1) “The Reveal: The Public is Finally Learning How Democrats Pulled Off the Greatest Political Trick in History” (Jonathan Turley)
From the article — This week, Washington was rocked by new releases in the declassification of material related to the origins of the Russian investigation. The material shows further evidence of a secret plan by the Clinton campaign to use the FBI and media to spread a false claim that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. With this material, the public is finally seeing how officials and reporters set into motion what may be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated in American politics. There never was a Russian collusion conspiracy. This is the emerging story of the real Russian conspiracy to manufacture a false narrative that succeeded in devouring much of the first term of the Trump Administration.
What is emerging in these documents is a political illusion carefully constructed by government officials and a willing media. The brilliance of the trick was getting reporters to buy into the illusion; to own it like members of an audience called to the stage by an illusionist.
The effort closely followed the three steps of the classic magic trick: The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige…
2) “Your Lying Eyes” (Steve Huntley, John Kass Column)
From the article — Don’t believe your lying eyes. That pretty much sums up the progressive approach to reality when someone points out an inconvenient truth. One of the most glaring examples came, you’ll recall, courtesy of CNN — the infamous video of a correspondent standing in front of an arson fire reporting on “fiery but mostly peaceful protests” during the 2020 George Floyd riots. This phrase, “mostly peaceful protests,” would be repeated time and again during the wave of murder, arson, assaults on police and destruction of private and government property during the chaos of lawbreaking in those sorry days. Protests are peaceful, or they’re not, our lying eyes tell us.
3) “Kennedy’s move against mRNA vaccines is a massive blow to Big Pharma” (Daniel Jupp, TCW)
From the article — Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) ‘true believers’ cover a range of people who were dissidents against covid authoritarianism, and in many ways represent an even more fractious, vocal and contrary bunch than MAGA online influencers do. With MAHA we have older elements of New Age and Hippie rebellion against ‘Western’ medicine, a slice of former Democrat voting youth, former Bernie followers, romantic Camelot types, natural health advocates, food industry critics and leftist-anarchist opponents of corporate greed, all mixed in with libertarians, some genuine conspiracy theorists and some merely labelled as such, and a bunch of outsider medical professionals and people within the healthcare, medical, food and drug industries who oppose the main narratives of their colleagues.
So, to say the least, an eclectic crowd who are difficult to keep happy when reality intrudes on boundless idealism. It was perhaps inevitable that some of these people would be watching MAHA developments within the second Trump term and start being critical of Kennedy for ‘not delivering’ or for ‘not doing enough’. The record, though, suggests that these people are wrong.
An excellent related article: “More official confirmation that covid-only deaths were vanishingly few.” (Norman Fenton, Kathy Gray and Martin Neil, TCW)
4) “Europe Is Being Gaslit About Freedom of Speech: Eurocrats and politicians are desperately trying to convince us that there is no censorship crisis.” (Lauren Smith, European Conservative)
From the article — We can all see that free speech is under threat in Europe. It feels like every week, a new horrific story about someone getting thrown in jail for having the “wrong” opinion goes viral. To the rest of the world, the continent has become a laughing stock. Americans in particular watch with horror as EU states punish their populations for criticising governments or posting rude words on the internet. Elon Musk, owner of social-media platform X, often draws global attention to these cases, to such an extent that even the U.S. government has expressed alarm and concern that European citizens are in danger of totalitarian-style speech restrictions.
So why do our elites keep pretending none of this is happening? When asked about Musk and his criticisms of Europe at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos this January, then German chancellor Olaf Scholz had this to say: “We have freedom of speech in Europe. And in Germany, everyone can say what he wants, even if he is a billionaire … What we do not accept is if this is supporting extreme right positions.”
This was a display of an almost impressive lack of self-awareness. For starters, Scholz’s statement is inherently a contradiction. Speech cannot be free if it is only protected for some people. Censoring anyone, even if they support “extreme right positions,” is still a violation of that most fundamental right.
5) “CEO Of IVF Eugenics Company ‘Orchid’ Claims Culling Embryos Is A ‘Positive Moral Choice’” (Jordan Boyd, Federalist)
From the article — Mere weeks after the corporate media lost their minds over a playful “great genes jeans” ad, in vitro fertilization (IVF) connoisseur and Orchid CEO Noor Siddiqui used an interview with the New York Times’ Ross Douthat to argue that only humans with certain genes, those deemed acceptable, should get a chance at life outside of the womb.
Siddiqui concluded that using her technology to rank embryonic life based on their predisposition to roughly 1,200 diseases and conditions is good for potential parents and maybe even good for society. On the contrary, Orchid’s mission and Siddiqui’s description of it fall fatally short of moral muster. Siddiqui kicked off the conversation by claiming that Orchid “gives parents the power to protect their children before pregnancy begins.” The reality of her genetic testing, which costs $2,500 per embryo, however, is that it pits frozen siblings against each other in a battle to be born.
An excellent related article: “Seeking a Better Answer to Infertility” (Chuck Donovan, Washington Stand)
Other recommended reads for this weekend:
* “The Sin of Calling Something a Sin” (Reid Fitzsimons, American Thinker)
* “Islamic State Beheads Christians, Burns Churches in Mozambique Rampage” (John Hayward, Breitbart)
* “Man Who Severely Beat Elderly Pro-Life Activists Avoids Prison” (Hailey Gomez, Daily Caller)
* “Police Arrest Two Parents For Small-Town Tragedy. If We Let It Go, There’s No Going Back” (Mary Rooke, Daily Caller)
* “Pastor Jack Hobbs Warns Parents: If Democrats Pass AB 495, ‘This Is It. Pack Up, Grab Your Kids, Leave California” (Victoria Taft, PJ Media)
* “The dam is breaking on Britain’s illegal immigration crisis…and the results could be ugly” (Glenn H. Reynolds, New York Post)
* “Trump Takes on Big Science: Critics who claim that the president is politicizing the National Science Foundation ignore its long history of funding left-wing research.” (Heather Mac Donald, City Journal)
* “Australia: land of sun, surf and pregnant men: Sall Grover’s fight for women-only spaces has exposed the utter insanity of the pro-trans establishment.” (Jo Bartosch, spiked!)