Home » On the split on the right regarding the Ukraine war

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On the split on the right regarding the Ukraine war — 106 Comments

  1. neo:

    We have some Roosia “Rescuers” here, played by the Russian Drama Triangle but too proud to see it.

  2. I strongly recommend reading Mr. Atabashian on any issue regarding Russia and the former Soviet Union, whether he signs it as “Red Square” or with his own name.

  3. The line seems to be that because some people conservatives don’t agree with on many issues are favoring Ukraine, which has been invaded, we must necessarily not believe anything those people say. I don’t think that follows, logically.

  4. I support Ukraine but I never called for Americans to risk their lives in Ukraine. There are many ways of supporting an ally without sending an army. The three weeks of fighting have shown Ukraine is quite capable of defending itself, given enough guns and ammo.

    I agree with this and I also agree that the entire relationship with Russia has been distorted by the Russia hoax, which 72% of Democrats think is true. It has crippled our foreign policy.

  5. From comments by Russian officials, it seems that the goal now is to take the whole seacoast to Moldova and maybe to Romania. Can we believe them? I think it would be best to take them at their word. Don’t know if the war material we are sending now is too little too late. I think the Four Horsemen are riding about.

  6. Yeah, Mike K. But Kate, it’s worse than that We’re supposed to automatically oppose anything the rancid Left supports, like Zelensky!

    Foreign issues are often murky and “sides” difficult to transpose across languages, cultures, and borders. Too insist on being overly simplistic just makes matters worse.

    I see Left AND Right indulging themselves in the Great Sport of leaving to conclusions hastily, and often stupidly.

    Thanks for LINKING to Peoplescube. I’ve been remiss in not using this resource.

    I met Oleg (who is Ukrainian-American) on his book tour years ago. And remember PeoplesCube is your best source for People’s Propaganda on Current Party Line Doctrine.

  7. Absolutely correct analysis in this article. The Russians have achieved phenomenal success in misleading politicians and the population of many countries. Creating chaos in other countries is their favorite pastime, and they are incorrigible, unfortunately. In their own country, they prefer to increase the atmosphere of imperial greatness, while accusing other countries of wanting to humiliate Russia. The people of Russia have been almost completely driven by propaganda to the level of paranoids who really think that they are the bravest, smartest, richest people on Earth, and whom the evil West wants to destroy out of envy of them. Just “the mysterious Russian soul” of the 2020s..

  8. TJ, I long ago learned that automatically opposing any view, because some questionable people support it, without investigating, is not smart. Sometimes people who are wrong about most things have one issue right.

    In the case of Ukraine’s defense of its nationhood against a Russian invasion, I simply don’t see how this can be said to advance the evil “globalist” agenda.

  9. @Mike K

    I agree with this

    Likewise.

    ; and I also agree that the entire relationship with Russia has been distorted by the Russia hoax, which 72% of Democrats think is true.

    I’m more blasé about that. The Russian Collusion Hoax was only possible both with some cooperation from the Russian government (As we now know Re: Steele) but above all could not have happened were it not for the rather dubious nature of our relations with Russia for years.

    And I frankly place most of that blame on Putin, as Mark Steyn did. Putin has ruled for far longer than any US President and most Western leaders and bureaucrats, has been the recipient of at least nominal offers to mend relations from each incoming US POTUS, and has turned them down because he and his party prefer to align with the emerging anti-American pole in global politics.

    Had the US and Russia truly mended our relations, the Russia Hoax shindig would never have been anywhere near as potent as it was. The fact that the Democrats continued to demonize Russia using it (while also greatly inflating its threat) was just the icing on the cake of decades of dim relations.

    It has crippled our foreign policy.

    Agreed there, particularly since it utterly hamstrung what Trump could and Could Not do without being falsely seen as a Russian Puppet. Which meant he had to simultaneously show himself to be “strong” on Russia while also trying to keep relations from boiling over because of Leftist Rhetoric.

    That he managed to achieve it is one of the most remarkable of his many achievements.

  10. “While Russia’s defenders point out the existence of Ukrainian nationalism, they somehow neglect to mention the unhinged Russian nationalism. The two are not equal. The nationalism of a dominant ethnicity in an empire which aims to subjugate other ethnicities as inferior to the main one, is called chauvinism or supremacism. The nationalism of a smaller ethnicity trying to free its neck from under its “big brother’s” boot is called a movement for dignity, freedom, and independence – something American conservatives have always identified with.”

  11. And this is the part that most resonates with me: “Internally, on state-owned TV channels, Russian propaganda instills the sense of superiority, entitlement and indignation similar to what an abusive ex-husband feels towards his runaway ex-wife who better love him or else. In this case, the runaway ex-wife is Ukraine.”

    I’m instinctively wary of anyone who’s using the “how dare you leave me, I’ll kill you for it” approach.

  12. and zelensky has banned all alternate media, and imprisoned political rivals, it may be necessary, but he’s not nagy nor dubcek, the most fervent public defenders curiously have a indifference verging on contempt for American institutions,
    I don’t fault the Azov battalions methods, considering the history of past movements, maybe some of their public statements could do some trimming, this reminds me of the Bosnian conflict, where it was more a question of sentiment, that was driving Western intervention, and there was scance a look at some of the people we aiding, like the middle ranks of Al Queda, who didn’t really appreciate our assistance, to put it mildly,

  13. From the linked article;

    “Their virtue signaling and political spin over Ukraine is so revolting that if I didn’t know better, I’d turn against Ukraine like so many conservative commentators already have. Just as revolting is seeing previously trusted conservative sites and TV hosts defending Russia and tarring Ukraine.”

    Whom have I missed? I’m unaware of any conservative commentator who has “turned against” Ukraine much less has defended Russia’s actions and has engaged in “tarring” Ukraine. Tucker Carlson has been accused of that but his main point is questioning the wisdom of America deepening its involvement in the Russia/Ukraine war. That is not, by any means, turning against and/or tarring Ukraine.

    “Reading Russian and Ukrainian sources in the original, I know exactly who in this war is spinning lies and who is fighting for truth and freedom.”

    Is anyone here so naive as to think that only the Russians are “spinning lies”? That a corrupt Zalensky regime is “fighting for truth and freedom”? News flash! Ukraine is not a democracy. Its elections are rigged.

    “Some conservative hosts may not praise Putin’s ideas directly, but they favor guests and authors who deliver the influence operation script, blaming the victims and diminishing their suffering.”

    Hosts? As in plural? Who might they be? Does anyone actually think that Tulsi Gabbard and Colonel McGregor are working from an “influence operation script, blaming the victims and diminishing their suffering”?

    “little to do with Putin’s paranoia and his megalomaniacal motives to invade Ukraine and the rest of the former Soviet territories…”

    Would not Russia invading “the rest of the former Soviet territories…” almost certainly result in nuclear war? So besides paranoid megalomaniac delusions… Putin is also suicidal? One of those who “just wants to see the world burn”?

    “It’s time we asked, cui bono? Who benefits from a divided America fighting over Putin’s Russia? The answer is Putin’s Russia.”

    Putin’s Russia would certainly benefit from a divided America fighting over Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine were there such a deep and wide division over that issue. I see little evidence of such a division. It’s a decidedly small minority who supports the view that the West has consistently provoked Russia.

    “Russian influence operations, or “active measures,” have been targeting the U.S. for decades, aiming to demoralize Americans and make them hate one another.”

    Has not consensus long existed here that America’s divisions are the result of the Left’s machinations? Reportedly, Russian influence operations” had little impact upon the 2020 election, which would be the most impactful influence imaginable.

    “targeting conservatives as potential agents of influence”?

    Agents of influence… boy there’s a dark meme for you.

    “Russian propaganda is deeply embedded and is sophisticated enough to appear as honest opinions of concerned citizens. But what often betrays it is the narcissistic desire of making everything about Russia.”

    Who’s making “everything about Russia”? What’s going on in America and the West is of far more importance to everyone here regardless of their POV of the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

    “We are either fuming over Russian election interference, or over Russia setting up fake BLM pages on Facebook, or we are being dragged into sympathizing with Russia over its bogus fears of NATO expansion…”

    The only people “fuming over Russian election interference” or “Russia setting up fake BLM pages on Facebook” were democrat propagandists.

    Ask any competent and objective military strategist whether it’s “bogus” from a national security perspective to have a potentially hostile neighbor mere minutes away from your Capitol with the capability of launching an indefensible nuclear first strike. Ask whether they agree that capability rather than intent is the first concern.

    “it’s a bit odd for a regular American to be simply a selfless defender of Russia’s national interests.”

    Acknowledging another nation’s legitimate* national security concerns is neither ‘defending’ them nor acting as an apologist.

    But accusing the acknowledgment of such is a tried and true means of dismissing it without rebuttal.

    *legitimate when we would share the same concern if our positions were reversed.

    Contrary to what a section of conservative media claims, Putin is not a Christian knight in shining armor fighting the New World Order. He has his own New World Order in mind, which is spiritually closer to Mordor. One look at Russian society today with its brutal suppression of dissent, government corruption, and state-sponsored brainwashing should give an idea of what he has in store for the rest of the conquered world.”

    Putin can’t possibly have his own New World Order in mind, given he dosn’t even remortely have the capability to enact one.

    He is resisting the West’s New World Order Agenda of a Western controlled uni-polar world. He heard all about that agenda when he attended the meetings at Davos.

    Putin does brutally suppress serious dissent, corruption is endemic and state-sponsored brainwashing may well be the norm.

    But he has nothing on what the left is engaged in the West, with our Jan. 6th Gulag, doxxing and canceling of those who speak out, parents accused of domestic terrorism, the Biden and Clinton tip of the spear corruption and long brainwashing in the schools. An agenda that is accelerating, widening and deepening.

    “all of a sudden, many American conservatives today have become Russia experts, discussing the finer points of NATO’s expansion on Russian borders, Russophobia, Bandera, denazification, the Azov Battalion, special military operations, the genocide of Russians in Donbas, the movements of Slavic tribes in the Middle Ages, the plot by the CIA and State Department to install a puppet regime in Ukraine in 2014, the shooting down of flight MH17 by a Ukrainian missile, and other such nonsense.”

    NATO’s expansion is a historical fact. The attitudes that gave rise to the Azov Battalion exist. In the Donbas, thousands of Russian speaking civilians have been killed and many more shelled for 8 years. The plot by the CIA and State Department to install a puppet regime in Ukraine in 2014 is another historical fact. Calling them “nonsense” does not make them so but more importantly, reveals an unwillingness by the author to acknowledge contrary facts.

    Which makes much of this article hyperbolic propaganda.

  14. Never a shortage of folks jumping thru their rears defending Russia; been this way since 1917 and millions exterminated.

    I just don’t get it.

  15. please, if Russia were communist, the overwhelming political class would be on their side, that’s who Biden, Kerry, Panetta all genuflected to, Obama didn’t think the nuclear freeze went far enough, if Kamala had an awareness in her pot induced haze, she probably felt the same way, of course films of the era, not only the Day After, but Testament, Threads, Count down to Looking Glass, were all about we were one step away from apocalypse, now it’s totes fine, as we venture in sight of the Russian steppes,

  16. The Compact article makes some good points. The indiscriminate sanctions on everything Russian, including artists and athletes, make no sense. And Joe Biden’s statement about regime change was very unwise. Russian society and Russian leadership are Russia’s business.

    But I also don’t think their call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire makes much sense, in the face of Russia’s stated goals and actions. They call for a cease-fire which “takes into account Ukraine’s right to self-determination.” Ukraine’s right to self-determination is exactly what Russia denied when it launched this war. When Russia demonstrates that it wants to deal, then talks might be constructive.

  17. From comments by Russian officials, it seems that the goal now is to take the whole seacoast to Moldova and maybe to Romania. Can we believe them? I think it would be best to take them at their word.

    Well, Moldova appears to have been on the kill list at one point, inadvertantly revealed by Aleksander Lukachenko.

  18. Geoffrey jumps through hoops to critique the citation (too close for comfort?).

    Just one point to show how high he is jumping; comparing the Gulag to the Jan. 6 th incarceration and abusive treatment of American citizens, political prisoners that number in the hundreds, speaks of a profound ignorance of the immensity and the evil that the Gulag was. Clue for Geoffrey, the Gulag lasted 40+ years and took in millions IIRC. Look up the White Sea Canal or the Kolyma for a little taste of the Gulag. If not ignorant, he is a tad bit sloppy in his comparisons.

    Not that Nancy’s goon didn’t commit murder on Jan. 6, 2021. Ashlii Babbitt R.I.P.

  19. JohnTyler,

    What you don’t get is that acknowledging what someone honestly perceives to be factual realities is not choosing one side over the other.

    As no one has a complete view of the truth, someone can be mistaken in what they believe to be factual realities, yet because they honestly do see them as factual, they are not choosing i.e. defending one side at the expense of the other. Instead and however mistakenly, they’re trying to get to the truth of the matter.

    The appropriate response to disagreement when reasoned arguments are made is to directly address them, rather than respond with emotion based moral judgements, which invariably reduce to… my side are the good guys and the other side are the bad guys… case closed.

    Of course an unwillingness to accept that, results in ascribing to those with whom we disagree negative motivations. Like “folks jumping thru their rears”.

  20. What you don’t get is that acknowledging what someone honestly perceives to be factual realities is not choosing one side over the other.

    The salient factual reality is that Russia invaded the Ukraine and offered a set of preposterous reasons for doing so.

  21. Art Deco:

    But you of course are an ignorant fool because you do not see the situation from Vlad’s perspective, or have not walked kilometers in Vlad’s shoes, or grasped the existential threat posed by a mere thirteen minutes, or the evil of NATO, or WEF / Davos. or Nazis, or …. (sarc)

  22. Art Deco said: The salient factual reality is that Russia invaded the Ukraine and offered a set of preposterous reasons for doing so.

    Yes, and further, previous to the recent Ukraine invasion, Russia has done numerous other acts of aggression with equally as preposterous self-serving reasons. In Chechnya, Georgia, Moldova, as well as Eastern Ukraine and Crimea earlier. The question is why?

    Vlad Vexler has an interesting take on it in his video THIS explains why Russia starts insane wars.

  23. Since The Moskva reached its now stable configuration, the capture of Odessa looks increasingly remote, which may prevent Vlad from gobbling up the entirety of the Ukrainian Black Sea shoreline. That may prevent him getting to Moldova. Hard to do amphibious ops without dominance of the sea and air. Poor Vlad, his war seemed so easy in late February. Bloody murderous bastard.

  24. I’m starting to look into the bios of writers on the web, to see what ax they are grinding, what angle they are looking from, and what agenda they favor.
    Take your pick – from the top hits on DDG today.

    https://atbashian.com/about-oleg/

    Oleg Atbashian is an American writer and graphic artist. He was born in June, 1960, in Cherkassy, Ukraine, which was then part of the totalitarian Soviet Union. His writings present a view of America and the world through the prism of his Soviet experience. He is the author of Shakedown Socialism and the creator of a satirical website, ThePeoplesCube.com, which Rush Limbaugh described on his show as “a Stalinist version of The Onion.” His essays and satires have been translated into many languages and his graphics reproduced in various publications around the world.

    Raised in a communist dictatorship, he grew up believing in Marxism and in the communist future. From 1983 to 1986 he worked as a propaganda artist, creating visual agitprop for the local Party committee in a Siberian town. Observing the hypocrisy and corruption of the socialist system, however, he gradually reexamined his Marxist upbringing. Having returned to Ukraine in 1986, he joined the opposition movement, lending his apartment to dissident gatherings and collecting signatures in defense of Soviet dissidents.

    His first Russian-language short stories were published in Moscow in 1990. Around the same time his translations of contemporary Russian, Ukrainian, and American poetry were published in the U.S., Russia, and Ukraine. He also wrote articles in Russian and Ukrainian for several newspapers. He now writes exclusively in English.

    Atbashian emigrated to the United States in 1994 and settled in New York City, hoping to forget about politics and raise his three children in a country governed by reason and the rule of law. Working across the street from the World Trade Center, he witnessed the 9/11 attacks from a block away. That shocking experience was soon followed by his disenchantment with the American cultural establishment that almost uniformly blamed America for the attacks and used painfully familiar Marxist concepts of “anti-colonialism” and “class struggle.” That prompted him to start speaking against the leftist ideology that permeated the American political scene.

    Atbashian describes his political views as classical liberalism, with the emphasis on individual freedoms, free market capitalism, and international peace based on free trade.

    In 2011 he moved from New York to Florida, where he now resides in the Tampa Bay area.

    Since left-wing activists have removed Oleg’s page from Wikipedia, its content has been moved to other alternative projects by volunteer anonymous public editors, to whom I extend my gratitude:

    https://drrichswier.com/author/oatbashian/

    ABOUT THE PEOPLES CUBE
    Before moving to the U.S. in 1994, Oleg Atbashian lived in Ukraine where he sometimes worked as a propaganda artist for the old Soviet Union, creating agitprop posters for the local Party Committee in a small town. During that time, Oleg says he “witnessed the transition of Republics of the Soviet Union from corrupt socialism to corrupt kleptocracy.”

    When he arrived in the U.S., Atbashian was puzzled by the “level of delusional affection for all things Left among the ‘liberal’ intellectual elites who take America’s exclusive well-being for granted.”

    At that time Oleg dismissed this “delusional affection” as silly and of little consequence. Then 9/11 happened. Oleg witnessed that day from the base of the Twin Towers. “I’m still haunted by the horror I came to be a witness of,” says Atbashian. “The subsequent blame-America attitude among the intellectual trend-setters enraged me; ‘liberalism’ no longer seemed laughable. It was dangerous suicidal madness that had to be confronted. I took up political activism.”

    Oleg’s activism blossomed into the satirical street-theater group, “Communists for Kerry.” Atbashian says that, “Communists for Kerry was started in July, 2004 as a six-member satirical group with the stated goals of helping George W. Bush get re-elected and having a lot of fun in the process. I was the group’s writer, graphic artist, and webmaster. The project exceeded our expectations. Our last street theater event on Union Square in New York featured over 30 volunteers in communist costumes; many more people joined us online from all over the USA. We even had a sister group in Australia, and people wearing CFK shirts at a rally in Paris, France.”

    With The People’s Cube, Oleg is hoping to turn it into a nation-wide community web portal of spontaneous political humor and parody for conservatives, libertarians, objectivists, and anyone who supports and celebrates America’s freedoms, individual rights, and capitalism.”

    He currently writes for The People’s Cube under the pseudonym “Red Square.”

    https://drrichswier.com/2016/11/15/oleg-atbashian-arrested-faces-five-years-in-prison-for-supporting-israel/

    Many of our readers are familiar with the political satire of artist and author of Shakedown Socialism Oleg Atbashian. We have had the privilege of having Oleg and his team at The Peoples Cube as contributors.

    Oleg emigrated from the former Soviet Union to the United States and became a naturalized citizen. Since his arrival he has been a strong voice exposing the elite and powerful using agitprop, something he learned was effective in influencing the hearts and minds of the young in Communist countries.

    Now Oleg is facing Kafkaesque style oppression much like what he faced in the former Soviet Union. This time it is for supporting Israel by putting up agitprop posters on the campus of George Mason University.

    Oleg understands full well that American college students have fallen victim to political correctness, something used effectively by Joseph Stalin to silence opposition.

    In his FrontPage Magazine column Pro-Israel Artist Threatened with 5 years in jail for Anti-Terror Posters at GMU Daniel Greenfield writes:

    It’s not a story out of the Soviet Union though Oleg Atbashian, an artist, activist and commentator, had gotten in trouble for defying the authorities there too.

    “Back in my Soviet dissident days, when I was collecting signatures in defense of Andrei Sakharov, I was screamed at, threatened, and lectured by the KGB and Communist funcionaries. What I never imagined was that in the United States, the land of the free, I would not only be subjected to similar treatment, but go to jail,” Oleg writes.

    But that’s exactly what happened to him.

  25. Geoffrey Britain on April 23, 2022 at 7:11 pm:

    . . . Whom have I missed? I’m unaware of any conservative commentator who has “turned against” Ukraine much less has defended Russia’s actions and has engaged in “tarring” Ukraine. Tucker Carlson has been accused of that but his main point is questioning the wisdom of America deepening its involvement in the Russia/Ukraine war. That is not, by any means, turning against and/or tarring Ukraine.. . .

    I think a fair interpretation of what Carlson and most of his guests are saying is that Ukraine should surrender now (or essentially be forced to surrender now) to get to what Carlson thinks is the inevitable outcome sooner rather than later, and thus save Ukrainian people from suffering through continued warfare.

  26. Did Wikipedia really cancel the Cube?
    Why yes, yes they did!
    Maybe we can get Elon to buy the entire Web.

    https://www.bombthrowers.com/article/wikipedia-deletes-the-peoples-cube-from-history/
    January 9, 2017

    The politically correct commissars at Wikipedia have succeeded in disappearing The People’s Cube, the best conservative satire site in America.

    The site’s reference page at Wikipedia was deleted today. This is part of a disturbing trend in the world of social media. Non-leftist views are marginalized, and whenever possible, erased.

    This kind of thing happens all the time at Wikipedia, an open-source online encyclopedia. Wikipedia may be fine on non-controversial subjects, like how King Henry VIII treated his wives or Charlemagne’s military campaigns in the Italian peninsula in the 8th century after the birth of Christ.

    But digital despots guard pages that deal with political controversies and routinely censor views with which they don’t agree. That’s what happened here — and it’s a perfect illustration of why you should never ever ever donate any money to Wikipedia which has its hand out all the time.

    What’s unique about The People’s Cube (website link) is that it is written as if it were a media organ of the late Soviet Communist state. Even its graphics are Stalinist — and I mean that in the best possible way.

    People’s Cube founder Oleg Atbashian, an actual former propagandist from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, suspects it all started when a leftist complained to Wikipedia in the hope of having the reference page erased from history.

    The Left has won, at least for now.

    The People’s Cube Wikipedia has been replaced, sadly, by a talk page:

    [screenshot of a page that no longer comes up on an internal Wikipedia search]

    Here is Atbashian’s statement on the deletion:

    The People’s Cube entry has just been deleted from Wikipedia. Congratulations, comrades. We are now officially a non-site populated by non-persons sharing non-thoughts and making non-jokes. Right now I feel pretty much the way I felt while living in the USSR where an invisible hand obstructed any of my efforts to manifest my existence.

    First the Wiki-prog-editors defaced it by removing all the valid content and references, leaving only disparaging language. Then they voted to delete it altogether because there was no valid content and references left.

    See the previous thread about how it happened here. LINK

    I know it’s only Wikipedia and we still have our site, but this is a trend typical of Google and social media, let alone the MSM.

    The Wiki-progs started by vandalizing the TPC page by rewriting and removing the language, claiming that it had been disjointed and confrontational. When our volunteers offered a better version, the Wiki-progs blocked it for a phony “copyright infringement” because my bio was copied from a now defunct website (Moonbat Central, an old David Horowitz project). When that was taken care of, they started claiming that there were no valid references from “reliable third-party sources,” while at the same time removing all existing references to sites like the American Thinker and others, because they represented some right-wing fringe. E.g., they removed Thomas Lifson’s, Michelle Malkin’s, and Rush Limbaugh’s quotes about the Cube on that premise.

    In other words, their excuses kept changing while the goal to do us harm remained the main focus. It’s similar to how the Soviet media treated Solzhenitsyn, turning him into an non-person. If Wikipedia existed back then, these guys would have rephrased and deleted everything on Solzhenitsyn’s page, reducing it to one line: “Ex-convict, traitor to the Motherland, wrote anti-communist lies.” And then, because it failed to establish notability, they would have deleted the page altogether.

  27. Ira M. Siegel:

    If that is the case, it is a profound disappointment. Those Ukrainians don’t deserve to have their own country, they are Slavs after all? Neither did the American colonists in 1776.

    The USSR will never fall, nor will the CCP, and for that matter don’t resist the WEF / Davos; Vlad is fighting them.

    Has Carlson missed what Vlad has said about liquidating Ukrainians? Curious blindness.

  28. I think the saga of the cancellation of the People’s Cube at Wikipedia is an excellent object lesson for students of the wider Cancel Culture.

    The leftist slant of Wikipedia has long been noted, but this removal is a particularly egregious one so I am dwelling on it as a cautionary tale.

    This is how the stealth censorship works, like Twitter shadow-bans and Google down-ranking algorithms, so that people who don’t know something contrary to the Leftist Agenda Narrative exists have fewer and fewer ways to find out.

    (Snopes fact-checking The Babylon Bee is only a pale imitator.)

    The discovery that Wiki editor’s wanted to delete the page happened on 1/2/2017, and the deed was accomplished on 1/9, despite heroic efforts by TPC’s contributors and friends, as summarized in my prior comment.

    However, the details are fascinating, and full of foreboding, because they demonstrate so exactly the methods used by the Left to cancel their opponents.

    The proposed replacement page referred to is included, in case you would like to know something about TPC.

    The original entries are in reverse chronological order.
    A few excerpts, flipped back into chronological order:

    https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/urgent-people-s-cube-can-be-deleted-from-wikipedia-help-t19139.html

    1/2/2017 Thanks to the comrades who have promptly pulled the warning! I hope this Wiki page will now become an adequate representation of our grand operation here.

    This conversation about the Cube by some Wikipedia editors is very enlightening in its lunacy and is so to the left of Trotsky that might as well be one of our parodies. The fact that it’s real can send chills down the spine of a less seasoned comrade:

    Talk:The People’s Cube

    Just in case, in case this content disappears, I copy-pasted the discussion to save it as evidence of what kind of delusional, mentally deranged, and paranoid people decide for us what deserves to be on Wikipedia and how it should be presented. Click below if you want to see it.

    1/2/2017 I suspect the complaint was made by one of the activist Wiki-progs who wish the world would comply with their Party-approved narrative. Still, we should keep our house clean and not leave any weak spots for them to stick their fingers in.

    1/2/2017 – Our volunteers have now removed the “deletion warning” but someone on the other side quickly replaced it with phony copyright issues and a question about our “noteworthiness,” suggesting the Cube may not be noteworthy enough to be on Wikipedia.

    This is plain harassment and trolling. The best way to deal with it is to have bulletproof content, which is what I need volunteers for. This requires an experienced Wikipedia editor.

    Oleg is still being optimistic – but the fix is already in.
    Note how the goalposts keep moving.
    Kind of like Cinderella’s step-mother and step-sisters continually changing the requirements for her to go to the Prince’s ball.

    1/4/2017 – There is an ongoing Wikipedia discussion, in which you can vote for or against deleting the People’s Cube for being “unworthy” to grace the pages of Wikipedia. You can add your two kopeks to the discussion here:

    With about as much effect as in any rigged election.
    I doubt that Wiki even bothered to count the votes against deletion, since they obviously had already decided to do it, and there is probably no outside audit.

    1/9/2017 – The content is being constantly changed by the invisible Wiki-commissars. Just yesterday a more or less acceptable balance was achieved after a long and tedious tug of war. But last night almost all of the content and references were gone except for a couple of biased and disparaging paragraphs. This looks like vandalism. These “changes” were followed by a series of new “delete” votes on the discussion thread based on the lack of content and third-party sources – all of which they themselves had just removed.

    If I had time I’d write a parody about these guys editing the Solzhenitsyn page, rephrasing and deleting everything until the only content left was the line, “Ex-convict, traitor to the Motherland, wrote anti-communist lies.” And then even that line would be deleted by consensus because it failed to establish notability.

    1/9/2017 – The People’s Cube entry has just been deleted from Wikipedia. First the Wiki-prog-editors defaced it by removing all the valid content and references, leaving only disparaging language. Then they voted to delete it altogether because there was no valid content and references left.

    Congratulations, comrades. We are now officially a non-site populated by non-persons sharing non-thoughts and making non-jokes. Right now I feel pretty much the way I felt while living in the USSR where an invisible hand obstructed any of my efforts to manifest my existence.

    I know it’s only Wikipedia and we still have our site, but this is a trend typical of Google and social media, let alone the MSM.

    Makes you wonder what else isn’t in Wikipedia.

    Other notable milestones are down in the Comments section. TPC tried very hard to keep meeting the demands from Wiki’s editors, and there are some interesting side-stories in their efforts.

  29. I learned from entries about kimberlin about 12 years ago, the talk section is where they make the sausage

  30. Sorry not sorry for kind of hi-jacking the thread, but I think this extended exploration of the travails of The People’s Cube is actually on-topic, because to a large degree the split on the right is the result of the machinations of the media in suppressing “disinformation” aka “anything that interferes with our leftist agenda.”

    I searched Wikipedia today and got this:

    The page “People’s cube” does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search results below to see whether the topic is already covered.

    &

    The page “Atbashian” does not exist. You can ask for it to be created, but consider checking the search result below to see whether the topic is already covered.

    Hint: the topic is not already covered.
    I wonder what would happen if anyone tried creating a new page?

    A page on TPC at Infogalactic has more information on the cancellation war, but I like the explanation of their name and logo.

    “The People’s Cube is named after its flagship product, a Rubik’s Cube that is red on all six sides, thereby ensuring equal results for all who attempt to solve it, with no potential loss of self-esteem.”

    https://infogalactic.com/info/The_People%27s_Cube

    In early March 2006 it was noticed by The People’s Cube that Google erased/blocked any link to TPC site in its search engine database. The People’s Cube suspected it was a deliberate move by Google because of TPC’s criticism of Censorship by Google in China, and also TPC’s political views. Based on another known case of Google blocking individual political site pages. TPC then wrote letters to Google asking for an explanation, to which there was no immediate reply.

    Once The People’s Cube posted the topic of the Google removal it spread quickly through the blogosphere. Including a post by Google employee Matt Cutts on his blog, where he made the argument that TPC removal had to do with spam in the form of hidden text.

    Google eventually restored TPC to their database and in a written response to TPC stated, “While we cannot comment on the individual reasons your page was removed, we’d like to assure you that we do not alter our search results based on political viewpoint or ideology.

    Google has been a liar from the beginning, and the truth is not in them.

    In January 2017, the Wikipedia® entry for The People’s Cube was deleted from Wikipedia.[10][11][12]

    The site’s owner, Oleg Atbashian, responded with the following comment:

    “….How liberating. No visibility means no responsibility. Out of sight, out of mind.

    As a linguistic experiment, scientists once had “out of sight, out of mind” translated into Russian and then back into English. The phrase returned as “invisible lunatics.” That’s who we are now. No need to think now, non-people. The Wiki-progs have turned us into invisible lunatics. … ”

    This episode highlights how easy it is for editors to abuse certain rules within Wikipedia in order to achieve a desired outcome.

    And they are still busily at it.

    This was not the last time Snope got pwned.

    Articles of notoriety
    Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Was Overreaction
    The article is an attempt to ridicule those who have criticized Israel for a “disproportionate” use of force during its 2006 military conflict with Hezbollah by implying they would have done the same in reaction to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Polish Jews against Nazi oppression during World War II.[1]

    An image from this article began circulating via email, which was taken seriously by some people. Both Snopes.com[2] and About.com[3] have entries explaining the parody.

    Gotta keep those left-wing washing machines spinning.

    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cnn-washing-machine/

    On 1 March 2018, the Babylon Bee web site published an article reporting that CNN had made a significant investment in heavy machinery to assist their journalists “spin” the news they report:

    Although it should have been obvious that the Babylon Bee piece was just a spoof of the ongoing political brouhaha over alleged news media “bias” and “fake news,” some readers missed that aspect of the article and interpreted it literally. But the site’s footer gives away the Babylon Bee’s nature by describing it as “Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire,” and the site has been responsible for a number of other (usually religious-themed) spoofs that have been mistaken for real news articles.

    Only by left-wing idiots, because the leftist agit-prop is no longer distinguishable from parody.

  31. Returning to the TPC post detailing the skirmish with Wikipedia:

    Commenter Pamalinsky said this on 1/4/2017: “Ha! And some Comrades questioned me when I suggested that The Powers That Be™ would not be able to distinguish between a parody site and actual commentary.”

    Ain’t that the truth!

    Other notable comments (Red Square is Atbashian’s nom at TPC); most of them are citations to TPC in “reliable mainstream media,” in an effort to satisfy the Wiki editors’ demands, but as noted in the first excerpt, “reliability” depends only on ideology.

    https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/urgent-people-s-cube-can-be-deleted-from-wikipedia-help-t19139.html#p209945

    Red Square 1/4/2017, 10:38 pm

    The Wikipedia commissars are now trying to purge us from history. They keep botching the Cube article and deleting sourced information along with the sources, and then claim that “no reliable mainstream sources” support our “noteworthiness.” I don’t even know why a website like ours needs to rely on outside sources to prove its worthiness. But even if it did, the only reliable sources to those editors are left-leaning.

    So here’s the logic:

    The progs create a situation where only left-leaning media is considered mainstream.

    The left-leaning media naturally ignores anything that challenges its narrative.

    Everything the left-leaning media ignores by default doesn’t exist – there is no record of it.

    Eventually only the left-wing narrative exists as the only recorded reality. Anything outside the narrative is neither good nor noteworthy.

    Then Trump wins the election and the progs can’t understand what happened. They think their loss came out of nowhere – precisely because for them we do not exist. They had airbrushed half of the country out of existence in their subjective reality, but that doesn’t mean that we ceased to exist in the real world. And when they received a blow from the places and people that weren’t supposed to exist, it came literally out of “nowhere.” They didn’t see it coming because they believed they had deleted us long ago. It probably makes them wish we had been deleted physically as well, and some of them may well be willing to try – they just never had enough power to do so. Yet. This is how communists operated everywhere they had the real power.

    https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/urgent-people-s-cube-can-be-deleted-from-wikipedia-help-t19139.html#p209957

    Red Square 1/5/2017, 1:49 am
    A British (London based) academic magazine Philosophy Now used two of the People’s Cube images to illustrate its book review of The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.

    In the printed (black & white) version they [illustrations] appear on Pages 40 & 41. The web version has them in full glorious color, accompanied by this credit line: “Political Brains © Oleg Atbashian @ The People’s Cube. Please visit https://thepeoplescube.com.

    “They” are lovely illustrations of The Progressive Democrat Brain and The Conservative Republican Brain, and are worth taking a look at, if you aren’t afraid of mistaking them for real biological organs.

    https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/urgent-people-s-cube-can-be-deleted-from-wikipedia-help-t19139.html#p209983

    Red Square 1/5/2017, 4:48 pm
    Like I said, the Cube page on Wikipedia was started not by me (I think it was Maksim) and it was a long time ago. It came as a surprise at the time, but now I really want to keep that page out there because it’s a great way of introducing new people to the Cube, with all its history and achievements, which belong to the entire glorious Cube kollektive and not me alone.

    Besides, Google seems to be integrated with Wikipedia now, so many Google searches result in Wikipedia’s articles showing at the top, often in the form of an expanded preview window. That is of great value and giving that up would be a crime against Cubeness.

    Which is why the page had to be deleted, of course.

    https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/urgent-people-s-cube-can-be-deleted-from-wikipedia-help-t19139.html#p210023

    Red Square 1/7/2017, 4:30 pm
    Based on some of the comments in the Wiki-discussion, I understand that many of their editors are looking at the People’s Cube through their “progressive” filtering lense and can’t understand what makes it funny and why so many people are attracted to it. So naturally they suspect that no media would ever cover the Cube unless this coverage was organized by us as a way of self-promotion (I guess that’s how it works in their world). Hence all the nagging about the “reliable independent sources.”

    That is clearly how it works in their world.
    CNN+ for the win.

  32. om: I’m surprised by any conservative who does not want Ukraine, the actual victim of an invasion, to have an opportunity to defend itself.

  33. I freely admit to know knowing much about Ukraine. What I do know is propaganda. And propaganda is how the NATO powers want to “resist” this Russian invasion.

    The leader of NATO needs to Russians to sign an agreement of giving goodies to the Iranians. No necessary ground work was done by the NATO powers to organize a response to the Russians. The mass cancellation of Russia by woke megacorps and banks have more directly impacted the common Russian citizen and has failed to discourage the oligarchs.

    It’s a mess. I feel bad the about Ukraine, but NATO offers propaganda instead of solutions to the problem.

    If the “adults” would offer actual leadership things would be different. Cancelling a Russian’s apple pay doesn’t save one life, and only demonstrates what lengths the powers that be in the West are willing to do to those who resist “The Great Reset.”

  34. TPC Manifesto at the bottom of every page – sounds very familiar now that the Left has jettisoned its stealth indoctrination in favor of blatant activism (although there have been plenty of people noting the former):

    “The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.” ~ Ayn Rand

    https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/urgent-people-s-cube-can-be-deleted-from-wikipedia-help-t19139.html#p210066

    Comrade Stierlitz 1/9/2017, 6:14 pm
    There’s a phrase that goes “If you’re not on a list, you’re doing something wrong.” People usually use it in reply to other people saying “Now I’m probably on a list somewhere”.

    With the proven censure of non-PC or party-approved ideas, and the overall leftist slant of the mob-ruled Wikipedia, I’d like to propose a new phrase: “If you’re not on Wikipedia, you’re doing something right!”

    https://thepeoplescube.com/peoples-blog/urgent-people-s-cube-can-be-deleted-from-wikipedia-help-t19139.html#p210061

    Red Square 1/9/2017, 1:38 pm
    These SJWs are doing their best to push us out of the mainstream and make us invisible. They want us to be non-persons running non-sites, thinking non-thoughts and making non-jokes.

    The term “the silent majority” is not entirely correct. It’s “the silenCED majority.”

    If any of the SJWs are reading this page – this behavior of yours has caused the Trump rebellion. Have you not learned anything from it?

    They didn’t learn anything then; they clearly are not learning anything now.
    See: LibsOfTikTok; Disney; Fauci & covid mandates; truckers’ protests, etc.

    They are sitting on powder kegs and tossing matches at the fuse cords.

  35. WHICH, in the way of the Webz, when I checked to see that powder kegs actually had fuses, my search brought up some surprisingly relevant posts.

    On the Ukraine-Russia war, taking the Russian view.
    https://www.voltairenet.org/article215078.html

    The Ukrainian powder keg and the fuse
    by Manlio Dinucci 15 Dec, 2021

    According to the Washington narrative, Russia is massing its troops on the Ukrainian border and is preparing to invade in January. NATO would be ready to defend Ukraine from the Russian bear. In reality, it is Ukraine that is at fault: it has still not respected its signature and implemented the Minsk agreements, while Russia does not mass any troops on its border, but it has always had large bases in Crimea and now uses the bases of Yelnya and Boyevo, which are very far from Ukraine (750 and 830 km). No matter, Washington is beating the drum.

    On the intramural war among Americans today being very similar to the Revolutionary period (although not actually about the current Ukraine controversy) .

    This is a very long post, but it’s full of interesting information about the conflicts between the Whigs (pro-colonies) and the Tories (pro-British), and has excellent pictures.
    The author focuses on a particular New York citizen, Samuel Townsend, who has Whig sympathies but lives in a majority-Tory county.

    https://amberleighauthor.com/2021/04/22/1775-the-fuse-on-the-powder-keg/

    If you’ve been paying attention to the news these days, you’ve noticed the extreme degree of political partisanship that has lately prevailed in the United States. It is certainly more extreme than anything I’ve witnessed in my life before this point; it’s almost unprecedented. I say almost because this country has seen something of this nature already. And before it even officially became a country!

    Mr. Townsend, too, must have hoped and prayed that the king would meet them halfway. I imagine his Quaker conscience was a little unsettled at his participation in military matters, however indirect that participation might have been.

    And the events of the following autumn unsettled him even more. The Second Continental Congress ordered all the provincial congresses to form committees for each of their counties, and subcommittees for the various towns and districts. They called these Committees of Safety, and they were to enforce compliance, among their constituents, with the Articles of Association. If they caught any people violating the Association, they were to write down their names and send them to their superiors. In other words, they had to be snitches!

    And now, after serving in the First New York Provincial Congress, Mr. Townsend was to serve on his own “snitch” committee. This had to be the most unpalatable of all his duties so far, but the circumstances warranted these duties. That August, crewmen from a British man-of-war—the H.M.S. Asia—opened fire on New York City as a group of militiamen hauled the cannons away, under cover of darkness, from the Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan. These militiamen intended to do this secretly; however, they later discovered that Tories in the city had gotten word to the crew of the Asia about their plans. So those Tories not only deliberately endangered their fellow citizens’ lives. They also confirmed the suspicion that they were covertly communicating with the British naval vessels in the vicinity. And from these same vessels, they’d acquired a supply of powder, shot, and muskets to use against their neighbors.

    After this, the situation rapidly got ugly. Now the committees had to make the rounds of their neighborhoods once again, this time to disarm the Tories—by force, if necessary.

    But even now, Mr. Townsend feared to use force. He urged his fellow committeemen not to resort to violence, and in most cases, they didn’t…at least not at first.

    That November, there was another round of elections, this time for delegates to the Second New York Provincial Congress. The Queens County Tories made their displeasure felt. They turned out in force, voting against Samuel Townsend and every other candidate running for the Second Congress.

    The Whigs again refused to accept defeat. But this time they went a step further in defiance of the Tories. Back in those days, voters did not enjoy the privilege of a secret ballot, as we do now. So the Whigs were easily able to find out the names of all those who voted against sending delegates to the Provincial Congress. Then they took this list of names and had them printed in the local papers.

    By this time, life in Oyster Bay must have become decidedly uncomfortable for Mr. Townsend. He’d known most of these “disaffected” people all his life; many were colleagues, old friends, or even family members. And the same held true for the few other Whigs in the county. Many of their lifelong relationships were irreparably damaged.

    They could no longer in good conscience try to strongarm their neighbors and former friends; therefore, their superiors sent in an outsider to do the job. Colonel Nathaniel Heard arrived from New Jersey in January of 1776, and he terrorized the Long Island Tories so badly that they ended up as refugees in the wilderness. Eventually they formed their own militias, and bided their time as they waited for the British fleet to arrive…which it did, that summer. And we know, of course, what happened after that!

    It’s easy for us, now, to sympathize with Mr. Townsend’s cause and the feelings that drove him to struggle for it. It’s also easy to disapprove of the dishonest tactics he occasionally employed during that struggle. But, moral judgments aside, there are parallels between what happened then and what is happening now. The Revolutionary War was as much a civil war as a war between nations. It may not have been civil on the same scale as the actual Civil War that occurred later. But it’s interesting that the fiercest fighting in the Revolutionary War took place between Americans on opposing sides of the conflict, rather than between the Americans and the British. Hatred often seems bitterest when it’s directed toward someone in one’s own “group” (the same family or country, for instance), because of each side regarding the other as traitors. And the hatred resulting from the Revolutionary War lasted an entire generation and beyond; some might say that traces of it still remain.

    So I arrive back at my initial point…that what is happening now is not entirely new. Now while there might be something reassuring in that, it’s also worrying. Again, we know what ultimately ensued from 1775’s chain of events. It’s a good time to ponder that old adage about remembering history so that it doesn’t repeat itself. Or maybe I’m just an alarmist. In this case, I hope I am!

    Note that the Whigs’ activities are lauded now as being necessary to achieve US independence, and the Tories’ opposition deplored,
    but (a) the narrative was the exact opposite in Britain at the time;
    and (b) if the British had won, that narrative would be the one taught in America as well
    (not a new or unique observation on my part).

    As Benjamin Franklin said (per “1776”), “Every rebellion is legal in the first person….”

  36. @Ira M. Siegel

    I think a fair interpretation of what Carlson and most of his guests are saying is that Ukraine should surrender now (or essentially be forced to surrender now) to get to what Carlson thinks is the inevitable outcome sooner rather than later, and thus save Ukrainian people from suffering through continued warfare.

    That does sound like a saner interpretation off the top of what Tucker and co might be saying (I say MIGHT because I have not checked up much, since I boycott most of Fox after their role in 2022). And it is an understandable perspective.

    However, it is one I do not agree with for a few different reasons.

    First and foremost: R.J. Rummel (one of the greatest scholars and scientists the world by and large hasn’t heard of) managed to prove pretty definitively that the bloodiest and nastiest suffering doesn’t come from war, it comes from brutal oppression by one side being armed and empowered, stomping on those that cannot defend themselves.

    https://hawaii.edu/powerkills/WSJ.ART.HTM

    Ukraine has had no shortage of that in its history, including rather recent history.

    Now, I’ll be the first to admit that Putin is nowhere near as bad as Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, or the like (at least YET). But who on EARTH thinks he can be trusted to have armed power over unarmed people in a nation he has never entirely acknowledged has a right to exist? Who here has taken a look at the messes in Crimea and particularly the Donbas Manchukuos and thinks “Yes, this is a fine way to live life”?

    Especially given his proven track record of lying through his teeth, violating international law and national treaties, and so on?

    If he’s willing to lie about nuclear weapons in the lip service he gave to the Budapest Memorandum, what else is he willing to? And given how Russification in Ukraine has historically not been a picnic even outside of the Holodomor, I cannot fault anybody for fighting.

    After all, as one of the titans of the West said:

    ….you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.- Sir Winston Churchill

    It is one thing to surrender and be treated as honorable subjects, even if second class ones. But to be reduced further than that or have one’s nation and community be attacked in peace is..another thing.

    Secondly: I do think there is a significant chance the Ukrainians can win this. Not entirely of course, and likely as a moderate or marginal chance, but still. This is not Georgia. Ukraine is a tough, large, battle hardened nation with fat to burn fighting to defend itself while Russia was nowhere near as intimidating in conventional war as many of us feared (even if it is still hugely intimidating). The odds are against them to be sure, but not as much as in many cases. And Putin in particular is feeling the political heat if nothing else, being opposed to declaring this a formal war but at the same time feeling the manpower shortages that can only be remedied by drastic measures without it.

  37. @ Miguel > “I learned from entries about kimberlin about 12 years ago, the talk section is where they make the sausage”

    Yep. Crossed my mind.

    Anyone who doesn’t remember the story, this is a good recap.
    BONUS connection: Kimberlin met his wife in Ukraine (per the Daily Beast).

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-weirdest-story-about-a-conservative-obsession-a-convicted-bomber-and-taylor-swift-you-have-ever-read


    But in prison, Kimberlin became a decent lawyer and a fantastic self-promoter. In 1988 Kimberlin claimed that he’d sold marijuana to a young Dan Quayle, and that Republicans were using the prison system to silence him. It was a fantastic story that bubbled into the mainstream media and was reported out at length by the New Yorker’s Mark Singer. Kimberlin even agreed to collaborate on a book about his story. When the dogged Singer proved that his source was lying, he wrote a different kind of book.

    Kimberlin survived. By 1994, he was out on parole, traveling to Ukraine, meeting the woman who’d become his wife. By 2004, he had remade himself as a “voter integrity” activist, warning that electronic polling booths could be rigged and that George W. Bush might have stolen his second term. It took a while for reporters to realize that, yes, this was the same Brett Kimberlin who’d been mentioned in Doonesbury when he spun the Dan Quayle yarn.

    Yet Kimberlin didn’t really interest conservatives until 2010. Bloggers Mandy Nagy and Patrick Frey noticed that the co-founder of a voter integrity site was the so-called Speedway bomber, and started blogging to that effect. Was there a new Bill Ayers on the left? They were just asking questions.

    Too many questions. Very soon, Kimberlin e-mailed Frey about his blog posts. “I don’t want to get into a pissing match with you,” he wrote, according to an exchange posted by Frey. “I have filed over a hundred lawsuits and another one will be no sweat for me.”

    Frey was an attorney, though; and Kimberlin was getting even more static from a liberal blogger named Seth Allen, who—and there was no nice way to put this — did not act or write rationally. Kimberlin sued him. In 2011, Aaron Walker offered Allen “a bit of free legal advice.”

    So Kimberlin turned on Walker, quickly discovering his weakness. Angered by the threats to South Park and Jyllands-Posten for portraying the founder of Islam, Walker had encouraged bloggers to draw their own Mohammads. This turned into “Everyone Draw Mohammad Day” blogosphere-wide protests that Walker joined under the less-than-total pseudonym “Aaron Worthing.”

    In a January 2012 motion in Montgomery County court, Kimberlin exposed Walker’s name, address, and employer, outing him as the man behind the Mohammad blog posts.

    Frey, one of Kimberlin’s original attackers [sic], revealed that he had been SWATted, the victim of a dangerous prank in which someone’s phone number is spoofed for a 911 call that sends a militarized police force through his door. RedState’s Erick Erickson had also been SWATted, and Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss asked the Department of Justice to look into his case. Eighty-five House Republicans echoed him. Both Erickson and Frey wondered why this happened after they’d written about Kimberlin.

    Kimberlin denied any involvement, and no court has contradicted him. But the people who’d been writing about “the Speedway bomber” panicked. Robert Stacy McCain moved his family from Maryland to an “undisclosed location,” declaring that he was worried about what “the Speedway bomber” might do and that supporters of quality journalism needed to hit his tip jar. Ali Akbar, whose National Bloggers Club had created a legal fund for Walker, saw his 2007 arrest for credit card fraud splashed across pro-Kimberlin websites. Hoge joined in, waging a proxy battle against a liberal blogger who accused Walker et al. of being scammers.

    And this was how, on Aug. 11, Aaron Walker and his co-defendants ended up on the 9th floor of the Montgomery County circuit court.

    And it gets more lurid from there.
    Note: Patrick Frey, named in the above article, is the blogger Patterico)

    This is one of Frey’s early posts from the era of the brouhaha, which I was following at the time.

    http://patterico.com/2010/10/11/brad-friedmans-partner-and-buddy-a-convicted-bomber-perjurer-and-drug-smuggler-suspected-murderer-and-election-integrity-hero/

    ..
    In addition to his convictions for the bombings, Kimberlin was convicted at trial of impersonating a military official. (He sometimes posed as a military official as part of his smuggling operations). He also pled to the drug smuggling charge in Texas. For all these crimes, Kimberlin was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for these and other crimes, but was somehow paroled in the early 1990s.

    Now Kimberlin is partnered up with Brad Friedman of the BradBlog — the guy who has made such a big deal out of whether James O’Keefe was wearing a pimp outfit at ACORN. The guy who has repeatedly trumpeted the fact that O’Keefe was a federal criminal — for O’Keefe’s pissant misdemeanor violation of entering federal property under false pretenses.

    With Friedman, Kimberlin runs VelvetRevolution.us. Together, they report wild-sounding conspiracy theories about voting irregularities, and solicit donations. Kimberlin and Friedman offer rewards of hundreds of thousands of dollars for news of voting fraud.

    Many questions remain about the investigations Kimberlin has supposedly done with Brad Friedman. The guy appears to be a career criminal along the lines of Tookie Williams. The similarities are great: an intelligent violent criminal involved in multiple acts of deadly violence, who hatches a plot to escape from incarceration by means of murder. When that fails, he starts a massive publicity campaign, mobilizing the politically strident but fundamentally naive segment among the left who love to stand up for prisoners. As part of his campaign, he uses lame “art” to convince people he is a serious person.

    The main difference is that Tookie got caught, convicted, and was never let go. Kimberlin? He walked in 1994, and is now a progressive hero walking the streets.

    Then the SWATting started.
    http://patterico.com/2012/05/25/convicted-bomber-brett-kimberlin-neal-rauhauser-ron-brynaert-and-their-campaign-of-political-terrorism/

    You’re about to listen to one of the most bone-chilling pieces of audio you will ever hear. At least, it was to me when I first heard it.

    It’s a phone call that could have gotten me killed.

    In this post you will hear that audio clip. You will also read about a months-long campaign of harassment carried out by at least three individuals: Ron Brynaert, Neal Rauhauser, and Brett Kimberlin — much of it directed at critics of Brett Kimberlin. This harassment includes repeated references to critics’ family members, workplace complaints, publication of personal information such as home addresses and pictures of residences, bogus allegations of criminal activity, whisper campaigns, frivolous legal actions, and frivolous State Bar complaints.

    And finally, you will hear a comparison of one of those men’s voices to that of the man who made the call that sent police to my home. And you’ll read a declaration from a forensic audio expert comparing those two voices.

    BREITBART TOLD THE STORY JUST BEFORE HE DIED

    In the last radio interview Andrew Breitbart ever gave, on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Breitbart talked about a new ruthless tactic used by thugs against political opponents:

    [O]ne of the things they’ve done to people who have worked with me in the past, including an L.A. prosecutor, is to “SWAT.” That means that they’re spoofing phones, pretending to be somebody else’s phone, calling 911, and saying “I killed somebody” and then the person’s home is met with the guns drawn, the SWAT and the helicopters, in a horrifying act. It’s happened twice: once in New Jersey, once in Los Angeles, with an L.A. County . . . prosecutor who [is] associated with me.”

    I am that L.A. County prosecutor. And in this post, you’ll hear the hoax call that sent police to my house, pointing loaded guns at me.

    THE NIGHT I COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED BECAUSE OF MY BLOGGING
    ….

    But the Wikipedia article is remarkably sparse on details about the lawsuits and SWATting episodes.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kimberlin

    Kimberlin, the son of a lawyer, has been involved in extensive litigation over the years.[1] By 1992, he had already filed over 100 motions and lawsuits in federal courts on his own behalf,[34] including a lawsuit against Senator Orrin Hatch in 1999. The case against Hatch was dismissed in DC’s District Court.[35]

    Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day
    In March 2012, writer Lee Stranahan announced “Everybody Blog about Brett Kimberlin Day.[36]

    In May 2012 Slate reported that conservative bloggers were criticizing Kimberlin in an event called “Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day,” apparently based on litigation brought by Kimberlin against the bloggers.[37] Two bloggers who had written about Kimberlin said they were the victim of swatting, hoaxes that brought armed police officers to their homes.[37][38] Kimberlin denied any connection to the incidents.[38]

    On June 6, 2012, Senator Saxby Chambliss sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting an investigation of the swatting cases. Kimberlin repeated his denial of any involvement in the hoax calls.[39]

  38. Note: Orrin Hatch passed away this week. RIP
    https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/former-utah-sen-orrin-hatch-dead-at-88/
    “The Hatch Foundation sadly announces the passing of Senator Orrin G. Hatch—the former President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate and the longest-serving Senator in Utah history (1977-2019)…He served in the Senate for 42 years, retiring in 2019.”

    With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, NO ONE should serve in the Senate, or the House, for that long.

    The gerontocracy leading our country (and much of the world) are part of the reason there are such splits among Americans — everyone is still fighting their bogeys from the old days.
    That’s on the Left and the Right.

    https://accordingtohoyt.com/2022/04/22/eating-our-seed-corn/
    “The world has more or less always been ruled by the old. Young rulers taking over and being good was a shock.
    But there are two elements to this: their old weren’t as old as our old. And they had more young people to keep the system in check.”

  39. With all due respect, and I mean that sincerely, NO ONE should serve in the Senate, or the House, for that long.

    Agreed. New York has for its judges mandatory retirement rules which require judges retire the calendar year they reach their 76th birthday and be subject to biennial peer review past the calendar year they reach their 70th birthday.

    Why not make it a rule that all federal employees must retire during the calendar year they reach their 76th birthday? For elective positions, you’d have to stand down if during the term for which you might compete, you were due to reach your 76th birthday.

    Consider also: all elective federal offices serve a four year term, but you have to stand down if you’ve held an office for 14 of the last 16 years or will hit that wall during the term for which you might compete. (You’d need to apply the rotation-in-office rule to all time spent in Congress, not just to time spent in one chamber, or a few wily characters would just arrange to remain in office by bouncing back and forth between the chambers).

    Apply these rules to Hatch, who was first elected in 1976. He could have served for three four year terms ‘ere he had to stand down. Had he managed to return after a term on the bench, he could have served another three terms before again being compelled to stand down. He’d have been debarred from running for Congress after 2004 as the term for any seat contested after 2004 would have included calendar year 2010 (the year he reached his 76th birthday). Hatch could have sat in Congress for no more than 24 years and would have been compelled to retire at age 70.

    As for the Senate, you could return to election by state legislatures so at least you might have senators with something in mind other than pleasing campaign donors. Posit an electoral calendar where you elect the President and the House in year 1 and then elect state governors and state legislatures in year 3, with the state legislatures having a brief session soon after they were elected to chose the state’s U.S. Senator(s).

  40. Pingback:Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup - Pirate's Cove » Pirate's Cove

  41. Americans are being gaslit into a military operation in Ukraine. Make no mistakes here- the Biden Administration desperately wants to send NATO troops into the Ukraine, and the media is cheerleading this avidly- the only problem is that the polls prevent Biden, or whoever is running things in the White House, from doing so. So, the media will continue to run Ukraine 24 hours a day until some event is used as a pretext for NATO to act. We will be lucky to be alive a year after it happens.

  42. FWIW (and it really may not be much), the LAST thing that “Biden” wants to do—and the LAST thing “Biden” intends to do—is send troops to help Ukraine withstand Putin’s savage assault.
    (According to this hypothesis—quite possibility absurdly bass-ackward—it’s all part of the sub-rosa agreement/compact/covenant between “Biden” and Putin.)

    What “Biden” DOES want to do, however, is make it APPEAR as though “he” DOES want to—and WILL—do “ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING POSSIBLE” to protect Ukraine and bring about a “cessation of hostilities” (something for which the clamoring, corrupt media/info-tech sector is most useful)…

    …while in the meantime, milking the current crisis—a crisis for which “he” is deeply implicated—for all it’s worth (MAINLY for its ability to totally distract as many of ” the American People” as possible, and many others too, from “his” subversive and destructive policies in—practically ALL—other areas and theaters, specifically the economy, inflation, the southern border, Iran, CRT, COVID, the energy scandal, crime in the cities, the various hoaxes that “he” requires to be TRUE, the most honest election in American history, etc.)…while appearing as a MOST RESPONSIBLE and SOBER leader—not a warmonger or ambulance chaser….

    …which subversive and destructive policies “he” must do everything in “his” power to conceal, to misrepresent, to cover up and to lie about (once again with the able and willing assistance of the corrupt media/info-tech sector…).

    The more crises, the better.
    The more disinformation, the better.
    The more confusion, the better.
    The more dread, the better.

    “Biden” views this as central to his program.
    (And curiously, as I’ve mentioned more than once before, so does Putin…or maybe not so curiously, actually….)

  43. The Russian Collusion Hoax was only possible both with some cooperation from the Russian government (As we now know Re: Steele) but above all could not have happened were it not for the rather dubious nature of our relations with Russia for years.

    The Russian government had nothing to do with Steele and the hoax. It was a former Russian now in America who told lies to Steele.

    I missed this the first time I saw it.

    Personally, I think Biden’s handlers ginned this up as a distraction from his policies and their consequences. Putin took them seriously and invaded. He saw their weakness as an opportunity.

  44. Barry, the “last thing Biden wants to do is to send in the troops” doesn’t stand the test of history. I have heard that story before, and it is never true. The Biden people think Biden will get a political boost by being a war president prior to the mid term elections, so war is what we are likely to get, and it is what the media are cheering for, unless the polls make it completely clear that war is the last thing the American people want, and even that might not be enough.

  45. The trouble with bending over backwards to “understand” the other guy, like a Putin or a Hitler, is that one can always find , at least early on, a rationale to excuse their actions and find ways to blame other parties like your own nation , or NATO, or the Treaty of Versailles, or the over 20% of the population of the Sudetenland consisting of ethnic Germans, or the Bolshevik goal to achieve equality of outcomes and a workers paradise, or Castro’s takeover of Cuba by eliminating the crooked and bad Batista, or……. etc.

    The effort to understand the “other” guy blinds one to reality. Instead of seeking what really motivates the actions of the other guy, like for instance his actual words or writings or even his previous actions, efforts are expended to explain why the bad guy’s actions are justified.

    It’s only later, when it’s too late , that a fast moving 2×4 hits you across the face and injects reality into one’s skull.
    And sometimes reality never enters the minds of many; think AOC or Bernie Sanders or the murderer, Teddy Kennedy’s, personal trip to Moscow to find ways to thwart Ronald Reagan.

    Putin’s previous actions in Georgia, Crimea, Chechnya serve as a good template to what Putin believes, but most important are his OWN comments about Ukraine in which he state, for all intents and purposes, that Ukraine has no right to exist as independent nation.

    What is it about Putin’s comment about Ukraine that is ambiguous or prompts one to seek the “other guy’s” perspective?

    What is it about Putin’s THREATS targeted at Finland and Sweden, re: NATO, that are ambiguous or justified? Are we to attempt here to seek Putin’s side of the story?

    As I said before, since 1917 there has never been a shortage of Russian apologists in the West, no matter what the Russians have done, no matter how many Russians / Ukrainians (think Holodomor) have been/ are murdered by the Russians.

    They remind me of that U of Colorado prof that said the individuals within the World Trade Center that were killed on 9-11 had it coming.
    Oh, I guess he was just attempting to look at that from the other guy’s point of view.
    How noble of him.

  46. Excellent comments at
    Turtler on April 24, 2022 at 1:59 am
    and
    Barry Meislin on April 24, 2022 at 10:08 am.

  47. And just a brief reminder from the NY Post, vying with “the Bee” for the nation’s somethingorother of record, to all of us (METOO#) who believe we know—and even REALLY DO know(?!)—what “Biden” is up to….
    “Joe Biden’s all malarkey all the time”—
    https://nypost.com/2022/04/23/joe-bidens-all-malarkey-all-the-time/
    H/T Powerline blog.

    (Of course that’s A-OK since “he”‘s NOT Trump….)

  48. Great article, and this is all nothing new. Over 100 years ago the Secretary of State warned president Roosevelt (Teddy) that with regard to Russia he was, dealing with a government with whom mendacity is a science.

  49. @Mike K

    <The Russian government had nothing to do with Steele and the hoax. It was a former Russian now in America who told lies to Steele.

    I missed this the first time I saw it.

    That’s much too simple, unfortunately. While Igor is the one indicted (so far) for directly feeding/laundering lies to Steele, it seems fairly clear that Russian assets more directly tied to the regime were also helping it directly.

    https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/10/fbi-russian-disinformation-steele-dossier-trump/

    https://news.yahoo.com/steele-dossier-source-suspected-russian-103028627.html

    Classic information warfare (both when used by the Kremlin and in general): Try to play both sides against the middle. The Peoples’ Cube made a reference to this sort of stuff.

    Personally, I think Biden’s handlers ginned this up as a distraction from his policies and their consequences. Putin took them seriously and invaded. He saw their weakness as an opportunity.

    I largely agree. Certainly, Putin did not dare escalate his invasion beyond “deniable” trench war in the Donbas and the occupation of Crimea while Trump was in office.

    Now, if you are not for Biden (and Macron) you are pro-Putin.

    See how that works?

    A Le Pen win would be widely seen as a victory for Russia and a defeat for the United States and NATO.

    Yup.

    Indeed, it is classic guilt by association. To be honest my feelings on the Le Pens are lukewarm at the best of times but I don’t fear or hate them half as much as I fear the Left using stuff like this to demonize us. It is one reason why I hope for a Ukrainian victory: that it will help de-claw Russia as a boogeyman they can use to demonize us and try to persecute political opposition.

    Of course, I am much too cynical to NOT think they will not try to create a new boogeyman for that purpose if they need to, but it will inconvenience and delay them.

  50. @JohnTyler Brilliantly well said indeed, and I think that hammers home an important difference. There’s a difference been trying to reason out a political actor’s behavior and trying to rationalize it, in much the same way there is a difference between trying to understand that actor’s reasons and trying to make others understand said reasons are understandable.

    True understanding and analysis requires the ability to repudiate justifications or reasons that are indefensible. Where the excuses cannot actually excuse. I think it is valuable to understand the other guy’s side- really understand- both in the narrative they WANT us to believe and how they actually act.

    But that does not in any way actually mean I think we should bow and scape to do it. The Russian Government made it abundantly clear that Ukraine had the right to join NATO when it signed the Astana Accords and accepted the USSR’s signature on the Helsinki Final Act.

    If it had not wanted to do so, Putin should have held off having his goons sign off.

    But even if he had done that, it would not have justified his actions.

  51. Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine is a disaster. I think that gets lost sometimes in the inter-right discussion of the war. Putin’s invasion moved us from the realm of considering good/bad outcomes and into the realm of considering bad/worse outcomes.

    There were no good outcomes for the Ukraine once Putin invaded. Once the invasion happened, all of the options that included a Ukrainian victory involved considerable death, destruction, and human suffering for Ukrainians. The options that included a Russian victory involved differing levels of death, destruction, and human suffering along with either the end of Ukrainian sovereiegnty or a significant reduction in Ukrainaian sovereiegnty. Not to mention that a world where major powers feel comfortable aggressively invading their neighbors is a more dangerous world for all of us.

    Given that, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether different policy choices by the western powers over the 30 years or so since the breakup of the Soviet Union led to the current situation or whether different policies might have avoided it.This is especially the case given the links between US and Ukrainian elites over the past few decades, especially among our administrative class. Did the US politicians and bureaucrats like Nuland, Vindman, and Hill lead western-oriented Ukranians down the primrose path to disaster by making them think that NATO would support them or that the Ukraine would eventually join NATO? Asking that question is not being a “mouthpiece for Putin.” Asking whether the US or other western powers might have avoided the current terrible situation with different policy choices is not acting as “Putin’s press office.” The style of discourse that suggests otherwise is not helpful.

    I’m a little more ambivalent about what we should be advising the Ukrainians to do now. I don’t have a problem with pointing out the death, destruction, and suffering that the war is causing and suggesting that they might be better off negotiating a settlement quickly, even if it means significant territorial concessions, which seems to be the position that some are attributing to Carlson. On the other hand, it is only for the Ukrainians to place a value on their own sovereignty and autonomy. If they decide to fight to the last, we ought to respect that as well and I have no problem with supporting them as we have.

  52. The Washington Post is projecting a Macron win in France. Dare we believe anything appearing in that rag?

  53. “…While Igor [Danchenko] is the one indicted (so far) for directly feeding/laundering lies to Steele, it seems fairly clear that Russian assets more directly tied to the regime were also helping it directly.”

    The “version” I’m familiar with is that Steele fabricated his dossier from whole cloth. Totally bogus. From borscht to nuts.

    With Danchenko as his inventive, creative source.

    Do you have any support (or references) regarding which “Russian assets more directly tied to the regime”—which I assume is the Putin regime(?)—were “helping it directly”—I assume that “it” is the hoax(?)?

  54. Good lord. Some people need to get out of the house. Pronto

    I’m not even sure what is going on here. Am I somehow obligated to favor one or the other ? Am I supposed to ignore the history of the last 20 years and just subscribe to the black vs. white good / bad narrative ?

    I don’t support a Russian invasion of Ukraine. But I even LESS support sending one single American to fight for Ukraine. Least of all, until thousands and thousands of European soldiers have died defending Ukraine and attacking Russia first. This IS NOT our fight, again, least of all if it isn’t Europe’s fight.

    Meanwhile we have abject incompetents running the country. Am I supposed to support a war against Russia because these idiots can’t get out of their way, did nothing, and continue to do nothing of value to end the fight ?

    Anyone that claims we need to fight Russia over this is a flat out lunatic.

  55. Given that, it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether different policy choices by the western powers over the 30 years or so since the breakup of the Soviet Union led to the current situation or whether different policies might have avoided it.

    No it isn’t.

  56. My standard default is to root for the underdog however when all media all corporate and financial power is on one side when this same faction is for our endless reconquista when they support the mutilation physical and psychological of the youth it makes one pause, macron trudeau biden johnson what do they have in common?

  57. “No it isn’t.“

    And that is the sort of foolishness propped up by the original article, which is nothing but unadulterated tripe repeating the “Putin is bad and did a bad thing because he’s bad” nonsense.

    Here’s a good rule we should all follow. If someone has to suggest or imply that it is impossible for anyone to honestly have a different view and that any differing opinion is the result of foreign influence, that someone is not actually on the right side of the issue.

    Here’s another something to chew on. If a rise in fuel costs and a rise in food costs/food shortages leads to global unrest and the collapse of multiple governments, who will be responsible for all the death and suffering that results? If you reflexively say “Putin,” you are not as smart as you think you are.

    Mike

  58. Here’s a good rule we should all follow. If someone has to suggest or imply that it is impossible for anyone to honestly have a different view and that any differing opinion is the result of foreign influence, that someone is not actually on the right side of the issue.

    If your differing opinion has a cock-eyed understanding of causality but draws deeply from tropes which are recycled by the chatterati during every international conflict, I’m going to husband my efforts. Mortimer Adler said not every book merits a line-by-line reading. Well, not every argument merits much attention. In any case, we’ve run through it umpteen times in these comment boards and Geoffrey’s blather doesn’t get better with repetition.

    And having received what amounted to “fuck you, you’re stupid” from you every time the subject Iraq is raised, It’s pretty rum for you to be shooting this line.

    You wanna talk to Bauxite, you do it.

  59. “What you don’t get is that acknowledging what someone honestly perceives to be factual realities is not choosing one side over the other.” GB

    “The salient factual reality is that Russia invaded the Ukraine and offered a set of preposterous reasons for doing so.” Art Deco

    If one’s examination of an issue begins and ends with the first salient factual reality, any other salient factual reality will indeed be declared to be preposterous.

    JohnTyler,

    Recognizing and ackowledging the legitimate* strategic security concerns of, even an enemy… is not “bending over backwards to “understand” the other guy, like a Putin” nor is it “a rationale to excuse their actions”.

    Its facing strategic and geopoltical realities.

    *legitimate defined as what is declared valid when the shoe is on the other foot… has to also apply to even someone we detest.

    “The effort to understand the “other” guy blinds one to reality. Instead of seeking what really motivates the actions of the other guy, like for instance his actual words or writings or even his previous actions, efforts are expended to explain why the bad guy’s actions are justified.”

    You mean words both spoken and written repeatedly and consistently declaring NATO placing itself upon Russia’s border to be totally unacceptable for them? Words repeatedly and forcefully conveyed both publicly and to the highest levels…

    Actions like NATO stating it would be incorporating Georgia into NATO prior to Russia seizing the strategic portion of Georgia most relevant to its strategic national concerns.

    Words like the Ukraine stating that it planned to effectively cut off Russia’s access to its Sevastapol Naval Base by seizing control of the Crimea?

    Yes, we should pay attention to everything said and done… by both sides.

    Which BTW, includes Putin limiting himself to the smaller part of Georgia and now limiting himself to eastern Ukraine. Which for a megalomaniac determined to restore the former Soviet Union’s territorial borders is a puzzling contradiction…

    But hey, why let contraindications get in the way of a cherished dogma?

    We have to pay attention to the other sides existential factual realities, as otherwise we may greatly escalate the odds of future conflict. And when nuclear forces are involved, the consequences maybe so disastrous as to be unimaginable.

    Not to belabor the obvious but the aftermath of a nuclear war does not end well… for anyone.

  60. Geoffrey:

    Crimea prior to Vlad’s siezure was part of the nation of Ukraine. The Russian Sebastapol naval facilities were Ukrainian territory leased to Russia by Ukraine. Those are called facts.

    Subic Bay USN facilities were leased to the USA by the Philippines. When the lease negotiations fell through in 1991 the USA left. That’s how non-Roosian foreign relations work.

    Stop making things up regarding Russia and Ukraine if you want to be taken seriously.

    Just a bit of foolish advice.

    So we should thank Vlad for only taking small bites of Georgia, small parts of the Ukraine? What’s next small parts of the Baltics or Poland, or Moldiva? BS on stilts.

  61. If Trump were President would Putin have invaded Ukraine? For those who blame Putin 100%, the answer is yes.

  62. Stop making things up regarding Russia and Ukraine if you want to be taken seriously.

    “Making things up” is not approved here, I guess. Just like Trump “making up” the 2020 election steal.

    It’s no longer allowed to say “we disagree.”

  63. Russia, under attack from Ukraine, is now preparing to be invaded by neighboring Finland…as the encirclement of the beleaguered motherland continues apace.
    https://instapundit.com/517054/

    No doubt the Baltic states are drooling a bit too publicly in anticipation of getting their fair share of Russian territory while the going is good. And so, they too will no doubt have to be dealt with.

    Should one wonder if a smiling China will take advantage of Russia’s travails to pick off a piece or two of resource-rich Siberia?

  64. We disagree about opinions, facts misstated are not the same. Crimea was part of Ukraine. Sebastapol was leased. Those aren’t opinions. Vlad decided to take both from Ukraine. Sorry if that upsets you.

    Geoffrey isn’t being censored or banned for being wrong about these facts.

  65. “No it isn’t.”

    Sure. When a bad thing happen, one should never ask why and never consider whether one’s own choices may have contributed to the bad thing. That might cause one to discover out that he or she is not omnisicent. We couldn’t have that.

  66. From the meaningofhistory.substack

    “Le Pen ran on leaving NATO. So, again, it looks like it’s the oldies who, way disproportionately, want to remain in NATO and poke the Bear.”

    Le Pen may not win and France is stuck with Macron. Regardless Vlad is still a bloddy murderous bastard trying to dismember Ukraine on bite at a time. History shows that such men are not easily or predictably satiated.

    Otay, Buckwheat, that Bear was actually living with Cristopher Robin in that land of alternate history. But NATO had to poke it.

    Makes perfect historical sense.

  67. Sure. When a bad thing happen, one should never ask why and never consider whether one’s own choices may have contributed to the bad thing. That might cause one to discover out that he or she is not omnisicent. We couldn’t have that.

    Let go of my leg. That’s the go to narrative of topical commentary, magazine journalism, snap books, and academic literature whenever there is some conflict having vaguely to do with the United States.

    In this case, it’s preposterous. You wanna join Geoffrey in wasting your time on sophistry, it’s your time, not mine.

  68. Miguel Cervantes:

    There’s an Alabama connection to the Bay of Pigs. I attended a memorial event last week in Birmingham, Alabama for the four Alabama Air National Guard (AANG) crew members who were killed flying combat missions in Douglas B-26 Invaders over the invasion site:

    Leo Baker
    Wade Gray
    Thomas “Pete” Ray
    Riley Shamburger

    Baker and Ray survived a crash landing but were killed on the ground by Cuban militiamen. Gray and Shamburger were shot down over the water and crashed into the sea.

    Ray’s daughter, Janet Ray, spent almost twenty years trying to get the U.S. government to acknowledge that her father and the other three men died while in official government service. The CIA, which stonewalled her efforts, eventually relented and put stars for the four men on the Memorial Wall at Langley:

    https://www.cia.gov/legacy/honoring-heroes/heroes/pete-ray-leo-baker-riley-shamburger-wade-gray/

    Janet Ray was also able to get her father’s body returned from a morgue in Cuba and buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Birmingham. The cemetery overlooks Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport and the suburb of Tarrant, where Pete Ray grew up. There was a ceremony last Tuesday–the 61st anniversary of his death–at the grave site with a color guard from the 117th Air Refueling Wing of the AANG. It was followed by a lecture and reception at the Southern Museum of Flight, also located on the edge of the airport.

  69. @Barry Meislin

    Sorry for the delay, I did not see this reply initially.

    The “version” I’m familiar with is that Steele fabricated his dossier from whole cloth. Totally bogus. From borscht to nuts.

    With Danchenko as his inventive, creative source.

    That’s the heart of the matter, but he had more than some help from people outside of Danchenko (who himself is now getting investigated for possibly being a spy for Putin’s goons).

    Do you have any support (or references) regarding which “Russian assets more directly tied to the regime”—which I assume is the Putin regime(?)—were “helping it directly”—I assume that “it” is the hoax(?)?

    Starting out with this one, which talks about Danchenko’s ambivalent role and possible involvement with the Kremlin (even if it is on Yahoo).

    https://news.yahoo.com/steele-dossier-source-suspected-russian-103028627.html

    This talks more directly about the wider “suspected” involvement of the Russian Government. Hence:

    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/declassified-info-reveals-russia-hoax-was-based-daniel-greenfield/

    https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/10/fbi-russian-disinformation-steele-dossier-trump/

    The FBI received assessments in 2017 that Russia’s intelligence service, RIS, pushed disinformation to Steele regarding former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and a 2013 trip that Trump made to Moscow, according to one footnote.

    Footnote 350 notes that the Crossfire Hurricane team had information on hand “indicating the potential for Russian disinformation influencing Steele’s election reporting.” The source, which remains classified, “assessed that the referenced subset was part of a Russian disinformation campaign”. More disturbingly, another section suggests “RIS “infiltrate[ing] a source into the network of a ______________ who compiled a dossier of information on Trump’s activities.”

    https://thepoliticalwarroom.com/russia-hoax-smoking-gun/

    For instance, in early October 2016, before the first FISA warrant was secured, the FBI team leading the Russia investigation codenamed Crossfire Hurricane was told that one source used by Steele and known as Person 1 was tied to Russian intelligence— yet failed to disclose this to the FISA court.

    “According to a document circulated among Crossfire Hurricane team members and supervisors in early October 2016, Person 1 had historical contact with persons and entities suspected of being linked to RIS,” the acronym for Russian Intelligence Services, one footnote in the Horowitz report revealed. “The document described reporting [redacted] that Person 1 was rumored to be a former KBG/SVR officer.”

    The FBI also failed to disclose to the FISA judge that the source known as Person 1 was under a separate counterintelligence investigation by the FBI, the IG report foot notes show.

    So in short, we’re already DEFINITELY looking at the Crossfire-Hurricane Goons intentionally downplaying the Kremlin ties of those “cooperating” with them, and Occam’s Razor says we are looking at a targeted disinformation campaign.

    Vocational Training as of late keeps me busy, so I don’t have the source index I once had. But I’ll try and keep digging and in the meantime hope this helps whet your appetite.

  70. Dan Bongino has covered much of thus, but it will be interesting to hear what Turtler comes up with. Tales of the un-poked Bear, the Hilldabeast, and the alphabet agencies.

  71. A strong military posture is warranted but what we have been signaling for more than a year has been the opposite, not to mention how the eu whined about having to dare their bare minimum contf
    Ribution

  72. I am standing back on the side right now simply because I don’t trust US foreign policy here. The current Ukrainian faction in charge got in power by bribing the Biden family to help effect regime change, and our continued support of their government may just be the Bidens staying bribed. We saw with Trump’s first impeachment how this pro-Ukrainian faction of our own government was willing to lie through their teeth to get rid of OrangeManBad.

  73. Eva Marie:

    You write:

    If Trump were President would Putin have invaded Ukraine? For those who blame Putin 100%, the answer is yes.

    Untrue.

    I blame Putin 100%. If it were possible to blame him 1000%, I’d do that instead. And my answer to your question is “no.”

    One thought does not follow the other at all. It is a matter of timing. Putin was waiting for the right moment, and he seized it.

  74. deadrody:

    No one here is suggesting sending Americans to fight. And although somewhere there must be a few people saying we should, I certainly haven’t seen them.

    In addition, everyone here agrees that we are in dire straits domestically and that the administration is abominable. But being serious about that topic doesn’t require ignoring the topic of Ukraine.

    So, why the strawman argument?

  75. The question looming in the background is whether any foreign regime is more of an enemy of the United States than the illegitimate one presently running the US. I say no, and my foreign policy views are colored accordingly.

  76. Two YouTube videos on the Ukraine war that are apolitical,

    military economics and logistics

    The Price of War – Can Russia afford a long conflict?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?

    Ukraine vs Russia – Who wins a war of hardware attrition?
    v=aEpk_yGjn0E&t=19shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ptG1IxZ08

  77. Neo: “Putin was waiting for the right moment, and he seized it.”
    A year ago you wrote “if you eliminate penalties for certain crimes, you will get more of those crimes.”
    Do the policies we follow affect the behavior of criminals? And should we blame policies (and the politicians who put them into effect) that encourage criminal behavior?

  78. Turtler, thanks much for your response…

    I respect immensely Daniel Greenfield, generally.
    Here I think he’s trying to be a bit too sophisticated, though one can certainly understand why.
    Granted, nothing related to Russia is simple. The opposite, in fact. Especially when it comes to espionage.

    My problem with the description of “clever Russian subterfuge”, disinformation and interference in Greenfield’s article, to which you linked, is that there did NOT NECESSARILY have to be any Russian disinformation at all—even if “intuitively” such subterfuge and disinformation emanating from Russia would most certainly “make sense”.

    My point here is that it could have been entirely invented and then pinned—“SENSIBLY”, “INTUITIVELY”—on Russian sources, on Russian “disinformation”, on Russian interference; which is something that would surprise absolutely no one; which in fact would be accepted by absolutely everyone: “THOSE RUSSIANS”, etc.

    Which is, if what I am proposing is correct, is precisely what happened.

    IOW, it was Clinton and her sinister associates ALL THE WAY DOWN—without any “official” Russian input at all.
    And when that immaculately concocted, most exquisite plot (AKA Russiagate) FAILED to prevent Trump’s election, it was (too good to waste!) seamlessly appropriated by the vindictive—AND ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED—lame-duck Obama gang, using the same compromised private operatives and FBI/CIA/DNI ring of confederates already coopted by Clinton.

    Once again: it was the Clinton and later Obama (Inc.) all the way down.
    There was NO genuine(!) Russian disinformation that the Democrats exploited (which is what Greenfield concludes—and which it ABSOLUTELY makes sense to conclude…even if wrongly).
    As an aside, holding such an opinion seems to me to slightly let the Democrats off the hook here; i.e., slightly (in the sense of the Democrats, in order to destroy TRUMP, “merely” exploiting what was already, purportedly, put “out there” by the Russians).

    As I understand(!) it (i.e., in my(!) view), the ONLY disinformation that was used was Danchenko’s (and his so-called “sources”) fed which “information” was filtered through Steele (and Steele’s supposed “sources”—after all, Steele was a former spy, so he HAD TO HAVE to have Russian sources, right?!… OF COURSE HE DID! It stands to REASON! It’s so very OBVIOUS).

    But he didn’t. Steele HAD no REAL RUSSIAN sources. Moreover, he didn’t need any—since anyone and everyone would assume he DID HAVE them. He had Danchenko(!), that master confabulator who had seemed to be incredibly resourceful, inventive, imaginative and creative (and no doubt had a LOT of fun…even as he was getting paid handsomely).

    OTOH, Steele DID NEED to make it seem as though he DID HAVE a source, a flesh and blood “source” (AKA scapegoat) on which to hang his garbage dossier.

    And this is precisely where the innocent Sergei Millian, that poor SOB—comes in.

    The need to frame Millian is PROOF that Steele HAD NO REAL SOURCES.
    https://twitter.com/HansMahncke/status/1457493139363614726

  79. Gosh, after all that nonsense, we probably should lighten up a bit.
    Here’s the JOKE of the day:
    The Great Man himself on “Challenges to Democracy”(!)—
    https://twitter.com/BarackObama/status/1517333872375042048
    H/T Jeff Carlson twitter feed.

    …and if that doesn’t have you ROTL, here’s the HOAX of the day:
    “…No, Kevin McCarthy Did Not Say Trump Should Resign Over J6”—
    https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/04/media-hoax-no-kevin-mccarthy-did-not-say-trump-should-resign-over-j6/
    Key graf:
    “There they go again. The left and NeverTrump infotainment propagandists are busily twisting and spinning their claims that then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy wanted President Trump to resign after J6….”

    File under: “Amusing Ourselves to Death”…
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

  80. There’s a lot of comments here but I had to pipe in. The thing that rubs me the wrong way with this piece is what I seem to have seen a lot of: the easy setup of strawmen to then be easily knocked to the side. Perhaps I’m just not reading or watching the “right” conservatives to see the message, but I have yet to find one who has strongly embraced the Russian side of things. The author continues with the “with us or against us” positioning without leaving room for nuance. While he seemed to appear gracious in not naming names, I suspect this could also have been to keep scrutiny to a minimum. The most commonly criticized commenter on Russia/Ukraine seems to be Tucker Carlson. yet every time I have seen him speak he as always been careful to point out that Russia’s invasion is a bad thing and what is happening is wrong. I think the willingness to point out that there is a realpolitik argument that has been in the public discourse since the mid 90s seems to slip by many. Two things can be true: Russia is wrong and ALSO NATO expansion to the borders of Russia has finally provoked a response or, at the VERY LEAST, provided the excuse that Putin needed to achieve his other goals, whatever they may be. These are not mutually exclusive phenomena.

  81. The real question is, what is a true reason?; and what is a useful excuse?

    However, when one is dealing with either paranoiacs or thugs (or paranoiac thugs—thuggish paranoiacs?), the differences collapse on themselves and all bets are off. IOW, it really doesn’t matter.

    In such cases, it only matters whether one has the power to withstand the aggression…and whether one is prepared/willing to use it.

    The larger picture, presented as a comprehensive, panoramic synthesis of many of the strands of the current madness…IOW, how it’s ALL connected.

    Not very surprising to those who’ve been paying attention, but well organized and presented…
    “For The Narrative-Creators, The Play Is You… And You Are Not Real”—
    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/narrative-creators-play-you-and-you-are-not-real

  82. The current Ukrainian faction in charge got in power by bribing the Biden family to help effect regime change,

    Actually, Zelenskyy was elected in 2019. He defeated the incumbent, who had been elected in 2014. This isn’t obscure information.

  83. The regime is busy imprisoning its real enemys in the bastille on capitol hill smashing the supply lines emptying our fuel reserve letting the mobs run free, deforming the childrens bodies and minds they are the best ally putin could have dreamed they antagonize india brazil the saudis not unimportant players a hot war would enable them to escape accountability

  84. And the “Uncontested Election”(TM) monster raises once again its menacing, triumphant head….
    …except that…
    “Are Democrats and Joe Biden up to their old election tricks?”—
    https://nypost.com/2022/04/24/biden-is-up-to-old-election-tricks/
    Key grafs:
    ‘The most compelling evidence to date has emerged in “2000 Mules,” the upcoming documentary by conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza, who draws on research by election integrity group True The Vote to expose suspicious ballot harvesting.
    ‘Using cellphone geotracking and surveillance video, it shows a network of “mules” in battleground states busily collecting ballots from get-out-the-vote NGOs and stuffing them, a few at a time, into multiple drop boxes in the dead of night.
    ‘The extent of the operation is jaw-dropping….’

    Nope, the Democrats are not at all worried about November 2022…or November 2024…or any other November in the future.

  85. Well if nothing else it does most certainly explains why Joe Biden was so “POPULAR”….

    So WILDLY POPULAR.

    So UNPRECEDENTLY WILDLY POPULAR.

    (One would think that No Malarkey Joe would at least have the decency to thanks Donald Trump for his record-breaking, historic “VICTORY”…. But that would require that Joe have a shred of decency, honesty, class…)

  86. They treat cops as criminals parents as terrorists whitewash actual criminals and terrorists encourage the self immolation of that nut bruce

  87. Burton M. I suppose it’s academically important to figure if Putin really thought NATO was a threat or if he figured it was an excuse and a lot of people would buy the proposition, thus giving him some slack internationally.

    Both here and elsewhere, I’ve seen arguments which would make “byzantine” look like straight-shootin’ cowboy lingo, referencing documents, understandings, speeches, all leading to the conclusion that the west’s skirt was too short and no blame applies to Putin.

    I have been reminded of Sowell’s “Intellectuals and War”, especially as regards the era just prior to WW II.

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