NO. NEXT QUESTION? Are There Any Adults at the Washington Post?

You may have noticed a bizarre trend at organizations whose staffs are full of younger liberals: Internal disputes aren’t kept internal anymore but are aired in public, on social media or in the press, with rampantly subordinate staff attacking their colleagues or decrying managerial decisions in full public view — and those actions apparently tolerated from the top.

In the most extreme cases, you get meltdowns like the one at the Dianne Morales campaign for mayor of New York, where staff went on strike to demand, among other things, that the campaign divert part of its budget away from campaigning into “community grocery giveaways.” But it’s especially a problem in the media, where so many employees have large social media followings they can use to put their employers on blast — and where those employers have (unwisely) cultivated a freewheeling social media culture where it’s common for reporters to comment on all sorts of matters unrelated to their coverage.

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I hate that I’ve written so many paragraphs about this. I hate that I know so much about this dispute. It’s so high school, and it ought not to be any of our business. These are all internal HR matters. But Sonmez is explicit: She wages these fights in public because management is more responsive to that than when employees complain privately. By giving her “good friend” Weigel such a long suspension and doing nothing to her, management is only encouraging her and other Post employees to put their colleagues on blast more, which she has indeed been doing.

Airing internal workplace disputes in public like this is not okay, even when you are right on the merits. My statement isn’t just obvious, it’s how almost all organizations work. If you think your coworker sucks, you don’t tweet about it. That’s unprofessional. If you disagree with management’s personnel decisions, you don’t decry them to the public. That’s insubordinate. Organizations full of people who are publicly at each other’s throats can’t be effective. Your workplace is not Fleetwood Mac.

Even before the Times’ collective meltdown over Tom Cotton’s column in 2020, there were similar comparisons made about its own high school-like nature, such as Matthew Continetti’s 2014 Washington Free Beacon column:

Gossipy, catty, insular, cliquey, stressful, immature, cowardly, moody, underhanded, spiteful—the New York Times gives new meaning to the term “hostile workplace.” What has been said of the press—that it wields power without any sense of responsibility—is also a fair enough description of the young adult. And it is to high school, I think, that the New York Times is most aptly compared. The coverage of the Abramson firing reads at times like the plot of an episode of Saved By the Bell minus the sex: Someone always has a crazy idea, everyone’s feelings are always hurt, apologies and reconciliations are made and quickly sundered, confrontations are the subject of intense planning and preparation, and authority figures are youth-oriented, well-intentioned, bumbling, and inept.

Unexpectedly!

And as Glenn Greenwald noted over the weekend about the Post’s twitter spat:

Finally, note that the Fast Times at Ben Bradlee High drama at the Post this week is a distraction from what should be the real story emanating from the offices that once led to Watergate: Twitter saga obscures the Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz scandal. “But the key point is this: Either Lorenz or her editors engaged in direct fabrication or a willful disregard for journalistic standards. The broader challenge is that those who run the Post have decided that Lorenz, and her continued shoddy reporting and broad generalizations, are worth the headache. Why they have decided as much is anyone’s guess. But as Lorenz continues to stretch the boundaries of ethical journalism, her Post colleagues will be the ones who share in the reputational damage.”

DEMOCRATS ADMIT THE TRUE PURPOSE OF J6 HEARINGS:

“FOX won’t televise the hearings of the greatest Crime in Presidential history,” tweeted Rob Reiner. “Our Democracy is hanging by a thread.” Cry me a river, Meathead.

The fact is, there’s only one reason why any network will air the hearings of these pointless, blatantly partisan hearings—and it has nothing to do with the so-called insurrection. It has to do with helping the Democrats in the upcoming midterms.

This isn’t a guess. They’ve already admitted to this. “Jan. 6 Hearings Give Democrats a Chance to Recast Midterm Message,” reads the headline at the New York Times about the hearings—showing absolutely no shame that government resources are being used for blatantly partisan purposes.

“With their control of Congress hanging in the balance, Democrats plan to use made-for-television moments and a carefully choreographed rollout of revelations over the course of six hearings…to persuade voters that the coming midterm elections are a chance to hold Republicans accountable for it,” the report explained.

The article goes on to quote Democrat lawmakers and operatives all but admitting the purpose of the hearings is to distract voters from astronomical gas prices and historic inflation.

We’ve been here before, of course: Warnings From Watergate for the January 6 Committee. “As midterm elections approach, Democrats face challenges eerily similar to those following President Richard Nixon’s 1972 landslide reelection. Their response was a select committee to stage a legislative show trial where they controlled the agenda and disgraced witnesses could be called to account without the inconvenience of due process rights guaranteed by our Constitution. They appear to be following the same playbook today, half a century later. Times have changed, but Democrats’ willingness to abuse government power to punish political enemies hasn’t. Let’s jump inside their heads for a few moments (if you can bear it) to follow the logic of their plots.”

UNSURPRISING, REALLY: Brain applies ‘data compression’ when making decisions, study finds.

LIVE RESULTS: Primaries in Seven States Tonight.

THE SHORTAGE IS THE FAULT OF THE FDA, NOW THEY’RE GRANDSTANDING ABOUT SLIGHTLY OFFSETTING IT: White House announces 5th flight of baby formula with enough for nearly 2 million bottles.

As Harry Browne used to say, government breaks your leg, hands you a crutch, and expects you to be grateful.

WHY TEAM BIDEN MIGHT BE PURPOSEFULLY GRINDING DOWN THE MIDDLE CLASS. Now in handy video form!

Wondering why gas has nearly doubled since Biden took office? Watch this. pic.twitter.com/X5tcDOPtT8

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 2, 2022

PRO-ABORTION TERRORISTS FIREBOMB BUFFALO PRO-LIFE PREGNANCY CENTER:

Pro-abortion terrorists firebombed a pro-life Christian pregnancy center in Buffalo, N.Y. on Tuesday, inflicting significant damage on the building and vandalizing the remains with their organization’s name.

Pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, which has developed a reputation for resorting to violence, claimed responsibility for the attack, which left glass shattered and much of the interior of the CompassCare office burned and destroyed, CBN News reported.

The arsonists left graffiti on a wall that read, “Jane Was Here.” The organization has committed multiple such incidents in the last few months, including one in which it firebombed the headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action (WFA), a pro-life group in Madison, Wis. last month. There, the terrorists left the message, “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.”

“Ironically, New York’s Governor not only ignored the violence but instead earmarked $35 million in taxpayer funds to increase security at abortion clinics,” CompassCare said in a statement. “Adding insult to injury the New York legislature passed a bill investigating pro-life pregnancy centers precisely because they do not perform abortions.”

Jane’s Revenge also admitted that it threw red paint on the the front door of a crisis pregnancy center in Washington, D.C. last week, spray painting “Jane Says Revenge” on the side of the building.

And of course, the left’s projection is on full display: Sick: Joy Reid Says GOP Doesn’t Want Dems to Feel Safe Anywhere in US.

READER FAVORITE: Nisaku Hori-Hori Weeding & Digging Knife. #CommissionEarned

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I quit my job to be a full-time girlfriend: Get fit, cook and you can too. I really don’t think I can.

YET ANOTHER NORMAL DAY AT THE WASHINGTON POST: A Twitter thread collated by Jim Treacher.

As Treacher sums it all up:

Related: Washington Post Editor Gets Tough in New Memo to Staff Over Online Behavior: ‘We Will Enforce Our Policies And Standards’ — and issue Manchurian Candidate-style talking points as well, apparently. It’s all so collegial there!

UPDATE: Question asked by Ace of Spades: “Do I have this wrong? Is this in fact a protest against the Post? Forbidden against speaking out against Somnez and her scalp-hunting, have they turned to protesting by heaping sarcastic praise on the Post?”

John Sexton of Hot Air agrees: “After further reflection, I suspect this is intended to be a response to Felicia Sonmez. Think about it. She got Dave Weigel suspended. She tried to get another employee suspended. Now she’s attacking the Post at length as a problematic workplace. And suddenly we get a bunch of employees saying people make mistakes (a reference to Weigel) but despite that the Post is a great place to work. I think this is meant to be a non-confrontational way of publicly disagreeing with Sonmez. In fact that’s the conclusion that [Glenn] Greenwald came around to eventually. Again, it is a bit creepy but given that the executive editor just warned the entire staff not to call out employees by name online, they can’t go after her directly. Nevertheless, there are a bunch of people at the Post who aren’t on board with what Felicia Sonmez is saying.”

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Mercedes Recalling Almost One Million Cars Over Bad Brake Boosters.

TRUE: The Reality of ‘Assault Weapons’ is Far Too Boring and Inconvenient for the Media.

You could just take out “of ‘assault weapons'” here, though, and it would still be right.

HERE COMES STAGFLATION: Target Warns Profit Will Drop Because It Has Too Much Stuff. “Big retailers benefited over the past two years from the pandemic rush to buy patio furniture, laptops and home décor, as shoppers were buoyed by savings and government stimulus checks. Now many of those same stores are grappling with a swift reversal of buying behavior with consumers spending less on goods in favor of services and necessities such as food and fuel.”

SAYING THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD: Democrats Admit the True Purpose of J6 Hearings.

THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR SACKING THE PEOPLE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN SACKED HAVE NOT BEEN SACKED: Legal YouTuber: The Washington Post correction to Taylor Lorenz’ story is still not correct.

POLITICS. THE REASON IS POLITICS. Why doctors are calling gun violence in the U.S. an epidemic.

Violence isn’t a disease, it’s a behavior. They only call it a disease as a matter of control.

STACEY LENNOX: As California Goes, So Goes the Country: Why Michael Shellenberger Needs to Win in November. “The machine behind Newsom is spending time promoting Shellenberger’s opponents because they see him as a threat. “

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Living In the Golden Era of Sex Toys.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit Was Not What I Expected and I Loved It. “Clark set the tone and the message was clear. Strong conservative women are on the rise and they wouldn’t be shamed, silenced, and walked on. They dare you to try. This isn’t the passive group of women the left had dealt with decades ago. Clark was right. The old movement is dead. This is something different.”

THIS WOULD BE A BETTER ARGUMENT FOR CENSORING MEDIA COVERAGE OF GUNS: Kids’ mental health becomes part of the plea for gun control.

It’s actually the hysterical coverage, not the shootings that are doing whatever damage is done. And if we’re going to take away constitutional rights, we might as well do so where it will make a difference.

JIM TREACHER: WaPo’s Dave Weigel Learns How Much His Loyalty to the Democrats Is Worth.

All this because Weigel laughed at a joke about women being crazy. Sonmez sure is proving him wrong, huh?

Right now I’m ambivalent about the whole thing. Weigel’s bosses have overreacted by suspending him for retweeting a dumb joke, but he sucks at his job anyway. Back in 2010, he should’ve taken the opportunity Tucker Carlson gave him and found a career more suited to his ethical framework. Like selling used cars.1 Busting him for such a minor infraction is sort of like the feds bringing down Al Capone for tax evasion.2

Well, if Felicia Sonmez manages to do what Tucker Carlson couldn’t, my hat is off to her. This is one of those rare situations where no matter who loses, I win.

And maybe Dave Weigel has learned something about the people he’s shown so much loyalty over the years. Maybe he’s learned how quickly and easily they’ll throw a guy to an angry mob, just to save themselves.

Maybe!

Iowahawk has a helpful photographic comparison to help understand just how far the Washington Post has fallen:

HMM: Why Joe Biden’s Student Loan Relief Could Backfire With Financially Savvy Gen Z.

SOMETHING NEEDS TO: Diabetes drug shows promise for treating obesity.

PROBABLY NOT BEFORE JANUARY 20, 2025: Will the secret New York migrant flights ever stop?

I’LL TAKE HEADLINES FROM 1970, ALEX: How the left learned to stop worrying and love domestic terrorism.

Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman were arrested in the “mostly peaceful” protests following George Floyd’s murder. The two lawyers handed out Molotov cocktails to the crowd, and Rahman tossed one into a police car before fleeing the scene in Mattis’s van. They reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in October 2020 that wiped out six of the seven charges against them. Those prosecutors, nonetheless, sought a maximum 10-year sentence and argued that the incident qualified for a so-called terrorism enhancement that would turbocharge sentencing—a determination with which the U.S. Probation Office concurred.

Ginning herself up to distribute explosives to the crowd, Rahman gave a video interview in which she declared, “This shit won’t ever stop until we fuckin’ take it all down,” adding that “the only way [the police] hear us is through violence.”

Then, Garland and the U.S. attorney for New York’s Eastern District, Breon Peace, who’s handling the prosecution, took office, and you won’t believe what happened next!

In mid-May, the same career DOJ prosecutors who argued for that 10-year sentence were back in court withdrawing their plea deal and entering a new one that allowed the defendants to cop to the lesser charge of conspiracy. It tosses out the terrorism enhancement entirely.

The new charge carries a five-year maximum sentence, but the prosecutors are urging the judge to go below that, asking for just 18 to 24 months on account of the “history and personal characteristics of the defendants” and the “aberrational nature of the defendants’ conduct.” Because, you know, Mattis graduated from Princeton and New York University Law School and was an attorney at the white-shoe law firm Pryor Cashman, and Rahman was a public-interest lawyer whose “best friend,” Obama administration intelligence official Salmah Rizvi, guaranteed the $250,000 required to release her on bail.

Law360, which reported on the events, calls the new deal an “unusual step.” James Trusty, a former prosecutor in the Department of Justice’s criminal division, broke it down for us this way: “Swapping in a softer plea agreement after having gone through the plea hearing is an exceedingly rare event in federal court.” It can happen, he said, if there is “truly some new development or understanding about the defendants that merits a fresh look.”

As Time magazine unironically noted in 2016, “In retrospect, it seems odd that the Federal Bureau of Investigation elevated a band of about one hundred young people, mostly college students, into a leading place on the Bureau’s Most Wanted List. The FBI decision garnered Weatherman a huge amount of publicity and made some of its leaders famous. Yet the Weather organization was minuscule. To be sure, it was almost unique among radicals in that period in using dynamite bombs to protest government war policies, racial unfairness and corporate greed. The Weathermen believed that the evil of these acts warranted an extreme response—in fact, it warranted a revolution. But Weather only set off a total of 25 such bombs during its entire seven years of existence, all of them relatively small. And fully half of those bombs were detonated early on, in 1970. After that, Weatherman on average set off only one bomb every six months, mostly in the bathrooms of government buildings and corporation headquarters.”

The “only” is a nice touch.