Back in January 2021, while writing for a different online publication, I published an opinion piece decrying the egregious gaslighting of the American public regarding the events that took place on January 6th of that year. I was specifically referring to the Trump rally on the Capitol Mall and later, the largely peaceful protest at the Capitol Building. Based on personal experience, training and a little bit of history, I pushed back at the terminology being used to describe the events of that day and which unfairly maligned American Citizens; Americans who were quite rightly dismayed about a Presidential election that was stolen right in front of them.
I was concerned that the gaslighting I described had not only infected almost the entire pundit class, but had also infiltrated the pulpit in American Mainline Protestant Churches. So, I attempted to correct the record. Within a very few hours of my article being published, I received a phone call from my Managing Editor. He informed me that under financial threat from the Social Network platform that provided our ad revenue aggregation services, he was forced to retract the article and disavow its content. Below is the retraction.
Overnight, this article about January 6th was published. Many details, opinions, and analysis contained in the piece were either incorrect or inappropriate. It has been retracted and we regret its publication.
This, or a version of it happened twice more in a very few days. Then, upper management changed the editorial rules. Instead of the free-wheeling environment where writers picked topics, wrote opinion pieces and directly published them. Certain (and growing number of) topics needed editorial review and approval. Eventually, all articles required such approval. A clear case of the leftists in Big Tech, co-opting conservative management as their enforcers. More on that another time.
Suffice it to say that this wasn’t good for conservative messaging. Fortunately some friends of mine retired out of the defense and intelligence communities and some in the private sector formed a non-profit (American Free News Network) to push back on this type of thing. In a singular act of poor judgement, they named me CEO and Chairman of the Board. But that too is another story.
Moving forward 2 years, Tucker Carlson of Fox News Network, is now releasing unedited security footage withheld by former Speaker of the House. These videos never saw the light of day during the multiple hearings by the House of Representatives or in our vaunted legacy media. Interestingly, yet not surprising to those of us who watched the original event play out, these videos have confirmed what we had been saying all along.
They also, completely and unequivocally contradicted the meme of violent insurrection being touted by the Jan 6 Committee, Impeachment hearings and as usual, the legacy media. But please don’t take my word for it. Read my original article below and decide for yourself. Decide whether or not the videos released by Carlson support my words, or the lies put forth by the left over the past two years.
Begin Original Article
Enough! Enough of the gaslighting by the press. Enough of the gaslighting by the party of slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, want, deprivation, envy and murder of the unborn in the womb. Most especially, enough of their “Republican,” enablers, who believe they can gain political favor or DC cocktail circuit invites, by promoting blatant lies about President Trump’s rally held in Washington DC..
What is even more egregious, these lies have already become, “common knowledge.” Her Majesty and I attended church yesterday, which we do every Sunday that she manages to pry my fat fundament out of bed. As part of the warmup to the sermon, one of our Associate Pastors offered a few thoughts, along with a prayer sent to the congregations in this district by our District Bishop (abridged to save digital ink with emphasis mine)
Compassionate God, we come before you with heavy hearts. We are grieved by the violence that has, occurred in recent days in Washington, D.C. Forgive us for any ways in which our actions, attitudes and words have contributed to the divisions, polarization and distrust that abound in our country.
God of the nations, we are grateful for the freedoms we enjoy as Americans. We thank you that, though our capitol building was stormed in an unprecedented way on January 6, order was restored, and Congress was able to complete its work. We pray for the peaceful transition of power in coming days.
God of comfort, we pray for the families and friends of persons who died in the chaos. We also lift up to you those who were traumatized and intimidated by what they experienced at our capitol building.
As a prelude to this prayer, our pastor gave a few introductory remarks, referring to ”unprecedented violence in our Nation’s Capital” and ”imagery not seen since 9-1-1.” Her Majesty and I, finally disgusted at this leftist contamination (the message not the messenger) of a place of worship, quietly got up and walked out. I would like to claim maturity points for not saying “Not true” in response to the pastor, but Her Majesty in one of her major roles, once again kept me from showing my large derrière in public, so I remained silent. But that didn’t stop me from sitting down and writing this.
I am beyond disgusted at just how quickly we’ve been gaslighted into a narrative that Just. Is. Not. True. Imagery reminiscent of 9-1-1?! Sorry. I must have failed to notice the two airplanes filled with hundreds of passengers crash into the Capitol Building, demolishing and killing 3,000 people. That reference belittles the loss of those people that day and the thousands of Allied troops who died in order to bring the perpetrator to justice. But that’s just how it is now. False comparisons everywhere.
Stormed?! Please! Aside from a couple of bozos who broke a window to get in, I clearly saw Capitol Police opening doors for protestors to enter, while appearing to cordially chat with them as they strolled through the building. As I’ve mentioned previously, the concerned Americans strolling through Statuary Hall, were all staying inside the velvet guide ropes, surely not the actions of a rabid mob bent on violence or chaos as promoted by the media and now my own church. Stormed? Tell that to American GIs who actually did storm “bloody Omaha” beach, that is, if you can find one. There aren’t many left.
Violence?! Yep. I saw some pushing and shoving along the barrier line. I also understand that a few officers were treated for injuries. Let me say here–If you touch a cop in the lawful discharge of his duties, your sorry butt should go to jail. However, with the exception of the above, most of what I saw were protestors waving flags and getting along famously with Capitol Police. There was also some minor property damage. Fine. That too should be punished according to law.
But in no way were the events in DC something even close to what ANTIFA/BLM have been inflicting on our cities and neighborhoods (many of them minority) for the past year. The piddly amount of property damage and injuries (yes, standard caveat, even one is too many) that occurred in DC pales when compared to the ANTIFA/BLM riots, arson, looting and outright assassination of police officers and other Americans who had the effrontery to show support for a duly elected President. Some estimates put ANTIFA/BLM property damage/destruction at over 15 billion dollars. The death toll is over 30. Side note: The fence that was rapidly put up around to protect “our betters” from their subjects immediately following the disturbance, likely cost more than the property damage inflicted by the few boneheads I mentioned earlier.
There was one fatality that has been confirmed as directly a result of a possibly unlawful act. That fatality was that of a U.S. Air Force Veteran who was shot by police while she was crawling through a hole in a door on her stomach and as such, absolutely no threat to anyone. My review of the stills taken at the scene, also showed law enforcement officers on her side of the door looking very relaxed as they made no effort to stop her…stop her before she was shot by another officer on the other side of the door.
The point of all of this wasn’t to rehash the events of the day. the objective is to point out just how deep the gaslighting has already gotten. The message from the media has already penetrated deep into our institutions…even to my own Church, where the hierarchy is already spouting the leftist line and asking member churches to do the same.
Starting that day as I watched the press reporting, reporting “facts” totally different than what Her Majesty and I were watching, I could tell that this was going to end up as an alternative history. Now, almost the entire country, including more than a few conservative pundits are using the leftist language, referring to the “chaos,” the “riot” and other nuns that are flat out untrue.
Let me be really clear. There was no riot in DC (especially compared to what ANTIFA/BLM inflicted on American cities). There was no insurrection. There was no “storming” of the Capitol Building. There was a peaceful rally. There was a largely peaceful protest that was marred by some bad acts by a very few people. There was and is, absolutely nothing to be traumatized or intimidated by. It’s time to tell the press, the politicians and even our pastors, stop the gaslighting.
As for the two officers who died, one from suicide and the other from as yet to be determined causes—our heartfelt prayers.* Same goes for Air Force Veteran Ashli Babbitt who was shot under questionable circumstances by Capitol Police.
End of Original Article
For two years we’ve been deliberately and maliciously lied to. Through hearings and a second impeachment, Democrats, ably supported by their media enablers have continued to foist this garbage on the American people. Those intrepid enough to push back were labelled “conspiracy theorists,” or outright censored/cancelled to one degree or another as I was.
One of the most evil memes going from that day, was that a Capitol Police Officer, Brian Sicknick was killed by rioters. The legacy media, promoted a false story about Officer Sicknick having died from being hit in the head with a fire extinguisher. Sadly, this falsehood was even pushed by an alleged Republican, then Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
Reminder, Liz Cheney pushed the Sicknick Lie. pic.twitter.com/6cE4BA5rkF
— The Columbia Bugle 🇺🇸 (@ColumbiaBugle) July 27, 2021
After almost 3 months of the left disseminating that falsehood far and wide, the DC Coroner finally and quietly announced that Officer Sicknick tragically died of natural causes. RIP. And now, due to the efforts of Tucker Carlson, we can see video showing Officer Sicknick was alive AFTER he was allegedly bludgeoned to death, thus validating the coroner’s belated admission.
Sadly, it has taken until now for even some of the legacy media to admit what many of us were saying all along. Even now, members supposedly on our own team are giving Carlson grief for publishing these heretofore withheld videos. Here is a video of the usual suspects lining up to undermine their own side along with their fellow Americans.
The good news in all of this, is that although it took two years, the folks in my circle have been finally vindicated for telling the truth. The bad news, is that it took so long, the old adage, “A Lie has made it halfway around the World while the Truth is still saddling its horse (or still putting on its boots)” still obtains. Even worse news, is that because of leftist lawfare or in my case, financial coercion, many conservative news and opinion outlets have had to take protective measures. These measures include additional editorial supervision and in some cases, outsourcing comments or restricting them to paid members. Of course, such measures serve only to stifle open and honest discourse. We’ll talk more on that on another day.
For now, those of us who have been been the targets of some pretty harsh language and even taken some financial hits for telling the truth, hope your will forgive us as we exercise a little well deserved schadenfreude as the left is forced to eat its words.
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Well stated, Colonel Ford! Here’s hoping and praying that more citizens will now stop living vicariously through media largely hellbent on dismantling America through globalist propaganda, and realize they’ll need to do more than vote to make it great again.
Thank You! Please pass it around. encourage your like-minded friends to drop bye AFNN.us and have a look around.
Regards,
Mike
Good for you for walking out from the pulpit sanctimonious sophistry and for starting AFNN!
The 1983 bomb in the capital and the 1950s gun attack were far more dangerous than Jan 6.
Also, how many acres is the capital building. It’s possible to have a riot in one location and hippie harmony in others. Not beyond the wit of man to conceive more than one thing happening at a time.
Our domestic enemies are Human Secularist Totalitarians. Commies, for short. Anything the Commies thought, said, and did is possible for them.
And worse, they’re captured by the Chinese “Communist” Party, which operationally is closer to Nazi Germany except trading the Fascists buzzwords for Commie ones and “Grossdeutsch Aryan” ethnosupremacism for the Han Chinese version.
While it certainly was more than just “mostly peaceful protest” and fits the definition of a “riot”, it cannot be correctly called “an insurrection”. Censorship is rarely correct, either. Free and open exchange of ideas makes us better rather than worse.
“Riot” in many ways is a relative term. Compared to what ANTIFA and BLM were inflicting on our cities and as James above said, “The 1983 bomb in the capital and the 1950s gun attack were far more dangerous than Jan 6,” looking at all the footage…nahhh…not really a riot (IMnsHO).
side note: When I was an instructor at SWCS @ Bragg, one of the subjects was how to start and how to quell a riot (depending if you were doing UW or FID). If I was grading this “riot,” the student would get a low “D,” at best.
Thanks for commenting…it’s good to have the discourse.
Regards,
Mike
Fearless Leader and esteemed readers, a better term for J6 is “Buffalo Jump”–which is what everybody who was anybody in the gun, militia and prepper communities called it pleading with everyone within earshot to “don’t go to the Capitol.”
There will be no justice for this until Ray Epps is under Due Process of Law duly tried as Accessory to Murder, duly convicted, duly sentenced, duly appeals-exhausted and duly executed and his head is delivered to the Babbitt family on a pike, preferably alongside after the same process that of his coconspirator the murderous psychopath Stormtrooper Byrd. (Note those words, you stupid Leftist and RINO jackoffs lurking in the shadows, I’m talking following DUE PROCESS OF LAW, something you Wastes of Viable Transplant Organs would know nothing about.)
The other problem is that too much of the Right has been less about policy and more about keeping the grift going for their gravy-train. How many books would Coulter or Hannity be able to sell if conservative policy were actually implemented and started turning the problems they make whatever royalty on $30-40 a copy on around? (I’m not going to name names, but there are several large Conservative Inc. websites that are more about Conservative Inc. as a business than about effective activism and advocacy… let’s just say there’s one where Kurt Schlichter is the only author in their stable I’ll click for.)
My own choice of words on this comes down to a simple issue for me. What percent of a crowd has to be rioters before you describe the entire event as a “riot”?
So for instance, if you went to a political rally full of hundreds of people, and five people rioted, it would be wrong for the media to describe the entire rally as a “riot”, would it not?
Same point here. There were more than five rioters on Jan 6, but it was still a small percent of the crowd. I think its obvious to say that most were not rioters.
Some people I think feel guilted into describing it as a “riot,” because they feel if they don’t, then they don’t have the moral standing to criticize BLM riots. Conservatives mocked the use of the term “mostly peaceful protests” by cable networks to describe rioting. Were they wrong? Not really, IMO, because was easy to distinguish BLM rioting which happened mostly towards the evening, from the large peaceful protests that happened in the day. The issue then wasn’t that the media avoided the term “riot” to describe crowds of peaceful protesters; but the media was avoiding the term “riot” to even refer to groups of rioters that were separate from the peaceful protesters. They were avoiding the term purely for ideological reasons; they felt it created the risk of an unfair narrative to even mention the r-word.
Personally, I like to be objective as much as possible, and extricate my language from the politics of the situation. And for me this means not describing Jan 6 as an event as a “riot.” To some, this might look political, but really I just like to be accurate and avoid political correctness.
Well, that depends. For instance, in 1993 I was at Dan’s Bake Sale in Fort Collins CO, where over 30K people got together to make fun of the Clinton administration taking bake sale money to pay off the national debt, and it was great. No arguments, no fights, when people bumped into each other, we just said “Excuse me,” and smiled. Hell, I gave the medics and cops their only excitement that day when a woman, distracted by her kids, let off on the brakes of her car and the bumper knocked me down, still laugh about that.
Two morons with anti-Limbaugh posters were there, and each was on the news showing “significant disagreement with the group….”
But you have thousands of BLM terrorists burning down buildings and it’s a “mostly peaceful” protest, remember?
The Stalinists must be defeated. It is hard to imagine that back in the era of Stalin, we would someday emulate him and his politburo methods in our own country. The Kafkaesque spectacle this week of DemoKrats attacking real journalists for committing journalism and exposing the Twitter Files would make Uncle Joe Stalin proud. Our own government has in fact been weaponized against us. The Dems and their media hate the truth like cockroaches hate sunshine. More sunshine, please!!
Sadly, my bet is none of us will EVER see an apology from the parties responsible, not on the left and not from our so-called “friends”*snort* at Corporate Conservative Inc.
Wow! Someone from that other site posted this article in a comment. I’m glad they did. Now this site will be added to my list. Thanks for continuing to write great content!
Thanks for the kind words. Please pass our stuff around to like-minded folks.
We are always looking for Citizen contributors. Nothing says you gotta sit on the sidelines. If you have something to say, contact me at managingeditor@afnn.us
Regards,
Mike
Vindication is a good result… more soon.
It’s not vindication until the other guy chokes down some crow and admits it, though… like the old militay axiom tha your enemy is not defeated until THEY admit that they are.
Psalms 43:1 seems a relevant prayer for this time in history, though, as does Psalms 109:8.
I am reminded of Young Frankenstein, where the one-armed Inspector Kemp character played by Kenneth Mars (who had rallied the villagers with “A riot is an ugly thing… undt, I tink, that it is chust about time ve had vun”) is confronted by the Monster (Peter Boyle) who de-escalates the mob with his articulate reasoning, at which point the Inspector acknowledges the change in circumstance and invites everyone back to his place for wine and spongecake.
Will certainly pass this on. We were right on this, on the faux pandemic, the deadly shots & the stolen election.
About time the people who believe whatever they’re told finally get to the truth of all this pure evil.
Right on, Mike!
Glad to know that my wife and I are not the only ones to politely exit stage left in the midst of a left-leaning political sermon at church. (She too threatened to have me drawn and quartered if I made a scene).
Glad that (painful as it was) your past editor’s censorship and lack of intellectual integrity occurred, because we won in the end- by having you at the helm of this great FREE news source.
In his defense…it was not the editor’s decision. Not too long after that, he resigned his position. He’s one of the good guys….and a long-time friend.
Been a contributor since beginning of the year because of you and EV. So when is Streif coming on?
He contributes here once in a while. I’m trying to convince/coerce/bribe him to come over and replace me as the Managing Editor. Maybe you could get a grassroots thing going to convince him. He could easily do here what he did with Red State after Erickson and his cronies “never Trumped” it.
Roger!
I’ve had questions and suspicions about the road to that event for a long time… like somebody in Conservative Grift Inc senior management *stares pointedly at Garthwaite and his butt-remora* felt the need to illustrate my point about those who are in the game for tangible poliy results vs those only in it for a revenue stream and thus endowed with disincentive to solve the problems they rail about.
Similarly I suspect us of the Mod Team over there were being set up for a fall even before he was.
For the past two years, since “Great Leader” Biden cheated his way into the White House, our country has careened headlong toward the edge of despotism and autocracy. When a majority of government agencies and 90 percent of the media are little more than acquiescent weapons for the socialist Democrats, and you have an obedient and imprudent puppet for a president, censorship and worse are the result. Americans have a choice in 2024–more tyranny and oppression or a return to freedom and restoration of the great nation that many of us can still recall.
Sadly, Mike, there are still those at ‘that other online publication’ and elsewhere that persist in maintaining the Democrat J6-21 narrative, even in the face of evidence to the contrary via ‘guilt by association’; ie, that since there WAS some violence, all are culpable, ignoring even the possibility that the violence that occurred was at the hands and direction of agents provocateurs in the employ of the FBI and others in The Deep State.
But we must persist even in the face if willful obtuseness. Keep up the good fight with the cheery attitude that is your trademark.
I remember well your being censored that day. How incredible to think that this website was birthed from that moment. A silver lining indeed.
Unfortunately, I don’t think very many Americans are capable of changing their minds anymore regardless of the evidence. Many Americans have lost too much rational decision-making ability for these videos to make enough of an impact… More’s the pity.
Maeve, that’s actually by DESIGN. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Political Compass? Well, when I was young and being groomed to become an operative in the Establishment Machine, we were taught a variation you might call a “Diamond.”
At the top you have the very tiny Uniparty Establishment, vastly outnumbered and highly unpopular with everybody else. At the bottom you have the Reformists of both sides who want to derail the gravy train and end or even merely slow and manage the grifting by Establishment Inc and its camp-followers and rent-seekers. These people MUST be prevented from gaining power BAMN. Enter the other two points, the “kabuki show” pitting Far Left and Far Right at each other’s throats with the object of gaslighting those who would otherwise work together and tear the whole rotten mess down into tearing EACH OTHER down instead, classic Divide & Conquer.
The Soviets, the Nazis and many other totalitarian regimes have used the same trick for centuries, at least back to the Jacobins if not before–keep everyone afraid and distrusting of everyone else, and you create a culture that’ll throw their own mothers under the bus for the slightest table-scrap of Regime favor.
Thanks for the update. One of the reasons I came to this site, what that you had left ‘the other’ site. I stop in here regularly to see what the contributors have to say. Thanks again for your posts.
Welcome. If you like what you see here, pass the word around. We are entirely donation driven and all volunteer…so…no ads. Only people getting paid are the web hosting service and a couple technical contractors that do stuff we cannot do ourselves.