I stopped reading Danger Close Domestic Extremist #1 Comes Clean by Patrick Byrne 31% into the book just long enough to urge those who appreciated his previous book The Deep Rig to get this new one to read. I was at the part in the book that started “In early February 2016, I met with the two FBI agents again. They brought a third agent, for the following reason. They said that in 2008 a law was passed that made it possible, under certain circumstances, for the Director of…” You’ll have to read the book for more details (I don’t want to rankle the AI surveillance of content for triggers), but this one made my head explode. Some may think this book’s more fable than truth, more fairy tale than actual entanglements with the USG involving diverse covert operations over a lengthy period of time, but remember “Truth is stranger than fiction.”Byrne is intelligent, discreet, adroitly adaptive and analytical, and has been relied upon by many in the upper echelons of DC elite. His academic background includes a: Certificate from Beijing Normal University, BA from Dartmouth, M Phil. from Cambridge (Marshall Scholar), and PhD from Stanford. This book is riveting in its explosive subject matter, and informs readers about things unknown to or ignored by the press over the last 9 years. The book is a combination of Byrne’s first person narrative, a question and answer session with an interviewer, and observations of those who’ve interviewed him such as this one: “Byrne believes what the country is experiencing is due to capture. ‘It is as Federalist #10 predicted,’ says Byrne. ‘In designing the Constitution, Madison wrote, they looked at previous attempts at Democracy, ancient and modern, looked at what made those experiments fail, and tried to design a better system. But they knew that there was a problem they had not figured out how to solve, and it was the one that took down republics more than any other problem: the problem of special interests and the corruption they bring.’”There are only a handful of books written by players during the Obama and Trump administrations that are worth reading. This is one of them. I’ve followed news stories involving this former CEO of Overstock for a long time. As a retired securities broker, I wondered who this corporate guy was, blowing the whistle on Wall Street about collusion and naked short selling, culminating in the SEC’s 2007 ban on naked short-selling of financial firms already affected by the mortgage crisis. Many corporate guys are far more practiced at swiveling with scotches than sniffing out significant corruption while winning judgements and court awards. Sometimes it may appear Byrne likes to color outside the lines, but upon study, patterns emerge and point to bad actors doing what they do best. So many in this nation are quick to brush away whistleblowers as wearers of tinfoil hats. For any that might be inclined to envision Byrne wearing one, be sure to notice the writing above the brim that reads “Hear Me Out.”