It’s Friday, March 16th, 2018…but before we begin, our youngest son Travis recently called our attention to the fact, back in August of 2016, Apple replaced its revolver emoji…

…with a squirt gun:

No doubt this had as much impact on gun violence as the Washington Bullets changing their name to the Wizards.

That being said, Apple is certainly within its rights to do so, but we thought it worth calling Tim Cook and his company out on a rather glaring double-standard we’re certain they never bothered to consider.  As Michael Ramirez recently noted…

…America offers any number of ways for people to kill themselves and/or others, not the least of which is texting while driving, thanks in large part to the very smart phones Apple pioneered.  According to one source, recent statistics indicate:

• 11 teens die every day as a result of texting while driving.
• According to a AAA poll, 94% of teen drivers acknowledge the dangers of texting and driving, but 35% admitted to doing it anyway.
• 21% of teen drivers involved in fatal accidents were distracted by their cell phones.
• Teen drivers are 4x more likely than adults to get into car crashes or near-crashes when talking or texting on a cell phone.

We were never a math whiz, but if these numbers are right, 11 teens per day times 365 days per year makes the toll from texting while driving over 4,000 teens per year…and that’s just teens!

Yet neither Apple nor the organizers and participants in yesterday’s idiotic national school walkout are likely to coordinate similar protests against iPhones, let alone advocate they be banned, despite smart phones being far more demonstrably deadly than the vaunted AR-15.

Consider the opioid crisis, which claims well over 40,000 lives per year; yet Apple has yet to remove the hypodermic syringe and pill emojis.  And in view of the deaths resulting annually from drunk driving (10,000+), cigarettes (480,000), knives (1,600) and hammers (500), not to mention those slaughtered by bombs or beheaded by swords every year in the Muslim world, how does Apple justify maintaining alcohol and smoking-related emojis, not to mention representations of knives, swords, bombs and hammers?!?

For that matter, as some 6,000 Americans per year die in slip-and-falls in their own homes, the vast majority of which are in the tub/shower, why does Apple continue to feature a shower emoji?!?  And hasn’t Tim Cook heard about…

…the ongoing obesity crisis?!?

This seems to us yet another case of selective Liberal outrage.

In a related item highlighting not only Progressivism’s hypocrisy and double-standards, but an utter refusal to engage in any form of reasoned debate, the Sacramento CBS affiliate reports on a…

California High School Teacher On Leave After Questioning School Shooting Walkout

 

After all, to the contemporary Progressive, diversity of skin tone is everything; diversity of opinion is nothing…the 1st Amendment notwithstanding.

Oh, and as Gateway Pundit noted via Bill Meisen, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s participation in yesterday’s national walk of illogic might have been more impressive…

…had he chosen to forego the protection of his 24/7 armed security detail:

Apparently, some lives are just more important than others!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, since we’re on the subject of endemic Progressive hypocrisy, writing at Best of the Web, James Freeman offers his thoughts on…

Farrakhan, the Women’s March and the Walkout

Why is it so hard for Democrats to avoid associating with him?

 

“Will Democrats decide to be the party of Conor Lamb, whose moderate message seems to have won over a Trump district in Pennsylvania? Or will Democrats define themselves as the activists who mount a “resistance” against our duly-elected President but still struggle to resist the charms of Louis Farrakhan?

Today’s news brings this question into sharp relief. Mr. Lamb appears to have won a congressional seat in a district that Donald Trump carried by 19 points in 2016. Meanwhile, the radical Women’s March organization beloved by so many Democrats has rolled out its latest production.

Time magazine reports:

It’s been exactly one month since the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — and some are choosing a somber way to pay tribute to the 17 people killed in the Parkland massacre.

Thousands of students and teachers began walking out of their classrooms on Wednesday, March 14 as part of the the #Enough! National School Walkout to raise awareness about issues of school safety and the impact of gun violence. The nationwide march, organized by Women’s March Youth Empower, began at 10 a.m. Many marches lasted 17 minutes, to represent each of the victims of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

It’s perhaps unreasonable to expect the children who are missing class to be aware of all the people with whom they are associating. But their parents should exercise some care.

On Saturday, Masha Gessen wrote in the New Yorker about Women’s March Co-President Tamika Mallory’s ties to Mr. Farrakhan:

Two weeks ago, when Farrakhan delivered his annual address to a Nation of Islam gathering in Chicago, he gave a shout-out to Mallory, who was in the audience. Farrakhan’s speech was, as it usually is, replete with anti-Semitic, homophobic, and transphobic invectives. When the news of Mallory’s presence at the event surfaced, she did not disavow Farrakhan’s comments. (Mallory and fellow Women’s March leader Carmen Perez have both posted pictures of themselves with Farrakhan to Instagram; in a caption, Mallory calls him “definitely the goat”—the greatest of all time.)

After some public criticism, Women’s March eventually released a statement which condemned hatred but did not condemn Mr. Farrakhan. The statement said that his comments were “not aligned” with those of the organization.

Upon reviewing the comments, many voters would no doubt go much further than simply saying his views are not aligned with theirs. In the Chicago Tribune this week, Clarence Page details some of Mr. Farrakhan’s remarks at the event attended by the Women’s March leader:

Here, for example, are a few quick quotes from his speech to the Nation’s recent annual Saviours’ Day program in Chicago’s Wintrust Arena: The “powerful Jews,” he told the audience of thousands, “are my enemy.”

The Jews are also “the mother and father of apartheid,” he said, and “responsible for all of this filth and degenerate behavior that Hollywood is putting out turning men into women and women into men”

“Farrakhan has pulled the cover off the eyes of the Satanic Jew and I’m here to say your time is up, your world is through,” he said, getting thoroughly revved up. “You good Jews better separate because the satanic ones will take you to hell with them because that’s where they are headed.”

Mr. Page’s column is entitled, “How Farrakhan kills the joy in identity politics.” It remains unclear how dividing Americans by their demographic characteristics is a joyful experience. But the inability to resist associating with Mr. Farrakhan extends beyond activists to elected Democratic members of Congress. Journal contributor Jeryl Bier has been chronicling the problem in recent months, highlighting the changing story offered by Democratic National Committee Deputy Chairman Rep. Keith Ellison.

This week in the Indianapolis Star, columnist Tim Swarens reports on another elected official:

Andre Carson doesn’t shy away from speaking his mind. Indianapolis’ Democratic congressman regularly blasts political opponents with clear, forceful criticism. He also fires back at his critics with a bluntness that leaves no question about what he thinks.

Carson — on matters that don’t involve Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan — is straight-forward, plain-spoken, passionate.

So it was disappointing to hear Carson waffle over questions about his anemic response to a horribly anti-Semitic speech that Farrakhan recently gave in Chicago.

In a 50-minute phone interview on Friday, Carson avoided criticizing Farrakhan directly, declined to characterize Farrakhan’s remarks as “hate speech,” and would not rule out meeting with Farrakhan in the future to discuss policy concerns.

Next time, perhaps more parents will read up on an organization before enlisting their children in its media events. Many would likely decide not to get anywhere near a group connected to Mr. Farrakhan. They might also wonder why Democratic politicians won’t do the same.

Why ads emphasizing the devotion of Barack Hussein Obama and the Dimocratic Party to this deviant weren’t running non-stop in Pittsburgh prior to the recent special election is beyond us.

Next up, as Alex Pappas reports at FOX News, Attorney General Jeff…

Sessions is mulling firing FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe before he retires

 

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is considering firing top FBI official Andrew McCabe before he officially retires from the bureau in a few days, a move that could deprive the outgoing deputy director of pension benefits, Fox News has confirmed.

Sources said if McCabe is terminated by close of business this Friday, that would mean McCabe would not receive a government pension…”

So why on earth is Sessions merely “mulling” getting rid of this duplicitous piece of deep-state sh*t rather than immediately tanking his sorry a*s?!?  Probably for the same reason all of the players in the IRS and Hillary email scandal are still walking our streets sans handcuffs.

Note to President Trump and the GOP:

There is absolutely no doubt in our military mind were any of the following…

…currently under indictment for their crimes, Trump’s approval numbers would be, at a minimum, 10 points higher…and Republicans wouldn’t be sweating the mid-terms.

In a related item courtesy of Townhall.com, Matt Vespa offers…

Congratulations, James Clapper: You Escaped Possible Charges For Lying To Congress

 

“James Clapper, former Director of National Intelligence under Obama, can rest a little easier concerning possible legal fallout. The statute of limitations for allegedly lying to Congress in his cringeworthy testimony to Congress over surveillance methods in 2013 has expired…”

“Allegedly”?!?  “Allegedly” our a*s!  Unfortunately, as Jonathan Turley noted back on January 19th…

“In DC, perjury is not simply tolerated, it is rewarded. In a city of made men and women, nothing says loyalty quite as much as lying under oath.“

Which is one of the primary reasons this…

We frankly find the failure to ferret out such obvious corruption the greatest shortcoming of both Trump and Jeff Sessions, who’s been one of the bigger disappointments in a long line of subpar Republican cabinet appointments.  

Meanwhile, again courtesy of his Best of the Web, Jim Freeman correctly diagnoses…

The FBI’s March Madness

Raise your hand if you think college hoops should be a bureau priority.

 

“The NCAA men’s basketball tournament has begun, and this year it operates in the shadow of an FBI investigation. Taxpayers can only wish that the bureau had pursued the mishandling of classified information by a secretary of State as aggressively as agents seem to have pursued Michigan State.

…This is not to say that cheating in basketball recruiting has no consequences. One of them is that good people who don’t cheat will struggle to win games. That’s a shame, not a crime. To pursue this investigation with no fewer than 11 teams of FBI agents appears to represent a whole new category of March madness.

It’s also an interesting contrast to the intensity with which the bureau pursued its investigation of IRS targeting of President Obama’s philosophical adversaries after the scandal broke in 2013. Any reasonable person would surely say that the use of the nation’s tax enforcement authority to punish individual Americans for their beliefs is a far greater threat to the republic than possible compensation for college athletes.

…Several months later, Mr. Mueller handed off leadership of the bureau to James Comey, who seems to have cared about IRS targeting abuses just as much as Mr. Mueller did. Mr. Comey’s FBI spent less time investigating the IRS than the bureau has spent examining college basketball. The targeting investigation was shut down in 2015 without charges. The bureau’s basketball fun continues and, by the way, the FBI’s mechanism to collect tips on violent criminal activity is broken.

The real scandal is not about Donald Trump firing Mr. Mueller’s successor. The question is: What took him so long?“

Since we’re on the subject of deliberate disinformation by formerly unimpeachable sources, the AP reports how the…

Vatican doctored photo of Benedict’s praise for Francis

 

“The Vatican admitted Wednesday that it altered a photo sent to the media of a letter from retired Pope Benedict XVI about Pope Francis. The manipulation changed the meaning of the image in a way that violated photojournalist industry standards.

The Vatican’s communications office released the photo of the letter on Monday on the eve of Francis’ five-year anniversary. The letter was cited by Monsignor Dario Vigano, chief of communications, to rebut critics of Francis who question his theological and philosophical heft and say he represents a rupture from Benedict’s doctrine-minded papacy.

…The missing content significantly altered the meaning of the quotes the Vatican chose to highlight, which were widely picked up by the media. Those quotes suggested that Benedict had read the volume, agreed with it and given it his full endorsement and assessment. The doctoring of the photo is significant because news media rely on Vatican photographers for images of the pope at events that are otherwise closed to independent media…”

We’re of the Christian faith, but Southern Baptist by denomination rather than Roman Catholic.  However, this recalls memories of the corruption characterized by the Borgias.

Turning from rank corruption to overweening narcissism, in this forward from Bill Meisen, The Daily Caller records how…

Obama Commemorates ANOTHER Death With Photo Of Himself

 

“Former President Barack Obama commemorated recently deceased scientist Stephen Hawking’s death with a photo of himself, repeating a well worn pattern of his presidency…”

A custom which included marking the passings of Muhammad Ali…

…Rosa Parks…

…Arnold Palmer…

…and Nelson Mandela:

Hope ‘n Change‘s portrayal of Barry’s boorish behavior at Mandela’s funeral puts his pompous, self-promoting narcissism into proper perspective:

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:

Finally, we’ll call it a week with the WTF Does THAT Have To Do With It?!? segment, courtesy of this headline from the WSJ…

Toys ‘R’ Us Tells Workers It Will Likely Close All U.S. Stores

Failure of big-box chain would put up to 33,000 Americans out of work

 

…and its accompanying photo and caption:

In all seriousness, WTF does a Yemeni-American Muslim boy picking out his Eid gift with three hijab-wearing women have to do with the imminent demise of an American toy store?!?

What,…the Journal editor tasked with finalizing the accompanying photo couldn’t score a pic of Geoffrey Giraffe…

…or the legendary retailer’s iconic sign?!?

Or better yet…

…both at once?!?

We don’t chalk the use of this particular photo up to random chance.  In keeping with its dogged defense of Louis Farrakhan, “American” Muslims are one of Progressivism’s protected special interest groups; thus their MSM extension wouldn’t miss any opportunity to present Muslims as solidly in America’s mainstream.

It also likely means whoever at the Journal selected the photo couldn’t find one depicting two gay men with a young boy…at least not one in Toys “R” Us!  

Magoo