Category: Enemies Foreign and Domestic

She’s a leftist political hack  – seems the most hacks are leftists doesn’t it?- who will recite any point her paymaster wants.

Is This the Dumbest Claim Jen Psaki Has Ever Made?

Sometimes, I wonder about Jen Psaki. How did she get picked to be White House Press Secretary? How has she kept her job? Sometimes I can’t tell if she is deliberately lying to the American people or if she living in an alternate universe and actually believes the horse manure she’s shoveling.

Case in point: In response to a question about John Bolton’s bizarre speculation that Trump might have pulled the United States out of NATO in a second term, Psaki claimed that the American people are “grateful” for Biden’s different approach to foreign relations.

“Well, I think that’s […] you know, another reason why the American people are grateful — the majority of the American people — that President Biden has not taken a page out of his predecessor’s playbook as it relates to global engagement and global leadership,” she said. “Because, certainly, we could be in a different place.”

We most certainly would be in a different place, if Biden had showed the strength and resolve that Trump did.

Of course, the premise of the question to which Psaki gave her inane answer was absurd. It’s hard to understand precisely where Bolton got the idea that Trump would have pulled us out of NATO, as the former president made robust efforts to get other NATO nations to pay their dues and make the alliance stronger. “There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly,” Trump said last month. “Also, it was me that got Ukraine the very effective anti-tank busters (Javelins) when the previous Administration was sending blankets.”

But moving on from that, Psaki was utterly wrong about what Americans think. A recent poll found that 62% of voters believe Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still in office.

Psaki made her stunning comment the same day that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg admitted that the administration would consider buying oil from terrorists instead of increasing domestic production, and on the heels of Psaki inadvertently admitting that Putin tends to invade other countries when Democrats are in the White House.

“You know, I was at the State Department, the president was the vice-president, the last time Russia invaded Ukraine,” she said last week. “This is a pattern of horror from … President Putin and from the cronies around him.”

Does Psaki really believe that Americans are grateful for Biden’s approach to “global engagement and global leadership” when that approach allowed for Putin to invade Ukraine, gas prices to skyrocket, and our tax dollars to fund terror-sponsoring nations?

President Trump’s leadership strengthened NATO and kept Russia at bay. The only Americans who could possibly be grateful for Biden’s approach would have to be Putin apologists.

BLUF:
Peter Ambler of Giffords Law Center is unhappy that gun rights advocates are pointing out evidence that further unravels his cause, so it’s not surprising that he thinks it’s “deeply irresponsible” to do so. In other words, he wants us to stop pouncing and seizing and hammering and exploiting and feasting and gloating.

Giffords’ Ambler to 2A Supporters: Stop pouncing on Ukraine!

The history and rationale behind the Second Amendment are clear-cut. The defense of self, family, community, and country is protected in the founding documents of several states, not just the U.S. Bill of Rights. In a constitutional republic with checks and balances, with power splintered and diffused among various levels of governments, an armed citizenry is the ultimate check and balance against enemies both foreign and domestic.

The United States is approaching its 250th anniversary. That the republic has lasted so long, contributed so much to human flourishing and prosperity, spread the ideas of liberty and justice around the world, doesn’t mean that we can take the status quo for granted and forget or distort what it took to get here. The rest of the world provides periodic reminders and warnings of what could happen if America abandons its founding principles. Ukraine is the warning du jour.

Our friends in the Gun Grab Lobby, however, aren’t drawing the same lessons from Ukraine. When faced with yet another example of why an armed citizenry is good, their response is to cry foul and ask us to not cite it.

Ukraine crisis emerges as talking point in U.S. gun debate

By Barbara Goldberg and Brendan O’brien

NEW YORK, March 1 (Reuters) – Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, gun rights advocates in the United States have sought to use the crisis to bolster their position on the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, injecting a new element into the heated debate.

Arguments linking the invasion to gun rights have cropped up this week across social media, in a post by the National Rifle Association and during a legislative vote in the Georgia statehouse.

“What is happening in Ukraine proves the wisdom of our founding fathers in drafting the Second Amendment,” the NRA said in a blog post on Monday, pointing to Ukrainians who have armed themselves to defend their country.

Is a newly discovered fossil a talking point in the evolution “debate” or is it yet another piece of evidence supporting evolution? Ukraine is not a mere talking point despite how the headline downplays it as one.

Anti-gun violence advocates, however, point to increasing fire-arms deaths in the United States and say tighter regulations and fewer guns are what is needed.

Peter Ambler, executive director of Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said it was “deeply irresponsible” for gun rights advocates to tie their “more guns everywhere” advocacy to the Ukraine crisis.

“The tyrannical actions of Vladimir Putin don’t erase the fact that 45,000 Americans died from gun violence in 2020, nor do they erase the urgent need for commonsense, popular gun violence prevention policies like background checks and funding for community violence intervention programs,” Ambler told Reuters.

“Anti-gun violence advocates,” better described as Anti-Second Amendment activists or gun control supporters, want fewer guns in the hands of the citizenry. A good question to ask them would be, “Can you define fewer?” We all know the answer to that, and it’s no mystery that the question was not asked by the reporters.

Peter Ambler of Giffords Law Center is unhappy that gun rights advocates are pointing out evidence that further unravels his cause, so it’s not surprising that he thinks it’s “deeply irresponsible” to do so. In other words, he wants us to stop pouncing and seizing and hammering and exploiting and feasting and gloating.

Seasoned readers and Second Amendment advocates know this already, but new readers may not, so I will also point out that the 45,000 “gun violence deaths” that Ambler is citing is vastly inflated using suicides, which are the bulk of firearm mortalities. That would be like calling suicide by hanging “rope violence” and suicide by jumping “bridge violence” or “gravity violence.” Ambler’s suggested background checks and community violence intervention programs won’t do anything to address the bulk of those mortalities.

Ukraine was among the arguments wielded by Republicans to win a 34-22 vote in the Georgia state Senate on a concealed carry bill that split down party lines on Monday.

“I would be willing to bet you today that 99 percent of the people of Ukraine would give anything that they have to have a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms,” Lindsey Tippins, a Republican state Senator, said in asking his fellow legislators to back the bill.

It’s unfortunate that it was a party-line vote, but thanks to the “arguments wielded,” the end-result is a win for our natural right of self-defense. Three cheers for pouncing on Ukraine!

Again, it’s nice when pictures are available for positive ID

BLUF:
Dr. Leonardo wants to solve the “problem of whiteness” or pose it as a problem. The real problem is that people have begun to see others as impediments to their ability to move forward in life. It actually foments racism, division, and anger. It teaches victimhood by always having someone to blame because of the color of their skin.

UC Berkeley Prof. Zeus Leonardo: Abolish Whiteness, Abolish White People

Zeus Leonardo

UC Berkeley Professor Zeus Leonardo believes in Critical Race Theory. In so doing, he made the statement to a class that “to abolish whiteness is to abolish white people.” Is he advocating genocide?

“To abolish whiteness is to abolish white people. That’s very uncomfortable perhaps, but it asks about our definitions of what race is and what racial justice might mean.”

UC Berkeley education professor Zeus Leonardo:

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“The deep commitment to an Iran nuclear deal that makes no sense has me convinced that a lot of people are either being bribed or blackmailed.”
–Prof. Reynolds

Joe Biden Spits on US Allies to Secure a Deal That Makes No Sense.

While the Biden administration has done its best to hide the ongoing negotiations, you’ve probably been made aware by now that a new JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran is in the works.

Guess who’s at the forefront of helping secure that deal? That would be none other than Vladimir Putin, who the United States is ostensibly at economic war with over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. About now, you are probably asking how that makes any sense at all. But stick around, because I promise you that it gets even worse.

Recently, I wrote two articles noting the seeming subservience of the Biden administration to Russia (see here and here), even as Biden himself has trotted out the tough-guy talk for a gullible public. Yet, behind the scenes, it appears that a deal with Iran has taken priority, even as Putin continues to bomb cities in Ukraine.

But hang on, I told you things would get worse. According to Kenneth Vogul, the Biden administration is now looking to normalize relations with the communist Maduro regime in Venezuela. How does that connect with the Iran deal? We’ll get to that in a moment.

 

Ostensibly, this action is being taken to help separate Venezuela from Russia. But anyone who is able to critically think and possesses a modicum of knowledge regarding international relations will quickly realize how dumb that contention is. Venezuela and Russia are allies, to the point where the latter held nuclear exercises there back in 2018. Russia has also been a supplier of commodities and materials to Venezuela as the South American nation has suffered under Western sanctions.

Now, does anyone think a quick visit from the Biden administration is going to “drive a wedge” between Venezuela and Russia given the relationship that exists between the two nations? In short, the Times’ spin on the matter, no doubt meant to protect the White House, doesn’t add up.

There is something that does add up though, and it connects to the Iran deal.

 

That makes much more sense. Russia has reportedly been making demands as part of its role in negotiating the new Iran deal. Putin having one of its chief allies legitimized on the world stage, setting up the framework to have sanctions removed while expanding Russia’s sphere of influence, sounds like a pretty good win for the Russian leader, doesn’t it?

In short, Biden’s pursuit of a boondoggle Iran deal boils down to empowering Russia and spitting on our allies, whether we are talking about Ukraine, Israel, or Venezuela’s democratically elected government. And for what? What is the United States getting out of a deal with Iran? There is no strategic interest there, especially given Israel, which does actually have a direct strategic interest, is against the JCPOA.

Again, nothing about this makes sense, and when nothing makes sense, it’s probably time to start asking tougher questions about what lies beneath the surface. Why have the last two Democrat-led presidencies been so obsessed with making a deal with Iran? Who is gaining what here? Are there payoffs involved? Why is Russia even a part of the negotiations given its behavior in Ukraine?

It seems the Biden administration is willing to do just about anything to hand the Iranian Mullahs another big win. That shouldn’t just be extremely concerning, it should be a scandal.

I can remember back when I was a teenager that the econuts and the anti-nuclear nuts, like GreenPeace, were always considered Russian stooges.
Watermelons: “green” on the outside, “red” on the inside.

Don’t just take Crenshaw’s word for it:

Putin going to war in Ukraine risked disclosing his military’s real abilities ……and  limitations. The Russian Army isn’t a ‘paper tiger’ but it turns out to not be anything close to ‘as advertised’. Of course, that’s standard military procedure.  ‘The enemy will only tell you where he is strong.’

BLUF:
For Washington, this display of Russian military weakness should be comforting in terms of Moscow’s true military threat to Europe. At the same time though, it exposes the need for a different national security strategy, one that doesn’t imagine Russia as a military equal, and one that doesn’t push Vladimir Putin’s back against a wall.

Shocking Lessons U.S. Military Leaders Learned by Watching Putin’s Invasion.

Russia’s military is weak and backwards.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine produced this paradigm-shifting surprise—one that should transform the West’s view of Russia’s prowess, the threat that the country represents, and the Kremlin’s future in the global arena.
russian invasion ukraine military
Ukrainian tanks move on a road before an attack in Lugansk region on February 26, 2022 .ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
After just one day of fighting, Russia’s ground force lost most of its initial momentum, undermined by shortages of fuel, ammunition and even food, but also because of a poorly trained and led force. Russia began to compensate for the weaknesses of its land army with more long-range air, missile and artillery strikes. And President Putin resorted to a nuclear threat—a reaction, U.S. military experts say, to the failure of Moscow’s conventional forces to make quick progress on the ground.
Other military observers are flabbergasted that a Russian invasion force, fully prepared and operating from Russian soil, has been able to move just tens of miles into an adjoining country. One retired U.S. Army general told Newsweek in an email: “We know that Russia has a plodding army and that Russian military force has always been a blunt instrument, but why risk the antipathy of the entire planet if you have no prospect of achieving even minimal gains.” The Army general believes that the only explanation is that the Kremlin overestimated its own forces.
“I believe that at the heart of Russian military thinking is how Marshall Zhukov marched across Eastern Europe to Berlin,” a former high-level CIA official told Newsweek in an interview. Zhukov’s orders were to “line up the artillery and … flatten everything ahead of you,” he says. “‘Then send in the peasant Army to kill or rape anyone left alive.’ Subtle the Russians are not.”
In the short term, Russia’s military failures in Ukraine increase the threat of escalation, including the possibility of the use of nuclear weapons. But in the longer term, if escalation doesn’t worsen and the Ukrainian conflict can be contained, Russian conventional military weakness upends many assumptions that geopolitical strategists—even those inside the U.S. government—make about Russia as a military threat.

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This Was the Most Infuriating Part of Biden’s State of the Union Speech

Well, that was painful.

The word is Joe Biden had to rewrite his State of the Union Dumpster Fire speech because of the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and you could tell. It was an awkward, choppy speech that made me cringe at times.

But, perhaps the worst and most infuriating thing about the speech, aside from the blatant lies about his record, was what was missing.

Joe Biden was so desperate for a 9/11 anniversary photo op that he set an arbitrary date for withdrawing from Afghanistan, without any conditions for the Taliban, causing a disastrous evacuation that resulted thousands of Americans left behind and 13 U.S. service members dead.

Yet, not a single word about the withdrawal. Not a single word to honor those who died because of his incompetence.

“Biden should have paid tribute to the 13 fallen HEROES in Afghanistan that lost their lives,” former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany tweeted.

Afghanistan was mentioned only twice during his speech, each time providing him with the opportunity to discuss the withdrawal and honor those who paid the ultimate price while trying to evacuate civilians at Kabul’s airport.

But he didn’t.

He did, however, mention his late son Beau Biden… because that’s what he does. He did so more than once after his botched withdrawal last year. In fact, the family of fallen Marine Rylee McCollum, who was killed at Kabul airport, said that when they met with Biden “he kept checking his watch and bringing up Beau.”

Joe Biden may not care about those who died because of his incompetence, but America does. He’ll say his son Beau’s name over and over and over, but won’t say the names of those who died because of his recklessness. Well, let’s not forget who they are. Here are their names:

  • Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover
  • Marine Corps Sgt. Johanny Rosariopichardo
  • Marine Corps Sgt. Nicole L. Gee
  • Marine Corps Cpl. Hunter Lopez
  • Marine Corps Cpl. Daegan W. Page
  • Marine Corps Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez
  • Marine Corps Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza
  • Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz
  • Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum
  • Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola
  • Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui
  • Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak
  • Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss

Biden’s failure to honor these heroes is inexcusable.

Trudeau’s Dictatorial Crackdown on Protesters Is Popular Among One Group of US Voters

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s descent into dictatorship to rein in the Freedom Convoy protest has support from a majority of likely Democratic voters in America.

According to a survey conducted by Trafalgar Group and Convention of States Action, 55 percent of likely voters disapproved of Trudeau’s handling of the demonstration, while 35 percent approved.

When broken down by party affiliation, 65 percent of Democrats backed Trudeau’s heavy-handed response compared to 17 percent who disapproved, while 87 percent of likely Republican voters opposed the prime minister’s crackdown and 8 percent approved.

One hundred percent of young voters, meanwhile, (those 25 to 35-years-old), disapproved of Trudeau’s response.

On Feb. 14, the Canadian prime minister invoked the Emergencies Act to crack down on demonstrators who had been in Ottawa since late last month protesting the country’s vaccine mandates and other Covid-19 restrictions.

The government announced they would freeze bank accounts of those even loosely attached to the protest, while Ontario’s premier threatened to revoke driver’s licenses. Protesters’ pets weren’t even off-limits.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland also said the government would be broadening its “Terrorist Financing” rules to include cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding platforms as part of the Act.

The Canadian Parliament voted on Monday night to extend its emergency powers for another 30 days despite the blockade being over.

The survey of 1080 likely general election voters was conducted Feb. 18-20 and was provided exclusively to The Daily Wire.

Yes, I also think such could happen (anything’s possible), but 1, We’re not Canada and 2, I think that if SloJoe, or anyone else for that matter, tried to enact the sort of ’emergency measures’ martial law as Trudeau did in Canada, for anything short of global thermonuclear war, what would result is exactly what TPTB are scared to death of.

BARR: A Canadian-Style ‘Emergency’ Could Easily Happen Here

On Feb. 14, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave Canadians a Valentine’s Day present, invoking the draconian “Emergencies Act” and suspending a wide range of civil liberties otherwise enjoyed by his countrymen.
Lest Americans conclude that our constitutional republic is safe from such facially dictatorial actions, they should know that under existing federal laws and the laws of every state, the president or a governor could take similar “emergency” action at any time they decide an “emergency” presents itself. COVID has demonstrated this is spades.
Regardless of whether a real emergency exists prior to a president or governor invoking such powers, and regardless of whether such declaration is for a statutorily limited time, consequential damage to the fabric of a free society results. At a minimum, declaring an “emergency” and suspending individual liberties serves as a “warning” to citizens that they had best be careful what they say and do in the future.
Trudeau’s actions in declaring a “national emergency” because of an irksome, but peaceful, trucker’s strike should cause Americans to pay far closer attention to “emergency powers” laws here at home. Doing so might force some of our countrymen to question the abject fear that has undergirded much of public policy in the United States since the terror attacks of 9/11 — made far worse by the manner in which governments at all levels have responded to the COVID pandemic in the past biennium.
From a practical standpoint, as we see in Canada, it matters little whether the declaration of the “emergency” fits clearly within the four corners of the emergency law that is invoked. What matters is the presence of circumstances in which an elected leader is able to stoke the flames of fear and anger in a sufficiently large segment of the electorate, so that the invocation of the law seems to constitute a reasonable response.
Once an “emergency” law is on the books of the sovereign entity, whether of a state or the federal government, all it takes is a “stroke of the pen, law of the land” (to quote former Bill Clinton adviser Paul Begala) to unleash the awesome powers at that sovereign’s disposal. Just watch the videos emerging from Ottawa to see how quickly the nightmare unfolds once the document is signed.
The actual form of the government declaring the emergency is of little consequence. Abuse of emergency powers can happen in a representative democracy such as ours just as easily as in a Canadian parliamentary system. Moreover, Republicans often are just as likely to play the “emergency powers” card as are their Democrat counterparts. It was, after all, Republican President Donald Trump who, in March 2020, invoked the powers of at least three federal “national emergency” laws to meet a perceived COVID emergency threat.
Granted, many emergency declarations by state and federal officials are focused toward and limited to natural disasters, such as hurricanes or floods, and used primarily to free up government assistance. However,  the actual powers nestled within those laws are frighteningly expansive. For example, a U.S. president arguably could, among other actions upon declaring a “national emergency “ (not expressly defined in federal laws), seize control of the internet pursuant to a 1930s era communications law or freeze individuals’ financial accounts in reliance on 1970s era laws.
At the state level, Second Amendment supporters will recall law enforcement officers in New Orleans seizing, at times forcibly, over 1,000 lawfully owned private firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Even though subsequent legal action undertaken by the NRA and other gun-rights groups successfully challenged the seizures, many firearms never were returned to their owners.
Even today, with medical and scientific evidence clearly demonstrating that lingering COVID hazards are not dire and are manageable, many government agencies, including public schools in jurisdictions across the country, are refusing to hand back all the “emergency” powers they grabbed in early 2020.
Founding Father James Madison had it right when he wrote in Federalist 57 that placing the powers of all three branches of government in the hands of one entity (whether a prime minister, a governor or a president) is “the very definition of tyranny.”
Today, 234 years later, tyranny is still tyranny, even if it is only “temporary.”
Bob Barr represented Georgia’s Seventh District in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003. He served as the United States Attorney in Atlanta from 1986 to 1990 and was an official with the CIA in the 1970s. He now practices law in Atlanta, Georgia and serves as head of Liberty Guard.

Putin: First Person Spoken Word

If you are only reading commentary about Russian President Putin’s speech of 21 Feb 2022 or watching short clips, you are doing yourself a disservice.

While some reporting is good, there is a lot of spin, narrative shaping, and just plain lazy reporting.

If you want to try to understand if not what is in Putin’s head, but what he wants the Russian people to think is in his head, you need to read and watch the speech yourself.

When someone tells you what they’re thinking, listen to them.

Putin isn’t trying to bring back the Soviet Union, he’s focused on something much deeper and meaningful, the Russian Empire…build back better, as it were.

You can clearly see that he is playing a very long game. Just like he did in Georgia and Crimea last decade. He will take a bite, let the short term outrage burn itself out, let the rest of Europe and the international community regress to the mean, and then take another bite…etc…etc.

As long as this process works, why change it?

If you don’t have time for a full read but want to get a boildown of foundation of the argument for all that follows, here is what got my attention.

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Western Authoritarianism

The original question was: “What lies at the root of the authoritarianism that seems to be asserting itself in free societies in today’s West?”

Here’s my answer:

The same root that causes irritating busybodies to take over Home Owner Associations. Some people have a lust for power. Government is the ultimate well of power. Author Frank Herbert expressed it well:

“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”

Also:

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong – faster and faster and faster.”

Leftism is itself a religion, complete with an Eden (Earth), an original sin (Capitalism), and a god (government – aka “power over others.”) Another quote I’m fond of by a gentleman by the name of Glenn Wishard:

“The rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century, and comprises its central political phenomenon. Fascism and democratic defeatism are its sun-dogs.
The common theme is politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for it.
Political activity becomes the highest human vocation.
The various socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion, which our future historian calls “politicism”.
In all its forms, it defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control: ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class.
It claims universal relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies.
To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be afforded to those on the other.
Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.”

When your quest is to drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, into your utopia, authoritarianism is the way to get there. Never mind that you’re enabling the most greedy, rapacious and psychopathic to grab the levers of power.

In short, it’s human nature.

When Boring People Turn Dangerous: Canada’s Insane Power Grab

On Christmas Eve, 2018, New York Times writer Andrew Ross Sorkin published, “How Banks Unwittingly Finance Mass Shootings.” Chronicling the credit card history of the man who killed 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida Sorkin noted Omar Mateen had not merely spent $26,532 on weapons and ammo in the eight months before the 2016 attack, but had wondered if his doing so had raised red flags:

Two days before Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he went on Google and typed “Credit card unusual spending…” His web browsing history chronicled his anxiety: “Credit card reports all three bureaus,” “FBI,” and “Why banks stop your purchases.”

He needn’t have worried. None of the banks, credit-card network operators or payment processors alerted law enforcement officials about the purchases he thought were so suspicious.

Sorkin’s piece ended up being an argument in favor of credit-card companies, payment processors, banks, and others working together to bring about a Minority Report-style panacea in which society’s dangerous folk could be cyber-identified and stopped before they commit horrific acts. At one point he quoted George Brauchler, the District Attorney who prosecuted the Century 16 movie shooter in Aurora Colorado, James Holmes:

“Do I wish someone from law enforcement had been able to go to his door and knock on his door and figure out a way to talk their way into it or to freak him out?” he said of Mr. Holmes. “Yeah, absolutely.”

I’ve never owned a gun and have been sympathetic to gun control ideas for as long as I can remember. Sorkin, however, was not talking about gun control. He was theorizing a quasi-privatized vision of social control that would bypass laws by merging surveillance capitalism and law enforcement.

In a rhetorical trick that’s since become common, he described how the failure of companies like Visa to block Mateen’s purchases made them “enablers of carnage.” Clearly, someone made the mistake of letting Sorkin see Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, and Cliff Robertson now whispers from the beyond to him too. If those with power to act don’t stop wrongdoing, aren’t they just shirking their great responsibility?

By the way, this same Sorkin once suggested he wouldn’t stop at arresting Edward Snowden, but go after the reporter who broke his story, too. “I would arrest him and now I’d almost arrest Glenn Greenwald, the journalist… he wants to help him get to Ecuador,” he said, on CNBC’s Squawk Box. It’s amazing how selective one can be in one’s authoritarian leanings. After Goldman, Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein appeared to commit perjury in 2011 when he told the Senate, “We didn’t bet against our clients,” Sorkin rushed an apologia into print saying “Mr. Blankfein wasn’t lying,” failing to remind audiences that his Dealbook blog at the Times was sponsored by… Goldman, Sachs.

Sorkin’s Visa piece is suddenly relevant again, after fellow former finance reporter Chrystia Freeland — someone I’ve known since we were both expat journalists in Russia in the nineties — announced last week that her native Canada would be making Sorkin’s vision a reality. Freeland arouses strong feelings among old Russia hands. Before the Yeltsin era collapsed, she had consistent, remarkable access to gangster-oligarchs like Boris Berezovsky, who appeared in her Financial Times articles described as aw-shucks humans just doing their best to make sure “big capital” maintained its “necessary role” in Russia’s political life. “Berezovsky was one of several financiers who came together in a last-ditch attempt to keep the Communists out of the Kremlin” was typical Freeland fare in, say, 1998.

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The Constitution may impede them, to an extent, but they still are trying.
It takes what Patrick Henry advised:
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”

WaPo Writer Actually Declares Individual Freedom ‘a Key Component of White Supremacy’

George Orwell’s “1984” or “Animal Farm”? Nope. Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451”? Uh-huh. Some other dystopian novel about life in a future totalitarian America? No way. Straight from the pages of the Washington Post. You know, the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” guys?

More like “Individual Freedom and Liberty Dies in the Darkness of the Radical Left.”

In a WaPo “Made by History” op-ed titled The Ottawa Trucker Convoy Is Rooted in Canada’s Settler Colonial History, Taylor Dysart, a Ph.D. candidate in the department of history and sociology of science at the University of Pennsylvania, awkwardly argues that “one’s entitlement to freedom is a key component of White supremacy.” After carefully dissecting the garble, I was able to get to the root cause.

Before we begin, unlike the 187,594,632 (and counting) articles about the Freedom Convoy, totalitarian Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, or anything else to do with Ottawa, my focus will be on “none of above.” Instead, it will be about the crux of the lunacy of Ms. Dysart and other lunatics who believe as she does, and the unfortunate publishing of said lunacy by a once-proud American institution.

You’re welcome. Now, on with the show.

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Bought and paid for….as she’s always been.
I wonder if her husband’s name is Hosea?

Psaki Pushes Chinese Propaganda From White House Podium.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday claimed that the spike in violence against Asians in the United States was due to “hate-filled rhetoric” about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, a baseless claim that has been promoted by the Chinese Communist Party.

“We’ve seen this rise, unfortunately, because of hate-filled rhetoric and language around the origins of the pandemic,” Psaki said from the briefing room in response to a question on the 339 percent increase in anti-Asian hate crimes since President Joe Biden took office last January.

Psaki is not the first to push the unsubstantiated link between speculation about how the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, China, and violence toward Asians. Allegations of that unfounded link grew to a fever pitch last spring and were trumpeted during #StopAsianHate rallies across the country. A Wall Street Journal investigation found, however, that the driving force behind the rallying call was a network of fake social media accounts driven by the Chinese government as it pushed to undermine the plausible “lab-leak” theory.

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BLUF:
Fascism is an overused and elastic term that in our politics mostly is used against Republicans for anything liberals don’t like. Donald Trump calling people names on Twitter is not fascism.  Justin Trudeau commanding private businesses unilaterally and without legal consequence to freeze the assets of his political opposition and their supporters is fascism…….

It’s already happening here, though not with the brazenness of Trudeau. The Biden administration gives cover to and encourages every one of the actions listed in the preceding paragraph by declaring political opposition domestic terrorists (even parents at school boards), and by broadly blurring the distinction between political dissent and terrorism. Social media platforms openly are solicited by the Biden administration to crack down on dissent.

The situation here is not yet as dire as in Canada. And I still believe our courts and collective national will would not allow what is happening in Canada to happen here. But I also never thought the government would be empowered as it was, with scant judicial interference, in locking down the country for Covid, or that private citizens would become the government’s enforcers.

When Fascism Comes To America, It Will Look Like Justin Trudeau’s Canada.

If Justin Trudeau had merely removed trucks from blocking a bridge in protest of vaccine mandates, it would be no big deal. Protesters for various causes routinely get removed from blocking traffic.

But that’s not all Justin Trudeau did. He suspended civil liberties in Canada, targeting peaceful protesters and anyone who supports them. Not because those supporters committed a crime, but because they supported the political opposition to Trudeau’s government.

Trudeau ordered all financial institutions to freeze the assets of his political opposition without court order and with full immunity from liability, and no financial asset was spared.

“The names of both individuals and entities as well as crypto wallets have been shared by the RCMP with financial institutions and accounts have been frozen and more accounts will be frozen.”

Trudeau has weaponized and commanded the private sector to do the government’s bidding in crushing political dissent. The Toronto Sun reported (emphasis in original):

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I can remember when all you needed to do to receive universal condemnation by the American media was to wear a MAGA hat and stand next to an American Indian and a drum circle.

It’s a Good Thing Quintez Brown Wasn’t Wearing a MAGA Hat.

Imagine for a moment that a young man wearing a MAGA hat walked into the campaign headquarters of a mayoral candidate in an American city, pulled out a gun, and started shooting. Imagine that he came so close to assassinating the candidate that a bullet grazed the man’s sweater. And now imagine that the shooter’s bail was set at only $100,000, and a group of white supremacists raised his bail and put him back on the street within a couple of days.

Would that be national news? Would you be able to turn on CNN or MSNBC at any hour of the day without hearing about it? Would it be presented as further evidence of what’s really wrong with America?

Well, forget all that, because when this exact scenario played out in Louisville, KY this week, the shooter was fighting for a cause that’s favored by our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters in the press.

On Monday, a young man named Quintez Brown tried to murder Craig Greenberg, who’s running for mayor of Louisville. Yet Brown is already out on bail, which was raised by… Black Lives Matter.

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Comment O’ The Day in reference to the previous:

Among the lessons learned: The federal government, and the society around it, is now so mammoth that one literally has to become a famous billionaire to break in from the outside as a regular citizen. And even that is not enough to succeed once in office.

Round Two will have to combine famous billionaire citizens with F-you money at the top, and the US equivalent of the Canadian trucker protest from us at the bottom, simultaneously.

We sent in one man alone, thinking we had a system where that could make a difference. We don’t, it didn’t.

But now we know.