Crucial Moment in Ukraine War, Elon Musk and Free Speech, and the No-Talk Bidens

My advice to Musk is to get away from the idea that we’re going to have fact-checkers, defenders, and advocates all debating whether a tweet can be posted.

Patrick Pleul/pool via AP
Elon Musk on March 22, 2022. Patrick Pleul/pool via AP

General Wesley Clark, a longtime acquaintance and a former Democratic presidential candidate, makes some compelling points in an op-ed in Friday’s New York Post. 

First, the general says this is an absolutely crucial moment in the Ukraine war and the Biden administration must up its intensity and focus because, “If Ukraine can prevail, it will secure its borders, expel Russia from all of Donbas and open the way for a negotiated end to the conflict.

“Presumably, this would also thwart Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plans for the Baltic states, Moldova and Georgia.”

General Clark goes on to say a victorious Ukraine would undermine China, and he also correctly points out that following the Russian setback in Ukraine, Mr. Putin will likely be indicted by international courts. In other words, if President Zelenksy and the brave Ukrainians win, Mr. Putin will be gone. We heard basically the same message this week from Garry Kasparov, Ambassador John Herbst, and General Jack Keane. 

Second point: Elon Musk is going to take questions from the Twitter staff. It’s called, “Ask me anything.” So that’s very cool.

I’m sure a lot of the staff is scared to death about even the possibility that they might be forced by new management to follow the principles of free speech. It’ll be like a spiritual awakening. 

My advice to Mr. Musk, who has been so heroic on this and other issues, is to get away from the idea that we’re going to have fact-checkers, defenders, and advocates all debating whether a tweet can be posted. That’s nonsense. 

Free speech is about free speech. If people want to post something, they should post it. The 400 million people who might read it will decide for themselves whether it’s true or not, good or not, kosher or not, or whatever.

In other words, think of the old Fox News slogan, “We report, you decide.”

Twitter’s slogan should be, “We post, you decide.” There’s no such thing as apolitical fact-checking anymore. Just post it. That’s free speech. That may be unfortunate, but free speech is free speech. 

Twitter should post everything and just leave it up to its followers to agree or disagree.

Another brief point: Who does President Biden really talk to? He doesn’t talk to his son, Hunter, and now apparently, according to the White House, he doesn’t talk to his brother, Jim, either. 

Jim of course was up to his eyeballs in this international influence-peddling money scam that son Hunter was organizing in China, Russia, and Ukraine.

But while Senators Grassley and Johnson have tried to track down the full financial role of President Biden’s brother, so far specifics are difficult to come by. Just like the rest of the story. But we do know that Jim worked closely with Hunter. 

We also know that the president and Jim’s sister, Valerie, were deeply involved and her husband, John, was deeply involved. (He was asking Hunter for Chinese favors.) And we were recently reminded that Sarah Biden, who is Jim’s wife and therefore the president’s sister-in-law — make sure you get all that — was also deeply involved.

But remember, none of these people really talk to each other. Or at a minimum, none of these relatives, sons, daughters, aunts, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law — none of them ever talking to Joe Biden. 

In fact, none of them ever talked to Mr. Biden about the family business. Not at Christmas, not Thanksgiving, not Easter. Never. So Mr. Biden doesn’t know. 

Does anybody beside me find that hard to believe? 

From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.


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