Author: VD

The Manafort-Shapiro connection

According to The Guardian, Ben Shapiro appears to have been working as a mouthpiece for Paul Manafort and Alan Friedman when he was at Breitbart:

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.

The project was designed to boost the reputation of Ukraine’s then leader, Viktor Yanukovych. It was part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort carried out by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych’s embattled government, emails and documents reveal.

The strategies included:

• Proposing to rewrite Wikipedia entries to smear a key opponent of the then Ukrainian president.

• Setting up a fake thinktank in Vienna to disseminate viewpoints supporting Yanukovych.

• A social media blitz “aimed at targeted audiences in Europe and the US”.

• Briefing journalists from the rightwing website Breitbart to attack Clinton when she was US secretary of state.

Emails seen by the Guardian show a regular pattern of interaction between Manafort, Friedman, Gates, Kilimnik and Ukrainian officials. Gates, who went on to work with Manafort on the 2016 Trump campaign, wrote several messages. In February Gates , and agreed to cooperate with Mueller.

At the time Kilimnik was the Russian manager of Manafort’s Kiev office. Kilminik is understood to be “Person A” in Mueller’s latest indictment, filed last week. It says the FBI believes Kilimnik has ties to Moscow’s GRU spy agency, and adds that Gates was aware of this. Kilimnik denies a connection. Friedman confirmed he had met Manafort and Gates but said he had done so “because the client asked me to”.

Manafort’s media operation included attacks on Clinton. In October 2012 Gates emailed Manafort and Friedman, flagging a piece written by the journalist Ben Shapiro. The Breitbart article criticised Clinton for her public support of Tymoshenko, who had recently made an electoral pact with the far-right Svoboda party.

The article cited a Jewish “leader” who accused Clinton anonymously of creating a “neo-Nazi Frankenstein”. Gates wrote: “Gentlemen – Here is the first part of a series of articles that will be coming as we continue to build this effort. Alan, you get full credit for the Frankenstein comment.”

Of course, the neocons were to later stage a coup in Ukraine. Never trust the approved opposition. You have no idea for whom they are really working or who is really pulling their strings.

Bob Woodward: “No collusion”

The RUSSIA-RUSSIA-RUSSIA narrative is finally falling apart:

In an interview with Hugh Hewitt on Friday, Bob Woodward said that in his two years of investigating for his new book, ‘Fear,’ he found no evidence of collusion or espionage between Trump and Russia. Woodward said he looked for it “hard” and yet turned up nothing.

“So let’s set aside the Comey firing, which as a Constitutional law professor, no one will ever persuade me can be obstruction. And Rod Rosenstein has laid out reasons why even if those weren’t the president’s reasons. Set aside the Comey firing. Did you, Bob Woodward, hear anything in your research in your interviews that sounded like espionage or collusion?” Hugh Hewitt asked Woodward.

“I did not, and of course, I looked for it, looked for it hard,” Woodward answered. “And so you know, there we are. We’re going to see what Mueller has, and Dowd may be right. He has something that Dowd and the president don’t know about, a secret witness or somebody who has changed their testimony. As you know, that often happens, and that can break open or turn a case.”

“But you’ve seen no collusion?” Hewitt asked again to confirm.

“I have not,” Woodward affirmed.

It’s about time the media gave it up. It never happened and neither is their dream impeachment scenario.

Immigrants are an invasion vector

The first thing immigrants always want is more immigrants:

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2015, Esperanza Franco headed south to the border, where she worked defending immigrants who faced deportation.

Now she’s the one who might get kicked out of the country.

Franco says her former employer’s mishandling of a work-visa application — she came here from Spain five years ago  — has put her in danger of losing her legal status. She fears that in less than a month, she could end up being jailed in the same Arizona detention center where she has gone to visit clients.

“I’m going through so much stress,” Franco said. “I’m waking up in the middle of night, with back pain.”

The paradox of her situation is not lost on Franco, 28, who put her legal knowledge and Spanish-language skills to work in Tucson at the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, a nonprofit advocacy group.

It doesn’t matter where they come from, they always want to import more at the expense of the natives.

Anti-ethnonationalism is anti-semitism

Consider this summary of the Israeli nation-state law:

  • Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, who have the unique right of national self-determination
  • The flag and the menorah are national symbols. The national anthem is ‘Hatikva’.
  • Jerusalem is the united capital of Israel
  • Official language is Hebrew. Arabic has special status
  • Israel will be open to Jewish aliyah.
  • Israel will work in the Diaspora to preserve the affinity between Israel and Jewish people.
  • Israel will ensure the safety of the Jewish people and work to preserve the cultural, historical and religious heritage of Jews in the Diaspora.
  • The state places national value on development of Jewish settlement and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation
  • The Hebrew calendar is the official calendar of the state. The Gregorian calendar will also have official status

If you’re opposed to those things, for the Jews as for any other nation, then you are, without question, an anti-semite. It’s time for nationalists to be forthright about attacking the intrinsic anti-semitism, anti-Americanism, and anti-nationalism of the globalists.

The West has failed

It’s no surprise that China is blithely dismissing Western criticism of how it is addressing its Islam problem considering how completely the post-Christian Western approach to it has failed. It is absolutely right to do so.

China is not mistreating Muslims in Xinjiang province but is putting some people through training courses to avoid extremism spreading, unlike Europe, which had failed to deal with the problem, a Chinese official told reporters on Thursday.

Reports of mass detentions of ethnic Uighurs and other ethnic Muslims in China’s far western region have sparked a growing international outcry, prompting the Trump administration to consider sanctions against officials and companies linked to allegations of human rights abuses.

“It is not mistreatment,” said Li Xiaojun, director for publicity at the Bureau of Human Rights Affairs of the State Council Information Office. “What China is doing is to establish professional training centers, educational centers.”

“If you do not say it’s the best way, maybe it’s the necessary way to deal with Islamic or religious extremism, because the West has failed in doing so, in dealing with religious Islamic extremism,” Li told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva. “Look at Belgium, look at Paris, look at some other European countries. You have failed.”

It’s readily apparent that the Burmese and Chinese methods are considerably more effective than the feckless US and European approaches.

Justice is not the law

And when the law will not provide justice, it falls to the community to do so:

William Smith, 28, from Aurora, Illinois was discovered in the early hours of Tuesday morning, decapitated and slumped against the front door of the judge who had granted him bail in August. Smith was arrested last month following allegations by his then girlfriend that he had raped her 8-year-old daughter. After a police investigation in which Smith was found in possession of child pornography, he was arrested on two counts related to child pornography and one count of child molestation.

After being charged, Smith walked free from the court after the judge controversially ruled that he did not pose a threat to the local community, and he raised the $30,000 bail required to trigger his freedom. The alleged victim’s family said they were “shocked” that Smith had been allowed to walk free from court.

Smith was awaiting trial for his crimes and was awaiting a court date which was due to be scheduled for later this year, however it seems that somebody from the local Aurora community decided to take matters into their own hands.The judge, whose name has been withheld, was woken at around 3am by his “frenzied” barking dog. When he went outside to find out what his dog was barking about, he found the decapitated body of the man he had allowed to walk free slumped against his front door with the severed head left on the steps.

I look forward to seeing how the LGBTP community attempts to make a cause celebre of this little incident. The Matthew Shephard-style sob story about a man and his forbidden love for his girlfriend’s 8-year-old’s daughter promises to be a real tearjerker.

UPDATE: Just to be clear, this looks like a fake. But that doesn’t mean we won’t get the made-for-TV-movie.

Now WHERE have we seen that number before?

The NFL is down 17 percent in two years:

Consider the curious case of the National Football League: It’s the largest single entertainment property in the U.S., a $14 billion per year attention-sucking machine with a steady hold on the lives of tens of millions. And its future is now in widespread doubt.

Ratings for regular-season games fell 17 percent over the past two years, according to Nielsen, and after one week of play in the new season, viewership has been flat. February marked the third-straight year of audience decline for the Super Bowl and the smallest audience since 2009. Youth participation in tackle football, meanwhile, has declined by nearly 22 percent since 2012 in the face of an emerging scientific consensus that the game destroys the brains of its players. Once a straightforward Sunday diversion, the NFL has become a daily exercise in cognitive dissonance for fans and a hotly contested front in a culture war that no longer leaves space for non-combatants.

To many outside observers, this looks like the end of an era. “The NFL probably peaked two years ago,” says Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of economics at Smith College who specializes in the business of sports. “It’s basically treading water.”

I really need to finish writing Corporate Cancer. The NFL is on exactly the same track as NASCAR and Marvel. This indicates it will likely be down 50 percent within a decade of the 2016 viewership peak.

Darkstream: ComicsGate is Hitler

From the transcript of the Darkstream:

So what did we learn today? I don’t know about you, but I was,  of course, horrified to read the Washington Post and be informed that not only is ComicsGate Hitler, but that Ethan Van Sciver is also Hitler, and that Diversity & Comics is also Hitler too. Now, I have to admit that there is a certain amount of, I guess since we’re on the Germanic theme, schadenfreude, to be had in watching how this is playing out from the outside. The thing that the virtue signalers and ComicsGatekeepers simply refuse to understand is that there is nothing – nothing – you can do to defend yourself against a rhetorical attack by SJWs.

You can virtue signal all you like, you can run around talking about how you are a diverse movement and that you that you hate hate hate the Alt-Right, that you disavow, disapprove, and anathematize people like myself and so forth, but it won’t do you a damned bit of good. So yeah, my first thought when I was reading that was, “hey, don’t come talking to me about this, you know, Two-Face van Sciver owns the trademark!” I’m actually waiting for the first accusations that my contacts at the Washington Post set that whole thing up, that this is somehow my fault. I deny that! I absolutely deny that I arranged that hit piece!

I’m not going to pretend that I don’t find it funny. I find it more than a little bit amusing, though not quite hysterical just because I understand that the very ComicsGatekeepers who were trying to brigade this particular stream are probably genuinely astounded, and genuinely dismayed, at these attacks from the mainstream media. And what you have to understand is that they’re not going to stop, they’re not going to listen to you. They’re not going to give you a fair shake, they’re not going to allow you to defend yourself in any way, shape, or form, and they’re going to lie. So you’re going to see more articles like this. You know, we saw this with GamerGate. A lot of you guys don’t know about the history of the Sad Puppies and the Rabid Puppies,  but you really need to learn it because you guys are in the position of the Sad Puppies. The Sad Puppies were completely obliterated and that’s the fate that is in store for you if you follow your instincts.

Needless to say, the ComicsGatekeepers didn’t listen to me and continued to engage in some very public acts of virtue-signaling. A reader writes about D&C’s foolish decision to metaphorically tattoo “kick me” on his forehead:

I have to admit, even knowing better, to being highly disappointed in D&C’s latest futile attempt at virtue-signalling.  He’s running another limited Indiegogo campaign as a “charity event” at premium prices, with at least US$10,000 to a charity that he spent several days researching and selecting.

Did he, a US veteran knowing full well how many veterans are in dire straits and in need of help, select Disabled American Veterans or another veterans’ charity.  He did not. He chose The Trevor Project, an LGBTQIA+ charity. Seriously. Semper Fi is out; “please accept me, SJWs” is in.

The ComicsGatekeepers are cuckservatives through and through, and are unable and unwilling to conserve a damned thing. Just as you’ve said.

Once you indicate that you are willing to submit to the SJW Narrative, SJWs will never leave you alone until you submit to them entirely. The virtue-signaling tells them that you’re weak and that they only have to increase the pressure until you can’t take it anymore and give in to their demands. That’s one of the reasons they seldom even bother with me anymore. They know that not only will I never accept their idiot Narrative or submit to them, but the VFM and I will go after them harder and faster and from more directions than they even knew were vulnerable.

ComicsGate HAS been known to attack minorities

The Washington Post decries Two-Face van Sciver and the awful neo-Nazi racists of ComicsGate:

Darryl Ayo, an indie comic creator and critic, told me about one instance in which Comicsgate targeted him for speaking out. Ayo had criticized Malin’s claim that SJWs were Nazis. That night after midnight, popular comics penciler, outspoken right-winger and Comicsgate leader Ethan Van Sciver challenged him to appear on his podcast to debate Malin. “Darryl, come on my show right now and say what you have to say,” Van Sciver tweeted.

Ayo didn’t know Van Sciver and refused the offer. Van Sciver continued to demand that he appear on the show. For anyone who uses Twitter, the result was, predictably, months of insults and harassment. The day before we spoke, eight months after the original confrontation, someone had posted multiple messages on Ayo’s Facebook page to denigrate his art, referencing his conflict with Van Sciver.

Van Sciver framed himself as a proponent of debate and the healthy exchange of ideas. But in fact, he was demanding that Ayo deferentially follow his orders in the middle of the night or be labeled as unreasonable and a justifiable target for abuse. A free speech frame became a way to go after someone for saying things Van Sciver didn’t like — and for putting others on notice that their tweets or comments could make them the next target….

Most of Comicsgate’s targets have been lower profile than Jones or Tran. But that doesn’t mean that the harassers have been ineffective. Meyer, Van Sciver and their followers have made it clear that black critics who question their friends, or female Marvel employees who post selfies online, will be bullied and attacked. Their goal has been to make comics less welcoming to people who aren’t white and male, and they’ve succeeded in that goal.

Well, it certainly cannot be denied that at Ethan van Sciver’s instigation, ComicsGatekeepers repeatedly attempted to mau-mau a brilliant and innovative Native American comics publisher as well as issuing death threats to a popular Hispanic writer. Terrible, simply terrible!

I’m just ever so glad that I’m not a part of that deplorable, racist ComicsGate! They must be truly horrible people if the Washington Post says they are!

Meanwhile, the slow-motion suicide of Marvel and DC continues apace.

The upcoming season of The CW’s Supergirl will be a special one, and not just because of the guest stars. The Arrowverse / Berlantiverse series will introduce the first trans superhero to the television universe, and actress Nicole Maines will be bringing character Nia to life.

Chuck Dixon’s Avalon #2


Arkhaven Comics is proud to announce the release of the digital edition of CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON #2: RULEBREAKER. Kindle and CBZ editions have already been sent out to Alt★Hero campaign backers.

Detective Ben Church is hot on the heels of the vigilante who murdered a city councilman in broad daylight. But agents of the UN Superhuman Protection Council are interfering with his investigation, even as they claim that they can help him clean up Avalon City. Should he believe them? More importantly, can he trust them?

Meanwhile, King Ace has dealt with his partner-in-crimefighting Fazer’s little slip-up with regards to the unwritten Hero’s Code, but that doesn’t keep them from going after the notorious crime boss, Nicodemus Vukovich, together. The problem, King Ace discovers, is that there is a lot of temptation to be found in a wealthy crime lord’s uptown apartment. Perhaps too much temptation for anyone….

Chuck Dixon is the most prolific comic book writer in history. Set in the world of Alt★Hero, CHUCK DIXON’S AVALON #2: RULEBREAKER is the legend’s newest creation.

In other Alt★Hero-related news, Arkhaven Comics is pleased to announce that the Gold Logo edition of Alt★Hero #4: The War in Paris is now available at Arkhaven Direct. Please note that a large retailer has already ordered a not-insignificant fraction of the total number available, so if you want the limited edition issue, it would be best not to wait on this one.

Cliff Cosmic, Richard Bonk, and Arklight Studios are currently hard at work on Alt★Hero Issues #5 and #6, so it looks very promising for the first paperback and hardcover omnibuses to come out in plenty of time for Christmas. We also expect to release the first Premium editions soon. There is no new news on the film front.

UPDATE: It looks like the publication date problem is fixed.

Publisher: Arkhaven Comics
Format: Paperback
Publication Date: 09/11/2018