I do smile to myself when pet topics of mine are occasionally refreshed in the broader interwebs where more than three or four people may read about it. Still, in so many cases, far too few bother to recognize the importance of the phenomenon playing out right under their noses. One of these occasions happened earlier this week when Instapundit linked the observant reader to a reminder of the “pipe bomb” story from January 6, 2021 that isn’t…that is, the reliably incurious and/or dutifully compliant major media complex has relegated it to a non-story.

Before going into this week’s reminder, I wish to first step back to my February 2022 post at the old site on the topic titled Or, the FBI Is Lying and part of my introductory paragraph:

In these quickening times, the abbreviated news cycles are so packed with fast moving events (and pseudo-events) that many things pass relatively unnoticed and disappear forever from our focus all too quickly. More and more these days I will come across a story…or even a short sentence within a story (see title above)…that illustrates quite well just why (I suspect) much of the background noise is purposefully injected into the news cycles. Certain inconvenient details and “knowns” must be snuffed out of our collective memories ([along with] the text of the narrative used to push our buttons at critical moments long ago) and reminders of them must be muted as much as possible. …

Little more than a longer winded way of describing what I now call the silent or anti-narrative.

The focus of that post was on the rather suspicious timeline and players involved in discovering the “pipe bombs” just as Congress was about to begin its work for the day. (Yes, I believe quotes are required around the term for the offending item.) The conversation after the post was more enlightening that the post itself. First of all, photos of the devices were brought into the discussion. Below is the photo of the device found at the RNC:

Again, I will freely admit that I have never made a pipe bomb of any sorts but if I was going to make a couple of props for a cheesy play or movie they would look a lot like this. But the FBI assured us, in a curiously worded and very brief report, that “both devices were, in fact, hazardous and could cause great harm to public safety.” “Hazardous”? (In what way, exactly? That may seem obtuse to some of you but that kind of scrutiny of oddly worded statements should become reflexive when dealing with people who have made a habit of lying to you. Some of us honed the required skills during the Clinton administration. But I digress.) But wait, there’s more. The FBI has video of the suspect from the night before:

To repeat what I said back in February: “At the very least, it seems at times that this dude knows where at least some of the cameras are and is intentionally documenting his presence. Are his ‘random’ wanderings really ‘random’? Why no tracing on his phone?” Again, when rounding up January 6 protesters and/or rioters, the FBI can track down anyone who even farted on Capitol grounds that day, but this guy who wanted the world to see him and made sure of it has just disappeared into the ether.

That not a single major, semi-major, or even insignificantly minor state media outlet finds any of this the slightest bit curious is telling. Of course, any kind of investigation into these laughably constructed props and the actor in the video could be very interesting…imagine if you will, if these had been found on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago during the summer of 2020. Do you suppose there would be untold dozens of NYT investigative reports with pipe bomb, phone tracking, and any number of other experts questioning the legitimacy of the planted narrative? Do you think the media would be bull-dogging this and keeping a frenzied hysteria in every news cycle until they got credible answers? Of course they would. But then, the obvious follow-up questions would come: Why were fake bombs planted? Who was the actor playing the part of the bomber? Who was he working for? … … …

So, now that I’ve semi-ranted for way too long, I do appreciate Bill Livingstone revisiting the topic this week at American Thinker:

January 6 Pipe Bombs Get Curiouser and Curiouser

Pipe bombs were planted on the night of January 5, at the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC), according to the FBI.

Or were they?

As evidence this occurred, the FBI released surveillance videos showing a suspect, a man wearing a hoodie, carrying a backpack, walking by the RNC bomb site and sitting on a bench next to the DNC, between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. the night of January 5.

The pipe bombs had 60-minute kitchen timers, which means had they been armed and viable they would have detonated before 9:30 p.m. on January 5. But they didn’t. Both could have been duds. Or they could have been constructed for other purposes. …

About an hour before [the pipe bomb at the RNC was found], Vice President-elect Kamala Harris traveled to the DNC to use its recording studio to tape messages to send to political supporters. Prior to her arrival, the Secret Service conducted a security sweep and did not find a bomb. Had they done so, Harris never would have been brought to the DNC and word of the explosive device would have been made public.

The Capitol Police counter-surveillance team showed up at the DNC, which would have had a perimeter defense set up by the Secret Service. …

Knowing the DNC grounds were clean, the Secret Service gave a green light to the CSU [Counter Surveillance Unit] to search for an explosive device. Just minutes after they began to investigate at 1:07 pm, lo and behold, the CSU “found” a pipe bomb that was in plain sight at the base of a bench, alongside the building. At 1:14 pm, Vice President-elect Harris was evacuated from the DNC.

[Emphasis added]

Yet, silence. Twenty months later…silence. More:

The pipe bombs caused several things to occur. They siphoned away security resources from the Capitol, and increased the security issues that had to be handled, distracting the police from managing events on the Capitol grounds. In the escalating mayhem, the weakened police force could not contain the unruly protestors, who broke into the Capitol and entered the building.

The “conspiracy theories” can snowball from there. (Yes, I believe the quotes are appropriate. The deafening silence from those whose job it is to shine light on these things makes it so.)

On a related note, I wonder how many times the term “pipe bomb” shows up in the official transcripts of the illegitimate Liz Cheney J6 sideshow. My guess is that the answer is slightly less than one. If I am anywhere close to being correct on that…well, that would answer a whole slew of questions on that front too.

Question the silent narrative. Stay curious.

Into the abyss…