A CALL TO ARMS: HELP PLUG THE MEMORY HOLE–NOW! We’ve already seen a heinously dishonest media play the Orwell card and start airbrushing Kamala Harris’ dismal record of incompetence and bad judgment, here, here and here, just for starters.

There is only one way citizen-readers (yes, that’s you, gentle reader) can help: Find the insane statements and bad policy decisions she’s made and amplify their undeniability as best you can on social media and comments on news sites.

One story I came across — and surely a target to Team Coconut to flush away — is a 2019 article from The Intercept, where Harris was accused of protecting sexual abusers from allowing access to investigative files in order to pursue their cases:

In her seven years as district attorney, Harris’s office did not proactively assist in civil cases against clergy sex abuse and ignored requests by activists and survivors to access the cache of investigative files that could have helped them secure justice, according to several victims of clergy sex abuse living in California who spoke to The Intercept.

“It went from Terence Hallinan going hundred miles an hour, full speed ahead, after the Catholic Church to Kamala Harris doing absolutely nothing and taking it backwards hundred miles an hour,” said Joey Piscitelli, a sexual assault survivor, who a jury found had been molested as a student while attending Salesian College Preparatory, a Catholic high school in Richmond, California.

Particularly noteworthy is the fact that the Kool-Aid drinkers now pimping Harris out as some kind of bright, self-actualized, intelligent woman — she’s not — can’t dismiss this kind of factual reporting as “right-wing conspiracy.” I mean, FFS, it’s The Intercept.

I implore you: Make them own it.

BREAKING: FROM JUST THE NEWS. Cheatle resigns:

“Cheatle was facing major criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the Secret Service’s handling of security at the outdoor campaign rally where former President Trump was shot.”

Too little too late?

WOKE = BROKE Part Deux:

“We start with the best ingredients, cook from the heart, and let our food do the talking. No compromises, no matter what. Sustainability is at the core of all the choices we make, from our food to our planet to the future of farming. It’s in our DNA. After all, we’re chefs.”

Buzzword Bingo: “sustainability,” “heart,” “planet.”

BOOM goes the dynamite.

INSIDE AOC’S BRILLIANT MIND: OK, I’m a grammar nerd, and the use of “that” where “who” should be used makes me grumpy.

But here’s the real question: “Functionally useless” is bizarre…something is useless or it isn’t. What work does the word “functionally” do? Can something be only “theoretically” useless?

PRO-TIP: Mimsy were the borogroves.

BREAKING: SCOTUS rules on Trump immunity.

Just the News reporting that “Supreme Court rules Trump has absolute immunity for some official acts, but not unofficial ones.”

Decision here.

ARE THE OTHER ONE-THIRD ON DRUGS? JustTheNews has a blockbuster story out today, with John Solomon reporting that an Associated Press/University of Chicago poll shows that two thirds of Americans believe Joe Biden did something illegal or unethical:

“The two chairmen leading Joe Biden’s impeachment inquiry are zeroing in on a simple question that could transform their case: With so many red flags surrounding Hunter Biden, did U.S intelligence or the FBI give then-Vice President Joe Biden or his boss, President Barack Obama, briefings about the risks of the Biden family business?”

Of course it’s a simple question. One so simple that the media trying to drag POTATUS across the finish line again are not capable of asking.

I’m so old that I remember once-respectable news organizations asking “What did the President know, and when did he know it?“

MOST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS? I don’t think so. The Good Professor linked last week to a Volokh piece about a Florida intermediate appellate court holding that internal emails showed more than enough evidence of actual malice on CNN’s part to warrant that a libel case against them proceed.

But buried in the judicial opinion I noticed something else. Something that underscores the double-standard of modern media. Something that smacks of dishonesty.

By way of background, the story made factual (and purportedly false) allegations about Navy vet Zachary Young and his company, which was involved in rescuing people from Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. As mentioned above the court found as it did based on internal statements at CNN, such as:

“CNN employees called him a ‘s—bag’ and ‘a-hole’ and remarked they were ‘going to nail this Zachary Young mf—er.’ […] Marquardt [from CNN] referred to him as ‘f—ing Young’ and quipped, ‘it’s your funeral bucko.’”*

That’s the background. Here’s the double standard part: Buried in the ruling, the court mentioned that CNN had proffered the defense of constitutionally protected opinion.

Yes, you read that right. I have three questions:

1. How can you claim to be “The Most Trusted Name in News” after saying — under oath and in front of God and everyone — that what you broadcast wasn’t news at all, but opinion? By definition, opinion is an unprovable expression not capable of being proven true or false;
2. People We Are Not Supposed to Like were excoriated by left-leaning outfits for making the same argument, which was distorted wildly. NPR said “You Literally Can’t Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox’s Lawyers.” But at the same time, here’s CNN mocking Tucker for doing the exact same thing they did this month.
3. How can you square the utter hypocrisy of the leftist outfits who much earlier raised the same defense as Tucker, namely Rachel “All Panic, All the Time” Maddow?  As far back as 2021 it took Glenn Greenwald to point this out, saying “A Court Ruled Rachel Maddow’s Viewers Know She Offers Exaggeration and Opinion, Not Facts.“

The part that bothers me the most is this is another example of the one-two-three punch of gaslighting, denialism, and projection.

*FOOTNOTE: Discovery is a bitch.

THE LEDE SAYS IT ALL: “Pro-Palestine activists are calling the shots at UCLA…”

JustTheNews has an infuriating story up about how the publicly-funded school actually established a “Jew Exclusion Zone.” The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is representing three Jewish students who were actively blocked.

Reacting to this madness, Becket CEO and President Mark Rienzi said:

“If masked agitators had excluded any other marginalized group at UCLA, [California] Governor [Gavin] Newsom rightly would have sent in the National Guard immediately,” but instead UCLA “allowed its Jewish students to be segregated from the heart of their own campus.”

Whose brilliant idea was this? Names. I want names.

Indeed, if some kids go hooning on a “pride stripe” crosswalk they’re treated like Nazis due to be hunted down.

Does UCLA have any idea who the real Nazis are?
Perhaps we should set up crowd-funding to buy them mirrors.

OLD AND BUSTED: “Republicans pounce.”
NEW AND HOT: “Republicans seize”

BREAKING: Just the News reporting that “In shocking litmus test, FBI security inquiry tried to unmask employee’s Trump support, memos show”:

I cannot help but find it ironic — to say the least — that the same people bleating about “saving democracy” are doing their damndest to subvert it.

“FBI officials conducting a top-secret security clearance review for a longtime employee asked witnesses whether that employee was known to support former President Donald Trump, if he had expressed concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine or had attended a Second Amendment rally, according to internal memos that prompted a complaint to the Justice Department’s internal watchdog alleging political bias inside the bureau.

The employee’s security clearance was revoked months after the interviews, which confirmed his support for Trump and gun rights and his concerns about the COVID vaccine, according to the documents obtained by Just the News.”

TBH, I suspect this is a matter of “the emperor’s new clothes.” That is to say there’s no evidence that this was directed by President Biden — who probably thinks FBI stands for “Female Body Inspector” — but some Permanent Washington lackey who thinks he (or she) is doing the country a service.

God save us from “helpful” bureaucrats.

BREAKING: “Feds Indict Far-Right Media Exec in Massive Money Laundering Scheme”

“Bill Guan, the chief financial officer of the far-right Epoch Times, was indicted Monday on charges of allegedly participating in a massive money laundering scheme.

The Southern District of New York released a statement saying, “Bill Guan, 61, of Secaucus, New Jersey, is charged with one count of conspiring to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and two counts of bank fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. The charges do not relate to the Media Company’s newsgathering activities.”

MORE PROOF THAT THEY ARE IDIOTS AT THE WASHINGTON POST: The good professor highlighted Ann Althouse’ posting here on Jennifer Rubin’s idiocy w/r/t the Trump Verdict.

Rubin, like so many, don’t have the brains (or law degree) to understand WTF they are talking about. In fact, publishers survive largely because the concept of independent appellate review in certain cases allows a “do over” in the appellate process, even holding the authority to review — and potentially reverse –a jury verdict. For a good walk-through example, see Harte-Hanks Communs. v. Connaughton, 491 U.S. 657 (1989). From the syllabus:

“The evidence contained in the record reveals that the jury should have found the defendant liable, since multiple witnesses refuted the allegation published in the newspaper, and the newspaper failed to consult Connaughton’s own testimony or the evidence of other key witnesses. While the appellate court reached the proper conclusion, Stevens felt the need to remind courts in this situation to examine the record more carefully in the future.”

The creator of this meme should include journalists and editorialists.

WHEN YOU GET SPAM FROM BIDEN/HARRIS: Have fun with it.

There, I fixed it.

REMEMBER THIS GUY? I can’t help it…Hey: “Where’s your Messiah Now?”

CNN reporting that “Supreme Court turns away appeal from disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti.”

CNN not reporting that Avenatti appeared on a fawning CNN 108 times between March 7 and May 10, 2018.

There are some other gems out there they’d just love to dump down the memory hole:

CNN forgot Chris Cuomo (he had his own problems) fawning all over Avenatti.

WHO ARE YOU GOING TO BELIEVE? ME, OR YOUR LYING EYES? An enormous trove of documents — 3.3 million pages of emails, bank records, and corporate memos — has been obtained by Just the News that prove what you already knew: Joe Biden flat-out lied repeatedly about never having met with his son’s business partners:

“Biden has consistently denied any involvement with Hunter’s Chinese business associates, and an incurious U.S. media refused to delve into it. For his part, Hunter Biden called the issue part of the “Trump attack machine.” Pro-Biden media outlets like Politico parroted the White House’s line that the laptop was part of a “Russian Disinformation” scheme.”

But the real news here is that the FBI knew about the meetings between President Biden and his son’s business partners as long ago as 2016. That knowledge came to their attention when the feds were investigating Hunter’s partner and his role in a fraudulent bond-selling racket:

“FBI, IRS, and Securities and Exchange Commission agents collected [the documents] in 2015 and 2016 with subpoenas during a criminal investigation into a fraudulent bond scheme involving a Native-American tribe.”

We keep hearing brainwashed deniers like Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., bleat repeatedly that “there is no evidence” of the President knowing about Hunter’s deals, let alone meeting with Hunters partners.

We’ll see if the incurious mainstream media actually follow up on Just The News‘ reporting. Founder and Editor-in-Chief John Solomon has promised to assemble a data-diving team to find out what else is in the mountain of documents, which were not obtained from Hunter’s laptop. So, if you think this is an important issue, I’d suggest adding Just the News to your bookmark bar and make it part of your daily reading. They are doing some pretty darned fearless work.

Here’s the question I’m left with: Does Team Biden’s gaslighting actually work? His surrogates — in government and the media — constantly chant “no evidence, no evidence.” Do they really believe it? And more importantly, does the working class guy in a swing state who breaks his back in a warehouse or factory to put food on the table and being able to afford eyeglasses for his kids buy it?

It’s too easy to call Mophead Pierre and Jamie Raskin idiots. While that may be true, I guess the question that sticks with me is: “How can anybody adopt Biden’s lies” with a straight face? Are they truly brainwashed, or are they so hateful and disingenuous that they’ll say anything?

I know, I know: “Embrace the power of ‘and.'”

** DISCLOSURE: I act as an editorial and legal advisor to JTN.**

WHY AM I REMINDED OF “FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON”? Just the News filed a short take that honestly makes me wonder if Fetterman has been red-pilled, or at the very least, somehow came out smarter after his stroke than he was before it happened:

“In the past, I’ve described the U.S. House as The Jerry Springer Show,” Fetterman posted on X. “Today, I’m apologizing to The Jerry Springer Show.”

I did not have “Fetterman getting into a beef with AOC” on my bingo card.

CANDY CROWLEY REDUX? Some of us remember the notorious DNC stenographer Candy Crowley in 2012 helping Obama though his stumbling over facts in the debate. Just the News is asking whether the equally biased Jake Tapper can control his editorialization — not journalism — in the upcoming debates between Bad Orange Man and President Puddinghead:

“CNN initially showed the footage of Trump, though Tapper told staff in the control room not to continue showing it. “The folks in the control room: I don’t need to see any more of that. He’s trying to turn this into a spectacle, into a campaign ad. That’s enough of that. We’ve seen it already,” Tapper said while on the air […] “The Gaetz-McBreitbart nonsense that Trump spews, like these little code words that make [Sean] Hannity’s pins shine at specific moments when he utters them,” Tapper said, in apparent reference to conservative news outlet Breitbart and Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz. Tapper then editorialized, saying “He is running the single most negative, sleazy campaign in American history for a major party candidate.”

We’re to expect clean and fair debate management from this guy?
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” 

MY SHOCKED FACE IS GETTING TIRED: In Bob Dylan’s “Neighborhood Bully” about Israel (and Jews) being the world’s pariahs, one line of the lyrics says:

“His enemies say, he’s on their land/They got him outnumbered, about a million to one/he got no place to escape to, no place to run.”

So the report from Just the News that The United Nations General Assembly on Friday approved a resolution granting expanded rights to Palestine, permitting it to operate within the U.N. framework in a form of non-voting pseudo-membership shouldn’t shock anyone.

“This is a reward for terrorism and will only strengthen Hamas and make peace impossible. It is one of the most destructive resolutions ever presented in the UN made possible due to the antisemitism and political interests that are so prevalent at the UN,” [said Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan.]

The fact that something isn’t a surprise doesn’t mean it isn’t repulsive.

OMG: WHO WANTS TO TELL THEM? The Times and WaPo all crowed about their Pulitzers today. Fine, whatev. But this caught my eye:

“The Washington Post shared the prize for national reporting for “Terror on Repeat,” an examination of the AR-15 rifle, a widely available weapon commonly used in deadly mass killings that is capable of firing hundreds of bullets in rapid succession.”

“Hundreds”? Srsly?

I can’t even begin to claim to be a firearms expert, but to my knowledge, even with a 30 round magazine, the first 30 seconds, 30 rounds. Then the magazine runs empty. I’ve heard of drums that have larger capacity, but notice the weasel words: “in rapid succession.”

What’s “rapid”? I mean, heck, in its day the Winchester ’76 fired in “rapid succession.”

100% AWESOME: Fund a mariachi band to play next to Penn’s encampment 24/ 7

“Over the past week a merry batch of campers has struck fear into the heart of Israel by having a sleepover on Penn’s College Green. As Tel Aviv waits in horror to see their next move, I believe these protestors should be serenaded for their efforts, just as they have constantly serenaded my efforts to study for finals with a megaphone and drum set.”

MORE RED PILLS TAKEN IN LEFTIST MEDIA? We’ve seen rage quitting on various levels from Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss and most recently Uri Berliner.

Add to the list now The Intercept‘s Ken Klippenstein, who announced his departure from the far-left news site:

I want to be an unabashed partisan for the vast majority of Americans who despise the people who run the country, putting my finger in the eye of the elites frog marching us through their managed decline of the American standard of living.

***

“The most effective way I can do this is through journalism that arms you with a better understanding of subjects elites don’t like the rabble meddling with […] I also want to be able to write without fear of billionaires, wealth or Wall Street. And when I say journalism, I’m not talking about “democracy dying in darkness” or “holding power to account” or any of that sanctimonious bullshit. I’m talking about being a thorn in the side of our self-appointed betters.”

Say what you will, but I believe true and honest liberals — in the classic sense — have more in common with today’s “conservatives” than ever…and people who identify as “conservative” or even “libertarian” should support these people.

You don’t have to agree with every policy point they hold. Understand that a commitment to honesty is what’s at stake here. We can quibble about specific policy issues later.

THE HAMAS/STUDENT PROTESTS AND MISNINFORMATION: Earlier this morning, I read Professor Glenn’s squib here about how press access to these encampments is being controlled by the little terrorist supporters.

It rang a bell for me, and I though I would share a commentary I wrote for The Daily Caller six years ago that touches on the same thing. In the interview with Judith Miller, she explained how the quality reporting there is challenged because you need permission from the IDF to get into Gaza, but Hamas demands that they control access (through “minders” tagging along at all your visits and interviews) and Hamas filters out as much negative news as they can.

Now please, don’t get lost in the weeds bickering about whether Miller was right or wrong or good or bad, or whether we should be in or support Gazans, Hamas, or Israel.

I think the salient — and timely — point here is that smarter people are beginning to ask about the college frenzies being coordinated both financially and strategically.

I’ve seen pictures of a few of these encampments and noticed that in one shot, at least 2 dozen of the tents are identical pop-up types. Who and how logistics could be very revealing.

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE: Just the News is reporting that Holden Thorp, who oversees news, research and opinion for the Science family of journals, repeatedly told the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic that he and his peers fell short by failing to better explain to the public that science is a “work in progress” and that scientists are “opinionated” but should change their minds “when we see new data.”

“Rather than journals being a wealth of information and opinions about the novel virus, of which we knew so little, they helped establish a party line that literally put a chilling effect on scientific research” on COVID origins and scientific communication, Chairman Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio said.”

It’s a small walk-back, but really the “trust the science” people (who are also the same people who use the pejorative “science-denier”) ought to be ashamed of themselves.

But they won’t. It’s all Lysenko, all the time.

ANOTHER ONE GETS RED-PILLED: Just the News is reporting that Uri Berliner, a National Public Radio veteran editor who authored an essay that was critical of the news outlet’s liberal bias, resigned Wednesday.

“Today, those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population. If you are conservative, you will read this and say, duh, it’s always been this way. But it hasn’t,” he wrote last week in an essay for The Free Press.

He’s probably in line for the same insane demonization the Margaret Sullivan and MSNBC crowd have leveled against Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi.

If you step off the reservation and think for yourself, you’re dead to us and we must destroy you. Because we’re liberals. That means we embrace dissent, except when we don’t agree.

ALMOST ALWAYS A VERY HARD DECISION: Reflections of a Newsman.

I saw this article where country singer Ashley Judd talked about being on the “other side” of coverage of tragedies. It made me take pause and reflect.

As a former photojournalist turned newsroom lawyer, I’ve had to wrestle with this from time to time. My watch-words (especially in the Media Law and Ethics classes I teach) has always been “good taste and common sense win the day.”

But it’s always a tough call. My dear friend, the late Hal Buell was the long-time Photo Chief for the Associated Press. A truly decent guy in every way. When the legendary Nick Ut made the iconic news picture below, Hal told me years later that they debated for several hours about whether they should move the file on the wire.

(Credit: Nick Ut/AP under Creative Commons license)

They decided that despite its somewhat gruesome and certainly invasive nature, it depicted a moment too important to keep from the public. IIRC, some newspaper members simply chose not to run it.

Flash forward a few years to the wild and wooly ’80’s. The standard became “if it bleeds, it leads.” Little thought was given to the sensitivities of the victim’s families, let alone the readers. Photographs like this were common:

(Credit: Paul DeMaria/NYDN via Wikimedia Commons)

As a shooter myself, I was guilty of making pictures that today might be “insensitive.” I made the photo below after hearing a police call of a shooting outside an elementary school:

(Credit: Charles Glasser/Miami Beach Sun)

Apparently this fellow was a Marielito who owed about $50 to another drug dealer. Without warning, the murderer (never caught) simply walked up behind this guy and pumped a few .38 rounds into the back of his head. (FYI: Years later, Facebook blocked this photo from view for violating “community standards.”)

Did I consider anyone’s “privacy”? Hell, it was on a public sidewalk (in front of a school, no less) and the guy wasn’t a “somebody.” No relatives to complain, no objections from readers, I even won a Florida Press Club in Spot News award for it.

Let’s flash forward to my being a newsroom lawyer a decade or so later. I’m the Global Media Counsel for Bloomberg News. In the early days of the Enron collapse, one of the top executives — a real Boy Scout — committed suicide. An outstanding reporter named Loren Steffy, got a hold of his suicide note from the Sugarland PD. What to do?

The family’s lawyer begged us not to publish it. The note itself revealed nothing personal, and didn’t name names about Enron. I had a long, deep discussion with the Editor-in-Chief. If we didn’t publish, I argued, the family would be subjected to endless conspiracy theories. By publishing, we could put the matter of his suicide to rest. He knew bad things were done, as an honest guy he couldn’t deal with it, and it was going to get worse: He wanted to apologize to his family.

We ran the note. Thoughts?

UPDATE (From Ed): 50 years on: Revisiting the myths of the ‘Napalm Girl,’ a photo ‘that doesn’t rest.’

The napalm attack was carried out by propeller-driven Skyraider aircraft of the South Vietnamese Air Force trying to roust communist forces dug in near the village – as news accounts at the time made clear.

The headline over the New York Times report from Trang Bang said: “South Vietnamese Drop Napalm on Own Troops.”

The Chicago Tribune front page of June 9, 1972, stated the “napalm [was] dropped by a Vietnamese air force Skyraider diving onto the wrong target.”

Christopher Wain, a veteran British journalist, wrote in a dispatch for United Press International: “These were South Vietnamese planes dropping napalm on South Vietnamese peasants and troops.”

The myth of American culpability at Trang Bang began taking hold during the 1972 presidential campaign, when Democratic candidate George McGovern referred to the photograph in a televised speech. The napalm that badly burned Kim Phuc, he declared, had been “dropped in the name of America.”

McGovern’s metaphoric claim anticipated similar assertions, including Susan Sontag’s statement in her 1973 book “On Photography,” that Kim Phuc had been “sprayed by American napalm.”

(The Associated Press, in an article posted online yesterday, erroneously described the aerial attack at Trang Bang as “an American napalm strike on a Vietnamese hamlet.” See screenshot nearby. The news agency later in the day corrected the error after it was noted on Twitter.)

Read the whole thing.