Cool, would appreciate hearing your perspective on what you find. Sorry for getting a little carried away at times, it is a topic that I have particular interest in and have spent a considerable amount of time over many years really looking into trying to understand as best I can. Reading and trying to interpret available published articles as well as discussing with others with extensive personal experience and real credentialed knowledge even to the level of Patrick Arnold himself.
It's all good bro, I feel your passion for the subject. I just want you to understand that I have zero passion for it, so my research will never be as deep as yours. I am however quite well educated, and a little bit of a scholar who is very critical of sources. I have no horse in this race - If the result is that USADA is corrupt and bad, or that USADA is perfect, I don't really care. Meaning I am not going into this with an already formed hypothesis, and I am not looking for a specific result.
Lets start with the important part
Jon Jones "popping".
The fact is - Jon had the illegal substances in his body, at a very low value, but enough that it was illegal at the time.
“USADA has changed some of the rules regarding picograms and what’s allowed, and I’ve come to find out that all my findings are all under the new legal limit, meaning that I would’ve been cleared from every test that I’ve ever taken, and that means a lot to me,” Jones told reporters at Wednesday’s UFC 285 media day.
Jones previously failed multiple drug tests for androgen-related substances. The first came ahead of his rematch against Cormier, which was originally scheduled for UFC 200 in 2016.
He tested positive for estrogen blockers clomiphene and letrozole."
So yeah, Jon had illegal PEDs in his body, illegal under old rules, legal under new rules.
One question I would like to ask USADA is why they changed the limits. Is it because so many supplements are tainted that everyone would pop? Is it because we naturally produce PEDs that could make a test pop?
Since this is the first time in USADA history they have talked about pulsing, and just in general been hella confused about a test, the big question here is - What did Jon have in his body that confused the tests like that? Why does other athletes, even the ones who really pop for roids, not pulse? The whole situation is extremely weird, but I don't really land on the side of USADA being corrupt/bad, more on the side of USADA finding something in Jon they had never seen before.
It really makes me wonder what kind of deal Jones made with USADA when he alledgedly snitched on other ped abusers, and if that deal explains why Jon is the only person in the world who pulses low value PED's. Honestly the research into this just leaves me with more question, that can't be answered unless both Jon and USADA decide to reveal the truth.
USADA
I have found no evidence scouring the net, that USADA is corrupt or bad at their job - and I have looked. The general perception of them from medical experts here in europe/scandinavia, is that USADA is one of the best orgs for drug testing. This is medical doctors and experts on performance enhancing drugs, and even athletes saying this.
Contrary to that, all the places where they test themselves (NBA, NFL, NHL and so on), is seen as bad at best, completely corrupt at worst. which isn't really a big surprise. And I completely understand why these multi million dollar companies do not want to work with USADA, as USADA can cos't them a lot of money when they catch offenders.
So on USADA my verdict is - They are the best we have according to experts. They are not perfect, but I can not find any other firm/org that is better.
About Patrick Arnold:
I have found no evidence that he was paid by the U.S government. I am not saying he was not, but everything I have been able to find that had sources, tells the same story -
"In 1996 he befriended Dan Duchaine, who introduced Arnold to Stan Antosh, the owner of Osmo Therapy, a supplement company then based in San Francisco. Antosh persuaded Arnold to move his research to a small company in Seymour, Illinois, called Bar North America, which was owned by Ramlakhan Boodram. In Seymour, Arnold reviewed old patents looking for drugs that had never made it to market or were used only briefly. Later that year he introduced androstenedione to the North American market, which became successful after Mark McGwire was found using it. But, because their company didn't sell andro directly to consumers, but only as an ingredient to other supplement makers, Arnold missed out on a financial windfall.[7]
In 2001 Arnold's company introduced the prohormone 1-Androstenediol, under the marketing name 1-AD. Like andro, 1-AD is a prohormone that is easily converted by the body into 1-testosterone, and it sold well. But the boom was short-lived. In January '05 an amendment to the federal Controlled Substance Act banned prohormones. The company lost 60% of their sales, and became unprofitable.[7]"
He clearly has a lot of knowledge on PEDs, but he obviously is also a morally bankrupt human being, so whatever he says I will take with a grain of salt.
It is obvious though, as we talked about earlier, that the PED producers will always be ahead of the PED testers (it is the same in any system - like hacking in games where hack developers always will be ahead of the anti cheats.) This is simply because the PED makers act, then PED testers have to react and create new tests to try and beat the PED makers, who will then make another different PED and so on and so on. Which I believe is also why some see PED testing as questionable - but in areas like this it will always be a cat after mouse game.
About the olympics and the government.
I do not think there is a sorta state sponsored PED program like Russia had/has. I don't think USADA protect american olympians. I am ready to change my mind on this if there is ANY evidence of them doing this, but I have found none.
I do believe that a lot of people in the pro sport scene is willing to cheat to win, and are willing to pay a lot of money to win. And where there is money, there will always be people willing to break the rules.