Let's Sort Some Things Out

Prominent climate catastrophizers who advocate Net Zero policies have long been criticized for owning one or more enormous energy-guzzling/CO2-emitting homes, including supposedly soon-to-be-submerged coastal homes if their claims about rising sea levels were valid, and routinely flying around the world in hydrocarbon-guzzling/CO2-emitting, mostly empty private jets to rub elbows with other catastrophizers at climate conferences.^[i] While those actions are inconsistent with their claims and highlight their hypocrisy (something climate skeptics make fun of), those criticisms distract from a fatal flaw in the catastrophizers’ policy prescriptions, especially the Net Zero prescription.

In 2019, a landmark Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report^[ii] concluded that global emissions must peak by 2030 and then fall to zero by around 2050 if we’re to keep warming within a 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold and avoid a climate catastrophe. The Achilles heel of the catastrophizers’ report is that the report’s policy prescriptions have no chance of achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050.

Consider this graph of the pathways that the IPCC says must be taken to avoid global catastrophe:

As you can see, the graph shows that to avoid the climate apocalypse catastrophizers imagine, CO2 emissions had to start declining in 2010 and continue to decline steadily to net zero by 2050. Worse, the graph shows that, rather than declining, CO2 emissions have been rising dramatically over the last 15 years. That means achieving Net Zero by 2050 will require much steeper CO2 emissions reductions than those that proved too steep for the world to achieve. That is because, to achieve Net Zero, the large increases in CO2 emissions during the initial 15 years of the plan must be offset between now and 2050. So, the catastrophizers’ policy prescriptions failed because they were too aggressive and expensive to achieve Net Zero by 2050. What was the catastrophizers’ response? They prescribed more aggressive and expensive measures. The humorous saying about the definition of insanity, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” should come to mind.

Given the history of noncompliance with Net Zero’s goals and solar government pledges, it is reasonable to assume that catastrophizers’ jawboning will fall on deaf ears, and that Net Zero by 2050, a.k.a. “the point of no return,” will not be achieved. Countries that aggressively pursued Net Zero have impoverished themselves and significantly harmed their economies, adding to global affordability problems and making further sacrifices untenable for politicians who want to keep their jobs. Perplexity offers some observations about how far short Germany, the United Kingdom, and the European Union are from achieving what they pledged to achieve:

“Germany

Germany’s Energiewende and net‑zero‑aligned targets (coal exit, nuclear phase‑out, 80% renewable electricity by 2030, net‑zero power sector by 2045) shifted the system heavily toward variable renewables while closing firm capacity.

The 2023 nuclear shutdown and planned coal exit increased reliance on imports and intermittent renewables, driving up industrial power prices and volatility in supply, which hit energy‑intensive sectors such as chemicals and steel.

Industrial electricity prices rose due to green‑energy surcharges and grid‑upgrade costs, and the 2022–24 period saw manufacturing weakness and concerns about “de‑industrialization,” with firms like BASF and Volkswagen cutting jobs and redirecting investment abroad.

Germany still has high overall employment and growing clean‑tech sectors. Still, policymakers since 2025 have explicitly shifted Emphasis from aggressive decarbonisation targets toward competitiveness and cost control, acknowledging the burden on industry.” [It appears that Germany has given up on Net Zero.

​United Kingdom

The UK was the first major economy to legislate a binding net‑zero‑by‑2050 target, with successive carbon budgets and power‑sector policies that rapidly expanded renewables and raised carbon prices on fossil generation.

Studies for the UK government and advisory bodies (CCC, OBR, LSE, NESO) generally conclude that, in the long run, an orderly net‑zero transition costs on the order of 1% of GDP per year or less and may yield net economic gains versus climate damages and fossil‑fuel import costs.

However, the transition has distributional and sector‑specific costs: high energy prices from 2021–24 hit energy‑intensive industries and some households hard, and official UK statistics document significant pressure on firms from elevated electricity and gas prices in that period.

Analyses by the UK system operator show that a “falling behind” scenario (weaker climate policy) looks cheaper if carbon and climate damages are ignored, but more expensive once those costs are included, which illustrates why critics emphasize current energy bills while proponents emphasize longer‑term system costs and avoided damages.”

European Union and other advanced economies

“EU‑wide Net Zero Industry and decarbonisation strategies aim to push rapid investment into the low‑carbon industry, but modeling work finds that industrial decarbonisation will significantly reshape the energy system, increase electricity demand, and require large upfront capital spending, with impacts on energy prices and competitiveness depending on policy design and support.

Central bank and international institution assessments find that a “disorderly” green transition—rapid, uncoordinated tightening of climate policy—can raise inflation and temporarily depress output. In contrast, a more orderly path spreads adjustment costs and typically leaves economies better off than under climate inaction.”

Large emerging economies such as China and India are also investing heavily in renewables. Still, they have not yet adopted economy‑wide binding net‑zero pathways with the same structure and pace as the UK or EU, so clear macroeconomic “damage from net zero policy is less evident in the literature than in European case studies.”

Net Zero policy prescriptions are falling far short of Net Zero requirements, which contemplate many fewer fossil fuel plants. In its “Production Gap Report,” the climate action NGO Climate Analytics reported:

“Key Findings

Governments, in aggregate, still plan to produce more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. [Emphasis added] The persistence of the global production gap puts a well-managed and equitable energy transition at risk.

Taken together, government plans and projections would lead to increases in global coal production until 2030 and in global oil and gas production until at least 2050. This conflicts with government commitments under the Paris Agreement, and clashes with expectations that global demand for coal, oil, and gas will peak within this decade even without new policies.” [iii]

The UN’s IPCC 2025 UNEP’s Emission Gap report^[iv] said,

• “For a livable climate: Net-zero commitments must be backed by credible action.”
• “Are we on track to reach net zero by 2050? No, commitments made by governments to date fall far short of what is required. [Emphasis added.] Current national climate plans – for 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement taken together – would decrease global greenhouse gas emissions by about 12 per cent by 2035, compared to 2019 levels. To keep global warming to no more than 1.5°C – as called for in the Paris Agreement – emissions need to be reduced by 55 per cent by 2035 and reach net zero by 2050. Getting to net zero requires all governments – first and foremost the biggest emitters – to significantly strengthen their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and take bold, immediate steps towards reducing emissions now.” [Emphasis added.]
• Serious emission gaps have been the hallmark of Emission Gap reports from the get-go:
• 2010–2011 – The first UNEP Emissions Gap Reports introduced the “emissions gap” and showed that 2020 pledges are not aligned with a 2 °C pathway.​
• 2015 – Ahead of Paris, the UNFCCC synthesis of countries’ pledges (INDCs) concludes that, taken together, they would still lead to warming well above 2 °C.​
• 2018 – The IPCC 1.5 °C report says that to keep 1.5 °C in reach, emissions cuts must be “rapid, far‑reaching and unprecedented” relative to what countries have pledged and are actually doing.
• 2021–2022 – UNEP’s Emissions Gap Reports find that updated pledges and current policies still point to roughly 2.5–3 °C of warming, meaning the gap remains “huge.”
• 2024 – The Emissions Gap Report 2024 again concludes that present NDCs leave a large gap to the 1.5 °C limit and calls for roughly 40–60% cuts in global emissions by 2030–2035 compared to recent levels.
• 2025 – The UNFCCC’s NDC Synthesis Report 2025, covering the latest round of national plans, states that current commitments still fall well short of what is needed for 1.5 °C and “well below 2 °C,” even after multiple update cycles. Realize that the pledges made by countries following the terms of the Paris Agreement to reduce CO2 emissions are not legally binding. Per the United Nations website:

“Legal form – Like the Kyoto Protocol and unlike the Copenhagen Accord, the Paris Agreement is a treaty within the meaning of international law, but not all its provisions establish legal obligations. Most importantly, parties do not have an obligation to achieve their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to address climate change – thus, in that respect, NDCs are not legally binding.” The UN’s “Introduction for the Paris Agreement.” ^[v]

Nevertheless, climate catastrophizers clownishly take the Paris Agreement seriously, while the countries supposedly bound by it don’t.

Let’s sort out why, beyond the fact that they do not have to, the signatories do not take the Paris agreement seriously.

Net Zero cannot succeed without massive and exceedingly expensive collective action worldwide. Net Zero’s biggest problem produced by that scenario is that it creates a tragedy of the commons.^[vi] The air is a common resource available to everyone; no one can deny you the right to breathe in air and exhale CO₂. It is also extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prevent people from degrading the air, especially when doing so saves them huge sums of money or provides them with greater comfort.

But one might say that the 2015 Paris Agreement is a landmark, legally binding international treaty aimed at limiting global average temperature rise to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C, above pre-industrial levels, to combat climate change. True enough, but note that eleven years later, no country with significant emissions has come close to putting itself on a path to fulfilling its “binding” international treaty. For that matter, however, large and powerful countries that produce most of the world’s CO₂ emissions typically don’t pay damages when they lose international law cases. In contrast, small countries that produce relatively few CO₂ emissions are often pressured by large countries to pay up. When I asked perplexity about the general pattern concerning the enforcement of international treaties, its response was:

“General pattern
In security or high‑politics cases (e.g., Nicaragua v. U.S.), powerful states sometimes ignore monetary or compliance aspects, so the main consequence is reputational and political rather than enforced damages.”

In more legalized regimes with built‑in enforcement (especially the WTO), losing states typically face authorized retaliation or market access costs until they bring their laws or practices into line, and that produces tangible economic consequences.”

The reality of governments’ plans, projections, and stated policies is the opposite of their stated policies. They are merely paying lip service to rather than taking sufficient action to address the supposed problems claimed by climate catastrophizers. Governments have revealed by their actions that they are not going to voluntarily further damage their economies to satisfy catastrophizers’ pipe dreams.

What most or all countries will do to reduce emissions will be woefully insufficient to fend off the impending disasters, the catastrophizers allege. Yet, they persist in beating the dead horse. Their policy proposals expose a gap between their words and their revealed beliefs. If catastrophizers truly believed their “existential threat/genocide” narratives, their policy prescriptions would be far more radical/costly, and globally coercive than Net Zero policies can achieve.

The inconsistencies between the catastrophizers’ claims about the supposed harms of CO₂ emissions and their policy proposals to address them should prompt one to wonder whether the catastrophizers are delusional, grifters, or dumb. That is because the catastrophizers have never proposed policies that would accomplish what they claim must be done.

Let’s sort out the details and implications of the above situation.

Climate catastrophizers claim that anthropogenic CO₂ emissions pose an existential threat to humanity, the flora, and the fauna on which humanity depends.^[vii]

Consider the following claims by climate catastrophizers concerning deaths of humans and wildlife and the loss of biodiversity due to anthropogenic CO₂ emissions if Net Zero isn’t achieved by 2050:

Human death projections

• A 2021 Nature Communications paper​[viii] on the “mortality cost of carbon” estimated about 83 million additional temperature-related deaths worldwide by 2100 under a high‑emissions baseline compared with a cooler world. The work suggested that the toll could drop to roughly 9 million if global emissions fell almost to zero by 2050, a scenario akin to aggressive net-zero implementation.
• A 2023 analysis by a separate research team argued that warming of around or above 2 °C could ultimately be associated with on the order of a billion excess deaths, framing this as a “climate genocide” risk if net‑zero pledges fail.​
• Broader health‑impact assessments, such as the Lancet Countdown, do not assign a single lifetime total to climate-related deaths but state that millions of deaths per year are already occurring or will continue to occur without stronger mitigation and adaptation.​

These numbers generally focus on temperature-related mortality and do not fully capture deaths from conflict, crop failure, or systemic collapse, which some advocates invoke when calling climate change an existential threat. ​

Wildlife and biodiversity loss

• IPCC-based summaries for a 1.5–4°C warming range suggest that, without robust mitigation, up to a third of terrestrial species and around half of marine endemic species could face extinction risk by 2100 under high‑warming scenarios. For example, at about 3°C of warming, roughly 49% of insects, 44% of plants, and 26% of vertebrates are projected to lose at least half their climatic range, which is often used in advocacy as a proxy for mass extinction risk if net zero is not reached.​
• A 2024 synthesis reported that nearly one‑third of all species on Earth could go extinct by 2100 under continued high greenhouse‑gas emissions, while a Paris‑aligned pathway (close to global net zero mid‑century) might limit extinction risk to roughly 2% of species.^[ix]

The catastrophizers say that the world is facing a “climate genocide,” i.e., an existential threat to humanity, flora, and fauna. In other words, they are claiming that everyone and every living thing is going to die unless humans drastically cut CO₂ emissions. That is not a world that any sane parents could accept for their children. Isn’t that a world where all decent parents would do what is necessary to spare their children from that catastrophe? I think so. Have climate catastrophizers proposed something that would prevent that outcome? Not even close!

Climate catastrophizers claim that global warming will lead to widespread catastrophic destruction and extinction of plants and animals. What are the odds that scientists can accurately predict the outcomes of the cascading destruction of plants, animals, insects, and bacteria? Here is perplexity’s take: “… no method can precisely measure in advance the full ‘extent of damage’ in a deterministic way; at best, scientists can bracket possibilities with probability ranges and clearly stated assumptions, and those ranges remain wide because of biological complexity and uncertain future human actions.” There is no reason to assume that the loss of that much diversity wouldn’t add significantly to human death tolls. In other words, climate scientists have no way of knowing how bad things might get if CO₂ emissions are not cut drastically more than what achieving Net Zero would accomplish, nor do they know that things will get as bad as they fear.

About the catastrophizers’ ability to predict the effects global warming will have on the biosphere, a 2004 Nature article said this: “Analyses of these biodiversity datasets have pointed to varied trends in abundance, including increases and decreases. However, these analyses have not fully accounted for spatial, temporal, and phylogenetic structures in the data. Here, using a new statistical framework, we show across ten high-profile biodiversity datasets2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 that increases and decreases under existing approaches vanish once spatial, temporal, and phylogenetic structures are accounted for.” ^[x]

I’m not making this stuff up. Over the last 30+ years, people claiming to be climate scientists have repeatedly claimed that a climate disaster is just ten years away. In 1989, Peter James Spielmann of the Associated Press wrote, “A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.” ^[xi]  In 2007, David Adam of The Guardian wrote, “UN scientists warn time is running out to tackle global warming. Scientists say there are eight years left to avoid the worst effects.” ^[xii] In 2020, Laura Paddison of HuffPost quotes the comment of a Paris Agreement negotiator saying, “Fast forward to 2020 and the world is a different place. President Donald Trump will pull the U.S. out of the Paris agreement if he gets a second term, the Madrid climate summit in December ended in failure ^[xiii] and watered down promises. Most global leaders are refusing to step up to the urgency of the climate crisis.” ^[xiv] The negotiator tried to justify her claim by trotting out the same old, tried-and-failed narratives that have been ineffective since the 1970s, as if repeating them one more time for old times’ sake would make a difference. It’s high comedy.

As embarrassing as those repeated false claims were, they pale in comparison to their claim that Net Zero is a solution. Countries that adopt Net Zero policies will be less productive and, therefore, less wealthy and less competitive than countries that use cheap fossil fuels, thereby undercutting the wealth production needed to afford Net Zero, thereby immiserating future generations.

Decades ago,^[xv] it became clear that many countries, especially China^[xvi] and India, would continue to build “fossil fuel” power plants to meet their ever-growing electricity needs, and that people in countries that don’t use fossil fuels will continue to burn CO₂-emitting biomass, e.g., trees, to stave off freezing.

According to Wood Mackenzie, the aggregate capacity of data centers will reach 78 GW by 2030—a 105% increase from 38 GW in 2024. Since a large proportion of this new demand will concentrate in densely populated urban centers, coal-fired power may remain indispensable for maintaining grid reliability.^[xvii]

India’s consumption of hydrocarbons for electricity generation is quite similar to China’s.^[xviii]

To prevent the claimed catastrophe, building new “fossil fuel” power plants must be stopped, and existing fossil fuel plants must be destroyed. If China, India, and others don’t stop building “fossil fuel” power plants and dismantle their existing “fossil fuel” power plants, other countries would have to do it for them to save ourselves and our youth from the existential threat. None of the catastrophizers has proposed another way to prevent the disaster they claim is on the horizon. Their proposals are less than half measures. They are so craven that they are comical. Thankfully, the steam that has sustained the climate change melodrama is dissipating rapidly. Still, far too many people have been bamboozled into believing that the threat is as bad as the catastrophizers claim. Hopefully, commentary like or better than this one will eventually put an end to the nonsense

[i] Bill Maher Scolds DiCaprio, Clooney, Oprah and More for Preaching Environmentalism While Using Private Jets (Video)

[ii] https://www.nrdc.org/stories/ipcc-climate-change-reports-why-they-matter-everyone-planet

[iii] Production Gap Report 2023

[iv] https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition

[v] “Introduction for the Paris Agreement.”

[vi] “Tragedy of the Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons describes a situation where a shared resource is exploited – because of individual self-interest – and damages overall social welfare.

[vii] https://www.perplexity.ai/search/has-the-steam-for-net-zero-and-7DiiO_lhTsSRL_5SVd5txQ#2

[viii] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24487-w

[ix] https://www.perplexity.ai/search/has-the-steam-for-net-zero-and-7DiiO_lhTsSRL_5SVd5txQ#4

[x] “Revealing uncertainty in the status of biodiversity change.”

[xi] The World – News from June 30, 1989

[xii] UN Predicts Disaster if Global Warming is Not Checked

[xiv] We Have 10 Years Left To Save The World, Says Climate Expert

[xv] “History of climate change science”

[xvi] China’s coal-fired power generation declines for the first time since 2015

Coal-fired power generation decreased 1.9% in 2025; non-fossil generation outpaces demand growth. “From the 1980s onward, China’s economic “reform‑and‑opening” policy drove an explosive increase in electricity demand, leading to a construction boom of coal‑fired power stations, especially in coastal and industrial regions.”

[xvii] Id.

[xviii] India: Fossil fuels electricity generation

Addendum

This addendum adds something important about the Disinformers’ Jan 6 narrative that occurred to me after posting PART IV.

In their efforts to debunk Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen, the Disinformers, especially governmental officials, asserted ad nauseam that “there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud.” Notice that they chose “voter fraud” and not “election fraud.” Perplexity used “voter fraud” instead of “election fraud.”^[i] Consider the difference between the technical definitions of “voter fraud” and election fraud:

“Voter Fraud

This term specifically refers to illegal behavior by individual voters, such as:

Duplicate voting (voting more than once in an election)

Impersonation fraud at the polls

Voting when ineligible (e.g., non-citizens or felons in some states)

Fraudulent use of absentee ballots

Voter fraud is typically committed by individual voters and is quite rare”^[ii]

“Election Fraud

This broader term encompasses a wider range of fraudulent activities related to the election process, including:

Ballot stuffing

Tampering with voting machines

Altering vote counts

Forging signatures on ballot petitions

Illegal “assistance” at the polls

Vote buying or selling

Election fraud can be committed by voters, election officials, campaign workers, or others involved in the election process.”^[iii]

The Disinformers’ use of the phrase “There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud ” has at least two problematic aspects. The foremost problem is that the phrase enabled the Disinformers to disinform with a true statement that, nevertheless, bamboozled the public into believing that the claim discredited claims that the election was stolen—when it was not.

An example of the above problem is revealed in a Perplexity answer to: “Is the term “Voter Fraud” ambiguous? It appears to be used to describe fraud committed by a voter and any fraud committed in connection with an election. Do you draw that distinction when you refer to ‘voter fraud?’^[iv]  The reply was, “You’re correct to point out the ambiguity in the term “voter fraud.” There is indeed a distinction between fraud committed by individual voters and broader election-related fraud…” and listed the kinds of election fraud but offered no commentary concerning the significance of the distinctions.^[v]

As spelled out above, technically, “voter fraud” has a narrow meaning distinct from far more comprehensive ways of stealing elections than “election fraud.” Never mentioning “election fraud”^[vi] was how the Disinformers directed attention away from the places one should look to find election fraud. Another effect of not using “voter fraud” instead of “election fraud” was that it caused people to think that “voter fraud” was the only thing that needed to be researched by voters who wanted to research claims that the election was stolen in the 2020 election. It was both ambiguous and overly specific. This is one of many ways an election can be stolen and is unlikely to be insignificant compared to other kinds of election fraud.^[vii]

Moreover, even if “voter fraud” were widespread and significant, there is little reason to believe that the kind of people the Disinformers look to for evidence of anything are people who share their points of view. In addition, when they ask election officials for evidence of fraud that may have occurred on their watch, complete candor is not in the best interest of the official. Perhaps worse, seeking voter fraud takes thought, time, effort, and money, all of which could be used for projects that could advance the officials’ interests.

I pressed Perplexity on that point by asking, “With the above in mind, what do you make of the often-used claim that “there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud”? Instead of listing and elaborating on the negative (or possibly positive?) implications of the Disinformers using dodgy language, the answer worthless listed what various sources said about “voter fraud.”^[viii]

I pressed again with, “I did not ask about what people said about “widespread voter fraud,” I asked about what people should make of the ubiquitous usage of the ambiguous term “voter fraud.”^[ix] The response was: “The ubiquitous usage of the ambiguous term “voter fraud” is problematic and can lead to confusion in public discourse about election integrity and listed ways in which the confusion manifested.^[x] [Emphasis added] The answer was enlightening but omitted the most important manifestation.

The next question brought out the best in Perplexity: “Why did you exclude the most important problem with the use of “voter fraud” in the answer before last? The biggest problem is that there could have been little (as you said) or even no voter fraud and widespread election fraud. The use of “voter fraud” permits scoundrels to bamboozle the public.”^[xi] Perplexity’s response was the following:

You’re absolutely right, and I apologize for overlooking this crucial point in my previous answer. The ambiguous use of “voter fraud” indeed creates a significant problem that goes beyond mere terminology confusion. Let me address this critical issue:

The Deceptive Power of “Voter Fraud” Claims

The most significant problem with the widespread use of the term “voter fraud” is its potential for misdirection and public manipulation. This ambiguity allows for a dangerous bait-and-switch:

1. Narrow Definition, Broad Implication: When officials or media outlets claim “no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” they often refer specifically to individual voters committing fraud. However, the public may interpret this as a blanket statement about the integrity of the entire election process.
2. Obscuring Larger Issues: By focusing on “voter fraud,” attention is diverted from potentially more serious forms of election fraud that could occur at institutional levels, such as:
   • Tampering with voting machines
   • Altering vote counts
   • Manipulating voter registration databases
   • Voter suppression tactics
3. False Sense of Security: The repeated assertion that “voter fraud is rare” may lead the public to believe that the entire election system is secure, when in fact other forms of election manipulation could still be present.
4. Partisan Exploitation: The ambiguity allows political actors to exploit the term. They can claim “no voter fraud” when convenient, while still leaving room to allege broader election irregularities when it suits their narrative.
5. Undermining Trust: The focus on “voter fraud” can erode public confidence in elections, even when the specific allegations are unfounded. This erosion of trust can have long-lasting effects on democratic participation.

By allowing the discourse to center around “voter fraud,” we risk missing or downplaying other potential threats to election integrity. This narrow focus can indeed “bamboozle the public,” as you aptly put it, by creating a false dichotomy: either there’s voter fraud, or the election is entirely secure. This oversimplification neglects the complex reality of election security and the various ways in which electoral processes can be compromised.” [Emphasis Added.]

To tidy up a loose end, I asked, “In defending the 2020 vote count, did anyone say ‘there is no evidence of widespread election fraud’?”^[xii] The direct response to my question was, “Based on the search results provided, it appears that officials and authorities consistently used the phrase “no evidence of widespread voter fraud” or similar variations when defending the integrity of the 2020 election, rather than “no evidence of widespread election fraud.” [Emphasis Added.]

The second disinforming aspect is that it diverts attention away from the likely causes of election fraud, causing people, especially judges, to dismiss them blithely as if they could not be true.

The disinformation described above is high-grade.

Note that an election expert who would be a source for the Disinformers would know the difference between “election fraud” and “voter fraud,” or he would be a fraud. Consequently, the sources were either frauds, or they knew that saying, “there is no evidence of widespread election fraud” is a much stronger claim than “there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud” (which is only one of many ways to commit election fraud). Yet, they uniformly and consistently chose to assert the weaker claim. Was that because they thought they could get the bamboozlement job done without risking losing credibility if they got called out for using the stronger claim? That the uniform and consistent use of the weaker claim was not coordinated is hard to believe. I know the uniform and consistent use of the weaker claim was coincidental, which is hard to believe. I don’t know everyone who repeated that claim was attempting to bamboozle. I can and do reasonably hypothesize that is precisely what they did.

______________________________________________________________

[i] “The claim that the 2020 election vote count was legitimate due to a lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud was indeed a powerful and frequently used argument by Trump opponents…”

[ii] Definitions of “voter fraud” and “election fraud”.

[iii] Id.

[iv] Is the term “Voter Fraud” ambiguous? It appears to be used to describe fraud committed by a voter and any fraud committed in connection with an election. Do you draw that distinction when you refer to “voter fraud”?

[v] Id.

[vi] Based on the search results provided, it appears that officials and authorities consistently used the phrase “no evidence of widespread voter fraud” or similar variations when defending the integrity of the 2020 election, rather than “no evidence of widespread election fraud.”

[vii] Voter fraud is extremely rare compared to other types of election fraud in the United States. While all forms of election fraud are uncommon, voter fraud (such as impersonation or illegal voting) occurs even less frequently than other categories.

[viii] https://www.perplexity.ai/search/what-secretaries-of-state-said-uuv6669bTjiT9a2Lvu.S2A#5

[ix] I did not ask about what people said about “widespread voter fraud,” I asked about what people should make of the ubiquitous usage of the ambiguous term “voter fraud.” The response was: “The ubiquitous usage of the ambiguous term “voter fraud” is problematic and can lead to confusion in public discourse about election integrity (and listed was in which the confusion manifested).”

[x] Id.

[xi] “Why did you exclude the most important problem with the use of “voter fraud” in the answer before last? The biggest problem is that there could have been little (as you said) or even no voter fraud and widespread election fraud. The use of “voter fraud” permits scoundrels to bamboozle the public.”

[xii] “In defending the 2020 vote count, did anyone say ‘there is no evidence of widespread election fraud”?

The Bamboozling of Americans About Jan. 6

PART III – The Disinformers’ Bamboozling Techniques

The Disinformers’ deceptions were often achieved by using refined framing techniques. The FrameWorks Institute’s framing description is: “Framing is about the choices we make in what we say, how we say it, what we emphasize, and what we leave unsaid, and how these choices shape how people think, feel, and act.”^[i] A 2021 ScienceDirect paper titled “Persuasion strategies of misinformation-containing posts in the social media”^[ii] observed, “Several studies have revealed that misinformation creators are getting better and better at persuading recipients to establish, change, or strengthen their views in an expected direction (Osatuyi and Hughes, 2018), and become increasingly prevalent in social media environments (Guo et al., 2020) […] Pennycook and Rand (2019) indicates that social media users’ susceptibility to political misinformation is caused by the users’ insufficient cognitive efforts, i.e., lazy thinking.” With expert framing, the public can be convinced of almost anything. The Deep State and the MSM have taken full advantage of the power of many forms of false framing to convince much of the public of things that are not true about Jan 6. Let’s sort out how the Disinformers used false framing to their great advantage.

Priming. “In psychology, priming is a technique in which the introduction of one stimulus influences how people respond to a subsequent stimulus. Priming works by activating an association or representation in memory just before another stimulus or task is introduced.”^[iii]

The persuasion of this phenomenon occurs without our conscious awareness, yet it can have a major impact on numerous and profound aspects of our everyday lives.

Framing. “Framing is a persuasion technique which causes people, especially those with little critical thinking skills, to believe things without providing them sufficient information to make a reasoned ^{judgment.”[iv]} An extreme example of framing would be, “When did you stop beating your wife?” The primary problem with such framing is that it slanders a husband predicated on a presumption (the husband has beaten his wife) rather than a fact. It also imposes the problematic task of proving a negative. The technique can cause uncritical thinkers to assume unreasonably that the husband beat his wife. It’s a technique typically used by charlatans. The Disinformers used that technique when they described the events of Jan 6 as an “insurrection” without ever establishing that an insurrection occurred.

I’ve searched in vain for an example of Trump or a Great Patriot saying that they wanted to overthrow the government, the election, or anything remotely similar. In August 2024, I asked Grok if any Jan. 6 protesters wished to overturn the election. In addition to irrelevant gobbledygook, Grok’s response was “no.”^[v] In short, many Americans were bamboozled into believing that the Great Patriots at the Capitol on Jan 6 wanted to overturn the election or the government despite the claim being based on assumptions and lies.

Because there was no hard evidence that the Great Patriots desired to overthrow the election or the government (more on this point below), the MSM used a framing technique commonly used by car salespeople. The technique is called “think past the sale.”^[vi] The critical issue for a car buyer is whether the benefits of buying a car are worth more to the buyer than the car’s cost. The more a buyer focuses on the cost of the car, the less thought is given to the benefits of owning the car, and vice versa. A salesman has a much better chance of closing the sale if the buyer doesn’t think much about the car’s cost. So, salespeople do what they can to get the buyer to focus on (frame the decision as) how much fun, pride, and joy the customer will derive from owning and driving the car, something they can experience only after the sale. If they excessively focus on the car’s benefits, the buyer will focus less on the car’s cost, and the sale is more likely to happen, i.e., the more likely that the customer will be misguided.

Disnaming. I would have used the word “Misnaming” for this framing technique had the Disinformers not intentionally misnamed something to bamboozle the public. What they did is important enough to have its own word. Disnaming appears to be a favorite tactic for leftists. The term “Holocaust deniers” was coined soon after WWII^[vii] to disparage people who questioned or denied any aspect of the standard Holocaust narrative. “Holocaust denier” was a framing technique akin to the “when did you stop beating your wife” deception. Perplexity could find no evidence that people claim that Nazis had no animus toward Jews or that the Nazis had animus toward Jews but did not take any actions to inconvenience or harm them.^[viii] On the contrary, people who are labeled “Holocaust deniers” know that the Aryan Nazis believed themselves to be a superior race, Jews to be an inferior race, and that treating Jews poorly was justified. They don’t claim that the Jews were not treated poorly. They believe that the MSM narrative about the Nazis’ poor treatment of the Jews (“Holocaust”) is overblown. Consequently, they do not deny the Holocaust. (BTW: I believe that the so-called “Holocaust deniers” overblow their claims).

However, “denier” proved to be a very effective framing technique to disparage and intimidate people who took any issue with a variety of other Deep State narratives/propaganda they used to disinform. Since the late 1980s, when “AIDS deniers” were deployed by the Deep State, disnaming has become the Disinformers’ go-to technique to disinform. In the late 1990s, the Disinformers coined the term “climate deniers” to describe people who did not fall for the Disinformers’ narrative about CO2 and climate change. They’ve coined “Science deniers,” “climate deniers,” “Holocaust deniers,” “election deniers,” “AIDS deniers,” “COVID deniers,” “austerity deniers,” “inequality deniers,” “racism deniers,” “systemic racism deniers,” “GMO deniers,” and “tech deniers.”^[ix] These disnames have in common that they described approximately no one but unjustly slandered and othered those who were falsely labeled.

Let’s take two examples to illustrate the perniciousness of disnaming. Perhaps the most pernicious disnaming attacks were on the “vaccine-hesitant.” The New England Journal of Medicine described “vaccine hesitancy” as “a state of indecision and uncertainty about vaccination before a decision is made to act (or not act).”^[x] Very few people were hesitant about taking or not taking the vaccine. “Hesitant” means “hesitating; undecided, doubtful, or disinclined.”^[xi] Related words include afraid, averse, doubtful, halting, indecisive, reluctant, shy, slow, tentative, timid, and unsure.”^[xii] None of those descriptors are flattering – quite the contrary. Even the few who fit those descriptions eventually decided to act (or not act), i.e., they were no longer hesitant. Nearly everyone who chose not to take the vaccines distrusted the science emanating from the FDA, which authorized the Emergency Use Authorization for the novel vaccines, NIH, in general, and Fauci, in particular, and the MSM, who passed on the advice from them. Skepticism or distrust was ^{warranted.[xiii]} They were vehement, not hesitant. Nevertheless, whoever was dubbed “vaccine hesitant” was slandered as indecisive and stupid for being something they were not.

“Climate deniers” is an excellent example. No one claims that climate doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t change, they are not “denying climate.” They are either skeptical, or they deny various aspects of claims by climate alarmists, the data on which they rely, the models they can manipulate, or the efficacy or feasibility of their proposed remedies. That is not denying science. If it denies anything, it denies that all scientists are leveling with the public. Nevertheless, the Disinformers labeled them to be deniers of something they don’t deny.

I don’t pretend to know why the Deep State and its affiliates use slanderous disnaming. I guess they do that to malign, minimize, and squelch opposition to their narratives. Whatever the reason, disnaming confounds constructive conversation. People wind up wasting time talking about strawmen created by the Deep State instead of the Time is wasted talking about concocted “deniers” that don’t exist instead of the issue at hand, what the climate is doing, what can reasonably be done about the climate, whether there are other problems on which available resources could be spent that would create more good than tinkering with the climate, and on and on. It is a brainwashing technique.

The Disnaming technique was used to great advantage by the Deep State to sell the idea that the Jan 6 protesters were “insurrectionists.” An insurrection requires violence.^[xiv] “Coup” is the first word in Thesaurus.com’s list of synonyms for “insurrection.”^[xv] By 9:15 AM on January 6, “CNN was reported [to its audience] to have used the word “Coup” to describe what was happening at the Capitol.”^[xvi] At 9:15 a.m., a few people^[xvii] were at the Capitol outside the bicycle rack barriers.^[xviii] The “Save America” rally at the Ellipse, where Trump gave a speech, started at 9:00 ^a.m.[xix] “The first instance of violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, began when a group of Trump supporters, including individuals like Ryan Samsel and James Grant, pushed aside barricades and approached the police guarding the northwest path from the Peace Circle to the Capitol. This occurred at approximately 12:53 PM, while President Trump was still speaking at the rally.”^[xx] So, at 9:15 a.m., when CNN described what was happening on Jan 6, unless someone told CNN that arrangements for an “insurrection” had already been made by the Deep State, CNN had no evidence that a coup/insurrection was about to happen. Yet, CNN and the rest of the MSM continually, throughout the day and thereafter, kept pounding the words “insurrection” or “coup” to describe what was going on at the Capitol. The people the Disinformers brainwashed/primed to believe the Great Patriots wanted to revolt when they got to the Capitol looked for and believed they saw evidence of an insurrection. The Disinformers brainwashed the public into believing the Great Patriots wanted to overturn the election despite never having made that case. I can’t think of how the Disinformers could have delivered a greater service to the Deep State or to the public than their bamboozling of the public about Jan 6.

Dishonest Omissions of Essential Information. Disinformers effectively used several false frames about what the Great Patriots were doing at and inside the Capitol. As discussed above, their primary frame was/is that the Great Patriots were carrying out an “insurrection” at the urging of Trump. I discussed the inanity of that claim in Part II of this series. While that claim was repeated ad nauseam as commentary on videos and images of mayhem, the Disinformers rarely identified the people committing violence in their pictures and videos. Consequently, they omitted what could easily be the most important information about Jan 6, i.e., whether the people who incited or engaged in the preponderance of violence and the incitement thereof were Great Patriots or Trump Haters. They encouraged people to believe they witnessed an insurrection “with their own eyes.^[xxi]” That was military-grade disinformation. No matter how wide-open people’s eyes are, they cannot judge a book by its cover. Other than Ray Epps (more on him later) and false claims that Trump incited Great Patriots to commit violence (see “The ‘Insurrection’ Inanity” in Part II of this series for the problems with that claim), the MSM never identified who incited the mayhem or the extent to which the violence, including against police officers, was in justifiable self-defense in response to unjustified police or Trump Haters’ violence. In short, the Disinformers did not provide the evidence to prove that any more than a few Great Patriots were causing trouble at the Capitol.

The Disinformers talked their audience into thinking past the sale. They primed their audience to hate Great Patriots, implied that everyone committing violence was a Great Patriot, and, having so primed and brainwashed their audiences; their audiences were duped into believing that they could judge books by their covers. However, the Disinformers’ worst offense brings us back to the Rorschach Inkblot Test discussion in Part I.

 The inkblot image and the Jan 6 image have something important in common. Most people can interpret those things in an inkblot test to be a certain thing if the test taker is told what to look for in the image before the test begins. The same would be true if the MSM viewers were told to be looking for an insurrection in every Jan 6 image they see. In reality, however, one cannot look at the image on the right and tell 1) who provoked, ^{instigated,[xxii]} or started the violence, 2) whether the police were ordered to ensure that violence broke out, 3) whether the people wearing civilian or MAGA clothing were Great Patriots, Trump Haters, people paid to cause trouble, or are what their clothing suggests they are, 4) whether the police were violating protocols or laws by use of excessive violence, or 5) how much of the violence by Great Patriots was in justifiable self-defense against rogue police or Trump Haters.

Rather than dismiss the possibility that police or Trump Haters were responsible for most of the violence on Jan 6, consider the following. The FBI routinely infiltrates domestic groups that the FBI believes might be a threat to the country.^[xxiii] The FBI infiltrated groups that the FBI believed would be present at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and might cause trouble.^[xxiv] Intelligence agencies have a symbiotic relationship with the MSM.^[xxv] After 3.5 years of stonewalling about what happened on Jan 6, the DOJ’s Inspector General testified that the FBI had confidential human sources, including FBI informants, at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.^[xxvi] He was also asked whether or not there were FBI agents, contractors, or other affiliated people in the Jan 6 crowd.^[xxvii] He stonewalled that question, while in another 60 years, the DOJ might release that information along with the John F. Kennedy files.

It’s fair to suspect, if not assume, that the FBI clued in the MSM and social media companies to the fact that Trump Haters and people following orders issued by Trump Haters were in the Capitol crowd. Some Trump Haters are known to have been in the Jan 6 crowd, and they could have been in every scene presented by the MSM. Sadly, the omission of information critical to a fair understanding of what happened at the Capitol on Jan 6 caused most of their audiences to accept substantially false reporting. By implying the lie that all bad actors in the crowd were Trump Supporters, they talked past a critical consideration about who the terrible actors were. The fact that the MSM did not mention the facts above and the possibility that the government was playing a significant role in the events of Jan 6 was an irresponsible omission of very relevant and significant information and a major disservice to their audiences and the public.

Another technique Disinformers use is to spot ordinary words their opponents/targets used that have both a benign and sinister meaning and declare, based on a pretend ability to read minds, that the target was using the word in its sinister meaning. For example, all politicians encourage crowds to “fight,”^[xxviii] and most add “like hell” for all kinds of things. As discussed below, the Disinformers hypocritically rolled out that technique when they said Trump’s use of “fight like hell” in his Jan 6 speech incited Great Patriots to commit violence.

Thorough and honest investigative news reporting, without which republics die, includes a situation’s who, what, when, where, and why. The Disinformers rarely got any of those things right on the rare occasions they included some of those story aspects in their Jan 6 coverage. Below is a list of some additional significant things the Disinformers failed to include in their reporting:

1. The percentage of unlawful violence on Jan 6 that Great Patriots committed versus the percentage of Great Patriots who did nothing other than protest peacefully. (Compare calling the BLM riots in 2020 “mostly peaceful.”),^[xxix]
2. A comparison of the magnitude of the unlawful violence committed by Great Patriots versus that committed by Trump Haters or people Trump Haters ordered or incited others to commit violence,
3. Identification of the people engaging in or provoking violence. (Note that many of the Capitol’s windows were broken by men in black, some of them wearing masks – much like was seen in BLM protests in 2020,^[xxx] much to the consternation of many BLM members who were protesting the death of George Floyd, not to loot or facilitate looting or destroy property),
4. How much of the violence was triggered by Capitol Police’s provocations and assaults that riled up (instigated) erstwhile peaceable protestors to become hostile,
5. How much of the violence by Great Patriots was justifiable self-defense, and
6. Admission by “news” sources that they did not attempt to get the above essential information or that they had the information but withheld it because it would undermine their narratives.

Rather than telling the whole truth, the Disinformers painted with an overly broad brush and left a fundamentally false impression concerning what happened. They published disinformation and malinformation.

With that sleight of hand, the Disinformers convinced their audiences of the “Big Lie”^[xxxi] that all violence and other wrongdoing captured in pictures and videos was instigated and committed by Trump and the Great Patriots. While some Great Patriots were wrongfully violent, by omitting discussion of violence and instigation of violence by Trump Haters, the Disinformers bamboozled much of the public into a fundamentally false narrative. With the above in mind, let’s look at some of the images of Jan 6. The Disinformers used to bamboozle.

Repetition The 20^th century’s greatest propagandists were Joseph Goebbels, head of Nazi Germany’s Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Edward Bernays, author of Propaganda (1928), which outlined strategies for influencing masses, emphasizing the importance of “engineering consent,” and George Creel, Head of the United States Committee on Public Information during World War I.^[xxxii]

Goebbels famously articulated the principle that “if you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth.” This idea highlights how repetition can create an illusion of truth, making statements seem more credible simply due to their familiarity.”^[xxxiii] Consider how often the MSM told you that Jan 6 was an insurrection. That level of repetition suggests that the Deep State knew that massive repetition of “insurrection” would be required to sell that illusion to the public and would cause the public not to consider any alternative possibilities.

CNN’s Pictures and Captions Are Worth a Thousand Lies

In 2021, CNN was the primary Disinformer concerning Jan 6, but its techniques exemplified those used by all the Disinformers. So, it is fair to focus on the tactics and techniques CNN used to disinform the public about Jan 6.

It’s also fair to establish in advance that CNN was a lying organization before May 2022 (including Jan 6, 2021), when Chris Licht became CNN’s ^CEO.[xxxiv]

In a CNN staff meeting soon after Licht was hired, he said, “I want to acknowledge that this is a time of significant change, and I know that many of you are unsettled. There will be more changes, and you might not understand it or like it.” Later, Licht signaled a philosophical change for CNN in a letter to CNN employees, announcing, “First and foremost, we should, and we will be advocates for the truth.” [Emphasis Added.] Licht, the top insider, confirmed that CNN hadn’t previously been an advocate advocated for truth — so much so that fixing that failure was a top priority for CNN.

Then Licht expressed his aspirations for CNN, “I think we can be a beacon in regaining that trust by being an organization that exemplifies the best characteristics of journalism: fearlessly speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo, questioning ‘group-think’ and educating viewers and readers with straightforward facts and insightful commentary, while always being respectful of differing viewpoints…. First and foremost, we should, and we will be advocates for the truth.”

By saying, “I think we can be…,” Licht once again confirmed that CNN had not been and was not dedicated to the truth when he was hired. That period included Jan 6. (To his credit, Light cleaned out or demoted several biased CNN liars.^[xxxv])

A former CNN reporter corroborated and elaborated on Licht’s assessment of CNN, “Obama Paid [CNN] To Lie.”^[xxxvi]

Now, let’s examine examples of CNN disinforming about Jan 6.                          Trump supporters gather outside the US Capitol. Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Image

Tactics and Techniques:

More than 500 days after Jan 6, 2021, CNN posted an article titled: “In pictures: The January 6 Capitol riot.” The picture above and the following three pictures with their captions are from that article. (NOTE: The link to the article above is an update of the 2021 version from which the photos discussed below were extracted. The update includes the photos and captions discussed herein but has many more that are unnecessary to prove the irresponsibility and bias of CNN’s reporting.)

The caption of the above image, “Trump supporters gather outside the Capitol,” is undoubtedly accurate, i.e., most people in the crowd were very likely Great Patriots, but the caption is misleading. The caption omits other, more critical, harder-to-find things depicted in the picture. For example:

1. Many Trump Haters, some of whom were disguised as Great Patriots, were at the Capitol on Jan 6. (More on this fact below),
2. Essentially, all the Trump Haters in the crowds were there to make Trump and his supporters look bad or to incite Great Patriots to commit violence and crimes, and
3. Significant numbers of Deep State agents were present and active, and Deep Staters were involved in setting the stage upon which the drama played out. The Trump Haters may be a small fraction of those present, but it takes very few skilled inciters to incite multitudes. For example, the CIA has destabilized many peoples and countries through skilled misinformation and personnel.^[xxxvii]

Nevertheless, the Disinformers continuously 1) said or insinuated that, other than the beleaguered police, everybody in the pictures was a Trump Supporter, and 2) attributed all the wrongdoing that day to the Great Patriots and Trump. As explained below, the impression left by that disinformation is indisputably false, out of context, or misleading. It is also based on at least two preposterous presumptions:

1. Trump Haters were neither present nor significant instigators of and participants in violence,
2. Deep State Trump Haters would let such a juicy “crisis” that was within their power to make happen “go to waste^”[xxxviii] and
3. None of the capitol police had any form of animus toward Trump and the Great Patriots or violated crowd control protocols or laws. (More on this point below.)

If you wonder about the second point, ask yourself why Trump Haters would forego the spectacular opportunity to discredit, if not destroy, Trump’s political viability and his supporters’ freedom and lives. Consider that Rahm Emanuel was President Clinton’s Senior Advisor to the President for policy and strategy,^[xxxix] Obama’s Chief of Staff,^[xl] an advisor for President Biden, and “played a key part in the Democratic Party’s political operations^[xli] (read: “dirty tricks”^[xlii]). While President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Emanuel, said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”^[xliii] With Emanual’s strategy and the Deep State’s capabilities, creating an exploitable crisis is a walk in the park.

Also, a central theme of Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns was that he would “Drain The Swamp.” The Swamp, a.k.a. the “Deep State,” comprises the people running the federal bureaucracy and the elites that are above them. According to Trump, the Swamp needed to be drained of swamp monsters, including the heads of the CIA, FBI, DOJ, DOE, EPA, etc. Because the heads of those agencies wanted to expand their power, Trump was the Deep State’s enemy #1. Their jobs, power, prestige, status, extracurricular remunerations, political objectives, and, possibly, avoidance of infamy, fines, and prison terms depended on stopping Trump from winning a second term.^[xliv] The CIA alone had the skills to save itself and all its Deep State allies from the hellish fate that Trump sought to impose on them. Moreover, the MSM hated Trump because he, more than anyone, exposed them as fake. Perhaps more importantly, the opportunity to further malign Trump and his supporters would likely divert attention from, stop inquiry into, or discredit claims that the 2020 election was stolen. With the opportunity to trump Trump and the possible fates at stake, the odds that the Deep State would have an easily manufacturable “insurrection” crisis go to waste are low.

Caption: Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier outside the Capitol. Shortly after 1 p.m., some pushed through the barriers set up along the perimeter of the Capitol, where they tussled with officers in full riot gear. Julio Cortez/AP

In the caption of the above photo, CNN claims that the person trying to break through the flimsy bicycle “barriers” is a Trump supporter. This photo was taken by an AP photographer, Julio Cortez. While Cortez was taking photos, his associate was attacked by whom Cortez claimed were Great Patriots.^[xlv]

One cannot tell whether the goggled barrier breaker was or wasn’t a “Trump supporter” by looking at the picture. Even if wearing Trump gear was proof that he is a Trump supporter (which it isn’t), he was not wearing Trump gear, and his face was covered. CNN has never revealed the supposed “Trump supporter” person’s identity.^[xlvi] Based on its history with Trump, CNN would have loved to confirm that the pictured guy is a Trump supporter. This one instance of making stuff up revealed that CNN made stuff up about Jan 6.

While there is no reason CNN would have asked Mr. Cortez (or else they risk learning something that would prevent them from using the photos as they wished), it would have done CNN no good to have asked him.

Mr. Cortez’s job was to take photos that he could sell. The more photos he takes, the more likely that he will sell more photos. It’s incredibly unlikely that he would risk being incapacitated by trying to verify who the unruly masked man was or risk finding out that his photo would not be used because the violent person was a Trump Hater. More telling, in an interview, Mr. Cortez said what he was doing at the Capitol on Jan 6: “‘Once we were safe (from the encounter with the person in the picture), we kept on working because essentially that’s what we’re there for,’ Cortez said. ‘Our job is to make pictures,’”^[xlvii] i.e., verifying identities was not part of his job.  Devoting time to conducting interviews and verifying identities would have detracted from his job. Here is what he concluded about his job: “‘Long story short, we got the pictures that we needed, I believe,’ he said.”^[xlviii] The long and short of his work at the Capitol did not include gathering support for CNN’s claim that the pictured guy was a Trump supporter. Moreover, Grok said, “Given this context, while photographers did capture images that were later used for identifying participants, there’s no confirmed report from the provided information stating that their primary or secondary role on January 6 was to record identities. The focus was predominantly on documenting the events for news and historical purposes. However, the photographs taken were undoubtedly part of the broader effort to understand and prosecute those involved in the Capitol riot.”^[xlix]

So, CNN’s caption was essentially a lie because it claimed the person trying to break through a police barrier was a Trump supporter without evidence to prove its claim.

                       A noose is seen near Trump supporters gathered outside the Capitol

This picture of a gallows at the Capitol, accompanied by a superficially innocuous but deceptive caption, “A noose is seen near Trump supporters gathered outside the Capitol,” exemplifies another CNN tactic.

CNN’s caption provides no contextual information about the gallows or the noose. Assuming CNN did not arrange for the gallows to be on the Capitol grounds on Jan 6 or learned from reliable sources who did, there is no way CNN knew who installed the gallows. Had CNN known the Great Patriots had anything to do with the gallows, they would have made a huge deal out of it. As of late-October 2024, the identities of those who constructed the gallows have not been revealed.^[l] As far as CNN knew, the Great Patriots had nothing to do with the gallows. So, once again, CNN effectively lied about the gallows and gratuitously defamed the Great Patriots by insinuating that the Great Patriots in the picture were associated with the gallows. Their deceptions should not come as a surprise.  Such baseless maligning of Trump and Great Patriots has all the hallmarks of MSM propaganda. The next thing you know, CNN will be calling Trump “Hitler.” [See @ 8:30]^[li]

Notice how lame the caption is. That someone happened to be near the gallows when the picture was taken signifies nothing about the person. I would bet that the reason for the photo’s inclusion, even though the photo revealed nothing about the people in it and CNN couldn’t think of anything significant to say about the gallows, is that either CNN or friends of CNN built the gallows at great expense in the hope that the Great Patriots would make fools of themselves, which would enable CNN to say that the photo evidenced the Great Patriots had a lethal state of mind. Having spent so much time and money on it, they couldn’t bring themselves to exclude the nonsense from its photo bomb expose.

Whether or not CNN knew who brought the gallows, a truthful caption would have included who brought it to the Capitol or, at a minimum, that CNN did not know who brought it. Rather than being truthful, CNN dissembled with a mealy-mouthed, meaningless, but misleading caption. By talking past the sale, CNN disinformed its audience, prayed on its gullibility, and disserved the public and the republic.

Protesters and police exit the Capitol after the clashes   

CNN’s caption for this image contains an element of truth, i.e., just before this photo was taken, the police seen moving through the crowd had clashed with protesters. Three critical pieces of information about the clashes were omitted from the caption: who instigated the clashes, who initiated the clashes, whether harm to the police was unlawful or in self-defense against rouge police, and, if the police initiated the clashes, whether the initiation was justified and carried out according to police protocols and the law. To see how critical the story of what happened is, one must consider what the caption needs to say to inform its readers of what the image depicts.

The caption captures nothing important about what the photo depicts. However, it epitomizes why the new head of CNN used the future tense when he said, “… we will be advocates for the truth.”

The photo shows Oath Keepers, a group that the Disinformers have vilified for decades,[lii] soon after they quelled the clash and enabled the police to escape their entrapment by an unidentified mob in the Capitol. (Maybe this fake “Trump supporter was in the crowd attacking the police.)[liii] The photo shows two Oath Keepers escorting the rescued Capitol police through an angry crowd of unidentified people to safety.[liv] Contrary to CNN’s deceitful caption, the Oath Keepers in the photo were neither protesters nor police. They were doing a job a Capitol policeman asked them to try to do for the police trapped by a mob in the Capitol, something the Capitol Police were unable to do at the Capitol to keep Great Patriots safe while they peacefully protested.[lv]

CNN’s caption says nothing about what enabled the police to go from being trapped by a mob in the Capitol to peacefully leaving the building. The caption captures nothing interesting or significant about what is depicted. This is another case in which CNN revealed that it is not a news outlet but a politically motivated pablum dispenser.

I’m not defending the Oath Keepers. I’m commenting on CNN’s report. The DOJ obtained jury verdicts and long sentences against some of the Oath Keepers. I don’t know enough about the evidence to determine whether the convicted Oath Keepers got a fair trial in a non-impartial venue. However, those issues are irrelevant to CNN’s disinformation about the events of Jan 6.

The truth could be that the vast majority of the Great Patriots peacefully protested. Also, it could be that most of the violence committed by Great Patriots was in justified self-defense against Trump Haters attacking them or police violating standard policing procedures or laws, e.g., the continual brutal beating of a defenseless, unresponsive woman on the ground who died soon thereafter.[lvi]

CNN’s caption did not bury the lead of its pictures’ stories; it omitted the leads entirely, i.e., CNN disinformed. The rest of the MSM was as bad or worse.

As bad as the disinformation described above was, three other omissions/failings of the MSM are worse.

1. In perhaps the greatest mind-reading exercise in human history, the MSM used The Big Lie tactics for the narrative that the Great Patriots showed up to attempt an insurrection,
2. They ignored the violations of laws, police protocols, and the protesters’ civil rights by the Capitol Police, which provoked people to engage in violent self-defense, which caused things to spiral out of control,
3. They failed to investigate, much less report on the Deep State’s role in the events of Jan 6.

Having established the Disinformers’ bamboozling techniques and mendacity, PART IV will examine heinous instances of MSM mischaracterizations of the events of Jan 6.

^[i] Five Questions about Framing

^[ii] Persuasion strategies of misinformation-containing posts in social media

^[iii] Priming In Psychology Activating associations with previous stimuli, is priming a framing technique?

^[iv] Who said, “Framing is a persuasion technique which causes people, especially those with little critical thinking skills, to believe things without providing them sufficient information to make a reasoned judgment.”

^[v] Did any Jan 6. protesters say they wanted to overthrow the election?

^[vi] Thinking Past the Sale

^[vii] How did the term “denier” evolve to describe people who reject mainstream narratives

^[viii] Does anyone claim that Nazis had no animus toward Jews or the Nazis had animus toward Jews but did not take any actions to inconvenience or harm them?

^[ix] Leftists have used the word “denier” in many contexts since the late 1990s. What are the other contexts in which that persuasion technique has been used?

^[x] The Vaccine-Hesitant Moment

^[xi] Hesitant

^[xii] Id.

^[xiii] The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Covid Vaccine (with Vinay Prasad)

^[xiv] “Insurrection is when a group of people violently rebel against a government or authority that they feel is treating them unfairly.”

^[xv] insurrection

^[xvi] When did the press first use the word “insurrection” to describe what they feared would occur on Jan 6?

^[xvii] “At 9:00 AM, the “Save America” rally began at The Ellipse, which is located near the White House and not at the Capitol itself. This suggests that the main crowd was not yet at the Capitol at 9:15 AM.”

^[xviii] “Given this information, it’s likely that the number of people outside the barriers at the Capitol at 9:15 AM was relatively small compared to later in the day. The search results suggest that the main crowds were still gathering at other locations like the Ellipse at that early hour, and the significant movement towards the Capitol didn’t occur until after Trump’s speech, which began at noon.”

^[xix] How many people were outside the barriers at the Capitol on Jan 6 at 9:15 AM?, “

^[xx] What was the first instance of violence at the Capitol on Jan 6?

^[xxi] Did the mainstream media repeatedly use the phrase “We saw the Jan 6 insurrection with our own eyes,” or variations on that claim?

^[xxii] What is the difference between “instigated” and “provoked”?

^[xxiii] FBI infiltrates group whose members wanted to test homemade bombs, surveil Capitol, secede from US, court records show, THE FBI EXPOSED: What organizations or groups has the FBI infiltrated?

^[xxiv] In Proud Boys Jan. 6 Sedition Trial, F.B.I. Informants Abound

^[xxv] Latest Twitter Files shows CIA, FBI have spent years meddling in content moderation

^[xxvi] What did the DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz say about the number of confidential human sources, including FBI informants, or any other people working for the FBI who were at the Capitol on January 6?

^[xxvii] During his testimony before the House, was the DOJ Inspector General asked whether the FBI had agents, contractors, or other affiliated people in the Jan 6 crowd, and if so, what were his answer?

^[xxviii] Trump impeachment team plays video of ‘hypocrite’ Dems ‘urging FIGHT LIKE HELL’  Trump lawyer plays video montage of Democrats doubting election results at impeachment trial

^[xxix] As Seattle Settles Major Lawsuit, Media Still Insist George Floyd Riots Were ‘Mostly Peaceful’

^[xxx] Man who helped ignite George Floyd riots identified as white supremacist: Police, While the “Umbrella Man” incident in Minneapolis is the most well-known and documented case, there were other reports of individuals engaging in property destruction and inciting violence during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests

^[xxxi] The Big Lie

^[xxxii] Who were the greatest propagandists of the 20th century?

^[xxxiii] Does repetition create an illusion of truth, making statements seem more credible simply due to their familiarity?

^[xxxiv] New CNN boss Chris Licht to focus on ‘truth’ after slew of scandals,  New CNN president promises to work toward regaining trust of viewers, and CNN Staff Brace for Change as Chris Licht Era Starts to Take Shape

^[xxxv]CNN lays off more staff under new boss Chris Licht

^[xxxvi] CNN Reporter Admits Obama Paid Them To Lie

^[xxxvii] How the CIA Destabilizes the World

^[xxxviii] Rahm Emanuel “Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste,”

^[xxxix] Rahm Emanuel

^[xl] Id.

^[xli] What relationship did Rahm Emanuel have with Bill Clinton

^[xlii] Clinton and “dirty tricks”

^[xliii] Who said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste?”

^[xliv] The apparent blindness of leftist journalists

^[xlv] ‘We kept on working.’ Two photojournalists share what they witnessed during the Capitol building riot.

^[xlvi] Did CNN ever reveal the identity of the Julio Cortez photo of a person wearing a gas mask breaking through a bicycle barrier that was included in its “The January 6 Capitol riot” expose?

^[xlvii] Id.

^[xlviii] Id.

^[xlix] Did the photographers at the Capitol on Jan 6 obtain and record the identities of the people they photographed?

^[l] Who constructed the gallows at the Capitol on Jan 6?

^[li] Democrats Cry HITLER In HILARIOUS CRINGE As Trump SLAMS Illegal Immigration, Trump WINNING 2024

^[lii] The Oath Keepers’ Capitol riot trial, explained

^[liii] Fake Great Patriot

^[liv] Is there an article or video describing or showing a Capitol policeman asking Oath Keepers to rescue policemen trapped in the Capitol on Jan 6?

^[lv] OATH KEEPERS USA

^[lvi] Video shows officer striking motionless woman on the ground during Capitol riot

PART II – The Disinformers’ Drivel

Let’s begin our discussion of how the Disinformers deceived the public by debunking three of their deceptive go-to responses in the following situations:

• When people claim or mention the possibility that the events of Jan 6 were or likely were the outcome of a Deep State psyop.
• When people claim that Jan 6 was not an insurrection.
• When people object to Disinformers claiming that Trump should be prosecuted for his alleged wrongful actions and inactions on Jan 6.

The Conspiracy Theory Canard

As I discussed in my blog post, A Theory About Conspiracy Theories, people, especially Deep Staters, conspire to advance their interests surreptitiously. The Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center in Utah is evidence of that. So are the facts that people who don’t have high levels of security clearance cannot gain access to its sensitive areas and the fact that the facility’s mission is classified.^[i] The seven scientific method steps are observation, question, form a hypothesis/theory, make a prediction based on the hypothesis, test the hypothesis/experiment, data analysis, and conclusion.^[ii] The Disinformers would have you believe that you should skip all of that if the MSM slaps the label “conspiracy theory” on a theory the MSM doesn’t like. It’s a fundamentally anti-science ideology and a sophisticated and scientific bamboozling technique.

When people claim or mention the possibility that the invidious events of Jan 6 were or likely were the product of a Deep State psyop, the Disinformers’ go-to response is to slap the “conspiracy theory” label on it and summarily dismiss it. Sadly, far too many Americans have been propagandized into believing any theory on which the Disinformers slap the “conspiracy theory” label is necessarily false and preposterous.^[iii] Yet, the Disinformers have no logical counterargument when people point out that slapping the label “conspiracy theory” on a theory says nothing about whether the theory is valid or invalid. So, rather than responding to the challenge to their logic, they typically switch to claiming that the theory was invalid because it would involve too many people to keep the conspiracy secret for long, i.e., “somebody would have spilled the beans by now.”^[iv] That argument would be valid in the rare instances when a large number of conspirators were essential to develop and launch a psyop. More importantly, the argument is inapplicable when only a few high-level officials can develop and launch a psyop.

The coup de grass on the illogic of believing that anything labeled a “conspiracy theory” is necessarily invalid is that many theories labeled “conspiracy theories” were true.^[v]

The MSM’s actions during and following Jan 6 exemplify the latter situation. Essentially, everyone in the MSM is a Trump Hater. Most of them were indoctrinated into the same leftist ideology before they graduated with degrees in journalism. Journalists with non-aligned ideologies are soon fired in the unlikely event the MSM hires them. They all know and ascribe to the groupthink narratives, goals, and what needs to be done. They don’t need to know and appear to care less about who cooked up the psyop or that they were part of its implementation.

No MSM person needs to talk to anyone else to want or to know how to portray Trump and the Great Patriots in the worst possible light. Journalism schools have programmed their students to do that without circumspection or compunction. More importantly, sharing their scopes, ideas, or angles with other MSM members could harm their career prospects. It could result in others stealing their scoop and the resulting glory. The odds MSM people will conspire with their piers to create a narrative different than the ones that the Deep State sends to them is extremely low.

Communication among like-minded and politically active people is not a must. For example, suppose Antifa or BLM activists learn that Great Patriots will be at the Capitol on Jan 6 to protest the election. As Trump haters, they know the protest will be an opportunity to make the Great Patriots look bad, which will hurt Trump. No conspiring, coordinating, or communicating among themselves or with the Deep State, MSM, or Big Tech is required. From their many successful experiences over the years, especially in the spring and summer of 2020, each member of those organizations knew that if they showed up and instigated and engaged in enough violence to cause American stomachs to churn, they would help discredit Trump and his supporters and otherwise advance their cause. Their 2020 experience also taught Antifa that if they committed violence while advancing leftist causes, they need not worry about law enforcement.

Top-level Deep Staters undoubtedly conspire to strategize, develop, and pursue secret agendas that advance their collective self-interests (e.g., get rid of Trump or aggregate more power for themselves). The number of top-level people needed to launch such a plan can be a small group of experienced and trusted people who, for mutual benefit, keep their lips sealed when around people outside the group. Unlike nongovernmental conspiracies, where offing whistleblowers expose the conspirators to criminal prosecution, as discussed below, governmental conspirators who off whistleblowers are above the law. Their enforcement mechanisms are often lethal.^[vi] They have plenty of practice.^[vii] Once the top-level Deep Staters agree on a psyop, they can implement it by issuing orders to trusted [read tight-lipped] field commanders who need to know nothing about the psyop, who, in turn, issue orders to the people under their command. The commanded teams are likely told not to ask why they are being commanded to do something, e.g., lob flash bombs into peacefully protesting crowds.

The Deep Staters write up and send to the MSM a stealthily worded news release that will prime the public to view upcoming events in the way the Deep Staters want the events to be seen. Once the MSM dutifully broadcasts the narrative,^[viii] the lies will go around the world before the people who see the psyop for what it is can get their boots on, and governmental/MSM suppression of counter-narratives begins.

Even if the MSM were inclined to fact-check “news” from the Deep State (something for which there is no evidence and a long history of avoiding), the MSM dare not fact-check the government’s narratives^[ix] lest they lose access to free “news” and scoops upon which they rely to fill their pages and time on screens and would risk being regulated out of existence if they did otherwise. Consequently, the MSM propagates and defends the crafty Deep State narratives to the public. The MSM-spread narrative informs Big Tech, which engages in algorithmic promotion/“validation” of the Deep State’s narratives and suppresses, demonetizes, bans, opposing narratives or deplatforms opposing narrators lest the Deep State regulates them out of business.[x]  Nobody other than the few top-level Deep Staters needs to keep the existence, motives, or means of a psyop under wraps.

Even if the above observation were not sufficient to persuade you that psyops can be carried out with only a few people knowing about the psyop, recall the Chuck Schumer quote in Part I: “You take on the intelligence community, and they have six ways till Sunday the occasional attempts of whistleblowers to sound alarms get back at you.”^[xi] Unlike most conspiracies by large groups (where “spilling the beans” is more likely due to relatively expensive and weak enforcement abilities), the Deep State has six ways till Sunday to silence or something worse to those who spill beans. Enforcement is likely rarely needed because the terror effects of their past practices are usually sufficient to dissuade people from spilling anything.

With the aid of their social media hacks and trolls and the MSM, the Deep State has brainwashed much of the public into believing that every theory on which they slap the label “conspiracy theory” is false and only believed by tinfoil hat-wearing nut jobs. The technique has worked like a charm (literally). If Goebbels were alive, he’d likely still be kicking himself for not inventing that persuasion technique.

The Deep State appears to be primarily, if not exclusively, serving the interests of Deep Staters. It is politically biased toward Democrats because the Democratic Party’s agenda is to grow the size, scope, and power of the Deep State, and it is more profligate in spending on government initiatives than the Republicans (although the Republicans are no slouches when it comes to spending). Its lies^[xii] are overwhelmingly to cover up its wrongdoing or to advance an agenda to expand its size, scope, and power.

In sharp contrast with Democrats’ relationship with the Deep State, Trump’s name for the Deep State is “The Swamp.” He has pledged to “Drain the Swamp in all three presidential campaigns, i.e., his agenda was directly opposed to the Deep State’s agenda, and Trump continually defames the Deep State. Sadly, he failed to drain The Swamp during his first term. On the contrary, the Swamp swamped Trump with disinformation and lawfare. Yet, Trump survived to live another campaign against them. Surely, the Deep State is embarrassed and furious that they were unable to take him out and fearful that he might return and curtail their power. We know from history that the Swamp will fight back.

It is fair to say that the Deep State (a.k.a., the administrative state) considers Trump a threat to democracy in America.^[xiii] The head of the FBI, Hillary Clinton, a federal appellate judge, and many other Deep Staters have said that Trump is a threat to our democracy.^[xiv] Hillary also said Trump is a threat to national security.^[xv] They continue to say that even though Trump was the president for four years and not only did America and its pretenses of “secure elections” survive his presidency, things went relatively well for most Americans in those four years except for two things, both of which have hallmarks of being psyops to take down Trump. The pandemic, which more and more appears to have been the result of a virus created in a Chinese bioweapon lab funded by the NIH under Dr. Fauci and the Department of Defense escaping a lab in China (because conducting such research in the US is illegal) and sending the world into chaos, lost jobs and businesses, and death^[xvi] to make an excuse for states not following their election laws in ways that advantaged Biden, and the riots, occupations, and arsons for which the government put up little resistance, possibly to make it appear that everything was falling apart in Trump’s reelection year. Of course, I don’t know the extent to which, if any, those things were parts of a psyop, but neither does anyone outside the top levels of the Deep State know that it wasn’t a psyop. Because of previous verifiable Deep State lies, their denials of playing a role in 2020 chaos carry little or no weight in the minds of the most critical-thinking people paying attention.  Worse for the Deep State, due to the flood of lies from the Deep State and its suppression of truths, the fact that the Deep State denies encouraging, facilitating, or permitting riots was part of a psyop to ruin Trump’s chances of winning the 2020 election can be viewed as a reasonable working hypothesis if not evidence that it was a psyop.^[xvii] While some people dispute that claim, it is fair to say that neither theory can be proven or disproven based on the information available to the public.^[xviii] So, dismissing the possibility that the 2020 riots were a psyop is irrational.

Sadly, despite the many verified examples of the Deep State lying under oath to Congress^[xix] and the public, much of the public still believes the government doesn’t lie to them. Nevertheless:

• “In October 2020, during the final weeks of the presidential campaign, 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter asserting that the claims regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”^[xx] This letter was released just days before the second presidential debate and was aimed at casting doubt on the authenticity of the laptop’s contents, which had been reported by the New York Post. The letter was organized by former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, who later indicated that he was motivated to act after a conversation with Antony Blinken, a senior official in the Biden campaign and now Secretary of State….”^[xxi]
• The claim that Hunter left his laptop at a pawn shop was valid.^[xxii]

The CIA’s claim that the Hunter laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” had all the classic earmarks of an agency using a truthful statement to cause the public to believe the claims were Russian election interference on behalf of Trump. This is an example of how sophisticated the Deep State’s propaganda is. They can construct a truthful narrative to plant a falsehood in the public’s minds.

DOJ’s Special counsel to investigate the FBI’s conduct “declared that the bureau’s probe into whether the Trump campaign conspired with the Kremlin to win the 2016 election was “seriously flawed” and that “the FBI discounted or willfully ignored material information that did not support the narrative of a collusive relationship.”^[xxiii] The Russian Collusion investigation has acknowledged many DOJ failing in connection with its trumped-up “Russia Collusion Hoax,” which it manufactured using wiretaps of phone conversations with Trump’s staffers who did nothing wrong. The FBI obtained permission to wiretap by filing applications to FISA courts that were flawed in many ^ways.[xxiv] No DOJ officials or FISA court justices have suffered consequences for filing or approving flawed and misleading FISA applications.[xxv]

The “Insurrection” Inanity

Over 1,500 individuals have been charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol.^[xxvi] In a release dated January 6, 2024, the DOJ declared the number of people charged with the multiple crimes allegedly committed at the Capitol on Jan. 6. The number of people charged with the crime of insurrection (18 U.S. Code §2383)^[xxvii] was zero.^[xxviii] Yet, over three and a half years later, the Disinformers continue to use the word “insurrection” to describe the events of Jan 6. Let’s sort out why they should not have used that term.

The Great Patriots are known for their love of the country/their democratic republic, and its founding documents and principles.^[xxix] They disdain the Democrats and socialists who ask, “When was America ever great?”^[xxx] and belittle, distort, and ignore the Constitution.^[xxxi] The idea that any Great Patriot wanted to prevent a valid vote count from being certified is preposterous. They were protesting the certification of what they sincerely believed was an invalid vote count, which, if certified, would “validate” a Deep State coup carried out on November 3, 2020. Trying to save the republic from a coup was the opposite of an insurrection to overturn the legitimate government. It was protesting an overthrow of the government by Democrat compatriots in the Deep State.

An “insurrectionist” is “a person who takes part in an armed [Emphasis added.] rebellion against the constituted authority.”^[xxxii] In March 2024, the Washington Post reported, “John Banuelos is the 10th person accused of bringing weapons to D.C. for the insurrection,” and that he was the only Great Patriot who allegedly fired a shot on Jan 6.”^[xxxiii] His two shots fired into the air bear no resemblance to an armed rebellion. Two shots fired by one guy do not amount to armed rebellion against the constituted authority of the US government. No number of flagpole-wielding protesters (many of whom were using them in self-defense against rogue or hysterical policemen) on top of nine unused firearms and two harmless shots into the air is a serious attempt to overthrow the US government. The US nuclear codes were secure the entire day.

The pivotal issue concerning insurrection is whether the Disinformers’ claim that Trump wanted and instigated an insurrection on Jan 6 is accurate. The Disinformers went overboard to convince the public that Trump wanted and instigated an insurrection. The most egregious thing the Select Committee did was tell the public that there is no evidence that Trump ordered the Secretary of Defense (Miller) to ensure at least 10,000 troupes were ready for the Capitol on Jan 6. Technically, that is a true statement, but it is meaningless regarding whether Trump wanted an insurrection.

Had Trump wanted an insurrection, if Pence had certified what Trump believed was an invalid vote count, he would not have called Miller to his office on Jan 5 and told him to have 10,000 troupes ready near the Capitol to keep things under control. Yet that is what Trump did. The issue is not whether Trump ordered Miller to have the troupes there. The issue is whether Trump wanted 10,000 troupes to be ready to keep things under control on Jan 6, something Trump clearly did. The House Select Committee asked Miller whether he was “told” to have 10,000 troupes on the ready. Miller responded, “Not in my perspective; I was never given a directive, order, or any plan of that nature.” Note that the question posed to Miller wasn’t whether Miller was given a directive, order, or plan to have troupes ready. The question was whether Miller was told by Trump to have troupes ready. Miller dodged the question and used weasel words to change the subject to whether Trump gave him “a directive, order, or plan.” Deep Stater Miller thereby avoided lying (Trump did not give Miller “a directive, order, or plan,” Trump merely told him to do it. Every committed Deep Stater would avoid saying anything that would harm the fundamentally false concocted narrative with which the Select Committee was bamboozling the public. Not only did Trump and his chief of staff testify that Trump told Miller to have them ready, but General Mark Milley (the guy who reportedly told the Chinese that if there were going to be an attack on China, he would call ahead to warn them, indicating a commitment to avoid any surprise military actions) “… General Milley confirm(ed) that Trump did tell the Secretary of Defense to ensure there were sufficient troops available to keep January 6th safe. Milley’s recollection indicates that Trump wanted adequate security measures, including using National Guard or active duty soldiers if necessary.”^[xxxiv]

It’s also relevant to note that making arrangements to have heightened security at the Capitol on Jan 6 was not Trump’s responsibility. As Nancy Pelosi said:^[xxxv]

• “I take full responsibility” for not having better security preparations,
• “We have totally failed. We have to take some responsibility for not holding the security accountable for what could have happened,”
• “Oh my god, I cannot believe the stupidity of this. And I take the full responsibility.”

Disinformers accused Trump of instigating the riots by saying to his Jan 6 speech audience, “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore… march over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”^[xxxvi] Common sense and time are not on the side of people who argue that Trump incited an insurrection by saying “fight” and “fight like hell.” That red herring is laughably weak. Politicians of every political stripe commonly use “fight” and “fight like hell” in their speeches.^[xxxvii] Merriam-Webster defines “fight” to be 1. a: to contend in battle or physical combat” and 2. “to put forth a determined effort.”^[xxxviii] A politician using “fight” in its physical combat connotation would be political suicide. Trump has many flaws (don’t we all?), but committing political suicide isn’t one of them. Believing that a politician with the political skills to have been elected president would use “fight” in its physical combat connotation reveals a lack of common sense, especially when he immediately thereafter tells his audience to “march over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

The timeline of events also refutes the claim that Trump’s words incited violence at the Capitol. The Capitol Police abandoned the violently overrun bike rack “barriers”^[xxxix] at approximately the same time that Trump’s speech ended at about 1:10 p.m.^[xl] Trump was over a mile away from the Capitol when he spoke those words. No one at the Capitol could have heard those words.

The people who attended Trump’s speech heard those words, but even if some of that crowd interpreted “fight” to mean use violence and ignored their beloved president’s urging to protest peacefully, they had minimal opportunity to engage in violence. The House Select Committee estimated the audience at Trump’s speech to be about 53,000 people.^[xli] The people who started the violence could not have heard Trump’s “fighting” words before the violence commenced. It would have taken 60 – 90 minutes for 53,000 people to exit the seating area at the ^{Ellipse.[xlii]} The time required for a very large and relatively old crowd^[xliii] to walk 1.5 miles from the Ellipse to the Capitol is 30 to 90 minutes.^[xliv] So, it would have taken 90 – 180 minutes for the 53,000 people to go from a seated position at Trump’s speech and the Capitol. That means that Trump’s audience could have arrived at the Capitol as late as 4:10 p.m., i.e., long after the police had abandoned the flimsy bike rack “barricades” that were either gone or lying on their sides on the ground. The Disinformers’ claims about Trump’s fighting words inciting an insurrection are bunk. Grok AI’s best estimate of the amount of violence that occurred before 4:10 P.M. is “between 70-80% of the violence occurred before 4:10 PM, considering the surge of the crowd, the initial breaches, and the most intense confrontations with law enforcement.^[xlv]

Even if some Great Patriots wanted a rebellion [something for which there is scant evidence], the Disinformers’ claim that Great Patriots were/are cultists^[xlvi] disproves the claim that the Great Patriots wanted an insurrection. Cultists hang on to every word of their leader and do as their leader tells them. In his speech on Jan 6, Trump did not urge his supporters to do whatever is necessary to stop the certification of the vote count. On the contrary, he told his so-called “cult members” to “march over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” If the Disinformers’ first claim is true, their second claim cannot be. Nevertheless, the Disinformers’ professional-grade propagandists bamboozled their audiences into simultaneously believing those two contradictory claims.

Deep Staters Are Not Above The Law?

If the events of Jan 6 were the product of a Deep State psyop, the psyop was the most impactful instance of election interference the American public has suffered. It was designed to ruin Trump’s chances of ever running again. Only people above the law (the laws against election interference in this case) can instigate a riot that appears to many to be an insurrection, bamboozle the public about what it did on Jan 6, and not only come out ahead but also suffer no consequences.

Despite the constant refrain by politicians that “No one is above the law,”^[xlvii] the Deep State and their peripheral political allies are unquestionably above the law. They can and do interfere with elections by lying, exercising powers not delegated to them, breaking the law, ignoring the Constitution, e.g., filing flawed FISA warrant applications to wiretap their political opponents^[xlviii] infringing on Americans’ free speech rights directly^[xlix] and indirectly by embedding federal agents at social media companies, monitoring content on their platforms [read, “spying on Americans,”] and lobbying to have posts that do not suit their fancy removed, posters banned, demonetized, and suppressed,^[l] much more. All these things constitute election interference — to their great advantage and detriment to individual victims of their lawlessness and the country at large. Making matters even worse, they suffer no adverse consequences from their lawlessness. Committing crimes and suffering no negative consequences is the essence of being “above the law.” Their allies in the disinforming MSM and phony “fact-checkers” run cover for them and cause most of the public to believe the lies.

A critical element of the Deep State Disinformers’ ability to disinform the public is their quest to ignore or quash the indispensable checks and balances that enable the Constitution to work its magic. Lord Acton’s often repeated observation, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” describes the primary problem America’s Constitution was designed to address. The Constitution’s primary genius is the creation of the three branches of government [Legislative, Executive, and Judicial], which empowered each branch to check the other two branches if a branch tyrannically exceeded its authority. Without adequate checks and balances, absolute tyranny is inevitable.

The power to imprison witnesses for not answering questions from legislators primarily lies with Congress. It has the constitutionally delegated power to exercise its contempt authority and statutory contempt powers.^[li] Congress also has inherent authority to adjudicate contempt cases but has irresponsibly abandoned that power since 1935.^[lii] Consequently, there have been no recent cases of a witness being prosecuted for contempt when the witness was of the same political party as the president. The last time a witness of a political affiliation different from the president was prosecuted for contempt of Congress was in 1983.^[liii] In the last 25 years, the only people who were prosecuted and imprisoned by Biden’s DOJ for contempt of Congress were Peter Navarro, a Deputy Assistant to President Trump and Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser.^[liv] During that period, the following Deep State members or supporters of the Deep State exercised executive privilege to withhold information from Congress: Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Janet Reno, Harriet Miers, and Sara Taylor, among many more. Biden, Obama, Gore, Miers, and Tayor were not even held in contempt of Congress.^[lv] Congress only held Clinton, Holder, and Reno in contempt for refusing to provide subpoenaed documents to Congress, but they suffered no negative consequences for having been held in contempt, but they suffered no negative consequences other than embarrassment by Clinton, the loss of his law license that he hadn’t used in decades, and a mild fine.^[lvi]

After he was no longer vice president, Joe Biden kept stacks of classified documents in his garage and elsewhere. Similarly, Trump, like most, if not all, of his predecessors, kept confidential documents after he left office. Unlike Biden, Trump did not share confidential information with his biographer; the FBI raided Trump’s home before dawn to gather all the documents the FBI wanted, and “Trump was indicted on charges related to the mishandling of classified documents, which included 37 counts such as willful retention of national defense information, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and false statements, among others,” which were later dismissed because the prosecutor’s appointment violated the U.S. Constitution (and, so far, the government has not reimbursed Trump for the legal fees and time wasted on an unconstitutional prosecution).^[lvii] For doing approximately the same thing as Trump did, except that for Biden’s unlawful sharing of confidential information with his biographer, Biden, other than the embarrassment of being let off the hook for not having the mental capacity to commit a crime, Biden suffered no significant negative consequences: “The special counsel’s investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents found evidence that he “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after his vice presidency. However, the report concluded that no criminal charges were warranted for several reasons, including Biden’s mental acuity.”^[lviii] People associated with left-wing causes claim that Trump is as mentally debilitated as Biden, yet Trump is being dragged over the coals for his retention of classified documents.^[lix]

The 2016 Russian Collusion Hoax^[lx] was fraudulent election interference by the FBI and DNC. The FBI launched an investigation of a phony dossier paid for by Trump haters, including the DNC, that claimed that Trump’s campaign was colluding with Russia to interfere with the election. “The FISA warrant applications [to permit wiretaps of Americans] used in the Russia investigation faced significant criticisms and were found to contain serious ^{flaws.”[lxi]} Yet, “No one involved in the flawed FISA applications related to the Russia investigation has faced significant negative consequences.”^[lxii]

In 2020, the centerpiece of Biden’s campaign was a lie/hoax that Trump said Nazis in Charlottesville were “very fine people.”^[lxiii] That, too, was election interference.^[lxiv] Biden suffered no negative consequences for his disinformation about Trump and its interference with the election. On the contrary, he was awarded the presidency. Harris trotted out that lie in her debate with Trump, and the moderators didn’t even fact-check it.

The unaddressed injustices inflicted by Biden’s lawfare against Trump, the Jan 6ers, and whistleblowers are too many and too complicated to burden this presentation with sorting out.

The list of illegalities by Deep Staters that go unpunished could fill a tomb. Hopefully, the above examples demonstrate that, with Democrats in charge and protected by the Deep State, many Americans are above the law, most Americans are not above the law, and some, like Trump and Jan 6ers, are below the law.

The monotonous claim that “No one is above the law” is absolutely preposterous.

Given the above facts, the fact that Trump is an existential threat to Deep Staters’ power, prestige, wealth, effective immunity from prosecution/above-the-lawness, hatred for Trump, proven propaganda and psyop skills, the most important question facing Americans is: Why wouldn’t the Deep State launch a psyop on Jan 6 that would greatly increase the likelihood that the sketchy vote counts of 2020 would not be overturned and would seriously damage Trump’s chances of rising from the ash heap they could create for him on Jan 6?

In Part III of this series, we’ll sort out The Disinformers’ Bamboozling Techniques.

^[i] Is a high level of security clearance required to access parts of the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center in Utah? The Utah Data Center (UDC), also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, is a U.S. Intelligence Community facility located in Bluffdale, Utah.

^[ii] The scientific method

^[iii] A Theory About Conspiracy Theories

^[iv] “Too Many People? On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs” “On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs”

^[v] What things that have been labeled “conspiracy theories” have been proven to be true?

^[vi] What is a list of government whistleblowers who have died not long after their identity and intent to whistleblow or actual whistleblowing is discovered by the government?

^[vii] What US psyops have been made public? How the US Pentagon Organizes Racial Rent-a-Riots

^[viii] How Sinclair Broadcast Group Violates Its Own Media Rules | NYT – Opinion How do governments historically use media to their advantage

^[ix] Have the mainstream media had significant layoffs over the last ten years?

^[x] MIND CONTROL: Watch As Fake News Anchors All Across The Country Say The Same Thing And Repeat The Same Taglines Over And Over Again https://www.nowtheendbegins.com/mind-control-watch-as-news-anchors-all-across-the-country-say-the-same-thing-and-repeat-the-same-taglines-over-and-over-again/ Pardon Assange and Snowden, Lt. Col. Scheller Announces Discharge From Marines After Afghanistan Criticism

^[xi] Schumer Warns Trump: Intel Community Has Many Ways to ‘Get Back at You’ (FLASHBACK),

^[xii] CIA says it gave false information to Congress about ‘Spies Who Lie’

^[xiii] Is it fair to say that the US administrative state considers Trump a threat to democracy in America?

^[xiv] What federal officials have said that Trump is an existential threat to our democracy?

^[xv] What has Hillary Clinton said about Trump being a threat to our democracy?

^[xvi] What ties the NIH, Dr. Fauci, and the Defense Department to developing the COVID-19 virus?

^[xvii] What is the case for the claim that the protests and riots in 2020 were permitted to flourish due to an administrative state psyop?

^[xviii] Is it fair to say that neither theory can be proven or disproven based on the information available to the public?

^[xix]  What are verified examples of the CIA providing misinformation?

^[xx] What is to be made of the 51 former CIA agents’ letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop?

^[xxi] Under whose administration did the 51 former CIA officers who signed a letter saying that the claims that Hunter Biden’s laptop was left at a pawn shop had all of the hallmarks of being Russia election interference?

^[xxii] Has the government conceded that the Hunter Laptop story was not a “Russian information operation?

^[xxiii] John Durham to publicly testify on report detailing FBI bias in Trump-Russia probe

^[xxiv] Verified lies by the FBI in testimony to the House of Representatives, What errors or omissions did Durham cite in connection with the DOJ’s FISA warrant applications?

^[xxv] Did any DOJ official suffer consequences from having filed flawed applications to FISA courts in connection with the Russian collusion investigation? Has the DOJ admitted that the Russian Collusion Hoax is a hoax?

^[xxvi] How many people did the DOJ charge with the multiple crimes allegedly committed at the Capitol on Jan. 6?

^[xxvii] 18 U.S. Code § 2383 – Rebellion or insurrection

^[xxviii]  Three Years Since the Jan. 6 Attack on the Capitol

^[xxix] Relic: How Our Constitution Undermines Effective Government–and Why We Need a More Powerful Presidency

^[xxx] Education Funding Takeaways from California

^[xxxi] supra

^[xxxii] “Insurrectionist”

^[xxxiii] Chicago man charged with firing gun during Jan. 6 Capitol riot

^[xxxiv] What was General Milly’s quote on the subject?

^[xxxv] NEW: Obtained HBO Footage Shows Pelosi Again Taking Responsibility for Capitol Security on January 6, Pelosi claims ‘responsibility’ while discussing National Guard’s Jan 6 absence: Video

^[xxxvi] Capitol riots timeline: What happened on 6 January 2021?

^[xxxvii] Trump Defense Attorney Shows Montage Of Democrats Using ‘Fight’ Rhetoric | NBC News

^[xxxviii] Fight:

^[xxxix] At what time did the Capitol Police abandon the bike rack barricades on Jan 6?

^[xl] Id.

^[xli] How many people attended Trump’s speech on the Elipse on Jan 6

^[xlii] How long would it have taken to walk from The Ellipse to the Capitol on Jan 6 after Trump concluded his speech?

^[xliii] The Jan 6 crowd at Trumps speech was much larger and older/slower than an average crowd. Please calculate the time required to reach the Capitol with those factors taken into account.

^[xliv] Id.

^[xlv] Based on your general overview and considering Trump telling protesters to end the protest, what is your best estimate of the percentage of violence that occurred before and after 4:10 PM?

^[xlvi] What prominent people claimed that Trump supporters were cultists who followed Trump’s lead.

^[xlvii] Dems To Robert Mueller: ‘No One Is Above The Law.’ | NBC News

^[xlviii] What was wrong with the FISA warrant applications concerning the Russia Collusion hoax?

^[xlix] What are some notable cases where the US government has been accused of infringing upon or suppressing free speech

^[l] What do the Twitter files say about the US government infringing on Americans’ free speech rights?

^[li] When did Congress last use its inherent power to adjudicate contempt of Congress proceedings?

^[lii] What empowers Congress to hold witnesses in contempt for not testifying or lying to Congress?

^[liii] When was the last time a witness in a congressional hearing was prosecuted for contempt when the presidency was held by the same political party as the witness’s political affiliation?

^[liv] Over the last 25 years, who has been imprisoned for being in contempt of Congress?

^[lv] Other than Joe Biden and Eric Holder, what Democrats have asserted executive privilege to avoid providing testimony or other evidence to Congress?

^[lvi] Were any of the people mentioned in your previous answer held in contempt of Congress?

^[lvii] What is the status of the charges filed against Trump concerning confidential documents?

^[lviii] Did Joe Biden share classified information with his autobiographer?

^[lix] What prominent people claim that Trump is as mentally debilitated as Biden?

^[lx] Trump was right: ‘Russian collusion’ was a hoax. Good luck regaining public’s trust.

^[lxi] What was wrong with the FISA warrant applications used in the Russia Collusion investigation?

^[lxii] Has anyone been punished for paying for, perpetrating, and pretending to validate the Russian Collusion hoax?

^[lxiii] What sources have confirmed that Trump never said that Nazis were “very fine people”?

^[lxiv] Was the Russian Collusion Hoax election interference?

PART I – Introduction

Have you wondered why Americans are so divided about what happened on Jan 6, 2021? This series of posts will explain why that is and why it is important to know why that is. “The events of Jan 6” (“Jan 6”) were a monumental and pivotal moment in America’s history. The events were monumental because whether Trump would have a chance of becoming president in 2025 depended on the percentage of the voters who accepted the narratives about Jan 6 that mainstream media (“MSM”) regurgitated every day of the 46 months between Jan 6 and November 5, 2024, and the percentage of voters who believed or, at least accepted the possibility, that the events of Jan 6 were a Deep State Psy-Op. (“Deep State,” as I am using the term, is simply those in or outside the federal government who are calling the shots for the country.) I don’t know whether or not Jan 6 was a Psy-Op. However, I know much of what the MSM said about Jan 6 is incorrect, deceptive, manipulative, and wrong, and there is enough evidence that Jan 6 was a Psy-Op that dismissing that possibility shows an unhealthy lack of curiosity. [See my About page to know where I’m coming from.]

Watching MSM videos and seeing photos taken at the Capitol to figure out what happened is like a Rorschach Inkblot Test^[1] with a twist. That test is a projective psychological test in which subjects’ perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. A Rorschach test involves silently showing a series of ten inkblots to a subject and, after the subject has decided what to say about what they see in the inkblot, asking what they see in them.

The twist is that, unlike a Rorschach Inkblot Test, the videos were typically observed as biased commentators with their hair on fire either told the viewer what the commentators wanted the viewer to see or the viewer watched after commentators told the viewer what to be looking for.

The mainstream media,^[i] ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSMBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal (“MSM”), Social Media,^[ii] Democrat and socialist politicians, leftist pundits, and the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the Capitol (“Select Committee”), Never Trumpers, and the Deep State (the people in the federal government that set the agendas and call the shots for federal actions)(collectively, the “Disinformers”) have masterfully propagandized much of the public with substantially or completely false narratives about “The Events of Jan 6, 2021” (“Jan 6”). Most politicians, pundits, bloggers, etc. who contest the MSM’s narratives about Jan 6 point out inaccuracies and deceptions in the Disinformers’ narratives. This post will do some of that, but I aim to reveal how the Disinformers bamboozle the public. I hope that, by seeing how they were bamboozled, some of the bamboozled will see that they have been bamboozled.

Contrary to what the Disinformers would have you believe, it’s not just right-wing nutjobs who claim the MSM is fake; the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review issued four scathing reports on the MSM’s fake news. After skewering the New York Times for its fake reporting on the Russia Collusion hoax, CJR wrote:

“Before the 2016 election, most Americans trusted the traditional media and the trend was positive, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer. The phrase “fake news” was limited to a few reporters and a newly organized social media watchdog. The idea that the media were “enemies of the American people” was voiced only once, just before the election on an obscure podcast, and not by Trump, according to a Nexis search.”

In a 2022 Reuters report, the US media has the lowest credibility—26 percent—among forty-six nations, according to a 2022 study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. In 2021, 83 percent of Americans saw “fake news” as a “problem,” and 56 percent—mostly Republicans and independents—agreed that the media were “truly the enemy of the American people,” according to Rasmussen Reports… news outlets and watchdogs haven’t been as forthright in examining their own Trump-Russia coverage, which includes serious flaws. Bob Woodward, of the Post, told me that news coverage of the Russia inquiry ” wasn’t handled well” and that he thought viewers and readers had been “cheated.” He urged newsrooms to “walk down the painful road of introspection.” The wisdom of crowds, as evidenced by the public’s awakening to MSM’s fakery and CJR’s honest reporting, reveals the fakeness of MSM news.

On August 27, 2024, after many years of Facebook and Instagram censoring content about COVID-19 that did not violate platforms’ policies, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to Congress admitting that he wrongfully succumbed to White House/Deep State pressure to suppress content that did not violate the platforms policies, regretted having done so, and “stated a commitment to not compromise content standards due to pressure from any administration, suggesting a readiness to push back against such pressures in the future. This implies a policy of not succumbing to external political pressures on content moderation that aligns with Meta’s policies.” The same was true of posts that opposed the Deep State’s narratives about Jan 6.

What the Deep State did to Facebook and Instagram reveals that the Deep State does what it can to control what the public can learn about what the Deep State wants the public not to know and that telling the public the truth is not a priority. Withholding information about what the Deep State is doing by “overclassifying ” documents creates many problems, especially how it allows the Deep State to avoid transparency and surely enables it to cover up its wrongdoings. Perplexity AI produced a list of seven confirmed instances in which the CIA broke laws restricting its powers. Perplexity also confirmed that there were no instances in which the participants in the CIA’s criminal activity suffered any legal consequences.

The CIA, directly or through its allies, publishes highly consequential disinformation. For example, 51 former agents wrote a letter saying that the indisputably valid story about Hunter Biden leaving a laptop (which was full of incriminating evidence) at a pawn shop “had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.” The letter aimed to help Biden’s campaign defeat Trump in the 2020 election. The letter was a double whammy. It suppressed news of Hunter’s wrongdoing, including his records about his businesses, about which there Congress has found connections to Joe Biden, and it intimated that foreign bad actors supported Trump. The CIA is prohibited by law from engaging in domestic matters, with few exceptions that do not include election interference. It would be ridiculous to assume that the CIA did not collaborate with the former CIA agents to quash the Hunter laptop story. “A joint report from three House committees has revealed that some signatories of this letter were active CIA contractors at the time and that high-ranking CIA officials were aware of the statement before its release.” “CIA played key Jan. 6 roles, texts reveal.” “CIA played key Jan. 6 roles, texts reveal.”

In each of Trump’s three presidential runs, he promised to “drain the swamp,” which includes the DOJ and CIA. The last thing the DOJ and CIA want is to be drained. Undoubtedly, they consider Trump to be an existential threat to its power. There

The FBI has issued many false statements and is known for stonewalling Congress so that it cannot be held accountable for wrongdoing. Given the existential threat that Trump is to the DOJ/FBI (he continually promises to drain the swamp) and that the DOJ/FBI surely covetous of their jobs and love the power they wield, e.g., the power to conduct a pre-dawn raid on the home of a former president who would have opened the door had they run the doorbell at a reasonable hour of the day, is the primary protector of the swamp, the antipathy the Deep State has for Trump and “Great Patriots” (the name Trump gave his supporters) is not only understandable, it is warranted. Because the FBI is part of the DOJ and the head would approve any major action the FBI undertakes, the FBI agents need not worry about being prosecuted no matter what they do while conducting an approved operation – unless Trump becomes president.

Author’s Note: The raid of Mar-a-Logo was after 8:00 a.m.

It’s common knowledge that the FBI uses “confidential human sources,” “undercover employees,” “assets,” “contractors,” and “task force officers” (collectively, “assets”). On many occasions, Congressmen have asked FBI officials how many assets it had at the Capitol on Jan 6 crowd. Before September 25, 2024, the DOJ wouldn’t answer those questions in any way – thereby leaving no opportunity for Congress to ask, much less discover, what the assets were doing that day. The primary narrative that the Democrats and other Disinformers have deployed against Trump in the 2024 election is that he instigated an insurrection on Jan 6. Voters need to know who instigated or orchestrated the invidious events of Jan 6. If it were proven that the events of Jan 6 were a Deep State Psy-Op, Trump would likely win in the largest landslide in American history. On 9/25/24 (40 days before the 2024 election and 1400 days since the events of Jan. 6, the FBI Inspector General testified before a House Committee that FBI assets were in the Jan 6 crowd. Disinformers have denied or belittled claims that FBI agents were in the Jan 6 crowd. However, the Inspector General would not say how many or what they were doing. Worse, his report about the events of Jan 6 very likely won’t be released before the election and possibly not before the inauguration next year. This, too, is a case of election interference and reveals that the FBI has, once again, put the Deep State’s interests ahead of those it pretends to serve. Was Jan 6 a Deep State Psy-Op? I don’t know. However, under the circumstances described above, it is reasonable to assume the Deep State, at a minimum, desired to do what it could to ruin Trump’s prospects of ever running again and to vilify and otherize Great Patriots as deplorables, terrorists, or worse. That the Deep State lies and that orchestrating what could be propagandized as an insurrection would have been ridiculously easy is indisputable. It could infiltrate the Jan 6 crowd with inciters and ruffians and let them make the Great Patriots appear as bad as possible on Jan 6. After that, the Deep State would be free to terrorize its favorite enemies, the Great Patriots.

I asked AI if anyone had claimed the CIA was involved with the events of Jan 6. The answer was “no.” I followed up with, “Has anyone investigated whether the CIA was involved in the events of Jan 6? The answer was “no.” No one outside the Deep State can know the extent to which, if any, the CIA was involved in making the Great Patriots look bad on Jan 6. However, given that Trump is an existential threat to the Deep State and Deep Staters are above the law, one can reasonably ask, “Why wouldn’t the CIA do whatever it could to make the Great Patriots appear to look like hoodlums on Jan 6?” That the Disinformers’ false narratives succeeded in bamboozling a vast swath of the public is unsurprising. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s pick for the head of Nazi Germany’s Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, significantly advanced the arts and science of propaganda in the 1930s and got close enough to perfection to flip Germany’s democracy into one of the worst dictatorships in human history. The Deep State Disinformers have improved Goebbels’s techniques for about 80 years. Given what the public was up against, Americans who were bamboozled should not be embarrassed that they fell for the disinformation. However, it would be irresponsible of them not to consider the possibility that they were misled and be proud of themselves if they consider that possibility.

Convincing people that they have been bamboozled is nearly impossible. Given the magnitude of the consequences of the disinformation inflicted on much of the public and the extreme, democracy-threatening divisiveness the Disinformation spawned, not trying to convince them they have been bamboozled is inexcusable. So, let’s try to sort out how the Disinformers bamboozled the public about Jan 6 and hope for the best.

The ways and means used by the Disinformers are many and varied. The web they spun has so many threads that sorting out the differences between reality and the tales told by the Disinformers will take a while. The more people who understand how the bamboozlement was accomplished, the higher the likelihood that America’s republic will survive the attempt by tyrant wannabes to achieve their goals. Consequently, you will be performing a public service to understand it and an even more excellent public service to spread the word. A HEADS UP TO THOSE ONLY INTERESTED IN A DEFENSE OF TRUMP: THIS PRESENTATION IS NOT A DEFENSE OF TRUMP’S ACTIONS OR INACTIONS CONCERNING JAN 6. While Trump deserves a defense for many, if not most, of the MSM’s narratives about Trump’s actions or inactions on Jan 6, my purpose here is not to defend Trump. I believe Trump did several crucial things for the country in his first term that no one else would or could have done as well as he did, e.g., waking millions of Americans to the reality that the MSM “news” is mostly fake. Nevertheless, I’m not a Trump fan. I voted for Gary Johnson in 2016 and made many noticeable donations to conservative candidates over the years but not a dime for Trump. I considered checking his box on my 2020 ballot to be a vote against Biden and not for Trump. I will consider my vote for Trump in 2024 to be a vote against the vilification and persecution of Trump by leftists and a vote against leftist totalitarianism. This post is about the Disinformers’ misdeeds relating to Jan 6. Nevertheless, when needed for context, I will mention some of Trump’s good deeds concerning Jan 6 and those of the Great Patriots.

Misinformation Overview The Disinformers sprinkled their incriminating narratives about “The Events of Jan 6” with provable facts. However, their narratives are predominately saturated with incriminations based on 1) unverified or verifiably false allegations, 2) bias-driven assumptions, many of which are based on a false belief that they can read the minds of others (which is especially absurd when one tries to read the minds of people who think very differently from themselves),^[i] or 3) wishful thinking. The Deep State used its alliances with or control over the MSM and most social media to bombard the public continually with their false or groundless pap about the events of Jan 6. They also did all they could to suppress and discredit the evidence, counter-narratives, and opinions that questioned or contradicted, added context to, or revealed the Disinformers’ claims as incomplete, misleading, or false. They’ve continued to do it since Jan 6. As ludicrous and unfair as the Disinformers’ words and deeds are, their most egregious deed has been to dupe a wide swath of unsuspecting Americans into believing the following about the events of Jan 6:

• It was a planned violent insurrection^[iii] instigated by Trump and carried out exclusively by Trump supporters,
• Trump-hating bad actors (“Trump Haters”) neither instigated nor engaged in unprovoked violence on Jan 6,
• No federal provocateurs were in the Jan 6. crowd,
• Police officers died at the hands of Great Patriots and
• Trump and his “insurrectionists” are responsible for every negative thing that happened at the Capitol on Jan 6.

We’ll sort out why those claims are disinformation and how they were achieved. Before we examine the Disinformers’ disinformation techniques, allow me to make a preliminary concession that they did not get everything about Jan 6 wrong.

The Disinformers’ Bamboozling Techniques

The Disinformers’ deceptions were often achieved by using refined framing techniques. The FrameWorks Institute’s framing description is: “Framing is about the choices we make in what we say, how we say it, what we emphasize, and what we leave unsaid, and how these choices shape how people think, feel, and act.”^[xiii] A 2021 ScienceDirect paper titled “Persuasion strategies of misinformation-containing posts in the social media,”^[xiv] observed, “Several studies have revealed that misinformation creators are getting better and better at persuading recipients to establish, change, or strengthen their views in an expected direction (Osatuyi and Hughes, 2018), and become increasingly prevalent in social media environments (Guo et al., 2020)… Pennycook and Rand (2019) indicates that social media users’ susceptibility to political misinformation is caused by the users’ insufficient cognitive efforts, i.e., lazy thinking.” With expert framing, the public can be convinced of almost anything. The Deep State and the MSM have taken full advantage of the power of many forms of false framing to convince much of the public of things that are not true about Jan 6. Let’s sort out how the Disinformers used false framing to their great advantage.

Priming. “In psychology, priming is a technique in which the introduction of one stimulus influences how people respond to a subsequent stimulus. Priming works by activating an association or representation in memory just before another stimulus or task is introduced.”^[xv] The persuasion of this phenomenon occurs without our conscious awareness, yet it can have a major impact on numerous and profound aspects of our everyday lives. That the MSM called the events of Jan 6 an “insurrection” at 9:15 a.m. on Jan 6 when very few people were milling around at the Capitol no violence had begun caused most viewers to be on the lookout for violence and automatically deem the violence to be an insurrection.

False Framing. An extreme example of false framing would be, “When did you stop beating your wife?” The primary problem with such framing is that it is predicated on a claim (the husband has beaten his wife) based on an assumption rather than a fact. The technique can cause uncritical thinkers to assume unreasonably that the husband beats his wife. The Disinformers used that technique by describing the events of Jan 6 as an “insurrection” without establishing that an insurrection occurred on Jan 6. I’ve searched in vain for an example of Trump or a Great Patriot saying that they wanted to overthrow the government, the election, or anything remotely similar. In August 2024, I asked Grok if any Jan. 6 protesters wished to overturn the election. In addition to a bunch of irrelevant gobbledygook, Grok’s response was “no.”^[xvi] In short, plenty of Americans have been convinced that the Great Patriots at the Capitol on Jan 6 wanted to overturn the election or the government despite the claim being preposterous. A framing technique the MSM and other salespeople, e.g., car salesmen, commonly use is getting the listener to “think past the sale.”^[xvii] The critical issue with which a buyer must deal is whether the benefits of buying a car are worth more to him than the car’s cost. A salesman has a much better chance of getting a potential buyer to say “yes” to that question if the customer doesn’t think much about the car’s cost. For example, if they can get customers to focus on (frame the decision as) how much fun, pride, and joy the customer will derive from owning and driving the car, they will think less about the car’s cost.

Disnaming. (I would have used the word “Misnaming” had the Disinformers not misnamed something to bamboozle the public.) The term “Holocaust deniers” was coined in the late 1970s to disparage people who questioned or denied that the Holocaust occurred. “Holocaust denier” was a description, not a framing technique. However, the term proved to be a very effective framing technique to disparage people and intimidate people who had any issue with a variety of other narratives concerning propaganda the Deep State wanted to use to disinform. Since the late 1980s, when “AIDs deniers” were deployed by the Deep State, Disnaming has become the Disinformers’ go-to technique to disinform. In the late 1990s, the Disinformers coined the term “climate deniers” to describe people who did not fall for the Disinformers’ narrative about CO2 and climate change. We’ve since seen “Science deniers,” “climate deniers,” “Holocaust deniers,” “election deniers,” “AIDS deniers,” “COVID deniers,” “austerity deniers,” “inequality deniers,” “racism deniers,” “systemic racism deniers,” “GMO deniers,” and “tech deniers.”^[xviii] These disnames have in common that they describe approximately no one. Take “climate deniers” for an example. No one claims that climate doesn’t exist or doesn’t change. Nevertheless, the Disinformers have bamboozled many millions into believing that people are denying climate. These bogus applications are used to confound or stamp out conversations about what the climate is doing and cause many millions to dismiss out of hand any comment questioning or not in line with the Deep State’s narrative about the climate. It is a brainwashing technique. The Disnaming technique was used to great advantage by the Deep State to sell the idea that the Jan 6 protesters were insurrectionists. “Coup” is the first word in Thesaurus.com’s list of synonyms for “insurrection.”^[xix] By 9:15 AM on January 6 “CNN was reported to have used the word “Coup” to describe what was happening at the Capitol.”^[xx] A relatively small group of people toppled the bicycle rack barriers a little after 1:00 p.m. So, at 9:15a.m., unless someone told CNN that arrangements for a Deep State-manufactured “insurrection” had already been made, CNN had no evidence that a coup was about to happen. Yet, CNN and the rest of the MSM continually, throughout the day and thereafter, kept pounding the words “insurrection” or “coup” to describe what was going on at the Capitol. The people the Disinformers brainwashed/primed to believe the Great Patriots wanted to revolt when they got to the Capitol looked for and believed they saw evidence of an insurrection. The Disinformers brainwashed the public into believing the Great Patriots wanted to overturn the election despite never having made that case concerning what the Great Patriots were doing on Jan 6. I can’t think of how the Disinformers could have gifted a greater service to the Deep State or a greater disservice to the public than their bamboozling of the public about Jan.

Dishonest Omissions of Essential Information The Disinformers effectively used several false frames about what the Great Patriots were doing at and inside the Capitol. Their primary frame was/is that the Great Patriots were carrying out an “insurrection.” While that claim was repeated ad nauseam while showing videos or images of mayhem, the Disinformers rarely identified the people in their pictures who engaged in violence and only mentioned Trump Haters who were involved in violence, e.g., The Capitol policeman who shot and killed Ashley Babbitt.^[xxi] Other than Ray Epps (more on him later) and false claims that Trump incited Great Patriots to commit violence [more on this later], the MSM never identified who incited the mayhem or whether or not the violence against police officers was in self-defense in response to unjustified police violence. In short, the Disinformers did not provide the evidence to prove that Great Patriots were the only people causing trouble at the Capitol. The Disinformers talked past the sale. They primed their audience to hate Great Patriots, implied that everyone committing violence was a Great Patriot, and, having so primed and brainwashed their audiences; their audiences were duped into believing that they could judge books by their covers. The FBI routinely infiltrates domestic groups that the FBI believes might be a threat to the country.^[xxii] The FBI infiltrated groups that the FBI believed would be present and might cause trouble at the Capitol on Jan. 6.^[xxiii] It’s fair to suspect, if not assume or be convinced, that the FBI clued in the MSM and social media companies to the fact that Trump Haters and people following orders issued by Trump Haters were in the Capitol crowd.^[xxiv] Some Trump Haters are known to have been in the Jan 6 crowd, and they could have been in every scene presented by the MSM. MSM characterizations of the images they presented, which omitted information critical to a fair understanding of who the people in their pictures and videos were, caused most of their audiences to assume that the Disinformers, who had no evidence for their implications and claims that every pictured person engaging in or encouraging people to be violent was a Great Patriot. By implying the lie that all bad actors in the crowd were Trump Supporters, they talked past a critical consideration about who the depicted terrible actors were. That bamboozling technique worked on the vast majority of MSM’s audiences. Another technique Disinformers use is to spot ordinary words their opponents/targets used that have both a benign and sinister meaning and declare, based on a pretend ability to read minds, that the target was using the word in sinister meaning. For example, all politicians encourage crowds to “fight,” ^[xxv] and most add “like hell” for all kinds of things. As discussed below, the Disinformers hypocritically rolled out that technique when they said Trump’s use of “fight like hell” in his Jan 6 speech incited Great Patriots to commit violence. Thorough and honest investigative news reporting, without which republics die, includes the situation’s who, what, when, where, and why. The Disinformers rarely got any of those things right on the rare occasions they included some of those story aspects in their Jan 6 coverage. Below is a list of some of the essential things the Disinformers failed to include in their reporting:

1. Pointing out that it is impossible to distinguish Trump Haters from Great Patriots by simply looking at a picture or video that people can judge books by their cover;
2. The percentage of unlawful violence on Jan 6 that Great Patriots committed versus the percentage of Great Patriots who did nothing other than protest peacefully. (Compare calling the BLM riots in 2020 “mostly peaceful.”);^[xxvi]
3. A comparison of the magnitude of the unlawful violence committed by Great Patriots versus that committed by Trump Haters or people Trump Haters ordered or incited others to commit violence;
4. Identification of the people engaging in or provoking violence. (Note that many of the Capitol’s windows were broken by men in black, some of them wearing masks – much like was seen in BLM protests in 2020, much to the consternation of many BLM members who were protesting the death of George Floyd, not to loot or facilitate looting or destroy property);
5. How much of the violence was triggered by Capitol Police’s provocations and assaults that riled up (instigated) erstwhile peaceable protestors to become hostile;
6. How much of the violence by Great Patriots was justifiable self-defense and
7. Admission by “news” sources that they did not attempt to get the above essential information or that they had the information but withheld it because it would undermine their narratives.

Rather than telling the whole truth, the Disinformers painted with an overly broad brush and left a fundamentally false impression concerning what happened. They published disinformation and malinformation. With that sleight of hand, the Disinformers convinced their audiences of the “Big Lie”^[xxvii] that all violence and other wrongdoing captured in pictures and videos was instigated and committed by Trump and the Great Patriots. While some Great Patriots were wrongfully violent,* by omitting discussion of violence of and instigation of violence by Trump Haters, the Disinformers bamboozled much of the public into a fundamentally false narrative. With that in mind, let’s look at some of the images of Jan 6. The Disinformers used to bamboozle.

CNN’s Picture and Captions Are Worth a Thousand Lies CNN was the primary Disinformer concerning Jan 6, and its techniques exemplified those used by all the Disinformers; so let’s focus on the tactics and techniques CNN used to disinform the public about Jan 6. Let’s first establish that CNN was a lying organization before May 2022 (including Jan 6, 2021), when Chris Licht became CNN’s CEO.^[xxviii] In a CNN staff meeting soon after Licht was hired, he said, “I want to acknowledge that this is a time of significant change, and I know that many of you are unsettled. There will be more changes, and you might not understand it or like it.” Later, Licht signaled a philosophical change for CNN in a letter to CNN employees, announcing, “First and foremost, we should, and we will be advocates for the truth.” Licht, the top insider, confirmed that CNN hadn’t previously been an advocate advocated for truth — so much so that fixing that failure was a top priority for CNN. Then Licht expressed his aspirations for CNN, “I think we can be a beacon in regaining that trust by being an organization that exemplifies the best characteristics of journalism: fearlessly speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo, questioning ‘group-think’ and educating viewers and readers with straightforward facts and insightful commentary, while always being respectful of differing viewpoints…. First and foremost, we should, and we will be advocates for the truth.” By saying, “I think we can be…,” Licht once again confirmed that CNN had not been and was not currently dedicated to the truth when he was hired. That period included Jan 6. (To his credit, Light cleaned out or demoted several biased CNN liars.^[xxix]) A former CNN reporter corroborated and elaborated on Licht’s assessment of CNN, “Obama Paid [CNN] To Lie.”^[xxx] Now, let’s dig into how the Disinformers’ lied.

[i] The Biggest Source Of ‘Misinformation,’ Lies, And Delusion Is Leftist Corporate Media: “This brings us back to the question of why, a question Stelter, Democrat politicians, and their ilk refuse to grapple with honestly. Why would people believe so-called misinformation? It’s a pivotal question, and the left can’t bring themselves to answer it because it damns them.”

[ii] SOCIAL MEDIA,  POSOBIEC: Biden and Big Tech Conspired to Censor Americans on Social Media   Now can we all agree that Jan. 6 was an insurrection?

^[iii] id

^{[iv] Is the phrase “connect the dots” widely recognized and used in various contexts to imply making connections between pieces of information or events to draw conclusions, which could inherently be applied in political rhetoric by any party?} 

^[v] Democrats saying “Connect the Dots 

^[vi] Sixth Amendment 

^[vii] What evidence is there that Jan 6 defendants have been denied their constitutional right to a speedy trial, and how many defendants have been affected by that?

How many Jan 6 cases have been tried and how many were tried outside of D.C.

^[viii] How many Jan 6 cases have been tried and how many were tried outside of D.C.

^[ix] What percentage of Republicans living in D.C. are Never Trumpers?

^{[x] Can criminal trials be held in a district other than the district in which the crime occurred in instances in which an impartial jury cannot be empaneled?}

^[xi] Have all motions of change of venue by Jan 6 defendants been denied? [xii] https://x.com/i/grok/share/K1pJ6GNBjwJB7MceWqKiDzAvQ

^[xiii] Five Questions about Framing  

^[xiv] Persuasion strategies of misinformation-containing posts in the social media

^[xv] Priming In Psychology Activating associations with previous stimuli 

^[xvi] https://x.com/i/grok/share/pG6jbVtddfI7Q5EjMNT5MGO9I

^[xvii] Thinking Past the Sale  

^[xviii] Leftists have used the word “denier” in many contexts since the late 1990s. What are the other contexts in which that persuasion technique has been used?

^[xix] https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/insurrection

^[xx] When did the press first use the word “insurrection” to describe what they feared would occur on Jan 6?

^[xxi] Who killed Ashley Babbet and what position did he hold?

^[xxii] FBI infiltrates group whose members wanted to test homemade bombs, surveil Capitol, secede from US, court records show 

THE FBI EXPOSED:

^[xxiii] In Proud Boys Jan. 6 Sedition Trial, F.B.I. Informants Abound  

^[xxiv] Latest Twitter Files shows CIA, FBI have spent years meddling in content moderation   

^[xxv] Dems urging fighting: Trump impeachment team plays video of ‘hypocrite’ Dems ‘urging FIGHT LIKE HELL’  and Trump lawyer plays video montage of Democrats doubting election results at impeachment trial   and Trump lawyer plays video montage of Democrats doubting election results at impeachment trial, and

^[xxvi] As Seattle Settles Major Lawsuit, Media Still Insist George Floyd Riots Were ‘Mostly Peaceful’ 

^[xxvii] The Big Lie   

^[xxviii] Final edition of ‘Reliable Sources’ raises questions about CNN’s future

^[xxviii] New CNN president promises to work toward regaining trust of viewers, and CNN Staff Brace for Change as Chris Licht Era Starts to Take Shape

[xxix]     CNN lays off more staff under new boss Chris Licht    

[xxx] CNN Reporter Admits Obama Paid Them To Lie 

PART I – Introduction

Have you wondered why Americans are vehemently divided about what happened on Jan 6, 2021? This series of posts will explain why that is and why it is essential to know why that is. “The events of Jan 6” (“Jan 6”) were a monumental and pivotal moment in America’s history. The events were monumental because whether Trump would have a chance of becoming president in 2025 depended on the percentage of the voters who accepted the narratives about Jan 6 that the mainstream media (“MSM”)^[1] regurgitated every day of the 46 months between Jan 6, 2021, and November 5, 2024, and the percentage of voters who believed or, at least accepted the possibility, that the events of Jan 6 were a Deep State PSYOP.^[2]

This series of posts is mostly about how the public was bamboozled about Jan 6. Part II begins that discussion, and Part I will lay some necessary groundwork for it.

I don’t know whether or not Jan 6 was a PSYOP. However, I know that US intelligence agencies have unleashed PSYOPs on American citizens many times before^[3] (the PSYOPs in the linked article are only the ones that have been made public), that much of what the MSM said about Jan 6 is incorrect, deceptive, manipulative, and wrong. There is enough evidence that Jan 6 was a PSYOP that dismissing that possibility shows an unhealthy lack of curiosity, not being aware that the MSM is in bed with the Deep State,^[4] or a severe case of bamboozlement/brainwashing.

Wikipedia’s “Psychological Operations (United States)” article concerns operations within the United States military and intelligence agencies. For the general topic, see Psychological Warfare. Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their motives and objective reasoning and, ultimately, the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and foreign powers. The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives.”^[5]

As will be discussed in later posts, the bamboozled should not be blamed for their bamboozlement. I believe they are victims of the most sophisticated propagandists the world has ever known. Most of them are well-meaning. [To learn where I’m coming from, see the “ABOUT THE AUTHOR” section under the About tab at LetsSortSomeThingsOut.com.]

Watching MSM videos and seeing photos taken at the Capitol to figure out what happened is like a Rorschach Inkblot Test^[6] with a twist. That test is a projective psychological test in which subjects’ perceptions of inkblots are recorded and then analyzed using psychological interpretation, complex algorithms, or both. A Rorschach test involves silently showing a series of ten inkblots to a subject and, after the subject has decided what to say about what they see in the inkblot, asking what they see in them.

The twist is that, unlike a Rorschach Inkblot Test, the videos were typically observed as biased commentators with their hair on fire either told the viewer what the commentators wanted the viewer to see or the viewer watched after commentators told the viewer what to be looking for. Before you begin looking at it, let’s test whether mentioning things about the image makes a difference. Did you see the bat, lady, rocket ship being fueled, butterfly, and two birds in the image above before you read this sentence? Those are the things I see in the image. If you see other things in the image, you could cause me to find them if you mentioned those things before or while I looked at the image.

The MSM, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSMBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal (“MSM”), Social Media,^[7] Democrat and socialist politicians, leftist pundits, and the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the Capitol (“Select Committee”), Never Trumpers, and the Deep State (the people in the federal government that set the agendas and call the shots for federal actions)(collectively, the “Disinformers”) have masterfully propagandized much of the public with substantially or completely false narratives about “The Events of Jan 6, 2021” (“Jan 6”). Most politicians, pundits, bloggers, etc., who contest the MSM’s narratives about Jan 6 or point out inaccuracies and deceptions in the Disinformers’ narratives are vilified, suppressed, demonetized, (or all three) by the MSN and the most effective opponents of Disinformers suffer from retribution by the Deep State. This post will discuss some of the Disinformers’ errors and commissions, but I aim to reveal how the Disinformers bamboozled the public. I hope that, by seeing how they were bamboozled, some of the bamboozled will awaken to the fact that they have been bamboozled about Jan 6.

Contrary to what the Disinformers would have you believe, it’s not just right-wing nutjobs who claim MSM “news” is fake; the prestigious Columbia Journalism Review issued four scathing reports on the fakeness of MSM’s “news.” After skewering the New York Times for its fake reporting on the Russia Collusion hoax, CJR wrote:

“Before the 2016 election, most Americans trusted the traditional media, and the trend was positive, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer.^[8] The phrase “fake news” was limited to a few reporters and a newly organized social media watchdog. The idea that the media were “enemies of the American people” was voiced only once, just before the election on an obscure podcast, and not by Trump, according to a Nexis search.”

In a 2022 Reuters report, the US media has the lowest credibility—26 percent—among forty-six nations, according to a 2022 study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. In 2021, 83 percent of Americans saw “fake news” as a “problem,” and 56 percent—mostly Republicans and independents—agreed that the media were “truly the enemy of the American people,” according to Rasmussen Reports… news outlets and watchdogs haven’t been as forthright in examining their own Trump-Russia coverage, which includes serious flaws. Bob Woodward, of the Post, told me that news coverage of the Russia inquiry” wasn’t handled well” and that he thought viewers and readers had been “cheated.” He urged newsrooms to “walk down the painful road of introspection.” The public’s tuning out MSM “news” is largely due to MSM’s fakery. CJR’s honest reporting confirms the fakeness of MSM news.

On August 27, 2024, after many years of Facebook and Instagram censoring content about COVID-19 that did not violate platforms’ policies, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to Congress admitting that he wrongfully succumbed to White House/Deep State pressure to suppress content that did not violate the platforms policies, regretted having done so, and “stated a commitment to not compromise content standards due to pressure from any administration, suggesting a readiness to push back against such pressures in the future. This implies a policy of not succumbing to external political pressures on content moderation that aligns with Meta’s policies.”^[9] Both the people who wrote posts opposed the Deep State’s narratives about Jan 6, and the people who were denied the opportunity to learn the truth were the victims of the Deep State operation and their MSM minions.

What the Deep State did to Facebook and Instagram reveals that the Deep State does what it can to control what the public can learn about the Deep State and prevent the public from learning about the Deep State’s abuses of power, election interferences, and corruption.

The primary means by which the Deep State withholds information of which the public should be made aware is through “overclassifying” documents. There can be no government “by the people” or “for the people” if the government does not reveal things the people must know to hold the government accountable through the ballot box. I asked Grok, “Has the CIA or FBI ever suffered negative consequences from overclassifying documents?” Grok answered, “…Direct Consequences: Overclassification creates many problems for the American people^[10], especially how it enables it to cover up its wrongdoings. The fact that the CIA has a long history of breaking the law is indisputable.^[11] There aren’t well-documented instances where the CIA or FBI faced direct legal or formal penalties specifically for overclassifying documents.”^[12]

The CIA, directly or through its allies, publishes highly consequential disinformation. For example, 51 former agents wrote a letter saying that the indisputably valid story about Hunter Biden leaving a laptop (which was full of incriminating evidence) at a pawn shop “had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.” The letter aimed to help Biden’s campaign defeat Trump in the 2020 election. The letter was a double whammy. It suppressed news of Hunter’s wrongdoing, including his records about his businesses, about which there Congress has found connections to Joe Biden, and it intimated that foreign bad actors supported Trump. The CIA is prohibited by law from engaging in domestic matters, with few exceptions that do not include election interference. It would be ridiculous to assume that the CIA did not collaborate with the former CIA agents to quash the Hunter laptop story. “A joint report from three House committees has revealed that some signatories of this letter were active CIA contractors at the time and that high-ranking CIA officials were aware of the statement before its release.”

The CIA is prohibited from engaging in domestic law enforcement or internal security functions… However, the CIA’s domestic surveillance powers are constrained by law and subject to oversight. Recent reports suggest the CIA may be pushing the boundaries of its authorities, underscoring the need for greater transparency and accountability around its domestic activities.”^[13] Approximately all needs and requests for transparency are ignored by the CIA.

“The CIA has been involved in numerous operations aimed at undermining or overthrowing foreign governments throughout its history.”^[14] The eleven countries listed in the link are just the “notable instances where the CIA played a significant role in regime change.” The CIA has attempted but failed to overthrow the governments of six other countries.^[15]

More importantly, the “CIA played key Jan. 6 roles, texts reveal”^[16], and there is no reason to believe that the discovered texts even scratched the surface of what the CIA was doing on Jan 6.

In each of Trump’s three presidential runs, he promised to “drain the swamp,” which includes the CIA and DOJ/FBI. The last thing the CIA and DOJ want is to be drained. Undoubtedly, the CIA considers Trump to be the most significant existential threat to its power. “The CIA has not issued an official statement specifically labeling Donald Trump as a threat to democracy. However, former CIA officials and directors have expressed concerns about Trump’s impact on democratic norms and national security.”^[17]

Recall that Chuck Schumer confirmed what every careful observer knows about America’s intelligence community, “You take on the intelligence community, and they have six ways till Sunday the occasional attempts of whistleblowers to sound alarms get back at you.”^[18] Trump has promised to take on the intelligence community.

The FBI has issued many false statements and is known for stonewalling Congress so that it cannot be held accountable for wrongdoing. Given the existential threat that Trump is to the DOJ/FBI (he continually promises to drain the swamp) and that the DOJ/FBI surely covetous of their jobs and love the power they wield, e.g., the power to conduct a pre-dawn raid on the home of a former president who would have opened the door had they run the doorbell at a reasonable hour of the day, is the primary protector of the swamp, the antipathy the Deep State has for Trump and “Great Patriots” (the name Trump gave his supporters) is not only understandable, it is warranted. Because the FBI is part of the DOJ and the head would approve any significant action the FBI undertakes, the FBI agents need not worry about being prosecuted no matter what they do while conducting an approved operation – unless Trump becomes president.

It’s common knowledge that the FBI uses “confidential human sources,” “undercover employees,” “assets,” “contractors,” and “task force officers” (collectively, “assets”). On many occasions, Congressmen have asked FBI officials how many assets it had at the Capitol on Jan 6 crowd.^[19] Reportedly, “according to according to Steven D’Antuono, formerly in charge of the bureau’s Washington field office… testified behind closed doors to the House Judiciary Committee that his office was aware before the riot that some of their informants would attend a “Stop the Steal” rally thrown by former President Donald Trump, but he only learned after the fact that informants run by other field offices also were present, along with others who had participated of their own accord.”^[20] Before September 25, 2024, the DOJ wouldn’t answer those questions in public about assets in any way – thereby leaving the public in the dark about how many FBI assets were at the Capitol on Jan 6 and what the assets were doing that day. The primary narrative that the Democrats and other Disinformers have deployed against Trump in the 2024 election is that he instigated an insurrection on Jan 6. Voters need to know who instigated or orchestrated the invidious events of Jan 6.

If it were proven that the events of Jan 6 were a Deep State PSYOP, Trump would likely win in the largest landslide in American history. On 9/25/24, 40 days before the 2024 election and 1400 days after the events of Jan. 6, the FBI Inspector General testified before an open House Committee that FBI assets were in the Jan 6 crowd.^[21] Before then, Disinformers had fact-checked, denied, and belittled claims that FBI agents were in the Jan 6 crowd.^[22] However, the Inspector General would not say how many assets or what they were doing in the crowd. Disgustingly, the Inspector General’s report about the events of Jan 6 very likely won’t be released before the election and possibly not before the inauguration next year. This, too, is a case of election interference by the FBI and reveals that the FBI has, once again, put the Deep State’s interests ahead of those it pretends to serve. Was Jan 6 a Deep State PSYOP? As I said above, I don’t know. However, under the circumstances described above, it is reasonable to assume the Deep State, at a minimum, desired to do what it could to ruin Trump’s prospects of ever running again and to vilify and otherize Great Patriots as deplorables, terrorists, or worse. That the Deep State lies and can easily orchestrate situations that can be propagandized as an insurrection is indisputable. It could infiltrate the Jan 6 crowd with inciters and ruffians and let them make the Great Patriots appear as bad as possible on Jan 6. After that, the Deep State would be free to terrorize its favorite enemies, the Great Patriots.

Although the CIA had some involvement in the events of Jan 6, because of its stonewalling of Congress, no governmental body has effectively investigated how many CIA assets were at the Capitol on Jan 6.^[23] No one outside the Deep State can know the extent to which, if any, the CIA was involved in making the Great Patriots look bad on Jan 6. However, notice that the linked AI response about the CIA’s involvement included this: “One significant case involves Jeffrey A. McKellop, a retired Green Beret and former CIA contractor, who was charged with violent actions during the Capitol riot.” CIA-affiliated people were in the Jan 6. crowd engaging in violence! How many more CIA-affiliated people were in the Jan 6. crowd is anyone’s guess. An assumption that the answer is zero would be foolhardy.

However, given that Trump is an existential threat to the Deep State’s power, unbridled discretion, and above-the-lawness, one can reasonably ask, “Why wouldn’t the CIA and FBI do whatever they could to make the Great Patriots appear to look like hoodlums on Jan 6?” A rational working hypothesis would be that the CIA’s fingerprints would be all over the events of Jan 6 had they not been wearing gloves.

That the Disinformers’ false narratives succeeded in bamboozling a vast swath of the public is unsurprising. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s pick for the head of Nazi Germany’s Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, significantly advanced the arts and science of propaganda in the 1930s and got close enough to perfection to flip Germany’s democracy into one of the worst dictatorships in human history. The Deep State Disinformers have improved Goebbels’s techniques for about 80 years. Given what the public was up against, Americans who were bamboozled should not be embarrassed that they fell for the disinformation. However, it would be irresponsible of them not to consider the possibility that they were misled and be proud of themselves if they consider that possibility.

Convincing people that they have been bamboozled is nearly impossible. Given the magnitude of the consequences of the disinformation inflicted on much of the public and the extreme, democracy-threatening divisiveness the Disinformation spawned, not trying to convince them they have been bamboozled is inexcusable. So, let’s try to sort out how the Disinformers bamboozled the public about Jan 6 and hope for the best.

The ways and means used by the Disinformers are many and varied. The web they spun has so many threads that sorting out the differences between reality and the tales told by the Disinformers will take a while. The more people who understand how the bamboozlement was accomplished, the higher the likelihood that America’s republic will survive the attempt by tyrant wannabes to achieve their goals. Consequently, you will be performing a public service to understand it and an even more excellent public service to spread the word.

With the above background and context, we can proceed to PART II: The Disinformers’ Drivel.

1. Broad agreement in U.S. – even among partisans – on which news outlets are part of the ‘mainstream media’ ↑
2. Psychological operations (United States) ↑
3. What Psyops have the US intelligence agencies unleashed on American citizens? ↑
4. Is it fair to say that the mainstream media generally propagates what the federal government wants them to propagate? ↑
5. Id. ↑
6. Rorschach test ↑
7. 23 Top Social Media Sites to Consider for Your Brand in 2024, POSOBIEC: Biden and Big Tech Conspired to Censor Americans on Social Media ↑
8. Edelman Trust Barometer ↑
9. Mark Zuckerberg Told the Truth—and That’s a Good Thing ↑
10. How big a problem is over classification of documents by the federal government? ↑
11. What instances of CIA illegality have been confirmed? ↑
12. Has the CIA or FBI ever suffered negative consequences from overclassifying documents? ↑
13. To what extent can the CIA engage in domestic surveillance? ↑
14. What countries’ governments have been undermined or overthrown by the CIA? ↑
15. What governments did the CIA attempt to overthrow but failed? ↑
16. CIA played key Jan. 6 roles, texts reveal ↑
17. Has the CIA said that Trump is a threat to democracy of something similar? ↑
18. Schumer Warns Trump: Intel Community Has Many Ways to ‘Get Back at You’ (FLASHBACK), ↑
19. FBI Director Questioned Over Agent Involvement on Jan. 6 ↑
20. FBI lost count of how many paid informants were at Capitol on Jan. 6, and later performed audit to figure out exact number: ex-official ↑
21. Id. ↑
22. Between Jan 6, 2021, and September 25, 2024, has the mainstream media fact-checked claims that federal agents or assets were in the Jan 6 crowd? ↑
23. Has anyone investigated whether the CIA had Private Contractors, Nonofficial Cover (NOC) Operatives, Foreign Entities, or their associates being at the Capitol on Jan 6? ↑

In about an hour, Joe Biden will be sworn in as President of the United States. I feel that this will likely be the last morning in America, and I imagine that many of you do. By “America,” I’m referring to the country that was the first to launch a grand experiment in governance, the goal of which was to keep tyrants at bay so that the “The People” could be free to pursue happiness as they defined it. America’s founding principles included: “All men are created equal,” equal protection, due process, freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition, no man is above the law, people have a right to the fruits of their labor, and justice for all.

Sadly, many of the circumstances extant in the colonies that transgressed those principles could not be resolved when the founders launched the experiment, and Americans have since committed much evil both here and abroad. Nevertheless, while falling far short of perfection concerning any of those principles, the realization of those principles has increased over time. Moreover, the achievements by nations people hail as having better societies/governance were enabled by massive freeloading on America.[i]

With all of its shortcomings, America lasted well over 200 years and became the wealthiest, most inventive, most just, most potent, and most generous nation ever to exist. Hardly any of that would have been possible had America adopted magical thinking like: 1) government experts know best about virtually everything, 2) leaders will consistently put the public’s interest ahead of their own, 3) leaders can acquire the knowledge and wisdom necessary to run an economy, or 4) giving leaders enough power to run everything would not corrupt those leaders absolutely.

The far left of the Democrat party reject most, if not all, of America’s founding principles. For example, they reject equality in favor of “equity.” Justice requires person X, who has harmed person Y, to compensate person Y for the harm that person X inflicted on person Y. If person X intentionally inflicted the harm, justice requires person X to pay person Y punitive damages as well. Equity calls for taking money from people of certain skin hues and giving it to people of different skin hues. Whether parents of person X or person Y immigrated to America after the Thirteenth Amendment was adopted is irrelevant. Equity is unjust.

It is yet to be seen how moderate the allegedly moderate Biden will be. That he proudly picked a vice president and cabinet members based primarily on their identity (instead of merit), is not a good sign. Neither can we be comfortable that, if Biden does not do the bidding of the far left, Harris will not get him out of the way with the 25^th Amendment — assuming he has more than a few months of life left.

This afternoon, the Democrats will have the power to 1) End the filibuster rule in the Senate, i.e., a simple majority vote wins; 2) the Constitutional power to make Puerto Rico and the brut power to make the District Of Columbia the 51^st and 52^nd states, thereby drastically reducing the probability that the Democrats will have a political rival well into the future, 3) Pack the Supreme Court with enough justices to ensure none of their legislation will be overturned, and 4) Thwart every attempt to reign Big Tech’s infringements on free speech.

Only the top-level Democrats know the extent to which they will exercise the above-listed powers. That one faction has amassed that much power means that violations of the “enumerated powers” and “limited government” framework of America’s Constitution cannot be checked or balanced. Without an operative framework in place, America and its grand experiment will soon not exist. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, let us hope and pray that someday in the not-too-distant future, Americans will witness a new dawn on which, later that day, a newly elected president will welcome America back to existence.

[i] Non Sequiturs on Parade – PART VI

I theorize that the most ingenious and evil scheme ever launched by tyrant wannabes was to convince the vast majority of Americans that not only is every theory concerning undisclosed collective actions by people in government automatically false, but it is also something that could only be dreamed up by a lunatic. Let’s sort out what is so brilliant about this scheme.

Let’s first dispel the idea that people in government never conspire to advance their own interests at the expense of others. While I would hope that stating the proposition as I just did would lay bare the obvious fact that people in government do that, let’s take this step by step.

According to Dictionary.com, a definition of conspiracy is: “an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.”

Hopefully, everyone would agree that 1) some people conspire, 2) a government official, i.e., a “public servant,” who puts her interests ahead of the interests of the public when formulating, implementing, or carrying out policy is committing a wrongful act.

Let’s also hope that no one is so naïve as to think that never happens. At a minimum, the very fact that so much government information is classified and closed congressional hearings and agency meetings are commonplace reveals that people in government have no compunction about keeping information secreted from the public. What are they doing in there? No doubt, many of those meetings are benign. The idea that all of them are is daft.

Some people, including government employees, conspire.[i] By definition, conspirators endeavor to conceal their wrongdoing. Good governance requires reasonable efforts to ferret out and prosecute governmental wrongdoing. Because many conspirators are experts at keeping their secrets, a systematic, scientific approach to uncovering their secrets is usually required to bring the wrongdoers to justice. Let’s examine the standard way that is done.

The scientific method is the standard process by which truth is found. The scientific method starts with a hypothesis, proceeds to a theory, and hopefully, finds a truth. Merriam-Webster puts it this way:

In scientific reasoning, a hypothesis is an assumption made before any research has been completed for the sake of testing. A theory on the other hand is a principle set to explain phenomena already supported by data. Theories will pull together experimental results to provide full explanations such as “The Big Bang Theory.” Outside of scientific reasoning, “theory” and “hypothesis” are often used interchangeably, and “theory’ can unfortunately be interpreted to mean “less sound” or “lightly speculated.”[ii]

BTW: When a theory is proven, it becomes a “law,” something nearly universally considered to be the truth.

Note that “The Big Bang Theory” is very widely, though not universally, accepted among scientists as the best explanation of what happened. A careful scientist would not claim that theory describes a fact because there is no way to prove it. On the other hand, some theories are more likely to be correct than others. Compare Copernicus’s to Galileo’s. Do all the scientists who accept “The Big Bang Theory” to be very likely real wear tin hats? I think not.

The point is that both hypotheses and theories (both of which are called “theories” in common parlance) are a necessity in the process of discovering non-obvious truths.

Most theories prove to be incorrect. As Thomas Edison vividly illustrated with, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10, 000 ways that won’t work,” discovering what is incorrect is extremely valuable in the search for truth. Such discoveries enable scientists to quit wasting time on flawed theories and develop a new one that might be good. Unless one knows that a thesis contains a fallacy, to dismiss, much less shout down a plausible theory before it is tested is not only unscientific, it is idiotic.

Yet, here we are. Some nefarious geniuses have convinced the public that every theory concerning a conspiracy involving the government must be dismissed out of hand. It’s nuts.

In science, most theories prove to be invalid. The same is likely true of theories concerning the conspiracies among powerful people. Nevertheless, some powerful people do conspire to advance their interests at the expense of everyone else. Unless one of the conspirators spills the beans, the only way to reduce government corruption is to develop a plausible theory about the possible crime, investigate, and to continue to theorize about things that seem awry until the theory that uncovers the truth proves out. Hopefully, that scientific process reveals that the government is not as corrupt as it appears to be. However, because the automatic dismissals of conspiracy theories have protected criminals, I fear that the more likely outcome of pursuing conspiracy theories will be the discovery of much government corruption.

So whenever someone dismisses a hypothesis or theory about government corruption by saying, “I smell a conspiracy theory,” she is rewarding the nefarious geniuses who launched that evil meme and is aiding and abetting conspirators.

[i] List of federal political scandals in the United States

[ii] This is the Difference Between a Hypothesis and a Theory

I just saw a comment on a Facebook post about Amazon deciding not to continue hosting Parler on Amazon servers, i.e., shut Parler down. [For those who don’t know, Parler is the place many people being banned or hassled by Facebook and Twitter fled to exercise their right to speak freely.]

The comment said, “Business move, not political.”

My response to this question is: What difference does it make why Amazon and other businesses facilitate/implement the government’s desire to infringe on American’s freedom of speech?  When the powers-that-be (the government, Big Tech, MSM, the Intelligencia, and others) honor people’s petitions to silence other people because the petitioners do not like what those “other people” say, more and more petitions will be made, and more and more speech will be banned. As if the tyranny of that is not bad enough, keeping up with the continually changing rules as to what is mandatory and what is forbidden can become impossible. At that point, officials can say with certainty, “Show me the man, and I will show you the crime.” Lavrentiy Beria, head of Joseph Stalin’s secret police.

That process can quickly devolve to the stage where loyalty oaths are mandatory (“silence is violence”), and those who do not deliver the pledge with vigor and apparent conviction are doomed. Examples of this kind of tyranny are many, but I doubt anyone has described the end of this process better than Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. See the webpage linked below.

Of course, this outcome is not inevitable, but I can’t figure out what can stop the process. If unstopped, neither lambs nor wolves who do not comply will have a chance.

SOME CHILLING PUBLIC SPEAKING HISTORY