US: The New Real Hoaxes? by Pete Hoekstra

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18778/us-real-hoaxes

The investigative reporting by these two organizations [the New York Times and the Washington Post] was so thorough and groundbreaking it turned up things that were not even there.
For having refused to rescind these awards, the Pulitzer Committee should receive its own Pulitzer — for fraud.
The real hoax appears to have been the CCP’s ostensible good behavior and the now-hugely-discredited initial reporting on the virus.
Or how about the Hunter Biden laptop cover-up? Once again, On October 14, 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, a critical story of possible extensive influence-peddling with senior intelligence officers in the CCP, Russia and Ukraine by the son of a presidential candidate. The contents of the laptop raised questions that the candidate at the time, Vice President Joe Biden, could be compromised. The entire subject was decisively pushed aside, along with the potential threat to national security that such an eventuality might entail.
Also not allowed during the January 6th hearings have been any witnesses for the defense, any cross-examination, or any exculpatory evidence.
One wonders, for instance if the January 6th Committee will consider the July 29, 2022 tweet by General Keith Kellogg, that on January 3, 2021, Trump, in front of witnesses, did indeed ask for “troops needed” for January 6. Kellogg wrote: “I was in the room.”
The January 6th Committee has also not released any information about government informants or FBI undercover law enforcement officers who might have been in the crowd, and Pelosi is also said to be blocking access to a massive quantity of documents. Finally, according to attorney Mark Levin, under the Constitution’s separation of powers, Congress, has no legitimacy even to hold a criminal investigation: that power belongs to the Judiciary. The entire proceeding is illegitimate and a usurpation of power.
Is it surprising that after the Pulitzer decision, the Russia collusion hoax, the Whitmer kidnapping hoax, the Covid origin hoax, the Hunter Biden laptop hoax, and now the January 6th Committee hoax, that many Americans believe there is something wrong with the system?

Recently former US President Donald Trump challenged the award of Pulitzer Prizes to the New York Times and the Washington Post for their investigative reporting on alleged collusion between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russia.

We’re All Condemned to Forever Fight About the Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb on Japan By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/08/07/were-all-condemned-to-forever-fight-about-the-decision-to-drop-the-atomic-bomb-on-japan-n1619047

“Most sane people wish that the use of the atomic bomb had not been necessary. But no matter where you come down on the question, the undeniable truth is that dropping the bomb ended the war. And if there’s nothing moral about war to begin with — except its quick and decisive ending in victory — that might be the best argument for using it to this day.”

The date of Aug. 6, 1945, is solemnly remembered in Japan and much of the world as marking the first use of an atomic weapon. Whether that act by the United States was necessary has been the subject of scholarly debate and barroom disputes for 77 years.

What isn’t in dispute is that 77 years ago, Col. Paul Tibbets, commander of the 509th Composite Group and pilot of a plane he named after his mother — the Enola Gay — flew over Hiroshima’s Aioi Bridge and began to bank his aircraft.

Just as Tibbets started his turn, the B-29 lurched violently as 10,000 pounds of American technical, industrial, and scientific ingenuity fell out of the bomb bay almost exactly on schedule (navigator Capt. Theodore Van Kirk’s calculations of time over target were 15 seconds off). Little Boy, they called it, in an ironic juxtaposition to its massive bulk. It was a gun-type nuclear bomb — a crude, primitive, inefficient device by our standards. And for all the effort, money, time, and brainpower that went into designing it, Little Boy was simplicity incarnate.

Everything is Worse – and You are Just Supposed to Take It Lower your expectations, serfs. Kurt Schlichter

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/everything-worse-and-you-are-just-supposed-take-it-kurt-schlichter/

If you peasants can be convinced to settle for less, that would sure be convenient for our garbage ruling caste since it has proven itself utterly incapable of even marginal performance in achieving merely the bare minimum standards of its job. Do you have security? How about prosperity? Does the future look bright?

No. 

No, everything is much, much worse now than it was just a few years ago, and you are insane, stupid, and/or an insurrectionist for merely noticing, much less saying so. It’s all a conspiracy theory, the “conspiracy” being seeing and talking about what everyone sees is happening right in front of us. 

Speaking of worse, why are 90% of airplane passengers complete idiots starting the moment they get on board? 

Lower Your Expectations, Serfs

You are asking for too much, you terrible person. You want cheap gas and a functioning supply chain, air conditioning and not to eat bugs. But most of all, you expect the elite to actually do its job, and for that, you are terrible. And racist. 

Bums litter our streets figuratively and – in ghastly form – literally. Criminals run rampant unmolested by the gendarmes, who have been told – expressly and impliedly – to let the crooks be. Our economy is sensational, groovy, glorious – except for the inflation and the hollowing out of your 401K. Try to buy a house instead of renting – just try. 

The globalist elite has failed in doing what we want, but it seems to be doing what it wants. It is gathering power and payoffs unto itself, and that is precisely the goal. If we are worrying about feeding our families – and they control the food – then we are less likely to get uppity and demand that our elite not suck. 

Nancy Pelosi’s Childlike Diplomacy Mirrors America’s Childlike Posture Toward China The Chinese have done and will do a great deal of damage to America, but not nearly as much as we have done to ourselves. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/07/nancy-pelosis-childlike-diplomacy-mirrors-americas-childlike-posture-toward-china/

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sin was not in going to Taiwan per se. Rather, after announcing her destination, the California Democrat then sorta kinda hesitated in deer-in-the-headlights fashion under threat from the Chinese.  

So, by her back-and-forth media announcements, she added to the endemic strategic confusion at the White House and Pentagon that opposed her visit. Pelosi never gave a reason why she was going to Taiwan, except to note after the fact that as a child, she used to like China and at the beach would dig in the sand to reach Beijing.

In other words, in her eight decades since infancy, Pelosi has not yet learned the difference between Chinese Taiwan and the Chinese Communist mainland and has come up with no greater affinity with the Chinese than remembering as a child vainly digging in the sand to reach them.

The internal administration discord reminded the Chinese that the Biden Administration can still become even more inept than it has been since its inaugural humiliation in Anchorage, Alaska. 

And lastly, Pelosi showboated with loud freedom rhetoric while carrying a mere twig.

So, yes, ostensibly, it was silly for Nancy Pelosi to freelance in foreign policy by going to Taiwan. She has no record of any foreign policy accomplishment.

Ever since her first speakership 15 years ago, Pelosi has always seen foreign policy as an arena to embarrass her political opponents. We remember her dishonest post-9/11 public reversals about enhanced interrogations, and her all-but-rooting-for the surge in Iraq to fail.

Gaza: The Usual Suspects Condemn Israel by Richard Kemp

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18784/gaza-condemn-israel

Commenting on the killing of Zawahiri, UN Secretary General’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN was “committed to fighting against terrorism and strengthening international cooperation in countering that threat”.

Of course it was a different story when Israel acted against Jabari. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland was “deeply concerned” by “the targeted killing today of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader inside Gaza.”

Israel has not claimed its operation in Gaza — codenamed Breaking Dawn — is to deter. The government has made it clear that the strikes were to prevent an imminent threat to the Israeli population. It had hard intelligence that PIJ, led by Jabari, was planning attacks across the border from Gaza. Protecting its people from violent external attack is not only permitted under international law, it is the duty of every government. If deterrence of such attacks were possible, Israel would have taken action to deter.

PIJ is an Iranian proxy, directed and funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Its leader, Ziad Nakhaleh, has been in Tehran for the last few days, meeting with his IRGC paymasters and other government officials including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

As PIJ and its fellow jihadists have indiscriminately fired an estimated 400 missiles (at time of writing) at targets from Sderot to Tel Aviv since Operation Breaking Dawn began, the IDF has continued to launch precision strikes from the air and the ground to halt the attacks on Israeli citizens. Just as Israel’s casus belli for attacking PIJ targets was lawful, it has taken the utmost care to ensure its continued strikes are also lawful, only attacking targets that are proportionate and necessary to the military objectives and giving warnings where civilian casualties could occur.

We can expect non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch to pile on. Amnesty International, however, might be slightly more circumspect as they are at present gyrating from the widespread international reproach that greeted their just-published report condemning Ukraine’s defensive actions, in which they again showed the total incomprehension of war and the laws of war that they often demonstrate in their denunciations of Israel.

Slavering for the last two days at the prospect of IDF-inflicted mass casualties, much of the media immediately and without any evidence eagerly pointed the finger at Israel over the tragic killing of seven people, including four children, in Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip. They will undoubtedly try, but journalists and UN investigators will find it hard to refute the IDF’s confirmation that they did not strike the location and have conclusive video and radar evidence that the deaths were caused by a misfired PIJ rocket, launched as so often from within the civilian population. This would certainly fit, as approximately a quarter of all terrorist rockets fired so far during this campaign have landed inside Gaza, not in Israel.

A week ago US President Joe Biden ordered the elimination of Al Qaida boss Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul. A few days later Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid ordered the elimination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander Tayseer al-Jabari in Gaza. These were two of a kind: mass killers whose sole purpose was to inflict pain, death and destruction on ordinary decent people to bring about their vision of Islamic conquest.

Americans Very Worried About Biden’s Mental Health: I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/08/americans-very-worried-about-bidens-mental-health-ii-tipp-poll/

Even before he became president, the now-79-year-old Joe Biden faced serious and persistent questions about his mental health. Among average Americans, those questions have become a major issue, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

The I&I/TIPP Poll, conducted online from Aug. 2-4 among 1,335 adults nationwide, shows that a 59% majority now say they are “very concerned” (36%) or “somewhat concerned” about Biden’s mental health.

That compares with just 39% saying they are “not very concerned” (18%) or “not at all concerned” (21%). Only 2% of respondents said they were “not sure.” The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

As is most often the case when the public is asked about a politician, the perception of the president’s mental health varies sharply by party affiliation.

Among Democrats, for instance, just 39% of Democrats say they are worried about Biden’s mental condition, versus 82% of Republicans and 56% of independents. But that 39% of Democrats, while not a majority, is still significantly high.

John Kerry: Not in China’s Lane By Andrew Stuttaford

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/john-kerry-not-in-chinas-lane/

One of the more appalling moments in a political career lacking much in the way to celebrate was the time when John Kerry appeared to shrug his shoulders at genocide. He had more important things to worry about, you see.

As a reminder (via the New York Post, November 11, 2021):

US special climate envoy John Kerry sidestepped a question about China’s use of slave labor during the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference on Wednesday, saying the issue was “not my lane.”

Kerry was responding to a query from a reporter who asked the former secretary of state if he had mentioned human rights issues — including Beijing’s “use of forced labor in Xinjiang for building solar panels” — during recent meetings with Chinese leaders.

“Well, we’re honest. We’re honest about the differences, and we certainly know what they are and we’ve articulated them, but that’s not my lane here,” Kerry said. “That’s — my job is to be the climate guy, and stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”…

Throughout his time as President Biden’s special envoy, Kerry has urged China to “be part of the solution.”

“Climate is existential for everybody on the planet,” he said in May. “We have to deal with it and because China is nearly 30 percent of all the emissions on the planet, China’s got to be part of the solution.”

The Chinese, however, do not seem to see things the same way. To the extent that they have invested in renewables, it’s either been as a business opportunity (and one that it has used to leave the West dangerously reliant on Chinese suppliers) or as part of the country’s current drive to a form of autarky.

Ron DeSantis is right to suspend Tampa’s woke prosecutor Andrew Warren doesn’t get to be a one-man legislature: Charles Lipson

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ron-desantis-was-right-to-suspend-tampas-woke-prosecutor/

This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made another shrewd political move, showing why many Republicans think he is their best shot to win back the White House. DeSantis suspended Tampa’s woke prosecutor, Andrew Warren, for failing to do his duty and enforce the law. The governor didn’t just assert his power. He laid out a clear, detailed, substantive case for why he is suspending Warren from office.

DeSantis’s move was both smart politically and sound constitutionally (assuming the courts uphold his suspension). Let’s take the politics first.

Poll after poll shows rising crime is one of the country’s top issues, second only to inflation. What DeSantis’s suspension of Warren did was to make crime and punishment his own issue — one he was willing to act upon. That’s a big national story, not only because crime is so important but because Warren is one of many “Justice Democrat” prosecutors under fire for coddling criminals. Voters are fed up. They are tired of lax law enforcement and “soft on crime” prosecutors. They want safety and protection, and they want it done fairly, without excessive force or racial prejudice.

The public understands that governments have a core duty to protect citizens and their property. Local governments in particular are charged with shielding law-abiding people from criminals, thugs, thieves, and predators. They know that the best way to deter crimes tomorrow is to catch and punish criminals today.

The Grasshopper Elite and Its Enemy Unfortunately, those loud and troublesome pests, though few, control almost all the levers of political and state police power. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/06/the-grasshopper-elite-and-its-enemy/

Many publications provide their writers with “style sheets,” a list of dos and don’ts with respect to things like diction, punctuation, grammar, and linguistic etiquette. My personal list of “dos” includes the Oxford comma (apples, oranges, and pears: that last comma is requisite) and, in most cases, using the singular masculine pronoun after collective nouns like “everyone” and “someone” (e.g., “Everyone likes to have his [not ‘their’] own way”).

Style sheet prescriptions (and proscriptions) can be more elaborate, and can affect substantive as well as stylistic matters. Over the last year or so, I have noticed an innovation, at once stylistic and substantive, that has taken root throughout the regime media. It is this: whenever referring to Donald Trump and the 2020 presidential election, be sure to insert editorial comments to the effect that any concerns about the fairness of that election are “baseless” or the result of “lies.”

I do not remember when I first noticed these little injections of partisan squid ink, but by now they are ubiquitous in the anti-Trump fraternity. Just one example: in a column Saturday about Donald Trump’s weekend rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the writer claimed Trump “spent much of his speech focusing on his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election” (emphasis added).

To the writing teachers out there, let me ask: Would that sentence have been better—less obviously partisan, hence more persuasive—had the word “baseless” been omitted?

Or how about this bit from later on in the piece: “Trump spent much of his speech touting the accomplishments of his term as president . . . and promoting the lie that the 2020 election was ‘rigged and stolen’” (again, emphasis added). What do you think?

Or how about this: Trump was in Wisconsin “ostensibly” to stump for Tim Michels, the person Trump backs for Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary, but he devoted much of his speech “focusing on his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”

This last sentence offers connoisseurs of cant not one but two morsels to chew on.

Gaslighting: How the Mainstream Media Tries to Drive You to the Left By Chris Queen

https://pjmedia.com/columns/chris-queen/2022/08/06/gaslighting-how-the-mains

It’s no secret that the mainstream media has abandoned objective reporting for a long time. The left-leaning — and often more than leaning — narratives from the press are hard to miss.

But there’s more at play than just reporting the news from one particular viewpoint. The mainstream media, along with social media and cultural tastemakers, attempt to lead the public to question anything that doesn’t hew to a far-left narrative. The end result, in the hopeful minds of the media, is that everyone who consumes their media will move to the left politically and culturally.

It’s a form of what we’ve come to know as gaslighting. For the uninitiated, gaslighting is “intentionally distorting reality to make you feel like what you’re seeing or feeling isn’t real,” according to Forbes. The term came from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) manipulates his wife (Ingrid Bergman, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role) into thinking that she’s insane.

Instead of making you think you’re crazy, the media wants you to think that your conservative, libertarian, or even non-woke liberal beliefs are insane. And it’s masterful manipulation.