REVELING IN THEIR OWN BULLSHIT: Media Praises Itself For Misleading Americans on Tax Cuts.

Remember this any time you hear Chuck Todd et al. crying about Trump describing the media’s product as “fake news.”

CATFIGHT! House Speaker Nancy Pelosi takes another shot at socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), says a “glass of water” with a “D” next to it “would win” in Ocasio-Cortez’s district.

BECAUSE REPUBLICANS ARE ICKY AND ORANGE MAN BAD: Why Does Rep. Omar’s Life Matter More Than Republicans?

BLUE ON BLUE: Left-leaning Outlet In CO Says Hickenlooper ‘Making Stuff Up’ On Death Penalty.

FASTER, PLEASE: Overdue Overhaul: Security Clearance Reform in a Decade of Leakers, Spies and Insider Threats.

The most significant overhaul of the security clearance process in 50 years appears to finally be at hand. At the end of February, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center and the deputy director of the Office of Personnel Management – working through the interagency Security, Suitability, and Credentialing Performance Accountability Council – announced that the Trusted Workforce 2.0 framework would be implemented soon, once White House review of the framework is complete.

Trusted Workforce 2.0 is intended to improve the government’s personnel vetting and security clearance processes. Media reporting indicates that this improvement will be based on six primary pillars: more nimble policymaking and clear policy for implementation; ensuring personnel vetting is tailored, reciprocal between agencies, and includes continuous vetting (which will tie into insider threat programs) rather than laborious periodic reinvestigations; aligning and streamlining security, suitability and credentialing processes; reducing the number of investigative levels, or tiers, from five to three (Trusted, Secret and Top Secret); expanding the spectrum of investigative methods, including the use of digital interview channels; and implementing a trusted information provider program to improve efficiency by allowing investigators to leverage certain information that has already been collected by designated government and private sources.

I might go further, and have security clearances automatically withdrawn at the end of government employment, available for reissue, but not automatically reissued, on an as-needed basis for consult work.

Consider a part of Glenn’s revolving door tax surcharge plan.

IF YOU AREN’T SERIOUS ABOUT NUCLEAR, YOU AREN’T SERIOUS ABOUT REDUCING CARBON: Supreme Court Upholds ‘Zero Carbon’ Nuclear Power Subsidies in N.Y., Illinois. “Ex-Obama lawyer loses anti-nuclear appeal.”

TO BE FAIR, THAT SETS THE BAR PRETTY LOW: Julian Assange Is a Better Journalist Than Many of His Media Critics.

But this is true: “Journalism is at risk not just from government but from media types who see their jobs as protecting the powerful from embarrassment.”

Related:

THEY’RE HIDEOUS IDES:  The Ides of April.

REALLY? I AIM TO MISBEHAVE:  Dems Insist Criticism Is Violence, and Also Violence Is Good.

I SUPPORT THIS. JUST THE MONTHS OF LIFE THEY STEAL FROM ANY SMALL BUSINESS OWNER WHO HAS TO KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING AND COMB THROUGH EVERYTHING? GETTING RID OF IT WOULD CAUSE A SUDDEN LEAP IN PRODUCTION. OR PERHAPS IN HAPPINESS: Abolish the Income Tax, Abolish the IRS.

IT IS AN OPEN SECRET THE NYT LIST IS CURATED. AT ONE TIME ONE OF THEIR BESTSELLERS WAS FOUND TO HAVE SOLD LESS THAN FIVE THOUSAND BOOKS:  Valerie Jarrett Accused of Manipulating Book Sales to Get On NYT Bestseller List.

OH, DEAR LORD:  London Protesters Glue Themselves to Things to Raise Awareness About Climate Change.

THIS IS MY SO VERY SHOCKED FACE:  Is Russiagate worse than Watergate?

IN TODAY’S EDITION OF INSTAPUNDIT’S FINANCIAL ADVISORY, WE WANT TO REMIND OUR READERS TO BUY POPCORN STOCKS. LOTS OF POPCORN STOCKS:  Democrats Take Aim At Themselves.

LOOK, ONE THING IS TRUE: HE KNOWS THEM. HE KNOWS THEM INTIMATELY AND DEVASTATINGLY AS ONLY SOMEONE WHO EITHER STEALTHED AMONG THEM OR WAS ONE OF THEM FOR YEARS CAN. IT WOULD BE LIKE ME DOING/SAYING THINGS TO DRIVE THE LEFT IN SCIENCE FICTION NUTS. I KNOW THEIR BUTTONS. (I JUST DON’T CARE ENOUGH TO PUSH THEM MOST OF THE TIME.) DONALD TRUMP IS THE TROLL WE NEEDED:  Trump Puts Democrats Between A Rock And A Hard Place On Illegal Immigration.

EVEN EUROPE — AT LEST THE PARTS I’VE BEEN TOO RECENTLY — DOESN’T HAVE ARMED GUARDS AT MCDONALD’S. WHAT’S CALIFORNIA, NOW? SOMALIA?  Naked man with knife shot by armed guard…at McDonald’s.

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO ISSUES WITH WHATEVER ADULTS WANT TO DO TO THEIR OWN BODIES. I HAVE MY OWN OPINIONS ABOUT IT, BUT AS LONG AS THEY’RE NOT COERCED OR DOING THIS TO SOMEONE ELSE, IT’S NONE OF MY BUSINESS.  BUT I TOO AM TIRED OF THE ONGOING RAPE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. RAPE IS NEVER OKAY. NO MEANS NO, AND SOME OF US ARE SCREAMING “NO” LOUD ENOUGH FOR THE ENTIRE CULTURE:  Reclaiming our language from transgender activists.

IT WILL STILL TAKE UNTOLD TIME AND RESOURCES TO FIX:  Notre Dame Survives, Mostly.

NO SUCH MAGICAL APPARATUS EXISTS! New Hearing Aid Allows Liberals to Hear Arguments for Concealed Carry.  (If IMAO.us were a paper they would rival the Babylon Bee as America’s paper of record, but this post is a triumph of hope over reality ;) )

NOTRE DAME SURVIVES, MOSTLY.

BIFURCATED BLIGHTY:

Shot: “Thousands of people took to the streets of central London on Monday, blockading some of the UK capital’s busiest roads and bridges, and gluing themselves to street furniture, to raise the alarm over a mounting climate crisis.”

—CNN today.

Chaser:

First Things has done a good thing in publishing the testimony of Jacob Williams, a British convert to Islam.  Aside from the fact that I always find it fascinating to learn why people embrace a religion into which they were not born, Williams’s essay reveals how and why the pathetic weakness of UK (and European) Christianity has left a vacuum that Islam is prepared to fill. This is a fascinating essay. Williams begins by talking about the sense of meaninglessness pervading contemporary Britain:

Anomie was one thing; the ferocious renunciation of tradition I encountered at university was quite another. I had hoped that the spiritual emptiness of wider society was a result of ignorance, and that the academy—especially the ancient, venerable, Gothic academy of Oxford—had preserved what I vaguely imagined was my country’s noble heritage. Studying philosophy did provide some engagement with an intellectual inheritance, but for anyone moderately interested in public life, the campus movements for “social justice” were impossible to ignore. All of these—whether their goal was the liberation of women, of LGBT persons, or of ethnic minorities—seemed to have the same vision of man: a deracinated, protean aggregate of desires. These movements gained in strength every year. Formerly apolitical spaces were distorted by the need to appease one demand after another. The culture of the university, once imbued with the brash boyishness of the English public schools, now accommodated the sterile, strenuous inclusivity of progressive zealots.

After three years of this, I was frustrated and alienated. I needed a purpose. Philosophy classes had sharpened my inquiries, but they didn’t rectify the meaninglessness all around me. My utopian peers found their purpose in crusades against racism and homophobia, but their contempt for England revolted me. I chose a different course and embarked on a search for God.

Their contempt for England revolted me. And so he ended up becoming Muslim. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Read on.

—“Why Convert To Islam?”, Rod Dreher, today.

As G.K. Chesterton famously never said, “When a man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.” But when that “anything” is nihilism and dissipation, no wonder others seek much more bracing stuff.

AT AMAZON, bestsellers in Men’s Fashion. #1 tells you all you need to know about the difference between men’s fashion and women’s fashion.

DON’T GET COCKY, KIDS: The Trump 2020 campaign is much, much more formidable than 2016.

VIRGINIA CLOWN SHOW UPDATE: Virginia’s Northam cancels fundraiser appearance as protesters gathered. The sympathetic press is happy to forget, but maybe not everyone feels the same way.

YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Dems Insist Criticism Is Violence, and Also Violence Is Good. It’s almost as if these guys are just making up this nonsense as they go along.

“Almost.”