‘Less Than Fake News’

Posted on | August 31, 2017 | Comments Off on ‘Less Than Fake News’

OK, so Laura Ingraham has a web site called LifeZette, the chief executive of which is a guy named Peter Anthony, who allegedly is a “creep.”

Anyway, Betsy Woodruff and Lachlan Markay — two young conservative journalists I happen to know personally — wrote a story for The Daily Beast detailing various creepy things Peter Anthony has allegedly done, e.g., making sexual comments about female employees of LifeZette and urging employees to drink shots at staff Happy Hour parties.

The basic problem with this story is that (a) all these allegations are made by anonymous sources and (b) nobody’s filed a lawsuit or anything. Also (c) who cares about D.C. newsroom gossip, anyway?

While I don’t want to take lightly the accusation of sexual harassment, I wouldn’t push the “publish” button on that kind of story without some kind of documentation — preferably a verified court filing, but maybe an internal company memo or an email. You’ve got to have something more than just “anonymous sources said” before you run a story like that, because otherwise you’re setting yourself up for a libel suit.

These are journalistic considerations that have nothing to with whether Peter Anthony is or is not a creep, or whether working conditions for women in the LifeZette offices are ideal. You can say, “Well, the story quotes multiple people saying this guy’s a sexist pig,” but none of those people have filed a lawsuit, nor are they otherwise willing to go public with these accusations under their own names, and this is problematic.

If you don’t like your job or you don’t like your boss, quit — a simple solution, and if you want to badmouth your ex-boss, OK. But where else except in D.C. do people have this perceived need to “expose” the ex-boss they don’t like by giving anonymous quotes to the media?

Joe Curl used to work at LifeZette, and before that he worked for Drudge, and before that he worked at The Washington Times, and I’ve known Joe for almost 20 years now. Seeking to verify their story about LifeZette, the Daily Beast reporters emailed Joe some questions:

In response to an email from The Daily Beast, Curl replied by writing, “So, Houston is under water, North Korea’s firing missiles over Japan, the cost of health care has tripled under Obamacare, and you’re writing about — LifeZette happy hours? No wonder so many Americans despise the media. Your ‘story’ is less than fake news — it’s utter bullshit.”

Ouch.

Really, it’s D.C. media reporting about the D.C. media, and unless it involves a lawsuit or an arrest, it’s difficult to justify such a story.

Does Peter Anthony have a “habit” of making “crude observations” about female employees’ appearance? I don’t know. But I also don’t know if anyone outside the world of D.C. journalism cares. The LifeZette office could be Animal House, and so what? “Double-secret probation”?

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests — we did. But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg — isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!”

God bless America!

Category: Journalism, Media Bias

In The Mailbox: 08.31.17

Posted on | August 31, 2017 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 08.31.17

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box – Episode #1 (Won’t be up until 0300 Friday. Sorry.)
EBL: It’s Here – Burning Man 2017
Twitchy: Kamala Harris Gets A Brutal Lesson On What Is And What Isn’t A Right
Louder With Crowder: Watch Elderly Couple Rescued From Flood Waters – By Chick-Fil-A?

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Cheating
American Power: America’s Mass Hysteria, also, Peter McPhee, Liberty Or Death
American Thinker: Trump Goes It Alone And Leaves ‘Em In The Dust
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Tax Reform News
BLACKFIVE: Andrew Gross, The One Man and The Saboteur
Bring The HEAT: African Americans In The Navy In World War II
Da Tech Guy: Letting DACA Lapse Would Be The President’s Best Move So Far, also, How To Get Undrafted By The NFL In One Easy Step
Don Surber: Why Trump Isn’t Filling Positions, also, Harvey Shows Trump As CEO
Dustbury: Leaving It All Behind
Fred On Everything: Thoughts From Below The Rio Bravo – A Preliminary To Going Into Hiding
The Geller Report: Trump-Type Populism Hits Germany’s Polls As Alt-Right Poised For Historic Parliamentary Wins
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Jammie Wearing Fools: Obama’s Mideast Legacy – Iran’s Puppets Surround Israel With War On The Way
Joe For America:
JustOneMinute: Reality As A Social Construct
Power Line: Expecting Defeat In Supreme Court, Public Sector Unions Try To Slow Members’ Exodus, also, (DHS) Magical Mystery Tour – Doing The Work The Strib Won’t Do (Part 4)
Shark Tank: Rep. Deutch Denounces Antifa, But Claims Its Members Aren’t All Anarchists
Shot In The Dark: Let The Great Retraction Begin
STUMP: Soda Tax Gone Global – Is It Sweeps Week Yet?
The Jawa Report: White Man Kills Five Black Men In Racist Murder Spree
The Political Hat: Social Justice Education, Social Justice Math, Social Studies Engineering, Social Justice Everything!
This Ain’t Hell: Mark E. Wisner – Guilty At The VA, also, SPLC Wants Army Bases “Taken Down”
Weasel Zippers: UN Human Rights Chief Whines Trump May Be Inciting Violence Against Media By Calling Them “Fake News”, also, Comey Drafted Statement Clearing Hillary Before Interviewing Key Witnesses
Mark Steyn: A Hell of A Steal, also, Acts of God And Man

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Category: Linkagery

Dry-Humping the Patriarchy, Because @LaurenJauregui Is a Feminist Like That

Posted on | August 31, 2017 | 2 Comments

SHOT:

CHASER:

Some readers may recall the name Lauren Jauregui, not because you’ve ever heard any songs by her girl group Fifth Harmony, but because she decided to make a feminist statement after the 2016 election:

Anti-American left-wing teachers at an all-girls Catholic school in Miami taught bisexual pop singer Lauren Jauregui the radical feminist beliefs that inspired her outspoken opposition to President Trump.
A member of the group Fifth Harmony, the 20-year-old Jauregui denounced Republican voters as “racist, homophobic, sexist, xenophobic, a–holes” in a November rant in which she compared Trump to Hitler and declared her pride in being “a bisexual Cuban-American woman.” In that Nov. 18 message, Jauregui specifically cited her attendance at an all-girls Catholic school in condemning Republicans as “narrow-minded” and “selfish.” Saturday [Jan. 22], Jauregui attended the pro-abortion “Women’s March on Washington,” obscenely condemning “patriarchy.” . . .
In an interview with the feminist web site Nylon . . . Jauregui defended federal funding for Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider, and credited her feminist politics to attending Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami . . .

Read the whole thing, in case you’ve forgotten (or never cared) who Lauren Jauregui is or what she said about Republican voters.

“F**K THE SYSTEM AND THE PATRIARCHY.”
— Lauren Jauregui, Jan. 21, 2017

She vowed a “revolutionary fight for justice” in January, but even an America-hating anti-capitalist pro-abortion feminist has to pay the bills, so Lauren is shaking her money-maker for heteronormative cash:

Fifth Harmony bumped and grinded while surrounded by shirtless male dancers for He Like That, the second music video off their third studio album released Friday.
Lauren Jauregui practically bared her entire rear-end in a corseted mini-skirt for the raunchy reggaeton-tinged track, which has already amassed 500K views on YouTube.
‘Pumps in the bump, pumps in the bump / He like the girls with the pumps in the bump,’ the girl group sang.

Yeah, that “revolutionary fight for justice” is a tough job. Lauren Jauregui is fighting “patriarchy” under a management contract to Simon Cowell (male) making profit for a record label headed by L.A. Reid (male) which is owned by the multi-trillion-dollar conglomerate Sony.

Lauren’s Daddy paid $30,000 a year to send her to a Catholic girls school, where the radical teachers taught her a lot about “social justice,” but she apparently never learned the definition of irony.

The patriarchy is laughing all the way to the bank, sweetheart.

Category: Celebrities, Sex Trouble

In The Mailbox Leftovers: 08.30.17

Posted on | August 31, 2017 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Asshat Of The Day – Linda Sarsour
Michelle Malkin: Keith Ogre-mann – Conde Nasty’s Misogynist-In-Chief
Twitchy: “The Mossad” Trolls Linda Sarsour With One Word, One Tweet – And It’s AWESOME
Louder With Crowder: Linda Sarsour Exploits Houston Hurricane Victims To Fund Left-Wing Activism

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Power: Lynn Hunt, Politics, Culture, & Class in the French Revolution
American Thinker: An Ideological Coup Against Trump?
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Houston Flooding Update For August 30
BLACKFIVE: Rick Campbell, Blackmail
Bring The HEAT: Smoking Gun – Young Couple Arrested For Fairway Sex
Da Tech Guy: Stinking Facts, also, Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora – Everything’s Hate, Adding ACT, Houston, and Jim Brown
Don Surber: Suddenly, Antifa Does Equal Nazis
Dustbury: Nazi, Schmatzi
The Geller Report: Imran Awan Has Still-Active Secret House E-Mail Account, And It’s Tied to an Intelligence Staffer
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Jammie Wearing Fools: Berkeley Mayor’s Answer to Antifa? I Surrender
Joe For America: Bass Pro Shops Makes Big Move To Help Harvey Flood Victims
JustOneMinute: DNC Hack…Or Leak? also, Will NYT Reporter Now Correct Her Correction On Antifa And Hate?
Power Line: Did Joe Arpaio Receive A Fair Hearing From An Unbiased Judge? also, The Media Never Disappoints
Shark Tank: Rubio’s Bill Drains the VA Swamp, Hundreds Fired
Shot In The Dark: Nice Try, Snowflake
STUMP: Monday Sweetness – OF COURSE MORE SODA TAX
The Political Hat: Revolution of the Elites
This Ain’t Hell: Norks Fire Missile Over Japan, also, SecDef Statement On Presidential Memo
Weasel Zippers: It Only Takes a Day – “March To DC” Loses Almost All Participants, also, Obama Aide Ben Rhodes Throws Shade At Trump With Pic Of Obama Hugging Sandy Victim – Just One Problem
Mark Steyn: The Transfiguration of Diana

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Category: Linkagery

‘Antifa’ Professor Facing 40 Years in Prison for Assault Claims … Victimhood?

Posted on | August 31, 2017 | 1 Comment

Eric Clanton is charged with attacking Trump supporters in Berkeley.

Three months ago, Eric Clanton was charged with multiple felonies after video evidence led police to arrest him for attacking Trump supporters at a rally in Berkeley. Internet sleuths at the 4chan forum identified Clanton, who taught philosophy at a California community college, as the masked “antifa” protester who attacked Trump supporters with a U-shaped bicycle lock (click here to see the affidavit) and inflicted serious injuries. Clanton could face up to 40 years in prison if convicted, but claims that he is actually the victim:

Eric Clanton, formerly of Diablo Valley College, alleges the Berkeley PD charged him with assault with a deadly weapon based on “far right forum posts” and “unverified youtube videos.”
In an online statement, Clanton wrote “Dealing with an unintelligible internet force smearing and threatening me online was not easy, and created stress to say the least, but I had every expectation that very few people would take them seriously, especially considering the character and credibility of their sources.
“However, five weeks later the Berkeley police smashed into two houses, held guns to peoples’ heads, handcuffed, verbally abused, and stole the belongings of over a dozen people including books and zines.”

Well, Clanton is entitled to his day in court, but my hunch is that he’ll accept a plea bargain rather than to risk a court trial and a guilty verdict.
Calling him a “terrorist” is premature, of course, as Clanton is only an alleged terrorist unless and until he is found guilty. Even our “far right forum posts” should have journalistic standards. We wouldn’t want to start imitating “fake news” operations like CNN, would we?

Category: California, Crime, Terrorism

Professor Fired After Claiming ‘Evil’ Texas Deserved Deadly Hurricane as ‘Karma’

Posted on | August 30, 2017 | Comments Off on Professor Fired After Claiming ‘Evil’ Texas Deserved Deadly Hurricane as ‘Karma’

The University of Tampa has fired a sociology professor who claimed on Twitter that Texas deserved the destruction of Hurricane Harvey because most people in the state vote Republican. “I don’t believe in instant Karma but this kinda feels like it for Texas,” adjunct professor Ken Storey wrote on Sunday. “Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesn’t care about them.” When his comment was questioned by someone who pointed out that there are “lots of good people in Texas,” Storey replied: “Well, the good people there need to do more to stop the evil their state pushes. I’m only blaming those who support the GOP there.” After it was pointed out that President Trump also won a majority in Florida, Storey replied: “Yep, those who voted for him here deserve it as well.”

Storey has a master’s degree from the University of Central Florida and has also teaches at Hillsborough Community College. After his anti-Texas tweets ignited a firestorm of criticism, Storey apologized, but his belated regret apparently wasn’t enough to save his job:

The University of Tampa on Monday night posted a statement on Facebook condemning Storey’s comments and “the sentiment behind them,” but noted they were posted to a private account and “not made within his capacity as a faculty member.”
That statement made no reference to Storey’s future role with the university — but, in another release Tuesday, the university said Storey “has been relieved of his duties at UT, and his classes will be covered by other sociology faculty.”
“As Floridians, we are well aware of the destruction and suffering associated with tropical weather,” the statement said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with all impacted by Hurricane Harvey.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Storey was still on staff at Hillsborough Community College, where a spokeswoman told the Orlando Sentinel that officials have “addressed the matter” with Storey. Meanwhile, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), best known for defending conservatives from political correctness on campus, seems to be the only voice criticizing the University of Tampa’s firing of Storey.

“Many universities seem to decide, ‘Well, it’s not worth the trouble of sticking up for our faculty members’ rights,’ and that’s troubling,” FIRE attorney Ari Cohn told the Sentinel. “The University of Tampa’s own policies say faculty members retain their rights to speak as private citizens, which is exactly what Ken Storey seems to have done.”

Category: Education

Democrats: The Atheist Anti-American Feminist Gun-Grabber Man-Hating Party

Posted on | August 29, 2017 | 1 Comment

Far be it from me to offer helpful advice to Democrats. The sooner the Democrat Party implodes from its internal contradictions, the better off America and the world will be, as far as I’m concerned. And so I probably shouldn’t point out that being the anti-Jesus party isn’t going to help the Democrats any more than their being the anti-capitalist party, or the anti-male party, or the anti-white party, or . . .

Shannon Watts a/k/a Shannon Troughton is a Democrat who started “Moms Demand Action,” an anti-Second Amendment group funded by New York multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg. She is a leading practitioner of the Democrat strategy of demonizing gun owners, using the propaganda slogan “Disarm Hate” to promote the idea that every gun owner is a sexist racist homophobe. In other words, Democrats advocate gun-control laws as a means of disarming white heterosexual males.

Obviously, this rhetoric didn’t help Hillary Clinton win over white working-class voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or Iowa. It’s almost as if voters don’t enjoy being scapegoated or something. But having built an identity-politics coalition around paranoid hatred — blaming all the world’s woes on demonized “right-wing” scapegoats — the Democrats can’t seem to find any other arguments in the Trump era.

So today I noticed the #NashvilleStatement hashtag was trending on Twitter, and when I clicked over, I saw this:

Well, what was this about? A group of evangelical Christian leaders had issued a statement affirming that they still believe what they have always believed, and in particular rejecting the liberal demand for compulsory approval of homosexuality and transgenderism:

“The Nashville Statement is an urgently needed moment of gospel clarity,” stated [Coalition for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood] President Denny Burk. “In a culture nearly defined by sexual confusion and brokenness, the church of Jesus Christ has to proclaim with one voice that God’s good design for gender, marriage, and sexuality.” . . .
Top Evangelicals leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination representing over 47,000 Baptist churches across the United States, signed the statement.
Other major signatories include Anglican pastor and apologist Sam Alberry, popular author and pastor Francis Chan, Charisma Media’s founder and CEO, Steven Strang, and Asbury Theologian’s Visiting Distinguished Professor of Old Testament John N. Oswalt.

Question: What does this theological statement have to do with Shannon Watts’ pet issue of gun control?
Answer: Nothing at all.

Except, of course, she’s a Democrat, so she had to drag her lesbian daughter into the argument to tell us what we already knew, that Democrats aren’t just anti-Second Amendment, but also anti-First Amendment, seeking to prevent Christians from teaching what the Bible says. Democrats consider it “hate speech” to quote Genesis or Deuteronomy or Romans or any other passage of the Bible that could be cited by those who disapprove of homosexual behavior.

Did I miss the part of the #NashvilleStatement where any serious Christian doctrine changed in the slightest?

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 30, 2017

*Muslims throwing gays off buildings*

Dems: "Meh"

*Christians not agreeing with gays"

Dems: *TRIGGERED*

#NashvilleStatement

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 29, 2017

The response to the #NashvilleStatement proves that many leftists want to outlaw Christianity. They don't believe it has a right to exist.

— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 30, 2017

Democrats like Shannon Watts promote the idea that Bible-believing Christians are a greater threat to America than Koran-believing Muslims. Why? Because exit-poll data show that Bible-believing Christians tend to vote Republican, just like a majority of gun owners vote Republican, and most white people vote Republican. If you are a member of any demographic constituency that is aligned with the GOP, Democrats will find a way to demonize you as the epitome of evil, because scapegoating their enemies is what the Democrat Party is all about.

By the way, is anyone surprised that Shannon Watts’ daughter is gay? Aren’t Democrats now basically the anti-heterosexual party? America is still a free country, and you can say what you want, but they can take away my heterosexuality when they pry it from my cold dead hands.

Probably most Americans agree with me, but Democrats hate most Americans. They are fanatically devoted to hating us, and yet can’t seem to understand why we don’t vote for them. Let’s hope they never figure it out, because this is why Hillary Clinton is not president.

Remember how being the anti-gun candidate helped Hillary Clinton get elected president? Oh, wait … #2A pic.twitter.com/YyJMOYdyLa

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) August 30, 2017