It’s ALIVE
You’re asking yourself, “How could he know that it would be alive by the end of this week? Is LL clairvoyant? Is he a prophet for our time? Or is he trading on inside information like an American politician?
The Confederate Cipher is alive across digital and print platforms. You can buy it here.
PLEASE consider reviewing the book and giving it the appropriate 5 stars, as it may be the very best (behind the Bible) book you have ever read. The pricing is higher than I would have wanted it to be – US$13.99 for print and free in the digital format if you have a Kindle Unlimited membership Learn More.
If you want to buy the digital format, it will set you back US$5.99.
Printing costs keep going up along with everything else, and I don’t make much from each sale, but what the heck, it’s not as if I’m putting a gun to your head (don’t turn around). Buy 10 copies and share them with your book club, your family, and complete strangers you’re sitting next to on the airplane.
The British had fought two wars on the American continent and had a direct interest in agricultural products from the South and in manufactured goods from the North. Assuming they remained uninvolved was unrealistic. Events such as the death of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, husband and consort of Queen Victoria, in 1861 affected British politics in unexpected ways. Eventually, although the British enforced the blockade and sought an alternative cotton source in Mexico, they smuggled arms and ammunition. Still, they did not pursue military intervention by the Royal Navy and the British Army.
Their codes, ciphers, and systems of statecraft and tradecraft, however, were used primarily by the Confederacy. Thus, we have the Confederate Cipher and the care and training of Henry Hudson, which unfold on the pages of this and subsequent novels.
Can spies truly fall in love, or do the damaging secrets necessary for honesty and intimacy interfere with it? Some argue that they can fall in love but also admit it’s a significant professional risk, potentially endangering careers, security, and lives, as emotions can impair judgment and create vulnerabilities. Lieutenant Henry L. Hudson, U. S. Army, is about to run headlong into this Gordian Knot.
Love happens in the spy world, but it’s a double-edged sword, capable of being a strength, a tool, or a devastating weakness.
Volume Two, Hudson’s Scouts, is coming soon. It will be followed a couple of months after that by The Crow Creek Expedition. The best way to keep the series alive and going is to review the books generously. If the reviews suck or there aren’t any, it’s likely the books aren’t interesting, which begs the question of why I invest thousands of hours writing this stuff.
Bullet Points:
** President Donald Trump on Thursday said the United States will purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds, with the goal of bringing down housing costs. “Because I chose not to sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in my First Term … it is now worth many times that amount — AN ABSOLUTE FORTUNE — and has $200 BILLION DOLLARS IN CASH,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “I am instructing my Representatives to BUY $200 BILLION DOLLARS IN MORTGAGE BONDS. This will drive Mortgage Rates DOWN, monthly payments DOWN, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable,” Trump wrote.
** Find your spirit animal (right).
** Fuel accounts for 5% of the total cost for large light-water reactors (such as CANDU). The fuel costs increase as enrichment increases. For HALEU microreactors, the fuel could account for up to 50% of the total cost. Decreasing fuel costs are necessary to enable large-scale deployment of advanced reactors.
** Comedy names are discussed here.
** (Daily Caller) YouTuber Nick Shirley released a video on Monday alleging that Minnesota’s medical transport system is riddled with fraud. In December, Shirley posted a video showing several purported Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota — including one that reportedly received $4 million in taxpayer funds — with no children present on site. In a video posted on his channel, Shirley said his yearlong review identified roughly 1,200 medical transportation outfits operating across the state.
** Northrop Grumman has demonstrated the integration of its AN/AQS-24 minehunting system with a U.S. Navy Mine Countermeasures Unmanned Surface Vehicle, completing initial open-water testing within 45 days of contract award, according to the company.
** (Reuters) – Chinese independent refiners are expected to switch to heavy crude from sources including Iran in the coming months to replace Venezuelan shipments halted since the U.S. removed the country’s president, traders and analysts said.
** (ISW) A group of seven Kurdish organizations, including anti-Iranian regime groups, called for a general strike across Iran on January 8. The organizations’ call for a general strike is notable given that the ayatollah previously accused Kurdish opposition groups of inciting protests in Kurdish areas during the Mahsa Amini movement. The Mobarizoun Popular Front (MPF), which is a coalition of Baloch anti-regime groups, killed an Iranian Law Enforcement Command (LEC) officer in Iranshahr, Sistan and Baluchistan Province, on January 7 in response to the regime’s violent crackdown on protesters across Iran. The MPF previously warned on January 1 that it would respond to “every bullet” fired by Iranian security forces at protesters.
(NY Post) Australia has called for its citizens to leave Iran on Wednesday amid the ongoing violent protests, as Tehran’s top military chief threatened preemptive military action over President Trump’s threats against its regime. The nation urged its citizens to leave Iran “as soon as possible” and to avoid travel to the Islamic Republic altogether, citing the “ongoing violent nationwide protests that may further escalate without notice.”
** IRAN – Caviar is Iran’s other black gold. The great drought is killing off the sturgeon in Iran. You need both water and fish to produce that black gold. Tehran is largely unlivable due to the lack of fresh drinking and culinary water.
Dark Fleet Tanker
Do you see how the top dark part of Bella 1/Marinera’s hull is high above the water, exposing the lower gray part? That means she’s empty of oil.
It is carrying something (or many things) that’s so important to Russia that it had to hide it, change its name, change its flag, and require a full military (and diplomatic) escort back to Northern Russia.
Reports indicate a Russian attack submarine was part of the escort. Experts suggested it could be a Yasen-M-class submarine (nuclear), such as the Kazan or a similar vessel, given Russia’s previous use of these vessels to maintain a presence in international waters. Other reports list the Russian Submarine as the RFS Ufa (B-588), an Improved Kilo-class submarine (Diesel/Electric). I don’t have an ID on the surface warship.
Genders
(Foreign Affairs – Saskia Brechenmacher) You can always tell the neo-Marxists who write articles by their grievance-grifting. On one hand, they can’t tell you what a woman is. Tampons must be available in men’s restrooms – but what is a man, if you can’t identify what a woman (womyn) is? Does gender equality equal gender fluidity – you can be a man today and a woman tomorrow and one of 74 other genders the following day? If that’s the case, does Saskia’s article (below) hold water?
Three decades after the Beijing Platform for Action, the groundbreaking UN declaration that affirmed that women’s rights are human rights, the global movement for gender equality and women’s empowerment is under strain. Adopted in 1995 and signed by 189 governments, the ambitious framework spurred a generation of legal reforms, gains in political representation, and consolidation of norms around gender equality. Today, however, that momentum is faltering. Although some countries continue to make steady progress, a UN report released in March 2025 found that one in four countries is experiencing a backlash against gender equality. Around the world, 270 million women lack access to modern contraception, one in three women experiences gender-based violence, and women are systematically underrepresented in countries’ political and economic leadership.
If the only thing required to be a woman (womyn) is self-identification – same with race – how can you argue that women are the victims of disproportionate violence? If I’m a victim today, is it because I have self-identified as a woman today? If all women identified as men on January 1oth, would it mean that violence against women would not exist on that date? Is Big Mike Obama a man or a woman?
Greenland
Stephen Miller said the quiet part out loud, and Europe collectively clutched its pearls so hard they almost cracked.
According to Miller, the real mystery isn’t whether the U.S. could take Greenland. It’s why Denmark thinks it owns it in the first place. Thirty to fifty thousand people, sitting on a frozen slab packed with strategic minerals, shipping lanes, and military value, guarded by a country that gave up its navy and whose entire defense strategy is basically vibes, Hygge, Leggos, and press conferences.
Let’s stop pretending this is about feelings. This is about power. The U.S. runs NATO. Without America, NATO is just a very expensive group chat with uniforms. If the Arctic matters to NATO, and NATO runs through Washington, then Greenland isn’t exactly a Danish craft project.
Denmark and the EU are threatening the end of the world, post-war security, and everything short of Ragnarok. Funny how sovereignty only matters when America is involved. When globalists redraw borders, install leaders, and collapse nations, that’s called diplomacy. When Trump does it, suddenly everyone remembers international law.
Greenland’s leaders say “no more fantasies,” but they’re also open to talks, negotiations, and dialogue. Translation: they’re mad, but they’re listening. And if someone floated a million dollars per citizen and a Golden Visa, let’s be honest, half of them would already be shopping for beachfront property somewhere warmer.
President Trump isn’t joking. He isn’t memeing. He’s playing chess while Europe is still arguing over whose turn it is to hold the rulebook. Greenland isn’t about conquest. It’s about leverage, security, and reminding the world who actually pays the bills.
And nobody’s fighting the U.S. over an iceberg with minerals.
Content is factual and may include opinion and satire. (map-left Courtesy CIA World Factbook.) If it weren’t for the USA, Denmark’s national language would be German or Russian.
Danish family out for a little fun…
Am I poking fun at the Danes, PaulM? Why yes, I am. They’re not exempt.
The Golden State
California just heard the distant thump of helicopter rotors, and Gavin Newscum immediately checked whether his French Laundry reservation was still refundable. President Trump announced that the investigation into California has officially begun, and you could practically smell the panic and puddled urine through the soy candles. Minnesota got cracked open like a cheap piñata, billions allegedly siphoned off through welfare scams, and now California is next in line. Same party. Same playbook. Bigger budget. Even less shame.
President Trump didn’t mince words. He straight-up said California under Newscum is more corrupt than Minnesota. That’s impressive, considering Minnesota just got exposed as a taxpayer-funded ATM for fraud artists with ballot harvesting perks. California looked at that mess and said, “Hold my kombucha.”
What really stings is that this wasn’t exposed by some bloated federal bureaucracy. It was citizen journalists, whistleblowers, and people with functioning spines who embarrassed the entire Democrat machine. Years of corruption, hidden in plain sight, protected by media silence and blue state arrogance. And then boom. Lights on. Curtains ripped down. California now gets to enjoy what Minnesota just experienced: federal eyes, uncomfortable questions, and the sudden realization that smug press conferences don’t work when receipts start showing up. Kevin Kiley, calling it the future fraud capital of America, might actually be generous. This place has turned corruption into an art form with a sustainability grant.
And Newsom? Still floating around like he’s presidential material while his state resembles a third-world experiment with better weather and worse leadership. Polls, hair gel, and vibes don’t stop investigations. Reality doesn’t care about your pronouns or your climate slogans.
Identify the Armor
1
2
Identify the Ship
3
You have a hull number to work with. It started the war as one thing and ended as another.
4
End
3 is HMS Steam Gun Boat 09 launched in 1942. Renamed to the Grey Goose in 1943 then made into a fast minesweeper in 1944.
Spot on, RCC
Newsom floating around – is this in memory of Ted “The Floater” Kennedy?
1 – Japanese Type 98 Ro-Ke artillery tractor
2 – Swedish Stridsvagn m/42
3 – Royal Navy Steam Gun Boat Grey Goose SGB9 – Survives today as a houseboat
4 – British C-class light cruiser HMS Curacoa
Was chosen, post WW2, to be the first Gas Turbine powered craft in the World, proving the viability of GT propulsion for Marine use.
very good
3- Is that Baker flying from the yardarm?
Identify the Armor:
1. Type 98 Ro-Ke artillery tractor
2. Stridsvagn m/42
Identify the Ship:
3. HMS SGB (Steam Gun Boat) Grey Goose
4. HMS Curacoa. Rammed and sunk by the Queen Mary.
Seriously, the capital of Greenland is Nuuk? If that’s not a joke, I say we annex Greenland and rename it Three Stooges Land.
.
OK, I looked it up and it really is Nuuk. Which got me thinking that after taxes, that million bucks per Nuukian would only cost like $500-K each. Probably cheaper than maintenance on Somalians or Californians at this point, so I don’t see a downside.
With a capital named like that, Playboy should move its operations there. After all, there must be a fair amount of Nuuky going on . . .
I don’t know, but I’ve been told, Eskimo (lady parts) are mighty cold.
**And if someone floated a million dollars per citizen and a Golden Visa, let’s be honest, half of them would already be shopping for beachfront property somewhere warmer.**
Maybe I’m cynical but I could see that working.
I bought the new book, I’ve been more than happy with all your fiction so far! I’ll do a review when I finish it.
Greenland: Pay each citizen a $1.000,000.00 is roughly 56 billion dollars. We have paid the Minnesota Somalians at least a1/3 of that and what do we have to show for it? Not even a lousy Learing Center T-Shirt!
Seems to be a bargain to me.
😄
Let’s use the price of the US Virgin Islands as a guideline ($25 million).
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Jimmy Carr in Denmark
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OvKM9GVsc-w
A smart media would be jumping on board with exposing the corruption, but too much of our media is not smart. Then again, it may be described as smart to print whatever the wealthy employers think is necessary, avoid having to research a multitude of records, go to media functions where everyone slaps each other on the back, and telling everyone how smart you are. It’s definitely an easier path, and probably has more benefits, until the doors are closed due to a lack of partakers in the current brand of manure. A journalism degree doesn’t go very far when there are no journalism jobs, and they’re only hiring welders.
It only looks like stupidity to us normal thinkers, it’s purposeful activism from behind a microphone (Covid PsyOp anyone? “Stay home and get an injection or you kill everyone around you!” All paid for lies.) A cursory check-see into MSM’s cashflow and likely taxpayers are propping up these lying outfits even worse than what WTP were for NPR and its mothership, CPB.
Oh, they’re certainly evil, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t also stupid.
*
I give you the crowning achievement of Western Civilization, the prank
which will still be celebrated when Humanity is dust:
Sum… Ting… … Wong.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaOkTKfxu44
– Kle.
It’s not that the media is stupid (which it is) or evil (which, again, it is.) It is that the media is a part of the whole leftist system and actively works to hide the actual truth and to put up whatever they wish as ‘truth’ as the truth.
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Thus the Rodney King riots. Who here has seen the not-shown video of RK beating up on the LA cops before they finally do the stick dance on them? And the reason it took so long to take him down was they weren’t striking him hard (striking through the target) but using a ‘more humane’ push system where you literally strike to the surface and then pushing in, because the people of LA forced the cops to use a nicer system.
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Then there’s all the lies fronted by Al Sharpton.
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George Floyd.
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Treyyvon Martin.
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Look what the media did over Watergate. Nothing about the telephone line being used to get hookers and blow, well known to the media at the time. Nothing about Nixon not actually knowing who was doing what behind the scenes without his knowledge. Nope, it was all about bringing down one of the more effective presidents and one who was elected by one of the highest voter margins ever. Like they reported nothing about the machinations in the FBI against Nixon (a precursor to the treatment of Trump, no?)
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The media has known about the fraud in Minnesota and California for decades. They have known about the learing center frauds and all of that. The Minnie government employees have been trying to bring it to anyone’s attention for years. And legacy media has buried it in their litter box for years. It took just a handful of non-legacy media people to expose it all.
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What amazes me is that a number of these citizen-journalists haven’t accidentally deaded themselves.
Yeah. Rodney King is an excellent argument that use of non-lethal force
by Law Officers should be illegal. I could get behind “fight with the cops
and die” being the law of the land, not that it would ever fly.
– Kle.
I read this today:
Denmark has a dark past in Greenland, a past it would rather you didn’t talk about, child abduction, forced sterilisation, forced Labour and exploitation.
Denmark’s possession of Greenland, whose actual name is Kalaallit Nunaat, began as a mission to reclaim land from “lost” Norsemen but evolved into centuries of systemic cultural erasure and economic exploitation of the Indigenous Inuit.
In 1721, Danish missionary Hans Egede arrived to “save” Norse descendants from paganism. Finding only Inuit, he instead forcibly converted them to Lutheranism, denouncing traditional shamans and rituals. Denmark then established a state trade monopoly in 1776, treating the island as a profitable hub for whale blubber and minerals while keeping the indigenous Inuit isolated and dependent.
In 1953, Denmark formally annexed Greenland as a “county” to avoid UN decolonization requirements, this led to a period of brutal social engineering.
This era also saw the sinister “Little Danes” experiment, where the state abducted Inuit children and relocated them to Denmark to be molded into a Danish-speaking elite, causing lifelong trauma. Simultaneously, thousands of Inuit were forcibly moved from ancestral hunting grounds into concrete apartment blocks to centralize labor for Danish controlled factories, devastating traditional kinship networks.
Between 1966 and 1970, Danish authorities further violated Indigenous rights by secretly fitting over 4,500 Inuit women and girls, some as young as 12 with IUDs without consent to curb the population.
While Greenland gained Home Rule in 1979 and Self-Government in 2009, the legacy of Danish control persists.
As of today, Greenland remains a territory under the “Danish Crown” with some International bodies continimg to pressure Denmark to address its colonial legacy of racial discrimination and provide justice for the victims of the “Spiral Case” and forced child removals.
So as the Danes shout about “US Imperialism” bear in mind how they came to control this region far from Danish shores, and how brutally they exploited it’s people for the “Crown”
Thanks for this sharing Ed.
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And to L.L. ” hold my kombucha ” got me chuckling as I was sipping on Mrs W’s recipe. Great humor to balance out grievous news and or history!
There have been multiple attempts by the local Greenland government to allow mineral exploration and extraction, with said Greenland getting a piece of the action, that have been shut down by Denmark. Greenlanders could be receiving annual mineral checks like the Alaskans do from oil, but, no, Denmark wants any and all money to come to it directly and leave the Greenlanders out of it.
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Seriously, we should have taken it as payment for loans and debts incurred by the Danes to the US over the years. It could have been ours after WWII. Should have been.
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Let’s hope Greenland becomes a US territory or protectorate soonest. Else the Russians and ChiComs will be parcing it up in pieces while NATO flaps its collective hands in a panic while doing absolutely nothing. Yeah, Russia is in trouble and so are the ChiComs but taking Greenland is exactly the stupid crap that both of those failed nations have tried over and over and over. The only reason GL is still ‘free’ (except from Danish incompetence and malfeasance) is that we’re literally right there covering their frozen asses every day of the week. Not Denmark. Not ‘NATO.’ The United States.
👍
Book and a non free copy of the kindle are ordered.
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Greenland … I read but now can’t find it the Chinese were recently attempting to offer the local population money to vote for independence after which they could then swoop in with their standard economic chaos while stationing “police” forces.
Kindle edition purchased and is #2 in the reading cue after the latest Kurt Schlichter Kelly Turnbull novel. Will def leave a review when done.
Just noticed that Broken Toys doesn’t appear under your author’s page.
Any chance of a sequel there or to Black Scorpions, once the Confederate Cipher trilogy is done?
+2 on broken toys, great read. Checked and it came up.
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Got Cipher in the cart…
“The Golden State”
I hope he doesn’t stop at Minnesota and California
“So many targets, so little time”
“Genders”
I’d be willing to bet $ to donuts that better than 90% of “gender-based violence” will be found in Islamic countries
My book order is awaitin’
>the United States will purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds, with the goal of bringing down housing costs
Or they could have a two-pronged approach of: 1) reducing/removing dumbass/grifting regulatory burdens designed to line multiple pockets (any safety or environmental protections are purely coincidental); 2) taking out the top executives of certain “large financial institutions” buying up single-family housing, and shooting them in the back of the head on national TV and live internet streaming. Pour encourager les autres. (Yes, I can hear the screams of “disproportionate impact!!!” now. Just remind them that “we’re shooting white men, what’s the problem with that” and see how that plays out.)
–//–
Greenland: Not sure if I believe all the stories of the horrible things the Danes did to the noble Inuit. Probably some to be sure. Then again, apparently the stories of the abuse suffered by stone-age retards [1] in North America are not all true either. Supposed mass graves were found to be … empty? (The thing to do of course, is to declare it antinativism [2] and a Hate Crime to do ANY investigation of supposed mass burial sites.)
[1] “stone-age retard” is probably unfair. I feel a mite bad about that. Then I remind myself that Life is Unfair.
[2] the proper form of the term is “antinativism” — spelling it “anti-Nativism” is a microaggression. Seriously. Okay, not seriously: I’m just extrapolating; not aware they’ve said this yet in the native context.
–//–
Somali fraud “now” in Maine: Yep, that’s coming to light, too. The population of Lewiston, Maine went from <1% "black" to nearly 10% in under a decade. This was ALL due to importation and settlement of Somalis. The legal strategy and battles behind that were created and litigated by persons from New York City, NOT native Mainiacs. Sure there were useful-idiot locals involved, but the overarching plan — and probably funding — was from New York. (This is where Dankula (Mark Meechan) would pause and silently stare into the camera for a couple of seconds.)
–/–
"Sickening person with a cartoon villain name" of the day: Liron Woodcock-Velleman. UK Labour councillor (former) and Hope Not Hate member (they are frantically scrubbing him from their websites as I type this) pleaded guilty for sending naked photos of himself to a 13-yo girl after sending her messages asking if she was a virgin. HOW do persons like this get elected to public office? This seems to be happening with alarming frequency. Was it always this bad and we just didn't know about it? Or was it that we are now dealing with different kinds of people? Serious questions — not being snarky.
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(Woodcock-Wossname looks like the "influencer" calling xirself "Destiny" [a dude legally named Steven Bonnell]. And both look a bit like the appalling Ed Sheeran. What is going on that these soft-looking manlets are now popular and even influential figures? Is this an organic, grassroots preference change? Is this orchestrated at a high level somehow?)
I read about one North American mass grave that was discovered. Pre-dated the arrival of the white man, so it hasn’t gotten any coverage.
I’ve always known you were psychic, RHSM.