“There’s something the agency, it’s so interesting, people call it, the newspapers some times call it in a story, eyewash .. it’s when you do something, and you have to protect the source, [in the case of the CIA] you let other people in the agency think that they were responsible for certain actions. So, you’ve got people down in the bowels, intelligence people in the intelligence office, analysts in the analysts office of the CIA, writing, looking at couriers, and they’ve been doing it for years without much luck, but you now tell them ‘you did it guys’ .. and then they can be taken out to reporters and be very credible, because they are credible, they think they did it” -Seymour Hersh
I am certainly no fan of the Saudis, no matter I can appreciate Sunni Islam (when it is Sufi, but certainly not the Saudi brand that is the radical Wahabi/Salafi), and, truth should not take sides in reporting, no matter the Saudi regime is brutal by any civilized standard. With that said, we’ve been here before, for instance the Saudis having to swallow being framed up for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. [1]
Now, what we are about to experience, with the 9/11 documents release, is possibly a frame-up of the Saudis that resembles Hersh’s observation; in a case where ‘eyewash’ could insure the Saudis will become a patsy for 9/11. In the alternative, there will be a whitewash rehabilitating the Saudi government (the truth will lie in a grey area somewhere between, with Saudi elements played into a false flag entrapment.)
“A central question has been the role of the Saudi government, which has denied any involvement in the attacks” [2]
The ‘declassified documents’ could essentially read ‘Great job, FBI, you did it! You sorted it out!! The Saudi Government (or elements therein) was behind 9/11!!!’ And the media will trot out FBI agents that worked on 9/11 related investigations and actually believe the Saudis did it (or believe people closely connected to the Saudi government were complicit.) But either way, actually the Saudis did not, could not be responsible for the attack, when a major university engineering study determines WTC Building 7 ‘died of fright’ (points to professional demolition) on 9/11.
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building”
The first (only) university study, four years in the making, demonstrating a “global failure” with the characteristic of “near-simultaneous failure” of every structural column in World Trade Center Building 7 points to one conclusion: A controlled demolition because the only earthquake in New York City on 9/11 was the lie of who did it and how it happened. Read the study’s conclusions for yourself. [3]
Excuse me, but World Trade Center Building 7, a 47 floor, modern concrete and steel structure, was not hit by a plane when it fell into its own footprint on 9/11 and 19 Arabs with box-cutters could not bring it down, no matter their connections to Saudi government personas and intelligence agencies. Likely what actually happened was, there WERE some Saudi government connected guys, training while planning to fly SMALL PLANES into some symbolic targets and this entrapment was created and manipulated along the lines of the infamous COINTELPRO by intelligence agencies who then ‘hijacked’ the plan for propaganda purposes; when 19 Arabs ended up ‘holding the bag’ for way bigger guys with a much bigger plan; in effect initiating what would become the Dick Cheney staging of America’s Reichstag Fire. [4]
Updated on 12 September 2021, reflecting the USA’s DoJ appears to be pursuing a dishonest line when proclaiming the ‘Saudi government didn’t do it’ with the initial document release, which is technically correct but, the avenue to go there will be (already is) misleading and covers the actual perpetrators tracks. The USA official line will not deviate from the ’19 Arabs with box-cutters.’ So, where do those infamous “28 Pages” (of misdirection) stand now? Nothing really changes. [5]
Stay tuned as the official bs propaganda exercise develops.
A former Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence for Special Forces, Ronald Thomas West is a retired investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption. Ronald had lived over thirty years in close association with Blackfeet Indians (those who still speak their language), and is published in international law as a layman: The Right of Self- Determination of Peoples and It’s Application to Indigenous People in The USA or The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole. Ronald has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s formal educational background (no degree) is social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire.
So, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to drop criminal investigation into Burisma (had the prosecutor fired) that would (almost certainly) have implicated his kid (and himself for using the power of his office) in a typical politically corrupt get rich(er) quick scheme.
Then, Trump had the audacity to pressure Ukraine to reopen the investigation as a campaign tactic, and according to the morons pushing this s**t through the House of Representatives, this is an impeachable offense. So, we have a scenario where one corrupt moron, that is Trump (and Republican minions) is up against another corrupt moron, that is Biden (and Democratic minions), in a USA elections season and there is absolutely nothing new under the sun in this circumstance of dirty tricks except the degraded mentalities exposed in present process.
“The Committee intends this hearing to serve as an opportunity to discuss the historical and constitutional basis of impeachment, as well as the Framers’ intent and understanding of terms like ‘high crimes and misdemeanors”
Now, a hearing is set to determine just what, if anything that has turned up, is impeachable according to the Constitution’s framers intent and examination of precedent. Maybe we could have been spared all of this s**t if every ballot in the USA was required to have a ‘none of the above’ category and Americans were no longer bound to the ‘hold your nose and vote’ phenomenon in our several elections’ exercise of civic duty.
But we haven’t been spared.
Insofar as precedent, it should be argued on behalf of Trump’s ‘innocence’ that, dirty tricks related to fascist-type behaviors are part & parcel of the American republic’s electioneering since the beginning. In a historical context, what is going on today is little different to what was happening during the election of 1800 … one need only substitute France for Russia and the Alien and Sedition Acts for the Patriot Act, whip up public hysteria and wellah: Maria Butina would be a native of Paris.
Now, let’s replace Donald Trump with Thomas Jefferson and watch “Shifty Schiff”, Jerrold Nadler and Nancy Pelosi use Jefferson’s erection like a pole vaulter’s stick; over the election campaign season of 1800 revelation Jefferson had been in what amounted to a longtime rape relationship with his slave Sally Hemmings. Not going to impeach Trump over his many years association with Jeffery Epstein? Why not? Because that would drag in Bill Clinton? Well, they didn’t impeach Jefferson…
Relevant to this, if ‘Blow-job Bill’ couldn’t be convicted for putting his dick into skank Lewinsky’s mouth, it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort. Since we’re dealing with matters of law and precedent, let me offer a tip to our neo-Roman senate in present circumstance; the great missed opportunity of 1999 was, no one of our senators had the creative genius to move for dismissal of charges “with prejudice” by pointing out that if ‘servicing a cocksucker’ were raised to level of a ‘high misdemeanor’, it should become exceedingly difficult to find anyone qualified to hold the office. Chief Justice Rehnquist would then have had opportunity to rule ‘servicing a cocksucker’, if not ‘natural’ law, is nevertheless so widespread as to determine ‘servicing a cocksucker’ must be part and parcel of the American social & political fabric; thereby forever cementing Congress’ relationship to lobbyists. This should have spared us all the lying corporate voyeurism of ‘Citizens United’ having done exactly that.
The Logic Behind The American Vote – Some toilet paper is scented. Most toilet paper is flushed. It follows, some flushed toilet paper will smell good:
Then, the election season of 1860 should be examined, particularly the Republican nominating convention at Chicago. The Native American (Ojibwe) root word “chicag” in ‘Chicago’ translates variously (depending on context) as “foul”, “stinks”, “skunk”, or “ass grease.” It is this last among the other nominal American political pleasantries, which should give you all the picture of just what went on in the Chicago convention’s bending over of William Seward when nominating Abraham Lincoln:
“Lincoln’s men left no detail unattended … They printed hundreds of counterfeit tickets and distributed them to Lincoln supporters with instructions to show up early – in order to displace Seward’s supporters … One thousand Seward men [delegates] marched behind a smartly uniformed brass band. They wound their way noisily through Chicago’s streets, playing the song “Oh, Isn’t He a Darling?” and finally arrived triumphantly in front of the Wigwam [convention center.] To their horror, they found that they could not get in: the Lincoln men, admitted with their counterfeit tickets, had taken their seats”
The preceding clearly wasn’t an impeachable offense, of course, setting historical precedent for Hillary’s dirty tricks in the 2016 election season concerning the Democratic National Committee’s un-elected super-delegates sinking Bernie Sanders, which had been essentially the same behavior. It follows, in a classic misdirection, we can blame all of that Hillary s**t on Russia according to our lying corporate media and current Congress who no doubt would claim (in today’s political climate) Russia had corrupted Andrew Johnson over a ‘deal’ for Alaska (Johnson’s 1868 impeachable offense actually was his unforgivable Tennessee drawl.)
So, going to the illustration at the top, it would appear Trump’s authentic ‘impeachable offense’ is an incomprehensible and false (Steele Dossier), but nevertheless alleged treasonous ‘man love’ for Russia and Russians whipped up in corporate media, never-mind the actual charges are Trump daring point out the very real Biden corruption, because Trump has already been tried and convicted in the public forum for his ‘man love.’
And especially, never-mind Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, point man on the Ukraine-Biden-Bursima quid pro quo, had his New York City disaster headquarters located in World Trade Center Building 7, an imploded structure determined by independent university study NOT to have been brought down according to the official version of events:
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building”
19 Arabs with box cutters didn’t (actually couldn’t) do that. Read at the university website and draw the correct conclusions for yourself:
Yo! Schiff! Nadler! Pelosi! What’s up with that s**t?! No impeachable ‘follow the money’ trail associated with the 9/11 “high crimes” coverup? Erstwhile NYC Mayor Giuliani is Trump’s personal attorney in play here.
Oh, and that can have nothing to do with Trump’s previous personal attorney (off record) job description:
“Cohn’s job was to run the little boys. Say you had an admiral, a general, a congressman, who did not want to go along with the program. Cohn’s job was to set them up, then they would go along”
No impeachable scent to follow there. Never mind Trump personal attorney Roy Cohn’s ‘black book’ was essentially the forerunner to Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘black book’, sharing many names, suddenly recalling (again!) ‘Blow-job Bill’ (just won’t go away) and his many trips on Epstein’s jet. No Democratic impeachment effort should dare go there!
Well, this could go on but I’ve been preoccupied recently with chronicling my Native American experience and this is what I’ll be returning to shortly (the Indian stuff) but meanwhile I can’t help amalgamating a couple of Cree x an Ojibwe word (there IS a precedent at Rocky Boy’s Chippewa-Cree Indian reservation) … winkches-winctagay-chicag* or roughly translated, nearly pidgin slang: ‘this ass-grease looks and smells bad’ which more or less covers the boys on either side of the controversy. But I just can’t come up with adequately disgusting native language words in translation that describes Capitol Hill’s ‘Necromancy Nancy’ Pelosi’s many years’ dead corpse, dressed & made up in anime style, not to mention ‘law & order’ Camela Harris! Why can’t she bring this s**t up?
Camela’s pretty eyes
* My apologies to any Cree language fluent reader here; for the non standard phonetic spelling (native humor excuses the content ; )
My, how quickly camels disappear into oblivion, it was something like two days after this satire posted, Camela Harris quit the race –
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building”
The first university (4 years) study concluding a “global failure” with the characteristic of “near-simultaneous failure” of every structural column in World Trade Center Building 7 points to one conclusion: A controlled demolition because the only earthquake in New York City on 9/11 was the lie of who did it and how it happened. Read about the preliminary conclusions for yourself:
Recalling Robert McFarlane, Ronald Reagan’s National Security Adviser, had been working for Israeli intelligence [1], there is practically no position in American government cannot be construed to be at risk of penetration and compromise via MOSSAD & AIPAC. How this might play in the events of 9/11 is open to conjecture; Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister on 9/11, was a man possessed of the necessary character to murder three thousand people in a gambit to get the USA to fight Israel’s wars, this much is clear. Whether MOSSAD had co-opted enough key people in the USA security apparatus to bring it off, is not. At odds with the Israelis’ initiating the attacks is the fact of Dick Cheney ordering the New York area air defense shut down for the morning of 11 September, while a ‘coincidental’ exercise was to be run simulating a ‘terrorist attack’ with jet liners crashing into New York sky-scrapers. Could Cheney’s team all have been Israeli assets? It seems unlikely. On the other hand, it is classic Israeli style to use their enemies, wherever possible, to take care of their most dirty work. And America is LIKUD’s enemy in a cold political calculation. Related to this, however MOSSAD and Saudi intelligence might cooperate in common geopolitical interests, most certainly Israel and Saudi Arabia are not friends. Utilizing al-Qaida as a front to initiate the attacks, or utilizing Saudis as patsies for a false-flag ‘terrorist’ attack, either one, is consistent with Israeli style; in the past MOSSAD has laundered operations through the PLO for purpose of everything from terrorism for propaganda purposes, to political murders. A second or alternative possibility is the Israelis duping the USA’s people into assisting with their operation. The Israelis may have/had the necessary access and certainly the motivation; whereas the Americans have repeatedly demonstrated they are guilty of that particular brand of hubris that is blinding. Another possible scenario is the USA’s geopolitical intelligence engineers having penetrated an Israeli operation and opened doors for the 9/11 actors, basically rolling out the red carpet for an Israeli run operation, unbeknownst to the Israelis, a covert co-option if you will. A fourth possibility is an Israeli-American joint venture (I lean towards this.) A fifth possibility is the Bush criminal syndicate responsible for 9/11, taking care to frame the Israelis in case the operation were to unravel. In any of these hypothesis, Rudy Guiliani (Trump’s private lawyer) having located his disaster headquarters in WTC Building 7, is key.
What’s almost certain is, Al-Qaida was a minor actor, a dupe and cover story, and was not primarily responsible for 9/11. Insofar as responsibility & accountability, there is none. These agencies or actors, with the likely exception of al-Qaida, would have access to tactical nuclear weapons or ‘suitcase nukes’ for purpose of false-flag terrorism, were it to come to the likes of a Bibi Netanyahu, or Bush family & Robert Gates’ associated Iran-Contra minions determination to up the ante as opposed to face accountability (noting Iran-Contra personalities have their fingerprints all over the USA security apparatus during the Bush Jr administration, 9/11 and coverup, recalling Iran-Contra was a joint MOSSAD-CIA operation.)
Current report on MOSSAD penetration of nearly every aspect of the American security apparatus (it is quite a lengthy but meticulously researched and documented investigative report) at Mint Press News
The question lurking behind this satire is; if Wikileaks is in a position to crush ‘the Russians did it’ DNC bs, why haven’t they? Because Assange is more important than pulling the rug out from the morons in DC using the patent ‘hack’ bullshit to jack geopolitical rivalry and tensions with Russia, incredibly, dangerously high? Craig Murray needs to come clean –
Craig Murray
(& result of the moron-o-meter exam)
I’d perused the Wikispooks biography page on Craig Murray [1] and noticed a few things. Craig Murray insists he has lived…
“as a dissident where I have devoted my life to exposing, and trying to counter, the evil of the neo-conservative policy pursued by our political class at the behest of the corporations who fund them. I have suffered a huge loss in money, status and most of the other normal aspirations. But what I have gained is invaluable. I have respect and love, while Blair and Straw will forever be despised”
Well, Craig, as much as I despise the neoliberals Blair and Straw and their neoliberal policies, you certainly don’t have my respect and love. Notice the first symptom of a personality flaw: the cultural imperative where drive to wealth and status is a “normal aspiration.” I very much doubt Murray has preserved his original working class dialect for everyday use. In Britain, the first words out of one’s mouth typically identifies a person’s class affiliation.
Handicapped by upper class aspirations = minus one point.
Doesn’t know the difference between a neoconservative & a neoliberal = minus one point.
“Following publication of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on the CIA’s Use of Torture in December 2014, Craig Murray said “Can I just say how pleasant it is to be vindicated ten years after being sacked by Jack Straw for opposing the torture and extraordinary rendition programme – which Blair and Straw claimed I was inventing.” In an audio interview on 12 December 2014, Craig Murray recounted his experience to Scottish journalist and broadcaster Derek Bateman examining the legacy of Labour in a week when revelations about state-sanctioned torture by the CIA under Bush/Cheney further threaten the reputation of the Blair government” -Wikispooks
…Murray’s ‘pleased to be vindicated’ based on a calculated whitewash report where CIA complicity in a far wider legacy of kidnapping to torture had been glossed over is hardly the stuff of playing hardball against the team of criminals. Murray should have done the math; 119 prisoners (the report’s numbers) renditioned to black sites versus eleven thousand identified renditions plane flights just doesn’t add up [2]
Sucked up an establishment produced, deliberate whitewash of CIA renditions = minus one point.
Murray believes in virgin birth, the tooth fairy and the patent nonsense World Trade Center Building 7 died of fright on 9/11, no matter thousands of professionals with understanding of steel & concrete structures conclude there was at least one, indisputable, professionally engineered building demolition at WTC on 9/11 [3]
“Craig Murray announced in 2010 that he would summarily remove any comments about 9/11 from his website, stating his own position that “I do not believe that the US government, or any of its agencies, were responsible for 9/11. It would just need too many people to be involved. Someone would have objected”” -Wikispooks
Cowardly aversion to ‘conspiracy theorist’ label = minus one point.
Murray is a professionally trained diplomat but not a spook. This is clear on more than one point (see a second point in his Wikileaks interactions) and this one goes to Murray’s rank fail on how spy agencies propagandize their own people with false intelligence reports when backstopping lies via a technique called “eyewash” [4], [5]
“Craig Murray has publicly supported the Al Jazeera documentary, “Lockerbie: What Really Happened?” which concluded that the Lockerbie bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by the PFLP-GC, with help from Hezbollah, and if Libya had a role, it was secondary. Murray blogged that “The information on Lockerbie published in today’s Daily Mail from an Iranian defector, matches precisely what I was shown in a secret intelligence report in the FCO just around the time of the first Iraq war. It was decided that this would be kept under wraps because the West needed Iran and Syria’s quiescence in the attack on Iraq”” -Wikispooks
Yo, Craig, wake-up call, your Iranian defector likely took MI6 script matching your own case of eyewash (backstopped the lie you’d been fed), the Pan Am 103 bombing easily should be a reprise of the murder of Dag Hammarskjold, only in this case was Britain and South Africa’s intelligence services execution of Bernt Carlsson who’d been preparing prosecution of Her Majesty’s government yellow cake trafficking [6], [7]
Does Her Majesty a favor with an eyewash blind spot = minus one point
And finally we have Stickyleaks…
“I took half an hour out yesterday from building the Doune the Rabbit Hole site to take part in a worldwide broadcast in support of Julian Assange. You can see me here on YouTube from 3 hours and 43 minutes in, though you may prefer to watch Slavoj Zizek who is on just before me ❤️❤️❤️
“The fact that I could broadcast video to people all over the world from a beautiful but remote field in the shadow of the Trossachs, via a mobile phone connection, is an example of just why the state and corporate media can no longer dominate the narrative with their propaganda. That is the main subject of my brief talk” craigmurray.org.uk July 2018 [8]
Ok, so Craig Murray, who has all but admitted he met with Seth Rich in the DNC leaks case (probably to verify the authenticity of the mails prior to Wikileaks paying cash to Rich, not to be the conduit) and possibly (very likely) as a surveilled high profile associate of Wikileaks got Rich identified as the DNC source, causing Rich to be assassinated (a trained spook uses a cut out to prevent just this sort of scenario)…
“I know who leaked them. I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things” -Craig Murray
…somehow doesn’t understand (cannot connect the dots) the fact Julian Assange was a critical gear in the intelligence agency (primarily CIA & MOSSAD) information operations responsible for the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ … leading to not only revolution and counter-revolution in Egypt but also the overthrow of Gaddafi and the Syrian ‘civil war.’ How does Craig Murray, when evangelizing with his perception of Assange as a hero, drive that square peg into the round hole of Wikileaks supported the intelligence agency geopolitical engineering called the Arab Spring? [9], [10], [11]
Failed basic espionage 101 by meeting directly with a Wikileaks source = minus one point
Doesn’t understand how organizations like Wikileaks serve intelligence agencies’ interests as in the case of the Arab Spring = minus one point
Narcissistic infatuation with Assange sans perspective, together with not interfered with in his electronic communications by intelligence agencies (allowed at youtube) because he’s actually not a threat as much as a manipulated stooge resulting in a limited hangout = minus one point:
^ MI6 profile of Murray’s ‘intelligence’ maturity level
Minus eight points on a scale of zero to minus eight, the geopolitical moron-o-meter determines a result of profoundly retarded:
Before I head out on summer break, I have a small chore has been pending for a month or so; pointing out the ‘who-what-why‘ of Russ Baker is a ‘limited hangout.’ I didn’t need to write this piece, but there’s a point to be made; the impunity of the little people or one could say the Russ Bakers of this world, is of a fundamentally different quality than the impunity of the big people, for instance the Dick Cheneys of this world.
I had pointed out to Russ he is a “coward” and for whatever reasons, that had gotten under his skin (probably because it is a correct observation, we’ll come to that), and he retorted with calling me a “little shit.” Now, this “little shit” name calling business is the impunity of someone who is small, but that’s ok, the impunity of someone big wouldn’t have bothered with the small talk, they’d just send a hit-man (or hit-woman as the case might be), been there already, more than a few times, this one is dead and there’s a few more departed I’d not written about yet. Now, so long as Russ Baker confines himself to what amounts to a self-imposed limited hangout, his coward’s self-advocacy won’t have a lot to worry about beyond being embarrassed at a few things this “little shit” is about to point out.
To begin, we look at the fact Russ Baker belongs to a culture incompatible with its pretensions; that is to say it is perfectly natural he wouldn’t notice contradictions in his presentations. Here we have:
Baker and associates’ reporting is “rigorous, relentless, and scientific” … “a determination to unearth the facts interested parties want to keep hidden; and an unflinching commitment to follow the trail wherever it leads” … “We take on controversial topics others will not touch and dig deep to uncover and name the institutions shaping our world”
But then suddenly Whoa! Dial it back!
“I … did not mention it. “…I worried about whether the mainstream media would even dare cover it or review it fairly; … in that context the Hinckley-Bush connection seemed one provocation too far”
So, Russ Baker knows a who, believes in a what, is male and ostensibly has balls but we have to presume he doesn’t know why. Translated; ‘I’m so concerned about my reputation with mainstream and not wanting to be labeled a mental whack-job, I can’t bring myself to actually get the facts out until those facts are such old doughnuts, the most desperately obese cop wouldn’t find them appetizing’
Well, sadly for Russ, his reputation with mainstream is already shambles:
“Baker has abandoned the mainstream media and become a key player on the fringe, walking that murky line between conventional investigative journalist and wild-eyed conspiracy theorist”
So, Russ-Dude, what’s the point of giving political fellatio to mainstream? Oh but ‘we’ can hide behind ‘science’ and retain some semblance of credibility, right? Yeah, like that’ll get the Boston Magazine’s heart cockles all warm and fuzzy, enough to someday give you a Robert Bly man-hug. Science is as political as any field on this planet and resembles nothing so much as a religion with a dogma, but don’t tell anyone in ‘mainstream’ anthropology that science points to people have been in the Americas for 40,000 years, because it just doesn’t work for people who cling to incestuous ivory tower narrative.
Russ Baker, scientist extraordinary
Oh, but ‘anthropology’ (like social psychology, journalism & intelligence) is a ‘soft’ science. It follows, in a world where it can be stated a billion people believe in virgin birth, Russ Baker will settle for nothing less than the resurrection of Frank Lloyd Wright to give ‘scientific’ weight to 3,000 or so professionally trained architects and engineers who’ve stated it was professional demolition brought down certain buildings on 9/11. This much is clear because in our conversation Russ Baker demanded a well known ‘name’ where socialization requires mainstream fellators such as Russ Baker and anyone who works at United Laboratories never subject themselves to the CIA invented ‘conspiracy theorist’ label, risk their reputations and buck peer pressure meant precisely to deter from examining the facts. Let’s try a common sense visual instead:
Here is a steel reinforced concrete structure that had experienced multiple column failures (Northridge earthquake) and did not entirely collapse into a single pile of rubble and dust. Now, the self-described “agnostic” on 9/11, Russ Baker, with his “unflinching commitment to follow the trail wherever it leads” and “take on controversial topics others will not touch” has run scared from Dick Cheney’s Reichstag fire and the fact WTC Building 7 could not have crumbled into a pile of rubble and dust from a single column failure, something he should have known for at least 7 years. How do I know this? Well, it was pretty easy to determine from the tiniest bit of research following my conversation with Russ, a conversation I will be happy to append to this article if anyone can convince Russ Baker to give permission to publish our email exchange:
Finally, applying the folk wisdom ‘it takes one to know one’ principle, this “little shit” can state Russ Baker is (quote me) a “chicken shit” (chicken shits are pretty small) who won’t take on the contemporary dirty deeds of the Bush crime syndicate because of who? What? Why? Afraid of that heart attack inducing needle prick? Silenced bullet? Poison pellet? Their competence isn’t always spot-on Russ, a sound fact from this “little shit”
*
A former Special Forces Sergeant of Operations and Intelligence, Ronald Thomas West is a retired paralegal/investigator (living in exile) whose work focus had been anti-corruption and human rights. Ronald is published in International Law as a layman (The Mueller-Wilson Report, co-authored with Dr Mark D Cole) and has been adjunct professor of American Constitutional Law at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany (for English credit, summer semester 2008.) Ronald’s educational background is developmental & social psychology. His therapeutic device is satire.
Before we delve into the dilemma of twin valid but seeming mutually exclusive realities, it does to examine reality itself as a mutating phenomenon. To begin, I’ll point to experience of my own; an inability to recapture in virtual reality [on the internet] a clear image I recall from youtube some 8 to 9 or so years ago. There was a reasonable video in good resolution, not high definition when close-up, but good enough the party who’d uploaded it was able to zoom in [expand] the shot several times and freeze frame it. What the closest frozen [now a still] shot created demonstrated was, so-called ‘Flight 175’ had 1) a pod, clearly a pod, attached using pylon(s), to the right underside of 2) a cargo jet (no row of passenger windows.) It must have been taken down quickly, I couldn’t find it again although I recall trying to find it shortly after; and these days, searching the net, there is no such footage, in fact what footage there is, is entirely different angle and poor resolution…
…the footage I’d seen was from entirely different location or behind Flight 175 looking head on into the south tower, with no commentary and no attribution. But the above ‘extra equipment’ segment from ‘The Ripple Effect’ is still worth a watch.
Did I actually see what I remember? I have no reason to doubt the veracity of my memory but should question myself nonetheless and can easily project others would have doubts. This recalls Thomas Paine:
“It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication — after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him”
Whether you should believe as I have related is entirely up to you. Insofar as questioning myself, did I dream it? Many people have difficulty distinguishing between something similar to ‘dream’ (memories playing tricks on us) from ‘reality’ and illusionists play on this frailty of human psychology everyday. Intelligence agencies have entire departments devoted to manipulating peoples’ reality by exploiting this phenomenon.
But then, there are so-called ‘evidence based’ realities where facts are, or have been, close at hand with interpretations by multiple professionals, and these professionals have considered the ‘evidence’ in concert with the other professionals (in the same or closely related field) who place similar values or interpretations on the same or related evidence, to arrive at a consensus. This is not necessarily reality per se but is a form of creating collective reality more or less specific to that group and for those outside the group which embrace that particular group’s findings.
So, what then, when two groups of highly trained professionals, from very different fields, look at a macro-body of evidence and come to startlingly different conclusions? Seeming mutually exclusive conclusions? It happens. And it happens to groups of intelligent people.
Now, when a group of intelligence and law enforcement professionals are convinced al-Qaida, based on what they know to be sound evidence with multiple confirming sources, flew planes into the twin towers, and a group of architects and engineers, based on what they know to be sound evidence, confirmed by multiple engineering principles, are convinced plane strikes are not what brought the towers down and consequently box-cutter wielding Arabs could not have been responsible for 9/11, what is happening?
To begin, innate primate behavior (humans are primates and anthropologists see this same behavior in our closely related chimps) demands each group’s social cohesion be preserved. Accordingly, both groups have staked out their territory and there is little trespassing. In this case, there is also little cross-cultural examination, shared between the groups, precluding common undertaking of resolving the competing portraits of the 911 event. Without this opportunity at ‘brain-storming’ what the actual issues might be, there is stasis.
However ‘intelligence’ is the ‘softer’ science than engineers relying on principles of physics, with much greater risk the interpretations could be off-mark, no matter behavior profiles, multiple sources and wiretaps point to the ‘Arabs’ (primarily Saudis) as the responsible parties. With this in mind, it is interesting to deconstruct a relevant portion of Thomas Drake’s interview (transcript at the link) with Paul Jay and the Real News:
The Man Who Presumed Too Much?
Playing on the Real News title ‘the man who knew too much’, we’ll look at some unscientific assumptions made by Drake, but first I’ll give a short summary of this portion of the interview (video, above.) It is established that, prior to 911, there was adequate intelligence to round up key al-Qaida players who were established (beyond a reasonable doubt) to have communications with al-Qaida (central) abroad, as well Saudi intelligence, and were training to fly planes. It is also established that Dick Cheney had ordered the intelligence agencies (including FBI) NOT to focus on terrorism. More than this, Cheney had established his own clandestine back channels, within the American intelligence apparatus, to independently know what was happening even as he took action to ‘kneecap’ those very intelligence services ability to perform their respective missions via normal channels. As well, Drake asserts Cheney utilized this undermining of intelligence to allow 9/11 be brought off. Now…
JAY: Same thing. Coleen Rowley I’ve interviewed. And maybe we’ll link to her interview so you can find them as we’re doing this. She said in the interview, ’cause I asked her a somewhat similar question, she said the FBI was specifically told, don’t prioritize terrorism, by Cheney. That was actual instructions, that this is not the priority of our administration, which is part of why she says they couldn’t get the FBI’s attention, to really pay attention to what they had found in Minneapolis.
…Paul Jay backs a Drake assertion but Drake replies with patent absurdity…
DRAKE: That still doesn’t matter, though. I realize that’s a huge factor in terms of saying it isn’t, but you’re obligated under the Constitution to provide for the common defense. If you have information that rises to a level that says something is happening and it’s going to be really bad, you’ve got to share it, you’ve got to bring in the key people, you’ve got to take action to prevent it. That’s the whole point. Now, if you–I have argued this. I’ve said this before. That whole process was subverted by Cheney and company.
…what Drake has just done is to hold a technocratic assemblage, built on bureaucratic principle, to a high constitutional ideal that doesn’t so much as exist outside of his own head in the intelligence agency environment; necessarily overlooking 1) the so-called National Security Act of 1947 had become foundation that saw built 2) a ‘color of law’ scheme where a now patently faux constitutional order is become artificial or thespian event for 3) a consolidation of fascism of which the NSA is a structural prop. Demanding (this was Snowden’s misapprehension as well) technocrats in such an environment be constitutionally literate and motivated to a degree they can over-ride instructions with ideals their employment had been designed to subvert from the get-go, is more than a peculiar narcissism, it is oxymoron.
Now, the presumption just gets worse. The new ‘Pearl Harbor’ Cheney desired, to consolidate power in the executive office, is somehow going to take an ‘unknown form’ but recall Drake himself doesn’t seem to realize the NSA itself is part and parcel of the anti-constitutional order:
DRAKE: So the system–what I’m saying: the system itself was essentially set aside. The secret channels were the ones that were utilized. And they [Cheney’s people] knew much better than anybody else that something big was going to happen. They didn’t actually know exact time or date. There was actually more than just passing evidence that they’d [al-Qaida] wanted to do what ultimately happened much earlier. They just weren’t able to make it all happen. We know about all the test flights…”
How is it Drake can, in certain terms, state Cheney’s people didn’t know what or when, only they waited for something big? Because Cheney said so? Certainly Cheney has not. This is a PRESUMPTION. But because Drake is a ‘constitutional narcissist’ (read the entire series transcripts) as opposed to a realist that should be able to step out of his bubble of perception and understand his National Security Agency is, in and of itself, a structure antithetical to constitutional order; his ability to grasp what is actually happening would in any case suffer severe perceptual strictures. Recalling we have (these days) a few thousand architects and engineers have been willing to stick their necks out and dispute planes brought down the twin towers on 9/11, what should Drake have been looking at in relation to the known facts of al-Qaida learning to fly planes and Cheney providing the same cover?
Likely (almost certainly, in this investigator’s mind) it went down something like this: al-Qaida believed they would be able to target, with small planes, American symbols like the Oval Office or other highly symbolic targets but actually had been set up as a patsy for “The Enterprise”, also pulling in Bandar bin Sultan and the Saudis, as further insurance, with the so-called ‘28 pages‘ pointing away from the real culprits. Meanwhile, these next paragraphs by Mark Gorton are a good match to events set out in my own work, the excellent work of Jeff Sharlet, and the work of a Pentagon liaison to the CIA, L Fletcher Prouty:
“George H. W. Bush was such a pivotal deep politician because he bridged two separate worlds. He was a deep CIA insider, a lifelong intelligence operative, and he also came from an elite family and was intimately tied to the East Coast business elite. His father, Prescott, had been managing partner at the Wall Street investment bank Brown Brothers Harriman and also a US Senator. The Bush and Rockefeller families were very close. George H.W.’s grandfather Samuel had been business partners with John D. Rockefeller’s brother, and over the generation the Bush and Rockefeller clans had remained close. Empowered with these dual networks, George H. W. Bush could work within the dark nether-realms of the intelligence community, as well as, the Republican power elite
“Despite his decades long involvement as a deep CIA insider, Bush was falsely brought in as an outsider who could reform the CIA. Bush’s real job was to staunch the flow of secrets out of the CIA and prevent the exposure of the truly explosive evil truths of the now multiple Coups d’état executed by the CIA.
“The Enterprise was a massive 5000 person large hierarchical criminal organization with George H. W. Bush as its CEO. The Enterprise was a multifaceted criminal conglomerate that ran a large number of criminal activities including: drug trafficking, arms trafficking, savings and loan fraud, securities fraud, oil and gas fraud, insurance fraud, and real estate fraud. Embedded within the national security infrastructure and protected from prosecution by corrupted enforcement agencies like the SEC, FBI, DEA, ATF, etc., The Enterprise embarked on a massive criminal romp.
“I have seen no evidence directly linking George H.W. (Poppy) Bush directly to the 9/11 attacks, but just as physicists can detect the presence of a black hole by the actions of other bodies around it, so the massive force of George H. W. Bush in the 9/11 op can be inferred. Many people extremely close to Poppy Bush were actively involved in the 9/11 op, including: his son oldest son, George W. Bush; his youngest son, Marvin Bush; Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Prince Bandar, the Iran Contra network, and the BCCI network.” –Mark Gorton
Yet to be determined is Mossad’s role, but we know these groups, The Enterprise and MOSSAD, both, are infected with radical, apocalyptic-messianic forms of Zionism (see the Doug Coe link at this article’s conclusion and the linked “related” section beneath that.)
Meanwhile, here’s a large jet plane flown by remote control (video) (story) in 1984:
Screenshot; plane taking off, flown remotely:
Screenshot; pilot remotely flying the large jet:
Now, considering the hard science of a few thousand architects and engineers (2,963 as of this composition) disputing planes brought down the towers, would it matter whether I recall correctly the (now non-existent) video of a cargo jet, with pod attached, dreamt it up or even lied about what I began this article with? Or, is that a wrong question? None of the preceding would cancel the hard science disputing Arabs with box cutters brought down the towers. Shouldn’t the question rather be what is high profile whistle-blower Thomas Drake’s (and not only Drake’s) mental state; in circumstance the intelligence professional cannot see through their own technocratic culture’s myopia and narcissistic bias?
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn’t fit in with the core belief” -Frantz Fannon
Lastly, do NOT miss the significance of this photo of George H.W. Bush with his (and his son’s) spiritual guru:
“You know Jesus said ‘You got to put Him before mother-father-brother sister? Hitler, Lenin, Mao, that’s what they taught the kids. Mao even had the kids killing their own mother and father. But it wasn’t murder. It was for building the new nation. The new kingdom” –Doug Coe
“I would … like to single out Doug Coe, who has been such a guiding light in all of this” –George W Bush
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Related:
America’s Deep State (a foundational history of the George H.W. Bush criminal cabal within the USA’s structure)
Sociopaths & Democracy (a wider, updated view of the George H.W. Bush conceived-chapter of our “Deep State”)
Deep State V (economics & counter-insurgency, the war-profiteering cycle enriching America’s present day Deep State players)
Profits of War (assessment illustrated via Iran-Contra, projected to 9/11, Israeli cooperation with a cell of ‘The Enterprise’ or the CIA operational sector, historically a George H.W. Bush fan club)
I watched the second plane strike live on tv, and since, had seen zoomed in footage (from much closer & different angle) of a cargo model jet dressed up (painted) like a passenger jet hitting the building. This plane had a ‘pod’ attached to its underside, I’ve not seen in any commercial plane model, passenger or cargo, before or since. For myself, when it comes to our government’s ‘stories’ and the same endlessly repeated in the western democracies commercial news, nothing will ever be seen the same; meanwhile a couple thousand trained architects and engineers see things differently too:
“On September 11, 2001, the three worst structural failures in modern history took place when World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2, and 7 suffered complete and rapid destruction.
“In the aftermath of the tragedy, most members of the architecture and engineering community, as well as the general public, assumed that the buildings’ destruction had occurred as a result of the airplane impacts and fires. This view was reinforced by subsequent federal investigations, culminating in FEMA’s 2002 Building Performance Study and in the 2005 and 2008 reports by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
“Since 9/11, however, independent researchers around the world have assembled a large body of evidence that overwhelmingly refutes the notion that airplane impacts and fires caused the destruction of the Twin Towers and WTC 7. This body of evidence, most of which FEMA and NIST omitted from their reports, instead supports the troubling conclusion that all three skyscrapers were destroyed in a process known as “controlled demolition,” where explosives and/or other devices are used to bring down a building”
The preceding (italicized) from Architects & Engineers for 9-11 Truth. Follows is my own article from 2013:
Fear of Minor Debris
If you can wrap your head around the fact over 2,200 certified architects & engineers have directly disputed the official report on 9/11, that’s a good start. Now, consider what happened to a 47 story steel & concrete modern structure on the afternoon of 9/11.
No plane hit Building 7, only minor debris
Building 7 is the only modern steel structure in the world purportedly brought down by minor fire, compared to other steel structures surviving much larger & more intense fires.
The 1,500 professionally trained architects & engineers who dispute the government’s WTC Building 7 collapse explanation (above video) has grown to 2,200 professionally trained architects & engineers who dispute the government’s WTC Building 7 collapse explanation (below video)
And an entirely independent BYU scientist draws identical conclusion:
And the highest ranking former intelligence officer yet to speak out on what’s wrong with the 9/11 picture, Major General Stubblebine:
Then, a five minute explanation of about 10% of what’s wrong with the ‘official’ 9/11 account:
If that gets your interest, at Asia Times there is an exclusive investigative report on 9/11 related ‘put options’ or “insider trading” based on advance knowledge of the attack.
With this evidence, people should look more closely at what had happened on 9/11:
And a big question has remained swept under the rug; how is it several of the supposed ‘hijackers’ subsequently appear to have turned up alive?
“Of the 19 identities assigned by the FBI to the alleged suicide hijackers of the four commandeered jetliners, at least six have been disputed”
Did stolen passports provide their identity? We now know this has been an Israeli method, since a blown operation in Dubai:
“Six more innocent Britons were thrust into the international murder plot of a Hamas leader after it emerged yesterday that their identities had also been stolen. The revelation means at least 12 British identities were cloned to carry out the audacious hit on Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Dubai police yesterday identified 15 new suspects over the attack at a luxury hotel, bringing the total number to 26. The assassination, which bears all the hallmarks of a spy novel, is widely believed to be the work of Israel’s feared secret service Mossad”
Perhaps the preceding article is too friendly to MOSSAD with ‘suspected’, it could be stated with some clarity we know most certainly a fake passport scheme was utilized by MOSSAD, on account of a case in Germany:
“The man, using the name Uri Brodsky, is suspected of working for Mossad in Germany and helping to issue a fake German passport to a member of the Mossad operation that allegedly killed Hamas agent Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, a spokesman for the German federal prosecutor’s office told The Associated Press”
In fact, with intelligence agencies using stolen or fraudulently acquired passports for operations, and with strong circumstantial evidence of 9/11 accused hijackers turning up alive, evidence swept under the carpet rather than thoroughly investigated, the identity of every alleged hijacker can be said to be in doubt. And then we have:
“They [FBI] feel the higher echelons torpedoed the investigation into the Israeli New Jersey cell. Leads were not fully investigated”. Among those lost leads was the figure of Dominik Suter, whom the U.S. authorities apparently never attempted to contact. Intelligence expert and author James Bamford told me there was similar frustration within the CIA: “People I’ve talked to at the CIA were outraged at what was going on. They thought it was outrageous that there hadn’t been a real investigation, that the facts were hanging out there without any conclusion”
And:
“What is perhaps most damning is that the Israelis’ [MOSSAD] celebration on the New Jersey waterfront occurred in the first sixteen minutes after the initial crash, when no one was aware this was a terrorist attack. In other words, from the time the first plane hit the north tower, at 8:46 a.m., to the time the second plane hit the south tower, at 9:02 a.m., the overwhelming assumption of news outlets and government officials was that the plane’s impact was simply a terrible accident. It was only after the second plane hit that suspicions were aroused. Yet if the men were cheering for political reasons, as they reportedly told the FBI, they obviously believed they were witnessing a terrorist act, and not an accident”
With just these few preceding tidbits of verifiable information, the official explanation for 9/11 suddenly seems more far-fetched than those claims of some so-called ‘conspiracy’ theorists:
‘War by Deception’
On top of inaccurate identities, the accepting what appears to be a government claim WTC Building 7 died of fright, and uninvestigated [by law enforcement] insider trading of ‘put options’ demanding 9/11 be pulled off as presently written into the record to make a profit, what more is needed to understand the 9/11 Commission engaged in a whitewash?
Fear, nothing more, prevents solving the mystery of Building 7. Every western industrialized national leader who sits silent on Building 7 intelligence reports contributes to a culture of deceit & cowardice
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My Updated Analysis (notes)
The most likely criminal cabal behind 9/11 finds its roots in the 1980s, when Shimon Peres, with CIA complicity, sought to open a competing channel to arm Iran via the Iran-Contra business model, as noted by Ari Ben Menache’s ‘Profits of War’, and accomplished little more than provide a screen for the 1st (LIKUD aligned MOSSAD) channel; in the event the CIA-MOSSAD joint venture was to spill into the open. It is my opinion this is why George H.W. Bush and Robert Gates’ CIA allowed the 2nd (Peres-Labor) channel to set itself up in business (Reagan’s Vice President Bush had been career CIA and Robert Gates was running the CIA for Bill Casey.) From their point of view, it was a prescient move on account of the difficulty of keeping something as big as this had become, under wraps. In fact, Iran-Contra’s 1st channnel never missed a beat and went on as though the scandal had never broken into the news. What is important to note is, profits from Iran-Contra were funding corrupt political leadership and their programs, in the 1980s, on the Israeli side, Iran Contra was propping up LIKUD and West Bank settlement expansion. On the USA side, Iran-Contra profits was bankrolling the criminal enterprise of the Bush dynasty and associated politics. The cooperation between the intelligence assets on the political right has been longstanding between the American and Israeli entities.
Robert Parry’s journalism notwithstanding, the authentic facts of Iran-Contra were never reported on in mainstream. What had been reported as the most salient facts were essentially a smokescreen. This is reinforced by the fact Newsweek had virulently attacked Ari Ben-Menache’s narrative on publication; not long after presenting Robert Parry’s reporting on Iran-Contra as fact. These are irreconcilable phenomena except in the case of Ben-Menache’s considerably expanded account, undermining the limited picture spoon fed to the public by the press, is correct. The Iran-Contra ‘cover’ story had to be protected, investigations were ongoing and the CIA had engineered damage control. North and Poindexter et al, as complicit and stupid as they were, were nonetheless patsies. Robert Parry’s reporting over the ensuing years reinforces the idea his role, all along, has been that of a disinformation asset, whether willing or unwitting, for the CIA. Parry has moved on to pervert American constitutional history in contradiction of (one could say smearing) the anti-federalists intentions relating to checks on a central government, he had put a lot of energy into being an apologist for the inexcusable Obama (laying blame on neo-cons working for Obama as though Obama were not complicit) and, not least, Parry denies the incontrovertible fact the official 9/11 report white-washed the actual circumstance of the collapse of the twin towers and the several hours later destruction of World Trade Center Building 7 (in the afternoon) of 11 September, 2001.
Recalling Robert McFarlane, Ronald Reagan’s National Security Adviser, had been working for Israeli intelligence, there is practically no position in American government cannot be construed to be at risk of penetration and compromise via AIPAC. How this might play in the events of 9/11 is open to conjecture; Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister on 9/11, was a man possessed of the necessary character to murder three thousand people in a gambit to get the USA to fight Israel’s wars, this much is clear. Whether MOSSAD had co-opted enough key people in the USA security apparatus to bring it off, is not. At odds with the Israelis’ initiating the attacks is the fact of Dick Cheney ordering the New York area air defense shut down for the morning of 11 September, while a ‘coincidental’ exercise was to be run simulating a ‘terrorist attack’ with jet liners crashing into New York sky-scrapers. Could Cheney’s team all have been Israeli assets? It seems unlikely. On the other hand, it is classic Israeli style to use their enemies, wherever possible, to take care of their most dirty work. And America is LIKUD’s enemy in a cold political calculation. Related to this, however MOSSAD and Saudi intelligence might cooperate in common geopolitical interests, most certainly Israel and Saudi Arabia are not friends. Utilizing al-Qaida as a front to initiate the attacks, or utilizing Saudis as patsies for a false-flag ‘terrorist’ attack, either one, is consistent with Israeli style; in the past MOSSAD has laundered operations through the Palestine Liberation Organization for purpose of everything from terrorism for propaganda purposes, to political murders.
An alternative possibility is the Israelis duping the USA’s people into assisting with their operation. The Israelis may have/had the necessary access and certainly the motivation; whereas the Americans have repeatedly demonstrated they are guilty of that particular brand of hubris that is blinding.
Another possible scenario is the USA’s geopolitical intelligence engineers having penetrated an Israeli operation and opened doors for the 9/11 actors, basically rolling out the red carpet for an Israeli run operation, unbeknownst to the Israelis, a covert co-option if you will.
A fourth possibility is a joint venture.
A fifth possibility is the Bush criminal syndicate responsible for 9/11, taking care to frame the Israelis in case the operation were to unravel.
In any of these hypothesis, Rudy Guiliani having located his disaster headquarters in WTC Building 7, is key. Building 7’s demolition can been seen as obliteration of evidence; as it ‘fell down’ on the afternoon of 9/11 and profiles as a deliberately demolished command center.
My own estimation is, based on a history of CIA/MOSSAD cooperation, the fourth and fifth possibilities are most likely, with elements of both integrated to the actual facts. Backstabbing is a common phenomenon in geopolitical dirty play.
What’s almost certain is, the Saudis, no matter how dirty and complicit, were cynically used and Al-Qaida was a minor actor, a dupe and cover story, and was not primarily responsible for 9/11.
Insofar as responsibility & accountability, there is none. These agencies or actors, with the possible exception of al-Qaida, would have access to tactical nuclear weapons or ‘suitcase nukes’ for purpose of false-flag terrorism, were it to come to the likes of a Bibi Netanyahu, or Bush crime syndicate and minions, in effect the associated Doug Coe cult, determinated to up the ante as opposed to face accountability.
That’s where you have Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, and Jeff Sessions, examples given, in the shoes of Dick Cheney, Robert Gates, and John Ashcroft in today’s politic –