Oh, yeah: The Samizdat Prize

RealClearFoundation president David DesRosiers has announced the inaugural winners of of its Samizdat Prize. Tonight’s the night. The Samizdat Prize is intended to honor the most important users of the First Amendment in the United States. The prize aspires to confer the honor that various of the Pulitzer Prizes bestow and should replace them in the mind of right-thinking men and women. In the words of DesRosiers, the award that is given by Real Clear to journalists, scholars, and public figures who have fought censorship and stood for truth, whatever the cost.

The first three recipients of the Samizdat Prize could not be more worthy: Miranda Devine (for her work on the Biden family business), Jay Bhattacharya (the anti-Fauci), and Matt Taibbi (for his work on the Twitter Files). I have written about all three many times on Power Line. DesRosiers talked about the prize with Buck Sexton here in a discussion posted at RCP.

Dr. Bhattacharya received the prize this past September. His remarks are posted here at RCP. Matt Taibbi has just posted “America enters the samizadat era” at his Racket News site. He looks back on his career in acknowledging the honor he receives tonight. Thanks to John Hinderaker, I met Matt last year. Politics aside, we have cheered him on and sought to follow his path in our own way.

Miranda Devine wrote in her New York Post Devine Online newsletter this morning:

I am thrilled to be in Palm Beach tonight to receive the inaugural Samizdat award from RealClearPolitics, alongside pandemic refusenik Dr Jay Battacharya and Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi.

It’s an honor to be part of this grassroots movement to reclaim honest journalism in an era of lies.

“Samizdat” was the name of the underground press resisting the tyranny of the former Soviet Union.

It means ‘We publish ourselves” and was the inspiration for David DesRosiers, publisher and president of RealClear Foundation, to set up a rival journalism award to the Pulitzers.

Bravo to RealClear for bucking the establishment.

I couldn’t agree more. I would only add our congratulations to the inaugural recipients of the Samizdat Prize.