I’m just going to leave this here:

“WE PULLED THE PLUG, AND THEY COLLAPSED.” So says Ret. Army General Jack Keane, a retired American four-star general, former Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. (Look him up: He’s a genuine badass).

The statement was made in a column published today by Judith Miller, a veteran correspondent with highly specialized expertise and experience in the Middle East. The takeaway from that column? “President Joe Biden spent much of his speech Monday blaming everyone else but himself and his administration for the foreign policy catastrophe unfolding in Afghanistan” says Miller:

“Biden blamed the debacle on Barack Obama for having surged U.S. forces in Afghanistan to fend off the Taliban, Donald Trump for having negotiated a terrible deal with the Taliban committing American forces to leave precipitously by May 1—and, most egregiously, Afghans themselves for supposedly being unwilling to fend off the Taliban’s horrifying advance. Only a month ago, Biden justified his decision to abandon the Afghanistan effort by arguing that two decades of American military training and over $1 trillion in economic and military support had left the Afghan government and its military more than capable of defending their country; yesterday, he castigated Afghans for not being able to do so.”

Miller seems to be saying, like the rest of the nation except for a few sycophants, that Biden should have seen this coming. Using strategic analysis as a basis for her view, Miller continued:

“[T]he Afghan forces did not collapse on their own. Prior to President Trump’s strategically flawed deal with the Taliban, Afghan security forces and the Taliban had fought to a virtual military stalemate […] Neither could defeat the other. But the withdrawal of American air support and intelligence information regarding the disposition and strength of Taliban forces had severely affected the Afghan military, depressing Afghan capabilities and morale. So, too, did Biden’s closure of seven military bases in the height of the fighting season. “We pulled the plug and they collapsed,” said General Keane.”

It’s also worth noting that the sycophants trying to sell the “Trump’s fault” line glibly elide the fact that Biden has reversed dozens of Trump policies, from abortion to education to policing to oil pipelines. Yet this one just kind of slipped by him. And his defenders.

DENIAL AIN’T JUST A RIVER: They can spin it all they want, and some folks have bought the gaslight that “we never said defund the police” but the DNC needs to stop peeing on our legs and telling us it’s raining. There’s no viable, coherent — or honest — “but Trump” applicable here. Let pal Judy Miller explain in this interview.

Meanwhile, a screen grab above from this morning. This woman parked her car, turned on the 4-way blinkers, calmly walked out and blew the other woman’s brains out in broad daylight.

ABOUT SECTION 230: In an Instapundit item below, John Tierney links to a City Journal article that frames up “Big Tech Censorship” as the the most “controversial” problem with Section 230, which provides immunity to “internet service providers” for content ostensibly created by third parties.

While I agree that the censorship problem has to be solved by either a judicial ruling that declares the web a “public space” or a re-write of the statute, I think the real problem is that  the more common problem is an overly broad statute that allows virtual newsrooms to defame with impunity. The statute was passed in part to protect companies like AOL and CompuServe for content they didn’t create, particularly, kiddie porn.

One prescient court noted in the early years of digital space that:

“The internet (or ‘Net’), heralded as the most significant achievement in human speech since the printing press, has become ground zero in a legal battle over the First Amendment and the right of individuals to speak (or rather type) anonymously. At its best, the Net is the ultimate conduit for free speech and expression; at its worst, the Net can be a character assassin’s greatest weapon.”

The statute reads in relevant part:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

The provision means that ISPs like AOL are not legally responsible for the defamatory postings of third parties. But neither are newsrooms, because the broad language of Section 230 defines “interactive computer service” as:

“The term “interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.”

As much as I support protection for a free and vibrant press, allowing “breathing space” for good faith errors, the broad word “any” has been used to allow some pretty nasty stuff to be published, from Gawker to Occupy Democrats to Wikipedia.

If they are going to “fix” 230, they need to consider this.

GOOD IDEA, BUT BAD EXECUTION: JustTheNews has a report about Wisconsin state Sen. Julian Bradley (R-Franklin) proposing a new piece of legislation that would force the tech companies to show their algorithms and explain the policies that decide who gets blocked and who gets to post freely.

I’m all for it in concept, but Bradley makes in part, a fundamental error in saying:

“Bradley is quick to point out that judges have ruled lawmakers and other elected officials cannot block or ban people from commenting on their posts, even if those comments are negative or ugly. The courts have ruled, essentially, that social media is the new public town hall and some online speech is protected.”

Bradley’s error is reading the caselaw a little too broadly. The courts have not ruled essentially, that “social media is the new public town hall.” What they have ruled is that when public officials (be they Trump or AOC) use these platforms, their accounts are “official” government business and Freedom of Information or “Government in the Sunshine” laws, as well as the First Amendment prohibit blocking any segment of the public from reading those communiques. That’s not the same as declaring social media a “public square.”

Unless and until Congress drafts a law (or the Supreme Court rules, I suppose) declaring these platforms a “public square” the Tech Barons will still have filtering control. Given the current make-up of Congress, it inures to the Dems’ benefit to keep letting their donor Tech Barons filter out contrarian voices, so I would not look for this kind of law soon. For the record, I do think these platforms are already a de facto public square.

STILL THE SAME SWAMP CREATURES: Bloomberg News reporting yesterday that Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul made stock trades in Google’s parent company, Alphabet, just a week before the House Judiciary Committee advanced six bipartisan antitrust bills. The trade netted him a $4.8 million gain, and it’s risen to $5.3 million since then as the shares have jumped. What a lucky guy!

The laughable part is that Nancy (she’ll always be Granny Winebox to me), who presents herself as a strong, intelligent, worldly woman said through a spokesperson that:

“The speaker has no involvement or prior knowledge of these transactions,” her spokesman Drew Hammill said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.”

Don’t you love it when the most powerful woman in the world says “I don’t know nuthin'”?

THIS JUST IN: Remember Imran Awan, the horrible dirtbag who worked for horrible dirtbag Debbie Wasserstein-Schultz? Awan, an IT specialist accused of improper access to certain congressional computers, was arrested in July 2017 at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, as he tried to board a flight to Lahore, Pakistan. He had wiped his cellphones of any data, and federal agents found a résumé in the name of “Andrew Awan,” which they said suggested Awan planned to leave the country permanently, according to court documents.

Unsurprisingly, because then-President Trump tweeted about the case, the mainstream media took him up as a cause celebre, and they kept referring to a “conservative conspiracy” theory. He eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of fraud in a plea deal. All in all, some shady shit, given that:

Most Democratic lawmakers cut their ties with Awan and his family after the criminal investigation became public in early 2017. But Awan continued to be employed by Wasserman Schultz, although it’s unclear what his job duties were, given the fact that he had been barred from accessing the House IT system for months.

Fast forward to today. Horrible dirtbag Awan had filed a lawsuit against The Daily Caller and others, alleging all sorts of claims in libel, emotional distress, and what not. Today, D.C. Superior Court Judge Fern Sadler dismissed his complaint against The Daily Caller.

Order Granting in Part Defs’ Mots to Dismiss(256115651.1).

THE ANSWER IS “YES”, SHERLOCK: Did anti-Trump bias blind science to evidence for COVID lab-leak theory?

BREAKING: Feds subpoenaed Hunter Biden during 2016 election, raising worry over unpaid taxes on Ukraine work. JustTheNews is reporting that a newly discovered trove of emails shows that long before Trump was even elected, Hunter Biden and his associates were being investigated for Ukrainian monkey business:

“Emails written five years ago by Eric Schwerin, an executive inside the Rosemont Seneca business empire where Hunter Biden worked, shows there was about $1 million in personal income – about $400,000 in 2014 and $600,000 in 2015 — that the younger Biden had earned as a board member and consultant for Burisma that had not been fully covered by U.S. tax payments.”

The most important part (for me, anyway):

“Nothing was unethical,” Joe Biden declared during the last presidential debate of the 2020 campaign, referring to his son’s overseas business dealings. In fact, the email exchanges between Schwerin and the lawyers make clear Hunter Biden had failed to pay taxes on the Burisma money, something Ukraine’s chief prosecutor tried to bring to light to U.S. authorities starting in fall 2018.”

But of course, back then it was all about Trump being a Putin employee. And many brain-damaged people still believe this.

Another over-sold narrative bites the dust.

COOKIEPUSS! It’s weird, pointless, childish and maybe a little mean spirited. But it’s funny as all get-out…

FILE UNDER “HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE”: California’s state constitution requires that the California Supreme Court review clemency requests by the Governor that involve twice-convicted felons. (“The Governor may not grant a pardon or commutation to a person twice convicted of a felony except on recommendation of the Supreme Court, 4 judges concurring.). You’d think in a state where it takes a lot to be arrested, tried, and convicted of a crime that’s a good thing.

But if you were Jerry Brown or Gavin Newsom, you’d think otherwise. Protecting criminals seems as important to them as protecting citizens and victims, so when the First Amendment Coalition filed requests to see the clemency requests, the former and current governor pretended each time, in the words of one pro bono lawyer on the case, that “rather than abide by the Court’s rulings against complete secrecy, the Governor/Attorney General repeated the same arguments, every time, as if the Supreme Court had never addressed the issue.”

Not anymore. Last week, the California Supreme Court, en banc, announced a rule change – rejecting the Governor’s automatic confidentiality stance – stating that the contents of records filed by the Governor will be evaluated for their confidentiality on a case-by-case basis:

“Regardless of whether the Governor properly may refuse requests for access to clemency files when they are in his possession, an issue upon which we express no views, we conclude that the documents that are forwarded to the court pursuant to Penal Code section 4851 and supply the basis for a recommendation decision should be available for public inspection. Accordingly, henceforth upon the receipt of a motion to unseal a clemency record before the court pursuant to article V, section 8 and Penal Code section 4851, the Clerk and Executive Officer shall return the record for resubmission in conformity with this order and the Rules of Court pertaining to filings under seal. (Cal. Rules of Court, rules 2.550(d), 8.45, 8.46.)” (Emphasis added).

So what this means is that while citizens — and even potential twice-convicted applicants for clemency — still have to file a motion to unseal the records, and transparency is not guaranteed, the California Supreme Court has pretty much laid down the marker that clemency requests from the Governor, by dint of being transmitted to the Supreme Court, are presumed to be public records. Given the monkey business that has surrounded presidential pardons and commutations for decades (Trump commuted the sentence of corrruptocrat Rod Blagojevich (D-IL.) and Clinton pardoned financial crook Marc Rich (Major Clinton donor) it’s good to know that California will allow reporters, citizens, and yes, even twice-convicted felons to see how that sausage was made.

When the Founding Fathers instilled the concept of separation of powers, they knew what they were doing.
**Update: fixes reference to Blogojevich commutation. Thanks, IP readers!

FOR THIS I GET PUT IN FACEBOOK JAIL? Pornstar Mia Khalifa (NSFW link here) posts an inane pro-Palestinian tweet to which I respond that generally speaking, women who (for a living) show their genitals, perform random sex acts with strangers on film, not to mention run around without a headscarf are generally murdered in Islamic countries. That’s not even close to being in dispute. Here’s the post that “violated community standards”:

UPDATE: They admit they got it wrong:

ANOTHER UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Related:

A TIMELY REPRISE: I wrote this article for The Daily Caller a few years ago. It seems sadly appropriate. And the outrage about the IDF bombing the building where the AP resides doesn’t cut it. The Committee to Project Journalists’ indignant press release never once mentions that the building was home to Hamas operations.

The AP, caught up behind the facts, later issued this statement:

I have to say I find this a bit hard to believe. As one commenter noted on my FB page:

“If AP did not know that Hamas was in the building, then they are incompetent reporters. If AP knew that Hamas was in the building but kept silent, then they are complicit. If AP comprehended that it would be used as a human shield, then it is a Hamas collaborator.”

I might add as a denouement that using US journalists as hostages and shields is nothing new to Islamic militants.

THE ONLY COLOR THAT REALLY MATTERS IS GREEN: Social scientists (at Yale, of all places) have produced a preliminary study showing that Americans are less responsive to race-based appeals than they are to class-based appeals. JustTheNews reports that:

“Appeals to class interests are best at increasing support for progressive policies across racial and political groups “despite leftward shifts in public attitudes towards issues of racial equality,” according to Josh Kalla, assistant professor of political science and data science, and doctoral student Micah English.”

Anyone who has spent more than five minutes reading Adam Smith, Thomas Hobbes, and yes, even Marx understand that our human instincts — and political choices — are more geared towards satisfaction of personal basic needs rather than “political identification.” For most, the latter is merely a means to acquire the former. In shorthand, regardless of race, most people inherently want security and sustenance, and political choices are merely means to obtain those things. But apparently the approach of most policy-makers is to override the peoples’ preferences with their own, allegedly superior, understanding:

“It questions the wisdom of “Democratic elites,” including President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, racializing ostensibly race-neutral issues such as infrastructure, climate change and minimum wage increases.”

There is a certain amount of bravery in these scholars publishing this work, given Yale’s (and the rest of the so-called “progressives”) propensity for cancel culture. It if does not fit their world-view or narrative, it is doomed be pounced upon by keyboard warriors:

“The duo could become a target of race-focused progressive activists, given the repercussions faced by data scientist David Shor for tweeting research that found peaceful protest was historically more successful than violent protest […] Shared during the riots stemming from George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the tweet drew widespread criticism in progressive circles, and Shor’s employer fired him soon after.”

I’m still waiting for self-righteous and “woke” Yale students and alumni to demand that the school be renamed “Harriet Tubman University” instead of honoring a slave trader, but I’m not holding my breath.

The value of having a Yale degree is money in the bank, and as if to prove the researchers’ point, these elite will act — like everyone else — in their own self-interest.

MORE STATES SHOULD DO THIS: Joshua Silverstein, Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock is an old pal from my law school class of NYU ’96, and might be the best example of a truly “classical” liberal, at the heart of which shares many values with genuine conservatism and thoughtful libertarianism. At the heart of his opinion piece in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette is simply that government is not a supreme power answerable to no-one. The foundation for ending sovereign immunity begins with this simple proposition:

“Sovereign immunity is a holdover from the era when most countries were monarchies. The legal basis for sovereign immunity was as follows: Because the monarch created the courts, the monarch is superior to the courts. And thus the monarch is not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts.”

This makes complete sense to me as a person who believes in smaller and less intrusive government. Silverstein continues:

“There is a fundamental principle of American law that provides that no person should be a judge in his or her own case. But that is exactly what happens when a person sues the state of Arkansas for money under current law: The Legislature itself ultimately decides if the injured person is entitled to monetary relief from the state.

That is inconsistent with the notion of due process that underlies our justice system. Sovereign immunity thus makes it far harder for citizens to enforce their fundamental legal rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms.”

This is pretty hard to argue against.

A LIE TRAVELS AROUND THE WORLD BEFORE THE TRUTH IS OUT OF BED. There are *still* people who think W. Bush served a “plastic turkey” to troops in the Middle East. And who could forget Harry Ried out and out lying about Mitt Romney “not paying taxes”? A rare few called him out on it. His response? “Romney didn’t win, did he?”

And so to today. Matt Taibbi (on Substack, the platform that is terrifying the media elite) published a “Master List Of Official Russia Claims That Proved To Be Bogus.” Among the gems (still believed by many):

• The “Back Channel to Russians” story, Yahoo! September 23, 2016. Yahoo! published a story by Michael Isikoff called, “U.S. Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin.” The piece identified Trump advisor Carter Page as a “possible back channel to the Russians,” and claimed he passed information from the Kremlin to figures higher up in the Trump food chain, like former campaign chair Paul Manafort […] This proved incorrect on all fronts, with no evidence of any Page meetings with either man. In fact, the irregularities involved with the Isikoff story – particularly the use of information from British ex-spy Christopher Steele, identified as a “well-placed Western intelligence source” – became a bigger story than the alleged improper relationship between Page and Russians.
• “US investigators corroborate some aspects of the Russia dossier,” CNN, February 10, 2017. Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez of CNN reported that “multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials” have “corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent,” i.e. the “Steele Dossier.” […] This was a significant and apparently deliberate piece of misinformation. We know, from the report of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, that the CIA months before had already dismissed the Steele reports as “Internet rumor,” while the FBI had already done several rounds of attempts to corroborate its independent reporting, coming up with negative results each time.

And now “disinformation” like a new toy, a bow-and-arrow play set for media mavens. But the arrows all seem to fly in the same — and often wrong — direction.

ALL ABOARD UNCLE JOE’S GRAVY TRAIN! You knew there would be some waste and corruption — ok, a lot of it — in this Administration. But JustTheNews reports this mindboggling example:

“Princeton, a school with a $26.6 billion endowment, is receiving $12 million, while Yale will add $17.3 million to its $31.2 billion stockpile, and Penn has been awarded $26.3 million on top of its nearly $15 billion fund. Columbia and Cornell will each receive just about $33 million to add to their respective billions. Rounding out the list, Harvard — a school that has been called “A Hedge Fund That Has a University” — is receiving more than $25 million to add to its $41.9 billion endowment.”

Hey, those Chief Diversity Officers and Bias Response Teams don’t come cheap. And besides, it’s for the children.

THE DYING BREED WILL NOT GO QUIETLY: Yes, some Instapundit readers will have a stroke, but others understand that there are a few honest liberals out there (Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi) who will call balls and strikes in a fair way. Add Ken Silverstein to the list. This guy was one of the first to expose the race-hustle racket that is the SPLC:

“Today, the SPLC spends most of its time–and money–on a relentless fund-raising campaign, peddling memberships in the church of tolerance with all the zeal of a circuit rider passing the collection plate. “He’s the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the civil rights movement,” renowned anti-death-penalty lawyer Millard Farmer says of Dees, his former associate, “though I don’t mean to malign Jim and Tammy Faye.”

The guy can write like a house afire:

“President Joe Biden’s signed a $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill and while the usual pigs slopped up most of that at the national feeding trough, some money did go to us plebes. Sure, mega-rich dickhead Tom Brady got a government loan (under Trump) of just south of $1 million for his fraudulent “health and wellness” company. But why be bitter towards Brady — or the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or various Trump associates and family members who cashed in on Covid aid.”

And you have to love the honesty of a publication whose motto is “Shocking True Stories and Political Sleaze.” We should be so lucky if The New York Times were so self-aware. Many of the stories in Washington Babylon will anger you. I say “good.”

DO YOU SEE THE SUBLIMINAL BIAS? In what is generally a good article about the impact of the Fox/Dominion libel suits, WaPo’s Margaret Sullivan makes some sensible points, mostly “be careful what you ask for.” After all, a deeply anti-media ruling may be precedential against all media outfits. But here’s the dirty little secret. She says:

“In some ways, it’s a relief to see someone hold Fox to account, especially since nothing else seems able to restrain right-wing media outlets from spreading disinformation.”

The not-so-subtle implication is that “disinformation” is a “right-wing” problem. It’s as if Daily Koz and Occupy Democrats (two notorious purveyors of false info) don’t exist. Russian hooker pee tapes, anyone?

Sullivan (like super-genius Paul Krugman) has elsewhere approved of the Wikipedia mob’s attack on fairness in journalism, decrying it as “bothsidesism.” Perhaps the deletion of fairness as an essential element of good journalism is responsible here.

I think it’s just as likely a byproduct of editing from within a bubble. These folks will go to their graves denying any left-leaning bias exists in their pages. Professor Reynolds ran headlong into this in a recent roundtable with First Amendment pater familas Floyd Abrams, who sniffed dismissively at the notion that the press is by and large, as Judge Silberman put it, a collection of “Democratic broadsheets.”

I’MMA JUST LEAVE THIS HERE: A Facebook pal sent me this. I have no idea who is behind it, but it’s just…brilliant:

The red pill at the end is a nice touch.
*Update* Some folks have clued me in that the fellow is named Mark Dice.

IF YOU DON’T LIKE MY PRINCIPLES, DON’T WORRY, I HAVE OTHER ONES: Look, I don’t care what side of “climate change” action you are on. My confusion is about the inconsistency of the Democrats position on “dark money.” They want to require groups to disclose their membership, but use the same tactics.

The Washington Free Beacon points out that:

“Rewiring America, one of many environmental groups that has endorsed the BUILD GREEN Act, is part of a massive dark money network run by the D.C.-based Arabella Advisors. The nation’s wealthiest liberal donors use Arabella’s $731 million activist network to secretly fund a host of liberal causes.”

I suppose one could say they are just “fighting fire with fire” but what tips the balance towards absurdity is that the genuine left won a great decision in NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson. In that case, the Attorney General of Alabama (remember, this is 1958) demanded that the NAACP disclose membership lists. The Supreme Court noted that:

“It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association as the forms of governmental action in the cases above were thought likely to produce upon the particular constitutional rights there involved. This Court has recognized the vital relationship between freedom to associate and privacy in one’s associations.”

Even NPR has noted the absurdity of this “having it both ways” behavior. Don’t Democrats realize what’s at stake?

THINK THE TIMES WILL LET HIM PUBLISH ANOTHER OP/ED? From a few days ago, but worth noting: JustTheNews reporting that Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton introduced legislation to ban critical race theory training in the military and remove what he calls “divisive” and “anti-American” ideas from military training.

Money graf:

“Our military’s strength depends on the unity of our troops and the knowledge that America is a noble nation worth fighting for,” Cotton said. “Critical Race Theory teaches that race is a person’s most important characteristic, and that America is an evil, oppressive place. That idea may be fashionable in left-wing circles and college classrooms, but it has no place in our military.”

Imagine that! “America is a noble nation worth fighting for.” How f**ked are we that this is a controversial statement?

BONUS LINE: “With Democrats in control of both houses of Congress and the White House, Cotton’s bill faces an uphill battle.”

BEER BOTTLES ARE CHEAPER THAN SHOTGUN SHELLS:

AT THIS POINT WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? We aren’t supposed to care anymore about how the FBI ginned up the conspiracy theory about Donald Trump and “Russian collusion.” The damage is done, and there are thousands of people who unthinkingly take as a given that Trump was a Putin puppet. They’re impossible to talk to. I’m reminded of the old saying about never trying to teach a pig to sing. (It wastes your time and annoys the pig).

That said, exclusive reporting by John Solomon shows more than a few troubling dynamics that Congress, the mainstream media, and the FBI have yet to fix. (I suppose it’s not in their interest to do so).

The report by JustTheNews is a well-reported story of how the FBI tried to play reporters, how reporters tried to play the FBI, and how the result was inaccurate stories that helped create an incorrect narrative:

“The bureau had recently terminated its primary informant in the Russia probe Christopher Steele for leaking, and several of its leads about Russia-Trump collusion were falling apart. And inaccurate stories about the two biggest scandals in Washington were cropping up everywhere, even when FBI officials tried to work with reporters.

“Yes, the headline is REALLY misleading,” then-FBI deputy counsel Lisa Page wrote a colleague in a text message concerning a New York Times article that day. The text message didn’t further identify the article but made clear the article was the result of a bureau overture to reporters that backfired.”

Why does any of this matter now? For several reasons: erroneous reporting is now branded “disinformation” and has become a newsroom commodity, with some papers even assigning reporters to a “disinformation” beat. And “disinformation” has become a buzzword that Big Tech uses to squash speech they don’t like.

Moreover and most importantly, is that the current administration (as do most prospective “nanny states”) seems to be using whatever crisis, event, accident or political incident to increase its power. Glenn Greenwald has written recently about how government uses incorrect or just false intelligence (dare I say “disinformation”?) to expand its grip:

Twice in the last six weeks, warnings were issued about imminent, grave threats to public safety posed by the same type of right-wing extremists who rioted at the Capitol on January 6. And both times, these warnings ushered in severe security measures only to prove utterly baseless.

So what difference does it make at this point? Because it’s about the unethical dynamics of a leak-happy FBI choosing to spill information not in the public interest (I’m all for genuine whistleblowers) but instead leaking in the interest of their own political agenda. I’m not particularly offended by reporters “cozying up” to sources: it’s what they do. Where it goes wrong is when those reporters help propel a narrative based on false statements provided by the self-interested leakers.

So at this point it matters because the word “disinformation” is a tool used to suppress civil liberties. IMHO, they violated Carter Page‘s rights, and probably Roger Stone’s and others as well. Even the far-left Brennan Center for Justice has issued papers about how problematic the use (or abuse) of the FISA Court can be. The result?

“Under today’s foreign intelligence surveillance system, the government’s ability to collect information about ordinary Americans’ lives has increased exponentially while judicial oversight has been reduced to near-nothingness. Nothing less than a fundamental overhaul of the type proposed here is needed to restore the system to its constitutional moorings.”

So, at this point, what difference does it make? The difference is you’re next.