KEEPING THOSE STEREOTYPES ALIVE: NYP reports that New Yawk Governor Andrew Cuomo does his best to make “The Sopranos” look like a documentary instead of fiction:

“Cuomo accepted $15,000 from Saratoga Casino and Raceway, $7,000 from Sea Crest Construction Corp., and two donations of $5,000 each this month from the Northeastern Line Constructors Chapter of the National Electrical Contractors Association.”

Hmmm…racetracks, casinos, construction companies and electrical contractors.

WHERE DID THE INTERNET GO WRONG? My Daily Caller column (reposted from late last night).

“DADDY, WHAT’S A MODEM?” A look at where the Internet went wrong, in my latest Daily Caller column.

HEY GUYS! SHE’S AVAILABLE NOW! (Let the jokes begin…)

BEST SPOOF ACCOUNT OF THE MONTH: Beverly Hills Antifa.

SHOCKER! Google “Theresa Lund” or read Ed Driscoll’s post here.

Now tell me if this surprises you.

STAY CLASSY: Last week Planned Parenthood NY launched a new You Tube ad with the theme “Freedom to F*ck.” I can’t imagine why they voluntarily took it down.

If you are dying to see it, a You Tuber captured a copy of it.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS, KIDS:  I agreed with Chomsky today probably for the first time in my life. When asked about Treasonpalooza he said:

[F]irst of all, it is a joke. Half the world is cracking up in laughter. The United States doesn’t just interfere in elections. It overthrows governments it doesn’t like, institutes military dictatorships. Simply in the case of Russia alone—it’s the least of it—the U.S. government, under Clinton, intervened quite blatantly and openly, then tried to conceal it, to get their man Yeltsin in, in all sorts of ways. So, this, as I say, it’s considered—it’s turning the United States, again, into a laughingstock in the world.

Salvador Allende, Juan Batista, Patrice Lumumba and Ngo Diem could not be reached for comment.

MIXED UP PRIORITIES: The BBC got dinged to the tune of $273,902.72 (plus additional damages to be calculated later plus attorney’s fees)  this morning for invading the privacy of entertainer Sir Cliff Richard. The OBE’s apartment was raided by police in a sexcapade allegation (that never came to pass) and the court found that BBC had “sensationalized” and violated Richards’ privacy by entering his flat and incessantly broadcasting the footage. The BBC argued that:

“This judgment creates new case law and represents a dramatic shift against press freedom and the long-standing ability of journalists to report on police investigations, which in some cases has led to further complainants coming forward.”

Where was their commitment to reporting in letting 16 years of police investigations go unreported in Rotherham, where Muslim gangs  sexually exploited and abused as many as 1,500 girls? Oh, that would be racist and Islamophobic, I get it. (The UK press refers to the Pakistani perpetrators as “Asian.” How veddy British.)

**Corrected math on damages. Now you know why I’m a lawyer and not an accountant**

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES? NEVER HEARD OF ‘EM: The Lawfareblog raises “Uncomfortable Questions in the Wake of Russia Indictment 2.0 and Trump’s Press Conference With Putin.” It’s a long read, but asks questions those howling “treason!” ought to consider. A few good questions (among others):

“How will the United States respond when Russia and China and Iran start naming and indicting U.S. officials?…There is a lot of anger against WikiLeaks and a lot of support for indicting Julian Assange and others related to WikiLeaks for their part in publishing the information stolen by the Russians.  If Mueller goes in this direction, he will need to be very careful not to indict Assange for something U.S. journalists do every day.

Remember, “The 1980’s called and they want their foreign diplomacy back.”

RECONNAISSANCE PLANE? Perhaps they have no word in Arabic. “Palestinian sources said that an Israeli reconnaissance plane bombed the building…”
Boo freaking hoo.

“WHAT DO TRUMP AND WATERS HAVE IN COMMON WITH OZZY OSBOURNE AND TUPAC SHAKUR?” My weekly column is up at The Daily Caller.

SLIGHT UPDATE ON THE YALEBABIES: So I’ve been locked away in depositions for the past two days, and catching up, I read The Professor’s post about the frazzled letter of protest against the nomination of ̶H̶i̶t̶l̶e̶r̶  Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Not a very impressive list of signatories, except for one in particular: “Charles U. Farley, YLS ‘04”. Now that’s a lawyer’s lawyer.

WHAT DO THE PUNTERS IN THE UK KNOW THAT THE NEW YORK TIMES DOESN’T? Have a look at UK betting parlor Paddy Power’s odds on the Nobel Prize. I predict exploding heads.

NO SH*T, SHERLOCK: ABC News suggests to avoid forgetting your child in a hot car to “Leave a purse or important item you will need in the backseat (something like your phone, a purse, or even a shoe).”

Something important. I’m just gonna leave that out there.

GOD BLESS AMERICA: 

MORE FACEBOOK FAIL: So hiring SJW’s to filter out “hate speech” didn’t work out, but poor Zuckerberg doesn’t realize if you let the same dopes write your filtering algorithms, stupid things happen. Like banning parts of the Declaration of Independence. Reason reports that:

Since June 24, the Liberty County Vindicator of Liberty County, Texas, has been sharing daily excerpts from the declaration in the run up to July Fourth. The idea was to encourage historical literacy among the Vindicator’s readers. The first nine such posts of the project went up without incident. “But part 10,” writes Vindicator managing editor Casey Stinnett, “did not appear. Instead, The Vindicator received a notice from Facebook saying that the post ‘goes against our standards on hate speech.'”

Programmers have a saying: “Garbage In, Garbage Out.”

Related (From Ed): Facebook slammed for ‘censorship’ of country group’s patriotic song. “Facebook has been slammed by The Wes Cook Band for preventing the country group from using the social network’s paid tools to promote its song ‘I Stand for the Flag.'”

NPR SAYS “MAGA” TWEET A FAKE: 24 hours after posting and going viral, NPR finally responded to inquiries and says it was a fake, also adding that Boise police never said the stabbist was yelling “Maga!”

MEDIA JUMPS THE GUN AGAIN: You’d think that after Reuters editor and others immediately — and wildly incorrectly — linked Trump to the newspaper shooting in Annapolis, that they’d have learned a lesson. You’d be wrong. NPR just couldn’t help themselves. (Flushed down the memory hole, of course).

It’s almost as if they had no duty to investigate.

***UPDATE: NPR NOW SAYING TWEET WAS FAKE, 24 HOURS AFTERWARDS. As for me, I sourced the screen shot from several places, and constantly checked (several times) and queried NPR who did not respond prior to my posting. I don’t believe my post was an “endorsement” but if I led people to that conclusion with imprecise language I was wrong.

A MOTION FROM THE FLOOR: “Proposed that anyone who reposts or quotes “Occupy Democrats” be blocked and reported to Facebook for spreading “fake news” and/or “hate speech.”
DO I HAVE A SECOND ON THE MOTION?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jarrod-ramos-annapolis-shooting-suspect-identified-maryland-shooting-capital-gazette-today-2018-06-28/

**Update: Reuters editor showed his true colors, but credit to EIC Adler who shot it down:
https://www.reuters.com/article/rpb-62818statement/june-28-statement-from-steve-adler-editor-in-chief-reuters-regarding-rob-cox-tweet-idUSKBN1JP039

HERE’S A DOLLAR, BUY A CLUE: The Columbia Journalism Review pushed a piece today that says “Facebook and Twitter still trying to convince conservatives they aren’t biased.” The story goes on to say that the social media and data business giants are “bending over backwards”:

“That accusation keeps coming up, and both Facebook and Twitter seem almost desperate to prove it’s not the case, to the point where they keep meeting with conservative groups and Trump supporters in an attempt to show good faith. This process is fraught with complications, however, since a) it’s not clear right-wing critics actually have a case for making such a claim, and b) bending over backwards to prove they aren’t biased has blown up in Facebook’s face in the not-so-distant past, and in the process arguably made the situation worse.”

IMHO, this is utter rubbish, in fact misses what’s really going on. Nowhere does either Facebook, Google or the CJR ask about other practices many Instapundit readers have experienced: unfounded removal of “offensive” material; shadow-banning;  or account suspension (known as “Facebook jail”).

Until Facebook, Twitter and the media who write about them stop and address what’s going on, the companies are going to plunge into a death spiral, and the media critics who fail to see shadow-banning as a real problem (or even know about it) are going to become less and less trusted or relevant.

It’s as if the Titanic were taking on water and the Captain is boasting about how nice the table settings look.

IS THE FIRST AMENDMENT AN EXCUSE FOR SLOPPY, AWFUL JOURNALISM? My column at The Daily Caller this week walks through the reason so many news outfits “get away” with egregious errors:

Let us stipulate that Paul Manafort is a bad man. A terrible man. The worst kind of man. If you are an unhinged #resist lunatic like Rep. Adam Schiff, you believe that Manafort helped the Russians deprive Hillary Clinton of her rightful crown at the cost of our electoral process. Even if all that were true, why did ABC News run an on-air graphic last week that claimed “MANAFORT PLEADS GUILTY TO 5 CHARGES OF MANSLAUGHTER”? Where the hell did that come from?

THE “BE NICE TO JOURNALISTS ACT”?: Kyle Smith eviscerates the whining US press corps, and NBC’s Kasey Hunt in particular:

While President Trump was mocking the media as usual at his South Carolina rally last night, Hunt tweeted, “The last person to rule America who didn’t believe in the First Amendment was King George III.” Leave aside that Trump does not “rule” America or that the First Amendment didn’t exist during the period of British rule anyway. Describing Trump as uniquely antagonistic to the First Amendment among presidents is preposterous. It is historical illiteracy.

It’s not like this hasn’t been pointed out before. She’d last about 5 minutes in Singapore or Thailand.

REPEAT AFTER ME: “BEWARE THE PIOUS.” This one is particularly upsetting/repulsive, given the serious nature of the cause this guy purported to serve. NBC’s NY local station reports that “A New York man who helps run a group to raise awareness about sex abuse of children was himself arrested Tuesday on child sex abuse charges.”

A deeper dive of his organization’s website states that the group was hosted at one point by “UN Special Envoy” Angelina Jolie. If that’s indeed true, just one more reason to ignore actors when they start lecturing us, no matter how noble-sounding the cause is.

WANT MORE TRUMP? THIS IS HOW YOU GET MORE TRUMP:  The lunatics are coming out in droves. Maybe Maxine Waters is crazy enough to think she can pardon this guy…

“A criminal complaint shows Key is accused of telling an intern who answered the phone, “I’m going to find the Congressman’s kids and kill them. If you’re going to separate kids at the border, I’m going to kill his kids. Don’t try to find me because you won’t.’[…]Key’s social media pages show he is very politically active. He volunteers regularly for the Democratic Party of Martin County and has volunteered many hours for Planned Parenthood, according to a friend of Key’s.”

Of course he does.