THE BOSTON HERALD EDITORIALIZES ON SMOLLETT AND THE MEDIA: Alleged Chicago hate crime hoax a bad look for many.

As Jussie Smollett’s account of his alleged assault falls apart, it is important to note that politicians, the media and influential voices did their best to fan the flames of outrage, based on nothing but the dark premise that conservatives and Trump supporters are evil.

It is astounding that so many reputable people took Smollett’s fantastical account seriously. Certainly, hate crimes based on race and sexual orientation are a very real thing, but the details surrounding this particular episode centered around a lampoonish representation of a Trump-era bigot.

It was a flimsy yarn from the outset, which only became more precarious with each passing day. That didn’t stop those most deeply invested in the narrative of Evil Trump to jump into action.

Presidential hopefuls Cory Booker and Kamala Harris each labeled the supposed attack a “modern-day lynching,” with Harris adding that, “We must confront this hate.”

Kirsten Gillibrand tweeted, “This is a sickening and outrageous attack, and horribly, it’s the latest of too many hate crimes against LGBTQ people and people of color. We are all responsible for condemning this behavior and every person who enables or normalizes it …”

Joe Biden tweeted, “What happened today to @JussieSmollett must never be tolerated in this country. We must stand up and demand that we no longer give this hate safe harbor; that homophobia and racism have no place on our streets or in our hearts. We are with you, Jussie.”

It wasn’t only those with presidential aspirations who weighed-in, Democratic-Socialist superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez railed against news accounts that qualified their reporting. “There is no such thing as ‘racially charged,’ She tweeted. “This attack was not ‘possibly’ homophobic. It was a racist and homophobic attack … It is no one’s job to water down or sugar-coat the rise of hate crimes.”

Another freshman congressman, Rashida Tlaib, tweeted, “The dangerous lies spewing from the right wing is killing & hurting our people.”

Not to be outdone, Hollywood notables also reacted as expected. Director Rob Reiner tweeted, “The horrific attack on Jussie Smollett has no place in a decent human loving society. Homophobia existed before Trump, but there is no question that since he has injected his hatred into the American bloodstream, we are less decent, less human, & less loving. No intolerance! No DT!”

The media has comported itself badly as well. Almost immediately after getting the Covington Catholic story so wrong, many in the news industry immediately accepted the Smollett story as true.

Astonishingly, a Washington Post writer named Nana Efua Mumford wrote this: “If Smollett’s story is found to be untrue … The incident would be touted as proof that there is a leftist conspiracy to cast Trump supporters as violent, murderous racists. It would be the very embodiment of ‘fake news.’ And that reason, more than any other, is why I need this story to be true.”

In other words, Trump supporters are violent, murderous racists. That dark premise is a lie, fake news and untrue. Let us hope one half of the country can correct their horrifically jaded view of the other half before we lose ourselves.

Hope is not a plan.

FINE, AS LONG AS YOU CAN BYPASS ALL THAT WITH A SWITCH WHEN THEY’RE HACKED: The Army’s Next Infantry Guns Will Have Computerized Fire Control for Unreal Accuracy.

WHY THE COURTS WON’T SAVE CONGRESS FROM ITSELF: Or, why the President will win the wall fight – “Congress has been heading to hell for decades, and it is a bit late to complain about the destination.”

HEH: Heaven Has A Wall (Hell Doesn’t): Grocery Store Advertisement Stirs Controversy.

ADMIT MORE PEOPLE TO MED SCHOOL? Oncologist Burnout, Increasing Workloads: What to Do?

I’M JUST GONNA GO AHEAD AND JUDGE HER BY THE FRIENDS SHE MAKES: Farrakhan Praises Omar for Anti-Semitic Language: ‘You Have Nothing to Apologize For.’

IT FEELS WEIRD THAT I HAVE TO KEEP SAYING THIS, BUT I GUESS I DO, SINCE PEOPLE KEEP GETTING IT WRONG: A fairly recent report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights asserted that schools in poor and minority neighborhoods receive less money than other schools.  As I think I showed in my dissent to the report, the truth is different: Schools at both the high and low ends tend to get more resources; it’s those in the middle that tend to get less.

One could argue that schools with low-income students need more resources than schools with middle-class students. But it would be nice to have an honest debate about that rather than one full of misinformation designed to outrage people.

UH-HUH: Maduro regime rejects aid, claims it’s sending food to Colombia.

Sending it to Colombian merchants in exchange for US dollars the regime needs to stay alive, maybe. Or perhaps the food aid will be withheld from starving enemies of the state and awarded to well-fed friends of the regime — in fine, old socialist tradition.

THE STORY HAS VANISHED FROM THE HEADLINES, BUT HE’S STILL THERE — AND SO IS SHE: VA Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax rape accuser Meredith Watson: “I’m willing to testify in public.”

DONALD TRUMP: “The Twilight Hour of Socialism.” John Hinderaker: “It is a gloriously Reaganite speech; it is a great speech. In it Trump stands for freedom against the forces of socialism, tyranny and immiseration.”

SOUNDS SCAMMY: What Happened When I Bought A House With Solar Panels.

IT’S ALMOST LIKE AUTOMOBILITY IS CONVENIENT OR SOMETHING: Desperate handwringing in Cambridge, Mass., today as its residents just won’t do what they are supposed to do and give up their cars for public transport.

LYING LIAR OBFUSCATES ABOUT LYING: McCabe Gets Weird on NPR, Refuses to Answer About Lying Under Oath.

NPR’s Morning Edition on Monday split its Andrew McCabe interview into two segments. On the home page they were promoting Russiagate: “Andrew McCabe, Ex-FBI Deputy, Describes ‘Remarkable’ Number Of Trump-Russia Contacts.” On air, that segment never mentioned his lying under oath to the FBI. There was a second segment simply titled “Andrew McCabe Discusses His Firing.” McCabe’s answers were often refusals to answer, which Inskeep spun as “exceptionally careful.” Kudos to NPR for trying to explore it, briefly.

I wouldn’t have expected even that much from NPR. Kudos, indeed.

LIKE, BASICALLY ALL OF THEM? HERE’S A LIST OF HOAX ‘HATE CRIMES’ IN THE TRUMP ERA.

WHEN THE PARASITE BEGINS CONSUMING THE HOST: Illinois may tax private retirement funds to pay public worker pensions.

MORE, MORE, MORE: Ocasio-Cortez to Bill Gates: ‘I’m All Ears’ for Better Ideas to Tax Rich. “In a recent interview, Gates said her tax plan is too ‘extreme’.”

CONCERN TROLLS: Masked Protesters ‘Occupy’ Border Patrol Museum in El Paso, Deface Fallen Agent Memorial. “F*ck your walls, f*ck your borders, we won’t take your f*cking orders!”

I GUESS REDUCING TAXES AND REGULATIONS THAT ARE KILLING THE LEGAL INDUSTRY IS OFF THE TABLE: California’s black market for pot is stifling legal sales. Now the governor wants to step up enforcement.

ON THE WHISKEY POLITICS PODCAST, I talk about Twitter, McCabe, AOC, and Racist Chickens Coming Home to Roost. My reference to Trump’s media style as “double-shotted with grape for good measure” is an Alexander Kent tribute. (Bumped).

UPDATE: I am informed in the comments that I look “older and less fat” in this video. Well, in fact, I am both. Older every year, for some reason, in fact. On the upside, I can now wear 33-waist jeans, which I last did in law school, and when I was in law school I weighed 160, or about 50 pounds less than I do now, so I’m calling that a win, at least.

WHEN TRUMP IS CRITICIZED OVER AT AMERICAN GREATNESS, TAKE NOTE: Chris Buskirk: Trump Promised A Wall And Delivered An Amnesty.

WHITE WOMEN: THREAT, OR MENACE? Prof: White women have gone from slave owners … to Trump supporters.

RECYCLING: Nissan gives EV batteries a second life powering camping trailers.

Nissan’s battery recycling solution is made possible by a device the company created called Roam. It’s a small cube that is packed with the lithium-ion battery cells pulled from first-generation Nissan vehicles and can be hooked up to an Air Opus trailer. Roam can store up to 700Wh of electricity and offers 1kW of electrical output — enough to power devices, small appliances, and the onboard lights and heating system in the trailer. Nissan claims that when the battery is combined with a 400W solar panel, it can provide power to the trailer for a week without interruption. The battery can also be recharged in just one hour when plugged into a 230-volt power outlet.

Clever.

IT’S SATIRE, BUT IS IT REALLY? Amy Klobuchar Pledges To Fight Everyday Americans.

As Fred Siegel wrote in his 2014 history of the American left, The Revolt Against the Masses:

The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the once canonical left-wing literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s. “Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class,” Parrington insisted, referring to both democracy and capitalism, “and the artist and the scientist will erect in America a civilization that may become, what civilization was in earlier days, a thing to be respected.” Alienated from middle-class American life, liberalism drew on an idealized image of “organic” pre-modern folkways and rhapsodized about a future harmony that would reestablish the proper hierarchy of virtue in a post-bourgeois, post-democratic world.

Just ask former President Obama, whose entire administration seemed devoted to flipping von Clausewitz’s axiom about war on its head, viewing American politics as the continuation of warfare by other means.

COLD WAR II: With or without trade war deal, disputes between China and US set to intensify, says Beijing commentator.

As part of China’s reform and opening up initiative, the state had generally retreated from the market and economy in the period from 1978 to 2008, But since then, the state has made a comeback and altered the direction of China’s economic underpinnings.

China’s political and economic elites observed the global financial crisis in 2008 and concluded that China’s model of government intervention and state-owned economy system might be superior to the Washington-led western model of free enterprise. In other words, Beijing’s confidence in the so-called China model reached its peak.

It’s interesting that Beijing thinks that what happened in 2007-08 was due to an excess of capitalism, rather than the near-inevitable result of heavy-handed government tinkering with banking and currency, the finance markets, and home-ownership.

Which leads to this:

So when the US raised the issue of structural reform in the current trade talks – essentially asking China to give up the state’s grip on capital, business and technology – Beijing found it very hard to swallow.

I wish we’d take our own advice.