The Other McCain

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

Rule 5 Sunday: Shouko’s Mom Has Got It Going On

Posted on | May 22, 2022 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Got a lot of packing to do before I head out tomorrow for Las Vegas, and from there to Washington DC on Tuesday, so tonight, a pic of Shouko Komi’s* mom Shuuko, who is every bit as cute as her tongue-tied teenaged daughter. What do you suppose she’s making in pottery class, aside from a cute mess? Art by Filipino artist Khyle.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

NINETY MILES FROM TYRANNY: Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1722, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Eighth Annual Commencement Day Speech Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: MAGA – Crooked Clinton Russian Collusion, Willie Nelson “Whiskey River”, The Boys, Grace Slick, With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm, Nina Jankowicz – You’re Fired!, Black Grift Matters, Westworld Season 4, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Operation Mincemeat, Old, Super Pumped, Miss Whiplash Has To Pay Taxes, and Ukrainian Secret Weapon Rule 5

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Lily-Rose Depp, Fish Pic Friday – Gigi, Another Bad Year for Maryland Crabs Ahead, Tattoo Thursday, The Wednesday Wetness, Nothing Else Matters, Gone Fishin’, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Hollywood Groomers Convicted and Palms Sunday

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

*From the manga and anime Komi Can’t Communicate.
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Category: Rule 5

The Fresh Prince of Foxborough?

Posted on | May 22, 2022 | 1 Comment

It’s a comparison Jonnu Smith has heard over and over — the kid who made it off the mean streets of Philly, like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. There was a lot of tragedy in Smith’s life. His father was killed in a work accident when Jonnu was just 4 years old, the youngest of six kids. His older brother went to prison, and the violence in his neighborhood was so bad that his mother decided the best thing for 14-year-old Jonnu was to send him to Ocala, Florida, to live with his aunt and uncle.

That decision almost certainly saved Jonnu Smith’s life. By his own admission, he was hanging around a “rough” crowd in Philly, and his childhood best friend was later murdered in the city. By then, however, Smith’s hard work and talent had made him a star tight end for Florida International University, the only school that recruited him out of West Port High School in Osceola. He was drafted in the third round by the Tennessee Titans in 2017 and, as a free agent in 2021, signed a four-year $50 million deal with the New England Patriots. What a story!

So imagine when I saw this on Smith’s Twitter feed:

Wow. Imagine if that was your hometown. What is going on in Philadelphia, to turn it into such a wretched hive of scum and villainy? The homicide total so far this year is 180 in “Killadelphia,” meaning that the city’s averaging about one homicide a day, but nobody seems to consider this an emergency, and Congress is sending billions to Ukraine.

The only advice I can offer residents of Philadelphia is to emulate the example of Jonnu Smith: Get out, before you get killed.




 

Category: Crime, Football

FMJRA 2.0: The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks

Posted on | May 22, 2022 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I hadn’t thought of this song in ages…when it hit the airwaves, I was coming to the end of my time at the Defense Language Institute. I didn’t know jack about how fraternities & sororities worked except for what I’d seen in Animal House, but as it happened, I was dating a German linguist from Lubbock who had been a Little Sister to some frat at Texas Tech, and she was kind enough to explain these things to me. Anyway, I happened to hear it when I was down in Vegas this week, so here it is.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Democrats are blaming everything on GamerGate again.

Rule 5 Sunday: Anya Forger
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
EBL
Proof Positive

Ukraine’s Victory in the Battle of Kharkiv
EBL

“HORRIFIC” MASS SHOOTING
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Mirage
A View From The Beach
EBL

Ukraine: Donbas Battles Intensify
EBL

Personally I Blame Ruy Teixeira
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 05.16.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

A Deadly Hate Crime That Liberals Probably Can’t Blame on Tucker Carlson
The DaleyGator
First Street Journal
EBL
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 05.17.22
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Why Don’t We Trust the ‘Experts’?
EBL
357 Magnum

Bedlam in Bellingham
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

Not His Lucky Day
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 05.19.22 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

In The Mailbox: 05.20.22 (Morning Edition)
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Good-Bye, Disinformation Commissar!
A View From The Beach
EBL
357 Magnum

In The Mailbox: 05.20.22 (Afternoon Edition)
EBL
357 Magnum
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending May 20:

  1.  EBL (16)
  2.  357 Magnum (10)
  3.  A View From The Beach (8)
  4.  Proof Positive (7)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

Liberals Want Ukraine to Negotiate?

Posted on | May 21, 2022 | 1 Comment

There hasn’t been much alteration of the tactical situation in Ukraine since our Monday update (“Ukraine: Donbas Battles Intensify”). The Russians have made some advances from Popasna and west of Lyman, but the battlefronts haven’t really shifted. While there were reports earlier this week that Ukraine was mounting a counteroffensive near Izyum, we haven’t seen evidence of that in terms of moving the lines on the map. However, there was this bit of interesting news:

David Axe of Forbes points out the significance of this location. The Ukrainian forces must be closing in on Izyum if their artillery can hit just a few miles northwest of the city. Meanwhile, about 15 miles west of Lysychansk, the Russians tried for the third time in two weeks to make a pontoon crossing of the Siversky Donets River, with the same disastrous results as their first two attempts. Ukraine claims to have wiped out an entire Russian battalion again in this operation, and while this has not yet been independently confirmed, it’s not beyond belief, given what we’ve seen in the past. The Ukrainians hold two key bridgeheads on the northern (or eastern) bank of the Siversky Donets, at Lyman and Severodonetsk. The Russians want to cross the river in order to outflank these positions and force a Ukrainian retreat. The failure of the Russians so far to accomplish these river crossings is good news for Ukraine, but not the smashing counteroffensive we had expected to see after the Russians were pushed back from Kharkiv. Meanwhile, however, the liberal Surrender Caucus has made its presence known:

A growing chorus in Washington and Europe is urging President Zelensky to lay down and play dead. If only Russia were permitted to eat up the Donbas region of Ukraine, they say, there would be peace in our time — just as there was supposed to be after Hitler was allowed to seize the Sudetenland.
This call is intensifying as the financial cost of America’s involvement in the European war is passing $56 billion and rising. As Republican fiscal hawks and Democrat doves are beginning to push back, Ukraine could become politically hazardous for President Biden as America hurtles toward the midterms.
The latest voice in this chorus is the New York Times editorial board, which often voices un-uttered White House sentiments and policy prescriptions. Now it is advocating a war-ending path. In an editorial Friday, the paper declared, “It is still not in America’s best interest to plunge into an all-out war with Russia, even if a negotiated peace may require Ukraine to make some hard decisions.”
The recipe seems simple: End the Ukraine war in a way that would allow the invader, Vladimir Putin, to save face.

Why? Or rather, why now? Ukraine has fought Russia to a stalemate in the Donbas, they’ve managed to hold Odessa in the south, while vanquishing the Russian invaders in Kyiv and Kharkiv. The Ukrainians claim to be inflicting 100-200 casualties a day on the invaders, so that Putin’s army could be losing men at the rate of about 5,000 a month. So long as Ukraine can continue to fight and win, time is on their side. The Left has been claiming that any negative comment about Ukraine is “Russian disinformation” (at least, if Republicans are saying it) but now the New York Times is saying Zelensky should negotiate with Putin? What do you suppose is their motive?

Politics, that’s what. The war in Ukraine has driven up gas prices, contributing to an inflation problem that’s making the Biden administration look bad, and we’re now less than six months away from the midterm elections, which are looking grim for the Democrats. So the New York Times wants a ceasefire in Ukraine to bail out the Democrats.

I’m thinking of a two-word phrase. The second word is “you.” And this should be Ukraine’s reply to those urging compromise with Putin.

Glenn Reynolds says, “To discourage future invasions, make this one extremely painful.” Exactly right — make ’em bleed for every inch.




 

Category: Russia, Ukraine

Democrats in Midterm Meltdown as DCCC Chairman Makes ‘Racist’ District Move

Posted on | May 21, 2022 | Comments Off on Democrats in Midterm Meltdown as DCCC Chairman Makes ‘Racist’ District Move

Let’s face it, this was never going to be a good year to be in charge of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The D-Triple-C has its occasional good years (e.g., 2006 and 2018), but this year is not going to be one of those years. When Democrats captured control of the House in 2018, they had a net gain of 41 seats to take a 235-seat majority versus 199 for the GOP. This was a fairly narrow majority — a net loss of 18 Democratic seats would put Republicans back in charge. And then in 2020, with “Landslide Joe” Biden at the top of the ticket, Nancy Pelosi’s majority suffered a net loss of 13 seats (down to 222) so that Kevin McCarthy’s GOP is now just five seats away from recapturing the Speaker’s gavel. The Biden disaster (his approval rating just hit a record low) means that Democrats are almost certainly doomed in November, so DCCC Chairman Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney was already piloting a kamikaze flight when he got hit with even more bad news closer to home.

Because New York’s population is stagnating, the state is losing representation after the 2020 Census, going from 27 House seats to 26. (Since the 1990 Census, New York has lost eight House seats.) There was a battle over the redistricting map, and a judge threw out a map drawn by the Democrat-controlled state legislature that likely would have given Democrats 22 seats. This map was an atrocious gerrymander (what the legislature did for Jerry Nadler’s district could be considered a human rights violation) and so the judge appointed a special master to create a new map that will probably result in current Democratic members of the House fighting each other in an election game of musical chairs.

But then the DCCC boss stepped on a “racist” land mine:

Democrat Campaign Chair Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) has received calls to resign his position and accusations of racism over “egregious political malpractice” for announcing a run against a fellow Democrat incumbent in the Empire State after a draft map of new congressional lines was revealed.
Maloney, on Monday, without giving Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) notice of any announcement, said he would run in his colleague’s New York Seventeenth Congressional District instead of his own Eighteenth Congressional District.
“While the process to draw these maps without the legislature is against the will of voters, if the newly-announced maps are finalized, I will run in New York’s 17th Congressional District,” Maloney said via Twitter. “NY-17 includes my home and many of the Hudson Valley communities I currently represent.”
Shortly thereafter, Jones told Punchbowl News that “Maloney did not even give me a heads up before he went on Twitter to make that announcement. And I think that tells you everything you need know about Sean Patrick Maloney.”
However, the redistricting debacle process in New York worsened for Maloney after prominent self-proclaimed socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called for him to resign from his post as Democrat Campaign Chair if he ends up officially running against his fellow New York Democrat in the primary.
“He’s the chair of the DCCC. It’s his responsibility to make sure Democrats stay in the majority,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), another far-left lawmaker from the Empire State in the neighboring Sixteenth Congressional District. “To not run in 18th is to directly impact our ability to maintain the majority… “You’ve got one job to do and you’re literally not doing that job.”
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said it is “Outrageous” for Maloney to run in the district currently represented by Jones and accused the Democrat Campaign Chair of racism after his announcement to run in a different district.
“The thinly veiled racism here is profoundly disappointing,” Torres tweeted. “A black man is ideologically ill suited to represent a Westchester County District that he represents presently and won decisively in 2020? Outrageous.”
MSNBC host Chris Hayes hammered the Democrat congressman, accusing him of “egregious political malpractice.”
“We have seen action from one member of Congress that I have to say is among the most egregious political malpractice I think I’ve ever seen in my life,” Hayes said. He noted that Maloney is supposed to be in charge of keeping the Democrat majority in the House and is already a member of Congress.
“Rather than putting his money where his mouth is and running in the slightly harder district, Sean Patrick Maloney is abandoning it,” Hayes continued. “Maybe Sean Patrick Maloney will be embarrassed by the fact he looks like he doesn’t have the courage of his own convictions. He could decide to remain in the 18th district and hold the seat for the Democrats.”

Fortunately for Maloney, after a four-day brouhaha, the judge released a final version of New York’s district map with a few adjustments:

A state court formally approved New York’s new congressional map late Friday, ratifying a slate of House districts drawn by a neutral expert that could pave the way for Democratic losses this fall and force some of the party’s most prominent incumbents to face off in primary matches.
The map, approved just before a midnight deadline set by Justice Patrick F. McAllister of State Supreme Court in Steuben County, effectively unwinds an attempted Democratic gerrymander, creates a raft of new swing seats across the state, and scrambles some carefully laid lines that have long determined centers of power in New York City.
Jonathan R. Cervas, the court-appointed mapmaker, made relatively minor changes to a draft proposal released earlier this week whose sweeping changes briefly united both Republicans and Democrats in exasperation and turned Democrats against each other.
In Manhattan, the final map would still merge the seats of Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, setting the two Democratic committee leaders, who have served alongside each other for 30 years, onto an increasingly inevitable collision course.
Another awkward Democratic primary loomed up the Hudson in Westchester County, where two Black Democratic House members were drawn into a single district.
But the worst outcome for Democrats appeared to be averted early Saturday morning when one of the incumbents, Representative Mondaire Jones, said he would forego re-election in his Westchester seat. He said he would run instead in a newly reconfigured 10th Congressional District in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, a race that has already drawn the candidacy of Bill de Blasio, the former New York City mayor, but which no other sitting House member is expected to enter. . . .
Mr. Nadler and Ms. Maloney have both declared their intentions to run in the newly created 12th Congressional District, which comprises central Manhattan. . . .
Just to the south, a growing number of candidates have declared their interest in running for a newly reconfigured 10th District, which encompasses all of Lower Manhattan and a large swath of Brooklyn, including Park Slope and Borough Park.
Mr. de Blasio declared his candidacy on Friday before the lines were finalized. Hours later, Mr. Jones surprised Democrats by announcing that he would follow suit, despite having minimal ties to the district. . . .
Representative Nydia Velazquez lives within the new district lines, but she has previously said she intends to run this year in the nearby Seventh District.
Mr. Jones’s decision will help avert another tense intraparty showdown in the Lower Hudson Valley.
The potential conflict emerged earlier this week, when Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the D.C.C.C. chairman tasked with protecting the House majority, announced that he would seek to represent territory currently included in Mr. Jones’s seat. The decision would have forced Mr. Jones to compete in a primary with either Mr. Maloney or a fellow progressive congressman, Jamaal Bowman, in the neighboring 16th District.

So the potentially divisive white/black battle among Democrats for the suburban 17th District has been averted, but the primaries in the 10th and 12th will be intramural urban slugfests. And the beauty of it is that, while liberals are fighting over solidly Democrat districts in New York, Republicans will be free to spend their time and money focusing on competitive swing districts across America. Life is good!




 

Category: Congress, Democrats, Election, New York

Texas Armed Robber Killed by Delicious Fried Chicken and Well-Aimed Gunfire

Posted on | May 21, 2022 | Comments Off on Texas Armed Robber Killed by Delicious Fried Chicken and Well-Aimed Gunfire

Mainly, though, it was the gunfire:

Port Arthur Police have arrested a robbery suspect who was shot and wounded by an armed citizen who intervened shot and killed another suspect outside the Church’s chicken October 1 in Port Arthur.
Police say Desmond Ingram Jr., 33, was taken into custody by deputies with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Warrant Division on Friday, October 8. He’s a suspect in the Aggravated Robbery October 1 at Church’s Chicken, 1849 Jefferson Drive in Port Arthur.
During the robbery, Ingram was shot multiple times and was hospitalized for the injuries he received during the crime. After he was released from a hospital, Ingram was transported to the Jefferson County Correctional Facility, where he was booked for Aggravated Robbery. Ingram is held on a $500,000 bond.
Another suspect, Richardo Guient, 33, was shot and killed during the robbery by the armed citizen who intervened.
Investigators say Guient was also a suspect in the robbery of a Jack-in-the-Box on Twin City Highway September 29, two days before the Church’s chicken robbery. The gunman got away with $200 from Jack-in-the-Box.

Earlier this month, Ingram was sentenced to 30 years in prison. You will probably not be surprised to learn he had “several prior felony convictions, and was out on supervised release at the time of the offense for a federal firearms violation.” The getaway driver, Justin Cunningham, was already wanted on a felony warrant from nearby Hardin County.

The Active Self Protection channel has the video:

 

Dude was at the drive-through window when the robbery went down, had a concealed carry permit, and went to work on these two robbers. You can understand, like, you’re waiting on your three-piece meal and a large sweet tea, and these robbers cause your order to be delayed.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM! “OK, now where’s my chicken?”

Folks don’t mess around in Texas. They’ll kill for their fried chicken.




 

Category: Crime, Texas

In The Mailbox: 05.20.22 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | May 20, 2022 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts. Next week I’m heading to the DC area, so who knows?Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Gatekeeping done right.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: RIP Vangelis, also, Testosterone Treatment Turns Democrat Voters More Conservative
Twitchy: Archbishop Cordileone Drops The Hammer On Nancy Pelosi, also, “Nice Knowing You, Robby”
Louder With Crowder: Elon Musk Hits Back Hard On “Politically Motivated” Sexual Harassment Hit Piece
Vox Popoli: It’s All Fake
According To Hoyt: It Has To Die Here, I’m Digging Holes, and Global WHAT?
Monster Hunter Nation: “Why Won’t Men Read My Preachy Literati Bullshit?”
Stoic Observations: Even The Rat Was White

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: The Patriarchal Man
American Conservative: The Two Faces Of Originalism
American Greatness: Antifa Agitators In Atlanta Allegedly Attempt To Firebomb Police, also, Hillary’s Ex-Campaign Manager Testifies That She Personally Signed Off On Alfa Bank Smear Of Trump
American Power: Well, At Least It’s Not A Dude With A D***
American Thinker: Biden’s America Rots From The Head Down
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Eighth Annual Commencement Speech Friday
Babalu Blog: Another Building Collapses In Havana, also, Cuban Power Outages & Food Shortages Cause Violent Protest; Government Responds With “Acts Of Repudiation”
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For May 20
Behind The Black: Pushback – Two Alaska Airlines Flight Attendants Fired For Asking Questions File Lawsuit, Pushback – Five Bowling Alleys Sue Gov. Whitmer, and Starliner Reaches Proper Orbit Despite Thruster Problems
Cafe Hayek: “Deflating Arguments For Inflation”
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Cause & Effect, or, Why The Media Has No Credibility – Elon Musk Edition
Don Surber: Alaska Airlines Goes Woke & Gets Sued, also, New Poll Devastates CRT, LGBT Classes
First Street Journal: Why Is Larry Krasner Wasting Time & Money Trying To Set Criminals Free?
Gates Of Vienna: Games Of Life & Death, also, Culture-Enriching Romance Goes Horribly Wrong In Dresden
The Geller Report: DOD Issued Contract for COVID-19 Research In Ukraine Three Months Before COVID-19 Officially Existed, also, Netflix Fires 150 Employees In Wake Of Woke Decline
Hogewash: Are They Laughing At Us?, 36 Galactic Mileposts, and Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: Klavan’s The Uncanny Set For World Premiere, Would George Carlin Be Bill Maher Or Howard Stern Today? and 17 Killer Elvis Costello Song Lyrics
The Lid: U.S. Carriers & Amphibious Assault Ships Making Red China Nervous
Legal Insurrection: Progressive Rep. Torres Accuses DCCC Chair Of Racism As Panicked NY Dems Form Circular Firing Squad, UNC Chapel Hill Journalism School Denied Accreditation For Lack Of Racial Diversity, and Fla. Redistricting Map Favoring GOP Reinstated By State Appeals Court
Michelle Malkin:
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: NBA, NFL Silent On #BLM’s Questionable Spending, Nick Saban Apologizes, and College Football Moves From Communism To Capitalism Overnight & Chaos Ensues
Power Line: That Which Cannot Be Said, Freedom Is Fascism? and Is The New Deal Unconstitutional?
Shark Tank: Rep, Byron Daniels Calls Out Biden’s Attempt To Blame Gas Prices On Putin
Shot In The Dark: The Most Valuable Commodity Will Be Corrugated Tin For The Roof Of Your Hovel, also, What Did Rochester Ever Do For Them?
STUMP: U.S. Mortality Trends Through The Pandemic
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Conservative Search For A Foreign Policy
This Ain’t Hell: One Sheriff’s Race, Two Cases Of Stolen Valor, Valor Friday, and Benefit Thief Thomas Wayne Hudson Passes
Transterrestrial Musings: Confession, Elon Musk, and Roger Angell
Victory Girls: As Elon Predicted, The “Dirty Tricks” Campaign Unfolds
Volokh Conspiracy: No, Joan Biskupic, Justice Thomas Did Not Take A “Surprising, Public Jab” At Justice Roberts
Watts Up With That: Which Woke Mediocrity Will Replace The Outgoing UN Climate Chief? also, Blackouts…Because Climate Change! Blame Natural Gas!
Weasel Zippers: Interior Secretary Haaland Can’t Say If It’s Better To Produce Oil In The US Or Venezuela – “I’m Not An Economist”, also, Biden Support Among Hispanics Craters
The Federalist: Missouri Legislature Takes An Axe To Zuckbucks In State Elections, also, Reluctant Witness Devastates Defense Claims In Sussmann Case
Mark Steyn: A Nation Once Again

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Category: Linkagery

Good-Bye, Disinformation Commissar!

Posted on | May 20, 2022 | Comments Off on Good-Bye, Disinformation Commissar!

The screen shot above is from November 2021, when Nina Jankowicz was a guest on MSNBC talking about “disinformation” on Facebook. Suffice it to say that Jankowicz was a “Russian collusion” truther, whose 2020 book How to Lose the Information War included what a friendly reviewer called “a fascinating examination of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election” as supposedly exemplifying “the experience of countries targeted by Russian disinformation.” This was the central thesis of the Clinton campaign’s claim that Donald Trump’s election was illegitimate, i.e., that Hillary Clinton didn’t actually lose in 2016, but rather that she was cheated out of the presidency because of “Russian interference.”

We could examine at length the harmful impact of the “Russian collusion” hoax, and examine also Jankowicz’s role in promoting that hoax, but the point is that her selection to head the Department of Homeland Security’s newly-created “Disinformation Governance Board” was certainly not a coincidence. That is to say, Jankowicz was recognized by Democrats as a reliable agent with a solid record of promoting (indeed, producing) partisan smears intended to shut down opposition.

That’s what the “disinformation”/“misinformation” wars are actually about. For the past six years, going back to the 2016 campaign, Democrats have weaponized the accusation that Republicans were not merely wrong, but were secretly in cahoots with the Kremlin — traitors acting on behalf of a hostile foreign regime. And after all the investigations attempting to prove that bogus claim, which originated with the Clinton campaign and was used to assert that the 2016 election was stolen, then the Democrats turned around and asserted that anyone dubious of Joe Biden’s election in 2020 was a “threat to democracy.”

Thus, in order to protect “democracy,” any and all opponents of the Biden administration must be silenced. Or so the argument seems to be: Democracy requires censorship, and the First Amendment be damned.

All of that is preamble to the story by the Washington Post‘s Taylor Lorenz which reported that the Disinformation Governance Board (DGB) plans have been “paused,” a decision that Lorenz blames on “far right” attacks on the saintly non-partisan Jankowicz:

In naming the 33-year-old Jankowicz to run the newly created board, the administration chose someone with extensive experience in the field of disinformation, which has emerged as an urgent and important issue. The author of the books “How to Be a Woman Online” and “How to Lose the Information War,” her career also featured stints at multiple nonpartisan think tanks and nonprofits and included work that focused on strengthening democratic institutions. Within the small community of disinformation researchers, her work was well-regarded.
But within hours of news of her appointment, Jankowicz was thrust into the spotlight by the very forces she dedicated her career to combating.

There is a lot to digest in that 106-word passage, with its thumbnail summary of Jankowicz’s career. The phrase “multiple nonpartisan think tanks” is a way to fluff up a resume that includes (a) a stint at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, (b) a postgraduate fellowship in Ukraine funded by the Clinton Foundation, and (c) her current employment at the Wilson Center.  The best way to explain her “extensive experience” is to cite Jankowicz’s own description of what inspired her to write her book:

Out of graduate school, I worked for the National Democratic Institute, an organization that provides training and support to democratic activists around the world. I worked on programs in Russia and Eurasia. We were often the victims of Russian propaganda, which sought to paint us “CIA-sponsored instigators of color revolution” (we weren’t). I’ve always been interested in the effects of social media on society, so when Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution happened, I felt a strong pull to go there and work on issues related to disinformation. As a Fulbright Public Policy Fellow, I advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on strategic communications issues. I watched from Kyiv as the U.S. election unfolded and America woke up to the threat of information warfare. That’s where the idea for the book was born.

Notice first her flat assertion that the NDI is not a CIA front sponsoring foreign revolutions. NDI is merely supporting “democratic activists around the world” — you say “to-may-to,” I say “to-mah-to.”

Remember the allegedly spontaneous outbreak of revolutions in the so-called “Arab Spring” of 2011? Did the NDI play any role in that? Were they supporting “democratic activists” in Libya, Syria, Egypt, etc.? At whose behest did such “support and training” take place? Do you expect me to believe that the NDI would have been training “democratic activists” in such countries without the explicit approval of the State Department (to which the CIA is joined at the hip)? We may be charitable toward Jankowicz and assume she really didn’t know NDI was part of CIA operations or, alternatively, we may suppose she’s just doing what CIA operatives always do — i.e., deny that they’re CIA operatives.

Excuse me for belaboring this point, but did you know that, when Jankowicz was at NDI, the institute was led by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and that in 2011 — the same year as the “Arab Spring,” which we’re supposed to believe was totally not a CIA operation — the keynote speaker at the NDI’s Democracy Awards Dinner was none other than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? But of course NDI is just an independent non-partisan think tank, right? That’s what Taylor Lorenz expects us to believe, and you must be some kind of “far right” conspiracy theorist (or perhaps a Russian agent) if you doubt it.

So there was the allegedly non-partisan Jankowicz, working at NDI — totally not a CIA front — “when Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution happened” (note the passive voice) and she grabbed a Fulbright fellowship that put her in Kyiv, where she “advised the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on strategic communications issues.” The association between the Clinton Foundation and the Fulbright fellowships is no secret, and so when this revolution in Ukraine “happened” in 2013-2014, Jankowicz left NDI to become an adviser to the new regime in Kyiv. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure, but probably Vladimir Putin has his doubts.

Let anyone investigate what happened in Ukraine in 2013-2014, a revolution that ousted the Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and installed in his place the U.S.-friendly Petro Poroshenko, and ask yourself, “Was the Obama administration pleased by this result? Was this an outcome that the Obama administration, shall we say, encouraged?”

It was in April 2014 — in the wake of this Ukrainian revolution that just “happened,” and which only a far-right conspiracy theorist might suspect was instigated by the CIA — that the Ukrainian gas company Burisma hired a certain vice president’s son as a member of its board of directors. Less than two years later, when a Ukrainian prosecutor began investigating Burisma, Joe Biden told President Poroshenko to fire the prosecutor, or else the U.S. would withhold aid to Ukraine.

This was what was going on while Jankowicz was giving advice to Poroshenko’s foreign ministry on “strategic communications issues.” You may be surprised to learn (that is, if you’re stupid enough to believe Taylor Lorenz about this “non-partisan” stuff, it may be surprising) that Jankowicz literally campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and donated to Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020. So she’s up to ears in it and — yet another amazing coincidence! — “as the U.S. election unfolded” in 2016, when Hillary notoriously lost, she got the idea for her book about “disinformation.” Jankowicz was and is a “Russian collusion” truther, and the fact that she, of all people, was appointed as director of a new agency within the Department of Homeland Security tells you everything you need to know about what’s wrong with the Biden administration.

What’s going on in Ukraine this very minute is a direct result of the kind of dangerous meddling that the Obama administration pursued in so many countries. First with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and later with John Kerry, the Obama administration was so busy promoting “democracy” (as they viewed it) overseas that they completely lost sight of whether such shenanigans might produce results harmful to U.S. national interests. The deaths of four Americans at Benghazi was just the most glaring of the unintended consequences of the Obama administration’s approach to foreign policy, and the fact that Benghazi was the site of a CIA compound sort of gives away the dirty little secret of why the 2011 Arab Spring just “happened,” in the same way the Ukrainian revolution “happened,” which is to say, not by coincidence.

Look, I’m no conspiracy theorist, but I’m not naïve, either. The Arab Spring had all the hallmarks of a CIA operation, and so did the 2013-2014 revolution in Ukraine. Someone at the White House or Foggy Bottom decides they want certain outcomes in foreign countries, and somebody at the CIA is assigned to get the job done. Sic semper hoc. You can look up the history of CIA-sponsored revolutions and if you think that kind of stuff ended with Allen Dulles, you’re a damned fool. Jankowicz ridicules the accusation that NDI’s training of foreign “democratic activists” was linked to such CIA operations, which tells me either (a) she’s a damned fool or (b) she thinks the rest of us are damned fools.

Time to wake up and smell the Deep State, my friends.

But oh, says Taylor Lorenz, Jankowicz was a victim of the “far right”:

Just hours after Jankowicz tweeted about her new job, far-right influencer Jack Posobiec posted tweets accusing the Biden administration of creating a “Ministry of Truth.” Posobiec’s 1.7 million followers quickly sprung into action. . . .
Posobiec’s early tweets shaped the narrative and Jankowicz was positioned as the primary target. Republican lawmakers echoed Posobiec’s framing and amplified it to their audiences. . . .
The week following the announcement, approximately 70 percent of Fox News’s one-hour segments mentioned either Jankowicz or the board, with correspondents frequently deriding the board as a “Ministry of Truth,” according to Advance Democracy. The Fox News coverage was referenced in some of the most popular posts on Facebook and Twitter criticizing Jankowicz.
Dozens of websites including Breitbart, the Post Millennial, the Daily Caller and the New York Post began mining Jankowicz’s past social media posts and publishing articles to generate controversy.

You can read the rest of that, but you see Lorenz is encouraging readers to believe that if (a) actions of the Biden administration (b) are criticized by Republicans, then this must mean that (c) the criticism was wrong, and therefore (d) Nina Jankowicz is a victim of “disinformation”! This is either a tautology or a non sequitur, but whatever you call it, the line of argument advanced by Taylor Lorenz does not withstand scrutiny. She minimizes Jankowicz’s problematic past and treats as self-evidently false the belief that what DHS was undertaking was an effort to set up a federal “Ministry of Truth” with Jankowicz as commissar.

Lorenz expects us to accept without question that creation of the Disinformation Governance Board — my friend John Hoge used Cyrillic letters for the acronym — should not have been the least bit controversial, and that the choice of Jankowicz to head this novel agency should have been similarly non-controversial. What are they smoking in the offices of the Washington Post? Or, for that matter, what are they smoking at the White House, if they thought they could get away with this?

Well, congratulations to my “far right” friends for putting a stop to it.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)




 

Category: Conspiracy Theories
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