The Other McCain

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

Suspect in Hate Crime at L.A. Synagogue Is Probably Not a Trump Supporter

Posted on | November 26, 2018 | Comments Off on Suspect in Hate Crime at L.A. Synagogue Is Probably Not a Trump Supporter

Don’t expect to see this story on CNN. Call it a hunch:

A man was in custody Monday for allegedly trying to run over two men outside a synagogue in a largely Jewish Wilshire-area neighborhood and making anti-Semitic remarks in a case that has been classified by police as a hate crime.
No one was hurt in the confrontation that occurred about 9:30 p.m. Friday near La Brea and Oakwood avenues, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Mohamed Mohamed Abdi, 32, was booked on suspicion of felony assault with a deadly weapon — the vehicle — and the case has been classified as a hate crime, Deputy Chief Horace Frank said at a news conference at LAPD headquarters.
Frank said Abdi, who remains in custody on $55,000 bail, was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and lives in the United States as a U.S. citizen. The FBI was involved in the investigation, and Abdi could face federal charges, Frank said.
LAPD Chief Michel Moore said two men had just left a synagogue in the 300 block of La Brea Avenue and were walking toward Oakwood Avenue when Abdi allegedly tried to run them over with a vehicle.
“He’s yelling out hateful remarks regarding Jewish heritage and regarding these people of faith,” Moore said. “They watch him as he then turns his vehicle directly at them.”

David Bernstein writes at Instapundit:

After the Pittsburgh shooting, the Jewish left went nuts, blaming Trump, Trump-supporting Jews, and Israel (!) for the incident. The Atlantic’s Franklin Foer wrote, “Any strategy for enhancing the security of American Jewry should involve shunning Trump’s Jewish enablers. Their money should be refused, their presence in synagogues not welcome. They have placed their community in danger.”
The perp in L.A., however, was not a “white nationalist” but a Muslim named Mohammed Mohammed. I want Foer to follow his own logic. If “Trump’s Jewish enablers” were to blame for Pittsburgh, who in the Jewish community is to blame for Los Angeles? And who should be “shunned” now?

The liberal media only consider violent Jew-haters newsworthy when they can be connected, however tenuously, to Republicans. In the same way, sexual assault on university campuses is only newsworthy when “privileged” white males are accused. If you name is Mohammed Mohammed, no crime you commit is ever worth noticing, according to liberals, but if a crazy white guy goes on a murder rampage, it will get 24/7 coverage at CNN for a week. By the way, 2,718 people have been shot, 457 of them fatally, in Chicago so far this year. CNN doesn’t care.

 

Category: Crime

Emergency Tip-Jar Rattle: $557

Posted on | November 26, 2018 | Comments Off on Emergency Tip-Jar Rattle: $557

OK, I just learned that I need to come up with $557 ASAP, and it’s embarrassing to explain why, so I won’t. But if readers could make some small contribution — $5, $10, $20, whatever — I would be most grateful. The Five Most Important Words in the English Language are:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!



 

Category: Shoe Leather Fund

Twitter Bans Iraq Veteran Jesse Kelly; Glenn Reynolds Quits Platform in Protest

Posted on | November 26, 2018 | Comments Off on Twitter Bans Iraq Veteran Jesse Kelly; Glenn Reynolds Quits Platform in Protest

 

Silicon Valley’s war against free speech continues:

Federalist Contributor Jesse Kelly was permanently suspended from Twitter on Sunday for “repeat violations of the Twitter rules,” according to a message from Twitter Support. Kelly is a combat Veteran Marine, conservative radio host, and former Republican candidate for U.S. Congress.
Twitter did not explain what rules Kelly violated, or if there was a specific tweet in question. . . .
Kelly has written about Twitter’s banning of Alex Jones and warned that the speech police will be coming after conservatives next. “They do not want to compete in a marketplace of ideas. Their goal is to silence dissenting voices,” he wrote.
Kelly is a frequent guest on Fox News, and ironically, his last appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show was to discuss online censorship.

More background from Allum Bokhari at Breitbart:

Jesse Kelly served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2000 to 2004, and saw combat during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following his service in the Marines, Kelly contested multiple congressional races in Arizona.
Kelly was the Republican nominee in Arizona’s 8th district in 2010, where he came within a single percentage point of beating incumbent Democrat Gabrielle Giffords. After withdrawing from a brief attempt to secure the Republican nomination for Arizona’s 2nd congressional district in 2012, Kelly successfully sought the Republican nomination for the special election in Arizona’s 8th district in the same year, although he ultimately lost that election to Democrat Ron Barber.
It’s unknown if Kelly will run for office again, but if he does he’ll have to do so without a Twitter account — a major disadvantage for a politician in the digital era.
Kelly currently hosts The Jesse Kelly Show on iHeart Radio. . . .
Kelly’s suspension sparked outrage on Twitter, where the Marine Corps veteran had a large following. Multiple conservative and populist figures spoke out against his ban from the platform. . . .
Kelly himself previously warned that the ban of Jones and InfoWars was part of a slippery slope that would eventually affect all conservatives on social media. “They just knew Jones was the weak member of the herd. They could pick him off as a test run” wrote Kelly. “Next they’re coming for you.”

Professor Glenn Reynolds is tired of the Thought Police on Twitter:

Why should I provide free content to people I don’t like, who hate me? I’m currently working on a book on social media, and I keep coming back to the point that Twitter is far and away the most socially destructive of the various platforms. So I decided to suspend them, as they are suspending others. At least I’m giving my reasons, which is more than they’ve done usually.

Internet platforms are simply tools for communication. When the proprietors of a platform surrender to Thought Police who attempt to prevent communication — deciding that people they disagree with cannot use these tools — they are destroying the utility of their own product.

UPDATE: Yesterday, I urged readers to tweet a simple message —  “Jonathan Yaniv Is Not a Woman #IStandWithMeghanMurphy”  — and today multiple people have informed me their Twitter accounts have been suspended until they delete these messages. Twitter has surrendered to the demands of a deranged Canadian pervert, while at the same time banning Marine Corps combat veterans from their platform. 



 

Category: Liberals

Rule 5 Sunday: Roll Tide!

Posted on | November 25, 2018 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

My original intention for this week was to go with a Thanksgiving theme, but much like John Madden’s mutant turkeys, all the pics I could find had too much leg and not enough breasts…fortunately, the Crimson Tide crushed Auburn in the Iron Bowl yesterday, which meant I had a backup plan. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2018 Alabama cheerleaders.

Roll Tide!

Ninety Miles From Tyranny leads off with Hot Pick of the Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #447, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. Animal Magnetism adds Rule Five Black Friday News and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL has Wisconsin Cheerleaders, World Toilet Day, Mareli Minutti, Which Was Worse Rule 5, Linda Cardellini, Alone Again Or, Hera Hilmar, Nancy Travis & Susan Sullivan, and Eve Rule 5.

A View From The Beach has a bucketful of beauties: Let’s Call on Deanna Berry, Taking Military Preparedness to a New Level, Buffy Seeks to Regain Fighting Trim, Gets Bitten, Giving Thanks for Russiagate, Happy Turkey Day!, Heck, I’d Quit for 1/10th of That!, A Proper Ration of Russiagate, The Mueller Report, Don’t Eat the Salad!, One Little Bit of Russiagate, Holy Moly!, Russiagate is a Dirty Job, Bright College Days, Oh Carefree Days that Fly and Swedish Girl’s Makeup Habit Prompts Racial Appropriation Claims.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Mariel Minutti, his Vintage Babes are in the Thanksgiving mood, and Sex in Advertising is covered by Tyra Banks. At Dustbury, it’s Emma Too and Angela Bassett.

Thanks to everyone for the luscious linkagery!


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Category: Rule 5

Jonathan Yaniv Is Not a Woman and #IStandWithMeghanMurphy

Posted on | November 25, 2018 | 2 Comments

 

Jonathan Yaniv is a notorious Canadian pervert who has filed 16 human rights complaints against women for refusing to wax his genitals. Yaniv claims to be transgender, using the name “Jessica.”

A week after the feminist blog Gender Trender exposed Yaniv’s history of describing pedophilic and voyeuristic behavior online, WordPress deleted the entire Gender Trender blog and announced a new policy that “deadnaming” (identifying someone by their birth name) is a terms-of-service violation. When people on Twitter began commenting about this egregious situation, Yaniv and/or other transgender activists got those accounts suspended and, apparently, Canadian feminist Meghan Murphy’s Twitter account has been permanently suspended and Twitter announced its own anti-“deadnaming” policy.

 

The ramifications of this new policy are alarming. Twitter’s devotion to transgender ideology is such that, apparently, all anyone needs do is to declare that they “identify” as the opposite sex (we have no evidence that Jonathan Yaniv has done anything else in the way of “transition”) and this empowers them to silence their critics on social media platforms. Even someone as prominent as Meghan Murphy — founder of Canada’s leading feminist website — can be banished for speaking out. Certain facts are now prohibited as “hateful conduct” and, evidently, it would now be a violation of Twitter terms of service to quote news coverage of the 2013 trial of Bradley Manning:

A former confidante of the WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning has defended her decision to hold an online Q&A about the soldier’s forthcoming trial, despite her having been named as a key defence witness.
In an open session on the Reddit website, Lauren McNamara said she believed the leaking of hundreds of thousands of classified documents was “irresponsible” but added: “I don’t think Manning had any intention of assisting ‘the enemy’ in his actions.” . . .
McNamara’s involvement in the trial stems from online chats she had with Manning almost a year before his alleged leaking of state and army secrets to the whistle-blowing WikiLeaks website. Manning contacted McNamara — who at the time went by the name Zachary Antolak, but adopted the female persona “ZJ” online — in 2009, while [Manning was] preparing to be deployed in Iraq.
In a series of web chats which have since been made public, the young soldier confided about his sexuality and the bullying he had endured as a gay man in the army.

 

In 2009, Zachary Antolak communicated with Bradley Manning and, in 2013, these facts were publicly reported, but in 2018, facts are hate, and no one is allowed to say “Chelsea” Manning is a man formerly known as Bradley Manning or that “Lauren McNamara” (aka “Zinnia Jones,” aka “Satana Kennedy”) is a man formerly called Zachary Antolak. This is totalitarianism, reminiscent of Stalin-era propaganda, when Trotsky was airbrushed from historic photos of the Bolshevik Revolution.

People who create fictitious personas for deceptive purposes are being permitted to persecute anyone who exposes their deception. Twitter’s policy is to protect the liars and to punish the truth-tellers.

The hashtag #IStandWithMeghanMurphy is being used on Twitter to raise awareness of the totalitarian transgender tendency.

What we need is an Army of Davids, so to speak, to put the “Streisand Effect” into action here. If everyone who stands for free speech were to tweet this simple message — “Jonathan Yaniv Is Not a Woman #IStandWithMeghanMurphy” — how many thousands of messages might be generated? Could the Thought Police at Twitter ban everyone?

UPDATE: Frank Camp at Daily Wire interviews Meghan Murphy:

DW: Has this experience with Twitter changed your perspective regarding online political life?
MURPHY: It’s blowing my mind how much power trans activists have. I’m not able to make my arguments. What they’re doing is ensuring I can’t talk about this stuff at all on Twitter.
It’s not, “you can’t say offensive things,” or “hateful things,” or “you can’t be mean,” because what I’m saying isn’t hateful or mean or offensive in my opinion. I’m trying to show that this ideology is incoherent and irrational. I’m trying to get them to explain their own arguments and defend their own claims.
If I can’t articulate my position, or ask questions – like “how can a man become a woman?” — then I can’t engage in these conversations at all.
The fact that there’s no accountability is crazy. Twitter doesn’t respond to my appeals; they just send me these form responses that don’t actually explain their policies or explain why I can’t say what I’m saying.

DW: Is there anything you want people to know regarding this situation that hasn’t been touched on?
MURPHY: Like I said before, the amount of power that trans activists have over public debate is incredible and kind of scary. It’s just a few people. There are a few people who have connections to Twitter or work for Twitter who are either trans themselves or allied with this movement who are just dictating these rules.
With the stuff that I’m saying, I have more supporters than detractors — not only online, but in the world. Most people in the world don’t believe it’s possible for a male to become female. Most people think this ideology is ridiculous. A lot of people are afraid to say so, and others are just regular people who aren’t aware this debate is going on.
This minority of people, who have an incredible amount of power, are claiming to be the most marginalized people on the planet. You can’t really be that marginalized when you’re controlling the entire conversation, and changing legislation and policy faster than anyone else has been able to do.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)



 

Category: The Transgender Cult

FMJRA 2.0: Les Chants Magnetiques

Posted on | November 24, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Stacey Abrams Loses in Georgia, and Democrats Claim GOP ‘Stole’ Election
EBL

Crazy People Are Dangerous
EBL

Rick Scott Wins, as Democrats Admit Nelson Doomed in Florida Recount
EBL

Feds Charge NYU Law Student Who ‘Terrorized’ Middle School Girl
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Desperate But Not Serious
The Pirate’s Cove
A View From The Beach
EBL

Two Thumbs Up for ‘Jack Ryan’
EBL

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

Democrat Election Official Resigns
EBL

News CNN Will Ignore
EBL

Ohio Democrat Stabbed Ex-Wife to Death in Front of Their Children, Police Say
EBL

Illegal Alien Who Shot at Cop Was DACA, Allowed to Stay by Obama Policy
EBL

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 11.19.18
Proof Positive
EBL

E-Mail to a Liberal Professor
Darkness Over The Land
A View From The Beach
EBL

Portland Antifa Mob Riots
The Pirate’s Cove
EBL

Late Night With In The Mailbox: 11.20.18
357 Magnum
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 11.21.18
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Thank God for Liberals
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

Was the ‘Deep State’ Conspiracy Against President Trump a Trans-Atlantic Affair?
Western Rifle Shooters Association
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

Post-Thanksgiving After-Action Report
Edge Of Burma
EBL

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge
EBL

Queer Feminism at DePaul University
EBL

In The Mailbox: 11.23.18
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending November 23:

  1.  EBL (20)
  2.  (tied) A View From The Beach and Proof Positive (5)


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Category: FMJRA Award

Sex: What If We Stopped Pretending We Don’t Know What We Actually Know?

Posted on | November 24, 2018 | Comments Off on Sex: What If We Stopped Pretending We Don’t Know What We Actually Know?

 

Rhett: “Has the war started?”
Scarlett: “Sir, you should have made your presence known.”
Rhett: “In the middle of that beautiful love scene? That wouldn’t have been very tactful, would it? But don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”
Scarlett: “Sir, you are no gentleman.”
Rhett: “And you, miss, are no lady.”
Scarlett: “Oh?”
Rhett: “But don’t think I hold that against you. Ladies have never held any charm for me.”
Scarlett: “First you take a low, common advantage of me, then you insult me!”
Rhett: “I meant it as a compliment. And I hope to see more of you, when you’re free of the spell of the elegant Mr.Wilkes. He doesn’t strike me as half good enough for a girl of your… what was it? Your ‘passion for living’?”

 

What is the secret of Rhett Butler’s charm? In an age of elaborate courtesy, he does not bother pretending to be motivated by idealism. Rhett is realistic, and unafraid to offend others by speaking the truth. He understands the game of romantic make-believe better than those who play it, and amuses himself by flouting the rules of the game.

One of the things I advise young men is never to imagine they can deceive a girl about their motives. When you get down to the bottom line, it’s no secret what guys are really after, and thus the guy who thinks he can conceal his ulterior motive while being “friendly” with a girl is unlikely to deceive anyone — except maybe himself, insofar as he thinks she’s not onto his game. Likewise, intelligent and experienced men are wise to the ways of women, understanding their methods and motives far better than does the sort of young fool who considers a woman’s beauty to be evidence of her virtue. While the female mind seems mysterious or erratic, nevertheless an objective consideration reveals general patterns of female behavior, and the sharing of this behavioral knowledge is the useful purpose of what is known as “the manosphere.”

 

The bad reputation of the so-called “Red Pill” community is, in part, a reflection of the fact that in the social media age anyone can get on the Internet and bloviate endlessly, which means that “Red Pill” forums attract a lot of basement-dwelling fools saying offensive things about women that have little or nothing to do with the legitimate purpose of those forums, i.e., to help men improve their lives. Because certain indisputably bad guys (e.g., Isla Vista killer Elliot Rodger) have had some connection, however minor, to the manosphere, this has damaged the reputation of innocent participants. Furthermore, and most obviously, “Red Pill” discourse is a direct challenge to feminism, which creates a political incentive to tar everyone with the same brush, claiming that somehow the Republican Party is to blame for everything said in pickup artist (PUA) forums. While Roosh V and Donald Trump may have certain traits in common, this kind of guilt-by-association smear would be recognized as invalid if it were reversed to blame Democrats for every controversial figure in any movement on their side. But I digress . . .

Rollo Tomassi calls attention to a post by Dalrock about a feminist’s argument that men should be liable to charges of criminal fraud for exaggerations or lies on their dating-app profiles:

To start with, she is trying to formalize the AF/BB strategy into law, but the strategy relies on denial. Key to the AF/BB strategy is pretending that the woman didn’t shift sexual strategies once her youth and fertility were all but gone. Such women can’t come out and say they are shifting from having sex with the kind of men they are sexually attracted to (sex for pleasure) into a strategy of having sex with men they don’t want to have sex with but think would make a good husband. Otherwise, the man who mans up and marries a woman in her late thirties after she tires of having sex with other men looks like a chump and his bride looks like a whore!

Now, I will not offend readers by explaining what “AF/BB strategy” means, except to say that it describes an observable pattern among certain women who spend their youth as carousel riders, pursuing a series of casual hookups and short-term relationships, before they decide — usually in their late 20s — to start husband-hunting in earnest.

It is absurd to imagine that the reason a never-married woman over 30 is single is because all her previous boyfriends were selfish jerks, unworthy of long-term commitment. Rather, it is more likely that her youthful promiscuity was the result of a more or less conscious calculation on her part, to have fun by throwing herself at any good-looking guy who’d give her a go, believing she would later have no problem finding a husband when she got ready to settle down. This is a fantasy sold by Hollywood — the Sex and the City script — and it is ultimately a formula for failure, as “famewhore” Julia Baugher learned. While decades of cultural revolution may have altered our society’s norms of sexual behavior, what a man considers “wife material” hasn’t changed much. The idea that a girl can start riding the carousel of casual sex as a teenager, bounce around from boyfriend to boyfriend for a decade or more, and then get her romantic happily-ever-after ending with Mister Right, is a delusion.

Even if you think you can point to a “success” story that validates the Sex and the City script as a plausible strategy, you are talking about the exception that proves the rule, namely that youthful promiscuity negatively impacts future prospects for long-term relationships.

On a related note, Rollo Tomassi also calls attention to a 2009 post by Chuck Ross addressing the “sexual peak myth,” i.e., that women in the 30s are more desirable than younger women, and that the “peak” of male sexuality is age 19. I remember when this myth was first popularized by feminists in the late 1970s, and the motives behind it were obvious enough. The older cohort of Baby Boom women, those born in the late 1940s, were then reaching their 30s, and were being discarded or passed over by men their own age, who preferred to pursue younger women. This was a function of demographics, as the Baby Boom had peaked in the late 1950s, so that by 1978 or so, older guys (e.g., Bill Clinton) were surrounded by a bumper crop of females in the 18-24 range. These were the years when TV was full of so-called “T and A” shows like Charlie’s Angels and Three’s Company, when Catherine Bach (b. 1954) was rocking those short-shorts on The Dukes of Hazzard. The “sexual liberation” of the 1960s had produced a culture lacking any moral language to defend monogamy, and the 30-something woman who feared losing out to younger competitors needed reassurance. From this emerged the myth of women reaching “sexual peak” in their 30s.

Chuck Ross’s discussion points out that this myth contradicts everything science tells us about human sexual behavior. From the strictly biological perspective, what is the purpose of sex? Procreation. And when are the peak years of female fertility? Ages 15-24.

“What? Did he say fifteen?” Yes, ma’am, but I preceded this by noting that I was speaking from the strictly biological perspective, and if you’ll research demographics, you’ll find that there are still many places in the world (Mali, Afghanistan, Gaza) where motherhood at 15 or 16 is not uncommon and, indeed, this was true in many parts of America well into the 1960s and beyond. During the 1990s, exaggerated media coverage of a supposed “epidemic” of teenage pregnancy inspired Maggie Gallagher to write a very useful booklet entitled The Age of Unwed Mothers. Gallagher showed that rates of teenage pregnancy, far from becoming an “epidemic,” had declined significantly in the previous 30 years. What had changed was not that more teenagers were getting pregnant, but that fewer pregnant teenagers were getting married. But I digress . . .

 

It makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective that women’s “sexual peak” would occur more than a decade after their peak fertility. Rather, we should expect sexual desire and reproductive capacity to be closely correlated. But feminism is a War Against Human Nature, as I have said, and so despite their atheistic devotion to Darwinism, feminists reject the insights of evolutionary theory in explaining human sexual behavior.

What if we were to stop pretending we don’t know what we actually know? What if we abandoned the zero-sum-game mentality of “social justice” ideology that insists that the absence of statistical “equality” between men and women is proof of patriarchal oppression? What if, instead of making women’s “empowerment” the sole purpose of every discussion of sexual behavior, we instead recognized that the rhetoric of “empowerment” has been employed to encourage and justify behaviors that are ultimately harmful to women’s long-term interests?

The Left’s hostility to Christianity, and to traditional moral values more generally, does not actually “empower” women, except insofar as it licenses them to behave irresponsibly, making them vulnerable to exploitation. When we see the Left defending pornography and prostitution while at the same time proclaiming their devotion to women’s equality, we ought to be suspicious of their motives. Likewise, we ought to be suspicious of the feminist crusade against “slut-shaming.” There are legitimate reasons to condemn promiscuity, and women’s best interests are not served by silencing criticism of hookup culture.

Contrary to the liberal myth of Progress, we are not advancing toward a utopia of “equality.” Nor, contrary to some conservatives, can we magically return to a lost Golden Age of moral purity. No matter what policies we pursue, the basic problems of human nature cannot be eradicated and we should beware of false prophets promising us heaven on earth. (Again I recommend Daniel J. Flynn’s Cult City.) There is no such thing as collective salvation, and men would be fools to emulate the identity-politics formula of feminism, which is why I eschew the rhetoric of “men’s rights.” Regardless of what policy governments may implement, or which way the cultural currents are running, the individual man remains free to pursue his own interests. Indeed, at a time when our civilization is cartwheeling toward catastrophe, it is only the man who refuses to conform to the herd who is likely to survive the destructive forces of chaotic insanity that now prevail in Western culture.

The “male feminist” types who constantly signal their compliance with the cultural status quo may gain some short-term advantage from their conformity, but they are following a path that can only lead to their own destruction. Once women wise up to that game, it ceases to be effective even as a short-term tactic, and the independent thinker — the realist — can laugh at fools who think they can “win” such a game.

Stop pretending you don’t know what you actually do know.



 

Category: Sex Trouble

Pro Tip: Avoid Bragging

Posted on | November 24, 2018 | Comments Off on Pro Tip: Avoid Bragging

 

If you’ll read Chuck Ross’s timeline of the story involving WikiLeaks, Roger Stone, Jerome Corsi and a guy named Randy Credico, you’ll perceive that the essential mistake involved was bragging about inside knowledge of what WikiLeaks had and when it would be released, with regard to the hacking of Clinton aide John Podesta’s emails.

Obviously, hacking someone’s emails is a crime and, although we have no reason to believe that Stone and Corsi had prior knowledge of this crime (which a federal indictment says was committed by Russian intelligence operatives), they obviously were aware that WikiLeaks had obtained possession of these emails and intended to release them.

Was it necessary or in any way helpful for Randy Credico to post to Facebook a photo of himself outside the Ecuadoran embassy in London (where WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has taken asylum) in September 2016 declaring, “I have a feeling that in the next couple days some very damaging material will be coming out from the gentleman inside that embassy”? No, this was neither necessary nor helpful, and neither was it helpful a few days later for Stone to tweet, ““I have total confidence that @wikileaks and my hero Julian Assange will educate the American people soon. #LockHerUp.” Four days later, WikiLeaks released the first batch of Podesta emails and what was the benefit of the previous public boasting about it? Perhaps the comments on social media had value, in some sense, as publicity for the impending releases, and we are assured that no one on the Trump team knew that Russian intelligence was behind the hacking, but still: Why brag about it?

Talk about drawing a target on your own back!

Ever since Assange and WikiLeaks emerged in 2010 — publishing U.S. secrets stolen by the traitor Bradley (“Chelsea”) Manning — I have been anti-Assange, and the fact that WikiLeaks was “on our side” in 2016 does not change that. Obviously, it’s not Assange’s fault (and not Roger Stone’s fault or Trump’s fault) that the DNC and Podesta were hacked, but neither was it smart for Stone, et al., to align themselves so publicly with this operation, e.g., “my hero Julian Assange.”

Granted, Stone and his colleagues were sailing in uncharted waters. So far as we know, no presidential campaign had ever previously been the target of data breaches like what happened to the Democrats in 2016, and never had WikiLeaks been involved in such a political operation. Because there was no established playbook for how to deal with such an event, this meant that Stone and his colleagues were improvising — making up the rules as they went along, with no apparent concern for the potential consequences. Almost certainly, they did not imagine that a special prosecutor would be appointed to investigate the 2016 campaign and, proverbially, “You can indict a ham sandwich.”

On the upside, if this is the biggest thing Mueller’s got — if this WikiLeaks thing is the only “Russian collusion” he can find — then it’s really nothing. There is no reason to believe these hacked emails affected the outcome of the election, which is another reason why it was so stupid of Stone to have boasted about it. What was the big secret revealed by Podesta’s emails? How did that change the outcome in 2016? Were any voters swayed by the content of Podesta’s emails?

Jerome Corsi is now reportedly trying to negotiate a plea deal with Mueller, which doesn’t bode well for Roger Stone. Would any of this be happening if Stone had just kept his mouth shut about WikiLeaks?



 

Category: Crime
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