The Other McCain

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

Doom-Scrolling a New Holocaust: TikTok’s Pro-Hamas Propaganda

Posted on | October 29, 2023 | Comments Off on Doom-Scrolling a New Holocaust: TikTok’s Pro-Hamas Propaganda

Have you ever wondered why the Left hates LibsOfTikTok so much? Why did Taylor Lorenz think it was necessary to dox Chaya Raichik? All she does — the whole function of LibsOfTikTok — is reposting left-wing TikTok content to Twitter. How did that make Chaya Raichik a target of such vindictive wrath? Hold that thought for a minute, while I delve into something seemingly unrelated: Julia Steinberg’s recent column at Free Press, “Why My Generation Hates Jews.” Steinberg notes a recent poll in which 48% of 18-to-24-year-olds side with Hamas in the current Middle East conflict. Recounting various incidents on her college campus (she is a student intern at Free Press), Steinberg explains that, in her generation, “the vast majority of us were raised on Instagram and Twitter — our ideas are tweet-length and infographic-sized. And the oppressor/oppressed framework was made for us.” Then she tells us this:

After seeing a thread on X [Twitter] about how TikTok — the preferred search engine for just over half of Gen Z — is an echo chamber for virulently anti-Israel posts and how its algorithm promotes pro-Palestine content, I re-downloaded the app for the first time since Covid to see how bad it really was.
In my foray back into TikTok, I was reminded of how my friends and I would doomscroll on the app. By osmosis, we mindlessly bleated the same talking points served up to us in thirty-second videos. The same critical theory books we read championing “decolonization” and “resistance” had been distilled into the perfect format: the explainer video.
Dipping my toes back in was a wake-up call as to how sinister this information flow has become. (It’s worth noting that TikTok is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.)
Within the first minute of scrolling under a search for “Zionism” on TikTok, I saw a “Zionism Explained” video with over 125,000 views. It said that Jews are forbidden by God to have their own state, completely ignoring the fact that the State of Israel is secular. “How did this start? Let’s go back to 1897,” the video instructs. But Jewish history in Israel started thousands of years ago, not in 1897.
When I searched “history” on TikTok, a woman with the “cute freckles and lashes” filter told me and over 80,000 viewers that, in “the biggest plot twist of the century,” Jews are using their ancestors’ “tragedy to justify and inflict another Holocaust.”

Got that? Jews are perpetrating “another Holocaust” — that’s what college kids believe, because TikTok told them so. Everybody knows that TikTok (like YouTube) operates on an algorithm that suggests content based on your previous viewing history. This is why YouTube keeps suggesting that I watch videos about police pursuits, the New England Patriots and classic rock (among my other favorite topics).

Unlike the average 18-to-24-year-old, however, I possess a body of knowledge acquired long before TikTok existed. From an early age, I was an avid reader. After my parents bought us The World Book Encyclopedia as a Christmas gift when I was 8, I read more or less the whole encyclopedia by the time I was 12. As for the history of Israel, I watched the Yom Kippur War as it happened on TV news and read about it in the newspaper when I was 14. So anybody trying to sell me on the idea that the Palestinians (so-called) are victims of “oppression” by Israel is wasting their time — I know better. And, in general, my predisposition toward the written word (as opposed to video content) makes it more difficult for anyone to propagandize me. My body of knowledge is quite broad. I’ve read more Marx than most Marxists have.

Knowledgeable adults use the Internet differently than do uninformed youth, and online content affects the young differently than it does older people. Here’s the Wikipedia definition of “doomscrolling”:

Doomscrolling . . . is the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online. In 2019, a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that doomscrolling can be linked to a decline in mental and physical health. . . .
The term gained popularity in the early 2020s through events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the George Floyd protests, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the storming of the U.S. Capitol in 2021, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine since 2022, all of which have been noted to have exacerbated the practice of doomscrolling. Doomscrolling became widespread among Twitter users during the COVID-19 pandemic, and has also been discussed in relation to the climate crisis.

If you’re an adult, with a job and other grown-up responsibilities, your interaction with online media is unlikely to turn into “doomscrolling” for the simple reason that you don’t have time to wallow in depressing content. But many teenagers have nothing else to do with their time than to stare into the social-media abyss, and guess what? The abyss contains a lot of Jew-haters. Some are “right-wing” neo-Nazi types, but more common nowadays are “progressive” types who have imbibed the radical anti-Israeli worldview of Hamas (and Hezbollah, etc.) and therefore condemn Israel as an “apartheid regime” of “settler colonialism.”

Because of the way the TikTok algorithm works, if you watch one anti-Israel video, it’s going to show you more anti-Israel videos, and so it’s easy for a use to get locked into an online echo chamber, with the algorithm feeding them related content from the same point of view. How was it, after all, that so many teenage girls decided a few years ago that they were “non-binary,” a gender category that strikes most adults as a bad joke? If the “doomscrolling” habit can cause tens of thousands of teenagers to suddenly become transgender, it’s not difficult to figure out why so many college kids nowadays vehemently support the “Palestinian resistance” (i.e., beheading Israeli babies).

Now, think back to those questions I asked about the left wing’s rage against LibsOfTikTok. Why do they hate Chaya Raichik so much? Because she exposed to the larger (adult) world what is being fed into the minds of young TikTok users. Very few people over 40 use the TikTok app, and even if you did download the app, unless you’re in one of those left-wing echo chambers, you’re unlikely to encounter the kind of content featured on LibsOfTikTok. So when Chaya Raichik posts a TikTok video to Twitter showing a public school teacher ranting like a lunatic, this is content you’re not supposed to see. This propaganda isn’t intended for the eyes of parents and other responsible adults who might disagree with the left-wing lunatic’s worldview. The creators of such videos expect to be seen only by people who agree with them, and therefore are spewing out deranged nonsense in an unfiltered way, trying to attract support (and clicks) from like-minded TikTok users. Well, guess what these people are saying about Israel and the “Palestinian resistance”?

Do you think people like this arrived at their beliefs by doing research, reading books? Or are they actually a reflection of the way “doomscrolling” contributes to groupthink? People are literally being programmed — propagandized, indoctrinated, brainwashed — by the algorithm. And then, they regurgitate these beliefs back onto the platform by posting their own videos, so that there’s an endless cycle of consumption and production of this stuff. Before you know it, your kid’s cellphone is crammed full of Jew-hating Hamas propaganda.

People need to wake up and realize what’s happening.



 

Category: Israel

Maine Manhunt Ends as Authorities Find Body of Lewiston Massacre Gunman

Posted on | October 28, 2023 | Comments Off on Maine Manhunt Ends as Authorities Find Body of Lewiston Massacre Gunman

Surveillance video showed gunman at a bowling alley.

Robert R. Card II “was found dead Friday from a self-inflicted gunshot, ending an intensive two-day search that had the state on edge. . . . Card was found at 7:45 p.m. near the Androscoggin River . . . at a recycling center from which Card had been fired.” In addition to updating that information, I also wanted to clarify that the death toll was 18, and not 22, as originally reported — the inaccurate death count repeated here Wednesday (“Mass Murder in Maine: At Least 22 Killed, Dozens Wounded, Suspect at Large”). In breaking news situations like this, the early reports always have to be considered tentative. Twitter gets flooded with unsubstantiated claims, and even reputable news organizations get facts wrong (e.g., NBC News had the death toll at 22 Wednesday night).

This was what I wrote in an update on my Wednesday post:

Various sources are saying that Robert Card is twice divorced, that one of his ex-wives had a restraining order against him, and that he is a registered sex offender. I haven’t been able to find this information in actual news reports from reputable outlets, and with the “fog of war” factor in the immediate aftermath of an incident like this, one should be cautious about such things. But there are enough people saying this stuff on blogs and social media that I thought I’d share it, with the caveat that it’s not officially confirmed.

It turns out that the Internet sleuths had it wrong — the divorced Maine sex offender is Robert W. Card, not Robert R. Card II, but that’s the kind of mistake that often happens in such situations. So my warning about the “fog of war” factor was vindicated. Background on the gunman:

In an interview Thursday with The Daily Beast, Card’s sister-in-law said he has had acute mental health struggles over the past year. Card started wearing powerful hearing aids, but began hearing things like people “bashing” him, including at the bowling alley and Schemengees, and he would “get mad” when he was told the voices were just in his head, according to the interview.
Card graduated from Mount Ararat High School in Topsham in 2001. He studied engineering at the University of Maine from 2001 to 2004 but did not graduate.
He was licensed as an electrician’s helper from 2004 to 2006, with no disciplinary action on his record. It appears his father, Robert R. Card of Bowdoin, was a master electrician, licensed from 1998 to 2024.
A spokesman for the U.S. Army on Thursday confirmed Card’s military status. Bryce Dubee said Card’s rank in the Army Reserve is sergeant first class, and he is a petroleum supply specialist who enlisted in December 2002 and has not been deployed to combat zones.
Dubee said Card has received awards for his service, including the Army Achievement Medal, Army Reserve Component Achievement Medal, Humanitarian Service Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and Army Service Ribbon.
A former Army Reserve colleague of Card’s told CNN that Card is a skilled marksman and outdoorsman who was among the best shooters in his Army Reserve unit.
Military commanders in the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment, said they observed Card acting erratically while the unit was training at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York. Card was taken to the Keller Army Community Hospital there.
Card was taken by police to be evaluated following erratic behavior in July, according to The Associated Press, which spoke to a U.S. official who asked to remain anonymous.
The police bulletin sent to law enforcement after Wednesday night’s shootings in Lewiston noted Card had been at a mental health facility for two weeks this summer, and he had reported “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” the military base. No information was provided about Card’s treatment or diagnosis.
Sagadahoc County court documents indicate Card has an 18-year-old son with a woman he divorced in 2007, with the couple having shared parental responsibilities and rights. The divorce was granted on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. . . .
An additional amendment to the divorce judgment in 2013 ordered “all weapons in either party’s home shall be under lock and key at all times during which they are not being used.”
Card’s criminal record in Maine shows one prior offense: A misdemeanor-level charge of operating under the influence in Topsham in 2007. He pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 48 hours in jail, and fined $500, which he paid.

Crazy People Are Dangerous.



 

Category: Crime, Maine

In The Mailbox: 10.27.23

Posted on | October 28, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.27.23

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Old Dads, That Beastie Boys Song Was Not Supposed To Be “No Jews In Brooklyn”, and Tsingtao Beer: Workers Pee In It 
Twitchy: Man Connected To The “Doxxing Truck” Gets SWATted, “This Isn’t An Airport” – Twitter Says Goodbye To David French , and “Just Like Nazi Germany!” Wait, What? The Left Loses Its Mind Over Arrests Of Left-Wing Jewish Protestors
Louder With Crowder: Heavy metal legend gives Israel his full support for using his 80s anthem as a rallying cry, “Pickle” The Drag Queen Kicked Out Of Story Time After Even Los Angeles Parents Have Had Enough, and “I’m dying to f*cking put you in a hospital”
Vox Popoli: Glowy McGlowerson, Service Outage, Clown World Backs Down, and Netanyahu Rolls the Dice
According To Hoyt: Barbarism, Trust, and Citizens of the World
Monster Hunter Nation: They’re Doing it for YOU
Jon Del Arroz: Are There Any Non-Gay Characters At DC Any More?
Stoic Observations: The American Palace

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Australian Racial Politics
American Conservative: The Conservative Movement’s Long Way Home
American Greatness: Lawsuit Claims Biden’s DHS Is Withholding Information on Terror Suspects Caught Crossing the Border
American Thinker: Biden and Islamophobia
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Irrational Fear Friday
Babalu Blog: Egg production in communist Cuba drops by 50%, Cuban military reveals a new medal, and Reports from Cuba: Diaz-Canel lies like a rug
Baldilocks: If You Want To Know What’s Happening Over There
BattleSwarm: HS2: UK’s £100 Billion Rail To Nowhere, also, LinkSwarm For October 27
Behind The Black: Russia’s Soyuz-2 rocket launches military satellite, No launch of Starship/Superheavy until February? Is a recently discovered near Earth asteroid a piece from the Moon? A new global map of the near-surface ice on Mars, and The son of one of the co-founders of Hamas tells it like it is
Cafe Hayek: Responding Further to Fallacies Spread by Oren Cass
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: Consequences
Da Tech Guy: Yael Bar tur: Analysis True
Don Surber: Of course Harvard supports terrorism
First Street Journal: World War III Watch: Slouching toward the big one?
Gates Of Vienna: The Winter of Our Discontent, The New Lebanon, Going, Going, Gone? Death to the Hell People! and The Devil Quotes Scripture
The Geller Report: “400 Body Parts”
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, also, Mergers and Acquisitions
Hollywood In Toto: Five Nights at Freddy’s Suffers Extreme Identity Crisis, Why Waikiki Is Unlike Any Cinematic Trip to Hawaii, and Reporters Run Cover for Disney’s Dwarf Backpedal
The Lid: Biden Crime Family: 5 News Stories He Hopes You Won’t Notice In A VERY Hectic News Week
Legal Insurrection:  As Investors Lose Interest, Sustainability Funds Don’t Appear to be….Sustainable, “What’s harsh, is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon”, Billionaire Leon Cooperman Will No Longer Donate to Columbia U. Over Pro-Hamas Protests, Chicago Neighborhood Residents Explode Over Planned Migrant Camp, U.S. Strikes Two Syria Facilities Linked to Iran After Attacks on American Troops, and IDF Expanding Ground Operations Into Gaza
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Chelsea Gray Says ‘Dumbass’ To Clay Travis, Who Responds With $1 Million WNBA Vs. Boys High School Challenge, NBA Looks For New TV Rights Deal As Viewership Tanks, Security Wouldn’t Allow James Harden To Board 76ers Team Plane, It Sure Sounds Like Jason Kelce Is Gearing Up For Retirement, Nick Saban Calls For In-Helmet Communication Amid Michigan Sign-Stealing Scandal, Juan Soto Trade Rumors Intensify – Former Padres Manager Reportedly Wanted Him Gone Last Season, and Riley Gaines Seems Less Welcome At Harvard Than Anti-Israel Contingent
Power Line: Green Dreams Going Up In Smoke, Jamal Bowman – Liar, The Amy Klobuchar experience, and Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: Mast Questions Legitimacy Of State Dept. Disinformation Task Force
Shot In The Dark: A Picture, also, Mitch’s Journalism School 101
This Ain’t Hell: Aren’t they good little Nazis? Valor Friday, America will not be spared if war in Gaza continues, US Announces Hamas Sanctions and Humanitarian Aid, Kennedy amendment protecting Veteran second amendment rights passes Senate, and American fighter jets strike Iran-linked sites in Syria
Transterrestrial Musings: A Blast From The Past
Victory Girls: The Fix Was In For Jamaal “Fire Alarm” Bowman’s Plea Deal
Volokh Conspiracy: Advocacy in Support of Hamas vs. Illegal Material Support of Hamas
Watts Up With That: German Employer Now Docking Wages Of Employees Who Eat Meat, Drive Autos! Forbes: Climate Policy Hurts the Poor More than Climate Change, and To Be Clear, Minnesota Public Radio, Allergies Are Manageable, Extended Growing Seasons Benefit Everyone
The Federalist: Big Tech Must Be Held Liable For The Screen Addictions Ruining Our Kids, Leftist Streamer Hasan Piker Justifies Hamas Baby Beheadings As Both Legal And Moral, IRS Leaker Who Stole Trump’s Tax Returns Gets ‘Slap On The Wrist’ From Biden DOJ, Media Squawk About Mike Johnson’s ‘Sexual Anarchy’ Predictions As They All Come True, 1,000 U.S. Soldiers In Niger Need To Come Home Right Now, and However Much You Hate The Media, These 7 Moments In Israel Coverage Prove It’s Not Enough
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet: Three Days to Trial

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Category: Linkagery

The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved

Posted on | October 27, 2023 | Comments Off on The Ivy League Is Decadent and Depraved

“Amid backlash” is an interesting phrase, as is the euphemistic reference to an “Israel statement.” One might make any number of statements about Israel without finding oneself “amid backlash.” The language in the Harvard Crimson headline, of course, is a sort of journalistic DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactic, meant to convince the readership that what’s really wrong — the offense that should inspire outrage — is not that a coalition of student groups signed an open letter endorsing the slaughter of Israeli civilians by Hamas, but rather that these students have been “doxxed.” Let’s quote a bit of this dishonest article by Michelle N. Amponsah (Class of ’26):

Harvard will establish a task force to support students experiencing doxxing, harassment, and online security issues following backlash against students allegedly affiliated with a statement that held Israel “entirely responsible” for violence in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The new task force will be in operation until Nov. 3, at which point the task force will reassess its efforts to ensure that its work meets student needs, according to an email obtained by The Crimson. The message, dated Tuesday, was sent to doxxed students by Dean of Students Thomas Dunne.
“We are truly grateful for all the tremendous work that students have put forth in supporting each other through this most difficult time, and we appreciate the collaborative spirit in which students, faculty, and staff have come together to repel this repugnant assault on our community,” Dunne wrote.

(Y’know, Dean Dunne, if you want to talk about communities that have suffered a “repugnant assault,” perhaps you should investigate what Hamas did in Kibbutz Be’eri or Kibbutz Kfar Aza, because I’m pretty sure your precious Harvard students have never experienced anything like that.)

Aside from serving as a single point of contact, the task force will communicate proactively with students to share available resources, ensure the coordination of services, hear student concerns and suggestions, and communicate with residential staff and other College administrators.
The formation of the task force comes more than two weeks after more than 30 student organizations drew national backlash for signing onto the controversial statement, which was penned by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee. . . .
In the weeks that followed, students have faced doxxing attacks on websites, social media, and a billboard truck displaying group members’ names and faces and describing them as “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

For the sake of clarity — to be sure everyone understands what we are talking about here — let’s quote the “controversial statement” in full:

Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine
We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all the unfolding violence.
Today’s events did not occur in a vacuum. For the last two decades, millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison.
Israeli officials promise to “open the gates of hell,” and the massacres in Gaza have already commenced. Palestinians in Gaza have no shelters for refuge and nowhere to escape. In the coming days, Palestinians will be forced to bear the full brunt of Israel’s violence.
The apartheid regime is the only one to blame.
Israeli violence has structured every aspect of Palestinian existence for 75 years. From systematized land seizures to routine airstrikes, arbitrary detentions to military checkpoints, and enforced family separations to targeted killings, Palestinians have been forced to live in a state of death, both slow and sudden.
Today, the Palestinian ordeal enters into uncharted territory. The coming days will require a firm stand against colonial retaliation. We call on the Harvard community to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians.

You see that I have quoted this statement verbatim, complete with the boldface emphasis in the original — screencapped from the student group’s own Facebook page — and I have done so for two reasons: First, because almost no media outlets have quoted the statement in full, but instead keep recycling a few phrases taken out of context; and second, I want everyone to see the full statement so that you cannot disagree when I call this what it actually is: Hamas propaganda.

Gaining admission to Harvard University should guarantee that a student has a high degree of reading comprehension, and sufficient acquaintance with history, current events, etc., to be able to distinguish between an objective, factual description of circumstances, on the one hand, and a tendentious one-sided piece of inflammatory propaganda, on the other.

Is anyone confused about what this Harvard statement is? Readers can quibble over the details about the “open-air prison” of Gaza and the reasons why residents there have been “forced” to live in squalor. As for the general pro-“Palestinian” argument, I’ll refer you to my old buddy Marty Seiff’s book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East (and collect a small commission if you purchase that book through my Amazon Affiliate link). My point is not to argue about the policies of the Israeli government, but rather to make clear that the statement these Harvard students signed could not have been more one-sided and deliberately provocative if it had been written by Hamas itself (which, for all I know, maybe it was). So I’m extremely skeptical of any suggestion that the Harvard students who signed onto this message were merely naïve, or that the “backlash” against them is irrational. As for the claim that the students are victims of “doxxing,” Ace of Spades says:

It’s not doxxing. They signed a public statement.
[Liberals] claim LibsofTikTok “doxxes” people with their posted statements and TikToks, too. No — all she did was expose it to a wider audience than the Circle of Affirmation the poster was hoping for. That’s not making private information public, which is what doxxing is. That’s taking public information and sharing it with more of the public. . . .
The people who have been calling everyone “Nazis” now say it’s “harassment” to be properly identified as “Antisemites.” Got it.

Got it, indeed. What is truly important here is the revelation (or perhaps better to say confirmation) that our “elite” universities are cocoons of extremist left-wing hivemind groupthink, where students are indoctrinated with radicalism so thorough, with so little pushback from any well-informed critic of this monolithic worldview, that they’ll sign onto literal terrorist propaganda and then be shocked to discover that not everyone agrees that Jews deserve to be murdered by Hamas.



 

Category: Israel, The Ivy League Is Depraved and Decadent

Everybody Ready for Armageddon?

Posted on | October 27, 2023 | Comments Off on Everybody Ready for Armageddon?

Perhaps “nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog,” shall soon be gathered for this battle:

U.S. fighter jets launched airstrikes early Friday on two locations in eastern Syria linked to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Pentagon said, in retaliation for a slew of drone and missile attacks against U.S. bases and personnel in the region that began early last week.
The U.S. strikes reflect the Biden administration’s determination to maintain a delicate balance. The U.S. wants to hit Iranian-backed groups suspected of targeting the U.S. as strongly as possible to deter future aggression, possibly fueled by Israel’s war against Hamas, while also working to avoid inflaming the region and provoking a wider conflict.
According to a senior U.S. military official, the precision strikes were carried out near Boukamal by two F-16 fighter jets, and they struck weapons and ammunition storage areas that were connected to the IRGC. The official said there had been Iranian-aligned militia and IRGC personnel on the base and no civilians, but the U.S. does not have any information yet on casualties or an assessment of damage. The official would not say how many munitions were launched by the F-16s.
A senior defense official said the sites were chosen because the IRGC stores the types of munitions there that were used in the strikes against U.S. bases and troops. The two officials briefed reporters after the strikes on condition of anonymity to provide details on the mission that had not yet been made public.
According to the Pentagon, there have now been at least 19 attacks on U.S. bases and personnel in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17, including three new ones Thursday. Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said 21 U.S. personnel were injured in two of those assaults that used drones to target al-Asad Airbase in Iraq and al-Tanf Garrison in Syria.
In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the “precision self-defense strikes are a response to a series of ongoing and mostly unsuccessful attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militia groups that began on October 17.”
He said President Joe Biden directed the narrowly tailored strikes “to make clear that the United States will not tolerate such attacks and will defend itself, its personnel, and its interests.” And he added that the operation was separate and distinct from Israel’s war against Hamas.

Not saying this is the beginning of World War III. However, I’m also not saying it’s not the beginning of World War III.



 

Category: Military, Syria

In The Mailbox: 10.26.23 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | October 26, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.26.23 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Don’t Bring A Hammer To A Gunfight
EBL: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), The Fall of the House of Usher, and 18 dead, 13 injured As Maine Shooter Still At Large
Twitchy: Turns Out Gas Guzzlers May Be More Economical After All, The “Doxxing Truck” Makes Home Visits To Expose Student Leaders Who Signed Anti-Israel Letter, and Palestinian Vlogger Makes Amazing Recovery After Being In Critical Condition
Louder With Crowder: 50-year-old “Melody Wiseheart” enters swimming contest for 13-year-old girls, yet still can’t dominate them, CEO Gerald Morgan congratulates others’ sudden realization they can’t play nice with Big Tech, and Iceland’s Prime Minister Goes On Strike Over Something Called “Gender Equality”
Vox Popoli: We Have Always Not Mandate, Junior Classics Vols. VII and VIII, and Corruption in High Places

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Biden Fails to Explain Why U.S. Should Fight Proxy War Against Russia
American Greatness: Gaetz Claims McCarthy Tried to Sabotage Vote For New House Speaker Mike Johnson, ACLU Declares Trump Gag Order to be Unconstitutional, and Premodern Diversity Vs. Civilizational Unity
American Thinker: The Left’s Planned Destruction of the Judeo-Christian World
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Death of Delusions News
Babalu Blog: Cubans in city of Cárdenas have had no electricity for over a month, A ritzy ‘Dinner in White’ in Havana as Cubans go hungry and flee the island in droves, and Reports from Cuba: Havana’s Cortinas ‘castle’ converted into military zone and beggar’s refuge
BattleSwarm: Our Short National Non-Nightmare Is Finally Over: Rep. Mike Johnson Elected Speaker
Behind The Black: Boeing losses total almost a billion dollars this quarter, Red China launches new three-man crew to its Tiangong-3 space station, Rocket Lab expects to resume Electron launches before end of year, The icy terrain near one of Starship’s prime candidate landing spots on Mars, Has the tide actually turned? and Pushback: Fired director of college’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion department accuses movement of promoting bigotry
CDR Salamander: What Does Hamas Want?
Da Tech Guy: The GOP and moderate Dems should be paying attention to Chicago’s anti-migrant protests, Five Speaker Mike Johnson Thoughts Under the Fedora, and The Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a colossal gun grabbing abomination
Dana Loesch: What We Know About The Maine Killer
Don Surber: No time for DeSantis
First Street Journal: Regardless of what the #woke want to believe, the numbers don’t lie
Gates Of Vienna: Nonagenarians Raped to Death by Culture-Enricher, also, Bodyguards for Silvia Sardone
The Geller Report: Jewish Students Forced to Barricade Themselves In Library as Muslim and Leftist Jew-Hating Mob Try to Break Down the Door New York’s Cooper Union College
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, À la recherche du temps perdu, and Civilians vis-à-vis Citizens
Hollywood In Toto: D’Souza’s Police State Gets Shocking ‘Boost’ from YouTube
The Lid: Anti-Semitic Attack At Cooper Union University
Legal Insurrection: Bowman Faces a Misdemeanor for Pulling Capitol Fire Alarm Before Spending Vote, ‘Pro-Palestinian’ Protesters Attack Jewish Students at Tulane, The DEI Complex in Higher Education Won’t Ever Protect Jewish Students, NJ Father Sues State Over Secret Gender Transitioning Policy, Federal Judge Rules Georgia’s Redistricing Map Violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and IDF Conducts Overnight Tank Raid in Northern Gaza as it Prepares for Ground Offensive
Nebraska Energy Observer: Christmas
Outkick: Cleveland Browns $230 Million Investment In Deshaun Watson Has Delivered No Dividends, That Was Quick: NCAA Already On Michigan’s Campus To Investigate Alleged Sign-Stealing, Interviewing Jim Harbaugh Staff Members, Big Ten Pressure Will Present Further Challenges For USC Coach Lincoln Riley, Saints’ Chris Olave Expected To Play Sunday After Another Speeding Arrest, Who Turned In Michigan? and Diamondbacks-Rangers World Series Shows That Baseball Narratives Don’t Matter
Power Line: Who’s He? Journalists For Mass Murder and Gang Rape, “We must cut the crap”, and Amy Klobuchar, Censor
Shark Tank: Donalds Calls Out DOJ’s Double Standard For Republicans
Shot In The Dark: The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades, This Is Minneapolis In 2023, and Compromise
The Political Hat: Quick Takes – Baby Killings: Mandatory Abortion In Britain; Abortion Like Turning Off A Computer; Abortion Ban Stands In Georgia
This Ain’t Hell: Immigration – a familiar face shows up, 40th Remembrance of the Beirut Bombing, Air Force police fire shots at gate runner, and Three Lies In One
Transterrestrial Musings: When Will Starship Launch?
Victory Girls: Riley Gaines: The Biological Woman Who Violated Community Standards
Volokh Conspiracy: UC Berkeley Reverses Instructor’s Attempt to Give Extra Credit for Pro-Palestinian Political Activity
Watts Up With That: The Energy Future we need to have a Future worth having, Do We Really Know That Human Greenhouse Gas Emissions Cause Significant Climate Change? and New York City Goes Pedal to the Metal on Electric Vehicles
The Federalist: Please Don’t Ask Me To Dinner And Then Want To Split An Entrée, 5 Examples Of The Illegal Government Censorship SCOTUS Just Allowed To Resume, Neocons Fear Speaker Mike Johnson Could Bring An End To Ukraine War Cash, Poll: Less Than 1/4 Of Ohioans Support The Unlimited Abortion Outlined In Issue 1, With A $2T Deficit This Year, Washington’s Fiscal Failure Is Worse Than You Think, Major Jewish Group Calls On MLB, NBA, NFL To Abandon Support For Black Lives Matter, and Jake Sullivan’s Article Rewrite Shows His Biden Foreign Policy Brags Crumble In Real Time
Mark Steyn: The Black Cloud, also, Steyn In the Dock, Part Two

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 10.26.23 (Morning Edition)

Posted on | October 26, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.26.23 (Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Just in time for Halloween!
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Shinto priest blesses first Japanese-produced F-35.

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Richard Roundtree, RIP, also, Maybe Israel should deal with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran like this
Twitchy: Gov. Kim Reynolds Drops Truth Nuke On Reporters Whining About “Banned Books” In Iowa, MSNBC Reporter Losing Her Shit Over Speaker Johnson Will Make You Like Him Even More, and Matt Yglesias Gets Walloped For Defending Antisemitic Lefties
Louder With Crowder: Man who laughed at Jewish woman after ripping down her hostage posters gets suspended from job. By his dad. Who’s Jewish., Bud Light is so desperate to win back customers, they are giving the UFC $100 Million, and Cop swoops in to prevent woman from showing sexually explicit images the school board allows in children’s libraries
Vox Popoli: Convos with PSG, They Won’t Fight for Israel, The Ultimate RPG System, Mailvox: SSH in Finland, US SpecOps KIA in Gaza, and Conservatives Hardest Hit

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Green New Dealers
American Greatness: Texas Attorney General Sues Biden Administration for Cutting Razor Wire at Southern Border
American Thinker: ‘Free Palestine’ Is the New ‘Sieg Heil’
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Argentina heading to electoral game 7, AMLO vows continued support for Cuban dictatorship, and Cuba & Red China renew whorish vows of love
Baldilocks: Observing Crowd Formation
BattleSwarm: Underwater Attack Hits Russian Fleet At Sevastopol
Behind The Black: Perseverance looks ahead, beyond Jezero Crater, ULA sets Christmas Eve as launch date for first Vulcan rocket launch, A dance of three galaxies, SpaceX gets ESA contract to launch up to four of its Galileo GPS-type satellites, No Starship/Superheavy launch likely until January? and Axiom signs deal with the United Kingdom to fly all British mission
Cafe Hayek: No, The Antitrust Action Against Google Isn’t Justified
CDR Salamander: Do We Give Them The War They Want?
Da Tech Guy: I suggest a backward House Vote
Dana Loesch: Rep. Mike Johnson Elected Speaker of the House
Don Surber: 404 Journalism
First Street Journal: Crime is crime; why should we care about the motive?
Gates Of Vienna: Fiddling While Berlin Burns, also, Diversity Hire or Sharia Sleeper Cell?
The Geller Report:  Majority Aged 18-24 Say Hamas Atrocities of Israeli Civilians ‘Justified’, also, ‘Just as Cruel as the Terrorists’: Many Ordinary Palestinians Joined in Hamas’s Atrocities Against Israel
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day, also, Thor’s Helmet
Hollywood In Toto: Little Bite Left in Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, also, Office Alums Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey: No News on a Reboot (Yet)
The Lid: Is Reason For Biden’s Net Neutrality Push-Hiding Failures In Green Policy?
Legal Insurrection: Netanyahu: ‘We are Preparing for a Ground Incursion’ Into Gaza to Destroy Hamas, Liberal Activist Groups Condemn Killing of Black Man Who Attacked Cop During Traffic Stop, Florida “Deactivates“ Students for Justice in Palestine Chapters Based on SJP “Support of Terrorism”, George Washington U. Students Project Anti-Semitic Messages on School Library Building, Teens Accused of Killing Retired CA Police Chief Taunt His Family in Court, and Playwright David Mamet Says Democrats ‘Betrayed the Jews’
Nebraska Energy Observer: St. Crispan/Crispians Day
Outkick: Brady Quinn Eviscerates Deshaun Watson’s No. 1 Fanboy With Gripping Comeback, Torey Lovullo Is Looking Forward To Making ‘Wise Guy’ Chris Russo Retire, Detroit Lions WR Marvin Jones Announces He’s Stepping Away From Football Due To ‘Personal Family Matters’, Snakes On A Plane…To Texas: Arizona Diamondbacks Shut Up Philadelphia To Reach World Series, Hugh Freeze Says He’d Never Throw Auburn Players Under The Bus Before Immediately Throwing Them Under The Bus, and Paige VanZant Channels Inner Barbie Teasing New Collab
Power Line: “Dad, Be Proud Of Me!”, Mugged By Reality, and Why Are Our Universities Anti-Semitic Cesspools?
Shark Tank: Cammack Pokes Fun At Jeffries’ “Dog Whistle” Speech To Congress
Shot In The Dark: Big Left’s Psyop
This Ain’t Hell: Wednesday Weirdness, Four More Accounted For, and Recent college graduate enters workforce, gets a rude awakening
Victory Girls: Meet Mike Johnson (R-LA) The Speaker Of The House
Volokh Conspiracy: The Moral and Strategic Case for Opening Doors to Gaza Refugees
Watts Up With That: The Wind is Always Blowing Somewhere Fallacy, Experts Addle Kids’ Minds Over “Climate Change”, and Review of Proposed Minimum Efficiency Standards for “Consumer Boilers”
The Federalist: Free-Market Conservatives Should Ignore Biden’s Antitrust Siren Song, 41 Attorneys General Sue Facebook, Instagram Creators For Targeting Children With Addictive Algorithms, Why ‘Domestic Terrorists’ Like Me Can’t Forget Public School Covid Tyranny, At The New York Times, Praising Hitler Is Fine But Running Republican Op-Eds Gets You The Boot, Democrats’ Campaign To Disbar John Eastman Is Designed To Criminalize Republican Election Challenges, and University Donors Pull Funds Over Anti-Israel Protests. Where Was The Outrage Over BLM?
Mark Steyn: “A completely rigged peer-review system”

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Biggest Story of the Week: DOJ Subpoenaed Senate GOP Staff Phones

Posted on | October 26, 2023 | Comments Off on Biggest Story of the Week: DOJ Subpoenaed Senate GOP Staff Phones

Former top Senate investigator Jason Foster

If you know anything at all about Capitol Hill, you know that Chuck Grassley’s staffer are the best investigators of governmental waste, fraud and abuse. Every year there are dozens of big stories that never would have come to light if not for the tireless work of Grassley’s staff. For many years, the ace in Grassley’s office was Jason Foster, who has recently left the Hill to launch his own non-profit organization, Empower Oversight, to continue that kind of investigation independently. The latest news should shock the conscience of the country:

While House and Senate oversight committees were investigating the Department of Justice and the FBI for their role in the Russia-collusion hoax, the DOJ subpoenaed the private phone and email logs of multiple congressional staffers, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed Tuesday reveals. The executive branch’s targeting of staffers assisting with congressional oversight of the DOJ and FBI represents a dangerous intrusion into the legislative branch’s functioning — and one that demands answers and an accounting.
On Tuesday, the Virginia-based whistleblower firm Empower Oversight dispatched a letter to the attorney general and a slew of other DOJ officials, including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. That letter detailed how the organization’s founder, Jason Foster, learned last week from a notice provided by Google that the DOJ had subpoenaed records of his Google Voice telephone number. The subpoena issued to Google required the tech giant to provide all telephone connection records and text message logs for Foster’s private Google account from Dec. 1, 2016, to May 1, 2017.
At that time, as the Empower Oversight letter explained, Foster served as the chief investigative counsel to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley. In that role, he directed congressional oversight into misconduct at the Justice Department. The DOJ likewise subpoenaed other House and Senate staffers working with oversight committees — both Republicans and Democrats — according to Empower Oversight.
The Federalist has independently confirmed that at least one staffer on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) received the same notice from Google of the subpoena, which was issued by a D.C. grand jury on Sept. 12, 2017.
That date proves significant because former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had reportedly threatened to subpoena the personal records of HPSCI staffers during a heated January 2018 closed-door meeting concerning oversight requests served on the DOJ. But based on the Google notice sent out last week to the subpoenas’ targets, the DOJ had already executed that threat.
The Empower Oversight letter takes to task the DOJ for undertaking what appears to be “an extensive and far-reaching effort to use grand jury subpoenas and perhaps other means to gather the personal communications records of innocent congressional staffers and their families with little or no legitimate predicate.” . . .

Read the whole thing. What Foster was doing at the time, of course, was trying to get to the bottom of “Operation Crossfire Hurricane,” the corrupt scam (set in motion by the phony Steele dossier paid for by Hillary’s campaign) to investigate Trump’s advisers for “Russian collusion.” As the linked article explains, the FOIA request by Empower Oversight anticipates the DOJ’s probable excuse — “the need to uncover the individual who leaked classified information to the press” — by asking whether DOJ similarly subpoenaed Executive Branch officials. Certainly it seems to me more likely that the leak came from the FBI itself, and that this DOJ subpoena was a fishing expedition aimed at figuring out the identities of whistleblowers that Grassley’s staff and other congressional investigators were talking to. In other words, the DOJ was trying to cover up its own corrupt activities. People should be mad as hell.



 

Category: Corruption, Scandal
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