THE HACK LIST: Iconoclast and professional contrarian reporter and editor Ken Silverstein has started on his WashingtonBabylon blog a compilation of hacks in DC and elsewhere who deserve a good calling out. The heads alone are worth the price of admission:

“Hack List 2017: Why the New Yorker Sucks, in One Annotated Story”
“David Brooks: Gabagool By Any Other Name”
“Release the Transcripts! “Journalist”/Clinton Surrogate Ezra Klein Nets $30,750 For a Single Speech”
“The Lassie Chronicles: In New Book on Bill Clinton, Joe Conason Finds His Inner Lapdog.”

Ken is a preternaturally cranky guy, and deserves a place in the Pantheon of Journalists Who Despise All Politicians. As it ought to be.

I HAVE NO WORDS: University of Wisconsin-Madison Students Protest Abraham Lincoln Statue Because ‘He Owned Slaves’.

Maybe “higher education” means you have to be really, really high.

WHEN DOES THROTTLING ACCESS BECOME CENSORSHIP? The Daily Signal reports on a common occurrence, namely right-leaning posters being denied access to FB (often called “Facebook Jail”).  FB claims it was not content-based but allegedly a matter of their computers erroneously flagging the guy’s account for “overposting.” Allen Muench, a retired accountant told The Daily Signal that:

“Facebook suspended him for two weeks for posting a video of the American flag, and also suspended him for posting memes about Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, and former President Bill Clinton.”

That may or may not be the case, but blaming the computer always sounds like a weak excuse. A Facebook spokesperson said that:

Muench was posting a large amount, including to various Facebook groups, which the company’s system could identify as spam because he often posted almost identical content or content that some members of groups didn’t like. Muench was not violating Facebook’s Community Standards, the spokeswoman said, and the error notices he saw when posting also could result from his posting too fast.

So the question becomes whether they are merely throttling access or making  content-based decisions. As a private actor, FB has the right to do the latter, but if that’s the case, they ought to be more honest about it. (Good luck with *that*.) The dispositive fact that’s missing is whether far-left FB members have had the same problem. Guesses don’t count, and other than a class-action suit, I don’t see how that data could be pried from FB.

EXPOSURE TO IDEAS? WHAT IS THIS, COLLEGE? The Daily Signal reports today that two Ohio legislators are introducing a bill to prevent publicly funded colleges in that state from disinviting speakers based on the content of their speech. The text says in part that:

“It is not the proper role of a state institution of higher education to shield individuals from expression protected by the United States … including, without limitation, ideas and opinions that the institution finds unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

The article goes on to detail that the bill is based on the Goldwater Institute’s Campus Free Speech Act, designed with Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which says that state universities should allow anyone who is lawfully present on a public campus to demonstrate or protest in public areas, like sidewalks and spaces outside of buildings. It also says colleges should make clear during freshman orientation that they are in favor of free speech and eliminate restrictive speech codes and so-called “free speech zones” on campus.

The Daily Signal piece also details recent activity in the creation of “Bias Response Teams”, which is the subject of an earlier post below by Sarah Hoyt.

STILL ALIVE AND WELL: Voice of America shows the world that the American Dream combined with common sense values and hard work can still be the envy of the world. Immigrant puts his shoulder to the wheel, works two jobs — one as a dishwasher at the Hilton Hotel, earning $5.65 an hour –and earns his way up to owning a successful transportation company. The kicker says it all:

“When a person is free, you can do anything,” he said. “So appreciate what you have, work so very hard, and get rid of the wrong pride we have back home that if you have a college degree you have to be in a professional line [of work] and you can’t dig the potatoes or do the dishes. Work is work and go out there and do what is available. Be proud of it.”

Try that in France or Spain. Not. Going. To. Happen.

IN HOLLYWOOD, YOU’RE NOBODY TILL SOMEBODY GROPES YOU: A former Playboy model has accused famed director Oliver Stone of groping her. The claim from Carrie Stevens came after Stone defended Harvey Weinstein to reporters, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Of course, uber-liberal, feminist icon and fashion millionaire Donna Karan had this to say:

“You look at everything all over the world today and how women are dressing and what they are asking by just presenting themselves the way they do. What are they asking for? Trouble.”

They told me that if I voted for…oh, hell, you know the rest.
**Stevens link slightly NSFW**

ADMITTING YOU HAVE A PROBLEM IS THE FIRST STEP: Naysayers will invariably discount anything James O’Keefe records, but this recording from Project Veritas is yet more grist for the mill about why legacy media is trusted about as much as used car salesmen (or lawyers). I really don’t mind ex-campaign staffers working for news organizations, but when they are so brazen about applying their agenda as editorial gatekeepers…

Dudich goes on to explain what he might do to target President Trump:

“I’d target his businesses, his dumb fuck of a son, Donald Jr., and Eric…Get people to boycott going to his hotels. Boycott… So a lot of the Trump brands, if you can ruin the Trump brand and you put pressure on his business and you start investigating his business and you start shutting it down, or they’re hacking or other things. He cares about his business more than he cares about being President. He would resign. Or he’d lash out and do something incredibly illegal, which he would have to.”

When the undercover journalist asks Dudich if he could make sure that the anti-Trump stories make it to the front, he replied, “Oh, we always do.” Now to be fair, it might be a simple case of a low-level nobody talking smack and trying to impress someone and overstating his importance. But it’s a good thing they have a Public Editor  to sort this out. Oh, wait…

SOMEBODY SKIPPED THEIR CIVICS CLASSES: Late-night “comedy” writer Bess Kalb of the Jimmy Kimmel Show deleted this tweet, but stupidity leaves a digital footprint. It explains a lot, really…

VIRTUE SIGNALLING: OVERCOMPENSATION FOR HYPOCRISY? There was something smug and self-righteous about the “Fearless Girl” statute (seen here with notorious douchenozzle Bill DiBlasio) meant to inspire women to take an adversarial stance to Wall Street. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but now I know what it was. Adweek reports in a story headlined “Financial Firm Behind ‘Fearless Girl’ Will Pay $5 Million for Allegedly Underpaying Women and Minorities“:

State Street Corp., parent company of the investment firm behind Wall Street’s iconic Fearless Girl statue, today agreed to pay a combined $5 million to more than 300 women and 15 black employees who were paid less than their white, male counterparts, according to a federal audit.

While State Street denied the claims, but coughed up approximately $4.5 million in back pay and $500,000 in interest. I suppose what annoys me the most is the gullibility of people who so desperately want their iconography to represent some reality. It quickly became the financial world’s most iconic symbol of gender equality and won 18 honors at the prestigious Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, including four Grand Prix top honors.

“Don’t do as I do, do as I say.”

INTERESTING CHOICE OF DOMAIN NAME: The Hill‘s Joe Concha reporting that:

A new media company aimed at millennials and featuring multiple former members of the Obama administration — including Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer and Ben Rhodes, along with former New Republic senior editor Brian Beutler — is expanding.

Check out the domain name they chose in second graf. I guess “JuiceBoxMafia.com” was already taken. Heh.

BUZZFEED ACTUALLY DOES SOME SURPRISINGLY FAIR WORK HERE, explaining Nikki Haley’s vote against the UN resolution on the Death Penalty:

The Trump administration is under fire from LGBT activists and human rights supporters over a vote on Tuesday against a resolution condemning the use of the death penalty. But it isn’t just this particular resolution or the current administration — the US has never supported any measure at the UN that condemns the death penalty.

Of course, they had to correct the story to add that the Obama Administration voted “present,” not “no.” (Shocker!)

What I find troubling is that in their abundant generosity to Democrats, they left out the inconvenient fact that while Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton — running for President — signed a death warrant for a mentally incompetent man named Ricky Lee Rector:

Despite Rector’s mental state, then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton made a point of returning to Arkansas to oversee Rector’s January 24, 1992, execution during the 1992 U.S. Presidential campaign.

OH, NOW WE GET IT: Norway’s minister of immigration drew comparisons Wednesday between the plight of Europeans suffering from increasingly common terror attacks with the experiences endured by Israel for decades.

“We are experiencing now the fear that [Israel] experienced for decades,” said Sylvi Listhaug in an exclusive interview with Ynet in Oslo. “Many people now understand the situation you live in. We see what is happening in Sweden, in Britain and in France.”

“It’s the new norm,” Listhaug concluded, “for Europeans to impose limits on freedom of speech in order to avoid offending minorities.” Well, at least beheady minorities, anyway.

PROFESSIONAL HUMOR REGULATORS: This is at least the third time that Facebook’s attempts to filter “fake news” has failed. The first time, they hired a handful of SJW’s with no journalism experience, then they tried an algorithm that over-filtered, and now clearly marked satire sites are being shunted away from appearing on news feeds. Frustrated with Facebook’s administrative opacity, the Italian humor site Lercio published the following:

“All we could do was ask the usual friend whose brother-in-law has a cousin whose sister is the mistress of Zuckerberg’s chauffeur” to tell them unofficially what might have happened. That is when they were told, still unofficially, that they had likely been caught by Facebook’s recently launched anti-fake news filtering measures.”

As the article’s author Francesca Fanucci points out: “Jokes and satire, no matter how disturbing or offensive, are not fake news, especially when they come from websites like Lercio whose entire raison d’être is to serve a massive group of readers who are totally aware of its humor.”

DEPRAVED ART IS THE BEST ART: “Egyptian authorities have arrested seven people they accuse of being gay and promoting homosexuality for allegedly raising the rainbow flag of the LGBT movement at a concert last week, even though there is no law banning the practices.”

Linda Sarsour could not be reached for comment.

THE FIRST RULE OF TITLE IX IS DON’T TALK ABOUT TITLE IX: TheFire.org summarizes a New Yorker piece today that shows college bureaucrats think  “1984” is a manual, not a warning:

In May 2015, Laura Kipnis was famously the subject of a Title IX investigation by Northwestern University for an essay she wrote suggesting there are too many Title IX investigations. Today, Jeannie Suk Gersen reports for The New Yorker that Kipnis was the subject of yet another Northwestern Title IX investigation earlier this year — this time for writing “Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus,” a book about being investigated for saying there are too many Title IX investigations.

Read the whole thing and donate a few bucks to The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education here.

GOVERNMENT TURNS TABLES BY SUING RECORDS REQUESTERS: AP reporting about a new trend in state bureaucrats doing their best bureaucratting. Not content to ignore or improperly deny public records requests:

Government bodies are increasingly turning the tables on citizens who seek public records that might be embarrassing or legally sensitive. Instead of granting or denying their requests, a growing number of school districts, municipalities and state agencies have filed lawsuits against people making the requests — taxpayers, government watchdogs and journalists who must then pursue the records in court at their own expense.

The lawsuits generally ask judges to rule that the records being sought do not have to be divulged. They name the requesters as defendants but do not seek damage awards. Still, the recent trend has alarmed freedom-of-information advocates, who say it’s becoming a new way for governments to hide information, delay disclosure and intimidate critics.

These people keep forgetting that silly rhetoric about “government of the people, by the people and for the people.”

FROM THE DAILY SIGNAL: Do We Need 641 Penalties for Nonviolent Drug Crime After Punishment?  Federal laws and regulations impose more than 600 post-prison restrictions that may be applied to people convicted of “nonviolent drug offenses”, according to a new GAO report. These rules cover individuals convicted of a nonviolent drug offense, defined as any federal drug offense that doesn’t involve the attempted, threatened, or actual use of physical force. The Op/Ed points out that:

 “[T]hose rules cover so many parts of a person’s life—from employment and housing to the constitutional rights to vote and carry a firearm—that if administered arbitrarily, some may needlessly frustrate reintegration into society and encourage a return to crime”

The analysis concludes that:

“It is not in anyone’s best interests to consign ex-offenders to a permanent second-class status. Doing so will only lead to wasted lives, ruined families, and more crime.”

Poll: Nearly 4 In 10 Americans Can’t Name Any First Amendment Rights: Local CBS affiliate distills a recent UPenn poll that sadly, isn’t shocking. Some snippets from the poll:

Nearly half of those surveyed (48 percent) say that freedom of speech is a right guaranteed by the First Amendment. But, unprompted, 37 percent could not name any First Amendment rights. And far fewer people could name the other First Amendment rights: 15 percent of respondents say freedom of religion; 14 percent say freedom of the press; 10 percent say the right of assembly; and only 3 percent say the right to petition the government.

At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, I remember when they used to teach “civics” in elementary and high schools, and today — if at all — they are taught “feelgood” material out of social engineering textbooks. Fortunately, there’s a cure for that. Check out actor Richard Dreyfuss’ Civic Initiative:

“Despite having a political system that highlights individual freedom and responsibility, we fail to provide individuals with the skills they need to successfully fulfill the role of citizenship.  It is quite apparent that civic values have been absent in certain events of our country’s recent history.  We have experienced conflicting political parties unable to compromise, violent protests that have showcased a government unable to foster peace, and new generations that are falling behind its peers in education rankings. Extremism has plagued our government and caused shutdowns, fostered resentment between political parties, and generally caused inefficiencies.  The lack of civility in debate that has been seen in our political bodies is destructive and needs to be addressed.  On top of that, the average American citizen has a poor understanding of civics and the nuances of our political structure.  Civics must be taught so that our future leaders have the skills they need to run our country effectively, and future generations have the skills they need to be informed, active citizens.  This foundation of properly educated students will help address the problems we are experiencing today and begin to create the successful future we desire for our posterity.”

It’s surprising that Dreyfuss hasn’t been run out of Hollywood for using words like “responsibility.”

“PRO-CHOICE’ VS. “PRO-ABORTION”: The Daily Signal ran an interesting item that ought to have libertarians (and the few honest liberals left) asking themselves what “choice” means.

I did not know that the “abortion” pill could be neutralized if a woman changes her mind. According to The Daily Signal, in late July California’s Board of Registered Nursing informed pro-life Heartbeat International that it could award continuing education units for nurses who demonstrate a grasp for the science and patient care involved in counteracting the effects of a chemical abortion. But suddenly:

Acting at the behest of abortion activists in the state Legislature and online media, the board—which is overseen by California’s Department of Consumer Affairs—reversed its decision from just a month prior, demanding that Heartbeat International “cease and desist” educating nurses on a breakthrough medical intervention that can allow a woman to halt a chemical abortion.

Consent is only as good as the transparency of the information provided to the person making the choice. While I consider myself “pro-choice” (with limitations) for libertarian reasons, for abortion to be a truly free choice women must be able to hear all their options. Restricting that information is not “pro-choice,” it’s “pro-abortion.”

Minor correction: “morning-after” changed to “abortion pill” after legions of hysterical leftists who believe that abortion is a “right” that should be subsidized by the public fisc messaged me. FWIW, the thrust of the posting (how can it be “choice” if there is no transparency regarding options) remains unchanged.

I WAS JUST BEING “PAINTERLY” WHEN I CALLED YOU AN EXTORTIONIST: Hyperbole is all the rage these days, but when reporters use words like “extort” they and their lawyers and editors really need to think it through. That’s especially hard when you advertise yourself as a “just the facts” news outfit and then turn around and plead “hyperbole” as a defense. The Second Circuit (the most press-friendly in the nation) reverses in part, dismissal of a libel claim:

“[A] reasonable reader could interpret the word “extort” here as more than just “rhetorical hyperbole” describing [the] belief that the lawsuit was frivolous.   [They]  did not simply state that [the reported upon] lawsuit was an attempt to extort money from the company. Instead, [it was] stated that Plaintiff  “repeatedly” tried to extort money from them.  This statement can be read as something other than a characterization of Plaintiff’s underlying lawsuit against and is reasonably susceptible to a defamatory meaning—that Plaintiff actually committed the criminal act of extortion—a statement that is capable of being proven false.”

DISCLOSURE: I served as Global Media Counsel to Bloomberg News for almost 14 years.

THE ART OF CREATIVE SMEARING: Megan McArdle nails it on how the SPLC uses overbroad and malleable ideology to smear conservatives:

I spent a day diving down the rabbit hole of one of the listings on the hate group, for the Ruth Institute, a small nonprofit that thinks the sexual revolution was a giant mistake. The Ruth Institute does seem to have a couple of marginally attached figures who have at some point theorized an unsupported connection between homosexuality and pedophilia. But however wrongheaded and insulting this may be, by itself, it hardly merits branding the whole organization a “hate group.”

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

“THE NEW YORK TIMES STILL OWES SARAH PALIN AN APOLOGY.” It’s heartening to know that there are some journalists out there who still see the journalist’s duty as one to truth and common decency, not political partisanship and chest-thumping. Media reporter Erik Wemple notes in today’s Washington Post that he may have been initially wrong in seeing the case as stronger than it was:

Never again will we sell short jurisprudence that protects journalists when writing about public figures. These protections are so powerful that an editor, without doing any research to speak of, can insert language in an editorial accusing a politician of inciting murder — and secure a quick and unequivocal bouncing of the case.

But  at the same time Wemple makes the more important point that:

Dismissal, however, is less than a full-throated victory for the New York Times […] The lingering lesson of the case is that The New York Times could well have saved itself the hassle of even a short-lived court proceeding, though doing so would have required it to shed its institutional arrogance for a day or two. Consider that the paper’s response to learning of the falsehood was sufficient to satisfy a judge ruling on a lawsuit, but not sufficient to satisfy any standard of decency and respect. The immediate correction, after all, didn’t even mention Palin’s name: “An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated that a link existed between political incitement and and the 2011 shooting of Representative Gabby Giffords. In fact, no such link was established.” Nor did a second correction.

(Emphasis added).

NANCY PELOSI HAS HER JUDY COLLINS MOMENT: Better late than never, and perhaps spurred on by articles proving the AntiFa/Progressive/Resistance thuggery, issues a release (just as late as Trump’s, mind you):

“Our democracy has no room for inciting violence or endangering the public, no matter the ideology of those who commit such acts.  The violent actions of people calling themselves antifa in Berkeley this weekend deserve unequivocal condemnation, and the perpetrators should be arrested and prosecuted.”

(Emphasis added). Better late than never, I suppose to come around to “Both Sides.” Perhaps the intellectually bereft wordbarf “false equivalency” will be uttered no more. Oh who am I kidding?
**Not sure I can claim “classical reference” in posting headline**

BAKE MY CAKE OR SUFFER THE PENALTIES: As Ed Driscoll reported yesterday, the D. James Kennedy Ministry is suing SPLC, GuideStar, and Amazon over “Hate” labeling. I’ve had a chance to go through the Complaint, and my view is the defamation claims may have enough merit to proceed, the Trademark claims are weak, but the most interesting thing — and what may be the most impacting aspect of this suit — is the claim under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 4 2000(a), which the Plaintiffs point out:

“Because the Amazon Defendants are operating a public accommodation(s), it is a violation of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically 42 U.S.C. § 2000(a), for the Amazon Defendants to deny the Ministry the privileges and advantages of the AmazonSmile program on the basis of the Ministry’s religion and the beliefs that are inherent to that religion.”

Now here’s where it gets interesting. If the Commerce Clause gives government the authority to trump a businessman’s personal beliefs, even if couched as a First Amendment expression, then the same logic that requires Christian fundamentalists to bake “gay” wedding cakes against their beliefs ought to mean that Amazon has no right to deprive the Ministry of a public accommodation because they “don’t like” that Church’s view on gay marriage.

I’m betting if Amazon doesn’t settle, that this issue is headed to the Eleventh Circuit, and maybe even SCOTUS. This is right in Justice Gorsuch‘s wheelhouse. Stay tuned.

OH, ISIS: Can’t a girl just make a living in peace? “Porn star reveals ISIS have threatened to BEHEAD her and mocked up sick execution pics.” I wonder if those are real. The glasses, I mean.