Happy July 4th: Ed Cline’s Saga & A Contest

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On the road at last!

Somewhere in Flyover Country, Ed Cline is driving down the road, covering the miles between his sudden eviction from his apartment in Williamsburg, Virginia and his new home, one in a much safer place.

Ed is a writer and blogger. He has gotten by these last years on a small pension plus some royalties from his books. Until the FBI showed up at his door one day to tell him his name was on the ISIS Kill List, Ed’s life was a quiet one.

Why ISIS decided to finger him instead of other more prominent Counterjihad writers, only Allah knows. Why the FBI decided to visit him and tell him he was on the list but “not to worry because the danger was nil”, only those agents know. They inform you but offer no suggestions and no help.

Landlords don’t look kindly on ISIS targets living in their apartments; Ed was summarily evicted. Fortunately, a friend of his opened a GoFundMe page and he was able to access those funds while he lived in limbo, trying to find a place. No longer having a home, he was forced to buy — and learn to use — a smart phone. As living expenses mounted at what he called his “dumpy motel”, he also had to pay storage costs for his belongings.

Finding a place that would take him as a tenant proved to be a problem at first, especially given his low annual income and his refusal to use his old landlord’s “recommendations”. However he really lucked out at this point: a Canadian entrepreneur, one who supports Counterjihad work, contacted him and offered to serve as his guarantor for his rent for the coming year. Ed, of course, will pay him back, but that guarantee made the crucial difference in being able to relocate. The new apartment complex accepted his signed-and-faxed lease and all the worried waiting was over. In a day or so he’d given the movers his new address and an arrival date for his belongings. He submitted his forwarding notice to the post office, and closed down the rest of his life in Williamsburg.

Now he’s on the road, headed for his own safe space and taking his time looking at the beautiful summer countryside on the way to his new home.

As the weeks wore on between being evicted and securing a new home, his living expenses mounted. So his friend re-opened the GoFundMe page. Now anyone wishing to help Ed can use that GFM page, or, as you will also see on that same page, a link to his website brings up a shiny new Pay Pal account he agreed to set up for anyone who’d prefer that route. He was originally reluctant to use PayPal — how many tricks is an old dog supposed to learn so quickly? — but fortunately, he talked to someone at PayPal who helped him through the process. I got to make the first donation so he could understand how the process worked. Given how generous our donors have been over the years, it felt like the right thing to do. And it assured Ed that it was safe, which it is for donations. (I have heard of problems with merchandise, but again have experienced no problems in that regard, either.) Finally, for those who wish to send cash or a check to his P.O. box, the post office in Williamsburg will forward everything to his new address.

Once he arrives at his new home, I’m hoping he’ll pay for a security assessment, buy a weapon, and join a shooting club. They’re actually fun, and Ed is already familiar with weapons from his time in the service when he was an M.P.

So Ed is safely outta the ’Burg and now I’m still wondering why the FBI chose him out of all the people on that KILL list they could have warned instead? Was it because Colonial Williamsburg is a pleasant day trip from their field office and they planned a tourists’ afternoon after they finished ruining Ed’s life?

Ed is mad at the apartment complex manager, but I’m madder still about the callous disregard the FBI exhibited toward Ed’s situation. They can’t/won’t offer any help and what do they care if an old man is left homeless as a result of their visit? Why on God’s green earth did they choose Ed Cline?

Thus I am offering a contest for rebranding the by-now quite tarnished Federal Bureau of Investigation…

Surely the cross-dressing J. Edgar Hoover is rolling over in his dress in that monument of his: how much his agency has fallen! I realize that being confined to our Pg-13 lexicon will limit y’all when it comes to applying the normal Anglo-Saxon terminology we reserve for organizations we don’t like much. But just get out the online thesaurus and have some fun. For example, Feckless fits right well into the first slot of that acronym. So does Faithless. If you want to jump start your brain, try looking on some of the sites that list Scrabble words by alphabet and length of word. How about Fatuous? And moving on to ‘B’ I have, so far, Fatuous Bleaters, Inc. But I’m very tired — the waiting for Ed to be outta there was a bit wearing — no doubt y’all will be far more creative.

***UPDATE***Of course once I have Now that I have the link here from Western Rifle Shooters for their mention of Ed’s new status as no-longer-homeless, you can click on it and let your imagination run free over there; spout just about anything you’re moved to say. They don’t have to answer to home-schooling parents about language usage: it is indeed a manly space at WRSA.

A very Happy Fourth of July, everyone! And our gratitude for your generosity to Ed. This is one case where ISIS not only didn’t kill him, but with the help of the F.B. & I. they turned his life upside down and shook an even better one into being.

There’s a moral in there somewhere. As soon as Ed recovers his equilibrium I’m sure he’ll think of it.

And there’s definitely a motto to live by: Illegitimi non carborundum, my fellow Americans. If the Feckless Brigade of Illegitimi — those FBI day-trippers — come by here we’ll let you know. I doubt it will ever happen though: nothing but timber and old cars out here. We’re not worried: it’s forty miles to a latte from where we are.

60 thoughts on “Happy July 4th: Ed Cline’s Saga & A Contest”

      • Okay, Rick. The link to Western Rifle Shooters is live now. As he says, it’s a chance to “add to the resistance lexicon”… once you’ve gotten the predictable out of the way, I hope you let your creative side rilly, rilly riff on that FBI acronym. While you’re at it, why not try some of the others – e.g., the Department of Justice.

        There’s also some depressing information in this post at WRSA, with the consolation of a great graphic. As they put it, this is all about our freedumb —

        https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/07/03/keep-in-mind-this-fact-while-all-of-the-greenwoods-are-chattering/

        Makes me wonder when the last July 4th will be celebrated. How many more years will we be permitted to refer to our Founders?

      • Latin, you once stated anything Latin was permitted.

        Stupri Bunch of Idiots.

        Only problem is it doesn’t begin with an F. Oops … F seems to not be permitted either.

        Back to what I was doing, binge watching the first season of Bonanza on Amazon Prime. Insomnia is a [female dog in heat]*

        • Or you can take all your Fs over to Western Rifle Shooters and have a ball, Rick.

          Sometimes when this fibro keeps me abed, I watch stuff on Amazon Prime. It lets me know how far out of the cultural loop I have moved. One of my sons suggested a drama series on Baltimore – I forget the name now – but the lying and treachery was too much. I’d rather see that kind of evil via Shakespeare.

          Know any funny movies/series on Prime? The free ones, I mean.

        • In old dictionaries of any language, when scholars came to a word that denoted sexual copulation, their sense & convention of prudent decorum would move them to use the Latin word futuere, an intransitive verb denoting the same thing as the English “F” word.

          • How can “futuere” mean the same as the English word when it doesn’t even take a Direct Object (being, as you said, intransitive)??? Isn’t the…ah…point of futuere and the like the Direct Object’s receipt of the recommended action?

          • To Cynthia,

            Actually, the English F verb can be used both in the transitive and the intransitive constructions (and also a third, as an interjection).

  4. Best wishes Ed … people have told me that one day men in black will take me away but that is just ridiculous … right?

    • Lisa, they’ll have one of two options for us, just like the USSR did: either the men in black will hang you high, or the men in white will shoot you full of tranquilizers…but it will be their call, not yours.

      • “And I’m a private citizen. Just to let you know, dear government worker, you’re standing on a trap door.”[sound of “thunk” as the floor opens]. “Good BYYYYYYEEEE, government guy! Say hello to the fish!”

  5. According to FOX’s Greg Gutfeld we are ALL on the list!
    Makes sense, doesn’t it?

  6. Happy Independence Day!, Mr. Cline. Truly a disgusting circumstance when a veteran and citizen has to endure this type of ordeal. Like something out of the Soviet era. I guess that era never really ended though, just changed the company logo, moved some people around…

  7. The most appropriate re-branding I can think of for the Federal Bureau of Investigation is:
    “Puerile Idiot Goons”.

  8. The US/NATO military can reach anywhere around the globe. So can ISIS – in many direct and indirect [unintended] ways.

    . . . and your tax dollars cannot [will not] protect you.

  9. Seems to me the FBI has Forgotten our Battles for Independence…or would like citizens to Forget the Battle for Independence.

  10. Feckless Betrayers of Islam
    Failed Before Islam
    Federal Bureau of Islam

    I really dig Ed’s Live Free or Die, where do I get one?

  11. They’ve got us on The List
    They’ve got us on The List
    And they’ll none of them be missed
    They’ll. None. Of. Them. Be. Missed.

    /channeling Gilbert and Sullivan

  12. The death lists that we are witnessing are the equivalent of the Roman proscriptio or proscription list. The proscription was a list of people’s names assigned to be killed. It was an announcement of death, like an obituary, only before death had occurred. Sulla, the Roman dictator, used it against his enemies. Sulla got the idea, according to one account, when one day in the senate, a young Gaius Metellus asked him to give some clarity to the seemingly random, innumerable murders of retribution at his behest taking place in Rome.

    Gaius said to Sulla, “We do not petition you to spare from vengeance those whom you have decided to do away with, but to relieve from doubt those whom you have decided to save.”

    To which Sulla responded that he had not yet decided whom to spare.

    Gaius then followed up, “Very well, then, show us whom you propose to punish.”

    The proscription was an act of terror. It was directed at the whole population. Everyone lived in fear. And the responsibility for the murders was spread out. Who was responsible? The creator of the list? The spies and informants? The percussores or executioners who would collect the reward?

    There is an account by Dio Siculus of a man who stood in front of a posted proscription list reading off the names on it and mocking the proscribed until he got to the end of the list to find his name on it, at which point he was recognized by others and killed while trying to escape.

  13. Flatulenet, Bureaucratic Investigators?

    Foul Butchers, Inc?

    Famous But Incompetent?

    Famous Bunglers of Investigations?

    Flamers, Butchers and Incompetents? (a nod to ol’ J Edgar himself)

    Fornicating Butchers of Innocents?

    • I really like “Famous Bunglers of Investigations.” It gives a slight nod to the group to which we’re referring, but still hits the nail on the head.

      • I have long referred to the Bureau as Fumbling Bungling Incompetents. They’ve earned that sobriquet. The passage of years has improved neither their performance nor my opinion of same, and the ongoing political polarization is further corrupting it. Some of the old line agents I have known excepted, however; some of the veterans of the 1970s and 1980s cold war are anything but incompetent, but those guys are long gone; the only ones left are the toadies.

        With that said, most here are assuming incompetence. Suppose this outing was intentional? 2 birds with one stone, so to speak; impetus for more funding for FBI counter-terrorism and at the same time, disadvantaging a FreeFor advocate and supporter. If you work for the Department of Injustice at the behest of the Spite House, this might make sense. If it is policy, one may expect more such.

  14. Dymphna, I think we should put the non-latin scholars out of their misery. Not that I count myself as one; I failed the “O” level twice (current UK equivalent, GCSEs; exams taken at sixteen).

    Non illegitimi carborundum= Don’t let the bastards grind you down.

      • Oops! Daresay you don’t miss the latte. Coffee, like women/men, should be strong, black and taken in the morning (well, we can all dream! My lady is slight and white, but I’m not complaining).

  15. I had to deal with them professionally, at which time we called them Fan Belt Inspectors. They’ve buried more bodies than the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz.

    • Fan Belt Inspectors?? Wow…

      That reminds me. One suggestion I made to Ed Cline was to get his car inspected by some intel expert to see if there are any gadgets on his vehicle. Yeah, his experience has made me paranoid…

  16. A few more:

    Federal Baby Immolators?

    Fry Babies Indiscriminately?

    Fatuous Building Igniters?

    Fatally Burn Innocents?

    Faustian Bargain Initiators?

    • I would say that all three are correct, depending of course upon what day it is.
      Happy Fourth y’all and let’s remember what Thomas Jefferson wrote that was enacted this day. His words, with probable divine inspiration, are eternal as they describe governance after God’s own heart.

  22. I say Nazis, which is evidently what the FBI has become. It used to be a proud and good arm of government but no longer. Too bad, so sad and I’m sorry for point it out.

    If I sent you guys (Baron/Dymhpna) a check could you forward it to this man? Please let me know. I will check back in the morning or you can email me at maria_dreisziger@yahoo.com if you have time, but you sound busy.

    Thank you. I hate this sh*t, I really do. IT IS SO FRICKING UNFAIR AND UNAMERICAN! I am shouting out of frustration.

    supposedly, in this country EVERYONE has the right to free speech. Preiod. FREE SPEECH, no holds barred and if you don’t like it you don’t have to listen, but he or she has a right to speak their mind without any backlash other than popular opinion, at least that is my understanding. I think we have to support people who dare to speak their mind or we will soon be deprived of that right, too.

    • It has not been a “proud and good arm of government” since at least August of 1992.

  23. Happy 4th of July to all the readers of GoV ?

    It’s good to hear that Mr. Cline has found a new place, and that his rental apartment problems are a thing of the past.

    Regarding the FBI, how about the Federal Branch of Isis, or the Federal Branch of Islamophilia ….

  25. Writing somewhere in a motel near Tennessee, on my way to a “safe haven,” I will remark, as I remarked to a friend online, the FBI today isn’t the same FBI my fictional detective hero, Cyrus Skeen, dealt with in the late 1920’s in San Francisco. In “The Black Stone,” in “A Crimson Overture,” in “The Chameleon,” the FBI agents go out of their way to help the detective solve some brutal murders, but more often than not, he helps them, especially when an agent is murdered with an ice pick by an agent of the Soviets. In “The Black Stone,” the FBI in 1930 hadn’t even heard of the Muslim Brotherhood, until Skeen brings the newly-formed organization to their attention. One of the MB’s agents goes on a rape and mutilate spree, until he’s shot with extreme prejudice by Skeen. Today, however, the FBI is actively complicit in covering up the depredations of Muslims in this country and also of the horrific guilt of Hillary Clinton, Obama’s Muslim-friendly Attorney General (re the “secret” Phoenix airport meeting between the AG and Slick Willy, “no cameras, not recordings!”). The FBI is either useless as defenders of Americans or the enemy of Americans. Thank you, Gates of Vienna, for the article here. It is appreciated and I am grateful.

    • As I said somewhere or other, it was karmic the way events unfolded: you were turned upside down and shaken till your teeth rattled. Despite the trauma (and it indeed was *that*) you are ending up in a safer place and a happier environment.

      In addition to the largess of the wealthy, you were also supported by the generosity of average people like you and me. Crowd-sourcing a problem is a wonder to behold! Of course you’ll probably have to keep your past discreetly to yourself or others may act like that shrieking apartment manager in Williamsburg…hope you make the whole thing into a book! Readers who don’t know the back story will think it’s fiction…

    • Having read J. Edgar Hoover’s 1958 book Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Defeat It, and knowing a little about him, I’d say he was one of the few who would past the “Diana West” test. Apparently, after Hoover’s death, there must have been a purge and restructuring of the Bureau; with little doubt that actual Communist saboteurs given access were involved.

  27. Who remembers the tv series “Maverick”, “77 Sunset Strip” and “The FBI”? All starred Efrem Zimbalist Jr (d 2014, aged 95)?

    His father, Efrem Sr, was a Russian-Jewish violinist whose pupils at Curtis included Felix Slatkin, whom I referenced here a couple of weeks ago.

    • I’d seen Efrem Jr. appear many times with the founders of the Christian TV network TBN, Jan and Paul Crouch; which leads me to believe he converted to Christianity?

      • You got me checking further, Hesperado. EF Jr’s parents (EF Sr and Romanian soprano Alma Gluck) considered themselves assimilated, and he was baptised. He considered himself Episcopalian (with a few years’ flirtation with TM), and broadcast the entire bible for a US radio station.

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