{"id":101722,"date":"2022-05-03T19:51:31","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T23:51:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=101722"},"modified":"2022-05-03T19:51:38","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T23:51:38","slug":"the-daily-gouge-archive-monday-may-2nd-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=101722","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge Archive, Monday, May 2nd, 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Monday, May 2nd, 2022…the day after Communists around the world and across the country…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…celebrated May Day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, here’s The Gouge<\/em>!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, NRO<\/em>‘s Charlie Cooke lends his usual biting satire to the latest unconstitutional move by an Administration whose only consistency in its conduct has been a total disregard for the rule of law, as he notes…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nina Jankowicz, Biden\u2019s \u2018Disinformation Board\u2019 Chief, Must Be Placed in an Ankle Monitor<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/h1>\n

It\u2019s the least we can do<\/span><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

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“L<\/strong><\/span><\/span>inguistically<\/span>, the name of the Department of Homeland Security has always sounded a little off to me \u2014 a little . . . well,\u00a0Russian.\u00a0<\/em>So I suppose that it is only fitting<\/em><\/span> that it should be the DHS, and not<\/em><\/span>, say, the Post Office, that will house America\u2019s newest Ministry of Truth.<\/span> Per Secretary Mayorkas, his already-sprawling agency will be adding a \u201cDisinformation Governance Board\u201d to its offerings, the better\u00a0to fight<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0the \u201chuge threat to our homeland\u201d\u00a0that is free American citizens saying things that the federal government doesn\u2019t like<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

At the head of this new venture will sit an extremely strange woman named Nina Jankowicz, who, if her other activities are any indication, was apparently asked to choose between agreeing to the role at DHS and being turned down after yet another audition for the musical\u00a0Wicked<\/em>.<\/span> A cursory look at Jankowicz\u2019s social-media history suggests that, while she is certainly interested in disinformation, her\u00a0passion<\/em>\u00a0is dressing up as Liza Minnelli. In\u00a0one video (shown below<\/em>)<\/span>, Jankowicz adapts the tune of \u201cSupercalifragilisticexpialidocious\u201d to convey that \u201cInformation laundering is really quite ferocious \/ It\u2019s when a huckster takes some lies and makes them sound precocious.\u201d<\/span> In\u00a0another<\/a><\/span><\/em><\/span>, she offers up that pornographic twist on the Harry Potter books for which we\u2019ve all been clamoring. \u201cI helped him solve the mystery of the egg,\u201d she warbles. \u201cBut I\u2019d like to solve the mystery between his legs.\u201d<\/span> Her canon is limited in scope, but what I\u2019ve seen of it is enough to test even the most committed civil libertarian in his opposition to casual waterboarding.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Fielding questions about the move, Jen Psaki told reporters yesterday that \u201cit sounds like the objective of the board is to prevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country in a range of communities,\u201d before adding, \u201cI\u2019m not sure who opposes<\/em><\/span> that effort?\u201d<\/span> As it happens, I can help Psaki out here: I do<\/em><\/span>. I oppose it, because it\u2019s grotesque and indefensible<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> If by \u201cprevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country\u201d Psaki means that the federal government intends to censor its critics, then Jankowicz and her friends will immediately<\/em><\/span> find themselves in court<\/em><\/span>. (They should already be there<\/span>!<\/em>)<\/span> And if she doesn\u2019t<\/em><\/span> mean that \u2014 if she means that Jankowicz and her team will act as PR agents for the Department of Homeland Security \u2014 then there is no need<\/em><\/span> for anything as lofty as a \u201cDisinformation Governance Board\u201d in the first instance.<\/span> The DHS\u00a0already has a press office<\/a><\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Given the manner in which Jankowicz\u2019s appointment has\u00a0been received<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0by pretty much everyone, we are likely to see some backtracking over the coming days.<\/span> But at this point, it\u2019s too late<\/span><\/em> for all that. Instead<\/em><\/span>, we need some guarantees<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> At the very least<\/em><\/span>, Americans ought to know what Jankowicz and Co. are up to at every point their \u201cboard\u201d is in action<\/em><\/span>. Her meetings must<\/em><\/span> be taped; her emails must<\/em><\/span> be made public; her phone calls must be recorded; and, as a modest prophylactic measure, she ought to wear a bodycam<\/em><\/span> whenever she is carrying out her duties.<\/span> This<\/em><\/span> is the United States of America, not<\/em><\/span> Cuba, and, as a matter of elementary principle, we ought not to have anything<\/em><\/span> called the \u201cDisinformation Governance Board of the Department of Homeland Security.\u201d If, for whatever reason, the president disagrees with that principle, he must be made to account for it.<\/span> Adding 24\/7 surveillance and closely monitored ankle bracelets to\u00a0figures such as Nina Jankowicz<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0is the minimum<\/em><\/span> the citizenry can demand in return.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

All told, it will be tough to find a more perfect example of Modern American Progressivism than this<\/em><\/span> for a good while.<\/span> It exhibits an entirely undeserved epistemological self-confidence<\/em><\/span>. It is driven by a niche moral panic that begins and ends online<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> It is unabashedly authoritarian<\/em><\/span> in concept and in tone. It involves the addition to the public payroll of one of the silliest people in all the land<\/em><\/span>.<\/span> And, like so much that the contemporary Left ends up doing<\/em><\/span>, it has pushed the vast majority of psychologically normal voters into paroxysms of derisive laughter<\/em><\/span>. One of the most remarkable features of our age is that the more het up about an issue the American Left seems to be, the less serious its saviors seem to become.<\/em><\/span><\/span> David Harsanyi is correct to\u00a0argue<\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0that the very idea of \u201cthe state putting an imprimatur on \u2018truth\u2019\u201d is both \u201cdangerous to freedom\u201d and \u201claughable,\u201d but I wonder if he is perhaps overestimating the extent to which the Democratic Party and its chums will ever be able to control America\u2019s national conversation. We are told<\/em><\/span> that we are in the midst of a chronic \u201cinformation crisis<\/em><\/span>,\u201d and yet the best progressives can do to fight it<\/em><\/span> is promote Brian Stelter, Taylor Lorenz, Jen Psaki, and Nina Jankowicz.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if . . .<\/strong><\/span>“<\/p>\n

Here’s the juice, in meme form courtesy of Balls:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Think about it: We’ve gone from him…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…to him…<\/strong><\/p>\n

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…to her…<\/strong><\/p>\n