WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED? “One of NJ’s richest towns is once again denied its request to delay building affordable housing.”
Now, look at Millburn’s voting record: (Click to embiggen)
Do as we say, not as we do.
Note: It was 8,559 for Biden, 2,953 for Trump
TIMMY GOT ISSUES. Here, have a laff, courtesy of The Daily Caller: “Timmy Got Issues.”
SETTING THE BAR HIGHER FOR SELF-DELUSION: What is it about some of these “media” and “political” reporters who are 100% clueless when it comes to the disdain and lack of respect from the general public?
Live in a bubble, die in a bubble.
I thought Brian “Potato Boy” Stelter was always at the top of that class, but the often-wrong, but never-in-doubt Taylor Lorenz, hoping to save face by “going independent” has upped the ante.
She says:
“I will be reporting on the people and movements that are steering tech and internet culture, from weird online phenomena, to under-the-radar trends, to content creators, platform developments, policy initiatives, and the powerful forces that shape our online world. It’s about who has power on the internet and how that power is being wielded.”
Like most leftist dopes, her real goal is to preserve, if not expand her own “power” to “shape the online world.”
Here’s a fun trick: Go to her announcement linked above. Search for the words “accuracy,” “fairness” or “clarity.
Get back to me on that, huh?
BAH! WHO NEEDS ELECTRICITY, ANYWAY: An interesting case is coming up before SCOTUS, in which electrical grid operators have filed an unprecedented amici brief. The bottom line, as Just the News reports is:
“Organizations that manage, coordinate and monitor electricity service for 156 million Americans across 30 states are warning that the Biden-Harris administration’s power plant rule will be catastrophic for the nation’s grid.”
At the heart of the case is that the grid operators’ research says:
“[T]hey found a number of problems. The EPA grossly overestimated the ability of intermittent wind and solar to deliver reliable electricity during peak demand periods, according to the analysis, and it also found the agency didn’t perform any reliability analysis on the rules. The result would be blackouts lasting days in some cases.”
The question (for me, anyway) is will the same Court that flipped Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council remain steadfast in maintaining that “agency interpretations of statutes — like agency interpretations of the Constitution — are not entitled to deference.”
I’ve had my own run-ins in litigation against federal agencies (mostly in FOIA matters) and found maddening the argument that an agency could get away with simply saying “because we said so.”
If I had better Google-fu I’d insert that clip from one of the Sunday talk shows where during the Bureau of Land Management and Cliven Bundy mess, Harry Reid, in a remarkable example of body language, said essentially when the federal government says do something, you do it. Key was the image: while he said the words “federal government” he emphatically pointed at himself. Most telling.
I suspect that the enormous elasticity applied to “Chevron deference” might have been partially fueled by district court judges who, feeling overburdened, were only too happy to clear one more matter off of their dockets.
Worth keeping an eye on.
**If anyone can find that clip, please feel free to add it in comments and I’ll update this post.**
TRUTHBOMB: No matter who you are supporting in this election, one thing is for sure: Nobody knows nothing, and if they say they do, they are either lying, shilling, or just plain crazy.
NO SURPRISE, BUT: By now everyone is aware that NYC Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted of various federal fraud charges, and the Court just unsealed the indictment.
It’s full of the typical grift we’ve seen elsewhere in Big Blue Cities. (Kwame Kilpatrick, anybody?)
What I find annoying is that the MSM is playing “Guess That Party” again. For example, NBC’s report never uses the word “Democrat” once.
I can imagine the automatic excuse is “oh, everyone already knows he’s a Democrat.”
That’s not journalism.
BTW: A picture is worth 1,000 words:
BUT THE NARRATIVE! A lie goes around the world before the truth is even out of bed.
Every dope and his brother (or sister) regurgitating the DNC’s talking points will insist — as if it were gospel — that Trump “encouraged” and “incited” the January 6th riots.
Kamala Harris said in the debate that:
“On that day, the president of the United States incited a violent mob to attack our nation’s capital, to desecrate our nation’s Capitol. On that day, 140 law enforcement officers were injured, and some died.”
This is pure ipse dixit. (A legal term for bullsh*t.)
Leave aside the fact that the implication that the riot “caused” any law enforcement deaths is wholly unfounded; leave aside the fact that Harris never had the decency or courage to acknowledge Ashley Babbitt’s death; leave aside that as for an “insurrection” those people couldn’t organize a f@rt after a Hungarian dinner. The media has continued to propel this “conventional wisdom.”
But not so fast. JustTheNews has released sworn testimony that Trump had tried in vain to have the military or National Guard protect the capitol from protestors well before Jan. 6.
And wouldn’t you know:
“[General] Milley confirmed a second time during the interviews that Trump was clear in his wishes. “It was just what I just described, which was, ‘Hey, I don’t care if you use Guard, or soldiers, active-duty soldiers, do whatever you have to do. Just make sure it’s safe,” the general told the IG.”
The Deep State smiles:
“[Rep.] Loudermilk during his subcommittee’s ongoing probe of Jan. 6 security failures show civilian leadership at the Pentagon admittedly openly they would not comply with Trump’s wishes, with some saying they did not like the optics of armed soldiers or Guardsmen roaming the Capitol with weapons during what was supposed to be a peaceful transition of power. (Emphasis added)”
Optics. Freakin’ optics. Somehow I suspect no great strategist — from Sun Tsu to Von Clausewitz to Guderian to Georgy Zhukov to G.S. Patton — ever placed “optics” above efficacy.
“There was absolutely — there is absolutely no way I was putting U.S. military forces at the Capitol, period,” [Defense Secretary Christopher Miller] told the inspector general during his March 2021 interview.
But in my dotage I have come to realize that that stupid people will believe only what they want to believe:
I know, I’m in a really cynical mood right now, but I’m beginning to believe that Justice Holmes was correct in his conclusion in Buck v. Bell.
(Read the last line).
“AMERICAN POLICY”? WUT? OK, AOC has never been accused of being the brightest candle in the church. Fine. But her comments on the pager-bombing of Hezbollah terrorists defies any comprehension of foreign policy.
Just the News reported that Squad Member Sandy says that:
“Yesterday my House office was tagged with blood-splattered signs accusing me of supporting terrorism after I questioned the pager operation, which clearly runs counter to US policy,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a post on X. “They must live under a rock to not know I don’t take well to bullies.”
No, if it’s true, I can’t support vandalism, although given her track record of making sh*t up, I’m not convinced that it was “blood.” I’ve seen no Capitol Police reports confirming that.
But the real point is where in the world does she get off tying “US policy” to the pager attacks? Even her pals at Hamas and Hezbollah haven’t suggested any evidence that the US was involved.
More importantly, and the question IP readers should ask is why she and Omar Ilhan, Rashida Tlaib, Hakeem Jeffries, and other squad members are consistently silent on how female genital mutilation, capital punishment for being gay, and using civilians as human shields is off the table as to U.S. policy. Those are not part of U.S. policy, but…crickets.
Could it be that the disease of DEI automatically gives such barbaric human rights abuses a free pass? “You don’t understand,” say the Democratic apologists. “We have no right to judge their cultural differences.”
And god forbid Kamala Harris make a meaning statement on this issue.
IN THE MAIL: How the Jester Became King: Dave Portnoy and the Real Story of Barstool Sports is now available on Amazon for pre-ordering.
In full disclosure, I did the pre-publication legal review for the book. It’s an unauthorized biography, but very accurate with well-sourced facts and quotes including citations.
To be honest, I’m somewhat ambivalent about Portnoy. He proudly shows his role in the development of “bro’ culture” which isn’t totally my cup of tea. I’ve never been much of a “frat boy.” (Though I have to say his “one-bite pizza test” is awesome).
But at the same time, this highly-detailed story shows his vigilance against wokeness, and also the time-tested truth that if you have an idea, bust your @ss to make it work, and maintain a sense of humor, you’ll do well.
And indeed, he has done well.
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.
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.”
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:
- AP Deletes JD Vance Tweet After Fact Checkers Call Them Out
- Pathetic Toadies at WaPo Erase Negative Headline About Kamala Harris’ Horrific Treatment of Office Staff
- Amazon’s Alexa favored Harris over Trump after AI upgrade
And let’s not forget these super-classics:
- The New York Times Belatedly Admits the Emails on Hunter Biden’s Abandoned Laptop Are Real and Newsworthy
- New York Times admitted it made mistakes and moved too fast in Palin editorial
- CBS News admits Bush documents can’t be verified
Please, don’t treat people like they are idiots. That’s Kamala’s job. Put another way: “don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.” I’ve spent more time in a newsroom in one month than you have in your entire life.And FFS, don’t you dare talk to me about how the First Amendment should be suspended in the name of “fighting disinformation” or “saving democracy.”Cheers,cjg
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.
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