Opinion
By Jeff Childers
03-12-24
Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! Your correspondent is nestling amongst the dramatic cliffs of Zion national park this morning and getting ready for a day of hiking. A quick vacation roundup for you: a major new Ukraine media narrative shapes up after critical comments from the Pope, of all people; misinformation-fighting digital security agency gets hacked and refuses to combat misinformation by telling what happened; Musk renames censorship department; House releases new J6 report and exposes obvious committee corruption; DC judge orders Trump aide Navarro straight to jail; and the Trump team cleans house at the RNC.
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🚀 Along with all the NATO jockeying for negotiating leverage and blame-avoiding, a major new Ukraine narrative is emerging from the media’s fog of cow methane. Two days ago, no lesser personage than the Catholic Pope of Rome urged Zelensky to stop playing toy soldiers and hoist the white flag already. I’m not even exaggerating that much. Here’s Saturday’s Guardian headline:
The Pope’s comments were electric. Reporters immediately challenged the top Catholic, wondering whether negotiating only shows weakness and would just embolden Russia to invade Papua New Guinea or something. Astonishingly, using words that would have been heretical three months ago, the Pope dismissed simplistic black and white thinking. “Negotiations are never a surrender. It is the courage not to carry a country to suicide,” the 87-year-old religious leader explained.
To suicide! It was tempting to conclude, from his use of the word ‘suicide,’ the Pope thinks it would be suicidal for Ukraine to keep fighting. But then the Pope continued and extinguished all doubt about what he meant: “When you see that you are defeated, that things are not working out, to have the courage to negotiate,” he advised. “Don’t be ashamed to negotiate before things get worse.”
Things aren’t working out! Negotiate now, before things get worse! Heresy.
Fleet-footed reporters cornered Zelensky and pressed him to respond. Did he agree with the world’s foremost religious leader? Hmm? Huh? Would he have ‘the courage to negotiate’?
Zelensky said nyet. Sunday’s many headlines suggested a new Proxy War narrative may be emerging from the media’s skunkworks:
Not just rejects; sharply rejects. Not only did Zelensky say he was offended by Pope Francis’ suggestion, but even more remarkably, and fooling nobody, he claimed Ukraine was starting to get the upper hand in the war. Yesterday media primly reported that Zelensky claimed, “I can give you this fresh piece of information—the situation is now much better than during these past three months.”
Not just a little better. Much better. Channeling Iraq’s Media Minister Baghdad Bob, Zelensky boldly informed French broadcaster BFM-TV that Ukraine now has got the upper hand. “The Russian advance has been halted. Our command, our military has stopped the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine,” Zelensky confidentially claimed.
Nobody thinks Ukraine has got the upper hand. Nobody, except Zelensky. By all accounts, Ukraine is desperately throwing vast numbers of apparently disposable men and machines at the Russians to buy time to build fortifications. Fortifications long purchased, and that should have been built a year ago.
It was surprising to see corporate media blanketed coverage of the ‘conflict’ between the top religious leader and the green-shirted former comedian (even though they never spoke to each other). A Google news search seemed to scroll forever:
It’s a new, inside-out Ukraine narrative. Serious people like the Pope are advising Zelensky to meet with the Russians — but Zelensky is hard-headed and won’t listen.
In other words, whatever happens next will be Zelensky’s fault.
It’s a sea change in the media and elite narrative. Consider that, in late December, media reported Zelensky and the Pope had a friendly call, and the Pope agreed with Ukraine’s President’s implausible ‘ten point peace plan,’ which would have required the Russians to clear out of all occupied territory including Crimea. In August, Zelensky bragged to media that “Pope Francis is helping us!”
So just a few months ago, the narrative was Zelensky told the Pope about his peace plan for the Russians, and the Pope supports Ukraine. Now, it’s completely reversed. Now, the narrative is the Pope told Zelensky to make peace, and Zelensky strongly dismissed the advice.
Before this week, it was easier to find a Chic-fil-A open on Sunday than finding any criticism of Zelensky in corporate media. This holy flood of Pope stories doesn’t exactly criticize Zelensky, but the way media framed the story allows readers to conclude Zelensky is being unreasonable. It’s not hard to imagine the next step: direct criticism.
There’s a lot the media can criticize Zelensky for, if they get let off the chain. Is Zelensky politically skilled enough to avoid the blame blimp that is now floating somewhere over Emmanuel Macron?
🔥 Late in the article, CNN finally acknowledged the obvious irony of Friday’s story headlined, “Top US cybersecurity agency hacked and forced to take some systems offline .” Yep. Hacked was DHS’s brand-new CISA, the same Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency that is in charge of misinformation. It’s also in charge of protecting our public and private secrets.
CISA head Jen Easterly said it is “really, really dangerous if people get to pick their own facts.” Super dangerous.
There’s not much anybody can say about the hack. Because they aren’t providing any facts. The government’s “pro-truth,” anti-misinformation security agency opted instead for something, well, short of full transparency:
CISA declined to answer a range of questions about who was behind the incident, whether data had been accessed or stolen and what systems were taken offline.
CNN cited an anonymous agency source who said one of the hacked systems was the “Chemical Security Assessment Tool (CSAT), which houses private sector chemical security plans.” Like … security plans that terrorists could use? Will the chemical plants now be required to completely overhaul their leaked security plans?
CNN asked CISA to confirm whether that anonymous claim was true, and the agency “declined to confirm or deny” the facts.
Nothing stops misinformation better than refusing to say what actually happened, and leaving us all speculating about what the facts really are. Nice job, CISA.
🔥 Meanwhile yesterday, Elon Musk responded to news that Bluesky hired Twitter’s former (fired) “Trust and Safety” department leader. The billionaire said he would be re-naming Twitter’s old “Trust and Safety” department to just “Safety.” Even better, he accurately noted that “trust” is something that must be earned, not demanded:
There’s some delicious irony in this story. Bluesky is the struggling Twitter competitor formed after Elon Musk snatched away reporters and celebrities special ‘blue check’ status, by letting just anyone who wanted it buy a blue-check for seven bucks a month. Originally intended to be a new home, a ‘safe space’ for New York Times and Washington Post Reporters, Bluesky has never really gotten off the ground.
Maybe hiring Twitter’s old chief censor will do the trick for Bluesky.
🔥 The New York Times ran a non-paywalled story yesterday with the completely misleading headline, “Testimony Fleshes Out Account of Trump’s Demand to Go to Capitol on Jan. 6.” Get ready for a serious eye-roll.
The actual news, which you will be forgiven for not immediately grasping after reading the Times’ article, was that a House committee investigating the January 6th committee released a sweeping, 81-page report yesterday. Among many other things, the report explained that four other White House employees with better knowledge contradicted the J6 Committee’s star witness Cassidy Hutchinson’s dramatic testimony — but the Committee only aired Cassidy’s version.
The J6 Committee buried the other evidence under a mountain of red tape where they hoped it would never be found.
But among many other new documents reviewed by the House Oversight Committee were never-before-seen transcripts of several Secret Service depositions from the January 6th investigations. The Times’ carefully crafted narrative was the transcripts “fleshed out” the evidence the J6 Committee aired to the public on its January 6th show.
Apparently, to the Times, “fleshed out” now means “contradicted.” You may recall former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who in June 2022 dramatically testified third hand that President Trump demanded to be taken straight to the Capitol on January 6th, and when Secret Service agents demurred, Trump lunged into the Presidential SUV’s front seat and grabbed the wheel for himself.
Nothing about that dumb story made sense. How was Trump going to drive the Beast from the back seat? Why couldn’t the driver just have stepped on the brake? Nevertheless, corporate media lapped up, repeated, and amplified Hutchinson’s testimony. Thrilling op-eds were penned by delirious conservative Never Trumpers extolling Cassidy’s admirable bravery and keen insight. For example, here’s Peggy Noonan waxing eloquent about Cassidy in the Wall Street Journal:
Cassidy even wrote a tell-all book about her ‘heroic’ experience working for Mark Meadows and eavesdropping on everyone she worked with.
Well, the newly-disclosed transcripts show the Secret Service agent who was driving Trump on January 6th testified the whole back-seat-driving thing never happened. Trying to be helpful, he did testify that Trump might have sounded a “little irritated,” but there was no lunging into the front seat.
Cassidy lied.
Worse, at the time the January 6th Committee breathlessly spammed Cassidy Hutchinson’s prime-time television testimony, the Committee knew that the Agent driving the Beast swore it never happened.
House Republicans only just now received the Secret Service interviews. The transcripts been held up in deep state bureaucracy for two years “for review” — allegedly to prevent accidental disclosure of important presidential security information.
But the transcript only takes about a half hour to read and doesn’t include any secret security details. It still took two years to clear.
The House’s terrific report is titled, ‘Initial Findings Report: On the failures and politicization of the January 6th Select Committee and the activities on and leading up to January 6th, 2021. It includes a lot more than just the problems with Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony. Read the report for yourself.
🔥 Yesterday, Politico ran an irritating story headlined, “Peter Navarro ordered to prison on March 19.” Federal D.C. judge Amit Mehta ordered former Trump aide Peter Navarro, 74, to start serving a four-month sentence for contempt for refusing to comply with a January 6th subpoena — even though Navarro is still appealing the sentence.
By contrast, Steve Bannon was convicted in a 2022 jury trial, also for defying a January 6th subpoena, but Bannon’s federal judge agreed to stay his conviction pending appeal because the case involves unique issues of presidential privilege. Just like Navarro’s case.
Federal judges enjoy broad discretion over whether to approve requests for sentencing stays. Dr. Navarro has filed an emergency motion to stay Judge Mehta’s order. I wish him luck. The highly-politicized D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is a tough venue for Republicans these days, and Navarro is riding the Justice System as a passenger in coach.
Dr. Navarro was also sentenced to report to federal prison in Miami, which houses some pretty tough hombres. Doctor Simone Gold of America’s Frontline Doctors served three months there for peacefully entering the Capital Rotunda and immediately leaving. So.
🔥 Finally, some very encouraging news. In a great sign of potentially terrific things to come, President Trump is cleaning house at the RNC. The New York Times ran the story yesterday:
Longtime RNC chair Ronna McDaniel resigned recently upon news that the RNC was scraping the bottom with only about $8 million in the bank at the end of December — a third as much as the DNC had — yet RNC managers spent vast sums on private flights and luxury accommodations.
After Super Tuesday last week, Trump effectively clinched the GOP nomination. Then on Friday, Michael Whatley, former North Carolina GOP chair and a close Trump ally, and Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, were unanimously elected as the RNC’s new chair and co-chair.
Trump’s campaign took full operational control of the RNC yesterday morning.
According to reports, the President’s advisers immediately ordered a mass layoff, axing over 60 officials, including at least five top officials, who were all given pink slips or asked to resign and then reapply (good luck).
The RNC employs about 200 staff, so yesterday’s purge represented about a full third of the total.
In an unintentionally hilarious surprise, the Times article ends quoting Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk, who was also encouraged by this development. “This is excellent,” Charlie said on Twitter. “The anti-Trump sleeper cells all have to go. The R.N.C. is getting ready to win.”
So!
Have a terrific Tuesday! Get ready to win and come on back tomorrow for another vacation-style roundup.
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© 2022, Jeff Childers, all rights reserved
The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal Florida
