The Other McCain

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

FMJRA 2.0: Eternity Sunrise

Posted on | August 7, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Eternity Sunrise

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Our long national nightmare is over – the Senators took two games from the New York Day Traders at RFK today, ending a miserable ten-game losing streak. Outfielder Pat Kelly, acquired from Pete’s Pilots along with southpaw Ron Bryant and a couple of draft picks for former franchise player Frank Howard, was a big contributor in helping set the table for Orlando “Baby Bull” Cepeda, who did not disappoint in his new role of cleanup hitter. All three games were close – the initial loss was 7-6 in twelve innings, the second was a 3-2 pitcher’s duel with Larry Dierker outdueling Hall of Famer Tom Seaver, and the third was an 11-10 slugfest won in the bottom of the 10th by Del Unser, who drove in utilityman Hal Lanier from second. In other trade news, the Senators acquired rookie third baseman Steve Garvey and a 5th round pick from the Dodgers in exchange for our first round pick; manager Ted Williams says young Garvey has a lot of potential and looks forward to having him in the lineup.
I don’t often talk about music, but I feel I should put in a special mention for today’s artist, John Foxx, who doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his influence on goth, electropop, synthpop, and a bunch of related genres. As main composer and lead singer of Ultravox on their first three albums, including Systems of Romance, he changed the band from raucous proto-homocore to a smoother, dreamy, surreal sound which led him to go solo. Gary Numan in particular cites him as an inspiration.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: Olga Alberti
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

All Neighborhoods Are Not Created Equal
Okrahead
The DaleyGator
The First Street Journal
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 08.01.22
Okrahead
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 08.02.22
Okrahead
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Patrick Mahomes: Victim of Racism?
The DaleyGator
Okrahead
357 Magnum
EBL

Joe Biden Has COVID — AGAIN!
Okrahead
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Velvet Voyage
Okrahead
A View From The Beach
EBL

Lena Dunham Is Totally Triggered About Abortion Rights (Even Though She Had a Hysterectomy More Than Four Years Ago)
The DaleyGator
Okrahead
357 Magnum
EBL

Give War a Chance?
357 Magnum
EBL

America Needs More Patriotism
Okrahead
EBL

Is @MaxBlumenthal on the Kremlin Payroll? (And Other Ukraine Questions) 
Okrahead
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 08.04.22 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

BOOM! America’s Best Governor Suspends Rogue Tampa Prosecutor
Okrahead
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 8.04.22 (Evening Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 08.05.22
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending August 5:

  1.  EBL (15)
  2.  357 Magnum (12)
  3.  Okrahead (10)
  4.  A View From The Beach (9)
  5.  Proof Positive (6)

Thanks to everyone for the links!

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: FMJRA Award

He’s Not Making This Up, You Know

Posted on | August 6, 2022 | Comments Off on He’s Not Making This Up, You Know

My podcast partner John Hoge calls attention to this story:

A Baltimore ex-gang member who uses graffiti to designate ‘no shoot zones’ to discourage gun violence around the city was shot in his back, neck and jaw on Wednesday.
‘I was shot three times,’ Tyree Moorehead, 46, told reporters on Wednesday. ‘A bullet went through my jaw, my neck and one is still in my back.’
He is known for creating over 250 ‘no shoot zones’ across Baltimore in places where someone was shot and killed to raise awareness for the issue.
A former gang member himself, Moorehead has admitted to shooting up to 20 people as a teenager before serving 11 years in jail following a shootout with police at age 15.
In a video posted to what appears to be Moorehead’s Instagram page, he said he was shot near Monument Street while going to the store in central Baltimore.
Moorehead apparently made it home after the shooting before police arrived, and the injured 46-year-old can be heard saying to medics ‘I’ve been shot in my neck and my back, I think.’ . . .
Moorehead was then taken to hospital before leaving without being discharged. A video recorded by Fox45 showed him walking down a Baltimore street in hospital scrubs and a blue hair net.
He told a reporter he was ‘good,’ and also said ‘nothing went wrong, you just have someone that’s trying to protect a community that obviously doesn’t want to be protected.’

There may be cities in America that are worse than Baltimore, but it’s a damned short list. Be sure to tune in to The Other Podcast for more.




 

Category: Crime, Maryland, The Other Podcast

Lisa Graas Needs Help, Y’all

Posted on | August 6, 2022 | Comments Off on Lisa Graas Needs Help, Y’all

Lisa Graas (right) and her daughters with Rick Santorum

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO LISA GRAAS

Lisa Graas has been diagnosed with cancer, and it’s very serious.

Longtime readers will recognize Lisa from 10 years ago when she was a leading online supporter of Sen. Rick Santorum’s primary campaign for the Republican nomination. When I was covering the Louisiana primary, and got busted in the notorious speed trap town of Livonia — they towed my rental car! — it was Lisa who drove all the way down from Kentucky to Louisiana to bring me back home. This also enabled her to be at the Santorum victory party in Harahan.

Lisa is a devout Catholic who is still blogging at Pierced Hearts which has a page with various ways you can contribute to support her. Lisa’s diagnosis sounds very serious and her chemo treatments will cost $10,000-$20,000 per month, some of which should be covered by insurance, but still this is an ordeal for her. Lisa helped me in my hour of need, so everything y’all could do for her would be greatly appreciated.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO LISA GRAAS

UPDATE: Lisa informs me that you guys contributed more than $1,500, for which she is very grateful. I’ll leave this post stickied to the top of the page until Tuesday morning, just in case anyone previously overlooked it.

 

Category: Lisa Graas

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

Amazon Warehouse Deals




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

Amazon Warehouse Deals




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

Amazon Warehouse Deals




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
« go back — keep looking »