The Other McCain

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

In The Mailbox: 10.23.23

Posted on | October 24, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.23.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I thought this posted last night but evidently I missed something.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

h/t Tom Kratman on X

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Neighbors Were Shocked
EBL: I lost interest in Speaker after Jim Jordan–who just pulled up in the GOP clown car? Slotherhouse, and Eiffel
Twitchy: Community Notes – “Hamas Has Never Been Popular With Palestinians”, CNN Guest Argues That What Israel Is Trying To Do Is Ethnic Cleansing, and We’re Assured That “Jihad” Means A Lot Of Different Things
Louder With Crowder: Byron Donalds announces he’s running for Speaker of the House and Occasional Cortex is PISSED, Hamas Caucus member Ilhan Omar lashes out at reporter, refuses to say Israel has a right to defend itself, and Alyssa Milano (of course) leads Hollywood in an open letter to Joe Biden demanding an Israel ceasefire
Vox Popoli: ComicsGate is Comics Now, The Global South is Lost, Setup for a Showdown, Even Clownocrats Resist, and The ADL Fights the Real Enemy
Draw & Talk: Mainstream Creator Blocks Indie Creator For Doing Math

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: If you accept Vatican II then you must accept Vatican III
American Conservative: It Is Time for Sullivan to Go
American Greatness: The George Floyd, Jr. Narrative Unraveled, The Sickness of Our Universities—and the Cure, and Conservatives in Congress Take Aim at Cyber Agency CISA over Abuse Allegations
American Thinker: Hamas Massacres – The New Face of Gun Control, Biden’s Decades Of National Security Failures And Military Endangerment, and Open Sources Demolish the Legacy Media
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: As buildings in Cuba continue to collapse, Castro regime announces new luxury hotel, More oil arrives in Cuba, but refinery is closed and gas stations lack fuel, Where were you in 1962? and Rabid supporter of Cuban dictatorship might be next Speaker of the House
BattleSwarm: Israel-Hamas: Why This Time is Different, Russia: “We Are Withdrawing From The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.” U.S.: “OK.” BOOM!, and Texas Constitutional Amendment Voting Started Today (With Recommendations)
Behind The Black: Gaganyaan aborted test flight flies successfully after short delay, The reshuffling of Blue Origin’s management continues, First Bennu asteroid samples recovered from OSIRIS-REx return capsule, Space Perspective unveils restroom for its high altitude tourist balloon, and “Formerly clandestine Nazis will continue protesting, sometimes violently”
Cafe Hayek: The Awestruck and the Awws
CDR Salamander: The Next Godzilla Movie Will Be LIT!
Da Tech Guy: Don’t want to hear your whining, Pro-Terror Folks Pull Down Posters of Kidnapped Kids, London Police Say: “Hold My Beer” Apparently Reality is to Blame, and I Can’t Do Better Than Noa Tishby on This
Don Surber: The Nazis are winning
First Street Journal: When they show you who they are, believe them! Trudy Rubin wants Israel to lose in Gaza, and Is Pope Francis trying to destroy the Church?
Gates Of Vienna: The European Parliament — What is it Good For? Absolutely Nothing! Taking it Out on the Kids, In Cold Blood, The Gaza War — No Worries, and Éric Zemmour: “Islam is a Totalitarian Religion”
The Geller Report: Ex-Obama NLRB Counsel, 80 Professors Sign Petition Saying Hamas Atrocities are Legit ‘Military Operation’, Detroit Synagogue President Samantha Woll Brutally Stabbed To Death Outside of Her Home, BROOKLYN: Thousands of Muslim protesters demanding annihilation of Israel attack NYPD, and DISASTROUS Biden Regime Tells Israel to Delay its Ground Operation in Gaza
Glenn Reynolds: Higher education – a toxic industry?
Hogewash: Simulation: A Disk Galaxy Forms, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, Hera Preparing To Follow Up On DART, and Orwell Redux
Hollywood In Toto: Halloween H20: 20 Years Later Should Have Ended Franchise for Good, Shroud Doc & Book Bring Science and Faith Together, Jon Stewart: Put Up or Shut Up, and Writers Guild Can’t Reach Consensus on Condemning Terror
The Lid: Kennedy Throws Race To Trump Over Biden In Harvard-Harris Poll
Legal Insurrection: Ringleader of Black Chicagoans Who Tortured Disabled White Boy After Trump’s Election Released From Prison, Terror-Supporting Students for Justice in Palestine at U. Arizona Canceled Rally Over Hurt Feelings From School President Statement, SF Police Powerless as Homeless Convicted Pedophile Camps Across From K-8 School With ‘Free Drugs’ Signs, Associated Press Reporters Can Only Describe Hamas Terrorists as Militants, ‘Fighters, Attackers, or Combatants’, Leftist Campus Embrace Of Hamas Barbarism: “We’re in the ‘suddenly’ phase” of Higher Ed collapse, Shaun King Takes Credit for Hamas Hostages Release, Their Family Says ‘Shaun Who?’ and Oregon Students No Longer Have to Prove Mastery of Reading, Writing, or Math to Graduate
Nebraska Energy Observer: Saturday – just for you, Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, and The View from Monday
Outkick: Derek Jeter Called ‘Wet Blanket’ For Refusing To Wear Cowboy Hat On Fox MLB Playoffs Set, Maserati Marv Nickname, Coined By Gus Johnson For Ohio State WR, Gets Social Media All Revved Up, Will LSU Fans – ‘As Vulgar As They Come’ – Clean Up Their Act For Army Game? Bryce Harper Steals Home, Gets Into Huge Collision At The Plate, Emmanuel Acho Ridiculously Suggests Caleb Williams Should Sit Out Rest Of Season, and Taylor Swift Fans Are Rightfully Concerned She’s Too Close To Scumbag Jackson Mahomes
Power Line: Another Nail In the Global Warming Coffin, Pro-Genocide Rally In Brooklyn [Updated], Don’t Wait, Israel, and How Dumb Is CNN?
Shark Tank: Rick Scott Demands Israel Funding Separation From Ukraine Funding
Shot In The Dark: One Day At The MNDFL Communications Office, also, An Idea Almost Too Crazy To Comprehend
The Political Hat: Let’s Talk About Decolonization
This Ain’t Hell: Saturday is for Army, Essential skills testing suspended in Oregon for equity purposes, Book banning, or prohibiting children from mature content? Gutless Wonders, US Ambassador to UN Drafts Sternly Worded Letter, and Defense system considered for Guam to be leased to Israel
Transterrestrial Musings: Greta Thunberg
Victory Girls: Israeli Children Were Not Detained, They Were Kidnapped, The West Has Failed Its Moral Test Over Nazism, and Occasional Cortex – Israel Committed War Crimes, Not Hamas
Volokh Conspiracy: Updated: No “Space, Consideration, or Support” for Zionism at Wellesley, Demand Student Resident Advisors, also, Understanding Pro-Hamas Sentiment on the Far Left
Watts Up With That: Sacramento Bee Won’t Attribute Mild Wildfire Season to Climate Change, Falsely Claims the Inverse, Arctic sea ice: the canary in the coal mine, Navigator CO2 Ventures cancels carbon-capture pipeline project in US Midwest, and The Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council Has Petitioned the Supreme Court for Certiorari
The Federalist: University Students’ Support For Terrorism Isn’t Ideology, It’s Conditioning, Media Claims ‘Biden’s Economy Is Great Everywhere’, Sending U.S. Troops To Stop Israel From Defending Itself Has Historically Disastrous Consequences, Media Help Democrats Like Newsom Bash Judges But Lost Their Minds When Trump Did The Same, and Joe Biden’s $200K Check Shows He Profited From The Family Biz To The Detriment Of Innocent Creditors
Mark Steyn: Our Psycho: Hannibal Lecter and The Silence of the Lambs, Cinderella Rockefella, and Diversity Is Where Nations Go to Die

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Category: Linkagery

Detroit Police Say Anti-Semitism Not Motive in Synagogue Leader’s Murder

Posted on | October 24, 2023 | Comments Off on Detroit Police Say Anti-Semitism Not Motive in Synagogue Leader’s Murder

Very important update on the case:

Detroit police said investigators have looked into several people of interest in the killing of Samantha Woll, the president of a Detroit synagogue. Woll was found stabbed to death outside her home on Saturday morning.
In a press conference on Monday, Detroit Police Chief James White declined to unveil the connection between Woll and the people of interest, declaring a prime suspect cannot be named at the time.
“We have to be very, very cautious as to what information we share,” White said. “There are very intricate details about this case that, if revealed, could really damage what we’re trying to accomplish. There are facts that are known only to our suspect.”
White also clarified evidence in Woll’s death indicates her killing was not a result of antisemitism. Detroit police said Woll went to a wedding Friday night and left at about 12:30 a.m. on Saturday. Her body was found at about 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, and police say there was no forced entry at Woll’s home in Lafayette Park, located east of downtown Detroit.
“We believe there are no other groups or anyone else at risk,” White said. “We believe that this incident was not motivated by antisemitism and that this suspect acted alone.”

Hmmmm. Notice what the Chief doesn’t say — nothing about robbery or sexual assault, which we might typically consider possible motives in such a crime. Revenge? A disgruntled ex-boyfriend? We understand the need to be “very, very cautious” in speaking about such an investigation, but ruling out anti-Semitism as a motive is important (a) because by the process of elimination, this means it’s not some random Jew-hater out there, and (b) this obviously helps reassure the community.

To repeat what I said Sunday:

We must not speculate or jump to conclusions. However, knowing what we know about Detroit, I’m willing to hazard a tentative guess that the killer was probably not a Trump supporter.

C’mon, man — It’s the east side of Detroit.



 

Category: Crime, Michigan

Rule 5 Sunday: Best Wrench Wench And Gun Bunny Too?

Posted on | October 23, 2023 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Best Wrench Wench And Gun Bunny Too?

— compiled by Wombat-socho

When I saw this pic on Twitter, I almost passed an entire bottle of lemonade through my nose. Was this really Jewel Staite, who played the beloved engineer Kaylee Frye on Firefly and Serenity? Or had someone done a really good job of photoshopping? The correct answer, of course, is WHO CARES?
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

“It might be bullshit, but I choose to believe it because it’s cool.”

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Hiding Harris Friday and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Killers of the Flower Moon, Reservation Dogs, Bad Sisters, Anti-MAGA Gag, The Last Thing He Told Me, The Burial, The Appendage, Suzanne Somers RIP, and Piper Laurie RIP

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Jessica Gismondi, So, Joe is Back From Israel, Fish Pic Friday – Shawna Bonana, ASMFC Talks New Striped Bass Regs, Tattoo Thursday, Some Fishy News, Some Wednesday Wetness, Gone Fishin’, Tuesday Tanlines, RIP: Piper Laurie, If Chessie Could Talk What Would He Say?, The Monday Morning Stimulus, RIP: Suzanne Somers, Sunday Sunrise and RIP: Lois Lane 

FLAPPR: T.I.T.S. for October 20

STICKS STORIES & SCOTCH: Rule 5 Warships: Royal Fortune

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

 

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Category: Rule 5

FMJRA 2.0: Don’t Lean On Me, Man, Because You Can’t Afford The Ticket

Posted on | October 22, 2023 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Don’t Lean On Me, Man, Because You Can’t Afford The Ticket

— compiled by Wombat-socho

The last two weeks saw the Senators finally snap their losing streak against the Cubs, as Joe Coleman notched his eighth win, and then Jim Kaat his tenth in an 11-0 blowout at Wrigley. There followed more winning series against Oakland and Minnesota, but the A’s went 7-3 while we went 6-4, so we’re seven games behind the A’s in the AL West. This is despite some annoying injuries that sidelined Mike Epstein, Del Unser, and Jeff Burroughs for a few days, and of course Cookie Rojas is out for the season. Looks like we have the fourth wild-card slot in the AL sewed up (knock on wood) and since the 1972 cards are out, it’s time to look over the roster and see who we’ll keep and who we’ll let go after the championship is settled.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Fly the Curly W flag!

Rule 5 Monday: Rule 5 Blues
Animal Magnetism
Average Bubba Part Deux
Flappr
A View From The Beach
EBL

Anything That Makes Adam Kinzinger Happy Is Objectively Bad for America
The DaleyGator
Flappr
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Self-Inflicted ‘Oppression’
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Republicans Score ‘Major Victory’ as Trump-Backed Landry Wins in Louisiana
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.17.23 (Afternoon Edition)
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Violence Against Women Update
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.18.23
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

Why Does Google Hate the Blogfather?
The DaleyGator
A View From The Beach
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.19.23
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

Why Is KiwiFarms.net ‘Harassment,’ But What Taylor Lorenz Does Is ‘Journalism’?
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 10.20.23
357 Magnum
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending October 20:

  1.  EBL (11)
  2.  357 Magnum (10)
  3.  A View From The Beach (9)

Thanks to everyone for all the links!

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Category: FMJRA Award

A Death in Detroit

Posted on | October 22, 2023 | Comments Off on A Death in Detroit

No suspect or motive has been identified yet:

Police in Detroit caution against speculation over the motive for the murder of a politically active leader of a local synagogue after she was found dead with stab wounds outside her home.
Police request FBI assistance in investigating the murder of Samantha Woll, 40, who presided over the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, which serves metropolitan Detroit.
Police Chief James White urges “that everyone remain patient” while the investigation is underway despite “many unanswered questions.”
“It is important that no conclusions be drawn until all of the available facts are reviewed,” White says in a statement. “An update… will be forthcoming tomorrow.”
The murder came amid escalating tensions in Jewish and Muslim communities across the United States over the Israel-Hamas war that has taken thousands of lives since the terror group led a deadly onslaught in southern Israel earlier this month.
Emergency personnel found Woll dead “with multiple stab wounds to her body,” police say. A trail of blood led officers to Woll’s nearby home, “which is where the crime is believed to have occurred.”
The motive in the killing “is unknown,” a police statement adds.
The Detroit office of the FBI tells AFP in an email that it “will assist the Detroit Police Department as requested.”
The Jewish Federation of Detroit says Jewish security officials have been in touch with law enforcement about the case.
“No evidence has been shared to indicate this was a targeted act motivated by antisemitism,” the federation says. “We are all eager to understand the circumstance’s of Samantha’s death.”
It also says “there are no known threats at this time.”

We must not speculate or jump to conclusions. However, knowing what we know about Detroit, I’m willing to hazard a tentative guess that the killer was probably not a Trump supporter.



 

Category: Crime, Michigan

The Biden Crime Family

Posted on | October 21, 2023 | Comments Off on The Biden Crime Family

For months now, Joe Biden’s defenders have claimed there is “no evidence” of his corruption. That can no longer be claimed:

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) today announced the committee obtained bank records revealing a $200,000 direct payment from James and Sara Biden to Joe Biden in the form of a personal check. In September, Chairman Comer issued three subpoenas for Hunter and James Biden’s personal and business bank records.
In 2018, James Biden received $600,000 in loans from, Americore — a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator. According to bankruptcy court documents, James Biden received these loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”
On March 1, 2018, Americore wired a $200,000 loan into James and Sara Biden’s personal bank account — not their business bank account. On the same day, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check from this same personal bank account to Joe Biden.

James Biden’s description of this as a “loan repayment” — was it reported to the IRS this way by both James and Joe? Can the Biden brothers produce records proving that such a loan actually occurred? Because if not, then it would appear that Joe Biden was involved in tax fraud. And considering how much other money was flowing into the Biden family via Hunter’s various foreign clients, maybe this was a vast money laundering/tax fraud conspiracy. “Follow the money,” as John Hoge says.



 

Category: Corruption, Joe Biden, Scandal

In The Mailbox: 10.20.23

Posted on | October 21, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.20.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts, and since I don’t have a convention to run this weekend, I’ll actually get Rule 5 Sunday and the FMJRA done.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Victor David Hanson & Clifton Duncan On The Bigotry Of Low Expectations
EBL: Reservation Dogs, Burt Young RIP, Who doesn’t like Jim Jordan? So how is the Sam Bankman-Fried criminal trial going? and Kraken Krack-A-Lack : Sidney Powell Pleads Guilty
Twitchy: 99% Of These Videos Are Women, James Woods Posts An Insane Calendar Of Woke, and Right On Time – HuffPo Tries Shaming NRCC For Accurate Meme About Ilhan Omar’s “Death Threats”
Louder With Crowder: Amazon Unveils New Robots To Replace Humans…wait, what? J.K. Rowling Says She Would “Happily” Go To Jail If/When The UK Criminalizes Calling Someone The “Wrong” Pronoun, Influencer expects fat dude to simp for her, gets quickly put in her place: “Maybe eat a burger and not be anorexic”, and Tyson Foods Jumps On The Bug Bandwagon, Expands With “Sustainable” Insect Protein
Vox Popoli: Not One for the Faint of Heart, Propaganda is the Priority, The Dayan Principle, THE ALTAR OF HATE in Hardcover, The Red Terror of Free Trade, The Scorpion’s Lament, and Mailvox: Book Update
According To Hoyt: Shut Your Kumbaya, Tired And Kittens, Dangerous, and Why Sarah Disappeared
Monster Hunter Nation: The eARC for Down These Mean Streets is out now, also, Aiming to Change People’s Lives
Jon Del Arroz: Israel Is Under Attack & Author Yakov Merkin Needs Your Help
Stoic Observations: Notions Of Nationhood

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: No Temporary Fixes
American Greatness: Part 1: Q&A with Dinesh D’Souza About His New Film, ‘Police State’, Part 2, Pro-Palestinian Protesters Storm U.S. Capitol, Occupy Cannon Rotunda, and Several Law Schools Encourage Students to Work for Designated Terrorist Organizations
American Thinker: When Gaza has Money Hamas has Rockets, Where There is No Respect for Life, Evil Flourishes, and Beyond Orwell: The High-tech Lynching of America
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News, Animal’s Daily Canadian Energy News, and Rule Five Hiding Harris Friday
BattleSwarm: Ukraine Destroys Russian Helicopter Base, Tank News Roundup For October 18, Are Chicago Citizens Tired Of Ranking Lower On Democratic Party Priorities Than Illegal Aliens? and LinkSwarm for October 20
Behind The Black: Ingenuity completes 62nd flight on Mars, India rocket startup Agnikul raises $26.7 million in new private investment capital, Israel negotiating with SpaceX to use Starlink, Erosion revealing ridges on Mars? SpaceX to push for more than 140 launches in 2024, At Senate hearings numerous launch companies complain of regulatory bottleneck, Japan awards Ispace $80 million to develop larger lunar lander, and Our utterly bankrupt “mainstream” press
Cafe Hayek: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Sharing prosperity”, also, Another Open Letter to Oren Cass
CDR Salamander: Diversity Thursday, also, Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: The Cuban Missile Crisis As Viewed From a Soviet Launch Facility, also, A Double-Edged Sword
Da Tech Guy: Today’s elitist college students are good at standardized tests, but they can’t figure out good and evil, Hamas vs Actual Nazis – Hamas is Worse, A moment of crisis, Hamas Breathes a Sigh of Relief all the Propaganda, None of the Danger, Five Quick Sports/Gaming Thoughts Under the Fedora, With the Speaker of the House debacle the Republican Party proves once again they are the stupid party, and I Know There Are Are Many More Important Things In the World
Dana Loesch: Anatomy & Malicious Intent of a Smear.
Don Surber: An ungovernable nation, also, Hamas myths we should dump
First Street Journal: Money talks, This is how Hitler got good Europeans to load Jews into cattle cars, Killadelphia, and Fired because they were just plain stupid
Gates Of Vienna: No Speakee Deutsch! Shootout at a Café in Schaerbeek, Firebombing the Jews in Berlin, Och, Those Puir Wee Palestinian Bairns! She Had it Coming, and Israel After the Hamas Attack: Cyber-Experts Locating Missing Hostages
The Geller Report: INSURRECTION: Pro-Terror Genocidal Jew Haters Breach the Capital, RINOS WIN – Jim Jordan Withdraws, Won’t Seek Third Vote, and Biden’s Department of Homeland Security Promoted Former Spokesperson for the PLO and Put Her in Charge of Vetting “Asylum” Seekers
Hogewash: Follow the Money, JWST Looks at Jupiter, Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, A Star With Spiral Arms, and NGC 1807
Hollywood In Toto: Is Kevin Spacey the New Free Speech Hero? Megyn Kelly Slams Alicia Keys Over Paraglider Posts, Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon Stalls at Worst Possible Time, Roy Wood Jr. Compares Daily Show Gig to Being a Marine, Dot Conner Fires Shot Across Disney’s Bow, and Hamas Atrocities Red-Pilling Progressive Stars
The Lid: Biden’s Real Meeting With An Israeli PM, And His Support Of Israel In Hamas War, also, $100 Million For Hamas Will Incentivize More Attacks On Israel
Legal Insurrection: DC Federal Judge Puts Trump Gag Order On Hold Temporarily, Joran van der Sloot Admits to Killing Natalee Holloway & Blackmailing Her Mother, Cornell Professor Apologizes for Comments About Being “Exhilarated” By Hamas Attack on Israel, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Taking Votes Away From Trump After Switching to Independent, Hamas Releases Two American Hostages, a Mother and Daughter From Chicago, New Hampshire Governor Will Tackle Northern Border After Silence From Biden Admin, and NYU Law Students Say Their Classmate Losing Job Offer Over Support for Hamas is ‘Violence’
Nebraska Energy Observer: Number Please, A Little of This, and Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Former MLB Executive Roasts Phillies Fans, Greg Schiano Basically Called Michigan A Bunch Of Cheaters Last Month And We All Missed It, Travis Kelce Buys Massive Mansion Amid Taylor Swift Relationship, Features Incredible Specs, Former Ranger Ian Kinsler Shows Support For Israel During First Pitch, Survey Shows College GameDay Fans Hate Pat McAfee, But ESPN Viewers Are Dead Wrong, Victoria’s Secret Bet On Megan Rapinoe, Woke Marketing Push Miserably Backfires, and Caleb Williams’ Numbers Against Top 25 Defenses Are Alarming
Power Line: Shocker! Hamas not a reliable source, Insurrection On Capitol Hill, A Politician For Our Time, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Moskowitz & Frankel Call For Bipartisan Speaker Deal
Shot In The Dark: Urban Progressive Privilege – Peak Karen, Dude…Like, The Fix Is Totally, Like, In. Dude, Someone Else’s Shoes, and Public Is To Art As It Is To Restrooms
The Political Hat: The Gender Snowman Brought To You By…The Federal Government, Quick Takes – Mandatory Racial Inequality: Racial Preferences In New Zealand Healthcare; Racial Preferences In Canadian Criminal Sentencing; Racial Preferences In Teacher Hiring, and Firing Line Friday: Vietnamization
This Ain’t Hell: Yep, the border is under control, Four More Accounted For, Ukraine strikes deep into Russian occupied territories with ATACMS, Camp Lejeune – One Marine Dead, Another in Custody, Former Navy Chief Sentenced in Fraud Scheme, Coast Guard Short 3,500, Travis King Charged with Eight Counts, Valor Friday, US forces shoot drones down in Iraq, as well as drones and missiles near Yemen, and Military obesity rates double in 10 years
Victory Girls: Brian Stelter Scolds Media For Fake News – Irony Is Dead, Greta Hearts Hamas, Then Deletes And Crops Out The Octopus, and Biden Ignores 32 Dead Americans In Israel
Volokh Conspiracy: LSAT to Drop the “Logic Games” Section
Watts Up With That: “I didn’t expect that”: Catholic Nun Tackles and Drops an Eco-Activist, Milloy: Biden’s Kamikaze Climate Plan for the US Economy, and What Passes for A “Demonstration Project” Among Our Government Geniuses
The Federalist: The ‘Tube Girl’ Trend Shows How Gen Z Lives In The Digital World, Not The Real One, Don’t Look Now, But Slate Just Made An Argument For School Choice , SPLC Lead Attorney Apparently Participated In Unlawful Capitol Anti-Israel Protest, Biden’s Federal Election Interference Scheme Just Entered Its Next Phase, ‘Bidenomics’ Gifts Homebuyers Highest Mortgage Rates In More Than Two Decades, Gaza Hospital Misinformation Is One More Reason To Destroy The Censorship Complex, and The Eras Tour Movie Has Its Problems But None Of Them Are Taylor Swift
Mark Steyn: Modern Blood Libel, Strangers in the Night, Israel Today, The West Tomorrow, and Live Around the Planet: Ten Days to Trial

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Category: Linkagery

Why Is KiwiFarms.net ‘Harassment,’ But What Taylor Lorenz Does Is ‘Journalism’?

Posted on | October 20, 2023 | Comments Off on Why Is KiwiFarms.net ‘Harassment,’ But What Taylor Lorenz Does Is ‘Journalism’?

Did you know that Taylor Lorenz has her own Kiwi Farms thread? Anyway, the question in the headline crossed my mind after reading KiwiFarms founder Joshua Moon’s complaint about how payment processors have blacklisted him. That was referenced in a comment on yesterday’s post about how Instapundit got demonetized by Google Adsense because of allegedly “dangerous” content.

In case you don’t know, Taylor Lorenz first made herself infamous in 2018 by doxxing the teenage daughters of Pamela Geller.

 

Considering that Geller was (and still is) known to be a target of ISIS and other Islamic terrorists, and that Geller’s daughters were just Instagram influencers who had nothing to do with politics, this was an act sufficiently egregious that Taylor Lorenz should have been unemployed. Instead, she ended up on the staff of the Washington Post and now, of course, a published author. There is a double standard involved in Lorenz’s continued employment as a “journalist,” while Josh Moon is financially blacklisted because of Kiwi Farms.

Before getting into the topic of what Kiwi Farms is, let me reiterate that this topic suggested itself because of a comment on a post about how Google has banned Instapundit from its Adsense program. Because he’s “dangerous.” How? We don’t know, because the process at Google is completely opaque. Good luck getting them to answer any questions about how people get banned or how their search listings operate. But in the process of trying to explore this, I was shocked to discover that you can’t get to Kiwi Farms via a Google search. Not only doesn’t the site’s URL turn up in the Google results, but no article that links directly to Kiwi Farms is included in the first page of Google search results. That’s why I decided to put the full URL, KiwiFarms.net, into my headline

How extreme is that? Some of us are old enough to remember when, 15 or 20 years ago, Silicon Valley had a libertarian tilt. Entities like Google were very much in favor of free speech and very much against censorship, but more recently, they’ve gone 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Probably the defining event of this shift — the moment when Big Tech’s pro-censorship regime made clear its intentions — was the episode known as “GamerGate,” beginning in August 2014 with the drama surrounding Zoe Quinn (a/k/a the Tattoo-Covered, Mentally Ill Ex-Stripper Whose Real Name Is Chelsea Van Valkenburg).

#GamerGate was my first encounter with Kiwi Farms, which proved to be useful for research on such personalities as Zoe Quinn, Nicholas Edwin “Sarah” Nyberg, and “Brianna Wu” (a/k/a John Walker Flynt) who were involved in the controversy as left-wing SJWs (“Social Justice Warriors”).

What united the SJWs was the rallying cry of “harassment” — #GamerGate was, according to them, about the misogynistic bullying of women in the videogame industry, and claims of victimhood were amplified to promote that narrative, even though the alleged victims of harassment were relatively obscure people who were, at best, marginal to the industry, as I explained:

[P]ractically nobody in the videogame development community had ever heard of these people until #GamerGate happened. Quinn  . . . had done one really crappy, primitive game called Depression Quest, [Anita] Sarkeesian had done nothing except some YouTube videos applying critical theory to games, and Wu had done a boring game called Revolution 60 that almost nobody ever played. But then the Great #GamerGate Victimhood Derby of 2014 got underway and by October 2015 there were literally hearings at the United Nations (!!!) with Zoe and Anita testifying about “harassment.”
Never in history had such previously obscure nobodies become “famous,” except perhaps Gavrilo Princip, Lee Harvey Oswald, et al.

This leveraging of victimhood claims for fame and money was a fraud nearly as bogus as the Jussie Smollett “hate” hoax. To my knowledge, no one has ever produced any proof — e.g., an arrest affidavit — that Sarkeesian, Wu, and Quinn were victims of any criminal act. Where are the police mug shots of those dreadful misogynist villains accused of harassing these Courageous Feminist Heroes? Where’s the copy of a restraining order against some #GamerGate miscreant? The absence of such evidence ought to have inspired skepticism among journalists, but instead the media swallowed the victimhood narrative hook, line and sinker. It is easy enough to find screenshots of people saying mean things about Sarkeesian, et al., on Twitter, but it’s not against the law to say mean things about people you don’t like. Plenty of people have said mean things about me, but nobody’s inviting me to the United Nations to testify about it. To this day, it is flatly asserted that #GamerGate was about harassment, as if this were an undisputed fact. While researching Kiwi Farms, I came across a July 2016 New York Magazine article that begins:

We live in the age of the virtual pillory. Across communities like YouGotPosted, the revenge-porn hub/blackmailing scheme, or 8chan’s doxxing and raid board, whose server Fredrick Brennan conveniently formatted after its admin was caught selling Social Security numbers, or Gamergate, the “cringe-worthy breakup story” that became a self-sustaining witch hunt against women in tech, a highly recognizable positive feedback loop of abuse and harassment plays out: A target gets dragged into the public eye, more people begin to abuse them, and that abuse escalates as individual trolls try to one-up each other. In the eyes of the mob, the target’s life is a game, and the object is to screw it up as much as possible.
The largest virtual pillory, and the one that best exemplifies its ethos, is Kiwi Farms, a loose community . . . that specializes in harassing people they perceive as being mentally ill or sexually deviant in some way.

Do you see how this works? The “cringe-worthy breakup story” of Zoe Quinn and her ex-boyfriend had to do with Zoe’s alleged involvement with male journalists covering the videogame industry. What this exposed, according to #GamerGate supporters, was the shabby ethics involved in the journalism-as-free-publicity racket whereby certain independent game developers got promoted while others were ignored or slighted. There was never any valid reason why videogame journalists would say nice things about Zoe Quinn’s lame Depression Quest game, and her ex-boyfriend claimed to have proof that she got favorable attention by the most obvious method (“Five Guys”).

How could anyone believe that complaints about unethical biased journalism were a “witch hunt against women in tech”? In what sense were Anita Sarkeesian or Zoe Quinn “women in tech”?

And as for Briann Wu . . . Well, in what sense was “she” even a woman?

Of course, we aren’t supposed to say such things, because the business of gender counterfeiting (i.e., men using transgenderism to exploit the de facto quota systems that SJWs want to impose) cannot withstand critical scrutiny, and therefore SHUT UP! That’s what it all comes down to, really — a bunch of grifters trying to silence their critics. If you start asking questions about the whole “women in tech” hustle, or about the transgender scam, or any other scam/hustle/hoax that the Left is trying to perpetrate, you’ll be accused of “harassment,” or “hate,” or “disinformation,” and they’ll demand that you be purged, silenced, fired from your job, etc. Who is victimizing whom?

All of this brings me back around to Kiwi Farms and the actually useful service they provide. The site originated with an effort to keep track of a mentally feeble person (“Chris Chan”) who seemed to think that drawing pictures of “Sonichu” (a hybrid of two characters, Sonic the Hedgehog and Picachu from Pokemon) was a path to fame and fortune.

This person turned out to be generally weird enough that lots of people started mocking him on the Internet, and thus did Chris Chan become the original “lolcow,” which is the Kiwi Farms category for people whose online behavior attracts unwanted negative attention. The New York Magazine writer asserts that “being mentally ill or sexually deviant” is sufficient to qualify someone as a “lolcow,” but that’s not it. What matters is the person’s online behavior, which is in some way dangerous, dishonest, annoying or merely ridiculous.

It is true that a lot of “lolcows” are transgender or pedophiles or “furries” or some combination of all three. But it’s only when such a person gets involved in some kind of drama on the Internet that they get themselves a thread in the Kiwi Farms “lolcow” forum. So the question is not, “Why does Kiwi Farms hate people who are mentally ill and/or sexually deviant?” Rather, the question should be: “Why do mentally ill sexual deviants cause such a disproportionate amount of Internet drama?”

The answer, I suggest, is narcissism. Anyone who has had the misfortune of dealing with a sociopath understands how DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is such a predictable response whenever such a person is faced with consequences for their misconduct. When someone calls attention to the sociopath’s wrongdoing, and tries to hold them accountable for their actions, their response is always to claim victimhood. Oregon psychologist Jennifer Freyd coined the term DARVO to describe a tactic common among sex offenders: “I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior. This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of law suits, overt and covert attacks on the whistle-blower’s credibility, and so on. . . . The offender is on the offense and the person attempting to hold the offender accountable is put on the defense.” The witnesses are all liars, the cops are crooked, the district attorney is biased, the judge is corrupt — all through the criminal justice process, the offender keeps accusing others of wrongdoing. And he, the offender, is going to expose this wrongdoing and make them pay for putting him behind bars.

Perhaps this description sounds vaguely familiar.

My point is that, if you’re an unbiased observer who just happens to notice some kind of Internet flame war between two contending parties, it’s difficult to know who’s telling the truth. Both parties claim to be in the right, and each of them blames the other for the conflict, and you — the casual witness who stumbled onto the scene — don’t have time to trace the conflict back to its origins or investigate the character of the parties involved. And that’s where a resource like the “lolcow” forums at Kiwi Farms can be helpful. What typically brings a “lolcow” to the attention of the Kiwi Farm crew is the person’s efforts to silence those who criticize them or call attention to their wrongdoing. Take the case of John Paul Neumann, a/k/a “Chloe Sagal”:

Neumman/“Sagal” was a 30-ish videogame developer, originally from Illinois, whose mental illness was manifested in serious antisocial behavior. At some point, it seems, Neumman/“Sagal” ran a failed startup that left employees unpaid and wrecked Neumman’s/“Sagal’s” credit rating. In 2013, Neumman/“Sagal” launched an IndieGoGo crowdfunding scam. Claiming that a near-fatal auto accident had left toxic metal embedded in his/“her” body, resulting in chronic pain, Neumman/“Sagal” said he/“she” needed $30,000 for a “life saving surgery.” But there was no accident and no toxic metal; Neumman/“Sagal” used the money for sex-change surgery.
A videogame industry journalist named Allistair Pinsof discovered the deception, but Neumman/“Sagal” threatened to commit suicide if he reported the story. Pinsof consulted with his editors, who were hesitant to go with the story, and Pinsof ultimately decided to go public with the truth on his own social-media account. Pinsof was fired and blacklisted by the videogame journalism industry, accused of wrongfully “outing” a transgender person, for reporting the truth about someone perpetrating online fraud.

Do you see what I’m talking about here? This person became a “lolcow” because he/“she” retaliated against someone who was telling the truth about him/“her.” And then, in a final irony, when Neumman/“Sagal” committed suicide by setting himself/“herself” on fire in a public park, the media blamed it on “harassment” by the “hate mob Kiwi Farms”!

You wouldn’t be able to figure out the truth about such people were it not for the KiwiFarms forums keeping track of them, posting evidence — screencaps of social-media posts, etc. — all along the way.

Far be it from me to say that everything on Kiwi Farms is useful, or that there is no “problematic” content on the site. I simply don’t pay enough attention to the site to be able to evaluate it in toto. What I do say is that, in certain cases, Kiwi Farms supplies information that is very valuable in figuring out the facts behind online controversies — information that often is available from no other source.

So why is Kiwi Farms engaged in “harassment,” and Josh Moon is a financial pariah, while Taylor Lorenz gets paid to go after people like Pamela Geller’s daughters and LibsOfTikTok creator Chaya Raichik? How is Taylor Lorenz doing something better — more admirable, more socially responsible — than the unpaid contributors to Kiwi Farms forums who compile documentation about the shenanigans of obnoxious people like Canadian pervert Jonathan “Jessica” Yaniv?

(WARNING: That post includes a link to a photo showing the results of Yaniv’s sex-change surgery. DO NOT CLICK THAT LINK or you could be permanently traumatized. You have been warned.)

Readers may wonder, how did Kiwi Farms get a photo of Yaniv’s “gaping axe wound,” as they (quite accurately) describe it? The answer, of course, is that Yaniv posted that picture himself/“herself”! That’s how it is with narcissistic sociopaths — they’re forever calling attention to themselves, with predictably bad consequences, and then claiming to be victims.

Taylor Lorenz is just another example of this same tendency. She cannot seem to comprehend that there could be valid reasons to criticize her — she seems to think she is incapable of wrongdoing — and so she constantly doubles down on (a) the idea that the targets of her hit pieces deserve whatever harm she can inflict on them, and (b) the idea that she is a victim of wrongful “harassment.” Perhaps it is not necessary for me to point out how these two ideas are related. Taylor Lorenz is one of those liberals who thinks of conservatives as “Literally Hitler,” and because (a) the targets of her journalistic smears and (b) the people who complain about her work are all conservatives, everything they say and do is just more proof of how evil they are. And she is a saintly hero.

Let me just go on record with the prediction that this saga will end badly for her. Sooner or later, Taylor Lorenz will make the kind of grievous mistake that even her ideological comrades at the Washington Post won’t be able to explain away. She’ll wreck herself — it’s inevitable. And, just as inevitably, in the midst of her self-inflicted disaster, she’ll complain that she is an innocent victim of her malicious enemies.

I’ll bet the Kiwi Farm crowd can’t wait for that moment.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

Category: Journalism, Media Bias
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