In defence of conspiracy theories (and why the term is a misnomer)

CWO4 Terrence Clark - There is nothing wrong with deciding, on you own, after careful study and thought, that you are not going to be part of the hive mind swarm. If You smell a rat, then there's probably one somewhere around.

As much as I hate to admit it, they are kind of fun, you person of color you :)

I like dissecting them and exploring all the parts of conspiracy theories. With that approach I try to understand how and why they are crafted. This is especially true if its was created by foreign intelligence for disinformation/misinformation/propaganda purposes.

Having done this for a while it makes it pretty easy to spot new stories that lacking credible sources.

In using the Trump collusion story there were a number of signs that this was nonsense. The first place to start is with the sources and examine the sources of the information used in such stories - any time there is circular intelligence that's a red flag.

More of less any time two pieces of evidence that are created by the same source and are being used to independently corroborate the other source its likely to be BS. Such was the case in obtaining the FISA warrants. The FBI used an article from Yahoo News to corroborate the Steel dossier the only problem Steele briefed Yahoo News and other reporters in the fall of 2016 at the direction of Fusion GPS -- the opposition research firm behind the dossier. That's the definition of circular intelligence. The FBI used the Steel dossier and then the Yahoo news story - without vetting either - as evidence to secure a FISA warrant.

Russia is know to do this in very clever ways - they will feed a story to a media outlet in some foreign country like India and then encourage the propagation of the new story - which is entirely fake - on social media in the hopes that another news organization will pick it up and report on it. Once the evidence has successfully been created they will then use the two news stories as evidence as to why they took some action.

For me the problem with this collusion narrative was with the sources used within the Steel dossier as well what were the origins of it. Well we now know once those questions where asked and found out we learned it was funded by a political opposition candidate's law firm that used a cutout to craft the dossier. As well we know that a Russia analyst name Igor Danchenko who was a primary source for the dossier was charged with five counts of lying to the FBI about where he got the information he passed on to Steele. One of the indictments states that Danchenko knowingly lied about conversations with "sub-sources" that in fact never happened, or came from somewhere else.

But remember none of this would have been possible without a couple useful idiots - John Brennan and John McCain. That acted as the agents of chaos by including the Steele dossier in the intelligence report and with McCain and how he first learn of the dossier in Halifax, Nova Scotia. These two guys are much like the two news originations that Russia like to use. The hook was set deep and these two guys ran with it - in part fueled by a dislike for Trump. They wanted it to be true. I have a hunch as well Bill Clinton provided the Steele dossier to Lynch on the tarmac.

In hindsight its rather terrifying how quickly the investigation and special council started with calls to impeach. A fake story started almost pulled off a silent coup of a duly elected president.