☕️ GODZILLA POO ☙ Monday, January 29, 2024 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

The media's dumbest narrative yet about the weekend's drone attack; pro- trans bill craters in Maine; another SADS vaccine pol; anti-trans bill success in Utah; video to kick your day off right; more.

Good morning, C&Cers, it’s Monday! As we roll rapidly into the last few days of January, the news keeps on coming. In today’s roundup: another new war front opening up as US leaders blame Iran for an attack from Iraq on a mysterious Jordanian military outpost; Maine “trans sanctuary” bill craters after Libs of Tik Tok focus; SADS vaccine-sponsoring councilman never even made it to the hospital; Utah double-whammy as legislature easily sails bathroom bill and DEI-abolishing bill to the Governor; and the real reason Lindsey Graham wants us to attack Iran RIGHT NOW.

🗞💬 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 💬🗞

🚀 Lindsey Graham had a big weekend. Axios ran the widely-covered story this morning under the headline, “GOP hawks press Biden to target Iran directly over U.S. soldiers' deaths in Jordan.” Everything about the warmongering story is weird, many folks detect a distinct odor of rattus norvegicus, and it is a giant, Godzilla-sized pile of narrative manure, as I will show you right now.

Our Top-Secret, Classified, Black Ops ‘Tower 22’ Military Base that Might or Might Not Exist, You Never Know

The Pentagon suddenly and unexpectedly announced this weekend that a multiple-drone attack at a secretive American outpost somewhere in Jordan generically labeled “Tower 22” had killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded thirty more. The drone attack occurred not in a vacuum, but in the context of widespread and common drone attacks against U.S. military installations all over the Middle East, especially in Iraq, not to mention what can fairly be described as open war in Yemen.

Don’t worry. They — whoever they are — are going to pay for this unchecked aggression. Yesterday, during a campaign event in Columbia, South Carolina, Candidate Biden vowed revenge. “We had a tough day last night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls,” he admitted yesterday afternoon. “We shall respond.”

The Sunday sneak attack marked the first time any U.S. troops have been reported killed by enemy fire in the Mideast since the Gaza war started. But the region has seen over 150 drone attacks against U.S. troops since the October 7th war began. Before this weekend, the Pentagon has simply chosen for reasons of operational security not to release any casualty figures, raising the question: why now?

Do not be fooled. The media is suggesting that these casualties are a new development, some kind of escalation, hoping you won’t think about it very hard and will buy their narrative. But, if you read carefully, you’ll see that none of the stories actually claims that as a fact.

But that’s not even the beginning. Many more mysteries lurk around the shadowy base and the ambiguous attack. Nobody knows how many U.S. troops are stationed at the mysterious, star-fort-shaped Tower 22, what they might be doing there, what types of weapons are held there, what kind of air defenses the base had, if any, in light of the well-known fact that our bases there are constantly under drone attack, or even what exactly went sideways in the attack and how it went down.

Neither did the Pentagon say what types of drones were used in the attack: Russian ones? Ukrainian ones? Iranian ones? Ones from Wal-mart? The Pentagon also refrained from identifying which service members were killed or injured, how the base responded to the attack, or even where exactly Tower 22 is located, except to say it’s in northeast Jordan, somewhere near the border.

While the Pentagon generically labeled the attack “Iranian-backed,” if you read carefully, the military stopped short of accusing any specific Iranian-backed groups or militias.

The released details of the attack are so sparse and unhelpful that, by the available description, the casualties could even have been caused by a friendly-fire incident or an accident, perhaps caused by troops trying to shoot drones down and, say, blowing up the ammo dump by mistake.

We just don’t know, and the Pentagon isn’t saying.

Even though the media is broadly accusing Iran, Iran denies any involvement in the attack. “Iran has nothing to do with the attacks in question. We believe the region does not need more tension or a new war,” its spokesperson explained to the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

Even weirder and more mysterious, corporate media’s reports widely claimed that the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” has claimed responsibility for the attacks, supposedly in order to “force the U.S. out of the region,” but there were even fewer details about that claim than they gave us about Tower 22.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) is an umbrella term for a loose group of Iran-backed militias. It’s not clear there’s any formal structure or leadership at all, as much as the term is just a convenient label. Here’s the thing: None of the corporate media reports about the IRI’s claim of responsibility identify how the group allegedly claimed responsibility.

Which of the groups inside the IRI’s umbrella pulled off the job? Is there a joint spokesman somewhere who announced it? Or did they just make a Tik Tok? Did media see the announcement on Instagram?

In other words, how does media know the IRI “claimed responsibility?” Did the Pentagon tell them? How can the media report that claim as a “fact” without at least citing even one single anonymous official? This sketchy, unattributed claim broke all their style guides. It’s total journalistic malpractice at best, and weak war propaganda at worst. And they’re all doing it, at the same time, which is another sign it is all bull puckey.

See? There are more holes in this Tower 22 attack story than in Biden’s brain. There is zero evidence of Iranian involvement. It’s a guess, at best. But notwithstanding all those unknowns, all those unanswered questions, and all that ambiguity, some of our “top Republicans” are ready to attack. Let’s get ‘em! I’ll give you one guess which Republicans. Oh, never mind. That’s too easy.

Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) demanded "serious, crippling costs" to Iran, "not only on front-line terrorist proxies, but on their Iranian sponsors who wear American blood as a badge of honor." So there.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who was never stopped by any lack of evidence before, issued a statement saying attacks on Iranian proxies outside of Iran "will not deter Iranian aggression," so we need to "strike targets of significance inside Iran." That will teach them. Graham’s tweet was even sharper:

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said, “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran's terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East.” Cotton practically dared Biden to invade Iran: “Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward unworthy of being commander-in-chief." Although he later walked it back, a little, Senator John Cornyn concisely called for crushing Iran’s capital city:

Not everyone was as amused as the Republican Senators. Tucker Carlson called Senators Graham and Cornyn crazy, or words to that effect:

To be clear, I’m not saying it wasn’t Iran. But absent some secret intelligence they haven’t disclosed, there’s no evidence that Iran was involved, and Iran said it wasn’t involved. And remember, this is the “no evidence” crowd, remember? You aren’t allowed to believe in something if there’s no evidence.

The bottom line is the media is pushing a binary narrative: either we do nothing and look weak, or … attack Iran! That’s it! Those are the only two options! But that is a logical fallacy, a false dichotomy. There are an infinite number of other options. How about we just close Tower 22 and get the heck out of there? How about that? Except bring our weapons, ammo, vehicles and equipment with us this time.

I don’t know where else to put this bit, but in a weird confluence of headlines, Trending Politics ran this story last week about Senator Graham’s November 2022 testimony that helped indict President Trump:

So. I’m just saying.

🔥 LGBT activist magazine The Advocate ran a surprisingly encouraging story this weekend headlined, “Maine Democrats bail on bill making state sanctuary for trans people amid far-right uproar.”

Maine’s LD1735 was described as a “trans sanctuary bill;” it was a trans activist’s dream come true. The bill would have let kids seek trans “medical care” without parental permission or even notice, and worse, it would have authorized state courts to remove parental custody if parents wouldn’t agree to give their kids hormones or castration procedures.

Just read this one sentence from the bill’s summary:

The language about “taking jurisdiction” would also have allowed state courts to take control of kids from other states, a prospect delighting Pied Piper trans activists who salivated at the thought of luring kids from Florida to Maine for trans medical experiments. In a Daily Mail article, Republican state Representative David Haggan described the bill in alarming terms, saying, “This bill authorizes the kidnapping and massacring of children from other states without parental consent.”

The bill appeared to be headed for approval on greased skids. But last Wednesday, Libs of Tik Tok highlighted the bill, which was then up for a second committee vote. Libs published to her 2.8 million follower all the names and email addresses for the committee members.

There was, apparently, a vigorous response.

According to the Advocate, after Libs shined her spotlight on the vote, the Democrat-majority, bipartisan Judiciary Committee reversed course and unanimously voted (12-0) to table the bill. Democrats on the committee who had previously supported the proposed law now complained that “unnecessary language” had been added.

Maine’s parents have a lot of things to be thankful for; Libs of Tik Tok is one of them.

🔥 The New York Post ran a SADS story yesterday headlined, “Former Queens Councilman Paul Vallone dead at 56 after heart attack.” The former councilman, married father of three, and current deputy commissioner of New York’s Veterans Services, was attacked by his own heart over the weekend, AT HOME, and despite being rushed to the hospital could not be revived and now he is in a box somewhere.

Paul was basically my age (one year younger). Unlike me, he was from a long line of democrat public servants stretching back several generations.

Nobody saw it coming. One of Paul’s good friends told the Queens Chronicle that he'd just been with Paul at an event on Friday, and described Paul as “happy” and “upbeat.” 

It’s almost certain Paul was jabbed. The Queens Council had a vaccine mandate while Paul was serving there and didn’t grant any waivers until 2022. During the pandemic in 2021, while serving as a Queens councilman, Paul was proud of helping organize the district’s vaccine program:

Paul took the jabs and probably paid the ultimate price. He was fooled by the propaganda just the same as a lot of other folks. We pray for his suffering, now-fatherless family.

🔥 As January closes, we are starting to enter legislative high season, so get ready for a steady stream of more good news. In stark contrast with Maine’s stalled, ugly trans sanctuary bill, Utah’s legislature passed beautiful bathroom and DEI-abolishing bills late last week, by wide, veto-proof margins. The bathroom bill passed 28-7 in Utah’s Senate, for example.

Local Fox-13 Salt Lake City ran the story headlined, “Transgender bathroom bill heads to Gov. Cox after last-minute deal.”

On Friday the legislature passed its “bathroom bill,” HB257, which makes the state’s legal definitions of “female” and “male” very simple: it’s birth sex. That’s it. It also criminalizes intentional adult use of the wrong sex bathroom — including any changing room — as lewdness, voyeurism or trespassing. It even-handedly calls for more unisex public facilities, and provides an exception for trans people who have completed full transition surgery (which raises some very interesting questions about exactly how the law will be enforced).

The bill prohibits, but does not criminalize, childrens’ use of wrong bathrooms.

Also on Friday, Utah’s legislature passed HB261, which repeals and replaces Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offices on the state’s college campuses. DEI offices will be replaced with "student success centers,” which will broadly serve a wider audience than racist “DEI centers.” The bill also prohibits requiring "diversity statements" in state job applications, and bans mandatory diversity trainings.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox is weakly expected to sign both bills. But even if he doesn’t, Utah is another state enjoying a conservative legislature with a veto-proof super-majority. Governor Cox could also avoid criticism by just waiting ten days, after which both bills would become law without his signature.

Over at the previously-mentioned, Advocate, they were freaking out:

Terrifying! Having to use sex-specific bathrooms is scarier than cyborg Godzilla mutated with Mothra genes. Or something.

🔥 Finally, since apparently these days we can go to zero-evidence war whenever we want, enjoy this realer-than-real news clip headlined, “GRAHAM: Just give me one more war and then I promise I won’t ask anymore.” (Adult language, 01:27.)

Have a marvelous Monday! And whether you’re terrified of Godzilla or not, get back here tomorrow for another evidence-based roundup of news and commentary.

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