RFK JR.’S LONG LEGACY OF SUPPORTING CENSORSHIP: He’s no free speech champion, even if his anti-vaccine activism has made him a hero to the MAGA right.
Archive for 2023
May 17, 2023
TRANSPARENCY: 66 Tennessee Republicans call for release of Audrey Hale’s manifesto: ‘Don’t understand the apprehension.’
Something in it will harsh a narrative, or make someone with clout look bad.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Republican senators claim NASA being distracted by climate change and diversity initiatives.
I’d say it’s not so much “claim” as “point out.”
BIGSHOTS WHO FIXED AN ELECTION SKATE, BUT AT DOJ YOU CAN LOSE YOUR JOB FOR accepting free Celtics tickets. Okay, that’s not all Rachael Rollins did, but the contrast struck me.
TOP FEDERAL PROSECUTOR IN MASSACHUSETTS TO RESIGN AFTER DAMNING ETHICS REPORT:
The Department of Justice’s internal watchdog began a probe last year after U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Rachael Rollins attended a Democratic fundraiser last July featuring first lady Jill Biden, despite advice that this would violate ethics guidelines.
“We found Rollins’s conduct described throughout this report violated federal regulations, numerous DOJ policies, her Ethics Agreement, and applicable law, and fell far short of the standards of professionalism and judgment that the Department should expect of any employee, much less a U.S. Attorney,” the DOJ inspector general’s office said in its report.
That 161-page report found Rollins, who was appointed by President Biden, used her official position to try to help the election effort of a fellow Democrat for the Suffolk County district attorney position.
Rollins gave journalists nonpublic, sensitive DOJ information “to create the impression publicly, before the primary election, that DOJ was or would be investigating (his opponent) for public corruption,” according to the IG’s office.
The report found that Rollins lied under oath about that effort when asked about it by investigators.
Par for the course for “the most open and transparent administration in history.”
MARC THIESSEN: The Durham report is a damning indictment of the FBI — and the media.
Igor Danchenko, who was responsible for 80 percent of the information in the dossier, had a “long history with Russian intelligence officers,” Durham reports. While working at the Brookings Institution, he asked a colleague he thought was about to join the Obama administration whether he would “be willing or able in the future to provide classified information in exchange for money.” The colleague reported it to the FBI, which launched a full investigation after discovering that Danchenko “had been identified as an associate of two FBI counterintelligence subjects” and “known Russian intelligence officers.” That investigation was left unresolved because the FBI incorrectly believed Danchenko had returned to Russia.
The FBI never “attempted to resolve the prior Danchenko espionage matter” before hiring him as a paid informant in the Trump investigation, Durham writes. Indeed, the Trump investigators brushed off concerns raised by officials vetting Danchenko that he was connected to Russian intelligence and falsely claimed that there was no “derogatory” information about him and that he “had not been a prior subject of an FBI investigation.” They gave him a letter of immunity, paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars and kept that information from the FISA court. It was possible, Durham writes, that “the intelligence Danchenko was providing … was, in whole or in part, Russian disinformation.” (Durham attempted to prosecute Danchenko for lying to investigators about his sources, but Danchenko was found not guilty.)
In other words, the FBI knowingly relied on a source who had been under investigation as a possible Russian spy to investigate whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. You can’t make it up.
Think of what that means: It was the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee that funded the Steele dossier, which relied on a Russian with suspected ties to Russian intelligence. The FBI then included the dossier as part of the materials it used to investigate Trump, paralyzing our country, undermining a newly elected president for two years while costing tens of millions of dollars — all over what ended up being a conspiracy theory.
You might think journalists would want to get to the bottom of how they were duped so that they could repair the reputational damage to themselves and their industry. Apparently not.
Not surprisingly, David Frum is BenSmithing the whole thing:
Which isn’t surprising; as Charles Cooke wrote yesterday in a post titled, “How Can Anybody Take Them Seriously?”, “Frum was insisting emphatically on TV and in the Atlantic that the theory ‘wasn’t a hoax’ in December of 2021 — ten months after Joe Biden had taken office.”
As Steve noted earlier today about Adam Schiff, “Just because a narrative is completely discredited doesn’t mean it isn’t still useful to those who don’t mind lying and those who enjoy being lied to.”
Eighty years ago, on May 16-17, 1943, an elite group of airmen, mostly from the Royal Air Force, but also with contingents from Canada and Australia, took off in nineteen Lancaster bombers from the RAF station in Scampton, Lincolnshire. Their mission was clear: Destroy three dams in Germany’s Ruhr Valley, thus taking out the hydroelectric power and the water supply to Germany’s industrial heartland, largely negating its value as a manufacturing center for the war effort.
Recognizing their importance, the Germans had heavily fortified the dams, installing impenetrable torpedo nets below the waterlines to guard against an underwater attack, and it was widely believed that they could be destroyed only by placing charges underwater and against the dam walls themselves, a difficult and dangerous task with a limited prospect of success.
Enter Barnes Wallis, an English engineer working for Vickers, a man with an inventive turn of mind and a determination to square this particular circle.
There was some talk in 2018 that Peter Jackson was going to remake the 1955 film The Dam Busters, which contains some brilliant acting, though with crude special effects in the last act that look like Airfix models on fishing lines. But what to do with the rather problematic name of squad’s mascot? Changing it or keeping it is guaranteed to alienate half the audience, which is why Jackson likely dropped the idea.
AIR FORCE VET IDENTIFIED AS ZODIAC KILLER SUSPECT BUT FBI DIDN’T ACT ON DNA PROOF, GROUP CLAIMS:
A volunteer cold case team says an FBI official confirmed the man they believe to be the “Zodiac Killer” is currently listed as a suspect and accuses government agencies across the country of not properly investigating the alleged serial killings.
Thomas Colbert, an investigative journalist and leader of the non-profit volunteer team Case Breakers, said in a press release this week that a whistleblower on his team was told by an FBI agent that Gary Francis Poste, an Air Force veteran, is considered a suspect in a database for the killings and that the lab has a “partial” DNA sample.
“The felon has been secretly listed as the Zodiac ‘suspect’ in Headquarters’ computers since 2016,” the group wrote in a press release. “With his ‘partial DNA’ safely secured at the feds’ Quantico, Virginia lab.”
The FBI has consistently rejected reports and conclusions that the case has been solved and told Fox News Digital in October 2021 that the case was still open.
Ted Cruz could not be reached for comment.
ELIZABETH HOLMES MUST REPORT TO PRISON, PAY $452 MILLION IN RESTITUTION:
An appeals court has rejected convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes’ bid to remain out of prison while she appeals the convictions against her.
Holmes, the founder and CEO of failed blood-testing company Theranos, will have to report to prison, leaving behind her current partner and her two young children, both of whom she had after being charged with fraud. A date has not been set for when Holmes will have to report for prison, the Associated Press reported.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision comes nearly three weeks after Holmes’ legal team successfully delayed her sentence from her original start date of April 27.
According to CNBC (where — of course — in 2015, Jim Cramer likened Holmes to Steve Jobs), “She is expected to begin her sentence of 11 years and three months at a minimum-security facility in Bryan, Texas.”
Flashback: Reason TV on Theranos, Elizabeth Holmes, and the Cult of Silicon Valley:
PROFESSOR CARRINGTON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: NASA: We’d Have a 30-Minute Warning Before a Killer Solar Storm Hits Earth.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. In A Healthy ‘Democracy,’ John Brennan Would Already Be In Prison.
Related:
The fact is, in this instance, Donald Trump was correct when he said he was the target of a political hitjob funded by the Clinton campaign and maintained by virtually every media outlet. There is a word for that: disinformation. https://t.co/yiTX6HBGV8
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 17, 2023
Finally?
WELL, YES: The utter hypocrisy of championing #MeToo and defending Neely. “If you argue that a woman can be traumatized by bawdy humor in the office or awkward come-ons in a bar, surely you would agree that she’s entitled to be fearful when trapped underground on a metal tube with an erratically behaving stranger twice her size. But, no: instead, many of the people who once insisted that men who slid into DMs deserved the complete destruction of their professional reputations became passionate advocates for toughening up when it came to dealing with volatile people on public transit.”
PARTY OF YOUTH UPDATE: Biden, Feinstein, and Fetterman: The Democrats’ Growing Cognitive Problem.
[Fetterman’s] soliloquy is not transcribable. Perhaps it would be charitable to display a modicum more sympathy for Fetterman’s plight than was shown to [Herschel] Walker. But that basic human decency must be tempered by the recollection that medical professionals assured Pennsylvania’s voters that then-candidate Fetterman would not be impaired in the long term by his 2022 stroke and by the fact that his performance fails to represent the interests of the voters who sent him to Congress.
The double standard that is being applied to Fetterman strains under the weight of its application to California senator Dianne Feinstein, whose condition is rapidly worsening. The longtime legislator recently returned to the Senate after a prolonged absence amid her recovery from a bout of shingles. The senator’s inability to conduct the people’s business was, however, apparently news to her.
On Tuesday, Slate writer Jim Newell and Los Angeles Times staff writer Benjamin Oreskes encountered Feinstein and asked her how her return to work was faring. It didn’t go well. Newell says:
When the fellow reporter asked her what the response from her colleagues had been like since her return, though, the conversation took an odd turn.
“No, I haven’t been gone,” she said.
OK.
“You should follow the—I haven’t been gone. I’ve been working.”
When asked whether she meant that she’d been working from home, she turned feisty.
“No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she said. “Please. You either know or don’t know.”
After deflecting one final question about those, like Rep. Ro Khanna, who’ve called on her to resign, she was wheeled away.
Perhaps the senator briefly succumbed to a moment of absent-mindedness owing to her age. While her years are not much greater than the average among members of the upper chamber of Congress, such incidents are a political problem for a party helmed by a figure who is similarly prone to confusion and verbal missteps.
If only we had late night comedians who didn’t have a palace guard mentality — Biden, Feinstein, and Fetterman would be savaged on a nightly basis.
UPDATE: ‘We Sale Your Bank:’ WaPo Reporter Rewrites Disastrous Fetterman Word Salad as a ‘Quote.’
More:
Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it all makes sense.
DAVID THOMPSON: We Are Objects In Their World.
What’s striking about such scenes, I think, is the eye-widening selfishness on display. Other passengers, other people, including children, are seemingly of no importance. Except, perhaps, as obstacles, or targets. And yet we’re told, often and at length, that those who repeatedly indulge in antisocial and criminal behaviour are creatures deserving of indulgence, and with whom we should empathise. As if the favour would ever be returned.
If you’ve watched the reality series Cops or Live PD, pathological selfishness is very much a staple, a defining attribute of the assorted misfits and predators. I remember one lengthy pursuit of thieves who’d robbed a store at gunpoint, terrorised its owner, and then fled the scene in a stolen car, and whose bid to escape did costly damage to other people’s property, and caused other road users to veer and crash, resulting in serious injury.
Read the whole thing.
‘THE KHMER ROUGE OF BEER:’ Megyn Kelly Panel Rips ‘Stalinist Spasm’ Miller Light Ad.
Sirius XM host Megyn Kelly and a panel mocked a Miller Lite ad which alleged that the beer industry is sexist toward women.
The ad, titled “Bad $#!T to Good $#!T,” was released March 7 and claimed beer “hasn’t done right by women” by releasing ads of women in bikinis. Kelly’s panel laughed hysterically at the company for apologizing for its so-called sexism.
“They have to lecture us, they yell at us, about how bad America has been and send us into this Stalinist spasm,” Michael Moynihan said. “Send us to the past and we will destroy the past. This is like the Khmer Rouge of beer. Just destroy the past for this glorious future. You’re a beer company, you want to apologize, fine. But don’t go in this other direction. You don’t have to go all scoldy, just don’t do those ads anymore.”
The people of Cambodia ate fried tarantulas to survive being starved by the Khmer Rouge. I’m sure Miller Lite washes them down brilliantly!
Incidentally, Ace of Spades notes that “This ‘comedian,’ Ilana Glazer or something, sure doesn’t mind appearing topless herself to promote… voting Democrat. Was she ‘forced’ to do that? Or are the some situations — like propagandizing for the Democrat Party — which are so important that Appealing to the Male Gaze is deemed not sinful?”
CLOSING IN: ChatGPT Passes Board Exam — Here’s how two versions of the chatbot performed on mock radiology boards. “The improvement in higher-order reasoning, which suggests an improvement in understanding the contextual language in radiology, but also in medicine in general, does suggest that we’re closer to . . . downstream applications.”
PETER GABRIEL: Artists Who Changed Music — Unveiling the Musical Legacy Of A Living Legend (Video).
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MUCH BIGGER BLOG: Barack Obama’s Five Biggest Mistakes as President.
DEAL OF THE DAY: (2023 Upgrade) AIPER Seagull SE Cordless Robotic Pool Cleaner. #CommissionEarned
DON’T WORRY, THE ELECTION ISN’T FOR OVER A YEAR: Two U.K. poultry workers test positive for bird flu.
20 MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Elon Musk’s new CEO will move Twitter toward streaming.
Landing Carlson is the first big clue as to what Musk’s intentions with Twitter are as he rebrands the company into “X” and develops it into what he calls “the everything app” — where users can consume media via streams, photos and videos as it happens. This is Twitter’s true potential power, but users will also be able to shop from hundreds of big-name brands, and do so while watching Tucker Carlson’s monologue.
The olive branch to Don Lemon appears to show that Musk isn’t necessarily driven by political ideology, but rather the void of balance on network news infotainment. Twitter users can watch Tucker Carlson at 8 p.m. and then Don Lemon at 9 p.m. (hypothetically) and won’t even need to change a channel to do so.
This is where [new CEO Linda] Yaccarino’s expertise comes in — handling advertisers and making sure Twitter’s launch into longform, formatted talk show programming goes smoothly. Should Carlson’s launch be successful, it would be an advertising boon to Twitter and change the future of the platform. Twitter’s net viewership would be compared side-by-side to that of Fox News or CNN. Thus far, other social media platforms haven’t even attempted such a thing. The result will be that any media-driven campaigns to name and shame sponsors, as Media Matters, for instance, does with advertisers and Fox News, will be dwarfed by the sheer size of the audience.
INSANITY WRAP: Who Wants to Help Me Watch Chicago Commit Suicide? “Will Chicago become the next San Francisco, the next Baltimore, or even the next Detroit? Whatever the answer, watch as new mayor Brandon Johnson is cheered by his own voters as he serves up poisoned grape Flavor Aid.”