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April 2022

Biden’s new ‘misinformation czar’ is a Hunter laptop denier Fox guarding the henhouse much?Stephen L. Miller

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/hunter-laptop-denier-jankowicz-biden-disinformation-board/

The Biden team is following in Barack Obama’s footsteps by launching a Disinformation Governance Board. And the current administration is even one-upping the former president by employing the Department of Homeland Security to combat what it calls “misinformation.”

Obama created a website in 2011 called “Attack Watch” to counter what his 2012 campaign would label as smears and lies. In 2013, his surrogate Stephanie Cutter was appointed head of his Organizing for Action “Truth Team.” Just last week, Obama waded back into the debate about “disinformation” without any sense of self-awareness or irony.

Biden’s disinformation board is, however, less forthcoming with its own information. Will the department have cabinet members? Must its directors be approved by Congress? Who knows? The Biden administration sure isn’t saying.

The Disinformation Governance Board already has a director. Politico reports that Nina Jankowicz has been tapped to help the Biden White House counter what it calls “misinformation related to homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia.”

The problem is that Jankowicz has her own history of trafficking disinformation. In October 2020, for instance, she tweeted:

In the same month, she again tweeted about Hunter’s laptop, writing:

It’s been confirmed, of course, not only by the New York Post, which broke the original story, but also by the Washington Post and New York Times, that Hunter Biden’s laptop and emails are real and not a product of Russian misinformation.

Ignorance And Apathy: Cal Thomas

https://townhall.com/columnists/calthomas/2022/04/28/ignorance-and-apathy-n2606424

There’s an old joke about a fictitious poll taker who asked people what they thought about ignorance and apathy when it comes to politics and elections. One respondent said, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”

I thought of that joke after seeing a recent YouGov poll. It shows a vast gap between what people believe to be true and what is verifiably true.

Here are a few examples. According to the poll, transgender individuals make up just 1 percent of the U.S. population, yet people believe the estimated proportion is 21 percent. Only about 1 percent of U.S. households earn more than $500,000 a year, but the survey shows respondents believe 26 percent earn more than that amount.

Three percent of the U.S. population identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, but the survey shows people think the figure is 30 percent. The Black population of the country is 12 percent, but people surveyed think it is 41 percent. Hispanic? The actual number is 17 percent, while the perception is 39 percent. It is the same for atheists: 3 percent (actual) vs. 33 percent (perception).

What accounts for this vast disparity between perception and reality? It can only be the news and entertainment media and what they choose to highlight, as well as the bias they bring to subjects and issues they seek to promote, denigrate, or ignore.

As James Freeman recently noted in The Wall Street Journal: “The current custom in journalism holds that legislation sponsored by Democrats carries the title preferred by Democrats, while a Republican-sponsored bill carries the title preferred by Democrats.” He cites President Biden’s “Build Back Better” proposal, which is about raising taxes and increased spending. The media call the measure by his preferred label. Compare that to “Florida’s new law shielding 7-year-olds from state-sponsored gender identity,” which the media and activists insist on labeling the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

A post-Holocaust question: Why does the war against the Jews continue? Those who support Palestinianism want something very simple—another Holocaust. Moshe Dann

https://www.jns.org/writers/moshe-dann/

The defeat of the Nazis in World War II ended the Holocaust, but the war against the Jews continued. Muslims and the British administration in Palestine sought to prevent Israel’s establishment, and in 1948, five Arab armies invaded the newly established Jewish state with the intention of wiping it out. Egypt, Syria and other countries planned to attack again in 1967, but were stopped when Israel launched a preemptive strike. The war against the Jews still went on, however, led by the PLO and, more recently, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.

Although the Nazis were defeated and condemned, their anti-Jewish ideology was adopted by Palestinian leaders, institutions and terrorists. It is explicit in the PLO Covenant and the Hamas Charter, broadcast daily by Palestinian media and taught in Palestinian schools.

Most people, however, don’t understand what Palestinianism is. They think it’s about the desire of a group of people for a homeland, a state and self-determination. It’s not. It’s about destroying Israel. Attempts to satisfy Palestinian demands and efforts to engage in a “peace process” inevitably fail when they confront this reality.

Palestinianism is based on the Palestinian narrative that Israel has no right to exist and that the Jews stole their homeland. In doing so, goes the narrative, the Jews expelled Palestinian Arabs during the war of 1948, most of whom moved to neighboring countries. These refugees have been cared for ever since as “refugees” by the U.N. agency UNRWA in order to perpetuate the Palestinian concept of the “the Nakba” (catastrophe)—that is, Israel’s existence. Over the ensuing decades, Arabs and their supporters have demanded that Israel withdraw to the 1949 Armistice lines, evacuate Jews from areas which the IDF acquired in 1967 and allow all Arabs who are considered refugees—and their descendants—to return to Israel and reclaim their property in what is called “the right of return.”

In groundbreaking step, Muslim delegation participates in 2022 March of the Living “This is crazy what we’re doing. We’re in Auschwitz, a delegation of Arabs and Israelis. I hope that in 10 to 20 years’ time, this won’t be news,” said Rawan Osman. By David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/in-groundbreaking-step-muslim-delegation-participates-in-2022-march-of-the-living/

A Muslim group including participants from across the Arab world took part for the first time in the International March of the Living, the annual 1.9-mile walk from the concentration camp at Auschwitz to the extermination camp of Birkenau in Poland to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. The precedent-setting move was the brainchild of Sharaka, an organization of young Israeli and Gulf State leaders formed in the wake of the Abraham Accords.

The 18-member delegation, including social influencers, professors and journalists, came from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey and Israel, said Amit Deri, founder and CEO of Sharaka.

Deri said the idea to participate in the March of the Living, which takes place annually on Israel’s Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, came to fruition gradually, starting with a trip in December 2020 for young Arab influencers to Israel, in which they visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the Holocaust.

“After that visit, they said they wanted to listen to a Holocaust survivor, who would tell them the story. So last year, we held a Zoom event with more than 250 people from all over the Arab world. It was during COVID-19, and we couldn’t come here,” Deri told JNS on the grounds of Auschwitz.

“We promised that the next time it would be possible to be here on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we would come,” he said.

Deri attributes the timing of the visit to the Abraham Accords agreements signed between Israel and several Muslim states in the fall of 2020. “It has allowed people to express themselves. They feel more comfortable than they did three or four years ago,” he said, adding that the Muslim participants are “definitely” taking a risk and could face backlash in their home countries. “They’re brave to do it, and we appreciate them for doing so.”

McConnell’s ‘Exhilarating’ Insurrection When it comes to January 6, there are no coincidences.  By Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/28/mcconnells-exhilarating-insurrection/

A dirty little secret about January 6—one of many—is that Democrats and establishment Republicans, not Trump supporters, wanted to shut down the official proceedings of that day.

Just as the first wave of protesters breached the building shortly after 2 p.m., congressional Republicans were poised to present evidence of rampant voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Ten incumbent and four newly-elected Republican senators planned to work with their House colleagues to demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate election “irregularities” in the 2020 election. Absent an audit, the group of senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states.

The Hail Mary effort was doomed to fail; yet the American people would have heard hours of debate related to provable election fraud over the course of the day.

And no one opposed the effort more than ex-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). 

During a conference call on December 31, 2020, McConnell urged his Republican Senate colleagues to abandon plans to object to the certification, insisting his vote to certify the 2020 election results would be “the most consequential I have ever cast” in his 36-year Senate career.

From the Senate floor on the afternoon of January 6, McConnell gave a dramatic speech warning of the dire consequences to the country should Republicans succeed in delaying the vote. He downplayed examples of voting fraud and even mocked the fact that Trump-appointed judges rejected election lawsuits. 

“The voters, the courts, and the States have all spoken,” McConnell insisted. “If we overrule them, it would damage our Republic forever. If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral.”

Putin’s Genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18474/putin-genocide-on-holocaust-memorial-day

If there are aliens who have taken a road trip to our remote part of the Milky Way they must be deeply appalled at what they continue to find here – most recently the calculated campaign by Putin’s Russian Army to murder civilians in Ukraine.

If those aliens have conquered time and space they would have found that their periodic visits have witnessed one form of genocide or another through virtually every century of human “civilization” on this globe.

Before going any further, it would be wise to define the term. Wikipedia says “Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people — usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group — in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944,[1][2] combining the Greek word γένος (genos, “race, people”) with the Latin suffix -caedo (“act of killing”).[3]”

Historians suggest that they can chronicle the first act of genocide, Rome’s march against Carthage, with Marcus Cato quoted as justifying the coming massacre by asking his fellow Roman Senators, “Who are the ones who have waged war most cruelly? … Who are the ones who have ravaged Italy? The Carthaginians.”

In the Roman Legion siege that followed, historians say that at least 150,000 Carthaginians perished, many of them civilians, with one Roman remarking that “the number of deaths was incredibly high…”

The tyrants that followed throughout history would probably describe that butcher’s bill as just one day’s worth of work: there would be much worse to follow. Historians say we still do not appreciate the ruthless brutality of Genghis Khan.

EU-China Relations: “Downward Spiral” by Soeren Kern

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18476/eu-china-relations

“For us Ukraine is the defining moment on whether we live in a world governed by rules or by force. We condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine and support this country’s sovereignty, democracy, not because we follow the US blindly, as sometimes China’s suggests, but because it is our position. This was an important message for the Chinese leadership to hear.” — EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

“We underlined that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not only a defining moment for our continent, but also for our relationship with the rest of the world. There must be respect for international law, as well as for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” — President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

“At the EU-China summit last Friday, the differences between Brussels and Beijing were palpable. The summit had no deliverables, no joint statement, and no joint press conference. Beijing would not clarify that it would not circumvent sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine. The distance between the EU and China seems to be increasing, with no turnaround in sight.” — Theresa Fallon, Director, Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies.

“What we’re observing now is an ongoing process by China and Russia to attempt to demolish the economic, security and normative order in Europe and beyond. This leads to the conclusion that China is neither a partner nor an economic competitor.” — Justyna Szczudlik, China analyst, Polish Institute of International Affairs.

“China does not want Brussels to coordinate its China strategy with Washington. But in its constant repetition of this theme, Beijing misses the point: Europe has its own concerns about China, independently of the United States… If Beijing continues to back Russia, the EU’s most direct security threat, how deep can the China-EU partnership really be?” — Shannon Tiezzi, Editor-in-Chief, The Diplomat.

“Mr. Putin is trying to redraw Europe’s borders by force, and Mr. Xi will not condemn him…. Mr. Putin has shown Europe that it needs a new China policy.” — The Economist.

A much-anticipated EU-China Summit, the first since 2020, has ended as both a failure and a success: a failure because the two sides were unable to agree on anything of bilateral importance; a success because after years of kowtowing to China, European officials finally stood their ground. EU-China relations are now on a new footing: Beijing no longer calls the shots.

Georgetown University’s free speech double standard By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/georgetown_universitys_free_speech_double_standard.html

On April 26, Georgetown University histed a talk by Mohammed El-Kurd, who has said that Jews have an “unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood,” and other viciously antisemitic statements. World Israel News reports:

Mohammed El-Kurd, a media personality who has repeatedly accused Israel of harvesting and trafficking organs from Palestinians and described Zionists as “sadistic, barbaric Neo-Nazi pigs” was invited by Georgetown Law’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine.

News of El-Kurd’s talk sparked a response from the NGOs StopAntisemitism and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which urged the university to intervene and disinvite him.

“Administrations like Georgetown’s state they’re against antisemitism yet allow Jew haters like Mohammed El-Kurd to freely spread hatred against Jews on their campuses,” StopAntisemitism wrote on its twitter account on Monday. “Enough is enough — cancel El-Kurd’s speech ASAP!”

“Mohammed El-Kurd has a long, ugly history of antisemitic incitement & conspiratorial rhetoric that goes far beyond reasoned criticism of Israel,” the ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblat tweeted. “Outrageous & indefensible that @GeorgetownLaw invited him to bring his hate to their campus.”

The University brushed aside these concerns, claiming to to be on the side of free speech.

During a meeting with Jewish students concerned about El-Kurd’s campus appearance, Georgetown Law’s dean said that the university prioritizes free speech.

“We allow a huge amount of latitude even where speech is deeply offensive to some members of the community, some or even many,” Dean Mitch Bailin is heard saying in an audio recording of the meeting obtained by the National Review.

“Those are things that we think are important to educational values, to promoting free speech, to promoting a free discussion of ideas, even if those ideas are deeply, deeply offensive.”

The comical buffoonery of Biden’s new disinformation czarina By Thomas Lifson

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/the_comical_buffoonery_of_bidens_new_disinformation_czarina.html

I confess to alternating between fear and scornful laughter when it comes to the newly announced Disinformation Governance Board that DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced April 27 in a Senate hearing. The blatant violation of the First Amendment, the lack of Congressional authorization, the blatant choice of topics of focus (immigration and Russia in Spanish Language media) right before an election and the utter ridiculousness of the woman named to head, it all make it hard for me to take this Orwellian state organ seriously.

Yet, Joe Biden sits on the Oval Office and commands the federal bureaucracy, which is seeming eager to accommodate plans that would expand their powers over the citizenry.

Still, the selection of Nina Jankowicz to head the organization inclines me to laughter. Tucker Carlson began his May 28, 2022 show with a segment on Jankowicz that was alternately horrifying and hilarious. You must see her TikTok video in which she uses the tune from Mary Poppins, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, to express her deep thoughts. 

Watch and weep… with tears of laughter:

In New Documentary, Inventor Of mRNA Tech Reiterates Safety Concerns That Got Him Banned By: Alasdaire Fleitas

https://thefederalist.com/2022/04/28/in-new-documentary-inventor-of-mrna-tech-reiterates-safety-concerns-that-got-him-banned/

In a recent documentary about Robert Malone on the Epoch Times’s “Headwind” series, the inventor of mRNA technology slams the current major use of his own invention as unsafe, despite attempts by major communications platforms to shut him down.

Malone, a widely cited research scientist who is also a medical doctor, has also been ostracized by some scientists and government agencies since criticizing the widespread use of his own vaccine technology and calling out government agencies for not following proper safety protocols. Major tech companies such as Google and Twitter banned his interviews from their platforms and punish websites that publish his comments.

“I believe that a large fraction of the population accepted the vaccine under coercive conditions and were not provided full informed consent,” Malone told The Federalist in an interview about the documentary. “I suspect that [without coercion] a much smaller fraction of the population would have accepted multiple vaccine doses. Furthermore, if early treatment had been made available, public health outcomes would have been better.”

The Covid-19 injections mandated by many governments and employers are “the largest experiment performed on human beings in the history of the world,” Malone tells journalist Jakobien Huisman in the Epoch Times documentary exploring both his professional career and his electrifying effect on public debate since appearing on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” That viral podcast interview led to massive corporate pressure against Rogan, who agreed to modify his guest list as a result.

Malone believes the new kind of vaccine technology used in the Covid injections, which he helped create, is unsafe. He comes to that conclusion, he says in the documentary, due to the speed at which it was approved, regulatory safety protocols that were not followed, and a lack of rigorously verified data before the medical treatments were forced on millions worldwide.