IF NOT FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS, THEY’D  HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL: Mainstream media, in the march to demonize Tucker Carlson, howled mercilessly when in 2020 Fox filed court papers in a libel suit saying he was not presenting “factual news, but commentary.”

“You Literally Can’t Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox’s Lawyers” NPR crowed. Business Insider took the same howling path, headlining their story “Fox News won a court case by ‘persuasively’ arguing that no ‘reasonable viewer’ takes Tucker Carlson seriously.” (Note: that publication’s founder is Henry Blodgett. You know, the guy who pleaded guilty to securities fraud. A paragon of virtue and truth, for sure).

No, it’s never a good look for a media defendant to say “I was joking” ot “it’s opinion not fact,” but lawyers are obligated to provide the most zealous defense they can to their clients.

So how is it that those same people forget that a year before the Tucker case, Rachel Maddow, who said on-air that “One America Network literally is paid Russian propaganda.”

I don’t know about you, but the word “literally” means, well, literally. 

OAN sued and you’ll never guess what her lawyers argued…wait for it… “No reasonable viewer could conclude that Maddow implied an assertion of objective fact.”

Today we have a replay of the same double standard. CNN’s Jake (rhymes with “fake”) Tapper is, along with CNN, being sued for defamation in Florida to the tune of $1 billion after he and CNN aired a wholly shoddy piece, accusing Zachary Young and his security consulting company, Nemex Enterprises Inc., of illegally profiting when helping people flee Afghanistan during the Biden-Harris administration’s f’ed up military withdrawal from the country in 2021.

The court said “CNN argues it did not intend to harm; its language was either opinion or ambiguous.”

That doesn’t sound much like “The Most Trusted Name in News.”

The facts of that case are stunning, some of which are contained here. CNN’s internal communications are an atomic bomb of Actual Malice.

If I were Young, I wouldn’t settle either.

My question is simple: Don’t any of these people own a mirror?

NOT SHOCKING, BUT DISAPPOINTING (Warning: longish post):

As most IP readers know, although I am not an absolutionist on the First Amendment (nor any of the Bill of Rights) I’ve dedicated my professional life to defending not just the right, but the need for what Justice Brennan called “the breathing space” upon which democracy depends to give all political speech, even that which we may find unfounded or even offensive.

I bring this up because I cannot help but remind people to hold the news media as accountable as they do politicians and policy makers. This leads me to emphasize how critical it is to support — or at least read — news platforms that are dedicated to providing accurate and fair stories, and in a nod to the value of hearing heterodoxy that the First Amendment (and indeed real democracy) needs, cover stories and viewpoints of all stripes.

Free marketplace of ideas, and all that.

Case in point: JustTheNews, a wholly independent and thriving news website has the courage (and business smarts) to present stories that the stenographers in the mainstream media routinely ignore.

They reported today on the fact that there are serious and provable connections between a Soros-funded racial justice organization that supports liberal prosecutors and coordination with the Biden-Harris administration to apply lawfare against former President Trump.

The key issue as a citizen is to get all the facts and make up your own mind. When the media incessantly refuses to dig into questions, [insert motivation here] the public is, in a word, shortchanged.

In my career as a newsroom lawyer, I recall speaking with a reporter in the Bloomberg newsroom about the failure to cover the “Fast and Furious” scandal of the Obama-era.

“What’s that?” the reporter asked me. “I’ve never heard of that.”

Res Ipsa loquitur. 

We’ve seen a relevant observation here many times:

So, gentle reader, I implore you to regularly read the “out of the mainstream” news platforms available — and encourage others to do the same.

The Daily Caller, The Daily Signal, PJ Media, among others are not slanted in conservative bias. They simply provide clean, clear and factual news of interest to libertarians and conservatives who are not getting all the facts.

To be sure, the faux-liberals running search engines and other wanna-be censors (those who bellow “We must suppress disinformation to save democracy”)  have done their damndest to demonetize and suppress these voices. Frankly, I find the arrogance and dehumanization of such paternalistic policies to be what I call “liberal fascism.”

You don’t have to believe everything you read,  but you are better served by reading everything.

***Disclosure: I have provided some of the above listed news platforms with editorial and legal advice, and this posting has not been suggested, sponsored or approved by any of them.***

DOES THIS MAKE SENSE? I would never pretend to be an expert on firearms, especially rifles of most kinds. (When I was a combat correspondent I was given an M-16A but never fired it).

When I read this headline from CNN it left me scratching my head:

“Georgia school shooter hid an AR-15-style rifle in his backpack and left class with his bag the morning of the deadly rampage.”

Wut? An AR-15 in a backpack? So I did a little research.

• According to Gunbuilders.com, the average AR 15 with a 16″-long barrel measures approximately 32.75″ from the muzzle devices to the buttstock.
• The New York Times did a review of popular school backpacks, and most of them average about 18 x 12 x 6.5 inches.

So would someone with more experience please explain to us how this student managed to fit a 32″ weapon into a backpack that couldn’t possibly be longer than 20 inches or so?

CNN says that “Colt Gray brought the gun into the school on his own. The assault-style rifle could not be broken down, but Gray hid it in his backpack.”

I know, I know…

IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION WITH THESE PEOPLE: California Attorney General Rob Bonta joined a bipartisan coalition of 42 attorneys general in sending a letter to Congress supporting the United States Surgeon General’s recent call for Congress to require a surgeon general’s warning on social media platforms.

AYFKM?

TechCrunch asks the right question:

“Can we add a warning label to the First Amendment that says “Actually reading this can cause extreme embarrassment to grandstanding politicians”?

Step back and ask yourself, where do these people get off bleating about “saving our democracy” while at the same time undercutting the role a free press plays in democracy?

Justice Hugo Black got it right when he said:

“Whatever differences may exist about interpretations of the First Amendment, there is practically universal agreement that a major purpose of that Amendment was to protect the free discussion of governmental affairs. This of course includes discussions of candidates, structures and forms of government, the manner in which government is operated or should be operated, and all such matters relating to political processes.”

If you are interested, you can go right to the source. John Stuart Mill wrote in 1859 that:

“If we censor expressions that are false, then our beliefs will be ‘held as a dead dogma[s], not living truth[s]’, i.e. we will not have a clear and lively understanding of the truth.”

“BIAS? WHAT BIAS?” Part Deux: The Columbia Journalism Review, staffed by People Who Are Smarter Than You and Know Things really tips their hand in this execrable article titled “Is the press ‘sanewashing’ Trump?”

One line struck me as the dead giveaway:

“The biggest problem, I concluded, was not journalists’ failure to resolve an unresolvable debate about exposure, but their failure to accurately describe Trump’s rhetoric…”

You see, the starting point is that Trump is crazy. If that’s your baseline, then there’s no pretending you are seeking truth and reporting it.

(IMHO, Trump, for the most part, is crazy like a fox. He knows exactly what he’s doing, and he is a GrandMaster Troll.)

Meanwhile, Kamala’s word-salad generation continues unabated, and consistently softened or even ignored by a compliant group of cheerleaders.

“The New York Times is attempting to spin Vice President Kamala Harris’ history of unflattering viral moments as “celebratory artifacts” following her swift emergence as the presumptive Democratic nominee,” Fox reported.

As my hero Jules Winnfield would say…

RANT OF THE WEEK: I belong to a listserv of NYU Law alums, some of whom are now law professors at respected schools. I’m disappointed (but not shocked) at the well-established narrative taken so gullibly as a matter of faith that “media bias” is at best “alleged.”

I mean, OK, so-called media critics like Margaret Sullivan and Brian “Potato Boy” Stelter have a vested self-interest in pretending there’s no such thing. Sullivan, a columnist at The Grauniad and new dean of the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism even went as far as to pen an op/ed decrying what the basement dwellers at Wikipedia call “bothsides-ism,” whereby the idea of being fair (or accurate) is no longer applicable. (Nausea alert).

I thought I’d share a note with you that I sent to that group, and yes, I done brung receipts:

***

LOL “What media bias?”
Dude, I know how the sausage is made.

It’s funny how the alleged “mistakes” always run in the same direction, These are only a few of the most recent:

IT’S ALWAYS “JUST A MISTAKE”: Odd, isn’t it, that these “mistakes” always seem to run in one direction, huh?
Just The News reporting that:

“Amazon on Tuesday admitted that it made an error with its voice service “Alexa” when it provided fundamentally different answers on why a user should vote for Vice President Kamala Harris versus former President Donald Trump.”

Can you trust Bezos and Amazon Post?
AYFKM?

THIS JUST IN: The Second Circuit has reinstated Sarah Palin’s libel case against The New York Times.

Bloomberg is reporting that:

“The piece, published after a gunman opened fire on members of Congress on a baseball field, described a “‘link’” between the shooting and “‘political incitement.’” It referenced a digital graphic published in 2010 by Palin’s political action committee. The graphic was a map showing crosshairs over congressional districts represented by Democrats—including the district of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in 2011.”

Here’s the decision, which I haven’t parsed out yet.

I’ve been before the trial judge in the past, and although I have deep respect for him, he played fast and loose with several procedural matters, and contrary to law, held an “evidentiary hearing” at the motion to dismiss stage. A real no-no.

The bottom line in the case is that they ran an Op/Ed clearly blaming Palin for the kook shooting Rep. Gabby Giffords, but failed to research (and learn) that the Times had long before published an article vindicating her for any connection.

Shorthand: “Don’t you idiots read your own newspaper?”

NO SH*T, SHERLOCK: Meta Platforms CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg admitted on Monday that the Biden administration “repeatedly pressured” his team for months in 2021 to censor content related to COVID-19, including content from ordinary Americans.

Just the News is reporting that:

“I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it,” Zuckerberg continued. “I also think we made some choices that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn’t make today.”

The Facebook founder also admitted that Facebook demoted the Hunter Biden laptop story, because it was warned by the FBI about a potential Russian disinformation operation regarding Burisma and the Biden family leading into the 2020 election.

“It’s been since made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we should not have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg said.

Too little, too late, Zuck.

We all knew District Court Judge Terry Doughty was correct.

FAUCI LIED! SAY IT AIN’T SO! Just The News is reporting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit told the NIH that they don’t have the right to use keyword filter to block or delete social media comments that contain the words  “animal,” “testing,” or “cruel.”

Animal experimentation is at the heart of First Amendment and Freedom of Information Act litigation against the feds, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recently defeating NIH in court and Judicial Watch suing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for stonewalling its requests for communications about an alleged COVID-19 coverup.

“NIH hid a comment by one of the animal-rights activists who sued as an individual, Madeline Krasno, on its Instagram post depicting a COVID-infected cell. She wrote: “It’s time we had an open conversation about all the animal testing you fund. What a waste of life and resources.”

* * * * * * * *

“The D.C. Circuit struck down NIH’s prohibition of “off-topic posts” by visitors to its Facebook and Instagram pages as implemented through “custom keyword filters” – which hid comments using NIH-chosen words, not platform-offered defaults, from the public – and instructed the lower court that upheld the speech restrictions to instead enter summary judgment for PETA.”

I know, it’s hard for me to cheer in anyway for the whack-a-doodles at PETA, but free speech and due process have to apply to whack-a-doodles, perhaps even more than anyone else. Politics and strange bedfellows, indeed.

The Good Professor and others have posted about this here, here and here.

THIS JUST IN: JustTheNews reporting:

“A commander in Hezbollah’s al-Hajj Radwan Force was killed on Saturday in Lebanon, the group confirmed. The Israeli Defense Forces released footage that showed the drone strike that reportedly killed Hussein Ibrahim Kassab, according to the New York Post.”

AOC, Ilhan Omar and Kamala Harris could not be reached for comment.

Gosh, don’t you just hate when that happens?

FILE UNDER YMBFKM: A Paris 2024 official has had his accreditation revoked for appearing to make a hand gesture during the women’s street skate finals last weekend which can be interpreted as “an expression of white supremacy.”

The Telegraph reports that:

“The man in question, who was wearing Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) kit but was later identified as a subcontractor, was standing behind athletes and coaches at La Concorde Urban Park on Sunday when he was twice spotted making the ‘OK’ hand sign, low and to his side, in the background of event footage.”

Hey, it’s not like he allowed a male gorilla to punch some women’s lights out.
Priorities, man.

**Updated with better link**

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.