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‘Quid Est Veritas?’ Biden Unveils Ministry of Truth
The Biden administration is creating a group to counter “disinformation” and “misinformation.” It will be led by a woman who repeatedly pushed both.
The Department of Homeland Security appointed Nina Jankowicz to head the group. Her previous job title was “disinformation fellow” at the Wilson Center, a title that seems a bit on the nose. While at Wilson, she frequently offered false narratives about Hunter Biden’s incriminating “laptop from hell” and Trump’s involvement with Russia. One might even call it misinformation.
On October 20, 2020, the AP interviewed Jankowicz who insisted the laptop was a non-story:
The actual origins of the emails are unclear. And disinformation experts say there are multiple red flags that raise doubts about [the email authenticity, including questions about whether the laptop actually belongs to Hunter Biden, said Nina Jankowicz, a fellow at the nonpartisan Wilson Center in Washington….
“We should view it as a Trump campaign product,” Jankowicz said.
Later that month, Jankowicz tweeted, “Back on the ‘laptop from hell,’ apparently—Biden notes 50 former natsec officials and 5 former CIA heads that believe the laptop is a Russian influence op.”
When that tweet resurfaced this week, she claimed: “For those who believe this tweet is a key to all my views, it is simply a direct quote from both candidates during the final presidential debate. If you look at my timeline, you will see I was livetweeting that evening.”
Back to October 2020. Jankowicz linked to a news article that cast “yet more doubt on the provenance of the NY Post’s Hunter Biden story.” She added, “Not to mention that the emails don’t need to be altered to be part of an influence campaign. Voters deserve that context, not a [fairy] tale about a laptop repair shop.”
She gushed over Christopher Steele, the man who pushed the debunked “Steele dossier” alleging Russian/Trump collusion. “Listened to this last night – Chris Steele (yes THAT Chris Steele) provides some great historical context about the evolution of disinfo,” Jankowicz tweeted in August 2020.
In other words, the DHS anti-disinformation group will be led by a leading purveyor of disinformation.
On Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked about Jankowicz’s ability to head the board. “I don’t have any comment on the laptop,” Psaki replied. “And I don’t know who this individual is, so I have no comment on that specifically.”
That instills confidence.
Jankowicz’s deceptions are bad enough but the very concept of government officials defining “truth” is dangerous if not malevolent.
“Misinformation” vs. “Disinformation”
Since politicians and the media use these terms without context, some definitions are in order. “Disinformation” is intentional false information, whereas “misinformation” is false information, whether intended or not.
Say it’s World War I and the Brits want to demoralize German soldiers. The allies drop leaflets on a Kraut trench saying the Kaiser is about to sue for peace. That is disinformation.
When a deceived German soldier credulously reads the bad info to his buddies, that is what’s usually meant by misinformation. (Technically, it’s both mis- and dif-, but illustrates the difference)
The working definition of both disagrees with the above. When Biden or a cable news anchor uses either term, it means “thing I don’t like.” The Chinese lab-leak theory was misinformation until Trump was well out of office. It was disinfo to claim the vaccine didn’t prevent Covid until the media couldn’t hide the fact any longer. Jankowicz herself claimed Hunter’s laptop was misinfo until it wasn’t.
Partisan actors pretend to defend truth but don’t even know what it is.
Quid Est Veritas?
A confused Pontius Pilate famously asked Christ “what is truth?” Our current rulers are just as ignorant, as are the media and academia. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy spills 13,000 words giving various answers to that question, only leaving the reader more confused.
If the greatest minds in history couldn’t settle on a definition, I doubt Joe Biden will be the first. Even sincere folks without an agenda won’t agree on what they think is true, let alone define truth itself. But the left definitely has an agenda.
Biologically, only two genders exist, one with XY chromosomes and one with XX. That is a fact, repeatedly proven by science, philosophy, theology, tradition, and history. It still will be tagged “misinformation” because the left doesn’t like it. Instead, they will describe 57 genders as “fact,” at least until they’re told there are 63 or 86. Then, they only need to update the Newspeak Dictionary and the lie becomes the officially approved “truth.”
Newspeak Dictionary, 12th Edition
The AP Stylebook has done this for years. Earlier this month, Stylebook editor Paula Froke announced numerous additions and updates to the bible of journalism. “Among the changes she announced were a new inclusive storytelling chapter, plus updates and expansions covering disabilities; race-related coverage; gender, sex and sexual orientation; pronouns; and religion,” their blog post stated.
Last year’s update shows just how flighty and arbitrary “truth” is to the media:
Since the most recent print edition, the AP decided to capitalize Black, but advises using an individual’s identity, if known. (Froke said that while “white” remains lowercase when used as a racial identifier, “that’s subject to further discussion down the road.”) The stylebook now capitalizes “Indigenous.” Of “brown” as an identifying label, it says, “Avoid this broad and imprecise term in racial, ethnic or cultural references” because “Interpretations of what the term includes vary widely.” “People of color” is acceptable in “broad references to multiple races other than white,” the stylebook advises, though many people object to the term in part because it “lumps together into one monolithic group anyone who isn’t white.” And it advises, as so many entries now do, to “Be specific whenever possible.”
I guarantee the above paragraph will be tagged “misinformation” in a few years when all the terms have changed yet again. The 55 previous editions of the stylebook will be memory-holed; Newspeak has evolved.
Biden’s Ministry of Truth will be far less powerful than the one described by George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, at least at the start. But the goal is similar. As Orwell wrote, “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.”
He described this more clearly later in the novel:
In the end, the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality, was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all, how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable—what then?
Orwell had a limited imagination. Today, one plus one makes 57.
Nina Jankowicz’s job isn’t to root out misinformation or disinformation. It is to call common-sense “lies” and replace it with ever more complex deceptions. Politicians, academia, and the media can’t define “truth” and have no need for a definition anyway. Their goal is power and they will twist facts however needed to obtain it.
They have exchanged the truth for a lie and every honest person knows it.
Published in General
When did misinformation become such a problem? So big we need a Government Ministry to “prevent it from traveling around the country”, as Psaki described he ministry’s purpose. Is it really a problem? I’m not the smartest guy but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever believed something that turned out to be misinformation. I think the term now means information the government or the MSM would rather you not be aware of.
They don’t need direct power when they have willing fellow travelers in key positions. Several times recently, we’ve seen Merriam-Webster change a definition within 24 hours after a leftist announces a new meaning. (Confirmation hearings for ACB, where Maisie Harano stated that (I believe) “sexual orientation” was offensive. By the next morning Webster’s agreed.)
Isn’t about time some Republican with clout in Congress declare that this assault on Free Speech and almost all of our inalienable rights has to stop. Immediately.
Joe Biden and the rest of these Statlinist Clowns took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, not rip it to shreds. Republicans need to start demanding prosecutions of these traitors in our midst. I don’t care if we don’t have the bodies in Congress to get it done this term. A line in the sand needs to be drawn and the People need to hear about it.
Much of this problem goes back to the Supreme Court, which has allowed this disgusting attack on the Constitution.
Your title brought to mind this Francis Schaeffer quote which I got someplace:
I’m thinking it wouldn’t take near as long today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUoiEj8NUTI
If you missed it this evening . . Brian Kilmeade on this terrifying matter.
The Federal government have themselves a brand new satire magnet.
The flying monkeys at the Babylon Bee are going to have a field day.
How did this country survive for more than 200 years without a Ministry of Truth?
Or is that an indication that we don’t need and have never needed one?
I’m going to make a prediction that this gets walked back pretty fast, and the position eliminated.
It’s not just literally Orwellian, it’s atrociously bad optics during a period of widespread mocking of the hand-wringing left over its fear of free speech. It’s overreach.
I know things happen slowly in government and it’s hard to get rid of anything, but I don’t expect this new organization to still exist by election day.
Incidentally, this is yet another reason Republicans have to win in November, and in 2024, and not abandon the field to the Democrats.
Republicans Respond to Orwellian Abuse of Power
I’m sorry to ask, but is this really a woman? Nowadays, and especially with this person’s reputation for lies, such questions should be asked.
Of it it’s still in place after election day, and after next January, it could be the very first agency that a Republican-controlled Congress actually gets rid of. If they do it.
At least she will know what mis- and disinformation is when she is looking at it.
And what about malinformation? Did they forget that one? Maybe we need another Ministry of Fighting Malinformation.
Not a bad question Skyler. But she does look better than Real Admiral Rachel.
This is far too useful a fundraising issue for the GOP for them to actually take steps to remove it. Expect fiery denunciations, stern letters and news clip-bait hearings to launch a thousand begging emails.
In related news…
Homeland Security has announced that its new “Department of Computer and Laptop Asset Management” will be headed by Hunter Biden.
Homeland Security will care more about twitter feeds than the border
She even looks like some Russian ideal of a Femme Fatale, doesn’t she?
She is a Karen with power
I’m interested in the mechanism behind this. Will the Ministry of Truth contact the relevant agencies in question, or are they going to be authorized to make up lies independently?
The press conferences are going to be lit.
He’s going to be busy starring in Dude, Where’s My Laptop?, the sequel to Dude, Where’s My Car?
Then of course there will be Ashley’s contribution to the Biden Cinematic Universe, Dude, Where’s My Diary?
Oddly I was just reading this morning about a story on “newspeak”. It was titled how the WEF uses newspeak to wage war. by Tessa Lena. She defines it as a military term and can e used to redefine anything from an idea to language to a crisis and make it seem like something else.
The WEF is calling a segment of it’s Great Reset, “Global Shapers”. You start to feel like you’re the odd one out when a new narrative appears and what you’re being told is the new truth.
https://www.globalshapers.org/
Even if someone is acting honestly, they have no way of telling what is true in every situation. And of course, we have absolutely no reason to assume that people will be acting honestly in the political theater of DC.
This is great! Now we just have to look at one website, one source, for the ultimate truth. All those journalists and news agencies are now redundant and superfluous. The ‘middle-man’ has just been eliminated. The amount of time Americans spend trying to get accurate information has just gone down dramatically, freeing them up to for more productivity!
Why didn’t they think of this before???
Is there a word for the mental state/self-image in which one imagines there are no sentient educated grownups who would take issue with complete and utter BS? It is one thing to deliver nonsense because agents of Pol Pot, Stalin or Kim Jong-Un are holding a gun to you head but to do it solely to sustain one’s membership in the twiteratti pseudo-elite?
A malignant buffoon has appointed a ridiculous woman to pass selective judgment on the content of Americans’ speech. Her first order of business should be to prove that Dan Rather’s forged documents about Bush’s reserve duties were totally legit so as to establish her bona fides asa propaganda minister.
The only saving grace is that she is an obvious idiot in a deeply pathetic administration which greatly limits her influence. Imagine what someone more competent like Josef Goebbels could have done with control over all social media and all public content.
Republicans tend to be accessories after the fact. They will never turn back Progressive policies.
I’m going to make a prediction that this remains and if Republicans ever hold the House, Senate, and White House they will continue this office rather than eliminate it. Compare the CFPB, a highly dangerous Star Chamber created by Dodd Frank courtesy of Elizabeth Warren. Even with a fig leaf of Executive oversight established by the SC of what would otherwise be a completely unconstitutional body, it remains a vehicle for Corporate intimidation and control with almost unlimited power. When Republicans had a chance, they made no effort whatsoever to eliminate this odious body. They simply fought over the right of a Republican President to appoint the head of the Board. To me this was proof positive that Republicans are Progressives in conservative drag. Of course the difference with Biden’s Ministry of Truth is that the CFPB was established by legislation rather than by executive fiat. Still, I will happily buy Henry Racette a steak dinner if the Republicans win the House and Senate and make any effort at all to withhold funding of this agency or cancel it completely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=povU9qiQt70
In case you didn’t see it on Tucker. It starts at 1:20. I sat stunned for minutes after seeing this.
“Misinformation” became a problem, when the Left gained critical mass in control of our institutions, and proceeded to destroy society. True Believers cannot let anyone acknowledge their failures.
We need a search engine attachment that would pop-up warnings in search results of which online dictionaries and reference sources are not to be trusted, and why.