In 2006 I was forced out of the University of Wisconsin for researching 9/11 and drawing politically-incorrect conclusions.* Ironically, the University’s unofficial motto is “fearless sifting and winnowing.” That expression is drawn from a famous plaque on Bascom Hill:

“Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

Let’s break down that motto.

“Fearless” means overcoming fear of finding truths that you aren’t going to like, and that may even damage your career and reputation. It’s always better to set partisan emotions aside and dispassionately seek the truth, then let that truth form the basis of your emotional reaction, rather than let your emotional reaction dictate what you think is the truth. As scripture says, always “ascertain the truth.”

“Sifting and winnowing” implies looking through all the evidence and context in search of the most relevant items, discarding the ones that turn out to be weak, and highlighting what’s important. It’s an archaic “wheat from the chaff” metaphor from an age in which most people were familiar with agricultural work. Today, an honest and dispassionate search for truth may be as obsolete as sifting and winnowing grain by hand. But since I’m an epistemological Luddite, I’m still doing it that way. Your paid subscriptions to this Substack make that possible.

The July 13th “Trump shooting” is obviously the kind of event that requires fearless sifting and winnowing. The official story is brilliantly summarized by the inimitable James “9/11 in 5 minutes” Corbett:

On July 13, 2024, former US President Donald Trump was giving a speech at a (s)election campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, when a 20-year-old who was kicked out of his high school rifle club for being a dangerously bad shot climbed up on the completely unsecured roof of a building being used as a police staging area within 150 metres of the former president. Before shooting, that you man spent minutes fumbling around on the roof while concerned onlookers desperately tried to warn law enforcement officials of a man with a gun. The counter-snipers at the rally, perched on a sloped roof behind the president, scoped out the man (who had already been spotted by police and even confronted by one police officer) on the roof (a roof that couldn’t be secured because it was sloped) and waited until he successfully fired on Trump before they fired back at him. The would-be assassin died, as did a 50-year-old fire chief in the crowd. Trump, only grazed in the ear, boldly climbed to his feet just in time for a picture-perfect publicity stunt. Then he shouted “Fight! Fight! Fight!” before being led off stage by his valiant Secret Service detail.

That’s the official story of the attempted Trump assassination, and if you question any part of it then . . . congratulations. You’re a conspiracy realist whose head is screwed on straight and who knows even a little bit about actual history.

Since the official story obviously lies somewhere between wildly improbable and a complete joke, we need to start fearlessly sifting and winnowing, beginning by asking the million dollar question: cui bono? Who gains? Since we know the American oligarchy includes both pro-Trump and anti-Trump factions, the obvious possibilities are (1) a botched assassination attempt by the anti-Trump faction, or (2) a fake assassination attempt by the pro-Trump faction. As my regular readers know, I think the preponderance of evidence favors alternative #2.

But that doesn’t mean that all of the evidence for that hypothesis is what it seems. Two items of evidence I had cited in previous articles have turned out to be weak.

First, and most importantly, the claim by an anonymous “Secret Service ballistics expert” reported by the AP—that an actual 5.56 round would have likely ripped Trump’s ear off and caused a huge concussion—has turned out to be false or at least exaggerated. How exaggerated? Can gun expert readers help me clear this up? The AP expert suggested that even a smaller, less powerful handgun bullet that nicked an ear would likely cause a serious concussion, due to its shockwave, and that a much higher-energy assault rifle bullet like the 5.556 one that supposedly hit Trump’s ear would presumably cause an even worse one. Yet there is no evidence that Trump suffered a concussion.

I wonder if my gun-savvy expert readers can convince me that the “Secret Service ballistics expert” was totally wrong, and that bullets can graze a person’s head without their shockwave doing any damage whatsoever. Would you, dear reader, volunteer to have a handgun bullet whiz less than an inch by the side of your head, and expect to suffer no concussion? If so, would you also volunteer for the same experiment with an 5.56 round from an AR-15 at 400 feet? (Assuming, of course, that you could be assured that the bullet would pass within an inch of your skull, but not hit it.) These are real, honest questions. I don’t know the answer, nor am I assuming anything. The bullet that once whizzed by my head didn’t come close enough to settle the issue from personal experience.**

Another seemingly damning but deceptive item of evidence is the video that appears to show a Secret Service sniper firing the first three shots, the second of which allegedly struck Trump’s ear. I have been convinced by several astute commenters that the Secret Service sniper is probably reacting to shots, not taking them. If I’m wrong, drop a comment explaining why.

And speaking of astute comments, here is one that offers a seemingly plausible scenario explaining what really happened in Butler. It hinges on an aspect of the event that I haven’t yet written about: the evidence for a second shooter on the water tower. Is this scenario plausible? Why or why not? If you can find convincing evidence for or against it, please drop the links in the comments section.***

Another issue I didn’t address in previous articles is Trump’s apparent lie that “my hand was covered with blood.” Is this relevant? Why or why not?

And how about the Secret Service “dog that didn’t bark”? Letting a bumbling, autistic 20 year old amateur scope out the site with a drone, bring a gun and a ladder, and spend at least a few minutes getting into firing position in full view of witnesses who fruitlessly kept pointing and screaming at the Secret Service “there’s a guy with a gun on that roof” seems a tad odd. Even odder is the Secret Service’s willingness to let Trump get his fist-pump photo op, which exposed the former president to more potential shots. So who’s crazy: people who explain it away as incompetence, or those who doubt that Trump or any other Secret Service protectee would still be alive if the world’s premier protective detail were really the Keystone Cops?

And then there is the issue of the “magic bullet” allegedly photographed by Doug Mills. Were the odds against Mills getting this iconic photo, worth millions in publicity and even more as “proof” of the official story, really one in a million? If not, what were the actual approximate odds? And does the bullet path in the photo fail to line up with Trump’s ear?

There are undoubtedly more questions about the spectacular and spectacularly dubious 7/13 “magic ear shot” event that deserve to be sifted and winnowed. What, in your opinion, are the most important ones?

I’ll conclude with the words of Barrie Zwicker, a mainstream Canadian journalist who was marginalized after 9/11 due to his excellent work exposing the absurdity of that official story. I sought Barrie’s opinion thanks to another of my many astute commenters. Barrie replied to my email:

“Like Kevin, it took my skeptically-inclined mind really just minutes to spot the signs of a false flag op in the alleged assassination attempt on Trump. Besides multiple one-in-a-million odds regarding Trump being “nicked in the ear” by a bullet from an AR15, how about the timing? Much too convenient. Major red flag there. Alleged shooter promptly dispatched. So can’t testify, no kidding. The raised fist. The American flag as backdrop, Iwo Jima style. “God saved me,” declares one of the most God-forsaken sinners history has ever produced. Trump even sounded scripted, and we know he hates teleprompters. He hates anyone telling him to do anything. But he grudgingly goes along with the plotters and performed his role in the theatrical details. He is a performer, after all. A bad actor, in every way. Then there’s the key and central question: cui bono–who benefits? And the obvious answer: Trump and his deceitful far right wing movement are the beneficiaries. It was a psyop alright. Although, as Kevin points out, so many people have lost their minds already that also constitutes piling-on. I hold the faint hope that this particular deception will be exposed, and fainter still that if it is, that it will be in time to expose the plotters. My hopes are up against the record: false flag ops always go investigation-free.”

Is Barrie’s distaste for Trump misleading him? Or is it, in this instance, serving him well—like his distaste for Bush and Cheney helped him quickly get 9/11 mostly right? Let me know what you think.

*Prior to being blacklisted for my 9/11 scholarship I was never turned down for any of the many temporary teaching positions I had applied for at UW-Madison. My late friend and “Islam and literary studies” mentor Muhammad Umar Memon was a member of the first UW-Madison hiring committee that ever turned me down. That position was the spring 2007 “Islam: Religion and Culture” class. Dr. Memon privately said he and other members of the hiring committee were told by the university administration that I must not be hired due to my 9/11 notoriety. Meanwhile another insider, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Humanities Dean Howard Ross, became a whistleblower by publicly stating that I had already been selected for a heavily-federally-funded tenure-track Islam and Humanities position at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater when a member of the hiring committee with administration connections forced the committee to withdraw the prepared offer “because Barrett has screwy views on 9/11.” Ross alerted me to the situation with an email headed: “You were discriminated against.” (Unfortunately, discrimination on the basis of political views is legal in Wisconsin.) Rather than hire me, the university returned the money to the feds and closed the position. It was re-opened a few years after that, and a less-controversial friend of mine ended up getting the job.

**In February 2021 I was cross country skiing in the forest between Long Lake and the Wisconsin River when I felt the buzzing shockwave of a bullet at the exact instant a thick tree branch five feet from my head splintered with a tremendous bang, followed by a different, thunderously loud bang of a gunshot from off in the distance. Hoping it was a mistake by some lunatic hunting out of season, I yelled several times at the top of my lungs: “Don’t shoot!” Then I skied home and called the police. They spent several hours doing an investigation that consisted of knocking on neighbors’ doors and chatting. Late that night they returned to my house saying that they had identified the likely shooter as one of my neighbors. They said the shooting was a reckless mistake, that they had put the fear of God into the guy, and that he almost certainly wouldn’t do it again, but that if I wanted to press charges they could return the next day to search for the bullet and build a case. Since I knew the likely identity of the shooter—an ex-military neighbor with PTSD who occasionally annoyed other neighbors by firing heavy weapons in his yard—and since I had heard from my wife and son who knew him and his family that he was a good guy and even a supporter of my “conspiracy theories”—I declined to press charges. Later I befriended K-, who turned out to be an alright guy who will, I trust, have learned enough from the experience to stop taking careless potshots at shadows in the woods.

***Audio forensics evidence ought to shed light on the issue of how many shots came from where and when.