Hello everybody! Hope you all had a happy extended holiday weekend! (Almost everybody understands “four-twenty”, but only a select few understand that just a couple days later is “four-twenty-too”!) Spoiler alert: to celebrate the occasion, tomorrow’s post is full of extremely high cats!
Unfortunately, while I was away, Clown World kept on keeping on.
First up, we have an update to the Stacey Plaskett/Matt Taibbi fiasco. When I last wrote about the situation, Plaskett was demanding that (voluntary and unpaid) Congressional Witness Taibbi name his sources on the Twitter Files. (At the same time that IRS agents were descending on Tabbi’s house — just a coincidence I’m sure.) She’s obviously not happy with just demanding sources, however, and now she’s threatening Taibbi with jail time for lying to congress.
You can read Plaskett’s full letter here, (and Matt’s response for his paid subs) but the gist of it revolves around the ambush interview of Taibbi by MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan. In the letter, Plaskett regurgitates Hasan’s points without explaining how these “lies” are “foundational” to the Twitter Files (as she alleges).
“Lie #1” — CIS (Center for Internet Security) vs CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency). Plaskett alleges that Taibbi “lied” in a tweet (not even congressional testimony) that CISA worked with the EIP (Election Integrity Partnership) to remove posts from social media. From the letter:
The problem with this allegation from Plaskett — as Lee Fang brilliantly proves in his Substack article — is that both CIS and CISA WERE working with the EIP to remove posts from social media. From page 31 of the EIP’s final report:
Here we literally have not only CIS AND CISA working with the EIP, we have them WORKING TOGETHER!
I fail to see how Taibbi’s “lie” about CIS/CISA undermines any of the Twitter Files. If anything, Plaskett is spreading information by implying that CISA was NOT involved in the censorship.
Another allegation involves the number of tweets flagged by the EIP. Taibbi claims that the EIP flagged 22 million tweets, whereas Hasan (and Plaskett) claim that “only” 2,890 tweets were flagged for being in violation of Twitter guidelines.
Of course, the proper number of tweets for government officials to flag is zero, because government shouldn’t be using taxpayer money to “analyze” tweets at all. While Taibbi and all reporters should strive to get the figures correct (and they are still disputed), the specific number of tweets analyzed or flagged by the government doesn’t alter the fact that government was analyzing and flagging tweets. “The giant government-funded censorship machine doesn’t squash quite as much free speech as you claimed” isn’t exactly a winning line in my book.
We see similar BS in Plaskett’s letter involving funding of the censorship groups.
Of course, the Twitter Files have showed that far more taxpayer-funded groups than JUST the EIP were flagging posts surrounding the 2020 election. (For one — the FBI.) The fact that the EIP hadn’t applied for federal grants is completely irrelevant to the bigger picture: that taxpayer-funded organizations DID flag posts for Twitter. (And did so long after the election was over, making the specific timing of funding somewhat moot.)
Note that Plaskett herself doesn’t even explain how these things alter the big picture, she’s just trying to muddy the waters with irrelevant “facts.” And then, once again, she demands that Taibbi reveal information about the Twitter Files — while also repeating at least one provable lie (#6).
If I were Taibbi, I would take this “opportunity” to enter into evidence any additional information proving that CISA WAS working on censorship. Show how the censorship continued long after election day (of course it would have to) and how specific funding timelines were irrelevant. Spike that football!
To conclude her letter, Plaskett “helpfully” reminds Taibbi that lying to Congress is punishable by up to five years in prison.
This is literally The Committee on Weaponization of Government weaponizing government against people who volunteer to testify to Congress and say things that Democrats don’t like. (“Strangely”, nobody seems to be asking why Democrats are standing up for the censorship machine in the first place……..)
Yet James Clapper remains free. Tony Fauci remains free. Eric Holder remains free. All of these lies were ACTUALLY “foundational” and provably harmed Americans. Yet — predictably — government is only interested in prosecuting the “lies” that advance the narrative (like Michael Flynn).
Speaking of lies that advance the narrative, let’s check in on the Hunter laptop story — and the larger story of its censorship. Remember, it was just before the 2020 election when the story broke, and mainstream media (guided by government) repeatedly cited a letter signed by 51 intelligence “experts” who hinted the entire thing was Russian disinformation. Media, of course, dropped the “hinted at” and claimed it WAS Russian disinformation.
Biden even used this letter as a crutch during the presidential debates:
His quote if you can’t stand to see him yammer for 1:34:
BIDEN: Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four– five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani.
This was the letter that allowed journalists to refuse to do journalism on the story.
“The spooks say it looks like Russian disinformation! Case closed!”
— Every good journalist ever
Yet now it seems that the origins of the letter are political:
Yes, that’s current Secretary of State Antony Blinken — at the time working for the Biden campaign — who’s at the bottom of the infamous letter.
Reminds me a lot of the FBI going after “domestic terrorists” at school board meetings, citing a letter the Biden administration had asked for in the first place.
Or maybe it reminds me of how the Clinton campaign “leaked” false info to the FBI and then cited the FBI “investigation” as cause for concern. (Note that while Michael Sussmann was actually charged with lying to the FBI, he was acquitted because he plays for the correct team.)
Regardless, this is becoming a modus operandi for the left — have “outside” voices trigger a government or media response, then cite the response as a story in itself. I’m certain that if Mike Morell hadn’t ended up writing the letter, Biden officials would have been on the phone and writing emails with somebody else, pushing THEM to pen a letter instead. (Here’s the article that Blinken emailed Morell earlier in the day. See the gentle nudge?)
Now, to be completely fair to Morell and Blinken, there are a couple talking points going around in defense of their actions. First is that Morell says he doesn’t recall Blinken asking him to write the letter — he decided to do it on his own after the call because he wanted Joe Biden to win. I leave it up to the reader to determine if it’s a meaningful difference.
The other talking point is straight out of Clown World, because it’s:
“The letter never said the laptop was disinformation.”
Which, on one hand, is completely true. The letter itself only suggests that the laptop has the markings of Russian disinformation.
Of course, the other and bigger hand is WE WERE SCREAMING THAT FACT WHILE THE STORY WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING. “Hey, the guys you’re citing don’t even actually have any evidence at all, it’s just a guess.” would get you thrown off of social media — again at the underlying behest of government.
This is sort of like how they’re trying to re-write history so that nobody ever locked down or made you take the covid shots. In real-time, there can be no disagreement with the narrative or you’ll be booted out of society. After the damage is done and the spin has started, they just say “nobody ever said it would stop transmission” and stick their hands over their ears as you list countless examples of people doing just that. The fact that was once ignored because it was inconvenient is spun as a positive defense now that the conversation has shifted. And the media happily plays along.
Speaking of which, it’s time to dunk on ABC once again. (Sorry, you guys started it by preaching at me about how important journalism is!)
We saw from Plaskett’s first encounter with Taibbi that the network wasn’t interested in covering the story about how a government official is threatening members of the press because of what they’re reporting. (Quite the contrast to how they shriek about attacks on journalists on their scripted programs.) If you thought that Plaskett’s escalation into threatening jailtime for Taibbi, think again. I have seen no articles at all about the story from ABC News.
Additionally, I have seen no articles from ABC News about the Morell/Blinken letter. You’d think that a network that claims journalism is important because powerful people lie would be more than a little upset that powerful people lied in order TO USE THEM TO FURTHER A LIE. I’d be pretty pissed off at that, myself.
Not ABC. It’s radio silence on all channels.
This is why I say the MSM is the PR arm of The Swamp. ABC is not ALLOWED to write about Taibbi being threatened. They’re not ALLOWED to mention how the entire “intelligence expert” letter was political from the beginning. Any reporter who dared try would find themselves relegated to Substack faster than you can say “you’re fired.”
The whole thing is just exhausting. And while I’m not the biggest fan of Glenn Beck, something something blind squirrel:
Regarding the lie that “nobody ever said it would stop transmission”, while there are obviously many online clips of Biden, Fauci, Walenski, MadCow, etc. claiming just that, there is actually a much stronger source. The real smoking gun is Pfizer's own Postmarketing Experience document submitted to the FDA in April of 2021. On page 13 of that document they clearly define "vaccination failure" as any lab-confirmed positive test in a subject at least seven days after their second dose. There's no mention in that definition of case severity or mortality. ANY positive test meeting those criteria was labeled "vaccination failure". That simply cannot be read by any rational person to mean anything other than that the experimental injections were supposed to prevent infection. And if you don't get the virus, you can't transmit it, which was obviously what was promised to all those being coerced to take the jab.
Bret Baier interviewed the "so-called" (shout out to the transitioning plaskett) cia agentman David Priess.
"What I’ll do is say is that it has all the classic earmarks of a Russian campaign in the way it was disseminated and propagated through media.”
“Do you regret signing on to the letter?” Baier asked.
“Absolutely not,” came the reply. “Because those words are still true.”
“It had the classic earmarks, but it wasn’t true,” Baier shot back, adding that the “nuance” appeared lost on Joe Biden.
“It’s not my fault if people don’t look up definitions,” Priess said.
Watching his performance, it's clear why obama's third term is succeeding. Imagine a town full of these pronouns, working overtime to destroy this country. These 55 signers need to be stripped of their access to classified info and all other privileges associated with their former positions within the intelligence community and government pensions.