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Accountability government transparency media and media people

Transient Stars

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, UFOs and “flying saucers” made newspaper headlines, and government officials had contradictory things to say about them. Then, soon after 1952’s summer UFO flyovers of Washington, D.C, the government got into the denial game, and the general tenor of the conversation changed.

The federal government, it seems, had instituted a policy of “cover-​up.”

This has changed in the last few years, after a military investigation into UFOs went public, and as Congress began making public and confidential inquiries.

What do we really know?

Not much.

Still, that startling 1952 UFO wave appears to have received some additional evidence … from an unexpected quarter.

A team of astronomers compared old sky plates from the Palomar Observatory —photographed in the 1950s — to modern digitized pictures of the heavens, searching for “vanishing stars.” Appearing and disappearing stars are a fascinating study, in this research the aim being to detect “instances where a star directly collapses into a black hole.” The scientists found none of these “failed supernova” events. 

But what they found surprised them: “several images where multiple star-​like objects appear in a single snapshot of the sky, never to be seen again.”

They tested many possible explanations for the mysterious data, and then an automated search coughed up a doozy: “The image showed three bright and beautiful objects looking just like stars in a POSS‑I image from the 19th of July 1952 that appeared and vanished within a plate exposure.… The three bright objects seemed as real as Betelgeuse itself.”

These were not single bright dots on photographic plates, but multiple simultaneous dots.

As scientist Beatriz Villarroel writes, “our two most prominent and brightest cases of multiple transients coincided in time with the two weekends of the renowned Washington UFO flyovers.”

One wonders whether later mass-​sighting events, such as the “Belgian Wave” (November 1989 – April 1990) and Arizona’s “Phoenix Lights” (March 13, 1997), might have recorded similar transients above, ready for study. 

Thankfully, we do not need to rely directly upon government agents to do the research.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Two Roadblocks, and Their Names

Meandering through social media, a popular meme with several variants runs something like this:

“Hey, this guy says the government believes in UFOs!

“See, nobody cares. Now show us the Epstein client list.”

The gist: the Jeffrey Epstein story is a bigger, more important story than the on 70-​plus years of government control of the UFO story.

Well, we now know precisely why we cannot have either: a few specific politicians are blocking disclosure, one Democrat on the Epstein story and a handful of Republicans on the UFO story.

Hillary Vaughn of Fox News asked Senator Dick Durbin (D‑Ill.) why he — the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee — won’t subpoena Epstein’s flight logs to and from his private Caribbean island wherein sex trafficking with under-​age females and males went on. His response? “I don’t know anything about his flight logs” and “This has never been raised by anyone.”

This is untrue. 

UFO/​UAP transparency, on the other hand, has gone much further than the Epstein — probably because there are fewer politicians implicated in crimes. Yet two major disclosure elements in a recent defense bill have been nixed by Mike Turner (R‑Oh.) and Mike Rogers (R‑Ala.). Journalist Ross Coulthart, who has covered this story best, ascribes this pair’s opposition to disclosure to their respective military-​industrial complex constituencies. And Coulthart adds that Senator Mitch McConnell (R‑Ky.) also had a hand in disclosure suppression.

Both the Epstein and the UFO story reveal a lot about our government, which wants us to know the truth about neither.

And as for the notion that these issues must be played off each other, the proper memed response would be “Why can’t we have both?”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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crime and punishment

Pedo Plane Perv

If you are like me, you react to news about billionaire and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by trying to retain some composure. His recent arrest on sex trafficking charges was a long time coming, sure; and the accusations swirling around him are disgusting and alarming. But I try to remember that accusations still need to be proved. 

Further, most of us are so understandably exercised against pedophiles and the sex slave trade of minors that we can easily be manipulated by mere accusations. 

But the Epstein case sure looks the opposite, like he had been previously protected, not framed, by government insiders.

How so? Well, his previous plea deal regarding the “Lolita Express” “rape plane,” when compared to the swirl of accusations, seems awfully … light. And the evidence was illegally sealed.

Suspicious? Yes.

Which is why guerrilla publicity maven Mike Cernovich filed suit to unseal and make public the evidence in Epstein’s 2007 prosecution.

And that lawsuit is why the ground-​to-​a-​halt gears of government justice eventually became unstuck, and new charges filed — based on old evidence.

This could be a hot potato in the upcoming election, for both President Trump and former President Clinton had relationships with Epstein. 

Clinton denies what recent reports confirm: that he was a frequent flyer on the “Lolita Express.” 

Trump once said Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as I do” — but later had a falling out with him. 

Newsweek chose to adorn its story with a photo of Epstein and companion next to Donald and Melania. And on Wikipedia, Bill Clinton’s flight log information was stricken, and a typically loopy Trumpian statement inserted.

Secret upper echelon pedo rings have so far just been rumor. Soon we may have facts. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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Accountability crime and punishment government transparency ideological culture media and media people national politics & policies too much government

Smoke But No Gun

The Republican memo soaking up so much attention paints an ugly picture of a republic gone off the rails — but it should not be mistaken for The Facts.

We have smoke, sure. And the smoke can be seen, not unreasonably, as a sign of … a vast insider conspiracy.

But we have only second-​hand information; the “smoking gun” has yet to be presented.

The House Intelligence Committee Report memo relates to the behavior of the FBI and its use of a dossier prepared by a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele. This operative was hired by Fusion GPS, a political research firm, which was under contract first with a conservative website, The Washington Free Beacon, and then with the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton for President campaign. His assignment was to research an alleged connection between Trump and the Russian government.

Steele dug up some interesting stuff, which would have been more persuasive had not some of it been obviously fabricated (I’m thinking of the infamous Russian prostitution story). The dossier got into the hands of the FBI by a circuitous route* and was used, says the memo, to get FISA warrants to electronically surveil a Trump campaign operative, Carter Page. Tellingly, the FBI never told the FISA court the specific origin of the dossier.

To get to the truth, we need more — the FISA warrants themselves, at the very least. 

There may be a proverbial smoking gun somewhere in this mess. The missing-​then-​discovered text messages of two partisan FBI agents do suggest a conspiratorial mindset.

That being said, let’s not jump to conclusions. Alan Dershowitz is right: a non-​partisan investigation is necessary.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Including Sen. John McCain!


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