RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/homeland-securitys-disinformation?

The power to decree what is “disinformation” now determines what can and cannot be discussed on the internet. It is now in the hands of trained disinformation agents of the U.S. Security State.

The most egregious and blatant official U.S. disinformation campaign in years took place three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. That was when dozens of former intelligence officials purported, in an open letter, to believe that authentic emails regarding Joe Biden’s activities in China and Ukraine, reported by The New York Post, were “Russian disinformation.” That quasi-official proclamation enabled liberal corporate media outlets to uncritically mock and then ignore those emails as Kremlin-created fakes, and it pressured Big Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to censor the reporting at exactly the time Americans were preparing to decide who would be the next U.S. president.

The letter from these former intelligence officials was orchestrated by trained career liars — disinformation agents — such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Yet that letter was nonetheless crucial to discredit and ultimately suppress the New York Post’s incriminating reporting on Biden. It provided a quasi-official imprimatur — something that could be depicted as an authoritative decree — that these authentic emails were, in fact, fraudulent.

After all, if all of these noble and heroic intelligence operatives who spent their lives studying Russian disinformation were insisting that the Biden emails had all of the “hallmarks” of Kremlin treachery, who possessed the credibility to dispute their expert assessment? This clip from the media leader in spreading this CIA pre-election lie — CNN — features their national security analyst James Clapper, and it illustrates how vital this pretense of officialdom was in their deceitful disinformation campaign:

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/all-hail-americas-new-truth-czar?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lk

If you heard about the recent birth of a new government committee called the Disinformation Governance Board—which will operate out of the Department of Homeland Security and be run by a woman named Nina Jankowicz who writes songs about misinformation for fun—you could be forgiven for thinking you hit your head and woke up in 1984. Rest assured, you did not. It’s entirely real.

Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 @wiczipedia
You can just call me the Mary Poppins of disinformation 💁🏻‍♀️

Nina Jankowicz 🇺🇦🇺🇸 @wiczipedia

I had two on-camera interviews today and still have a face full of makeup; what should I make a TikTok about?

The Disinformation Governance Board, or the Ministry of Truth, as critics dubbed it, has an ambitious mission: to stop the spread of misinformation. That sounds nice. Except, what one woman calls “misinformation” another might just call “information.” As you may recall, recent stories labeled “misinformation” include some that look increasingly legit, like Hunter Biden’s forgotten laptop, the Covid lab leak theory, and Wayfair selling cabinets full of stolen children (ok, that one might actually be fake). 

While the federal government determining what’s true and what’s fiction may sound ominous, Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of Homeland Security, promises you that it’s not. Any rumors to the contrary, any concerns about this at all, are just more “misinformation,” he insists, and this new effort is designed purely to combat disinformation spread by human traffickers and the Russian government. Well, if there’s someone we should all trust, it’s definitely the guy who runs a surveillance service.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/05/obamas_fundamental_manipulation_of_free_speech.html

Setting the stage for the DHS announcement of the Biden Administration’s Disinformation Governance Board recently, at a Stanford University Cyber Policy Center symposium entitled, “Challenges to Democracy in the Digital Information Realm,” deceptive mind-control specialist Barack Obama emerged from behind his Joe Biden mask to deliver the keynote speech. 

According to the anonymous author of the 2009 Department of Homeland Security treatise on “right-wing extremism,” government needs to help companies better “…recognize the often-dangerous relationship between social media, nationalism [and] domestic hate groups” like pro-lifers, ex-military, Second Amendment supporters, Christians, and America-First patriots.

Well aware that the voice of the people threatens the trajectory of the global elite agenda, the former president used the opportunity to double down on what he does best, which is to manipulate minds with clever word games. The stunning effort focused on convincing the naïve that government control of public discourse somehow strengthens “democracy.”

Attempting to persuade Americans that controlling free speech correlates with democratic non-complacency, Obama argued that limiting freedom “nurtures” democracy by instituting a policy that runs counter to freedom.  

Credit where credit is due, the former president is masterful at presenting nonexistent consensuses as if they truly exist. Take for instance his suggestion that questioning the 2020 election threatens “democratic ideals” and is tantamount to affiliation with Putin, while simultaneously inferring everyone agrees that the 2016 election was stolen from Hillary.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/at-the-met-gala-a-night-of-gilded-irony/

When Edith Wharton wrote The Age of Innocence, her 1920 novel of the Gilded Age, she drew back the veil on the hypocrisy, arrogance, and tone-deafness of New York high society. She might have been surprised to see how today’s elites openly and explicitly embrace their gilded privilege.

Such was the case at last night’s Met Gala, the annual celebrity confab hosted by Vogue magazine’s Anna Wintour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Known for its bold red-carpet fashion and ostentation, the event is where the who’s-who of the entertainment, fashion, and corporate worlds, and sometimes politics, schmooze and party through the night on the first Monday in May. One of the world’s most exclusive social events, it’s been an ode to gilded — and guiltless — excess for the last 75 years. The Gala is followed by equally exclusive after-parties at Manhattan’s posh or hip hotels, including the Carlyle on the Upper East Side and the Standard in the Meatpacking District.

Metaphor and reality were fused at this year’s event, whose theme was, in fact, the Gilded Age. Perhaps Wintour chose that theme as a subtle yet searing joke on the attendees. Another interesting aspect of the evening was that, at both the Gala and the two after-parties, I observed that Covid seemed nonexistent. There was no proof of vaccination or negative test required for entry. Nor were masks required.

In itself, this is not a bad thing; Covid is receding and should be treated as a waning problem. What made it bad was the sheer hypocrisy.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/05/04/sen-ed-markey-is-a-dangerous-insurrectionist-who-must-be-canceled-for-his-attack-on-the-supreme-court/

The left’s freakout over a leaked draft of a Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade is hardly surprising. It has a collective breakdown whenever it loses on an issue, even a trivial one. But what did surprise us was the radical, downright insurrectionist talk spewed by at least one Democrat.

The unprecedented leak of a draft of a Supreme Court opinion – apparently in hopes that it would somehow change the outcome – was a sign of the left’s unbalanced mental state. As soon as the leak hit the internet, protests erupted, calls for packing the court and ending the filibuster re-emerged, and the hyperbole gushed forth.

Case in point is the statement from the two Democratic congressional leaders. “The Supreme Court is poised to inflict the greatest restriction of rights in the past 50 years – not just on women but on all Americans,” they screeched, adding that overturning Roe would be “an abomination, one of the worst and most damaging decisions in modern history.”

What really caught our eye, however, was what Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey said:

“A stolen, illegitimate, and far-right Supreme Court majority appears set to destroy the right to abortion, an essential right which protects the health, safety, and freedom of millions of Americans. There is no other recourse. We must expand the court.” 

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3474968-joe-biden-is-making-americans-poorer/

Americans are getting poorer by the day, and they can thank President Biden.

Too harsh? Not at all. Stock markets are crashing, costing Americans trillions of dollars, and home prices will likely follow. All of this is happening even though our economy remains essentially strong.

Why the disconnect? Americans are worried about inflation and don’t think the Biden administration can fix it without plunging our economy into recession. With the president still hawking even more government spending, higher business taxes and increased regulations – all of which will drive prices higher – why would they?

Almost from the start, Americans knew that Biden’s policies were wrong for the country. From the second quarter of Biden’s presidency, consumer sentiment has trended sharply lower, even as jobs were plentiful and consumers flush with cash.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index stood at 88.3 in April 2021; today it has dropped to 59.4, one of the lowest levels since 1980, when the data were first collected. A reading, for sure, completely out of kilter with 3.6 percent unemployment.

According to a Real Clear Politics average of polls, only 38 percent of the nation approves of Biden’s management of the economy.

First, the facts: The economy shrank by an annualized rate of 1.4 percent in the first quarter, not because consumers stopped spending but mainly because we had a big jump in our trade imbalance. Imports surged nearly 18 percent on an annualized basis while exports fell. Economists at ISI Evercore estimate the blowout in the trade gap crimped real GDP growth in the quarter by 3.2 percent.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com

If what we are hearing about Roe v. Wade is true, perhaps Congress will do what it should have done forty-nine years ago – pass a law that reflects the will of the people, rather than depend on the opinions of nine Supreme Court Justices.

“The best defense is a good offense,” is an adage that has been used by many, from George Washington to Mao Zedong. It has been adopted by the Democrat Party. Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter has Democrats atwitter. Columnist Leonard Pitt wrote that the purchase “will turn one of the world’s leading social-media platforms into an even greater transmitter of disinformation and hate…” Keep in mind, Mr. Pitt’s definition of disinformation includes only that uttered by conservatives.

Barack Obama, speaking at a conference organized by The Atlantic called “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy,” opined: “It’s very difficult to get out of the reality that is constructed for us.” Constructed by whom, one might ask? As the New York Sun editorialized, Obama’s words were an “apt description of what Mr. Obama and the Democrat Press have built. Forget the metaverse. This is an alternative reality.” Speaking at Stanford University, a few days later Mr. Obama added that social media censors don’t go far enough, suggesting the government must step in. Six days later, the Biden Administration announced the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), an Orwellian-like “Ministry of Truth.” Coincidence? The DGB’s mission is to separate fact from fiction for the American people. Its real purpose, I feel certain, is to censor information that does not accord with the Administration’s narrative. The Board will be chaired by Nina Jankowicz who will report to Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security. Ms. Jankowicz seems an odd choice, as she disbelieved the truth of Hunter Biden’s laptop, claiming it was Trump “disinformation.” On the other hand, she did believe Christopher Steele, the discredited purveyor of disinformation about the fake Russian collusion story.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/there-is-no-valid-defense-of-roe-thats-why-that-side-resorts-to-threats

Roe v. Wade “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” That was the conclusion in the Yale Law Journal of pro-choice legal scholar John Hart Ely.

“One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” That’s liberal legal scholar Laurence Tribe.

It’s near-consensus among legal scholars, even those who believe abortion should be legal, that Roe was a shoddy decision, not grounded in the Constitution.

“You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result,” wrote pro-choice scholar Kermit Roosevelt in the Washington Post.

“This is not surprising,” Roosevelt continued. “As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent.”

The Constitution quite obviously does not protect abortion as a fundamental right. Roe relied on a “right of privacy” “emanating” from a “penumbra” cast by actually enumerated rights. It was clearly motivated reasoning.

Abortion has thus been protected from democracy by a ruling that everyone knows is garbage, motivated reasoning . I’ve collected here many pro-choice legal scholars saying how bad Roe was.

Subject to scrutiny, Roe falls, and abortion defenders need to convince politicians to vote in order to strip unborn babies of any legal protections.

This is why the pro-Roe side is relying on threats to protect Roe. Democrats promise that they will declare the Supreme Court illegitimate if it doesn’t uphold their decision. That directly implies that they believe the federal government and state courts should disregard any subsequent rulings from the court.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-irrational-misguided-discourse?token=

Politico on Monday night published what certainly appears to be a genuine draft decision by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn the Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. Alito’s draft ruling would decide the pending case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which concerns the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy except in the case of medical emergency or severe fetal abnormalities. Given existing Supreme Court precedent that abortion can only be restricted after fetal viability, Mississippi’s ban on abortions after the 15th week — at a point when the fetus is not yet deemed viable — is constitutionally dubious. To uphold Mississippi’s law — as six of the nine Justices reportedly wish to do — the Court must either find that the law is consistent with existing abortion precedent, or acknowledge that it conflicts with existing precedent and then overrule that precedent on the ground that it was wrongly decided.

Alito’s draft is written as a majority opinion, suggesting that at least five of the Court’s justices — a majority — voted after oral argument in Dobbs to overrule Roe on the ground that it was “egregiously wrong from the start” and “deeply damaging.” In an extremely rare event for the Court, an unknown person with unknown motives leaked the draft opinion to Politico, which justifiably published it. A subsequent leak to CNN on Monday night claimed that the five justices in favor of overruling Roe were Bush 43 appointee Alito, Bush 41 appointee Clarence Thomas, and three Trump appointees (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett), while Chief Justice Roberts, appointed by Bush 43, is prepared to uphold the constitutionality of Mississippi’s abortion law without overruling Roe.

Draft rulings and even justices’ votes sometimes change in the period between the initial vote after oral argument and the issuance of the final decision. Depending on whom you choose to believe, this leak is either the work of a liberal justice or clerk designed to engender political pressure on the justices so that at least one abandons their intention to overrule Roe, or it came from a conservative justice or clerk, designed to make it very difficult for one of the justices in the majority to switch sides. Whatever the leaker’s motives, a decision to overrule this 49-year-old precedent, one of the most controversial in the Court’s history, would be one of the most significant judicial decisions issued in decades. The reaction to this leak — like the reaction to the initial ruling in Roe back in 1973 — was intense and strident, and will likely only escalate once the ruling is formally issued.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18475/election-integrity-dead

Many election operatives know that elections are won or lost because of process. For decades, one side has been focused on policy, big ideas, and winning debates. Meanwhile, the other side has been focused on process and the rules of the elections game.

[A] war is taking place around elections that has nothing to do with voting machines being controlled by Italian satellites or Internet hackers. They don’t need to be.

Election process fights have become a Darwinian “survival of the fittest.” Whichever side can effectively adapt to a new technological or cultural environment often determines who wins and who loses.

In 2020, an unprecedented burst of mail ballots swamped election offices because of the fright of COVID. All over the country, judges struck down or suspended laws that would have ensured those mail ballots were processed according to the law. At the same time, hundreds of millions of dollars in private money poured into election offices to change the way the elections were run.

It is a dangerous place we find ourselves, where citizens through the legislative process are enacting safeguards to keep our elections clean and manageable, yet a hyper-funded onslaught has mastered the art of killing real, verifiable, integrity in elections.

First, do not assume there will be a “red wave” this November. Many election operatives have demonstrated a fierce ability to adapt and leverage cultural and technological awareness into electoral wins.

Second, a “red wave” cannot overcome the “blue wave” tactics of 2020 seen in urban areas flush with outside cash.

Third, the Biden administration is already turning the battleship of the entire federal government toward turnout in 2022. Institutions have mobilized every single agency into a weapon to increase voter turnout among “historically marginalized communities.” Decoded, that means racial groups. This is all happening with little fanfare, and little means to stop it.

It also means that every federal agency has had a year-long head start into morphing into a get-out-the-vote tool. It means housing, welfare, and education offices will be turned into turnout machines. Institutions have adapted and created an architecture using the powers of the state to target certain voters and get them to the polls.

For good measure, the Biden administration proposed a $10 billion federal fund available for the next decade to replicate and expand the cash injections to election offices like those seen in 2020. Another $5 billion is requested for the U.S. Postal Service so it can expand its role in voting-by-mail. Even if the administration gets a fraction of that request, it will make the $500 million spent in 2020 from private groups to increase urban turnout look like small potatoes.

Perhaps most of all, we can start to pay close attention to the fights going on behind the scenes — the process fights. For so long, we have rightfully cared about policies such as taxes, government spending, education, and energy. We try to move heart and minds. But others put policy second: they are worried about whether process helps or hurts their ability to move bodies and ballots. Process is driving the outcomes of policies; it is time to fully engage before our ability to engage at all is extinguished.

In the wake of the 2020 election, states across the country enacted laws to try to prevent a repeat of the chaos from that election. In some states such as Arizona, Texas, and Florida, laws were passed to prohibit the private funding of election offices. In others, ballot custody vulnerabilities were addressed, such as limits on harvesting and drop-boxes.