Written by Orlando Wilson on The Prepper Journal.
Selecting good routes is extremely important part of your security planning especially in hostile areas or in times of civil unrest.
The post Route Selection, Ambushes & VCP’s appeared first on The Prepper Journal.
Wow, it’s already Christmas Eve!
I thought I was done with all my Christmas prepping until I realized I forgot to buy presents for a prepper friend of mine who is coming to dinner tomorrow.
I am sure he will be delighted by my delicious traditional Christmas turkey, but I want to offer him something special because this day is about offering, is about joy, peace and wonderful moments with friends and family.
As I am in a rush and there is no time to start searching for the perfect present, I am going to try one of the projects I will share with you below.
So, if you have unexpected guests or you forgot to buy a present, here are some great and unique ides of stocking stuffer you can make from scratch right know.
Or you could buy this pack of cards containing 52 encapsulated survival tips, covering everything from water purification to OPSEC.
1. How to Make a Paracord Belt
“These paracord belt instructions and easy to follow instructions show you how to make a DIY paracord rescue belt, my favorite of all the paracord belts I tried.
Paracord bracelets can come in handy but only have 8-12 feet of rope, while a paracord belt can have up to 50 feet or more of 550 paracord. In extreme survival situations, 50 feet of rope would be a lot more use for you than 8-12 feet.
However, this paracord belt gives you at least 50 feet of paracord rope that is quickly accessible, and depending on your waist size, up to 100 ft of 550 cord.
This belt is a quick deploy survival rescue belt that uses Slatt’s rescue weave. You can unravel, or deploy, the paracord in a matter of seconds.”
Read more on DIY Projects.
2. How to Make an Arm Knit Blanket
“One of my most favourite projects and the one that been the most popular on my blog this year is my arm knit blanket from January. I made this fringed arm knit blanket in a couple of hours. Let me show you how easy it is to make a soft & squishy blanket like this! For this project, you’ll need an extra bulky yarn. Five skeins made my lap-sized blanket with a fringe. I love the way this yarn gets thicker and thinner in parts to give this blanket even more texture.
I did a test swatch, and the gauge of this yarn was 0.5 stitches per inch. If using a different yarn, you’ll need to make your own test swatch to see what your guage is and determine how many stitches you’ll need to make your blanket. For a lap-size blanket (about 36″ wide by 40″ high), I made my blanket 18 stitches wide by 20 stitches long.
To begin, measure out about 18 arm lengths of yarn for your tail, and then create a slipknot.”
Read more on The DIY Mommy.
3. How to Make Flannel and Felt Last-Minute Handwarmers
“Flannel and Felt Last-Minute Handwarmers… a quick gift that you can mass-produce and have by the door, ready to share with someone who needs their heart warmed as much as their hands. Ever needed a last-minute gift to reciprocate or just to show some love and appreciation?
These felt and flannel hand warmers are a quick gift that you can mass-produce and have by the door, ready to share with someone who needs their heart warmed as much as their hands. The felt heart embellishment adds an easy, personal touch.
I’m personally smitten with all of the cute black, red, and gray flannel plaids available this year. I used a bunch for a quilt and decided to use some of the scraps for these cute, quick hand warmers.”
Read more on IHeartNapTime.
4. How to Make Homemade Rosemary – Mint Goat Milk Soap
“Oh my goodness you guys! This rosemary-mint goat milk soap smells divine, and that creamy milk-based soap just can’t be beat! I have a whole list of our favorite essential oil blends for soap making, and this particular blend isn’t on the list – because this is the first time I’ve ever tried it. I love all of those blends, but to be honest, at least 50% of the soap I make, I’m always trying new things. That’s what makes life interesting!
Another thing that was a first for me with this batch, is that I used canned goat milk that I bought from our local grocery store. much to my surprise, canned goat milk is brown! Always before, I’ve used either fresh, or frozen goat milk either from our own goats, or my sister-in-law’s goats, and of course, it’s the brightest shade of white. Even better, if you get it icy before you add it to the lye for making soap, it stays a beautiful creamy white.”
Read more on Frugal Farm Wife.
5. How to Make Bath Bombs (video tutorial)
“If you guys have followed my blog for a while or watch my Snapchat’s, then you know I’m a little obsessed with bath bombs. There are few things I like more than soaking in a hot bath with a bath bomb.
The essential oils help nourish and moisturize my skin, especially during the winter months. Today I want to share a bath bomb video tutorial to show you exactly how I make my bath bombs. I receive a lot of questions on my bath bombs tutorials and figured this would help answer a lot of them.
I’d also like to answer some frequently asked questions and share my new bath bomb recipe.”
Read more on A Pumpkin And A Princess.
This article has been written by Drew Stratton for Survivopedia.
1 total views, 1 views today
by Daren Rifen
According to the United States Fish & Wildlife Service an estimated 90 million US citizens aged 16 and above participate in some form of wildlife-related recreational activities. 13.7 million of these are hunters, 12.7 million of whom use rifles, shotguns or handguns for hunting. This means that the remaining 1 million hunters use bows. With such a huge number of hunters, it is no wonder that an estimated $ 70.4 million is used on hunting gear annually. From this statistics, it is clear that hunters invest heavily on their hunting equipment. As a novice or beginner hunter...
Here we are again… this is the first “what did you do to prep this week” this winter, and prepping during winter stinks, I think because I can’t do as much outside and that’s where I need the most stuff done. I’m about to go stir-crazy looking at my to-do-list because most of the to-do is outside.
Okay, now that I’ve sufficiently gripped and whined about the cold weather and winter I’d like to thank and give a shout-out to Andrew R, Mr. Bill D, Terry R, Dennis P, Norman B, Kenneth B, and Clean Survival for their generous contributions this...
1.) Unethical Website Of The Month: Bye-Bye Snopes: Ethics Alarms has been tracking the increasing political bias exhibited by Snopes, once the definitive “Urban Legends” web source to identify false stories on the internet, e-mail hoaxes and other pollution of public information. The website has made the disastrous decision to wade into political topics and to hire some new social justice warriors and wanna-be Democratic Party operatives to cover them, resulting in the site becoming a bad imitation of PolitiFact.
2.) Snopes Co-Founder Accused Of Embezzling Company Money, Spending It On...
I don’t know about you, but just thinking about what to get a few of my friends and family members for Christmas makes me crazy.
They either already have everything, or I just can’t think of something that they’d like. I’m just not good at it. Plus, who thinks of prepping gifts for Christmas? It’s just not at the top of most people’s minds.
We’re here to save the day and, thanks to Amazon Prime, if you’re subscribed there’s still plenty of time to get these gifts and have them wrapped so that the prepper in your life can shake it and wonder about it for a bit before it’s time to unwrap it!
These gifts are also great for birthdays or just because you want to be nice.
When it comes down to surviving, a Mylar blanket is useful for many other things than just keeping warm, though it does trap up to 90% of your body heat.
They’re 52”x82”, so you only need 1 to cover you unless you’re really tall.
It’s waterproof and can be used as an emergency windbreaker, blanket, or raincoat.
It can also be used to catch water and form the top, sides, and bottom of a shelter.
The best part is that they take up less space than your wallet. As a matter of fact, you could get 3 in the space that your wallet would take up.
We chose the Titan brand 5-pack because they’re an American company owned by veterans, and all of their products have a lifetime guarantee. You can buy the cheaper ones sold in China, but why would you do that?
Without fire, you won’t last long in the wilderness, and your prepper knows it.
The problem is that matches get wet, tinder and kindling get rained on,
and lighters run out of fluid.
Starting a fire doesn’t have to be hard, though. Magnesium and Ferrocerium are two minerals that create extremely hot sparks that give you a leg up when you need to start a fire.
This one is our top pick because it comes with everything you need to start a fire quickly: wood chips, hand-cut fatwood sticks, jute string dipped in wax that catches fire easily from the sparks that are created by the ferro stick and striker.
The stick will light thousands of fires. It’s all packaged in a tin can that fits in a shirt pocket, and it’s extremely affordable.
This one doesn’t come with the tinder, but it IS attached to a paracord lanyard that can be used for many different things in the wilderness.
You can only survive for three days without water, but it’s not safe to just drink any water that you find. Water filters are a must-have in a survival kit, and there are a wide variety of them out there.
The thing to remember is that it’s not necessarily the thing that you can see in the water that you have to worry so much about; it’s the chemicals and pathogens in the water.
This bottle is BPA-free and converts crude water to potable water by filtering out 33 contaminants, 99.99% of microbial pathogens, and undissolved impurities from the water. It also reduces chlorine and trihalomethanes. That may sound technical, but your prepper will appreciate it!
Preppers, homesteaders, and just people who love to cook love cast iron, and a Dutch oven is a classic. These wonders are so great for camp cooking 
that pioneers reserved precious space and weight in their wagons to carry them across the country.
The thing about cast iron is that it can literally last for hundreds of years. I have an iron skillet that’s more than 150 years old and it’s still an integral part of my cookware.
Dutch ovens such as this one serve triple duty because it can be used as a pot on the stovetop or in the oven, and the lid serves as a skillet, too.
Put the two together and you can bury them in coals in a campfire and cook anything that you want, including cakes, breads, and biscuits. Even though this one is $35, it’s still list-worthy because the lid is a full-sized skillet. This one falls within the $25 price guideline and is good, too.
Because a person can only carry so much, multi-purpose items take top priority for a prepper.
There are many types of multi-tools that range in price from just a few bucks to nearly $100.
This one is a flat one that also comes with a flint fire starter, an emergency whistle, and pocket cover.
The tool itself has 25 uses including a knife, bottle opener, ruler, smartphone stand, saw and butterfly wrenches.
You can also go for traditional ones that offer hand tools, like this one. It’s attractive and the tools in it are actually useful instead of repetitive even if a person wants to carry it around as an every-day pocket knife. It comes with a bonus keychain mini-mulitool.
One of the things that any good prepper will tell you that they know for sure is that they don’t know everything! It’s impossible to remember everything about survival, especially if you’re not doing it every day.
Since most of us aren’t living in the woods on a daily basis, or trying to exist without power, a guide is always a good thing.
The Bushcraft Field Guide to Trapping, Gathering, and Cooking in the Wild is good because it’s not easy to remember how to make a trap or memorize every tip for gathering and cooking outdoors in an emergency. Another skill that’s important to preppers is using everyday items in many different ways.
This book provides some useful uses for common household items.
Finally, this book is great for comprehensive information that touches on a bit of everything. Consider it an all-around guide to survival.
550 paracord is an integral part of any prepper’s kit because it has so many uses that you really can’t even count them all.
Paracord jewelry is the best of both worlds because it has an earthy, stylish look but is extremely functional; one bracelet has around twelve feet of paracord. That may not sound like a lot, but it really is!
This one has a fire starter and compass on it, or if you’d like to design your own unique piece for your favorite prepper, or even his dog, check out this site!
When it comes to weapons, cleanliness is next to godliness, because a dirty gun can quite literally be the death of you in a few different ways.
If your prepper is a gun owner, he or she will most certainly enjoy a gun cleaning kit.
This one is nice because it’s universal. You don’t need to know what kind of weapon your prepper has because this one works for any kind, handgun, shotgun, or rifle.
If you’d like, you can also buy some bore cleaner and lubricating oil to make it a total package.
One of the biggest decisions that face a prepper is deciding what to pack in the bug-out bag. There are many things that a person will need, but one person can only carry so much.
This camp mess kit has everything needed to cook and eat a meal in the wilderness, and is lightweight anodized non-stick aluminum.
It even has a wooden spatula that can be used for many different things. It’s all nicely packaged in a carrying bag.
The way that it’s made, a person could even pack some fire-starters or any other smaller items inside of it, making even better use of the space. It goes over our $25 limit by a dollar, but it’s a dollar well-spent.
Whether your favorite prepper enjoys shooting or just needs space and pockets to put other survival items in, a tactical vest is always a good investment.
The weight is carried in the front, leaving the carrier’s back open for a backpack.
There are many different types out there, but this one is economical and functional. For additional surprises, fill the pockets with goodies such as a fire-stick or ammo!
This biomass stove is a bit bigger than the original SoLo stove, but it can hold a pan instead of just a can. It’s lightweight but sturdy and allows your 
prepper to build a fire without the need for oil, charcoal, or gas.
Its lightweight design makes it a viable addition to any survival kit.
We’ve tried to include diverse products with a range of prices, but if you’re still having problems thinking of a great gift for your prepper friend, head to your local Outdoor World, Bass Pro Shops, or Cabela’s. Better yet, hit the local Army surplus store.
Chances are good that you’ll not only find a gift for your friend, but will find something cool for yourself, too.
This article has been written by Theresa Crouse for Survivopedia.
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Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.
Thinking through what we prepare food in can save us labor in various ways. Both can help us prioritize for purchases moving forward.
The post Feeding the Beast During SHTF – Disaster Cooking appeared first on The Prepper Journal.
For eons, entire meals from stews to casseroles have been made in one pot.
The cowboys and settlers did it because they only had the luxury of one pot on the trail, and we do it today because of the convenience and simply because there are so many recipes out there that are delicious as well as fast.
We follow their example, and learn from their knowledge. Here’s what we should know about this old way of cooking!
As preppers, it’s important that we know how to cook without electricity, and though I’ve included slow cookers in this article, the rest of them don’t require anything other than fire and the vessel.
There are some rules for cooking in a single pot if you want the meal to be delicious and safe to eat, but for the most part, they’re quick and easy to prepare and clean up.
First, you want your vegetables to cook evenly, so if you’re standing over the pot, you may want to throw hard veggies like carrots in 15 minutes or so before you add the rest.
For soft veggies such as cabbage and broccoli, put them in at the last minute since they only take 10 or 15 minutes to cook in a pot. This isn’t a necessity, if you’re throwing something in the crockpot and leaving, so just know that some veggies may be a little mushy if you put them in all at once.
Next, searing your meat adds flavor to the meal. This is especially true of large pieces of meat such as roasts, pork chops, beef tips, and other meats that are thick and solid. You don’t have to do this, but if you do, it will add an extra layer of flavor. Hamburger and Salisbury steak has a crispier texture if you sear it beforehand.
You must make sure that your meat cooks all the way through, especially if it’s poultry. This isn’t such a big deal with red meat as long as you don’t mind it a bit rare in the middle, but birds carry salmonella.
Trust me – one bout of food poisoning from that and you’ll make sure it never happens again! USDA guidelines say that red meat should be cooked to 145 degrees F, ground meats should cook to 160 degrees, and poultry should be 165 degrees.
When you’re finished eating, make sure that you refrigerate it. Bacteria begin to grow quickly between the temperatures of 40 degrees F and 140 degrees F, so too avoid the risk of food poisoning, refrigerate your food within 2 hours (1 hour if the temperature outside is above 90 degrees) after it comes off the heat.
Cold foods, especially ones that contain mayo or eggs, should be kept at 40 degrees, so just put them in a bowl of ice if they’re going to sit out, and stir it frequently to keep the entire dish cold.
Leftovers can be kept in the fridge for 3-4 days as long as their stored in containers, and can be frozen almost indefinitely, but they’ll begin to lose flavor after a month or so depending upon the food.
There are several types of cookers that you can use depending upon the dish and the circumstances. Especially if you’re cooking over a fire, you’ll want to cook as efficiently as you can, and one pot meals are certainly the best way to do that.
Since our primary concern is cooking in a survival situation, we’ll start with those methods.
This is one of my favorite ways to cook outside because you can quite literally cook anything that you want to in them. Whether you want to make stew, chopped steak, or breads, a Dutch oven will do the trick. They steam the food internally, which keeps it moist and tender. You can buy aluminum and cast iron Dutch ovens, though the cast iron, in my opinion, is far superior in nearly every way.
The history of the Dutch oven is believed to date back to Holland in the early 1700s, and was brought to America with the first settlers. They were popular with settlers and other people, such as ranch trail cooks, and were used in work camps during WW1. Paul Revere improved the design by adding a flanged lid and made some other modifications, likely to improve the strength and consistency of the cooking.
Joseph Lodge built a cast iron foundry in Tennessee that still produces arguably the highest quality Dutch ovens and iron skillets available today.
They come in different sizes and two primary designs – the bean pot or kitchen oven, best for use indoors or placing on a rack over an open fire, and the camp or outdoor oven, which has a flanged lid that can also serve as a skillet. It also has legs, a flat bottom, and a sturdy wire handle so that you can hang it or lift it from the coals.
They’re great for cooking indoors or out and can be used in the oven, over a campfire, or buried in the coals, depending upon your needs and what you’re cooking. Cooking with a Dutch oven is simple, too, once you get the hang of it.
Cooking with a solar oven is a great alternative when you don’t have (or don’t want to use) electricity. Though you can convert many of your own personal favorites and use them with your solar oven, here’s a recipe written specifically for that cooking method. You will surely love this pot roast cooked on your solar oven.
Ingredients for this tasty recipe are:
Put the roast in a roasting dish and sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic, and Italian seasoning. Add the veggies around the roast and then pour the bouillon in. Place in your solar oven and bake for 3 hours or until tender.
Stop asking yourself if the solar oven works during winter, because it does, and here’s the proof!
Video first seen on jnull0.
Let’s celebrate the Winter Solstice with a special offer for Survivopedia readers!
Use the promocode SurvivoSolstice and get 10% discount to boost your cooking!
Thank you again, Joseph Lodge for making iron skillets of the highest quality readily available in the US. The original iron skillet dates back to 1707, when Abraham Darby invented a process to make cast iron in large quantities so that they could be produced for common use.
Iron skillets come in a variety of shapes and sizes, often with lids, and are great for cooking one pot meals in smaller quantity. They’re not quite as versatile as the Dutch oven, but certainly have value, especially for cooking quick meals such as breakfast scrambles and meals that don’t require a deep pot or long cooking times, such as Salisbury steaks, cornbread, camp biscuits, and fried chicken.
Ahh, possibly one of the best cooking inventions of modern times. Just as with man, the slow cooker started as something quite a bit different than what it is today. In 1952, West Bend came out with the electric bean pot, which was just a ceramic pot that sat on top of an electric heating element. This wasn’t much different than cooking on a stove, but was perhaps the first commercial attempt at a portable cooking vessel.
Enter Irving Naxon. He had developed the idea of a portable cooker that would have a crock sitting inside a casing that contained a heating element, thus providing even heating. He applied for the patent on May 21, 1936 and received it in January of 1940.
Naxon credited the idea to his Lithuanian grandma, who told him about how she used to cook dish called cholent after hours at a local bakery. She would prepare the meal, then place it in the oven so that the fading heat would slowly cook it overnight. This provided his inspiration for “low and slow” cooking.
He brought his idea, called the beanery, to market in the 50s and in 1970, Rival manufacturing hired Naxon, rebranded his product as the Crock Pot, and put it on shelves across America for $25. Surprisingly enough, that price hasn’t increased by more than a few dollars for a standard version since then.
There are, of course, improved versions with fancier technology and higher capacity that cost more.
Slow cookers are absolutely fabulous for all sorts of meals from stews to ribs that you want to cook slow and low while you’re away from the house or busy doing other things.
As survivalists, we would be remiss to leave out this method of preparing one pot meals.
We’ve discussed in another article how to put these together and, like our other cooking methods, canning is a great way to prepare both meals and desserts. You can also dry-can meals using dry ingredients that only require that you add water.
The one benefit that makes canning stand out is that you can eat the meal right out of the jar. It is, of course, more delicious if you heat it up, but if you’re without power and don’t want to draw attention to yourself with a fire, eating straight out of the jar may be your only option.
Another benefit here is that you can prepare the meals years in advance as opposed to cooking them on the spot. In a survival situation, that’s a huge plus.
There are a ton of reasons why a one pot meal is so appealing, but from a survival perspective, the ease of cooking is probably the biggest one.
You can cook a pot roast complete with all the fixings in a Dutch oven and you can even cook such meals as chicken and dumplings. They’re not just for soups and stews.
Having a variety of delicious meals is a huge morale booster as well as a way to get all of your nutrition out of one pot. Though beans and cornbread are delicious and filling, it gets old after a few days and isn’t a well-rounded meal.
A quick internet search will net you a ton of great ideas for one pot meals, but you can always just use your imagination. There are also some recipes that you should know by heart. They aren’t necessarily one pot meals, but they are essentials that will help you keep your crew full and nourished.
One pot meals are, for the most part, only limited by your imagination. They’re easy to throw together, toss into your cooking vessel of choice, and forget about. Also, you’re getting many more nutrients than you would if you only cooked a single item. That makes them a great survival food.
There is a great opportunity for Survivopedia readers to prepare for cooking in the sun, so grab this offer available only for a few days!
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This article has been written by Theresa Crouse for Survivopedia.
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For the last 41 days, the nation has collectively held its breath, waiting for the vote of the Electoral College.
During that time, we’ve heard a constant string of excuses from the Democrat left, as to why Donald Trump should be denied the presidency, even though it was clear on November 8th that he had won the election.
Technically, the results of the Electoral College‘s vote won’t be announced until January 6th, when Congress meets in a joint session to count them.
But the results are already in and unofficially we now know that Donald Trump has officially won the election.
This presidential election has been the most controversial election ever, quite possibly in the entire history of the United States. From a field of 19 potential candidates, the Republican constituency picked a total outsider, one who had been a Democrat most of his life.
This outsider not only steamrolled his opponents in the Republican Party, but he did a fair job of steamrolling Hillary Clinton as well. Part of that can be blamed directly on the pundits, who universally held that Clinton was going to win.
In every poll and in every political report, she was far in the lead, guaranteed a chance to sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
Yet the mainstream media, like most other Americans, was living and working in an echo chamber. Much of their prognostication was based upon what they were hearing from other liberal reporters, pundits, poll takers and politicians. They were so convinced that they represented the majority opinion in the United States, that they failed to even look at what the people of the United States were saying; most especially, they failed to look at what conservative Americans were saying.
The silent majority has been heard from, and they picked the most unlikely of candidates, a billionaire business mogul from Manhattan.
I was never a Trump fan, but now he is my president. Therefore, I will stand and salute him, supporting him in the execution of his duties. My desire, as that of many other Americans, is that he do what is best for all Americans, unlike the president he is replacing.
If American is going to be great again, it’s time to do away with partisan politics, and go back to trying to find solutions that work for everyone. I believe that’s what Trump is trying to do.
But I can already hear the collective cry of “FOUL!” erupting across the nation. Perhaps it is so clear, simply because we’ve been hearing it for over a month now. Democrats have used every excuse in the book to explain away Trump’s win and seek out a way to overthrow the election.
Amongst the various tricks they’ve tried, has been an ongoing effort to pressure electors to become “faithless” and vote contrary to their state’s election results. While electors in many states can do this, and even have done so in the past, the people that the parties select as their electors are faithful to the party, so this effort was doomed from the beginning.
This campaign has been with constant phone calls, letters and Facebook posts to the electors. They all had the same goal, to keep Trump from getting the 270 votes he needed.
The truly crazy thing about all that effort was that even if they had succeeded in reducing Trump’s electoral vote to below the 270 vote threshold, their candidate still wouldn’t have won.
Apparently they thought that the electors would automatically vote for Clinton, raising her total vote count high enough to win. But these were Republican operatives they were calling; they weren’t likely to vote for a Democrat candidate, no matter who it was.
That’s not to say that there weren’t any faithless electors. There were. Two Republican electors in Texas chose to vote for other candidates. They didn’t vote for Clinton, but they didn’t vote for Trump either. In the end, they were insignificant. Donald Trump needed 270 electoral college votes to secure the presidency and he far outdistanced that with a total of 304 votes.
There were apparently some Democrat electors who were faithless to Hillary Clinton as well, voting for Bernie Sanders instead of her. As with the Republicans who voted against Trump, their vote was more in the nature of a protest than anything else. It didn’t change a thing, except for them personally.
The Electoral College has done what it was intended to do, once again. It has assured that the will of the people in the majority of the states was carried out. It stopped the tyranny of the majority and ensured that the citizens of all 50 states received equal representation in the presidential election.
Please note that this is clearly different than the will of the majority of the people. If all that mattered was the popular vote, then the most populous states in the Union would decide every election. We would have a one-party dictatorship, even if the actual figurehead of that dictatorship had to change every eight years.
As we saw in Hillary’s campaign, if she had won, it would have been a continuation of Obama’s policies, effectively a third term for Obama.
Yet Democrats everywhere have been crying about the popular vote, claiming that it is the only fair method of voting for a president, giving one vote per person. That complaint has been largely fueled by the fiction that Hillary won the popular election. I say it’s a fiction, because there have been three million votes discovered so far, which were cast by illegal aliens.
Of course, to the Democrats, those illegal aliens aren’t illegal and aren’t aliens. They have bought into the one world mentality, wanting to tear down our borders and allow anyone in. Part of that is allowing anyone to vote, since in their minds, there is no such thing as citizenship.
But traditionally citizenship has been defined as the right of voice and the right to vote in democratic countries. If you travel outside the United States, you have no legal standing in front of the government of whatever country you visit. You have no right to vote. You don’t even have the right to salute their flag. You are a visitor, denied the rights of citizens. That’s why citizenship is important.
Yet the Democrats would do away with that; partially to further the one-world government and partially to pad their own constituency. Democrats hope that immigrants of all types will vote Democrat, because it is the Democrat party who promises to give them freebies. It isn’t until those people become self-sufficient and are paying taxes that some of them shift over to the Republican Party.
So, if you take the votes by illegal aliens out of the popular vote count, Trump wins the popular election. Then if you take the votes cast by voter fraud out, he wins it by an even bigger margin. But that doesn’t matter. He ran his campaign to win the Electoral Vote and he did. It’s time for the complaining to end.
Sadly, that doesn’t mean that it will, but we can expect the complaints to continue. The media will be after him. Democrat politicians will be after him.
I suppose liberals on the street will be after him as well. We can expect demonstrations, riots and all the other dirty tricks that liberals use to display their displeasure.
In other words, the election of Donald Trump has not made the United States any safer than it was before. Groups like Black Lives Matter and the New Black Panthers have become used to flexing their muscles. They will continue, quite possibly joined by other liberal “organizations” who want to make their displeasure known as well.
It must be hard being part of the pampered elite. Yet those Hollywood actors, sports celebrities and college snowflakes are all going to have to learn something new. They’re going to have to learn that the world really doesn’t care about their precious opinion, once you get out of that liberal echo chamber.
Oh, they won’t quit. You can be sure of that. We will hear their complaints as we watch them work against the best interests of the country. They will continue to try to impose their will upon us. But at least for the moment, they’ve lost the clout to make that will stick.
This article has been written by Bill White for Survivopedia.
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Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.
Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from valknut79. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.
Imagine being in the middle of a crowded festival, enjoying your time with your family. All of a sudden, you find yourself near some drunks who start a fight, and you can’t help but separate from your family, and get pulled into the fray. You’re a prepper, and like most preppers, you’re carrying a small firearm, in this case a small pistol. Do you use it?
Some would say yes – it’s time to defend the family, and that’s what a weapon is for, right? Others hold off – bringing deadly force into a relatively small conflict is a certain legal issue and is probably not necessary considering that these people are drunk. That said, this is clearly a self-defense situation. Considering that a gunshot in a crowded public space is one of the fastest ways to start a riot, potentially getting you or your family even more harmed, the balance point for many tends to tip towards leaving your weapon holstered.
Imagine again. This time, you and your family return home, and see the basement window broken. Alarm bells are going off in your head, and you draw your weapon, instructing the kids to wait in the car. Upon entering, you are able to see that the dangerous infiltrator is actually a 14-year-old boy who lives down the road. Is he dangerous, or just a neighborhood nuisance? You have less than seconds to decide.
Maybe you are one to draw in these circumstances, however, I believe that these are two examples of situations where yes, a gun could be advantageous to you, but it would be better left holstered.
Of all the four major prep areas – food, water, shelter and defense – it is defense that is most often overlooked. I know preppers who think that all they need is a pistol and some ammunition, while others stock an armory, but the fact remains that for most, defense is simply just about the weapons you choose to keep. In reality, self-defense is so much more.
The fact remains that for most, defense is simply just about the weapons you choose to keep. In reality, self defense is so much more.
The first line of defense to prepare is your last line of defense – your ability to defend your own person. Guns are fantastic, but are not always the best solution to a conflict. The best way to start that process is to take a martial arts class regularly.
Martial arts classes are incredibly varied, and depending on where you live, you should find a broad spectrum of different styles. You could opt for a striking art like TaeKwon Do, Karate or Kung Fu, or you could focus on a martial art that emphasizes grappling such as Judo. There are many arts that are combinations by nature (any MMA style or Krav Maga), and there are many schools of striking or grappling arts that borrow from outside of the strict boundaries of their chosen style to incorporate a broad range of self-defense elements.
Striking arts are probably what everyone thinks of when they imagine martial arts, as they are based on using your hands and feet to punch, chop and kick your way to safety. These arts value speed and quickness over size and power, and often incorporate a large variety of cardio exercise practices that will double as your workout for the day. The major advantage to learning a striking art is clear – these arts are focused on disabling an opponent quickly from a (relative) distance, and allow you at least a small chance of fighting multiple opponents. A typical class will involve practicing kata or patterns of movements, practice kicks and punches against air, striking heavy bags or padded opponents, and jumping techniques.
Grappling arts are going to be more similar to wrestling than what you’d likely think of as a “martial arts” technique. Instead of punches and kicks, you’ll learn disabling holds, pressure points, and throws. A certain amount of size and strength is not necessarily essential, but will definitely help. Classes for grappling arts tend to emphasize one-on-one, back-and-forth style of practice (I’ll throw you, then you throw me), and may not be as exercise-heavy as a striking art. The advantages of studying a grappling art are the fact that they focus on defending yourself from abductions and mugging-style grabs and unarmed defense against an armed opponent, which are highly practical scenarios. In addition, many people who have studied street fights have noted that over 80% of these encounters end up on the ground, where grapplers have a distinct advantage.
Both styles give you opportunities to practice against your classmates in simulated fighting scenarios. Striking courses usually incorporate sparring practice where you use heavy pads and light contact to simulate a fight and test your reflexes and skills. This allows you to safely practice your skills so that you’ll know you can function in times when you need to defend yourself. Grappling arts use amateur wrestling, or kneeling wrestling known as rendori as sport-practice. In rendori, you maneuver your opponent on the mat in an attempt to make them submit from a painful or inescapable hold.
Finding a style is a good choice, but it may be better to find a school first and a style second. Not all martial arts courses are created equally. Many are black belt factories, where you pay a certain fee and are guaranteed a black belt after a certain amount of time. Other schools are going to emphasize tournament performance or flashy-but-not-realistic jumping and leaping attacks. Good schools are hard to come by, but they’ll offer a variety of different types of skills and performance elements, have a wide variety of people at varying levels of abilities and ages, and have experienced instructors. Park districts are an excellent place to begin, but there are some valuable strip mall dojos that offer different types of instruction. Ask for a free trial class, or at least to watch a class before signing up.
Some models of tactical flashlights have stun guns or preprogrammed SOS signals that can add to its functionality.
In addition to a basic level of skill in hand-to-hand combat, I think it’s also important to find a hand-to-hand weapon to supplement your firearm and EDC kit. My personal choice is a tactical flashlight that functions as a striking weapon, a strobe light to distract and disorient my attackers, and a tool that I can use in my everyday life. Some models of tactical flashlights have stun guns or preprogrammed SOS signals that can add to its functionality, and since it’s a small flashlight it is a very inconspicuous weapon that is never taken away from me at sporting events or theme parks. If you don’t like that suggestion, consider some of these other hand-to-hand weapons that are easy to carry:
Remember that no matter what weapon you choose to carry that you are well equipped and ready to use it. A knife may not be the best weapon for every encounter, but if that’s what you choose, that’s what you might be stuck with. If you pull pepper spray from your pocket or purse, know how to use it, or it will be taken away and used against you.
Best Prepper Dog for SHTF
My final suggestion for personal defense is to get yourself a dog.
Dogs are fantastic companion animals that are also overlooked but highly practical pieces of a prepper’s armory. They require much more regular upkeep than what you’re storing in your gun cabinet currently, but are also useful for a wide variety of situations.
Dogs are not a fail-safe mechanism for security. Just check YouTube and you’ll find hundreds of home security videos of dogs peacefully approaching burglars and not making a peep if that burglar thought ahead to bringing some dog treats with them. That said, training and mentally stimulating your dog will certainly help in developing his senses enough to make him a versatile tool and defense mechanism as well as a companion.
Training your dog to be a more aggressive “guard dog” is certainly an option, but one that I would strongly discourage. It is important for your dog to be socialized among other animals and be extremely selective about whom he attacks. An “attack dog” is not a good choice, and will likely do you more harm than good, both in terms of legal trouble and difficulty in raising and training him.
If you don’t want a traditional guard dog, and if your dog is more likely to lick your home invader than attack him or warn you, then why bother? It’s easy – prepper dogs are a highly effective deterrent for would-be attackers.
There is an old adage that states “When you’re running from a bear, you don’t need to be the fastest, you just need to not be the slowest.” Choosing a large breed of dog, such as a Rottweiler, or an American or Olde English bulldog will definitely make your home significantly less appealing for any home invaders or burglars. More intelligent breeds, such as German Shepherds can act as an early warning system for people approaching your home, and may be able to be put to work around your home for basic tasks if you keep livestock. These kinds of dogs are also those that have a reputation of being aggressive (even though they’re not), and their reputation alone can be a deterrent. Keep in mind that many of our modern breeds, even those poorly designed for defense like bloodhounds or greyhounds, were originally bred to be hunters or highly specialized seekers, and have many practical applications in SHTF or survival situations
Taking dogs with you when you go outside for exercise or a walk is a good way for urban preppers to discourage muggers and attackers. Even rural and suburban preppers can benefit from having a dog along on walks or runs in case of twisted ankles, or in the event that you are involved in some sort of accident. My mother-in-law was riding her horse that she’d ridden thousands of times in the past, along a trail that she had ridden hundreds of times before, and when her horse was inexplicably spooked she fell off. It was her golden lab that ran back to the farm alone to find help while she was knocked out.
All told, the advantages of having an animal companion are significant, specifically in terms of defense. For those with allergies, there are some hypoallergenic dogs that are available, and depending on the breed you choose, you may find yourself unaffected by short-haired breeds.
A dog is not the highest priority on the list, but can certainly be a helpful addition to a home or personal defense system. I certainly feel better about leaving my teenage daughter home alone for runs to the store or when I’m out to dinner with my wife when Arthur (my 90-pound monster of an American Bulldog) is home with her, even those he’s secretly a big softie.
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CNN reports that a man in Berlin used a truck to plow through a group of people at a Christmas market, killing 9 and injuring 50 more. The tractor-trailer appeared to deliberately ram through several stalls at what is estimated to be 40 miles per hour; German authorities are treating the incident, at present, as a terror event
The attack appears to parallel the cargo truck killing of 86 people and the wounding of 434 others in Nice, France during a fireworks display on a national holiday. On a smaller scale, a Somali student at Ohio State University recently ran down a number...
This is the way it could have went…
After weeks of media coverage of anti-Trump rallies and ‘expert’ review of Constitutional Law and Electoral College mandate, December 19th has come and gone without a declared … President … Faithless Electors have thrown the fate of the executive office into the House of Representatives. None of the candidates on the 50 States ballots has been given the Electoral votes needed to assume the office. January 21st. passes with no declared ‘winner’ on the part of the Legislative branch. The current President...
1.) It’s Only Going to Get Worse: It’s already been proven that the U.S. government under the Obama administration has been funding and supporting IISL – when Trump takes over this funding will stop (probably so) and I as a result I look for more and larger attacks to be carried out by IISL on U.S. soil as a result. The Obama regime has already allowed them into the U.S. with their open door policy and they are just waiting for the order to attack after Obama leaves office.
2.) Chaos In The Streets Of Venezuela – Stores Ransacked – National Guard Called Out...
Written by Guest Contributor on The Prepper Journal.
Editor’s Note: This post is another entry in the Prepper Writing Contest from Suzanne S.. If you have information for Preppers that you would like to share and possibly win a $300 Amazon Gift Card to purchase your own prepping supplies, enter today.
When it comes to prepping, there is a lot of talk about what material needs we should have on hand. A bug-out bag, freeze-dried food, water, transportation, first-aid kit, weapons for protection and a place to bug-out to. The idea is to have the basic needs of food, water and shelter readily available. The problem is; when the SHTF not everyone gets to just go merrily about their way, to easily head out and get gone. In fact, it is quite likely that many of us will sustain significant injuries that need to be tended to. Whether it is ourselves, our loved ones, or the friends who will be with us, we will need to know how to take care of each others injuries and illnesses.
I am an Emergency Medicine Physician Assistant with more than 20 years of Emergency Room experience, the majority of it in Level I Trauma centers (where the most severe cases…crashes, gunshots, severe work injuries, falls from heights, etc. go). Prior to becoming a PA, I was an EMT. I have a great deal of experience dealing with trauma victims and worked in an ER where we saw multiple gunshots daily. I have lectured at several colleges in the Chicago area as well as being responsible for teaching EMT, Physician Assistant, Medical and Podiatry students. I have also been an instructor for the American Red Cross teaching First Aid, CPR and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) classes.
There is a lot of information out there about what makes up a good medical kit for your bug-out bag. Everything you need can be either assembled by you or purchased as anyone of a variety of pre-stocked kits. While the kit you have with you when you bug out is obviously important, it is also completely useless if you have not taken the time to learn how to use it. The truth is you can stop most bleeding with direct pressure. Sometimes you need a torn shirt, some duct tape and a pair of trauma scissors. You don’t have to be MacGyver to do it. You do need proper training.
Pamela Rauseo, 37, performs CPR on her nephew, 5-month-old Sebastian de la Cruz, after pulling her SUV to the side of the road. The baby was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he is reportedly doing OK.
That said; EVERYONE who expects to deal with the aftermath of when the SHTF needs to know basic CPR and at least basic Trauma First Aid. That means taking classes and practicing what you learn. I can tell you stories about people attempting to administer first aid who had no training, but I won’t. Suffice it to say the outcomes were less than desirable.
The Survival Medicine Handbook: A Guide for When Help is Not on the Way
Let’s think about some injuries you can expect in the woods, hiking or running to find cover. Or for that matter, just being in a place where help is not going to come anytime soon. Falls are very common and can result in anything from a scrape to sprains to more serious injuries like fractures and head injuries. So ask yourself; do I really know how to treat a sprain? What about a fracture? Do I know how to stop bleeding and properly clean a wound? Have I ever done those things? Would I be able to actually do the job the right way should I need to? What if it was something life threatening? Could I save a person’s life?
If the answer to any of the above is NO, then you can have all the gear in the world at the ready, but YOU are not ready to bug-out!
I’m going to give an example of injury event that can be a tragedy if you are not properly trained to treat it. Remember, this is about knowing: both what TO do and what NOT TO do.
You and your companion are moving quickly through a heavily wooded area and your companion falls. When you reach them, you see a branch has impaled their arm. They are essentially stuck to a tree because of a branch sticking all the way through their arm. Your companion is in shock and not even aware of the extent of the injury. They are confused. There is blood coming from their arm and also from a gash on the right side of their head which is bleeding profusely. You think you see bone exposed through the head laceration and it seems that one of their legs has something wrong. Closer examination shows you that the ankle is sitting at a strange angle. What do you do now?
If you are like most people, you freak out, try to compose yourself so you don’t freak out your companion, get really pale and nearly pass out and then reach for your cellphone to call 911. Oops, no connectivity, so no help coming. So what now? The first aid kit! You have a first aid kit with a manual in it to walk you through caring for these injuries. You dig out the kit, open and it and check the book only to find it’s great for small cuts and bruises and simple things, but it has nothing remotely close to what you’re dealing with now.
Suddenly, you realize that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to cancel that first aid class you had signed up for but decided you were too busy/tired to take. Besides, someone else will know what to do or I’ll call 911 anyway, I’ll never need to use it.
WOW! Talk about contrary to prepper philosophy. Or is it? It would seem that Emergency Medical preparedness training is a no-brainer, but in reality, most prepper sites and stores that cater to preppers are focused on the medical equipment you need rather than the training required to use it.
So anyway, I can’t teach you the how to do it in this article. I can give you a good idea of what good, accurate care and treatment of this fall will require. And yes, you can look all these things up on the internet. However, unless you learn from a real, live person who can guide you and correct mistakes you will surely make as you learn, you are never going to be able to really address the problems this very real scenario depicts.
The very first thing required in any trauma/accident situation is an evaluation of the site of the accident. Stop, take a breath and look at where you are about to go. Is it a safe place to enter? In the urban world this is akin to a Paramedic called to the scene of a gunshot victim. In that situation, the Paramedic cannot help the victim until the Police have arrived and determined that the Paramedic is safe from the danger of being shot herself when she goes to help. At that point the scene is declared “safe” and the Paramedics can get to work.
In the wilderness or woods, the dangers are different but still just as potentially deadly. Is the ground stable? Are there dangerous branches or rocks that could fall onto you as you make your way to your companion? Will you slip and fall as well if you attempt to help? Do you need to take time to tie off before going to the person? What about wildlife? Are you in danger of animal or insect attack when you go to help? Can you find a way to make the scene safe?
Only after you treat the area as if it were a busy street corner will you be safe. You have to STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN.
Once the scene is determined safe, or made safe the next thing is to get to the injured person and take stock of the situation by doing an initial survey of them. This is done by looking and speaking to them without touching them. Encouragement to stay still is recommended at this point. Usually saying “Hold on, try not to move, I’ll be right there,” is a good start.
Look carefully at the person and where they are lying. Do you see any blood? Where is it coming from? What about limb deformities? If so, which ones. Are there any objects that will cause difficulty in treating the injuries? Can they be cleared or do you need to find a way to work around them.
Now it’s time to your ABCDE’s: Airway/Head and Neck, Breathing, Circulation, Disability/Deformity, and Exposure assessment.
Airway: If the person is conscious and talking, then they have a clear airway, but they might have a neck injury which will require stabilization. In the case of any significant fall, or one with an accompanying head injury, be sure that the cervical (neck) spine is stabilized. If the person is unconscious or can’t talk, be sure that the airway is clear of obstruction before going further. Gently lowering the jaw while holding the forehead steady will allow you to see if anything is causing an obstruction. Look for broken teeth, blood, dirt or some foreign body causing an obstruction. Remove any obstruction you can see. Do not blindly probe their mouth. You could push an unseen object backward and cause an obstruction where none had previously existed.
Breathing: Is the person breathing on their own? If they can talk, they are breathing. Is there any reason to suspect a possible lung injury? Do they have any evidence of a chest injury that could have broken a rib? A broken rib can puncture a lung and lead to air in the chest collapsing the lung on that side. You can check this several ways. One is to watch the rise and fall of the chest and see if both sides rise equally. Another is to put your ear on one side of the chest, then the other and listen for breath sounds to be equal on both sides. If you notice that the trachea, the tube that runs down the middle of your neck, is pushed to one side; that is a clear sign of a lung injury. The best case scenario is that you have a stethoscope in your kit that will allow you to hear the actual breath sounds easily. If there is a lung injury, this is a true emergency and will need to be treated quickly, but that is a procedure that requires specialized training.
Circulation: Check for obvious bleeding, but also in the case of extremity injury, is there good blood flow to the far portions of the extremity? Is the color of distal (far) limb pink or pale/bluish? Is it warm to the touch or cool/cold? Pink and warm = good. Anything else indicates blocked blood flow which may be due to arterial injury or compression. Arterial injury needs repair soon. Compression can often be correct by adjusting the limb to an appropriate angle.
Disability/Deformity: Is neurologic function intact or are they confused, unable to answer questions or showing other signs of significant head injury? Are there limb deformities, obvious chest or facial depressions indicating broken bones? Depending on what you find, a variety of things may be needed from re-evaluation of the airway, to splinting or bandaging.
Exposure: How long has it been since the injury took place? Are they becoming chilled or hypothermic? Cold =shock. Putting a warm cover over an injured party ASAP is essential even in hot weather.
The important thing to do now is stay calm and determine what needs to be treated first. If there is copious bleeding indicating probable arterial involvement (this can also be characterized by blood that sprays with each pump of the heart) apply direct pressure and if necessary a tourniquet that can be tightened and released easily. If there is no major bleeding issue, then recheck the airway and breathing. If there is chest deformity and/or other evidence of a collapsed lung, that is the next thing to deal with unless there is now evidence of airway obstruction or the person is not breathing on their own. The former requires clearing the airway, the latter requires rescue breathing. The collapsed lung requires specialized training you can’t get from the internet or a book. Any other injuries can wait. Remember; the brain starts to die after 3 minutes without oxygen. Airway is first unless bleeding is so profuse that not stopping it would mean there would not be enough blood to circulate oxygen.
Back to our fall victim; we have bleeding, limb deformity, confusion and a fall. The fall means we have to have high suspicion of a neck injury and the confusion could be shock or it could indicate a more serious injury such as concussion or a brain bleed. We also have a penetrating injury which may have been an insult to a major artery. This person is seriously injured and qualifies as a trauma patient. Ideally, we would get this person stabilized and out of there ASAP, but that is not an option. Instead, we have to stabilize and create a sheltered space as close to where we area as possible so we can begin to treat the various injuries.
Assuming there are no immediate life threats (Excessive bleeding or collapsed lung/blocked airway) we begin by stabilizing the neck. A towel, shirt or thick cloth of some kind can be rolled and taped carefully in place to accomplish this. Next stabilize and splint any limb deformities so that we can move the victim with the least amount of discomfort to them. Continue to talk to them to assess their mental status. At this point, things get tricky…
People’s first instinct when presented with something sticking out of or through a body part is to remove it. STOP! Don’t do it! Not only is it exactly the wrong thing to do, it could quite possibly be the thing that kills the person. I know it is scary looking and seems like the danger comes from it being stuck in the person, but at this point the person is alive and has survived impalement. Leaving the object embedded is not dangerous at this point; it is actually the safest thing to do. As long as the object is left in place, it is acting to tamponade (stop) the bleeding. That is, it is putting pressure on any lacerated vessels and preventing any major bleeding. Yes there will be some oozing around the injury site, but it will be minimal as compared to what happens should the object be removed. NEVER REMOVE AN IMPALED OR IMBEDDED OBJECT FROM A PUNCTURE WOUND unless you have been trained to handle this procedure. This is another procedure that requires specialized training courses.
But what about infection, you ask? Yes, infection risk is high, but it is not a life threatening problem at this time. A neck injury or brain injury will need prior attention as will the bleeding from the head wound. Antibiotics are something you can give, but not at this time because the victim has a decreased mental status and it is not clear if they can swallow a pill without causing an airway obstruction or aspirating it into a lung.
For the time being, the safest and most efficacious thing to do is to cut both ends of the branch so that your companion can be maneuvered to the sheltered spot. Start with the end of the branch still attached to the tree and try to keep the arm as immobile as you can while doing so to minimize pain. You can then trim the protruding opposite side.
Don’t cut the ends short. Leave enough to be able to grasp both ends firmly to assist removal when it is time. Use your gauze or Ace wrap to secure the branch so that it moves as little as possible during transport to avoid causing undo pain.
Continue to monitor the ABC’s and mental status and address what need to be done ASAP. Once you have done as much as you can, find a way to get this person out of there and to an emergency care center as quickly as possible otherwise, they will likely not survive for very long.
This all started out as a fall but resulted in multiple injuries placing your companion in danger of dying. With the proper training, you could swing the odds much more in favor of a good outcome. So before you buy that cool medical kit, or put one together on your own, get out there and get trained. If you know someone who has been trained and can teach you the emergency survival techniques you’ll need, ask them to teach you. Meanwhile there are a multitude of courses in first aid, tactical lifesaving, wilderness emergency medicine, survival medicine and CPR. Don’t forget to look into classes that teach herbal remedies. Know what plants can ease pain or prevent infection, they may be the only medications you’ll have available.
So go out and get prepared. Learn.
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