It’s Monday, January 21st, 2019…and owing to a last-minute dinner engagement, here’s a somewhat abbreviated edition of The Gouge!

At the top of today’s installment…

See how quickly you can identify the theme of today’s offering.

First up, consider this quote from an Atlantic article on the idled non-essential:

“…Of course, for many of the 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed for weeks—struggling to scrape together rent payments and child-care money—the gridlock gripping Washington probably feels disastrous enough already.“

Inquiring minds are perplexed: why would furloughed workers require child-care?  And given our recent first-hand experience with the realities of evicting tenants who’ve stopped paying rent…five consecutive months of rent, and whose leases have expired!…we can’t imagine any of the furloughed federal free-loaders would be benighted enough to continue paying rent…or their mortgage payments for that matter!

Second, the latest BuzzFeed bomb…that’s “bomb”, as in a Broadway show that closes after one night:

“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate.“

This on the heel’s of the Fake News factory’s January 2017 attempt to play Woodward & Bernstein.  Meanwhile, CNN‘s reaction resembles the White Star Line excuse for the lack of lifeboats on Titanic:

As John Dempsey noted at Townhall.com:

“…Buzzfeed and all the others are their own worst enemy. When someone is wrong, the best thing they can do to save face and hold on to some respect is to apologize, learn and not make the same mistake again. But the leftist media refuses to do that and this is why no one respects them.

The media was horrified when Trump started calling them the enemy of the people. The left pushed back claiming that was somehow dictatorial and undemocratic, but all they have done is prove him right. Leftist media is the enemy. Any entity that will lie to you and be proven wrong time and time again is not your friend.“

Neither is the MSM acting in the best interests of the country nor the responsible fashion the Founding Fathers envisioned when they enshrined Freedom of the Press.

Lastly, just when you thought the MSM and Social Media couldn’t sink any lower in their promotion of Progressive policies, this article from Spectator USA via Speed Mach forces you to once again drop your sights another couple notches:

What makes a liberal want to punch a child?

The progressive media doesn’t care about what really happened when it has white boys in MAGA caps to hate

“…BuzzFeed had just two anonymous sources, purportedly in ‘law-enforcement,’ for its story, which a few brave souls found to be rather too little to justify the attendant hype. The contrarians appear to have been right, but what BuzzFeed misreported was so perfectly attuned to elite and progressive anti-Trump sensibilities that no hesitation was necessary before accepting the tale as true.

No lessons were learned from the story’s collapse, either, to judge by the frenzy that next broke out from the same sort of people over the case of Covington Catholic High School and Native American activist Nathan Phillips. Once again, enlightened opinion did not wait on much evidence before reaching a verdict: a one-minute video clip of a teen in a red MAGA hat smirking right in front of Phillips while the elder beat a hand drum and sang was all the proof required. This was a hate-motivated outrage perpetrated by white Trump supporters. Case closed…”

Except, fortunately, is wasn’t; and as this longer, far-more informative video clip revealed, it never should have been.  Turns out Nathan Phillips has a history of crying racism, and the entire sordid episode was set off by four adult Black males from Black Hebrew Israelites, which Jim Geraghty describes as…

“a religious sect that often gathers in public places in Washington and offers “preaching” that includes hurling racially incendiary slurs at people passing by. (Most D.C.-area residents right now: “Oh, those guys.”)“

But as the headline suggests, this tweet took the cake:

Actually, Reza, we can think of at least…

…one!  And, should we have the good fortune to meet you in person, we’d be more than happy to demonstrate for you what getting punched in the face actually entails!

Yes, like Clark, you guessed it: the events of the last week have served to reinforce why none of us should ever trust a thing we read in the blogosphere or, for those who still watch, catch on cable or network news.  Which makes, as has been the case for decades, what you read on newsprint suitable only for wiping your hindquarters.

And all because, as the great Thomas Sowell notes at Townhall.com, we’re dealing in an era not only of fact-free news, but, thanks almost exclusively to the efforts of Liberal Luddites, an age of…

Fact-Free Politics

“In this era when there has been more information available to more people than at any time in the past, it is also true that there has been more misinformation from more different sources than ever. We are not talking about differences of opinion or inadequate verification, but about statements and catchwords in utter defiance of facts…”

Submitted for your perusal, a case in point, again courtesy of Townhall.com, as Joel Goodman respectfully suggests…

You’re Out of Control, Speaker Pelosi

“Why did I see this when I went to check my email? From Harvard no less:

“Larry Tribe, professor of Constitutional law at Harvard Law School, says that as long as Pelosi is opposed to the State of the Union happening, as scheduled, on Jan. 29, it won’t happen.”

“The form in which the State of the Union address is delivered isn’t constitutionally specified, but if it’s to be delivered as a Joint Session of Congress as has become the custom, the House and Senate must jointly adopt a resolution to schedule it. Without that, he can’t come.

Neither chamber has adopted such a resolution yet, and as long as Pelosi opposes it, it’s DOA.”

This is not a constitutional issue that leaves any room for debate, regardless of what Mr. Tribe may say.

Yes – the Constitution does not dictate a particular way in which the president shall provide the Congress with the information on the State of the Union. But, recent tradition has that it be delivered before a joint session of Congress.

The president could decide to deliver it in what has been the most recent and accepted tradition by exercising his power to convene both Houses.

Article 2   Executive

“Section. 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them…”

…I believe a stalemate over a border crisis qualifies as an extraordinary occasion…”

As would any reasonable, right-thinking American.  But as Hamlet said, “Aye, there’s the rub!”

We’d disrespectfully suggest the Red Queen isn’t merely out of order, but out of her mind!

Which brings us to The Lighter Side:

Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with this instant classic from Speed Mach:

And a retarded child at that!

Magoo