BIGOTRY AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: Who knew about Tom Wright-Piersanti, and when did they know it?As Glenn pointed out here, Breitbart News discovered that Senior Editor Wright-Piersanti has been polluting social media with racist filth since at least 2009, possibly as early as 2007.

He apologized. And locked down his Twitter account. And as of this writing he inexplicably still works at the ̶T̶e̶m̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶R̶i̶g̶h̶t̶e̶o̶u̶s̶ ̶S̶a̶n̶c̶t̶i̶m̶o̶n̶y̶  The New York Times. He has been posting racist garbage for at least nine years. And it is only logical to assume that some, if not many of his workmates and even superior-ranking editors follow him on Twitter. Is it even remotely plausible that nobody at The Times followed Wright on Twitter and never saw his screeds? I don’t think so.

Which leaves us with the question that must be asked of each and every “Timesman” that worked there between 2007 and now: Did you know? Why didn’t you say anything?  Margaret Sullivan was their Public Editor from 2012 to 2016. How could she have not known? Bill Keller was the paper’s Executive Editor from 2003 to 2011. Did he follow Wright-Piersanti? Did anyone complain to Keller about him? Did Jill Abramson, now under fire for alleged plagiarism by the paper at which she served as Executive Editor from 2011 to 2014 follow Wright-Piersanti?

Look, this isn’t a partisan issue, it’s an honesty issue. This episode is so parallel to the #MeToo movement it’s scary. Being Harvey Weinstein wasn’t bad enough. People were (rightfully, IMHO) being held accountable for looking the other way, for enabling, and even encouraging behavior that can’t be described as anything other than despicable.

So too, bigotry is despicable, and The New York Times has embarked on a campaign to remind us of this self-evident truth. Not only The New York Times, but its cadre, its core leaders and rank-and-file past and present have to be asked these questions. Heaven knows the “media watchers” from the same club won’t ask.

So I’m encouraging you and your friends to ask. Be polite, be direct, don’t use foul language or rabid hyperbole. The emails addresses for some of these people are (); () and (). This is not a call for harassment or doxxing. These people have made a living communicating with the public and have assumed the very genuine mantle of the public trust in so doing. Thus, asking them politely “what did you know and when did you know it?” is not just fair, but important, and like the #MeToo movement it  starts with ordinary people speaking truth to power.

(Bumped up from late last night.)

DOCUMENT IT THOROUGHLY, BEFORE IT’S GONE. Dive team creates first 4K images of Titanic wreckage. “The exploration team discovered that sea currents, salt corrosion and metal-eating bacteria have caused deterioration to the ship.”

FASTER, PLEASE: Phone Companies Ink Deal With All 50 States And D.C. To Combat Robocalls.

NFL DOING EVERYTHING IT CAN TO BOOST RATINGS IN 2019:

● ‘NBC Sports Pro Football Talk’ turns into bash-fest of ‘far-right’ Trump, conservatives.

● The NFL just cannot stop politicking — former player Chris Long slips and admits they kicked an owner off of social justice committee over Trump support.

● Rapper Jay-Z Partners with the NFL, Joins the Ranks of the Insufficiently Woke.

AT AMAZON, save on Men’s Boots.

VIDEO: Overstock Founder Claims He Got ‘Fishy’ Orders from Peter Strozk, Set Top Obama Officials Up for Felony Charges.

HMM: Loss of grip strength tied to lower cognitive function, memory loss. So if you exercise enough to boost your grip strength, will you do better? Maybe, as exercise helps prevent brain function loss. But maybe not.

UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY, COMRADE: San Francisco Fights Crime with Euphemisms: Convicted Felons Are Now ‘Justice-Involved Persons.’

MICHAEL BARONE: The End of America’s 30-Year Engagement With China?

The hope through these years was that a more prosperous China would also become more democratic and tolerant at home, and less aggressive abroad. But as foreign affairs journalist James Mann pointed out in his 2007 book, “The China Fantasy,” and as longtime Kissingerian Michael Pillsbury wrote in his 2015 book, “The Hundred-Year Marathon,” China’s leaders weren’t interested in following this script.

On the contrary, Pillsbury argued that they had their own scenario, in which China would embark quietly but steadily on a long-term race to world supremacy by 2049, the 100th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s victory over Chiang Kai-shek.

China would use strategy and tactics laid out by Sun Tzu 2,500 years ago and restore the state to the primacy it enjoyed before the civil wars and invasions that started with the Taiping rebellion in 1849 and ended with Mao’s death in 1976, costing millions of Chinese lives. Before this strife, China had 40 percent of the world’s population and economic production, and an emperor reigning 60 years, who reportedly told the British envoy Lord Macartney in 1793, “Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance” and has “no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians.”

Xi Jinping, as he disapprovingly watches peaceful marchers in Hong Kong week after week, perhaps feels similarly. His attempted crackdown on the independent judiciary Hong Kong was promised until 2047, and abolition of his 10-year term limit amounts to jumping the gun on Pillsbury’s 100-year-marathon finish line of 2049.

Presumably, Xi has the power to squelch the Hong Kong demonstrators as his predecessors squelched Tiananmen protesters 30 years ago. But not without significant economic cost, which he may be willing to pay. The economic ties symbolized by “Chimerica” are already unraveling. They could be completely split if the Red Army ravages Hong Kong.

Read the whole thing.

21ST CENTURY QUESTIONS: What Happens When a Drone Crashes Into Your Face? An 18-month study? Shouldn’t it take about 18 seconds? Well, actually this was pretty thorough. “ASSURE conducted 512 impact tests and simulations using 16 different vehicles including popular consumer drones like DJI’s Phantom and Mavic Pro as well as various objects and payloads (batteries, wood blocks) with weights ranging from 0.71 to 13.2 lbs. Full anthropomorphic and simplified head-and-neck-only impact tests were done as were Post Mortem Human Surrogate (cadaver) impact tests.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Opt out of all the data sharing you wouldn’t opt in to.

THE 21st CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: Is Generation Z a Socialist Revolution in the Making?

SEEMS LEGIT:

BUT DON’T YOU DARE QUESTION HIS PATRIOTISM: The Young Turks’ Hasan Piker Says ‘America Deserved 9/11’, Mocks Dan Crenshaw’s War Injury: ‘Brave Soldier F***ed His Eye Hole.’

TRUMP KNOWS THIS AND IS TAKING ADVANTAGE OF IT: China’s enormous debt ‘no longer can be ignored,’ analyst says.

21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: The Complicated Issue of Transableism: Some people born in able bodies feel as if they were meant to have disabilities. How should the medical community be responding? Pointing and laughing would be rude, but these people are mentally ill and should be treated as such.

PERCEPTIVE: “Trump haters are always saying that Trump makes everything all about him. But Barbaro and Herndon are perceiving that Trump rallies are about the people… the people who love Trump. And maybe they love Trump because he creates a space in which they can love themselves. That’s why the slogan is ‘Make America Great Again’ (or ‘Keep America Great’).”

Plus: “The clown car of Democrats are Joni Mitchell at Atlantic City scolding the audience for not paying attention.”

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: 2020 Democrats mostly play dumb when asked to denounce Antifa.

(Classical reference in headline.)

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Florida Man Busted with Trump-Shaped Ecstasy Pills and So Much More.

It’s Florida Man Friday.

ANOTHER WAY TO COUNTER CHINA’S BELT AND ROAD IMPERIALISM: Jeff Goodson says we’re in a New Cold War that requires strategic thinking “analogous” to Cold War containment. The Belt and Road initiative requires pushback because it’s “debt-trap diplomacy.”

Smart thinking isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when most people contemplate Washington. But while China puts lipstick on its trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, smart thinking on what to do about it is starting to settle in.

He cites Burma as an example of the kind of State Dept./USAID “SWAT team” pushback needs to employ:

…at the tactical level, one of the best ideas in years has been operationalized by the U.S. Agency for International Development. Under the leadership of Administrator Mark Green, USAID recently pulled together a high-octane team of interagency technical specialists to help the government of Burma review plans for a multibillion-dollar Chinese-funded deep water port and industrial zone. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the team included USAID and State Department economists, diplomats and lawyers working as a public investment planning SWAT team of sorts. UK and Australian expertise also worked on the effort.

Read the entire essay.

RIP: David Koch, Businessman and Philanthropist, 1940-2019.

And right on cue: Soulless Ghouls: David Koch has passed away so of course the Left is acting like vile, repugnant douchebags.

TO BE FAIR, SOCIALISTS ARE NEVER HAPPY: Hasbro Has a New ‘Monopoly: Socialism’ Game and Socialists Are Not Happy.

BEIJING’S DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST HONG KONG’S PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT: My latest Creators Syndicate column (bumped).

VERY RELATED: Michael Yon’s latest report — Hong Kong protests straight, no chaser.