Acquiring woke insurance

Victor Davis Hanson writes,

Among the many “background” quotes that Milley provided to meet his journalistic obligations were his various comparisons of his commander-in-chief to Nazis—a violation of Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He reportedly offered further allegations to journalists that news outlets like the Epoch Times and Newsmax were “terrorist” organizations. When pressed on such details the usually punctilious Milley shrugs, in the fashion of James Comey’s under-oath testimonies, that he does “not recall” such specifics. Such is the honor of the nation’s most visible military officer.

Milley has set a new precedent for the leadership of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: it is now permissible to be overtly political, to leak confidential conversations to progressive book-writing journalists, to freelance and warn likely enemies if and when the U.S. military might take action against them, and to pick and choose when to exercise (illegally) operational command, and when (legally) to refrain, or at least to remain “only” an advisor, when culpability for a disaster, like the one in Afghanistan, is determined.

Fauci adamantly denied under congressional oath that he had funded any “gain-of-function” viral research in Wuhan. Yet he admitted that his National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, along with the National Institute of Health, had given several hundred thousand dollars for Wuhan virology research, apparently much of it focused on alterations of viruses (in grantese: “further altering the mutant viruses”) to discover levels of infectiousness and transmissibility. And he had routed much of such aid to the Chinese Wuhan lab through the EcoHealth Alliance, an organization run by Dr. Peter Daszak.

In the past week, Joe Biden did what he now seems to do every week: He told a series of untruths that the media simply ignored or reported as true. Within the space of a few days, he lied when he said his own border patrol agents whipped illegal aliens trying to enter the United States illegally. He lied when he said only 4 million had been vaccinated when he entered office—although that was not quite as bold a lie as when he earlier entered office claiming that no one had been vaccinated (it was 17 million actually). And he lied about “trillionaires” (none exist) not paying their fair share.

Collate Biden’s accounts of the advice he says he got from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the defense secretary with what the latter two swore to under oath, and either Biden or his military advisors or both are simply not telling the truth.

Hunter’s schemes included Ukraine (the Burisma rip-off) and China (his “real estate” partnership bankrolled by $1.5 billion in Chinese investment money). Despite earlier promises, Hunter apparently still has not disposed of his 10-percent stake in an investment company related to the Chinese Communist government that has ties to companies sanctioned by the U.S. government.

Most recently the younger Biden dreamed up a fraudulent art con to hock his paintings to anonymous buyers, who are more interested in buying his father’s clout than investing in Hunter’s lack of artistic ability. Hunter, remember, has no business talent to speak of, other than his name and leveraging his father’s influence on behalf of foreign interests. But he does have a long history of serial drug use, reckless, anti-social behavior, and general unethical conduct.

Indeed, from his son’s own emails, we know that Joe Biden was referred to by Hunter’s grifting associates as “the Big Guy,” with a reference to a 10 percent cut (e.g., “10 held by H for the big guy?”). So, from Hunter’s own associate we hear that Joe received monies for the use of his name and position to leverage foreign connections. We also know from Joe’s own braggadocio that he leveraged Ukraine officials to stop investigating the very firm that his son was so assiduously milking for money. And we know that Joe has used Hunter’s profits for his own personal expenses. In sum, without Joe Biden’s complicity, the Bidens’ corrupt empire would never have existed.

None of this apparently matters. Few worry over Joe Biden’s inability to tell the truth, his reliance on the fusion media to disguise his serial mendacity, his overt refusal to be questioned regularly by the press, and his disastrous and unpopular policies concerning Afghanistan, the border, inflation and deficits, and reduced oil and gas development.

Why?

How do these people continue to exercise such power and influence? There are at least four likely reasons:

1) D.C. Deference Culture. As creatures of government and Washington, they, and legions like them, understand that there are zero consequences for not telling the truth. When trapped in “misstatements” and “I don’t recall” fibs, they tend to resort to an argument from authority, whether that be leveraged by the initials following their name, their titles, or their ribbons and medallions. They have enjoyed life-long impressive government remuneration and their obsequious fealty understandably seems to be first toward the permanent beltway corporate, media, and government class that protects and abets them.

2) Careerism. They understand America’s academic, cultural, and corporate institutions—the media, Wall Street, academia, Silicon Valley, the federal bureaucracy, Hollywood, and now professional sports—are monopolized by leftists. And so, they make the necessary adjustments to ingratiate themselves with such centers of power, often virtue signaling their anger against the supposedly Neanderthal and deplorable Right.

3) China. As good globalists, they have a surreal, if not dangerously familiar, relationship with their communist Chinese counterparts, whether in the highest echelons of the People’s Liberation Army, the military-affiliated researchers at the Wuhan lab, or the government-controlled companies that have invested in the Biden family’s various grifts.

4) The Shadow of Trump. All three of these careerists came to greater prominence as progressive anti-Trump mascots, as part of their acquiring woke insurance.

Read the whole thing here: https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/03/our-woke-national-icons/