WHAT WAS THE FIRST CLUE? Boy born with kidney in thigh diagnosed with extremely rare disorder.

RULES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Greenpeace Ditched Its Old Ship On A Bangladeshi Beach.

Related: Greenpeace’s own environmental vandalism goes conveniently unreported.

Hypocrisy is a big news peg, unless it makes leftists look bad.

WEIRD THAT THEY STARTED DE-EMPHASIZING THEM IN 2009: PSA screenings reduce prostate cancer death by 30 percent, study says.

WELL, YES:

The Covington fiasco has proved to be a clarifying moment. And here is what has been made clear: Much of the American media is no longer engaged in journalism. It is engaged in opposition research and in what is sometimes known among political operatives as “black p.r.”—the sinister twin of ordinary public relations. As Joy Behar, as profoundly dim and tedious a person as American public life has to offer, forthrightly confessed: The hysteria and outright dishonesty surrounding the Covington students had nothing to do with them. It has to do with narrowly partisan, selfish, deeply stupid, entirely unpatriotic, childish, foot-stamping, fingers-in-the-ears, weeping, cooties-loathing, teary-eyed, tremulous, quavering, pansified, gormless, deceitful, dishonorable, and cynical politics of the lowest kind — the politics of Us and Them.

Here are some of the idiots and idiotic institutions who engaged in that recently in the matter of Cesar Sayoc. Chris Truax in USA Today: “Trump bears moral responsibility for pipe bombs. Denying it just makes things worse.” Jonathan Chait, New York: “Bomber Cesar Sayoc is a By-product of Trump’s Party.” Even Rick Wilson debased himself, writing in The Daily Beast: “Of Course Donald Trump Inspired Cesar Sayoc’s Alleged Terrorism.” That’s a particularly asinine headline: For Trump’s culpability, it’s “of course,” while Sayoc’s crimes are “alleged.” That isn’t the kind of stupidity that happens by accident. These claims are pure intellectual dishonesty. They are smears, and there is no good-faith case to be made for them. All of these writers should be ashamed.

It is always easier to appreciate when the roles are reversed. Democrats know that there is a big difference between would-be mass assassin James T. Hodgkinson embracing Bernie Sanders, and Bernie Sanders embracing would-be mass assassin James T. Hodgkinson. . . .

And the fact that a couple of children in MAGA hats engaged in boorish behavior — which isn’t even a fact, as it turns out, but a lie constructed and wholesaled with malice aforethought — wouldn’t have told us one damn thing about Donald J. Trump, his administration, or his political supporters at large. The fact that we had a momentary national moral crisis over the (as is turns out, fictitious) actions of a couple of nobody teenagers is all the evidence anybody needs of the fundamentally hysterical and unserious times in which we live. In a sane world, nobody cares about whether a 16-year-old boy somewhere . . . smirked.

Everybody who has pretended like that smirk tells us something serious about the state of the world is a liar and a fraud. I don’t mean the people who were legitimately taken in by the deceit — especially those who have had the honor and self-respect to admit their errors and correct them — but those who willfully persist in the lie. I’m talking about you, Ruth Graham of Slate, still trying to justify by whatever pathetic means are available what everybody with any sense knows to have been an exercise in pure horses***. I’m talking about you, editors of the New York Times. You sorry specimens are poor excuses for journalists, which, of course, we already knew. What’s more relevant here is that you are bad citizens. Trafficking in lies and distortions because you think the guy in the White House is kind of gross is unworthy of adults with responsible positions in a free society that depends on honest and functional institutions.

As some of you may recall, I wrote a little book called The Case against Trump. I didn’t think much of him in 2016. I don’t think much of him now. But we aren’t three tweets away from the Holocaust. Nobody seriously believes that we are, unless they are insane. Sane people who insist that the United States in 2019 is something like Germany in the 1930s are liars. They don’t really believe it. They have an investment in hysteria.

Those of you who play along with that — who enjoy being lied to and manipulated — are pathetic in the literal sense of that word. What the hell is wrong with you?

The best argument in favor of Trump’s presidency is what Trump’s presidency has taught us about the character of the people who oppose him, and who would be wielding power if he weren’t.

LINDSEY GRAHAM 2.0 STILL KICKING AOC: Lindsey Graham fires back at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (eco-doomsday prediction & socialism hardest hit).

Heh, indeed.™

NY TIMES GOES EASY ON RACIST BLACK ISRAELITES: LESS ‘ALARMING’ THAN ‘WHITE GUY IN MAGA HAT:’ “In his New York Times profile Thursday, ‘Hebrew Israelites See Divine Intervention in Lincoln Memorial Confrontation,’ reporter John Eligon downplayed the rank, obvious offensiveness of the racist and homophobic Black Hebrew Israelites cult while even shelling out some praise,” Clay Waters writes at NewsBusters, quoting Eligon as writing:

So they post up on street corners in big cities, usually in predominantly black communities, wearing flashy garb — purple shirts or black robes, for instance. They shout, use blunt and sometimes offensive language, and gamely engage in arguments aimed at drawing listeners near.

That “blunt and sometimes offensive language” included:

The [Covington] students are called “hyenas,” “dogs,” “white crackers,” and “faggot.” They are ridiculed for being lice-ridden and told to “to back to Europe where you come from.” One man says he can tell by looking in the students’ eyes that they will be “school shooters.” They are the “product of sodomy.” We hear that black Jesus is coming back to kick the “white crackers’ ass.” This black Christ is not like the image of Jesus the boys supposedly hold — that Jesus is a “faggot child molester.” “Your president is a homosexual!” one man yells. He urges the teenagers to look up a YouTube video of Rudy Giuliani in drag, kissing Donald Trump. (I imagine he is referring to the skit for a charity event in 2000 that featured Giuliani in, yes, a fetching blond wig, dress, and heels.) By “your president,” the black nationalist obviously means Trump, but one student hoists up a campaign poster of Obama, and only about 10 percent of the students are wearing MAGA hats. One boy says that most of the kids in the group aren’t old enough to vote yet.

The students for the most part keep their distance and respond only mildly to these insults, if at all. A few briefly try out a little dialogue. There is no violence or assault of any kind. This all happens before the now-famous Nathan Phillips approaches the student group, beating his drum.

To most in the media, the black nationalists’ words, and their role in the controversy, are apparently like wallpaper, barely worth a mention.

Waters adds, “Eligon noted that the Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes the Hebrew Israelite groups as hate groups, but still managed to blame President Trump for the behavior of a cult that long predates his presidency.”

The Black Israelites’ language certainly doesn’t qualify for a paper whose motto is “all the news that’s fit to print.” But ultimately, it’s obvious why they’re getting a pass, when a mere smile from a MAGA hat wearing teenager is the end of the world:

VIDEO PROOF NATHAN PHILLIPS SAID HE WAS VIETNAM VET. AND SOME OF HIS OTHER LIES: “I’m a Vietnam Vet. I served in Marine Corps ‘72 to ‘76. I got discharged May 5, 1976. I got honorable discharge and one of the boxes in there shows peacetime or, what my box says, is that I was in theater. I don’t talk much about my Vietnam times,” Phillips said on a video uploaded to Facebook last year.

Jeff Dunetz adds that Phillips’ “duty status lists ‘discharged,’ not ‘honorably discharged.’ That could have to do with his multiple stints in confinement after being AWOL.”

Read the whole thing.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Ilhan Omar Endorsed Somalia’s New President. Four Days Later, Omar’s Brother-in-Law Had a Powerful Job in His Administration. “Pelosi caused a natsec nightmare by seating Omar on Foreign Affairs.”

What’s national security compared to the political-cultural power of intersectionalism?

KAY HYMOWITZ: What’s Really Toxic Is The Idea Of “Toxic Masculinity.”

SETH BARRETT TILLMAN corrects an overheated law professor. “In my view, the Copperheads had no good cause to call Lincoln a dictator. But I think they had better cause (then) to call Lincoln a dictator, then you have (today) to call Trump a dictator.”

S.G. CHEAH ON THE FAILURE OF OUR PUBLIC DISCOURSE: The inability to communicate properly stems from the inability to think properly. “The origin of this failure has its roots in the failure of the American public education system. We have reached the apex of the intellect’s destruction by the American schools and the results are what we can observe in the public’s inability to communicate properly. . . . The poisonous climate of public discourse we are witnessing online and on social media is merely the most explicitly observable symptom of this failure in education.”

DAVID HARSANYI: You can’t be morally right and factually wrong at the same time. That’s a big problem for socialists.

For instance, has anyone ever asked Ocasio-Cortez if, generally speaking, she believes a billionaire-free Cuban system that ostensibly offers free health care, guaranteed housing, a free education, and greater income equality is preferable to the United States’s vulgar, capitalistic model? If not, why not?

After all, what guiding ideological principle stops Ocasio-Cortez from supporting confiscatory policies? Why not nationalize the fossil fuel industry? This is our last chance to save humanity, after all. If she really believes the fight against climate change is analogous to the war against fascism — a war that cost the lives of somewhere around 80 million people worldwide — then why wouldn’t she propose taxing the wealthy at 50 or 60 percent across the board? If income inequality and concentrated wealth are a problem almost as dangerous as climate change, would she be negligent if she failed to support those policies?

That is, of course, the end goal. Ocasio-Cortez, like many others, likes to claim that the rich do not pay their “fair share.” Right now, the top 50 percent of taxpayers pay around 97 percent of all individual income taxes. The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes than the bottom 90 percent combined. Has anyone asked Ocasio-Cortez what a reasonable percentage would be for them to contribute to the common good? Ninety-five percent? Ninety-nine?

What Ocasio-Cortez genuinely gives “zero f***s” about is your cisnormative reality-based values system, hater.

STANDARDS AND DIVERSITY: ABA To Again Consider 75% Within 2 Years Bar Passage Accreditation Standard Opposed By Diversity Advocates, Some California Law Schools. “The American Bar Association’s House of Delegates on Monday will consider a proposal to bolster the existing rule, requiring at least 75 percent of a school’s graduates to pass the bar within two years of leaving campus or risk losing accreditation. The House rejected the same proposal in February 2017 amid concern from diversity advocates who said it could imperil schools with a large percentage of minority students, especially at a time when pass rates across the country have plummeted.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: A new hope in Venezuela. “In a typical move for South American countries, an opposition leader attempted a coup on Wednesday. I don’t usually like coups, but anyone who cares about the horrific destruction big government socialism has wreaked on Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro should support Juan Guaidó.”

A counterrevolution built on hope?

Tyler O’Neil is filling in for Liz this morning, and he has some very exciting personal news.

THEY TOLD ME IF DONALD TRUMP WERE ELECTED PRESIDENT, OPEN RACISM WOULD BE COMMON. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Prof goes after Covington kid and ‘smiling face of Whiteness.’

An Ivy League professor bashed “the smiling face of Whiteness” in response to the recent controversy involving an interaction between a Native American man and a Catholic teenage supporter of President Donald Trump.

“Whiteness endlessly forgives its own transgressions,” University of Pennsylvania associate professor Ebony Elizabeth Thomaswrote on Sunday about the confrontation between Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann and Native American Nathan Phillips. “It rarely, if ever, gives those of us it harms and maims and kills time to process our motions [sic].”

Thomas teaches in UPenn’s Graduate School of Education.

Well, of course she does.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Dartmouth professor approves of ‘doxxing’ Covington Catholic students.

AT AMAZON, Fresh Deals on Top Rated Products.

Plus, Shop Top Gift Ideas.

And, Shop Amazon – Best Selling Products – Updated Every Hour.

Also, browse the Kindle Deals of the Day.

CHANGE: Applications for US unemployment aid fall to 49-year low.

REMEMBER, THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO TELL US TRUMP IS CRAZY: Now the Democrats want to impeach Brett Kavanaugh.

They also really seem to hate Catholic high school boys, don’t they?

THE END OF VENEZUELAN CHAVISMO?: Let’s hope so. Maduro’s socialist dictatorship is in turmoil.

…Venezuelan opposition actions — lines of operation, to use jargon — have begun to work together. The opposition is successfully waging diplomatic, political and information warfare domestically and internationally.

The opposition, however, is vulnerable to physical attack. Maduro, like his mentor, Hugo Chavez, is a heavily armed bully who uses starvation and violence to maintain control.

Stay tuned.

STICKING WITH THEIR GUY: Venezuela crisis: Russia condemns bid to ‘usurp power’ from Maduro. Hope he enjoys his exile in Smolensk.

Related: Guaido vs Maduro: Who backs Venezuela’s two presidents?

THEY’LL GO EVEN CRAZIER, IF THAT’S POSSIBLE: Byron York: What if Mueller doesn’t give Democrats what they want?

The position of most Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill is that lawmakers are waiting until Trump-Russia special counsel Robert Mueller delivers his report before considering whether to impeach President Trump. But what if Mueller does not accuse the president of wrongdoing, or at least impeachable wrongdoing? Would Democrats say, ‘Never mind,’ put away thoughts of impeachment, and move on to the next item on their agenda?

That seems unlikely. Many Democrats are deeply, emotionally committed to resisting Trump. Sixty-six House Democrats voted to allow impeachment articles to move forward a year ago. Now, with the House in Democratic hands, and after another year of media-hyped Trump-Russia allegations, there’s no reason to believe Democrats would abandon the Russia issue regardless of what Mueller does.

Remember, these are the people who tell us Trump’s the crazy one.

PRIVATIZE TSA: Shutdown-Induced Bottlenecks at Nation’s Airports Shows Folly of Letting the Federal Government Run Things: Farming out airport security and air traffic control would help to immunize air travel from the Congressional budget chaos.