Catching Up

So, this weekend we’ve been doing a bit of a family reunion thing. As a result I’m playing catchup. I’ll flag a few articles over the past few days that I think deserve attention—in case any readers missed them.

Friday at American Greatness Josh Hammer had an update on an important case. You may recall that Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt (now running for US Senate) and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry have been pursuing a law suit that alleges, in brief, that the Zhou Regime has been colluding with the oligarchs of Big Tech to censor the spread of information to the public by falsely labeling it as “misinformation.” Of course, private companies are, generally, allowed to censor speech under the First Amendment. However, legal scholars just as generally agree that the government—which is not allowed to censor speech of this sort—is not allowed to engage in this type of censorship by subterfuge, by pressure, or in a collusive way with private organizations. Schmitt and Landry, in the course of the lawsuit, have now come up with emails that reveal the extent of the government/Big Tech collusion. Hammer aptly describes the significance of these revelations:

The Biden Regime Collapses the ‘Public’-‘Private’ Distinction

Merging the state and the corporate sphere into one disfigured blob, historically speaking, is a hallmark of actual fascism.

Their findings thus far in this still-pending litigation reveal to all, as if we needed more evidence but a week after Mark Zuckerberg’s podcast confession heard ’round the world with popular host Joe Rogan, the extent to which Big Tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter no longer qualify as meaningfully “private” and have instead simply become appendages of the state.

According to Schmitt, the Biden Department of Justice has, since Missouri and Louisiana’s lawsuit was filed, identified 45 federal officials who have “interacted with social media companies on misinformation.” What’s more, Meta (Facebook’s parent company) pinpointed 32 additional Biden functionaries with whom it communicated, and YouTube (a Google product) identified 11 such flunkies with whom it communicated

Overall, the emails obtained evince, as Schmitt says, “a vast censorship enterprise.” The findings unveiled include the revelation that Facebook and the Biden Administration arranged weekly and monthly phone calls to discuss what Facebook should be censoring.

While the legal principle involved here regarding public/private collusion to circumvent the US Constitution is not new, this case does appear to be a first of its type in this new information environment that we inhabit. The pervasiveness of this new form of censorship is a danger to the very existence of freedom in any meaningful sense. This lawsuit illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of our legal system. The obvious weakness is the amount of time it takes to get almost anything accomplished against deep pocket defendants, yet the strengths of our system of discovery are also hard to deny.

It’s true that most administrations have attempted to influence media coverage, but what we’re seeing now goes far beyond what was ever possible only a decade or two agao. What offers some promise in this case is that we now have a SCOTUS that is exhibiting a willingness and even an eagerness to take on big issues. The relationship of media in its various forms both to government (censorship) as well as to society at large (defamation).

Clarice Feldman also covers this story, today, and at quite a bit length. In addition to the most obvious political angles, Feldman gets into additional ramifications of this public - private collusion which are hugely important:

Laboring Through Bilge on Labor Day

It’s not just free speech that’s being hampered. It’s free enterprise. Three investing giants effectively control each other, their market competitors, and our most important corporations. These investment managers with huge portfolios are exercising their power to shove down corporate throats the misguided ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) policies which abandon fiduciary and sound investment policies and operate instead on subjective, ill-considered criteria. 

Recently 19 states have signaled their intention to sue to stop this nonsense. 

The Wall Street Journal carried an article by Dan Morenoff, who said it’s time to do more to stop this pernicious overreach which is crippling the free market, and (in my view) particularly energy production.

The author argues that it’s time to invoke the Clayton Act’s anti-trust provisions and in support cites some disturbing facts:

Again, without being Pollyannish, we are fortunate to have a SCOTUS that appears eager to take on this big issues, and is even willing to overturn precedents that have been in place for decades.

Here’s a brief link to a story that illustrates what I’d guess is in motion across the country, since the recent 2A case at the SCOTUS:

Guns Save Life Invites Illinois Cities With Gun, Magazine Bans To Voluntarily End Enforcement… Or Else We ‘Let The Real Fun Begin’

Guns Save Life has a record of success in its 2A lawsuits and, in the letter it sent to various local governments that it’s targeting, points out:

On the other hand, should you opt to steadfastly maintain the validity of your faulty ordinance, we’ll file another lawsuit. Given the Bruen precedent, we will win. After all, SCOTUS accepted another gun ban appeal, vacating the lower court decision and remanding it back to circuit court for reconsideration following the decision in Bruen.

If you think that your legal team over at Perkins and Coie will prevail in a fresh lawsuit and bail you out on this, I’d direct your attention to Superior, CO where an Obama-appointed federal judge just enjoined that city’s gun and magazine ban, citing Bruen.

Not only will we exploit the filing of a lawsuit for publicity purposes, but we’ll exploit your inevitable loss in court for another round of rubbing your nose in the humiliation of defeat. Each time your village appeals and loses, we’ll continue with another round of the humiliation tour. As an added bonus, we’ll likely receive reimbursement from the Village of Deerfield for our legal costs as the prevailing party in a civil rights action.

There is no shortage of articles on the internet on the backfiring sanctions and the resulting bleak energy and economic prospects for much of the West. Larry Johnson has some fun with that theme, before getting down to gory details:

UNITED STATES AND EUROPE SHOOT THEMSELVES IN THE HEAD AND BLAME RUSSIA

We are now officially in “Roll On The Floor Laugh Your Ass Off” territory. The United States and Europe, which are on the precipice of economic collapse, are blaming Russia for their problems. I suppose when you are deaf, dumb, blind and stupid to boot, it is wonderful to have Russia around to blame for everything.

Are you ugly? That is Russia’s fault. Fat? Putin did it. Broke and bankrupt? A nefarious commie plot by Putin and his Russia cronies, who are not communist. But why let troublesome facts get in the way of telling a gargantuan lie.

This headline from Bloomberg, Holiday Season Airfares Soar on Pricey Fuel and Revenge Travel, is representative of the collective dishonesty and madness that has seized Biden and the clowns of Europe:

Now, more Russia - Ukraine.

Andrei Martyanov’s last two blog posts have been longer than usual and offer a timely big picture perspective. First up:

That's The Way You Do It(c).

This is a wideranging post. It starts with an instructive graphic:

Martyanov goes on to discuss a number of additional topics, including a Telegram video from a Ukrainian unit:

“This is not a war, we are simply being exterminated ... We have battalions left only on paper, while they (in the rear) are partying!” - the defeated marines report in their Telegram channel.

And this update on the pride of Britain’s navy—and NASA’s failed Space Launch System. Yes, Martyanov is crowing a bit:

Which, in conclusion, brings us to this: the starboard shaft is a goner on HMS Prince of Wales and I wonder what this major "failure" was precipitated by? Was this purely navigational--a euphemism for striking the ground--or was this independent failure? We should know soon. In any case, it is an embarrassment for the Royal Navy and its hapless program of aircraft carriers. I will, for now, abstain from commenting too much on this issue, precisely because I am not a rocketry specialist:

NASA’s next-generation Space Launch System likely won’t fly in September. After a fuel leak forced the agency to scrub its second attempt to launch Artemis 1, there had been some hope the mission could get underway before its current launch window ended on September 6th. That won’t be the case.

In Martyanov’s post from yesterday he gets into some disturbing issues, riffing off the fairly spectacularly failed Ukrainian attempt on the Zaporozhiye Nuclear Power Plant. This, of course, was supposed to be a big PR success, after the faile Kherson offensive:

Keeping What Matters In Focus.

Many already noted that "elite" forces of VSU (MI6 and SAS "trained", that is) undertook yet another attempt to kill themselves by means of attacking Zaporozhie NPP …

From that Martyanov gets down to brass tacks, and it’s not pleasant reading for Americans:

one MUST NOT ignore one simple fact, which receives merely a pro-forma treatment, while in reality being a stunning revelation. 

In this case, the opinion of the head of Military-Civilian Administration of liberated part of Zaporozhie Oblast Vladimir Rogov is key. He states, correctly, that suicidal missions of VSU (in Russian) are tied to the upcoming meeting of the so called NATO's Rammstein Group on Ukraine on the 8th of September, and serves a PR purpose in order to convince puppet masters that VSU still can fight. … On the surface, there is nothing sensational, but in reality--it is startling and very disturbing. 

Rammstein Format is effectively a Pentagon-driven affair and here is where we come to this startling part. If Pentagon, which is a premier United States military outfit, its military "brain", so to speak, needs convincing from the Kiev regime in the ability of the Kiev regime to conduct "offensive operations", while de facto having US (and British) military driving the planning of one VSU disaster after another, while also providing a whole "package" of ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Recon) to Kiev, which is a definition of being involved directly in the Command and Control of VSU, it all means:

1. Not only the fact of Pentagon and Western intel services being fully aware of what is going on at the front, but that Rammstein Format is nothing more than a fig leaf covering, see below...

2. ... 

3. ... 

So, it is a combination of a corruption, military incompetence and impotence which has been paraded time after time by the majority of the US military (former and present) through their media appearances and articles which confirm now a complete decomposition of the America's top brass most of who wouldn't be allowed to command a battalion in serious armed forces.

Martyanov thereupon quotes a US general writing in the WSJ, calling for “negotiations” to end the conflict:

Kimmitt proposes "negotiations" with Russia. I think it is too late for that and at the table is not Ukraine, whose fate is sealed, it is the combined West as we know it today--the entity which Russia has completely written off and that brings us to Russia's ultimatum.

To unpack Martyanov’s Russo-English, he’s stating that for Russia the time for negotiations with Ukraine are long past. The Russians are not stupid. They fully understand that this is a war with the West, and especially with the US and UK, and it is they who must now enter negotiations with Russia.

In December, 2021, Russia issued it’s ultimatum to the West. It was ignored.

Washington crazies didn't get the message. Well, they surely have gotten it now and are desperate, especially when their bluff has been called, including exposing their military impotence--they are good only for PR and fighting third world paramilitaries.

The message is clear. The negotiated way forward starts with Putin’s ultimatum, and the draft treaties that NATO rejected. Russia will negotiate only from a position of strength.

Those wishing to refresh their recollection regarding that ultimatum can refer to this article:

A Surprise Russian Ultimatum: New Draft Treaties To Roll Back NATO