The Other McCain

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

Trump Rally Gunman ID’d as 20-Year-Old Math Geek Thomas Matthew Crooks

Posted on | July 14, 2024 | 2 Comments

The official confirmation of the Trump rally shooter’s identity — Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania — came about 3 a.m.:

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump during a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, has been pictured for the first time.
Cooks, 20, was on the roof of a manufacturing plant over 130 yards away from Trump’s rally at Butler Farm Show grounds on Saturday when he took fire at the former president — grazing Trump’s ear and killing one rally attendee.
Immediately after he began shooting, Secret Service snipers took the 20-year-old out. He was found with an AR-style semi-automatic assault rifle and was wearing a shirt for a popular gun YouTube channel, Demolition Ranch.
One former classmate, who confirmed photos of Crooks, told The Post, “He didn’t seem like really weird or anything. I would have pegged him as a Republican.”
The classmate added: “He was more of a loner. He probably had a friend group, but not many friends.
Asked why he wasn’t in the 2022 yearbook, the classmate said “Maybe he didn’t come back after Covid.”
Crooks grew up in the Pittsburgh suburb of Bethel Park, Pa., a village about 40 miles south of Trump’s rally in Butler.
According to state voter status records, he was a registered Republican.
He also made a single $15 donation to the liberal ActBlue political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021 — President Biden’s Inauguration Day, the Intercept reported.
At the time of the donation, Crooks was 17 years old. He registered to vote upon turning 18 in September of that same year as a member of the GOP, records show.
Crooks was a member of the 2022 graduating class at Bethel Park High School, the school district confirmed Sunday morning.
Video shows him walking across a stage to accept his diploma.
He also received a $500 National Math and Science Initative Star Award during his graduating year, TribLive reported.
Why Crooks fired on the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is unclear.
Early Sunday the FBI officially confirmed the Post’s reporting, calling Crooks the “subject involved” in the attack on Trump.

A loner math geek — of course. It all makes sense now. It’s never the gregarious English majors who commit these atrocities.

UPDATE 11:45 a.m. ET: Are we paranoid enough?

These are my suspicions as well — once the FBI gets involved, the suspect’s social media accounts disappear, so that if he did say anything on Facebook, Reddit, etc., that would give us a sense of his motive, nobody but the FBI can know about it. That’s why I can guarantee you that the shooter is not an anti-Semite or a white supremacist or any kind of “right-wing extremist,” because if that were the case, we would have learned about it many hours ago. One of my acquaintances believes this assassination attempt was a CIA op and, while I am dubious of his theory, I can’t prove it’s wrong, because the FBI has successfully suppressed every independent source of knowledge about the suspect’s motive.



 

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Category: Crime, Donald Trump, Pennsylvania

FMJRA 2.0: The Beatings Continue

Posted on | July 14, 2024 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: The Beatings Continue

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Another miserable week for the Senators, thanks largely to our “closer” Vicente Romo, who lost two of our three games against the Reds and was also responsible for one of our two losses in Boston against the Red Sox. (They swept the two-game series.) At 43-58, we are tied with Oakland for last place in our division, 21 games behind Pete’s Braves, and I’m having serious doubts that we can get to .500 this season. Still, no surrender and all that, but unless his card is a lot better next year, I think we’re going to say goodbye to Señor Romo after this season.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Just a bad week.

Rule Five Sunday: All American Girl
Animal Magnetism
The Daley Gator
Flappr
A View From The Beach
EBL

Jon Stewart: ‘Get on Board or Shut the F*** Up Is Not a Particularly Compelling Pro-Democracy Bumper Sticker’ 
The Daley Gator
Flappr
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

 

 

‘Dangerously Out of Touch’: ABC Interview Doesn’t Quell Dump-Biden Talk
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

‘Team Joe’ Sends Me E-Mail
Flappr
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Even Worse
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.08.24
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

‘Get Money,” R.I.P.
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.09.24
The Daley Gator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.11.24 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

The ‘Misinformation’ Scam
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.11.24 (Evening Edition)
Battleswarm Blog
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.12.24
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending July 12: 

  1.  EBL (12)
  2.  (tied) 357 Magnum & A View From The Beach (11)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

SHOTS FIRED AT TRUMP PA. RALLY; UPDATE: ‘Assassination Attempt’? UPDATE: Shooter Dead, DA Says

Posted on | July 13, 2024 | 2 Comments

This news broke within the past hour and, at this point, nobody can say for certain what happened during Donald Trump’s speech at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The sound of gunshots was reportedly heard, Trump appeared to grab at his neck, then went to the ground, and then was escorted offstage by Secret Service agents.

UPDATE 6:55 p.m. ET: It appears that Trump may have been hit, but perhaps just grazed, as he was able to pump his fist and urge the crowd to “fight” before Secret Service got him offstage. First the shots:

And now Trump’s “fight” moment:

We still know nothing about what actually happened, and I urge everyone to avoid promoting unsubstantiated speculation.

UPDATE 7:15 p.m. ET: The first report from the New York Post:

Former President Trump was shot in the side of the head on stage at a rally in an apparent assassination attempt.
What sounded like gunshots rang out just about five minutes into his speech shortly after 6 p.m., sending Trump to the ground as Secret Service agents jumped in to cover him. Sources said the investigation is ongoing and they are looking into if the shots were from a BB gun.
After the initial shot rang out, apparently grazing Trump, the rest of the shots that could be heard were gunfire from law enforcement, sources said.
A streak of blood could be seen on the right side of his face.
Soldiers in military gear were seen rushing into the rally.
Nine shots could be heard in video of the incident, including three before Trump ducked.

So that’s what we’ve got so far, and it will take a while to sort through the facts and figure out what actually happened. Don’t jump to conclusions. To call it “an apparent assassination attempt” is fine, but appearances can be deceiving. Until we have more definite information, we don’t know what happened, and should avoid pretending as if we do know. Patience!

UPDATE 8:05 p.m. ET: Further details now reported:

Butler County District Attorney Richard A. Goldinger confirmed to multiple news sources that former President Donald Trump was grazed by gunfire at a rally in Butler, Pa., Saturday.
Goldinger added that the shooter was dead, as well as one person in the audience.
No information was available about the audience member who was shot or the shooter at this time. . . .
Trump’s campaign said in a statement after he was rushed off stage that he was fine and being checked out.
“President Trump thanks law enforcement and first responders for their quick action during this heinous act,” spokesman Steven Cheung said. “He is fine and is being checked out at a local medical facility. More details will follow.”
The Secret Service echoed in its own statement that “the former President is safe.”

Until the shooter is identified, we know nothing about the motive. Yes, it was an apparent assassination attempt, but we must wait for more confirmed information to actually know why this happened.

UPDATE 9:05 p.m. ET: The shooter was observed crawling on a rooftop outside the rally with a rifle and, after he opened fire — and barely missed killing Trump — was taken out by the Secret Service. Failure to secure that rooftop before the rally is certain to be widely criticized. We probably won’t know the identity of the shooter tonight, so until we do, I’ll just let this post stand, and do another post if and when we learn anything significant.

UPDATE 9:35 a.m. ET Sunday: Trump Rally Gunman ID’d as 20-Year-Old Math Geek Thomas Matthew Crooks.



 

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Category: Donald Trump, Pennsylvania

‘Don’t Get Cocky’

Posted on | July 13, 2024 | Comments Off on ‘Don’t Get Cocky’

What’s the first thing you notice when you look at today’s Real Clear Politics average of presidential election polls? What stands out to your eye? For me, it’s that NPR/PBS/Marist poll which, alone among all polls in the last two weeks, shows Joe Biden in the lead. Any average is only as good as the components of the total dividend, and this one number — which is eight points off of four different polls showing Trump +6 — ought to attract careful scrutiny. Here’s their story:

Contest for President Still “Up for Grabs”
Biden +2 Percentage Points Against Trump, Despite Concerns about Biden’s Mental Fitness
With just days to go before the start of the Republican National Convention, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump continue to be closely matched among registered voters in both a head-to-head matchup and a multicandidate field. Biden’s support remains relatively unchanged from last month despite the view of many Americans that he lacks the mental fitness to serve as president. However, Biden outperforms Trump on whether either candidate has the character to be President of the United States, and by more than two to one, Americans are more concerned about a president who lies than they are about someone who is too old to serve. Both candidates remain flawed in the eyes of Americans, and majorities say neither should be on the ballot. Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, and Gretchen Whitmer do not improve the Democrats’ chances against Trump.
Among registered voters nationally including leaners, Biden receives 50% to 48% in the two-way presidential matchup. Two percent are undecided. Biden and Trump were tied (49% to 49%) in last month’s pre-debate NPR/PBS News/Marist survey.

Did you catch that? According to Marist, Biden has actually gained two points since their pre-debate poll. Are they trying to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge or what? It’s not just that their number is out of line with most other polls, but the direction of the trend is backwards. For example, the New York Times/Siena College poll has shown the race going from Trump +1 in April to Trump +4 in June (pre-debate) and now Trump +6 post-debate. Similarly, the Emerson College poll, which had Trump +1 in June (pre-debate) now has Trump +3. Stipulate that a shift in the range of 2 to 4 percentage points may just be margin-of-error statistical “noise,” but that Marist poll still sticks out like a sore thumb.

Here, perhaps, it’s worthwhile to mention that I’ve been reading polls for a long, long time. When I was at the Washington Times, one of my jobs was to update the weekly roundup of polls during election years. This was years before Real Clear Politics had begun its handy aggregation and, indeed, before Google, back in the day when you had to use search engines like Yahoo or Dogpile to find anything on the Internet. So for four consecutive election cycles — 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 — I was the guy grabbing up all these poll numbers from wherever I could find them and compiling them for a weekly graphic, trying to give readers an idea of where things stood. The longer you do that kind of work, the more you notice certain patterns. For example, as September gives way to October, the media will look to the polls and declare that the race is “tightening.”

What they really mean — the underlying truth — is that most polling operations have a built-in slant toward Democrats. During most of the year leading up to the November election, whether it’s a Senate contest or a presidential race, most polls will show Democrat leading by a larger margin than the final election result. The “tightening” of poll numbers in October always involves the Democratic candidate losing ground, as these liberal pollster/propagandists adjust their numbers so that their final poll isn’t preposterously out-of-whack with the official vote totals.

All of which is to say that Democrats have mastered the art of using polls to influence public opinion, rather than to reflect public opinion, which is why you will rarely see polls overestimate the likelihood of Republican victory. (The 2022 midterms were an exception in this regard.) Democrats know that many people see polls as justifying either hope or gloom, and therefore they publish polls that reliably inflate hopes for Democratic victories, trying to create self-fulfilling prophecies.

This brings us back to my suspicious side-eye glance at that Marist poll number. The only way you can judge the value of a pollster in terms of predictive accuracy is to look at their past results. In October 2020, Marist released a poll showing Biden leading by 11 points. The final official popular vote had Biden winning by 4.5 points, which meant that Marist’s poll overstated Biden’s support by 6.5 points. Apply that error rate to the current Marist numbers? Biden’s down by at least 4 points.

Not that I’m blowing sunshine up your skirts, you understand. We have no idea what will occur between now and November, whether Biden will be forced off the ticket, or whether Democrats will be able to manufacture enough fake “votes” to elect their candidate (who may or may not be Biden). Overall, however, I’d rather be playing Trump’s hand than to be playing Biden’s hand right now, and I’m not going to let some dubious polls convince me otherwise. Remain calm. All is well.



 

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Category: Donald Trump, Election, Joe Biden, Polls

In The Mailbox: 07.12.24

Posted on | July 13, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.12.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
If you’re going to be in or near Las Vegas next weekend, Son of Silvercon II will be happening at the Plaza in downtown Las Vegas. Come on down!
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Enjoy your weekend!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Stop Listening To The Voices In Your Head – Or Your Dashboard
EBL: Alec Baldwin’s Manslaughter Trial Dismissed With Prejudice
Twitchy: Molly Jong-Fast The Latest Leftist Entering The Anger Stage Of Grief Over Biden, Unable To Run On His Own Record, Biden Says Project 2025 “Biggest Attack” On Our System Of Government, and Biden Insists In Vaguely Threatening Post That His Campaign Is About “Finishing The Job”
Louder With Crowder: The look on Biden officials’ faces when he praised “Vice President Trump” is amazeballs
Vox Popoli: Biden-bot Malfunction, The Unrepentant Evil of the Boomers, Company, and Booktopia Goes Under
According To Hoyt: As The Fog Clears, Don’t Make It Easy, and Spoiling For A Kicking
Upstream Reviews: Witchy Eye
Stoic Observations: The Based Network

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Peterson GazaGazaGazaHamasHamas
American Conservative: Elon Musk Throws Weight Behind Donald Trump, also, French Interior Minister Ices Mélenchon’s Economic Plans
American Greatness: Bidengate and the Doom Loop, also, Biden’s Dénouement Hurts U.S. Standing
American Thinker: The Fraud Triangle: Why Wouldn’t People Who Kill Babies Also Steal Elections?
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Why Is Biden Hanging On Friday
Babalu Blog: Cuban Americans took to the streets on July 11 protest anniversary in support of the Cuban people, As economy tanks, Cuba tightens thumbscrews on ‘private’ businesses, and They came, they sued, and did not conquer
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For July 12
Behind The Black: SpaceX launch experiences a failure of upper stage, Europa Clipper mission threatened by faulty transistors, China planning an asteroid collision mission similar to DART, FAA is apparently starting a new environmental impact assessment for Boca Chica, Russia arrests three Europeans this week for trespassing at Baikonur spaceport, and Musk Says European Union attempted to blackmail X into censoring tweets
Cafe Hayek: Oren Cass Continues to Misunderstand Both Economic Reality and Economic Theory, also, Disagreement Over Means Does Not Imply Disagreement Over Ends
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Joe Biden the MSM & The Splitting of the Niche
Dana Loesch: Biden’s Big Boy Press Conference, 
Don Surber: The original October 7 gives us hope
First Street Journal: A post of mine that will piss off a lot of people
Gates Of Vienna: India’s Muslims and Lessons for the West: Introduction
The Geller Report: Advertising Cartel that Controls 90% of Online Advertising Defunded Conservative News Outlets and platforms
Hollywood In Toto: Why Longlegs Isn’t the Next Silence of the Lambs, also, Sound of Hope Dustup Proves Matthew McConaughey Right
The Lid: Georgia Makes Election Integrity Move that Could Head Off Democrat Cheating
Legal Insurrection: House Democrats and GOP Join Forces to Defend Our Appliances from Biden’s Crazed Energy Department, Meta Planning to Remove Restrictions on Trump Before 2024 Election, Democratic Socialists of America Pulls Endorsement of AOC for Being Insufficiently Anti-Israel, Judge Dismisses Involuntary Manslaughter Case Against Alec Baldwin, Latino Student Group ‘Disaffiliates’ From UW-Madison After School Suspended It for Antisemitism, and Trump Offers to Take Cognitive Test With Biden
Michele Catalano: i am home
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Paul Skenes Named Starting Pitcher In All-Star Game Live On Dan Patrick Show, Caitlin Clark Sets Franchise Record, Indiana Fever Withstands Mercury Comeback Attempt, Serena Williams Uses ESPYs Monologue To Suggest Only White People Like Caitlin Clark, The Summer Of Skenes: It’s Like Fernandomania For Pittsburgh Phenom Off To Historic Rookie Start, Olivia Dunne Had ESPY Viewers On The Edge Of Their Seats, NFL Set To Take On Private Equity Investment, and Golf Influencer Grace Charis Drops Her Own Paige Spiranac Style Slow-Mo Swing Video
Power Line: Living Rent Free in Biden’s Head, The Daily Chart: Non-Working Feds, Meet Israel’s Egoz Boys, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Salazar Unveils Delta Chat App For Cuban Protesters
Shot In The Dark: Advertent 
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday: The Dalai Lama Looks Back
This Ain’t Hell: Occasional Cortex tries to impeach Thomas and Alito, TaH/VG goes to the movies – Snake Eyes, Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever, Supreme Court sides against the power of faceless bureaucrats, Valor Friday, and Navy Sailor attempted to access Joe Biden’s record
Transterrestrial Musings: Propellantless Propulsion, The Latest SpaceX “Scandal”, The Coverup, and The Falcon Failure
Victory Girls: Trans Inmates Are Creating Dangerous Problems In Prisons
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Watts Up With That: U.S. Urban Air Pollution Trends: Fossil Fuel Ecology, ‘You’re Utterly Ignorant’: Ted Cruz Lights Up Climate Protesters Interrupting His Speech, and Miliband Orders Immediate Ban on New North Sea Oil
The Federalist: Lawsuit Alleges Arizona’s ‘Unconstitutional’ Elections Manual Criminalizes Free Speech, Disenfranchises Voters, Former NIH Chief Of Staff Denies Lab Leak Theory Censorship Despite Overwhelming Proof, Biden Mixes Up Vice President Kamala Harris With ‘Vice President Trump’ In Pivotal Speech, Exclusive: 88 Republicans Probe Army For Labeling Pro-Life Organizations As ‘Terrorist Groups’, Transgender Ideology Is Superstition, Not Science, 15 Lies Biden Told During His ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference, and Major Nevada County Pressured To Rubber-Stamp Election After Delaying Certification To Probe ‘Mishaps’
Mark Steyn: Ocean’s Eleventh Hour, Time for Clever Men to Step In, and Two Years On

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 07.11.24 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | July 12, 2024 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

This is the way.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The System Will Not Protect You From A Violent Stalker
EBL: Biden Having A “Big Boy” Press Conference Today, also, Shelley Duvall, RIP
Twitchy: “Super Bowl For Insane People Who Follow Politics,” Jake Tapper Shares Text From Sad Longtime Biden Advisor And People Are NOT Buying It, and Here’s Blinken, Austin, & Sullivan Reacting To Biden Praising “Vice President Trump” During Presser
Louder With Crowder: Dave Portnoy DESTROYS George Clooney’s sudden realization Biden’s a vegetable, but misses one key point, also, Mick Jagger doesn’t understand why Canadians are booing him for admitting he loves Justin Trudeau
Vox Popoli: Insanity is On the Table, Never Trust Ebooks, The Doability of Mass Deportation, There Are No Studies, and Guess Who’s Back on the Not-Meth?
Toni Airaksinen: Autistic Male Student Clears Name In Court After False Sexual Harassment Allegations
Upstream Reviews: Flight Of Vengeance, 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Republicans Prepare for a Biden Ouster, also, The Future for the Rassemblement National Is Bright
American Greatness: Why Gavin Newsom Must Never Become U.S. President, U.S. House Passes SAVE Act to Prevent Non-Citizens From Voting in Federal Elections–With 198 Dems Voting Against, Report: New York City Hotels Housing Illegal Aliens Receive Over $1 Billion in Taxpayer Funds, Our Brezhnev, Our Pravda, Our Soviet Union, and Of Deranged Wolves and Their Shadows
American Thinker: More Bad News on the Electric Vehicle Front
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News, Animal Magnetism LIVE Ep. 14 – Cell Phone Frustrations, and Animal’s Red Thursday News
Babalu Blog: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops demands Cuba’s removal from terror list while Catholics on the island are persecuted, The extrajudicial killings of Cuba’s communist dictatorship, and Lack of coffins and hearses prevents the dead from being properly buried in Cuba
BattleSwarm: New Orleans Tries To Game Gun Free Zone Law By Declaring Police Station A School, also, Poll: Trump Wallops Every Other Dem Even Worse Than Biden
Behind The Black: Webb finds an exoplanet in the habitable zone with a possible nitrogen/CO2 atmosphere and water ocean, Astroscale’s ADRAS-J test spacecraft continues successfully maneuvers around abandoned rocket upper stage, Radar movie produced of 500-foot-wide asteroid, Starliner return delayed until after ground thruster tests are completed and analyzed, India picks astronauts to train for manned mission to ISS, A ridge that runs right over a Martian mesa, and Iran provided financial support to the pro-Hamas demonstrators
Cafe Hayek: Cartoonland
CDR Salamander: Flank, Front, & The Importance Of Language
Chicago Boyz: The Tar-Baby
Da Tech Guy: And VDH Slams Home My Point, Trump Has Passed The Cognitive Test By Adapting Dems Hardest Hit, Five One Line Thoughts Under the Fedora, If the Republican Party would stop being the stupid party for this election that would be great, and Joe, get tested!
Don Surber: Biden likely stays
First Street Journal: Sometimes you just have to be an a*****e to do things right., Pennsylvanians are incensed that Larry Krasner will not seek the death penalty for a cop killer, and NIMBY! Don’t build your damned solar farm next to my neighborhood!
Gates Of Vienna: Downtime, Marion Maréchal: “France is Ungovernable”, Covid-19: All Lies. All Crime. — Chapter 10, The Fly is Still Buzzing, A Martyr For ISIS-K in Austria, and Chechens vs. Syrians: Who Will Win?
The Geller Report: Gaza and the Truth Famine, also, CNN Cuts 100 Jobs, While CBS News President RESIGNS
Hollywood In Toto: Harsh Reality Check for Red State Movies, Fly Me to the Moon Delivers a Seriously Silly Rom-Com, Jimmy Kimmel Has Some Explaining to Do, Meet Outlaw Comedian Josh Denny, and Breaking Laws Sheds Light on Bizarre Justice System
The Lid: Abortion Mill Operators Planned Parenthood has Become Leader in Transgendring Children
Legal Insurrection: Gov. Abbott (R-TX) Challenges Biden’s Recollection of Hurricane Beryl Disaster Request, My Hot Take: Biden Presser A Big Win For Donald Trump Because Democrat Chaos Continues, Biden Introduces Ukrainian President Zelensky as ‘President Putin’, Student Reportedly Deported from the United Arab Emirates After Shouting ‘Free Palestine’ at Graduation, Israel Names Over 100 UNRWA Employees Doubling as Gaza Terrorists, and Why is the Biden Administration Trying to Shut Down the David Horowitz Freedom Center?
Nebraska Energy Observer: Senility and Lies, Nothing Else Holds Fashion, also, Alone
Outkick: Every House Democrat Voted Against Protecting Women’s Sports And Private Spaces, Angel Reese Continues Record Double-Double Streak Despite Abysmal Shooting In Sky Loss, Paul Skenes Throws Seven No-Hit Innings, Pirates Immediately Blow It, Cincinnati Reds Ace Hunter Greene Strikes Out First 6 Rockies, Fans Are Furious Over Robot Bartenders At MLB All-Star Game, and World’s Sexiest Volleyballer Swims With Sharks, UK Soccer Girl Turns On All Of America & The Real Project 2025
Power Line: The Project 2025 Hoax, Democrats Are Facing the Abyss Inside the Abyss, and How Much Do You Hate the Press?
Shark Tank: Pardoned “Felon” Files Defamation Suit Against Sheriff Candidate
Shot In The Dark: Ruben Rosario, Compare & Contrast, Arsenal Of Theocracy, and Remedy
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – Canada The Killer: One Doctor Kills Hundreds; Organ Harvesting From Non-Terminal Patients; Quebec Doctors Want Your Organs
This Ain’t Hell: Canadian sentenced for US stolen valor, The question returns, and Hamas Pier Final Follies?
Transterrestrial Musings: Ariane 6, Coffee, The Secrets Of Ice, Fusion Energy, and Will They Or Won’t They?
Victory Girls: Project 2025 is Democrats’ RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA for 2024
Volokh Conspiracy: Court Holds Federal Ban on Home-Distilling Exceeds Congress’ Enumerated Powers
Watts Up With That: EPA Chief Insists His Agency Has Not Sent ‘One Dime’ To Hardline Left-Wing Org — But There’s A $50 Million Problem, A Clown Show in Court: The Conviction of Just Stop Oil Protestors, and ‘Goes Beyond the Limits’: Judge Throws Out Blue City’s Climate Case Against Oil Giants
The Federalist: Left-Wing ‘Civil Rights’ Groups Suggest It’s Racist To Keep Foreigners From Registering To Vote, Gay Man Allegedly Dismembered A 14-Year-Old Boy He Met On An LGBT Sex App, House Republicans Fail To Hold Merrick Garland In Contempt Of Congress, Wisconsin GOP Prepares For Return Of Ballot Drop Boxes In November’s Election, Contrary To Media Claims, Inflation Index Shows Americans Still Face Sky-High Prices, Democrats Continue To Spew Lies About The Contents Of Project 2025, and Will Biden Cling To Power In 2024 The Way Democrats Predicted Trump Would In 2020?
Mark Steyn: Scarborough Fair and Balanced, Introducing Imam Sanders, and Live Around the Planet: Who’s Behind The Curtain?

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Category: Linkagery

The ‘Misinformation’ Scam

Posted on | July 11, 2024 | Comments Off on The ‘Misinformation’ Scam

Just yesterday I noted my shock that Jon Stewart (!!!) is now apparently a MAGA extremist, and I guess we’ll have to add Nate Silver’s name to the list, now that he’s admitted that the term “misinformation” has been “hijacked as a cover for partisan bias.” Barely two weeks ago, you were a right-wing conspiracy theorist peddling “misinformation” if you suggested that videos showed Joe Biden in a condition of diminished cognitive capacity. “Cheap fakes!” they shrieked, and their army of allegedly objective “fact-checkers” pushed back against any such suggestion. “The right-wing critics of the president have a credibility problem because of, the fact-checkers have repeatedly caught them pushing misinformation, disinformation,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on June 17. Ten days later, Biden’s performance during the debate proved who actually has the “credibility problem,” and it ain’t “right-wing critics.” Suddenly, every Democrat and liberal media hack claimed to have discovered — “shocked! shocked!” like Captain Renault in Casablanca — that the “misinformation” was true.

While we wait for our apology — and I expect it to be a long wait — let’s take a moment to ask: How did we get here? When did concern about “misinformation” become a sort of cottage industry, and why?

Remember? It was 2016 and the Hillary Clinton campaign had some narrative problems. There was that thing about her doing State Department business via a secret personal server, which was destroyed in what was clearly an act of obstruction of justice (for which she was never prosecuted), and then there was a leak of emails from the Democratic National Committee confirming what everybody already knew, namely that the fix was in at the DNC to guarantee Hillary the nomination and screw over Bernie Sanders. The need to distract from these scandals helped fuel the Clinton campaign’s operation to smear Donald Trump as engaged in “collusion” with sinister Russian forces. The DNC emails were not a leak, we were told, but rather the result of a Russian hacking operation. And if you pushed back against that claim, you were accused of being a Putin stooge and your Twitter account might get shut down because somebody called you a “bot” or a “troll.”

Then the unthinkable happened — Hillary lost the election — and one of the consequences was that suddenly the fight against “misinformation” was portrayed as a patriotic effort to SAVE OUR DEMOCRACY by preventing Russian “election interference.” By the way, have you ever heard of a guy named Seth Abramson? He’s a guy who pitches himself as an “investigative journalist” while exploiting the paranoia of gullible left-wingers by telling them that EVERYTHING THEY FEAR IS REAL!

Until Wednesday, I’d never paid any attention to Seth Abramson until (via Memeorandum) I got a look at this headline:

We Now Know What Really Happened in Atlanta
Media lied to voters about the cause of President Biden’s subpar debate performance. The lie — described here in full — is unforgivable, and was intended to chill discussion of Trump’s cognitive decline.

Wow. He bought a ticket on the train to Crazytown and rode it all the way. Here is the essence of Abramson’s claim:

At the time major media began harping on President Biden’s alleged cognitive decline, progressive dissatisfaction with the lack of coverage of Donald Trump’s cognitive decline had reached a fever pitch. The only way for major media to resolve the situation in its favor was to turn a one-night situation whose causes and implications it quickly understood to be (respectively) transient and virtually non-existent into a bigger story that would at once plump ratings, virtue-signal even-handedness, and put progressive critics back on their heels. 

Do you believe that? Or better yet, can you possibly imagine anyone being dumb enough to believe that? Because I must point out that Seth Abramson is a New York Times bestselling author of such titles as Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018), Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump’s International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019), Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020), and Proof of Coup: How the Pentagon Shaped An Insurrection (2022).

And did I mention he used to appear frequently on CNN?

Wikipedia tells us, “Writers at The New Republic and The Atlantic have described Abramson as a conspiracy theorist,” and further directs us to a review of Abramson’s first book (which was compiled from his numerous Twitter threads about the “Russian collusion” claim) by Scottish journalist Harry McGrath:

What it doesn’t do is prove anything despite Abramson’s insistence in the introduction that “Proof of collusion in the Trump-Russia case is in plain sight”. Amassed theories and suggestive juxtapositions notwithstanding, we end up with something closer to the Scottish “not proven” verdict with its unique mix of moral conviction of guilt and inability to conclusively prove the case.

So the guy who claimed to have proven that the “Russia! Russia! Russia!” hoax was true now claims that the media are covering up the “fact” that Donald Trump’s cognitive ability is impaired. You see how the narratives propagated by Hillary Clinton’s campaign have led to a situation in which any claim that reflects badly on Trump is acceptable, even the most obviously counter-factual claims peddled by someone whom liberal journalists call a conspiracy theorist, even while an entire industry has been created to smear any criticism of Biden as “misinformation.”

Glenn Reynolds calls our attention to a lengthy item by Matt Taibbi about the Clemson University “Media Forensics Hub,” which began in 2017 when two faculty members “worked together to uncover and expose more than 3 million tweets by Russian trolls.” Allegedly, I hasten to add. If your account got banned from Twitter because these two guys decided you were a “Russian troll,” far be it from me to accept such defamation at face-value. Given the current situation, when CNN is now running a 24/7 effort to push Biden off the Democratic ticket because of a cognitive impairment which they previously dismissed as “misinformation,” I would urge everyone to be skeptical about any such claims.



 

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Category: Conspiracy Theories, Donald Trump, Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 07.11.24 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | July 11, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 07.11.24 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

It’s about the duality of man.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Just When You Thought Democrats Couldn’t Get Any Dumber
EBL: MAGA Golf: Trump challenges Biden to Golf Match (and Debate Mulligan)
Twitchy: Joe Biden’s “Big Boy” Press Conference Moved Back An Hour & X Has Thoughts, Look On Daily Show Host’s Face After He Asks Blacks Who They’re Voting For Is Priceless, and Morning Joe Says The Quiet Part About Obama & The Biden Campaign Out Loud
Louder With Crowder: Ben Affleck’s daughter demands Los Angeles mandate masks…in 2024, also, Doocy hammers WH: In a nuclear strike, will the Pentagon call Joe Biden or his caregiver Jill Biden?
Vox Popoli: Naked Clown World, Final Cut, and Those Who Wallow in Evil
Upstream Reviews: The War Revealed
Gab: A Crisis of Faith and Politics
Ammo.com: Concealed Carry Crime Stats 2024
Toni Airaksinen: Conservative Jewish Student Forced Into Hiding After Doxxing

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: Oh Noes…Muh NATO
Don Surber: What the Dementia-ocrats fear
STUMP: Taxing Tuesday – Bad Ideas French Coalition

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