In The Mailbox: 12.06.22

Posted on | December 7, 2022 | 1 Comment

Forgot to note this yesterday, but Mark Steyn is doing a reading of “A Christmas Carol”. Part three is linked below.

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: An Entitlement That Can’t Be Fulfilled
EBL: Kirstie Alley, RIP, Should Ronna McDaniels Stay On As RNC Chair?, and John Bolton Threatens To Run For President
Twitchy: More Whimpering From Ben Collins About Elon Musk, also, Meet Twitter’s Newest Ex-Employee
Louder With Crowder: Elon Musk fires controversial Twitter lawyer over suppressing Hunter story, handling the ‘Twitter Files’, English teacher claims teaching kids to talk and write good is white supremacy, so she refuses to, and Oh my: Post-Liver King, Joe Rogan calls on The Rock to come clean about using steroids
Vox Popoli: Contemplating Infinity, Freedom or Foreigners, The Ultimate Troll, Brazil Wins, and Drone Attacks in Russia

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Of Course Trust in the Military Has Declined
American Greatness: Biden Supports Keeping Vax Mandate for Troops, Stop Virtue-Signaling and Prioritize Real Marriage, and Yes, the 2020 Election Was Stolen
American Thinker: Democrat Voter Fraud: A Brief History, also, A Corrupt, Evil Regime Intent on Imprisoning Trump
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Ben Franklin News
Babalu Blog: Cuban artist says she was censored at Miami’s Art Basel when she held up a ‘Che was a killer’ sign, Cuban woman has been waiting 5 years for her hurricane-damaged home to be repaired, and Question of the Day: Was fake Cuban president’s global begging tour a disaster?
BattleSwarm: Ukraine Hits Airbase 600 Kilometers Inside Russia, also, Followup: Ford F-150 Lightning EV Suffers Drastic Range Decrease In The Rare Weather Event Known As “Winter”
Behind The Black: Orion completes burn to send spacecraft back to Earth, Ukrainian rocket startup targets ’23 for first launch, Martian dunes, as far as the eye can see, and Today’s blacklisted American: Richmond restaurant to the Family Foundation: “No Christians served here!”
CDR Salamander: There Must be Consequences for Germany
Chicago Boyz: Fun with GPT-3
Da Tech Guy: A Somber Elon Musk Twitter Thought, The Biden Peak, and Don’t know much about history
Don Surber: Don’t feed the trolls — including NYT, WaPo and The View, “Vladimir” Zelensky goes after churches, Never Trump ?s the police state, and Supreme Court is over the target
First Street Journal: Watch out! The signs are there that the Biden Administration wants to reimpose mask mandates
Gates Of Vienna: Knife Jihad in Illerkirchberg, The Peasants of Elon’s Digital Fiefdom, Ukrainian Refugees in Poland Will Help Pay Their Way, and The Vax and Heart Health
The Geller Report: Iran Threatens to Turn the World into Graveyard for US, Israel, Saudis, also, George Soros can influence global media with ties to AT LEAST 253 organizations
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, A Golden Anniversary, How Did Socialists Cook Before Electricity?, and Nothing to See Here. Move Along.
Hollywood In Toto: Triangle of Sadness Drowns in a Sea of Socialist Wishcasting, Christmas Bloody Christmas Should Be Unplugged, The Sad, Predictable Decline of Sacha Baron Cohen, and Office Star Won’t Show Series to Her Own Kids (Maybe Never)
The Lid: Trust In Media Has Fallen To All-Time Low
Legal Insurrection: Louisiana, Missouri Release Full Fauci Deposition Transcript in Social Media Collusion Case, DOJ Subpoena to Twitter Demanded Info on Tara Reade’s Account After Accusing Biden of Sexual Assault, EU Threatens to Shut Down Twitter as Musk Eases Censorship Rules, and Republican Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon Running for Republican National Committee Chair
Nebraska Energy Observer: Free Speech Monday, also, I’m sorry but
Outkick: Joe Rogan Calls For ‘The Rock’ To Come Clean About Steroids Use, Deion Sanders Doesn’t Care About Your Feelings, Former Celtics Coach Ime Udoka And Nia Long Are Reportedly Finished After Scandal, Failed TV Host Bomani Jones Calls Deion Sanders A Sell Out For Leaving HBCU, and Is Soccer Finally Starting To Be Cool In America?
Power Line: Saving the World With Electric Vehicles, The Daily Chart: Take Your Lithium, and Notes on the Twitter Files
Protein Wisdom Reborn: On Censorship & Its Discontents
Shark Tank: Waltz Says U.S. Faces Mineral Crisis Against Red China
Shot In The Dark: I’m Old Enough To Remember, Today’s Joke – Tomorrow’s Reality, and Heavy-Handed Metaphor Alert
The Political Hat: Normalizing Medical Homicide In Canada: By Commercials; By Mandated Doctor’s Recommendations; By Proactively Making The Life Of The Living Insufferable
This Ain’t Hell: Return of an old ‘friend’. Be All You Can Be, Canadian VA official offers assisted suicide to Canadian veteran, and Armed Forces Qualification Test
Transterrestrial Musings: Objections To Mars Colonization, Lunar Landing Pads, and The Twitter Censorship
Victory Girls: Salon Strikes Again At Candace Cameron Bure
Volokh Conspiracy: Prof. Michael McConnell (Stanford) on 303 Creative (the Web Site Designer / Same-Sex Wedding Case)
Watts Up With That: Contra Yahoo News, “Weather Whiplash” is not Threatening Autumn Weather
Weasel Zippers: DOJ Targeted Tara Reade After She Accused Joe Biden Of Sexual Assault, ACLU Threatens To Sue Hospital If It Doesn’t Perform Transgender Surgeries, and Biden Chief of Staff: “Fiscal Responsibility Is Very Important To Us”
The Federalist: Though Not Victorious, The Christian Right’s Consistent Resistance To Child Sexualization Has Been Vindicated, Why Elon Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ Matter, Fauci Knows Everything But Remembers Nothing In His Big Tech Collusion Deposition, Dutch Government Takes Next Step In Its Climate-Crazed Crusade Against Nation’s Farmers, and MLB Still Won’t Apologize After Damaging Georgia’s Economy With Election Law Lies
Mark Steyn: Lab Leaks and Twitter Files, Doom and Decline, and “Rise! And Walk With Me!”

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Category: Linkagery

Headless Woman in Hopeless City

Posted on | December 6, 2022 | 4 Comments

How many murders involving decapitation happen in an average year in the United States? Pretty sure the number is small, but when your city is on pace for more than 500 murders a year — as is the case in “Killadelphia” — a certain number of statistical outliers can be expected:

Since the beginning of the year, Philadelphia police have been called 21 times to the Lawndale house where a woman was found decapitated this week, a law enforcement source said Thursday.
Seven of those calls to the two-story home on the 300 block of Magee Avenue were for reports of domestic disturbances. One of the calls was for a person with a gun and some of the others were reports of fights between a man and a woman, the source said.
It was unclear whether any of those incidents involved the victim of Tuesday’s homicide, Leila Al Raheel, 41, or Ahmad Shareef, the 34-year-old man accused of killing her.
Word of repeated calls to the home steps away from Tacony Creek is the latest development in a gruesome slaying that shook the Lawndale neighborhood.
Al Raheel was found dead in the home Tuesday afternoon, after police responded to a report of a stabbing and found her headless corpse.
Minutes later, police discovered Shareef hiding a distance away. They also recovered a knife, police said.
Shareef was charged with murder, abuse of a corpse, and possessing an instrument of crime, authorities said. He was being held without bail.
It was unclear what, if any, relationship Shareef and Al Raheel had beyond living in the same house, but authorities said the slaying was being investigated as a domestic homicide.

Now, I know what you must be thinking. It’s a murder in Philadelphia and the suspect is named “Ahmad,” so he’s probably . . .

Ahmad Shareef

Syrian! Surprise, surprise!

Neighbors said that as many as 10 people had been living in the house, and that some of them may have been staying in the garage. Shareef and at least one other man who lived there behaved aggressively toward others on the street, threatened neighbors, and got into fights, they said. . . .
One nearby resident, who asked not to be identified, said the occupants of the house were Syrian immigrants who had moved in about seven years ago. At first, the residents were welcomed to the neighborhood, but fights and arguments were soon heard constantly coming from the house.

You gotta admit, it takes a special kind of immigrant to be more disturbingly violent than the locals in Philadelphia, who murder about 10 people in an average week. And maybe the State Department needs to do a better job of vetting these “refugees.” Like, why are we importing bloodthirsty savages from foreign countries, as if the domestic population doesn’t already have enough bloodthirsty savages? But on second thought, if you’re going to resettle refugees from a war-torn country like Syria, they’ll feel right at home in Murder City, U.S.A.

Direct: Philadelphia is a war zone. Graphic video shows a criminal casually strolling up to a cop & shooting him in the head.?? pic.twitter.com/Vl1ITBYR0S

— W E P R (@WEPR19) November 30, 2022

A Philadelphia parking authority officer was shot in the head in broad daylight by a thug in the City of Brotherly Love [Nov. 25].
The suspect was caught on a surveillance camera walking up behind the 37-year-old male parking official and shooting him in the head at point-blank range at 3.50pm on the 4500 block Frankford Avenue the day after Thanksgiving.
The officer, who was on duty at the time of the crime, is seen in video footage immediately collapsing onto the sidewalk before help arrives.
He is now in stable condition and the PPA is hopeful he will make a full recovery, having primarily been injured in his shoulder and ear.
Police are still investigating the incident and have not yet made any arrests, but believe the victim was a ‘target’.
Following the shooting, Philadelphia Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said, ‘It’s bold. It’s brazen and something we’re definitely going to do everything we can to solve immediately.’
‘We believe he was the intended target,’ he continued. ‘We have some witnesses saying a car pulled up, shots were fired, and then a car pulled away.’

Well, at least he didn’t decapitate him . . .

Category: Crime, Pennsylvania

In The Mailbox: 12.05.22

Posted on | December 5, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.05.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Director Blue: A Single #2 Pencil Outsmarts The Entire Progressive Movement
357 Magnum: Even Texas Has Fallen To Bail Reform
EBL: Oh Canada – The State Has Suggestions For Making Healthcare “Affordable”, Tesla’s Electric Semi?, and Democrat Darling Michael Avenatti gets 14 more years in federal prison for fraud
Twitchy: TIME Gives Space To “Malignantly Racist Toxic Clown” Saira Rao, also, Ana Navarro Learns The Hard Way Not To Throw Rocks At Anyone Else’s Appearance From Her Big Glass House
Louder With Crowder: ‘This type of behavior…”, also, James Woods ready to go scorched earth after ‘Twitter Files’ identifies Democrats targeting him for deletion
Vox Popoli: EVs Are Not the Answer, Of Autism and Atheism, Excess Deaths Among the Educated, and Customer Support Breakthrough
Gab News: Gab Fears Only God
Stoic Observations: ChatGPT – First Look

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Just Accept that the Faux Pope wants to Destroy Tradition, also, No sex please, we’re unvaxxed
American Conservative: Putin’s ‘Winter War’ on Ukraine, When Civilization Goes Underground, and Taibbi, Twitter, And The Narrative-Makers
American Greatness: Ron DeSantis Says He Plans to Hold Pfizer and Moderna Accountable For Making False Claims About Their Shots, How Corrupt is a Corrupt Media?, and Zelenskyy Tried To Push America Into World War III
American Power: Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, and a Very Modern Media Maelstrom
American Thinker: The Democrats’ Contempt for the American People, The Media Undertakers Must be Getting Exhausted, and What If MAGA Shrugged?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Mother of victim in Cuba’s Bahia Honda Massacre refutes regime’s official account, Over 200 protests in communist Cuba during the month of November, Pope Francis looks the other way as Nicaragua’s dictator imprisons Catholic priests, Cuban dictatorship can’t control Dengue, but erects new monument to Cuban who discovered mosquito-borne illnesses, and Ask your abuelo or papi about Gaylord Perry’s spitter [Alison Perry, Gaylord’s daughter, then aged 5: “It’s a hard slider”]
BattleSwarm: Russia’s Failure To Achieve Air Superiority, also, Is The Iranian Regime Starting To Crack?
Behind The Black: The steep interior rim of Aristarchus Crater, Curiosity’s recent and future travels amid the Martian mountains, The uncertainties surrounding India’s proposed first manned mission, and Today’s blacklisted American: Pernicious anti-white bigotry controls the government in Seattle
Cafe Hayek: Homeschooling As Evidence of the Decrepitude of Government K-12 “Education”, also, A Letter to a Progressive With Poor Reading Comprehension
CDR Salamander: December Maritime Free For All – on Midrats, also, Irregular War’s War on Thinking About War
Chicago Boyz: Anti-Concepts
Da Tech Guy: Five #Twitterfiles thoughts Under the Fedora, Another setback for military mental health, Five Sports Thoughts Under the Fedora, and My take on the Twitter Files revelations: the truth dies in darkness
Don Surber: Republicans Can’t Win Without Trump Supporters, Bidenomics leads to NYT strike, Finnish PM says Trump was right, and [no title]
First Street Journal: The racism of The Philadelphia Inquirer, In which a ‘transgender’ supportive CNN piece proves the opposite, and I got the Wuhan Flu
Gates Of Vienna: Italian Constitutional Court Upholds the Vax Mandate, “I Am Not Afraid of You”, and The Greening of the Bundeswehr
The Geller Report: Republicans Had More than 74% of Election Day Votes in Maricopa County – So Where Are Those Votes?, FBI as a Democrat Censor: Deposition Reveals Complex FBI Plot to Rig the 2020 Election, and Email Leaks: Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs Regularly Communicated With Twitter Telling Them Who To Censor
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, NGC 1, and NGC 1858
Hollywood In Toto: John Leguizamo’s One-Man War Against ‘Problematic’ Casting, Chival Is Not Dead, Why Bill Maher Doesn’t Feel Guilty About Flying on Private Jets, and How It’s a Wonderful Life Delivers Sermon of Hope
The Lid: Putin-One Foot In The Grave The Other On A Banana Peel?, also, FBI Caught Colluding With Leftist Big Tech to Censor Conservatives Online
Legal Insurrection: Egyptian Petition Demands British Museum Return the Iconic Rosetta Stone, Notre Dame Pulls Support for Pro-Life Event Over Ben Shapiro Tweet From 2010, Survey: Public Trust In Military Declining, FDA Proposes Easing Restrictions on Blood Donations from Gay/Bisexual Men, and Stanford Band Insults Christianity During Halftime Show Against BYU
Nebraska Energy Observer: Change is good, also, Populus Zion; Advent II
Outkick: Jerry Jones Responds To Criticism From LeBron James Over Old Photo, Utah QB Buries Caleb Williams After Destroying USC’s Playoff Dreams, Soccer Legend Pele Enters End-of-Life Care At Brazilian Hospital, Did Jacob deGrom Leave New York Because Of COVID Mandates?, Deion Sanders Accepts Colorado Head-Coaching Job, Gets First Shot At Power-5 Level, and Kate Upton Is Bringing Her Talents To The New York Mets
Power Line: Battery Storage Is a Fantasy, Every NPR Story You’ve Ever Heard, The Times does the Twitter Files, and Trump Is Finished
Shark Tank: Lesson Learned From Hurricane Ian – Let’s Embrace Nuclear
Shot In The Dark: Obviously Toxic Masculinity, “Dark Money Is Baaaad!”, and Convenience
STUMP: Movember 2022 Wrap-Up: Fundraising Total, Summary Video, and Post Links
This Ain’t Hell: EVs saving us gas, They’re everywhere!, Defense Secretary wants to keep vaccine mandate, and What happened at Wings Over Dallas?
Transterrestrial Musings: The New Narrative Forms, The Climate Religion, After Success, and The Official Covid Story
Victory Girls: Twitter Files: Who the Heck is Vijaya Gadde?, USPS Stealing Campaign Funds, and Respect For Marriage Act Has Leftist Detractors
Volokh Conspiracy: Trump Defines Constitutional Deviancy Down
Watts Up With That: Sea Level Is Rising – But So What?, King Coal: Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated, and Claim: We Must Allow More Inflation to Address Climate Change
Weasel Zippers: Twitter Was Permanently Censoring Users At The Request Of The DNC And Biden Campaign, Hillary Clinton: Saving Babies From Abortion Is Like Soldiers Raping Women, WH Won’t Say Why Biden Has Not Campaigned In Georgia For Raphael Warnock, Catholic Bishop Responds To Hillary Clinton’s Remarks About Abortion: “Don’t Listen To This Evil Woman”, and Ex-Twitter Executive: Elon Musk Is Putting Us “In Harm’s Way” By Showing How We Censored Content At Dems Behest
The Federalist: Corporate Media Keeps Tossing Softballs At FTX Fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, Grand Jury: Legal Counsel For Loudoun County School Board Engaged In Witness Tampering During Sexual Assault Investigation, If A Legitimate Free Press Existed, The Twitter Files Wouldn’t, Time Magazine Admits ‘Election Denier’ Is A Nonsense Phrase Invented To Smear Republicans, and The GOP Must Resist Big Tech’s Lobbying Efforts To Save Face With Conservatives
Mark Steyn: Past It, Bomb Damage: Michael Powell and A Canterbury Tale, Steyn Goes Full Humbug, and Do You Hear What I Hear?

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Category: Linkagery

Rule 5 Monday: HMS Foxhound/HMCS Qu’Appelle

Posted on | December 5, 2022 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

HMS Foxhound was one of the interwar F-class destroyers built under the restrictions of the Washington Naval Treaty, and was later modified to become an escort destroyer (not to be confused with destroyer escort) before being transferred o the Royal Canadian Navy as the Qu’Appelle. Despite spending much of her time doing convoy escort work, Foxhound also saw action at Narvik, Malta, Mers-el-Kebir, and was involved in the pursuit of the Bismarck. Accordingly, I’ve optimized my Foxhound for anti-sub work, which she does very well.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

“No need to worry about those nasty U-boat girls, Commander!”

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1918, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five African Energy Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: MAGA Troll Milo (with tasteful Ivanka content), Where The Crawdads Sing, Jane Krakowski, Christine McVie RIP, World Cup 2022 – No Fun In Qatar, Bond Girls – No Time To Die and Spectre, Karliene, and Julianna Hatfield.

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: A Pretty Little Liar – Shay Mitchell, Maryland Crabs Invade Maine, Fish Pic Friday – Josie Kidd, AI Finds A Bird in the Bush, Beautiful Back, The Wednesday Wetness, Winter is Coming!, Tattoo Tuesday, VA Moves to Restrict Bay Menhaden Fishery, The Monday Morning Stimulus, and Palm Sunday.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: I Scent The Morning Air

Posted on | December 5, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: I Scent The Morning Air

— compiled by Wombat-socho

.400 ball this week; lost 2 of 3 to the Dodgers and split a pair with the Angels. Bah humbug.
On the upside, the third volume of Klaus Schulze’s La vie electronique is just as good as the first two.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

.400 ball. It could have been worse.

In The Mailbox: 11.30.22
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 12.02.22
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Idaho Breakthrough: A Serial Killer?
Vulture Of Critique
Okrahead
357 Magnum
EBL

‘Blood On Your Hands’? Is Anyone Really Endangered by Twitter ‘Amnesty’?
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Control
A View From The Beach
EBL

Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: World Cup Edition
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL

In the Mailbox: 11.29.22 (Afternoon Edition)
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 11.29.22 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Crazy People Are Dangerous (and They’re Working for the Biden Administration)
First Street Journal
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Crime Scene: Atlanta
357 Magnum
EBL

Post-Election Bonfire of Schadenfreude: ‘Hundreds’ Being Laid Off at CNN
Hogewash
The DaleyGator
357 Magnum
EBL

#TNF: Do or Die for @Patriots Tonight
EBL

In The Mailbox: 12.01.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

It’s Only Confederate Flags, They Said
EBL
Proof Positive

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Football: Learn the Rules!

Posted on | December 4, 2022 | 1 Comment

Blocked field goals are a rare enough occurrence in college football that fans can be forgiven for not knowing that, after a kick is blocked, it’s still a live ball. But why didn’t LSU players know this?

You are a college student, on a scholarship to play football. You are assigned to special teams duty. In such a situation, isn’t it your duty to study the rules concerning such things? Apparently not:

Top-ranked Georgia jumped out to a 7-0 lead vs. No. 14 LSU in the SEC championship game on one of the rarest scoring play in college football: a blocked field goal attempt returned for a touchdown.
The touchdown was impressive on two fronts — not only Nazir Stackhouse getting his hands to block Damian Ramos’ 32-yard kick, but also Christopher Smith having the wherewithal to pick up a live ball.
Smith caught LSU’s special teams unawares, and that resulted in an unimpeded 95-yard scoring return:
It seems as if LSU’s field goal team was unaware the ball was still live and that Georgia could return it. The NCAA rulebook allows for “receiving teams” to recover such kicks in specific circumstances.
NCAA Rule 6, Article 5 allows for any team that receives a kick or recovers a blocked kick to keep it in play:

If a player of the receiving team catches or recovers a scrimmage kick, the ball continues in play (Exceptions: Rules 4-1-3-g, 6-3-9, 6-5-1 and 2) (A.R. 8-4-2-V).

CBS rules analyst Gene Steratore also noted on the broadcast that officials can call blocked kicks dead in the event that they come to a complete stop and there are no players in the vicinity to recover it. Video of the play clearly shows the ball did not come to a complete stop while Smith waited for LSU players to clear out.
With that, Georgia jumped out to a quick lead not only for understanding the rules, but also by capitalizing on the fact LSU didn’t.

What a smart play by Christopher Smith.

Just waited for everyone and then took it to the house. pic.twitter.com/o1WtbQJNkU

— CBS Sports (@CBSSports) December 3, 2022

“Keep playing until you hear the whistle” — that’s how it was explained to us when we were just kids in youth-league football. Maybe they don’t explain it that clearly in Louisiana, I don’t know.

At any rate, Georgia remains undefeated after beating LSU 50-30. They’re locked in as No. 1 in the four-team National Championship playoffs, with Michigan as No.2. As for the other two teams, well, it’s a muddle, mainly because previously undefeated Texas Christian University lost the Big 12 championship game to Kansas State:

The Horned Frogs, ranked third, lost the Big 12 title game in overtime to Kansas State, 31-28, the first blemish on a résumé filled with harrowing comebacks and scant marquee victories. Their defeat follows one by No. 4 Southern California, which was shellacked by Utah in the Pac-12 title game on Friday night.
This leaves the College Football Playoff selection committee with an unappetizing conundrum in filling out the four-team playoff behind Georgia and Michigan: Who is the least undeserving?
Consider the choices: Ohio State (11-1), which was blown out at home by Michigan in its final game; and Alabama (10-2), which lost to Tennessee and Louisiana State, and whose best win was a squeaker against Texas — which was also beaten by Kansas State. It is almost a certainty that half the playoff field will be populated by teams that did not win their conferences.

My hunch — and it’s just a hunch — is that Ohio State and TCU will make it anyway, and Alabama will be left out because everybody’s tired of there always being two SEC teams in the playoffs.

Category: Football

#TWITTERGATE: Elon Musk Exposes Twitter’s 2020 Election Interference

Posted on | December 3, 2022 | 2 Comments

One of the things Elon Musk bought for $44 billion was proprietary rights to Twitter’s internal communications and — whoo, doggies! — what a treasure trove it proves to be:

Elon Musk’s Twitter released internal discussions about censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story Friday night via journalist Matt Taibbi.
The documents reveal widespread internal and external concern at the suppression of the story, a decision made without CEO Jack Dorsey’s knowledge and spearheaded by Vijaya Gadde, then the head of Trust & Safety — Twitter’s top censor. . . .
The documents, mostly internal communications from Twitter and emails with external parties, showed widespread unease with the decision and concerns about how it could be explained to lawmakers and the public. . . .

• Trust & Safety chief Vijaya Gadde, long believed to be the driving force of censorship at the company, spearheaded the decision.
• Numerous top Twitter employees, especially from the communications and policy teams — whose job is to maintain relations with lawmakers and the press — expressed concern at the decision.
• Immediate warnings from Twitter’s Washington D.C. contacts followed, including an email from Democrat representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) who warned the decision had generated “huge backlash” on capitol hill, and expressed concerns about Twitter undermining the freedom to publish.

Aside from Rep. Khanna’s communications, which imagined a future in which newspapers would be unable to publish hacked evidence of war crimes, other Democrats reportedly complained that Twitter had not gone far enough in its censorship of the press.

Ace of Spades was critical of the narrative about what is being call Twittergate, and I’ll get to his criticism momentarily, but first I want to make a couple of points of my own. In the long Twitter thread where Matt Taibbi told this story, two messages struck me as “smoking guns”:

https://t.co/j4EeXEAw6F can see the confusion in the following lengthy exchange, which ends up including Gadde and former Trust and safety chief Yoel Roth. Comms official Trenton Kennedy writes, “I’m struggling to understand the policy basis for marking this as unsafe”: pic.twitter.com/w1wBMlG33U

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

The problem with the “hacked materials” ruling, several sources said, was that this normally required an official/law enforcement finding of a hack. But such a finding never appears throughout what one executive describes as a “whirlwind” 24-hour, company-wide mess. pic.twitter.com/aONKCROEOd

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

On the first point, you see the “PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL” message that “our teams continue to investigate the origins of the materials included in the reporting” — raising the question: “Why?”

The article by the New York Post — the one that Twitter was suppressing — explained exactly how they had obtained the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which had been abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. This clearly was not “hacking,” so why the need to “investigate”? What would have led anyone at Twitter to suspect hacking at all? It’s a nonsensical excuse, but is partially explained by the second point: The casual mention that The “existing policy framework” (i.e., the Hacked Materials Policy) originated as a response to “the 2016 election” (i.e., Team Hillary whining that they were victims of “Russian collusion” hackers). So you see that the claim that the Hunter Biden laptop story was the result of “hacking” was directly connected to Hillary Clinton’s claims about her emails being “hacked” in 2016. And, of course, you had Deep State “sources” telling the media that Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of a “Russian disinformation” operation. So this paranoid conspiracy theory — “Russia! Russia! Russia!” — became the basis of censorship.

Which brings us to Point Three:

28. To which former Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker again seems to advise staying the non-course, because “caution is warranted”: pic.twitter.com/tg4D0gLWI6

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) December 3, 2022

OH EM EFFING GEE! James Baker, an ex-FBI lawyer who was disgraced for his role in the “Russian collusion” hoax, was directly involved in the decision to censor the New York Post story! And notice, also, that Baker seems to be the guy whose messages routinely contain the “PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL” header, indicating that he was also the source of the message about “our team” investigating the Hunter Biden laptop story under the Hacked Materials Policy.

So here is the meat of Ace’s rant:

“Mistakes were made.” “Protocols let us down.”
The FBI, which already had the laptop and knew it was real and likely to leak, already told Twitter to expect Russian hack and “dumps,” to prepare them to take just this action. They didn’t have to specifically tell them to suppress the laptop — they’d already prepared the battlespace.
This is bullshit. I’m disgusted and done.

>>>Ace: your take is the blame is being placed on Twitter and not the police state apparatus?

Yes, the FBI is being excused, and it’s being claimed that there was just a breakdown at Twitter, rather than deliberate suppression.
James Baker, General Counsel at twitter, is a former FBI lawyer who himself was disgraced for his role in Russiagate!
He lied about the FISA warrant and helped cover up the fraud perpetrated on the court.
And here he is at Twitter advising them to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story!
Nothing to see here, folks!

Yes, this is what’s revealed, but how is “the FBI being excused” by this revelation? I think Matt Taibbi (and Elon Musk) trust readers to add 2+2 and arrive at the sum of four, which is in fact what both Ace and I have done with these messages. What Musk wanted to show — the purpose of this historic act of transparency — was the inner workings of the decision-making process at Twitter in 2020, and the role of James Baker is very telling. But the fact that Taibbi didn’t editorialize about this aspect of the story in his Twitter thread does not mean that Taibbi (and Musk) are engaged in a “mistakes were made” whitewash. There will be a lot of follow-up and fallout from #Twittergate, I’m sure, and eventually the new GOP House majority will have committee hearings on this sordid mess.

My good friend John Hoge had some thoughts as Taibbi unspooled his tweetstream last night, and I’m sure we’ll discuss this at length tonight at 7 p.m. ET on The Other Podcast.