About a year ago a FOX news journalist named Ivory Hecker went off script in her Texas affiliate and got terminated. She then struck out on her own doing some real old-fashioned journalism.
In one story she interviewed a Steve Baker who has done a deep dive research into the January 6 Capitol protest crowd. Democrat detractors will say her story is a nothing burger but those of us still able to think for ourselves can see there is something to this story.
How do we know this?
The FBI showed up to ransack Steve Baker’s home!
You always know you are onto something when you do not fall in line with the narrative and the Gestapo arm of the DNC shows up to toss your home pretending to look for “evidence of criminal activity”.
Baker was at the Capitol shooting hours of video as an independent journalist much like Hecker herself.
Hecker notes the most interesting aspect of his investigation is what Baker jokingly calls the “Passover Beanie”. It is a specific designed Trump beanie hat that the FBI seems to repeatedly “passover” when it comes to investigating those wearing them. Even though Baker identifies these people as agent provocateurs all wearing the same beanies as a seeming uniform for those actively stirring up the crowd, the FBI both showed no interest in investigating them or identifying them.
“Secret Uniforms: Why Has FBI Overlooked Key Suspects?”
The FBI dismissed his observation saying the beanies were on sale by vendors at the event outside the Capitol building. He was told he was reading too much into his observation.
Baker said, “Well, I took that challenge to heart and what I did is that I went, I went through the entire spreadsheets and lists and websites of all of the insurrection hunters, the sedition hunters, the people that are compiling, um, data bases and facial recognition, um, uh, data bases online of every single person that was inside the Capitol building that day, or that were participating in any violence or, or, other untoward activities on the Capitol grounds that day.
AND I WENT THROUGH THEM ALL!
And then I did another frame-by-frame of all my videos. I went through and I started extracting these names… not names, but these faces and lo and behold… It’s an amazing, um, we’ll call it a coincidence, if in fact it is, but I don’t think that it is… because these individuals were most proactive in calling the crowd into action.”
Baker notes some of these guys are seen wearing an ear piece. One unidentified person is reported by a confidential source to Baker to be a Federal Marshal and that informant gave him the name of a bar he frequents. Baker plans to visit that bar to identify the man and find out his role in the January 6 event.
Baker notes that a Newsweek article of January held that U.S. Special Forces were in the crowd with “shoot to kill orders” per information leaked from an employee of the FBI.
In late 2021 the FBI interviewed Baker and told him of their plan to charge him for racketeering after he filmed and blogged the events of January 6 as an independent journalist. Baker proceeded to send out a press release about the FBI’s plans to arrest him and charge him for both being on Capitol grounds that day as well as selling portions of his videos. In November the charges against him were imminent. But after he went public with the FBI’s plans, the feds seemingly backed off those charges.
His attorney also mentions the name of Ray Epps remaining at large despite being an instigator in amping up the crowd at the Capitol and the FBI’s refusal to explain both Epps background, or, why he was not also charged with others who did far less.
Ray Epps encouraging people to actually, “Go in to the Capitol.”, constituted a crime.
Steve Baker describes himself as an “independent journalist,” who has a history of writing conservative political commentary on various social media platforms, including some paid sites, under the moniker “The Pragmatic Constitutionalist.”
Baker notes the unfair and unconstitutional treatment of those held in the Washington, D.C., jail. He notes that those who have refused the Covid-19 vaccines are being held without personal hygiene products to even shave their faces and are looking like Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway.
He also notes that Nancy Pelosi blocked the Republican Party from appointing their own representatives to the Select Committee and this was unprecedented. Even worse, in her arrogance, she sates her objective in doing so as, “To establish and preserve the narrative of January 6.”
One has to wonder where the ACLU is in all of this, unless they really are just a communist front organization like many conservative observers claim them to be.
Baker says we need a breakaway person in the mainstream media and/or public eye to blow up the narrative of the Democrats led by Pelosi in this matter of the January 6th protest. In one example Baker mentions a man who is illegally being held in the D.C. jail who actually protected a police officer from a physical attack.
Whether Steve Baker is onto something in his speculation about these “passover beanies” or not, the lack of transparency of the FBI and DOJ should be of concern to every American. Not only is the justice not swift in this episode of American history, it is justice being denied much the same as it was with Donald Trump and his charges of election fraud. He was denied due process just as these people being held in D.C. without trial.
Somebody needs to tell Nancy Pelosi this is not some banana republic with kangaroo courts. This is not Russia, China or North Korea. If the criminal treasonous Democrats are not made to pay a price for their obvious crimes as they ignore the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and the laws of our land, this country is doomed.
If the FBI does not cease and desist in their aiding and abetting of Democrats criminal acts, it needs to be dismantled and reestablished as something better.
Since they had absolutely no time to investigate 2020 election theft, they should have had no time infiltrating the “largely peaceful protest” that followed in January 2021.
If all of this is not sketchy in and of itself…
Now just developing we have the New York Times bringing Ray Epps out of the woodwork to portray him as a victim! The New York Times just released a puff piece that attempts to absolve the mysterious Ray Epps of wrongdoing in the January 6 Capitol protests. Epps was sought by the FBI for questioning originally but was never charged with any crime despite numerous cell phone videos capturing him encouraging Trump supporters to storm the Capitol, “We must go in to the Capitol!” This speech is not protected free speech and constitutes a crime much like yelling, “Fire!”, in a public venue.
The story of the unprosecuted Ray Epps insurrectionist first made national headlines after a story from journalist Darren Beattie of Revolver News. While the New York Times referred to Revolver as an “obscure” outlet, one has to admit they still practice true journalism just as we try to do at Independent Sentinel.
We also credit journalist Ivory Hecker for introducing us to podcaster Steve Baker as very observant videographer of the January 6 Capitol Protest who was wrongfully harassed by the FBI.
A journalist American hero of our time is Tucker Carlson of FOX News. Yesterday he went scorched earth on the New York Times for attempting to portray Ray Epps as a victim, the FBI and DOJ for not prosecuting Ray Epps without explanation, and the January 6 Select Committee for not being remotely curious as to Ray Epps involvement in the escalation of the Capitol protest to a riot.
“Tucker: The curious case of Ray Epps and the January 6 Committee”
The logical conclusion is Ray Epps was an FBI plant much the same as the FBI plants used in a plot they concocted to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta faced federal charges for allegedly conspiring to kidnap the Democratic governor with others and try her for acting as a tyrant during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But the others who were actually acting as the inciters were never charged as they were all (apparently) working for the FBI. This practice of entrapment by law enforcement is illegal. Two of the men were found not guilty and two were granted a mistrial. Harris and Caserta were found not guilty in the kidnapping conspiracy. That same jury also found Harris not guilty on other charges. The jury could not reach a verdict on the charges against Fox and Croft, and thereafter US District Judge Robert Jonker declared a mistrial for them.
So, of the 13 members of this paramilitary militia group who called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen only 4 were prosecuted and they were not even involved in the creation of the group or group leaders.
The FBI involvement in this kidnapping case is what got the case pretty well trashed in court. If Ray Epps is tied to the FBI and the January 6 Capitol Protest, one can conclude this will be another miscarriage of justice that will be found out in trials in court.
Copyright © 2022 by Mark S. Schwendau
Mark S. Schwendau is a retired technology professor who has always had a sideline in news-editorial writing where his byline has been, “Bringing little known news to people who simply want to know the truth.” He classifies himself as a Christian conservative who God cast to be a realist. Mark is an award-winning educator who has published 7 books and numerous peer-reviewed trade journal articles some of which can be found on the Internet. His father was a fireman/paramedic while his mother was a registered nurse. He holds multiple degrees in technology education, industrial management, OSHA Safety, and Driver’s Education. His personal website is www.IDrawIWrite.Tech.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
