PLEASE DON’T DRIVE DRUNK: OK, OK, it’s New Year’s Eve, so in light of my plea, read this instead.

IT TAKES A ̶V̶I̶L̶L̶A̶G̶E̶ ENTIRE NEWSROOM: Glad to see it took the entire Reuters staff to bollix this up so badly.
Confirmation bias or just plain stupid?

AN OBSERVATION AFTER READING GLENN’S POST: “Newly Released Eric Holder Memo: Feds Can Use FISA to Spy on Journalists.”

From experience, I can just hear the voices in DC newsrooms:
“That was so three years ago. Obama is not President anymore, let it go. Oh, how are we doing on that story about Trump’s grandfather being all in for the Kaiser?”

SO MUCH FOR BEING THE SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE ROOM:

Nothing beats being laid off just before the Holidays, huh?

WAITAMINNIT, WAT? Earlier this week, Bloomberg Media announced its first acquisition in more than a decade, buying CityLab:

“An offshoot website of the Atlantic that reports on a variety of areas—development, housing, transit, the environment—from an urban policy perspective. And as part of that purchase, it appears half of the website’s editorial staff could lose their jobs.”

According to Business Insider, 7,800 journalists have lost their jobs so far this year. I thought President Trump was supposed to be Biggest Threat to the Press Ever, what with him being mean to Jim Acosta and all.

But putting reporters on the breadlines? Nahhhhhhh.

WHO DOES HE THINK HE’S FOOLING? Mike Bloomberg’s decision to lopsidedly cover only Trump (and no Democrats)  has my old friends in the newsroom pretty ticked off. But leaving his own name off of the “Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index” is just dumb.

Not that I’m cheering for anyone of these people, but he’s giving Fauxcohoantas and Grumpy Socialist a stick with which to hit him over the head.

Res ipsa loquitur.

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE: Spartacus makes a calm statement about yesterday’s murder of Jersey City police Detective Joe Seals and Jewish civilians but refrains from turning it into a political “anti-NRA” screed. First, now is not the time. Second, I’m willing to bet good money that the perpetrators were not NRA members, and even go so far as to say the weapons used were obtained in violation of already-existing law.

That said, we know the Jewish supermarket was targeted, yet nobody has released the names of the perpetrators so far.
I’m guessing it’s those damned Presbyterians again.

**UPDATE: Police say the shooters were from the “Black Hebrew Israelite movement.” Same nice folks who confronted the Covington Kids in DC.

SELF-AWARENESS DEFICIENCY ALERT: Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is launching a social-media website called WT: Social. The platform aims to compete with Facebook and Twitter, except instead of funding it using advertising, Wales is taking a page from the Wikipedia playbook and financing it through user donations.

Says Wales:

“The business model of social media companies, of pure advertising, is problematic,” Wales told Financial Times. “It turns out the huge winner is low-quality content.”

If there is any human being in the known universe who truly understands “low-quality content”, it is Jimmy Wales. Wikipedia might be the go-to site for cretins like Soledad O’Brien and Alexandria Occasional Cortex  but for the rest of the literate world…

HOW STUPID DOES SHE THINK WE ARE? WAIT, DON’T ANSWER THAT: Not content with trying to outdo Hillary’s “plain folk” masquerade (“I’m gonna get me a beer“); now she tweets out a picture of her family with their humble station wagon:

Which is all well and good, except that’s a 1953 Lincoln Capri. Hardly the preferred ride of working class families. It sold back then for $3,766, which adjusted for inflation,  is equal to $35,436.09 in 2019. Not exactly “dust-bowl” poor.
**Error fixed: this was Lincoln’s top of the line car in ’53. They did not offer the “Continental that year.**

LET’S PLAY A ROUND OF “WHISTLEBLOWER SHIT-SHOW!”  Well, CBS fired Ashley Bianco, producer formerly of ABC for allegedly releasing the video that outlines how ABC spiked an investigation of pedophile and Clinton mega-donor Jefferey Epstein. Megyn Kelly interviews her and she tearfully denies it. On the same day, James O’Keefe published a letter from the real whistleblower.

In the meantime both networks are following the DNC-talking points about investigating leakers: When the President does it, it’s bad. When they do it…crickets.

Where to start? I wish Kelly had asked Bianco what CBS told her when they fired her. That aside, I’ve been asked a lot about her legal remedies. Honestly, you could take what I know about Labor Law, put in your eye and still see pretty well. As I understand it, NY is an “at-will” state, meaning they can fire you for no reason unless it’s a race/age/gender thing.

Defamation? Maybe, but defamation claims in NY require “in hac verbae”, that is a pleading of the actual defamatory statement in the Complaint. And you can bet that both CBS and ABC would fight coughing up any docs for years, and would resist pre-action discovery to depose the HR departments to find out what ABC said to CBS. I doubt this lady has the financial wherewithal for that kind of fight.

But, this may be one of the rare instances where a cause of action for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress might work. Very generally, the tort requires that the plaintiff must have been in the “zone of danger” of the defendant’s negligent act, or it must have been foreseeable that the defendant’s negligent conduct would have caused the plaintiff emotional harm. (And New York does not, like a few states, require physical harm or contact). And if CBS fired an employee on ABC’s mistaken say-so, well, that’s pretty damned negligent. Dare I even say “collusion”?

Who’s taking odds that CBS writes a check to make this go away?

BTW, Jeffrey Epstein did not kill himself.

OUR MORAL BETTERS? NOT SO MUCH: The Newspaper Guild’s Washington Post Unit just published a study of pay disparities at the paper. Some highlights of their findings?

• Women as a group are paid less than men.
• Collectively, employees of color are paid less than white men, even when controlling for age and job description. White women are paid about the median for their age.
• Women of color in the newsroom receive $30,000 less than white men — a gap of 35 percent when comparing median salaries.
• The pay disparity between men and women is most pronounced among journalists under the age of 40.
• Men receive a higher percentage of merit pay raises than women, despite accounting for a smaller proportion of the newsroom.
• The Post tends to give merit raises based on performance evaluation scores, but those who score the highest are overwhelmingly white. The Post is fairly consistent across races/ethnicities and genders at awarding raises to those who do well on performance evaluations. But in 85 percent of instances in which a 4 or higher was awarded to a salaried newsroom employee, that employee was white.

According to the preeminent press ethics think-tank The Poynter Foundation, (second item on page) “the Post claims the study is “seriously flawed” and “does not accurately take into account factors such as position, experience and job performance.”

Do as we say, not as we do.

DUMB IS AS DUMB DOES: Remember how just last July, in Knight First Amendment Institute v Trump  the Second Circuit sided with Democrats who said (rightly, IMHO) that the President, using his Twitter account to make policy statements, could not block people? Someone forgot to tell Alexandria Occasional-Cortex, who blocked Dov Hivkin, a former Brooklyn Assemblyman who takes issue with her pro-Palestinian stance. He sued her pants off in federal court, and she threw in the towel this afternoon.

“I have reconsidered my decision to block Dov Hikind from my Twitter account,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement obtained by The Post on Monday. “Mr. Hikind has a First Amendment right to express his views and should not be blocked for them.”

I suspect she or her crack staff used Wikipedia for research again, an all-too-common problem with her.

*Wrong COA cited, fixed now. Thanks Prof. Volokh**

THIS JUST IN: U.S. Judge William Bertelsman today reversed course and ruled that attorneys for Nick Sandmann could start discovery for a portion of their lawsuit against the Washington Post over its coverage of the so-called Cov Cath incident. It turns out that on reconsideration, the Court found that at least three of the sued-upon statements were both defamatory and the complaint was plausible enough to warrant discovery. The ruling (hidden behind PACER paywall) which revives the case, states that:

“The Court also notes that the proposed First Amended Complaint makes specific allegations concerning the state of mind of [Nathan] Phillips, the principal source of these statements. It alleges in greater detail than the original complaint that Phillips deliberately lied concerning the events at issue, and that he had an unsavory reputation which, but for the defendant’s negligence or malice, would have alerted defendant to this fact.”

Seems to me the Post has three options: 1) continue to publicly slime the teen; 2) admit they were in a rush to publish and took the word of a less-than trustworthy source (shades of Rolling Stone’s “Jackie”!) or 3) fight in court till the last dog is hanged and try to grind them down to settlement by attrition and financial exhaustion.

More to come, I’m sure.

WHERE’S CASEY STENGEL WHEN YOU NEED HIM? The Washington Post changed their headline on the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi THREE times:

First, he was “terrorist-in-chief”. Then he was “an austere religious scholar”. (I doubt the Post will disclose the conversations that led to that). Now it reads “extremist leader.”

Another self-inflicted legacy media wound. Keep blaming “dumb people”, “privileged white men, “deplorables”, Trump…anyone but themselves.

Can’t anybody here play this game?
**Update: Glenn Greenwald weighs in:**

I LIKE A GOOD JOKE AS MUCH AS THE NEXT PERSON…but writing any cease-and-desist letter on an admittedly false and frivolous basis is sanctionable behavior. The Society of Professional Journalists’ Florida chapter fails to understand the difference between speech and behavior:

 A Florida chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has applied to trademark the term “fake news”[…] So yes, this is satire. It’s a joke. But it’s a joke with a point, and as any student of public discourse will tell you, a joke sometimes hits harder than the truth,” [Teen Vogue writer]  Bloch wrote. “And if anyone accuses us of trolling the president, well, nothing else seems to work with him, so what do we have to lose?” While the SPJ chapter waits on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Bloch writes, it intends to send letters to President Trump warning him he is infringing on a pending trademark.”

It’s also worth noting that filing a legal demand without a good-faith basis is more likely than not a violation of the Florida Bar Rules of Professional Conduct, which states in part that “A lawyer should use the law’s procedures only for legitimate purposes and not to harass or intimidate others.”

I’m waiting for some attention-seeking lawyer jerk to do this. Makes me wonder: Is Avenatti licensed in Florida?

I KNEW IT ALL ALONG: There are few articles I have ever read that I wanted so badly to be true. “Pork Fat is Officially One of the World’s Most Nutritious Foods.”

“Pork fat was given the nutritional score of 73. It bested other healthy food items like squash, salmon, and walnuts.”

Lest we forget Hitch’s brilliant expose of the bad rap endured by our planet’s most tasty animal.

FISTFIGHTS ERUPTING IN MSNBC AND BUZZFEED NEWSROOMS AS EDITORS TAKE DIFFERENT SIDES…

The man accused of shooting a transgender woman in Dallas last month was deported in 2010 and is committing a felony by being in the U.S., according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. His current whereabouts are unknown.

He seems nice.

THE SEINFELD EFFECT: How to make a story out of nothing. Axios and Politico breathlessly report that “Judge orders White House to preserve records of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders.” Well, my, oh my, that must mean something serious is happening! We’ve got him now!

Not so much. In the initial stages of ANY lawsuit (even the fender-bender down the street) once an action has commenced parties are REQUIRED to preserve records. Here, the “whistleblower” had asked for an injunction ordering preservation and the Trump team agreed before the judge even “ruled.” The judge’s minute order said:

“In accordance with Defendants’ representations to the Court which obviated consideration of the motion for temporary injunctive relief since there was no issue in dispute, defendants are hereby ORDERED to preserve…”

This is an example of the hype-fest circus going on. If there are any courtroom hearings, I fully expect Axios to report that “An armed court security officer was present in the courtroom.”

“You ruined my childhood.”

GIBSON’S BAKERY V. OBERLIN REVIEWED: Law geeks and people concerned with the “inmates running the asylums” theme at today’s college campuses might find this of interest.

It’s a “point/counterpoint” sort of piece where I was squared up against a University of Michigan Law Professor (a genuinely nice guy, but drowning in the Kool-Aid). He insisted — against the facts — that Oberlin was being “punished for the students’ speech.” That’s the narrative of the MSM, anyway.

I took issue with that:

The narrative that this case “holds a college responsible for the improper speech of its students” is not correct. While the plaintiffs’ painted such a picture in their Complaint, when you read the depos and trial transcript, you’ll see that it is undeniable that school officials did in fact print and distribute the defamatory flyer. The judge called this “indisputable” in the summary judgment opinion. At least 3 credible witnesses testified in depositions and at trial that Dean Raimondo and another school employee carried stacks of the flyers to the protest and handed them out, which satisfied the “publication” element in Ohio libel law. At trial, Raimondo said one of the witnesses (a local journalist) “was lying.” Additionally, the jury heard Leslie Lubinski, an administrative assistant in the Dean’s office, admit that school staff made additional photocopies of the flyer for the protesters. (Trial Tr. 5/30/19, pg. 62).

The refusal of media lawyers to admit reality (remember Gawker’s lawyers insisting that sex tapes of Hulk Hogan “served the public interest”?) and just baldly pretending the facts are not there is just as responsible for the public’s ever-dwindling lack of trust in what is supposed to be one of our most trusted institutions.

Who are you going to believe? Me, or your lying eyes?

DIVERSITY? They keep using that word. I don’t think it means what Poynter thinks it means…

Jessi Combs Killed in Land-Speed Record Crash: Sad news in the motorsport world today. Supercool Jessi Combs, who held the title of “fastest woman on four wheels” after setting a record of 398 mph in her jet-powered North American Eagle Supersonic Speed Challenger in 2013 was killed yesterday in a testing crash.

TEACH PROGRESSIVES NOT TO BE SO RAPEY: Or something. On the one hand, this guy might be the victim of a #MeToo railroading, on the other hand, he might think, like many men, that his liberal credentials get him a free pass to grope. (As opposed to mere fame and money, which seems to cross party lines).

I don’t know…read it and make up your own mind.

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.)