TAKING THE LIBERTY OF BRAGGING A LITTLE: Here’s a picture of the new Sen. Fred Thompson Courthouse in the Middle District of Tennessee. My architect brother Laurance did the design consulting with architect Michael Graves and was the Advisor of Design and Construction for GSA and the Administrative Office of the US Courts.

In short, he made it all happen, and I couldn’t be more proud.

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING! JustTheNews digs deeper into the Hunter Biden files (you know, the ones everyone told us was Russian disinformation) and finds yet more shady sh*t:

“[M]emos gathered by the FBI show, the charitable discussions evolved into an expanding relationship between Hunter Biden and Chinese energy giant CEFC to include business deals that would eventually reap the Biden family millions of dollars.”

For those who think this is nothing, and has no bearing on the President, you need only answer ONE question to shut me up:
WHO IS “THE BIG GUY” WHO GETS HIS 10%?

GOOD NEWS OR A NOTHINGBURGER?: Yesterday, Rep. Raskin (D. – MD 08) announced that “the House Judiciary Committee voted to pass H.R. 4330, the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act, legislation introduced by Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08), Congressman John Yarmuth (KY-03) and Congressman Ted Lieu (CA-33) that would safeguard a free and independent press by establishing a federal statutory privilege to protect journalists from being compelled to reveal confidential sources and prevent federal law enforcement from abusing subpoena power.”

It sounds like a good idea. The bill has a very wide definition of journalist that ought to cover bloggers as much as anyone else. “Covered” journalists are defined as those who are involved in (whether for profit or not):

“[G]athering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.”

But wait! There’s more! The bill also requires that any agency seeking to spy on a journalist must provide a Federal court with a reason for the interception that shows by a “preponderance of the evidence” that the information is sought to prevent violence and that the journalist must be given notice and an opportunity to respond (usually filing a motion to quash). Ok, we like that. Secret warrants are bad.

But it’s always the goddam exemptions. The bill contains workarounds so wide you could drive a truck through it. First, it does not apply if the agency says the journalist is “suspected of being an agent of a foreign power.” Am I the only one who remembers Adam Schiff (D- Liarsville) calling Tucker Carlson a “Russian agent” on live TV?

Moreover, the protection from spying does not apply to anyone suspected of involvement with terrorism. That’s all well and good, but it was a scant few weeks ago that parents concerned about the curricula to which their children might be exposed were branded as “domestic terrorists” by the National School Board Association, who prompted the DOJ to “direct the FBI to investigate threats of violence at school board meetings.

Finally, the exemption does not apply if the journalist is “suspected of committing a crime.” The is the hole you can get two trucks through. Sure, David Gregory can wave an illegal-to-possess high capacity magazine around on TV without fear of being spied upon, but if James O’Keefe uses a hidden camera, well, that could be a crime.

I’ve learned a long time ago that it doesn’t matter what you call a piece of legislation. That’s for spin purposes: You could easily pass “The Happy Puppy and Blooming Flowers Act”, even if buried in the exemptions is explicit permission to drown left-handed babies. The key thing is given the extraordinary abuse of phrases like “terrorism” or “national security” and the like, this bill doesn’t really do anything.

It’s always about the definitions. And the problem is the people applying those definitions just can’t be trusted.

ARROGANCE OR STUPIDITY? EMBRACE THE POWER OF “AND”: It’s no secret that the mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, is a raving moron. But I can say based on 40 years experience as a reporter and media lawyer — and pal Mark Tapscott will back me up on this:

Nothing, but nothing, sends up a red flag to reporters quite like when a politico files a “motion to seal” court proceedings. It’s catnip. Total catnip.

From the Chicago Tribune:

“The Park District’s motion to seal the case acknowledges a Zoom call occurred involving high-ranking city lawyers Celia Meza and John Hendricks, then-Park Board President Avis LaVelle and parks Chief Operating Officer Patrick Levar, as well as Smyrniotis, who was the Park District’s deputy general counsel, and then-general counsel Timothy King. The Park District argues that the case should be sealed to protect its interests as it defends a separate lawsuit brought by an Italian Americans group over Lightfoot’s removal of a Columbus statue in Little Italy.”

Who wants to be the first to tell these corrupt jokers that government organizations do not have privacy interests in the first place…

LET’S PLAY ANOTHER ROUND OF “A DAY LATE AND A DOLLAR SHORT:” Most media observers last week were either timidly admitting (or boasting, depending on their posture) that yes, conservative and right-leaning or oriented news organizations were right all along about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

The NY Post had the story (as did others) and summed it up nicely:

[The Washington Post and New York Times] (Mottos: “All the news that’s fit to print” and “Democracy dies in darkness”) joined in the drive to suppress The Post’s reporting off the laptop, playing up bogus, clearly partisan claims that it was somehow “Russian disinformation.”

It turns out that another media walk-back (or crawl-back, given the time it took) happened last week, though with much less fanfare. The Hill finally admitted sub rosa (by adding corrections to many stories) that investigative reporter John Solomon of JustTheNews did not make any errors in his reports about Ukraine and other stories, and finally (this began in 2017!) their newsroom review did not find any unethical behavior as they had previously asserted. Solomon published a succinct statement, saying in part:

“Although the review ultimately did not undermine what I reported, I remain disappointed that The Hill did not seek to interview me. The criticism of my work in the newsroom’s review involved a determination that my columns departed from standard opinion content because they contained too many facts and revelations. To that, I plead guilty. For over a century of great journalism, opinion columnists from Jack Anderson to David Broder to Robert Novak broke enormous stories, factually documented, on the opinion pages of their publications, just like I did at The Hill. I feel no need to apologize for trying to follow in that tradition or to inform the American public.”

Of course, a lie travels around the world before the truth is out of bed, and Solomon has been subjected to a lot of unfair and disrespectful treatment as The Hill’s initial condemnation began to take root.

“Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?” — Raymond Donovan

** Disclosure: I often perform legal review of stories published by JTN.**

NO MEA CULPAS, BUT AT LEAST THEY ARE REPORTING NOW WHAT THOSE “CRAZY PEOPLE” KNEW ALL ALONG: The AP reported last week that three Russian oligarchs named in the infamous “Steele Dossier” have dropped their defamation lawsuit against Fusion/GPS, the Clinton-backed outfit that convinced the media elites that Trump was a Russian stooge or even an asset.

Note the AP’s third graf is clear as a bell about the background:

“The Steele dossier has been largely discredited since its publication, with core aspects of the material exposed as unsupported and unproven rumors. A special counsel assigned to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia probe has charged one of Steele’s sources for the dossier with lying to the FBI, and has also charged a cybersecurity lawyer who worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaign with lying to the FBI during a 2016 meeting in which he relayed concerns about Alfa Bank.”

A few scant weeks ago this would have appeared only in “right-wing” Russian disinformation publications. And nobody is holding their breath waiting for an apology from the media elites or the intelligence officials who pushed the narrative.

Am I the only person who remembers Adam Schiff (D-Crazyworld) calling Tucker Carlson a “Russian asset” on live TV?

The oligarchs who sued got what they wanted: acknowledgement that the whole Russian dossier story was baloney. Unfortunately, so many people still believe it, proving once again that a lie goes halfway around the world before the truth is out of bed.

Or to quote Harry Reid when caught lying about Romney not paying taxes: “It worked, didn’t it?”

OH, NOW THEY BELIEVE US: The New York Post points out in this story that:

“People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity,” the Times writes. “Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.” […] But wait, it doesn’t end there. In October 2020, the Times cast doubt that there was a meeting between Joe Biden and an official from Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company for which Hunter was a board member. “A Biden campaign spokesman said Mr. Biden’s official schedules did not show a meeting between the two men,” the Times wrote, acting as a perfect stenographer.”

Jonathan Turley’s post last year about the mainstream media stealthily admitting that yes, the material found on Hunter Biden’s laptop was the real thing. We’ve known ( and by “we” I mean anyone with a good sense of skepticism) for months that the lapdogs in DC and NY newsrooms made sure the laptop was toxic: Russian disinformation, a GOP trick, you name it. If there was a reason to ignore it and make it toxic to even talk about, they did it. Professional liar and shameless mutant Jen Psaki continued to push the narrative as far and as hard as she could, from the bully pulpit of the White House.

The facts about the final, inevitable but snail’s crawl to acceptance of its accuracy speaks volumes about the way DC newsrooms operate. In fact, few folks know that John Solomon’s “JustTheNews.com” had revealed the laptop and its contents’ authenticity as far back as 2020. I know this first hand, because I performed the legal review and “backread” of the story. This episode highlights a deeper, more persistent problem: the toxification of center-right, right-leaning or other news organizations that are designed for more conservative (or open minded) readers.

How many times in raising a point with someone have you cited Fox News or OAN only to be met with dismissal: “Oh, Fox, yeah, right.” It’s a form of deflection, and it works. Once the source has been broadbrushed as “unreliable” the substantive conversation stops.

Herein lies the problem with that latest play toy of the media crowd, namely “disinformation.” To be sure, people from across the social and political spectrum have posted knowingly false or at best, poorly researched stories. But even though I am not a classical scholar, I’ll bet you that during elections in the Rome of Octavian (around 27 B.C.) there were whispering campaigns accusing candidates of terrible things. It’s old wine in a new bottle. We’ve just developed louder, faster, and broader ways of spreading falsities. (Gratuitous plug for Glenn’s book that touches on this topic).

Reporting about disinformation has become a cottage industry. Several newsrooms have assigned reporters (usually very young, very inexperienced, and very liberal) to a “disinformation beat.” Eventually, Parkinson’s Law will come into play. Work and personnel expand to consume the available resources. To keep their beat (and their jobs) there is a built-in incentive to “over-label” other newsrooms (especially those with a conservative readership).

Worse yet, leave it to old time dead-tree publishers to try to cash in on the “disinformation” business. Veteran publisher Steve Brill (with whom I admit having a few unpleasant exchanges) has come up with NewsGuardTech.com, a website that touts itself as the be-all and end-all of cataloging “bad” news organizations. Imagine Snopes on steroids with a journalism degree.

A look at the advisors and investors is used as a selling point for why the public should trust them, and why corporations should pay for their reporting service. In fact, I think it does the opposite. One of their advisors is Jimmy Wales, the creator and Lord Ruler of Wikipedia. Res ipsa loquitur. Another is Retired General Michael Hayden, who as head of the CIA expanded the agency’s surveillance on American citizens, including members of the U.S. Senate. He seems nice. 

The ownership and advisors are also chock full of people straight from the C-suites of the advertising and lobbying industry. Advisor Israel Mirsky describes himself as “a Madison Avenue technologist with a background in computer science.” And oh yeah, among the investors is Publicis Groupe, a vampire squid among “governmental relations” and advertising agencies. Incidentally, Publicis gave Joe Biden almost $100,000 in campaign donations. And we’re supposed to believe there is an ethic of neutrality (let alone honesty) there? If enough ad agencies can be persuaded that a newsroom is “fake” then you have successfully executed them.

I’m kind of hoping that this latest fad dies out. It’s the latest iteration of everyone screaming “FAKE NEWS” and until mainstream media starts to admit and publish facts that they don’t like, this is going nowhere.

I’m not holding my breath, though.

**CORRECTION: Lede updated to show NYT’s recent admission was reported in the NYP yesterday and Turley’s post was from last year. I apologize for the confusion.***

I’M NOT A TAX LAWYER, BUT I PLAY ONE ON INSTAPUNDIT: JustTheNews.com is reporting that a bill making its way through the California legislature would allow a nonprofit organization’s tax-exempt status to be revoked if the state’s Attorney General determines the organization has “actively engaged in, or incited the active engagement in, acts or conspiracies defined as criminal under specified federal law.”

The “No Tax Exemption for Insurrection Act” is a reaction to the January 6 riots in D.C. When I read the text of the bill, it seems to me that if passed in its present form, it would be a sitting duck for constitutional challenge. For one thing the geniuses in California don’t seem to realize that under U.S. tax law, there are several kinds of “tax-exempt” status. Some, like 501(c) 3 organizations are already prohibited from being involved in political activities. But others, like political organizations registered as 501(c)4, 5, or 6 charities may legally be both tax-exempt and involved in political activity.

The problem as I see it, is that the California bill, by overbroadly using the phrase “tax-exempt” rather than specifying which kind of text-exempt organization” most likely fails to pass constitutional scrutiny under the 14th Amendment by  treating entities differently based on their political stance, and “void for vagueness” under Supreme Court rulings such as Grayned v. City of Rockford:

“It is a basic principle of due process that an enactment is void for vagueness if its prohibitions are not clearly defined. Vague laws offend several important values. First, because we assume that man is free to steer between lawful and unlawful conduct, we insist that laws give the person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to know what is prohibited, so that he may act accordingly. Vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning. Second, if arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement is to be prevented, laws must provide explicit standards for those who apply them. […] Third, but related, where a vague statute “abut[s] upon sensitive areas of basic First Amendment freedoms, it “operates to inhibit the exercise of those freedoms.” Uncertain meanings inevitably lead citizens to ” `steer far wider of the unlawful zone’ . . . than if the boundaries of the forbidden areas were clearly marked.”

Here’s a fun fact: Although it is anticipated that such a bill would target conservative groups, ironically, it could just as easily be used to strip liberal advocacy groups of the same rights. A cursory search indicates that at least eight Planned Parenthood entities operate in California under 501(c)4, a category that allows legislative advocacy.

For now at least.

I’MMA JUST LEAVE THIS HERE: As a member of NYU’s teaching community, I got the below in my email this morning.
“Male-presenting”? Wouldn’t “perceived as Male” be more Wokish?*

*”Wokish” is not a modifier, but rather a noun for the insane language twisting we’ve all come to know and love. As in “Do you speak Wokish”?

PALIN V. NEW YORK TIMES: NOTHINGBURGER OF THE YEAR. The dust hasn’t quite settled on the meaning and effect of Judge Rakoff taking the case away from the jury. But having followed the case from its inception there are some deeper issues to be considered. This is not a law review article and I’ll try to keep the jargon to a minimum. I also apologize for the length of this note, but there’s a fair amount of background context that needs to be laid out. That said, the issues fall into two groups: first, the potential endgame of this case; and second (and far more importantly), the implications about media and the way they treat the public in general.

As for the case itself, in short, it revolved around an editorial that regurgitated the “conventional wisdom” that Palin’s infamous “crosshair map” impelled lunatic Jared Laughner to shoot Representative Giffords. Unfortunately for the Times, they had previously published a news article that clearly exonerated Palin from any vicarious liability. In editing and fact-checking the editorial however, the Times staff purportedly looked only at previous editorials and not news articles. So the theme for Palin was “don’t you people even read your own paper?” That’s not a bad question.

There were a few oddities in the judge’s handling of the case. I’ve litigated before Judge Rakoff and found him to be highly intelligent and virtuously unbiased. Nonetheless, during the Motion to Dismiss phase (in which the judge is required under Rule 12(b)6 to review only the motion papers), Rakoff decided nonetheless to hold an evidentiary hearing. This was appealed and the usually press-friendly Second Circuit pointed out the error in holding such a hearing and sent the case back to Rakoff. After discovery had been completed Rakoff held that there was “a genuine issue of triable fact” appropriate for a jury to decide. Then things got weird: While the jury deliberated, Rakoff announced publicly that he would grant “JNOV” to the Times, meaning that under Rule 50, a reasonable jury would “not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party”.

What does this mean for the endgame of the case? It seems to me that Rakoff handed Palin a serious appealable issue on a silver platter. The un-sequestered jury had learned about Rakoff’s decision prior to their finding for the Times. It seems to me that it’s not unreasonable to assume that jurors either took that as an implicit instruction or were subliminally influenced by Rakoff’s decision.

Here’s where it gets kind of interesting (at least to constitutional law geeks). Normally a jury finding is almost sacrosanct in appeals, and jury findings will not be overturned unless there is a showing of “manifest injustice.” Not so for First Amendment cases. Federal courts exercise “independent appellate review” and essentially look at every aspect of the case (called “de novo” review). Although the Times initially denied that the editorial made a defamatory assertion, they were rightly able to argue that as a public figure, Palin had to prove more than bumbling idiocy on the part of the Times, but that they published it with knowing falsity. On those grounds, it’s highly unlikely that the Second Circuit would reverse the finding. More problematic for the Times is whether or not Rakoff’s announcement so contaminated the jury deliberations as to warrant a mistrial. This all remains to be seen.

The implications outside of the case are far more serious in my mind. To begin with, it appears to me that the Times’ “victory” will only calcify the media’s terrible and repetitive habit of jumping to erroneous and often defamatory conclusions. We saw CNN settle the lawsuit brought by “the Covington kid” after they lost a Motion to Dismiss pleading that their broadcasts were not defamatory statements of fact but “mere opinion.” Even today the “ready, shoot, aim” habit again reared its ugly head.

The Las Vegas Sun today published an editorial decrying “increasingly violent rhetoric coming from extremist Republicans” in connection with the attempted assassination of Louisville, KY mayoral candidate Democrat Craig Greenberg. This was after it was revealed that the alleged shooter, Quintez Brown was not only a former Louisville Courier columnist specializing in race issues but was a self-described Black Lives Matter activist. Underscoring that fact is the revelation that Brown’s $100,000 bail was paid by the BLM-aligned Louisville Community Bail Fund, who states on their fundraising page that:

“To build transformative communities, we must perform transformative acts of liberation. Cash bail is one of the aspects of the criminal justice system that keeps communities wrapped up in systemic slavery and in debt.”

A Daily Caller headline summed up the media’s knee-jerk reaction perfectly: “Former Biden Campaign Staffer Tried To Blame Attempted Assassination On ‘Right Wing Rhetoric,’ But Suspect Is Left-Wing Activist.” That article pointed out that “Brown is an anti-capitalist activist who praised Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung in a post on Twitter.” The odds are pretty darned good that no amount of “violent rhetoric coming from extremist Republicans” would convince Brown or his cohorts to do anything, let alone take a shot at a political candidate.

Sadly, there are no winners here except for the law firms. The Times’ “victory” exposed a high degree of untrustworthiness, if not ineptitude. (Fortunately for the Times, ineptitude is not tantamount to actual malice). In addition, Palin was reportedly a terrible witness, according to observers, and her claims of emotional damage were empty and unconvincing.

The biggest losers – again – are the media who are already suffering an all-time low in public trust, and the readers who look into these publications for truth in reporting.

MY SHAMELESS BLEGGING: As some of you may know, I was a photojournalist in the late 70’s to mid 80’s before becoming a media lawyer.

I recently discovered a trove of negatives that are a real time capsule of a violent and yet charming time and place, both long gone. I’m crowdfunding the cost of scanning more than 200 rolls of black and white film, and of course, printing a high quality photobook.

The link to the Indiegogo campaign is here.

The campaign page shows a few samples of what the book will be like. (Having trouble upload photos to Instapundit at the moment.)

DEBUNKING THE WARREN REPORT:  Emerald Robinson published a piece on Substack today about Thomas Lipscomb‘s forthcoming book “The Oswald Letter” and it reveals a calm, reportorial approach to the still-unsettled questions about the assassination of JFK. It also raises newer questions never asked before.

This is not tin-foil hat stuff. Lipscomb discovered many facts that truly challenge the integrity of the Warren Commission. In the excerpt published today, Lipscomb and co-author Jerome Kroth look at an artifact from that fateful day and explain how it severely undermines the Report.

The windshield of the limousine in which Kennedy was killed has been in the National Archives for almost 59 years. The problem is that it’s highly unlikely that is it genuine, and the history of this windshield points to solid forensic evidence that one of the bullets — possibly the lethal one — fired into the car came from the front, not from behind where Oswald was allegedly perched in the Book Depository:

The Secret Service had the Presidential limousine shipped from Dallas to the White House garage the night of the assassination. Then they sent it to the Ford Factory at River Rouge in Detroit, where it was built, for refitting. […]  a senior manager there was ordered to immediately report to the glass plant lab. In a recorded interview, [the senior manager} said “And the windshield had a bullet hole in it, coming from the outside through…it was a good, clean bullet hole, right straight through, from the front. And you can tell, when the bullet hits the windshield, like when you hit a rock or something, what happens? The back chips out and the front may just have a pinhole in it…this had a clean round hole in the front and fragmentation coming out the back.”

The Ford employee’s story is backed up by interviews with Dallas police officers who also said “There was a hole in the left front windshield…It was a hole, you could put a pencil through it…you could take a regular standard writing pencil…and stick [it] through there.” Lipscomb interviewed several people on the record who saw the windshield, including hospital staff.

Two really strange facts stick out: First, the windshield in the National Archives has no such hole. Second, and perhaps more ominously, not a single person who could verify that there was a shot from the front — including the surgeon who inserted the tracheal tube in the dying JFK — was quoted in the Warren Report. Many were never even interviewed by federal authorities.

There are a lot more details to come…

Merely a system test. Nothing to see here.

IT WAS TRUE THEN, IT’S TRUE NOW: I wrote this for The Daily Caller about three years ago, and it’s truer than ever. Who didn’t know that Whoopi “rape-rape” Goldberg is a moron? Her imbecilic take on the Holocaust just exposed her knuckleheadedness to a wider audience.

But knuckleheads have the right to speak, even if it shocks or outrages people.

(Illustration by Tom White)

WAS IT A COVER-UP OR JUST A NARRATIVE IN SYNCH? JustTheNews.com has an exclusive this morning that shows that the State Department knew all along that Hunter Biden was up to his neck in corrupt practices in Ukraine. John Solomon reports that:

[T]he email’s stark message directly conflicts with the narrative the mainstream media, State Department witnesses and Democratic congressmen gave the public two years ago, when they insisted Hunter Biden’s lucrative job with the allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings — while creating the appearance of a conflict of interest — had no impact on U.S. efforts to fight corruption in that country.

“The real issue to my mind was that someone in Washington needed to engage VP Biden quietly and say that his son Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine,” Kent wrote multiple high-ranking officials in the State Department in Washington.

Read the part where the State Dep’t and White House ran interference to keep Biden from being personally confronted with this information. It’s what Nixon and others called “plausible deniability.”

In either event, the public is owed some explanations, and that’s what FOIA is for.

THINKSPACE: A SAFE PLACE FOR REASON — McGill Professor Pat Kambhampati, who specializes in physics and chemistry has helped formed a chapter of  Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship at McGill, the elite Canadian University.

The point and purpose of the group is to maintain freedom in teaching, research and scholarship; To maintain standards of excellence in academic decisions about students and faculty and; To resist censorship and provide a convivial forum for critical thought about academic freedom at McGill University.

It’s good to see that people of all walks of life and professional backgrounds, like Greg Lukianoff, William Jacobsen and others are pushing back on what I call “The New Lysenkoism.”

RECOMMENDED READING: I just finished “What Next, Chicago?: Notes of a Pissed-Off Native Son” by Matt Rosenberg. On the surface, it details the 2020 riots, strikes, murders and mayhem that so sadly but accurately defines what Chicago has become. More importantly, Rosenberg doesn’t just say “see, this is what Democratic Machine politics brings” but instead asks deeper — and non-partisan — questions about the root causes.

Of course, MSM always calls any such questions “partisan” (or even “racist”) but that’s only because it’s easier than stepping up and answering the question. Available from Amazon, I believe if you buy it by clicking here, Instapundit gets a small bit of income.

On a separate note, IP readers will be very interested to learn more about Post Hill Press, who runs the Bombardier imprint that published Rosenberg’s book. The roster of authors — from Alan Dershowitz to Adam Carolla to Andrew Klavan — is mighty impressive, and (IMHO) represents the best in free thinking, questioning authority, and asking smart questions. We would do well to see publishers like this thrive.

MEMO TO ALEC BALDWIN: If you consistently act and speak like a jerk, avoid getting into flame wars with people on social media. Alec Baldwin was sued earlier this week by the family of a Marine killed in Afghanistan, according to the Casper Star-Tribune. Baldwin is being accused of weaponizing social media, and the fact pattern seems to support that theory, even if there is little case law that does.

The allegations in the Complaint sound a lot like Baldwin. Allegedly after making a donation to the family, Baldwin later learned that one of the family members was present at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Of course, to people like Baldwin it was more than a protest or riot, it was the bloodiest coup since the Ayatollah overthrew Iran’s Shah Pahlavi.

After learning of the woman’s attendance at the worst insurrection since forever, Baldwin quite naturally flipped out, and used his 2.4 million Twitter followers the same way the Wicked Witch of the North used her Flying Monkeys:

“[y]our activities resulted in the unlawful destruction of government property, the death of a law enforcement officer, an assault on the certification of the presidential election. I reposted your photo. Good luck.”

“Go get her, folks.”

This case is a bit unusual because it holds Baldwin accountable for the words and actions of others, and causing intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy. Here’s the key paragraph of the Complaint:

By way of example, among the hundreds upon hundreds of hateful messages ROICE began to receive one read, “Get raped and die, worthless c*nt (kiss emoji). Your brother got what he deserved.” Upon receiving this message, ROICE forwarded it to BALDWIN sarcastically “thanking” him for posting her Instagram feed. This unbelievably callous message from a woman who goes by the name “Antifa Ally.” Incredibly, even after reading it, BALDWIN actually followed Antifa Ally on Instagram.

***

BALDWIN then continued to chime in on the increasingly hostile feed saying that ROICE “participated in the insurrection” and that she was an “insurrectionist.”  He continued to engage his followers. In doing so, Plaintiffs are informed and believe and allege that he fueled the firestorm of hatred that he started.”

Now comes the ironic part that court-watchers ought to look for: Baldwin has often blamed Trump for “blowing dog whistles” inciting hatred and for making speeches whipping the Jan. 6 crowd into a murderous frenzy that would have embarrassed  Maximilien Robespierre. (That’s pretty much standard fare for Democrats with a habit of forgetting that pesky Constitution). “Fueled the firestorm of hatred”? True or false, isn’t that what their most oft-repeated line about Trump is? It’s always projection, isn’t it?

I am pretty certain that Baldwin’s posturing will be forgotten, and his defense lawyers (most likely connected to one of the country’s leading media defense firms) will suddenly remember that proving causation of another person’s speech, while not impossible, is a very high bar to cross.

**UPDATE: In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I was lead counsel in an amici brief to the Supremes actually defending the odious Westboro Baptist Church from IIED claims brought by families who claimed seeing the church’s insane protests (“God Hates Fags”) on TV hurt them. And yes, we won.**

LAWFARE DONE RIGHT: THIS COULD BE A MAJOR CRACK IN THE DAM. As the Good Professor noted earlier today,  shareholders in Google and YouTube are pressing the tech giants to disclose any requests they have received from the Biden administration to scrub politically “problematic” information from the platforms, according to a copy of a shareholder proposal obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The article mentions in passing that Supreme Court rulings have held that private entities may not engage in suppression of speech at the behest of government, as it has the same effect as direct government censorship. Although I don’t think the shareholders have standing to sue on anything but the thinnest of corporate governance rules, let me explain how this may open the floodgates and create accountability for BigTech’s censorship.

We know that as “private actors” (a debatable proposition, but let’s accept it for the moment) BigTech cannot be held liable for violating First Amendment rights. But there have been notable cases where the media worked so hand-in-hand with government in violating constitutional rights, they were considered “government agents” for the purposes of 42 U.S. Code § 1983, which allows a private right of action for the violation of established constitutional rights when the “private” entity is “acting under color of law.”

The case that came most quickly to my mind was called Hanlon v. Berger, where CNN did a ride-along in coordination with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and an assistant United States attorney who raided a Montana ranch. The rancher had allegedly violated Federal wildlife protection laws by poisoning endangered wildlife, including eagles, in an effort to protect their livestock. Citing earlier case law, Justice Stevens noted that:

“There we [held] that police violate the Fourth Amendment rights of homeowners when they allow members of the media to accompany them during the execution of a warrant in their home.” (Emphasis added).

While the feds were excused in Hanlon on qualified immunity grounds based on unrelated facts, CNN was not dismissed from the case, because the rancher had stated enough factual basis to assert that CNN was acting “under color of law.” But private actors cannot assert qualified immunity like law enforcement can.

As is usually the case when corporate media are caught out and face likely loss in court, CNN settled out. (As a result, news organizations have since then severely restricted what we used to call “ride-alongs” with law enforcement).

The rancher suffered a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights, which implicate privacy rights by way of unreasonable search and seizure. This is where it gets interesting: 42 U.S. Code § 1983 allows citizens to sue for the violation of any enumerated constitutional right, and it’s unquestionable that the First Amendment is such an enumerated right.

If, in the matter Glenn referred to, The National Legal and Policy Center can produce evidence showing that the content by specific speakers was scrubbed by BigTech at the behest of the Biden Administration, then it’s “game over” because those censored speakers have the same argument against Google and FB as did the Montana rancher and can use Section 1983 to file suit.

Moreover, even if The National Legal and Policy Center does not produce such evidence of media-government collaboration, conservative and civil libertarian groups can on their own, file FOIA cases to seek that evidence, and the censored groups (*Paging Mr. Prager*) have a legitimate way around the “we’re private entities, so go f*ck yourself” defense.

All they need is the means and the will.

HOW AGITPROP AND MEMETICS WORK IN REAL TIME: The DNC memo went out yesterday that “insurrection” was the only theme that tested well to the base and — unlike inflation, crime, COVID and economic conditions — could not be debunked by pure data.

The faithful posted meme after meme, and the Talking Heads repeated absurdities with no provable meaning, such as “worse than Pearl Harbor” and “like 9/11.”

Then the DNC fundraisers send out a message:

Note the highlighted phrases and how nicely they are clustered: they are not designed to point you to reason. They appeal only to your emotion. Nixon did it, Kennedy and LBJ did it, hell, even Hitler did it.

But the speed and reach of digital communications changes everything. Not enough time to stop and think about what you’re being told: Just “be one of us” and move on to the next shiny object. No accountability for statements of puffery. In this way, digital media, which has the potential of bringing knowledge to every person on the planet, is manipulated to make each and every one of us dumber than yesterday.

Someone ought to write a book about it…

LAYERS AND LAYERS OF…OH, NEVERMIND: Remind me again why people at corporate media giants are smarter than everyone else and ought to be the arbiters of what is and isn’t “dangerous information”? This is still online:

IS IT HYPOCRISY, GASLIGHTING OR JUST INSANITY? I suppose one might embrace the power of “and.” You remember George Zimmerman, the “White Hispanic” accused and acquitted of the murder of Trayvon Martin?

Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg certainly do, and they each utilized the February 2020 anniversary of that tragedy to play the race card on Twitter. Here’s Saint Peter’s tweet:

And here’s Elizabeth Warren’s:

That’s seemingly innocuous and makes me want to sing “Kumbaya” or “Climb Every Mountain.” Unfortunately for Warren and Buttigieg, George Zimmerman doesn’t see it that way, and filed suit against the two, claiming that because of the natural association in readers’ minds between him and Martin he was defamed. A federal court dismissed Zimmerman’s case a few weeks ago with leave to replead because of certain procedural errors in his Complaint.

Here’s the interesting part: While several infirmities in Zimmerman’s case may see him lose — this time with prejudice — buried in the judicial opinion is a discussion about how Warren and Buttigieg claimed …wait for it, wait for it… that calling someone a “racist” is not defamatory. Let that sink in.

In today’s political and media environment, no statement will expose a person to “shame, ridicule, scorn or opprobrium” as much as being called a “racist.” People lose their careers over it, and businesses are ruined when that allegation is splattered on them. You stand a better chance of maintaining the left’s respect if you rape a child (See, e.g., Polanski, Roman) than if you are caught making a bigoted remark.

That may be right, that may be wrong, but in CrazyWorld, Warren and Buttigieg filed arguments to the court claiming that “an allegation of racism or white supremacy is a matter of opinion and therefore not even actionable.” Say what?  On the one hand it’s the worst thing you can call a person, but when it come to accountability, no, it doesn’t count.

It gets worse. The Court rejected Warren and Buttegiegs’ argument, holding that their assertion that “the implication that someone has racist or white supremacist attributes is not defamatory at all, let alone defamatory per se is without merit.”

As I said, there are many reasons Zimmerman could or should ultimately lose his case. But at the same time, I don’t ever want to hear either of these two craven liars take anyone to task for being a bigot, because, according to them, it’s apparently “just” opinion and can’t possibly — as a matter of law — be a bad thing.

WHAT’S ACCURACY GOT TO DO WITH IT? Nothing, if you’re Twitter. The giant censorship machine disguised as a “mere platform” suspended acclaimed journalist John Solomon’s account for sharing an article about the legal distinctions between Pfizer’s fully approved and emergency use authorization (EUA) COVID-19 vaccines. Even Pfizer did not dispute the accuracy of the article, headlined “Pfizer to continue distributing version of COVID-19 vaccine not fully approved by FDA.”

“There is nothing in the story that is not well reported or misleading,” Stanford School of Medicine professor Jay Bhattacharya, whose research focuses on the “health and well-being of vulnerable populations,” wrote in an email to Just the News. “Twitter’s censorship of COVID information has contributed greatly to the collapse in trust in public health.”

Twitter provided no meaningful information about their arbitrary and capricious decision, saying only that “because the tweet violates its policy on “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information” related to COVID.”

Our Silicon Valley superiors seem to think that “1984” and Farenheit 451″ were instruction manuals.

**Update: Twitter’s Head of News Partnerships sent a note late this afternoon simply saying that the blocking of Solomon’s account was “an error.” No apology. No promise to do better.**

A CORROLLARY TO REYNOLD’S MAXIM: Teach women not to lie about rape, too:
The University of Maryland, Baltimore County will pay three former baseball players a combined $450,000 to settle a defamation case they brought against the college after they said they were wrongly accused of rape and had the false allegations printed in the college’s newspaper.

Truth be told, I don’t think $450,000 has quite enough “sting.”

BEHOLD, THE TRUTH BOMB: As many of you know, I teach a class in the History of Journalism at NYU. This will be referred to in my final exam. From today’s New York Post:

“Yesteryear’s ragtag muckrakers, who tirelessly championed the little guy against powerful insiders, have become insiders themselves,” wrote three social scientists surveying America’s journalists back in 1980. “Newsmen had long cherished the vantage point of the outsiders who keep the insiders straight. But now, leading journalists are courted by politicians, studied by scholars, and known to millions through their bylines and televised images.”