The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.’
TikTok ticking away
The TikTok divestiture bill has passed the House. It’s bipartisan, and Ace explains why:
The bill does not outlaw TikTok or shut it down. What it does is required the ChiCom owner of TikTok, a state-controlled entity called ByteDance, to sell the US part of the operation (I believe) to some non-China-controlled entity within (I think) six months or so.
If the ChiComs do not sell, then TikTok gets shut down.
But they have plenty of time to sell. …
Well, there’s no doubt that Red China is using TikTok both for purposes of espionage as well as a really vicious demoralization campaign against America’s children. China has its own version of TikTok, but that platform encourages pro-social activities, studying, being dutiful to one’s parents, etc.
The American version of TikTok is 24/7 transgender conversion therapy.
Oh, and the Chinese version of TikTok imposes a time limit on usage, so that children do not spend their entire f***ing young lives endlessly scrolling through crap content. …
On the other hand, of course, the left has agreed to the divestiture bill for TikTok because they have the Real Prize in mind: Twitter. They would like to pass the same bill to force Elon Musk to sell Twitter to representatives of the Democrat Party.
Republicans can object and say that the TikTok bill was only justified because it was owned by a hostile foreign nation, doing the bidding of that hostile foreign nation’s intelligence services.
Democrats will say, no, the action was justified because TikTok “causes harm” and nothing causes more harm than Pepe the Frog memes on Twitter. They will say that Elon Musk is much, much more dangerous than Red China. …
On the other other hand … the right constantly argues that “we can’t do x because that will free the left to do something horrible,” but this argument has been proven hollow: The left is doing horrible things whether we grant a precedent they can claim to justify it or not.
And the libertarians are in la-la-land about all of this:
1/ Can't be overstated how badly isolated libertarians are in this TikTok fight, and how much their kicking and screaming is hurting their credibility in the conservative coalition. ?
— Oren Cass (@oren_cass) March 12, 2024
6/ Inviting a Communist Party into our market, even as it bars foreign competition in its own, is no one’s idea of advancing capitalism. At some point it's fair to ask, what exactly do these groups think they're defending? Is this really their conception of the free market?
— Oren Cass (@oren_cass) March 12, 2024
Americans don't owe China the right to spy on and manipulate our citizens.
The First Amendment doesn't extend to the CCP, nor does it permit free rein for foreign adversaries to control the social media apps Americans use.
Moreover, China doesn't reciprocate regarding our…
— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) March 12, 2024
This is a huge deal. TikTok is heavily influencing the youth of our country in particular, and it is under Chinese control. This fight about TikTok is emblematic of the entire question of the pernicious influence of social media, whether to go about controlling it, and if so how to control it and who should be controlling it.
October 7 for the Filipinos in Israel
October 7 was such a terrible blow for Israelis that it’s easy to forget how many nationals of other countries who lived there were victims and/or heroes, too. Here is a video about Filipinos in Israel, most of whom were employed as caretakers for elderly Israelis:
1000 Family Dollar stores to close
As part of its portfolio optimization, initially announced late last year, the company will close 600 of its Family Dollar stores in the first half of 2024. An additional 370 Family Dollar stores and 30 Dollar Tree stores will close over the next several years once their leases expire, the company said in its fourth-quarter earnings report.
One would think, with inflation, that stores of this budget type would be prospering. But the problem with Family Dollar appears to be “unexpected costs from a recall of various over-the-counter drugs and medical devices in nearly two dozen states last fall.”
I sometimes shop in Dollar Tree stores; I’m not so familiar with Family Dollar, but I assume it’s similar. These types of stores are good for very basic supplies that don’t need to be fancy and whose prices can add up quickly in other stores.
To get an idea of the scope of the closings, there are 8,359 Family Dollar stores in the US right now, so the closings will affect about one-eighth of the total. There are 8415 Dollar Trees, and with only thirty of those closing, that line will remain largely the same.
I happen to have gone to my local mall yesterday for the first time in a very long time. It’s a bit ghost-townish, with perhaps a third of the storefronts empty. I well remember its opening about forty years ago (!). It was a huge event, and the place was always crowded for many decades. In recent years it was already fading, but COVID lockdowns killed it – or at least very much weakened it. Some original stores remain, but most of the businesses that are open are different ones than before.
The number of patrons was small yesterday; my footsteps echoed on the tile. But there was a set-up for kids to have photos taken with the Easter bunny, although I saw neither bunny nor children when I was there in the early evening.
Entrapment and the Whitmer kidnapping plot
I’ve written about this before, but now we have more evidence of the FBI’s role in plotting to kidnap Michigan’s Governor Whitmer and entrapping the defendants who are now imprisoned, two of them for lengthy terms.
Here’s the recent news that appeared in The Intercept [emphasis mine]:
But the FBI quickly realized it had a problem: A key informant [Robeson] in the case, a career snitch with a long rap sheet, had helped to orchestrate the kidnapping plot. …
The FBI documents and recordings reveal that federal agents at times put Americans in danger as the Whitmer plot metastasized. …
The files also raise questions about whether the FBI pursued a larger, secret effort to encourage political violence in the run-up to the 2020 election. At least one undercover FBI agent and two informants in the Michigan case were also involved in stings centering on plots to assassinate the governor of Virginia and the attorney general of Colorado. …
Federal agents paid Robeson nearly $20,000 to participate in a conspiracy that evolved into a loose plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, according to the documents. But FBI agents knew that two other informants and some of the defendants in the Whitmer case believed that Robeson was the plot’s true architect.
So on December 10, 2020, agents called Robeson into the FBI’s office in Milwaukee in an apparent attempt to silence him. In an extraordinary five-hour conversation, which FBI agents recorded, one of Robeson’s handlers told him: “A saying we have in my office is, ‘Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story,’ right?” Despite federal and state trials involving the kidnapping plot, this recording — which goes to the heart of questions about whether the FBI entrapped the would-be kidnappers — was never allowed into evidence. The Intercept exclusively obtained the full recording and is publishing key portions …
The FBI agents asked Robeson to sign a nondisclosure agreement and proceeded to coach and threaten him to shape his story and ensure that he would never testify before a jury. Their coercion of Robeson undermines the Justice Department’s claim, in court records, that Robeson was a “double agent” whose actions weren’t under the government’s control. The agents also made it clear that they had leverage: They knew Robeson had committed crimes while working for the FBI.
“We know we have power, right?” an FBI agent told Robeson during this meeting …
Federal agents were particularly troubled by messages Robeson had sent to Barry Croft Jr., a primary target in the investigation, that alluded to using violence against elected officials. Croft’s lawyer could use those messages to suggest that the kidnapping plot had been Robeson’s idea, not Croft’s, the agents feared.
Croft was sentenced to nineteen and a half years for his role.
The entire Intercept article is worth reading.
NOTE: You can find many of my previous posts on entrapment and the Whitmer kidnap plot case here.
Open thread 3/13/24
Countering the mendacious “Palestine” maps
You may have seen a series of maps of “Palestine” that have been circulated for a while by pro-Palestinian propagandists. Here’s a refutation. If you ever encounter someone touting these purposely misleading maps, you might refer them to that article.
Then again, the article is long, and a lot of people have very short attention spans these days. For them, this would be a better learning tool:
Creating the J6 narrative
It should come as no surprise that the House Select committee on January 6 withheld evidence that tended to exonerate Trump:
Former President Donald Trump claimed vindication Monday after new evidence released by Congress undercut two sensational claims Democrats made about him during the Jan. 6 investigation, including that he tried to commandeer his Secret Service vehicle that day to go to the Capitol and never offered National Guard troops for extra protection ahead of the fateful event.
“These were made-up, fabricated stories,” Trump told Just the News in an exclusive interview.
Trump spoke hours after the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., released transcripts and other evidence in an interim report that concluded the Democrat-run House Select Committee on Jan, 6 withheld from the public evidence that contradicted its final conclusions.
Lies are effective, though. My guess is that most of the people who believed the “grab the steering wheel” story in the first place still believe it. A lie gets halfway around the world …
And if the MSM weren’t a Democrat propaganda machine, the suppression of this testimony by the J6 committee would be enormous news.
Hur tells us what we already know about Biden and his storage of classified documents
Hur, who was the special counsel investigating Biden’s handling of classified documents, has been testifying before the House Judiciary Committee today:
“You exonerated him,” Jayapal said.
“I did not exonerate him,” Hur shot back. “That word does not appear in the report, Congresswoman.” …
Ex-Special Counsel Robert Hur testified Tuesday that President Biden “willfully retained classified materials,” but said he “had to consider” the president’s “memory and overall mental state” when determining whether to bring charges against him. …
“This evidence included an audiorecorded conversation during which Mr. Biden told his ghostwriter that he had ‘just found all the classified stuff downstairs.’ When Mr. Biden said this, he was a private citizen speaking to his ghostwriter in his private rental home in Virginia,” Hur continued. “We also identified other recorded conversations during which Mr. Biden read classified information aloud to his ghostwriter.”
A transcript of Hur’s interview with Biden was released and can be found here. I haven’t read it, but there are many articles containing highlights (see this, this, and this, for example).
As far as I can tell, none of this will change many, or even any, minds.
From Jonathan Turley:
The transcripts are now released. President Biden claimed no knowledge of any of the classified documents in his home and open in his garage. That is 40 years of memory lapse in the face of open violations of federal law…
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 12, 2024
ADDENDUM: More here about what the interview transcript reveals about Biden’s memory.
Open thread 3/12/24
Suddenly, I can see daylily shoots coming up:
Haiti has fallen apart
Actually, Haiti has been falling apart for a long long time. But in the last week things have reportedly gotten far worse.
The gangs are in charge:
On Sunday, the US announced that troops had evacuated Americans from the US Embassy and additional forces were brought in to secure the diplomatic compound in Port-au-Prince.
Jimmy Chérizier, leader of the notorious “G9 and Family” gang, is in command of the bulk of the gunmen stirring anarchy in the capital — and he vowed to fight until embattled Prime Minister Ariel Henry resigns.
“I am ready to make an alliance with the devil, ready to sleep in the same bed as the devil,” Chérizier told his supporters last week as his fighters destroyed police stations and other government facilities.
That’s not just sympathy for the devil, it’s alliance with the devil, and at least Chérizier is being upfront about it.
More:
It’s part of a trend of nations in our hemisphere falling into extreme states of chaos from newly empowered gangs, all of them made rich from shipping illegal migrants into the U.S. and made muscular with new manpower from major prison breaks preceding the armed takeover attacks. …
Now it’s going full blown ‘horrible’ in Haiti, which has been a major transshipment point of illegal migrants into the states (and closely aligned with Nicaragua’s game described here) and now has seen at least two major prison breaks in the runup to this disaster.
Here’s information on the prison breakouts about a week ago:
According to reports, two prisons in the capital Port-au-Prince were stormed by gangs, who helped release over 5,000 inmates from Haiti’s National Penitentiary and a second prison.
At least a dozen people died as gang members attacked the main prison.
The government has said it will do everything in its power to ensure violent criminals, such as murderers and kidnappers are found and taken back to jail.
“The police were ordered to use all legal means at their disposal to enforce the curfew and apprehend all offenders,” said a statement from Finance Minister Patrick Boivert, who is currently acting prime minister.
Haiti’s prime minister Ariel Henry is currently abroad trying to gather support for a United Nations-backed security force to help end the violence in the country.
Clearly, the gangs and their criminal allies are still in control and the government is not. They also seek to depose Henry. As for UN-backed security, dream on:
No one wants to get involved in the thankless, costly, zero-results task, because how many times have the United Nations, the U.S., and other global bodies come to this country’s aid?
The shambles is as much the result of this continuous aid-building and corrupt NGO empires that come of such activity. All they do is make is worse.
But El Salvador’s Bukele has made an offer:
We can fix it.
But we’ll need a UNSC resolution, the consent of the host country, and all the mission expenses to be covered. https://t.co/GPqMVo7MTN
— Nayib Bukele (@nayibbukele) March 10, 2024
Bukele used strong-man methods to get rid of the gangs that were controlling and terrorizing El Salvador. Once order has broken down to this extent, gentle approaches simply don’t work. Although I doubt the UN would allow Bukele to tackle Haiti’s chaos, I think he would have the best chance of success.
The implications for the US are obvious. We are not at the point of Haiti, of course. But the influx of gang members over our porous border is extremely dangerous and worrisome.
NOTE: Terrible things are happening in Nigeria, too. But the woke don’t seem to care about black-on-black violence, whether in this country or elsewhere.
Trump’s position on Ukraine aid
A discussion of the topic in today’s open thread has convinced me to write a separate post about Trump’s position on aid to Ukraine.
Hungary’s Orban – Putin’s closest ally in Europe – has started a rumor that Trump won’t support Ukraine aid:
“[Trump] will not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war,” Orbán told Hungarian state media Sunday. “Therefore, the war will end, because it is obvious that Ukraine can not stand on its own feet.”
Orban may have chosen his words quite carefully, particularly this one: give. Trump is actually proposing a loan, threading the needle between the right’s substantial anti-aid-to-Ukraine and pro-aid-to-Ukraine wings. This is from four days ago:
How to resolve the impasse and help Ukraine? Of all people, former President Donald Trump has suggested a workaround — convert the cost of the weapons transfers into a loan. Trump even specified that the loan would bear no interest and would only be paid “if Ukraine ever strikes it rich.” …
This has a historical precedent. During a Caribbean cruise after his reelection in 1940, President Roosevelt conceived of a mechanism whereby the U.S. could lend or lease military equipment and ammunition to countries considered vital to the defense of the U.S. FDR likened Lend Lease to loaning a garden hose to a neighbor whose house was on fire. By not styling the assistance as a grant to the UK, FDR assuaged concerns about “foreign aid.”