CRUSHINGLY SAD: A second Parkland School shooting student has committed suicide. I can’t help but wonder why the press hasn’t interviewed David Hogg. He leveraged this tragedy into popular acclaim, a book deal and a Harvard admission, but I have to ask why he wasn’t as focused on helping his classmates as he seems to be on his political ambitions.
Oh, of course, it’s Donald Trump’s fault.

LOOKING BEHIND THE CURTAIN: The usually left-leaning Columbia Journalism Review takes a thoughtful and fair look and what Rep. Nunes’ Twitter lawsuit really means, and makes a fair case that the data giants should be treated just like any publisher and not behemoths immune from responsibility:

“The definition of a publisher should more closely mirror the expectations that journalists face in their work each day. Organizations that outline expectations and ethics for what is published and edit or delete certain accounts and posts, should be considered publishers. In other words, social media outlets should be expected to take some responsibility for what they publish – just as news organizations are.”

THIS. A HUNDRED TIMES THIS: Sharyl Attkisson says “I dream of a world without smears.”

“Bork, Thomas, Hill, Clinton, Clinton, Beck, Imus, Palin, Biden, Obama, O’Reilly, Sanders, Trump, Hannity, Kavanaugh, Northam, Klobuchar, Carlson … Smears have become a distasteful staple in our media diet. The nonprofits, LLCs, super PACs, PR firms, crisis management companies and global law firms that organize and promote smears have formed a multibillion-dollar industry. They’re profiting beyond imagination. Are we?”

As the Professor says, “Read the whole thing.”™

IF THE APP TRACKED GAYS FOR THE PURPOSE OF HUNTING THEM DOWN, WOULD TIM COOK WOULD STILL BE DRAGGING HIS FEET?: “Saudi app criticized for feature to control women’s travel“

THE BABYLON BEE MUST BE BUTTER: because they’re on a roll!

“Ilhan Omar Withdraws Support From Bill To Save The Earth After Learning That’s Where Israel Is.”

BREAKING NEWS: MPAA announces new category of “Best Hate Crime Hoax.”

IS THIS ONE OF THOSE INCONVENIENT TRUTHS I KEEP HEARING ABOUT? So an IRS employee was charged in leaking private info to Michael Avenatti. But check out the demotion: now Avenatti is described by CNN as “just” an attorney. They seem to be forgetting something:

“Avenatti, a ubiquitous presence on cable television for the last two months, has appeared on CNN 65 times and MSNBC 43 times between March 7 and May 10.”

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

WHEN INMATES RUN THE ASYLUM: Isn’t the most important question: How did this dimbulb get hired in the first place?

“Yesterday, HuffPost fired a recently hired, Los Angeles-based social media editor after her managers were alerted to the fact that an Instagram account belonging to the new hire was spewing racist rants online. Using a now-deleted Instagram account, Ashley Rose, who was hired earlier this month, targeted a number of people with the sort of racist invective you’d expect to find in the darkest 4chan threads.”

You can read  the specific posts here. This garbage isn’t the product of faux-outrage or identity politics: It’s out and out nasty. So how did they hire her, as a social media editor, no less? Unthinking application of white feminism, perhaps?

Forget it, Jake, it’s Huffingtontown. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHUCK YEAGER: 96 years old today and a genuine American badass.

TRY THE VEAL, IT’S HERE ALL WEEK: We can now redefine what it means to get an “Amazon package.” 

Just a few days ago The Official Newspaper of The Resistance was tossing out bait for every gullible reporter that the photos were obtained by “a government source”, possibly the Saudis.

I don’t think the Saudis would let Bezos’ girlfriend (or any woman, for that matter) dress in public like this.

SORT OF. NBC “professional journalist” Marianna Sotomayor makes an awkward attempt to “clarify” her insanely off-base tweet that proves Ben Rhodes was right. They just don’t know anything.

LAYERS OF FACT CHECKERS, PART DEUX: “Professional political reporter” Marianna Sotomayor swings and misses:

Not only did 2016 see Hillary and Jill Stein and Carly Fiorina in the race, but in 1972 both Patsy Mink and Shirley Chisholm were declared candidates for the Democratic nomination. Ben Rhodes was right about the political reporters in DC: they don’t know anything. It’s a shame researching something like this is soooo difficult.

SUPER BONUS: Although her error has been pointed out dozens of times on her twitter feed, NBC *still* has refused to correct.

ANOTHER “PRESENTED WITHOUT COMMENT”: Except to add that nobody outheadlines the New York Post.

WITHOUT FURTHER COMMENT:

DON’T EMBARRASS CRIMINALS: New York State’s citizens have for many years enjoyed  the strongest Freedom of Information laws in the nation. Now Gov. Andrew Cuomo is proposing wait for it … wait for it … that those laws be amended to prevent the public from receiving mugshots and general arrest information. One editorialist summed it up nicely, saying that Cuomo is more concerned with embarrassing the criminals than providing the public with information to which it has a right to know:

This is understandable, given the impressive montage that might be made from mugshots of one-time Cuomo aides, advisors, and associates now on their way to prison, but it nevertheless raises serious civil-liberties issues around press freedom and public information—and it seems like yet another gubernatorial pander toward the Democratic Party’s crime-coddling Left.

Once upon a time the Left could be counted on to oppose opacity in government, especially when the disinfectant of sunshine might expose police brutality, corruption in the justice system, or the denial of Due Process. Of course, nothing in Cuomo’s proposal would prevent a perp-walk circus, so the government is still free to allow (or even tip off) favored media to broadcast arrests for live television.

CATERPILLARS GOOD, BABIES BAD: A few days old, but the most telling thing I’ve seen in years. No matter where you stand on late-term abortion (or if you prefer, infanticide) the pretzel logic of the unthinking is stunning. Kathy Tran, the Democratic Virginia delegate who sponsored a bill in the Virginia House of Delegates that would allow the termination of a pregnancy up to 40 weeks old, is also the chief patron of a bill that would protect the lives of “fall cankerworms” during certain months.

Tran earlier pulled a Pelosi, admitting that she actually hadn’t read the abortion bill in full. Had it mentioned caterpillars, perhaps she’d have paid closer attention. Perhaps another explanation is that she only received $2,792 from Planned Parenthood in donations, but $7,236 from the Sierra Club.

I guess she charges more to actually read a bill she sponsors.

17 YEARS AGO: Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl was beheaded by Islamic terrorists for the twin crimes of being Jewish and being an American. The next time a journalist whines about being the target of a mean tweet (#LearnToCode) tell them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. If you think Jim Acosta is some kind of “brave hero” then there’s just no hope for you.

I’LL TAKE “TWEETS THAT DID NOT AGE WELL” FOR $500, ALEX:

UPDATE (FROM GLENN):

FIFTH CIRCUIT HOLDS “PLANNED PARENTHOOD” STING VIDEOS NOT DECEPTIVELY EDITED: Tyler O’Neil reports that the Court of Appeals has lifted the restraining order on videos showing PP agents negotiating the prices of fetal body parts. In 2015, the Center for Medical Progress (“CMP”), a pro-life organization, released more than eight hours of undercover videos disclosing conversations held at the PPGC headquarters. In the CMP videos, two individuals posed as representatives from a fetal tissue procurement company. They claimed to be interested in purchasing liver, thymus, and neural tissue from fetuses aborted during the second trimester of pregnancy.

With the help of PR/fixer firm Fusion GPS, the mainstream media bought the “deceptive edit canard” hook line and sinker. This is the same media who loudly and unsuccessfully defended other hidden videos, such as Gawker’s infamous “Hulk Hogan” sextape and Mitt Romney’s “47%” remark.

While this Texas case is about the State of Texas seeking to disqualify PP from Medicaid eligibility, the fact that the court rejected the “doctored video” claims, saying:

The district court stated, inaccurately, that the CMP video had not been authenticated and suggested that it may have been edited […] In fact, the record reflects that OIG had submitted a report from a forensic firm concluding that the video was authentic and not deceptively edited. And the plaintiffs did not identify any particular omission or addition in the video footage.

More to come on this, I’m sure.

ONLINE PLATFORMS FACT-CHECKING FAIL …AGAIN: Facebook has on at least three separate occasions tried and utterly failed to “manage” or “verify” news sites posted to their platform. They tried algorithms and that was a disaster.  Then they hired a crew of Social Justice Warriors — not one with any journalism experience — and that was a train wreck. Then, with the advice of an expensive PR firm they hired failed network “journalist” Campbell Brown to manage “news partnerships.”

Now Breitbart is reporting yet another swing and a miss, this time it’s Google:

NewsGuard, which is the establishment media’s latest effort to blacklist alternative media sites, is giving its sign of approval to proven hoaxes, even to stories that have been retracted […] here is NewsGuard’s seal of approval (on the Google search page) for Rolling Stone’s 2014 hoax about a gang rape at the University of Virginia (UVA).

Needless to say, that story was not only proven false, but the reporter was found to have acted with actual malice resulting in a multi-million dollar judgment against the magazine. Worse yet, they are still giving a green check to the discredited BuzzFeed story about what Michael Cohen told Mueller.

They’ll never learn, will they?

MY MOST POLITICALLY INCORRECT QUESTION: I’m aware that the US has agreed to ban the use of landmines that do not discriminate between civilians and combatants, but putting that aside, why wouldn’t 10,000 to 20,000 motion-activated Claymores along the Southern border be an effective deterrent? If POTUS declared illegal wall-jumpers as enemy combatants (MS-13 and the like) wouldn’t that work?
Discuss.

IF IT WASN’T FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS, THEY’D HAVE NONE AT ALL: You know the stereotypical British leftie: All refugees must be accepted because borders are racist. And we have some sort of historical Original Sin to pay for, so somehow it’s our moral responsibility to ship cubic money elsewhere. Not to mention that taking pride in your nation’s history is racist, of course.

But when UK-based consumer electronics manufacturer Dyson announced it was moving its HQ to Singapore, the UK left has gone into melt-down mode, decrying the loss of prestige that Britain will face:

“Before Dyson, so the story went, we were terrific at inventing bright ideas but rubbish at turning those ideas into profitable businesses. Brits would have the lightbulb moment, but when it came to manufacturing the actual bulbs, that work – and profit – would be shipped far away. Then along came James Dyson, hailed by successive governments, who proved it didn’t have to be that way. A British idea produced a British business.”

Waitaminnit, what? Suddenly “business” and “profitability” and “national pride” are good things?
Who knew?

REPOSTED FROM EARLIER: My I24 interview today about the Covington Clusterf*ck.™

This story has got it all. Rush to judgment, confirmation bias, cowardly celebrity journalists, Social Justice Keyboard Warriors, the whole nine yards.

THEY SAY IT COMES IN THREES: So in the last 72 hours, we saw BuzzFeed screw the pooch with legacy media following them right off the cliff (“if true”), then we saw SJW social media drive “legitimate” media’s news agenda — absent any fact-checking at all — with a selectively edited video, and once the facts came out journalists are now furiously deleting their tweets. So what’s next? Any guesses?

**Update: my I24 interview this afternoon on the subject.**

IT GETS WORSE: Not only did the Keyboard Warriors use misleading video edits to smear the Covington teens, and not only did media and our celebrity superiors jump on the Outrage Train without any fact-checking, but now the “righteous” have doxxed the wrong kid: who is now getting death threats.

Nice going, all you virtuous jerks.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): A friend on Facebook writes: “Note the common thread between the Kavanaugh and Covington hysterics: there is a significant sense in which ‘progressivism’ as a movement is driven by a cohort bent upon re-litigating its own middle- and high-school years. Perceived losses of social status then are recouped by revenge-by-proxy now. It’s like tens of millions of Jeanie Buellers, but without her own personal growth.”