Funhouses are only fun when you can leave them. When the distorting mirror images become your new, day-to-day reality construct, then it’s not so much fun anymore.
I dreaded the 2016 Election because I had a very strong feeling that no matter who won we’d be plunged into a dystopian paradigm in which major power blocs would erupt into all-out warfare. And I sensed that neither Trump nor Clinton possessed the political skills or the communicative powers to keep the carnage fully out of our view. Or our path.
And I was right.
Trump’s only been in office for a little over two months and I’m exhausted already. I’m certainly not alone in this. It all feels like a TV sitcom in its seventh season, well after the writers ran out of story ideas. The shark has been good and jumped. And the ratings (the approval ratings, in this case) are plunging too.
What is truly demoralizing though is the utter transparency of the secret war playing out, the seemingly endless spy vs spy thrust and counter-thrust, and the obvious deceptions. Even more so is the Animal Farm-like metamorphosis of the Democratic Party into a full-blown, funhouse mirror of McCarthy-era Republicans, but with Glenn Beck-worthy conspiracy theories thrown in for good measure.
I don’t know about you but all of a sudden the world seems especially cold, hard, gray, harsh. Masks are coming off, velvet gloves tossed into wastebins. It doesn’t seem to matter who wins the scorpion fight, you’re still stuck with a scorpion.
We can’t call out the play-by-play because it’s largely being acted out behind closed doors. But we can look at the collateral damage and make certain speculations. There’s no doubt that it would all be just as bad– probably worse– if Hillary won. Even so, this all feels especially grating.
You’ve probably seen this story:
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Friday apologized to the owner of a Washington pizzeria that became the subject of a conspiracy theory about human trafficking last year.
Pizza shop Comet Ping Pong was thrust into the spotlight last year after a gunman allegedly fired a shot inside the restaurant. The suspect said he was investigating the unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta, were operating a child sex trafficking ring out of the restaurant.
The theory, which became known as Pizzagate, had circulated among far-right conspiracy theory websites and social media accounts.
“In our commentary about what had become known as Pizzagate, I made comments about Mr. Alefantis that in hindsight I regret, and for which I apologize to him,” Jones, who runs Infowars, said in a video. James Alefantis is the owner of Comet Ping Pong.
Jones said his website relied on reporters who are no longer employed by Infowars and that video reports about Pizzagate were removed from the website. He also invited Alefantis onto the show to discuss the incident.
It was preceded by this story:
FBI’S RUSSIA PROBE EXPANDS TO INCLUDE ‘PIZZAGATE’ THREATS
According to McClatchy News, the FBI’s Russian-influence probe agents are exploring whether far-right news operations, including the pro-Donald Trump sites Breitbart News and Infowars, “took any actions to assist Russia’s operatives.” Trump’s ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn and his son, a member of the Trump transition team, were among those who boosted the so-called “PizzaGate” pedophile conspiracy theory.
I doubt this will quell the fervor among the Pizzagaters on sites like 4chan and Voat. Given the suspicion many on the fringes regard Jones with it may in fact give the flagging movement a fresh jolt. Jones’ apology may also have to do with the drive to purge YouTube of “extremist” content and the controversy over the use of advertising on videos corporate clients find objectionable. A World without Sin, as our Gordon might put it.
So much for theories that the FBI was ready to make mass arrests of prominent Washington figures related to Pizzagate. Has any “mass arrest” Internet story ever panned out?
Maybe it has:
Donald Trump became president on Jan. 20. And in one short month, there were more than 1,500 arrests for sex crimes ranging from trafficking to pedophilia.
Big deal? You bet. In all of 2014, there were fewer than 400 sex trafficking-related arrests, according to FBI crime statistics. Liz Crokin at TownHall.com has put together a great piece on the push by the Trump administration to crack down on sex crimes. And she notes that while “this should be one of the biggest stories in the national news… the mainstream media has barely, if at all, covered any of these mass pedophile arrests. This begs the question – why?
This may have nothing to do with Trump– in fact, it’s likely it doesn’t– since these kinds of actions are planned out months in advance. The arrests continue, in case you were wondering, with major busts going down on a near-weekly basis. Someone’s cleaning house.
For what it’s worth, I always reckoned that Pizzagate was in fact cover/distraction for a more hidden struggle, one that would take place under the radar*. As I noted back in November:
No one is saying as much but this very much feels connected to a deeper, more covert war.
Why would I say such a thing? Because at the same time the Pizzagate story went dark we’ve seen major strikes taken against international pedophilia, which actually is a global conspiracy, with its own networks, secret codes and moles within established centers of power such as schools, police departments and governments.
With such combustible accusations– and such potential for a scandal that could quickly spread out of control (ie., involve political figures you’re not trying to destroy)– you’d naturally expect the action to go dark and the fall guys to be placed pretty far down the foodchain. (Remember that a prior investigation bagged one of the most powerful people in Washington at one time, former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert).†
“EVER WONDER WHAT IT’D BE LIKE TO DIE IN A PLANE CRASH?”
It may be sheer coincidence, but James Alefantis’ former partner suffered a major heart attack this week:
Media Matters for America founder David Brock was rushed to a hospital on Tuesday after suffering a heart attack.
According to a press release from MMA, the founder of the liberal media watchdog and analysis website was rushed to the hospital early Tuesday afternoon and received treatment.
Sure, it may be coincidence. But I couldn’t help but remember this story, published soon after the election:
Dems to David Brock: Stop Helping, You Are Killing Us
Democrats know they need someone to lead them out of the wilderness. But, they say, that someone is not David Brock.

As David Brock attempts to position himself as a leader in rebuilding ademoralized Democratic Party in the age of Trump, many leading Democratic organizers and operatives are wishing the man would simply disappear.
“Disappear.” Huh.
Many in the party—Clinton loyalists, Obama veterans, and Bernie supporters alike—talk about the man not as a sought-after ally in the fight against Trumpism, but as a nuisance and a hanger-on, overseeing a colossal waste of cash. And former employees say that he has hurt the cause.
It’s worth remembering that Breitbart.com Andrew Breitbart died of a heart attack at the age of 43. A year before he’d posted a cryptic tweet that some have since linked to the Pizzagate imbroglio. Just before his death he hyped some revelation about Barack Obama’s past.
A coroner in the office handling Breitbart’s body subsequently died of arsenic poisoning. The day Breitbart’s autopsy results were revealed, in fact.
COME BACK ROY COHN, ALL IS FORGIVEN
We also saw James Comey revive Russiagate, which had been flatlining after Vault 7. Any illusions among Trump fans that the FBI was secretly on their side were ground into powder, between this revelation and the Pizzagate conspiracy investigations.
One can’t help but wonder if the New Praetorians (I’ve noticed that the Praetorian meme has been picked up by more prominent commentators, but you heard it here first) are losing their last shred of patience with Donald Trump’s shenanigans and are planning imminent regime change:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is investigating whether Donald Trump’s associates coordinated with Russian officials in an effort to sway the 2016 presidential election, Director James Comey said Monday in an extraordinary public confirmation of a probe the president has refused to acknowledge, dismissed as fake news and blamed on Democrats.
In a bruising five-hour session, the FBI director also knocked down Trump’s claim that his predecessor had wiretapped his New York skyscraper, an assertion that has distracted White House officials and frustrated fellow Republicans who acknowledge they’ve seen no evidence to support it.
How surreal is the world in which you know live in? So much so that mainstream political site The Hill is comparing the action in Washington to a Stanley Kubrick film, one which has become notorious for the conspiracy theories that have been projected onto it (and is well familiar to Synchronauts):
On the 40th anniversary of the publication of The Shining, Stephen King must be wondering if Washington is working on its own sequel. For the last couple months, Washington has been on edge, like we are all trapped in Overlook Hotel with every day bringing a new “jump scare,” often preceded by a telltale tweet. Indeed, a Twitter whistle has replaced suspenseful music to put the entire city on the edge of their seats.
In this Shining sequel, however, people are sharply divided on who is the deranged ax-wielding villain in this lodge, the president or the press. Ironically, with the recent disclosure that some of the Trump campaign may indeed have been subject to surveillance, the president is looking more like Danny Torrence, a character dismissed for constantly muttering “redrum, redrum” until someone finally looked in a mirror at the reverse image to see the true message.
Yeah, I’m not really feeling that metaphor there, but whatever. It’s been that kind of year.
Now the Internet is burning up with theories that disgraced National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has “turned” and is going to testify against the Trump Administration, or at least figures attached to it.
It’s hard to imagine a three-star general can be stupid enough to be guilty of things Flynn’s been accused of but that may speak to a culture of impunity in Washington, in which your misdeeds are only punished if you get on the wrong side of the wrong people.
LIKE A BAD CYBERPUNK NOVEL
One wonders if the secret war has spread outside Washington. Car service giant Uber seems to be having a major run of rotten luck lately:
Uber Technologies Inc. is suspending its self-driving car program after one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in a high-impact crash in Tempe, Arizona, the latest incident for a company reeling from multiple crises.
In a photo posted on Twitter, one of Uber’s Volvo self-driving SUVs is pictured on its side next to another car with dents and smashed windows. An Uber spokeswoman confirmed the incident, and the veracity of the photo, and added that the ride-hailing company is suspending its autonomous tests in Arizona until it completes its investigation and pausing its Pittsburgh operations.
The incident also comes as Uber, and Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick, are currently under scrutiny because of a series of scandals. The ride-hailing company has been accused of operating a sexist workplace. This month, the New York Times reported that Uber used a tool called Greyball to help drivers evade government regulators and enforcement officials. Kalanick said he needed “leadership help” after Bloomberg published a video showing him arguing with an Uber driver.
So who did Kalanick piss off?
Coincidentally- there’s that word again- the crash comes soon after Wikileaks revealed that CIA hackers had the ability to override the computer systems in automobiles. From Mashable:
WikiLeaks has published a trove of files it says are linked to the CIA’s hacking operations — which apparently includes efforts to hack into cars.
The first in a series called “Vault 7,” “Year Zero” supposedly comprises 8,761 documents and files from an isolated, high-security network situated inside the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence in Langley, Virginia.
“Year Zero” details the CIA’s malware arsenal and “zero day” exploits against Apple iPhones, Google’s Android operating system, Microsoft Windows and even Samsung TVs.
According to a document from 2014, the CIA was also looking at infecting the vehicle control systems used by modern cars and trucks.
Oh, that’s reassuring. Speaking of control systems, apparently pimps are controlling prostitutes with RFID chips:
It turns out this 20-something woman was being pimped out by her boyfriend, forced to sell herself for sex and hand him the money.
“It was a small glass capsule with a little almost like a circuit board inside of it,” he said. “It’s an RFID chip. It’s used to tag cats and dogs. And someone had tagged her like an animal, like she was somebody’s pet that they owned.”
This is human trafficking. It’s a marginal issue here in the U.S. for most of us. Part of that is because the average person isn’t sure what human trafficking – or modern day slavery – actually means.
Technology is our friend, right? And now this:
Turkish Hackers Threaten To Wipe Millions Of iPhones; Demand Ransom From Apple
Today, courtesy of CIO, we learn that a group of hackers referring to themselves as the “Turkish Crime Family”, has been in direct contact with Apple and is demanding a $150,000 ransom by April 7th or they will proceed to wipe as many as 600 million apple devices for which they allegedly have passwords.
The group said via email that it has had a database of about 519 million iCloud credentials for some time, but did not attempt to sell it until now. The interest for such accounts on the black market has been low due to security measures Apple has put in place in recent years, it said.
Since announcing its plan to wipe devices associated with iCloud accounts, the group claimed that other hackers have stepped forward and shared additional account credentials with them, putting the current number it holds at over 627 million.
According to the hackers, over 220 million of these credentials have been verified to work and provide access to iCloud accounts that don’t have security measures like two-factor authentication turned on.
Of course, if credible, with an ask of just $150k, this is the most modest group of hackers we’ve ever come across.
Besides, Turkey is taking that recent coup attempt– which is almost universally blamed on the CIA– very personally.
The world “cries out for American and European leadership” through the EU and Nato, US senator John McCain said on Friday (24 March).
In a “new world order under enormous strain” and in “the titanic struggle with forces of radicalism … we can’t stand by and lament, we’ve got to be involved,” said McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate who is now chairman of the armed services committee in the US Senate.
Speaking at the Brussels Forum, a conference organised by the German Marshall Fund, a transatlantic think tank, he said that the EU and the US needed to develop “more cooperation, more connectivity”.
“I trust the EU,” he said, defending an opposite view from that of US president Donald Trump, who said in January that the UK “was so smart in getting out” of the EU and that Nato was “obsolete”.
He said that the EU was “one of the most important alliances” for the US and that the EU and Nato were “the best two sums in history”, which have maintained peace for the last 70 years. “We need to rely on Nato and have a Nato that adjusts to new challenges,” he said.
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli told a gathering of Asian leaders that the world must commit to multilateral free trade under the World Trade Organization and needs to reform global economic governance.
“The river of globalization and free trade will always move forward with unstoppable momentum to the vast ocean of the global economy,” Zhang said. China will remain a strong force in the world economy and for peace and stability, he said, adding that countries must respect one another’s core interests and refrain from undermining regional stability.
I suppose this is why China is off the target list for our new Cold (?) Warriors.
I’ve resisted posting on all this because it’s all so depressing. I’ve actually written a few pieces on this chicanery that I ended up roundfiling. But I suppose I just wanted to go on the record about all this skullduggery, for posterity’s sake.
UPDATE: Sex trafficking arrests and trials continue to proliferate. Most recent bust, an international ring in Minnesota. There is way too much activity going down in too short a time for this to be spontaneous.
* Which is exactly why I refrained from commenting on it here for the most part, instead noting that it had become a kind of memetic virus in much the same way that the Franklin/Boy’s Town scandal had in the 90s. (Note that prior to the election– and Pizzagate– Trump nemesis the Washington Post was all over the issue of sex trafficking in the nation’s capital).
† The ongoing legal and police actions coinciding with the moves to shut down the Pizzagate fringes on the Web seem like the exact kind of action one would expect if there were a serious operation at work. Shutting down the Internet chatter makes perfect sense in this context because it can only complicate cases made by prosecutors.
