FLASHBACK: And the Ban Played On: The ‘Public Safety’ Threat to Individual Rights.

BANG UP DAY YESTERDAY, SHOW BUSINESS: These boots are made for…firing squads? Nancy Sinatra calls for execution of ‘murderous’ NRA members.

Since the NRA contains about 5,000,000 members, “Sinatra is calling for mass murder worse than Rwanda, Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, etc. But not quite the Holocaust, so there is that,” Alex Griswald tweets.

So she’s got that going for her at least, which is nice.

THE VEGAS SHOOTER’S GIRLFRIEND’S STORY STRAINS CREDULITY.

Related: “16 Unanswered Questions About The Las Vegas Shooting That The Mainstream Media Doesn’t Want To Talk About.”

FOURTH WOMAN COMES FORWARD TO ACCUSE DIRECTOR ROMAN POLANSKI OF RAPE.

Why are Democrat-run industries such cesspits of sexual predation?

UPDATE: As Alex Griswold of the Washington Free Beacon tweets, “Well, this op-ed makes a lot more sense now.” The headline of the 2009 article at the London Independent* says it all:

Harvey Weinstein: Polanski has served his time and must be freed

* Yes, the “Snowfalls are now a thing of the past” guys. Can they pick ’em, or what?

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ANN ALTHOUSE ON HARVEY WEINSTEIN: “And the idea that he’s going to make it all up to us by going after the NRA and Trump — disgusting. And to drag his mother and his Bar Mitzvah into it. A Bar Mitzvah signifies that you became a man when you were 13 years old and you became responsible for your actions. It’s 52 years later, and you’re assembling a team to help you figure out the basics of human behavior and you’re trying to distract us with accusations against the NRA and the President of the United States. Grotesque.”

From the comments: “This is what a deplorable looks like.”

FINALLY, A VOICE OF REASON: GOP lawmaker: Instead of gun control, let’s arm more people.

A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY ABOUT NUTRITION IS FULL OF POLITICIZED PSEUDOSCIENCE? Who could have seen this coming?

“HARVEY WEINSTEIN’S CAREER IN HOLLYWOOD IS LIKELY OVER,” says show-biz house organ Variety:

In truth, the noose has been tightening for years around Harvey Weinstein. There’s been a bunker-like mentality at the Weinstein Co. for years, as the indie studio’s money troubles have worsened and as it tried to migrate away from prestige fare and into television. There were too many film flops such as “Tulip Fever,” “Burnt,” and “Gold,” and persistent mutterings that the company could no longer pay its bills. High profile executives would leave, with positions remaining vacant or filled by junior staffers. It’s been a while since the studio was a major force at film festivals, swinging its checkbook around to nab the hottest Sundance titles. In the meantime, new players like A24 and Bleecker Street have emerged, establishing themselves as more auteur-friendly (Weinstein had a reputation for battling directors), while Amazon and Netflix have been able to outspend all comers.

Even before the reports broke, agents were already wary about working with Weinstein because of reports that its money was running out. One agent told Variety that the Times’ report will give them an even bigger reason to stay away from the studio.

In some respects, Thursday’s piece was the confirmation of decades of rumors and shop talk that have clung to Weinstein. At various times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the New Yorker (which has its own competing piece still set to launch) have tried to break this story. They’ve aggressively pursued the angle of whether or not Weinstein used corporate funds at Miramax to pay for legal settlements with women. In most cases, Weinstein was able to successfully hit back at those claims. Another stumbling block was that many women did not want to go on the record with their allegations. That will likely change with the Times piece.

Weinstein Gives First Interview After Shocking Sex Harassment Claims, the New York Post reports:

“The Times editors were so fearful they were going to be scooped by New York Magazine and they would lose the story, that they went ahead and posted the story filled with reckless reporting, and without checking all they had with me and my team.

He added that he believes the paper – which published a long negative piece about Weinstein’s dealings with amfAR a week ago – has a vendetta against him.

Weinstein explained, “They never wrote about the documentary I did with Jay-Z about Rikers Island, they never write that I raised $50 million for amfAR, nor my work with Robin Hood – instead they focus on trying to bring me down. This is a vendetta, and the next time I see Dean Baquet [the executive editor of the Times] it will be across a courtroom.”

Insert Kissinger Iran-Iraq War quote here.

In a link-laden post, Ace of Spades asks, “Didn’t people in the media know, given that Weinstein was, you know, a notorious figure in the media?”, also pondering about how much knowledge the Democrats he donated to had, and the past Disney connection to Weinstein.

“Weinstein was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton 2016 run, donated to her campaigns 10 times between 1999 & 2016,” the Hollywood Reporter notes. He made 13 visits to the Obama White House. Malia Obama interned for him.

Lionsgate distributes Miramax films on home media in the US, and also produced AMC’s Mad Men series during its run from 2007 to 2015. As I wrote at Ed Driscoll.com during its last season, I always thought Hollywood had a lot of chutzpah tut-tutting the sexual mores of the corporate world of the 1960s while simultaneously enabling Bill Clinton, handsy Joe Biden, and what goes on in their own executive suites.

UPDATE: Regarding Weinstein’s NRA and Trump-obsessed “apology” letter (which Iowahawk neatly sums up as, “It’s just this war and that son of a bitch Johnson”), when you’ve lost the Daily Beast…

More: Former Obama Adviser Anita Dunn Helped Harvey Weinstein Strategize Before New York Times Story. “Weinstein has also, supposedly, reached out to the Clintons’ crisis PR honcho Lanny Davis.”

MICHELLE OBAMA TELLS WOMEN WHAT TO LIKE. And how to think. “Said openly, it sounds absurd.”

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HEH: Street Artist Targets Jimmy Kimmel. “The Jimmy Kimmel Estrogen Hour.” Perfect.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: ‘How Training For A Bikini Competition Helped Me Deal With The Pain Of My Divorce.’

HMM: ISIS doubles down on claim Stephen Paddock was Muslim convert.

ROGER AILES’ EVIL-GENIUS PLAN TO SINK THE COMPETITION BEARS FRUIT: EXCLUSIVE: NBC’s ‘$69 MILLION mistake!’ Network executives slam the floundering Megyn Kelly as they reveal she is making $23M yearly in a three-year deal for her morning show – rivaling salaries of Matt Lauer and Jimmy Fallon. “The network that created Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw and Matt Lauer will now forever be remembered for the $69 million hire of Megyn Kelly. When you add the cost of developing the show, hiring staff and promoting Megyn all the time, this adds up to a $100 million mistake. . . . What’s even more insulting is that each member of the NBC anchor team was made to heap praise on Megyn, while she is taking home more money than most of them.”

STOPPING LOW-DOSE ASPIRIN THERAPY may lead to increased risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks or strokes. Sounds like if you quit, you may want to taper off.

VIRTUE SIGNALLING: OVERCOMPENSATION FOR HYPOCRISY? There was something smug and self-righteous about the “Fearless Girl” statute (seen here with notorious douchenozzle Bill DiBlasio) meant to inspire women to take an adversarial stance to Wall Street. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but now I know what it was. Adweek reports in a story headlined “Financial Firm Behind ‘Fearless Girl’ Will Pay $5 Million for Allegedly Underpaying Women and Minorities“:

State Street Corp., parent company of the investment firm behind Wall Street’s iconic Fearless Girl statue, today agreed to pay a combined $5 million to more than 300 women and 15 black employees who were paid less than their white, male counterparts, according to a federal audit.

While State Street denied the claims, but coughed up approximately $4.5 million in back pay and $500,000 in interest. I suppose what annoys me the most is the gullibility of people who so desperately want their iconography to represent some reality. It quickly became the financial world’s most iconic symbol of gender equality and won 18 honors at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, including four Grand Prix top honors.

“Don’t do as I do, do as I say.”

KURT SCHLICHTER: “I, for one, am not super inclined to give up my ability to defend myself in response to demands by people who eagerly tell me they want me enslaved or dead. Literally dead.”

And this isn’t just about the ravings of a few unhinged loonies on social media (also, it ain’t “a few”). This verbal hyperbole is the leftist establishment’s MO. This is how they intend to strip us of our rights – via a constant campaign of hate that they hope somehow leads to us just giving them up. And it’s not just guns. Free speech? Oh, that’s racist, and it causes violence – by which they mean that leftists will attack you if you attempt to speak freely. Freely exercising your religion? Not if you violate leftist scripture – then you’re a bigot and your livelihood must be destroyed even though Sue and Shelly can wander two doors down and get someone else to decorate their nasty organic carrot wedding cake.

And due process? Well, you must love rape if you think that a young man accused of it should be informed of the charges against him, allowed to cross-examine the witnesses, and have an impartial judge. Do you phallocentric male-identifying men and others have any idea how much harder it is to railroad some guy in the name of smashing the patriarchy when you actually have to prove your case with evidence? Like any woman would ever make up a rape allegation out of whole cloth! A fair trial? That’s something right out of The Handmaid’s Tale! . . .

Anyway, let’s continue our conversation. You’re not going to pin the rampage of some scumbag on millions and millions of people who didn’t do it. You’re not going to leverage this spree into disarming us – which is your ultimate goal. We know how you hate the idea that we are armed and independent, that we hold a lead veto over your fever dreams of tyrannical rule over us. You know how important it is to us to be free citizens; you yearn to humiliate us by stripping us of our self-respect by taking away our means of keeping ourselves free from the tyranny of people like you.

You never cared that 59 people were murdered – some of you, as we have seen, cheered – and I gotta say, it’s a bad look to screech “I’m glad you crackers are dead, now heed my command to give up your guns!”

Lefties are full of hate. It’s their animating spirit. All you have to do is listen to them talk.

VIDEO: Milo Yiannopoulos Sang ‘America the Beautiful’ While Neo-Nazis Heil Saluted Him.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): To be clear, it’s two Nazis in a Karaoke bar, not a remake of Triumph of the Will.

BIOFILMS ARE BIG: Fungus may play key role in Crohn’s, chronic intestinal inflammation: A recent study showed that three organisms work together to form digestive plaque biofilms capable of exacerbating intestinal inflammation, researchers say.

SCIENCE: Mysterious Dark Energy Is More Dynamic Than We Thought, Says New Study.

NEW YORK TIMES’ TOKEN ‘CONSERVATIVE:’ ‘Repeal the Second Amendment,’ Bret Stephens writes, noting that “I have never understood the conservative fetish for the Second Amendment.”

Huh – I always thought Stephens was a reasonably intelligent fellow. I bet somehow he could figure this out, if he really applied himself — and he should. Or as G.K. Chesterton famously wrote:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Or not. As David Harsanyi writes at the Federalist, “Come And Take Them, Bret Stephens: As an American-Jew whose ancestors came here escaping both Nazism and communism, I totally ‘get’ the Second Amendment ‘fetishists.’”

And funny enough, last year, when he was still employed by the Wall Street Journal, so did Stephens:

A CIVIL RIGHTS VICTORY: DC won’t take concealed carry fight to Supreme Court. “After days of consulting with the mayor’s office and city council members, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has reportedly decided not to fight a ruling that effectively strikes down the District’s strict law that makes it difficult for gun owners to get concealed carry permits. . . . The law, which requires that people show “good reason” to carry a concealed weapon before they can get a permit, suffered a setback in July when a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that it infringes on residents’ Second Amendment rights. D.C. officials later asked the Court of Appeals to rehear the case as a full court. However, in a brief order last week, the court said it would not reconsider the ruling, leaving the city’s attorney general with no choice but to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court or back down.”

Always nice to see DC back down — to freedom.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I Was Tired of Being Single, So I Built an Imaginary Boyfriend Out of Clay. Okay, 21st Century Relationship, but 2nd Century sexbot.