need of medical attention and can’t summon help. Current precedent does not address that kind of situation, he said.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh mentioned similar situations in concurrences. Justice Stephen G. Breyer joined Roberts’ concurrence.
“The court’s decision does not prevent police officers from taking reasonable steps to assist those who are inside a home and in need of aid,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The case is Caniglia v. Strom.
Earth is a tiny speck. The odds of getting hit by space debris is infinitesimal. Yet why do we have mass extinctions on Earth from asteroids, and with such regularly, in our world's history?
Marc Davis and Piet Hut have a theory, that a red dwarf, or a brown dwarf, which is to dim to see from Earth, is in a distant orbit around our sun. Every 27 million years it approaches close enough to throw off the orbits of asteroids and comets, resulting in the Earth getting a pummeling.
A very layman's explanation of this theory is found on a website run by professor Muller.
Aside from the X-files in its entirety that is.
ATF agents place video camera on utility pole outside suspect's home, giving them a 24/7 live feed that can be viewed remotely and which they operate for eight months without a warrant. Is that a "search" under the Fourth Amendment? First Circuit, sitting en banc: Three of us say no. And three of us say yes, but the agents can't be expected to have known that (and no matter that the gov't didn't initially raise its good-faith argument below). So the lower court order suppressing the evidence is reversed.
http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/19-1582P2-01A.pdf
https://thewriterinblack.com/2017/05/17/nobody-wants-to-take-your-guns-2/
Joy Behar on “The View” said: “They should not tell everything they’re going to do,” Behar exclaimed. “Like, if you are going to take people’s guns away, wait until you get elected and then take the guns away. Don’t tell them ahead of time!”
“A gun-control movement worthy of the name would insist that President Clinton move beyond his proposals for controls … and immediately call on Congress to pass far-reaching industry regulation like the Firearms Safety and Consumer Protection Act … [which] would give the Treasury Department health and safety authority over the gun industry, and any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns.” Josh Sugarmann (executive director of the Violence Policy Center)
“My view of guns is simple. I hate guns and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to own one. If I had my way, guns for sport would be registered, and all other guns would be banned.” Deborah Prothrow-Stith (Dean of Harvard School of Public Health)
“I don’t care if you want to hunt, I don’t care if you think it’s your right. I say ‘Sorry.’ it’s 1999. We have had enough as a nation. You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own a gun I think you should go to prison.” Rosie O’Donnell
“Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it.” Andrew Cuomo
“I do not believe in people owning guns. Guns should be owned only by [the] police and military. I am going to do everything I can to disarm this state.” Michael Dukakis
“If someone is so fearful that they are going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, it makes me very nervous that these people have weapons at all.” U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman
“In fact, the assault weapons ban will have no significant effect either on the crime rate or on personal security. Nonetheless, it is a good idea … Passing a law like the assault weapons ban is a symbolic – purely symbolic – move in that direction. Its only real justification is not to reduce crime but to desensitize the public to the regulation of weapons in preparation for their ultimate confiscation.” Charles Krauthammer, columnist, 4/5/96 Washington Post
“Ban the damn things. Ban them all. You want protection? Get a dog.” Molly Ivins, columnist, 7/19/94
“[To get a] permit to own a firearm, that person should undergo an exhaustive criminal background check. In addition, an applicant should give up his right to privacy and submit his medical records for review to see if the person has ever had a problem with alcohol, drugs or mental illness . . . The Constitution doesn’t count!” John Silber, former chancellor of Boston University and candidate for Governor of Massachusetts. Speech before the Quequechan Club of Fall River, MA. August 16, 1990
“I think you have to do it a step at a time and I think that is what the NRA is most concerned about. Is that it will happen one very small step at a time so that by the time, um, people have woken up, quote, to what’s happened, it’s gone farther than what they feel the consensus of American citizens would be. But it does have to go one step at a time and the banning of semiassault military weapons that are military weapons, not household weapons, is the first step.” Mayor Barbara Fass, Stockton, CA
“Handguns should be outlawed. Our organization will probably take this stand in time but we are not anxious to rouse the opposition before we get the other legislation passed.” Elliot Corbett, Secretary, National Council For A Responsible Firearms Policy (interview appeared in the Washington Evening Star on September 19, 1969)
“Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe.” Senator Diane Feinstein, 1993
“If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them… ‘Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ’em all in, I would have done it. I could not do that. The votes weren’t here.” U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes,” 2/5/95
“Banning guns is an idea whose time has come.” U.S. Senator Joseph Biden, 11/18/93, Associated Press interview
“Yes, I’m for an outright ban (on handguns).” Pete Shields, Chairman emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc., during a 60 Minutes interview.
“I am one who believes that as a first step, the United States should move expeditiously to disarm the civilian population, other than police and security officers, of all handguns, pistols, and revolvers… No one should have the right to anonymous ownership or use of a gun.” Professor Dean Morris, Director of Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, stated to the U.S. Congress
“I feel very strongly about it [the Brady Bill]. I think – I also associate myself with the other remarks of the Attorney General. I think it’s the beginning. It’s not the end of the process by any means.” William J. Clinton, 8/11/93
“The Brady Bill is the minimum step Congress should take…we need much stricter gun control, and eventually should bar the ownership of handguns, except in a few cases.” U.S. Representative William Clay, quoted in the St. Louis Post Dispatch on May 6, 1991.
“I don’t believe gun owners have rights.” Sarah Brady, Hearst Newspapers Special Report “Handguns in America”, October 1997
“We must get rid of all the guns.” Sarah Brady, speaking on behalf of HCI with Sheriff Jay Printz & others on “The Phil Donahue Show” September 1994
“The House passage of our bill is a victory for this country! Common sense wins out. I’m just so thrilled and excited. The sale of guns must stop. Halfway measures are not enough.” Sarah Brady 7/1/88
“I don’t care about crime, I just want to get the guns.” Senator Howard Metzenbaum, 1994
“We’re here to tell the NRA their nightmare is true…” U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, quoted on NBC, 11/30/93
“My bill … establishes a 6-month grace period for the turning in of all handguns.” U.S. Representative Major Owens, Congressional Record, 11/10/93
“I’m convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily — given the political realities — going to be very modest. Of course, it’s true that politicians will then go home and say, ‘This is a great law. The problem is solved.’ And it’s also true that such statements will tend to defuse the gun-control issue for a time. So then we’ll have to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen that law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal — total control of handguns in the United States — is going to take time. My estimate is from seven to ten years. The problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns sold in this country. The second problem is to get them all registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition — except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors — totally illegal.”Nelson T. Shields of Hangun Control, Inc. as quoted in `New Yorker’ magazine July 26, 1976. Page 53f
“Our goal is to not allow anybody to buy a handgun. In the meantime, we think there ought to be strict licensing and regulation. Ultimately, that may mean it would require court approval to buy a handgun.” President of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence Michael K. Beard, Washington Times 12/6/93 p.A1
“The sale, manufacture, and possession of handguns ought to be banned…We do not believe the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual the right to keep them.” The Washington Post – “Legal Guns Kill Too” – November 5, 1999
“There is no reason for anyone in the country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to Change the Constitution.” USA Today – Michael Gartner – Former president of NBC News – “Glut of Guns: What Can We Do About Them?” – January 16, 1992
“I would personally just say to those who are listening, maybe you want to turn in your guns,” Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, 2012
” 4. Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution : (1) Remove the assault weapon or large capacity magazine from the state of Missouri; (2) Render the assault weapon permanently inoperable; or (3) Surrender the assault weapon or large capacity magazine to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction, subject to specific agency regulations.” Legislation introduced in Missouri.2013
“Since assault weapons are not a major contributor to US gun homicide and the existing stock of guns is large, an assault weapon ban is unlikely to have an impact on gun violence. If coupled with a gun buyback and no exemptions then it could be effective.” NIJ Memo on a new “Assault Weapon” Ban. 2013
“The sheriff of the county may, no more than once per year, conduct an inspection to ensure compliance with this subsection” (Warrantless searches by law enforcement?) Washington State Senate Bill 5737 (2013)
“the state of Iowa should take semi-automatic weapons away from Iowans who have legally purchased them prior to any ban that is enacted if they don’t give their weapons up in a buy-back program. Even if you have them, I think we need to start taking them,” Iowa state Rep. Dan Muhlbauer (D-Manilla) 2013
California Senate Bill 374 (Steinberg 2013) would expand the definition of “Assault Weapons” to include ALL semi-auto rifles (including rimfire calibers) that accept a detachable magazine.
SB374 would ban on the sale and possession of ALL Semi-Auto rifles and require registration to retain legal possession in the future. California Senate Bill 47 (Yee 2013) would expand the definition of “Assault Weapons” to include rifles that have been designed/sold and or equipped to use the “bullet button” or similar device.
SB47 would ban on the sale and possession of ALL those Semi-Auto rifles and require registration to retain legal possession in the future.
California Assembly Bill 174 (Bonta 2013) would ban the possession of any firearms that were “grandfathered “ for possession if registered in previous “Assault Weapons” gun control schemes.
Californians that trusted the State of California and registered their firearms will be required to surrender the firearms to the Government or face arrest. Passage of AB174 would make SB374/SB47 (above) into confiscation mandates.
California Senate Bill 396 (Hancock 2013) would ban the possession of any magazine with a capacity to accept more than 10 cartridges. ALL currently grandfathered “high-cap” magazines would become ILLEGAL to possess and the owners subject to arrest and the magazines confiscated. (“High-cap” means a capacity that has been standard, that the firearms were designed for, since the 40’s–AK pattern rifles–or 60’s–AR pattern rifles.)
“We want everything on the table. This is a moment of opportunity. There’s no question about it…We’re on a roll now, and I think we’ve got to take the–you know, we’re gonna push as hard as we can and as far as we can.” Illinois Rep Jan Schakowsky says assault rifle ban just the beginning, ‘moment of opportunity’ and seeks to ban handguns (2013).
“People who own guns are essentially a sickness in our souls who must be cleansed.” Colorado Senator (Majority Leader) John Morse. 2013 (Cleansed? “Final Solution” anyone?)
“We needed a bill that was going to confiscate, confiscate, confiscate.” Discussion among Senator Loretta Weinberg (D37), Senator Sandra Cunningham (D31), Senator Linda Greenstein (D14) of New Jersey’s State Legislature, May 9, 2013
“No one in this country should have guns.” Superior Court Judge, Robert C. Brunetti, Bristol, CT. September, 2013
Proposed Missouri Bill to ban “assault weapons“: 4. Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution: (1) Remove the assault weapon or large capacity magazine from the state of Missouri; (2) Render the assault weapon permanently inoperable; or (3) Surrender the assault weapon or large capacity magazine to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction, subject to specific agency regulations.
New York sends out Confiscation letters.
“It is extremely important that individuals in the state of California do not own assault weapons. I mean that is just so crystal clear, there is no debate, no discussion,” Leland Yee, California State Senator.
Shannon Watts (head of “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense”): “@MikeBloomberg and I want guns gone. Period. It doesn’t matter what it takes.” (Twitter, 2014).
“Upon review of all the parties’ evidence, the court seriously doubts that the banned assault long guns are commonly possessed for lawful purposes, particularly self-defense in the home, which is at the core of the Second Amendment right, and is inclined to find the weapons fall outside Second Amendment protection as dangerous and unusual.” U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake. (The “assault weapons” being described are semi-automatic weapons–meaning one shot fired per pull of the trigger–of fairly modest power, near the low end of center fire rifles.) As for the claim that said weapons are not particularly useful for home defense. I address that here. “
- No person, corporation or other entity in the state of Missouri may manufacture, import, possess, purchase, sell, or transfer any assault weapon or large capacity magazine.” Bill introduced in Missouri House.
NJ.com editorial boards advocates for “mandatory gun buybacks”.http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/09/nj_gun_buyback_programs.html “So do all the voluntary gun buybacks you want. But until they are mandatory, and our society can see past its hysteria over “gun confiscation,” don’t expect it to make much difference.”
"Pfizer documents’ reports about pregnancy and found that the assurance that the vaccine is “safe and effective” for pregnant women, was based on a study of 44 French rats, followed for 42 days (the scientists who ran the study are shareholders or employees of BioNTech).
The Volunteers found that while pregnant women were excluded from the internal studies, and thus from the EUA on which basis all pregnant women were assured the vaccine was “safe and effective”, nonetheless about 270 women got pregnant during the study. More than 230 of them were lost somehow to history. But of the 36 pregnant women whose outcomes were followed - 28 lost their babies.
The Volunteers found that a baby died after nursing from a vaccinated lactating mother, and was found to have had an inflamed liver. Many babies nursing from vaccinated mothers showed agitation, gastrointestinal distress, and failure to thrive (to grow), and were inconsolable."
SNIP
"In highly vaccinated Scotland, almost twice the number of babies died in 2021 as died in baseline numbers. In Ontario, Canada, 86 babies died in 2021, versus a baseline of four or five; this was a baby die-off so severe that a brave Parliamentarian brought the issue to Parliament.
In Israel, at RamBam Hospital in Haifa, there were 34% more spontaneous abortions and stillbirths to vaccinated women as to unvaccinated women."
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/dear-friends-sorry-announce-genocide-dr-naomi-wolf/
Richard de Mille demonstrated that Castaneda's work was a hoax. He lifted entire passages from other authors such as C.S. Lewis. The Indian tribe that he supposedly apprenticed under never used peyote.
If you think you can master his material and jump off a cliff and survive as he claimed to do, please do so.
https://www.history.com/news/the-black-friday-gold-scandal-145-years-ago
If any pair of investors had the financial clout and lack of scruples required to engineer the bedlam of Black Friday, it was Jay Gould and Jim Fisk. As president and vice president of the Erie Railroad, the duo had won a reputation as two of Wall Street’s most ruthless financial masterminds. Their rap sheets boasted everything from issuing fraudulent stock to bribing politicians and judges, and they enjoyed a lucrative partnership with Tammany Hall power player William “Boss” Tweed. Gould in particular had proven an expert at devising new ways to game the system, and was once dubbed the “Mephistopheles of Wall Street” for his preternatural ability to line his own pockets. “[Gould’s] nature suggested survival from the family of spiders,” historian Henry Adams later wrote. “He spun huge webs, in corners and in the dark…he seemed never to be satisfied except when deceiving everyone as to his intentions.”
In early 1869, Gould spun a web aimed at conquering what was perhaps the most audacious target in the American financial system: the gold market. At the time, gold was still the official currency of international trade, but the United States had gone off the gold standard during the Civil War, when Congress authorized $450 million in government-backed “greenbacks” to fund the Union march to war. Competing currencies—gold and greenbacks—had been in circulation ever since, and Wall Street had formed a special “Gold Room” where brokers could trade them. Since there was only around $20 million in gold in circulation at any given time, Gould wagered that a speculator with deep enough pockets could potentially buy up huge amounts of the precious metal until they had “cornered” the market. From there, they could drive up the price and sell for astronomical profits.
Gould’s gold ploy faced one very significant hurdle: President Ulysses S. Grant. Since the beginning of Grant’s tenure as chief executive, the U.S. Treasury had continued a policy of using its massive gold reserves to buy back greenbacks from the public. This meant that the government effectively set the value of gold: when it sold its supply, the price went down; when it didn’t, the price went up. If a speculator like Gould tried to corner the market, Grant could simply order the Treasury to sell off huge amounts of gold and drive the price through the floor. For his gold scheme to work, Gould needed President Grant to keep a tight grip on his purse strings.
“The Mephistopheles of Wall Street” found an elegant solution to the government problem in the form of Abel Corbin, a former Washington bureaucrat who happened to be married to Ulysses Grant’s sister, Jennie. In the spring of 1869, Gould befriended Corbin and persuaded him to help with his secret plan to corner the gold market. As a quid pro quo, he deposited a cool $1.5 million in gold in an account under Corbin’s name. The president’s brother-in-law sprang into action that summer. To ensure Gould would have an ear on the government’s actions, Corbin used his political influence to help install General Daniel Butterfield as the U.S. sub-treasurer in New York. In exchange for providing advance notice of any government gold sales, Butterfield was given a $1.5 million stake in the scheme and a $10,000 loan. Corbin also used his family connections to cozy up to Grant and try to persuade him that high gold prices would benefit U.S. farmers who sold their harvest overseas. He arranged for Gould to meet with Grant to discuss the matter, and even helped anonymously author an editorial in the New York Times claiming that the president had reversed his financial policy. The constant wheedling eventually paid off. During a meeting with Corbin on September 2, Grant confided that he had changed his mind on gold and planned to order the treasury not to sell over the next month.
Jay Gould and a few other conspirators had been secretly stockpiling gold since August, but upon learning that the fix was in, they disguised their identities behind an army of brokers and proceeded to gobble up all the gold they could. Gould also enlisted the help of his fellow financial buccaneer Jim Fisk, who promptly dropped $7 million on gold and became one of the cabal’s leading members. As the Gould-Fisk ring increased its stake, gold’s value climbed to dizzying heights. In August, a $100 gold piece had sold for around $132 in greenbacks, but only a few weeks later, the price spiked as high as $141. In Wall Street’s Gold Room, distraught speculators and gold short-sellers suddenly found themselves caught in a vise. Rumors spread about a nefarious group of investors who were trying to “bull,” or drive up, the gold market, and many began calling for the Treasury to intervene by selling its gold reserves. Fisk and Gould kept mum, but by that point, they personally owned a combined $60 million in gold—three times the amount of the public supply in New York.
Gould’s shopping spree continued unabated until September 22, when he learned from Abel Corbin that the president was on to them. Corbin had written Grant a letter looking for assurance that he remained firm on his new, non-interventionist gold stance, and the note had finally aroused the president’s suspicions that his brother-in-law might be involved in a gold scheme. Furious at having been manipulated, the president had gotten his wife to write a response chastising Corbin and warning that Grant would not hesitate to “do his duty to the country” and break the corner. Gould was stunned, but in true robber baron fashion, he neglected to divulge the new information to Fisk or his other partners. Instead, when the buying bonanza resumed on September 23, he began secretly selling off as much of his own gold as he could.
By September 24, 1869—the day that would become known as “Black Friday”—the hubbub over gold had reached a fever pitch. Mobs of spectators and reporters gathered near Wall Street, and many of the Gold Room’s indebted speculators walked to work like men on their way to the gallows. Gold had closed the previous day at $144 ½, but shortly after trading resumed, it took a tremendous leap to $160. Unaware that the game might soon be up, Fisk continued buying like a madman and bragged that gold would soon top $200.
In Washington, D.C., Ulysses S. Grant resolved to bust Gould and Fisk’s corner on the gold market. Shortly before noon, he met with Treasury Secretary George Boutwell, who had been following the chaos via telegraph. After a brief conversation, Grant ordered Boutwell to open his vaults and flood the market. A few minutes later, Boutwell wired New York and announced the Treasury would sell a whopping $4 million in gold the following day.
Along with finally loosening Gould and Fisk’s grasp on the gold market, the news sent Wall Street into a tailspin. “Possibly no avalanche ever swept with more terrible violence,” the New York Herald later wrote. Within minutes, the inflated gold prices plummeted from $160 to $133. The stock market joined in on the plunge, dropping a full 20 percentage points and bankrupting or inflicting severe damage on some of Wall Street’s most venerable firms. Thousands of speculators were left financially ruined, and at least one committed suicide. Foreign trade ground to a halt. Farmers may have felt the squeeze most of all, with many seeing the value of their wheat and corn harvests dip by 50 percent.
Ripples from “Black Friday” affected the U.S. economy for several years and blighted the rest of Ulysses S. Grant’s tenure as president. Nevertheless, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk managed to escape the disaster none the worse for wear. Despite multiple allegations of malfeasance and an official investigation by Congress, the two leveraged their political connections and employed a brigade of attorneys to avoid spending a single night in jail. Fisk even ducked out on his massive losses, claiming third party brokers had made the trades without his knowledge. Gould may have proved even more fortunate. It’s unclear how his finances fared on Black Friday, but according to some estimates, his last minute fire sale may have netted him somewhere around $12 million.