Video wird geladen...
Video konnte nicht geladen werden
Man I think Projekt Melody โจ3D Return 14-18th!! really sold that "accidental" coffee spill huh Vexoria the Sun Eater ๐ BlizzCon 2026 ๐ ๐ feral mutt
19,853 Aufrufe โข vor 14 Tagen โขvia X (Twitter)
0 Kommentare
Keine Kommentare verfรผgbar
Kommentare vom Original-Post werden hier angezeigt
รhnliche Videos
2:45
Sensitive content
Wow, guess who just joined the rampage party!!! Welcome our first English Voiceover!.Vexoria the Sun Eater ๐ BlizzCon 2026 ๐ ๐
GiantessPlayground
212,873 Aufrufe โข vor 1 Jahr
![๐จWhitney Webb describes how oligarchs like Leslie Wexner are able to control the U.S. federal government: "They went to his house to [depose him]. He didn't even have to go to D.C." "He was never investigated, even when his tax attorney was shot in the face." "Look to the lengths that the... government has gone to cover... up any sort of scrutiny of [him.]" "This is something that's been going on for a very long time and routinely. I think it should be clear at this point that the U.S. federal government is not really interested in investigating white collar crime because it works on behalf and serves the white collar criminals who pay for politicians and pay their campaigns and fly them on their private jets and give them special privileges. And then the politicians, when they're in office... give them a return on their investment, let's put it that way." This clip of Webb (Whitney Webb), author of One Nation Under Blackmail and contributing editor of unlimitedhangout(.)com, is taken from an interview with Jimmy Dore (Jimmy Dore) posted to Rumble on March 26, 2026. ----------------Partial transcription of clip-------------- Webb: "Well, you know, just look at a person who was a frontman, arguably, for Wexner in related interests, Jeffrey Epstein. And look to the lengths that the federal government has gone to cover that up and also to cover up any sort of scrutiny of Leslie Wexner thatโ when he was deposed by Congress recently, that was the first time he was ever deposed in this case. I mean, that's insane. "And they went to his house to do it. He didn't even have to go to D.C. normally, if you're deposed as part of a major sex trafficking, huge, massive scandal of great media interest and public interest, people don't come to your house to nicely interview you, you know." Jimmy Dore: "And soโ And so what does that tell you about his power? And how does he get that power?" Webb: "Well, I think he has that power because he's an extremely rich and powerful man. And I think, you know, just like Epstein, as I've noted extensively in my work on him and on his case, was linked to a lot of shady financial actors and very powerful people, including Rothschild banking interests, former heads of state, former top officials. Wexner presumably has a lot of those same ties. "And he was never investigated, even when his tax attorney was shot in the face, days before he was supposed to testify to the IRS. It got, you know, the document linking Wexner to that and linking Wexner to organized crime was destroyed by the police departmentโ the police chief who was supposed to investigate it. "So this is something that's been going on for a very long time and routinely. I think it should be clear at this point, that the U.S. Federal government is not really interested in investigating white collar crime because it works on behalf and serves the white collar criminals who pay for politicians and pay their campaigns and fly them on their private jets and give them special privileges. And then the politicians, when they're in office, return, you know, give them a return on their investment, let's put it that way. "And the investments are bribes or, you know, indirect bribes. And actually, as I note in the article, Ohio's largest corruption scandal and bribery scandal ever. The first energy or HB 6 scandal, is tied up directly in with this group and with Wexner. It happened just a few years ago. I think the story broke in 2020, and two of the main people have ended up dead. "One of them is a lobbyist that used to work for Wexner in the New Albany company and was tied to this company, FirstEnergy, and FirstEnergy basically bribed a bunch of people in the Ohio state government to push through legislation that bailed out a bunch of their nuclear and, I think, a coal-powered power plant with taxpayer money. "And theyโ the amount of bribes they spent is dwarfed by how much money they got as part of the bailout. So that was a great return on investment, quoteโunquote, for them. But one of the people that was arrested as part of that scandal for racketeering and other things, Neil Clark, just was found in the woods near his house with a bullet to the head. It was quickly ruled a suicide, and he used to work for Wexner in New Albany. And who do you think really wants these nuclear power plants functioning? AI data centers."](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2037292970970607792/amplify_video_thumb/2037290326801735680/img/rmN3VT8dAeG69vdn.jpg)
![The most epic 13 minute AI rant I've heard in 2026 PS: My parent's heard this when I was playing it in the car and thought Jason โจ๐พSaaStr.Aiโจ Lemkin went OFF like Stephen A Smith does on first take PPS: Full transcript below [17:00] Harry Stebbings: I I just wanted to ask Jason, if the people that we want are fundamentally different, the developers that we used to hire, we don't because AI writes the code for us. The marketers we don't want, the sales people we don't wantโwho who do we want genuinely? Like what is the attractive profile? Because your Anthropicโs and your OpenAIs are hiring, so so what are the people that we want in the companies of the future? [17:18] Jason Lemkin: Look, I know it sounds trite, but but the answer is simple. It's just the expression each year changes. We want folks that are genuinely AI fluent. It's pretty simple. Now you know, maybe last year we called them prompt engineers, right? That used to be a job. I don't know if you remember that actually used to be the hottest job on planet earth. Now no one needs a prompt engineer because it's pretty easy to prompt all these tools. That job died. Okay. Um and now we need go-to-market engineers. Um I think that job's going to die. We needโeveryone needs so many forward deployed engineers. Like you can't hire enough forward deployed engineers. But uh you know um but Palantir just announced in whatever their their big their big eventโthey've gotten their deployment times down over 90% with forward deployed engineers. So that may becomeโso the this wave of disruption for the titles and the specificity, it's also exhaustingly accelerating. But it's really simple. You meet anyone for any roleโsales, marketing, engineering, product, QAโthey're they're either they're either they can't keep all of the ways they use AI to accelerate their job from spewing out of their mouth, or they're staring at you. It's there's nowhere in the middle. Like, and the person that comes in and saysโit's it's it sounds Captain Obviousโbut like, you know, you just had the whatever from Lovable, the the marketing head that was super popular on the show, right? She's just spewing AI-native insights into Lovable, right? It's not that complicated. You hire her, Elena, or whatever it is. You just hire her. It doesn't matter whether she's still in college or a junior or a senior or a middler, a left or right. And honestly, if you interview people, I would say of all even of the best startups I've invested in, maybe 30% of the management team meets this standard at best. 30%. Maybe less. And of the interviews I do in general, it's single-digit percents. It's just and in in that sense, it's the same as ever. Like you either lower the bar in hiring or you hire someone that's actually great. And someone that's actually great is so far ahead of you in how to apply to to employ the efficiencies of AI in their role, your jaw falls on the table. The difference is we used to need warm bodies. That's what's changing. We used to need warm bodies to answer the call, to do QA, to do code review, to to get the blue pixel to go from the upper left to the lower right. You laugh, but you need you literally needed to brute force this with humans. With AI, every day that goes by, the AIโyou do not need brute force human beings on your team. And that's another reason they're shrinking. Why are all these new companies so efficient? They're just not brute forcing things with humans. They're just not. They're choosing not to. And so these teamโall the brute forcers out thereโeveryone talks about how bloated teams got in 2021. I don't agree with that. I think they got as big as they needed to be when growth was high and you needed humans to do everything. All you look at these teams that that doubledโwell if growth continued at 60% like the rate in early 2021 for 5 years or can help me do the math and every single thing a software company did required a human. You were understaffed by your 2021 headcount. You'd be sitting here in 2026. You every office in SoMa would be triple packed and you there wouldn't be enough humans to staff your company. It's just the world changed. [20:33] Harry Stebbings: Jason, you live on the bleeding edge. I think me and Rory see that and I think the world sees that when they hear you every week in terms of how you run SaaS. For all of the CEOs and execs who listen to the show, what would you advise them in terms of determining whether someone is AI fluent when they meet them for jobs, for talent? [20:51] Jason Lemkin: Here's I realized I was just asked this. I just did a review with a super fast startup growing just crossing 100 million and I was asked this question. And one of my favorite executives, I thought his answer was pretty dated and because he gave me an answer that was about 6 months old. The answer 6 months old is: "I look for folks in my team, I look for you know at what tools they play with." Okay, that was a great answer in like summer of 2025. Okay, I tried Lovable last week. Okay, the answer in 2026 is: "What commercial AI tool have you brought into your organization this month?" That's the test. Anyone that is on the bleeding edge that you would want to hireโnow there are so many great products in the market. Okay, there is no excuse in any role to have not brought one tool a month into your organization. Okay, thereโnow there's going to be better and better tools and better and better products as the year goes on. What's the one you did? And you will see folks with their deer in the headlights to this question. What what sales tool? What marketing tool? What product tool? What engineering tool? What did you bring in? Why did you pick it? How does it working? Because if you're at remotely at the cutting edge, you're all over this. You're looking for the next agentic tools that will radically improve how you do business. This isโyou think everyone thinks SaaS is at the bleeding edge, right? You know, you know, all we do is we're just looking for the tools and trying them. Okay? Okay, we're one year ahead of everybody else because we did the simplest thing in the world. Like we tried the tools early and we trained them. We trained them for a month. Okay, I'll give youโwant hear a horrible example from this week? Super hot AI company valued at 6 billion. Okay, I'm not going to name it. Um, this week yesterday told us we had to quadruple what we spent on their product. Okay, their agent told us, right? And why did this happen? Okay. Well, at this $6 billion company, no one had trained the agent on its pricing properly. No one had tested it. They said, "Well, well, we've been in beta." And we said, "Well, when did the beta launch? A year ago." Okay, these are people asleep at at the wheel. You want somebody who the instant this comes up, they exactly know what the issue is. And "Hey, when I was at Lovable Replit, we trained the agent. This is how we did it. I brought in this tool. I brought in this tool that that Rory invested in last week. It solved all these issues." That's what you want to hear. And if they haven't brought in a tool in the last 30 days, at least deeply evaluated it. I don't really care whether they bought it, but gone so far down the funnel they can tell youโpick whatever tool: Fixie, Regie, GC, AIGCโI don't care how you went through it, you looked at it, you can tell me the eight ways it would improve the productivity of your business and three you didn't. Just don't hire that person because they're going to run your company to the ground. This is the job today. The job today is not to screw around on ChatGPT and to be a prompt engineer. The job today is to bring the best AI and agentic products into your organization and leverage all the hard work that the engineers have done building those products. That's your job. You don't have to screw around. You don't have to be a prompt engineer anymore. You have to be an agent deployment expert. Aโthis is the new job we're making up today. An Agentic Deployment Expert. That's your job from C-level to junior. Agentic Deployment Expert. Don't hire anybody else. You're going to regret it. They're going to stare at the camera. He's good. Stare at the camera. He's honorable. We could probably just I could slip away, get a coffee, and come back. No. And I I sound exasperated, Rory. And Iโbut the reason I am is I can just see I can see my best companies doing it. And I can see some companies I've invested in not doing it. And I want to cry. I just want to cry when they have no ADs on their team. I justโlike you're flushing your years of your life down the toilet by not approaching your how you're building this company this way. [24:33] Rory: Yes. And at the risk of being positive, it's worth pointing out two things he didn't say. Well, something implicit why he saidโJason didn't do the only hire, you know, he didn't commit the um employment law, I think it's a civil penalty of saying only employ people below X who get the new new thing because he implicitly said anyone can do it provided you're willing to learn. And I think that's the big aha that's one of the positive statements to make here right? Look and I think it appliesโI'm always wary of being "Hey, coming across, hey this this is the things that you all have to do." I think it applies to everyone including investors right? I mean I will say I have found that unless you're willing to invest the time learning these tools you actually shouldn't be investing in them. One of my partners Andy had this expression: "You know, if you decide you want to stop learning new things you probably should retire within 6 to 12 months and never write another check again." Maybe that's down to 3 to 6 months at this stage, right? And I think, you know, it'sโ [25:27] Harry Stebbings: Yeah, I actually I actually had a meeting with mine and Jason's biggest investor the other day and Iโpretend he's not hereโI said I think he's the most equipped investor for this generation of investing because I don't think anyone quite sits at the bleeding edge like he does on the investor side. [25:42] Harry Stebbings: Why in terms of using the equip stuff? Yeah. Yeah. In terms of using the stuff, understanding understanding bottlenecks, constraints. For sure. [25:51] Jason Lemkin: But can I just add one point? We can just cuz it's so important if it helps people. Okay, we areโand thank you Harry. We're going through these phases. Okay, and when AI started to blow up for real for us, uh call it early 2024, right? Maybe late '23, I wasn't equipped. It was too technical. I wasn't going to go in and figure outโI wasn't smart enough to figure out how to deal with a massively hallucinating LLM API and turn that and turn that into something magical. Kudos to investors and others that that got it in early '23, '22. I mean I remember IโI guess it was maybe SaaStr Annual '23. I was with David Sacks and I did a Q&A and I said, "How you thinking about AI at Craft?" He's like, "Well we're all in. We want 80% of '23 of investments to be AI." I'm like, "Great but like show me the show me the great ones in market." He's like, "They're all prototypes. We're all they're all they're all proof of concepts but we're all in anyway." That's where you kind of had to be in '23 if you weren't investing at like the LLM level. Okay, I wasn't smart enough. Then we went through this weird-ass prompt engineer era where like you you could torture these products to do something good, right? But you had to torture them. You had to like craft these crazy things that made no sense. Now we are in the era where mere ordinarily smart generalists can make these tools do magical things. And literally I go to these meetings and people be like, "I don't know how to like this is so scary. I don't know how to do this." And we show them our backends. Do you know how to do a workflow generator? Do you know how to do a a decision tree? Like we've been building these since software in the '90s. Okay, if youโI can show you all of our agents. The how they work is novel. They do have to be trained. You can't be lazy and have these agents work. But honestly, the the UI, the UX, the way we interact with them, it's just software. And so my point is: Pick yourself off the ground. This is your time now. If you felt lost in AI era, if you felt like you're behind, you don't understand what all these people are saying on X and Twitter and their Claude and and their and talking about all the 4.6 point Nano point and it's overโlike you just it's not your world. This is your time. This is your time for the generalist that knows how to use software tools really really well. And Iโthis is my last point but it's so important. If ever in your recent lifeโand this is why you could be all you need to be is young at heart to Rory's pointโif in the last three to five years you have successfully deployed a piece of enterprise software of any sort you yourself, not some agency you hired, but if you have deployed it, you can deploy any agentic tool. Any. And you can become the hero in your company and you can become the hero in your functional area. But I watch folksโI'm literally helping a company now that they're adding hundreds of sales folks this year with a new pre-IPO COOโhe's not hasn't brought in a single tool, totally scared of it. Okay, it's not that hard. Did you use SalesLoft? Did you use Outreach? Did you use HubSpot? Do you know these tools? If you can deploy these tools, you can deploy a world-changing AI agent. And so this is the time for people like the folks that that were shut out of the AI revolution right now. The generalist folks that are not that know how to deploy software that don't even know how to build software. Like vibe coding for me was folks who knew how to build software, but you didn't have to be an engineer. Now, you just need to know how to deploy software to win with AI agents. That's all you need to know. So many people have these skills and they're petrified of AI. "How did you do that? How did you deploy an AI BDR?" Well, we bought a piece of software, we figured out how it worked for a day, we set it up in an afternoon, and then and then we did spend 30 months training it, which you didn't do with this old software because in the old days, we just had to manually upload all the data, right? And there was no training. The the only non-intuitive part is training these things. And it's it's it's just work. So that's why when I see folks on the management team not doing this, there's no excuse. You do not need to be technical to win with AI agents in Q2 of '26. You do not need to be even 1% technical. Not at all. So it's your time. Or you're going to get laid off. Or you're going to get laid off because you're not going to matter.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2036795243681423518/amplify_video_thumb/2036794127560613888/img/52_cdbzzL6_foTSI.jpg)
!["I have graphs, I've looked at the Google Analytics, the data does not lie. Every single time, starting in April 2024, that Jen McCabe would become the subject of public attention --It happens at specific discrete moments on the timeline-- you see a bump in the attention paid to Lindsey Gaetani." "And there's no doubt in my mind that Brian Tully's MSP unit --when they had Michael Morrissey make that video, when McCabe's friends or family or whatever, when they all got him to make that video, and that didn't work, and when Morrissey had to recuse, when things got so bad that they had no other out, and the TurtleRiders would not pay attention to anyone but those Karen Read and John O'Keefe witnesses-- Tully, Kate Peter and their people said, "all right, we're left with no other option. Lindsey Gaetani looks like a good distraction. Let's release her phone." And then that cycle repeated over and over and over and over again. And Lindsey's not the only one who's been subject to this. You wanna talk about what's going on to Estey? Even what's going on with Deanna? With Meredith?" TRANSCRIPT: And people wonder why I get so passionate about this. This is nothing I haven't talked about before, but you are not gonna tell me, me, of all people --I'm not gonna speak for Lindsey-- but you are not gonna tell me that the release of Lindsey Gaetani's cell phone extraction did not have serious, serious ramifications. Like, I can't even conceptualize what the impact was on Lindsey and her family's life. I don't think my life was ever the same again after April of 2024. As traumatized as I was from that December 2023 court hearing, what happened in April of 2024 was the worst thing that I have ever seen happen to any human being in my entire life. [Speaking to chat] Oh, hi Lindsey, how are you? I've just never seen anything that horrific, the leak of that cell phone extraction, the impact that it had, the fact that no one even understood how severe it was because people were so distracted by the polemics of it. People were so "excited" to be able to smear Lindsey and the distraction was so powerful that no one asked, one, why did this happen? Or two, what was the impact? And that's what really got me so passionate and furious about this. It wasn't an issue of substantive guilt or innocence about anyone. It was that I was seeing the same exact stuff happen in this situation to people without political connections that I saw happen to the staff of the CCC when really powerful men started getting very, very, very close to each other in positions of power and then when they would do bad things to women, they would just talk to each other. One guy would run the HR department, the other guy would run the executive director position, and somebody else would have a connection to the appointing authority. And so any complaint would just be what's called "caught and killed." And I said, there is no way that this is gonna happen again. When it was happening in the CCC, it was an administrative regulatory agency. At least there was some sort of semblance of check and balance. It wasn't egregious because everyone had a lot of influence, even the people who were staffers. This situation, we had state police officers, people who, if you were listening to the just the narrative of the people who were supporting the Justice for John O'Keefe movement, you would think that Michael Proctor's infallible. You would think Brian Tully's infallible. You would think Kate Peter's infallible, which means incapable of fault. That's nonsense. I'm telling you right now, that's nonsense, and that's why it was so easy for this stuff to manifest. And that's why I became so personally concerned. Forget about what developed from April to April of 2024 until now. That's why I was so upset because I watched what happened from December of 2023 through to April of 2024. And that enough was so egregious, so wrong, such an abuse of trust, such an abuse of the justice system that I said, there is no way that I can just stand by and be apathetic about this, no matter what the price, no matter what the obstacles, no matter what the pressures. And I can't tell you how bad it was --it tore families apart, these cases-- if you didn't live through it. It tore communities apart. I don't believe anyone in Massachusetts around this area, 128 or Dedham or whatever, was able to live a life that was not impacted in some way by this case. Okay, these cases, the TurtleBoy case, Karen Read case, et cetera, et cetera. It frustrates me to no end that somehow within that high-profile situation, there were people who started to control the narrative because they had things to hide. And that's why I started this space, because I truly believe that the real secrets lying beneath what was really going on with Michael Proctor and Brian Tully and Kate Peter and the PI, Marty Kraft and Jen McCabe and Yuri Bukhenik and John Fanning and Nick Guarino. What I really believe was going on was that they were worried that the attention brought onto that unit by the John O'Keefe and Karen Read case was gonna spill their secrets about Birchmore. And it led them to double down and commit even more egregious acts in the context of some of this other behavior, like leaking Lindsey Gaetani's cell phone extraction. And that's, again, you wanna talk about the timeline from April 2024 until now, we can do that too. But what I'll tell you is the story ends up being the same. I have graphs, I've looked at the Google Analytics, the data does not lie. Every single time starting in April 2024, that Jen McCabe would become the subject of public attention. It happens at specific, specific discrete moments on the timeline. You see a bump in the attention paid to Lindsey. And there's no doubt in my mind that this unit, when they had Michael Morrissey make that video, when McCabe's friends or family or whatever, when they all got him to make that video, and that didn't work. When Morrissey had to recuse, when things got so bad that they had no other out and the TurtleRiders would not pay attention to anyone but those Karen Read and John O'Keefe witnesses, Tully and his people said, "all right, we're left with no other option. Lindsey Gaetani looks like a good distraction. Let's release her phone." And then that cycle repeated over and over and over and over again. And Lindsey's not the only one who's been subject to this. You wanna talk about what's going on to Estey? Even what's going on with Deanna? With Meredith? What's going on with a lot of these people, right? There were PIs and moles in the internet saying that Lindsey was that and separating that. There were PIs, moles and various people in the end, just sort of people who were trying to either support Karen or support a movement that they could believe in or whatever it was, who got exploited, who got ran by various people for intel purposes to feed information back to their various handlers. And when they became expendable, they got burned. You watch, look at these emails sent to all these people's schools, the mass emails. That can't be a coincidence. Whoever it benefits can't be a coincidence, all right? It's a coordinated tactic. It's designed to put public attention on very specific people when otherwise damaging information gets released. And what have we seen over the past, let's say from April 2024 until now, what have we seen? That over and over and over again, all right? Every time something would happen, there'd be a new distraction. And then as we got through the end of the Karen Read and John O'Keefe case, what did we see? Yes, there were some real, real secrets lying beneath in terms of this case. And I mean it, I mean it with every bone and fiber in my towel body. There were secrets about the Birchmore case. There were secrets about that phone extraction. There were secrets about the inside baseball and the communications between Tully and Kate and Tully and Jen McCabe and Michael Morrissey and Kate and Michael Morrissey and Jen McCabe. And as it all started to come out and as it crescendoed folks over the past few months to the point where Michael Proctor's own attorney was basically making misrepresentations to the court about the existence of 12 years of cell phone records. When he had Kate Peter deleting evidence from Google Drives that were submitted as formal records to grand juries in the Kearney proceedings. When you have a special prosecutor statute that is so broken, it allows a DA rather than complying with the court order to appoint a new special prosecutor to just no-cross cases. So that stuff like what we've been talking about doesn't come out. It's indefensible. But what is the karmic justice here? It is that for whatever reason, Michael Proctor's cell phone records which I truly believe were captured and swept up by the feds during their federal probe of either Farwell or Tully's unit or John O'Keefe's death, whatever it was, exposing a lot of this. It's not just the Rule 14 discovery related to Kate Peter and otherwise and Tully that was turned over in the Aidan Kearney case, the 5,000 pages of material. Initially 4,000 pages of it was mysteriously just blank. It's not just that folks. It's also the, hey, Michael Proctor's cell phone until months ago, August of 2025 was hidden from the public. It was hidden from criminal defendants until someone somewhere must have informed Michael Proctor that a full copy of that cell phone already existed so there was no point in him continuing to hide it. What does this speak to? Well, it speaks to why I started this space today because in light of everything I just laid out from memory. I wanted to see if there was a single person who would be willing to stand up here and defend Michael Proctor's state police unit, Ryan Tully, John Fanning, Yuri Bukhenik, any of them or Kate Peter or Jen McCabe. Not because of their actions necessarily in the John O'Keefe and Karen Read case but because of everything I just laid out and the silence would let it speak volumes because how are you possibly going to counter any of that? This is what I'm doing from memory sitting here while trying to challenge people to a debate. That is just a part of the historical record. I cannot put into words how much more expansive in scope some of this story is and it's not any one person's story to tell. Let me also go on a rant about this. I'm getting so frustrated with the possessive approach that some people take to some of this coverage. Do you care about what was done to the most vulnerable? I don't care if you think of Karen as vulnerable, Lindsey is vulnerable, Sandra Birchmore is vulnerable, whoever you think of as vulnerable. Do you care about what happened to them? Do you care about righting the wrongs? Do you care about actually talking about the misconduct or are you trying to make a polemical point in furtherance of some specific platform that either you run or you support? What are you trying to accomplish? And I think a lot of us recently have been forced to have some very difficult moral reckoning. Okay, because a lot of us were tricked. I felt absolutely tricked into supporting Michael Proctor. If I knew, I'm not saying about the merits of the John O'Keefe investigation. If I knew then, back in 2023, 2024, what I know now about what's on that phone and about what that unit was willing to do, I never would have supported them. We supported Lindsey, but I never would have supported that unit. I'm sorry. Nope, never would have done it. And that's why I want to talk about people became very possessive about coverage of this case. Reporters are supposed to fade into the background. It's not supposed to be about us. Yes, maybe you have some skills. The reporter, people are interested. You use those skills to get a following so you can tell a story and get the facts out there, but it's not supposed to be about us. If a reporter is the centerpiece of a story, they have failed. Okay, you just blend in the background. We make sure that the people who are the most harmed, their voices are centered. And then we make sure these predatory vultures, like Kate Peter, are unable to manipulate public narratives to protect entrenched systemic power structures. That's what it's all about. So for me, that's why I get so frustrated. That's why I wanted to do this space because I wanted to make a point that when forced to actually debate on merit, all the propaganda mouthpieces will run from the chance. They're happy to get up and shit talk other people when it's a space they control, and they don't have to address the merits. But you put them in a position where they don't control the space and they're forced to debate on merit and they'll run from it. So in some sense, I made my point. But I also think it's an important exercise in telling this story, in explaining where I'm coming from. I think there are a lot of us that are all coming to the same position, which is it doesn't matter what various camp we may have been in or what not. We're not defined by that. We are just individual humans who have a bunch of views on different cases. And at the end of the day, a lot of us, more so, I think than people realize, actually care about systemic reform. We're not in it to protect Kate Peter or Jen McCabe or Brian Tully or anybody. We're here to hold people to equal standards and ask that the justice system do the same. And I think that's a noble goal. That's something that I can believe in. I wish people would be willing to debate it, though. It frustrates me. It really frustrates me. And, you know, maybe that's the nature of it. Maybe it's that making this point requires showing the litany of evidence, showing the sort of timeline, showing the overlapping concentric social circles, talking about these people, talking about what they did, talking about the implications, talking about where this is going. That's what cuts out the propaganda. To me, everyone is capable of fault. I said this the other day. If there are people out there in your orbit who are telling you that they are incapable of fault, they're a threat to the United States. They're the most dangerous, pernicious force we can imagine. Everyone's capable of fault. And we should look to the people who, in spite of their faults, try to leave the world a better place than what they found when they arrived. I think there are those of us. In spite of absolutely inculcating incredible odds who have somehow managed to get to a point where we've centered the voices, we're not there yet, where we're centering the voices who are actually impacted by all this. And if that happens, mark my words, it will not be because of any large media platforms or networks or anything. It will be in spite of them. It will be in spite of their impact inside dealing in spite of the documentary contracts, in spite of the news networks. It will be because a small group of well-meaning people were willing to band together and say, everything else aside, we can stand behind what's right. It may not be a form of right that we all agree on, but starting from that place, instead of from a place of hatred or otherwise, is a good step. I don't know where this is going. I don't know where it's going. I know that no one will stand up here and defend Kate Peter and Brian Tully, at least in a debate with me where I control the playing field. Can you blame them? But I don't know where this is going. You're on my prediction. As someone who's, I think I've not lived this as much as some other people, but I've lived it a lot. It's been a lot. And I'm never gonna understand the impact that this had on the people who had directly impacted, but it's been a lot on a lot of people. The story has impacted many lives. Even myself, with the perspective I have, kind of sitting back here on my veranda, you can call me Thomas Jefferson Towel. I don't have any hemp though, or do I? Sitting on my veranda, kind of looking forward, right here, all right? I got my public records request back today. I know when a public records request denial is like, oh, we want to stonewall this because there's something there. And I'm getting that vibe related to the contacts between the Norfolk DA's office and the Mass AGO's office between September 25th and October 24th of 2025 related to whether the Norfolk DA reached out to appoint a new special prosecutor in the Lindsey Gaetani and Aidan Kearney cases. But as I'm sitting here on my veranda with my eyes closed, I don't have a veranda. I have a desk. I'm a little towel. As I'm sitting here with my eyes closed, I can see the future materializing, okay? There's only certain roads that this can go down. There are only so many pathways left. There's a reckoning coming, folks. Whether it's a reckoning by way of the Sandra Birchmore cover-up, whether it's a reckoning by way of Michael Proctor's attempt to hide a substantial amount of evidence across a substantial number of criminal cases, whether it's related to Kate Peter's involvement in the handling of evidence in the still remaining Aidan Kearney cases. You can sense the anticipation. You can sense the apprehension and anxiety. And you can sense imminent closure. I'm not saying that is gonna be an easy process. I'm not saying it's gonna be a short process. But I'm saying there's something in the air. It's undeniable. There's little left to defend. There's not a single person, troll or otherwise anonymous account or whatever, who would stand up here today right now and with me and try to defend Kate Peter and Brian Tully. I gave you the chance. There's a time, if I had done this space a year ago, oh, people would have been jumping at the bit. No one will do it. No one. Why? Because we're at the end of the road. What Proctor did was indefensible, not in the Read O'Keefe case, although he should never have used those words about Karen. I'd critique him if he was a private citizen, although obviously I'm protective of women, right? But say what you will about that. I wouldn't use those words in private. That man used them in his capacity as a police officer. Right? Not to mention the other defendants' cases that were impacted by whatever Proctor and Sean Goode and whoever else was on that text chain and whatever else is on that phone is gonna lead to. You can sense it. You can sense the reckoning coming. The question is, back to Watergate in the '70s, there was a member of the House of Representatives during the impeachment hearings in '74. We had a very famous phrase. "What did the President know and when did he know?" Folks, the phrase of our era will be, "What did Michael Morrissey know and when did he know it?" This cannot start and end with justice for any single person involved in this. This is not about any one person at this point. This is about a system of justice in Massachusetts that I suppose was not about justice long before any of us realized it was teetering on the brink of collapse. Annie Dookhan was a warning that we all ignored to our peril. I should have seen it when they somehow got Lindsey that same lawyer that Annie Dookhan had. I should have seen it. It's notโI didn't realize until last week that lawyer George was a handler. Dookhan could create a hugeโit could have created huge exposure for some people in the state police. It's incredible. If somebody painted the picture of the power structure that was at play here. Karen Read, when she said she was afraid of these people, I didn'tโwhen she said it in the text or something and somebody leaked it. When I first started covering this case, I would not have got it. I don't know what it had been like. What do you mean? They're a state police unit. Like, yeah, they're paramilitary. Like, if you're a criminal, you should fear them, but they're not scary. Right now, after some of the stuff, and I'm talking about half the stuff I've seen as people pull, they horrifying. I think they're cornered, by the way. I don't think there's much they can do. They're getting a little desperate, burning a lot of their agents and their moles. And that's why I sense some kind of reckoning coming. You don't burn deep cover moles. I think Deanna was a mole for Kate for a while. You don't burn somebody like that unless it's almost over. Same thing with Kristy, the way Kristy's been burning everybody. I don't know who the hell she was working for, but whatever she's doing has got to be close to over because you don't burn everybody down unless it's almost over. So why is it almost over, folks? Why? What's coming? Some combination of all of this stuff. And if you want my fundamental prediction, let me give it to you like this. I don't like that it's coming to this, but it's a political question. It's a question of what the narrative is going to be. You don't just, as everyone now knows, you don't just prosecute people because they do things wrong. There's always a decision tree. So what do the feds want out of this? The people who were involved in the cover-up of Sandra Birchmore's murder, whoever was the father of Sandra's unborn child, you know, it's not that Matt Farwell. Well, and then they obviously want this MSP unit. Okay, Michael Proctor, that cell phone, didn't just get cloned. It was a setup. They let Proctor lie to the judge about all those cases and all the cell phone records. And as soon as his lawyer filed the document, they moved on him. He must be under federal investigation. How did Aidan Kearney get those text messages from Jen McCabe to KF and Allie McCabe? Those were removed from Jen McCabe's extraction. The feds cloned her phone too, just like Aidan told Lindsey in those text messages as part of Exhibit O from November 28, 2023. Why did the feds clone Jen McCabe's phone? To see what Jen would withhold in the Rule 14 process. She didn't get banged up on charges federally, so she must have not done anything that bad. Something, however, is going to happen to Proctor, in turn, legally on the federal level. You can sense it. You can sense it. They're going to indict him. But for what? But then it leaves Tully, which was what this whole stream is about. We have the email from Tully. Forget about whether it's normal procedure for Tully to instruct Proctor to look into all the defense witnesses. We now know that Proctor was not running that case. It was Tully. It was all Brian Tully. What was the meme that I put up today? I really like this one. It says, the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm Brian Tully and I'm here to help." Attributed to Ronald Reagan. My point is though, it was Brian Tully. Look at it. Kate was his little, I don't know, what do we want to call, how can we say this nicely? You know, I'm trying to rise above and encourage more reasonable, respectful discourse. So Kate was his little, this is so hard. All right, let me, let me say a prayer here. Come on, now you can do this. Okay. So, there are so many words I want to use. Kate was his little assistant. I know, I know. You were expecting something wonderful. Every single thing that I was going to say there was going to be cruel, so I'm sorry. Kate was his little assistant, his little PI there. And then, I'm going to turn it around, nightmare PI Moms, version 2, Kate Peter, Jen McCabe, let's go down the seaport. Kate Peter was his little PI until he was quarterbacking all this. I think it was Morrissey who was even cut out of the loop a little bit, although I'm not sure he wasn't more involved than I'm willing to say right now. And you can see why it happened. Because when Morrissey recused in October of 2023 from the Aidan Kearney cases, and what became the Aidan Kearney and Karen Read investigations that are still ongoing, he didn't really recuse. He just had Tully and Kate running it. I started to wonder if Jen McCabe was like a PI for a case she was a witness on. I'm really starting to wonder that.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1987503776723320894/amplify_video_thumb/1987502597427662848/img/rCXN6v-5U_9-ODTv.jpg)
!["You just hate Hichilema": The dramatic fall of Zambia's president By Sishuwa Sishuwa Hakainde Hichilema stood in the queue to becoming President of Zambia for 15 years before voters finally removed him from it in August 2021. This demonstrates how badly the man wanted this job. But it has taken him only five years in office to display his unfitness for the role. When it comes to the bigger national issues, such as safeguarding our cherished democracy, getting the best out of Zambiaโs mineral wealth, respecting the constitution and the rule of law, fighting corruption beyond rhetoric, genuine promotion of national unity and equitable distribution of appointments to public service positions, sorting out the cost-of-living crisis and the deplorable conditions of life for most Zambians, Hichilema has lamentably failed. In fact, I would go as far as saying that the President has become a clear and present danger to Zambiaโs economy, to our democracy, our constitutional order, our nationhood and its 'One Zambia Nation' foundation, and to the lives of ordinary Zambians. Voting Hichilema out of office will be the highest expression of patriotism. As I have previously stated, I am convinced that Hichilema will lose the election on 13 August. The only thing that can save him from defeat is pre-ballot death (of any candidate) or industrial scale vote-rigging. I really hope that we Zambians will never again elect a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag. In addition to his policy failures on major issues of public concern, one reason why Hichilema is losing the election (unless he rigs it on an industrial scale) is because of having extremist supporters, mostly Zambezi supremacists, who dismiss legitimate criticism of his leadership actions as hate speech and consequently enable his continued failure to be receptive to criticism, to reflect on the feedback provided by the governed, and to change for the better. When citizens (be it the Catholic Bishops, opposition parties, civic actors, or ordinary Zambians like me) raise governance concerns, they do so in the spirit of accountable democratic governance. They do not do so because they hate the president as a person, hate his ethnic identity, or hate where he was born. I insist that a better Zambia is possible but we wonโt get it if we treat criticism of presidential leadership failure as expression of hate. Unfortunately, even Hichilema himself has embraced this warped thinking that any criticism of his leadership actions is hate speech. This attitude has deprived him of the much needed feedback on his leadership performance and capacity to listen to divergent views, consequently impoverishing his presidency. We must embrace the unfamiliar, eschew haste in passing judgement, and be more tolerant and understanding. These qualities are especially essential to those in public leadership roles. I once raised concern that we seem to have prepared different standards for this president compared to those who came before him. If a leader can only provide five hours of electricity to the people in a day, they have failed. If a leader can only increase the cost of living, they have failed. If a leaderโฆI can go on. In addition to denying the president the benefit of legitimate public feedback on his performance, misconstruing criticism as hate makes it look like the responsibility of holding our public leaders to account falls on those who either love him or hail from the region where the president does not come from. If his supporters and Tongas, Lozis and Zambians from Northwestern Province join in calling out the wrongs of Hichilema, he will no longer play the tribal card of reducing all criticism of his leadership to ethnic hatred. In the uncritical minds of some of the president's supporters, I criticise Hichilema because I hate him! Most of the individuals who hold this view are people who repeatedly criticise me on this platform, even when their criticism is quite often devoid of reason or substance. I do not think those who criticise me do so because they hate me. I think they criticise me, even if I hold no elected public office, simply because they have a different take, different opinions, on things. Why is it so hard to apply the same logic to my criticism of an elected public leader like Hichilema who is accountable to us, the public? I have been providing regular political commentaries on Zambian affairs since 2009. Why was my much stronger criticism of Hichilema's predecessors, namely Rupiah Banda, Michael Sata, and Edgar Lungu, not considered hatred of these individual leaders? In fact, many of the individuals who today accuse me of harbouring hatred for Hichilema were people who were very happy with my much stinging criticism of the leadership failures of his predecessors. When I called Sata a tribalist and undemocratic leader who did not listen to advise, and provided evidence in support of my conclusions, they were happy to cheer me on, even as Sata's supporters said I was bitter and a Hichilema supporter. When I called Lungu a tribalist and corrupt leader, and provided evidence in support of my conclusions, they were happy to cheer me on, even as Lungu's supporters said I was bitter and petitioned the police to arrest me for sedition. Some of Hichilema's supporters, as part of the enjoyment of their exercise of the right to free expression, even insult me, call me names, or outrightly declare that they dislike me. Of course I would prefer content-based discussion, but if the best that anyone's mind can do is to insult me, I will consider their actions as part of the right to free expression. I recognise that people have the right to dislike me, to call me names, to wish me whatever they desire, to feel however they want about me. I have no problem with all this. I do not speak to be liked or secure the validation of anyone. I speak to express myself and I respect the right of other people to do the same. As I have repeatedly stated, free speech is not just for the people or thoughts we like or agree with; it is also for people we despise and opinions that we do not support. The important point is not the position I take on a given issue of public interest. It is the reasoning advanced in support of said position. If I say Hichilema is a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag, what is important is not simply this description; it is the reasons and evidence I have adduced in support of this conclusion. Anyone is welcome to challenge my conclusions or evidence, to say "I disagree with your argument for this and that reason." What I totally reject is the idea that criticism of a president's leadership actions amounts to hate; it does not. If I point out that Hichilema is failing to ensure adequate ethnic diversity in public appointments and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema is a compulsive liar and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilemaโs fight against corruption is a sham and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema is a compulsive liar and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has eroded Zambiaโs democracy and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has failed to reduce the cost of living, as per his campaign promise, and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema (working in cohort with his friend Situmbeko Musokotwane) has facilitated the extraction of the countryโs mineral wealth by multinational corporations without ensuring sufficient returns in revenue collection for Zambia and provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. If I point out that Hichilema has failed toโฆand provide evidence in support of this assertion, anybody else is welcome to demonstrate weakness in my stated point of view. Simply dismissing my criticism as an expression of my alleged hatred for Hichilema is most unhelpful. Those who do so are depriving me the opportunity to learn what I do not know and Hichilema the opportunity to adjust his leadership style and change for the better. While I do not hesitate to share my opinions on matters of public concern, I also retain the intellectual integrity of one who is willing to abandon their point of view if its weakness can be shown. I have repeatedly stated that I harbour no hatred against Hichilema. What I hate is his bad leadership, whose meaning I have explained in the article below. There is no constitutional democracy in the world that requires citizens to love their elected leaders. Loving individuals is the responsibility of their spouses and family members. Once these individuals step up to hold elective public office, we owe them one thing: accountability or feedback on their performance. No elected public leader or their supporter should burden me or another person with any demand for affirmation or affection. In a functioning democracy, the duty of citizens is to hold their elected leaders to account so that they deliver basic services and do not undermine accountable democratic governance. This is what I have been doing across different administrations, including this one. As early as December 2021, when I analysed Hichilma's first 100 days in office, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2022, when he was celebrating one year in office, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2023, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In 2024, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. In fact, as did his predecessor in 2021 in response to my criticism of the abuse of state institutions to fix critics and opponents, the president asked his supporters to report me to the police for alleged hate speech against him! In 2025, I raised governance concerns of his leadership in the hope that he could address them so that they do not grow into bigger problems. He did not listen. This year and for the many reasons that I shared in the interview on the link below, Hichilema is losing the election because he did not listen to criticism that we, as citizens, raised about his performance. He is also losing the election because of his extremist supporters who, in addition to a wilful but harmful failure to hold him to account, dismiss legitimate criticism of his leadership from other people as hate speech. What a pity! What a wasted opportunity! I have just read a story on a ruling party platform casually dismissing Global Witness's report that "Ahead of Zambia's general election...First Quantum Minerals and its associates have been running a decades-long covert influence campaign distorting the copper-rich nation's democracy" and that the Canadian firm has "become his [Hichilema's] largest funder in the upcoming 2026 election after pledging up to $50 million in support." The report adds that "FQM has reaped enormous benefits: major changes to Zambia's tax regime have save the company $771 million between 2022 and 2025, and it has been shielded from legal scrutiny." Rather than interrogating these grave concerns, the publisher, the Zambian Watchdog which is run from State House, is treating the issue so casually when Global Witness, a very credible international outlet, raises serious corruption and governance allegations. In January 2019, I raised questions about Hichilema's relationship with foreign mining firms, but was told by his supporters that I just hate him. Today, we are ere. The net result is that Hichilema, who in opposition politics had positioned himself as the reformist leader Zambia needed to reclaim its democracy, eliminate corruption, unite the country, and set it on the path to economic recovery, has, in power, turned out to be nearly everything he detested about his predecessor and, in some cases, much worse. Under his watch, corruption has thrived on a massive scale, the economy is a shambles, ethnic divisions have worsened, Zambiaโs previously principled foreign policy has been shredded into something unrecognisable, and democracy is essentially non-existent. The man who was expected to lead reform has instead transitioned into an aspiring despot. Unless he rigs the election, or eliminates his main rival, Zambians should prepare for a new administration after 13 August. Many voters have reached a point of no return and it is too late for Hichilema to change their mind. A combination of failure to listen and the "you just hate Hichilema" brigade has destroyed his once promising presidency. I see many people expressing surprise at the huge turnout at Brian Mundubile's rallies. What they miss is that the turnout reflects the revulsion against Hichilema rather than genuine support for Brian. Even if Brian was not there, voters would have rallied behind another candidate through which to express their opposition to Hichilema as a result of his major policy failures. As early as 2023, wen I noticed Hichilema's direction of travel, I warned that the greatest opposition that he and the UPND face is a politically alert and informed citizenry, not an opposition party: โThe biggest opposition that Hichilema faces is the people, particularly if he fails to lower the cost of living and tackle the huge unemployment outside the health and education sectors. They can stop opposition rallies like Edgar Lungu and the PF tried to do but if Zambians would have decided in a year or two that Hichilema must go at the next election, there is nothing that he can do to stop them....Even if Hichilema tries to, he cannot stop the peopleโs will. Even if he succeeds in killing the PF and in his manoeuvres to block his main political opponents from running in 2026, another platform and another candidate to serve as the outlet of opposition will be found. The voters will support any visionary patriot they see as better placed to be used as the vehicle for removing Hichilema just like they chose him as the vehicle for removing Lungu. Please tell himโ. Hichilema did not listen. Again. This continued failure to listen prompted my conclusion two years later that "Many Zambians may not know yet who they will vote for in the 2026 presidential election, but they already know who they wonโt vote for." The truth is that I tried to warn Hichilema in good time and at different points that he was heading in the wrong direction. The President, dripping with arrogance, did not listen. Think of it this way. A bus (representing a political party in power) is transporting passengers (active citizens) from Intercity terminus (2021, being the departure point of where we did not want to be anymore) to Nakonde (2026, being the arrival point of destination before subsequently deciding whether to book the same bus for the return trip). After leaving Intercity, some passengers notice that the bus is heading towards Livingstone (a wrong destination that takes us back to before 2021). A few of us (active citizens) decide to stand up (holding the leader to account) and confront both the driver (the president) and his conductor (Minister of Finance), demanding an explanation for why we are heading to Livingstone when we were promised that we woud be taken to Nakonde. Other passengers, mainly those who came from the ethnic group of the driver and conductor, defended the duo even before it could respond to our concerns. They repeatedly told us that "You just hate the driver. Please sit down!" One or two relatives of the conductor joined in support, saying the "The driver and the conductor are excellent and one of them has even won awards for stellar performance on his duties, including his remarkable capacity to understand direction of travel"! That is how some passengers kept quiet. I kept on talking, especially after we reached Choma in the hope that if we turned atthat point, we woudl not wast more time. I talked because I could not get off the bus at undesigned stations, so the only solution was to appeal to the driver to change course. I explained that it would be an act of extreme irresponsibility on my part as an active passenger to wait until the bus has reached Livingstone before holding the driver to account about the direction of travel. That is why I tried to warn the driver that we were headed in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, other passengers said we should just sit back comfortably, enjoy the ride which included some morsels of food delivered by the bus, and trust the driver because other drivers before him were much worse. In the end, we arrived in Livingstone, our undesired destination. Just when we were arriving, we saw another bus, loading passing from there directly to Nakonde. The driver, upon realising the cost of his failure to listen and the disappointment in the eyes of the passengers, urged everyone to sit down, promising that he would take us to Nakonde if we give him more time. With the exception of those who came from the driver's ethnic group and the auxiliary ones, most passengers, who had shown great faith in his driving skills by paying (voting) the fare for the bus as their mode of transport from Intercity to Nakonde, have left the bus for the other. These include those who had adopted silence during the journey after realising that the driver, aided by the choir mentioned, was not a listening kind. As I write this post, the alternative bus is almost full. The same passengers who accused those of us who, along the way, advised the driver to change course, of harbouring hatred for the driver are now wondering why nearly everyone is leaving the bus we came with for an alternative one that is promising to take us directly to Nakonde. One of the driver's supporters, reiterating the driver's earlier appeal that we should stick to the bus that brought us to Livingstone, just shouted at us a moment ago: "The alternative bus will take you to a wrong destination. Its driver cannot be trusted; just stick to this one because you won't have to pay a new fare". The supporter is overlooking the point that we are already at a wrong destination, the current driver has betrayed our trust, and that we would rather repose our trust in another person. It is not good to remain on a bus, driven by a person who does not listen, out of the fear that an alternative one might be driven by someone who could be worse. Let us try the alternative bus. If its driver takes us to a wrong destination, we will disembark from the bus we are about to jump onto, as we have done before, and find another one until we reach Nakonde. For me and other active passengers, such has been the the current driver's betrayal of our trust that we have reached a point of no return. We cannot trust this driver anymore, especially that when we tried to correct him, no one explained to us why our concerns were unfounded. We were just told that we hate hate the driver or his ethic group or or the province where he comes from. Recently, Dr Lee Habasonda, a lecturer in political science at the University of Zambia, told Reuters (watch the video clip on the link below) that electoral success is a matter of thresholds โ of grievances, feelings, frustrations, etc. Leeโs view is that once a certain threshold or tipping point has been reached, "no matter your manifesto, ideology, lies" or whatever those in power do or say, the voters will "decide to change government" because they would have reached a point of no return. Emotionally, many Zambian voters, including some that I know who voted for Hichilema in 2021, have passed that threshold where no matter what Hichilema or UPND does, these voters will reject him. This is because the threshold, or the point of no return, has been reached. As Lee argued, those in power "may say we have already won this election when they campaign but the political coalitions and realignment" suggest otherwise. When the opposition wins next month, we will need to advise them to get non-sycophants at State House and in the critical posts in the civil service. It is important that they understand that unless there is a clear shift away from the harmful culture we have raised concerns about, we will be compelled to challenge them with the same resolve we previously applied to both the PF and UPND governments. On my part, I promise that I will always be on the side of the people. You will not find me in government even after the election. Once Hichilema is out of office, I will leave him alone and my attention will shift to holding to account the next set of public leaders. As I made clear in 2021, I am content serving as an academic and I will work, as part of my civic duty, to hold the new Government to account as I did with previous Governments. I am not available for or interested in any form of government job. For now, Iet me continue listening to the attached song. Chalo chesu.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2078449842368483816/amplify_video_thumb/2078427007344427008/img/tCO3n_fY3sOVQlej.jpg)
!["Tell us this isn't true." "They had a live being out [near Area 51]." "There were human experiments that went on." ๐ฝ๐ธ Roswell: A Non-Human Craft or a Darker Secret? ๐คซ๐ถ (Transcript is shorter than clip. I don't have room to type more in this post so I'll just wait for replies.) ~ Lex Fridman: "In your book on 'Area 51,' you propose an explanation that I think some people have criticized, at the very end. That this might have been a disinformation campaign from, I guess, Stalin, that the Roswell incident was a remotely-piloted plane with a quote 'grotesque, child-sized aviator.' Just looking back at all that now, years later, what's the probability that it's true? What's the probability it's not?" Annie Jacobsen: (AJ): "So, you know, I've never revealed who that source is." Lex: "Yes." AJ: "You know that? Want me to tell you?" Lex: "Okay, who was the source?" AJ: "So, before I say anything on that, let me speak to the question that you asked, right? So, you asked me, 'What's the probability that that is still standing as an idea, 12, 13, 14 years later,' right? So, I continued to work with that source for years, afterwards. We talked about this. Look, I mean, his whole family knew it was him. And I knew his family because I was an integral part of, you know, I was at his house, met all his kids, grandkids." Lex: "And we should say, the source is the main expert advisor behind the story that it was. Maybe you can explain what the story is that your report in the book, that it was a disinformation campaign created by Stalin to cause mass hysteria in the United States. The very kind that we've been speaking about with the CIA and so on." AJ: "Yes! Predicated on the narrative of the 'War of the Worlds,' right? And the 'War of the Worlds,' when it was a radio program in the United States, made people go crazy. 'Oh, my God, we're being invaded by aliens!' Well, the government was always interested in the story and Joseph Stalin was, too. We know that from declassified documents, right? "And so, the source told me that the reason for this program, and that the real Roswell crash remains, were in fact, it was a black-propaganda hoax infiltrated, you know, or rather, predicated at this idea that you were gonna overwhelm America's early-warning, air-defense system, cause mayhem and maybe be able to attack the United States. That was the plan. And Stalin was also messing with the United States, messing with Truman, who sort of, you know, turned his back on him, right? At Potsdam. "And so, this idea, and the reason that the source is important... And unlike, you know, a lot of people, 'I saw this, I saw that, I learned that.' Was, according to the source, once it was determined that this was a hoax and that Stalin was able to get a craft over the United States, and it crashed. And it had, you know, people inside of it, they were people that were sort of deformed and meant...surgically altered to look like aliens. "The United States government decided that it needed to know what on earth that was all about, and if it was possible for us to have the same program. This, according to this source, right? And so, it sounds preposterous, and if it was just someone saying, 'I...,' you might say, 'Well, it's ridiculous, get them onto another subject.' But, the difference was, is this source, who was very well placed, and friends with all of the other 75 people, you know, told me this as a confession, right? A real, tearful confession, because what he said is he was involved in the American program to do the same thing. And people died, because there were human experiments that went on." "And I write about this in the last 12 pages of 'Area 51.' It was an explosive, you know, revelation, and I felt very confident in writing this because the source wanted it written. Why? Because he said, 'I'm dedicated to my country. I know about being committed to national security, and this kind of thing must never happen. And if you give people too much power, they will take advantage of it.' And he wanted it on the record. "And his wife of 60 years did not know until after the book published. Nor did His children, okay? So, after the book published, I was called to his house and sat there with his family. And they said, 'Tell us this isn't true.' And he said, 'It is true,' right? (We need a tape of this confession or...for his family to confirm they heard this from him.) AJ: "Now that source is Al O'Donnell, who is the nuclear-weapons engineer who armed, wired and fired 186 nuclear weapons, okay? So if you wanna talk about someone..." Lex: "Woooooow." AJ: "You're the first person I've told that on the record, but it's kind of about time." Lex: "Woooooow. Well, you received a lot of criticism over this story, and it confused me why, because it's...given the context of everything you've described with the CIA and other intelligence agencies, it is reasonable that such action would be taken. AJ: "And, the source is extraordinarily credible, right? If you wanted to take the position, 'Well, that person isn't very reliable,' then you have to ask yourself, 'Why did they have Top-Secret clearances that are higher than any in the United States whatsoever?' Because he was responsible for arming nuclear bombs. He was called the trigger man. "And by the way, he told me that I could tell the world who he was. There's a lot of details that are really dark, involving that program. And when is it appropriate, right? Well, it feels appropriate now. First of all, because you and I have been talking for several hours. So this is what is truly a long-form conversation and it's the outcome of, you know, a very long time of my reporting, and also being judicious about what, you know, closing the loop on that, right? Because I do think it's important for people to know that sources have revelations." Lex: "And, like you said, the programs, both on the Soviet side, and the American side, conflicting, I think's the term we used previously? Ethically, morally, on all fronts. People have done some horrible things in the name of security. In your book, 'Surprise, Kill Vanish,' you write about the CIA." ~~~ Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell: "So, today, I want to focus on a really important story that you once told me, that has never been told all the way [from the] beginning, to all the way to the end. And I just think it's just so cool we get to do this today. So, the question I want to ask is: After you got hooked on the UFO thing, with Bob Lazar, and you as a journalist said, 'I'm gonna start getting sources.' Like, 12 people coming at you, people shut down by the government. You can tell that. But you finally, finally got to a credible individual who had direct, firsthand knowledge about UFOs, exploitation, reverse engineering, and beings. And, oh my God, I want the world to hear this story. Tell us the story." George Knapp: "I've shared some of it in very broad strokes over the years- little bits and pieces of it - without ever actually referencing, in my statements, the guy the source. But this will be the first time I've told it in totality. "And it takes me back to when I first started in this. It's 1989 KLAS-TV, we put together, we spent eight months working on this project called 'UFOs: The Best Evidence.' Nine-part series. It airs on television, it's the biggest thing that's ever been produced for local TV, to this date, and still. "And, along the way, as I'm trying to find...telling the story about Bob Lazar, and his allegations about what was out there at S-4, near Area 51 - recovered discs, alien technology being reverse engineered - I'm looking for people who would support that. And I found about two dozen people, witnesses who had worked out there, who had seen bits and pieces, who could corroborate parts of what Bob had said about these kinds of craft being out there in the Nevada desert. But there wasn't anybody big picture who knew as much as Lazar claimed to have known, so I was still looking for them. "In 1990, I started working on a follow-up series to Best Evidence, looking for new witnesses. And I got a hint from an elected official that I had known, I'd covered him in Nevada politics. He says, 'You know, you should talk to my dad one of these days.' 'Your dad?' 'Yeah.' And he told me what the dad's name was and what he had done, what job he had had. And I said, 'Ah.' So I started stalking the guy. I just started showing up at events where I knew he would be. One of those events was a reunion for employees of EG&G." Corbell (JC): "So I'm assuming that this source was working within EG&G in some capacity, which is, by the way, who Bob [Lazar] said, hired him to go out to Site-4, S-4 at Area 51. So you're like, 'Okay, I can now find out if this is bullshit, or if there's an element of truth to it.' Do I have that right?" Knapp (GK): "Pretty much correct, yeah. So, I'm looking for someone whose credentials are impeccable. Unlike Bob, whose credentials were questioned, and people still attack him on where he went to school and where he worked, and was he at Los Alamos? This guy is documentable. There's a paper trail of where he worked, what he did. There's no question that he was in a position to know. He was the first general manager of EG&G in Nevada. His name was Al O'Donnell, and he has a prominent family. "When I heard that EG&G was having a reunion, I went there. We took a camera [and I figured], 'This is a great chance to get him on camera before I start asking him the questions I really want to ask.'" JC: "And when you say he is a general manager, like, does that give him certain roles and responsibilities that would give him insight? Like, he's not a secretary, so what does that mean?" GK: "He's the boss. He was the boss of the Nevada office. And I'll tell you a little bit about EG&G. So, it was a company that was created in Boston, right around the end of World War Two. Al O'Donnell had been in the Navy, serving during the war. He got out of the Navy while the war was still underway and went to work for a company called Raytheon, which became this massive, gigantic defense contractor that's still around today, still in Nevada in fact." JC: Yeah, they've got a big connection to the UFO topic, right? But, when you say Boston, like, where in Boston was it created?" GK: "Well, MIT is where the company was born. Edgerton, Germeshausen and Grier were the three guys, the EG&G in that. They were at MIT. Scientists, engineers, they created this company there. And Al O'Donnell, who had been working for Raytheon, working on the Manhattan Project. He didn't know he was working on the Manhattan Project, but they were building these devices, complex triggers, that allowed them to detonate nuclear weapons. He learned later what he was doing was part of the Manhattan Project. "He goes to MIT, starts working with EG&G. Their company in those days had, I think, 15 employees, Al said. So it was a very small startup. But it suddenly exploded because the American atomic program exploded in those years. In 1950, Harry Truman decides that we need a permanent, nuclear testing site somewhere in the continental U.S., so they looked at a bunch of places, and they settled on Nevada. "Prior to that, Al O'Donnell had been sent out to the Pacific. They had five of these massive, atomic bomb tests out in the Pacific, and they decided to move it into a continental U.S. location and Nevada's Test Site - it was called the Nevada Test Site in those days - was chosen. Al O'Donnell leads the exodus from Boston, out to Nevada. They start hiring engineers and scientists, physicists and other security, spies." JC: "What are they working on at this time when they make that move?" GK: "Atomic bombs. They're building, testing atomic bombs. EG&G was a really precise organization that was created in order to detonate, measure and photograph atomic weapons. If you look in the history of photography, you'll see some of these amazing photos that they took of, you know, water drops dropping in water and...they're pretty famous shots because of these cameras that they developed. And it was perfect for use and testing atomic weapons and documenting what the process was. "So, EG&G comes out to Las Vegas, they are the managers of the Nevada Test Site. They, subsequently, years later, become the managers of Area 51 when it opens in 1955. So Al O'Donnell is the top guy. He oversees the nuclear testing program out there, manages it for EG&G, works with the Atomic Energy Commission. He has a Top-Secret security clearance and he can go anywhere and see anything. There's, basically, no restrictions, nothing that is outside of his ability to find out and see." JC: "So, this is an impeccable resume. This is somebody who was in position to know, and would know if someone like Bob Lazar was telling the truth or not telling the truth. I find it, personally, humorous that EG&G was, its genesis, its seed, came from MIT, right?" GK: "So, late 1990 or early 1991, I'd have to look up the dates. But somewhere in there is this event, this EG&G reunion. I go there, we got a camera, I interview Al O'Donnell, introduce myself, and say, 'Hey, I'm really interested in this, can we continue this conversation?' So he invites me to his home. He says, 'Come on over, we'll arrange to come over on a Saturday or something. We'll sit down, I'll go through my scrapbooks and show you some documents and memorabilia and photos from that era.' I was like, 'Great.' "So I go to his house and meet this wife. And we sit down, he opens up these big scrapbooks, and he starts showing me all the stuff that he had done. Photos that had been taken out in the proximity of these gigantic nuclear tests. They had great stories about the camaraderie that developed among the engineers and scientists. And he's going through all this stuff and showing me all this. And I love it, I loved every bit of it. I've never had a bad day at the Nevada Test Site, by the way. Every time I've gone out there to do a story, it's just a terrific way to spend some time." JC: "Secrets should be kept, secrets are kept, and you are a proponent of keeping secrets when it's that kind of thing." GK: "Sure, absolutely. And I respected the boundaries that they set up for us in doing these kinds of stories. So I did go out to the Nevada Test Site a lot over the next 40 years or so and put together a lot of different stories. And they knew of my interest in that area that's just outside what the Nevada Test Site, a place called Area 51. In 1955, Area 51 was, basically, created and EG&G got the contract to manage Area 51, and had kept it for the next 30, 35 years. So, whatever went on out there, they had an inside knowledge of what was going on." JC: "So, you meet this guy, Al O'Donnell, for the first time when he's at this public thing. You probably say something like, 'Your son told me to talk to you,' or something. Whatever. It ends up, he invites you to his home, and you're going through scrapbooks, and he's showing you all this atomic testing stuff that he was involved in. GK: "Yeah, and I'm telling him, 'Boy, this is really interesting. That's fascinating. I'd love to do a story on it.' And after we're there for maybe two hours, he closes this one big scrapbook and he goes, 'You're not here to talk about this, are ya?' I said, 'Well, not exactly.' He says, 'I know what you're here to talk about. I know what you want to ask about.' And right about that point, his wife walks in and she says, 'Don't start telling them that stuff! Don't even tell him!' And he kind of joked about it.' JC: "What were you there to talk about?" GK: "UFOs, UFOs. Area 51, Bob Lazar, crashed saucers, reverse engineering, to see if he had any knowledge of that, because I'd been led to believe that he did. So he closes that book and he says, 'We'll have we'll get together another time and we'll talk about it in private.' And over the course of the next two years or so, he and I would meet at coffee shops and talk about it. And I would ask him questions, and really, it was like pulling teeth. He wanted to tell me stuff but he made me work at it." (AJ says his family was there for the confession. Knapp has over two years of meetings with him. A bit confusing.) GK: "And the condition was, I couldn't take any notes. I couldn't record it, I couldn't take any notes. So each time I'd meet with him, I'd rush back to my car and start scribbling notes on pieces of paper so I'd remember everything that he said. And the story that he told me, that evolved over those couple of years was pretty fantastic. "He said that they did have a flying saucer that had been recovered from New Mexico. I think he indicated that it had been taken from New Mexico to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, which is... He never said Roswell, but I think it was the Roswell incident is what he [was] talking about. And it confirmed some of the details about what we know, likely, happened with the Roswell craft." JC: "When he's telling you, 'We have recovered a craft,' did he say it like, this is secret, don't tell anybody?" GK: "Yeah, it was just for my knowledge, my background and information. It wasn't a story I could do then. We were negotiating about how, or when, or if I could ever use that information or make it public. He told me the details about this craft. He said that it had been stored at Indian Springs. Indian Springs is an Air Force Base that's been there for a long time. It's now called Creech. Indian Springs existed before Area 51 was made. "But he says it was there, they kept it there. It might have been in an underground facility, I'm not quite sure. But then when Area 51, after it opened in 1955, they moved it to an adjacent facility. He didn't say it was S-4, he didn't say it was Papoose, but I think that's what he's talking about. Papoose Lake is where Bob Lazar said he worked, and where they had built nine hangars underground, disguised to look like the desert, and where they had other recovered craft. "He says they worked on this recovered craft, reverse engineering, trying to figure out how it worked, who built it. Whether or not they could duplicate the technology because, apparently, they thought this was pretty advanced, and they'd like to be able to build more of 'em. "And he says it was a very closed program, very small. It was only, I think, five of them that were aware of it, at least in the early stages, that were working on this project. And it was very hush hush, and they didn't share it with anybody else in the company, or anybody else in the area, or the military. They just kept it to themselves. "So, after we're having these meetings - and I go back and write down all these notes and stuff, details about what he had shared with me - we have another meeting at a coffee shop, and I said, 'Well gosh, you know, aren't you worried that it would get out, that the word would get out?' "And he says to me, 'We were worried It would get out?' That's right. 'I mean, what...it? What do you mean, it?' It. Meaning a live being, they had a live being out there. I go, 'You had a live being, an alien as well?' [O'Donnell said], 'Tell you the truth, we didn't know what it was.' I said, 'You know, maybe it came from millions of miles away, out in space, and you're keeping it in a cage near Area 51?' He said, 'To tell you the truth, we couldn't communicate with it in the beginning. We didn't know what it was, we didn't know where it was from, and we didn't know what to do with it.'" JC: "When Al O'Donnell says to you, 'We had a live alien, a being,' obviously from another world, what was your feeling?" GK: "Well, I was overwhelmed, because it was, in effect, confirmation of things that I had come to believe, because of the reporting we'd already done. And then the evidence of cover ups and lies that had been told to the public. Here's this guy in a high position, with a high security clearance, telling me that it was true. That they really did have a craft and they had a being. "My second feeling was, one of overwhelming sadness for the being, whatever it was, you know, that was kept out there. I asked him, you know, what had happened to it, what became of it? He says, 'I don't know. I don't know whatever happened to it.' But it was out there for a while, alive, and eventually they figured out a way to communicate with it. "And so I asked him, 'Well, what did it look like?' And he made me guess, as he did with all these questions. He made me guess. He said, 'Well, it kinda looks like a certain political candidate.' I said, 'Well, who? A political candidate? Who?' And at the time, Ross Perot was running for president. He said, 'It looks like Ross Perot. A little skinny guy with a big ears and tiny head.' Not a classic Gray-looking alien, but a very odd-looking creature with really big ears, that looked like Ross Perot. And I laughed. "And so we had these conversations for a while, and I was blown away by the information that he shared. I took all these notes. I was hoping that someday, I might be able to get the information out. And I asked him, 'Look, you're getting up there in age. If I can't record something with you, could you record a statement to the effect of telling me the story on camera, and then when you pass on, I can have the tape?' And he said, 'Yeah,' he would do it." JC: "You know, look, I've heard a lot of wild stories that I can't verify. A guy's telling you something, and you get a sense as a journalist, when you go down a road with somebody, and you take your time and you vet it... Did you feel...I mean, is there any world where he's trying to f*ck with ya? Or is there a world where he's trying to, you know, dissuade...kind of put crazy information into your brain? Like, how did you feel when he was telling you this? Was he like, straight with you?" GK: "Yeah, he was very straightforward. And again, this was not information he was giving up, willingly. I mean, I had to really dig and coax and arm twist to get him to cough things up. And it was very slow-going over about a two-year period, maybe a little bit longer. And I know that this...you always have to be wary of people with different agendas and people that just make stuff up. I didn't get that sense from him because of his standing in the community. He had shared this story with members of his own family." JC: "And that's why they came to you, is because they kind of [gave] you a tip. And these members of his family, they're serious people, too." GK: "Yeah. One of his sons is an FBI agent, or was, he's passed on now. One was an elected official in Nevada. That was the one that gave me the tip." JC: So, I just want to nail this [down] so I understand. You were approached because he had shared this with his family, privately, and then you had to kind of coax to get through to him about the story?" GK: "Right." JC: "I think that's important because look, these things don't happen, like, people [don't] just come to us and say, you know, crazy stuff, and we're like, 'Hh, yeah, cool. Sounds good.' Like, the dynamic of that, socially, as a journalist, like getting in there, taking time. You know, we have to verify if what he said is true, and there are some major bombs coming about that. But it's like, that process is so important. "So here you are, you're sitting with him, he tells you now, they have a live alien. And you felt sad because you're an animal-rights activist, you love animals. I know with your cats at home and you've done horse stories and all the stories about like, the inhumane stuff to animals. So it made you personally sad, makes me sad, too now thinking about it." GK: Yeah. Well, we had these series of meetings, and then the last time we met, after he'd agreed to go ahead and record a tape - and give it to me after making an arrangement so I got it after he passed on - he said that he had been told to not talk to me anymore. He said he had been given a warning [and] it was not a good idea for him to talk to me any more about anything. Not just that topic, but anything." JC: "Well, who knows that you're talking? Who would warn him?" GK: "I don't know. I don't know. But you recall, back in those days, there was surveillance. We had our phones tapped at KLAS-TV. There were guys following us around. Me, Bob Lazar, Gene Huff, maybe Robert Bigelow." JC: "People were also coming to your news station, OSI. And they would come in and try to like, get to you and then they'd show you their card...and take it back. And you know your phones are tapped. So it's like, because of this story, all of a sudden you're on high alert. So, anybody could have called him, been watching you, had meetings with the guy. So what you're saying is one day he just said, 'I can't...I'm not allowed to talk to you any more.'" GK: "Yeah, I've been told not to talk to you anymore. I've been told not to."](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2079616298435400152/amplify_video_thumb/2079612656366112768/img/mxq1uM4Cp0iG8pyw.jpg)
