ANNALS OF AUTOPHAGY: Muslim Democrats are now holding Biden as a hostage. Just The News reports that:

“The National Muslim Democratic Council, a nationwide group of Democratic leaders and activists, threatened President Joe Biden that if he does not force Israel to reach a ceasefire with Hamas, a U.S. State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization, by 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday, they will work to mobilize against him in the 2024 presidential election.”

You know, if a group wanted to dispel certain “stereotypes” about themselves (in this case the Muslim “go-to” use of hostage-taking), this is not how you ought to go about it.

BARBARISM? NAH, JUST “FREEDOM FIGHTERS”, RIGHT? This is some shameless sh*t right here. “Remains of young woman kidnapped at Gaza music festival, paraded through streets reported found” reports Just The News. Paraded through the streets. Let that sink in for a bit.

Shamefully, editors at most news organizations will not say anything that might tarnish the image of “brave freedom fighters throwing off the yokes of colonialism.”

As of 5PM Monday, no mention of this at all in:

• The New York Times
• The Washington Post
• CBS, NBC, ABC
• National Public Radio
• The Detroit News
• The Guardian (UK) acknowledges the positive identification of the girl’s body, but doesn’t mention these animals parading her body through the streets.

OK, at this point I shouldn’t be surprised, but that does not derogate my  justifiable anger.

Even Cheese would say it.

SHOCKED! SHOCKED, I TELL YOU!: The thing about gaslighting is that eventually they run out of gas.

People’s Exhibit #2,876: Using the words “disinformation” and “conspiracy theory” are dogwhistles commanding left-leaning readers to ignore a story. By the time the truth comes out — and it always will —  they are past caring.

Fortunately, there are some folks who will not forget so easily. JustTheNews reported this morning that “Emails show how feds coalesced around Russia, QAnon to dismiss Hunter Biden laptop.”

“One shared news report came from Axios, which simply referred to “[r]ecent reports about what was purported to be Hunter Biden’s computer hard drive” that have “sparked renewed activity from Q[Anon]” in the form of 16 posts the same day as the Post scoop […] Axios then implied that entertaining the laptop’s authenticity was tantamount to embracing the so-called Pizzagate child sex trafficking theory.”

Paraphrasing The Good Professor: “If you think of mainstream media as DNC stenographers it all makes sense.”

FLASHBACK: I wrote this column back when I was a media critic for The Daily Caller. It’s worth a look just to see how little has changed.

“[T]he narrative at work is ruthlessly effective and instantly visceral. Simply put, mainstream media is painting a picture of Big Evil Israel “slaughtering” innocent and “peaceful” protesters, including women and infants. Even the more moderate shade of this narrative pays lip service to Israel’s right to self-defense but chides the IDF for “disproportionate responses.”

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THIS ONE, FOLKS: The SCOTUS has granted cert to hear what (IMHO) may be one of the most important First Amendment/Media cases since Times v. Sullivan. The outcome of the case may open the gates for those voices who have been suppressed by the government. In his dissent to taking the expedited case, Justice Alioto wrote:

“At this time in the history of our country, what the court has done, I fear, will be seen by some as giving the Government a green light to use heavy-handed tactics to skew the presentation of views on that increasingly dominates the dissemination of news.”

The matter has repercussions going beyond the “mere” right to dissent. There is a strong argument to be made that there is a connected campaign to demonetize web platforms that don’t toe the government line, and on personal information I can say with absolute certainty that many of the “right-leaning” news sites have seen dramatic revenue drops, less connected to traffic than a blacklist forced upon advertisers.

Naturally, faux liberals continue to support censorship. Look at the dog-whistles in NPR’s take from Nina Totenberg:

“The case has profound implications for almost every aspect of American life, especially at a time when there are great national security concerns about false information online during the ongoing wars in the Middle East and Ukraine and further concerns about misinformation online that could cause significant problems in the conduct of the 2024 elections. And that is just the tip of the iceberg […]The case is part of long-running conservative claims that liberal tech company owners are in cahoots with government officials in an attempt to suppress conservative views.”

Note the prioritization on “national security” and “election integrity.” Also the cynical language “long-running conservative claims” (conspiracy theory!) and “cahoots” (disbelief!)

The fact is that depending on how the SCOTUS rules, there may be (and ought to be) many cases brought where government influence pushed a blacklist, and the discovery in those cases will be telling indeed.

Stay tuned…

IF IT WEREN’T FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS, THEY’D HAVE NO STANDARDS AT ALL: It’s been reported here earlier, but JustTheNews drives home the point.

“Carrying banners blaring the single word “ceasefire,” the demonstrators gathered en masse and staged a sit in […] Critics of the demonstrators characterized the event as an “insurrection” in an apparent reference to an oft-used term for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.”

Hysterical journalists bought the “insurrection” and “treason” narrative hook, line and sinker. If anyone is naïve enough that these Pro-Hamas people will be subjected to the same abuse (denial of due process, in particular) as those involved — or even nearby J6 — you only need to look back at the disruption of the Kavanaugh hearings by fools dressed as “Handmaidens” and their kid-glove treatment.

That wasn’t considered  an “insurrection” or “obstruction of government business” at all. Of course not. Why would they be?

Equal justice for some, more equal justice for others.

**Update: Marjorie Taylor Greene to seek censure of ‘terrorist sympathizer’ Tlaib over Capitol Hill protest.

NEWS ORGANIZATION DOES ACTUAL PUBLIC SERVICE: Hell would freeze over before CNN or The New York Times followed suit, but John Solomon’s Just The News is doing the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do: “Just the News partners with anti-Semitism nonprofit to raise funds for Hamas massacre survivors”

“Just the News is partnering with the Combat Antisemitism Movement nonprofit to raise funds for survivors of the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, with major donors promising to match dollar-for-dollar each contribution made by the news organization’s readers, viewers and listeners.

Proceeds will be donated to the Israel Emergency Support Fund, which has been set up to raise money for frontline responders in Israel, including the Magen David Adom, the country’s national emergency medical, disaster, ambulance and blood bank service, and the Soroka Hospital of Beersheva, closest major medical center to where last Saturday’s attacks occurred in southern Israel. Proceeds will also go to two kibbutzes where horrible massacres occurred.”

You can make a donation here.

NOT SURPRISING BUT SHAMEFUL NONETHELESS: Just The News’ John Solomon published a sweeping look at the history of how Biden’s denunciation of grisly terror attacks can’t mask the left’s years of coddling of Tehran and Gaza. Notably, the report says:

“Security experts said the weekend attacks exposed the peril of a decade-long Democrat pursuit of an elusive deal to end Iran’s nuclear and terrorist activities combined with a romanticism in liberal academic and political circles of a Palestinian “struggle.””

As the Good Professor often says, “Read the Whole Thing.” ™

I HAVE NEVER IN MY LIFE BEEN SO ASHAMED TO BE AN ALUM OF NYU LAW: I knew Hakeem Jeffries (same class) and watched him devolve from a pretty nice guy to a race-hustler (thanks, Derek Bell) but that’s nothing:

WHO NEEDS VIAGRA? THIS GIVES ME WHAT THEY CALL A SCHADENBONER*: Michael Wolff’s New Book Is a NYT Bestseller—With Just Over 3,000 Copies Sold. Now mind you, The Daily Beast isn’t very good with those “fact” thingies, but that’s the price they have to pay to sit with the Juice Box Mafia.

But how the hell do you get on the NYT “bestseller” list but sell only 3,219 copies in total? We know Hilary “My Turn, You Stupid Serfs” Clinton pulled it off by having friends’ charitable organizations buy truckloads of them, and I seem to remember The Lightbringer did the same thing.

But Michael Wolff? Srsly?

*(h/t to David “Iowahawk” Burge for coining such a great word).

THIS WILL SURPRISE NOBODY:

“This chaos is the result of Democrat-led Soft on Crime policies, no different than their Open Border debacle,” Rep. Burgess Owens said. The chickens may have come home to roost, but will it sway public policymakers’ minds?”

Violent boomerang: Liberals victimized by crime policies they advocated.

You get what you vote for.

“DOES THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION HAVE IT IN FOR ELON MUSK?”
JustTheNews says:

“Since Elon Musk has taken over Twitter (now X), relaxed its misinformation policies on the platform, and become increasingly critical of Democrats and the Biden administration, federal agencies have begun probing X, Tesla, and SpaceX, raising questions about targeting of the billionaire’s breadth of companies.”

This weaponization of government makes Nixon look like an amateur.

SOMEBODY LEND ME THEIR “SHOCKED FACE”, MINE IS WORN OUT: Just The News is reporting that even our own State Department says China continues to be a very very naughty boy:

“China’s government is investing in “unprecedented resources” in disinformation, surveillance and censorship tactics to influence the worldview of the country, according to a State Department report[…]The communist-run country faces international criticism for such issues as its record on human rights, unfair international trade practices, spying on other countries and not condemning Russia’s war on Ukraine.”

Of course, that didn’t stop the Bidens from accepting $260,000 in wire transfers originating from Beijing that listed Joe Biden’s Wilmington home as the beneficiary address when he was running for President.

Deluded apologists countered by saying “Hey, Hunter lived at Joe’s house in Wilmington. Nothing fishy there.”

Not so fast. Hunter Biden notes in his 2021 memoir, “Beautiful Things,” that he was living in California at the time the wire transfers were made.

So there’s no evidence, right?

The Washington Post: We have to destroy the First Amendment in order to save it. In what has to be the most blockheaded analysis I’ve read in years, The Post ran a story this afternoon titled “Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks.”

Of course the conservatives and libertarians are leading the charge. It’s the fight against government coercing, cajoling or even cooperating with publishers (electronic and otherwise) to suppress right-leaning views.

To paraphrase James Carville: “It’s the Constitution, Stupid.”

The people who want to censor the right have put a new dress on their pig.  The Washington Post painted it thusly:

“The escalating campaign — led by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and other Republicans in Congress and state government — has cast a pall over programs that study not just political falsehoods but also the quality of medical information online.”

“See, we have a First Amendment right to figure out how to suppress others’ speech. We’re the real victims here.”

As you may remember, as The Hill reported on Missouri v. Biden:

“A federal appellate court concluded Sept. 8 that multiple White House, surgeon general, FBI and CDC officials likely breached the fine line separating permissible government persuasion and jawboning from illicit “coercion and significant encouragement” when they repeatedly — and often successfully — lobbied social-media companies “to remove disfavored content and accounts from their sites.”

At that oral argument, Judge Don Willett had no problem with federal agencies publicly criticizing what they judged false or dangerous ideas. But that wasn’t how Biden’s winged monkeys compelled submission: “Here you have government in secret, in private, out of the public eye, relying on . . . subtle strong-arming and veiled or not-so-veiled threats” said the Judge.

Willett expressed his disgust with the mafia-like tactics of the Biden administration: “That’s a really nice social-media platform you’ve got there, it would be a shame if something happened to it.”

Gosh, I wonder if the Judge is an Instapundit reader?

MY SLIGHTLY CONTRARIAN VIEW: The lovely and talented Ed Driscoll posted a Red State take about a CNN talking head getting killed by Rep. Matt Gaetz.

To be sure, there is a not-unwarranted schadenfreude when CNN and the other DNC stenographers get busted so easily for being so wrong on something so simple to check. But allow me to propose a different view:

No doubt, the talking head (or her producer, more likely) got it wrong (Gaetz voted for the bill twice).

But to her credit, Ms. Phillip utters the three most important words a journalist can ever say: “I stand corrected.” (Note also that Gaetz was very gentlemanly about it.)

One of the dirtiest little secrets in media and media law (and I ought to know) is the overwhelming hubris they display when fact-checked, digging in their heels and insisting they are right. It took The New York Times a week to correct the slander that George W. Bush “served a plastic turkey” as a photo-op to US troops in the Middle East. And a wide swath of Democrats still believe it.

So, gentle reader, I propose that while Ms. Phillip (and/or her producer) are hopeless amateurs, I see some ray of sunshine in her admitting she was wrong and upon that basis, having no reason to continue the interview, given that its premise was faulty.

**Updated with correct name spelling. Thnx, IP readers!**

A GLIMMER OF HOPE IN THE “EQUAL PROTECTION” DEP’T: JustTheNews is reporting that:

“The same Fulton County grand Jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants under a Georgia state racketeering law also used the same law to indict 61 people who were protesting against the building of an Atlanta police training center.”

Now, most folks I know call the Trump indictments “lawfare.” (To be fair, there’s something vaguely reminiscent about South American dictators tossing possible challengers in the pokey. I’d imagine Valerie Jarrett et. als. wish they could borrow of one General Pinochet’s helicopters…)

Now, what’s the story here? These people protesting against the building of the police training camp?

Were they good citizens like Mom and Dad merely using their First Amendment rights to redress government? Nope.

Were they perhaps a little “over-the-top” greenies who got carried away? Nope.

“The 61 defendants, just 13 of whom are from Georgia, are members of Defend the Atlanta Forest, an anarchist, anti-police, and anti-business extremist organization,” the attorney general’s office said, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

A total of 61 protesters have been charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. Some face additional charges of domestic terrorism, arson and money laundering. Most are not from Georgia.

Attorney General Chris Carr said in a press conference announcing the indictments, that:

“As the indictment asserts, members of Defend the Atlanta Forest subscribe to a philosophy of anarchy. They hold a core belief that society should abolish police, government and private business and as further alleged, they’re willing to bring about such changes ‘by any means necessary.”

Nice little line here:

“If you come to our state and shoot a police officer, throw Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, set fire to police vehicles, damage construction equipment, vandalize private homes and businesses, and terrorize their occupants, you can and will be held accountable,” Carr said.”

Traveling to another state to shoot police officers, throw firebombs at LEO, torch police cars and commit mayhem? Gee, what kind of people would do that? And how are they funded? 

So much for that “peaceful protect” excuse the MSM has been gaslighting us with regarding Antifa and “Defund the Police” types running wild with no accountability.

Waiting to see which far-left Democrats put up their bail. Worth following, IMHO.

LEOPARDS NEVER CHANGE THEIR SPOTS: P.J. Media’s Paula Bolyard is the first one who gets to the core of another slimy attack on what is perceived as “conservative” media. John Solomon of JustTheNews.com broadcast with partner Real America’s Voice an exclusive interview with former President Trump. They discussed, among other things, Trump’s vow to take on “federal machinery of censorship of political speech.”

Literally, before the sun came up, DNCC sock-puppets at The Daily Beast published a story claiming —  with no evidence — that Solomon had been fooled, and talked to either an impostor or an “AI bot.” Did The Daily Beast call Solomon to ask about it? Nope. Did they call the Trump campaign to verify? Nope. That would be asking too much.

Although other media hedged their bets reporting on the alleged punking, Bolyard got right to it. Bolyard quoted the original (and now memory-holed) Daily Beast article as saying:

“Robert J. Sigg, the owner of the network, told The Daily Beast on Thursday night that the “Trump” on the call sounded “like ChatGOP” to him and that “an internal investigation will be needed” into whether his hosts were duped […] “This is not the company values that the American people tune in for,” Sigg added. “This is a major oversight by John and Amanda both. Our news directors will need to go through additional training about journalism practice and how to present the facts and truth to the American people.”

One little bitty problem with that: Neither Sigg nor the network ever said any such thing. The network responded to The Daily Beast‘s smear job saying that:

“These are all scurrilous lies in a fake quote that The Daily Beast never received from our network. Ironically, in a story they wrote about RAV being duped, it was The Daily Beast in fact that may have been “punked” into believing they had a qualified quote from us.”

Here’s the best part: the CEO of The Daily Beast is one of the same people who brought you a shit-show called “Gawker.”

Remember them?

“Bro Culture in the C-Suite (Redux)”: Investigative reporter (and dear pal Susan Antilla, a prize-winning journalist) published a marvelous series in The Insider proving what we all knew: “Bro” Boys are More Often Than Not Scum.

The douchenozzle at center is Arias Organization CEO Simon Arias, III.

Let’s start with the gross part, shall we?

“Women say they were fed date rape drugs, compared to dog puke, and forced to watch a boss masturbate […] One former agent told Insider she was worried she’d made a big mistake early on, when her boss commented about her large breasts in front of colleagues, calling her “Jugs.” Another woman who worked there told Insider she was compared to dog puke. Senior managers called men in the office “studs” and “stallions,” according to the lawsuit; women were called “sluts,” “bitches,” and “whores.”

This is not some mom-and-dad strip mall insurance agency. It’s part of a nested series of companies that lead up to Globe Life Inc., an S&P top 500 company. It has 3,543 employees nationwide, and annual revenue of…wait for it…$5.2 billion.

Now lets get to the “comeuppance” part. After the women sued everybody in sight, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway slashed its stake in Globe Life from 6.35 million to 2.52 million shares. And when Warren Buffett makes a move like that, regulators take notice:

“Insider has spoken with four former Arias agents who said a Pennsylvania Department of Insurance investigator questioned them about the company’s culture and indicated that the department was looking into whether the company had defrauded its customers. One said the investigator, Michelle Billotte, asked about “company culture and sexual harassment.”

It goes to show you that people who act like @ssholes often disrespect the law as much as they disrespect other people:

“Two sources told Insider that a representative of the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General was also asking questions about Arias. One, a former agent, said he spoke with William McKee, an investigator in the office’s insurance-fraud section, about Arias agents who had increased customers’ premiums by adding coverage without their knowledge. The former agent said he also shared information about colleagues who would drum up extra commissions by using phony names to write policies for people who didn’t exist.”

Although civil suits are pending, no criminal charges have been filed against Arias or any of the Globe entities.

Nonetheless, good investigative reporting teaches us that Justice Brandeis was right: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”

OH, THIS WILL WORK OUT WELL: Sure, it’s possible that at most some lackey will hand-select a fawning mail for a “real” response, but I’m betting dollars to doughnuts that they are going to use an AIChat-thingy.

Only an Open Records Act filing will tell. Stay tuned.

Here We Go Again: Remember President Obama’s “Operation Choke Point” in which financial and insurance industries were pressured to “choke” industries of which the far left disapproved?

And I’ll give you two guesses which industries — although entirely legal — those are. (HINT: Firearms dealers, Adult film industry…pretty much all the fun stuff.)

Ah, good times, good times.

President Biden has brought the Good Times back! JustTheNews.com has reported that:

“One of the first acts that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency did under President Joe Biden was put a hold on a Trump-era rule that would have ensured fair access to banking services from going into effect. The rule would have prohibited major financial institutions from arbitrarily discriminating against businesses.”

To be fair, Republicans on the state level have passed laws to restrict minors from being able to access porn sites. But at least those laws have been debated in public and voted upon, and are currently undergoing challenges in court.

But the far left has long weaponized the IRS, DOJ, EPA, and other executive agencies in ways that circumvent Due Process. Again, the administration does what “paternalistic socialism” always does: Enforce their restrictions about what you can read, eat, save or spend without public hearings, notice or debate.

And these people say “Democracy Dies in Darkness”? Really?

THE IRONY: IT BURNS  As has been often said: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” — H.L. Mencken

“Workers at Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco told to work from home due to crime.”

*BADA-BING* The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals utterly smoked the Biden Administration’s Thought Police in a hearing yesterday over whether the injunction against government collusion to suppress conservative speech on social media should be lifted.

JustTheNews reports that:

“Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod declared in court that the Biden administration’s efforts to persuade social media companies to remove, throttle and suppress purported misinformation on COVID-19, Hunter Biden’s laptop and elections reminded her of a mafia movie.”

Government lawyers did everything they could to soft-pedal the meetings White House officials had with social media executives, claiming that the meetings and emails were “merely requests” in the public interest. The three-judge panel wasn’t buying it. At all. Judge Don Willett blasted the DOJ lawyers for making that excuse:

“Federal officials appeared to practice “fairly unsubtle strong-arming” and make “not-so-veiled threats” in the vein of “this is a really nice social media platform you’ve got there, would be a shame if something happened to it.“

Golly, where have we heard that before?

The court did not issue a ruling immediately — appeals courts rarely do — but as The Good Professor says, “Read the Whole Thing.”

Most litigators will tell you to never bet on a ruling just from the questions and statements of judges in a hearing, but having won and lost my share of these, when you see this much blood on the floor, you get a good sense of where things are going.

Should this case continue in the same direction, conservative and independent publishers, bloggers and pundits are going to have a field day bringing cases against social media companies for acting as government surrogates.

MORAL CONSISTENCY? WHAT’S THAT? NBC News is reporting through Reuters that the Iraqi government has criminalized the word “homosexuality.” The report says that:

“Iraq’s official media regulator on Tuesday ordered all media and social media companies operating in the Arab state not to use the term “homosexuality” and instead to say “sexual deviance” […] The Iraqi Communications and Media Commission (CMC) document said that the use of the term “gender” was also banned.”

My research shows that the Jihad Squad hasn’t uttered a single word about it. Ilhan Omar (D-Mi.); Rashida Tlaib (D-Mi.); Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) have consistently attacked Israel in specific and Jews in general. Tlaib and Bush recently tried to gin up a boycott of Israel’s President Herzog addressing a joint session, issuing a bellicose if not downright hateful press release saying:

“Bestowing President Herzog with the rare honor of a joint address to Congress while the Israeli apartheid government continues to enable and directly support racism and brutal settler attacks is a slap in the face to victims, survivors, and their loved ones—including the families of Americans murdered by this regime like Shireen Abu Akleh and Omar Assad.”

OK, fine. Legislators and their constituents have every right to advocate for their constituents’ views, even odious ones. But waitaminnit…

These same faux-Progressives claim to be “allies” in the LGBTQLMAO “struggle.” It’s easy to blast away at targets like Israel because it’s accepted in academia and Hollywood. But isn’t this the very same bunch who insist on DEI and focus heavily on gay rights?

Moreover, have a look at the endorsements for Ilham Omar of which she boasts. Those are some pretty interesting names. None surprising, but why are people and entities who ought to know better, like Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi — and get this — Stonewall DFL (who works to elect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and allied Democrats to public office in Minnesota) silent on the Iraqi criminalization of even using the word “homosexual.” And silent on the Jihad Squad’s silence. Nancy Pelosi, who owes a lot of her political power to the “allies” in Hollywood ought to be asked this.

But she won’t. Because this is what crybullies do. 

MONEY? WHAT MONEY? I’m still surprised — although I shouldn’t be — that there are still people out there who refuse to believe that the Biden family ever got money from Ukranian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese companies and oligarchs.

But JustTheNews brought the receipts: The House Oversight Committee now has traced more than $20 million in funds from questionable places.

“In its third memo analyzing bank records, the GOP-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee reported it had found a clear pattern of the Biden family and its partners doing business with Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Chinese and Romanian figures who had legal and other troubles and then collecting money around the times of gaining access to Joe Biden.”

What’s the story now, “Big Guy”?