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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
Not just Biden. Many of our elected officials are doing it. I believe they’re actually planning to campaign on it.
See #83.
Russia — literally heir to the Mongol Empire — has been an expansionist state for 700 years, pushing all the way to the ocean in the north and east, and now resuming its push to the west (where Ukraine is the gateway to the rest of Europe) and south (where it can take advantage of Biden’s abandonment of Afghanistan).
Indeed, Russia is so much a threat to all of Europe that, after 70 years, Sweden and Finland are giving up their treasured neutrality and joining NATO. They don’t dare wait: they have to do it while the Russian military is tied up in Ukraine.
It’s not just Democrats and Republicans that agree about Ukraine. It’s the whole civilized world.
Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden pursued a policy of appeasement, giving tacit approval to Putin’s occupations of neighboring countries’ territory, and refusing to send weapons to Ukraine after the 2014 Russian invasion. Trump reversed that policy, even as he maintained friendly relations with Russia (i.e., stroked Putin’s ego even as he strengthened Ukraine).
Trump had also blocked the Nordstream 2 pipeline, which was designed to benefit Russia and hurt Ukraine. When Biden foolishly undid Trump’s policy, that convinced Putin that the US had no objections if he snuffed out Ukraine’s hopeful democracy; and took a huge step toward undoing Ronald Reagan‘s victory in the Cold War.
Yawn. Yes. Everyone knows this. But it’s not our job to protect the Ukraine. I feel bad for what they are going through, it’s their bed, not ours.
It’s not our job to protect Ukraine. But it’s in our self-interest.
A successful attack by Putin on Ukraine would make the world dangerous in many ways.
In the most immediate term, Putin regards Ukraine as a runaway province of the Russian Empire, but he also regards Poland and the Baltic States exactly the same way. If he attacks them, then we will no longer have the luxury of just sending weapons. As fellow members of NATO, it really is “our job” to protect them. With American lives.
A successful Russian invasion will also tell every small country in the world to get nuclear weapons as fast as they can, because international agreements — like the agreement by which Russia promised to respect Ukraine’s borders — are no longer worth the paper they’re printed on.
A successful defense of the Ukraine may very well make the world much more dangerous. It’s not as easy as you make it out to be. Putin may not like being humiliated. If the Ukraine wins on its own, good for them. But if the Ukraine wins with our explicit and now braggadocios assistance, then if Putin decides to escalate to nuclear weapons, we may be his targets.
With NATO members, the warning is clear that any attack on a member of NATO will result in the annihilation of Russia. That was not the case with the Ukraine.
I’m not willing to use a nuclear response in defense of the Ukraine. It has been in the Russian/USSR/Russian sphere of influence for hundreds of years. I’m sorry, but that’s not our problem.
With Taiwan, there is a huge difference. When Taiwan is invaded (I expect it sometime this summer), we will have a valued trading ally at risk. Taiwan is in our interest to defend.
Do you really believe that?
I hope. That is what the alliance is for.
But Taiwan is not in NATO, and if it’s a matter of valued trading allies, Ukraine qualifies there too. More for grain etc than for electronics, but so what?
Have we been importing Ukrainian grain?
Their grain goes more to other countries including many that are experiencing the worst shortages now. US agricultural imports from Ukraine are mostly in other areas.
I don’t care about other countries, I only really care about mine. The Ukraine offers us nothing.
Frustrating Russia might offer us something.
ICBM’s?
And appeasing Russia gets us what? Fewer ICBMS?
I didn’t say “attacking” Russia. I said “frustrating” Russia.
I’m sure they’ll recognize that nuance.
It doesn’t matter. Grain is fungible: it is for sale everywhere that has a surplus. That is going to be a problem. Places that don’t grow enough will be in the market to buy more. That will lead to price increases and shortages.
Also true. And many of the places who need it the most, aren’t exactly wealthy to go around outbidding others.
A lot of places who should have been making themselves more energy-independent – or at least not dependent on RUSSIA! – are finally getting a poke in the eye over their stupidity. And other places that should have been doing more to be food-independent are getting it even harder.
@skyler — According to your policy, because Russia has nuclear weapons, therefore, any time it invades another country, we should betray our allies and surrender.
This doesn’t just apply to Ukraine; as I pointed out previously, Putin sees Poland, Finland, and the Baltic States as runaway Russian provinces as well. Not that there is any reason for Putin to limit himself to just those, if he is confident the West will always surrender.
I can’t imagine any policy more dangerous to the world’s peace, than encouraging all nuclear powers to invade their neighbors.
On the other hand, standing up to Russia sends the signal that nuclear blackmail doesn’t work, so don’t bother to try it.
It also may be the only hope democracy has in Russia. Remember, Margaret Thatcher’s humiliating defeat of the Argentine junta is what brought back democracy to that country and made the world a little safer.
“Taiwan is in our interest to defend.” Not sure we will be able to. Unfortunately, unlike Ukraine, there are no convenient highways and railroads to carry munitions. Instead, we have a Chinese Navy that is designed to blockade Taiwan.
I guess we have to try. Mostly under Democratic administrations, the US strong armed Taiwan to prevent it from developing its own nuclear deterrent. (The insane logic of gun control applied to international relations!)
Similarly, under a Democratic administration, the US assured Ukraine that its borders would continue to be respected if it gave up its nuclear weapons.
Your first statement is absurd and completely ignores my argument.
The rest of your statements are absurd and completely ignore my arguments.
When Thatcher attacked Argentina, we quietly aided them, but publicly stayed out of it. Now we have an ass as commander of the joint chiefs bragging that anything good happening in the Ukraine is all because of our help. There’s a big difference in approaches.
Why are these always the only two options presented: Attack or Appease?
Why is nobody saying “Let’s get a cease-fire going while we hammer out some agreement for peace!?”
The problem with that is that they almost never work. Machiavelli was right about that (and most things). A cease fire would only allow Russia to reinforce and consolidate.
The Republicans lost the Spanish Civil War mostly because of meddling Europe decided to embargo any arms to either side. Such “feel good” policies only hurt the good guys (though I hesitate to call the Spanish Republicans “good”).
Then you’re only left with “we had to destroy Ukraine to save it.”
These are choices best left to the Ukrainians themselves. By arming them, we are merely giving them bargaining power.
Of course, making any deal with Vladimir Putin is going to be problematic, as he will break it as soon as he thinks it’s in his interest.
Huh? It’s more like we aren’t going to save Ukraine, but we’re happy if they save themselves.
That’s fine with me. Except this being a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia, it seems people don’t care if Ukraine gets destroyed in the process of the U.S. taking out Russia. I mean, I keep hearing “Better that we fight Russia there than here.” Which I suppose is an admission that, yes, this is a proxy war, but also a statement that it’s okay if Ukraine gets destroyed as long as it doesn’t touch us.
Don’t confuse this war with some other recent adventures. The Ukrainians would be fighting, with the backing of the civilized world, even if the US were not supporting them.
This isn’t a proxy war between the US and Russia. It is a proxy war between NATO and Russia. Putin has put the finishing touches on what Trump started; getting our allies to start thinking seriously about their own defense.*
* With an assist by our Democratic countrymen installing Mouth-Breather Joe as President.
I don’t think it’s particularly nuanced. Providing material assistance to a country is one thing. Actively engaging militarily against a country is another. I think most people understand that distinction.