It’s Friday, May 17th, 2019…but before we begin, check out these emasculated metrosexual Progressive presidential wannabes:

Such cringing recalls one of our favorite scenes (edited to run in the time allotted) from the Steve Martin remake of Father of the Bride.  After first announcing to her parents the wedding’s off, the bride-to-be tearfully explains to her father why: her fiancé, in an unforgivable act of patriarchal misogyny, had presented the little woman with a…GASP…blender!

Cut to Martin’s future son-in-law fully engaged in a soul-baring effort to identify and root out any vestige of subconscious sexism or politically-incorrect thought…

…followed by a tearful, apologetic reunion:

 

What was obvious satire in 1991 is today the harsh reality of Progressive politics, which demands an almost interminable expression of groveling remorse whenever a written or oral statement which violates the politically-correct mores of the minute comes to light; no matter how long ago, or how far, far away the transgression occurred.  And it couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.

That reminds us, did you hear the one about when…

Hat tip to Speed Mach for the Barr joke.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

Speaking of Bill Barr, we lead off with the latest from the WSJ‘s Kim Strassel, as she updates us on the AG’s ongoing efforts to bring the guilty to justice: 

Bull Durham at Justice

Bill Barr’s latest appointment reminds us how the department should operate.

“Better late than never: Attorney General William Barr has tasked U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation. If the Justice Department had done this two years ago, the country would be in a much better place.

Mr. Barr has made clear that he intends to restore his department’s credibility. The Durham appointment is a perfect example of that effort. This is how Justice ought to operate, from the nature of the probe to the choice of prosecutor. It’s a striking contrast to the hash that became of the Mueller investigation.

…Because Mr. Durham is operating as a U.S. attorney and not as a freewheeling special counsel, he will share findings with the attorney general as his review progresses. Based on what we’ve seen so far from Mr. Barr, expect him to be as transparent with information as possible—especially with regard to Congress. What a refreshing departure from a Justice Department that for two years used the Mueller probe as its excuse not to comply with Congressional oversight.

Americans demand a few basic things from government—accountability, transparency, blind justice. We are finally—two years late—getting them.“

We only hope and pray it’s so, and that Barr and Durham live up to Kim Strassel’s expectations.

Next up, courtesy of American Greatness via our old friend, classmate and rotorhead par excellence Jim “Cool Breeze” Gould, Victor Davis Hanson suggest it’s high-time we realized…

Journalism is Dead—Long Live the Media!

“There still exists a physical media in the sense of airing current events. But it is not journalism as we once understood the disinterested reporting of the news. Journalism is now dead. The media lives on.

Reporters today believe that their coverage serves higher agendas of social justice, identity politics, “equality,” and diversity. To the degree a news account is expanded or ignored, praised or blasted, depends on its supposed utility to the effort to fundamentally transform the country into something unlike its founding.

…What destroyed the present generation of journalism was not just that they live in coastal corridors of progressive groupthink. It was not just because they almost all graduated from liberal journalism programs that still regurgitate ossified Watergate psychodramas of investigative reporters as comic book heroes. Nor is the cause of their decline even their own hair-trigger and social media snark or the pushback from Donald J. Trump.

Instead, over the last 20 years, marquee journalists saw themselves as wannabe celebrities who were to make news, not to report it, to massage stories in such a fashion to serve their social justice agendas, and to virtue signal their superior morality, as many revolved in and out of government.

What have they become instead? People with enormous self-regard, but with little experience with the public whom they were supposed to serve.

They espouse opinions on nearly everything while knowing almost nothing. They believe Washington and New York are the centers of the universe, while the universe is making both more irrelevant. As their ethics dissipated, their vocabularies shrank. Their poor communication skills grew ever poorer, and they displayed little knowledge of the history and culture of the people they reported on. Most could give an in-depth lecture on Botox, but are ignorant about the U.S. Constitution or basic facts of American history.

The people finally are tiring of their bias, their incompetence and their arrogance—and are finally beginning to ignore most of what they say and write.“

With all due respect to VDH…which is considerable…we’d suggest a sizable portion of “the people” have been ignoring the MSM since their partisan coverage of the 2000 election and subsequent inexcusable treatment of George W. Bush.  And we’re no fan of Dubya, either!

Since we’re on the subject of the utterly inaccurate, courtesy of FOX News, Deroy Murdock details…

What Joe Biden should remember when he evokes Jim Crow

“Former Vice President Joseph Biden detonated a stink bomb on the campaign trail. Stumping in South Carolina for the 2020 Democrat presidential nomination, Biden earlier this month criticized GOP voter-integrity efforts. Thanks to Republicans, he told voters, “You’ve got Jim Crow sneaking back in.”

This comment paired nastily with Biden’s comments before black voters in Virginia in August 2012. He said that if that year’s GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, and Republicans won the election, “They’re gonna put y’all back in chains.” Biden absurdly suggested that Republicans long to restore slavery.

Biden must have forgotten his U.S. history. Here is a badly needed booster shot.

Jim Crow “snuck in” in the first place because Democrats – members of Biden’s party – wrote, signed, and brutally enforced the South’s Jim Crow laws. This mayhem was 100 percent the bloody work of Democrats, not Republicans.

…So, if Joe Biden is going to invoke Jim Crow, he should start by apologizing for his party’s – the Democrat Party’s – central and indispensable role in inflicting the entire, racist Jim Crow structure on black Americans for 87 grueling years: 1877-1964.

As for Biden’s underlying claim that Republicans are practicing voter suppression if so, they are failing miserably.

Last fall, black and Hispanic voter turnout was way up, notwithstanding voter ID laws, removal of dead and relocated citizens from voter rolls, and, in some places, curbing early voting in favor of having Americans choose their leaders once they can make fully informed decisions: On Election Day. (In North Carolina, 2016’s early voting began that September 9, 17 days before the first Clinton-Trump debate. Disgusting.)

According to Pew Research Center, the share of blacks who voted in last year’s midterm elections soared from 40.6 percent in 2014 to 51.4 percent in 2018. That represents a 26.6 percent boost in black voter turnout last November.

…So, Joe, where exactly is the GOP voter suppression?

In Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams keeps whining that racist Republicans cost her the governorship because they barred blacks from voting. Really?

In 2014, 43 percent of registered black voters in Georgia cast ballots in the midterm election. In 2018, that number soared to 60 percent.

“Voter disenfranchisement doesn’t just show up when you put dogs on people or water hoses, or block entrances,” Florida’s failed gubernatorial nominee, Andrew Gillum, said with needless drama. Gillum, a black Democrat, added: “That’s not the only form of voter disenfranchisement.”

But black turnout in Florida rose from 44 percent in 2014 to 47.2 percent in 2018.

What disenfranchisement?

…As part of its 24/7/365 anti-GOP smear campaign, the left still claims that there is no need for voter ID or other ballot-integrity measures – since there is no such thing as voter fraud. Tell that to the 1,037 people convicted of vote fraud in the Heritage Foundation’s database on that topic.

Rather than invoke Jim Crow, in a cynical and revolting ploy to terrify blacks into voting for Democrats, Joe Biden should present a positive agenda that would outperform President Trump’s pro-growth policies. Trumponomics is reducing black poverty and fueling black prosperity – amid recent, record-low black unemployment. If Biden has better ideas, we’d all love to see the plan.“

Note Biden’s comment in the video clip below…

…and seriously consider it: “And guess what? MOSTLY directed at, quote, ‘people of color.”  We purposefully omitted what should have been a quotation mark after “people of color” because Hairplug Joe never said “unquote”.  Neither did he identify the source of his purported quote, which, if actually accurate, would have spelled the end of further voter ID efforts.

Shotgun Joe’s sloppy punctuation and unattributed quotes aside, can someone…ANYone…PLEASE explain to us how voter ID laws, which carry nary a mention of race, creed, color or national origin, are “mostly directed” at anyone other than those ineligible to cast ballots in American elections?!? 

And if presenting a photo ID at a polling place truly constitutes an undue burden on “people of color”, we’re forced to wonder how they’ve managed thus far to live…

…in 2019 America?!?

Moving on, courtesy of Market Watch via G. Trevor, Brett Arends reports…

The media is lying to you about Trump’s China tariffs

The hysteria must have a political agenda because the amount that’s being charged is peanuts

“Are you kidding me? I’m used to partisan, inaccurate drivel from all sides these days, but the media’s coverage of President Trump’s tariffs and the so-called “trade war” takes some kind of cake.

There’s no serious doubt that some in the media would absolutely love to tank the stock market. They figure that would hurt Trump’s re-election chances in 2020. Monday’s stock market slump, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumble 2.4% and the Nasdaq Composite 3.4%, looked just like what the doctor ordered.

I write this, incidentally, as someone who is no fan of the president. But I remember when politics was supposed to stop at the water’s edge.

And, anyway, facts are facts. Most of what the public is being told about these tariffs is either misleading or a downright lie. I’ve been following the coverage all weekend with my jaw on the floor.

…Don’t buy the hysteria. President Trump is simply trying to pressure our biggest competitor to buy more American goods. That should be a good thing, even if you don’t like him.“

Which, frankly, we don’t!  Still, we not only support the majority of his policies because their right for America, but when it comes to the rest, we never forget she who was…

…the alternative!

Then there’s the latest from NRO‘s David French, who correctly concludes…

“…While Alabama governor Kay Ivey ponders whether to sign (she has since signed it) Alabama’s bill banning all abortion in the state, it’s worth considering why this represents an important moment in the battle for life in the United States, why Alabama’s bill (and Georgia’s new heartbeat law) present the right kind of legal and philosophical challenge to Roe, and why now is exactly the time to make the challenge.

Both Alabama’s abortion ban and Georgia’s heartbeat law contain a key provision — they declare the personhood of the unborn child. This is a vital measure that is aimed directly at a key portion of the Roe v. Wade opinion. Late last week, I had a lengthy phone conversation with state representative Ed Setzler, sponsor of Georgia’s legislation. He said his bill wasn’t “waving its fist at Roe; it’s answering Roe.”

Specifically, he pointed at a provision in Part IX of Justice Blackmun’s opinion, where Blackmun states that if the “personhood” of the baby is established, then the pro-abortion case “collapses.” The late Supreme Court justice was of course discussing the definition of personhood under the federal constitution. Setzler, however, notes that Supreme Court doctrine has long allowed states to expand constitutional liberties. They can establish standards of religious freedom, free speech, or due process, for example, that go beyond the First and Fifth Amendments. They cannot be more restrictive than the federal Constitution.

In the abortion context, this doctrine traditionally has been interpreted to allow states like New York to protect abortion rights beyond the minimal threshold required by Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Georgia (and potentially Alabama) would be asking the Court to permit them to expand the constitutional liberty of the unborn child and to recognize the distinct human identity of the baby in the womb.

In other words, Georgia and Alabama are saying: “We’ve read Roe, and we’re making the very legal statement that Justice Blackmun says would fundamentally undermine the case for abortion. Under our federal system, we can expand the legal definition of life.” While pro-life Americans can and do engage in good-faith debates about tactics, I prefer the most direct approach. Tell the Court what life means. Make the Court break the federal system once again.

…A judicially invented “right” is damaging the very fabric and premise of our constitutional republic. It’s time for another fundamental challenge to the “right” to kill a child. Georgia has thrown down the gauntlet. Alabama may follow suit. Their laws represent the next righteous and prudent step in the fight for life.“

Can we hear an “Amen’?!?

Meanwhile, as evidenced by this video, with every passing moment and every state statute limiting the unconstrained slaughter of the unborn…

…those devoted to the Cult of Death grow ever angrier.  Keep in mind, North Carolina’s thus far only attempted to prohibit the butchering of babies after the 20-week mark.  Oh, the inhumanity!!! 

Which brings us, somewhat incongruously, to The Lighter Side:

Finally, we’ll call it a week with yet another sordid story straight from the pages of The Crime Blotter, and how this article would read absent the influence of political correctness:

Bradley Manning, the TRAITOR who Obama pardoned, will go back to jail after refusing to testify to grand jury probing Wikileaks

Former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning is headed back to jail for refusing to testify before a grand jury in the WikiLeaks probe. Manning served two months at William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center in Alexandria, Va. for a contempt charge regarding the same issue, but was released on Friday after the grand jury term expired.

This time, a judge ordered Manning to the Alexandria Detention Center, where he can face up to 18 months in prison, the length of the grand jury term, unless he agrees to cooperate with the investigation sooner. Manning said he’d rather stay in jail “forever” than testify to the grand jury probing Wikileaks…”

Reports Bradley’s willingness to stay in jail “forever” was predicated on him being bedded down in the middle rack of a three-man bunkbed and not having to use soap-on-a-rope in the showers remain unconfirmed.

Magoo