Barry | Finding Purpose

The Human Domain

We, humans, hate to be taken advantage of, lied to, manipulated, or defrauded. At the core of a swindle is an abuse of trust, and if we are honest, one of the things that separate us from animals is our ability to trust one another in various ways. Without any trust, we approach a Hobbesian dystopia.

It is generally true that those who have been taken advantage of by another, those who have experienced an abuse of trust are the last to know. Friends and family often suspect infidelity in a relationship long before the aggrieved party acknowledges it. We often simply deny that it is possible that the little voice inside of us is speaking truth. Often, in the denial phase, a person becomes defensive, angry and attacks those that suggest they have been done in.

Common conman swindles, unfaithful relationships, back-biting and gossip, are ordinary and common abuses of trust. It is part of human nature and human existence. Yet, every day some countless number of new victims are created by new scams and lies, often using old and tried techniques. We know the threat is out there yet many of us have been, are, or will be fooled.

All of that, that is just amateur stuff, common ordinary routine things. What of more professional techniques? The sort of things associated with spycraft? How much more powerful, effective, and perhaps undetectable might those be?

In Money, Sex, Power, and Influence I wrote about just that, how people in second and third-order connections to a real professional in the dark arts of grooming and social engineering can be entrapped in a web of fraud and deception and often coaxed into doing the bidding of others – often without even being directly asked. Anyone that believes themselves too smart, or sophisticated, or aware as to be immune is likely a much easier mark than they realize.

If you have ever undergone a security investigation for the US Government you are well aware of the depth and breadth such an investigation can cover. There are excellent reasons for this, as intrusive and daunting as the process can be. Weakness, those pivot points used in an approach exist in us all. One does not have to be a serial gambler with enormous financial problems to be vulnerable. Those sorts of people are the least tantalizing targets for foreign intelligence assets.

How can we Know?

Denial is a sign – a good indicator, not proof.

Law enforcement types, the more jaded among them, often view those that protest their guilt in interrogations as a sign of guilt. A more accurate statement would be those who offer explanations for their innocence ought to be looked at closer. Those that initially scream and yell "I did not do this", that sort is a normal human. But a crime is different than being subject to a swindle or a fraud. One either did or did not do the crime. Being deceived is less first person.

Counter-intelligence investigators expect denial from those ensnared in a foreign intelligence operation. By this, I do not mean those active participants that are no longer unwitting, those that have gone from targets to active participants – that sort of protests much like a guilty murder suspect. Those being groomed and developed, long before the first big ask, these seldom know. Sex is often the prize used, sex sparks emotional connections in most of us, it is powerful. But no matter which of the four prizes, very often approaches and grooming have as an objective to merely bring the target into the orbit of assets or their constructed circle. Not all “asks” are big asks, not all targets are asked to do the big deed, sometimes they merely help build the network that grows the circle of influence.

When CI folks interview individuals that have gotten too close to the fire the standard response is denial, anger, and gaslighting (excuses, denial of obvious facts, and claimed ignorance of anomalies). The targeted individual is lying to themselves almost as much as they are being lied to by the time CI agents pull them in.

Connections, friendships, and associates matter. It is for this reason that security investigations pay a lot of attention to one’s personal network and why high-level clearance holders have to report such things as they change.

All of the above of course applies to foreign intelligence agents, but what if it did not? When you start observing something that looks like a network and there are individuals with knowledge of spycraft involved, there is reason to at least notice that. It is not “nothing”. It does not have to prove anything but it is worth looking at.

If you believe that in 2021 we live in a world and a country where spycraft is not being used domestically to create outcomes, I have wasted your time. We can disagree as to the scale and scope, you may (erroneously) believe it is just “the other side”, we are all entitled to opinions. I suggest it is hard to view the nature of the thing, the methodologies evident and events, and not see much more of this than we wish to.

Media capture is an old intelligence agency trick, it is written into State Department and military manuals. Coopting the media controls the narrative or at least diminishes uncontrolled impacts. Nobody told all of the mainstream media to report a particular way over the last twenty months, nobody controls them. It is not necessary, most have been groomed to be part of various social and professional circles, there are norms expected and variation from those norms results in lost access. It is not rocket science, it is school-yard playground level manipulation, but it works. If you want in, if you want the stories, the access, the promotion, then meter your words.

We blame our problems on tech giants and censorship, and as foreboding as those are, they pale in comparison to old fashion social manipulation and engineering. I have no answers to this. I too would fall prey to this if someone came along and offered me access to things I desire greatly – I am human. We live in a society that looks up to and listens to influencers, not realizing how easily influenced those people are – how quickly their privileged positions could evaporate if they went too far afield.

We cannot do much or anything about the culture of hero-worship we have embraced. There is absolutely nothing we can do to protect our heroes from becoming seduced and very often we have a hard time, collectively, noticing when it happens. Perhaps the only thing we can say to one another is that all of us no matter how far removed from the center of the circle is influenced in some way by deception and manipulation. Don’t be so naive as to believe yourself immune.

Absolute Sabotage Series

It was absolute sabotage! One thing is undeniably true - the activities of a handful of individuals had a significant impact on our election process, our Republic, our future, and ultimately - Truth. Whether you are inclined to believe this was merely a "boomer conspiracy" gone wild - many of the protagonists in the story are over seventy (fabulous stories of super-secret artificial intelligence systems used for nefarious purposes are just the sort of thing we have seen many in that age bracket fall for over the last several years). Or, perhaps you see a series of unlikely coincidences and detect a pattern and see all of this as a long-running plan and conspiracy by a few (a minor part of something larger). Either way, one thing is true - this conspiracy peddling club caused all efforts seeking election integrity after the 2020 election to look like a circus.

Mike Lindell's Cyber Symposium was the climax, a symposium to evaluate data, where no data existed - and the smell of known fraudsters and proven purveyors of lies and absurdities surrounded the entire drama, poisoning it, you almost could not have planned it all any better and perhaps that is the biggest indicator of all.

There are a couple of questions that remain - we will address those in time - but all the relevant pieces of information are out there for any rational person to deduce plausible conclusions. In the big picture, the activities of the fools, liars, charlatans, and conspirators (yes I am convinced), are one minor footnote in the totality of what has and is happened. Their efforts likely mean and ensure we will never have free- and fair elections again because even questioning processes and outcomes look insane now - they all may be minor and insignificant but they had an impact.

Contrary to what many that may write about this subject and argue that it was all one thing - just focus on one thing they will say and never speak of a long line of unlikely coincidences - more than enough "coincidences" in the LEO world to draft a warrant or in my former profession to add someone to a catch and interrogate target list - anyone diminishing the full nature of this simply ought not to be listened to. People, either just ignorant or absolutely nefarious, have voices that influence many others, they used those voices to poison a narrative related to one of our most important processes - that is a fact whether you believe they conspired or stumbled into it, they had a tremendously negative impact either way. If we cannot collectively use discernment, reason, and common sense to see the trees in the forest and figure out those that ought to be cut down, well nothing else really matters. This story, more than anything is one concerning our collective lack of critical thinking and our weakness to the words of sophist and snake oil salesmen.

All the characters in this story matter little - what matters, what really matters is most of us were unable to see the true nature of the acts, the lies, and those that covered for bad acts. From a future historian's perspective, I suspect all of this will play a rather significant role in understanding our collective demise. Put a bookmark on all these events, they had meaning but our inability to spot them and act, well that was significant in ways we yet do not understand.

Acknowledgments

The Post & Email and specifically Sharon Rondeau - Without her hard work piecing together, events from 2010 thru 2017 much of this story would be unknown and it would be impossible to display the big picture narrative.

Lead Stories, specifically Maarten Schenk - Their 30 April 2021 piece is well researched and sourced. (Lead Stories)

Clare Locke LLP - The attorneys for Dominion included information in their complaint that is extraneous and bizarre to some and dismissed by others. The Dominion suit will not address the big picture narrative or tackle the full scope of what has occurred, but it is worth watching to see what the intent behind some of the disclosures may be. (complaint)

J.R. Nyquist - Both writers here have taken exception with elements of Mr. Nyquist's coverage but we also acknowledge he took personal financial risk and loss by doing his work on this topic. A fair assessment of his effort would say that he wrote the story in a way that people could grasp, making the additional connections via what we assess to be clear and obvious facts would not have changed anything. To be clear, we disagreed with Nyquist and thought he did not go far enough and avoided the hottest topics - our questions were meant to spark a further investigation. Nothing we said was intended to disparage his character. (the phrase "Absolute Sabotage" is Nyquist's creation)

"Frances Madsen" and other anonymous online entities - You are all seen and appreciated, telling truth as you can and seeking truth.

Timeline of events with links (incomplete) that we used to arrive at our conclusions - (Timeline)

All of our work, minus the pieces that laid out all the facts related to who Mary Fanning is, are still published, they are, however, invisible at present. We suspect that this story has run its course, that little if anything will ever become of it. The appetite of "truth-seekers" has been satiated, no major media personalities are interested in picking it up, the Lindell suit will touch on parts of it, but perhaps in a twisted and partial way.

We thank you for your interest, we appreciate those that have contacted us in anger and we enjoyed dialoguing with those that sought to see this for what it is.

Tyranny of the Asylum

I came to realize, around February of 2021 that my experience, education, and knowledge ceased to help me explain the world, in terms of politics and geopolitics, a day before the U.S. election in November of 2020. If I look harder and I am very honest, I was likely out of my depth at the beginning of 2020. Frankly, I am not alone. Political pundits, armchair analysts that follow events on social media, geopolitical ‘experts’; all of these have gotten so much wrong. There are reasons for this; the closer one gets to the fire, the more likely one is to become confused; I explain below.

For my part, going into 2020 I believe I can say that only two things are true. First, ideologies of various flavors had a profound impact on attitudes, argumentation, and the use or disuse of logic and reason. Second, I am certain, positively certain, that I observed methodologies at play throughout 2020 and continuing to the present, methodologies associated with controlling perception and attitudes in a population; techniques generally used to affect political outcomes. [1] I have written often of those two observations, words that have never been popular with either ‘side’ of our current dialectic. It is obvious, clearly apparent, that neither ‘right’ nor ‘left’ have seen the world as it is, that both have been susceptible to the methodologies and each has succumbed to the trap of ideological thinking.

We must be clear, however. The above ought to not be construed to indicate that there exists no truth in all of this. There are Archimedean points that can be referenced, universal truth if you will. We are equipped with tools, some inherited via tradition, others gifted to us that should assist in our inquiries; common sense and reason. We have examples of history, nothing we have faced in the last eighteen months is that unique, it all relates to human nature and the flaws inherent in man. However, none of that is of any help whatsoever if one filters their search for truth and answers through their ideological bias, and actively consumes deceptions.

My entire argument below begins with the premise that bad philosophy begat bad ideology and a worldview that supplanted all tethers to ultimate truth. You cannot arrive in an age of absurdity and deception where most of the population has lost the ability to reason and think without first polluting the foundation. See The Rise of Absurdity in Western Philosophical and Political Views for the foundational argument.

If we can accept that the majority of the population, no matter their political identification, has fallen prey to paralysis by deception, that their common sense and reason no longer serve them it might then follow, in the minds of some that all are equally guilty; perhaps, and then again, perhaps not. The entire MAGA movement was and is very often absurd. Blind devotion to a man that never really espoused the values this group held in slogans as important is and was flawed. But MAGA was reactionary, a reaction to the visible and obvious threat presented by the numerous absurdities held as tenants by progressives.

I have intentionally not delved into the various subsets of each large camp above, ANTIFA, BLM, Q, etc., for two good reasons. First, those subsets, as vocal as they often are, do not represent the majority of either side. Second, those three groups (and more) are in my opinion constructs, not organic organizations but rather something created by somebody with the intention of propagating division and propaganda.

What is noteworthy is that neither ANTIFA and BLM on the progressive side nor Q on the ‘conservative’ side are complete pariahs within the larger groups. Affiliation may not be widely accepted, but the underlying ideas percolate far beyond affiliation on each side. “Reasonable” people on each side likely deny this fervently, but the observational data is there; those that deny such are not as reasonable as they like they believe themselves to be.

But this is not all ‘just the same’. MAGA as a reactionary movement lacks a solid philosophical and ideological basis. It is fractured, confused, always attempting to counter-punch; the result of the failure of conservatism in America to espouse a true political philosophy. The same cannot be said of progressivism, not insofar as ideology goes. Progressives may struggle internally with the political philosophy they will eventually settle upon, but they are settled on an ideology.

If we accept that MAGA is reactionary and progressivism is ascendant; only a fool could look at the progression of events in the recently concluded culture war [2], shifting demographics, and many other factors and believe that true conservatism has any chance of a real resurgence – if we accept that, and if we accept that the progressive ideology is prevalent in culture, entertainment, education, politics and much of religion then it is proper to evaluate progressivism as our future and ignore neo-reactionaries.

Yes, progressives would disagree with the above, the more radicalized one is along the spectrum of change the more they would disagree. I am not referencing minor counter-punches by neo-reactionaries, nor of the last vestiges of the old hegemony that progressives would like to tear asunder – of course, some of that exists. If, however, we speak only of major trends and extrapolate those, well – yes, only a fool denies the ascendancy of progressivism in the big picture.

There are numerous issues and points of public policy that we could provide as examples of just how far divorced from reason the ascendant worldview has become but recent events in Texas and the counter-reaction and argumentation among progressives provide the most succinct and poignant example.

The Abortion Argument as an Example

Consider if you will the Texas Heartbeat Act, variously called “radical’, “repressive”, “tyrannical” among just some of the terms one might find in mainstream media articles written about the law. In essence, the law merely allows various people involved with performing or enabling an abortion of an unborn child in the womb with a heartbeat to be sued. A heartbeat is often present at about six weeks. It does not outlaw abortion; it does not assign criminal penalties for those that terminate the life of a child with a heartbeat and it does not hold the woman that solicits the act accountable criminally or civilly. The law leaves much to be desired by those that oppose abortion; but in the mainstream, it is ‘radical’.

For much of human history, a heartbeat is a sign of life. We still declare individuals to be deceased solely on the cessation of cardiac function. We could, and many do, devolve the conversation from ‘life’ to citizenship. This is unnecessary confusion. We know that with a separate heartbeat, there are two lives present, with one voice. The unborn child is not a ‘full’ citizen, with all the accompanying rights, but the most basic protections of our law must apply. This is reasonable. It is not only a “Christian” perspective, it is not radical. The mother has citizenship, she has responsibility and if a choice between her life and the life of the child is at play, her voice gets to speak. But the unborn child, by nature of possessing life, a heartbeat, immediately possesses the most fundamental rights our system of laws provides, the right to life.

The above is not complex, it is not controversial even in the scope of history – it is reasonable and rational. The symbiotic relationship between mother and child means several things (the child is not going to be counted in a census or register to vote), but the most fundamental things apply (the basic right to life that exists as part of natural law, solidified over centuries in common-law and codified in our highest civil documents). Yet, the counter-arguments remain, made unironically by people that consider themselves both serious and rational.

Beyond the question of life and the natural right to life, there exists the distinct likelihood that unborn children experience pain at about eight weeks. [3] We perhaps have no natural right to be pain-free, but it is ironic that progressivism, so based upon emotivism and the notion of protecting the weak finds itself as the chief protagonist supporting the infliction of pain on the weakest and most defenseless among us.

If you have bothered to look, you have been incapable of avoiding the counter-arguments. Supporters of what we must properly term infanticide claim support of life is merely a “Christian” thing. Many that profess to be Jewish have proclaimed their religion does not prohibit abortion – an odd contradiction considering Judaism is supposed to be subject to the Law in the Torah, taking an innocent life is definitely prohibited. There are the usual cries of ‘my body, my choice’ from the same sorts that demand others get vaccinated (an intellectually flimsy argument no matter how applied).

The counter-arguments, the absurd hypotheticals, the potentially untrue examples, the hyperbole – all of it matters only in that it shows the disconnect between reason, morality, and common sense. Debating the meaning of a heartbeat does not belong in the realm of public policy. A heartbeat indicates life, and life is protected as our most fundamental right. That so many argue so fervently counter to that obvious fact tells us much about our world and our future.

I chose the abortion example above for two reasons, first my own bias, and second, it strikes at the most foundational of all questions, Life. I could have selected arguments that say it is ok to burn and loot for justice or others that claim it is acceptable to pledge allegiance to a letter of the alphabet. Each is absurd, each shows a disconnect between reason and logic. All such examples, and the fact they gain wide support, are signs of something worse at play.

What it Means

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their tastes, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. – Gustav Le Bon

Cognitive dissonance (the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change) is a term often thrown at the ‘other side’ when ‘they’ just will not see the facts that one’s favorite team does. The meaning of the term has been diminished, sadly. However, it is real, and it is ubiquitous.

It seems there are too many examples on each side to ever allow dialogue to occur. In short, it is nearly impossible to point out truth to a lost person if there are provable examples of you yourself falling for absurdity. Social media provides ample opportunity for many of us to open our mouths and speak on subjects we ought to be silent about – we do not know enough. Better to be quiet and let people think you are an idiot than to speak and prove it. Better said, it is perhaps better to only weigh in occasionally and with solid facts.

But we cannot stop. Social media is the opioid of the masses, it is succor for lotus-eaters. We have lost the ability to reflect, think, analyze and discern. We cannot see that the world has gone mad, and we with it in our own way.

History has shown that there is often no cure for mass psychosis once it takes hold. We have the witch hunts, China’s cultural revolution, NAZI Germany, and the Jacobin revolution in France as examples. We have many Jacobins among us today.

The flood - really waves after wave, of increasing negativity and fear, permeates our culture now. We fear each other, ideas, words, and the very air we breathe. Many of us log in and consume the very poison that enables the psychogenic crisis daily, some thinking they will change the world.

You cannot fight illogic and unreasonableness with logic and reason no more than you could have entered an early 20^th Century mental institution and merely talked the patients out of their conditions. And, the longer you stay in contact with the disease, the greater the likelihood that it will eventually impact your own ability to reason and see clearly.

The sad fact is most among us have moved past the apathy and paralysis of the initial stages of mass psychosis, these have found coping mechanisms by combining fact and fiction into myth – the ideologies present in our system provide a ready vehicle for this. If one is “good” then all manner of immoral, hateful, and illogical behaviors makes perfect sense; cognitive dissonance is defeated by myth-building.

Progressivism as an ideology is designed for this sort of myth-building. The sorts of tyranny and authoritarianism that always arise from progressivism (idealism) happen because of the myths of community, heroism, and the struggle – this is the noble lie. [4] The reactionary myths that we see among us now, are not so different than their historic predecessors.

If I have not made it clear thus far, allow me to restate. Progressivism is ascendant culturally and politically and will likely be the ideology that shapes our present and future. The disconnect between the values and ideals that initially drove people to progressivism and neoliberalism is great and the gulf between fact and fiction cannot be bridged. Historically these rational voids have been filled by creating perpetual enemies; they conclude: it is not the ideology that is the problem, nor the facts, the real problem is “those people” (whoever they may be).

It is true, that some former progressive will ‘wake up’, perhaps the suggestion that the Temple of Satan is their best option to preserve Abortion “rights” will do this for some, but these numbers will be statistically meaningless – these will simply join the list of “those people”.

At some point in the mass psychosis/myth-building cycle, it is simply too late to turn back the tide. Witches must be burned, guillotines used and the culture purified. Perhaps in this iteration the solutions are less kinetic but make no mistake, it is not an insult nor hyperbole to state that the mentally ill and morally bankrupt are dominant now. It will be for them to decide how “those people” are dealt with.

Stop Drinking Poison

You cannot enter the mental asylum and talk sense into the patients. Likewise, “owning the libs” on social media is not helping, in fact, you are merely solidifying the narrative building, you are cementing in their mind that you really are evil. Facts and data no longer matter – not to the truly mentally ill, those that worked through cognitive dissonance and came out of it doubling down instead of evaluating their worldview are by definition suffering from a mental illness.

Your mere presence on social media not only solidifies them further into their illness – but also endangers you. All the negativity, the fear, the drama, the posts that strike you with a sense of “it cannot be real”, poisons you. Some of it is real, and some of it is just designed to make you ill. There is little chance that neither you nor I can really tell the difference.

You are not going to dig up just one more morsel of truth that will wake up anyone that matters (if they still sleep they do not have the faculties to think correctly). It is much more likely that you yourself will stumble onto rabbit holes that confuse you and negatively impact your ability to reason and discern. [5]

Extract information from it (social media) in small bites. Maintain your perspective and balance by alternating fishing expeditions for information with reflection and prayer.

All of the cognitive dissonance above applies even to churches and “Christians”. How is it that people can read the same words from the same book and some come up with radically new and different interpretations than anything found historically (outside of heresy)?

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions; 2 Timothy 4:3

The BlackPill Truth

It is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer, but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics. Which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes. -Carl Jung

There is no stopping this. If you are a conservative and still think just one more election will fix it, I have two points for you to consider.

First, look at any argument and then consider the position and the points that progressives make (like the abortion issue above). There is no honesty, morality, nor reason present and yet, these people will be with us, you will not cure them, you are not going to change their minds (they have ceased to operate rationally) and frankly, you cannot kill them. Their ideology is ascendant. This worldview will not go away until it reaches its natural conclusion and result. Elections cannot change that.

Second, just consider some of the absurdities that people on “your side” have fallen for. Those are your allies. Think that through, I will not insult anyone by saying any more.

Is there Hope?

Progressivism leads to authoritarianism and authoritarianism generally fails eventually. Technology might change that equation (prolong it past its shelf life), but we can hope. This worldview will not fail and die in most of our lifetimes.

However, there is hope – just not the sort of instant gratification change most of us want. More on that later.

Truth is Powerless

Truth, well it is a valuable commodity, rare, precious, difficult to come by, and easy to pollute. Truth can also be dangerous, as any valuable and rare thing, possessing it can, in the right circumstances be dangerous. The bigger the truth, the more dangerous it becomes. If a truth is big enough, not only is it dangerous to those that possess it, it also becomes too big to believe, or process.

Consider Edward Snowden, or Julian Assange as two examples, related in many ways. What I am about to say does not excuse all of the subsequent copycat ‘whistleblowers” that tried to pull a Snowden, and under normal circumstances, what Snowden did was wrong. But what he exposed to the sleeping masses of the world was not ‘normal circumstances’.

Frankly, if you want to be honest, it was ‘march on the Bastille with torches and pitchforks’ sort of stuff. Many people that worked in and around the government knew most of what Snowden released, but nobody could really ever paint the picture of how vast and deep it was, how so many programs were the antithesis of how we see our reality. Snowden made it possible for anyone with eyes to see and a mind to think to understand it all.

Snowden ran for his life, risked never seeing his fiancé again. Assange spent a decade in prison because of the release of that data – make no mistake, no matter the pretext, he is a political prisoner.

Yet – in the big picture, none of it mattered. Any American can read for themselves things about their own government that nobody really wants to believe. But nothing changed. Nothing really at all. No outrage, or mass uprising in the streets, nobody was tarred and feathered, nobody (except Assange) went to jail. Nothing…Snowden released a truth that was too big for people to process.

Those that came after Snowden, I have less sympathy and respect for them. It seems they merely wanted to make a name for themselves ('seems', I cannot know). It is ironic that nearly all of them have either been pardoned, released, or forgiven, while Snowden will never return home and Assange will die in prison, unconvicted.

What Snowden released, as eye-opening as it should have been to almost everyone, was merely a drop in the bucket of the truth of our world. If people could not chew the meat he provided they will never see the rest. It is all rigged, all of it. There is not a single string one can pull that does not in some way eventually go back to an enormous, messy, jumbled ball of twine. If a person insists on pulling hard enough, well most never make it to the actual ball of twine, most get lost in intentional deceptions (or coopted) and red-herrings, those that make it past that, well some of those exited this world prematurely.

If by some strange twist of fate, and good fortune, a person got past all the guards, avoided red herrings, and got right up to the big ball of twine and unraveled it all – it still would not matter. In the end, they would sound about as rational as Alex Jones, a guy the twine masters seem to have put in place just for that purpose, to disseminate a little bit of truth wrapped in a lot of lunacy and lies.

I had my own little run-in recently with one small ‘string’. Attached to it were all manner of minor d-list misfits. Tools really, none of the main characters in the story will ever be in charge of anything important, they are bit players in someone else's movie, but they do play a role.

Sounds like the making of a drama-thiller or a spy novel; art does imitate life. Truth is so irrelevant now that most of what has happened to us over the last year and a half was telegraphed. The scriptwriters essentially laugh in our faces, they know that even when we ‘know’ we are too stupid, divided, so easily deceived, and thrown off course to ever do anything about it.

It is a big club and you ain’t in it.

@onlyBarryLClark

A 20-Year Saga, From Boot in Your Ass to Our Butts in a Sling

There will be much haranguing, memeing, pontification, posturing, and gnashing of teeth over the next few days concerning what is happening and what might in a worst-case scenario in Afghanistan. Many will politicize this all, blaming it on the incompetence of Biden. Others still will lament the blood and treasure deposited in the soil of that far away land. I am not writing about all that here.

It has been twenty years, in just a couple of weeks since 9/11 and Tobey Keith’s song The American Way. It has been thirty-three years since Rambo went to Afghanistan to fight those godless Soviets alongside the Muhjadeen. It was forty-one years ago when I sat with my father on the couch watching Dan Rather report from Afghanistan about the Afghan tribesman, the modern "noble savage” fighting the Soviet Goliath. To some perhaps Afghanistan is something of a movie, I understand that The Outpost became very popular with progressives for some reason a couple of years ago.

But it is no movie. The Afghan people are *decent, complex, and actually, diverse ranging from cosmopolitan to rustic, speaking numerous dialects and consisting of numerous ethnic groups; almost all universally proud and stoic. The landscape is rugged, extreme, at times unforgiving, but very often beautiful. It has at various times been called The Crossroads of Asia, and The Graveyard of Empires; both are accurate.

* there is a decadent undercurrent that I will not discuss

One cannot stand on the northwestern side of the Kyber Pass and not feel connected to something ancient. Not just back to Kipling, although there is no small tinge of that, but to the Silk Road and how that affected history and culture for most of the world.

Many will proclaim in the coming days that the present debacle and the potential for an outright tragedy will spell doom for American national security policy and efforts. That is absurd and small-minded. The high-water mark for American exceptionalism and Empire came and went long ago. Only the fools, the ignorant, and liars deny that. This will have an impact, even if the US Embassy is evacuated without serious incident, but it was not our seminal moment, this was not Pickket’s men just reaching the center crop of trees in 1863. It is certainly not our Battle of Omdurman (1898). If we are honest, our Omdruman probably occurred during the Tet Offensive in 1968.

Others will argue that our hasty retreat, leaving our former and erstwhile allies in a lurch, will only serve the interests of China. China has already intimated that if the Taliban can rule, keep extremism from affecting Chinese interest and out of China proper, that they can do business. China knows something about geopolitics that the West forgot once we allowed our notion that everyone we call friend ought to be ‘democratic’ and promote transgender studies at all their major universities. They are more pragmatic, more machiavellian, and yes, this will benefit them. But ultimately, that is not the big story here.

Internal inevitably and invariably affects external. A nation cannot operate an empire when mired in corruption, graft, grift, greed, and petty politics at home. The Romans taught us that. And yes, that is what US foreign policy has been about, not through colonies but essentially through client-states and satrapies.

Watching videos of the Taliban’s advance, I am struck by one thing, Arabic. In Afghanistan, Arabic is the language of the mouque for most. Those fighters, so overjoyed to capture and use US-provided equipment and weapons as they ‘free’ Afghanistan are not Afghanis in large part, they are Arabs, Turks, and others. I was in Fallujah in November of 2004. I saw the murder houses, I know what is in store for many Afghanis.

What happens over the next few days, well it could be tragic. The State Department only this week issued an emergency advisory for Americans to leave the country. It seems apparent that intelligence assessments were flawed or unheeded, people in charge did not know the Taliban would and could advance so rapidly, across all but two major cities.

Given my personal observation of the Afghan National Army, and considering it must be demoralized, shaken, and suffering from unprecedented absenteeism (and 'unprecedented' in that regard speaking of that Army means a lot), I place zero confidence that the ANA can or will hold anything resembling a green zone around the embassy district and the Karaizi airport. Current US intelligence estimates, that they publically briefed, state Kabul could fall within 90 days - that is a ludicrous assessment, far too optimistic and unrealistic. I suspect if the Taliban is serious about it that it could fall within a week.

Within the last several hours the Pentagon announced 3,000 troops, *mostly Marines to Kabul. Marines are the best soldiers I have ever served beside, but this is an over-the-horizon insert, they are essentially light infantry in an urban environment, far from persistent CAS, logistics, and reinforcements. Yes, I am implying a worst-case scenario, but not impossible.

*Two marine battalions, one Army, with a battalion of the 82nd Airborne headed to Kuwait as a quick reaction force (QRF)/911. The UK is also sending a battalion-sized element, approximately 600 troops. This augments what appears to be about 650 troops, mostly marines assigned to security at the embassy. All of that is light infantry, without (most likely) the organic aviation assets available within the MEU and without any of the Army's armored capability. Do the math, look at the terrain, consider the implications. What happens if/when these forces require JTAC, just to survive, it would decimate Kabul. This is a pickle no matter which way you turn the picture.

(side note, if someone had planned ahead they might have sent over a Styker battalion in say June, before making ill-advised announcements, then once the embassy was eventually abandoned, as common sense dictated would be necessary they could have just left those POS there - the vehicles, not the Joes - for the Talis to play with and break. I was not consulted, otherwise, well...)

Take a look at the images below, notice the elevated terrain north, less than a kilometer from the airport. Then consider the urban terrain that surrounds the embassy and the major road between the two.

I am not predicting doom. I am however considering the mind of the Taliban. China will do business with them regardless once they seize power. They are not enticed in the least by US pleas to please not attack the embassy. What a mighty feather in their cap to not only make the US leave, with its tail between its legs but to bloody its nose in a way unseen since the Vietnam war. If I were a Taliban general, I would throw every asset I had toward taking Kabul within the week, denying access to the airport, and then grind down those Marines that will soon be landing. Y’all just pray I am wrong.

Graybeards, Color Revolution, and the Yellow Wood

Last year, in the late spring and certainly by mid-summer, guys like me began talking. I have my own boring tale of that ‘adventure’ it is not relevant to the story. Here is what is relevant.

Many of us began to see the same patterns and have the same concerns; we began to reach out to one another, to help explain it all. In many ways, the retired (as in recently retired) military community is not that large. My little group that rallied together had many commonalities in what we did in the latter part of our careers, we often served together. But it is larger than that, people have friends in other places, and what we found was that others were coming together and thinking the same sorts of things, "something is wrong". It all looks coordinated, the level of coordination is state-actor level, it looks like various methodologies are being utilized in an almost doctrinal fashion.

An awful lot of cross-talk occurred across little informal groups.

My little merry band of compatriots approached it semi-formally, in a whimsical way at first, and then rather seriously. Among us were guys of various military specialties, what we had in common was that toward the end of our careers at each we worked exclusively in the intelligence or electromagnetic space (space is a very odd civilian word, but it paints the picture). Some came from special forces, others from civil affairs, and one a career military police guy. Scattered throughout were men that went on to pursue law enforcement careers. Yes, we were all men, there was a large social aspect to the effort initially. We even had two lawyers, odd birds at first, but critical later because of their operational experience. All of us knew one or two guys somewhere that was talking a lot more frequently to their circle, some informally, others much more formally. We shared thoughts, observations, and ideas in that decentralized way.

Here are some things to know:

Retired military guys are stubborn, headstrong, and cock-sure. Sometimes, oftentimes, in fact, rank and the dog-butt-smelling routine of measuring schools and assignments still come into play. Many of us believe we know what we know and we are often the most difficult with each other.
“Evidence” in the military setting, as in knowing enough about a thing to know what you are looking at is vastly different than evidence sufficient for an LEO to present a case, and much less comprehensive than what a lawyer needs to argue a case.
A lot more than two paths diverged in a yellow wood last year. From my assessment, my observation, and this is of course very informal as most communication across hodge-podge groups was just a guy talking to a guy – but essentially beyond the basic fundamentals, there was much disagreement. Almost everyone that reported agreeing that what was happening was coordinated, looked like a state-actor, and used doctrinal methodology. The divisions and divergence in the wood all centered on BY WHOM (the totality of the who), AGAINST WHO, and WHY (beyond the obvious objectives embedded into the methodologies observed. We all easily painted the obvious targets, there was disagreement on the purpose. This disagreement is still obvious today as some groups have become more vocal and public. (more on that below)

What about the evidence I mentioned above, the way of knowing what we believed we knew. At the operational level in the military decisions are made by conducting what is called an Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB). All the knowns and assumptions are gathered, plotted, charted, weighed, and out of that Likely Enemy Courses of Action (LECOA) are developed. Commanders and their staff then attempt to hijack the enemy's decision loop by creating their own Courses of Action (COA) that take advantage of what is known and assumed. It is not overly complex at the tactical and operational levels.

If you move up in complexity, to the strategic level and beyond, to Wicked Problems, it is similar, but not exactly. 2020 was a wicked problem. Wicked problems require design methodology to solve or even to define. You still do something similar to IPB, but now it involves assessments (Intelligence, social, economic, political). Very often these assessments disagree, on their face; there seems to be no connecting thread. That complexity is what makes a wicked problem so wicked.

Here is the key take-away, and this is specifically why different groups, all beginning with a basis of commonality in language, foundational experience, education, and outlook diverged so greatly after seeing the core of the problem. Many of them used IPB (datapoints, intelligence, and operational observation) to try to explain a wicked problem.

I may be, no I am, stubborn, headstrong, and cock-sure, I could be wrong when I say that other groups, some now very public, evaluated this wrong – they missed the rest of the BY WHOM, AGAINST WHO, and WHY. I may be those things, but I stand on the assertion that this was a wicked problem and involved many more groups and people than simply saying “the democrats” or “the deep state” (without really acknowledging what that term ultimately means).

Here is a sample of what my little group produced. (Initial Report: 202004015-A) We released the full report last year to selected legislators, we will never in our lifetime post the full report publically. We have ceased operations (mostly) we are a bonfire and beer club now, I am the only member of the group with a public persona, we believe it is that dire, that complex, and that much of a problem.

All our work agreed with that of others, fundamentally, state capture or color revolution methodology was used, supporting that were information operations (INFO OPS), psychological operations (PSYOPS), and a heavy dose of private partnership (controlled media narrative) and non-governmental organization (NGO) involvement.

Where we disagreed, and hardly anyone that speaks of this and agrees with us still speaks publically, is in the scope. We came to see that this could not and was not happening to benefit one party, that it could not have been pulled off by one party, it was transnational in nature. Most others saw it as international and binary – I believe because they used the wrong methodology to evaluate it all.

Since last summer the term Color Revolution has become associated with a few things. MAGA, Trump, and Election fraud simply because the most vocal of groups of greybeards see it that way and discuss it in those terms. There was even a very public effort to solidify this concept by Tucker Carlson and Darren Beattie.[1]

My former merry band, now somber jokesters that drink beer and used gallows humor we watch the world burn, we all agree that we strongly disagree with those people – turning the very real thing that happened into nothing more than a catch-phrase for partisan rally words is dangerous, flawed, and ultimately destructive. If only a small element of society will even utter the phrase, and the other side of an increasingly false dialectic sees it as nothing more than a dog-whistle, nobody will ever talk about the real problem.

This is of course exactly what has happened. The population, in general, will not even hear arguments about election fraud and what that really means. Those that are interested in the subject will not step back and evaluate the intricate deception operation that poisoned that effort.[2] We have been separated, deceived, divided, and frog-marched right into the consolidation phase[3] without even seeing the game being played. (see more about my interpretation of our Color revolution here [4], [5], [6], [7]).

@onlyBarryLClark

A Ten-Year Conspiracy

This article was published on 11 August, I removed it on 17 August. It would have remained unseen, except I am not easily intimidated. See the complete explanation of what and why at the end of the article. I have made edits to the original, those are denoted in maroon. - Summary of the complete series here.

This is a story of millionaires, billionaires, ‘journalists’, felons, 'former' CIA officers, retired generals, popular podcasters, and ‘conservative’ alternative media personalities. At the center of it is a woman that never appears publicly or on camera and few have bothered to even ask who she is, those that have asked often fall prey to false online personas intended to mislead as to her identity (we believe we know, but if she is who the information points to, it is explosive).

-- Mary Fanning, the online persona that nobody has ever seen was unmasked in the Dominion v Lindell complaint. Yahoo Finance broke the story down back in April, although with so much left-bias few on the right paid any attention. It took us less than a day or so to find domain registrations from Fanning's work originally under the name of K and numerous other proofs tying the persona to the person. It is not hard to piece together who Fanning, the individual front and center to the story is; I did not include that in this article because, at the foundation, it is not important to the story, until it is.

A person going by Frances Madsen has been all over the Fanning story since Nyquist first began writing about it and so often denied facts that were so clear and obvious a junior INTEL analyst could not help but stumble over them. See her comments for details (here) if you wish, she had most of this deduced long ago.

What if I told you that the evidence indicates people were planning to corrupt the 2020 election and then pollute efforts to question that as early as 2011? What if I showed you that the same people involved in the story in 2011 appeared over and over throughout, ultimately playing a key role in early 2021 in providing what certainly appears to be false data that ultimately would make the entire election fraud narrative look absurd and loony?

If the absolute proof domain registrations in 2011 seem a bit of a stretch, even if it is an odd coincidence, consider this. Sharon Rondeau at The Post & Email covered the story of Dennis Montgomery's activities in Maricopa County more than anyone. She reports the following:

Fanning first made herself known to this writer in 2010 or 2011, purporting to be concerned about the Obama presidency and its effects on the nation. During her occasional unsolicited phone calls over the next several years, Fanning would ask questions which we knew at the time, despite her apparent show of sincerity, could have sought information for a purpose other than mere personal interest. (P&E)

What an odd coincidence for Mary Fanning to reach out to the very woman that would eventually cover the Montgomery/Arpaio story a full three years before Montgomery showed up at the MCSO door. It would appear that Arpaio was an easy mark, a man with a proven history of going after revelations no matter how nebulous. If there existed a conspiracy to release the hammer story via media attention and court records, Arpaio appears a likely mark for such. (Who Let The Hammer Out?)

-- When a series of coincidences follow in order, resulting in an outcome, that is an indicator. It is a fact that Mary K registered Absolute Proof domains in 2011, the eventual name used by Lindell. (they have a plausible explanation for this coincidence). And even if you are disinclined to accept that explanation, that act alone is not a smoking gun. But it has to be considered in light of all the additional coincidences that followed over the next ten years. It seems the name certainly survived the decade.

We have proven in this series that Fanning registered two domains in 2011 with variations of “absolute proof”, the eventual name of the documentaries that she and/or Brannon Howse would produce for Mike Lindell. (perhaps insignificant, but Fanning poking around Rondeau in 2010 certainly is interesting) We have discussed how Dennis Montgomery showed up at Sherriff Joe Arpaio’s door in 2013/4 with fabulous tales of surveillance and a stack of data. Arpaio seemed the perfect mark to get the story of the data and “the Hammer” in the news and in court records. [1] We have demonstrated how the Fanning persona came back into the story in 2017 to grab it and “make it her own”. We laid out how an interconnected group of influencers and podcasters, along with retired generals [2], boosted the story beginning in 2017.[3] All of this culminated in early 2021 when the Fanning persona, by all accounts, hooked into Mike Lindell as he became the central voice behind all efforts related to election integrity and election fraud. The narrative, crafted as early as 2011 became the central feature of the election fraud effort, it was poisoned.

We have demonstrated that there are many 'former' CIA officers and CIA adjacent folks all around this story; boosting it, defaming small portions of it and in some cases muddying the waters. Why so much spook involvement? That is an indicator.

Overall, this is huge, enormous and the implications far-reaching. If nothing else was occurring in the world, those facts above, standing alone are perhaps as big as Watergate. And yet, they do not stand alone, unconnected to other events. More disturbingly, nobody in the fourth estate, not even minor journalist are connecting the dots and asking the right questions. If a conspiracy to corrupt election integrity efforts existed since 2011, it follows that there was also a plan to actually corrupt an election. That alone is earth-shattering news. It is a Big Story. Based upon a reasonable examination of the facts, such a conspiracy did and does exist, it is being executed mostly, publicly at least, by people that purport to be conservative.

But this story does not exist in a vacuum. Perhaps it is time we all look at 2020 in a very different light, all of the events that led to division, confusion, deception, and ultimately chaos and fraud; how can they all be unrelated if they all built toward and enabled the same effect?[4] If we can prove one long-running conspiracy in all of this, does that not shed new light on all the other ‘coincidences.’ Might even doubters begin to wonder about the true nature of Qanon, ANTIFA, BLM, and Covid? All of that in one year, each thing viewed separately is very odd, and smells odd; taken together, particularly in light of a provable 10-year conspiracy to corrupt an election – that is profound.

Why has the media not uncovered this, even alternative and d-list journalists? Why are they happy to point out that Lindell’s data is corrupted and merely blame it on one character with a very checkered past? Why not seek to know the bigger story? Perhaps, in the case of the MSM, for the same reason, they have told literally no truth in the last two years. As to minor folks, maybe some of them are afraid, others might be adjacent to the club that promoted the lies.[5]

If you have never believed that the United States was subjected to a color revolution - maybe because that term has been polluted by folks that are ill-informed, have objective bias, or perhaps worse [6] – well, it is time to reconsider your position. If a 10-year conspiracy exists it proves intent, that it was executed by ‘conservatives” proves the scope of “controlled opposition”, the complicity of the media demonstrates how far they will go and likely how far they went with other stories to perpetuate disinformation; all of those are indicators of color revolution methodology at play.[7]

This story of millionaires, billionaires, ‘journalists’, felons, “former” CIA officers, retired generals, popular podcasters is not just an aside. It is not just a one-off. It is a big story, if it stood alone, it would be huge if covered properly. But it does not stand alone. It is just one line of effort in something much larger.

@onlyBarryLClark

13 September 2021 edits

I received an email and a phone call from the husband of one of the characters in the story above. Despite whatever his intentions with the conversation were, he inadvertently confirmed things I only suspected during our talk. I was going to say no more about this, but only a fool tries to use third-grade intimidation techniques on me. I have not mentioned his name, his wife is by her own action a public figure and I have only written truth and commentary on observations here.

I have readded this article because it is important, there are some dark truths here and it must be said, even if most people never connect all the dots. Some have written about this, on the edges mostly. The most active writer (Nyquist) peppers all of his articles with subtle claims that all of the group that was involved in pushing this false story since 2017 (Howse, Fanning, and their various lackeys and associates) were just confused. You cannot look at the totality of this thing and not see a bad actor's involvement. Perhaps many around the story were simply dupes, but the more you get to the center of all the coincidences the more likely you have found a bad actor.

And make no mistake - this whole story, the effort to paint a false narrative about nonexistent systems touted by a known conman had an effect. The search for election integrity looks absurd now because so much absurdity was injected into it. If you look at all the facts, the trail of coincidences you see strong indicators that that absurdity entered the discussion intentionally. Anyone that is serious about the truth and unafraid and has a desire to write and speak about this would see those indicators.

Those that propagated and nurtured this story from 2014 on, whether they were fools that fell for anything or, more nefariously they (some) were perhaps part of a plan to cause the very outcome we saw (questions of election integrity belittled as a circus act), either way, this group is responsible for a small part of the demise of America (Fanning, Howse, McInerney and that entire conspiracy club that has spread so many obvious absurdities). Whether they were duped or part of a plan, either way, they have proven themselves unworthty to have a platform and a voice. More to the point, what of the thousands that listen to them, their lies about Hammer and Scorecard, PCAP, and more might be the worst of it, but there were signs for years - what of the responsibility of reasonable people, journalists, and people of goodwill? How did it get this bad? Why were these people not laughed off the internet years ago? Why can so few now address our collective failure to rebuke these people long before they were able to poison the Republic?

Few will grasp what this means, nobody wants to write the full story but it would be immoral not to point it out while I have the strength to do so. All the datapoints are out there, go piece it together yourself and ask rational questions - was this all just massive stupidity, or was it intentional (either way, the people involved ought not to have a public platform).

Truth seems powerless now in this age of absurdity and deception. Why has no serious journalist asked any of these questions? Why do the only people that write about it tread around obvious conclusions so meekly and fecklessly? For the same reasons that so many other things about our world are not tackled head-on, with eyes open, hearts full, and all the facts on the table. Most of the population is simply incapable of even caring about the potential implications of this one piece of the puzzle.

Here is the bottomline - this information will not change the world. We face too many asymmetric threats and are surrounded by too much deception, very often deception perpetrated by people that purport to stand with us. History needs to see all of this, these facts need to live here as long as they can and on the blockchain cloud as long as that last - so I had to write it. Make of this what you will. Use it to see the world as it is. If you consider yourself a journalist and a truth-teller, use it to springboard your own serious work on this subject, not an excuse piece that totally misses the big picture.

If you are related to this story and do not like that I re-published, well maybe don't use subtle threats in the future toward a man that faced much better and scarier men than you, men that tried to kill me with their own hands. Don't threaten to "do it the hard way" when you never lived a life that informed you anything of the real hard way.

I have said my piece on this, the rest is for the very few that will connect the dots and for historians.

Absolute Sabotage related articles

Color Revolution related articles

Who Let the Hammer Out

Full Disclaimer

Here is a tale of two narratives that merged. Our story begins in the summer of 2014, in Maricopa county Arizona when a man with a past that is, well let us just call it interesting for the time being, showed up at then Sheriff Arpaio's door with claims that he had proof of nefarious spying and fraud being conducted against residents of Maricopa county.[1)

We all remember Arpaio, the man that made prisoners sleep in tents and wear pink jumpsuits. Love him or hate him, we can all agree that he was a man that lived his convictions. He was also the fellow that opened an investigation into Obama’s birth certificate. By all outward appearances, Arpaio looked and smelled exactly like a man that would not sit by and ignore a claim such as that presented by Montgomery. And he absolutely was just that, a man of action. Arpaio assigned the matter to his "cold-case posse” and hired Montgomery as a consultant to prove his claims.

In hindsight, that being 20/20 and all, it seems reasonable that if one wanted to build a narrative over years and then use that narrative either as a grift for money or perhaps as some form of a disinformation campaign, that Arpaio was the perfect mark to release it into the wild. His involvement garnered some news coverage and even got the subject entered into court proceedings. But to make that assumption at this point in the story, well we would be getting ahead of ourselves.

The story did make it into court in 2015 [2] and audio recordings made by the MCSO were used in court and released to the public [3] – these will later come to be called the “whistleblower tapes”. Keep those recordings in mind, they become important two years later, the nexus of a much bigger part of this story and a significant turn of events. In fact, the phrase “the Hammer” first appears publically in this story in 2015.

Perhaps we ought to back up just a bit. Nested within the assertions that Dennis Montgomery initially brought to Joe Arpaio were two claims. One that Montgomery had access to software used by the US Government to collect signals intelligence (telecom records) and two that he had proof in the form of extracts from that database, a list of targets, with phone numbers, addresses, and connections. Montgomery claimed the software was called “Hammer”.

Lies are always wrapped in truth. What is apparent in this story is that the data excerpts looked legitimate enough to generate interest. Mike Zullo, lead investigator on the MCSO cold case posse assigned to this matter later stated that although it was impossible to validate the source of the data, the data itself looked legitimate. Other accounts seem to attest to that. Alex Jones claimed, and we must use and an entire bucket of Morton salt with his claims, that a phone number of his that only a handful of individuals had access to was on the list. All of this could, of course, be a lie, there are open source means of building such a list, perhaps, this data did not necessarily have to come from USG, specifically NSA, databases. It is interesting to note that in 2015 Judge G. Murray Snow threatened to turn Arpaio and the MCSO over to the DOJ because he believed they were potentially in possession of NSA files.

We cannot know if Montgomery handed over legitimate NSA files to the MCSO and in reality for this story, it does not matter. Revelations about who and what the NSA is, what they do and what their capabilities are have become common knowledge in the years since. It is no longer ‘no-such-agency’, we know they collect our data. What is important is the data looked legitimate enough to start the story, to get the ball rolling.

Wait you say, I thought Mary Fanning and her crew broke this story and then sold it to Mike Lindell. To quote Coach Lee Corso, “Not so fast”. In 2015 The American Report was writing about their claim that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated and taken over the US Government.[4] If you look closely at those early AR pages you notice Clare Lopez is highlighted, oh but I have jumped ahead again, just put a pin in that, we will get to all that in later articles. What is the American Report anyway? Who is Mary Fanning and why are you convinced she "broke this story”? Because she told you? We do know that Mary Fanning Kirchhoefer first registered that domain – but there I go again, jumping ahead. The American Report was about the Muslim take over of America and missiles in shipping containers from 2015 until 2017. There is some interesting meat on that bone, particularly in the “club’ that shared the K-club story, we will see all those faces again later.

In December of 2015, the narrative shifted. Zullo had uncovered Montgomery’s colorful past and no longer trusted him, but still believed there was some validity to the data he provided. This was also the first mention of the potential for voter fraud potentiality as a claim by Montgomery. [5] This part of the story sat dormant, out of the public eye for a year and a half. In the mainstream media, there was talk of Russia Gate, Crossfire Hurricane, and other matters but behind the scenes, Dr. Jerome Corsi joined Mike Zullo to dig into the implications of what the data Montgomery provided meant. Montgomery was of course off the team by this point, but his data seemed intriguing.

Fast forward to 2017. Enter Fanning calling Zullo to inquire about his intention to publish his findings. Zullo claims he told Fanning to “cool it, she did not know what she was talking about and he would go public in a couple of weeks”. Fanning published on Facebook three days later [6] and on the American Report four days later [7]. Remember the “whistleblower tapes” from above, those recordings of Montgomery by the MCSO that Judge Snow released, yeah, that is the basis of Fanning's claim. But just the basis, the American Report article added a lot of color and flavor to the story. The Hammer, as it came to be used in discussions of election fraud was full-formed now. Soon McInerney was rolled out to tout it and, well you remember that K-Club club, they all jumped on board too (Brannon Howse, Clare Lopez, George Webb, Beanz, Citizens Commission on National Security, etc, etc, etc.)

If you find it hard to believe that a group that just months before believed and pushed stories about the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating and taking over the US government and nuclear missiles in shipping containers could simply lift and shift is too fantastic to believe, well it is all there to see, the Internet Archive is our friend. How and why did they all do this in unison? There are many potential explanations.

If one were to ask me. And well, what do I know? But if you did, it certainly looks to me like the entire Hammer story was part of narrative crafted and developed over years, released into the wild by an easy mark (Arpaio) through the inclusion of data that looked, and may have been legitimate, all wrapped in a lie, told by a man with a provably checkered past and then later boosted and highlighted by an incestuous and tightly knit club. Why? Perhaps to build a counter-narrative of absurdity and lies that could later be used to infect and pollute any effort to examine legitimate concerns over election fraud.

Sound nuts? Just look at the people involved. You tell me.

Dennis Montgomery had a checkered past, as mentioned above, here is one article describing that. Hiding Details of Dubious Deal, U.S. Invokes National Security, NYT, 2011.

@onlyBarryLClark

Money, Sex, Power, and Influence

The first, and perhaps primary objection, to the idea that an entire network of only loosely connected people could cooperate in some way to boost and amplify deception and propaganda, is a hard pill. Particularly when many of the names that emerge seem to have good intentions; some of these we like or have liked. Such coordination would appear to require a conspiracy, that they all ‘must be in on it” if they are part of it. “Yes”, “sorta” and most definitely “no”.

A conspiracy is required, but it need not be that large. MJ has already uncovered two persons in this saga that claim to be ‘former CIA’. Within the CIA are many masters at using money, sex, power, and influence to create effects (Read The Intelligence Officer’s Bookshelf if you do not believe me). Of course just because as of 4 August 2021, we can identify two ‘former CIA’ officers does not mean they are the masterminds behind this. These are the only two that have revealed their legend.

But it does not require CIA officers, not many at least. These tools of the trade comport with human nature. All humans are susceptible to money, sex, power, and influence (the four prizes). All master manipulators know how to employ these tools.

If you are having a hard time imagining how various influencers and people with platforms came to be part of this, you do not have to imagine that they all understand the intended effect.

An aspiring writer, a person that wants to make a living with their words, would be a valid target for an approach. Perhaps they are offered interviews on a popular podcast and mentions of their books. The approach does not even have to be done directly by a person completely in the know. The approacher might themselves merely be acting upon a suggestion (coupled with the implied access to one of the four prizes). In this case, neither the writer nor the podcaster knows (necessarily) the full plan, they have each only reacted to social engineering that enticed them to commit acts in order to achieve a prize. Both individuals may be floaters and may have been groomed as such over a long period.

These social engineering efforts can build social association, something that, if there were common interests beyond seeking one of the four prizes, solidifies trust and connections further. Social associations make it easier to leverage more effects with unsuspecting targets in the group, the elements of peer association, group-think, and homogeneity set in.

Eventually, because of group affinity and investment in actions that ensure that one continues to gain access to one of the four prizes, members of the group become willing to go along with ideas they might have previously rejected. In essence, they should know a thing is wrong, disinformation, but they can no longer see it or are unwilling to.

It is not hard to accept how the conspiracy of disinformation the MJ is uncovering was translated into action. It is not even difficult to understand how some of the names that will be unmasked as participants seem to you to be good folks, with good intentions, some of them perhaps even called out part of all of this(there are reasons for that as you shall soon learn)

But make no mistake, everyone wrapped up in this web got there because they had a weakness that was exploited.

@onlyBarryLClark

Absolute Sabotage Series Summary

McInerney’s Role

Full Disclaimer

Thomas McInerney, Lt Gen, USAF (Ret) is an odd case. A man that rose to the rank of a three-star general and then made a career of acting as a talking head on cable news, descended, sometime around 2017 into increasing absurdity. Most of us dismiss such cases, ‘he is old now, perhaps losing some faculties’, etc., these are our explanations.

However, as MJ is beginning to expose, McInerney is simply not an old general that perhaps ought to stay close to the house and play more cribbage. There is a network around him, folks that boost and highlight his words, use his image and rank, and spin further tales based upon that assumed credibility. McInerney is not the center of the universe that MJ is exposing, he is not the master-mind. But he has been important, for two reasons, his words, actions, and association with things that increasingly appear nefarious and deceptive have had a measurable effect, a couple of effects in fact.

It would seem, that in the aggregate, the effects of these deceptions have 1) made arguments about election fraud in 2020 look absurd to moderate, normalized bias people. 2) believers and followers of these deceptions have drifted further and further toward an extreme of incoherence, incapable of making solid arguments because so much poison has entered the reservoir they draw from.

There is no space here to dissect McInerney’s descent from talking head to what he has become, but two key points are relevant. Early on in the 2020 election saga, McInerney made claims that 1) “a raid on servers occurred in Germany” [1] [2] and 2) that the 305^th Military Intelligence Battalion was somehow involved perhaps in that raid and was certainly involved in sorting out the election mess. (Twitter was quick to spot this nonsense and those that never wanted to consider election fraud held it as proof of their position.)

The 305^th claim originated, it seems, from things McInerney was told by Sydney Powell or by folks associated with her claims. Powell based her knowledge on a “whistleblower” known as ‘Spyder”. There are two major problems with these claims, problems that a Lieutenant General ought to have seen immediately, it matters not that he is old and was Air Force, this is basic stuff.

First, despite the flashy name, the 305^th is a TRADOC unit. It is designed for and tasked with training people. TRADOC units in the US Army are not designed to conduct operations, they do not have the right personnel nor structure. These sorts of units generally do not even have access to the latest technology. The schoolhouse is often years behind the field, particularly since the initiation of the GWOT. McInerney could have and should have known this in an instance.

Second, “Spyder” appears to not even be an intelligence soldier at all, rather a mechanic.

I argued with people, some D-list influencers, at the time that were boosting this story that it was not just wrong, but absurdly wrong, so absurd that it smelled of something else. For my efforts, I received only chastisement and blocks on social media. It seems there was a reason for circling the wagons.

Make no mistake, this sort of chicanery has effects. Innumerable Americans associate claims of election fraud with crackpot theories. As MJ pointed out in her initial piece on their story, as early as 2 November 2020 some outlets in this circle were spinning up their explanation for why the election debacle occurred (two days before the election). They already had a story in place before it happened!

Many regular Americans and decision-makers in state government and on local election boards have simply refused to consider the matter because it was tainted so badly early. The left uses this as a tool to paint everyone talking of the issue as a wingnut. There was a definite effect.

One could also argue that the claims of ‘white-hats’ in the government fighting for us, and the ‘military is going to save us’ were not that much different than many things the QAnnon community said and believed. The deceptive narrative released and boosted by the circle MJ is now exposing played up that connection. They reached out to an audience that had been conditioned to expect these sorts of actions. It would not be a large leap to argue that some of those involved in the events of January 6^th were in no small part motivated and influenced by these lies.

@onlyBarryLClark