Jiggery-Pokery Wokery

posted by J.B. Shurk at American Thinker

I must admit that I have grown fond of this new adjective, woke.  It saves me the time of pointing out how delusional, disingenuous, intolerant, illiterate, and religiously fanatical the woke minions tend to be.  Ultimately, to be woke means both "deceived" and "deceiving," and for these reasons, it slides nicely into a linguistically fun Scottish phrase, jiggery-pokery, used to describe dishonest behavior.  Taken together, jiggery-pokery wokery is amusing enough to belittle the woke legions' cult-like comportment and cut it down to size for its mindless silliness. 

Yet it is not silly, is it?  As amusing and bemusing as its zealous adherents appear, their devotion to wokeism's edicts (I won't call them "principles") is deadly serious.  Any small business–owner who has had the misfortune of struggling to earn a living near the scene of some perceived injustice providing the pretense for Antifa and Black Lives Matter arsonists to unleash a new criminal campaign of burning, looting, and murdering in the name of "justice," knows that once the woke go berserker, no innocent person or private property is safe.  The woke love to destroy whatever they touch — culture, infrastructure, social cohesion, rational thought.  To be woke is to embrace chaos and injury as a philosophy.

From an anthropological perspective, wokeism is fascinating because its practitioners believe they are creative freethinkers while they act as lobotomized sheep.  Whatever the woke wizards posing as priests tell their needy followers, the woke herds accept as truth.  Russia stole the election from Hillary!  Man-made global warming causes earthquakes!  Black police officers killing a black suspect is proof of "white supremacy"!  These assertions, thrown out to their intended audience with all the intellectual depth of a viral internet meme, are never questioned or analyzed.  They are quickly accepted as doctrinal "truths" to be defended at all preposterous costs.  Anyone caught noticing inconsistencies — say, wondering why "my body, my choice" does not deserve consideration in a debate over forced experimental mRNA injections — is immediately branded a heretic and thrown to the wolves for not displaying sufficient jiggery-pokery wokery.  In the cult of the woke, the wokiest wonks know to comply.

If deception, violence, and obedience are all part of the woke creed, then contradiction is its life-force.  Black lives matter, but all lives do not.  Racism is abhorrent, but defining people first and foremost by their race is somehow just.  Engaging in stereotypes unjustly blames all members of a group for the actions of a lone individual, but white people alive today must be forced to pay for the crimes of people who not only lived centuries ago, but also are not likely blood-related ancestors.  When all people are treated equally, white supremacy wins.  Equity demands that we destroy systemic racism by systematically dividing the races and treating them differently.  The less white someone is, the more deserving of special privileges — unless that person has Asian ancestry, which necessarily requires discriminatory punishment when decisions about college admissions and job hiring are made.   

We must believe all women unless those women are speaking out against men pretending to be women — in which case, we must first believe all men pretending to be women, no matter how much they do not appear to be women at all.  Biological sex is nothing more than a social construct, yet a man who wears a dress and wig and demands society treat him as he desires is somehow a demonstration of objective reality.  Women's and men's sports divisions and the separation of their locker rooms recognize the reality that women and men are physically different, yet physically different men who mentally pretend to be women are miraculously physically indistinguishable from women and should be allowed to compete against them.  Furthermore, any woman who objects to the imposition of men competing in her sport or undressing in her locker room is bigoted for acknowledging a fact out loud that can no longer be acknowledged as politically correct.  Science demands that reality be based on emotion.

Women should be protected from an inherently sexist society, unless their mothers choose to abort them.  Black Americans should be protected from an inherently racist society, unless their mothers choose to abort them.  Parents should have no say over what schools teach their children but complete say over whether their children are aborted.  Men have no right to an opinion about abortion since they cannot physically become pregnant, yet anyone who claims that men cannot become pregnant is horrendously transphobic.  Menstrual products should also be placed in all men's restrooms.  Again, science demands it.

Hydrocarbon energies are bad for the environment, but mining for the rare earth elements needed for electric vehicle batteries, covering endless hectares of land with solar panels, and dotting the skyline with giant fan blades that routinely kill flocks of birds are all environmentally friendly.  Fair wages are essential, yet African and Chinese slave labor should be ignored.  Using coal and natural gas is dastardly, yet recharging electric vehicles with power generated from coal and natural gas is ingenious.  Extreme cold kills far more people than extreme heat, yet we must obsess over global warming.  The cycles of the sun, the rotation of Earth's magnetic core, ocean currents, geothermal activity, and the shifting magnetosphere all directly alter the Earth's climate, but man alone must be held responsible for changes in the weather. 

Destroying Western economies by eliminating their relatively inexpensive use of hydrocarbon energies will somehow save the planet, even while the globe's most populous developing nations refuse to follow the West's economic suicide.  Forcing impractical green solutions that increase the cost of living for everyone alive today means that more and more people will suffer from poverty and famine, yet killing people alive today is somehow preferable to risking the lives of future humans who have not yet been born (unless the unborn human is an "unwanted pregnancy").  If "kill today to save tomorrow" policies are not ludicrously woke, then nothing else is.

If we are being honest, jiggery-pokery wokery acts as both a religion and an elaborate con.  Normally, an enlightened society would frown upon bigoted discrimination, yet principles of intersectionality demand that perceptions of privilege be balanced by prejudicial bias.  Only answering discrimination with more discrimination, in other words, will somehow fix the problem.  Forcing corporate boards and investment groups to pursue environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards at odds with their legal obligations to maximize financial profits is blatant stock manipulation and fraud against investors, yet once the preferences of shareholders have been illegally swapped for the whims of stakeholders, the woke get away with all kinds of financial crimes.  Replacing principles of equality with notions of equity that justify the redistribution of private wealth is nothing but government-sanctioned theft.  If the woke mantras demanding diversity and inclusion were defined bluntly, they would simply say "anybody but white, heterosexual males — especially Christians who hold conservative political views."  Legalized discrimination, racial preference, and market manipulation do not sound nearly as attractive when stripped of their woke disguises.  Therein lies the con.

For the woke to win, they must make you feel responsible for things you did not do, while encouraging you to take no responsibility for the things under your control.  An immoral, reckless man is helpful to their cause because he has no moral compass of his own.  Abject dependence on the State is the goal.  Religious devotion to woke nonsense keeps the mind soft and the will supine.  Replacing virtue and critical thinking with a secular religion held sacred by the State turns men into sheep.  For the Marxist-socialists running the West, jiggery-pokery wokery is not only useful for exerting control, but also fraudulently divine.

On the Fringe, Red Pill news, and more- Feb 4

 

Overcoming the Woke Mob

Be patient. Be prepared for inevitable betrayals. Control the narrative. And, whatever you do, don’t become a victim.

by Blaine Pardoe for American Greatness

I was the target of the cancel culture mob. Led by a person against whom I have a protective order, the mob waged a smear campaign against me that ultimately got me fired from a science fiction franchise in which I had written books and stories for over 36 years. At the time, it was devastating, stressful, and nerve-wracking. 

In the last six months, however, I prevailed. The person who attacked me admitted to lying. I picked up an outstanding new publisher and solidified my relationships with my other publishing houses. I’m on schedule to release nine books this year alone. I am writing and selling more of my work than ever before. I now have an online interview show, appear regularly on podcasts talking about politics and my craft, and have a much larger audience.

Cancel culture will come at anyone its devotees decide to target. And anyone is a potential target of their wrath. The good news is that the woke mob can be beaten. They are loud, but ultimately they are a minority.

Here are a few of the lessons I have learned in this unplanned adventure that may help you if and when you become a target:

Don’t apologize or attempt to explain anything. The social justice warrior crowd will not accept your clarifications or apologies. If you respond in any manner, they will intensify their attacks on you. The woke do not care about the truth; they only seek popularity online by attacking others. Don’t give them an ounce of credibility by responding to their attacks. 

Communicate to your constituents. Stick to the facts and nothing more. This isn’t about fanning the flames of division—the woke will do that on their own—this is making sure your perspective is clear to the people who do care.

Keep track of conversations, dates, emails, Tweets, etc. Legal action may be forthcoming—and you should talk to a lawyer about your situation. In the meantime, document your calls, transcribe your conversations, monitor and track what your accusers write about you online.

Take necessary legal protections. If you are threatened, engage law enforcement. Contact a lawyer and make sure you are taking the appropriate actions to defend yourself. 

Be patient. Five different publishers reached out to me in the weeks following my cancellation. It didn’t happen fast, but it did happen. A number of fellow authors also engaged with me to assist in whatever manner they could. Some had endured what I had, and offered useful advice. 

Be prepared for the inevitable betrayals. Some supporters and so-called friends will turn on you when you are the target of a cancellation attempt. You will be disappointed—but you will survive. In some respects, being the target of the woke mob helps you see who is, indeed, a true supporter and confidant.

Control the narrative. Once I went public, I was interviewed by many websites, podcasters, webcasters, etc. I verified beforehand that they were supportive, and I simply told my story—sticking to the facts. This helped smother the lies and misrepresentations that the cancel culture crowd is so adept at spreading. 

Be wary of who reaches out to you. My stalker and his comrades spun up fake sock puppet accounts to give the appearance of more enemies and controversy against me. Some tried to befriend me, only to immediately use my own social media to attack me. Always be cautious about accounts with few followers that were just recently launched. Chances are these new accounts belong to the people who have targeted you. 

Don’t become a victim. You are the target of an attack, not a victim. We have all seen people who are attacked online attempt to garner pity from it. Don’t go down that path. It’s self-destructive and doesn’t move you forward. Pity is fleeting, whereas righteousness is forever.

This does not define who you are. When I am introduced to people, I tell them I am a bestselling and award-winning author. I am a person who likes telling great stories about extraordinary characters. Being targeted by the woke mob doesn’t define who I am, nor should it define who you are. Just be the best at what you do. Success is the best revenge against those who try to take you out. 

The woke are the byproduct of our participation trophy society. They are individuals who don’t contribute in the real world. They only have relevance online. They can be overcome and beaten. Hopefully this mindless madness will come to an end. In the meantime, we all must be prepared for the carnage they wallow in. 

As War Clouds Gather

posted by Allan J. Feifer at American Thinker 

General Mike Minihan, a four-star Air Force General who leads the Air Mobility Command, made major shockwaves the other day, stating that he believes our country will be at war with China by 2025.  His reasoning:

• Chinese President Xi [Jinping] secured his third term and set his war council in October 2022
• Taiwan's presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a baseless reason to invade Taiwan
• U.S. presidential elections will offer Xi a distracted America
• The U.S. has long walked a fine line with its ambiguous "One China" policy, which acknowledges China's claims to sovereignty over Taiwan without accepting them

Additional reasons for concern by 2025:

• Xi has promised his military and civil leaders the necessity of solving the "Taiwan Problem." Should he be stymied, his political future is at risk.
• China does not manufacture the latest generation of computer chips; they need those for their war machines, aerospace industry, and other high-technology demands.  Taiwan controls about ½ of the world's supply of those chips.  Taking Taiwan would be a 'twofer' for China to gain the necessary chips for themselves and to deny the West the chips they must have.
• The U.S. is telegraphing to the world that we are short some munitions, especially the high-tech kind we would need to stop China from successfully invading Taiwan.  By helping Ukraine now, we have discovered significant gaps in our weaponry.
• The U.S. has not been involved in high-intensity conflicts since Vietnam. Many of the weapons we used in Vietnam were left over from Korea and even WWII.  Consequently, American industry has not had to think about surge capability for 50 years.   
• Be it Boeing, Lockheed, L3 Harris, or any other defense contractors; their workers frequently are single-shift, 35-hour work weeks like Maytag, Ford, or Dell.  But defense companies are not just another washing-machine company.  Their productive output could very well make the difference between the U.S. living free or in a subjugated world.  We could lose the next war due simply to matériel shortages

During a balls-to-the-wall fight, combatants must go flat-out 24x7 without concern over financial constraints.  The U.S. has always been behind the curve at the start of hostilities in major wars. Historically we had too few trained personnel and insufficient weapons and munitions.  From the Civil War through WWI and II, war clouds were visible just over the horizon, yet we ignored the warnings that would have said it was time to prepare.  Such head-in-the-sand thinking sees thousands of troops killed unnecessarily due to inadequate force structure.  The price of being unprepared is paid in blood.  Being prepared does not mean you must fight a war.  But it may keep the other side from miscalculating their chances of victory.

No one knows if war with China is a certainty.  But unless we are willing to hand over the mantle of world leadership to another country, we had better be prepared for war at any moment.

This is an excellent segue to a pet peeve of mine.  The Department of Defense and senior leadership of each of the individual services should be, by and large, taken out and shot.  Our Constitution requires civilian oversight of the armed services to keep the admirals and generals in check.  But, too many flag officers are no longer warriors; they have become politicians, which is dangerous.

The Army War College misunderstood the problem demonstrated by the following quote:

"... the modern commander is much more akin to the managing director of a large conglomerate enterprise than ever he is to the warrior chief of old.  He has become the head of a complex
Military organization, whose many branches he must oversee and on whose cooperation, assistance, and support he depends for his success."

The War College saw this as a strength, not a weakness.  Recent Democrat Presidents and top generals no longer encourage a warrior mentality, and risk is generally discouraged as a minefield for career advancement.

Such flawed analysis will see more of our soldiers die unnecessarily.  From the home of the $20,000 toilet seat, I can tell you that contracting for weapons is much like road building today.  Why does it take so long to build an intersection or repave a road?  The partial collapse of the Bay Bridge occurred during the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, and Caltrans said it would take three years to fix the bridge.  A local contractor made an unsolicited proposal to get the structure repaired in a month, and he successfully collected a sizeable bonus for early completion.

The DoD does not admire individualism anymore.  They want compliant team players.  Good perhaps for the Department of Labor, but terrible for warriors fighting on a battlefield.

Complacency and bureaucracy have teamed up as the anti-dynamic duos that give you a thousand reasons why something can't be done.  Reflect back to just about a year ago, when our best minds said Ukraine was toast, don't even try to help them. When our military is at its best, nothing is impossible. But naysayers must be eliminated first.

When you think about it, our military readiness posture, inability to fill enlistment quotas, and timidness on the world stage are signs of more than just a mark of systemic failure of the military. They are prima facie evidence that we need to reinvent the country as a whole.  Doing so with the likes of Biden is impossible.  I don't know how often I have heard that the next election is the 'most important,' but I believe that our next election may be the one that chooses our destiny to live free or die.

Our ship of state is already taking on water.  The slow leak that seemed not to be so worrisome has become a deluge.  Consider the lack of concern for fundamental problems such as immigration, our fiscal situation, and social policies.  No one is pushing the emergency button when it is obvious our ship is sinking fast.

As a troubleshooter, I surveyed the situation and first stopped the flooding.  Today, our policymakers seek solutions to problems too casually and without regard for reality.  The border is a perfect example.  Biden wants comprehensive immigration reform before stopping the millions swamping us.  Comprehensive reform is code for amnesty, which we have tried seven times before, which only encourages the next wave.  He knows it, and we know it.

Our next war is inevitable; only the timing is unknown.  Will we have the weapons and personnel to fight and win?  At one time, we could fight two peer enemies simultaneously; now, it's questionable if we can fight a single one to victory. 

First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom Peddles Soft Porn and Gender Identity Under the Guise of Education

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The former French aircraft carrier “Foch” was sunk in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean

 

The former French aircraft carrier was sunk in the Atlantic Ocean after several years of wandering and reversals in its fate.   

The decision is strongly criticized by several organizations for the defense of the environment as the former flagship of the French navy, bought by Brazil in 2000, is filled with asbestos, paints and other toxic waste.  

The “planned and controlled sinking occurred late afternoon” Friday, February 3, some 350 kilometers from the Brazilian coast, in an area “approximately 5,000 meters deep” , explained the Brazilian Navy in a press release.  

 Earlier in the week, the Navy said there is no other choice given the very degraded state of this old 266-meter-long hull, described as a “toxic package of 30,000 tonnes”

The Federal Public Ministry of Brazil (MPF), which tried to stop the operation by multiplying the appeals to the courts, warned of the consequences, stressing this week that the aircraft carrier “currently contains 9.6 tons of asbestos, a potentially toxic and carcinogenic substance, as well as 644 tonnes of ink and other hazardous materials.  

An area some 350 kilometers off the Brazilian coast, 5,000 meters deep, was considered “the safest” for this scuttling, according to the press release from the Brazilian Ministry of Defense and Navy.    

https://airlive.net/the-former-french-aircraft-carrier-foch-was-sunk-in-the-middle-of-the-atlantic-ocean/amp/?fbclid=IwAR050AvZLRLIqVfpB7XbVRyjf-pwlY6_qxzReY-bhpLN5kgp_J_y6qh7upU   

GOP Senator Demands 'Immediate Answers' From the Biden DoD on Chinese Spy Balloon's Threat to 'Critical Military Infrastructure'

Becca Lower reporting for RedState 

On Thursday night, we reported that the U.S. government was tracking a Chinese spy balloon that was flying through airspace over the continental U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy requested a “Gang of Eight” briefing be convened, so that “the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and the Republican and Democrat leaders of the House and Senate” can be briefed on “classified intelligence matters,” as my colleague Jennifer Van Laar wrote.

But throughout Friday, the Biden Administration appeared to dither about whether it was safe to shoot down the balloon flying over Montana, for fear that people on the ground could be injured. And China confirmed the balloon was theirs, claiming it was a civilian airship used for meteorological research, though cautioned that our government should stay “cool headed” about it. As Joe Cunningham wrote:

The Chinese government is also requesting that the U.S. government not do anything rash – like blow the damned thing out of the sky.

But at the end of a press briefing, President Biden simply walked away from the podium, as reporters could be heard shouting questions about the balloon–something that GOP Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri noticed and shared to his Twitters account:

He also pointed out that the Chinese balloon had been spotted over his own state:

Now, in a new letter addressed to Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Sen. Schmitt is demanding the Administration account for its non-answers and lack of action on the Chinese spy “asset”:

Schmitt shared a copy of the letter on Twitter Friday evening:

It reads:

As I write, a Chinese asset hovers over the great State of Missouri. This is potentially a grave threat to national security that the Biden Administration is allowing to violate U.S. airspace, while failing to provide critical details for the American people.

The lack of transparency is alarming. The Department of Defense has told the public very little about the Chinese asset. The Department of Defense has said it is a Chinese balloon; it is over the central United States; it is carrying surveillance gear as well as a payload; it has the ability to maneuver; and a decision was made to not shoot it down. The Department of Defense has said that “instances of this activity have been observed over the past several years, including prior to this administration.”

Without answers to these critical questions, it is difficult to understand why the Biden Administration decided to allow an asset from a foreign adversary ot invade U.S. airspace. The Department of Defense says that this Chinese asset “has violated U.S. airspace and international law, which is unacceptable.” But despite this violation of our nation’s airspace, the Department of Defense has taken no action to stop the Chinese asset from proceeding to pass over, and likely surveil, some of our most sensitive military sites.

The Chinese asset appears to have passed close to Whiteman. Yet nothing was done to stop the asset from reaching Missouri.

I request an immediate briefing for my colleagues so that we can provide constitutional oversight.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Sen. Schmitt said, “The fact that a Chinese spy balloon is able to fly in American airspace completely undeterred is absolutely ridiculous.The Biden Administration needs to answer why this Chinese spy balloon was not taken down over a sparsely populated area before it moved deep into the United States interior, or why they continue to allow it to fly.”

We’ll keep you posted on the issue in the coming days.

Phoenix Is Policing Super Bowl Speech, but Not Violent Crime

posted by Joe Setyon at Townhall

It’s a tale of two cities in downtown Phoenix, set to play host to the national media and all the associated fanfare in the lead-up to Super Bowl LVII.

Or rather, it’s a tale of where one city government’s priorities lie, brought to light by two lawsuits challenging the city’s willingness to trample on its residents’ rights. Government officials can’t be bothered to police violent crime in one of the nation’s largest homeless encampments. But they have more than enough time and resources to police their own citizens’ free speech ahead of the Super Bowl.

In a massive swath of downtown Phoenix known as “The Zone,” where more than 1,000 homeless people have set up camp, the crisis is spiraling out of control as lawlessness, violence, and death become regular occurrences. And that’s to say nothing of the used condoms, needles, and human waste littering the streets. Just how bad is it? Last November, the burned remains of a 20-to-24-week old fetus were found in the street. Less than three weeks later, first responders put out another fire—only to discover adult remains.

Local business and property owners sick of watching their livelihoods be destroyed are now suing the city for maintaining a public nuisance. (The Goldwater Institute, where I work, has filed a brief in support of these citizens’ rights.) Officials spent years shunting homeless people into The Zone, and now they’re refusing to effectively patrol the area, reportedly instructing police officers to take no action to enforce the law. And while the city received nearly $100 million in federal COVID relief funds since 2021 to address the homelessness crisis, it had spent less than 10 percent of that windfall as of late last year. 

The city government is failing both law-abiding citizens in The Zone and the homeless people living on the streets in an atmosphere riddled with unpoliced violence. And while city leaders are unwilling to protect the public’s health and safety, those same leaders were champing at the bit to cater to the whims of the National Football League—even if it meant censoring their own citizens in the weeks surrounding the Super Bowl. 

The city said no resident or business in the “clean zone,” which encompasses most of downtown Phoenix, could put up any temporary signs—including flags, banners, posters, flyers or even window paintings—without the approval of the city, the NFL, and the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee. The mandate was ostensibly meant to ensure that only the NFL and its chosen sponsors can advertise in the “clean zone.” In practice, it meant that hundreds of businesses and thousands of residents were banned from communicating with the public on their own property without permission from the government and its handpicked private entities. 

After the Goldwater Institute sued the city over these unconstitutional restrictions, the government amended the “clean zone” ordinance to remove the NFL and the Host Committee from the signage decision-making process. (And this past week, a court ruled the restrictions were unconstitutional.) But it’s all too clear what is and is not important to city leaders. After all, there are no flashy media events in The Zone. No opportunities to take credit for exaggerated economic impact projections. No national spotlight. 

The city won’t enforce its laws to reduce the violence in The Zone, but it will mobilize 20 city departments to spend countless hours—all on the taxpayers’ dime—preparing for the million or so visitors expected to attend Super Bowl festivities in Phoenix. (The big game itself is being played in nearby Glendale.)

The city won’t protect business owners from the ruin caused by its own negligence in the Zone, but it will gladly censor its own citizens to protect the NFL and its sponsors from competing advertisers. 

Hosting Super Bowl festivities is an exciting opportunity for Phoenix—but the whims of the city and the NFL shouldn’t come at the cost of citizens’ constitutional rights. Nor should innocent residents and business owners in The Zone forfeit their rights because the city doesn’t want to fulfill its duty and enforce the law. 

It’s time for the Phoenix government to get its priorities in order—that’s what all its citizens deserve.

Japan PM fires aide over derogatory LGBT remarks

 

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has fired a government aide who made derogatory remarks about LGBT couples.

Masayoshi Arai reportedly said he would not want to live next to, or look at, people in same-sex relationships.

Mr Arai also warned that permitting gay marriage in Japan would lead to many abandoning the country.

Mr Kishida said the remarks were "outrageous" and "completely incompatible" with his government's policies.

Japan - a country still largely bound by traditional gender roles and family values - is the only G7 nation that does not recognise same-sex marriage.

However, recent polling suggests most Japanese support gay marriage.

A number of same-sex couples have also filed lawsuits across Japan in recent years arguing that the ban on same-sex marriage violates the country's constitution.

Prior to Mr Arai's dismissal, Mr Kishida had talked about issues surrounding same-sex marriage in parliament.

He stated that it needed to be carefully considered because of its potential impact on traditional family structures   

Mr Arai reacted to the remarks afterwards, telling reporters that he "wouldn't like it if [LGBT couples] lived next door" and "doesn't even want to look at them."

He added that it would "change the way society is" and "quite a few people would abandon this country," according to Kyodo News.

In response, Mr Kishida said he had dismissed Mr Arai, adding: "We have been respecting diversity and realising an inclusive society."

Mr Arai later apologised, stating that his remarks were not appropriate and were not representative of the prime minister's views.

His resignation represents a further blow to Mr Kishida, whose government has seen plummeting approval ratings after a number of his ministers have resigned over various scandals in recent months. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-64521862    

2018 Senate Testimony Tells A Different Story Than Hamilton 68’s Masterminds Are Telling Now

Old Senate testimony can’t be squared with the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s attempts to extricate itself from the Hamilton 68 scandal.

Margot Cleveland reporting for The Federalist

In response to last week’s “Twitter Files” takedown of the Hamilton 68 dashboard, which purportedly tracked Russian influence campaigns on social media, the dashboard’s sponsor issued a response blaming “the media, pundits, and even some lawmakers” for misunderstanding and misrepresenting the data. The congressional record tells a different story, however. 

“At a bare minimum, the U.S. government needs to have an understanding of what Russia is doing in social media,” Clint Watts, the mastermind behind the Hamilton 68 dashboard, told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation during hearings on Jan. 17, 2018, regarding “Terrorism and Social Media: Is Big Tech Doing Enough?” 

“The Hamilton 68 platform I’ve tried to provide to the U.S. government directly through multiples agencies” would do so, Watts suggested, stating that “regardless of the outcome of the election in 2016,” we should “want to equip our intelligence agencies, our law enforcement agencies, and the Department of Defense with just an understanding … just an understanding of what Russian active measures are doing around the world.”

“There is no excuse for it,” Watts concluded. “I can’t understand it.”

Watts’ 2018 Senate testimony bolstering the Hamilton 68 dashboard as the means of “understanding … what Russia is doing in social media,” cannot be squared with attempts by the dashboard’s host, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, to extricate itself from the latest scandal exposed by “The Twitter Files.”

One week ago today, independent journalist Matt Taibbi published “Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media Fraud,” revealing internal Twitter communications establishing that the Hamilton 68 dashboard adopted a flawed methodology. Rather than using Russian bots or trolls to assess Russian influence campaigns, the accounts Hamilton 68 used to “understand” what the Russians were doing in social media were “neither strongly Russian nor strongly bots.”

Other Twitter emails stressed there was “no evidence to support the statement that the dashboard is a finger on the pulse of Russian information ops,” and that Hamilton 68 was “hardly evidence of a massive influence campaign.” Twitter’s then-chief of trust and safety, Yoel Roth, said it more simply: “I think we need to just call this out on the bullsh-t it is.”

While Twitter tried to warn the media and politicians not to rely on Hamilton 68, the tech giant opted to play the “long game,” limiting its public comments to vague counters to the claims of Russian influence campaigns rather than unequivocally calling out the BS. For that, Twitter deserves condemnation. 

But it was Hamilton 68 that promoted itself as a “resource for journalists to appropriately identify Russian-sponsored information campaigns,” at least originally, and it deserves blame for that. Yet after Taibbi’s exposé broke, the Alliance for Securing Democracy, or ASD, issued a “Fact Sheet” response that sought to shift blame to others. 

In its “Fact Sheet,” ASD claimed the dashboard “analyzed a dynamic list of more than 600 Twitter accounts linked, wittingly or unwittingly, to Russian influence activities online,” before complaining that “recent reporting on Hamilton disregards the dashboard’s published methodology, Hamilton 68 experts’ commentary, and Twitter’s own data.” 

“The dashboard’s original methodology, acknowledged that ‘the content within the network is complex and should be understood in a nuanced way,’” ASD continued, going on to blame “members of the media, pundits, and even some lawmakers” for failing “to include appropriate context when using the dashboard’s data, despite ASD experts’ extensive efforts to correct misconceptions at the time.”

The think-tank host of Hamilton 68 further claimed that because its data “was consistently misunderstood or misrepresented,” ASD “published multiple follow-up instructions clarifying key points, including that ‘some accounts we track are automated bots, some are trolls, and some are real users. Some are in Russia, but many are not.’”

By use of an internet archive, Taibbi published an addendum in response to ASD’s “Fact Sheet.” Taibbi highlighted the difference between ASD’s current position and its old webpage’s representation that “there are two components to the dashboard feature,” with one being “overt promotion of content,” that “highlights trending content from Twitter accounts for media outlets known to be controlled by the Russian government.” “The second section,” the historical webpage indicated, included “Content Tweeted by Bots and Trolls,” which the archived webpage claimed, “highlight[ed] themes being pushed by Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence campaigns.”

This earlier summary creates a much different impression than ASD’s current caveat that the accounts tracked by Hamilton 68 may be “real users” and include many accounts that are not Russian.

It is not merely what ASD represented on its historical webpage, however, that contradicts the current efforts to contextualize the Hamilton 68 dashboard. Rather, when Watts testified before the Senate, he explicitly pointed to Hamilton 68 as the way for “the U.S. government” “to have an understanding of what Russia is doing in social media.” There was no nuance in his testimony.

Further, ASD claimed in its “Fact Sheet” that its experts undertook “extensive efforts to correct misconceptions.” However, when Watts testified before the Senate on Jan. 17, 2018, he sat silent when the Democrat senator from Hawaii, Brian Schatz, raised two Twitter trends media claimed were Russian influence campaigns based on Hamilton 68’s dashboard.

Let’s “talk about bots a little,” Schatz said, noting “there was public reporting that the Roy Moore campaign went from 27,000 to 47,000 Twitter followers over the weekend, and the substantial portion of those appear to be located in Russia.” Then “we had the take-a-knee thing where clearly there was an active measure to try to just sow discord. In other words, you’ve got bot and bot farms out there,” the Democrat senator said, intoning: “We have to think of this as undermining Democracy itself,” and not merely of “just Russian active measures.”

The claims that the #TakeAKnee debate and the large increase in followers of Roy Moore stemmed from Russia-linked accounts came from reporting based on the Hamilton 68 dashboard. Nonetheless, Watts did not correct Schatz’s misconceptions about Russian bots or bot farms nor add any context or nuance to the Democrat lawmaker’s conclusions, based on Hamilton 68’s analysis, that Russian active measures were behind both social media phenomena.

Given Watts’ congressional testimony and the ASD’s historical description of the Hamilton 68 project, it seems the only real “active measures” going on now to influence the public are those undertaken by ASD to blame the press, pundits, and politicians for relying on Hamilton 68.