Iranian Hackers Stole Emails and Reports from the Trump Campaign. The Media Is Waiting to Publish That Material For a Short Time.

The media can't rush to publish this information, hacked by an enemy foreign regime, after they refused to publish information from Hunter Biden's laptop, pretending that that was hacked by Russia.

They are pretending to impose this rule even-handedly as they scheme about how to publish it. Or how to get leftwing blogs to publish it, which they can then cite.

They don't admit that, but of course, that's exactly what's going on.

The Washington Post:

Why newsrooms haven't published leaked Trump campaign documents

The Trump campaign said the documents from a mysterious source came from an Iranian hack. The FBI is now investigating.

An alleged Iranian hacking operation that the Donald Trump campaign says leaked internal documents to reporters has run into a surprising problem: So far, newsrooms have been reluctant to run with the material.

Over the past few weeks, reporters at Politico, The Washington Post and the New York Times received emails from a mysterious figure who called himself "Robert," offering internal Trump campaign documents, most notably a 271-page one listing JD Vance's potential vulnerabilities as a running mate, apparently compiled well before Trump picked the Republican senator from Ohio.

The FBI is now investigating alleged Iranian hacking attempts, which also targeted the Biden-Harris campaign. Longtime Trump friend Roger Stone confirmed to The Post on Monday that his email account had been compromised.

All of it -- an alleged hacker hiding behind a pseudonym offering internal documents of questionable news value -- has echoes of the Russian hacks of Democratic campaign emails in 2016, which were then published by WikiLeaks and eagerly picked over by the press.

No, the press was not "eager" to pick over them. But you can see the Washington Post preparing the way for its own soon-to-come Sudden Reversal on whether to publicize data hacked by enemy foreign governments.

Now, eight years later, media organizations are being tested again with how best to cover news from an alleged hack, without playing into the hands of foreign actors looking to interfere in American elections. For now, the decision among the outlets that received the documents has been not to publish them, focusing instead on the possible hack itself.

Eight years later? Surely you mean four years later, because it was four years ago that the media presented a united Marxist front in refusing to report on the Hunter Biden laptop, falsely claiming it was #Hacked by #RUSSIANAGENTS.

Are you seriously going to pretend that away, Washington Post?

Spoiler: Yes they are.

After receiving the #Hacked emails, Politico immediately "confirmed the document's authenticity."

They still haven't confirmed the Hunter Biden laptop, have they?

Reporters confirmed the document's authenticity, then attempted to learn the individual's identity; the emailer refused to get on the phone but said there was additional information to share. When Politico pressed how they got the documents, the person wrote back: "I suggest you don't be curious about where I got them from. Any answer to this question, will compromise me and also legally restricts you from publishing them."

Then Microsoft revealed early Friday that Iranian hackers had tried to get into the email account of a "high-ranking official" in a presidential campaign by using a former senior adviser's email address that had already been compromised; The Post reported that that was a reference to the Trump campaign, citing a person familiar with Microsoft's work.

...

In 2016, Trump relished Russian hacks of Democratic campaign emails, once asking the country to find more of Hillary Clinton's emails with the phrase, "Russia, if you're listening."

Again, they're making the case for publishing the hacked data, just skipping over the years they spent attempting to get anyone publishing the Hunter Biden laptop disclosures deplatformed.

But in the aftermath of its own possible hack, the Trump campaign told reporters that to publish the material would be assisting a foreign state actor in undermining democracy. "Any media or news outlet reprinting documents or internal communications are doing the bidding of America's enemies and doing exactly what they want," Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said in a statement.

...

The decision for newsrooms to not publish the Vance materials -- a compilation of publicly available records and statements, including Vance's past criticisms of Trump -- appeared to be more straightforward because they also didn't reach a high level of public interest.

"In the end, it didn't seem fresh or new enough," Murray said.

Journalists' primary loyalty is to their audience and to giving them the information they want and need, said Kelly McBride, NPR's public editor and chair of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute. And before 2016, the general thinking was that, even with hacked materials, "if there's something interesting in there, then of course you're going to report it."

But with foreign state actors increasingly getting involved, "it just feels dicier for news organizations to make the decision, because you don't want to be helping another country undermine our democracy," McBride said.

Finally, the Washington Post admits the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop -- but still strains to claim that the laptop may be fake, slapping the word "allegedly" on to the laptop's information.

News organizations have been tested since 2016. Wary of hacked materials since then, many proved reluctant to report on the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop out of concerns that they were the result of a hack. As the conservative press latched on to ,b>allegedly incriminating emails found on the computer in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign, more mainstream outlets did not join in a 2016-style frenzy over the material, and Facebook and Twitter limited distribution of a New York Post story about the laptop.

An analysis by The Post nearly two years later confirmed the authenticity of many of the emails on the laptop and found no evidence of a hack.

Now Trump, whose 2016 campaign was boosted by the Russian hack of Democratic emails and the ensuing press fervor over them, could be shielded by the media's evolving reluctance to use hacked documents.

"It would certainly be ironic if Trump, of all people, benefited from the media learning lessons from a situation he exploited," said Ben Smith, Semafor editor in chief. (He was the top editor of BuzzFeed News when it published the Steele dossier, a collection of memos alleging collusion between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign that contained unverified allegations.)

Of course.

It will also be ironic when Ben Smith is hacked and we all delight in his revealed correspondences.

The Washington Post claims they have no set policy on hacked materials -- leaving open the door to publishing them.

Of course, they had a very, very firm Hacked Materials Policy when it came to Hunter posting pictures of his crackpipe, whores, and meetings with foreign clients -- you know, "allegedly incriminating emails."

The Washington Post lays out how they'll launder the documents into the national discourse:

"They will eventually move down the food chain to find someone who will publish them," Tofel said. "And if they fail at that, the internet being what it is, they can just publish it themselves."

And if you don't hate the press enough -- and you don't; none of us do, none of us are capable of the proper level of loathing and disgust -- enjoy PBS' and AP's expose on Elon Musk misusing his platform.

Musk, you see, uses his platform to... "amplify" views from one side of the aisle.

Can you imagine? Can you even imagine such a thing?!

How Elon Musk uses his X social media platform to amplify right-wing views

They said as they ran their thirtieth piece on "Gender Euphoria."

As X's owner and most followed user, Elon Musk has increasingly used the social media platform as a microphone to amplify his political views and, lately, those of right-wing figures he's aligned with. There are few modern parallels to his antics, but then again there are few modern parallels to Elon Musk himself.

Of course, none of this should come as a surprise.

Back in 2022 when he was trying to buy Twitter, Musk said he was doing so because it wasn't living up to its potential as a "platform for free speech." Protecting free speech -- not money -- was his motivation because, as he put it, "having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization."

Musk often ruminates on the future of civilization. For one, he appears fixated on a coming " population collapse," threatening to wipe out humanity. And he joined prominent scientists and tech leaders last year in warning the world about artificial intelligence doing the same. Musk has framed threats to free speech as yet another existential crisis looming over the world. And he is going to try his best to save it.

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk said in an April 2022 post, adding hearts, stars and rocket emojis to highlight the statement.

Two years on, the platform -- now called X -- has indeed become a haven for the type of free speech Musk has come to champion. In the U.S., he's spread memes -- and sometimes misinformation -- about illegal immigration, alleged election fraud and transgender policies, and he formally endorsed former President Donald Trump's presidential bid this summer.

PBS and AP want you to know that Musk is quite unlike the other tech billionaires in using his platform to push a political ideology.

Musk's antics are unlike any other Big Tech leader, and while it may be off-putting to a segment of his X user base, it could also attract eyeballs to his platform. Could this all be part of a broader plan? After all, despite publicly criticizing Musk's antics, those on the left continue to use his platform.

"X has remained surprisingly resilient throughout the recent controversy," Enberg said. "That's in no small part due to consumer fascination with conspiracy theories and Elon Musk himself."

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:29 PM | Comments (395) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Kamala Harris Again Pushes the "Very Fine People" Lie; Media Continues Its Complicity

Happy Friday!

Kamala: If you vote me into office, I will fix what I am currently breaking in office.

The video of Kamala Harris trotting out the "Very Fine People" hoax below the fold.

Allen Quist of Alpha News writes about Tampon Timmy's assault on education.

Minnesota's collapse of K-12 education achievement since Tim Walz's election as governor is well documented. Once known for its relatively high educational performance, Minnesota's shocking decline now exceeds, in some metrics, the decline of the nation as a whole.

Why is this happening? Gov. Walz has dramatically transformed the purpose of education in Minnesota. Academic achievement is no longer the primary goal. Instead, Walz's education focus is transforming the students' values, attitudes, and beliefs into the woke worldview. This indoctrination is called "culturally relevant" teaching and is woven throughout the Walz education program. Social emotional learning and restorative justice are just two examples of how this "culturally relevant" teaching has been embedded into Minnesota's K-12 curriculum.

Tim Walz revealed his governing agenda, including his education agenda, in his first official executive order as governor--he established a Diversity Council (i.e. DEI).

To implement his DEI agenda, he appointed woke members to the teacher licensing board (PELSB). His appointees revised academic social studies standards, instituted radical ethnic studies, and issued Marxist teacher licensing standards. The new teaching licensing standards require newly licensed teachers to adopt and teach the basic doctrines of the Cultural Marxist worldview in every class and school activity.

For example, the new licensing standards require teachers to teach the dogma of white supremacy which assumes that all whites are inherently racist. It divides all people into two racial groups--whites (the oppressor class) and nonwhites (the oppressed class). White supremacy, implicit bias, and systemic racism are foundational Marxist principles, and new teachers must adopt and teach them all.

Gender ideology, which pits sexual identity groups against each other, is also required. This is a key Cultural Marxist principle that must be affirmed in Minnesota schools. Walz's Department of Human Rights requires that boys be allowed into girls' locker rooms and bathrooms, and it requires the use of "preferred" pronouns, as gender ideology demands.

You all know about Tampon Timmy, of course.

The Department of Human Rights has also forced school districts to report student discipline by race and require equal outcomes (equity) in discipline. The results have been horrific chaos and violence.

PBS anchor screams that there's "no evidence"of Tim Walz stealing honor. Apart from the evidence, she means.

Imagine if a Republican military hero, say, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), lied about the high points of his career in the U.S. Marine Corps while running for vice president.

The media would be looking at every word he spoke on his career and displaying his misstatements and lies on the front pages of every newspaper.

But with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the Democratic vice presidential pick, the media have decided to look past his long list of fake claims about serving in "war" and Afghanistan while in the National Guard.

What's more, some even claim that there is no evidence of his fabrications.

This week's Liberal Media Scream features PBS New Hour anchor Amna Nawaz in the no-evidence camp. On Friday, for example, she said Vance has "no evidence" of his claims against Walz despite nonstop postings by amateur fact-checkers on social media.

She said, "This is so reminiscent of that swiftboating attack on John Kerry back in 2004," noting that former President Donald Trump's campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, was behind the swiftboat attacks. She asked, "Why run with these attacks when there's no evidence for what they're saying right now?"

Guest Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, countered, "There's no question Tim Walz has padded and inflated his resume." To which Nawaz demanded: "In what way specifically?"

Kamala Harris has admitted she gave the last thumbs-up to Biden's disastrous Afghan bug-out. Tuesday was the anniversary of the killings of thirteen Americans at the airport; neither Biden nor Harris noted the anniversary or expressed sympathies.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:06 PM | Comments (431) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: The Explosive Hazard of EVs in Parking Garages; and Other EV Follies

While electric vehicle sales may not amount to more than a single-digit market share, the numbers on the road are now significant enough that there is a growing conversation over whether EVs should be allowed in parking structures. Part of that discussion is about how the owners of buildings that contain parking structures can protect and insure against an unknown number of potential bombs that may be parked there at any given time.

This awful story from South Korea is likely to be repeated with growing frequency, and it is fueling the discussions I just referenced.

“South Korea holds emergency meeting as EV fires stir consumer fear” [Reuters – 8/12/2024]

South Korean officials met on Monday to discuss electric vehicle safety and whether to require car firms to disclose battery brands amid growing consumer concern after an EV blaze in an underground garage extensively damaged an apartment block.

It doesn’t matter what brand of battery is in the EV, what matters is that it’s a lithium ion EV battery, which by nature is prone to runaway thermal fires.

The fire on Aug. 1, which appeared to start spontaneously in a Mercedes-Benz EV parked below a residential building, took eight hours to put out, destroying or damaging about 140 cars and forcing some residents to move to shelters.

I have previously joked about requiring a prominent warning label on the hood of EVs, cautioning about the fire hazard EVs pose to their drivers and to those nearby. Maybe it’s time to stop joking.

Images published in media of dozens of charred cars with only their metal frames remaining in the parking lot fire have fuelled consumer fears about EVs, likely exacerbated because so many people in South Korea live in apartments, often with parking lots below.

An Automotive News piece a few days ago titled “Lithium ion battery fire regulation could help heal industrywide black eye” acknowledges that consumers are becoming scared of lithium batteries, therefore help is needed from the federal bureaucracy to issue regulatory decrees that will somehow make lithium batteries safe. The piece also notes that in 2023, in New York City alone, there were 268 fires started by lithium ion batteries on various transportation devices, resulting in 18 deaths and 150 injuries. Of course, the federal government can no more mandate that lithium ion batteries stop combusting than it can mandate that straw be spun into gold.

Instead, I’d recommend that the government simply ban EVs from being allowed in any parking garages or covered structures. (And yes, that is somewhat counter to my anti-regulation ethos, but remember, Team EV tried to use the power of government to take away my gasoline-powered car, so I have every right to retaliate with the same powerful weapon.)

Here is a short video of the electric Mercedes exploding. Please note that it goes from barely smoking to a fiery explosion in just 21 seconds.

This Fortune piece dated 8/07/2024 reports that ”Several office buildings [in South Korea] have now banned EVs from entering and parking, according to notices on social media.” That’s wise.

Last month I inquired in one of my pieces about how insurance companies are dealing with the growing menace of EV fires, especially regarding all the collateral damage they can cause when they spontaneously combust. I received an email response from a gentleman named Bill Schneider who has a depth of experience at integrated facilities management, including the insurance aspect. I received this prophetic email from Mr. Schneider just four days before the Korean EV disaster.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (293) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Julie Le Brun Looking in a Mirror
Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (365) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 8/16/24

Good morning kids. For quite some time, I've led off so many Morning Reports with the statement that this story while revolting in the extreme still no longer shocks me.

Democrat strategist James Carville during a Thursday podcast said Republicans only characterize themselves as Israel supporters because Jews are more white than Palestinians.

Over 70% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents report having a positive view of Israel, while only 44% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents share this perception, according to Pew Research Center in 2022. Carville, on “Politics War Room,” said “racism” is what motivates the views of Israelis and Palestinians in response to a listener’s question regarding the Republican Party’s alleged embrace of “neo-Nazis,” which the listener suggested is inconsistent with the party’s pro-Israel stance.

“It’s really about the misogyny and the racism that drives the thing, and we got to recognize that. It’s not about any policy prescription. And the reason I suspect that most of these people describe themselves as pro-Israel is because the Jews are whiter than the Palestinians, which I think drives a lot of what they are,” Carville said.

The shocking statement ignores the fact that the majority of Israelis are from non-European origins, and that Israeli Jews are often physically indistinguishable from Israeli Arabs or Palestinian Arabs, with Middle Eastern features.

Is it mere pandering to bolster the Muslim base in Michigan and Minnesota, or is this a telltale indicator that he and the party do in fact fear a lack of enthusiasm from the black base, or worse for them, the latter actually voting for Trump. This is the worst kind of racialist poison as it both plays up the race card and sadly an historic anti-Jewish antipathy of blacks towards Jews. Ditto the youth set Einsatz-Groupies who cheered on the slaughter of Jews after 10/7 and attacked them on campuses across the US, and who are also indoctrinated to hate America as a racist colonial illegitimate nation founded on slavery. Convenient how the professoriate omits the crucial detail of which party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow.

Vile though he is, Carville knows what buttons to push.

Ditto, Kamala when she can get the words out in between the cackles. Here's her big idea: you're suffering because of corporate greed and capitalism. Let's let the government control the economy!

Kamala Harris believes she knows the choice before the public in November.
It is between going “forwards” and going “backwards.”
Since the Democratic nominee is wise about the nature of time she insists that this November America should choose to go forward.
In fact it would good if this country could go back.
To the economy we had before Kamala Harris and Joe Biden entered office

Because the most consequential choice there is in this election is between left-wing economics and right-wing economics.

Between the economics of Biden-Harris and the economics of Trump. . .

. . . Today the Vice President is trying to add some meat onto the bones (such as they are) of her economic plans.
These are reported to include efforts to make housing more affordable, lower the costs of living for families, boost small businesses and take on “corporate excess.”
The last of these is simply a left-wing pandering-point.
Anyone hoping to stir up the left-wing base can always paint big bad capitalists and their excessive salaries as the problem.
As though anything you did to tinker with top Wall Street salaries would do a thing for working class Americans. . .

. . . The Democrats like to pretend that Trump’s tax cuts only benefited the rich.
But again that is not just playing the politics of pointless envy.
It is simply untrue.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (2017) didn’t just massively spur economic growth, it also saw the average taxpayer receive an on-average tax cut of around $1,500.
Hourly and weekly earnings increased by 1.1% between November 2018 to November 2019 alone.
Again — these benefits helped everyone.
Kamala Harris may enjoy talking about minority communities and how much the state needs to help them.
But when Trump was in the White House, he helped African Americans and others to help themselves.
During the first three years of Trump’s presidency median household incomes rose by 15.4% for black Americans and 11.5% for white Americans.

And during the Trump economic miracle more people, especially minorities, got off the welfare rolls and got decent jobs. And since the Junta took control, with an erased border and millions of foreigners invading us, blacks and other minorities along with Americans across the full spectrum of ethnicity, age and gender, have been displaced in the job market, angering them mightily and fueling latent minority discontent with the Democrats.

So along with stoking racial animosity, we have the typical playbook of blaming capitalism and corporate greed. They create the problems by devaluing the currency, trillions in debt and deficits while business do whatever they can to stay afloat to cover their expenses. When the cost to do business goes up, you raise prices and/or cut services or your costs.

But to Democrats, that's greed. And it demands top down control which is the latest brainwave that has failed every time it's been tried being trotted out.

How does presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris want to tackle high prices?

Cutting red tape? Stop the government from favoring a few companies? Giving us a 100% free market to open competition?
Silly talk! SOCIALISM!! I mean, uh, price control, of course!

. . . No self-respecting economist agrees price controls work, even Democrats and those on the Left.
Besides, Harris won’t provide details. She’ll likely only shout buzzwords to keep the “vibes” going.
Have you seen what Argentine President Javier Milei has done? He’s pulled back the government. Inflation is down (actually down, unlike ours), and housing options have exploded without rent control.

Wish I could take credit for this gem: "Munchausen's by Progressivism"
The Democrat Left cause the problem and everything they do to correct it only makes it worse by orders of magnitude and cedes more of your freedom to the state.

Every problem, dislocation and all the suffering throughout our history has followed this pattern. Whatever is wrong with this nation is the fault of Leftists, socialism progressivism and its home in the Democrat Party, and everyone whoever went along with it or tried to placate them.

Interesting that I write this 50 years after Richard Nixon was forced out of office. He too tried wage and price controls as well as saddled us with the EPA and OSHA. Sadly, the GOP-e of today sees him as a hero since they too love big powerful central government. They delude themselves into thinking they're better managers and can make a totalitarian monster behave and obey the Constitution.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• The shocking statement ignores the fact that the majority of Israelis are from non-European origins, and that Israeli Jews are often physically indistinguishable from Israeli Arabs or Palestinian Arabs, with Middle Eastern features.
  James Carville: Republicans Support Israel Because "Jews Are Whiter than the 'Palestinians’"

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 06:42 AM | Comments (446) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 16 August 2024

Top Story

• What's next for KOSA, the Kids' Online Safety Act, that passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support over the objections of critics pointing out the obvious and catastrophic second-order effects that would simply lead to banning minors from the internet entirely? (The Verge)
  
  Yeah. Dunno. It's a podcast, and there's no transcription, or even a summary.
  
  I didn't even realise it was a podcast at first because there's eight paragraphs of useless blather in the form of a story, and the linked audio starts out talking about something else entirely.
  
  Update: And the podcast is unbelievably obnoxious.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:08 AM | Comments (140) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Lost In Time, And Lost In Space, And ONTing

Well gang, it's Thursday night again. How has your week been?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (433) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Wacky Racers Cafe

A chick with boobies.
Wait, I mean a booby with chicks.

Border collie herding challenge.

Getting caught in the machinery at work. He's saved, but it's scary.

Hand feeding a giant bear.

He's the Carrot Top of billiards trick shots.

Outdoor plumbing.

Bird's nest soup.

At high altitudes, you can see that rainbows are circles and not just arcs.

Gojiro...?

Nice rack.

All magic is dumb.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:24 PM | Comments (378) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mentally-Ill Left Tries to Cancel Anna Paulina Luna for Crime of Looking (Really) Good in a Bathing Suit

Old photos and videos have "resurfaced," which is journalistic jargon for "Democrat opposition research scumbags churned up some blackmail material and passed it on to us to blast out into the world."

The gender-nonconforming left thinks that photos like this are going to be a dealbreaker for voters:

The left is very angry. The catladies are in Puritanical Scold mode and the gender warriors feel threatened.

The party of partial-birth abortion, gender mutilation surgery for minors, and drag queen story hours sure does enjoy posing as moral scolds every so often.

Anna Paulina Luna's response to video of her in a MAGA swimsuit sparking a social media meltdown

As a video of Rep. Anna Paulina Luna in a MAGA swimsuit circulated on social media on Wednesday, the Republican firebrand said the clip proves she is 'biologically a woman.'

The clip showed the Florida Republican showing off her curves in a blue one-piece emblazoned with Donald Trump's campaign slogan 'Make America Great Again'

She posed with the white knee-high socks as part of an ensemble that swept conservative social media during the summer of 2016.

I have seen no photos with these knee-socks, unfortunately.

Oh wait, there it is.

The swimsuit modeled by conservatives across the country was available online for $39.95.

'I'm confirming that I have indeed worn swimsuits and you can tell I am biologically a woman. #MAGA,' Luna wrote on X as the video resurfaced on Wednesday.

'I was also in featured by sports illustrated and MAXIM. Designed swimsuits and women's shirts,' she added in a follow-up tweet.

...

'Anna Paulina Luna is a married congress woman with children and still can't help but dishonor her family and the country by stripping down half naked for the world to see. Please don't claim she's a Christian either,' wrote Christian activist Morgan Ariel on X.

...

'I have a confession to make since the TikTok Democrats are onto me : I wear bikinis to the beach and mineral sunscreen,' Luna also shot back on X.

Luna became the 12th member of Congress to give birth while in office after she had her son in August 2023. The brunette bombshell, 35, was a social media influencer before she came to Congress.'

She joined the House in 2023 and became a part of the right wing Freedom Caucus.

In Congress, she's advanced a number of bold and seemingly far-fetched ideas - like forcing members of Congress who advocate for military support for Ukraine to fight on the front lines of the war with Russia and having Attorney General Merrick Garland arrested for failing to hand over audio of the Biden special counsel interview.

Luna served in the US Air Force from 2009 to 2014. She also modeled on the side - appearing on Sports Illustrated's website in 2013 and as a swimsuit model in Maxim magazine in 2014.

Luna told DailyMail.com in June that she learned of the rarely-used House procedure that would have seen Garland arrested, inherent contempt, while on bedrest after giving birth to her son.

Inherent contempt which was last used in 1934 on Washington Lawyer William MacCracken, who spent 10 days in prison for refusing to comply with a Senate subpoena.

'I was told I couldn't vote when I was recovering from having my son ... what I found is a lot of members were unaware that it actually existed. And so I met the parliamentarian because I did not have faith in the DOJ.'

The House resolution ended up being softened to a $10,000 per day fine for Garland, and still failed.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:40 PM | Comments (235) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Judge: "Geofence" Data, of the Kind Used by Federal Investigators to Mass-Surveil Anyone In the Capital on January 6th, Is Protected by the Fourth Amendment

"Geofence data" refers to data about what phones were in a certain place. I guess the term comes from the idea that you can mark out a virtual "geofence" around the area you want to surveil, then demand that cell phone carriers turn over the phone data for everyone inside that "geofence."

This was used extensively to surveil, harass, and then prosecute J6 political prisoners.

And a judge has just ruled that such data is protected by the Fourth Amendment, and that warrants to grab the data on everyone inside such a "geofence" is unconstitutional.

Notice he's saying that even with a warrant, grabbing all of this data so promiscuously about thousands of people whose names you don't even know and therefore have no actual reason to suspect of any crime is unconstitutional. He's saying you cannot just get a mass-warrant to invade the privacy of everyone in a place.

Just knowing that a crime was committed somewhere inside a large area is not sufficiently particularized information enough to sustain a warrant.

Note that this case is not about the J6 political prisoners, but such a ruling would be extremely helpful to them, if it's upheld on review by the Supreme Court.

Via DougP. at Twitchy:

Julie Kelly
@julie_kelly2

Interesting--Fifth Circuit just ruled that geofence warrants violate 4A. Recall the FBI sought and received a Google geofence warrant on Jan 6, 2021.

INTO MY VEINS JUDGE HO (Trump appointee, on short list for SCOTUS, Trump chose ACB instead)

The important language there:

Geofence warrants are powerful tools for investigating and deterring crime. The defendants here engaged in a violent robbery--and likely would have gotten away with it, but for this new technology. So I fully recognize that our panel decision today will inevitably hamper legitimate law enforcement interests. But hamstringing the government is the whole point of our Constitution. Our Founders recognized that the government will not always be comprised of publicly-spirited officers--and that even good faith actors can be overcome by the zealous pursuit of legitimate public interests. "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." THE FEDERALIST No. 51, at 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961). "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary." Id. But "experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions." Id. It's because of "human nature" that it's "necessary to control the abuses of government." Id.

The Fifth Circuit says this kind of mass-warrant is illegal, but the 4th Circuit gave its blessing to mass-demanding personal information about thousands at once. And maybe millions of people -- once you bless this kind of warrant, you can make the "geofence" as big as you like. Why not make it the size of an entire city? Or state?

Or country?

With the circuits splitting, it will be up to the Supreme Court to resolve the circuit split.

Which means ACB and John Roberts will once again team up to shred the Constitution.

ACB is the Sandra Day O'Connor of John Roberts of David Souters.

The full ruling is here.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:33 PM | Comments (301) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Five People, Including a Personal Assistant and Two Doctors, Arrested in Connection With Matthew Perry's Overdose Death

Call it a palate cleanser.

I don't know if there's any grist here for the political mill.

A prosecutor says five people have been charged in connection with Matthew Perry's death from a ketamine overdose last year, including the actor's assistant and two doctors.

U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada announced the charges Thursday, saying the doctors supplied Perry with a large amount of ketamine and even wondered in a text message how much the former "Friends" star would be willing to pay.

"These defendants took advantage of Mr. Perry's addiction issues to enrich themselves. They knew what they were doing was wrong," Estrada said.

Perry died in October due to a ketamine overdose and received several injections of the drug on the day he died from his live-in personal assistant. The assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, is the one who found Perry dead later that day.

The actor went to the two charged doctors in desperation after his regular doctors refused to give him ketamine in the amounts he wanted. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in one instance the actor paid $2,000 for a vial of ketamine that cost one of the physicians about $12.

Two of the people, including one of the doctors charged, were arrested Thursday, Estrada said. Two of the defendants, including Iwamasa, have pleaded guilty to charges already, and a third person has agreed to plead guilty.

...

The other person arrested Thursday is Jasveen Sangha, who prosecutors described as a drug dealer known as the "ketamine queen." Ketamine supplied by Sangha caused Perry's death, authorities said.

...

A San Diego physician, Dr. Mark Chavez, has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to distribute ketamine. Prosecutors allege Chavez funneled ketamine to Plasencia, securing some of the drug from a wholesale distributor through a fraudulent prescription.

...

Perry's autopsy, released in December, found that the amount of ketamine in his blood was in the range used for general anesthesia during surgery.

He was undergoing "ketamine infusion therapy." I'm not sure for what. Ketamine is sometimes used for depression or chronic pain. I don't know if any of this was legit or Perry just googling "ways to get ketamine legally."

In any event, the ketamine infusion was not a big enough dose, or a recent enough does, to explain the massive, lethal dose he had in his bod.

...

Ketamine was listed as the primary cause of death, which was ruled an accident with no foul play suspected, the report said. Drowning and other medical issues were contributing factors, the coroner said.

"Drowning... was a contributing factor in his death" is an odd sentence.

Two things I never understand:

Celebrity millionaires who become drug addicts. As I think Dennis Miller once said, these people are rich enough to be able to pay people to act out their hallucinations for them. Why bother with drugs?

Doctors who turn drug dealer. Doctors are pretty rich. Yes, I guess it's nice to take $2000 bucks, tax-free, for each $12 dose of ketamine you sell to an addict.

But... risk-reward, man. That addict will eventually kill himself, and then you'll be prosecuted. And lose your medical license.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:40 PM | Comments (326) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Kamala Harris: I've Got a Great Solution to the Runaway Inflation My Profligate Printing of Fake Dollars Caused -- Soviet-Style Price Controls on Grain!

Not just grain, but all foods. But "price controls on grain" sounds particularly Soviet.

Kamala Harris to propose "Soviet" style price controls despite Fed discrediting the policy

Quick Hit:

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to outline a limited economic plan on Friday, which has already drawn sharp criticism for its reliance on government-imposed price controls. Critics argue that Harris's approach mirrors failed Soviet-style policies that "will result in scarcity and higher costs," with the Federal Reserve having previously published reports discrediting such measures during her administration.

Key Details:

Harris's plan includes pushing for a federal ban on price gouging by food corporations, with enforcement by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general.

The St. Louis Fed, under the Biden-Harris administration, in a 2022 report warned against price controls for "[distorting] market signals" and leading to "costly shortages and inefficiencies," highlighting the risks of Harris's proposed measures.

Critics have slammed the proposal, comparing it to Soviet-era price controls that led to shortages and higher costs. "Kamala Harris is literally proposing price controls on food," said RealClearPolitics senior writer Mark Hemingway.

Mark Hemingway

@Heminator

Kamala Harris is literally proposing price controls on food. This is literally what the Soviets did and the results will be scarcity and higher costs.

Tomorrow, Kamala will be blessing us all with a speech on economics, which she is already lowering expectations for by warning us the speech will be "light on details."

Wow, this Airhead Town Pump will be short on details in a speech on policy? I don't know about you, but my world is spinning.*

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to deliver an economic speech in Raleigh, North Carolina, this Friday. Harris has yet to define any clear policy positions as the presumptive Democratic nominee, leaving many wondering if she has any real plan at all.

Key Details:

Vice President Kamala Harris will speak on the economy in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday.

Her speech is expected to be vague, with few details about her economic policies.

Harris has avoided interviews or press conferences since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Diving Deeper:

Vice President Kamala Harris is gearing up to deliver an economic speech this Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. Reports indicate that Harris plans to keep her remarks "relatively light on details," further fueling concerns that she lacks any real, defined policy platform as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

It's been more than three weeks since Harris emerged as the frontrunner for her party, yet she has consistently dodged opportunities to clarify her vision, avoiding interviews and press conferences. This reluctance to engage with voters and the media only amplifies doubts about whether she has a coherent plan for addressing the serious challenges facing the country.

The Biden-Harris administration's record is already marred by some of the lowest approval ratings in history, thanks to soaring inflation, rampant illegal immigration, and a devastating surge in drug overdose deaths. Voters are desperate to hear how Harris plans to distance herself from these failures, but according to insiders, her upcoming speech will offer little in the way of concrete solutions.

Instead, Harris is expected to pivot slightly from President Biden's focus on job creation and domestic manufacturing to more vague promises about tackling the cost of living. Yet, despite this shift in emphasis, she reportedly intends to stay closely aligned with Biden's broader agenda, meaning American's should expect more of the same failures.

...

Ben Harris, a former Treasury official and Biden campaign advisor, summed it up by saying, "My guess is that the vice president is going to look at this massive collection of Biden administration policies and emphasize the ones that are most important to her." But for many, this just underscores the concern that Kamala Harris has yet to define any policies that are truly her own.

Speaking of dodging the press like she's not dodging Willie Brown money shots, Hoover Institution propagandist Michael McFaul -- not Michael McCaul, the "Republican" deliberately tanking the Afghanistan bugout investigation -- says that Kamala Harris has decided that dodging the press is her best strategy, therefore none of us peons should question it.

Michael McFaul
@McFaul

The paramount objective for @KamalaHarris is to win this election. If a press conference helps her win, she should do it. If not, she shouldn't do it. It's just that simple. She has no "moral obligation" to talk to the press. Tone it down folks.

McFaul has criticized "Republicans ranting" about the J6 impeachment hearings, telling them to shut up and... just hold press conferences.

John Ziegler
@Zigmanfreud

So now the "Party of Democracy" has allowed their elites to dethrone their popularly elected nominee (after GOP convention), installed a replacement without even an open convention, & is actively supporting the new nominee's strategy of not answering any questions.

Democracy!

Even this pudgy joker is telling Kamala to face a (very friendly) press:

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:30 PM | Comments (535) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Columbia President Minouche Shafik Resigns After Months of Investigation Over Her Coddling of "Student" "Protesters"

Terrorists on education visas, this means.

Embattled Columbia University president Minouche Shafik suddenly resigned Wednesday and is escaping back to her home country after leading the elite institution for less than a year that was marked by constant -- and sometimes destructive -- anti-Israel protests.

Shafik announced she would be "stepping down" from the Ivy League in a letter to the student body and blamed the "period of turmoil" for her shocking departure.

"This period has taken a considerable toll on my family, as it has for others in our community," Shafik wrote.

"Over the summer, I have been able to reflect and have decided that my moving on at this point would best enable Columbia to traverse the challenges ahead.

"I am making this announcement now so that new leadership can be in place before the new term begins."

In her letter, the scholar revealed she is leaving the prestigious school to return to the United Kingdom -- where she spent most of her career -- for a gig with its foreign secretary as a chair tasked with reviewing the government's approach to international development.

...

The community, however, is not convinced the change in leadership will have any effect on stopping last year's chaos from trickling into the fall semester.

"University leadership has been promising that combating antisemitism is a priority, but many students are arriving in just a few weeks, and I don't have confidence that the campus situation this fall is going to look any different than it did in the spring," Matthew Waxman, a law professor and member of the school's task force on antisemitism, told The Post.

Waxman was shocked by the resignation and said it was too soon to tell whether it was the right move for the school. The bigger question, he continued, is whether Columbia is going to crack down on new rules aimed at mitigating antisemitism.

"We're going to have a big test in just a few weeks," he said.

"And if they're not enforced, then we'll know that the university just isn't serious."

...

She was accused of "gross negligence" while testifying before Congress after refusing to say whether the phrase "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" should be considered antisemitic.

...

Shafik's resignation comes just one week after three university deans resigned from Columbia following the exposure of their "very troubling" text chain that disparaged Israeli and Jewish students' fears of rising anti-Semitism on campus.

That's a reference to professors' texts that suggested that Jews were able to call attention to pro-Hamas' protesters' crimes because of all of their Jewish Money.

The deans at the center of the Columbia University texting scandal scoffed that Jewish students concerned about the eruption of anti-Semitism on campus are "coming from a place of privilege" and suggested those students have more institutional support than their peers because of their supposed wealth, according to new messages reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

The messages, obtained by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and released on Tuesday, show that three of the deans--Susan Chang-Kim, Matthew Patashnick, and Cristen Kromm--engaged in a more extensive pattern of disparagement than has been previously reported and shed new light on how Columbia officials reacted in real-time to a panel on anti-Semitism held during the university's alumni weekend.

"I'm going to throw up," Chang-Kim, Columbia's vice dean and chief administrative officer, wrote to her colleagues roughly an hour into the panel. The text's timing aligns with remarks from an audience member and daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Orly Mishan, who described how her own daughter, a Columbia sophomore, "was hiding in plain sight" on campus after the Oct. 7 attacks.

"Amazing what $$$$ can do," replied Kromm, the dean of undergraduate student life.

The new messages suggest that the administrators, who were placed on leave pending a university investigation after a Free Beacon report revealed snippets of their text exchanges, see concerns about anti-Semitism as manifestations of entitlement.

"They will have their own dorm soon," Patashnick, the associate dean for student and family support, said of Jewish students, after the head of Columbia Hillel, Brian Cohen, said that many Jews felt more comfortable spending time at the Kraft Center he runs than in their own dormitories following the Oct. 7 attacks.

"Comes from such a place of privilege," Chang-Kim wrote two minutes later. "Trying to be open minded to understand but the doors are closing."

The deans also ridiculed Cohen's efforts to provide support services, including psychological counseling, to Jewish and Israeli students following Oct. 7, implying that they were receiving special treatment denied to other groups.

"Not all heroes wear capes," Patashnick texted sarcastically. "If only every identity community had these resources and support," Kromm replied.

In 2024, Columbia hosted separate graduation events for black, Asian, Native American, LGBT, and "Latinx" students. Jews were one of the only minority groups not to host a ceremony of their own.

...

Other text messages obtained by the Free Beacon from the same panel show the four deans dismissing claims of anti-Semitism.

At one point during the panel, Chang-Kim texted Sorett to say the panel "is difficult to listen to but I'm trying to keep an open mind to learn about this point of view." Sorett responded, "Yup."

Kromm, meanwhile, used vomit emojis--"🤢🤮"--to reference an op-ed from Columbia campus rabbi Yonah Hain that raised concerns about the "normalization of Hamas" on campus.

...

The new texts obtained by the committee, meanwhile, show Kromm and Chang echoed an assessment from Patashnick that Cohen took "full advantage of this moment" for its "huge fundraising potential."

The Islamization and Third Worldization of the West is now at a galloping pace.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:22 PM | Comments (409) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Pro-Hamas Protesters Raid Kamala Harris Event

They deserve each other.

A hastily organized rally supporting Vice President Kamala Harris descended into chaos after anti-Israel protesters infiltrated the Big Apple event -- and later barged into an afterparty venue, causing several thousand dollars' worth of damage to its outdoor space.

Several demonstrators against Israel's military campaign in Gaza were booted from the Democratic gathering in Harlem, where Mayor Eric Adams gave an impassioned speech.

"Make sure you vote," Hizzoner chanted as the disrupters were dragged from the tiny venue in Upper Manhattan.

Adams stood with other prominent elected state Democrats, including City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (who is not related to the mayor) and Gov. Kathy Hochul, as he endorsed the party's presidential ticket.

...

While protesters were escorted out of the main rally, which sources said wasn't attended by Harris or her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the demonstration took an ugly turn in front of a restaurant where up to 25 attendees stopped afterward.

The angry mob of around 50 protesters even stormed into the restaurant Bird in Hand at Broadway and West 146th Street as stunned patrons looked on, according to footage from the scene.

Other videos showed cops taking rabble-rousers into custody as a crowd circled the police. Whistles and horns sounded, and smoke bombs were also set off during the brouhaha.

One protester appeared to try to swipe at cops with a cardboard sign, leading several officers to grab the demonstrator and arrest her on the sidewalk, more footage showed.

At another point, authorities chased after another on Broadway during a brief encounter. "Free Gaza" was also graffitied on a police car, and an anti-Israel poster with the words "No Votes For Bombala's Genocide" was briefly plastered on a restaurant window.

At least 14 people were taken into custody, according to police.

Bird in Hand owner Brian Felicetta told The Post he estimated damages to the restaurant's outdoor seating area were at least a few thousand dollars. He will have a better idea Thursday when he surveys the aftermath.

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (432) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Susan Crabtree: During Trump's North Carolina Visit, a Secret Service Agent Abandoned Her Post to... Breastfeed Her Baby, Who She'd Taken to "Work"

DEI, baby.

Susan Crabtree
@susancrabtree

EXCLUSIVE and BREAKING: During a Donald Trump visit to North Carolina yesterday, a woman Secret Service special agent abandoned her post to breastfeed with no permission/warning to the event site agent, according to three sources in the Secret Service community.

Shortly before Trump's motorcade arrival -- I'm told five minutes beforehand -- the site agent was getting ready for the arrival. (The site agent is the person in charge of the entire event's security.)

The site agent went to do one final sweep of the walking route and found the agent breast-feeding her child in a room that is supposed to be set aside for important Secret Service official work, i.e. a potential emergency related to the president.

A working agent on duty cannot bring a child to a protective assignment. The woman was out of the Atlanta Field Office.

The woman agent was in the room with two other family members.

The agent and her family members bypassed the Uniformed Division checkpoint and were escorted by an unpinned event staff into the room to breastfeed, the sources said. Unpinned means they have not been cleared by the Secret Service to be there.

When contacted about the incident, Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the incident did not have an impact on the event. and it's under review.

"All employees of the U.S. Secret Service are held to the highest standards," he said. "While there was no impact to the North Carolina event, the specifics of this incident are being examined. Given this is a personnel matter, we are not in a position to comment further."

Crabtree also reports that Ted Cruz and Darryl Issa are suggesting that the Secret Service covered up the whole Hunter Biden Cocaine sitch.

Cruz, Issa Demand Answers on Possible Secret Service Cocaine 'Cover-Up'

...

The two Republican lawmakers, who serve in key Judiciary Committee roles in the Senate and the House, cited revelations from a RealClearPolitics article last week that former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and senior agency leaders sought to destroy the cocaine discovered in the White House last summer. Despite the push, leaders of the Forensics Services and the Uniformed Divisions rejected efforts to dispose of the evidence and presumably are keeping the bag of cocaine in a Secret Service evidence vault.

White and his supervisor, Glenn Dennis, as well as Richard Macauley, then-acting chief of the Uniformed Division, resisted pressure from Cheatle and others to destroy the evidence. Afterward, however, Macauley was passed over for the permanent position of Uniformed Division chief despite receiving agency accolades, RCP reported last week. The decision to bypass Macauley, a black man, raised eyebrows within the agency amid a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion push that Cheatle championed.

Cheatle chose a retired Secret Service top official to head the Uniformed Division instead of Macauley, raising concerns in the agency that passing over Macauley for the job was an act of retaliation...

White is responsible for a vault where evidence, including the cocaine discovered in the White House last summer, is stored for seven years, per agency evidence protocols. According to several sources in the Secret Service community who spoke to RCP on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, White received a call from Cheatle or a someone speaking on her behalf last summer pressing him to destroy the evidence after the cocaine was tested by the Homeland Security Department's Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center and the FBI's crime laboratory for fingerprint and DNA analysis.

This is interesting: They found a "partial hit" on the DNA left in the bag.

This means that while they did not find a direct hit, that is, they did not match the DNA to someone in the database, they found a, let us say, "family resemblance" of that DNA to someone in the database.

Gee, who could it be?

Those two agencies found that it was cocaine, not anthrax or another biothreat. While the FBI did not pick up fingerprints on the small bag of cocaine, it found some DNA material, according to three sources in the Secret Service community. The FBI also reportedly said the agency ran the DNA material against national criminal databases and "got a partial hit."

The term "partial hit" is vague in this context, but in forensics lingo usually means that law enforcement found DNA matching a blood relative of a finite pool of people.

...

"On July 12, the Secret Service received the FBI's laboratory results, which did not develop latent fingerprints, and insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons," Guglielmi said. "Therefore, the Secret Service is not able to compare evidence against the known pool of individuals."

"There was no surveillance video footage found that provided investigative leads or any other means for investigators to identify who may have deposited the found substance in this area," Guglielmi continued. "Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered."

How about we just get a DNA swab from one to three people? Hunter Biden, Ashley Biden, and Joe Biden?

Because you know that's what the "partial hit" was detecting. Someone in the Biden family is in the DNA database, either because they're a criminal, or because, as president, there have probably been a lot of times Joe Biden has been swabbed.

Related: What kind of person do you think the FBI is looking to recruit with its Recruitment Lattes?

Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:02 PM | Comments (456) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

Market economies have been working pretty well for humanity's entire history. Even when politicians and bureaucrats and fascists interfere, free markets survive. In the depths of the Soviet repression of pretty much everyone, little pockets of commerce existed: barter and blackmarkets flourished! Of course those markets weren't nearly big enough to save the Soviet economy, and there are countless other examples of socialist countries absolutely destroying vibrant economies in a matter of a generation. Venezuela is a perfect current example, but the list is long.

But when the fascist/socialist boot is lifted from the neck of commerce, look what happens! And it happens quickly!

Housing Supply Booms in Argentina Since Javier Milei Cut Rent Control Law

In late 2023, the capital city of Buenos Aires — home to the most desirable real estate in the country — estimated that one in seven homes was vacant. The Argentine Real Estate Chamber said at the end of 2023 that the supply of rental properties in Buenos Aires fell by 95 percent in the three years since the Rental Law was passed.

Sadly, the supply of housing in many American cities and states follows this pattern. NYC has horrendous rent control laws that have depressed the supply of housing for generations. And California, with its combination of insane rent control in many cities, coupled with equally maniacal construction restrictions, has housing costs that are out of control.

Milei overturned the Rental Law with an executive decree in December, one of many sweeping changes he implemented in a program he described as “shock therapy” for Argentina’s moribund socialist economy.

Newsweek on Tuesday described the result as a “surge in housing supply” that directly caused a “drop in rental prices.”

“Since Millei’s repeal of rent control laws took effect on December 29, the supply of rental housing in Buenos Aires has jumped by 195.23%, according to the Statistical Observatory of the Real Estate Market of the Real Estate College,” Newsweek said.

In less than one year, there has been a tectonic shift in a major market in Argentina, all because one man saw the evil of central planning and the societal destruction that it wreaks.

But the lesson will be lost on America. The Harris/Obama junta is busily formulating plans for more central control of housing, and there seem to be plans in the works for price controls on other goods.

Unless these budding dictators are also capable of changing human nature, they are doomed to fail. All they will get -- and it's probably the unstated goal -- is a decrease in supply and quality of every controlled good. Thousands of years of human history backs up that consequence.

But THIS TIME will be different, because they have the right people in charge!

Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM | Comments (270) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

Pink and Blue
Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (394) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 8/15/24

Good morning kids. Has it really been three years since Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants and/or whoever is pulling his strings decided it was a good thing to just unilaterally, and spontaneously bug out from Afghanistan, leaving billions of dollars in advanced lethal weaponry behind to rearm the dark age savages who directly, indirectly or just by virtue of Islam are allied with those who executed the 9/11 attacks. Also left behind were American citizens and whatever number of Afghans who were friends. Not to mention the blood and treasure wasted over there in the wake of 9/11.

Another direct legacy of the bugout are the erupting hotspots in the Middle East and elsewhere that because of this demonstration of ideologically driven incompetence and/or incompetent ideology that potentially could become much larger regional or even global conflagrations.

And now, insult meet injury:

The Taliban terrorist organization celebrated the third anniversary of President Joe Biden facilitating its return to power in Afghanistan on Wednesday, hosting a large military parade on the former U.S. air base site at Bagram featuring U.S.-made equipment and welcoming envoys from Iran and China.

August 15 will mark three years since the fundamentalist Taliban terror group stormed Kabul, the nation’s capital, while then-President Ashraf Ghani fled in a helicopter. The Afghan military had collapsed by then, leading to a nearly bloodless takeover of the government for the Taliban. The Taliban remains at press time the uncontested government of Afghanistan, though no country recognizes it as such in an official capacity.

The fall of Kabul was preceded by Biden announcing that he would break an agreement the United States, in its 20th year present in the Afghan war theater, with the Taliban to leave the country by May 1, 2021, in exchange for the Taliban not attacking Americans and cutting ties with terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda. Biden replacing the deal, brokered by predecessor Donald Trump, with an extension of the war into September 2021 that never happened, as the Taliban had disintegrated the official Afghan government by then. . .

. . . According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Taliban made the parade an international occasion by inviting unnamed “Chinese and Iranian diplomats.” While neither country officially recognizes the Taliban as a government entity, both maintain friendly ties to the Taliban. China became the first country to accept a Taliban ambassador to Beijing in December.

Along with being used against us and perhaps being sent to Hamas and Hezbollah to be used against Israel, and winding up in the hands of other terror groups in the region, no doubt some of the more advanced equipment found its way to the Chi-Coms, Russians and Iranians in order to be studied as to discover their flaws to be countered in any future combat.

This on top of the fact that the kamala-kalorama axis of evil along with the bottom dwellers of Foggy Bottom have been itching to replace Israel with Iran as the dominant power in the Middle East. While the Iranians were having a great old time with the Chi-Coms, look at this:

The Biden-Harris regime is all about holding and increasing its power, and Israel is in the way of that aspiration right now. In pursuit of votes in Michigan and Minnesota, Kamala Harris just chose Tim Walz as her running mate over a stronger candidate, Josh Shapiro, because Shapiro is Jewish. It has sent billions to the bankroller of Hamas and Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and hundreds of millions to Gaza, which means to Hamas. It has withheld arms shipments to Israel. And now it is being accused of a betrayal so immense that it makes those others look like friendship.

Amir Fakhravar, a former political prisoner of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) inside Iran and the Senate chairman of the National Iranian Congress, states that shortly after the assassination of Hamas top dog Ismail Haniyeh and a key Hizballah operative, Fuad Shukr, the Biden-Harris regime swung into action. To warn the Iranians that if they attacked Israel, they would suffer serious consequences? That’s what many have assumed. In an opinion piece at Fox News on Monday, Fakhravar revealed that “Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper, citing an unnamed source in Iran's Supreme National Security Council, reported that a high-level American security delegation, brokered by Oman, secretly traveled to Tehran.” That doesn’t sound so bad in itself. But it gets much, much worse. 

The mission of this high-level delegation, according to Fakhravar, was not to deter the Iranians from striking against Israel by informing them that America was fully prepared to defend its ally. Instead, the delegation’s job was to “deliver a ‘calming and cautionary’ message to deescalate the situation and ensure the supreme leader of Iran understood that the Biden-Harris administration was ‘kept in the dark’ by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the killing of two major terrorist leaders last week.”

That’s right: the American delegation, if the Kuwaiti report is correct, did not go to Tehran to demonstrate America’s strength; rather, it went there in order to show America’s weakness. The delegation was intent not on warning Iran not to attack Israel, but to insist that America hadn’t had anything to do with the killings of Haniyeh and Shukr, for those nasty Israelis had not taken them into their confidence.

Even worse, these cowardly appeasers reportedly went to the Iranians bearing gifts. Fakhravar states: “The detailed report stated that the American delegation, arriving on a private plane from Turkey, landed at Payam-e-Khorram Airport in Karaj on Thursday and held a two-hour meeting with Iranian officials before returning to Ankara.” At this meeting, the greatest betrayal of all was consummated: "the delegation presented a list containing the names of ten Mossad agents inside Iran, whom the Americans believe were involved in the assassination, directly or indirectly.” 

And speaking of assassinations, only in the last week or so there were revelations of a supposed investigation that Iran was plotting to try and take out Donald Trump, this on top of confirmed reports that Iranian agents had hacked his campaign.

Also at that victory parade where representatives of the Chi-Coms. Meh, evidently that's what Tampon Timmy A-Walz appears to be:

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is a conflicted individual. Influenced at a young age through a Harvard-sponsored China teaching-tourism program, Walz maintains a lifelong dedication to China fueled by fun experiences in his youth. His early dreams for China’s liberation from communist rule have not worked out, yet he has plodded along through the last 30 years in deference to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in his business and political dealings. In other words, he is the perfect VP pick to produce an America-last, doublethinking, emotionally invested, China-forward agenda.

Already a member of the Army National Guard, Walz sought and was one of the first-ever to receive a year-long WorldTeach job in China in 1989. He felt that “China was coming.” Somehow, the Army National Guard permitted this extended trip to a non-allied country during Walz’ contract, and did not recall him even after the Tiananmen Square massacre in the months leading to Desert Shield.

Walz was bought off with trinkets. He noted of his initial time in China as a school teacher that “they gave me more gifts than I could bring home. It was an excellent experience,” blithely unaware that he was in the process of being groomed and won over. “No matter how long I live, I’ll never be treated that well again,” Walz noted eerily about the overseas stint during a time of historic unrest. . .

. . . Walz is proud of his China ties, citing his experience as credentials for dealing with the CCP. In an extended video shared by Michael Sobolik on X, Walz says of the CCP that “if we’re on the same sheet of music, two of the world’s great super-powers... there’s many collaborative things we can do together.” Walz uses CCP-friendly rhetoric by lumping the US and China together as “two great super-powers.” As well, Walz in this remark has abandoned his rejection of the CCP 35 years ago, and feels that it is possible to be on the “same sheet of music” with the same CCP now.

Becoming a useful idiot in one's younger days is one thing, not that that is really an excuse, but his record and current connections to the Chi-Coms are dangerously criminal, as are Kamala's and others tied to her and to Obama. See the links in the Defense and Security section.

Have a good day.

A bit of housekeeping first. the Cutjibnewsletter website is down, due to some glitch on the part of the web-host, but we do hope to have it back up ASAP.

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 06:12 AM | Comments (490) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 15 August 2024

Top Story

• So what is going on with that data breach of 2.9 billion people? (Troy Hunt)
  
  I'm glad you asked.
  
  Since the breach is supposed to affect only the US, UK, and Canada, and those countries do not have 2.9 billion people, obviously someone was being imprecise.
  
  Turns out that a lot of people where being imprecise. While the National Public Data breach does contain 2.9 billion records, that does not mean 2.9 billion people.
  
  Troy Hunt took a leaked sample of the data which contains 134 million unique email addresses. He found himself in the list 28 times, but none of the entries associated his email address with any other recognisable data.
  
  So... It's bad, but probably not the end of the world.
  
  That's next year.
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (81) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Wednesday Overnight Open Thread (8/14/24)

*****

The Quote of The Day.

Quote I

The ONT is what it is. Misanthropic Humanitarian

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:59 PM | Comments (526) | Trackbacks (Suck)