3/12/24: WHISTLEBLOWING PAST THE GRAVEYARD

Lately, we have been hearing in the news about accidents happening with Boeing aircraft. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether Boeing and its suppliers are following proper safety procedures in manufacturing parts for the planes. With bolts, panels, and tires detaching during midflight along with an increase in crashes, there is much speculation that the aviation giant is severely deficient when it comes to quality control. Between lawsuits, potential fines, and lost business, Boeing could lose billions more dollars with this recent streak of horrible mishaps. Furthermore, a former Boeing employee turned whistleblower was found dead inside his truck after providing evidence against the company. This compels us to ask the question: Do corporations hire hitmen to silence whistleblowers?  Tonight on Ground Zero (7-10pm, pacific time), Clyde Lewis talks about WHISTLEBLOWING PAST THE GRAVEYARD.

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I remember when I was a kid I had a father who was afraid of heights and so he was also afraid of flying. I too could not believe that something that big could safely go up in the air. Occasionally I would hear of the hijacking of plains — mostly to Cuba, plane crashes, and other mishaps and I thought a bus or a train would be safer.

As I grew older, I knew eventually I would have to fly, My first time on a commercial aircraft was when I was 18. I thought it was an adventure. I was glad that I had no fear and that the flight was smooth. I later learned that relatively speaking air travel is the safest form of travel — although when planes do go down they are a major tragedy as many die and others on the ground can perish as well.

Lately, we have been hearing about some accidents that have been happening with Boeing aircraft.

Last month it was reported that a Boeing Plane flying over Oregon lost its panel causing people to lose their cell phones and ripping the shirt off of a passenger.

The National Transportation Safety Board issued a preliminary report on the Jan. 5 incident today.

The report included a photo from Boeing, which worked on the panel, which is called a door plug. In the photo, three of the four bolts that prevent the panel from moving upward are missing. The location of the fourth bolt is obscured.

The investigators said that the lack of certain damage around the panel indicates that all four bolts were missing before the plane took off from Portland, Oregon.

Pilots were forced to make a harrowing emergency landing with a hole in the side of the plane.

Without the bolts, nothing prevented the panel from sliding upward and detaching from the “stop pads” that secured it to the airframe.

The preliminary report said the door plug, installed by supplier Spirit AeroSystems, arrived at Boeing’s factory near Seattle with five damaged rivets around the plug. A Boeing crew replaced the damaged rivets, which required them to remove the four bolts to open the plug.

Safety experts have said the accident could have been catastrophic if the Alaska jet had reached cruising altitude. The decompression in the cabin after the blowout would have been far stronger, and passengers and flight attendants might have been walking around instead of being belted into their seats.

The incident has added to questions about manufacturing quality at Boeing that started with the deadly crashes of two Max 8 jets in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether Boeing and its suppliers followed proper safety procedures in manufacturing parts for the Max. The FAA has barred Boeing from speeding up production of 737s until the agency is satisfied with quality issues.

Recently A tire fell off a United Airlines flight departing from San Francisco International Airport to Osaka, Japan. United Flight 35 departing to Osaka lost a portion of landing gear tire during takeoff.

The tire debris landed in one of the airport’s employee parking lots. There were no injuries reported

United said the flight had 235 customers, 10 flight attendants and four pilots — for a total 249 people on board.

The Boeing 777-200 has six tires on each of its two main landing gear struts. The aircraft is designed to land safely with missing or damaged tires.

A United Airlines plane ran off the runway in Houston, Texas. This happened after another Boeing plane had an engine that was on fire as well.

This incident itself came less than a week after passengers on a United Airlines flight from Houston, Texas, to Fort Myers, Florida, saw orange flames bursting from one of the plane’s engines 20 minutes after takeoff. The Boeing 737-900 made a safe emergency landing at George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

Yesterday it was reported that At least 50 passengers were injured when a packed Boeing jet suddenly nosedived sending flyers crashing into the ceiling, leaving bloodstains above their seats.

LATAM Airlines Flight LA800 from Sydney, Australia, was about an hour from its destination of Auckland, New Zealand, when “all of a sudden, the plane just dropped out of the sky.

People described the scene as being something similar to the exorcist as passengers were glued to the ceiling of the aircraft bleeding down on buckled in passengers.

The pilot stated that he was left in “shock,” saying that, his gauges just blanked out, and that he lost all of his ability to fly the plane.

All of these descriptions sound like a ’70s airport disaster movie — but it is happening a lot more recently and the authorities want answers.

Between lawsuits, potential fines, and lost business, Boeing could lose billions more dollars as they have had this streak of horrible mishaps.

There seems to be a pattern of near disasters with Boeing planes and now there is an investigation underway.

As I had said just after the pandemic was lifted there seems to be trouble brewing with the airline industry and all roads lead to Boeing.

The NTSB said Boeing has not yet provided the company’s records documenting the steps taken on the assembly line for the door plug replacement on the Alaska Airlines jet. Boeing’s reason: Those records don’t exist.

And the FAA said Boeing’s safety and quality problems extend beyond its inability to produce paperwork. Reviewing Boeing’s production workflow and standards, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said Monday that the regulator found issues with “really important” aspects of Boeing’s manufacturing and assembly line.

Boeing came into the year with an already bruised reputation. Restoring the confidence of airlines, regulators and passengers becomes more difficult with every new incident and bad headline.

But again the story gets worse — this time there may be an incident that sounds oh so familiar especially after we featured the Octopus murders and how whistleblowers end up dead or missing.

A former Boeing employee turned whistleblower has been found dead in his truck days after giving evidence against the company.

John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years before he retired in 2017.

He had been providing evidence of alleged wrongdoing at Boeing to investigators working on a lawsuit against the company at the time of his death.

Barnett died from a “self-inflicted” wound on March 9, the coroner said, and police are investigating the death.

He was found inside his truck in the parking lot of the Charleston hotel where he had been staying to complete interviews with investigators in the Boeing case.

Last week, Barnett had provided a formal deposition to Boeing lawyers and underwent questioning by both investigators and the company’s attorneys.

He was due for further questioning last Saturday, and when he did not appear for the interview, investigators sought him out and ultimately found his body at the hotel.

Beginning in 2010, Barnett was a quality manager at Boeing North Charleston factory producing 787 Dreamliner planes — relied on for long-haul routes.

Sadly these incidents are part of a long line of conspiracy mysteries where those who wish to talk meet very bad ends.

This compels us to ask the question; Do governments conspire to commit murder or do corporations hire hitmen to silence whistleblowers? There is a conspiratorial history surrounding the deaths of those who know too much.

We think about whistleblowers like Gary Webb, Danny Casolaro, and James Howard Hatfield and how they attempted to expose corruption and deep state activities and died under mysterious circumstances.

Karen Silkwood was a lab analyst and union activist at an Oklahoma nuclear facility. She became concerned about health and safety issues at the plant. In 1974, Silkwood testified before the Atomic Energy Commission about her concerns.

On several occasions, Silkwood discovered that her apartment was contaminated with high levels of plutonium. The highest concentration was in her bathroom and in a sandwich in her refrigerator.

Silkwood died in a mysterious car accident in November 1974 while on the way to meet a New York Times reporter and an official of her union’s national office.

The plutonium plant was operated by the Kerr-McGee Corporation, and she had been critical of the plant’s health and safety procedures. She had complained to the Atomic Energy Commission about unsafe conditions at the plant, The week before her death, plant monitors had found that she was contaminated with radioactivity herself.

She carried with her a folder full of documents that proved that Kerr-McGee was acting negligently when it came to worker safety at the plant. However, no such folder was found in the wreckage of her car, lending credence to the theory that someone had forced her off the road to prevent her from telling what she knew.

Silkwood had somehow crashed into a concrete culvert. She was dead by the time help arrived. An autopsy revealed that she had taken a large dose of Quaaludes before she died, which would likely have made her doze off at the wheel; however, an accident investigator found skid marks and a suspicious dent in the Honda’s rear bumper, indicating that a second car had forced Silkwood off the road.

Silkwood’s father sued Kerr-McGee, and the company eventually settled for $1.3 million, minus legal fees. Kerr-McGee closed its Crescent plant in 1979.

Another well-known conspiracy of mysterious deaths surrounding Bill and Hillary Clinton — these are called the Arkancide cases where mysterious suicides and deaths deem to follow the Clintons and the connections are just as incriminating.

John Ashe, a UN official who allegedly crushed his own throat while lifting weights, the media reported he died from a heart attack and that his wife claimed he had collapsed before. “He was scheduled to testify against the Clintons and the Democrat Party.” He died on June 22, 2016.

Mike Flynn, the Big Government Editor for Breitbart News. Mike Flynn’s final article was published the day he died, on June 23rd. His last article was about the Clinton Connection to the Chinese Triad called “Clinton Cash: Bill, Hillary Created Their Chinese Foundation in 2014.

Victor Thorn, Clinton’s author shot himself in an apparent suicide. Conspiracy theorists at Mystery Writers of America sarcastically stated that some guys will do anything to sell books. He died on August 1st.

Shawn Lucas, a Sanders supporter who served papers to the DNC on the fraud case, died on August 2.

The Clinton Body Count and Kill List were conspiracy theories back in the 90s, suggesting the Clintons ordered the murders of anyone who was in their way. Whether it was someone who knew about scandals, maybe a pregnant mistress or anyone who could get in the way of their campaigns.

According to the conspiracy theories, if you got too close to the ugly Clinton truth, watch your back because you might wind up dead. The Clinton Body Count and Kill List were names of people who conspiracy theorists believed died suspiciously. Many people on the Clinton kill list had committed suicide. There are many lists out there and the names have accumulated since the ’90s.

The Kill List began making the rounds after Deputy White House Counsel to Bill Clinton, Vince Foster was found dead by suicide on July 20, 1993. There were allegations that Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster were lovers. Author Christopher Anderson wrote a book titled, Bill and Hillary: The Marriage. The book explores the belief that Vince Foster and Hillary were lovers. Many people believe that Vince Foster did not commit suicide but was murdered.

Of course, there has been speculation about the death of Ron Brown, who was the Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration, who died in a plane crash in Croatia but was found to have a bullet hole in his head.

When the internet was gaining ground, the first cases of strange deaths were reported and it is believed the oldest case was of the young boys who may have stumbled upon that so-called, Mena Drug Operation.

On August 23, 1987, Kevin Ives and Don Henry, were two teenagers who wandered near the site of a Mena, Arkansas drug/cash airdrop. State medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, a favorite of Clinton who had cleared Clinton’s mother of causing the deaths of two patients to whom she had administered anesthesia, ruled that Ives and Don Henry “fell asleep on the tracks.” A second autopsy, performed at the parents’ request by another coroner, found that they had been stabbed in the back and that their skulls had been crushed before the train had run over their bodies.

The conspiracy theory at the time was that police officers murdered the two teenage boys because they witnessed a police-protected drug drop. The drop was part of a drug smuggling operation called the Mena operation. It was set up in the early 1980s by the notorious drug smuggler, Barry Seal.

The story has been forgotten and there was no real conclusion as to what happened because no one to date has ever been indicted for the crimes of Mena, including for the murders of Kevin Ives and Don Henry.

The truth is, many who wanted to testify died.

April 1988, Keith Coney claimed to know about the Ives/Henry murders but was killed before he could testify. After Coney had been slashed in the neck, he was fleeing for his life on his motorcycle when he slammed into the back of a truck and was killed. His death was ruled a “traffic fatality.”

November 1988, Keith McKaskle claimed to know about the Ives/Henry murders. He also was killed before he could testify. McKaskle, knowing that his life was in danger, had said goodbye to his friends and family. He died from 113 stab wounds that were inflicted upon him in his home.

January 1989, Gregory Collins claimed to know about the Ives/Henry murders. He was killed before he could testify. Collins was found dead from a shotgun blast to the face.

April 1989, Jeff Rhodes claimed to know about the Ives/Henry murders. Again he was killed before he could testify. Rhodes’ body was found in the city dump, where it had been burned. He had been shot in the head, and his hands, feet, and head had been partly cut off.

In July 1989, Richard Winters claimed to know about the Ives/Henry murders. Winters was silenced by a blast from a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun, killed before he could testify.

In June 1990, Jordan Ketelson claimed to know about the Ives/Henry murders, was silenced before he could testify was found in the driveway of a Garland County house. He had died from a shotgun blast to the head. His death was ruled a “suicide.”

Jean Duffey headed up Arkansas’ 7th District drug task force in 1990. She was never allowed to conduct a thorough investigation of drug running in Mena or any possible connection to the train deaths. Her task force and a federal grand jury were shut down after they started examining corruption involving public officials.

Dan Harmon was a local government official, the prosecuting attorney for Saline, Grant, and Hot Springs counties in 1979 and 1980 and then again from 1991 through 1996. He was convicted in June of 1997 on drug, racketeering, and extortion charges and has started serving eight years in prison. In January 1991, long before his drug offenses became public knowledge, Harmon convinced a judge to subpoena evidence obtained by Jean Duffey’s task force — evidence gathered against him and other public officials. Ms. Duffey refused to honor the subpoena, fearing for the lives of witnesses (many of whom did turn up dead), and fled the state when a warrant was issued for her arrest.

All of this happened under the usually acute political nose of then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton\

Another interesting and controversial Case includes an inference By Julian Assange that DNC representative Seth Rich was murdered because he was an alleged informant for Wikileaks.

Rich was murdered early in the morning of July 10, 2016. His wallet, his watch, and valuables were still on him, despite claims it was a botched robbery. Days later, WikiLeaks published the DNC emails. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to the capture of his murderers.

The bombshell story didn’t even make the blip on the radar of CNN, ABC and CBS.

Later, any and all talk of the Seth Rich Murder and connections to the e-mail dump and WikiLeaks was called cruel conspiracy theory spun in the alternative media.

However, one of the persistent oddities has been the classification of Rich’s murder by Washington police as a botched robbery when nothing was stolen, not his wallet, watch or phone.

The police claimed that they found no link between the DNC and Rich’s murder.

Even though there was a revelation forgotten by the media which was a largely overlooked email from John Podesta’s leaked account has him saying: “I am definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker.”

We can concede that the media has evolved and has now been swallowed up by the Deep State Octopus. The Octopus has been used in the past to describe the cabal of spies, spooks, crooks, and politicians who are the true secret government whose tentacles reach into every facet of our lives.

For over four decades, the bar has been changed as to what Americans expect from their government or their future one. There’s a reason that for each of the past two years, Americans have said that the largest threat facing our nation is the government itself.

The biggest threat is the Deep State – the insurgence – the resistance.

It can be argued that leaked information can be humiliating and damaging to American interests, however, perhaps it is time to finally applaud the efforts of those who have exposed the shadow government and how it operates autonomously from the people and believes that they have sovereign immunity of any of the crimes they commit.

There is a hard lesson to be learned when one decides to be a whistleblower — there is always someone out there or some syndicate that does not want the truth or at least controversy to be reported to the public.

Journalists and publishers are protected by the First Amendment which allows them to publish classified materials given to them by whistleblowers.

This is changing all over the world as countries that used to believe in a free press are now making examples of those who wish to expose those who criminally abuse their powers.

Fifty years ago, no U.S. publisher, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times or any other newspaper in the U.S. or abroad was prosecuted for publishing the classified history of the U.S. war on Vietnam, the Pentagon Papers although Nixon tried.

Daniel Ellsberg, who released the 4,000-page sordid, classified tale of U.S. military involvement, fully expected to be prosecuted as he was the one who gave classified information to the media.

The Nixon administration’s theft of Ellsberg’s medical records torpedoed President Richard Nixon’s attempt at prosecuting Ellsberg and the Times. Nixon continued to rail against Ellsberg as “the most dangerous man in America” because he, Nixon, was unable to put Ellsberg in jail.

No publisher in the history of the United States had been prosecuted until Julian Assange — others of course were either killed or were exiled like Ed Snowden.

After WikiLeaks and other media published in 2017 “Vault 7,” a list and description of the most C.I.A. materials about C.I.A. hacking capabilities to ever come into the public domain, Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr and C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo decided to try a new legal theory, one that had never been used in U.S. history.

Pompeo described WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service” and the Department of Justice charged non-U.S. citizen, Julian Assange, with espionage against the U.S. and demanded his extradition from England.

A conviction of U.S. charges of espionage could result in Assange being sentenced to 175 years in prison.

Again I say that never in the history of mankind have oppressors and deniers of free speech and press ever been the good guys.

We need to remember that now that we see that whistleblowers and anonymous sources are forced to reveal themselves only to realize that they are whistleblowing past the graveyard.

Written by Ron Patton