THIS COUNTRY HAS A FIRST AMENDMENT NOT BECAUSE THE PEOPLE CAN’T BE TRUSTED, BUT BECAUSE GOVERNMENT CAN’T BE TRUSTED: EU Justice Commissioner Says Media Must Be Regulated to Prevent ‘Hate.’ “This is how free speech dies, one minister for justice, consumers, and gender equality at a time.”

HEATHER MAC DONALD: Drive to destroy Kavanaugh is the worst of feminism.

The most salient fact about this alleged episode will never register on elite consciousness: the sexual free-for-all environment, which may or may not have given rise to an assault by Kavanaugh. The sexual revolution declared that the traditional restraints on the male libido — norms of male chivalry and gentlemanliness and of female modesty and prudence — were patriarchal and oppressive. Men should stop protecting women and putting them on a pedestal. Males and females were assumed to desire easy sex with equal fervor, and to be able to walk away from a one-night stand with equal complacency.

With regard to students, adults should remain nonjudgmental and as far out of the picture as possible. Chaperones were relegated to the relic pile, as fusty as a mothballed corset. Starting in the 1970s, affluent parents often absented themselves from their teenagers’ parties, leaving the house liquor cabinet unattended. Popular culture became hyper-sexualized.

The results were not pretty: the male libido, free to act as boorishly as it wanted; females getting drunk to reduce their innate sexual inhibitions, unprotected by any default assumptions against casual premarital sex. Whether a 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh took advantage of this putative sexual liberation, many other teenagers have, and in so doing, merely followed the new script for sexual relations.

Those derided Victorian values of chivalric paternalism are now being reimported covertly on college campuses, however, where male students are deemed responsible for female well-being during drunken hook-ups, even if the male and female student are both equally inebriated.

The old system restrained both men and women, but the developing system places all the responsibilities on men — because apparently third-wave feminists must be protected like children.

JUST DO IT: House Republican threatens to push for Rosenstein impeachment unless he testifies.

PRIVACY: Why I’m done with Chrome.

A few weeks ago Google shipped an update to Chrome that fundamentally changes the sign-in experience. From now on, every time you log into a Google property (for example, Gmail), Chrome will automatically sign the browser into your Google account for you. It’ll do this without asking, or even explicitly notifying you.

In short, Google has transformed the question of consenting to data upload from something affirmative that I actually had to put effort into — entering my Google credentials and signing into Chrome — into something I can now do with a single accidental click. This is a dark pattern. Whether intentional or not, it has the effect of making it easy for people to activate sync without knowing it, or to think they’re already syncing and thus there’s no additional cost to increasing Google’s access to their data.

Don’t take my word for it. It even gives (former) Google people the creeps.

Brave is a private and secure alternative.

HIT PIECE: On The New Yorker’s Grossly Irresponsible Story.

The piece starts out not with a summary of the story, but with the news that Democrats in Washington are taking it seriously — a weaselly attempt to pass the buck if I ever saw one (“People are saying!”). After that throat clearing, it is acknowledged that the person making the accusation around which the piece revolves had not mentioned it until Kavanaugh was nominated, “was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty,” and agreed to make the charge on the record only after she had spent “six days [] carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney.”

There are no corroborating witnesses. None. Of the “dozens” of classmates The New Yorker contacted, all either failed “to respond to interview requests . . . declined to comment, or said they did not attend or remember the party.” Indeed, we learn late in the piece that the authors could not establish that Kavanaugh was even there. “The New Yorker,” the tenth paragraph begins, “has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party.” The only “evidence” provided comes from a “classmate” who was not at the party, but is certain he heard about the incident, and from “another classmate” who thinks he heard about an incident that could vaguely resemble the one alleged, but doesn’t know to whom it was done, or by whom. Or, as we would traditionally put it: The only proof provided is rumor.

Hardest hit? Ronan Farrow’s hard-won reputation as a tough, fair journalist.

BRIDGET JOHNSON: Pompeo Hopes for North Korea Trip Soon ‘Lord Willing’ to Plan Second Trump-Kim Summit.

MICHAEL WALSH: Media Snowflakes Now Triggered by High School Yearbooks. “Just when you think the media can’t sink any lower, they keep digging.”

HMM: Why did President Trump cancel his declassification order?

What began as a good week for President Trump stalled and finally ended badly. On Monday, he ordered the Justice Department to declassify and provide to congressional investigators a pile of documents, many of which the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) subpoenaed more than a year ago.

From Tuesday until Friday morning, we waited in vain for any evidence that the president’s order had been complied with by the FBI and DoJ.

On Friday morning, HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) told a Fox News interviewer that his committee hadn’t seen any of the documents that the president’s Monday order had declassified. Obviously, the FBI and DoJ weren’t complying with the president’s order.

Then came Trump’s Friday announcement that he’d canceled the declassification order after being persuaded to do so by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and “key allies” — Britain? Australia? Russia? Mexico? — who’d called to urge him not to declassify the documents in question.

That’s no way to drain a swamp.

ELI LAKE: Trump Isn’t the Only One Who Wants to Get Along With Putin. “Remember when Democrats wanted a ‘reset’ of Russian relations? Some still do.”

The important difference is, Trump isn’t willing to sacrifice fracking or missile defenses on the altar of a “reset.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Kavanaugh Tries to Prove His Innocence and Much, Much More. “I think the interview was pretty good and you have to cringe inside when Kavanaugh starts talking about how he was a virgin in high school and college, it’s really just sad what this man has to do to ‘prove’ himself innocent.”

SAD BUT TRUE: Women Need To Protect Their Men From Unproven, Life-Destroying Accusations.

Melissa Danford:

Many also seem willing to abandon all statutes of limitation and questions of jurisdiction. I’m not a lawyer, but as a citizen it is easy to see how this idea is a protection, not an obstruction of justice. Certain agents enforce certain laws, so we can hold various bodies accountable in appropriate ways. Accusations made after certain limits are unreliable and often can no longer be proven. Who wants to go to trial for something that happened so long ago that a fair trial is impossible? We all benefit from statutes of limitation.

As we turn away from these protections for men, what is the logical outcome? If a vindictive woman or ideological zealot in this polarized time decides a man must be silenced, isolated, or otherwise moved out of the way, what protections will he have? What due process will protect the innocent? Should we pretend people, both women and men, do not make false accusations for a whole host of reasons?

I understand that some women have been, still are, and will be abused by men. I imagine every woman knows someone who has suffered in this way. But if we abandon the rule of law in our pursuit of some perfect justice, what will stand in the way when that pursuit comes back around?

The Left’s goal isn’t the protection of women, but the destruction of justice.

BLUE WAVE? Republican Party Favorability Highest in Seven Years.

Gallup:

Forty-five percent of Americans now have a favorable view of the Republican Party, a nine-point gain from last September’s 36%. It is the party’s most positive image since it registered 47% in January 2011, shortly after taking control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections. Forty-four percent give the Democratic Party a favorable rating.

The parity in Republicans’ and Democrats’ favorable ratings marks a change from what has generally been the case since Barack Obama’s election as president in November 2008. Republicans have usually been rated less positively than Democrats over this time, with the Republican Party’s favorability rating for the last decade averaging 39%, compared with the Democratic Party’s 44%.

There’s been a big uptick in the last two or three months.

THE NEW CIVILITY: ‘When they go low, we kick ’em in the nuts.’ “When it comes to beating Donald Trump in 2020, Democrats aren’t buying Michelle Obama’s battle cry anymore.”

It isn’t like anyone really believed it in the first place.

WINNING: Trump returns to UN but seems unlikely to change his tune.

REMINDER: Bruce Carroll’s “Expose The Media’s Skeletons” GoFundMe is still active.

Today’s mainstream media journalists have become nothing more than left-wing extremist activists. They routinely lie to the American public and savor the personal destruction of conservatives.

It’s time to fight back.

I am raising money to hire a private investigation firm to fully investigate the backgrounds of members of our news media.

This effort will be transparent and a group effort: contributors will help choose which journalists are investigated.

I gave yesterday, and apparently so did many Instapundit readers.

DAVID SOLWAY: Feminism’s Male Enablers. “For many men who slandered their gender, what goes around comes around.”

Michael Kimmel is the founder of the journal Men and Masculinities, the voice of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Stony Brook, author of many popular books, and a committed feminist. His Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era, described in his university bio as “a comparative study of the extreme right, White Supremacists, and neo-Nazis in the United States, Germany, and Scandinavia,” has acquired near-legendary status. His reputation in the field of gender studies is immense and, until recently, untouchable. Now, Kimmel has himself been accused of sexual harassment, a case of a strenuous advocate for women’s rights hoist on his own petard.

Flashback: “I’m Suspicious of Male ‘Feminists’ — And You Should Be Too.”

JOHN ELLIS: The Left Is Hoping to Eliminate Steak, Hamburgers, and Bacon. “Americans need to be aware of the growing attack on meat and the meat industry.”

The cold, dead hand won’t be the one holding my hamburger.

EVERGREEN ADVICE: For Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, GOP needs to start acting like the majority.

CHRISTIAN TOTO: How Far Will Press Go to Protect Michael Moore?

The Daily Beast’s comprehensive article not only did the work no other mainstream outlet would do but left one tantalizing nugget:

Moore, champion of the Little Guy and Guy, treats his employees badly.

Is that true? Is his status as Blue Collar America’s best friend a charade? If so, isn’t that a story in and of itself? If it’s false, shouldn’t the record be cleared once and for all?

We don’t know all the answers, in part, because media outlets haven’t bothered to ask before or after the story’s publication. It’s the kind of angle an entertainment journalist might find interesting, unless they prefer avoiding an ugly truth.

It’s not as if reporters ignore Moore. His every public utterance generates dozens of headlines, like when he recently threatened to move to Canada.

He’s genius at that part of his empire – getting his name in the press.

This isn’t the only Moore-related story reporters haven’t touched.

Read the whole thing.

EARLY HUMANS HAD THEIR PRIORITIES IN ORDER: Early humans grew grains for beer, not bread, new study suggests.

HOW CONVENIENT: Dem. Senator: Kavanaugh Doesn’t Deserve ‘Presumption of Innocence’ Because I Disagree With Him.

TRUE BELIEVER: James Woods refuses to delete meme that he says got him locked out of Twitter.

Twitter is just a platform and can’t survive without content produced by its users — for free.

GOOD: White House Authorizes “Offensive Operations” As Part of New Cyber Security Strategy.

According to national security adviser John Bolton, the new policy will ease the rules on the use of cyber weapons to protect the nation and includes a new classified presidential directive that replaced one from the Obama administration.

According to the Washington Post, “In general, the president’s directive — called National Security Presidential Memorandum 13, or NSPM 13 — frees the military to engage, without a lengthy approval process, in actions that fall below the “use of force” or a level that would cause death, destruction or significant economic impacts, said individuals familiar with the policy who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss nonpublic information.”

Most analysts believe the strategy does not differ too much from the Obama administration’s cybersecurity national action plan (CNAP) issued in 2016; the problem, according to some former officials “was not the policy, but the inability of agencies to deliver a forceful response.”

Typical.

AND FORD’S ARE LAUGHABLY WEAK: Four Reasons the New Accusations Against Kavanaugh Are Weaker Than Ford’s.

BRUCE CARROL HAS STARTED A TURNABOUT-IS-FAIR-PLAY GOFUNDME EFFORT: “I am raising money to hire a private investigation firm to fully investigate the backgrounds of members of our news media. This effort will be transparent and a group effort: contributors will help choose which journalists are investigated.”

I chipped in $50.