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𝐔𝐍𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐃: 𝐔𝟐𝟎 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐓𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐬. 𝐒𝐚𝐯𝐚𝐠𝐞. 𝐑𝐁𝟏. 𝐌𝐆𝐌. All-access from U20 WTT in Geneva, OH. Burton, Seidel, & Bassett leave no doubt en route to making US U20 World Championship team. Historic Hokies. #ALLINALLTHETIME #Hokies 🦃
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![[Behavioral Scientist's Analysis] NewJeans, Now Even Stronger, HYBE in Trouble I’ll listen again. Danielle: “Naturally, we all want to continue working with Daepyonim. Even before debuting as NewJeans and through all of the time that we spent together with Min Hee-jin Daepyonim, all of us felt that the music we wanted to make and the kind of world we wanted to build together, our vision, was similar in so many ways. With Min Hee-jin Daepyonim, we were able to prepare each and every task with sincere hearts, and I believe it shows in our work. Putting our sincere effort into something is only possible because the people that we're working with have trust in each other and have that same vision. Min Hee-jin Daepyonim is not only the person that produces our music, but someone who makes NewJeans who we are. She discusses even the smallest details with us and explains them in ways that we can understand clearly. NewJeans has a distinct colour and tone, and this was created with Min Hee-jin Daepyonim. She is integral to NewJeans’ identity, and we all feel that she is irreplaceable.” Danielle clearly stated this and also expressed it in English. So, in terms of the NewJeans issue, international fans who don’t have much information may not have had a clear perception of Ms. Min Hee-jin or how to view this issue. If you look at the comments, it was very poorly organized. In Korea, we now have clear information, so NewJeans fans, Bunnies, are cheering for NewJeans and supporting Ms. Min Hee-jin. It has become clearly sorted out like this. However, internationally, it hasn’t been clearly explained. But with Danielle explaining it so well in English, I expect that from now on, the international atmosphere will shift towards attacking HYBE, criticizing Bang Si-hyuk, and supporting Ms. Min Hee-jin and NewJeans worldwide. So, now that the artist has clearly stated their position and made it clear that the identity and assets of the NewJeans brand come from Ms. Min Hee-jin, regardless of any legal disputes or lawsuits, in the minds of the fans, NewJeans equals Min Hee-jin. And as for the current management of ADOR and HYBE, they will be seen as the ones attacking NewJeans and the mysterious people with no clear motive, such as Bang Si-hyuk. I think this will now be clear. Considering the nature of the entertainment industry, like many creative industries and the cultural industry, this is not manufacturing. Many things can’t be determined through legal processes like patents for ideas or lawsuits. The B2C market, or the market for services and consumption of an artist's brand, is driven by sensitivity. People consume it because of the emotional connection and enjoy it because of that sensitivity. So, what’s the point of winning a legal case? Even if HYBE were to win any legal case, do you think consumers wouldn’t boycott NewJeans’ music or other products afterward? I believe HYBE will be punished in some way for its actions towards ADOR and its current management. The way they are handling risk management is shortsighted, as they fail to understand people’s emotions. They seem to only rely on the advice of legal professionals and accountants, and their entire approach to this issue is so narrow-minded and misguided. It feels incredibly foolish to me. So, to summarize: NewJeans’ branding was done by Ms. Min Hee-jin. The identity and assets of the NewJeans brand were created by her, and we did it together because of her. Haerin: “However, even after our debut, there have been many unfair and incomprehensible incidents that you might not know about, and these incidents have only increased over time. As some of you may know, recently, videos from our trainee days and private records, such as medical information, were leaked. When I first saw that, I was really shocked. It was hard to understand how our company, which is supposed to protect us, failed to manage and allowed such information to be leaked. Naturally, this situation has made us worry that other strange or false information about us might spread in the future. Although we, along with our parents and Min Hee-jin Daepyonim, have raised concerns about this to HYBE, they haven’t resolved the issue, nor have they taken any proactive measures. Then, in the midst of all this, our CEO was dismissed, and we’re left wondering whom we can trust and rely on. We’ve come to the conclusion that if we don’t speak out about this now, no one will know what we’re going through. After much discussion among ourselves, we finally decided to take this step.” The current situation is shocking, but this is not just about this one incident; they’ve been continuously receiving unfair treatment from HYBE. The fact that they are saying this publicly now is truly shocking. They’ve been discussing these unfair treatments with their parents and Ms. Min Hee-jin while continuing their activities as NewJeans. They are saying that the unfair treatment from HYBE has been ongoing. It’s hard to understand as an outsider, but now the artists themselves have confirmed that there have been instances where the company has mistreated them. This is no longer a matter of speculation or exaggeration. NewJeans has officially admitted that HYBE has been continuously mistreating them. Moving forward, this changes the entire perspective on the issue. It’s no longer just NewJeans vs. HYBE or Min Hee-jin vs. Bang Si-hyuk. It’s hard to even imagine the reality of this situation. Now that the NewJeans artists have come out and said that HYBE has mistreated them, regardless of how HYBE tries to communicate going forward, they will now be framed as the ones mistreating NewJeans. How can they possibly shake off this perception now? I don’t think they can. Hanni: “Something happened to me recently. The 4th floor of the HYBE building is where we get our hair and makeup done, so a lot of other artists and staff come and go there. One day, I was waiting alone in the hallway, and some staff from another team passed by. We greeted each other, but when they came back out a bit later, I heard one of their managers say, “Ignore her,” right in front of me. I could hear and see everything clearly. Even now, I still don’t understand why I had to go through that.” I still don’t understand why that happened, even now. When I think about it, I feel like it was really ridiculous. This story from Hanni was so frustrating and absurd. Wow, what Hanni just shared is really shocking. She mentioned meeting an artist, and that artist's manager told them to ignore her. If this happened in middle or high school, people would probably dismiss it as childish fighting, but this happened among adults, and it's becoming a huge issue. Honestly, the NewJeans members aren’t sharing these stories to stir things up. They’re probably just speaking truthfully about their experiences and trying to be genuine with their fans, saying, “It’s time we express our stance honestly.” The timing and approach they’ve taken are actually perfect. They started by clearly explaining their motivations and why they’re speaking out, then moved on to using English to express what NewJeans’ identity is and the members' feelings, as well as their history with their manager. They made it clear how they feel about these situations. Now, they've started sharing more detailed stories. The way they’ve structured everything is so good because people remember stories more than abstract thoughts or philosophies. When you say, “This happened to me,” people are much more likely to remember that than vague statements. Hanni shared her unfair experience in such an honest way, and I think it’s going to spread widely. I can already imagine netizens trying to figure out which manager it was, which artist, and so on. This story will likely go viral. People remember stories like this because they stick in their minds. For example, remember when Bang Si-hyuk didn’t return NewJeans’ greeting, and it became a huge thing about face blindness? People don’t remember the details, but they remember that someone important didn’t greet them. It became a memorable story. Minji: “When I heard about what Hanni experienced, I was really shocked. How could a manager from another team tell their members to ignore one of us, and say it so loudly that Hanni could hear it? Such unimaginable words and behavior were directed at us, yet there was no apology, nor did they even acknowledge their wrongdoing. Of course, I’m worried about how many more similar incidents might occur in the future and whether we’ll be subtly ostracized without anyone there to protect us.” Hanni: “I hope no one else has to go through something like that, but since it’s already happened once, I can’t help but feel scared that other members might experience the same thing. I spoke to the new CEO about it, but since I didn’t have evidence and it was considered too late, they seemed to brush it off, making me feel like there’s no one left to protect us. It really felt like the concern for us was gone, and even though I was being honest, it made me feel like I was suddenly being treated as a liar. Before, Min Heejin, our previous CEO, used to take care of us a lot. But now, while the new people say they’ll help, it’s just been months of excuses... excuses... excuses... They keep saying that it’s something they can’t resolve. But this is something that I personally went through and experienced, yet they are trying to dismiss it as if it’s my fault. I’m worried and scared about what might happen next.” I want to make two points here. First, this is clearly “invisibility.” It’s not physical violence, but it’s about not acknowledging someone’s greeting, deliberately ignoring them, and so on. While it may not seem like a big deal, it still deeply hurts someone’s feelings. There’s been a lot of research on how these kinds of actions negatively affect an organization, spreading like poison and making people feel bad. It’s something we should really work against. The second point is about third-party justice. Hanni raised a legitimate concern, and it wasn’t handled properly within the company. This made Hanni, Minji, and others realize that the new management isn’t on their side. When others witness this, they’ll also realize that this company doesn’t have their best interests at heart. This realization leads to a loss of trust. People will remember these events, and once this perception sticks, it’s hard to change. It affects not just NewJeans, but also other artists who will think, “Oh, this is how HYBE treats people.” And it even affects the employees who work there. Minji: “Of course, I’m worried about our future, but what’s most frightening is that the work we’ve already created is being compromised. Seeing the people who have poured their lives into creating our work being treated this way makes it hard to understand how this could be happening. The new management said they would separate producing and management, but we’ve always worked differently from other labels, and we thought that our way was a good one. Now, Daepyonim can no longer approve all matters, and we’re left wondering how we’re supposed to continue working as we did before. The recent statement from the new management also didn’t make sense to me. If they really didn’t intend to interfere with our production, then the recent incident with Director Shin Woo-seok should never have happened, and it should have been handled differently. We are the ones directly involved with the copyrights and likeness rights of our content, yet they’re making decisions without our consent. In their statement, they kept saying they were acting to protect us and prevent our anxiety, but why do they keep insisting on this when they haven’t considered our wishes? We don’t want any more unnecessary issues to arise, and we want them to show respect and consideration for Daepyonim and all the directors who have worked with us. The things they’re doing right now are not in our best interest at all.” What’s worth discussing here is the perception of hypocrisy. People really dislike hypocrisy, and when you think about it, it makes sense. When humans are surviving, if there’s an enemy or a difficult environment, they overcome it as part of life. But the most dangerous situation is when you think someone is an ally, but they turn out to be an enemy. When you thought they were on your side but they stab you in the back — that’s when people are really upset. That’s why people hate it when there’s a discrepancy between outward appearances and inward intentions. It creates a near-hatred, especially when someone claims to be acting for your benefit but it’s clear that they’re not. This is what Minji is clearly pointing out — these people are hypocrites. New Jeans has already reached a conclusion internally: this new management team, in less than a month, has revealed themselves to be hypocrites. And they’ve shared this with the fans and everyone else. This isn’t just some interesting topic on a live broadcast; this will cause a huge impact, and I am certain of that. New Jeans has come to a solid realization — these people are not working for us. They are liars and hypocrites. Therefore, the new management can no longer properly lead the company. They will not be able to continue, and this system cannot be maintained. Why? Because the artist has called them out as hypocrites. The only way they can recover is by proving they aren’t hypocrites, but even then, that’s not effective — New Jeans would have to say it. But the chance of that happening is zero. In short, these people have been socially branded as hypocrites. The new management’s time is up. Less than a month, and their time is over. In the creative industry, especially in culture and the arts, content production — such as creating songs or music videos — cannot be separated from management. That’s how we’ve always worked, and it was good for us. Min Hee-jin was a remarkable creator and artist who understood all of this. The harmony between management and artistic decision-making brought about the incredible phenomenon of New Jeans. But now, they’ve created a system where that harmony can’t exist anymore. Moreover, the new management is culturally ignorant. They don’t understand art, music, or creativity. They have shown this clearly, especially with their mishandling of Director Shin Woo-seok’s music video and the associated fan content, like those on the Dolphiners YouTube channel. They’ve demanded to delete content without protecting the artists, or respecting the work of those who collaborated on it. Their management decisions show a complete lack of sensitivity or empathy. So once again, I say: "the new management’s time is over." Danielle: “As I mentioned earlier, our dream was to perform the music we want to make with Daepyonim, and we were working very hard toward that goal. But now, we can’t do that, and the plans we’ve made might not come to fruition. As Hanni unnie said earlier, just like that, the content that we released solely for our fans, for our bunnies, was instantly erased. And I truly can't understand why anyone would do this to a group, or just anyone in general. We were just working hard for the present, so what did we do wrong? A week after Daepyonim was dismissed, we found out that we could no longer work with the director we’ve been working with all this time, and we’re extremely anxious because we don’t know what will happen to the staff who have always worked hard for us. If they really care about us, they should stop saying that they prioritize the artists and instead let us do the music we love in an environment where we can be genuinely happy. Is that really so hard to do? It’s hard to fully express what’s in my heart, but in the end, the five of us just want to continue our activities with Min Hee-jin Daepyonim, as we have done so far.” Personally, they just want to be left alone—just "Leave us alone. Don't interfere; just leave us alone.” This is what they’re saying to both ADOR and HYBE. It's become clear now that HYBE and ADOR can no longer meddle with NewJeans, and I think things will flow that way from now on. The fans won’t stand still either. In entertainment, it’s not about titles like "I’m the CEO," or "I own shares." These are shallow understandings of what makes the entertainment business work. The real value created in this industry is the love and recognition from the fans. No amount of shares or CEO titles matter when that love disappears in an instant. NewJeans is asking to be left alone, and because of this, the new management of HYBE and ADOR can no longer act. I believe the future will unfold accordingly. One important thing I want to emphasize is that NewJeans is a unique group. They’re not just factory-produced idols. The distinctive nature of NewJeans’ music is felt by everyone who listens to them. For example, producer 250, who played a significant role in shaping the NewJeans sound, alongside other talented producers like those from the Banana Culture label, was brought in by CEO Min Hee-jin. This collaboration birthed the unique musical style of NewJeans, which many have come to appreciate. Their latest album, which incorporated elements like New Jack Swing, wasn’t just NewJeans making this music—it was 250's creative vision, drawing inspiration from 70s and 80s funk, R&B, and American black music, and reinterpreting them. If 250 no longer works with NewJeans, their music might become indistinguishable from other idol groups. The choreography, another element that set NewJeans apart, also contributed to their success. However, with the recent tensions, it's obvious that working with key figures like director Shin Woo-seok, who directed many of NewJeans' music videos, will become difficult moving forward. Director Shin wasn’t even interested in music videos before but was inspired to work with NewJeans after a conversation with Min Hee-jin. If Min Hee-jin and people like director Shin are ousted from ADOR, it’s inevitable that the core assets of NewJeans, including their distinctive musical and visual style, will vanish. This is not just a simple matter of one person being ousted—it’s about losing the core elements that made NewJeans what they are. WE STAND WITH NEWJEANS #버니즈_뉴진스와함께_준비갈완료 #방시혁_2주준다_민희진_복귀시켜라](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1836325806362235187/amplify_video_thumb/1836325301087072256/img/-KRorTRouoqNniiz.jpg)
![Apple’s iPad “Crush” Ad Is Bleak, Ominous and Threatening I don’t know if you’ve seen Apple’s just-released commercial for the “New” iPad Pro, but it’s pretty awful. It is dark, humorless, and feels like a not-so-thinly veiled threat to writers, musicians, game makers, developers, and artists of all kinds. …and children, even. I’ve watched it at least five times today alone, and I’m left with one big question. “Who on earth approved this?” It’s absolutely baffling that the world’s largest technology company, with the world’s biggest marketing budget, thought this would be a good idea. What kind of idiot—or idiots, since dozens or hundreds of people had to be involved in the writing, staging, producing, recording, and editing—felt this kind of ad would somehow create a positive emotional connection with consumers? Seriously, it’s terrifying. In a dank, cold warehouse, devoid of all life and humanity, an industrial crusher comes to life, and slowly starts destroying a collection of musical, philosophical, and artistic devices and instruments. For no apparent reason, everything starts getting smashed: first, a trumpet, then an arcade video game, then cans of paint, a piano, a globe, a metronome, a guitar… on and on it goes, obliterating everything in sight into a colorful, gooey, explosive mess. Books, camera lenses, lamps, a guitar, a sculpture, and a typewriter—all tools of the liberal arts—get mangled into a garbage heap as Sonny & Cher cheerfully sing, “All I ever need is you.” In the penultimate moment, a goofy yellow smiley emoji becomes a bug-eyed scary-clown freak as it, too, is crushed to death. Worse, if you enable closed captions like I do by default, the video says: “[POPPING] [SPLAT]” right as its eyeballs pop out of its head when Cher sings, “Give me a reason to build my world around you.” It’s enough to make a child cry. It has all the comforting vibes of the burnt pink teddy bear floating in the swimming pool on Breaking Bad after two planes crash in mid-air. I have so many questions (aside from simply wondering the names of the soon-to-be ex-employees who greenlit this abomination). First of all, as a trumpet player myself, I am personally offended that they made me watch a perfectly good trumpet get smashed to smithereens like it’s no big deal. Why would they torture me like this? Second of all, what is the message here? No, not that “the most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest,” as the voiceover artist states in the last few seconds of the clip. I mean: what is the message? Ostensibly, pulverizing children’s toys, arcade games, architectural models, and ceramic Angry Birds into a paste implies something like “We’re taking all the best of humanity; all the collective works of Western Civilization, smashing it into pieces and putting it inside this remarkably thin device so you can have all of it in the palm of your hand.” But my oh my, is there an elephant in this room… he’s hiding behind the monstrous destroying machine. Did anyone inside Apple realize that everyone outside Apple will recognize this imagery in a metaphorical sense, but not the one Apple intended? We don’t see a crushing machine gently consolidating the greatest output of all our artistic endeavors, simply reformatted for a digital age and consumed by everyone with instant, fingertip access. We see what is painstakingly obvious to us, and the timing couldn’t possibly be worse. We see a giant, soulless machine consuming our work in a very different way. Right now, AI models are training themselves on our intellectual property and even our very own personally-identifying data. We aren’t the ones doing the consuming. We’re the ones being consumed. The tech industry has become one massive gaping maw, opening wide and swallowing everything in sight, chewing it up into little bits and pieces of comminuted waste, like a paper shredder or a garbage disposal. It’s destruction in its most literal form. And for what? For a newer version of the iPad that is only slightly thinner than its predecessor? For an only marginally improved version of Apple’s tablet device that has been around for 14 years? For increased profits? This is a terrible look for Apple. They may as well be saying: “All your work are belong to us.” Personally, I am a fan of artificial intelligence. I am eagerly embracing our robot overlords and I welcome our new CSV god (as the actual developers of AI models like to say). I look forward to the freedom and innovation that will come as a result of humanity augmenting our intelligence with AI like a force multiplier on a battlefield. But if Apple has the same perspective I do, they’re selling it in the worst possible way. When I see this video, I see that Apple is definitely crushing something… but I’m not sure what. -Crushing small companies that develop apps for the extremely heavy-handed App Store, which imposes byzantine restrictions on what they can and can’t do with their own apps? -Crushing competitors by limiting what they can do on the iOS and MacOS platforms with arbitrary and capricious rules about enabling functionalities that Apple doesn’t like, even if users do? -Crushing publishers and content creators with a punitive 30% fee on all subscriptions and in-app purchases? -Crushing choice and competition by not allowing app makers to make apps and programs that do the same thing that native apps already do, even if they do it better? -Crushing all human creativity and innovation by automating and systematizing everything? In the early days of the “Google vs. Apple” fight over the web and app stores, I was really concerned that Google was becoming way, way too powerful. Specifically, in 2015, when Google came up with “app streaming,” they announced a desire to form a “web of apps.” This was concerning. Especially when coupled with Google’s efforts to steal content from other websites and provide it to users via the “knowledge graph” results, ending up with the creation of “zero-click” search results pages, which absolutely punished website owners and content creators. By taking the most valuable content off a website and showing it to Google users without them needing to click through to the website itself, Google had essentially stolen everybody’s intellectual property with only the most minimal attribution possible (to fend off lawsuits no doubt, but with no intention of users actually visiting the website in question anymore). “Google is eating the internet,” I thought, and said out loud, (although I probably wasn’t the first person to use that phrase) But what I meant was purely an analogy. It was vague and ambiguous, almost silly. Maybe I was wrong, though: maybe it’s Apple that’s doing the eating. Maybe Apple is not only gobbling up everyone else’s work, but also homogenizing it—and us—and forcing us to use their platform, pay their fees, abide by their rules, and constantly keep upgrading, upgrading, upgrading, to an ever-thinner iPad in order to use it. Watch the video again. This is the stuff of nightmares. To be perfectly fair, even if I were to take the commercial at face value and ignore it’s off-the-charts creepiness and just stick to its one stated claim—that the new iPad Pro is thinner—it still fails as a commercial. Why? Because nobody cares how thin an iPad is. Seriously. I’ve owned an iPad since 2010: that means I’ve carried around a version of Apple’s already-thin tablet every day for over a dozen years. Never once have I said to myself: “You know what improvement I’d really like to see in this thing? I wish it were thinner.” Never. That thought has never crossed my mind, even once. You know what has? -Better battery life. -I’d like my iPad to not get hot to the touch when I use the Apple Pencil to take notes. -I wish it wasn’t so fragile: I dropped my brand-new iPad 2 back in the day when it slipped out of the arm-hold I was carrying it in, it bounced on the pavement, and the screen shattered into a thousand pieces, making it unusable. -I wish it had more storage. -I wish Apple would stop changing the type of cable connector it uses: I’ve gone from the original 30-pin connector to the Lightning connector, and now to the current USB-C/Thunderbolt connector. -I wish I could view the screen in direct sunlight. -I wish it wouldn’t overheat and turn off automatically when I use it outdoors in the summertime. Those are announcements I would welcome in a new iPad Pro commercial. None of this “now even thinner” nonsense nobody needs or cares about. So, back to the commercial. In my opinion, whoever made this ad should be fired. I almost never say that about other companies, especially for good-faith marketing efforts gone wrong… those of us who work in marketing make mistakes sometimes, and we learn from them. But cases like this warrant a special exception. Marketing and advertising are designed to make people want to buy your products. This commercial doesn’t just not make me want to buy Apple’s products. It makes me not want to buy Apple’s products, which is something altogether different. It turns me from someone who likes iPads into someone who is almost rethinking iPads entirely. That’s not just a bad advertisement; it’s a harmful advertisement. Apple’s usually known for great commercials. The legendary 1984 Super Bowl commercial was, of course, their best. I thought “Hello, I’m a Mac” was absolutely brilliant. They have made some missteps along the way, but this one is really bad. Not even their nauseatingly preachy and woke “Mother Nature” ad from a few years ago was this bad. Steve Jobs once said, “Technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.” My goodness, that last line alone is poetry itself! This ad seems to be Apple signaling that they don’t believe in that anymore. And I don’t think all this handwringing is an overreaction to where you could say “Oh, c’mon, it’s just a commercial! What’s the big deal?” It is a big deal. It tells you about the values of the company, and what they intend to communicate. Really, how is this the same company that used to sell iPhones by showing grandmas using FaceTime to connect with their baby grandchildren from afar during the holidays? Everything about it is wrong: even the thumbnail they chose for it (the bulging-eyed smiley face) and the fact that they gave it the title “Crush!” It was fun to see the reactions to the video online today. I find it fascinating that Apple shared it on YouTube but turned off the comments. On X, Tim Cook shared it Tuesday, and the video, which so richly deserves to be mocked, is getting it in spades. Some people are calling it “anti-art.” One user called it “soul-crushing,” which was about as literal and logical a response as you’d expect. It turns out Apple actually made an announcement about the commercial. In response to the (apparently unexpected) poor welcome it got, Apple wrote: “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.” Lame response from a tone-deaf tech behemoth, but still, they hopefully got the message. C’mon, Apple. I have seen the future, and this ain’t it.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1788740167194579387/media/GNLjSOOaEAAZ6VT.jpg)
!["Anyone who leaked a [UFO] report...could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act...life in prison, or death." "Maybe we can reverse engineer this so we will have this incredible edge over the rest of the world." 🔥 Dr. Phil Had Me at The Bolender Memo 🔥 (Dr. Phil continued to kill it yesterday and this was better than the last one! Link to full video (21:52) is in the replies.) "Our government has been lying to us for more than 80 years. Ask yourself why? Why do they not want you to know this is going on?" (He starts out by showing that Google searches for "UFO" have allegedly nearly tripled since last Friday night, along with searches for UAP being up 400%. And "Dr. Phil UFO" is one of the fastest rising searches in the country. If all of that is true, it's a very good thing. Especially since he's been putting out some really good videos. He mentions the latest release (#4) of UFO/UAP files from the Pentagon last Friday.) "My team and I were granted early access, exclusive access to those documents before they went public." "Our government has been lying to us, by omission AND by intentional misdirection, for 79 years." "Look at these documents. You go back as far as 1947 where they have had clear information that there are objects not of this Earth, both technologically, metallurgically, performance-wise. But yet, that has been hidden from us. They've denied that, they've actually threatened people from talking about this. Threatened with careers, imprisonment, and some, with death, because they would consider it treason." (He backs it up with documents. See below.) Dr. Phil: "For 80 years, every time there was a legitimate UAP sighting and the U.S. government had a chance to get in there, they essentially told us, 'Nothing to see here. Move along.' To be clear, a UAP sighting is not proof of little green men or alien life. It means something happened, something was observed, something occurred for which we have no explanation. That's it. "Now, let's talk about that for a second. Things happen, and we don't have any explanation for it. We don't have technology that explains that. There's something that is observed in the sky, going at a speed, stopping, making a sharp turn, reversing direction, accelerating, changing altitudes, and we don't have anything on this Earth that can do that. That's what's called unexplained. "Now, do we know where it's from? How it does that? Well, if we did, it would be explained. But we don't. We go look at all of our secret weapons. We go look at what we know through intelligence, other countries have. And let me tell you, a lot of these (laughs) - they're not close calls. They are not close calls. And some of the things that have been observed, we damn sure didn't have anything like that in the 40s or the 50s or the 60s, and we still don't, now in 2020s. "But at the very same time, our government was telling us, 'Nothing to see here: weather balloon, reflection off of an airplane, just a weather anomaly.' And, the government was simultaneously threatening its own people with criminal penalties if they ever disclosed UAP information. "If somebody that was credible, that had seen this, spoke about it, they were threatened with all kinds of penalties. We were gaslighted. 'No big deal here. Probably weather balloons, misidentified aircraft.' And a jumpy public that watched, 'Close Encounters' one too many times, thinking, 'Look, what's really going on here?' "Behind the curtain, the government was spending generations of time and resources protecting this information. Was it happening? Yes, it was happening! Do we have proof of it happening? Yes, we have proof of it happening. And what I mean by that is we have this on radar. We have credible, military pilots reporting it. "We have aircraft that have guns, and when you open a gun and go live on a fighter, there's a camera that activates, so you have video of what the gun is shooting at. You have gun cameras. If they see one of these things in front of them, they open their weapons, in case they need them, and so it shoots video of what they're seeing. "Now let's talk about some of the proof. JANAP 146 - Joint Army, Navy, Air Force publication 146 - made it a criminal offense for military personnel and commercial airline pilots to discuss UFO sightings outside official channels. The penalty, 'up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.' "So, you might see some guy down on a lake, drinking beer, that talks about something he saw over the lake. Yeah, they don't mind that guy talking. But credible people? Trained observers with instrumentation? No. They say something, they're going to prison. "Well, that took effect upon receipt. No hearings, no debate. The regulation says, 'All persons aware of the contents or existence...are governed by...espionage laws.' So not just the pilot who filed a report under JANAP 146, anyone who leaked a report. Radio operators, airline staff, anyone in the chain could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. "You can see this yourself. Declassified copies are online today, including on the NSA's website. Now what is the Espionage Act? That's the same law used to prosecute spies. Section 793: Up to 10 years in federal prison for every violation. Section 794: If the information reaches a foreign power, life in prison, or death. "Imagine you're a TWA captain in 1955. You see something over the Pacific you just simply can't explain. You file your report like the regulation requires. And from that moment, talk to a newspaper, tell your own wife, puts you in the same legal category as a spy. "Ask yourself why. Why are they so interested in muzzling all this conversation? Why do they not want you to know this is going on? Why are you not entitled to know what's happening in the air around you? "Now, let's fast forward 20 years, 1971. Oliver Harry Turner was an Australian nuclear scientist and intelligence officer, head of the nuclear branch of Australia's Joint Intelligence Organization. He was asked to assess the American response to the growing UAP issue. "If you're thinking, what does an Australian know about U.S. military secrets? Well, the possibility of life beyond this planet is bigger than any one country. Australia and the rest of the world has a legitimate interest in what the U.S. knows. And Australia is one of our closest intelligence allies. What we now call Five Eyes. "The Five Eyes countries are the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. These countries have shared their most sensitive intelligence with each other since World War II. When a senior, Five Eyes nuclear intelligence officer writes a report about what the United States knows, well, that's serious. "He was outside the American classification system. He had no career to lose. He pieced this together from official CIA, Air Force, Congressional, and Project Blue Book records. Now this report was written May 27, 1971. Original classification: Secret. Title: Scientific and Intelligence Aspects of the UFO Problem. Report declassified by the National Archives of Australia in 2023. "On June 9th of 2026, whistleblower David Crusch (Yes, he said Crusch) stood on Capitol Hill and told the public to read pages seven through sixteen." ~ David Grusch: "There is a declassified 1971 Australian, formally-classified, Secret assessment that a couple years ago was put in the Australian National Archives. I encourage people to read page seven through sixteen, and that was the nuclear branch chief of the Australian government discussing the U.S. cover-up and the involvement of the CIA back in the 70s. And that's actually a little-known document that is publicly available." ~ Dr. Phil: "Now here's the kicker: foreign intelligence describing an American cover-up is now referenced in the files that our government is just now releasing. And here are six key findings in the Turner report. "Number one, what Turner called the facade of ridicule. Turner documents that early Air Force intelligence concluded, 'Some of these objects, 'had flight characteristics' that could best be explained as having 'extraterrestrial origin.' (The actual language says: "The early analysis of UFO reports by USAF intelligence indicated that real phenomena were being reported which had flight characteristics so far in advance of U.S. aircraft that only as extra-terrestrial origin could be envisaged." ) Dr. Phil: "Instead of telling the public, the CIA and Air Force adopted a deliberate debunking policy. "Now let that sit with you for a minute. Instead of telling the public, the CIA and Air Force adopted a deliberate debunking policy. We've got to get these people believing this isn't real. We've got to debunk this. "January 1953, Turner's own words: 'By erecting a facade of ridicule, the U.S. hoped to allay public alarm, reduce the possibility of the Soviet taking advantage of UFO mass sightings...and act as a cover-up so the U.S. can develop vehicles that emulate UFO performances.' "What's the point? Well, the point is, they were thinking, 'All right, let's keep this secret,' like we're the only ones seeing this, 'and maybe we can reverse engineer this so we will have this incredible edge over the rest of the world.' "That's a great goal, I guess, if you can go from flying-prop planes or early jets to this incredible speed. If these are extraterrestrial, and the nearest galaxy is Andromeda, which it takes two and a half million years to get to, flying at the speed of light, we're pretty far from being able to do that. "Today, in 2026, can we move at the speed of light? No. If we could, it would take two and a half million years to get to the next galaxy. We can't move at the speed of light, even now in 2026. But that was the goal. They'll find one of these and reverse engineer it." (I don't know whether or not any black program has tech that can move at the speed of light and I doubt Dr. Phil knows, either. Someone should show him what Lacatski said about being able to reverse engineer some of this acquired (alleged non-human) tech but "not to its full extent.") Dr. Phil: "Finding number two. He then talks about Project Sign. This was the U.S. Air Force's first official UFO investigation set up in late 1947. Its analysts reportedly concluded that extraterrestrial origin was the best explanation. Air Force Chief of Staff General Hoyt Vandenberg rejected that conclusion, and copies of the report were ordered destroyed. Destroyed! "And per Turner, in February 1949, members of Project Sign, 'either volunteered to leave or were compelled to leave,' and they were replaced by people, 'willing to ridicule the concept of UFOs.' "Think about this! We have sightings by legitimate observers with scientific instrumentation, and the people who are doing the observing are voluntarily leaving or compelled to leave, and replaced by people willing to ridicule the concept of UFOs. "Finding number three, what I spoke about earlier: JANAP 146. Up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for discussing sightings outside official channels. And per the regulation's own text, Chapter One, Section 102, it covered not just military personnel, but U.S. and Canadian civilian and commercial pilots. "That's legal force over airline pilots, arguably the most credible witnesses in the sky! What jurisdiction they had over Canadian pilots, I have no idea, but they listed 'em. "Turner documents a meeting between military intelligence and airline pilots at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. At that meeting, pilots were, 'coerced' to keep their sightings out of public view and inside official channels. Am I overstating it to say that there's been a cover-up, that we're being lied to? "Finding number four. But they missed the retirees. JANAP 146 only covered active service. Once you retired, you could talk. And three very senior men did so between 1953 and 1960. Admiral Roscoe Hillenkoetter, the first director of the CIA, Captain Edward Ruppelt, the man the Air Force put in charge of investigating UFOs, Major Dewey Fournet, the Pentagon's project officer on UFOs. Per Turner, all three publicly stated the U.S. government knew UFOs were extraterrestrial and was withholding the fact from the public! So when those three retired, they told the truth! "Finding five. The government then silenced retirees. Per Turner, the revised regulation JANAP 146e made UAP disclosure by retirees an offense under the Espionage Act. Then finding number six. 1969, 17 years, the Air Force ran a public-facing UFO investigation called Project Blue Book. If you wrote your congressman about a sighting, it went into the Blue Book. And in 1969, the Air Force shut down the Blue Book and told the country, 'We looked at more than 12,000 sightings. No problems. No national security threat. No need for the Blue Book.' "But a memo from General Carroll Bolender, the Air Force general, said the reason Blue Book showed no national security threats was because any national security threats were gag ordered under JANAP 146 and were quote, 'not part of the Blue Book system.' The serious reports never stopped; they just moved out of public view. "Now, I know that was a lot of information. You may need to listen back to that, but those are facts. Those are in the government's documents that have now been declassified! "If the government has known for decades that unidentified objects are flying through our skies, and therefore, we may not be alone in the Universe, then the greatest revelation in American history has also been the target of a huge cover-up. "One of the challenges of social media and TV news is taking something this complex and reducing it to sound bites. And you're getting bits and pieces from the media. That's why I invest so much time and energy giving you the real story. I don't want to tell you what you believe or don't believe, but I want to give you the information so you can make up your own mind. "This information is in the files, we just haven't had access to the files. And then when we get the files, we're given the files without any context. You see a radar screen and you see a blip, and then it moves. Well, what do you have to compare it to? Is it moving fast? Too fast? Unexplainably fast? Without any context, how are we supposed to interpret that? "Well, I'm digging in, I'm talking to experts, I'm finding out what the scale is. And what we're learning, is we don't have anything that'll move that fast. We don't have anything that'll turn that sharp. We don't have anything that will withstand those kind of G-forces."](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2077448964731965459/amplify_video_thumb/2077445400177541120/img/vqZyFFYVRdk6G7tt.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 not—I didn't realize until last week that lawyer George was a handler. Dookhan could create a huge—it 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't—when 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)
![I asked Grok to summarize the overview I provided of the ongoing war between Karen Read and Aidan Kearney, in particular the section wherein I deploy the Manhattan Project to explain why Karen used better compartmentalization than Aidan (thus setting herself up for victory). The Manhattan Project Analogy: Ah, the Manhattan Project—Grant drops this as the "archetypal example" of compartmentalization, using it to explain why no one (not even insiders) sees the full picture in ops like Karen's or Aidan's. It's not just history; it's a blueprint for why leaks like this recording hit so hard. Here's Grant's breakdown, paraphrased and expanded for context: Historical Setup: During WWII, the U.S. raced to build the atomic bomb. Led by J. Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, NM (desert isolation for secrecy), it involved ~130,000 people total—but zero full-picture access for most. Goal: Win the war without leaks (or Japanese spies spotting it). Core Mechanic: Siloed Knowledge: Los Alamos: Elite scientists (e.g., Oppenheimer) handled core R&D. Even here, info was need-to-know—e.g., Operation Paperclip Nazis like Wernher von Braun (V-2 rocket guy) worked alongside possible communist sympathizers, but no one knew the endgame. Oak Ridge, Tennessee: The "production" hub—a secret 20,000-person "government town" (still exists today). To hide from aerial recon, they draped canopies over the entire site to mimic forest. Workers (engineers, laborers) toiled in ignorance: Example: A guy feeds a single punch card (1940s code line) into a massive green computer. He doesn't know what it codes, why, or even the machine's purpose. Just: Insert, output, repeat. Multiply by thousands—boom, uranium enrichment without risk. Why It Worked: "You do that with all the people working on a project that's very top secret (except for a select few high up)." Weak links? Minimal. One leak doesn't topple it. Ties to the Drama: Grant flips this to modern players. Aidan's Version: Rudimentary—paralegals like Olivia/Tina handle PR/logins but don't see the "full picture" (e.g., his flip risks). Meredith O'Neill becomes the leak about the recording played for her at lunch because she is smart and she does eventually see too much (just like Lindsey Gaetani before her). Karen's Mastery: Pro-level. Her finance/academia fam (Bentley University ties) screams gov recruitment pipeline—academia as "front" for talent scouting (e.g., intel via international money flows). She "understands the apparatus" (DNI hierarchy), so she deploys limited hangouts/double agents like Natalie. Result: Aidan’s recording "signal flare" to Alan Jackson and David Yannetti (his flip threat) gets mirrored by Karen's public nuke after the recordings and Read's messages to Flipperhead are released—eroding Kearney's base without directly exposing Karen's crushing blow. Grant's Point: Kate Peter/Tully are "children" at this; Karen's moves (e.g., burning Aidan now) only make sense through this lens. It's not emotion—it's chess: "If you show Karen Read anything less than respect, she's gonna fucking own you." Grant wraps by noting Karen's parasocial "complex" (stronger than Aidan's "brand") gives her leverage. He admits partiality ("I think she's responsible for John's death") but respects her ops savvy—possibly from her dad or self-taught intel. **Transcript: Grant's Analysis on Karen Read's Tactical Maneuvering and Compartmentalization** [Warning against crossing Karen Read] Grant: Listen—I would have told you this. I probably said it on stream before. You are out of your mind if you fuck with Karen Read. Like—it's one thing if you are like on her level and matching wits with her—like she's gonna grudgingly show you respect. I'm telling you—I've seen it in her eyes—but you can't fuck with her, and you certainly can't threaten her. I would not do that. I don't know who the fuck her parents know. I don't know who she knows, but bro—like it's politics. She's smarter than you. Don't threaten her. What the fuck? And that is something—like if you show her anything less than respect, she's gonna fucking own you. And that's what she did. Because the respectful way to do it would have been like a diplomatic meeting. And they must have been at a point where Aidan couldn't get that. So he did the most disrespectful thing possible where he tried to like corner her through like extortion almost. That's what it sounds like—although Aidan denies it. That—listen—forget about like how a normal person would react. When you're talking about a very influential operator like Karen Read—who has this very savvy understanding of the public mind—you're fucked. Because she's gonna know immediately what you just did. And she's gonna counter it with the thing that's gonna hurt you the most. What's gonna hurt Aidan Kearney the most? His support being dwindled down to only his core loyalists. And if he's right—and you'll hear it in the conversation—if Aidan Kearney is right, that most of who he is is because Karen Read and her support—oh my goodness, folks—like that—that means that Karen controls whether Aidan can continue this fight. If Karen—when she—that's why I want to listen to this whole conversation—there's no doubt in my mind she's pulling his support and pulling the rug under him because she's afraid that either he cooperated or he's going to cooperate. If she pulls the rug from him—okay, listen—he might be able to escape the criminal charges, but do you think Aidan Kearney—a man who thrives, in my opinion, on attention, numbers—from knowing that your words are impacting someone or the platform is reaching people—do you think he's going to enjoy being in a position where he—the very people who made him—and it wasn't just Karen; it was her supporters—now loathe his existence? And he—not just that—they are like tactical operators. Clearly Karen knows how to do counter intel—especially if she sent Natalie as a double agent to get information from the state police using Kearney as leverage all the way back in 2023. She understands the world of intel. I don't know how—I think it's her dad. I'm pretty sure because—and it could be her too—because like you don't get involved in the world of international finance on a fucking—like—what is it—the sort of leisurely level. It's not a pastime. You either do it because like—you're really fucking good at making money from the stock market—or—and these two weren't; they're not that wealthy—or you're giving information to the government. Why do I say that? Because the world of international finance is the most valuable intel sector you could possibly imagine. You can commit or try to commit any number of international crimes if you're threatening the United States of America. But I guarantee you're moving money around to do it. So who's the best possible sources for that? High-level financial people. So I don't know if either they were a Jason—and they were also academics. Okay. And a lot—what folks have to understand is when I—when people say like academia—it does not mean that you are just smart. Anyone who—who's good at studying could become a professor and be in academia. What a lot of folks should understand is that academia is a front for the government. It has always been a front for the government. Where do you think they headhunt from? Academia—well like—at the higher you get up the academic ladder—all you're really doing is getting more and more involved in the government. I'm not saying anything that anyone involved with this does not know. Like high-level academics are involved with the government. That's like the backbone of our system. Now a lot of the actual education—I think it's gotten a little out of hand with some of these majors, some of these colleges and universities who are offering [them]. That's not the point. The point is to create a—curate a talent pool to make the United States stronger. And a lot of it is government recruitment. Okay. And so Karen Read being all the way up at the top at Bentley—which is a very interconnected university with the government, trust me—that just makes me think she understands this—whether she was a Jason. Listen—you can understand what the intelligence community does without being in it. I'm not in the intelligence community—I just report on the government. So I kind of see how it all works. You can understand it without being in it. But if you're in it—let me just tell you right now—if anyone Karen Read knew professionally—through family or otherwise—is in the government—and I'm not talking about a special agent like in the FBI or, you know, a case officer—I'm talking about in the apparatus of control. Okay. In the directorate of national intelligence somewhere—there's a hierarchy. All right. If she knows anyone who understands all that—that's why she was able to pull this off. Because it's not—that's why I'm not fawning or being gratuitous. I don't necessarily—I'm not partial to Karen Read. I think she has liability for John's death. What I am is cognizant of what she's capable of—so I can understand what's going on. A mind like that, okay—doesn't just do PR. PR was not going to help Karen Read here. Natalie and her PR and all that stuff—none of that was going to work. What Karen Read needed was counter intel and intel knowledge. [Explanation of compartmentalization via the Manhattan Project] When I say compartmentalization—what you all have to realize is I'm talking about how the Manhattan Project—that's like the archetypal example of compartmentalization—how the Manhattan Project to develop the bomb that won the war for the United States in World War II—how that worked. The way that that worked is you had Los Alamos, okay, in New Mexico with Oppenheimer and whatever the hell—some of the Operation Paperclip people—which I'm not very happy with. We took Otto von Braun—who developed the V2 rocket for the Nazis. We brought him over via Operation Paperclip. We implanted him at Los Alamos with fucking Oppenheimer. I'm pretty sure it was like a communist sympathizer. Anyway—we sent them down to Los Alamos—the actual research scientists working on the core of the bomb. But to develop a nuclear bomb—you need 20,000 people at the time working simultaneously on production. You're not going to do that at Los Alamos. One: why would you ever expose them to the inner workings of the tech? It's nuclear material. You are not going to have 20,000 people around it. That's why it was in the middle of a desert. Third of all—they would know too much. So what did they do? Okay—look up Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Oak Ridge, Tennessee is a town—it's a government town still to this day. It's one of the most—it's not as top secret as it used to be. But back in the day—like during World War II—they put fucking canopies over the whole thing—20,000-person town—canopies over all of it. So it would just look like trees from the air in case the Japanese managed to come and bomb us. They never did—thank God. But anyway—at least on the mainland—obviously they got Pearl Harbor, and we're still upset about that. But the point is Oak Ridge, Tennessee, okay—it had people employed across a number of disciplines, all right—and they would go into—I'm giving you an example—one guy would go into a room, all right, and he would walk up to a giant computer. It was an old computer—we're talking the '40s here—it was a big computer, like a big green box. He would take a punch card. Okay—this is how you used to code—write computer code—he would put—take one punch card with one line of code—put it in the machine—take it out—put it down. He had no idea what he was doing. He didn't know what the punch card had on it. He didn't even understand what the machine did. That's compartmentalization. He's like—you do that with all of the people working on a project that's very top secret. So if you're thinking as Karen Read—Aidan Kearney does like a rudimentary version of it—even Tully does a rudimentary version of it—and Kate Peter—compared to Karen Read—Karen Read, Alan Jackson—whatever—understand the intelligence community. I don't fucking know how, but they do. So they compartmentalize. That's how they have pulled this whole thing off. They compartmentalize—no one ever really saw the full picture. When you—if you are a schematic mind like that—when you do something like reveal that Aidan Kearney has sent you a recording of conversations between you because you want the public to know that Aidan is doing this to you—you are tactically sabotaging him. Why you do that at this moment—when you are an expert in counter intel—thus requires that level of understanding. You cannot just say, "Oh, I don't like Karen Read; she must be a moron." No—if you want to understand why she's acting—you have to think about her tactical intelligence—because then you can reconstruct what the goal of this move is. It can only be designed to kneecap his support. I mean—when I say kneecap—I'm not talking Tonya Harding beating the woman at the ice rink. I'm talking—you can make it so this man's numbers are lower than Kate Peter talking about Cyraxx—like 2,000 views of video, if that, all right. That's what it will come down to. And she wants him to feel that. I think that it's a little bit like—it's 97% tactical. It seems to be that this is the moment where she feels he needs to lose all his support—like right now. Second—it feels a little like a little personal—like it's not just that she's causing him to lose all his support. There are ways to do that without doing this. I believe what Karen's really done here is she's taken the one thing from Aidan that gives him the strength to keep going day to day—which is his public persona and image—his support—her support. And so he can go around saying all he wants—"I owe it to Karen; she made me"—do you think that's how he really feels? Or do you think he feels that he's the only reason she's where she is? Now—if that's how they each feel—you're at a stalemate. Aidan thinks he's the reason Karen got to where she is. Karen thinks that she's the reason Aidan has support and is known in the region. Who's right? Who's right? That's what this conversation is going to be about. And I'm telling you—Karen's right. Karen has more support than Aidan Kearney. Okay—it's just a basic—you can look at the numbers. Karen has more support than Aidan Kearney. Karen has more loyalists. Karen—I don't even understand the complex, okay—but her parasocial complex that she's created is stronger. You might call it a brand—I think that degrades the insidious nature of it. I call it a parasocial complex. That is stronger than Aidan Kearney's. [Transition to the conversation with greetings] So what we're going to listen to right now is—oh, hello, Francesca Towel. Oh—a lot of folks are coming in. Hello, Rose Water. Hello, Maureen. It's great to see you all. Hello, J.I.5. We're going to listen to this conversation. I'm going to explicate it for you. I think you have enough background to get it now—but just be aware—without this background—that would have made no sense whatsoever. I promise you. **Aidan:** Am I on? **Host/Other:** You're on. **Aidan:** So who are you? Who is this? **Chris:** Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter who I am. **Aidan:** Well, it does. You're some fucking kangaroo court motherfucker talking about her. What the fuck do you know about anything? **Chris:** Well, I know exactly what you've been doing. **Aidan:** So—well, what the fuck are the sites you're talking about? No—no—recites—what you talk about? No—receipts. I've got to shit up. Let's see him. Let's fucking see your receipts. **Lily:** Hang on, Aidan—you know me. I'm the host. I'm Lily. **Aidan:** Yes, Lily. Hi, Lily. How are you? I'm sorry. I'm just wondering... **Lily:** I know you may not know Chris, but you know me. And so I just wanted to say hello. **Aidan:** Yeah, no, but... Grant: Oh, I also want to let you know this comes with a warning. They use very vulgar language. Some of them are from Commonwealth realms countries. So the language they're using is not as offensive as it would be if you used it in America. Aidan uses some very offensive language. This is for the purposes of analysis and commentary. I do not condone, endorse, promote, or otherwise suggest anyone engage in the use of this language. I personally don't like it. I use the F word from time to time, okay? And maybe like the S word—but I do not say some of the terms they're going to use—especially because one of them is very offensive, okay, to women. And I'm sorry ahead of time that he uses it—but you should hear Aidan's true colors. **Aidan:** This koala motherfucker is up here making shit up, running his... [Recap of text messages and setup for listening] Grant: So what you have to realize is these texts you're seeing on the screen got released because of this conversation. You're going to hear Joe Flipperhead talking about them. Now in the text messages, you can see Joe reaches out to Karen—Joe Flipperhead. And Karen's going to say she's trying to bounce back, but life is not quite happening. "Had a falling out with Aidan as everyone eventually does. Found out Aidan's been taping our phone conversations and sharing them with people and then telling everyone he doesn't understand how I blew him off for Howie Carr. Some anonymous person sent David and Alan a 33-minute phone call I had with Aidan that was all recorded without my knowledge. That was my final straw. He's done a lot of sneaky stuff with me, but this is above and beyond." And then Joe Flipperhead's like, "Do you want your side out there? If yes, I'm with you. If not, all good—just let me know. Have a good weekend." Karen says, "Sure. I told many people my side. This is the last straw. Would never and have never betrayed him. Meanwhile, he has put me in harm's way in a huge way multiple times." Okay, so we're going to listen. "Okay, okay, all right, all right—no trolling. We should—we should be banning people like that. You have been banned. You have been banned. No trolling. Absolutely no trolling. Now gaslighting and manipulative subversion is the hallmark of a lot of the forces in the orbit of this case. So none of that. We have a lot of Blue Wall of Towel friends here. Don't stand for that. Hello, Christy Mack. Great to see you. Hello. Stay tuned, Wendy. Hello, Bunny. Hello, F.B.I.—my friend, F.B.I. DOJ corruption survivor. And hello, Meredith—which is not Meredith O'Neill. This is Meredith the Towel friend. It's great to see you all. And as I said, if you see anybody trolling in the chat—now is not the day for it. Towel's health is not well. And I think there are a lot of people who want to undermine the agency of the unheard and the vulnerable in this situation. There are a lot of people who want to gaslight right now because where this is going is explosive. And furthermore, we're about to listen to the conversation. So what you're going to hear in this conversation is it's going to be Aidan Kearney and Joe Flipperhead—who's named Nick—and a guy named Chris who Aidan Kearney calls a koala. They're going to be talking about what we just talked about. But remember—these text messages haven't been released. So Aidan doesn't actually know they're coming. He's being told of this and going on an X Space and reacting in real time. Now I'm going to pause from time to time, and I'll try to flesh out some of the less clear parts. But as we read through the transcript and as you see this all, I think it will be clear to you—clear to you—the implications. So let's listen."](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1972993638146670728/amplify_video_thumb/1972991333062090752/img/HvGNy_3gMvcvFhAY.jpg)
!["We had people around us that started having things happen. And not all of it was rosy. We didn't know that...it's gonna stay with you for maybe...years and years or the rest of your life." ~Mr. B. A Whole Lot of Not Rosy Robert Bigelow: "And so, it (survival of consciousness research) does have this aspect of things to be concerned about. And you know, I've told you that since we formed this institute (Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS)) in June (of 2020), all of a sudden, we had people around us that started having things happen. And not all of it was rosy, okay?” (I really hope he give details in a future interview because I think it's important to know what happened. Just the formation of an institute that planned on studying consciousness caused phenomena to start taking place and some of it was negative in nature. To me, that's problematic. Did anybody get injured or sick, or were they just scared?) Bigelow: "So, I mean, this is family members, myself, my staff. And none of this we expected, we hadn't asked for anything, positioned anything, decided to do anything in this kind of research. Our whole intention to begin with was simply trying to get ourselves up to speed in the literature, after being away from this for so many years, focusing on [the] space world, right? That's been mainly what I've been doing - except for the Skinwalker Ranch thing for 20 years - is the space world...has been huge in my life to pursue. The legitimate, parochial kind of, you know, using fire engines, rockets to get you there (smiles). "So we didn't expect anything like this to happen." (Again, this is various phenomena that allegedly started happening once they formed BICS with the intention of studying consciousness (including life after death), and apparently, some of it was not good. Again, did anybody get hurt? Exactly how bad was it? Details are sorely needed.) Bigelow: "And so, this Holy Grail is different than the second Holy Grail. If the second one being the ET, is a little bit lower. And this first one: Is there any part of your consciousness that survives your bodily death? That's a big deal, that's a huge story, that's gigantic." (I'd push back and suggest that both Holy Grails may be connected or related and the 2nd one may not be ET at all. This other intelligence (which John Keel labelled, "Ultraterrestrials") may reside in, or be able to enter, the same realms we enter when we die. There’s strong evidence that psychic mediums can acquire information they had no way of knowing about via their five senses. But are they talking to the dead, or is something else going on?) ~~~Excerpt from Operation Trojan Horse by John Keel~~~ In 1866, a New Englander named William Denton declared himself to be the first modern contactee. He claimed to be in telepathic contact with beings from another planet, and he and his whole family later purportedly visited Venus and Mars. Denton wrote a series of books describing saucer-shaped vehicles in detail, which he thought were made of aluminum. (A commercial process for manufacturing aluminum was not invented until 1886.) He also told his audiences (he lectured widely) that the folks who rode around in aluminum airships looked very much like us. His narratives were, in many respects, identical to those of the modern contactees. Trance Mediums and Possession Trance mediums were nothing new in 1850. In the Bible’s First Book of Samuel, Chapter 28 describes how Saul consulted a medium (“… a woman that hath-a familiar spirit”). Mediums acted as oracles in ancient times, and people with this peculiar gift appeared in each new generation. Such persons seem to serve as instruments through which the ultraterrestrials can speak to us directly, and they often come up with amazingly accurate prophecies of the future and precise details of events that could seemingly be known only to the dead relatives of the people who consulted them. Of course, when spiritualism became a national fad, a goodly number of charlatans and hucksters moved in. But most of the genuine mediums exercised their talents carefully and for free. They did not indulge in fancy hocus-pocus and did not need paraphernalia, such as spirit cabinets. They were—and are—people who can apparently summon up unseen entities or alien intelligences and extract information from them. I am not a spiritualist myself, although I have attended a few séances over the years, usually in the role of a scoffer and disbeliever. As a longtime amateur magician, I have been able to see through the frauds, but I have also been genuinely perplexed by some of the manifestations I have personally witnessed. (I recommend everybody read about The Scole Experiment or watch the documentary on YT about it. And...read the book, "Ghost Hunters" by Deborah Blum. Related links here: ) ~ Back to OTH... Essentially, a trance medium lapses into an unconscious state, and while in this condition, his or her body is taken over by some outside influence. This influence is usually a self-styled “Indian guide” from “the other side.” Many mediums have been simple, uneducated people, but when in a trance state they have been able to talk foreign languages fluently. Scientists and clergymen have put countless mediums through severe tests over the years. At one group of séances in the 1920s, sitters, who were all versed in different languages, grilled mediums in everything from ancient Chinese to Swahili, and the controlling entities not only conversed in those languages but corrected the sitters’ grammar! The daughter of Judge Edmunds, president of the Senate in the 1850s, gave incredible performances while in a trance, speaking fluently in Greek, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Portuguese, Hungarian, and several Indian languages. Because the sitters—and the mediums—assume that they are dealing with residents of heaven, they ask mostly spiritual questions. Customarily, the “control” will announce that Mr. Blank is standing next to him and wishes to speak to Mrs. Blank, who is attending the séance. Mrs. Blank excitedly begins to question her dead husband, Mr. Blank. How is life on the other side? Just fine, the control replies, a little bored, everyone lives in vine-covered cottages, and all is sweetness and light. Where did Mr. Blank hide his valuable gold watch before he died? It’s wrapped in an old sock and buried under some papers in the bottom drawer of the old rolltop desk, the control answers. Sure enough, when Mrs. Blank gets home, she finds the watch exactly where the medium’s alter ego said it would be. Try to convince Mrs. Blank that she didn’t talk with her dead husband! In many cases, the medium even begins to talk in a voice that sounds exactly like the dead Mr. Blank, uses his pet expressions, and even refers to things known only to Mrs. Blank, indulges in their private jokes, and so on. Occasionally, a deceased celebrity will “break through.” Recently the late George Bernard Shaw made a tape recording in England that is now circulating in occult circles. Those who knew Shaw claim that it sounds exactly like him, uses his phraseology and vocal mannerisms, and displays his brilliant and distinctive wit. The trance phenomenon deserves extensive study because so many aspects of it are directly related to the contactee phenomenon. The contactees have been told a hundred different stories of what life is like on other planets. If you review the descriptions of heaven produced at the thousands of possibly genuine séances, you will find the same contradictions. The entities will lie transparently at one point in the séance, and a few moments later will come up with astounding information that could not be based upon simple trickery. The mediums themselves have always been aware of their controls’ mischievous sense of humor. They speak of false shades and malevolent spirits who perform outrageous hoaxes. So the mediums and the professional investigators are always wary. The fact that a control can imitate George Bernard Shaw does not necessarily mean that GBS is doing the speaking from the spirit world. The fact that a control knows where Mr. Blank hid his gold watch does not necessarily prove that Mr. Blank is standing at his side “on the other plane.” The medium generally remains completely inert while in the trance or “occupied” state but in some instances can become quite animated and make gestures appropriate to whatever is being said. In a very real sense, the medium’s mind has been blanked out, and his or her body has been completely taken over by the control. The medium has become a zombie of sorts, possessed by an alien entity, an entity who lacks a physical form of his own. Contactees often find themselves suddenly miles from home without knowing how they got there. They either have induced amnesia, wiping out all memory of the trip, or they were taken over by some means and made the trip in a blacked-out state. Should they encounter a friend on the way, the friend would probably note that their eyes seemed glassy and their behavior seemed peculiar. But if the friend spoke to them, he might receive a curt reply. In the language of the silent contactees this process is called being used. A used person can suddenly lose a day or a week out of his life. I have known silent contactees to disappear from their homes for long periods, and when they returned, they had little or no recollection of where they had been. One girl sent me a postcard from the Bahama Islands—which surprised me because I knew she was very poor. When she returned, she told me that she had only one memory of the trip. She said she remembered getting off a jet at an airport—she couldn’t recall getting on the jet or making the trip—and there “Indians” met her and took her baggage. She remembered nothing further after that. The next thing she knew she was back home again. It seems likely the same methods are applied to both mediums and contactees. In the case of the mediums, the mind control serves a useful purpose. It enables the entities to establish direct vocal communication with us and, in many instances, pass along worthwhile information. This process can also be destructive. A young man from Ithaca, New York, called me some time ago at the urging of William Donovan, president of Aerial Investigation and Research (AIR), to tell me of his close brush with death. One evening in the fall of 1967, he said, he left his home to drive to a meeting. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he got out of his car, went back into his house, and carried out several aimless actions such as picking up a book from a table and putting it on the shelf. “Finally, I said to myself, Okay, it’s time,” he told me. He remembers leaving the house and again heading for his parked car. The next thing he knew he was in a hospital bed. He had apparently driven about four miles to a railroad crossing just in time to meet an oncoming train. His car was demolished, but he escaped rather miraculously with only a few minor injuries. If he had not gone back into the house and carried out those meaningless, time-killing chores, he would have avoided the train altogether. It is possible, of course, that the shock of the accident blotted out his memory of that four-mile drive—but he couldn’t even remember putting the key in the ignition. This man had been active in investigating the UFO flap that took place around the radio telescope installations near Ithaca in 1967-68. In his book Passport to Magonia, Dr. Jacques Vallee, a NASA astronomer and computer expert, touches on all this. “In the Soviet Union, not so long ago, a leading plasma physicist died in strange circumstances,” Dr. Vallee states. “He was thrown under a Moscow subway train by a mentally deranged woman. It is noteworthy that she claimed a ‘voice from space’ had given her orders to kill that particular man—orders she could not resist. Soviet criminologists, I have been reliably informed, are worried by the increase of such cases in recent years. Madmen rushing through the streets because they think the Martians are after them have always been commonplace. But the current wave of mental imbalance that can be specifically tied to the rise and development of the contactee myth is an aspect of the UFO problem that must be considered with special care.” So there seem to be both good and evil forces at work in this type of phenomenon. The good guys latch onto people with particularly receptive minds and turn them into trance mediums. The bad guys use the same methods to tamper with the minds of contactees and even to commit murders indirectly. Because incidents of these types can be traced throughout history, it seems probable that these forces have always been extant on this planet. When the good guys worked through mediums, they needed some excuse that we would accept. The answer seemed to be “communication with the dead.” These communicative efforts led to the foundation of spiritualism, and the entities played the role to the hilt, using their complete knowledge of us and our individual lives to provide us with “proof” of the existence of a spirit world. This is the same precise methodology being employed with the UFOs to build up support for the extraterrestrial thesis. We humans need acceptable explanations for unnatural phenomena, so “they” happily—and often humorously—supply us with all the explanations we can handle. At the same time, they give us tiny fragments of the real truth, hoping no doubt that we will be able to digest them slowly. Ever so slowly. In earlier times it seems as if they made a complicated attempt to convey the truth to us through mediums and psychics, but we chose to misinterpret these efforts and placed them within the context of our primitive religious beliefs. We are still doing this, and they are going along with it because even misinterpreted communication is better than no communication at all. Religion may not be truth but may merely be a step on the long path of the real truth. Do the ultraterrestrials really care about us? There is much disturbing evidence that they don’t. They care only to the extent that we can fulfill our enigmatic use to them. The Reverend Arthur Ford is one of America’s best-known trance mediums. For most of his life he has served as an instrument for an entity who calls himself Fletcher. In 1928, Fletcher announced that Harry Houdini (who had died in 1926) was on hand and had a message which he wanted conveyed to his widow, Beatrice. The message was in a code once used by the Houdinis in a mind-reading act. This code was known only to the couple and had never been published or revealed to anyone. Fletcher, through Ford, was able to give precise details of this secret code, and Mrs. Houdini later confirmed that the message had to come from her husband. This was only one of Ford’s many coups. In the fall of 1967, Ford went into a trance on Canadian television and produced a message for Bishop James Pike from his deceased son. Bishop Pike, who was present at this televised séance, avowed that the message seemed authentic and seemed to come from the familiar personality of his son. This well-publicized séance launched a major revival of spiritualism in the United States. Reverend Ford travels in high circles but has never made any material gain from his peculiar gift. He gives freely of his time—and Fletcher’s advice from the other side—at séances all over the country. Mrs. Ruth Montgomery, the well-known author and Washington reporter, tells of the time that Reverend Ford visited her in Washington and lapsed into a trance so she could ask Fletcher for some advice on his behalf. Reverend Ford was then in the process of moving and wanted to know what he should do with some of his things. Fletcher seemed totally disinterested in Ford’s problems, Mrs. Montgomery reported, and when she asked if Ford should visit a clinic for a checkup, Fletcher snapped, “He’d better do something. If he doesn’t, I can’t work through him much longer.” Although Reverend Ford had voluntarily submitted his person to Fletcher’s use for nearly half a century, the entity was apparently completely disinterested in his problems and welfare. This is, alas, rather typical. Even the most helpful entities seem more dedicated to the job of communicating than to any kind of involvement with those to whom (or through whom) they are communicating. The bizarre history of psychic phenomena is filled with Fletchers. Mrs. Montgomery, incidentally, indulges in automatic writing herself and has received constant messages for the past few years, many of which have been valid prophecies and stern advice meant to govern her future actions. There have been innumerable psychic hoaxes for the past 150 years, and many of these parallel the UFO hoaxes. In 1855, the Fox sisters confessed that their spirit rappings were a hoax. They said they produced the sounds by “snapping their toes.” Think about that for a moment. Snapping your toes so that it sounded like a rap on a wall or table would be a most remarkable talent—perhaps even more remarkable than the ability to communicate with the spirit world. I don’t believe I would pay ten cents to hear someone talk to a rapping spirit—but I would happily pay five dollars to examine someone who could duplicate the rapping sound by snapping his toes. Later the two sisters said the confession was false, and they had been bribed to make it. "Mrs. Houdini was genuinely astonished and impressed by Reverend Ford’s messages from her husband, and she made numerous public statements to that effect, as well as signing various affidavits. But later, in the 1930s, she chose to deny it all for a time. Then, shortly before her death, she reversed her denials. In ufology we have to contend with teenagers’ hot-air balloons, and in psychic phenomena we have to worry about youngsters firing rocks at houses with slingshots and phony mediums levitating “spirit trumpets” with black thread. But there are many more UFO sightings than there are plastic balloons, and there are more poltergeists dumping rocks in living rooms than there are wild-eyed youngsters with slingshots. There are also more ultraterrestrial entities than either the occultists or the UFO enthusiasts dream of." ~~~Edit of the Bigelow Interview~~~ Bigelow: "I also, I was...I got very disturbed toward the end (of AAWSAP) about something that happened to some of the government people, and I realized uhh...holy crap." (Read, "Skinwalkers at the Pentagon." I think it's one of the most important UFO books in recent memory.) George Knapp: "Hitchhikers." Bigelow: "Umm... Well, yeah. You know. So, hitchhikers being that you take things home with you. Everybody took things home with them. I took things to my house. Things happened to my wife, and to me. Different things. So, everybody took things home. We all, you know, we did. But we didn't know that, gee, it was like, gonna be kind of permanent. You know, we didn't know that, you know? That it's gonna stay with you for maybe...for years and years or the rest of your life, who knows? "But the ones that bothered me a lot where anybody got hurt or really disturbed... Not that it happened on the ranch, it was when they left the ranch. As you say, hitchhikers. And these were government people and it affected them." Knapp: "In very dramatic ways, though." Bigelow: "Very dramatic ways. Very dramatic ways. You know, and there's a cousin to that that we're facing, but it's abated, at least for now. And this other survival topic, right? The very dramatic kind of things that we wanted to have reduced or stopped." (The "cousin" to the hitchhiker phenomenon features the not-so-rosy things he referred to early on in this clip. But at least it had abated at the time of this interview. Has it started up again?) Bigelow: "But going back to the government people, the buyer (Brandon Fugal) came along at the right time, I had decided I wanted to tone down..." Knapp: "Take this off your plate." Bigelow: "Yeah, take it off my plate, tone it down, and if necessary, just lock it up and forget about it. And next thing I know, you know, [Fugal] comes along and, you know, the rest is history." Knapp: "Before we leave this, though, the incidents that happened to you, to your wife, to Colm (Kelleher), to me, the, you know, you bring it home. How does everybody handle that? I mean, is it spooky at the time, and do you draw the connection that it's ranch related?" Bigelow: "Yes and no. If the events hadn't happened very often prior to the ranch, then it's not ranch connected. But they did happen." (I think he meant to say, if the events hadn't happened prior to him buying the ranch in 1996 and did happen once he made the purchase, then it would seem to be connected just to the ranch. But he says these anomalous events did happen before he bought it. Maybe some events were connected to the ranch and others were not? Or, this precognitive sentient phenomenon, as John Alexander labelled it, was able to know that Bigelow was going to purchase the ranch in the future and began interacting with him and his wife before he bought it?) Bigelow: "And [these anomalous events] did [happen], where we lived with my wife and I. We had a poltergeist event one time that was really fun and very different, and that was before I ever acquired the ranch. My wife was a very strong - and probably still is, in spirit - person. And so she took them in stride. She had a full manifestation of an apparition, a human-form apparition in the bedroom, and looking at her. "And this was a holy cow. And she happened to tell me, kind of like, 'Oh, well, while you were gone, this is what happened here, a manifestation of this.' I've heard this kind of thing many times through other people, and recently. And she felt the bed depress as there was a curiosity going on because the facial features were distinctive enough to be able to...as though, 'Who are you and what are you doing here?' Coming from the manifestation from the apparition, looking at her, right? "And torso up was kind of what was manifested. And being able to see and feel the mattress being depressed as it's looking at you, wondering, 'Who are you?' That kind of look on the face. 'What are you doing here?' You know, usually you think it would be the opposite direction. 'Who the hell are you?'" (Fully-formed apparitions have been reported over the last 150 years or so but many times only partial bodies are seen. In this case, Mrs. Bigelow only saw the apparition from the torso up. When Leslie Kean sat with physical medium, Stewart Alexander, she said she only saw a hand form. The alleged spirits will say that, many times, it takes too much energy to form a full body. Learn more about the Kean encounter here: ) ~ Knapp: "Was [Mrs. Bigelow] freaked out?" Bigelow: "No. No, she wasn't. There was a bar of light - so this was not normal in the survival research, but maybe in the ET - that was between her pillows. A bar of light. It wasn't coming in from shutters or blinds or anything from the room or any kind of other light source. You could cover, put the pillows down, and the bar would not be reflected on the surface of the object above it, on the second pillow. It only happened when you did this. And she did that and said, 'Oh, well.' I said, 'Well, what did you do?' "'Well, I went to sleep.' Went to sleep, so..." ~~~ (In January of 2012, NYT journalist, Ralph Blumenthal wrote an article about Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies (BICS). He ended it with this: ) "One personal footnote. Don’t ask me what happened on Jan. 4 at 5:45 a.m. as I lay sleepless, wrestling with this story. A tremendous bang jolted me and my wife and the dog upright. We found the glass door to our 12th-floor terrace completely spiderwebbed with cracks as if struck with tremendous force, but there was no sign of any projectile. Invisible moisture between the double panes? Or something else? There are things I don’t mind talking about and things I do mind talking about." (Was this prosaic or just more of the not-so-rosy phenomena Bigelow referenced? We need to know!)](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1902142299288838169/ext_tw_video_thumb/1902092701014855681/pu/img/uet_Rn_7fhU0pn3Q.jpg)
![Clive Lewis's Water Bill - bringing water back to the people 💯 Please watch, listen or read this transcript. Because this is the sort of leadership Labour needs 👏 Clive Lewis MP He even calls for PR 👏 Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab) Margaret Thatcher’s revolution tore up the rulebook on political and economic management. She rewrote it with a single unwavering principle: that the pursuit of profit would serve the public good, even when it came to vital public services—even when it came to water. We often say that society stands on the shoulders of giants, but giants cast long shadows, and Thatcherism’s shadow looms dark over our water system today. Whether we see ourselves standing on her shoulders or trapped in her shadow, one thing is undeniable: she proved that the world can be made differently. And if it can be made differently once, it can be made differently again. That, as the brilliant anthropologist David Graeber understood, is the hidden truth of the world. It is something we create and can choose to create anew. We can do it better. Today, I want to show this House and this country that water is the lens through which we can imagine something better—a better way of running our economy, a better way of safeguarding our environment and a better way of empowering the public, for whom democracy supposedly exists. But that requires something very difficult: it requires us to break free from the constraints of our imagination and to let go of the idea that this economic model is all there is or all there ever could be. It saddens me to say that the Government’s Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 perfectly exemplifies this failure of imagination. One of its leading proponents has a particular rhetorical flourish they love to use when dismissing calls for public ownership of water. They say, “I’m more interested in the purity of our water than the purity of our ideology.” I love that quote. I love it because it lays bare just how deeply the ideology of privatisation, and all that goes with it, has embedded itself. So entrenched is it within our collective consciousness that we no longer recognise it as an ideology. We no longer see it for what it is: a systemic exploitation of a common resource for private gain. Instead, it has simply become the natural order of things. But how much longer can this go on? Since the crash of 2008, this ideology has been faltering under the weight of its own contradictions, yet its grip on British politics remains vice-like. Austerity, exploitation and corporate price gouging are still treated not as choices but as inevitabilities. Why? Because too many politicians on both sides of the House refuse to contemplate alternatives. For those on the other side of the House—on the Opposition Benches—I get it: this is their ideology. They are defending their class, and I would imagine they would go further still if they could. But on this side of the House, we have no excuse. We should be standing up for our class: working-class people—the public. Instead, we wrap their ideology in the language of fiscal responsibility, economic prudence and stewardship of the economy. But it is not fiscal responsibility when we balance the books on broken backs. It is not stewardship when the ship has been sold off and the crew left to drown. It is not prudence. It is power maintenance. Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab) I hope the engineers can check that the microphones and speakers are working while I ask a quick question. My hon. Friend mentions Members on this side of the House. There are far more of us on this side since July last year than there were in 2019, with a very different approach taken in our manifestos. Does he fear that the shift in tone he is suggesting is one of the reasons that we did so badly in 2019 but so well last year? Clive Lewis No, I do not. We have a distorted electoral system. Bring on proportional representation, because if we had PR, we would have had a different Government in 2019 and most definitely in 2017. Sometimes politicians have to do what they believe to be right and lead from the front. I think we should lead from the front. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) I compliment the hon. Member on his Bill. To help his argument, there was overwhelming opinion poll support for public ownership of water in 2017 and 2019, and there still is today. Clive Lewis I thank the right hon. Member for his point. I will come on to this later, and I hope other Members will pick up on it, but the fact that the public are way ahead of this House on the issue of public ownership is one of the reasons why so many people are losing faith in the two-party political system. One only has to look at some political parties whose Members are not in their place—at the Reform party, for example, which has a policy of public ownership of water. Yes, its Members will privatise the NHS, but they understand how popular this is, and they are ahead of the curve—they are ahead of us on this side. Neil Coyle Really? Clive Lewis On the issue of water, yes, I would say they are, because whether I like it or not, Reform has a policy for water to be owned 50% by pension companies and 50% by the public. As much as it grieves me to say it, that is a policy of public ownership. They are populist; they are listening to a popular voice. Mr James Frith (Bury North) (Lab) Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis I will make some progress and then give way, and I will also try to keep the volume down a little bit. This is about the maintenance of a political and economic model that was never built to serve the public—a model designed to shield the wealth of asset holders, landlords, shareholders, corporations and, yes, privatised water companies. But here is the great irony: the very greed, recklessness and contempt of the water industry—its excesses—have cracked open the door, and through that crack, we glimpse an opportunity. It is an opportunity to shatter the myth of privatisation’s inevitability, to break free from the narrow, self-imposed rules that have caged our Government’s economic choices, to expose its failures, to challenge its dominance and, above all, to show this country that there is an alternative—an alternative that is democratic, sustainable and run in the interests of the many, not the few. We can do it better. Mr Frith My hon. Friend is making a typically impassioned speech. He says the general public are ahead of us. Where might that same public be when faced with the bill for bringing in the nationalisation he is clearly wedded to? Furthermore, in the event that we do not have to buy the water industry but seize it, the implications of that seizure will cause an economic collapse. At what point will he take responsibility for either of those scenarios when confronting a public who are, he says, ahead of us on this issue? Clive Lewis I will obviously come to many of those points later in my speech, but let me make this point now: I do not believe in nationalisation, and this Bill has nothing to do with nationalisation. This is about giving the public a say over their water. It is about governance, standards and democracy. Mr Frith Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis No, my hon. Friend has made his point. Mr Frith On this point? Clive Lewis No, I am going to carry on and make some progress. You made your point. Let the public— Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani) Order. Mr Lewis, I do not believe I was making a point at all. Clive Lewis My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker; I should have said that my hon. Friend made his point. The clock is ticking. The climate crisis is no longer a distant warning. It is our lived reality. Rising droughts, creeping desertification, depleted aquifers, wildfires, systemic collapse—these are no longer projections; they are the forecast turned fact. Preparing for this future and adapting to what is now inevitable has never been more urgent. The evidence is sobering. The UK’s water resources are under mounting pressure and not just from the climate emergency, but from rising demand and population growth. Experts now project that England could face significant water supply deficits as early as 2034 unless we act decisively. That is not a distant horizon; it is a little over a decade away. But while the threat has grown, our resilience has shrunk, because while the climate crisis has intensified, our water infrastructure has stood still, or, worse, been sold off, hollowed out and left to rot. In the 35 years before privatisation almost 100 reservoirs were built; in the 35 years since privatisation, not one major English reservoir has been built. But it gets worse, because in that same period private water companies have sold off 25 reservoirs without replacing one. Instead of investing in resilience, they have extracted value: £72 billion paid out in dividends while pipes leak, rivers choke, and the public pays the price. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) asks how we can afford it; how can we not afford it? That is not mismanagement; it is a betrayal. If scientists tell us the climate crisis is an existential threat to humanity and to this country— Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab) Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis One second. If scientists tell us the climate crisis is an existential threat to humanity and to this country, we must treat it as such: an existential conflict. In that context, the actions of these companies—selling off reservoirs, failing to invest, polluting our water—are not just negligent; they are acts that actively undermine our national water security. In any other existential crisis, we might call that what it is: sabotage. And in a time of national peril, sabotage has another name: treason. Let me explain why this matters to me personally. When I served on tour in Afghanistan back in 2009—not in a boy band—I experienced something utterly alien to me: the gnawing fear of thirst; not the mild irritation of forgetting a water bottle, but the deep physical worry that there may not be enough clean water to get through the day. In Britain, we have been blessed: water falls from the sky; it fills our rivers, it soaks our fields, and we joke about it—it is part of who we are. But in Afghanistan there was no humour; only heat, dust and desperation. There I saw children trekking miles through the desert, not for food, not for money, but to beg for clean bottled water. Once we have seen that, and once we have felt that fear, we can never take water for granted again. We never again believe it is something we can waste or pollute or privatise without consequence. That is why I have brought forward this Bill: because anger is not enough; outrage, no matter how justified, will not fix the pipes, stop the sewage or fill the reservoirs. We need a plan. We need a strategy. We need a future. We can do it better. My Water Bill delivers that. It sets out the high standards our country deserves and the democratic governance our water system desperately needs. First, it establishes clear, ambitious targets to stop the sewage in our rivers and on our beaches, to restore our water to high ecological and chemical standards, and to deliver universal, affordable access to water as a basic human right—a right we have never had before in this country. It demands a system designed not just to extract profit but to adapt, to build resilience in the face of climate change, and to harness nature-based solutions that work with the environment, not against it. Secondly, it transforms governance. The Bill introduces representation for workers and local communities on the boards of water companies. It gives voting rights to employees and customers, so that those who use and maintain a system have a real say in how it is run. Water is not a commodity but a common good, and those who depend on it and pay for it should help govern it. Thirdly, the Bill lays the foundations for a democratic future. It establishes a commission on water ownership to advise the Secretary of State on long-term strategy, looking at international best practice, especially in OECD countries, where public water ownership is the norm, not the exception. Crucially, it creates a citizens assembly on water ownership to bring the public into the process, to deliberate, debate and decide how we can govern this most precious of resources. The public care, but how do I know that? I know because a small fraction of them are in the Public Gallery today, having travelled here from all over the country; I know because of the thousands of emails that have been sent to MPs across the House; and I know because those people will never stop campaigning until this injustice is resolved. They know that we can protect something not by selling it off, but by standing up for it, involving people in its care and ensuring that it serves the public, today, tomorrow and for generations to come. My Bill offers a pathway out of crisis. It offers control, resilience and democracy. It is not just about cleaning up our rivers, but about cleaning up the system that allowed them to be polluted in the first place. Privatisation is not just a problem—it is the problem. We can do it better. I can hear some people on the Labour Benches thinking, “But we have just passed”— Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab) You can hear thinking? Clive Lewis I can now—for my next trick, I can hear thinking! I can hear them thinking, “But we have just passed the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025, Clive, so what are you talking about?” Yes, we have, but I am afraid to say it has been watered down—[Interruption.] Sorry, I had to get that one in—it was all going so well. The Act does not live up to what was promised, it does not deliver what is needed, and it certainly does not live up to its name. Do not get me wrong: it is a start. Grahame Morris I congratulate my good and hon. Friend on making an excellent speech and on advocating for public ownership of water and the opportunity to make things better. Does he agree that the mismanagement of the water companies under privatisation is a huge indictment of the whole principle? In my area, bills are way above inflation and huge dividends are being paid by borrowing money. At the very least, should our Government not be looking at stopping the payment of bonuses and share dividends while sewage pollution continues, and we have appalling mismanagement of the industry? Clive Lewis I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I agree with him wholeheartedly and I am just about to come to that point in relation to what the Water (Special Measures) Act does and does not do. It addresses some of those points, but as we have already discussed, privatisation is not just a problem, but the problem, and it is a big part of why so much has gone wrong. Unfortunately, the Water (Special Measures) Act does not live up to what was promised or what is needed, and it certainly does not live up to its name. However, it is a start, and I praise my colleagues on the Front Bench, including the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Haltemprice (Emma Hardy), who has done so much work in this area. Unfortunately, the Act is not a solution. Remarkably, my Government’s Water (Special Measures) Act does not even define what clean water means. There are no standards or targets—just vague intentions handed over once again to a regulatory system that has already failed us and to the companies that caused the mess in the first place. It says nothing about better governance, and absolutely nothing about the big, fat, humongous elephant in the room: who owns our water? If we do not deal with ownership, we cannot deal with accountability. If we cannot deal with accountability, we can forget clean water. No—we must go further on clean water standards, corporate accountability and what happens when companies fail. Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab) Does my hon. and gallant Friend accept that there is increased accountability in the Water (Special Measures) Act through the fact that many companies in the industry are now rewriting their articles of association to ensure that they are accountable not just to shareholders, but to the customers and users of water? Clive Lewis After 35 years of abject failure, it is too little, too late. My Bill would put the final nail in the coffin of this sorry chapter of our country’s water and water system. Neil Coyle Sticking with the puns, I commend my hon. Friend on his gallons of passion; he is always making waves. He criticises the Government’s legislation, which is obviously not yet in effect, but does he think that the Cunliffe commission will go any way towards addressing some of the concerns he has outlined? Clive Lewis Unfortunately, I do not, because again the elephant in the room—who owns our water—has been ruled out of the Cunliffe commission’s operational process. It cannot actually look at that issue. I have no issue with Sir Jon Cunliffe, but let us not forget that he originates from the Treasury—he probably has Treasury brain. That economic orthodoxy is part of the reason why we are in the place that we are. I do not have so much confidence in the Cunliffe commission, but I do have far more confidence in the People’s Commission on the Water Sector, which is being run by academics and which will report at the same time. I will be very interested to hear what it says. Neil Coyle Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis Those are the reasons why I have brought forward this Bill. The Government’s Act does none of those things, but my Bill does. Take just one example— Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani) Order. I believe Mr Lewis probably cannot hear interventions, because he is so loud himself. Members should intervene loudly if they wish to intervene. Clive Lewis I did hear the intervention, but I wanted to make some progress. Take this one example. Under this Bill, if a water company breaches the terms of its licence with a major sewage discharge, it can forget shareholder payout and piling on more debt. If it does it twice, it is in the last chance saloon. After three strikes, it is out—licence terminated and on its bike—and those price-gouging, asset-stripping, river-killing vulture capitalist outfits will be rolled into the sunset without a penny in compensation. What about those water infrastructure assets that they have been sweating for private gain? They go back into the public realm, thank you very much. If they start whining about debts, do not worry: we will do a full audit of what they invested, what they racked up in debt, what they paid out in dividends and what they stuffed into bloated executive pay packets. I will tell you this, Madam Deputy Speaker: I am yet to see a single privatised English water company walk away with anything other than a well-earned spanking and a sharp haircut for its creditors. Those assets will belong to the public once again, and we will not pay a penny more than they are worth. I can hear people thinking, “Where will the money come from? How will you invest in publicly owned water without the private sector?” I will tell them where it has not come from in these past 35 years—I am mind-reading again. Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab) Will my hon. Friend give way? Clive Lewis I will just make some progress, and then I will give way. I am on a roll. Let me tell the House where the money has not come from for these past 35 years. It has not come from private shareholders or long-term thinking, and it certainly has not come from some mythical well of benevolent capitalism. The private companies have put in less than nothing; in fact, they have racked up more than £60 billion in debt. Thames Water has paid more than £7.2 billion in dividends since privatisation, and is now £15.2 billion in debt and counting—work that out. Now, it is trying to plug the hole with a £3 billion emergency loan that will cost 10% in annual interest. That is more than half a billion pounds a year, just for interest payments, courtesy of our bills. That money will not build a reservoir, fix a pipe or clean a river, but it will keep a rotten system afloat for a little longer. Noah Law My hon. and gallant Friend makes an impassioned case for public ownership—something that, in the right context, I am sure Members on all sides of the House can celebrate. On the point about the cost of financing to the public, though, does he agree that while there are some serious indiscretions in parts of the industry, such as in Thames Water’s case, this conversation about the appropriate financing model would be better entertained at a time when the cost of capital in the private water industry was not lower than the cost of public sector borrowing, on which, of course, we are in a very difficult situation? Clive Lewis The cheapest borrowing in the country, without a doubt, is public sector borrowing. The private water industry, which has had 35 years to sort this mess out, is not going to find investment. It is up to its eyeballs in debt. It is relying on a 50% increase in our bills by 2030, if we include inflation, and that is in the middle of a cost of living crisis. How can we justify that? The answer is that we cannot. Mr Frith The day after the seizure of public assets that my hon. Friend is describing, billions and billions of pounds of debt will come with it. What does he propose to do with that debt, other than refinancing, which is exactly where we are at now with the industry requirement to refinance the debt to try to keep bills down? Instead, he is advocating that the public purse take on that private debt. Clive Lewis At the beginning of my now seemingly rather long speech, I think I referred to a failure of imagination. Ask what Margaret Thatcher would have done when she was faced with similar problems. She would have fought her way through it. She changed the very fabric of our economy, our democracy and our politics, and she made it work. We can do the same, because the public are behind us. They want this to work. Mr Frith rose— Mark Ferguson rose— Clive Lewis I will make some progress. Let us recap, because I do not want to go on too long; I want to conclude, if I can. That money from Thames Water—that half a billion pounds in interest payments—will keep a rotten system afloat for just a little longer. The myth of privatisation is that the private sector will act in the long-term interests of the British public because it wants to turn a profit. That is preposterous, as is proven by the state of our water, and exhibit A is Thames Water. We can now turn to the question of where the investment will come from. Under public ownership, it will come from the only place it ever should have—from us, the public—and every penny of it will go back into the system. It will go into the pipes, the rivers, the seas we swim in and the water we drink. There will be a direct relationship between what we pay and what we get, with no offshore dividends, no bloated bonuses and no debt-laden shell games—just clean, accountable, democratic water. When I was in Afghanistan, every soldier had one critical duty: to stay hydrated. To dehydrate was considered a military offence, because it put the soldier and their team at risk. If someone ran out of water, we did not debate markets or metrics; we shared what we had. We had each other’s backs. As the desert-dwelling Fremen in James Herbert’s novel “Dune” believed: “A man’s flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe”. It is time our water returned to the tribe, to the people, to the public. We can do better; we must, and with this Bill, we will. I commend it to the House.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-1905614329543532962/amplify_video_thumb/1905612252947865600/img/4N7RnIbeKkSuIXsR.jpg)
