☕️ (REALLY) BAD OPTICS ☙ Monday, June 26, 2023 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

So that was fast: the great Russian Civil War of 2023 wrapped up the same weekend it started; "Pride" parade roundup; and Grandma Garland seeks to prove how not biased is the DOJ. Badly.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Monday! We roundup a couple bigger stories this morning: first, despite withering criticism from a few loud commenters, it turns out I was right about the new Russian Revolution; a (Western) world of Pride Parades will make you questions whether civilization deserves to survive; and Merrick Garland proves how fair and equitable is the Department of Justice.

🗞💬 *WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY* 💬🗞

🔥 I told you so! It took fewer than 24 hours for the “Russian Civil War” to completely resolve and disappear like the morning dew off a HIMARS missile casing. You’ll recall that, as of Saturday morning, corporate media was completely distracted by the Proxy War, 100% convinced that THIS TIME, that no-goodnik Putin was finally going to get what was coming to him.

In the early hours on Saturday, government-affiliated reporters labeled the Wagnerian dustup a Russian “Civil War.” The Atlantic ran one of my favorites of the headlines, which by no means was the only one:

Russia didn’t slide into Civil War very far!

Do you remember those hazy summer days when the slip-and-slide was just a little too short? You’d take off running, leap onto the cool plastic runway, and then before you could say “Proxy War” you were spitting out a mouthful of grass, right after tumbling head over heels into a sudden, inglorious, itchy dismount.

That was how Saturday afternoon went for Corporate Media and its hastily-assembled army of war reporters. They were munching grass no later than noon.

Apparently, Putin is SO WEAK that he put down a full-scale civil war in a couple of hours, right after breakfast. He could teach General Grant a thing or two.

Predictably, it is now time for some MORE, new hot takes, to distract everybody from the OLD hot takes. The Hill ran its war story this morning headlined, “Petraeus: Prigozhin ‘Lost His Nerve’ In Calling Off Rebellion.” If you believe Petraeus, which I get is a stretch, then Prigozhin — the steely, battle-hardened hero of Bahkmut — somehow lost his nerve to drive into undefended Moscow.

Maybe he left his nerve in the jeep’s ashtray or something.

The New York Times, which on Saturday ran no fewer than SEVEN separate top-of-fold stories celebrating Putin’s imminent fall, and second now, was reluctantly forced by the rough pace of current events to display a much more muted tone this morning:

Uh oh. I guess the Weekend Civil War didn’t really help Ukraine that much. The Times’ sub-headline, above, glumly admitted, “The Ukrainian Army is encountering an array of challenges.” An array! An “array of challenges” is even worse than just regular challenges.

If the Times admitted THAT, you know it’s got to be BAD. The best news that diligent Times reporters could scrape together was the alliterative headline suggesting “Ukraine COULD Capitalize on Chaos,” maybe, who knows, plus a 12-minute audio podcast where some talking head opined about “How the Wagner revolt challenges Putin’s power.”

But does it, though?

Now begins the great face-saving, the re-spinning, the narrative un-weaving, the shucking-and-jiving by all the corporate media reporters and expert shills who on Saturday ran with hot takes that the situation in Russia was REALLY SERIOUS and Putin was teetering on the brink of finally being deposed by the brave, democracy-loving, freedom-fighting Wagner forces (freedom fighters who were long labeled as war criminals, as of Thursday afternoon at least, but never mind, they would again be war criminals by late Sunday afternoon).

At least the Times recognized that the jig was up, and — far down the home page, and off to one side — admitted the weekend “rebellion” was a “failure:”

A history of failed rebellions! See? It happens all the time. Any idiotnik could have predicted this one wouldn’t work. Well, excluding 100% of corporate media, of course.

In the Hill’s goofy article, useless former CIA director Petraeus opined that Wagner’s failed coup was actually a win for the West, if you squint hard and look at it the right way. Petraeus explained, “I think the [Russian] government has been shaken. Putin has been shaken personally. This makes him more vulnerable, arguably, than he has [sic] at any time in his two-decade rule of the Russian Federation. Who knows where this could go now.”

True, who knows where this could go? Well, one place it could go is with all of Putin’s now-exposed domestic enemies — the dumb ones who fell for the media’s hot takes and leapt on board the rebellion train — all of them being rounded up, arrested, and dealt with somehow.

So … it could have made Putin stronger, too. Who knows.

Some cooler heads, having avoided the deliciously-tempting error of excreting any hot takes Saturday, and having had a couple days to calmly think things over, are starting to ask harder questions, questions that should have been obvious right from the jump. One line of such questions relates to the fact the Wagner military forces are completely supplied by the regular Russian army. Meaning they get all their ammo, fuel, food, and so forth … from PUTIN.

So … how could Wagner possibly hope to supply a full-scale rebellion?

Not only that, but the Russian military is currently at its peak strength, having recently added hundreds of thousands of new soldiers, militarized its industrial base, hardened tens of thousands of career military members into combat veterans, and assiduously prepared for war with NATO. The experienced Wagnerites couldn’t possibly have believed overthrowing an entrenched nuclear superpower would be some kind of cakewalk (or a torte-walk, in the Russian).

So … what WAS the plan? Don’t look for any answers in the Western media.

These are only a couple of the emerging questions about this highly-questionable enterprise. Rather than any kind of civil war, it looks a whole lot more like a well-staged psyop, staged by somebody, because while there was a lot of ‘sturm und drang’ there wasn’t much evident practical effect at all.

Except talk.

We remain in the hot-takes period. Nobody knows anything. Listen all you want but don’t buy any of it. For example, late Saturday, media published the details of the just-negotiated “peace deal” between the Russian government and the Wagner forces. But how do THEY know any of these details? Allegedly from leaks and anonymous sources. Already conflicting reports are emerging.

So, we’ll keep waiting to find some clarity, and in the meanwhile enjoy corporate media mocking itself.

🔥 Let’s check in with Disney and see how the entertainment giant is doing. Last week Fox News ran an inglorious story headlined, “What Disney’s Executive Exodus Means For CEO Bob Iger.”

Two top c-suite executives have recently fled the mega-entertainment giant: CFO Christine McCarthy, and Latondra Newton, who — as you can guess by the name — was the company’s Chief Diversity Officer.

Disney’s stock is at a five-year low:

Disney recently announced thousands of layoffs in the midst of its “strategic reorganization” to cut $5.5 billion in costs.

All of Disney’s recent movie releases have flopped, leading to nearly a billion dollar loss just from the theatrical division alone:

The only division that seems to be doing well is the parks. People are still going to stand in line and see the Mouse, for some reason. Apart from that, after publicly fueding with Florida last year over sexualizing young children, Disney is scraping the bottom.

Woke / broke.

🔥 Speaking of woke, as June comes to an end, I did the sordid work of surveying the various “Pride Parades,” and it wasn’t pretty. I do feel badly for regular, old-school gay folks who cannot possibly be happy about all these over-the-top celebratory spectacles of debauchery, perversion, and pedophilia.

And they were 100% completely un-American.

Following is a curated selection, just to give you an idea, since you probably wisely gave any of these gatherings a wide berth.

This weekend’s Seattle Pride Parade featured lots of unattractive male nudity.

CONTENT WARNING: Link includes brief views of unattractive male genitals from a medium distance:

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1673059174211633152

In another Seattle clip, apparently demon-possessed parade-goers literally barked at a street preacher who just came to pray:

https://twitter.com/AndyGreensky/status/1673217780252803072

The Minneapolis Pride Parade featured the shameful ordeal of a fat, twerking, gross old man in white underpants — who especially danced for kids. He showed up in several places online, and some commenters noted this isn’t his first Pride Parade. I bet he’s on a list somewhere.

Anyway, the parents who brought their kids had notice of what they were in for:

It was as bad as it looks:

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1673050096789798912

Tons of big corporations sponsored floats in the parades. Minneapolis’ parade even featured the FEDERAL RESERVE BANK:

Similarly, democrat politicians attended in large numbers. This is your modern democrat party.

San Fransisco’s Pride Parade brought lots of people to the imploding downtown area, so I guess that’s something good you can say about it. In one ironic scene, a 1,000+ employee Apple parade detail was immediately followed by the Sex Workers’ Rights float, which claimed “Sex Workers started Pride.”

There might be something to that.

New York City’s “family friendly” Pride Parade featured the same type of simulated breasts and genitals that a Florida court recently had trouble understanding. I actually don’t blame the judge for being unable to imagine these prosthetic parts and why they’re obscene:

In one of many similar reports from the NYC parade, a group of mostly-peaceful LGBTQIA+ folks physically attacked a former trans rights activist who was just holding a sign that said, ‘Defend Female Sex-Based Rights.’

CBS News New York interviewed some Pride activists about how excited they were about the parade. The interview included this colorful character, who the anchors treated as a normal person without asking any of the obvious questions:

The bow on his head appears to be made out of crushed Doritos bags. I don’t even know what to say about this character, except that I actually felt sorry for the anchors who had to pretend like this was somehow normal.

And in case you were wondering, don’t worry, it wasn’t just here in America. It seems to be a Western phenomenon. In Lyons, France, parade-goers tore down an offensive French flag someone had hung along the parade route:

Toronto’s Pride Parade included lots of non-kid-friendly furry critters, but plenty of kids:

There were more simulated parts in Toronto. I guess it’s okay if they’re made of silicone:

And in Costa Rica:

And lots of other places. But not everywhere though! Especially not outside the Western world. In Turkey, for example, parades were promptly shut down by police within minutes, and went nowhere.

I searched for “Pride Parade Russia” and “Pride Parade China” but found nothing. Zero.

So.

In reviewing these scenes — and many others — I encountered a range of thoughts and emotions. First, I think it is far too simple to say “let adults do what they want as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.” If that is true, then explain all the historical laws against public intoxication, public obscenity, and public nuisance. What didn’t our predecessors know?

Second, what exactly are these parades celebrating? I mean, EXACTLY? Spell it out for me. Because watching them, it is difficult to avoid a clear sense that the celebration is really about the corruption and collapse of the traditional male identity into full-on depraved licentiousness.

Finally, at some point, I started becoming less offended by the perverted displays IN the parades and more offended by the people who were attending, especially those dragging children along. It is difficult to fathom how any parent with intact, functional protective instincts thinks their children would not be harmed by seeing … whatever this is.

I’m praying this is the year that the Pride Parades went too far. Otherwise, it’s hard to imagine what next year is going to look like. Stock up on eye bleach.

🔥 Late last week, the U.S.’s evil grandmother, Merrick Garland, mounted the official podium and whined about all the people criticizing the Department of Justice. He admitted the DOJ’s critics claim the agency is biased, corrupted, and weaponized are wrong. But, to prove just how neutral, unbiased and not one-weaponized the DOJ is, Garland labeled all the people who criticized the agency as dangerous underminers of democracy:

“Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department by claiming that we do not treat cases alike. This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy… Nothing could be further from the truth.”

https://twitter.com/Travis_in_Flint/status/1672290436382113798

Well, I guess that settles it then. Totally not biased.

Or possibly, that didn’t settle it, not for everybody. Yesterday, House Oversight Committee James Comer responded to Garland and claimed in a tweet the DOJ is actively obstructing the Committee’s ongoing investigations, and said Grandma Garland has single-handedly destroyed the DOJ’s already-waning reputation.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) also doesn’t think the DOJ is unbiased and not-weaponized. In fact, Senator Cruz called Garland a liar and a fraud.

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1673123056326156289

What do YOU think? Is the DOJ even-handed and un-biased? Or is it a weaponized, third-world parody of a politically-captured law enforcement agency?

Finally, unlike corporate media, C&C will keep you informed about all the developing Biden Bribery news. It should be an interesting week.

Have a marvelous Monday! I’ll see you back here tomorrow for much, much more.

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