The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Lawfare: Do We Need to Have ‘Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day’?

Posted on | April 11, 2021 | Comments Off on Lawfare: Do We Need to Have ‘Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day’?

Most people have forgotten about Rebekah Jones, but then again, most people never knew about Rebekah Jones in the first place. Nevertheless, Jones is something of a celebrity to soi-disant “progressives” because in May 2020, she falsely accused Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis of manipulating his state’s COVID-19 data to hide the real numbers. This earned Jones plaudits from the liberal media as a “whistleblower” despite the fact that her claims proved to be false. Jones, who majored in communications and geography, has no expertise in epidemiology. She had been hired by the Florida state health department to do mapping with geographic information system (GIS) software and apparently engaged in unauthorized activity that got her fired from her job. This made Jones a heroic martyr in the eyes of liberals who were eager to depict DeSantis as an “anti-science” bigot.

Nearly a year later, of course, even liberals have been compelled to admit that DeSantis did a much better job with the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida than did such Democrats as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Events having validated the wisdom of DeSantis’s policy, Rebekah Jones would now seem to be irrelevant, destined to become a minor footnote in the history of this pandemic. But . . .

Florida is a swing state, DeSantis is being eyed as a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate and, as seen in the recent dishonest smear from 60 Minutes, many in the media are still eager to tarnish DeSantis’s reputation by any means necessary. Also (a) Rebekah Jones collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to support her “whistleblower” act, (b) she’s got a large and influential Twitter following, and (c) she still faces criminal prosecution in Florida. All of which means that Jones isn’t just going to fade quietly into obscurity, and she’s desperate to salvage her reputation. Unfortunately for Jones, she attracted the scrutiny of Human Events writer Christina Pushaw:

THE “FLORIDA COVID-19
WHISTLEBLOWER”
SAGA IS A BIG LIE

That 2,000-word article, published in February, is a must-read debunking of the Left’s hero/martyr myth about Rebekah Jones, and the result has been . . . Well, strangely familiar, for those who recall how Brett Kimberlin reacted to those who told the truth about him.

My podcasting partner (and former co-defendant) John Hoge has written a series of posts about the Jones v. Pushaw case:

What has happened, to summarize briefly, is that Rebekah Jones moved from Florida to Montgomery County, Maryland, and then swore out a peace order against Christina Pushaw, alleging “harassment.” Didn’t I tell you that this has been strangely familiar? And in yet another familiar move, Jones followed up by seeking criminal charges against Pushaw, alleging that she had violated a preliminary peace order. All of this is exceedingly weird, and also quite familiar to those of us who remember how Brett Kimberlin went after Aaron Walker (and subsequently sued half the Internet in federal court, but that’s another story).

I am informed that there will be a hearing in Montgomery County district court on Friday, and I wonder how y’all would feel about making Thursday “Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day”?

The Streisand Effect here could be quite remarkable.




 

Category: Florida

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