This is so factually powerful/potent that it bears reposting. Most liberals will not acknowledge because it cuts the ground out from under their hypocrisy and leaves them bare to reality.
The New Disinformationists
By Victor Davis Hanson
We have seven more months before the midterms. Expect more disinformation ministries, censorious czars, and hack grandees to emerge.
The Biden Administration feels that it must now use federal resources to attack “disinformation.” So the Department of Homeland Security recently announced the creation of a “disinformation governance board.”
The board’s executive director, Nina Jankowicz, at least has clear qualifications for the post. She previously had spread false rumors on social media that Donald Trump voters would show up at the polls in 2020 armed, and joined the mob’s chorus that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.” Perhaps the idea behind her hiring was “it takes one to know one.”
Although the new board’s mandate is unclear, the idea seems to be that Jankowicz and her colleagues will use the federal government’s powers to adjudicate what Americans say as either true or false—and to suppress as “disinformation” anything it doesn’t find useful.
The new war against “disinformation” follows the narratives of the “insurrection” on January 6, the “democracy dies in darkness” return of Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin as a mastermind gasoline price-spiker. Such narratives are intended to distract us from the Biden disaster and the ongoing assault against constitutional freedom.
When things turn south for the administration, Barack Obama—a sagging Netflix’s $50-million “idea man”—usually emerges from one of his three mansions in Hawaii, Martha’s Vineyard, or Kalorama to lecture clingers and deplorables on various threats they pose to the anointed.
His sermons usually project his own transgressions. Recently, Obama went to Stanford University, in the heart of Silicon Valley, to admonish us that new free speech platforms might tolerate incorrect expression that he and the Left smear as “hate speech.”
But is not Barack Obama ill-suited to lecture anyone on disinformation? Do we remember his Obamacare version of disinformation: “You can keep your doctor; you can keep your plan”? Do we recall “shovel-ready jobs”?
Obama was caught secretly promising Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev that the United States would deal away missile defense in Eastern Europe for Vladimir Putin’s good behavior (“but it’s important for him to give me space”) during his 2012 reelection bid. Was this transparency or another example of how, but for a hot mic, “democracy dies in darkness”? Could Eastern Europeans have used such a discarded anti-missile system today?
Who employed the misinformationist Christopher Steele to slander presidential candidate Donald Trump? Was it James Comey’s FBI? Or Hillary Clinton’s campaign? Or the Democratic National Committee? Or the Perkins Coie legal firm? Or Fusion GPS? Or all combined? And which president was briefed regularly on his administration’s disinformation war against Trump?
For that matter, which media company banned any coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story? Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post? Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook? Jack Dorsey’s Twitter?
Or all of them?
Projection is a left-wing trademark. What it accuses in others reveals what it seeks to hide within itself. So when we hear Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announcing this war on disinformation, we suspect he is our master disinformationist. Is it not his agency that is airlifting illegal aliens in the dead of night to regional airports rather than transparently, in the light of day? Is that “disinformation dies in darkness”?
What happened to the Biden Administration’s furious charges that the mounted border patrol was “whipping” innocent illegal aliens? When a federal investigation cleared the accused, did Mayorkas correct his own administration’s disinformation and apologize?
Who should we expect next to lecture the nation on the dangers of “disinformation”? A paroled and once-leftist heartthrob Michael Avanetti? Joe Biden himself on his own supposed ignorance of Hunter’s cronies? CNN and MSNBC on Hunter Biden’s “Russian disinformation” laptop?
Will Anthony Fauci weigh in on the nonexistence of federal funding for gain-of-function research at Wuhan? Will Robert Mueller reemerge to restate yet again that he never knew anything of the Steele dossier? Will James Comey go back under oath to claim another 245 times he cannot remember? Will John Brennan lie a third time under oath before Congress, James Clapper a second time, or Andrew McCabe mislead a fourth federal investigator?
What about those 51 former intelligence officials who convinced voters before the election that Hunter’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”? Would Nina Jankowicz rule their letter of expertise “information,” “misinformation,” or “disinformation”?
Or perhaps we could hear warnings of organized misinformation from those blue-chip “17 Nobel Prize-winning economists” who vouched in a letter that Biden’s massive “Build Back Better” plan would not contribute to inflation that was indeed already ignited and beginning to blow up the economy?
Perhaps ex-felon and FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith could serve on the disinformation board, considering his keen eye for altered federal documents that advance false narratives. Hillary Clinton would also be a good candidate given her expertise in hiring sleuths like Michael Sussman to conjure phony Alfa-Bank stories?
So what are the catalysts for this sudden assault on free speech? Why is the Left now so worried after holding all the reins of power for 15 months? Why their embarrassing new Nineteen Eighty-Four-like Ministry of Information and Truth? And again, why no
First, the looming midterms well may see the greatest repudiation of leftwing politics in the last 100 years. Rarely do hardcore leftists gain the reins of the Senate, House, and presidency. And more rarely are the Democrats foolish enough to go full socialist and emulate failed statist regimes abroad. And yet they have now done both—and have managed to alienate much of the country.
Rarest of all is to have both a president and vice president who are force multipliers of the disasters that ensue from their policies. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are no JFK, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama. Instead, they make Jimmy Carter seem Ciceronian in comparison.
The one cognitively diminished, the other blindly confident in her puerile ignorance, only add to the public anger over their disastrous 15 months. Surging crime, a nonexistent border, historic inflation, sky-high energy prices, record deficits and debt, racial polarization and appeasement, war, and humiliation abroad were all self-inflicted catastrophes, the logical bitter fruit of a diseased socialist tree. So fear of not just losing in November but also losing in humiliating fashion has made the Left more desperate than usual.
Second, leftwing politics are the operational face of a much larger social and cultural revolution that has also sickened the public and alienated the majority of voters—and also is about to “circle back” on its creators.
The media, Silicon Valley, CEOs, deep state, Wall Street, academia, Hollywood, and professional sports represent a vision of the future of America that most voters do not want. The scolding faces of the rich and pampered political, corporate deep state, and celebrity progressive crowd—Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, John Kerry, the Disney crowd, George Soros, Anthony Fauci or James Comey, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, LeBron James, and Colin Kaepernick—grow wearisome and bore the public.
This erosion of our culture reflects the growing political discontent in insidious ways: the fall-off of Netflix subscribers, the utter corruption of Black Lives Matter, the humiliation of Disney, the rapid collapse of CNN+, the grassroots revolt against critical race theory and transgender tyranny.
Third, the Democratic Party no longer exists. It is now hard-left, as sanctimonious as it is shrill. Such zealots will not discard their ideology. Rather they would prefer to embrace dogma and stay unpopular than adopt and gain public approval.
Do not expect a suddenly closed border, an abrupt resumption of the Keystone XL Pipeline, or a tough new federal crime bill. Do anticipate more wild conspiracy theories, more Russian disinformation, and more Pravda-like ministries.
In this context, the emergence of Elon Musk as the Silicon Valley dragon slayer is emblematic of the ongoing left-wing nightmare.
As Musk pulls up the shades at Twitter, what are leftists to say: that billionaires should not become media barons, heretofore the pillars of the progressive movement? That suppressing free speech is more popular with the public than liberating expression? That some censorship is better than others?
We have seven more months before the midterms. As the disinformationists see no way out of their self-created Armageddon, expect more disinformation ministries, censorious czars, and hack grandees to emerge from the shadows.
As good Orwellians, they will try to convince us that high gas prices are welcome; negative growth is good; borders are ossified ideas; unaffordable housing aids the economy; inflation can prove useful; a declining stock market is encouraging; crime is a mere construct in the eye of the beholder.
Anyone who doubts all that will have a rendezvous with Nina Jankowicz.
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My very dear, politically savvy and fellow memo reader friend writes: "The Supreme Court just gave Pelosi and Schumer 2 more years as leaders:
Perhaps, certainly the leaker(s) so intended. The eventual backlash by "deplorables" could boomerang on the radicals.
What we have witnessed is what I always maintain. Liberals, if they are the source, will do anything to retain power because control, power over "we the people" rises above national interests. They are anarchists at heart?
Time will tell.
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Roe V Wade , in my opinion, only was a big government control everything Constitutional issue if one stretched. Always thought was a state matter. So now states will determine their own laws and one more victory for those who believe the government is too powerful and needs it's wings clipped as provided for in the Constitution.
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Larry Diamond On The United States And China: A Different Kind Of Superpower Competition
China’s use of global sharp power has placed the United States in a very different kind of superpower competition than it was with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
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Russian policy is shaped by a thuggish world where might makes right and therefore, Putin feels seemingly justified in threatening nuclear war as a strategy to cower the West.
The policies of the west continue to have a tinge of morality driving them and thus the chasm between the two world view. Fortunately, for the world, the evil doers, so far, have not prevailed though they have induced great damage. The West, albeit often late, does eventually respond and thus, for a while, prevails until the next episode of history unfolds.
Obviously, as the destructive level of military capability rises, the degree of danger and potential success shifts to the "first actor" and the response of the West is threatened in term of diminished effectiveness.
In chess, often the first move dictates the outcome of the match because the responding opponent is always moving in a defensive manner.
In the case of the current Ukraine War, the quality of the military equipment and the attitude and bravery of the Ukrainian people has shifted the advantage to the defense.
What I find somewhat haughty about Mead's article is this comment: "...the West generally thought of Ukraine as a strategic and economic backwater. It was a weak and corrupt state whose politics reflected shadowy struggles among oligarchs."
When you are not needed you are thought of one way and the opposite when you are more important. Merkel's Germanic pigheadedness' caused great unction for years in The West, Italy' corruption led to constant failure and thus dependency and Franc's excessive puffery has always been an historical burden. then there is Greece and Turkey. Not the most dependable of allies. Has Ukraine become the mouse that roared under Zelenskyy? Would even America be better ed were he our president?
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Another Cuban Missile Crisis?
With its echoes of the Cold War, Russia’s invasion has utterly altered world politics.
By Walter Russell Mead
The logic of war drove two high-powered visits to Ukraine last week. On a visit to the frontlines from Russia came Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of the military staff and the most senior uniformed officer in Vladimir Putin’s army. From the U.S. came Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arguably the wiliest and most accomplished leader of a Democratic Party that, for now, controls both houses of Congress as well as the White House. Gen. Gerasimov’s mission was to understand the forces holding Russia’s latest military offensive in check; Speaker Pelosi was in Ukraine to underline how important the country’s fight has become to the U.S. and to vow that it will stand with Ukraine “until victory is won.”
It isn’t surprising that the U.S. and Russia are sending senior leaders to the war zone. The war in Ukraine is the most serious European military conflict since World War II, and it threatens to produce the greatest nuclear crisis since the height of the Cold War. Both sides have been repeatedly surprised by the intense military conflict, and both sides keep raising the stakes even as the danger of nuclear confrontation grows.
For Mr. Putin the surprises were almost all bad. The initial attack collapsed into a slog through hostile terrain by an army whose leadership, intelligence and logistical failures have exposed the inner weakness of the decadent Russian state. Far from dividing and intimidating Europe, the attacks have energized and united the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, led to a revolution in German strategic thinking, and made it likely that Sweden and Finland will join the alliance even as it moves more forces closer to Russian territory.
Washington has encountered some strategic surprises of its own. President Biden’s strategy called for “parking Russia,” believing that diplomacy could prevent new conflicts in Eastern Europe. That calculation was obviously wrong. Once the war started, Ukraine did not, as Washington anticipated, quickly collapse. Ukraine’s initial successes led the U.S. to provide more help, but Washington’s unprecedented sanctions failed to weaken Mr. Putin’s resolve or shake his domestic political support.
Having been drawn this far into the conflict, Washington cannot now accept a Ukrainian defeat without a serious loss of honor and prestige. But even discounting the nuclear risks, the task of assisting a bankrupted Ukraine to prevail against larger Russian forces in a war of attrition is a daunting one. Currently, the Biden administration is committed to winning a war it thought wouldn’t happen on the side of a country it believed to be helpless in the face of dangers and difficulties it does not yet know how to assess.
The revolution in American thought about Ukraine is reminiscent of the changed perceptions of Korea in 1950. At that time, American policy makers signaled that South Korea was outside Washington’s defense perimeter—until the North Korea’s invasion led them to realize how important Korea was.
Before Mr. Putin’s invasion, the West generally thought of Ukraine as a strategic and economic backwater. It was a weak and corrupt state whose politics reflected shadowy struggles among oligarchs. Today we think of Ukraine as a strong democratic state whose security is critical to European stability.
This change in Western perceptions makes compromise much harder to find. A few weeks ago, appeasing Mr. Putin by feeding him more slices of Ukrainian territory in a “compromise peace” looked to many Western policy makers like the natural and necessary conclusion to the war. That approach now seems both morally repugnant and strategically vain. This changed view explains why Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Mrs. Pelosi have begun to speak of degrading Russian power and seeking victory for Ukraine.
This changing Western approach confirms Mr. Putin’s belief that the conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine is an existential one for Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia cannot truly be a great power, and the West is willing to fight to prevent Russia from achieving what, from Mr. Putin’s perspective, is an indispensable goal.
What is most notable about this crisis so far is the speed with which it has moved toward threats of nuclear war. Senior Russian officials like Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov are openly speculating about the possibility of nuclear escalation, presumably in hopes of deterring Western support for Ukraine. In its volatility and its ability to take both Russia and the West toward the nuclear option, the Ukraine war so far resembles the confrontational early decades of the Cold War, when nuclear threats from one or both powers routinely were invoked at moments of crisis. After the Nixon administration, such threats moved into the background as the superpowers adjusted to the balance of terror and the rules of the nuclear dance.
During the Cold War, the West used nuclear deterrence to offset the Soviet superiority in conventional forces in the European theater. Moscow’s huge armies might, at least initially, prevail in an attack across Germany, but the threat that NATO would retaliate with nuclear weapons kept Soviet aggression in check. Now, however, the evident weakness and disorder of Russian conventional forces suggests a new possibility: that a weaker Russia must try to deter NATO in Ukraine by nuclear threats.
The prospect of tactical nuclear strikes on the European mainland would, Mr. Putin undoubtedly hopes, test the cohesion of the NATO alliance. While nobody wants to be quoted on the record, senior Europeans are already whispering to sympathetic journalists about concerns that the Biden administration is escalating too far and too fast. Would France and Germany continue to back American policy if Russia strikes Ukrainian targets with nuclear warheads? Is American public opinion ready for a replay of the Cuban missile crisis?
The Ukraine war is not yet 10 weeks old, and it has already revolutionized world politics. The next 10 weeks could be even more dramatic. President Biden could soon face as stern a test as any American president has since World War II. We must hope, and pray, that he is up to the job.
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DUH: Media FINALLY Notices Hunter Biden's Ties To Joe.
After all he is the "Big Man's" son.
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