darkfutura |The one seeming contradiction is that these elites
predominantly “live in zipcodes exceeding a population density of 10,000
people per square mile.” This misleading implies they live in large
cities like New York, where they would in fact be
forced to endure daily commingling with the peasantry. In reality, we
know they sit entrenched in highly sequestered aristocrats’ quarters
within these cities—like the Upper East Side in Manhattan, or Kalorama
in D.C. Being shuttled in swank car service to and fro, they rarely
deign to cross paths with the commoners for whom they have nothing but
contempt, apart from some token quick-grab at the corner coffee-and-bun
kiosk to reassure themselves that they’re ‘in touch’ with the slipstream
of society.
In many respects, this is an age-old problem: elites have
always existed in parallel societies. However, the advent of digital and
social media technologies have allowed them to encase themselves in an
ever-impermeable confirmation bias bubble like never before. Listen to
interviews with top Washington policymakers, corporate bigwigs, etc.,
and note how they exclusively mainline the most
mainstream corporate publications like WaPo, NYTimes, etc. It becomes
its own hermetic self-referencing feedback loop increasingly shut-off
from the real outside world of human experience.
As the earlier NYPost article described:
If
America is to avoid a tailspin into this toxic feedback loop, its
elites will need to step outside their bubble, stop conforming in an
effort to blend in with their myopic peers and start addressing the
legitimate grievances of their fellow Americans.
This
explains such things as the elites’ obsession with climate change, as
that is one issue that exists solely ‘on paper’—as an abstraction—and is
not realistically felt in the common quarters. The aristos who
repeatedly reflect their own shrill echochamber alarmism on this issue
get increasingly radicalized, particularly given that—as reported
earlier—they put far more store in institutions of authority than the
average prole. This results in the calcification of their blind belief
in specters like climate change, despite their paying only lip service
to it, and not acting accordingly in light of such an existential
‘threat’.
The problem is exacerbated by social ills which create
divisions along gender lines, disproportionately giving weight to
female-centric concerns, as per the Longhouse theory:
The
Longhouse refers to the remarkable overcorrection of the last two
generations toward social norms centering feminine needs and feminine
methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior.
Women
are naturally wired to be more sympathetic—and thus suggestible—to the
social engineering imperatives co-opting the current narrative. Men are
being increasingly pushed out from higher education, which means that
even among the elites funnelled upward, the stances skew increasingly to
the ‘Longhouse’:
This feminization of the managerial class can be seen from a variety of vantage points:
As
everyone is now aware, unmarried women by far make the most
disproportionate jump into Democrat Land, as well as increasingly
radicalized hyperliberal policies—which reflects in other interesting
ways:
As an aside, one X user had a topically cogent comment about the screenshot below:
Most
of the bluecheck unpacking of the collapsing male college enrollment
story focuses on how worrisome it is that these men won't espouse elite
political opinions
But one of the most
revealing disparities in the Rasmussen survey showed just how out of
touch the elites are specifically to economic issues which affect the
plebs most—as opposed to the airy abstractions of fringe intellectual
culture war issues:
Victoria Nuland has let me know that she intends to step
down in the coming weeks as Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs – a role in which she has personified President Biden’s
commitment to put diplomacy back at the center of our foreign policy and
revitalize America’s global leadership at a crucial time for our nation
and the world. ... [I]t’s Toria’s leadership on Ukraine that
diplomats and students of foreign policy will study for years to come.
Her efforts have been indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale
invasion of Ukraine, marshaling a global coalition to ensure his
strategic failure, and helping Ukraine work toward the day when it will
be able to stand strongly on its own feet – democratically,
economically, and militarily. ... President Biden and I have
asked our Under Secretary for Management John Bass to serve as Acting
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs until Toria’s replacement
is confirmed.
She will be remembered for handing out cookies to anti-government demonstrators in Ukraine and for installing the 2014 coup regime.
That has been her main project in the State Department. But the 2014
Maidan putsch that turn the Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia,
has ended in a complete failure.
Neither was Russia 'weakened'
by the war nor has Ukraine any perspective to survive but as some
Russian controlled land-locked backwater country in Europe's east.
Given that billions were spent on Ukraine with little controls and
nothing to show for Nuland, and her family, have certainly made a bit on
the side. One wonders if any of the ongoing and coming investigations
into the black hole Ukraine will leave them unscarred.
As even Guardian commentators are now waking up to the mess they helped create it is high time for European politicians to also finally accept this reality:
Western Europe has no conceivable interest in escalating the
Ukraine war through a long-range missile exchange. While it should
sustain its logistical support for Ukrainian forces, it has no strategic
interest in Kyiv’s desire to drive Russia out of the majority
Russian-speaking areas of Crimea or Donbas. It has every interest in
assiduously seeking an early settlement and starting the rebuilding of
Ukraine.
As for the west’s “soft power” sanctions on Russia, they have failed
miserably, disrupting the global trading economy in the process.
Sanctions may be beloved of western diplomats and thinktanks. They may
even hurt someone – not least Britain’s energy users – but they have not
devastated the Russian economy or changed Putin’s mind. This year
Russia’s growth rate is expected to exceed Britain’s.
The crass ineptitude of a quarter of a century of western military
interventions should have taught us some lessons. Apparently not.
dailymail | Doritos is being slammed as the new Bud Light
after hiring a trans influencer as a 'brand ambassador' despite the
activist appearing to promote child sexual abuse in the past.
Spanish
native Samantha Hudson - whose real name is Iván González Ranedo - is a
singer and activist with over 30,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel. Her partnership with Doritos Spain, run by PepsiCo Spain, was recently announced.
Hudson,
24, has identified herself as 'anti-capitalist' and 'Marxist' in
interviews, released a song critical of the Catholic Church and even
said in one video that she is for 'the abolition of [and to] destroy and
annihilate the traditional monogamous nuclear family.'
As a teen, she has also tweeted about wanting to do 'thuggish things' to a minor.
The
partnership between Hudson and Doritos was quickly blasted online and
many made reference to Bud Light's disastrous partnership with trans
influencer Dylan Mulvaney - which saw Budweiser lose $1.4 billion in sales as a result.
The Daily Caller posted a screenshot of a
tweet she allegedly made in 2015, when Hudson was 15, writing in Spanish
about the seeming assault of a minor.
Another
alleged post translates to: 'In the middle of the street in Mallorca in
panties and screaming that I’m a nymphomaniac in front of a super
beautiful 8-year-old girl.'
According to Newsweek,
she has also been accused of mocking sexual assault victims, though
Hudson herself has claimed she was sexually abused as a teenager in a 2023 interview.
Hudson's new partnership with Doritos was announced through a 50-second video called 'Crunch Talks.'
'Doritos is about to get the Bud Light treatment,' wrote one user on X, formerly Twitter.
Another
wrote: 'Just make flavored tortilla chips. You don't need to have a
stance on anything other than that. It's not tricky.'
'Why
are brands like Doritos being so self-destructive? Have they learned
nothing from the Budweiser snafu? Let me guess, their advertising
division is headed by a DEI hire?'
DailyMail.com has reached out to PepsiCo and Frito Lay for comment.
humanevents | Jack Posobiec hosted guest Mike Benz on Human Events Daily
Thursday to hear his take on the New York Times article that detailed
the CIA's involvement in Ukraine prior to the Russia invasion, which
Benz said will reveal itself to be "the largest operation in CIA
history."
The pair unpacked the reasoning behind the New York Times releasing
their story which essentially agreed with what conservative commentators
such as Posobiec have been saying since the war began.
"This is actually such a shocking moment in American journalist
history," Benz stated. "These are highly highly, highly classified
operations."
He said that "It's my contention that when the dust settles on this, the
Ukraine skirmish in the aftermath of the 2014 Maidan coup is going to
ultimately be the largest operation in CIA history."
Compared to the CIA's Syrian operation under Barack Obama, which was
revealed to be the most expensive operation up to this point, Ukraine
will blow it out of the water once all said and done, Benz said.
Posobiec clarified that Benz was implying the NYT article was a "limited
hangout" when "an operation becomes so compromised, or public knowledge
or public interest becomes so obvious around something," that the CIA
begins to unveil pieces of the big picture, like an "onion."
When the US involved itself in Ukraine in the Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton, and John Brennan era, "We were riding high and riding dirty.
And that's what this was, we thought we were unstoppable and we could
just coup anyone we wanted, there'd never be any repercussions, and no
one would ever stand up for themselves, and Russia would never actually
backstop it," Benz said.
This, however, was a "serious miscalculation."
"And when it turned out that their own population didn't support these
dirty tricks, either in the form of the rise of a populace presidential
candidate like Donald Trump who was running on putting America first in
domestic priorities over foreign policy," he explained, "then all hell
broke loose."
I hope everyone appreciates what this means. The CIA disclosed highly classified intelligence to hand-picked journos in order to fight a PR war against Republicans in Congress who want to scale back Ukraine war funding.
dailycaller | Karine Jean-Pierre has turned over her spotlight to Admiral John
Kirby in an “unprecedented” way as the White House barrels toward a
pivotal election season, a Daily Caller review of briefing data reveals.
Since
Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Kirby has been a mainstay at briefings
alongside Jean-Pierre to answer reporters’ questions about the foreign
conflict. Though Americans have indicated the war is not their top
concern, Kirby has remained at the briefings — only missing three since
the start of the year through Oct. 7. Of the briefings he has attended
in 2024, 19 out of the 22 total held, Kirby has fielded questions for
almost the exact same amount of time as Jean-Pierre.
As of Feb. 27, Jean-Pierre has spent about 11 hours and 31 minutes at
the White House press briefing podium this year across 22 briefings.
Kirby has answered questions for just under nine hours and two minutes
in 19 briefings. In those 19 briefings when Kirby and Jean-Pierre were
together, the press secretary spoke for just shy of nine hours and 11
minutes — almost a perfect fifty-fifty split with her counterpart.
“There
is no precedent for this. Press secretaries always bring guests, right.
It’s like, ‘Hey, we’re gonna have the OMB [the Office of Management and
Budget] guys brief you on the budget and talk to you about that.’
That’s normal,” Sean Spicer, one-time press secretary for former
President Donald Trump, told the Daily Caller. “That’s as old as the
job. But this idea that you have a co-press secretary is unprecedented.”
Some
other names have made appearances at briefings and gaggles, either
alongside Jean-Pierre or Kirby: deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton,
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, White House spokesman for
oversight and investigations Ian Sams and a few other policy-specific
officials from the administration.
But none have appeared nearly as often as Kirby, who Jean-Pierre was reportedly concerned
might usurp her as press secretary when she first got the job. Biden
“awkwardly” added that Kirby would be joining Jean-Pierre’s team when
the president gave her the press secretary position in 2022, leaving her
“upset and confused,” according to Axios.
Jean-Pierre’s appointment was lauded
as historic and powerful when she got the job — she’s the first black
press secretary, and is also a lesbian woman of immigrant parents. From
the beginning, things have reportedly been rocky, though — Biden also
allegedly said that Jean-Pierre didn’t need to worry because she’d “have
an admiral looking over your shoulder,” a comment that was not received well by the new press secretary.
Amid the tension between Kirby and Jean-Pierre, the latter’s top deputy, Dalton, is reportedly ditching the White House for a gig at Apple.
That
leaves a clear path to the top job for Kirby. He has told some around
the White House he’s interested in the position, according to Axios, but
other White House officials denied those accounts.
When it comes
to gaggles, Kirby has appeared at more as of late, speaking at seven of
them between the start of the year and Feb. 16 for a total of more than
an hour and seven minutes. The pair has attended four gaggles together,
with Jean-Pierre answering questions for more than 41 minutes.
“I
don’t think the dynamic is awkward to begin with. I think they did it
under the presence, under the guise of national security and foreign
affairs. But the reality is, Kirby has really taken over a lot more, for
obvious reasons,” Spicer said. “The press secretary should be able to
handle all of the issues and it’s pretty obvious that there’s a level of
competence that just doesn’t exist.”
scheerpost | The New York Times on February 25 published an explosive story of
what purports to be the history of the CIA in Ukraine from the Maidan
coup of 2014 to the present. The story, “The Spy War: How the CIA
Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin,” is one of initial bilateral
distrust, but a mutual fear and hatred of Russia, that progresses to a
relationship so intimate that Ukraine is now one of the CIA’s closest
intelligence partners in the world.
At the same time, the Times’ publication of the piece, which
reporters claimed relied on more than 200 interviews in Ukraine, the US,
and “several European countries,” raises multiple questions: Why did
the CIA not object to the article’s publication, especially with it
being in one of the Agency’s preferred outlets? When the CIA approaches
a newspaper to complain about the classified information it contains,
the piece is almost always killed or severely edited. Newspaper
publishers are patriots, after all. Right?
Was the article published because the CIA wanted the news out there?
Perhaps more important was the point of the article to influence the
Congressional budget deliberations on aid to Ukraine? After all, was
the article really just meant to brag about how great the CIA is? Or
was it to warn Congressional appropriators, “Look how much we’ve
accomplished to confront the Russian bear. You wouldn’t really let it
all go to waste, would you?”
The Times’ article has all the hallmarks of a deep, inside look at a
sensitive—possibly classified—subject. It goes into depth on one of the
intelligence community’s Holy of Holies, an intelligence liaison
relationship, something that no intelligence officer is ever supposed to
discuss. But in the end, it really isn’t so sensitive. It doesn’t
tell us anything that every American hasn’t already assumed. Maybe we
hadn’t had it spelled out in print before, but we all believed that the
CIA was helping Ukraine fight the Russians. We had already seen
reporting that the CIA had “boots on the ground” in Ukraine and that the U.S. government was training Ukrainian special forces and Ukrainian pilots, so there’s nothing new there.
The article goes a little further in detail, although, again, without
providing anything that might endanger sources and methods. For
example, it tells us that:
There is a CIA listening post in the forest along the Russian
border, one of 12 “secret” bases the US maintains there. One or more of
these posts helped to prove Russia’s involvement in the 2014 downing of
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. That’s great. But the revelation exposes
no secrets and tells us nothing new.
Ukrainian intelligence officials helped the Americans “go after” the
Russian operatives “who meddled in the 2016 US presidential election.”
I have a news flash for the New York Times: The Mueller report found that there was no meaningful Russian meddling in the 2016 election. And what does “go after” mean?
Beginning in 2016, the CIA trained an “elite Ukrainian commando
force known as Unit 2245, which captured Russian drones and
communications gear so that CIA technicians could reverse-engineer them
and crack Moscow’s encryption systems.” This is exactly what the CIA is
supposed to do. Honestly, if the CIA hadn’t been doing this, I would
have suggested a class action lawsuit for the American people to get
their tax money back. Besides, the CIA has been doing things like this for decades. The CIA was able to obtain important components of Soviet tactical weapons from ostensibly pro-Soviet Romania in the 1970s.
Ukraine has turned into an intelligence-gathering hub that has
intercepted more Russian communications than the CIA station in Kiev
could initially handle. Again, I would expect nothing less. After all,
that’s where the war is. So of course, communications will be
intercepted there. As to the CIA station being overwhelmed, the Times
never tells us if that is because the station was a one-man operation at
the time or whether it had thousands of employees and was still
overwhelmed. It’s all about scale.
And lest you think that the CIA and the U.S. government were on the
offensive in Ukraine, the article makes clear that, “Mr. Putin and his
advisers misread a critical dynamic. The CIA didn’t push its way into
Ukraine. U.S. officials were often reluctant to fully engage, fearing
that Ukrainian officials could not be trusted, and worrying about
provoking the Kremlin.”
It’s at this point in the article that the Times reveals what I
believe to be the buried lead: “Now these intelligence networks are more
important than ever, as Russia is on the offensive and Ukraine is more
dependent on sabotage and long-range missile strikes that require spies
far behind enemy lines. And they are increasingly at risk: “If Republicans in Congress end military funding to Kiev, the CIA may have to scale back.” (Emphasis mine.)
scheerpost | We can start, logically enough, with that desperation evident among
those dedicated to prolonging the war. The outcome of the war, in my
read and in the view of various military analysts, does not depend on
the $61 billion in aid that now hangs in the balance. But the Biden
regime seems to think it does, or pretends to think it does. The Times’s
most immediate intent, so far as one can make out from the piece, is to
add what degree of urgency it can to this question.
Entous and Schwirtz report that the people running Ukrainian
intelligence are nervous that without a House vote releasing new funds
“the CIA will abandon them.” Good enough that it boosts the case to cite
nervous Ukrainians, but we should recognize that this is a
misapprehension. The CIA has a very large budget entirely independent of
what Congress votes one way or another. William Burns, the CIA
director, traveled to Kyiv two weeks ago to reassure his counterparts
that “the U.S. commitment will continue,” as Entous and Schwirtz quote
him saying. This is perfectly true, assuming Burns referred to the
agency’s commitment.
More broadly, The Times piece appears amid flagging enthusiasm for
the Ukraine project. And it is in this circumstance that Entous and
Schwirtz went long on the benefits accruing to the CIA in consequence of
its presence on the ground in Ukraine. But read these two reporters
carefully: They, or whoever put their piece in its final shape, make it
clear that the agency’s operations on Ukrainian soil count first and
most as a contribution to Washington’s long campaign to undermine the
Russian Federation. This is not about Ukrainian democracy, that figment
of neoliberal propagandists. It is about Cold War II, plain and simple.
It is time to reinvigorate the old Russophobia, thus—and hence all the
baloney about Russians corrupting elections and so on. It is all there
for a reason.
To gather these thoughts and summarize, This piece is not journalism
and should not be read as such. Neither do Entous and Schwirtz serve as
journalists. They are clerks of the governing class pretending to be
journalists while they post notices on a bulletin board that pretends to
be a newspaper.
■
Let’s dolly out to put this piece in its historical context and
consider the implications of its appearance in the once-but-fallen
newspaper of record. Let’s think about the early 1970s, when it first
began to emerge that the CIA had compromised the American media and
broadcasters.
Jack Anderson, the admirably iconoclastic columnist, lifted the lid
on the agency’s infiltration of the media by way of a passing mention of
a corrupted correspondent in 1973. A year later a former Los Angeles
Times correspondent named Stuart Loory published the first extensive
exploration of relations between the CIA and the media in the Columbia
Journalism Review. Then, in 1976, the Church Committee opened its famous
hearings in the Senate. It took up all sorts of agency
malfeasance—assassinations, coups, illegal covert ops. Its intent was
also to disrupt the agency’s misuse of American media and restore the
latter to their independence and integrity.
The Church Committee is still widely remembered for getting its job
done. But it never did. A year after Church produced its six-volume
report, Rolling Stone published “The CIA and the Media,”
Carl Bernstein’s well-known piece. Bernstein went considerably beyond
the Church Committee, demonstrating that it pulled its punches rather
than pull the plug on the CIA’s intrusions in the media. Faced with the
prospect of forcing the CIA to sever all covert ties with the media, a
senator Bernstein did not name remarked, “We just weren’t ready to take
that step.”
We should read The Times’s piece on the righteousness of the CIA’s
activities in Ukraine—bearing in mind the self-evident cooperation
between the agency and the newspaper—with this history in mind.
America was just emerging from the disgraces of the McCarthyist
period when Stuart Loory opened the door on this question, the Church
Committee convened, and Carl Bernstein filled in the blanks. In and out
of the profession there was disgust at the covert relationship between
media and the spooks. Now look. What was then viewed as top-to-bottom
objectionable is now routinized. It is “as usual.” In my read this is
one consequence among many of the Russiagate years: They again plunged
Americans and their mainstream media into the same paranoia that
produced the corruptions of the 1950s and 1960s.
Alas, the scars of the swoon we call Russiagate are many and run deep
WSJ | Democratic and Republican congressional leaders struck an optimistic tone that they would avert a government shutdown this weekend
after a White House meeting in which lawmakers also stepped up pressure
on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) to allow a long-stalled vote on
Ukraine aid to go forward.
Johnson
is expected to put forward legislation in coming days that would keep
the government fully open, but the details remained uncertain. The
Congress has until Saturday at 12:01 a.m. to fund the departments of
Veterans Affairs, Transportation, Agriculture, Energy and several other
agencies that have been operating on temporary extensions since Sept.
30. The funding for the rest of the federal government expires after
March 8.
The
main holdup has been in the Republican-led House, where Johnson is
managing a rowdy GOP conference that has taken a hard line on spending
and is increasingly skeptical of foreign aid, even as the
Democratic-controlled Senate has been ready for months to move forward.
Emerging
from the meeting, Johnson said he was “very optimistic” about
government- funding talks. Leaders think “we can get to agreement on
these issues and prevent a government shutdown,” he said. He didn’t take
questions.
The
other congressional leaders at the sit-down—Senate Majority Leader
Chuck Schumer, (D., N.Y.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) and
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.)—also sounded upbeat
about avoiding a shutdown.
“We
are making good progress,” said Schumer, adding there was some “back
and forth on some issues that different people want.” But he said, “I
don’t think those are insurmountable.” He indicated that the most likely
path was a short-term spending patch to give negotiators more time to
complete the full fiscal-year bills.
McConnell
said everyone was on the same page regarding the need to keep the
government funded. “I think we can stop that drama right now before it
emerges,” he said.
The
leaders sat down in the Oval Office, with Biden and Vice President
Kamala Harris positioned in armchairs near a crackling fire.
Congressional leaders sat on sofas arranged around a coffee table.
Those gathered for the meeting, including McConnell, pressed Johnson to allow a House vote on a Ukraine aid package.
Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Burns gave a
presentation laying out the difficult conditions for Ukrainian soldiers
on the battlefield, with troops running out of munitions.
The
Senate passed a $95.3 billion package this month that contained a fresh
round of aid for Ukraine and funds for Israel and Taiwan. Johnson has
declined to put it on the House floor. House Republicans are divided on
Ukraine aid, with a little more than half on the record opposing it in
the past, including Johnson before he became speaker. The Senate bill
would need significant Democratic support to pass.
Schumer
said the discussion on Ukraine was “the most intense I have ever
encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office.” He said he told
Johnson he would “regret it for the rest of his life” if he blocked assistance for Kyiv.
Johnson “said he wanted to get Ukraine done, and he had to figure out the best way to do it,” Schumer recalled.
In
the meeting, McConnell, a strong advocate for Kyiv, told Johnson the
House’s best path forward on Ukraine is to pass the Senate bill, because
making any changes would further delay the aid. “We have a time problem
here,” he told reporters.
Johnson
said he continued to insist on steps to secure the southern U.S. border
before passing any foreign-aid package. The House “is actively pursuing
and investigating all the various options” on the Ukraine package, he
said, but “the first priority of the country is our border.” Earlier
this year, Republicans blocked a bipartisan Senate deal linking aid to
Ukraine with changes at the border, saying it wasn’t tough enough.
House
Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), speaking with reporters after meeting
with President Biden and other congressional leaders, said he thought a
government shutdown could be averted. Photo: Evan Vucci/Associated Press
The
White House meeting started shortly before noon and lasted about an
hour. Johnson briefly spoke one-on-one with the president after the
meeting ended. White House officials declined to say what the two men
discussed, other than explaining that the conversation wasn’t scheduled
in advance.
Afterward,
Biden told reporters a “bipartisan solution” was needed to fund the
government. Regarding Ukraine, he said “the need is urgent” for
additional funds. “I think the consequences of inaction in Ukraine are
dire,” Biden said.
Such
White House summits are high-profile opportunities for both sides to
show they are fighting for their parties’ priorities, rather than
nitty-gritty policy negotiations. But the moment was particularly
challenging for Johnson, a formerly little-known conservative who
leapfrogged from the lower ranks of House Republican leadership to
assume the speakership in October, after a group of GOP dissidents ousted his predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.).
Unlike other senior leaders on Capitol Hill, Johnson has almost no pre-existing relationship with Biden.
For
months, the Republican House and Democratic Senate have deferred on
Congress’s responsibility to set new spending levels and priorities for
the federal government for fiscal year 2024, instead passing a series of
stopgap measures by repeatedly extending spending levels set back in
December 2022.
Johnson has a number of options.
none of which will satisfy all House Republicans. He could seal a deal
with congressional Democrats and try to pass fresh full-year spending
legislation at a two-thirds threshold, bypassing Republican holdouts.
Johnson could put it off a few days or weeks with a short-term
patch—again with Democrats’ help. Or he could try to rely on his narrow
Republican majority to pass another stopgap bill through September,
triggering automatic across-the-board spending cuts; such a move would
be almost certain to lead to a shutdown because any such measure would
be dead on arrival in the Senate.
Beneath the surface of the spending fight,
a tug of war is playing out inside the House Republican conference
between military hawks and conservatives opposed to further spending,
with Johnson caught in the middle. The military hawks want to avoid the
defense cuts that would be triggered if Congress fails to enact new
full-year spending measures by April 30. The critics of more spending
benefit from congressional inaction, because it brings them closer to
the date when across-the-board cuts would be activated under a provision
in last year’s Fiscal Responsibility Act.
Some
GOP lawmakers have said in recent days they wouldn’t mind a shutdown,
while other figures including McConnell have warned that shutdowns are
bad policy—and bad politics.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
Is Congress doing enough to avoid a partial government shutdown? Join the conversation below.
People
familiar with the negotiations between Johnson and Democrats said that a
key sticking point is how much money to appropriate for the Special
Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.
Democrats are asking for $7.03 billion, more than the $6.3 billion
previously sought by the Senate and requested in Biden’s budget. But the
GOP-led House passed a measure including $6 billion for the program,
which provides food and health assistance.
Another
obstacle, these people said, is a provision to block the VA from
reporting the names of veterans who need help managing their benefits to
a national background-check system used to screen gun purchases.
Democrats want the language to be stripped out.
Even
if those issues get resolved, Johnson must sell the deal to his
factious conference after House lawmakers return Wednesday to
Washington. A House Republican meeting is scheduled for Thursday.
A
Friday conference call for GOP lawmakers did little to assuage raw
feelings as Johnson sought for an hour to manage the expectations of his
conference, fielding more than a dozen questions. The speaker told
lawmakers not to expect a home run or grand slams in the spending bills,
but instead singles or doubles, according to people on the call.
Johnson said such expectations reflected the reality of divided
government, and that some Republicans’ willingness to block routine
procedural votes—essentially paralyzing the floor—had hurt Republicans’
leverage in talks with Democrats.
Some
Republicans complained that he had offered little information about the
substance of any of the spending bills, raising fears that Johnson was
setting the stage for another episode in which he would rely on
Democratic votes to clear must-pass legislation through the House.
So
far, Johnson has passed five major bills at a two-thirds threshold with
the help of Democrats: two previous stopgap spending bills; the annual defense-policy bill; a temporary reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration; and a bipartisan tax bill.
McCarthy’s
willingness to pass a stopgap bill with Democratic votes in September
triggered the rebellion that led to his removal. The same fate could
await Johnson if at least three House Republicans were willing to vote
with all Democrats to fire him from the speakership, given the narrow
majority in the House.
CTH | I find it very interesting this report surfaces in the New York Times
and not The Washington Post first. This material distinction showcases
the motive for the outline is heavily domestic in nature; meaning, the
core of domestic USA politics (specifically the White House) needs to
admit that Ukraine is a proxy province in order to retrigger support for
policy.
[Inside Baseball] – Watch the responses
to this report from CNN (State Dept) carefully and watch the responses
from WaPo (CIA/Intel). The more subtle and/or quiet the response(s), the
more certain these influence institutions were collaborating on the
material report to the New York Times.
The White House is admitting the CIA and larger IC apparatus, which
includes the State Dept., has been heavily controlling all activity in
Ukraine for the past decade. The only reason to admit this now very publicly is because they are losing voter support. THIS EXPLAINS WHY BIDEN IS CALLING FOR A WHITE HOUSE MEETING!!
The US’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) maintains 12 secret bases
in Ukraine along the border with Russia, and last Thursday CIA chief
William Burns made his 10th secret visit to Ukraine since the start of
Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The Times is now reporting the USA (State Dept.) was responsible for
the coup in Ukraine (color revolution) and took control over political
operations in 2014. We have long suspected this; many have reported
exactly this reality; however, this is the first time it has all been
admitted.
(NYT)
– The C.I.A.’s partnership in Ukraine can be traced back to two phone
calls on the night of Feb. 24, 2014, eight years to the day before
Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Millions
of Ukrainians had just overrun the country’s pro-Kremlin government and
the president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his spy chiefs had fled to Russia. In the tumult, a fragile pro-Western government quickly took power.
The
government’s new spy chief, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, arrived at the
headquarters of the domestic intelligence agency and found a pile of
smoldering documents in the courtyard. Inside, many of the computers had
been wiped or were infected with Russian malware.
“It was empty. No lights. No leadership. Nobody was there,” Mr. Nalyvaichenko said in an interview.
He went
to an office and called the C.I.A. station chief and the local head of
MI6. It was near midnight but he summoned them to the building, asked
for help in rebuilding the agency from the ground up, and proposed a
three-way partnership. “That’s how it all started,” Mr. Nalyvaichenko
said. (read more)
Source: The New York Times, based on more than 200 interviews with current and former officials in Ukraine, the United States and Europe.
The report tries to paint various Ukraine officials as the
originators of the operation to use Ukraine as the tip of the spear
against the Russia construct; however, it doesn’t take a deep weeds
walker to realize that part of the narrative is needed to protect the
U.S. foreign influence policy from public ridicule.
The White House needs support for their Ukraine proxy. The public
opposition to that continued policy agenda is a problem. The
politicians are caving to pressure from the people. The IC needs to
change the narrative urgently; thus the admission takes place.
TUCKER CARLSON: “How can world governments kill more than 10 million people and leave some large undetermined number disabled for life? And not say a word about it. Not apologize. Not work to fix it. Not work to make the families whole. I mean, just leave it by the side of the… pic.twitter.com/zVy7ZY3rPB
TUCKER CARLSON: “How can world governments kill more than 10 million people and leave some large undetermined number disabled for life? And not say a word about it. Not apologize. Not work to fix it. Not work to make the families whole. I mean, just leave it by the side of the road like a corpse and keep marching. I don’t understand that. How can that happen?
STEVE KIRSCH: “Believe me, I’m surprised, as well. You know, I can’t get an audience with anybody in the United States Congress. Except for Senator Ron Johnson. Like, I can’t have a dialogue. They won’t talk to me. Nobody wants to know. They don’t want to know the truth. It’s like autism in this country. You know, autism has been around for a very long time. And we’ve known from the statistics that vaccines cause autism. It’s the leading cause of autism. Now, can we even get a discussion about that?”
TUCKER CARLSON: “May I? May I ask you to pause that? I mean, the statement you just made is verboten. I mean, no person who wanted to say work at the Atlantic magazine or who takes the New York Times on a daily basis would ever say something like that because you’re not allowed to say that. Tell us why you say that?”
STEVE KIRSCH: “Because it’s true. I’ve collected my own data just independently, to look at, at the connection between vaccines and autism. And it’s amazing. I had over 10,000 parents, tell me about their kids. And I said, hey, tell me about your kids. Tell me how many vaccines they got, and tell me if they have autism. Tell me if they have ADHD. You know, just tell me about your kids. Tell me about the medical conditions. And tell me about how many shots they get. And it’s a straight line. The more shots you get, the more likely you are to get autism. And it’s the same thing for ADHD. It’s the same thing for PANDAS. It’s the same thing for autoimmune diseases. I mean that it is basically the more shots you get, the less healthy the kids are.”
twitter | Over my 35-year career, I have been the subject of many thousands of articles, including extremely negative, inaccurate, and libelous articles, yet I have never sued a media organization or a journalist.
Beginning in early January of this year, Business Insider released a series of stories about my partner in life, @NeriOxman, that were defamatory, materially false and misleading, and designed to cause her harm, principally because the reporters do not like me, my support for Israel, and my advocacy to remove former Harvard President Claudine Gay due to her leadership failures, and her lack of moral clarity.
These are not fantastical accusations. We prove them with detailed empirical evidence in a 77-page demand letter that we sent to @axelspringer this morning, and that we are sharing publicly now.
After I posted weeks ago on @X that I intended to sue @Businessinsider and its parent company Axel Springer for defamation, I heard from a number of people that I highly respect who strongly discouraged me from suing, pleading with me to find another solution to resolve this mess.
These individuals did not question that Neri and I had been defamed, but rather they explained that Axel Springer has been perhaps the strongest long-term supporter of the state of Israel of any media organization, and also an important advocate against antisemitism.
I also recently had the opportunity to have dinner with Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Axel Springer, and he seemed like a good man. We did not, however, discuss the Business Insider reporting or the lawsuit that night, but my opportunity to meet him confirmed much of what I had been told about him and Axel Springer.
Upon consideration of the advice we have received from people we highly respect and my opportunity to meet Mathias Döpfner, we are making an effort to avoid litigation by sending Axel Springer this demand letter in which we outline with particularity all of the facts around BI’s reporting of this matter, the factual inaccuracies in its reporting, Axel Springer’s false statements about BI’s reporting, and a proposed resolution.
If we can resolve this matter as we have proposed, we can avoid litigation, and more importantly, we can hopefully end Business Insider’s unethical and unprofessional practices. If indeed Axel Springer is the professional ethical media company that I am told it is and it purports to be, it cannot continue to own and control Business Insider if it continues to operate as it has historically.
The 77-page demand letter can be found here:
http://clarelocke.com/OxmanRetraction
I strongly encourage you to read the letter. The letter includes the detailed WhatsApp, SMS, and email correspondence that I and Fran McGill, our head of communications, had with the main protagonists in this situation including Henry Blodget, Chairman and Founder of Business Insider, Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, Henry Kravis, Co-Executive Chairman of KKR, Martin Varsavsky, Director of Axel Springer, Katherine Long, BI’s Investigative Reporter, and John Cook, Executive Editor of BI.
It will not go unnoticed that the demand letter reads remarkably similarly to the pleadings of a lawsuit. If needed, we can convert the demand letter into a complaint and file a lawsuit, which I hope is unnecessary.
Business Insider is well known for its dishonest and unprofessional journalism. BI’s actions here are sadly representative of its approach to journalism, and similar to its many other unfair, sensational, false and misleading attacks on high-profile people designed to satisfy the politics and preferences of its journalists, and to drive advertising revenues.
Business Insider has caused enormous harm and reputational damage to many with its false and misleading reporting and unethical tactics. Remarkably, however, Business Insider’s CEO and Axel Springer’s spokesperson claim that Business Insider is a paragon of journalistic professionalism, ethics, and virtue.
In January, when I publicly challenged the accuracy and reporting of the stories, Business Insider’s CEO, Barbara Peng, stated that:
“The process we went through to report, edit, and review the stories was sound, as was the timing… The stories are accurate and the facts well documented.”
Similarly, Adib Sisani, Axel Springer’s spokesperson said:
“I’m certain the sourcing and technical journalistic work done was spotless.”
I strongly encourage you to compare the above statements with the empirical evidence and other irrefutable facts that are included in our demand letter, and judge for yourself.
The demand letter was prepared by Libby Locke of Clare Locke LLP, a firm best known for its recent representation of Dominion Voting Machine in its lawsuit against Fox that resulted in a $787.5 million settlement for Dominion.
Libby and her partner Tom Clare are the rock stars of defamation law. They should be your first call if something like what happened to Neri and me happens to you.
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