If you haven't been following this story, you should

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The interconnections that make up the Washington power world.

Free Beacon:

Biden-Harris Admin Promotes Pentagon Employee Tied to Iranian Influence Network: Ariane Tabatabai, outed as a member of the Iran Experts Initiative, will now lead DoD’s ‘force and education training.’

The Biden-Harris administration has promoted the senior Pentagon employee who was outed as a member of an Iranian government-run influence operation, Politico reported.

Ariane Tabatabai is now a deputy assistant secretary of defense within Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's office, where she will lead its force education and training division. Tabatabai, according to Politico, was offered the promotion last month. She previously served as chief of staff for the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict.

Tabatabai became a public commodity after a 2023 Semafor report outed her as a member of an Iranian government propaganda group known as the Iran Experts Initiative. The affiliation saw Tabatabai report back to Iran’s foreign ministry and communicate with senior officials in the hardline regime.

[FWIW. Bonus reading material: an article in Semafor, “Inside Iran’s influence operation” details at great length that “Iran Experts Initiative” and Tabatabi’s involvement in it. Here’s just one paragraph:

…. Tabatabai currently serves in the Pentagon as the chief of staff for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, a position that requires a U.S. government security clearance. She previously served as a diplomat on Malley’s Iran nuclear negotiating team after the Biden administration took office in 2021. Esfandiary is a senior advisor on the Middle East and North Africa at the International Crisis Group, a think tank that Malley headed from 2018-2021]

Now back to the Free Beacon:

Tabatabai's promotion comes at a curious time for the Biden-Harris administration. Over the weekend, classified U.S. intelligence on Israel's military preparations for a strike on Iran leaked in a "deadly serious breach," which the administration is investigating. While the leaker has not been publicly identified, the situation has raised concerns about a host of Biden-Harris administration officials, including Tabatabai, who want to increase diplomacy with Iran at the cost of the historically close U.S. alliance with Israel.

News of Tabatabai's affiliation with the Iran Experts Initiative sparked multiple congressional investigations, with Republicans raising concerns about Tabatabai’s ability to obtain a top-secret security clearance. The Pentagon and State Department, where Tabatabai formerly worked, have vocally defended her, saying there was nothing in her background that would have disqualified her from accessing classified information.

"Dr. Tabatabai was thoroughly and properly vetted as a condition of her employment with the Department of Defense," a Pentagon spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon in September 2023, after lawmakers raised concerns about her connections to Iran. "We are honored to have her serve." One month later, the Pentagon confirmed to lawmakers that Tabatabai would keep her security clearance.

Tabatabai and two others affiliated with the pro-Tehran group served as aides to former Biden-Harris administration Iran envoy Robert Malley, who was suspended from his post amid an ongoing FBI investigation into his alleged mishandling of classified information.

And Tabatabai’s boss?

Suspicion surrounds ex-Iran envoy Rob Malley after Israel attack: ‘Worst State Department scandal’

The Biden administration’s former special envoy to Iran, who was placed on leave earlier this year for allegedly mishandling classified material, should face “extensive scrutiny” for his “permissive” stance toward the Tehran regime after it aided Hamas and Hezbollah in carrying out terrorist attacks against Israel, critics said Monday.

“Rob Malley deserves extensive scrutiny — yesterday, today and tomorrow,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) told The Post after the Wall Street Journal reported that officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps planned and signed off on this weekend’s atrocity that killed at least 900.

“These reports could not be more concerning, and they hint at what could be the worst State Department scandal since Alger Hiss,” Issa added.

“Malley and others created an incredibly permissive environment for Hamas, for Iran, to do all these things,” added Gabriel Noronha, a former special adviser on Iran at the State Department.

Noronha, who served under former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said Malley and his negotiating team “purposefully funneled billions of dollars to [Iran] through lack of sanctions enforcement and provision of sanctions relief that has given them somewhere between $50 [billion] and $80 billion over the last two and a half years.”

A senior House Republican aide told The Post that the cash influx followed an even more generous payout of $1.7 billion that the Obama administration made to Iran in 2016, eventually contributing to Saturday’s attack that triggered the Jewish state’s first declaration of war in 50 years.

“There is a straight line from Obama’s giveaway to Iran, to Biden’s enriching of Iran — to Iran’s war on Israel,” the aide said.

Don’t trust the Free Beacon or the New York Post? How about this one, published just last month by the reliable Left, pro-administration outlet, Politico?

9/18/24: Internal watchdog says State Department mishandled Iran envoy’s clearance. The entire Malley/State Department/Anthony Blinken affair is an on-going scandal, although the term “scandal” usually includes “public outrage” as part of its definition, and this story has been mostly covered up by a complacent media.

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory than by the Harvard faculty

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How ironic: the authors of “How Democracy Dies” are now advocating that it be snuffed out.

Harvard professors argue that America needs a 'militant democracy' to stop Trump

Harvard professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt [are pushing for] a "militant democracy" to ensure an "authoritarian figure" like former President Trump never rises to power again.

In an op-ed for the New York Times, Levitsky and Ziblatt describe how they spent the last year "researching how democracies can protect themselves from authoritarian threats from within," lamenting how close Trump remains to getting a second term.

"How could such an openly authoritarian figure have a coin flip’s chance of returning to the presidency? Why have so many of our democracy’s defenses seemingly broken down, and which, if any, remain?" they wrote.

One of the ways they suggested limiting figures like Trump’s rise to power was a "militant or defensive democracy" which they described as a way authorities can restrict or outlaw speech against "antidemocratic forces."

And who will decide what particular speech is “antidemocratic” and therefore to be outlawed? Not the first 2,000 people in the Boston telephone directory; more likely, the wise elders of the Harvard faculty lounge and the (gender-neutral) rest rooms of the New York Times.

"Born in West Germany as a response to Europe’s democratic failures in the 1930s, the militant democracy approach empowers public authorities to wield the rule of law against antidemocratic forces. Haunted by the experience of Hitler’s rise to power via the ballot box, West German constitutional designers created legal and administrative procedures that allowed the state to restrict and even outlaw ‘anti-constitutional’ speech, groups and parties," they wrote.

“Legal and administrative procedures” — a term that we have learned includes the weaponization of the police force of the state and state-supervised suppression of dissent by the social media giants like Google, FaceBook, China’s TikTok, and Instagram. We need only look to the persecution of Elon Musk and all of his enterprises to see what the administrative 4th branch can do to someone who dares break it’s information monopoly.

Though they acknowledged "significant drawbacks" that could be "easily abused" in this strategy by politicians, they argued how it may be better than simply relying on electoral competition or the "laissez-faire approach" to sort out bad ideas.

So, even though those new powers of the state to outlaw dissident groups can be (will be) abused, better that than leave the little people to sort out “bad ideas” on their own.

"Electoral competition is, of course, essential to democracy, but...”

There’s a universal rule: anything that comes before “but” is a lie. That’s true here.

Let’s continue:

But a laissez-faire approach has two important limitations. First, in the United States, competition is distorted by an 18th-century institution, the Electoral College, that allows election losers to win power. In one sense, the electoral marketplace worked in 2016 the way it is theoretically supposed to: More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than for Mr. Trump. But the Electoral College permitted an authoritarian figure who won fewer votes to become president," they wrote. "In addition, history shows us that electoral competition alone is insufficient to fend off extremist threats. Good ideas don’t always win out. And candidates seeking to subvert democracy don’t always lose."

Don’t think this call for a dictatorship of Those Who Know Better™ is (just) the product of two deranged fools frothing at the mouth up in Cambridge. These professors, spawned in Berkeley and now busy indoctrinating the next generation of Leftist morons, are a significant part of the voice of the those who would rule. Their book, “How Democracies Die” published in 2018, was universally praised by the State’s media branch, from the Wall Street Journal to the NYT, to WaPo, NY Magazine, Atlantic, to The Guardian, and is now part of the official cannon (the Light Bringer has described it as “his favorite book”, Joe Biden’s handlers had him carry around a copy and, a la Tampon Tim and his favorite, Mao’s Little Red Book, read passages aloud to whoever would listen (and presumably, those who wouldn’t). That fact that the state’s loudest media arm, the New York Times, has published this latest iteration of the authors’ call to action one week one week before an election the state fears it will lose, gives a hint of the chaos that will be unleashed in two weeks should its puppet be defeated.

And here's another one that's coming back for more

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Newly, sort of, on the MLS today, 20 Gate Field Drive is agains available for purchase, with offers invited beginning at $7.495 million. It’s been a long saga that may finally be drawing closer to its conclusion.

These owners paid $4.8 million for the place in 2007, polished it up a bit and put it back up for sale in 2015 for $8.750. Even dropping it down to $7.350 failed to move it, so they cancelled the listing in 2016 and, we hope, didn’t sulk, but vowed to try again some other day.

That day came in 2022, when the house reappeared with a new price, $6.495, dropping eventually to $5.995, but still no soap, so they rented it out and waited for better times. That wait is over, apparently, because it’s back again, at the aforementioned $7.495. Has the market risen high enough in the past two years to rescue a house that wouldn’t sell at $5.995, and find a buyer at six-and-a-half? As always in real estate, we, along with these owners, will just have to wait and see.

Back again on Clapboard Ridge

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218 Clapboard Ridge has been listed today with an asking price of $15.8 Million. Some years ago, under different ownership, this house was listed for $25 million. I had a bit of fun with it at the time, mocking its outrageous price request, and predicting that it would eventually sell in the $9s; which it did: these owners paid $9.650 in 2017, four years later.

I assume they’ve made some significant changes since then, or perhaps they’re just counting on the market’s recent emergence from its depressed state of mind to justify this “improved” price. I guess we’ll see.

I smell a joint venture being formed even as I write

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“Good luck at the meeting, and remember: ten percent for ‘the big guy’ “

Son of High-Ranking Dem Raked In Hundreds Of Thousands From Dad’s Campaign, Lobbyists

The son of Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Richard Neal — leader [former Chair, no Ranking Member — Ed] of the House Ways and Means Committee — raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from his father’s campaign and pressure groups who were actively lobbying his dad on tax policy, according to Politico.

Richard Neal’s son Brendan Neal launched a one-person public affairs firm offering “political advice, lobbying and strategic communications” in 2020, roughly one year after his father became the ranking member on Ways and Means — the sole congressional committee with jurisdiction to introduce federal tax legislation, Politico reported.

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?

Richard Neal’s office has claimed the congressman was unaware his son was employed by lobbying firms with tax issues being decided by his committee, and that the two do not discuss official business, according to Politico.

I'd go with the highest number and triple it, then triple it agan

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a helping hand for the deserving poor — that would be us

World Bank bureaucrats lost track of at least $24B in funds fighting climate change: ‘Could be twice or 10 times more’

Bungling World Bank bureaucrats lost track of at least $24 billion bankrolling the battle against climate change, according to a bombshell report by a left-leaning charity group.

An investigation by Oxfam revealed “poor record-keeping practices” by the DC-based international lender that resulted in anywhere between $24 billion and $41 billion in misplaced funds.

The agency’s audit showed “a lack of traceable spending” over the past seven years — partly because of an oddball accounting practice in which the bank accounts for its climate financing at the time of a project’s approval rather than at the time of project completion, according to the report released last week.

“This is like asking your doctor to assess your diet only by looking at your grocery list, without ever checking what actually ends up in your fridge,” said Kate Donald, the head of Oxfam’s Washington DC office.

A World Bank insider, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested the figure for the missing money “could be twice or 10 times more.”

“All the figures are routinely made up,” the source said. “Nobody has a clue about who spends what.”

….

Last week, the Biden-Harris administration voted in favor of boosting the bank’s lending firepower by $150 billion over the next 10 years.AP

Love’s Labour’s Lost; maybe.

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Lovebugs Are Dwindling

Beege Welborn, HotAir:

No, I'm not talking about millennials and their problems with communicating and forming relationships with other human beings.

I am talking about the clouds of insects peculiar to north Florida and the Panhandle in the summertime.

When we first got down here from Norf Cacklelackey in July of '99, my aunt was living over in Destin and able to fill us in on most things regarding Panhandle life. 

The one thing she said that was absolutely foreign to us was when she said how lucky we were to get here before "the lovebugs started their swarming." Having never heard of such things, it didn't sound too awful, and, sincerely, how bad can something with "love" in the name be?

Well, it turns out we had decades to look forward to of big gooey messes on our vehicles from said tiny, amorous insects. You never really see a lovebug - about a half-inch long, skinny, black with a red cape flying beetle sort of critter - until it's attached to another one in...well...that sort of way. 

And it's not one. It's hundreds, if not thousands, all managing tandem mating flights in a huge cloud of insectoid reproductive frenzy.

The swarms invariably are attracted to roadways and wind up splattering your vehicle from stem to stern, sometimes in impressive amounts of displaced bodily bug fluids, as you try to maintain vision through your windshield.

…..

But now it seems Science™ has zeroed in on the lovebugs as a poster child for Global Boiling. I have to admit, until I read this article, I hadn't realized the dearth of lovebugs lately, but, indeed, there...haven't been any.

Welborn:

…. The author explains that the lovebug, a "march fly species called Plecia nearctica," only lives for three or four days and spends up to twelve hours of those precious few days doing what comes naturally.

“The lady being interviewed has noticed that there are far fewer of them now frolicking than there used to be and worries that the little flies have flown into the great "unexplained."

...In a trend scientists say poses risks to all ecosystems, 40% of all insects are declining globally in “the insect apocalypse.” The lovebug, whose loss across Florida remains unexplained, joins them.

Welborn:

Forty percent of all bugs are 'declining,' huh?

I sure hope Science™ and the author will forgive my skepticism as I am fresh off relief that their bee colony apocalypse hysteria turned out to be so much overwrought hyperbole. I'll hold off sweating "40%" of bugs going bye-bye.

...Beekeepers adjusted to colony collapse. They divided remaining colonies to make new hives. Bee numbers increased by millions.

“We’re not in any way facing an apocalypse,” says Science journalist Jon Entine. “Things have never been better in terms of the numbers of bees.”

Entine runs the Genetic Literacy Project, which challenges scientific misinformation.

I remind him that the media continue to run scare stories.

“Bees are dying at an alarming rate,” says NBC.

CNN headlines: “Bee Population is Dying ... the food we eat is at risk.”

It’s so stupid. 

“They could have just Googled bee population and they would’ve seen them going up?” I ask.

“Absolutely,” responds Entine, “it’s farcical.”

The article bangs the climate cult drum...

...Behind the decline of insects lies human harm. Habitat degradation, pollution, pesticides and other stressors have insects facing “death by a thousand cuts.” 

Climate change, which is shifting global temperatures, rainfall patterns and seasons, threatens to deepen these cuts. For insects, which can’t generate body heat and might live out the entirety of their adulthood in the span of a day, even slight environmental fluctuations can disrupt life cycles, ranges and access to host plants. 

.… The lovebug began its love affair with the Southern United States in 1940, flying in from its original home in Central America and reaching Florida in 1949. ….

But now, alas ….

...Lovebugs may find their synchrony disrupted because of the warming climate, which could alter their seasonal peaks and allow them to extend their range north. Because lovebugs hail from the tropics, North and Central Florida will likely become less favorable to them, Leppla said, as the local climate becomes more temperate and less tropical. Changing moisture conditions could also spell trouble for the bugs, which rely on a particular range of soil moisture. Drying grasslands or heavier rains affect their ability to survive.

FWIW: Global warming is causing Florida to be less tropical? My guess is that: (a) most Floridians would welcome a relief from tropical summers — thanks, global warming (?); (b) they won’t miss these invasive beetles mashing against their windshields; and (c) the word of the lovebug’s demise is as exaggerated as that of the humble bee, who refused to listen to “experts”, and stayed right where they were, never leaving.

October surprise? Not at all.

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“But my funding would dry up!”

Olson-Kennedy is one of the country’s leading advocates for providing gender-affirming care to adolescents, and regularly provides expert testimony in legal challenges to state bans on such procedures.

A prominent doctor and trans rights advocate admitted she deliberately withheld publication of a $10 million taxpayer-funded study on the effect of puberty blockers on American children — after finding no evidence that they improve patients’ mental health.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy told the New York Times that she believes the study would be “weaponized” by critics of transgender care for kids, and that the research could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”

Critics – including one of Olson-Kennedy’s fellow researchers on the study — said the decision flies in the face of research standards and deprives the public of “really important” science in a field where Americans remain firmly divided.

For the National Institutes of Health-funded study, researchers chose 95 kids — who had an average age of 11 — and gave them puberty blocking drugs starting in 2015. The treatments are meant to delay the onset of bodily changes like the development of breasts or the deepening of the voice.

After following up with the youths for two years, the treatments did not improve the state of their mental health, which Olson-Kennedy chalked up to the kids being “in really good shape” both when they started and concluded the two-year treatment.

However, the Times points out her rosy assessment contradicts earlier data recorded by the researchers which found around one-quarter of study participants “were depressed or suicidal” before receiving treatment.

The result also does not support the findings of a 2011 Dutch study, which is the primary scientific research cited by proponents of giving kids puberty blockers. That study of 70 kids found that children treated with puberty blockers reported better mental health and fewer behavioral and emotional problems.

Olson-Kennedy, the outlet points out, is one of the country’s leading advocates for providing gender-affirming care to adolescents, and regularly provides expert testimony in legal challenges to state bans on such procedures, which have taken root in more than 20 states.

….

When asked by the Times why the results have not been made public after nine years, she said, “I do not want our work to be weaponized,” adding, “It has to be exactly on point, clear and concise. And that takes time.”

She then flat-out admitted she was afraid the lack of mental health improvements borne out by the study could one day be used in court to argue “we shouldn’t use blockers.”

…..

Boston College clinical and research psychologist Amy Tishelman, who was one of the original researchers on the study, pointed out the obvious contradiction in withholding scientific evidence on the grounds that it doesn’t match an expected conclusion.

“I understand the fear about it being weaponized, but it’s really important to get the science out there,” she told the outlet.

“No change isn’t necessarily a negative finding — there could be a preventative aspect to it,” she said hopefully.

“We just don’t know without more investigation.”

Erica Anderson, a clinical psychologist and a transgender youth expert, told The Post she was “shocked” and “disturbed” about the decision to withhold publication of such vital research.

“We’re craving information about these medical treatments for gender questioning youth. Dr. Olson-Kennedy has the largest grant that’s ever been awarded in the US on the subject and is sitting on data that would be helpful to know,” she said.

“It’s not her prerogative to decide based on the results that she will or won’t publish them.”

She also wasn’t buying Olson-Kennedy’s rationale to hold back the study’s findings based on fear of backlash.

“It’s contrary to the scientific method. You do research, and then you disclose what the results are,” she said. 

“You don’t change them, you don’t distort them, and you don’t reveal or not reveal them based on the reactions of others. You report as scientists what you’ve learned.”

In a 2020 progress report submitted to the NIH, Olson-Kennedy hypothesized study participants would show “decreased symptoms of depression, anxiety, trauma symptoms, self-injury, and suicidality, and increased body esteem and quality of life over time.”

……

Olson-Kennedy appeared to attempt to muddy the waters in her interview with the Times when explaining how her hypothesis didn’t pan out, claiming participants had “good mental health on average.”

She made this assertion “several times” despite saying previously that 25% of the study’s young patients were suffering with various mental illness symptoms before treatments began.

When pressed by the outlet for an explanation for the seemingly contradictory findings, Olson-Kennedy attributed it to “data averages,” of which she said she was “still analyzing the full data set.”

In April, England’s National Health Service (NHS) disallowed puberty blockers for children following a four-year review conducted by independent researcher Dr. Hilary Cass, writing in her report, “for most young people, a medical pathway will not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress.”

Last year, Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a leading Finnish expert on pediatric gender medicine, said in a newspaper interview that “four out of five” gender-questioning children will eventually grow out of it and accept their bodies even without medical intervention.

October Surprise?

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Matt Margolis PJ Media

Someone's Pitching a Bogus 'October Surprise' Story to End Trump's Campaign

With the momentum benefiting Donald Trump in the final weeks of the campaign, the sign of desperation from the Democrats has reached a fever pitch, and the left has now entered a phase where bogus anti-Trump stories are starting to flood the news. A couple of bogus stories have already been published, and more are on the way. Sources are pushing one story in particular, waiting for someone gullible enough to run with it.

On Saturday night, Mark Halperin, discussing the recent Atlantic hit piece, which has already been debunked, revealed that he has been pitched a story that, if true, would "end his campaign."

"These last two weeks are gonna be filled with things like this, and I can tell you without going into detail that I've been pitched a story about Donald Trump now for about a week that, if true, would end his campaign," he said. "And, there's all sorts of things like that flying around. I'm not the only one who's been pitched it."

Halperin later clarified that he doesn't believe that the story is true.

"The point I was making is there's all sorts of things being floated out there," he said. "I know of one story that's been pitched to a major newspaper and to me — and, for all I know, to many others — that I don't believe is true. But if it's true, as I said yesterday, it would end Donald Trump's campaign."

"If those were true, it would end his campaign," he reiterated. "What we're seeing in the final days is a point I was making [which] is actors who want a certain outcome are on social media and in pitches to reporters. And in the case of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg writing himself, are trying to affect the end of the race because they're so desperate to try to ... pull a Comey."

"I'm not pursuing the story," he continued. "I don't think it's true. People in Mar-a-Lago, calm down. All I'm saying is there are people out there pitching stuff."