The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 08.05.22

Posted on | August 5, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.05.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts. I promise I’ll get the books & comics post up this weekend.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Seen on r/yotsuba

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Good Guys 4, Bad Guys 0
EBL: General Tso Chicken Is Delicious, also, Britney Griner: From Russia with Love
Twitchy: Special K Spins Herself Dizzy On Gas Prices, also, Former Airline Ops Manager Details The Many Ways Mayor Pete Has Failed Air Travelers
Louder With Crowder: Watch: ATF agent arrested by local cops, immediately starts crying, also, Talcum X rages against reporters who exposed his lavish spending
Vox Popoli: A Quiet Response
According To Hoyt: The Weirdometer, also, Tied to the Madman
Monster Hunter Nation: WriterDojo S3 Ep4: It Just Won’t Stop (Tweet bashing Round 4), also, In Defense of the Second Amendment
Stoic Observations: The Lazy Live In Fear

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: DeSantis: America’s Conservative Leader, also, Camille Paglia’s Second Wave
American Greatness: Dems to Deny Free Lunches for Christian School that Won’t Cave to LGBT Mandates, also, Senate Democrats Block Bills to Halt Gain-of-Function Research
American Thinker: The Meaning of Bidenomics, also, Time to Give the Conspiracy Theorists a Break?
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Relative Power Levels Friday
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship begins force-feeding Imprisoned dissident on month-long hunger strike, Cuba’s healthcare system ‘in tatters’ and its Covid statistics are lies, says UK publication that has always praised it, and The View is unviewable
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm for August 5
Behind The Black: Astra cancels all launches with its Rocket 3.3 rocket, Curiosity celebrates ten years on Mars, and Pushback: Forsyth County school board in Georgia sued for censoring parents during public comment
Cafe Hayek: Some Links
Chicago Boyz: Cupio Dissolvi
Da Tech Guy: A Fixture In Private School Open Houses for Decades to Come
Don Surber: DeSantis suspends a Soros prosecutor, Shut down gay orgies for 15 days to flatten the curve, and Xi mocked in Red China
First Street Journal: A Philadelphia Inquirer opinion editor wants sexualized books in school libraries, but would she allow Huckleberry Finn or Mein Kampf?, There is no cure for pedophilia, and How not to sell Philadelphia!
Gates Of Vienna: We Need to Rescue More Migrants!, Grunewald Go BOOM!, Swedes Prepare to Shiver, and Booster Failure
The Geller Report: Scientist Testifies: Fauci Lied About His Gain Of Function Research
Hogewash: A Couple of Moons, also, His Lips Were Moving
Hollywood In Toto: Easter Sunday Breaks Ground, Falls Back on Sitcom-Style Yuks
The Lid: George Soros Is Aiding Illegals Sneaking Into The US
Legal Insurrection: Poll Finds Voters Blame Biden and Dems for Recession, Despite White House Spin, DeSantis Won’t Allow Florida Fund Managers to Use ‘Woke’ Banking’s ESG Standards, Oberlin College Still Refusing to Pay Verdict to Gibson’s Bakery, and Pentagon Denies D.C. Mayor Bowser’s Request to Activate National Guard to Help With Illegal Immigrants
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: It Seems Likely That Augusta National Will Look To Ban LIV Golfers From The Masters, Lawsuit Alleges, The Big 12 Is Reportedly Trying To Add A Major Big Ten Team, Jalen Rose Wants To Cancel Mount Rushmore, and Shannon Sharpe Predicts The NFL Won’t Be Happy With Aaron Rogers Taking Hallucinogens
Power Line: Thoughts from the ammo line, also, Ramirez v. the Star Tribune
Shark Tank: DeSantis Appoints New Florida Supreme Court Justice, Defends Rule Of Law
Shot In The Dark: Berg’s Law – Stare Decisive, also, Play Your Bets
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Lawyer Problem
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Democrat bill intended to reduce inflation would contribute to skyrocketing inflation, and Minority voters who vote Republican push white supremacy
Transterrestrial Musings: Astra News, The Latest California Craziness, and “Some Scientists Think”
Victory Girls: Desperation: Liz Cheney Trots Out Dad To Salvage Her Political Career, also, FBI Director Knows Hunter Biden Bias Exists, Does Nothing
Volokh Conspiracy: Federal Prosecutor Sets Up Hotline for Reporting, Among Other Things, People “Espousing … Hate-Filled Views”
Watts Up With That: The Big Green Lie Almost Everyone Claims to Believe, also, Miners Explore Amazon Basin to Support “Green” Energy; New York Times Horrified
Weasel Zippers: Leftists Dominate FBI Top 10 Domestic Terror List, Despite Warnings About Far Right, Dem Rep. Mondaire Jones Refuses To Say If He Will Support Biden In 2024, As Economy Shrinks Two Quarters In A Row, WH Spox Says We’re In “Transition” To “Stable And Steady Growth”, and Former California Dem Leader On Biden’s Loss Of Support: “Running From A Sinking Ship”
The Federalist: Fueled By Two-Tiered Political Justice, The Left’s 1960s Violence Is Back, A Bureaucratic Swamp Shakedown Is Trump’s Strongest Case For A Second Term, and Studies Show Federal Mental Health Programs Make Students Worse
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet, also, A Nation of Nonplayable Characters

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 8.04.22 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | August 5, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 8.04.22 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Have We Turned A Corner On Woke?
Director Blue: The Stunning Adventures Of Director Wray
EBL: Russians mock the gas-dependence of Europe and Ukraine, also, Rep. Jackie Walorski, RIP
Twitchy: Columbus Cops Bust ATF Agent, also, FBI Agent Responsible For Whitmer Kidnap Case Now In Charge Of J6 Investigation
Louder With Crowder: “You don’t punch people in the face”
Vox Popoli: The Racism is Shocking, also, Depopulation Watch: North Dakota
Shot In The Dark: I Saw The World Change In The Blink Of An Eye

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Jordan Peterson’s Christian Problem, also, Can America Afford to Lead the World?
American Greatness: DeSantis Cans Progressive, Soros-Funded State Attorney Andrew Warren, also, Why We Lost Trust in the Expert Class
American Power: The Dam Breaks: Key Dems Run Away From Biden ’24, also, San Clemente Considers Creating ‘Abortion Free Zone’
American Thinker: Never Forget the Government’s J6 Political Prisoners
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Brain Death News
Babalu Blog: Mexico’s AMLO pays the Cuban dictatorship over $1 million a month for slave labor, Castro dictatorship to buy U.S. dollars from Cubans at black market rates, and Castro dictatorship clamping down harder on the faithful in Cuba
BattleSwarm: Why Dutch Farmers Revolt, also, Eric Schmitt Wins Missouri GOP Senate Race
Behind The Black: Today’s blacklisted American: Supreme Court Justice Thomas forced to quit as lecturer at GWU, SpaceX launches South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter, and Environmentalists opposed to Starship at Boca Chica appeal dismissal of their lawsuit
Cafe Hayek: Progressives and Their Consistent Failure to Understand the Incomprehensible Complexity of Reality’s Details
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday
Da Tech Guy: Joe Manchin’s capitulation to the Biden Regime will be catastrophically bad for the economy of the United States, also, The First Step Toward Recovery is Admitting You Have a Problem
Don Surber: Trump sweeps Arizona, Is Zelensky about to be Cuomo-ed?, and Hooray for Nancy Pelosi
First Street Journal: Killadelphia!
Gates Of Vienna: Nothing But the Best for the New Germans!, All Your Patient Are Belong to Us, also, The Nuclear Protection Racket
The Geller Report: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis SUSPENDS Soros-Backed State Attorney
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Messier 41 and Aristotle, and Civil Rights Update
Hollywood In Toto: Easter Sunday’s Jo Koy, Lydia Gaston: Comedy Can Unite Us All, also, Woke Prey Still Packs Genre Thrills
The Lid: Gov. DeSantis Turns Down Interview On ‘The View,’ Trolls Show Hosts
Legal Insurrection: Special K -Biden EO ‘Paves the Way for Medicaid to Pay for Abortions’, Senate Republicans Introduce Bill to Prevent CCP From Buying Land in U.S., and If We Don’t Tell Their Stories, Who Will? – Legal Insurrection Summer 2022 Fundraiser
Nebraska Energy Observer: Part Two of three
Outkick: Brittney Griner Sentenced To 9 Years In Prison After Being Found Guilty On Drug Charges In Russia, CNN Foolishly Blames WNBA-NBA Pay Gap For Brittney Griner’s Drug Arrest, and Auburn’s T.J. Finley Arrested Just 2 Days After Signing Historic NIL Deal With Amazon
Power Line: Biden Administration Calls For Censorship On Energy
Shark Tank: Laura Loomer Says Ilhan Omar Is A Jihadist Who Supports ISIS
STUMP: Against “Slightly Against Underpopulation Worries”
The Political Hat: Normalizing Euthanasia With A Children’s Activity Book
This Ain’t Hell: Happy Birthday Coast Guard!, Joe’s Handlers- Release the Monkeypox!, and Senate Easily Passes NATO Memberships
Victory Girls: Maloney Awkwardly Grovels After Debate, also, DeSantis: We’re Not Doing Monkeypox Fear in Florida
Volokh Conspiracy: Prof. John Harrison: More Reasons Unlawful Regulations Are Void Ab Initio
Watts Up With That: Biden Promises, Policies and Political Problems, also, Surprise – the Australian Great Barrier Reef has “Bounced Back” from Climate Change
Weasel Zippers: Sadflation: Students Forced To Drop Ritzy White Liberal Social Justice Classes At College Over Costs/Inflation, BREAKING: Kari Lake Announced As Winner Of GOP Primary For Governor Of Arizona, and Stacy Abrams Receives Nearly $3 Million In Soros Money
The Federalist: Whistleblower: Biden Admin Welcomed Hundreds Of Afghans On Pentagon Watchlist To U.S., 15 Republican Secretaries of State Demand Biden Halt Election-Takeover Plans, and Americans Lost Fundamental Freedoms During Covid — But Halting Gay Orgies To Stop Monkeypox Is Too Far
Mark Steyn: Mao-ing America, also, Adding Insults to Injury

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Category: Linkagery

BOOM! America’s Best Governor Suspends Rogue Tampa Prosecutor

Posted on | August 4, 2022 | Comments Off on BOOM! America’s Best Governor Suspends Rogue Tampa Prosecutor

Pushing back against the George Soros machine:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is taking action against woke prosecutors who put themselves above the law, announcing the suspension of State Attorney Andrew Warren.
DeSantis, speaking from Tampa, detailed the growing emergence of woke prosecutors across the country and the frustration it has caused within the law enforcement community. These prosecutors, he explained, are effectively nullifying laws with selective enforcement, allowing crime to run rampant across the country. The governor asked for an examination of such actions in the Sunshine State and said the results pointed to the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in Hillsborough County with State Attorney Andrew Warren.
DeSantis detailed some of the egregious instances of his disregard for the rule of law — from refusing to enforce any prohibitions on sex change operations for minors, regardless of action from the legislature, to asserting that he would not enforce any laws relating to protecting the right to life in the Sunshine State.
“It’s not for him to put himself above that [the legislature’s action] and say that he is not going to enforce the laws. We don’t elect people in one part of the state to have veto power over what the entire state decides on these important issues,” DeSantis explained.
“The constitution of Florida has vested the veto power in the governor, not an individual state attorneys, and so when you flagrantly violate your oath of office, when you make yourself above the law, you have violated your duty,” the governor said.
“You have neglected your duty and you are displaying a lack of competence to be able to perform those duties and so today, we are suspending State Attorney Andrew Warren,” DeSantis announced, vowing that his administration will not “allow this pathogen that’s been around the country of ignoring the law. We are not going to let that get a foothold here in the state of Florida.”
“We are going to make sure that our laws are enforced and that no individual prosecutor puts himself above the law,” he continued, noting that the states and localities that are doing that — allowing woke prosecutors to get away with refusing to enforce the law — are now dealing with unsafe communities “thanks to prosecutors that think they know better than the people’s representatives, and they get to pick and choose which laws that they’re enforcing.”
The decision to suspend Warren, he added, had “a lot of input around the state.”
“This is something that I think is a very, very important issue across our country that this movement would be allowed to take hold where you basically elevate your own personal conception of quote, ‘social justice’ over what the law requires of you,” he said, blasting these George Soros-backed prosecutors.

Caroline Downey at National Review reports:

The DeSantis administration has argued that the governor has the authority to suspend a state officer under Article IV, Section 7 of the Florida Constitution, according to a press release. Susan Lopez has been appointed as interim State Attorney during the period of the suspension.
By that provision, the governor can suspend from office a county officer for “malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties, or commission of a felony, and may fill the office by appointment for the period of suspension.” At any time before removal, the governor may reinstate the suspended officer.
The Florida Senate then must sit in judgment of the merits of a suspension. After hearing the case, for which there is a special process, the Senate may remove from office or reinstate the suspended official.

The local Tampa Bay Times doesn’t like DeSantis, but is compelled to admit crime has skyrocketed since Warren took office in 2016:

Tampa’s violent crime rate has spiked in recent years, with the city in 2021 recording the most murders it had seen since 1994, according to statistics from the Tampa Police Department compiled by the Times editorial board.

The paper also tries to dance around the fact that Soros donated millions to the Florida Democratic Party to help elect Warren.




 

Category: Crime, Florida

In The Mailbox: 08.04.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | August 4, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.04.22 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Seen on r/art.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Visage a Trois #384
EBL: You Know It’s Bad When the Biden Administration Calls You Corrupt, also, RIP Vin Scully 
Twitchy: “You’ve Got Your Own Plane”, also, “What Are Y’all Doing?”
Louder With Crowder: Bad News For CNN, also, Demi Lovato Has Changed Her Pronouns Again – Why You Should Care
Vox Popoli: Trust the Fiction, No Worries, It’s Just a Drill, and The Sacrificial Lamb Approaches
Gab News: The Christian Quest

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Napoleon’s Village
American Conservative: The Democrats’ Weak Bench, The George Soros Bait and Switch, and, The Voice of the National Pastime
American Greatness: Matt Gaetz Introduces Bill Banning IRS from Acquiring Ammunition, also, The Big Lies We Cannot Question
American Thinker: The Covid ‘Vaccine’ Scam, also, Armageddon Looms For The Democrat Party
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Cuban mothers and their children block road into Havana in protest, demand meeting with Diaz-Canel, Protesters in Cuba take to the streets in at least 10 towns, and The Cuban Dictatorship’s Illicit Affair With Remittances
BattleSwarm: Is Russia’s Economy Collapsing?
Behind The Black: Momentus has now deployed seven of ten customer payloads from its Vigoride tug, NASA imposes new rules for any private launches to ISS, and Where to get legal help if you have been blacklisted by today’s control freaks
Cafe Hayek: Good Medicine; Wrong Prescription
CDR Salamander: To Build the Fleet We Need: Demand Humility & Challenge Arrogance
Da Tech Guy: The death toll from lockdowns, “No Job Is Worth It”, and The #unexpectedly chronicles Yet another of the Left’s Useful Idiot’s Usefulness expires
Don Surber: The cargo cult of climate change, Mask mandates flip parents Republican, and Visa may have to pay child porn victim
Gates Of Vienna: Those Frisky Culture-Enrichers, Austrian Police Girl Gets Culturally Enriched, and A Merger of the Bundeswehr With the Police?
The Geller Report: Trump-Backed Candidates WIN in U.S. Midterm Primaries, also, Soros, Biden Spearhead Efforts Against Election Integrity Ahead of Midterms
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Vin Scully, R. I. P., and Meanwhile, in Baltimore
Hollywood In Toto: Bullet Train – A Bugs Bunny Cartoon… With Less Realism, also, Dread Pirate Roberts Recalls ’70s Cinema for Today’s World
The Lid: “Inflation Reduction Act” Is A Boondoggle Of Corporate Giveaways That Makes Inflation Worse
Legal Insurrection: Northwestern Requiring Literature Majors to Take Diversity Courses But Not Literature, “America Stands With Taiwan”, and Ron DeSantis Declines Invitation to Appear on The View
Michelle Malkin: Nick Kristof’s Shamhill Clown Show
Nebraska Energy Observer: Breakpoint
Outkick: Longtime Broadcaster Vin Scully, ‘Heartbeat of the Dodgers,’ Dies At 94, Phil Mickelson, 10 Other LIV Golfers File Lawsuit Against The PGA Tour Challenging Their Suspensions, and NBA Guard Iman Shumpert Arrested At Dallas Airport For Packing Several Ounces of Weed
Power Line: Tim Walz meets the voters
Shark Tank: Chet Stokes Smears DeSantis Endorsed ‘Angel Mom’ Kiyan Michael
Shot In The Dark: As The Kids Get Ready, also, We’re Not In Kansas Any More
The Political Hat: Justice Alito On Rights And Freedom
This Ain’t Hell: Sigh…the Brits just don’t get it, Need help to find family of Quincy, MA Vietnam POW, Republican House incumbent, who voted to impeach Trump, loses primary, and Longtime sports announcer, Navy vet Vin Scully passes
Transterrestrial Musings: Reversing “Death”, Clashing Scientific Paradigms, and The Timeline Moves Back
Victory Girls: White House Tries Afghanistan Debacle Rewrite, also, Will Sinema Hold Out Against Democrat Pressure?
Volokh Conspiracy: WV v. EPA: Some Answers about Major Questions (But Not All the Answers We Need)
Watts Up With That: Tonga Eruption Blasted Unprecedented Amount of Water Into Stratosphere
Weasel Zippers: FBI: Quoting Thomas Jefferson Makes You A Potential Domestic Terrorist, Batgirl Tested So Poorly With Audiences, Warner Bros Canceled The $100 Million Woke Project, and MSNBC: After Supporting Dems By 38 Points In 2016, “Hispanics Are Now Voting Dem By Just 13 Points”
The Federalist: The Only ‘Principle’ Never Trumpers Care About In Candidates Like Peter Meijer Is Trump Hatred, Pro-Lifers Need Not Despair Over Kansas Abortion Setback And Here’s Why, and Delaware’s Plan To Allow Widespread Unsupervised Voting Violates Its Constitution, Lawsuit Says
Mark Steyn: The Respectable Men Who Protect the Gang-Rapists

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Category: Linkagery

Is @MaxBlumenthal on the Kremlin Payroll? (And Other Ukraine Questions)

Posted on | August 3, 2022 | Comments Off on Is @MaxBlumenthal on the Kremlin Payroll? (And Other Ukraine Questions)

We’ll get to the Max Blumenthal-as-Putin-puppet angle in just a minute, but first, Ace of Spades notices a shift in Bidenland:

White House Stenographer Tom Friedman
Throws Zelenskyy and Ukraine
Under the Bus, Calling Both Corrupt.
What Does It Mean?

That question — “What does it mean?” — involves some reading of the tea leaves from anonymous officials quoted by Friedman:

Dear reader: The Ukraine war is not over. And privately, U.S. officials are a lot more concerned about Ukraine’s leadership than they are letting on. There is deep mistrust between the White House and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine — considerably more than has been reported.
And there is funny business going on in Kyiv. On July 17, Zelensky fired his country’s prosecutor general and the leader of its domestic intelligence agency — the most significant shake-up in his government since the Russian invasion in February. It would be the equivalent of Biden firing Merrick Garland and Bill Burns on the same day. But I have still not seen any reporting that convincingly explains what that was all about. It is as if we don’t want to look too closely under the hood in Kyiv for fear of what corruption or antics we might see, when we have invested so much there.

Why would “U.S. officials” be informing Friedman of how “privately . . . concerned” they are and their “deep mistrust” toward Zelensky? Such communications are never accidental. “U.S. officials” don’t just happen to express such misgivings over cocktails with a prominent New York Times columnist. The Biden administration (or the State Department, or the Pentagon or the CIA, or some combination of these bureaucracies) is clearly trying to send a signal, but as Ace asks, “What does it mean?”

I mean, it’s true that Ukraine is corrupt, but we live in an Empire of Lies where the truth is forbidden and is only permitted to be spoken when it, coincidentally, and perversely, advances a Regime goal.
So why send out this errand boy? Why has this errand boy been sent out by grocery clerks to collect a bill?
What Regime goal is being perversely advanced by the truth here?
We had a similar Deep State hit on Zelenskyy a week or so back — regarding Zelenskyy firing government officials the American Deep State apparently had on their payroll and thus did not want fired — I think and I think it can be explained the same way: Zelenskyy is being told “You are being paid by us, you are our puppet, and we can replace you easily if you do not dance to our movement of your strings.”

Ace enlists Jim Geraghty’s expertise in tea-leaf reading:

My best guess is that nobody at the White House was prepared for Russia’s invasion, but neither did they believe that Ukraine could inflict such heavy casualties on the Russians and thus produce this kind of drawn-out conflict, which has had very bad political consequences for Biden. So they want to pressure Zelensky into some kind of “peace for our time” negotiated ceasefire that Team Biden can then spin as a foreign-policy “success.” But that’s just my guess, and it’s entirely possible that nobody in D.C. really knows what their ideal end-game is or how they’ll achieve it, so perhaps I’m giving too much credit to them as having some kind of coherent motive, when they actually don’t. And now let’s turn our attention to alleged Russian puppet Max Blumenthal . . .

About 15 years ago, when he was a young “investigative reporter” (a/k/a, partisan hit man) for The Nation, Blumenthal authored an “exposé” of the Washington Times focused on accusations of racism — “RAAAAACISM!” — against me and some of my bosses. Blumenthal’s “sources” included a washed-up alcoholic who’d left the paper a year or so previously, and whose name I won’t repeat here, but whose credibility wasn’t exactly gold standard, to say the least. All that is water over the dam, and I never even think about it anymore, except Tuesday morning I woke up and wondered, “Whatever happened to Max Blumenthal?”

Don’t ask me why that question just hit me out of the clear blue sky, because I can’t exactly remember — maybe it was something I dreamed. At any rate, Blumenthal was once reasonably prominent, well-known enough that Andrew Breitbart liked to use him as a punch-line, but I hadn’t heard anything about him in several years, since he got himself mixed up in a controversy over his anti-Israel opinions.

So, I started Googling and oh, ho ho ho! What have we here?

Blumenthal has contributed to broadcasts on RT (formerly known as Russia Today) on many occasions. In December 2015, during a visit to Moscow presumed by multiple sources to have been paid for by the Kremlin, Blumenthal was a guest at RT’s 10 Years On Air anniversary party attended by President Vladimir Putin, then-Lieutenant General Michael Flynn of the United States and English politician Ken Livingstone. In an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News in November 2017, Blumenthal defended RT against “the charge that it’s Kremlin propaganda.” He has also contributed on multiple occasions to Sputnik radio, as well as to Iran’s Press TV and China’s CGTN. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone website within a month after his visit to Moscow. In an October 2019 article for New Politics magazine, Gilbert Achcar wrote that Blumenthal’s Grayzone, along with the World Socialist Web Site, has “the habit of demonizing all left-wing critics of Putin and the likes of [Syrian dictator ] Assad by describing them as ‘agents of imperialism’ or some equivalent”. . . .
After Blumenthal’s visit to Moscow in December 2015, according to a 2018 article by Janine di Giovanni in The New York Review of Books, he began to promote views supportive of Bashar al Assad and the Syrian government’s position.

For the record, Blumenthal denies selling out for Kremlin cash, and I have no information one way or another on the subject, but it appears that Blumenthal has now somehow become a target of the “Deep State.” This involves a London-based firm called Molfar, “a consulting company specializing in open-source intelligence.” Molfar “is partnered with Ukraine’s Ministry for Digital Transformation” and with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency that is almost as “Deep State” as the CIA. And it seems Molfar is defaming Blumenthal, the left-wing British paper Morning Star reports:

Molfar came to the attention of the Star after it sent a press release last week offering to dish dirt on Grayzone journalist Max Blumenthal, who it accused of taking “money from the Kremlin to run an aggressive campaign against Ukraine.”
Mr Blumenthal strenuously denied the allegations and told the Star he had not been given a copy of the file.
“Molfar has been too cowardly to provide its dodgy dossier to my colleagues, so I have not seen it in full. But the claims made in its mass email are totally false, as I and the Grayzone do not receive state funding. Unlike the USAID-backed smear factory at Molfar, our support is entirely grassroots and reader-based.
“This half-baked attempt at intimidating me for my factual journalism pales in comparison to the repression and violence meted out by the US-backed post-Maidan regime against the many Ukrainian journalists, politicians and human rights activists who have dissented against its corrupt and authoritarian rule,” he said.

So, Zelenksy’s “regime” is “corrupt and authoritarian,” according to Blumenthal, who claims to be the victim of a “USAID-backed smear factory.” In other words, our tax money is being paid to some “consulting company” in London that is defaming an American citizen on behalf of the Ukrainian government? Speaking as someone who has zero admiration for Max Blumenthal, neverthless I must object to this alleged abuse of U.S. taxpayer money. It was perhaps predictable, when the Biden administration started flinging billions upon billions of dollars in assistance to Ukraine, that some of this money would be used in nerfarious ways, but smearing Max Blumenthal — whose father is a longtime henchman of Hillary Clinton — on behalf of the Kiev government? No, I never would have predicted that.

On the other hand, if these Molfar guys have actual proof that Blumenthal is on Putin’s payroll, they need to stop making vague accusations in press releases and start dishing out the actual evidence.

Either way the cookie crumbles — either Max really is a Kremlin puppet, or the “Deep State” is once again exposed as shady and incompetent — I’m ready to see this story become front-page headline news.




 

Category: Journalism, Russia, Ukraine

In The Mailbox: 08.02.22

Posted on | August 2, 2022 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.02.22

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

Hard to disagree.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: How Social Justice Warriors Hurt Minorities
EBL: Nice When Old Friends Can Reconnect
Twitchy: Robber Upset That 80-Year-Old Store Owner Shot His Arm Off, also, Eric Feigl-Ding Thinks Schools Will Need More Safety Mitigations Because Of Monkeypox
Louder With Crowder: Doocy Smokes White House Over Inflation “Reduction” Act
Vox Popoli: The Price of Popularity, Arktoons 8 Million, and Were the Chinese Bluffing?
Stoic Observations: He Looked Just Like You

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The best way to tell if she’s worth a second look
American Conservative: Against Public Atheism, also, Catholic Readers Respond To TLM Post
American Greatness: Port of Los Angeles Clogs Up Again Due to Railroad Worker Shortage, also, Soros Vows to Continue Supporting Soft-on-Crime DAs Despite Backlash
American Power: Fit to Print? UNC’s Settlement with Nikole Hannah-Jones is Bad News, also, The Left’s Assault on the Middle Class
American Thinker: Democrats Are Learning That Hating Trump Is Not The Same As Governing
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Nuclear News
Babalu Blog: Who knew we’d be talking about the misery index again?, Cuba’s Largest Power Plant Closes Down Again Due To Breakdown, and Looming blackouts in Havana a reminder of the failure of communism in Cuba
BattleSwarm: Lebanon Seizes Ship Loaded With Stolen Ukrainian Grain, also, Peter Zeihan: World Agricultural Output Is Screwed, US Output Is Not
Behind The Black: 500 healthcare workers, fired for refusing COVID jab, win $10.3 million lawsuit, Russia launches military satellite, and Long March 5B pieces crash near villages in Malaysia and Indonesia
Cafe Hayek: Geoff Brennan, R.I.P., also, Goods and Services With Price Ceilings of $0
CDR Salamander: The USA Thinks in Domains; the PRC Thinks in Dominances, also, How Many Fireboats Can You Buy for $1.2 Billion?
Chicago Boyz: The Light of Rutupaie Going Out
Da Tech Guy: Fact-checkers are gaslighting Americans over definition of a recession, The Left in General and the Transgender Groomer Left in one Image (and some advice), and Report from Louisiana: Back to School Wish Lists
Don Surber: Biden got the recession he wanted, Let Trump be Trump, and Tossing away 246 years of progress
First Street Journal: Killadelphia
Gates Of Vienna: Afghan Culture-Enricher Punches Out a Girl Soldier, We’ve Got to Beat the Meat, and Imagine There’s No Religion
The Geller Report: No Media Coverage: Biden’s Baby Formula Shortage Worsens, Wreaking Havoc On American Families
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, also, What’s Up for August, 2022
Hollywood In Toto: Broadway Star: Hollywood Ended My Career for Not Getting Vaccine, Wayne’s World at 30: Even More Excellent!, and Dunham’s Sharp Stick Features Film’s First ‘Abortion Baby Shower’
The Lid: Tisha B’ Av: The Day God Gave The Jews A Reason To Cry, also, Rampant Fatherlessness Leads To Tragedies
Legal Insurrection: The Battle Over Wokeness in Higher Ed is Hitting Conservative Colleges Too, Republicans Don’t Believe New CNN CEO’s Promise to End Partisanship, and Air Force Base Hosts Drag Show During Its Diversity Weekend
Nebraska Energy Observer: Looking Back, also, Part One Of Three
Outkick: Enes Kanter Freedom Says He Has No NBA Offers After Speaking Out Against Red China, Exclusive: Allison Williams Joins Fox Sports, Kurt Warner Defends Coordinator Who Said Patrick Mahomes Plays ‘Streetball’, and White Sox Manager Tony La Russa Caught Sleeping on the Job!
Power Line: Living hell in Minneapolis, also, I Scream, You Scream, Reuters Screams
Shark Tank: VP Harris Says Resiliency Money Coming To South Florida
Shot In The Dark: Justice, also, The Mother Of All Debacles
The Political Hat: Anti-Prayer Zones In Ireland
This Ain’t Hell: Outrage over toxic waste burn pit bill, Nan Arrives!, and Navajo Code Talker Passes
Transterrestrial Musings: The FBI And The Democrats, Why America Can’t Build, and George Soros On Criminal Justice
Victory Girls: Joe Manchin’s Tone Deaf Victory Lap, also, Germany Energy Shortage Should Be Warning To U.S.
Volokh Conspiracy: The Conservative Case for Sanctuary Cities and States
Watts Up With That: Climate Scientist Andrew Dessler Proves Renewable Energy is Useless
Weasel Zippers: Biological Man Booted From Girls Cheerleading Camp After Choking Out A Biological Female, Liz Cheney Thinks “Water World” Actor Can Save Her, and Governor Hair Gel Declares State Of Emergency Over Schlong COVID
The Federalist: Russell Moore And Evangelical Elites Can’t Let Go Of Their Jeremiad Against Conservative Christians, Inside Liz Cheney’s Coordinated Effort To Prevent Troop Deployment Before Jan. 6, and It’s Not A “Loophole” Just Because Democrats Don’t Like It
Mark Steyn: It’s Not a Fair Cop, also, Making Plans For Us

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Category: Linkagery

America Needs More Patriotism

Posted on | August 2, 2022 | Comments Off on America Needs More Patriotism

“Patriotism,” as in being a New England Patriots fan. My team — led by my quarterback, Mac Jones — opened training camp last week, and the stands were crowded with thousands of Patriots fans. Is there any other team in America that gets that kind of turnout for training camp?

After winning six Super Bowls in 20 years, New England fans are the most football-crazy people outside of Alabama, and so it feels like a natural fit for Mac Jones, who was accustomed to high expectations in Tuscaloosa, to be tasked with meeting the demands in Foxborough, where merely making the playoffs is not considered success:

Patriots quarterback Mac Jones is preaching patience through the process following another training camp practice in which the defense appeared to outplay the offense.
In the last few practices, Jones has had to scramble because plays have broken down. Jones emphasized that learning a new offense takes time.
“We have a lot of room to grow here,” Jones said following Tuesday’s practice. “…Our offensive line is doing a good job, we just have to get on the same page.”
As the Patriots work to discover their offensive identity, Jones has been visibly frustrated at points as the offense has struggled.
“I care a lot about football and…when we lose the day, to me that’s like a shot in the heart, it’s like we lost a game,” Jones said of his frustration.

Did I mention he went undefeated his senior season at Alabama? He’s got that championship mindset, where even “losing” in practice is “like a shot in the heart.” Going 10-7 last year and then losing to the Bills in wild card round might have been OK with some people, but not Mac Jones, who wants to win everything, all the time — like Patton said:

Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you’ve heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans, traditionally, love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.
When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. Now, I wouldn’t give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed. That’s why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans.

That is how Mac Jones approaches football. He’s got a great sense of humor and loves to joke around with his teammates, but when it comes to football — winning — he takes that very seriously. And that’s good, because Patriots fans take it seriously, too. They’re so football-crazy up there in New England, they demand a daily stream of Patriots news, even during training camp, so the headlines just keep stacking up:

Mac Jones sees ‘room to grow’
for Patriots’ new-style offense
— Pats Pulpit

Tyquan Thornton ‘clearly has the speed
to get open’ as Patriots’ second-round
pick continues to impress
— MassLive.com

Patriots training camp Day 6 observations:
Mack Wilson shines, Ty Montgomery
making case for roster spot
— CBS Sports

Day 6 blogservations: Agholor enjoys solid start
— Patriots.com

Christian Barmore, defense handcuff
offense again in Patriots’ second
padded practice at training camp
— WEEI-FM

Patriots training camp notebook:
Linebackers stand out on Day 6
— WBZ-FM

When 12,000 fans show up for training camp, there must be a huge audience of diehard Patriot fans out there, and the business of feeding them tidbits of news — which linebacker looked good in drills, which cornerback got an interception in practice — employs a small army of sports writers. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the NFL, and these football-crazy New England fans just love Mac Jones.

Is there another quarterback in the league who gets a standing ovation just for running out on the field before practice? We are now nine days away from the Patriots’ first pre-season game at home against the New York Giants, and a month after that, they open the regular season at Miami against their AFC East rival Dolphins. Probably you don’t care. Probably you’ve got some local NFL franchise where you live, but you don’t really care about them, do you? So why not join me in becoming a New England Patriots fan? America needs more patriotism.




 

Category: Football

Give War a Chance?

Posted on | August 2, 2022 | Comments Off on Give War a Chance?

You might be a “climate change” fanatic if . . .

South China Morning Post (SCMP) North American bureau chief Robert Delaney published a bizarre editorial on Tuesday in which he suggested a war between America and China, sparked by Beijing making good on its threat of a military response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) visit to Taiwan, could be even better than the coronavirus pandemic for reducing the world’s carbon footprint.
Delaney’s long screed, which only got around to his give-war-a-chance grand finale in the final paragraphs, included hosannas for the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic as the luckiest break for the climate change movement in generations, since it significantly reduced energy consumption and emissions.
Perhaps more importantly, the pandemic gave free nations a taste of the Chinese-style authoritarianism that would be needed to make Delaney’s climate dreams come true.
A war between America and China that could quickly spiral into a global conflict would seem likely to release a great deal of carbon and other pollutants into the atmosphere — and, in the worst-case scenario, some rather massive radioactive heat blooms — but Delaney argued it would be worthwhile in the long run, because it would make the West more accustomed to totalitarian control and reduce carbon footprints by impoverishing all of mankind . . .
“All things considered, a Pelosi delegation to Taiwan might be just what the Earth’s natural ecosystems need,” Delaney mused.

Is there a thorazine shortage? Because this kind of craziness is apparently becoming rampant — a pandemic of incurable insanity.




 

Category: Global Warming
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