Just an added note regarding conspiracies.
Hillary Clinton responded to the claims of her husband’s extracurricular activity by saying it was the plot of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to destroy her husband. I have no doubts that a lot of us right-wingers wanted to bring Clinton down, but she would have had the public believe that some right-winger planted Bill Clinton’s semen on Lewinsky’s blue dress. That was the conspiracy theory that was never mocked by the public and was disproven by all the evidence - although our stinkin’ Senate refused to uphold perjury and obstruction of justice law because they said it was just about - tee hee - sex. Funny nobody said that about Abu Ghraib...
So that was a conspiracy theory that was publicly proclaimed by Hillary Clinton - for which she received no rebuke from anybody but us right-wingers.
Around the same time that this was going on, mostly because AG Janet Reno refused to investigate potential national security leaks as requested by the Cos Report, a military intelligence project called Able Danger was initiated. Able Danger did computer sorting and analysis of open-source documents, looking for points of correlations that would point to suspicious activity. They noted suspicious activity on two fronts.
One was a hub of suspicious activity roughly organized around Brooklyn and a guy named Mohammad Atta. Able Danger alerted the Pentagon and tried to alert the FBI and CIA about the need to watch that group for potential terrorism.
Another was a hub of suspicious activity centered around Stanford University, connecting the Chinese military with SecDef Perry.
Because the DOD considered the connection with SecDef to be “laughable”, they discarded all the data collected by Able Danger and suspended their support for that operation, and later went on (and continue to this day) to gag the members of Able Danger who knew what was going on.
In order to label Able Danger is non-credible conspiracy theorists, the DOD destroyed the very information that could have prevented 9-11. There was a conspiracy going on, Able Danger had pegged it, but to cover for SecDef Perry the DOD quashed the actionable intelligence.
And once Clinton was out of office, FOIA requests were forced to be honored and it was found that SecDef Perry HAD KNOWN ALL ALONG that the company his own company was selling restricted, sensitive satellite technology to was actually a front company for the Chinese military - exactly the kind of thing that the Cox Report had strongly recommended the DOJ and Janet Reno investigate. SecDef Perry knew it was a front company because a colleague at Stanford University had actually set up the match between Perry and the Chinese military leader’s wife, to make the sale.
IOW, in order to cover the illegal conspiracy of SecDef Perry, the DOD quashed as non-credible the “inaccurate conspiracy theories” of Able Danger. As a result not only Perry’s conspiracy (which compromised US national security interests by giving China forbidden satellite technology) hidden, but a 10-year-long conspiracy that culminated in the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans on 9-11 was effectively hidden.
Able Danger was 2 for 2 on identifying conspiracies. And it was because of their KNOWN ACCURACY that SecDef Perry’s DOD quashed, disbanded, and sought to defame Able Danger.
A tale of 3 conspiracy theories. Two were correct, deadly, and involved government cover-ups. The other involved - tee hee - sex, was proven wrong, and even though perjury and obstruction of justice were discovered nothing happened to hold the perpetrator accountable to the law anyway.
Only the accurate ones were ridiculed by media and government. The inaccurate one received a pass and is now forgotten. The accurate ones have never been reported in the alphabet networks and so most people have never even heard of Able Danger.
Just because it’s a conspiracy theory doesn’t mean it’s not true. Ask the families of those killed on 9-11.
Should have been Cox Report, not Cos Report.
I didn’t suggest that all conspiracy theories are crazy or untrue.
But when all three branches of government, both political parties, all media, and half of FR are accused of being in on it ... well that’s just a little too much.
Do I believe Obama is hiding something? Yes, that’s obvious. Do I believe the 4 (maybe 5) honorable justices on the Supreme Court of the United States of America conspired to dismiss petitions for writ of certiorari in eligibility cases? Absoltely, positively, unquestionably, without a doubt ... NO.
(And to those who will surely point me to Justice Thomas’ comment about evading the issue, get a freaking clue.)