Tag: conspiracy

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government transparency

Fravor’s Fake UFOs?

UFO, disclosure, conspiracy

In just weeks, the Pentagon will report to Congress on the matter of UFOs. 

Though the subject appears vast, beginning before World War II’s “foo fighters” and extending right up to Colorado’s ongoing (?) “drone” mystery, the impetus for much of the recent interest comes from one source: a declassified set of telemetry data and FLIR footage from an alleged UFO encounter off the coast of California on November 10, 2004.

Brought to the fore by former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, Luis Elizondo, and backed up by the testimony of Navy fighter pilots who took the footage, Commander David Fravor, preeminently, these videos had been hacking around the Internet for years, and repeatedly “debunked.” 60 Minutes did a segment on the subject, recently, but ignored the debunkers. So a popular junk science debunker on YouTube, an engineer known as Thunderf00t, demonstrated how the technology used by pilot Fravor produces images of normal flying objects that can look . . . alien . . . to novices.

The problem with this debunking, as with previous ones, is that it deprecates the context. Specifically, the testimony. Thunderf00t dismisses the pilots as “UFO nuts.”

But he does not directly deal with the testimony. “This is not like we saw it and it was gone or I saw lights in the sky and it’s gone,” Commander Fravor explains — “we watched this thing on a crystal clear day with four trained observers.” He also asserts that the “things” blocked radar and behaved as if they could read minds or instantaneously crack secure Navy communications.

If the debunkers are correct about the footage being grossly misinterpreted, the surrounding testimony amounts to lies. We novices might be fooled by FLIR, but not trained fighter jet personnel. And if they are lying, then the Pentagon should know and say. 

For decades, the military has been telling us, publicly, that UFOs aren’t a thing. Now it appears they are telling us they are.

Am I the only one who is curious?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs media and media people

Lab Rats II: The Conspiracy

“What if Robert Redfield is right about the Wuhan labs?” inquires Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin.

Redfield is the former director of the Centers for Disease Control under President Trump and a virologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he co-founded the Institute of Human Virology. He told CNN he thought “the most likely etiology of this pathogen [SARS-CoV-2] in Wuhan was from a laboratory.” 

The doctor was clear: this is his educated conjecture, lacking incontrovertible evidence — which all of the other operating theories also lack. 

“Before Redfield,” Rogin writes, “the mere discussion of the still-unproven theory that the covid-19 outbreak might have been connected to human error at a research laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan was considered taboo.”

Which is not to suggest that Dr. Redfield was not attacked and marginalized for mentioning the quite viable “lab theory” for human transmission of the contagion. “Redfield tosses viral kindling,” The Baltimore Sun’s editorial ridiculously accused, “on anti-Asian fires.”

Last week, I lamented our incurious media and the Chinese cover-up. But Rogin takes the charge much further: “The Chinese government and U.S. scientists who are close associates of the Wuhan scientists doing bat coronavirus research have tarred anyone who uttered it as conspiracy theorists, or worse (in their eyes), as pro-Trump.”

Yet, “the Biden administration has confirmed some of the Trump team’s factual claims about suspicious and still-undisclosed work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” added the columnist.

“Conspiracy theorist” is a handy way to deflect attention from bad acts. Conspirators love the term, as do all cover-up artists.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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international affairs scandal

Two Conspiracies Unearthed

night, mystery

Two huge stories broke this week.

The first is that the “People’s Republic” of China guided American policy for decades using “old friends” who had “penetrated the highest levels of the U.S. government and financial institutions before the Trump administration.” 

Bill Gerz, writing in The Washington Times, reported that “Di Dongsheng, a professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Renmin University in Beijing, also suggested in a Nov. 28 speech that China’s Communist Party helped Hunter Biden, a son of presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden, obtain Chinese business deals.” 

These remarks were posted as a video on the professor’s Weibo account (think “Chinese Facebook”). Though quickly removed, copies went viral.

The second story? “Did Donald Trump Nearly Confirm Existence of Aliens? Israeli Ex-Space Chief Makes Bizarre Claim,” by Jeffrey Martin, writing at Newsweek. “Professor Haim Eshed, who served as the head of Israel’s space program from 1981 to 2010 spoke to the Hebrew newspaper Yediot Aharonot on Sunday. On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Post published some of Eshed’s quotes in English and they contained the most incredible claims made about Trump, who has long [been] the center of conspiracy theories—some of which he has actively encouraged.”

Eshed claims that both the U.S. and Israel have had contact with extraterrestrial civilizations (a “Galactic Federation,” no less) and that President Trump was about to go full-on Full Disclosure but — somehow — the aliens stopped him.

Quite a yarn, not unfamiliar to science fiction readers and moviegoers. But note: quite a few de-classified Pentagon, FBI and CIA documents suggest something very much like this. And in the last few years we’ve covered the U.S. Government’s trickling admissions that the UFO phenomenon is not all fakery, but real and odd.

Both stories hail from professors with close ties to foreign governments. Both point to actual conspiracies. Both present “epistemic” problems for us: they are neither easily proved or disproved.

Both, also, are too eerily plausible.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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general freedom ideological culture

Q and an Answer

Q Anon, conspiracy, MAGA

Can we start laughing again?

If the actual positions of our goofy ruling class won’t do it for you, then . . . what about QAnon?

A few weeks ago, President Trump was asked about QAnon. “At the crux of the theory,” a reporter explained, “is this belief that [Trump is] secretly saving the world from this Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals.” She went on to ask the president if that was something he was behind.

“I haven’t heard that, but is that supposed to be a bad thing?”

This may be the most politic and understated response ever given by our impolitic and hyperbolic leader.

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives took QAnon seriously enough to formally condemn it, asking the intelligence agencies to monitor it closely. Though it is a set of conspiracy theorists, a few enthusiasts apparently have taken criminal actions.

Not included in “the widely supported bipartisan measure”? Seventeen Republicans and “Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.),” reported Christian Britschgi on Friday. “The latter argued the resolution posed serious free speech concerns and could be counterproductive.”

Amash had the wit to see that sending the FBI to investigate “conspiracy theorists who believe in a deep state that’s fighting against them” might possibly . . . “just confirm . . . their fears.”

If you are like me, you know little about pedophiles and bupkis about cannibal cults. But if Trump supporters who spin tall tales about Trump directing secret military units to nuke underground nests of alien deviltry unnerve politicians enough to publicly condemn them for doing so, three responses seem rational:

  1. Uproariously chortling;
  2. Recognition that if pedophile cannibal cults do exist, unearthing them would be helpful; and
  3. Wondering on which side in that struggle Congress might place itself.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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national politics & policies

Are You a Conspiracy Theorist?

Representative Rashida Tlaib, screams, Trump, rally

Politicians are all over the vaping issue, like packrats on pet food.

The House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, C-SPAN explains, held a hearing on the relationship between e-cigarettes and an outbreak in lung disease. Government experts spoke. There was only one empaneled pro-vaping witness, Vicki Porter, who said that vaping was “a health miracle to me,” since it got her off of smoking tobacco.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (D–Fla.) insisted that the record show that she was not to be trusted, since she merely expressed her own opinion as to the superiority of vaping over smoking, noting that Ms. Porter “is not a public health expert.”

But it was Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D–Mich.) who really came out swinging for the interventionist government. Her main concern, writes Robby Soave at Reason, appeared to be Porter’s direct challenging of “the tortured logic of the Oversight and Reform Subcommittee hearing.”

Rep. Tlaib said she “wanted to know more about you,” to Ms. Porter. “You call yourself a ‘converted conservative,’” Tlaib stuttered, “and a reformed Marxist.

“Are you a conspiracy theorist?”

Wh-what?

Ms. Porter answered reasonably. Then Tlaib questioned her regarding why she had winked at one of her colleagues. Porter said they knew each other.

In the 1960s, the CIA pushed the phrase “conspiracy theorist” as a way to publicly marginalize anyone who questioned official pronouncements on the JFK assassinations and even trickier subjects, like UFOs. Rep. Tlaib is either one of those who bought into the CIA line, or is part of some less-than-transparent agenda.

So, are you a conspiracy theorist?

My answer might have been, not until right about now.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Representative Rashida Tlaib, screams, Trump, rally

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media and media people

Suicide?

Jeffrey Epstein, murder, death, pedophile, conspiracy, paranoia,

Some news stories serve more as inkblot tests than as first runs at history. With the Jeffrey Epstein story we find sightings, Rohrschach-like, of both Minotaurs and unicorns, depending on the viewer.

I am not seeing the sad unicorn of suicide in his story. Are you?

Of course, there’s a maze of information to wade through, and we on the outside possess only the grossest of clues about whatever insider life Epstein lived.

And speaking of clues, maybe the key to the story can be found in how it plays in the headlines.

Before: 

  • The question that must be asked: Was Epstein running ‘honey traps’ and blackmailing the power elite?
  • Alex Acosta Reportedly Claimed Jeffrey Epstein ‘Belonged to Intelligence’
  • ‘IN DANGER’ Jeffrey Epstein’s life ‘in jeopardy’ as powerful pals ‘don’t want their secrets out’, victim’s lawyer claims
  • Jeffrey Epstein on suicide watch after accused sex trafficker is found injured in New York jail

After: 

  • JEFFREY EPSTEIN DEAD BY HANGING IN JAIL … Taken Off Suicide Watch
  • Jeffrey Epstein Dead in Suicide at Jail, Spurring Inquiries
  • Former MCC inmate: There’s ‘no way’ Jeffrey Epstein killed himself
  • Jeffrey Epstein’s jail guards were working extreme overtime shifts, source says
  • Jeffrey Epstein was not on suicide watch before death, official says
  • Epstein suicide sparks fresh round of conspiracy theories
  • Jeffrey Epstein’s death is a perfect storm for conspiracy theories

Who doesn’t roll their eyes, just a bit, when a news story in a major media news source confidently labels Epstein’s demise “suicide”?

Who wasn’t making jokes about Epstein’s suicide (often with pointed mention of the Clintons) before his first attempt?

Now the joke is the news media’s blithe acceptance of the official narrative.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. All the stories, headlined above, can be found by searching DuckDuckGo, the safe and non-creepy search engine. No joke.

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Jeffrey Epstein, murder, death, pedophile, conspiracy, paranoia,

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government transparency Popular

The Whys Behind the Whats

UFO, navy, flight, tracking, military, disclosure, secret, conspiracy,

“[H]ow quickly our differences worldwide would vanish,” said Ronald Reagan in 1987, “if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.” 

Does that Reaganite talking point give us any hints about the current series of disclosures about Unidentified Flying Objects? 

I noted the most recent story to hit mainstream news on Sunday, about members of the U.S. Senate being briefed on the many repeated Navy encounters around the world with Unexplained Aerial Phenomena — “UAP” being the current euphemism for “UFO.” 

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the bulk of these news stories have been driven by a cadre of former government officials and contractors who have investigated UAP as part of a Pentagon research program. Now members of a non-profit educational corporation, they are on a mission to break the government-imposed silence and compartmentalized lock-up of knowledge about the phenomena. 

This being America, the effort also has a History Channel tie-in.

But much of the buzz appears to be coming from outside that core group, some of it focusing on leaked documents relating to a 2002 meeting between a scientist and a Navy admiral. The subject matter includes a secret program studying actual, hangered examples of ultra-strange flying craft* kept deeply secret — even from current military command — in the corporate wing of the military-industrial complex.

A new threat to unite us all? Or just another excuse to throw taxpayer funds down the Pentagon/military-industrial complex rathole?

The ongoing UFO disclosure might be neither of these yet still not what it seems.

We should keep our minds open, but our suspicions set on high alert.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The technology in question, in this document as well as in the footage disclosed in 2017, purportedly does not use propellers, jets, or rockets to move extremely rapidly, change course immediately, and hover.

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UFO, navy, flight, tracking, military, disclosure, secret, conspiracy,

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Bezos’s Big Breakaway

Jeff Bezos, moon, luna, conspiracy,

Something big may be about to happen. 

Trump impeachment? Financial collapse? War with Iran? — each is all-too-likely, none desirable. But I am referring to space.

In The Economist, May 14th, we read of Jeff Bezos’s itch to live off-planet. 

The article is “Amazon’s boss reckons that humanity needs an HQ2,” which tells us that on “May 9th the founder and boss of Amazon, who also runs Blue Origin, a private rocketry firm, unveiled plans for a lunar lander. ‘Blue Moon,’ as it is called, is just one phase of a bold plan to establish large off-world settlements.”

And then comes the obvious literary-cultural reference: “It is a vision ripped directly from 20th-century science fiction.”

Can we dismiss it as space opera, though? A number of major figures, not least of whom is Elon Musk (whose Space X has often been mentioned here), are talking seriously about near-term orbital, lunar, and Martian habitation.

It is hard to wrap my head around an imminent private space colony project. It has always been something for the indefinite future, not something I expected to see. 

There remain scoffers, of course (and they may well be right), as well as more paranoid speculations — are the higher-ups, the most insidery of insiders, tipping their hand to a “breakaway civilization” event, perhaps to avoid worldwide catastrophe?

“People now have more information” than in the past, wrote Thomas M. Disch in The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World (1998), “and they are smarter, overall, as a consequence — even in those ways they choose to be dumb.”

I am keeping an open mind on whether Bezos’s proposed lunar colony is dumb or genius.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

N.B. The government is also jumping on board the Moon bandwagon, with the president floating a similar-to-Bezos schedule.

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Jeff Bezos, moon, luna, conspiracy,

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Accountability folly government transparency local leaders media and media people too much government

Low Bigotry Expectations

tin foil hat, D.C. Councilman Trayon White, climate control, conspiracy, jews, antisemitism

“Man, it just started snowing out of nowhere this morning, man. Y’all better pay attention to this climate control, man, this climate manipulation,” explained Washington, D.C. Councilman Trayon White back in March.

White (who is black) went on to accuse “the Rothschilds” (who were Jewish financiers) of “controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man.”

Man. Oh. Man.

White later apologized, taking up the invitation of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington to tour the Holocaust Museum. During the tour one of White’s staffers referred to the infamous Warsaw Ghetto as “a gated community.” Then, before the tour’s end, the councilmen unceremoniously bugged out.

Next, news broke that Councilman White had used his constituent services account,* which the Washington Post reports “must [by law] benefit D.C. residents,” to send $500 to a Nation of Islam event in Chicago.

At which Minister Louis Farrakhan denounced Jews.

The Post noted how all this “turned into a test of the ability of city officials to handle the explosive race and class resentments that can arise in a city whose prosperity masks a troubling gap between its haves and have-nots.”

Even D.C. Council member Elissa Silverman (who is Jewish) echoed the partial excuse that White “represents the poorest parts of our city, . . . whose residents feel like they haven’t benefited, and the remarks were directed at a community that’s largely affluent here, and seen as powerful.”

Is bigotry against an entire religion wrong or not so much, depending on the race or socio-economic status of the people espousing the bias?

No, man.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Why do we have programs allowing politicians to hand out free money? This never ends well.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency insider corruption local leaders media and media people Popular

Sweet Schadenfreude?

Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods, corruption, Arkansas, conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering

Yesterday, jurors convicted former Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods on 15 felony counts consisting of conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.

Woods was at the center of a corrupt scheme to reward cronies at Ecclasia College and AmeriWorks with GIFs — state General Improvement Funds — in return for kickbacks. Former State Rep. Micah Neal, his co-conspirator, pleaded guilty more than a year ago. And last month, the former president of Ecclesia College, Oren Paris III, also admitted guilt.

Regular readers may remember Woods as the Senate author of Issue 3, placed on the 2014 ballot by legislators — along with a summary for voters to read that fibbed about “establishing term limits” and imposing a gift ban between lobbyists and legislators.

Enough voters were hoodwinked,* leading to the gutting of term limits (allowing a legislator to stay in the same seat for 16 years), the empowering of a legislature-appointed “Independent” Commission to bestow a 150 percent pay raise on legislators, and the enabling of legislators to eat every meal at the lobbyists’ trough.

Mr. Woods now faces as many as 20 years on each of 14 counts and ten more years on the money laundering conviction. Having experienced, in a previous life, the poor customer service in the federal prison system, I do not wish that on anyone.

But justice has been done.

More good news: the Arkansas Supreme Court has since ruled the entire corrupt GIF program unconstitutional . . . while Arkansas Term Limits closes in on completion of their petition drive to place a measure on this November’s ballot to restore the term limits stolen by Woods.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* The measure passed 52 to 48 percent at the ballot box.

 

Previous coverage here of Woods’ corruption:

 

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