LOOK OUT! FASCISTS ARE MAKING MUSIC! Dennis Prager explains in The Daily Signal how he was mugged by The New York Times in a story about his (gasp!) conducting an orchestra.

The Times writer wasted no time in portraying me [as a bigot]. He wrote, “a number of [the musicians] are refusing to play the fund-raiser, saying that allowing the orchestra to be conducted by Mr. Prager, who has suggested that same-sex marriage would lead to polygamy and incest, among other contentious statements, would be tantamount to endorsing and normalizing bigotry.”

Prager continues with a series of explanations on how a clever but dishonest reporter (and his or her asleep-at-the-switch editors) can create a political narrative out of thin air:

“Lesson No. 1: When the mainstream media write or say that a conservative “suggested” something that sounds outrageous, it usually means the conservative never actually said it.”

Gee, it’s almost as if there were a standard operating procedure to create a smear!

PURE COMEDY GOLD: Antifa protester getting hit in the groin with a rubber bullet + “I Will Always Love You” = Comedy Gold. And better yet, it’s backed up by Science! In a 1993 article, Popular Science asks “Why Is It Funny When A Guy Gets Hit In The Groin?”

Besides the Freudian implications of the aggressive and sexual tension in the situation, there’s also the suddenness with which a blow to the ‘nads can take down even an otherwise big, strapping man. “Someone who’s powerful and dignified, who’s now keeling over in response to what seems like this minor infraction–so easily brought down from their normally human perch–is a violation of expectation..”

All I can add is: “Hey, nice shooting, officer.”
**UPDATE: not clear whether it was a rubber bullet or paintball-type of tear gas projectile. Still, I’m betting the cop who fired that shot won’t have to pay for his own drinks for a month.**

“I’M HELPING”: If you believe you have the high moral ground, why jump off the cliff by posting fake or misleading photos? To be fair:

“The Twitter account @TEN_GOP, which says its an unofficial account for Republicans in Tennessee, tweeted the photo […] The account is not affiliated with the Tennessee Republican Party. The tweet has been deleted.”

Still, if you believe in the strength of your convictions…why make things up? It’s no better than the “hands up, don’t shoot lie” that fooled so many, especially in the smarter-than-you legacy media. I guess we believe what we desperately want to believe…

VOX GONNA VOX: OK, being Vox, the odds are good that it’s factually way off, but this is a neat little widget. Punch in your zip code and you’ll see what to expect on Eclipse Day.

COMMON SENSE, MID-WESTERN STYLE, FROM THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH: “Daryle Lamont Jenkins, a member of the anti-fascist movement, told National Public Radio on Thursday that violent confrontation is justifiable when police won’t stop white supremacists from marching. In other words, he believes in illegal vigilante action when police refuse to violate marchers’ constitutional rights.” That’s the bases loaded-triple. Here’s the home run:

Imagine how quickly our country would descend into anarchy if vigilante action ever did become justifiable. The minute it becomes acceptable to break the law to silence one group, all others become vulnerable to attack by anyone who disagrees with them […]Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, extreme left-wing groups began using the slogan “Punch a Nazi” as they advocated violent intervention to halt demonstrations by far-right groups. One self-declared anti-fascist punched white supremacist Richard Spencer, a Trump supporter, in the face on Inauguration Day while he was being interviewed on a Washington, D.C., street. It was not OK then, nor will it ever be.

“A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.” — Justice Anthony Kennedy, in Matal v. Tam, 582 U.S. ___ (2017).

WHEN IS A FLAG A ‘THREAT”? Snowflake SJW’s and virtue-signallers on social media are now claiming that the mere appearance of some clown in a Nazi uniform or holding a Nazi flag is a “threat.” Legendary photojournalist Stan Forman showed us in this 1976 Pulitzer-winning photo when a flag is really a threat. (In Boston, not the Deep South, BTW).
Otherwise it’s just a piece of cloth.

FAKE NEWS AND FASCISTS: The Paranoid Style in American Journalism: Blogger Anthony Senatore does some historical review of interest.

Hofstadter offered evidence that paranoia was not the exclusive domain of politics and conservatives in his claim that a paranoid style was often a component of the left-wing press. The history of journalism as seen through the lens of paranoia and grandiose conspiracy is well documented. Fox News provided the fertile ground for President Trump’s birther beliefs from 2011 to 2016. Even so, on December 8th, 2015, Rachel Maddow and MSNBC took the paranoid style of journalism to heights hitherto unknown.

Read the whole thing.™

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF “DO AS WE SAY AND NOT AS WE DO”: The Columbia Journalism Review today points out that newsrooms are failing at the hiring diversity that their Op/Ed pages demand from everyone else:

According to the study, minority individuals (black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American, or other) accounted for one person on the 11-person masthead of The Washington Post, three people on the 18-person masthead of The New York Times, one person on the five-person masthead of NPR, three people on the 14-person masthead of the Chicago Tribune, and one person on the 14-person masthead of the Los Angeles Times.

Don’t even dare to ask about ideological diversity.
BONUS FLASHBACK: Huffington Post’s idea of “diversity.”

LET’S SET FIRE TO THINGS AND BREAK STUFF: The Washington Post — under the fig leaf of “analysis” –rationalizes and justifies mob violence today, saying “Charlottesville showed that liberalism can’t defeat white supremacy. Only direct action can.” A helluva dog whistle kicker:

Segregationists have again assumed their pedestals in the Justice Department, the White House and many other American temples. Paper alone won’t drive them out. Start throwing rocks.

The best part is you can fulfill all your Antifa needs –baseball bats, Antifa masks, helmets and camouflage gear — by ordering them through Amazon! It’s a win-win for Bezos!

FROM THE DAILY SIGNAL: “Meet 2 Political Prisoners From Socialist Venezuela.”

In The Daily Signal’s feature series, “Underreported,” we interview Francisco Marquez, an ex-political prisoner who now lives in the United States, and Wuilly Arteaga, who recently was thrown into jail after peacefully playing his violin on the streets.

Sean Penn could not be reached for comment. Why is is that celebrity idiots who tout “socialist paradises” always disappear when that regime shows its natural outcome?

HARPERS’ “BIZARRE” TAKES TRUMP DERANGEMENT TO A NEW LEVEL: “If You Are Married To a Trump Supporter, Divorce Them.” This isn’t Lysistrata, this is flat out virtue signalling/moral preening.

Supporting Trump at this point does not indicate a difference of opinions. It indicates a difference of values.

Don’t tell Jim Carville and Mary Matalin. (Yes, she later changed her affiliation to Libertarian but for reasons unrelated to Trump).

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? “Journalists to use ‘immune system’ software against fake news.” The reliance on ‘bots instead of real live humans (we used to call them “editors”– how quaint!) has already caused problems in financial reporting, which relies on automation. One Business Insider story pointed out that:

Headline price figures for Amazon and for Google’s parent company, Alphabet, were displaying as down by more than 80% as a result of the error, which emerged after US markets closed.

Like automated financial reporting that depends on data input, General Assignment news is not immune to robo-errors. This year, the LATimes “Quakebot” incorrectly reported an earthquake that happened in 1925, and Facebook promoted a bogus story that Megyn Kelly was fired for “being a traitor.” Even super gay-friendly Google’s YouTube had a faulty algorithm that inadvertently censored any YouTube videos even remotely gay-themed.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

JUDGE NOT SO SURE IN PALIN’S NEW YORK TIMES LIBEL SUIT: This afternoon Judge Jed Rakoff — a jurist of impeccable integrity — did not dismiss Sarah Palin’s libel suit against the Times, but instead took the highly unusual step of ordering an evidentiary hearing on what the Op/Ed writers knew.

This is unusual, because in libel cases, under a doctrine called “Iqbal/Twombly”, plaintiffs are required to show in their complaint more than a naked assertion of wrongdoing and have to set out a “plausible” claim with some degree of specificity. Here, most media lawyers thought the Times had it in the bag, because under a motion to dismiss, external fact-finding is not allowed, and the judgment is made within the four corners of the pleadings. But Rakoff was not convinced that Palin failed to make a plausible claim, and instead noted that:

One close question presented by that motion [to dismiss] is whether the Complaint contains sufficient allegations of actual malice, an essential element of the claim. To a large extent , determination of that issue may turn on what inferences favorable to the plaintiff are reasonable given the circumstances alleged in the Complaint. For example, the Complaint alleges that the allegedly false statements[…] were contradicted by information already set forth in prior news stories published by the Times. However, these prior stories arguably would only evidence actual malice if the person(s) who wrote the editorial were aware of them…Accordingly, to help inform the Court of what inferences are reasonable or unreasonable in this context, the Court, pursuant to Rule 43(c), will convene an evidentiary hearing on Wednesday, August 16 at 2:00 PM EST.

Normally, judges unsure of who knew what (the key question in this libel case) will deny a motion to dismiss, and after discovery, and a motion for summary judgment, if a genuine issue of material fact remains, they send it to a jury. Here, Rakoff seems to be short-circuiting that procedure, and will decide for himself, hearing testimony as to whether it was plausible that the Op/Ed writers knew that other sections of the paper had already debunked a connection between Palin and the shooting of Rep. Giffords. Hard to read tea leaves here, given that he could have dismissed the case, and it would appear he is giving Palin an extra chance (through cross-examination) to raise triable questions about what the editorialists knew or didn’t know. Stay tuned.

FROM THE DAILY CALLER: Like her predecessor, Eric Holder, former Attorney General Loretta Lynch used an email alias to conduct government business, The Daily Caller has confirmed.

Using the pseudonym “Elizabeth Carlisle,” Lynch corresponded with DOJ press officials to hammer out talking points in response to media requests about the meeting. The tarmac encounter drew criticism from conservatives because Lynch was overseeing the federal investigation into whether Hillary Clinton mishandled classified information on her private email system.

Honestly, can anyone give me a straight-faced, non-gymnastic answer why the Attorney General would use an alias in government business emails? This was not yoga tips or cookie recipes.

TIME MAGAZINE SLIMES KOCH IN HEADLINE: Time Magazine covered a Charles Koch speech with the headline “Charles Koch says U.S. Can Bomb Its Way to $100,000 Salaries.” Except what he actually said was:

“I think we can have growth rates in excess of 4%. When I’m talking about growth rates, I’m not talking about that GDP, which counts poison gas the same as it counts penicillin,” the 79-year-old industrialist said, veering off his prepared remarks. “What a monstrous measure this is. If we make more bombs, the GDP goes up — particularly if we explode them.”

Time later changed the headline to say “Charles Koch Mocks Common Measure of Prosperity.” Reason points out that the URL still has the telling phrase “charles-koch-bomb-economy/” and goes on to take apart the reporters’ woefully inadequate understanding of basic economics.  This is a classic case of a form of libel (privacy, actually) called “false light”, generally wherein untrue implications, rather than directly false statements are made. For instance, an article about sex offenders illustrated with a stock photograph of an individual who is not, in fact, a sex offender could give rise to a false light claim, even if the article and photo caption never make the explicit false statement.

If legacy media had spent the last 10 years practicing responsible journalism and less time being party apparatchiks, they might not be in the trouble they’re in.

WHEN FOIA WORKS: E-mails produced in federal court show Washington Post reporter Matt Zakowski emailing DOJ that he hopes he can put editors’ interest in Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting “to rest.”

WHEN SESSIONS ROLLS OUT HIS PLANS TO INVESTIGATE OR CONTROL LEAKS, and the inevitable rending of garments and gnashing of teeth precursors the latest iteration of Trump-as-Hitler, share this refreshingly honest piece from the New York Times: If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama.

TIM COOK THE MORAL BEACON: SJW bullies always seem to pick soft targets in their moralistic preening. Apple’s Tim Cook never met a progressive movement he didn’t like — check his Twitter feed — but when it comes down to hard choices that might actually cost him money, well, that’s another story…

China appears to have received help on Saturday from an unlikely source in its fight against tools that help users evade its Great Firewall of internet censorship: Apple. Software made by foreign companies to help users skirt the country’s system of internet filters has vanished from Apple’s app store on the mainland. One company, ExpressVPN, posted a letter it had received from Apple saying that its app had been taken down “because it includes content that is illegal in China.”

It costs nothing to demand that bakeries make gay-themed wedding cakes or that the military pay for gender reassignment surgery. But helping the world’s most repressive regime keep their citizens away from free speech and democracy? Inconceivable!

ACTUALLY DOING SOMETHING: VOA News reports on an immigrant who personifies the American success story — building a thriving business — and instead of virtue signalling on social media, puts his money where is mouth (or falafel) is.

NY TIMES DISCOVERS SOVIET COMMUNISM NOT SO GOOD:

Earl Browder concluded that the American-Soviet alliance of World War II would continue after the defeat of Nazi Germany. For this reason, in 1944, he boldly engineered the transformation of the C.P.U.S.A. into a pressure group designed to work within the Democratic Party.

What’s oddly missing in this all-too-late discovery? You can start with any mention of Walter Duranty,  the Moscow Bureau Chief of The New York Times from 1922 to 1936. The New York Times would not admit to his being a pawn of the U.S.S.R. and publishing Stalinist propaganda in The Times until 1990.

BUT IT WAS HER TURN! “WAS THE ELECTION RIGGED AGAINST BERNIE SANDERS? DNC LAWSUIT DEMANDS REPAYMENT FOR CAMPAIGN DONORS”.

Jared Beck, a Harvard Law graduate and one of the several attorneys who filed the suit against the DNC and its former chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz, wants retribution for donations made by supporters to the Vermont senator’s campaign, citing six legal claims of the DNC’s deceptive conduct, negligent misrepresentation and fraud. The DNC violated Article 5, Section 4 of its own charter by working with a single campaign to effectively choose who would win the Democratic ballot, the attorneys stated in the suit.

Oh dear Lord, we beseech thee, let this case survive a motion to dismiss and go to discovery.

OLD MACDONALD GETTING EVEN OLDER: “Nearly two thirds of the nation’s farmers are 55 or beyond. Part is the lure of the larger cities. Part is the consolidation of the family farm into larger, corporate groups, which has changed the face of the rural landscape.”

VOA reporters spent part of February and March along the upper Mississippi River in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa. They spoke to Americans in counties that turned from supporting the Democratic Party candidate in previous elections to the Republican Donald Trump in 2016. Our team spoke with many along the way who felt they are among the “forgotten men and women” that Trump promised to champion.

The legacy media could learn a thing or two by leaving Georgetown or the Upper East Side.

SERIOUS BADASS: “Special Forces Hero Killed an ISIS Fighter With His Bare Hands by Drowning Him in a Puddle.” If King George had an SAS, we’d all be driving on the wrong side of the street today.

WHAT IS IT PROFESSOR GLENN SAYS?: Oh, yeah…”heh.”

THANK GOD NO TWEETS WERE INVOLVED: “Pat, 41, told CPJ that municipal police in Playa del Carmen, in the southern state of Quintana Roo, signaled for him to pull his motorcycle over as he left a meeting with other journalists at around 1:30 a.m. on June 25. When the journalist complied, police handcuffed him and violently pushed him into the patrol car, he said.”

“They pulled a T-shirt over my head and started kicking me while driving around,” Pat told CPJ. “At least one of them repeatedly punched me in the face.”

Can you imagine if the police had tweeted about him? That would be all out war on journalists! (The Captain has now turned off the Sarcasm Light).