Weaponized Agencies

Trim life shadows flicker and fall
But you still can't turn away
Get up and run before you stall
Before the edges fray
--Ric Ocasek

Given that the executive branch now includes dozens of agencies with strong armed capability, it should come as no surprised that influential politicians will seek to 'weaponize' those agencies against political opponents. The FBI, CIA, and IRS are particularly attractive in this regard.

McCarthy, JFK, Tea Party, et al.

In the recent years, there has been no better example of the weaponization of federal agencies than the concerted operations to take down Donald Trump. First as a candidate, then as sitting president, and now as a former president with future candidate potential. The FBI, CIA, DOJ, and even the military has been involved.

Yesterday's actions will be difficult for even many partisans to brush off as federal agents raided Trump's home in Florida.

Actions over the past few years have escalated to the stuff of authoritarian police states. The current administration is brazenly employing federal agencies to punish political opposition.

What authoritarians never seem capable of understanding is the extent to which their aggression strengthens the resolve of the liberty-minded.

National Police

When I'm in the shower
I'm afraid to wash my hair
'Cause I might open my eyes
And find someone standing there
--Rockwell

Under the reign of J Edgar Hoover, the FBI developed a reputation for blacklisting and gathering 'intelligence' on so-called enemies of the state. Today, the Feds are no longer merely dirt gatherers, they are perpetrators of crime in the name of the state.

This became all too apparent during the Trump administration. Efforts to keep Trump out of office and then take down his administration involved more than a few 'rogue agents.' It snaked through the hierarchy to the director level.

Federal police actions are escalating under Biden. Door knock down raids, false flag ops, frameups. 

After all, you can't have a police state without national police.

New Moon

Fill my heart with song
Let me sing forever more
You are all I long for
All I worship and adore
--Frank Sinatra

Looking back to that first lunar landing and moon walk 50 years ago, it is easy to wonder just how we did it given the state of technology at the time.

Oh, yes. We can be certain that if that mission were being flown today, things would be very different...

MLK and the Racism Narrative

"It will happen again because people like you and me like to be lied to. We like bedtime stories."
--Jake Moore (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps)

When a black person goes down as the result of crime, there is a large group that prefers the perpetrator of the crime to be white. Because this group believes that racism runs rampant in this country, acts of aggression by whites against blacks fall in line with the group narrative.

This is confirmation bias writ large. It offers convenient cover for actual criminals targeting black victims. Find fall guys who are white, label them as racists, and perhaps you can get away with...murder.

For years, a dedicated group of researchers have been mining evidence that refutes the 'official' story of Martin Luther King's murder. They present a compelling case that James Earl Ray was a patsy framed by a predatory state and compliant media.

In the case of JFK, invent a communist shooter to get the public behind the story. In the case of MLK, concoct a racist assassin for similar, or perhaps even more effective, purpose.

Feed the public what they want to hear and any crime is possible.

Election Rallies

"Kid, you're on a roll. Enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause it never does."
--Lou Mannheim (Wall Street)

As we close in on the one year anniversary of arguably the most incredible presidential election in US history, Donald Trump reminds us almost daily about how high the stock market has lifted since election night. The S&P 500 is up about 21% in the last year.

However, that twelve month performance places the Trump election rally only fourth on the list since 1936. Clinton 1996 (32%), JFK 1960 (29%), and George H.W. Bush 1988 (23%) all rank higher.

One thing we can be sure of. All of these administrations, and their supporters, were prone to tout what they saw as the executive office's positive influence on markets. And you can bet that many of Trump's detractors who see higher stock market prices as completely unrelated to Trump were chatting up Bill Clinton's market magic during the dot.com era.

Taking credit for stock market gains is extremely bad mojo. From the above graph, the JFK and Bush rallies both fizzled in subsequent months. Clinton was fortunate enough to jump ship before the dot.com bust really got going.

Rest assured that the wrath of the trading gods will rain down upon Donald Trump's swagger as well. When the storm hits, this president, like his predecessors, will quickly move from owning market increases to disowning market declines.

no positions

Institutional Isomorphism, the Intelligence Community, and Trump

"Cooperation only lasts as long as the status quo is unchanged."
--Patrick Gates (National Treasure)

A central objective of institutions is isomorphism, or sameness. Various processes that encourage institutional isomorphism may be mimetic, normative, and/or coercive in nature. These processes seek compliance and maintenance of the status quo.

An obvious problem with institutions is their maladaptive nature. Processes that promote sameness and compliance are of little use in turbulent environments that require innovation and change.

When facing such turbulence and threat of extinction, institutions have trouble responding with anything other than 'more of the same,' meaning that they intensify isomorphic processes in hopes of beating back the threat.

It should therefore be of no surprise that elements inside the federal government, such as the intelligence community, are rising up in defiance of Donald Trump. Being an outsider who has proposed radical change, Trump poses a significant threat to those in government institutions--particularly those under Trump's direct control, e.g., intelligence agencies. Even prior to his inauguration, Trump promised to restructure the national intelligence apparatus.

Because he has threatened the status quo, Trump should expect push back as the institution does the only thing that it knows how to do when facing an environmental threat.
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Meanwhile, Judge Nap warns the president that there are intelligence elements inside of the executive branch that he will need to get rid of.

It seems likely that these agencies have not perceived such a threat to their existence since JFK. We know how that threat was terminated.

Welcome Robots

C-3PO: Is there anything I can do?
Luke Skywalker: Not unless you can alter time, speed up the harvest, or teleport me off this rock.
--Star Wars

Another nice contribution that counters the robot fallacy. One particularly noteworthy quote: "Simply put, jobs that robots can replace are not good jobs in the first place."

The author also observes that capital seeks to destroy low productivity work in favor of work that produces more output/hr. That more wealth per unit of human exertion, not less.

He also notes that in 1962, JFK worried about "how to maintain full employment at a time when automation...is replacing men."

Technology always creates more jobs than it destroys. Since JFK's question, US employment has nearly tripled.

Automation increases focus on the strengths of human capital: intelligence and flexibility.

JFK at American University

"The organizing principle of any society, Mr Garrison, is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers. Kennedy wanted to end the Cold War in his second term. He wanted to call off the moon race and cooperate with the Soviets. He signed a treaty to ban nuclear testing. He refused to invade Cuba in 1962. He set out to withdraw from Vietnam. But all that ended on the 22nd of November, 1963."
--X (JFK)

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of President John F Kennedy's famous commencement speech at American University in Washington DC. His topic was world peace and how world powers, particularly the US and Soviet Union, could collaborate toward such a goal.


There are those who believe that JFK was executed by warfare state interests because of this speech.

JFK could have just as easily angered welfare statists if he would have called for peace at home by ending domestic programs of aggression on US citizens.

Of course, some people such as Ron Paul have done both...

Calls for peace threaten statists of all stripes.

Fifty Years from Dallas

"The organizing principle for any society, Mr Garrison, is for war. The authority of the state over its people resides in its war powers. Kennedy wanted to end the Cold War in his second term. He wanted to call off the moon race and cooperate with the Soviets. He signed a treaty to ban nuclear testing. He refused to invade Cuba in 1962. He set out to withdraw from Vietnam. But all that ended on the 22nd of November, 1963."
--X (JFK)

In second or third grade, I checked the book Meet John F. Kennedy out of the library. Although I surely encountered bits and pieces beforehand, this book was my formal introduction to the story of a man, seemingly one with much talent and promise, who was gunned down in mid-stride.

I liked reading about his achievements but was thoroughly saddened by the ending. I read the story over and over, perhaps hoping that events would turn out differently. The book was my favorite. So much so that our next door neighbor, who was a librarian, gave me a copy as a Christmas present.

Fifty years to the day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I know much more about the story. I am more versed in JFK's personal life and in his politics. And I am infinitely more knowledgable of the events and evidence surrounding that November day in 1963.

No one who seeks the truth can be satisfied with the official narrative of JFK's assassination. Jacob Hornberger summarizes the issues much better than I.

He also offers a nice bibliography of important findings from those who have been on the evidence path for years.

As tragic as that day in Dallas was, the assassination of JFK now offers people a chance to gauge how well they can think independently.

Oswald's Motives

"That's the real question isn't it? Why? The how and the who is just scenery for the public. Oswald, Ruby, Cuba, the Mafia. Keeps 'em guessing like some kind of parlor game. Prevents 'em from asking the most important question: Why? Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?"
--X (JFK)

Jacob Hornberger considers various theories of why Lee Harvey Oswald might have killed John F Kennedy.

One is that Oswald was just a crazy loner who assassinated a popular, powerful man in order to achieve fame. The problem with this thesis is that Oswald denied doing so. He did not remain at the scene and boast that he did it. Instead, he left the site and, when apprehended, Oswald denied any role in the assassination.

A variation of this theme is that Oswald not only sought the notoriety of killing Kennedy but also the satisfaction of getting away with it. However, Oswald left a clear trail of guilt. For example, he purchased a rifle by mail when at the time he could have walked into any Texas gun store and bought a gun without any restriction or background check. His mail order gun was a cheap Italian rifle that was ostensibly inferior to many locally available models. Oswald left the gun in his sixth floor sniper's nest after the shooting. None of these actions would have been likely if Oswald sought to kill Kennedy and get away with it.

Perhaps the motivation was ideological. Maybe Oswald was a devout communist who hated Kennedy and what he stood for. After all, Oswald was a purported defector to the Soviet Union, he pamphleteered on behalf of Cuba, and espoused Marxist sentiments.

The problem here is that Kennedy was acting favorably toward communist regimes. Kennedy had assured Castro that the US would not invade Cuba following the Cuban Missile Crisis, he ordered the CIA to shutdown training camps for Cuban exiles, he entered into the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets, he proposed joint Soviet/American space programs, he was pulling the US out of Vietnam.

In his efforts to foster a more peaceful co-existence, Kennedy seemed to have a bigger bone to pick with the national security state than with communist regimes. Moreover, killing Kennedy meant putting Johnson in office. LBJ's proclivities toward the national security state clearly opposed JFK's.

Perhaps, then, Oswald was part of a conspiracy to kill Kennedy and Oswald was the trigger man. But if this were true, it is hard to explain Oswald's statements after his arrest. A central rule of large scale conspiracies is this: if caught, say nothing and wait until we send an attorney to represent you.

Oswald didn't do this. Instead, he began talking and even fielded press questions. He claimed that he didn't shoot Kennedy and that he was being framed. Why would Oswald talk and raise the specter of conspiracy to the authorities and to the media?

Absent a motive that garners clear support, perhaps Oswald was who he claimed to be: a "patsy"--someone who was set up. As JH observes, it is only under this scenario that evidence falls into place with few anomalies. Oswald was an intelligence operative recruited by the Marines to infiltrate the USSR, Cuban, and other communist institutions during the height of the Cold War. Oswald becomes the perfect set-up guy. It explains his association with a host of intelligence figures. It explains the easy mail order rifle trace. It explains why Oswald claimed that he was being set up. It explains keeping Kennedy's autopsy in military hands. It explains why Oswald needed to be killed right away. It explains why records of JFK's assassination are being kept out of the US public's hands for 75 years.

It also explains the media's ambivalence toward this story over the years.

As diligent investigators, who by and large are not mainstream media or government officials, continue to uncover findings, the "patsy" thesis seems positioned to gain further traction.

Pursuing Historical Truth

It's coming any day now said the captain
It's coming any day now said the priest
The people in high places may defend you
But son you better hope they keep the peace
--Bruce Hornsby and the Range

If you are interested in the truth, then popular narratives of certain historical events don't ring true to you. The JFK assassination is one of those. Despite all the king's horses that have been marshaled to tell the 'official' story, there are simply too many problems with the stream of evidence to suggest that the party line is much more than classic naked emperor pretense.

Another such event is the Civil War and its prosecution by Lincoln--a subject that these pages have considered. Once again, the evidence does not follow party line discourse. Fortunately, the divergence between the story line and fact is attracting more historians interested in setting the record straight.

It should not be surprising that those who question party lines face personal attack from those committed to the pretense. Those who challenge the Civil War/Lincoln myth, for example, are often labeled racists, pro-slavery, Southern sympathizers, etc.

It's the old juvenile defense mechanism learned on the playground: When lacking a valid counter argument grounded in truth, just call them names.

If you're committed to the truth, then you simply don't take such attacks personally. Perhaps the truth threatens them.

But why they attack doesn't matter. You stay focused on your pursuit.

Because you know that gaining a better understanding of the true course of historic events helps set you free.

Long Train of IRS Abuses

"Of all the ideas that became the United States, there's a line here that's at the heart of all the others. 'But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design that reduces them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and provide new Guards for their future security.'"
--Benjamin Franklin Gates (National Treasure)

Ron Paul observes that the IRS/Tea Party scandal is only a recent instance of a long train of bipartisan abuses of the IRS for purposes of harassing political opponents. FDR, JFK, LBJ, Nixon and others precede the Obama administration in this regard.

Chief Justice John Marshall said that the power to tax is the power to destroy in McCulloch v Maryland (1819). It is interesting that he observed this axiom in a case where he and other justices employed the principle of judicial review to expand federal government power.

Nevertheless, it took nearly 100 years for the Sixteenth Amendment to come into existence and, with it, central government's power to marginalize any entity not favored by the current regime.

RP rightfully concludes that the only way our freedoms can be protected against this abuse is to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, which would shutter the IRS permanently.