TOC Ready Room 16 December 2022: Censorship, gas lights, and Russia-Iran missile/drone adventure

A phenomenon has been developing in recent weeks that should raise our level of concern about the nature of public discourse, especially as brokered by the media.

It’s more than what the media, per se, are doing, however.  It has to do with “news” that purports to be coming from government, but is backed by no actual evidence, and is unverifiable in terms of whether it came from government at all, much less could be held accountable in any way.

We’ll have some examples below that clarify what I’m talking about.  To start with, however, a tweet exchange for orientation to the topic:

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Pinglet on new theme that Trump was “hoarding documents” about Russiagate

It’s not that we didn’t already know that this, in essence, is what the raid on Mar-a-Lago was about.  It was virtually certain from the beginning that the Justice Department’s purpose has been to verify what Trump is holding that could expose more about the Obama administration’s conduct as part of Russiagate and Spygate.  (For earlier posts on this topic, see here, here, here, and here.  Most recent post first.)

So Newsweek might be said to be catching the mainstream media up to reality.

But Newsweek’s exclusive new report on the matter, attributed to “sources,” spins harder than a washing machine at the end of its cycle.  It describes former President Trump, for example, as “hoarding” materials “for years,” where it could have said something with more journalistic integrity like “saved materials during his term in office.”  The latter sounds normal – which it is;

Paris, the Russian airliner, Lebanon: ISIS is enlarging the war

The house of war comes to Paris. (Image: EPA, Etienne Laurent via UK Guardian)

his will be a quick update tonight, with less of the usual analysis, because I just don’t have time.

I have no doubt that ISIS is behind the recent attacks that have been spreading out around the Syria/Iraq theater.  ISIS has claimed responsibility for all of them, and it is credible that ISIS is behind them (although they are being executed through ISIS affiliates in each local area.  The core leadership of ISIS doesn’t have to be involved in planning or managing each attack, and I assume unless it’s proven otherwise that it is not).

But this is not a minor campaign of pinpricks from single-venue terror attacks, randomly distributed here and there.  This is a full-blown campaign: a strategy on ISIS’s part.

Why the pro-illegal lobby owns Wednesday’s murder in San Francisco

Masters of non-compliance. (Image: AP via deadline.info)

Assuming that 45-year-old Francisco Sanchez is the right suspect, in the apparently random murder of Kathryn Steinle on Wednesday, 1 July, in San Francisco – and Sanchez is, of course, innocent until proven guilty – the case against lawless pro-illegal policies will be clear-cut.

The failure of Democrats and Republicans in Washington to cut off illegal entry across America’s southern border is why Sanchez was here in the first place.  He’s here illegally, and he has already been deported five times.

He also has seven felony convictions in three different states (Arizona, Oregon, and Texas).  According to the Daily Mail and NBC San Jose, he has “a slew of phony birth dates and aliases.” This all no doubt has something to do with why he’s been deported five times.

Yet he keeps getting back in.  And here’s where the tale gets extra disgusting.

MSM fail: Pope did NOT call Mahmoud Abbas an ‘angel of peace’; *UPDATE*, with double-down

(Image: AFP via La Stampa (IT))

Fueled by wire stories from AP and AFP, the mainstream media have been running with a headline that Pope Francis, during a meeting at the Vatican on Saturday 16 May, called Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas “an angel of peace.”

The problem: the pope did not call Abbas — aka the terrorist Abu Mazen — an “angel of peace.”

He did utter the words “angel of peace,” and he suggested that Abbas could or might be one.  In the context of the pope’s complete statement about the meeting, the implication was that Abbas could be an angel of peace if he resumed direct negotiations with Israel.

Why did Francis say the words “angel of peace” at all?  Because he was making a gift to Abbas of a medallion engraved with an image of the Angel of Peace.  The Vatican Insider feature of Italy’s La Stampa has this summary in its English version: