THINKING? Becket Adams: What the hell were you thinking, CNN? “Publishing what looks like an obvious threat to expose a private citizens’ identity is a very, very bad look for a professional newsroom.” Well, at least the ghost of Richard Jewell is getting a laugh out of this.
Archive for 2017
July 5, 2017
TRACY QUAN: The Mystery of Melania. So is the takeaway that Donald Trump is America’s Lord Nelson?
THIS IS NOT THE 21ST CENTURY I WAS PROMISED: Smartphones blamed for spreading HEAD LICE among children.
THE CAN HAS RUN OUT OF ROAD: U.S. Calls Emergency Meeting of UN Security Council Over NorK ICBM.
JON GABRIEL: Trump Has Driven CNN Stark, Raving Mad.
While the rest of America was celebrating Independence Day, CNN kept digging its own grave.
Furious over a silly video President Donald Trump posted Sunday, the flailing network sicced Senior Editor Andrew Kaczynski on its creator. He tracked down an anonymous Reddit user who first posted the GIF of Trump tackling a wrestler whose head was replaced with a CNN logo. Kaczynski then found out the person’s real name and threatened to release it if he misbehaved again. . . .
That’s right: a Senior Editor for CNN is blackmailing an American citizen for daring to criticize them.
This isn’t Kaczynski’s first attempt at destroying a private citizen’s life. As a BuzzFeed reporter, he gained notoriety for publicizing a lame joke Tweeted by a 30-year-old PR director named Justine Sacco. As Sacco was boarding a plane from London to Cape Town, South Africa, she poked fun at many people’s poor understanding of the continent. Kaczynski decided the joke was racist and helped gin up a digital lynch mob while she was in the air for 11 hours sans internet. By the time Sacco landed, she was mobbed by reporters, was fired from her job, and had to go into hiding.
Kaczynski’s insanity was just the latest in CNN’s string of horrible decisions related to Trump.
All the news media would have to do to have a shot at beating Trump would be to act in a measured, professional fashion. Trump has revealed that they’re incapable of that; it seems as if that option has never even occurred to them.
UPDATE: From the comments:
I’ll tell you who is sweating bullets: FBI agents and IC officials who were “sources” and provided classified information to CNN. After the usual suspects dox the network’s producers and reporters, at least some of those sources will be outed. Even if the information they provided CNN was false, as often was the case, these agents and officials face serious legal and career repercussions.
Yeah, a lot of stuff is likely to leak out now.
SALENA ZITO: Don’t Remove History’s Lessons.
Not all of America’s original Colonists supported independence when the document was adopted here; Pennsylvania’s own John Dickinson refused to sign. “I had rather forfeit popularity forever, than vote away the blood and happiness of my countrymen,” he declared.
Nonetheless, he soon joined the Continental Army to fight the British.
William Franklin, Benjamin’s son and New Jersey’s governor in 1776, remained a loyalist to the British crown; the tension of differing political views created a rift between father and son that never healed.
Support for the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shared by two of the signers — John Adams of Massachusetts, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia — in time led to deep division between the two men over how to achieve those ideals; it escalated to the point, as politics often does, of turning them into bitter adversaries.
When they challenged each other for the presidency, the campaign was vicious and personal and would make today’s politicians blush. Not until old age did they reconcile through correspondence.
On his deathbed on July 4, 1826, 50 years after he pushed Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence, Adams’ reported last words were: “Thomas Jefferson survives.”
He was wrong: The Virginian, 82, former president and patriot, died five hours earlier at his beloved Monticello.
We all have differences. Most of us have the capacity to forgive when those differences get heated.
Yet none of us should forget the history — all of it — that made us who we are in this country.
Indeed.
THE INDIA-ISRAEL BREAKTHROUGH:
This week, Narendra Modi will make history as India’s first Prime Minister to make an official visit to Israel. As the FT reports, he will be putting the Palestinian issue aside to forge closer ties on defense, agriculture, tech, and trade. . . .
25 years after establishing formal diplomatic ties, the India-Israel partnership is stepping out of the shadows. In part, theirs is a relationship built on defense dollars: as India makes a mad dash to modernize its military and upgrade its arsenal, Israel has become its third-largest arms supplier, with $599 million worth of weapons sold last year. And if April’s $2 billion arms deal is any indication, that figure will only rise in years to come, as Delhi turns to Israeli expertise on missile defense and cyber technology to boost its own capabilities, particularly along the Pakistani border.
The bilateral economic relationship has been blossoming in other sectors, too. When Modi visits Israel this week, he will bring 15 top executives from Indian firms like Wipro and Reliant to establish a joint CEO forum with Israel. That is a sign of how innovative commercial exchanges are already transforming the relationship. In the agriculture sector, for instance, Israeli water recycling technology is helping India grow food more efficiently; Israel has also established 26 agricultural expertise centers in India to teach local farmers new tricks. In the cyber field, meanwhile, Israel Aerospace Industries is working with local Indian partners on space cooperation and developing high-res radar satellites. All this redounds to India’s benefit; expect more high-profile deals in crucial sectors to be announced during Modi’s trip.
But this is not just a story about a transactional exchange of arms, money, and expertise. It is also about the successful expansion of Israeli diplomacy away from Europe. From the Gulf to Africa to all across Asia, Israeli diplomacy is more active and diversified than ever before.
Well, Europe has been waging a “proxy war” against Israel (and America) in the mideast for years.
MICHELLE CRETELLA: I’m a Pediatrician. How Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse.
Two leading pediatric associations—the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Pediatric Endocrine Society—have followed in lockstep, endorsing the transition affirmation approach even as the latter organization concedes within its own guidelines that the transition-affirming protocol is based on low evidence.
They even admit that the only strong evidence regarding this approach is its potential health risks to children.
The transition-affirming view holds that children who “consistently and persistently insist” that they are not the gender associated with their biological sex are innately transgender.
(The fact that in normal life and in psychiatry, anyone who “consistently and persistently insists” on anything else contrary to physical reality is considered either confused or delusional is conveniently ignored.)
The transition-affirming protocol tells parents to treat their children as the gender they desire, and to place them on puberty blockers around age 11 or 12 if they are gender dysphoric.
If by age 16, the children still insist that they are trapped in the wrong body, they are placed on cross-sex hormones, and biological girls may obtain a double mastectomy.
I don’t know what to call this, other than surgical child abuse.
SAYING WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS THINKING: After North Korea missile test, Trump tweets: ‘So much for China working with us.’
THAT’S SILLY. IT WAS CLASSLESS, BUT NOT AN ACTUAL THREAT. Federal Agents Just Paid a Visit to Kathy Griffin — And Grilled Her for Over an Hour. On the other hand, if someone had done it to Obama. . . .
STRIKE EAGLE IN ACTION AGAINST THE ISLAMIC STATE: An F-15E pops a flare. Maybe someone can identify the terrain below. I’ll guess eastern Syria.
UPDATE: A Year Later, Oregon’s Foster Care System Is Still a Horror Show.
The new data cover a period from November 18 through June 1, and were compiled by a University of Oregon law student. What the data reveal for this time period is:
•More than 130 foster children were housed in hotel rooms or office buildings
•Foster children lodged in such temporary housing are often supervised by unlicensed volunteer caretakers
•One 5-year-old stayed in a hotel for 55 days
•Many of the children in such temporary housing were 5 or younger
•One girl tried to throw herself out of a hotel window; another boy locked himself in the hotel room away from caretakers
•The average stay in temporary housing was 20 days
•The longest stays ranged from 48 to 85 days
This is the latest in a series of devastating examinations of the broken foster care system in Oregon.
Read the whole thing — which in these cases seems less like foster care and more like child abuse.
SCENES FROM RAHM EMANUEL’S CHICAGO: 6 Killed, 53 Wounded In Fourth Of July Weekend Shootings In Chicago.
At least 59 people were shot across Chicago, six of them fatally, by Tuesday morning of the Fourth of July weekend.
Last year’s Independence Day weekend ended with 66 people shot — a total that actually stoked cautious optimism with the lowest death toll for the July 4 weekend in nearly a decade.
On Saturday, Chicago Police touted a 14 percent decline in shootings this year compared to the first six months of 2016, and they hoped to tamp down the holiday weekend violence with the help of a new gun violence strike force that includes ATF agents.
At least 1,799 people have been shot in the city this year, 314 of them fatally, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Progress, I suppose.
INDEPENDENCE DAY: Trump tells troops in Fourth of July speech: I have your back.
President Trump told members of the U.S. military gathered at the White House for the Fourth of July Tuesday that he “will always have your back,” as he boasted that the country is doing “really, really well.”
The president addressed individual members of each of the service branches who had gathered outside in early evening for his first Independence Day address before the annual fireworks celebration on the National Mall.
“Each of you here today represents that rare combination of patriotism, virtue and courage that our citizens have always, and I mean always, admired and that our enemies have always feared,” Trump said. “I pledge my unwavering support for you, your families and your missions. I will always have your back.”
The brief speech included no direct mention of North Korea’s apparently successful test Monday night of an intercontinental ballistic missile that could put the rogue regime within reach of hitting the United States. It also seeks to develop a nuclear warhead capable of decimating U.S. cities.
Russia and China issued a joint statement and challenge to Trump Tuesday, calling on North Korea to halt its missile program but also for the U.S. to remove a mission shield from South Korea and stop large-scale joint military operations.
The president, after touting low gasoline prices in an earlier tweet, said the country is on strong footing.
I like the low gas prices.
A PARTY OF, BY, AND FOR THE RICH AND FAMOUS: Two Silicon Valley billionaires want to reinvent the Democratic Party with a new project called ‘WTF.’
Called Win The Future, WTF is starting as a “people’s lobby” where people can vote on policy topics that are important to them, like making engineering degrees free for everyone.
“We need a modern people’s lobby that empowers all of us to choose our leaders and set our agenda,” said Mark Pincus, the billionaire cofounder of WTF and Zynga. “Imagine voting for a President we’re truly excited about. Imagine a government that promotes capitalism and civil rights.”
Despite its roots with two powerful tech founders, WTF is taking an old-school approach to start. People will vote on the policies and discuss them on Twitter. The ones that seem to resonate will then be turned into billboards that the group plans to buy in Washington D.C. to make sure Congressional leaders see them.
While it wants to get the attention of members of Congress, WTF is also unabashedly “not for pro-politicians.” According to Recode, one of WTF’s more audacious plans has been to recruit political outsiders to run as “WTF Democrats” and challenge the old stalwarts of the democratic party. One person Pincus targeted specifically has been Stephan Jenkins from the band Third Eye Blind, according to Recode.
I’d wager that the Democrats will run as many celebrities as they can drum up, hoping to emulate Donald Trump’s success. But not many celebrities have Trump’s thick skin, and unlike Trump they can’t afford to rally support by constantly tweaking the symbiotic news media.
THE HOLIDAY IS OVER, at Amazon, 70% off or More on Antacids.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-DOMINATED INDUSTRIES SUCH CESSPITS OF RACISM AND EXPLOITATION? The Asian stars of ‘Hawaii Five-0’ quit the show after CBS refused to pay them as much as their white costars.
DONALD TRUMP’S EUROPEAN VACATION, CANADA PAYS AL QAEDA, AND AN HOUR WITH KATHY GRIFFIN: All that and more on Liz Sheld’s morning brief.
FAKE NEWS: The Hill: Media errors give Trump fresh ammunition.
A string of high-profile corrections and retractions by major news organizations on stories about President Trump or his allies have fueled more allegations of bias in the mainstream press.
The relationship between Trump and the news media regularly hits new lows, with insults flying between the two camps and reporters warning that the president is inciting violence against journalists.
But Trump’s allies on the right believe the president’s claims that the mainstream media is “fake news” have been bolstered by recent missteps. They point to recent admissions from top news outlets — including CNN, the New York Times and the Associated Press — that bombshell stories were either overcooked or included incorrect details.
Adding insult to injury: Breitbart News, the pro-Trump media outlet that is scorned by many in the mainstream press, has been fact-checking their mainstream counterparts with some success.
Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matthew Boyle was first to call into question a CNN story on alleged ties between a Trump associate and Russia that was later retracted. Boyle was also reporting on an error in an Associated Press report when the newswire corrected and later rewrote the story.
As Ken Layne once said a long, long time ago, this is the Internet and we can fact-check your ass.