TYLER O’NEIL: Snopes Plays Satire Police, Slams Babylon Bee for Joke About Erica Thomas and Chick-fil-A.
The stuff is stacking up so high we’re going to need a Satire Space Force.
Related (From Ed): Adam Ford, Babylon Bee founder: “So [Snopes] fact-checked [The Babylon Bee] again. But this time it’s particularly egregious and, well, kind of disturbing. And I’d like to talk about it.”
Read the whole thing.
THE RETURN OF THE PRIMITIVE: California faces rising danger of mosquito-borne diseases.
COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Ilhan Omar, New York Times, partners in latest anti-Trump hit.
DOUG BANDOW: 1984: China Edition.
Many Americans, myself included, hoped that the PRC’s immersion in the international economic system would encourage further expansion of the freedom of Chinese to debate ideas and ultimately control their political future. Although the CCP showed no willingness to relax its control, intellectual space appeared to grow a bit and liberty expanded in some important areas, such as religion. Even if progress was slow, measured against the Maoist era China had liberalized significantly.
Then President Xi Jinping took over in March 2013. His overriding objectives have been to assert China’s power internationally and the CCP’s authority internally. As such, he challenged the West and liberal ideas.
To many American policymakers, the PRC’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy poses the greatest threat. China’s neighbors and even more distant countries around the world, including in Europe, also are nervous about Beijing’s intentions. However, the PRC threatens not fundamental American security, but long-standing influence in East Asia, a very different issue. Moreover, far from being a grandmaster of geopolitics, Xi blundered badly: China’s aggressive overreach and malign meddling encouraged its neighbors and others to cooperate against it. They should bear the greatest responsibility in constraining its behavior.
Of anyone in history, Xi reminds me most of Kaiser Wilhelm II: Aggressive, not as sharp as he thinks he is, and surrounded by too many Yes Men.
YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO THAT, RIGHT? Indiana woman steals dentures and wears them to meet probation officer, police say.
JOE BIDEN: No More Mr. Nice Guy.
At an exclusive fundraiser at the just-as-exclusive Detroit Golf Club, Biden said, “I’m not going to be as polite this time.” Referring to the spanking he got on race from California Senator Kamala Harris in the previous debate, Biden explained that he’ll get meaner at next week’s debate “because this is the same person who asked me to come to California and nominate her in her convention.”
What, one nice speech and Harris is supposed to roll over for him on the way to the Democratic nomination? Biden knows better than that, but bitterness and the sense of entitlement he revealed isn’t pretty.
Corn, popped.
And there’s much more at the link.
HMM: NYT Hints: Mueller Aide Aaron Zebley Was Actually Running The Russiagate Probe.
There were lots of questions about this very thing yesterday, but for the NYT to even hint at it is kind of a big deal.
GOODWIN: Mueller’s testimony equals end of any Trump impeachment talk.
More likely, the 74-year old former FBI director was something of a figurehead for an investigation that was carried out by the team of zealots he assembled.
That is not an incidental issue. As Andy McCarthy at National Review has written, and as Trump has repeatedly charged, the prosecutors were primarily people who had donated to Hillary Clinton and other Democrats or who otherwise made known their support for her.
Perhaps Mueller’s detachment explains his failure to remedy these obvious conflicts of interest that undercut his credibility from the moment they became known.
Oddly, Mueller removed FBI agent Peter Strzok because his bias against Trump became public, but apparently had no concerns about public reports showing that chief prosecutor Andrew Weissman and others were in Clinton’s camp.
Mueller’s detachment may also explain the bizarre standard his team created, where Trump’s presumption of innocence was shredded because they could not find sufficient evidence to “exonerate” him. Several Republicans pointed out that prosecutors either file charges or don’t, but have never imposed the impossible standard of exoneration.
Those flaws are among many that undercut the report, including the fact that much of it reads as if it were written by Trump-hating reporters from the New York Times.
Birds of a feather.
CHRISTIAN TOTO: Here’s Why Cancel Culture Is Piling on Leonardo DiCaprio.
Does Leonardo DiCaprio need to start rethinking the way he chooses his film projects? It’s a topic many moviegoers [emphasis added] are discussing in the aftermath of a Hollywood Reporter article naming Leonardo DiCaprio the world’s “last movie star.” DiCaprio is one of few stars left in the industry whose name carries serious box office clout, but he hasn’t necessarily leveraged that star power to lift up women and minority directors. Guy Lodge, film critic for The Guardian and Variety, made a viral note on Twitter that DiCaprio has not worked with a female director since 1995.
Many movie goers? How many? Or is it just the staffers at left-wing movie outlets?
Indiewire is ready to condemn the actor, no doubt. The story cites a couple of film journalists and indie actress Zoe Kazan to back up its case, one the site’s readers mostly mocked.
Once again, an actor’s IMDB page is shot through a woke filter for maximum outrage.
The Montagnards always turn on the Girondists, to coin an Instaphrase. What’s noteworthy here is that DiCaprio is among the Girondists.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VOKDAPUNDIT: Kirsten Gillibrand Wants Ten Trillion of Your Dollars to Fight Climate Change Or Whatever. “I always love promises like this. ‘Prioritize rural advancement, frontline communities, and marginalized voices’ sounds awfully nice, doesn’t it? What it means in practice is a slush fund for paying off various interest groups, both urban and rural. There’s other people’s money for everyone!”
HEALTH: Apple Watch ECG vs. hospital EKG: Not the results I was expecting.
The notification on the Apple Watch also said I should contact my doctor if I didn’t feel well or if I continued to get the same result. Users can share these results as a PDF with their doctors, but luckily my doctor happened to be standing next to me.
The EKG on the Apple Watch directly coincided with the results of the printed-out hospital EKG. There were intermittent early beats coming from the lower chamber of my heart.
“This would be really useful [as a way] to screen for this or to have the first understanding that you have these early heart beats,” Marcus said. “What’s missing in the single lead Apple Watch is the information that tells us more specifically where exactly this is coming from.”
Dr. Marcus says I probably won’t die from the irregularity he discovered in my EKG that day, but he did ask me to schedule a follow-up to discuss my early heartbeat, something I likely wouldn’t have caught without this kind of test.
I always get pushback for promoting these stories, but I’m a firm believer in getting as much information to the consumer — and in this case, patient — as possible. The Apple Watch Series 4’s one-lead EKG monitor isn’t nearly as good as what you’ll find in your doctor’s office, but it’s only a first-generation product… and it is getting people to the doctor who never knew they had a heart condition.
So more devices like this, please.
GUY BENSON: As America Yawned, Mueller’s Testimony Damaged Him, Made Impeachment Less Likely.
The problem for the Democrats is that the supposedly big ‘gotcha’ moments were simply Mueller affirming damaging-looking facts and allegations listed in the document that has been in the public realm — picked apart and argued over ad nauseam — for months. We discussed some of them here (my stance against impeachment was only reinforced today). The shareable moment of Mueller stating that his report was not a total exoneration of the president, as the president has claimed, wasn’t terribly powerful because that conclusion was literally in the document itself, and has been highlighted repeatedly. Polling shows that the public already disagreed with Trump’s over-broad boast about the extent of his exculpation. As for collusion, Mueller tripped all over himself very early in the proceedings, initially stating that “conspiracy” and “collusion” were not colloquial synonyms. But his — or “his” — report stated precisely the opposite. When pressed on that inconsistency, he meekly deferred to the written report, which bolsters the president’s “no collusion” bottom line.
The bottom line is that Mueller didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know, and nothing we already knew was actionable.
The usual media outlets are trying to spin that as a win on substance for the Democrats, but there was nothing new of substance. And the optics, most everyone agrees, were just awful.
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: ‘The Robert Mueller Story’ Was Box Office Poison. “I could not have imagined what a dumpster fire the Mueller testimony would turn out to be. The Democrats dragged a geriatric memory-care patient before the American public to try to get the Orange Man and it backfired. Mueller appeared confused, unclear on important information, mumbled phrases like a trained parrot and did not give the Democrats much help with their impeachment passion play. It’s clear Mueller had virtually nothing to do with the report, staff hiring or major decisions. So who was running the show for 2 years? We need to find out.”
LEGAL HARASSMENT: Posting a negative review online can get you sued.
FUNDS DON’T RAISE THEMSELVES, YOU KNOW: House Democrats Caught Pushing Fake News About Mueller Testimony.
EARS TO THE GROUND: In key Senate races, Democrats buck leftward tilt on issues.
But the broader trend continues:
Policy differences always exist inside the major parties, but to some voters the Democratic agenda could soon seem like a hopeless argument with itself. More than in years past, progressives are insisting that winning in a polarized political environment requires ambitious ideas, not hedged compromises.
Even in moderate or conservative states, “having the candidate who is campaigning on exciting ideas is the biggest thing that will elevate them,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Washington-based Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which has backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts for president.
In Texas, party leaders say they are confident in Air Force veteran Hegar taking on Republican incumbent John Cornyn , but they also are not discouraging progressives from challenging her. The field organizer for former Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s near-miss campaign for U.S. Senate last year is now trying to draft Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez, the leader of a progressive Latino group called the Jolt Initiative.
The progressives are on a mad drunk, convinced Trump is going to lose and that this is their best bet to put people in office who make Obama’s ambitions seem moderate in comparison.
I’m not getting cocky, but it sure seems like they’re in for one helluva hangover.
THEIR TEARS TASTE LIKE CHAMPAGNE, THE WISE MAN WROTE: White House Celebrates As Mueller Testimony Proves Disastrous For Democrats.
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