There must be a pony in here somewhere!

Real Clear Politics: "MSNBC Keeps Mueller Story Alive, But the Public Is Done."

Title refers to a favorite Ronald Reagan joke.

Waiting on the report

I don't know if Mueller's report will include a long explication on the bogus Steele dossier, but I really hope it does.  This phony piece of fiction is the genesis of this whole mess.

Obama’s FBI used a bogus file of fiction bought by Hillary’s campaign to mislead a judge so it could spy on the nominee for the other party and then pressure a probe after GOP victory, but this isn’t a scandal about the corruption of Democrats or DOJ because shut up bot.

— Razor (@hale_razor) March 28, 2019

That was quick

#MeToo claims Handsy Joe. The Corner: "Joe Biden Is Done."

I think he’ll probably still run — how can an ego monster like Biden resist when the polls put him at the top of the pack? — but his 2020 candidacy will perish as quickly as his previous presidential campaigns. The Democratic candidate with the best chance of beating President Trump is doomed.

Biden suffers from the same enthusiasm gap that plagued Hillary: "sure, I suppose, why not."

Extra - Vox: "The media gave Biden a pass for years. It won’t in 2020."

Meanwhile in Chicago

Twitchy: "Illinois Prosecutors Bar Association blasts Jussie Smollett deal."  As in it violates Illinois law.

One tweet/comment is interesting: "Something happened that made disposing of that case URGENT for somebody.  There are any number of ways for a prosecutor to make a case go away, even an incompetent fool wouldn't choose to do it the way they did it.  There's something else going on here.  Something very bad."

I think it's crazy they couldn't at least get an apology out of the guy.

Awesome sauce

Sauce for the gander, that is.  Atlantic: "Inside Trump’s Strategy to Use Mueller on the Campaign Trail"

Trump allies see Barr’s letter as a kind of Swiss Army knife—a tool useful in all kinds of situations. Not only is it exculpatory, they say, but it also implicitly rebukes the press for its coverage of the Russia investigation, inoculating Trump from any future scandal that reporters might unearth. According to a source familiar with internal discussions at the Republican National Committee and the pro-Trump super PAC America First, both organizations are “geared up for any nonsense to come.”

They’re already prepared to attack reporters. “Any reporter who tries that will be hit with 30-second spots of all their ridiculous claims about collusion,” said the source, who, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to describe private conversations. “Their tweets have all been screencapped. It’s all ready to go.”

I hope Trump goes to the White House Correspondents Dinner and gives a Soviet-style four-hour speech where he reads off all the fake news from the past two years.

CNN: We read words from papers and teleprompters

Federalist: "CNN President Peddles New Excuse For Garbage Russia Coverage: ‘We Are Not Investigators’"

So the show "CNN Investigates" is the equivalent of a Subway "foot long."

Zero point zero votes

Fox News: "Green New Deal fails Senate test vote as dozens of Democrats vote 'present'."

As Instapundit notes, this vote to save the Earth took place in the Republican-controlled Senate but it won't even get a vote in the Democrat-controlled House.  Why do Democrats deny climate change and hate Gaia?

Wrong again

Michael Goodwin: "The New York Times owes Americans a big, fat apology."

Democrats with bylines

Rich Lowry: "The media's disgrace."

There will soon enough be an effort to memory-hole it, but the media coverage of the Russia investigation was abysmal and self-discrediting — obsessive and hysterical, often suggesting that the smoking gun was right around the corner, sometimes supporting its hoped-for result with erroneous, too-good-to-check reporting. Never has so little come of so many screaming chyrons. Every mini-scooplet was played up like major news, and if you went on air and said that collusion was unlikely and we should wait for the evidence, you were often treated like you were in the tank for Trump. The last two years have been a disgrace, and no one should forget it.

This will be the new standard by which all other scandals against Republicans will be judged.

Extinguish those Mueller votive candles, NY Times

Matt Taibbi (formerly of Rolling Stone) calls out the American press:

Stories have been coming out for some time now hinting Mueller’s final report might leave audiences “disappointed,” as if a President not being a foreign spy could somehow be bad news.

Openly using such language has, all along, been an indictment. Imagine how tone-deaf you’d have to be to not realize it makes you look bad, when news does not match audience expectations you raised. To be unaware of this is mind-boggling, the journalistic equivalent of walking outside without pants.

There will be people protesting: the Mueller report doesn’t prove anything! What about the 37 indictments? The convictions? The Trump tower revelations? The lies! The meeting with Don, Jr.? The financial matters! There’s an ongoing grand jury investigation, and possible sealed indictments, and the House will still investigate, and…

Stop. Just stop. Any journalist who goes there is making it worse.

This unvarnished bias was on display in the Sunday morning shows where Adam Schiff is still being allowed to peddle this hoax without serious pushback, following a pattern that started on November 9th, 2016.  Taibbi points out that Schiff cited the Steele dossier as gospel even though the Congressman knew it was unverified.  But the media was uninterested in that because Orange Man Bad:

For years, every hint the dossier might be true became a banner headline, while every time doubt was cast on Steele’s revelations, the press was quiet.

No kidding.  Somewhere in Prague, Michael Cohen's cellphone is pinging away.

Whatever you may think of Trump - and I'm no great fan - he's really exposed the fake news American press.

Hands up, don't shoot. Trump's a Russian spy. Kavanaugh ran a secret gang rape cartel. Covington kids assaulted a vet.

Never forget that these lies--and yes, they were outright lies--were deliberately peddled by all the same people for all the same reasons.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) March 24, 2019

No crime but a coup

Andrew McCarthy: "After Mueller’s Exoneration of Trump, Full Disclosure."

In sum, we have endured a two-year ordeal in which the president of the United States was forced to govern under a cloud of suspicion — suspicion of being a traitor, of scheming with a foreign adversary to steal an election. This happened because the Obama administration — which opened the probe of the Trump campaign, and which opted to use foreign counterintelligence spying powers rather than give Trump a defensive briefing about suspected Russian infiltration of his campaign — methodically forced its suspicions about Trump into the public domain.

Read the whole thing.

It was all impeachment fantasy

Swallowed whole by the Democrats and the mainstream media (but I repeat myself).  Here's Caitlin Johnstone via Medium: "The Mueller Report Is In. They Were Wrong. We Were Right."

I’ve been saying Russiagate is bullshit from the beginning, and I’ve been called a Trump shill, a Kremlin propagandist, a Nazi and a troll every day for saying so by credulous mass media-consuming dupes who drank the Kool Aid. And I’ve only taken a fraction of the flack more high profile Russiagate skeptics like Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracey have been getting for expressing doubt in the Gospel According to Maddow. The insane, maniacal McCarthyite feeding frenzy that these people were plunged into by nonstop mass media propaganda drowned out the important voices who tried to argue that public energy was being sucked into Russia hysteria and used to manufacture support for dangerous cold war escalations with a nuclear superpower.

I was watching Joy Reid on MSNBC this morning to gauge the Left's reaction and I cannot understate the batshit craziness going on there.  I'll try to pull up a transcript when it's available but in the course of about an hour she and her nutcase panel evoked Richard Nixon, Benedict Arnold, and Judas.

Never stop reminding them of this. Never stop mocking them for it. Never stop mocking their idiotic Rachel Maddow worship. Never stop mocking the Robert Mueller prayer candles.

I'm on it!

What else do they got?

Politico: "Democrats plot ways to force release of Mueller findings - Democrats signal that they're ready to use aggressive tactics to force the attorney general to make the report public."

They have invested so much into this narrative that it's impossible for them to accept Mueller's findings, that they once upheld as the gold standard.  The Democrats know that the Muller report contains grand jury testimony and confidential information that, according to DOJ guidelines, cannot be released to the public.  So it will be a year-long campaign of innuendo and hearsay with whispers of a cover-up.

Related - Byron York: "Five things that didn't happen in the Mueller investigation."

Nothingburgers for everyone

Hot Air: "Mueller Submits His Report To Bill Barr, Ending Russiagate Probe; Update: No More Indictments Or Sealed Indictments."

Did you hear that?  No indictments of anyone related to conspiring with Russia.  None.

When will Trump get apologies from the "journalists" who promulgated this farce?

Meanwhile, anyone who questioned the hackery and endless news cycles built on completely unsubstantiated speculation was summarily dismissed as a MAGA fanatic, incapable of objectivity. https://t.co/nkDea2w3X8

— Kemberlee Kaye (@KemberleeKaye) March 22, 2019

The bassline on "Peg"

Meh, how about something different?  Here's a video I've been watching a lot:

Democrats keep losing so the rules are dumb

Commentary: "Democrats vs. the Constitution - There can be only one."

Barely satire: "Candidates Propose Changes To Fix Flaw In Constitution That Allows Republicans To Be Elected."

You, CNN, are the real hero here

"Journalism".  Hot Air: "CNN Wins Cronkite Award For That Garbage Gun-Control Town Hall It Held After Parkland."

Extra - The Corner: "Media Gives Itself Award for Disastrous Gun-Control ‘Town Hall’."  "CNN’s “Parkland Town Hall” was, without a doubt, the single worst thing I have seen aired on a major news station since I moved to the United States eight years ago. For it to have received an award is . . . well, actually quite fitting, I suppose."

Here comes Joe!

Washington Examiner: "Joe Biden's popularity is about to nosedive."

The liberal magazine Harper's last month ran a cover story on "Joe Biden’s disastrous legislative legacy" recounting his tough-on-crime initiatives and chumminess with banking interests.  For example:

Despite pleas from the ­NAACP and the ­ACLU, the 1990s brought no relief from Biden’s crime crusade. He vied with the first Bush Administration to introduce ever more draconian laws, including one proposing to expand the number of offenses for which the death penalty would be permitted to fifty-one. Bill Clinton quickly became a reliable ally upon his 1992 election, and Biden encouraged him to “maintain crime as a Democratic initiative” with suitably tough legislation. The ensuing 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, passed with enthusiastic administration pressure, would consign millions of black Americans to a life behind bars.

If current Democrat voters are unaware of Biden's checkered past, I'm sure his competitors for the nomination will be ready to remind them.

Extra - Ace: "Don't call Joe Biden a hero."

And this - LA Times: "The burden of a 40-year career: Some of Joe Biden’s record doesn’t age well."  "Biden opposed school busing for desegregation in the 1970s. He voted for a measure aimed at outlawing gay marriage in the 1990s. He was an ally of the banking and credit card industries."

A new generation of environmental panic

Associated Press: "Students globally protest warming, pleading for their future."  Cue the drama:

— In Washington, protesters spoke in front of a banner saying “We don’t want to die.”

— In San Francisco, 1,000 demonstrators descended on the local offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wanting passage of the massive “Green New Deal” bill proposed in the U.S. Congress.

— In St. Paul, Minnesota, about 1,000 students gathered before the state Capitol, chanting “Stop denying the earth is dying.”

RME, I wish these kids would go back to eating Tide Pods.  These kids are too young to know the apocalypse is always ten years away and they're too invested in the cheap moral high of "saving the world" to know the world has never been cleaner. 

Low wages and multiple OSHA violations

Why did Bernie Sanders' campaign staff feel the need to unionize?  Let's wildly speculate.

Ha ha ha, how's that "Facts First" campaign going?

This is a rotten apple:

This chart from @roadmn is BRUTAL.

CNN is dying. pic.twitter.com/x43Ri5L8Zf

— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) March 14, 2019

Don't you just hate when that happens?

PJ Media: "SPLC Co-Founder Morris Dees Fired, Outside Audit Ordered."  The audit is long overdue.

This is not the Onion

Elizabeth Warren can't believe that somebody would lie about their background to gain a position at a selective college.

The two-year temper tantrum because Hillary lost

Federalist: "If Pelosi Believed Her Claims About Trump And Russia, She Would Impeach - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision not to impeach Donald Trump is the clearest indication possible that Democrats do not believe he colluded with Russia."

One thing is clear to any fair observer: if Pelosi and Schiff really believed their outlandish rhetoric on Russian collusion, they would be moving to impeach the president. If they believed, as they previously claimed, that there is clear evidence to show Trump is in bed with Putin, they could not move fast enough to present that evidence and force Republicans to defend an obviously compromised commander in chief. The fact is, they don’t have the evidence, and they don’t expect Special Counsel Robert Mueller to provide it.

After all this time insisting that the evidence is staring us in the face!, the new spin is that, well, those darn Republicans will never impeach and we don't want to tear the country apart with the process.  Because that's how dedicated the Democrats are to the high principles of fairness, legal procedure, apple pie and America.

Poor Tom Steyer is going to be in my backyard tomorrow night but I just don't think I have the heart (or time) to go heckle him.

Good heavens, she is dim

Hot Air: "AOC Attacks Wells Fargo Bank For Funding The Dakota Access Pipeline."

When is the media going to call her out on this arrant nonsense?

Donkey Chompers is running the show now

Townhall: "Nervous Nancy Has Lost Control of Her Crazy Party."

Suddenly, instead of playing the fake moderate game, Nancy’s minions had to suck up to a bunch of braying bimbos from safe blue seats. All the nonsense Reps. Talib, Omar, and Ocasio-Cortez spewed on social media and MSNBC thrilled the Democrat base. But what Normal people heard was, “We hate Israel. We hate the idea that you can have cars. We hate you.”

And the fact that these commie-come-latelys are so inept is icing on the cake. Rep. Omar couldn’t help but run her fool mouth about what she really thought of the Jews. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez could not manage to let fly with her Green New Deal without making the rookie mistake of telling the people what was actually in it. Free money for those unwilling to work? Maybe that dog hunts among the simpletons in her New York City district, but in America, not so much.

As Kurt Schlichter notes here, Pelosi desperately wanted to present the new House Democrats as the "sensible" party but all they have is fading dreams of impeachment and the Freshwoman Kooks.

So they got nothin'

From Fox News Sunday this morning, here's Congresswoman Katie Hill (D-CA):

WALLACE: As you sit here right now, do you feel that you have seen hard evidence that Donald Trump, either in the campaign or as president, committed a crime? And, if so, a crime that rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors for impeachment?

HILL: I believe that I have seen enough that makes me feel like we need to continue down this path. I don't feel like there is enough of -- I feel like impeachment is as much of a political process as it is anything else. And I think that we have to make sure that we are providing all of the information, airing it all out so that the public can feel with as much certainty as -- as, you know, members of Congress, that -- that that's the case and that we need to continue down this path.

This aligns with Adam Schiff's appearance on Meet the Press where he whined that Trump didn't sit down for an interview with Mueller.  We're now approaching the "acceptance" stage where Democrats try to prepare their true believers for the big letdown.

That person's name? Albert Einstein.

Twitchy: "Kamala Harris’ press secretary has a ‘crazy story’ he wants you to believe about a SC voter in a MAGA hat."

Relevant: That happened.

So that's a 'no' on the pay raise?

Reddit: "Jussie Smollett update: 'Empire' actor indicted on 16 felony counts by grand jury."

What I think is kinda funny is that initially the police reported they doubted the "attack" took place because they have no video.  Turns out, Smollett wanted to be on video but the camera was facing in the wrong direction.  Just crazy, the whole thing.

The Atlantic magazine got woke

And I hope it goes broke.  Exhibit "X"is yesterday's B.S. moral equivalence suggesting that R. Kelly is on the same moral plane as Brett Kavanaugh.  I have pretty much given up on the expectation of an apology from the mainstream media for Justice Kavanaugh whose name was unfairly dragged through the mud without - to this day - a hint of evidence.  But you'd think that even now they could leave the guy alone.

As a former subscriber, I could not agree with this sentiment more:

Used to read your magazine cover to cover. Your 2015 issue on “What Isis Really Wants” was required reading in my house. The speed with which the Atlantic has declined since then is mind-boggling. Feeling better about not renewing my subscription after this latest trash.

— Wayne Dean (@waydean) March 7, 2019

He sure did

Hot Air: "Did Lanny Davis Confirm Cohen Lied In Testimony About Trump Pardon?"

"Probably lied about Prague, too!" - excited Resistors. 

Yeah, right, Fox News is the problem

The Federalist: "DNC Blacklisting Of Fox News Proves GOP Needs To Fight Media."

Mollie Hemingway goes into to considerable detail here including Chuck Todd, who is just the worst.  I had the misfortune to catch "Meet the Press" this past weekend and this is accurate:

NBC’s Chuck Todd showed his legendarily extreme bias on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” show. He falsely claimed Rep. Jim Jordan was sharing opinion, not facts, when he accurately discussed Michael Cohen’s testimony that he’d never been to Prague — a central claim of a discredited dossier, secretly funded by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, secretly fed to media outlets and intelligence agencies, and used to undermine the Trump administration for more than two years.

But when Sen. Mark Warner claimed there was evidence of collusion with Russia, Todd didn’t push back in any way, despite the lack of evidence. 

High-school graduate Todd interrupted and argued with Jordan but let Warner go along with the Narrative.

Don't call it a fishing expedition

Unintentional humor on NPR's Morning Edition this morning:

MARTIN: But - I mean, it is so sprawling. How do you combat the criticism that it is a fishing expedition?

DEAN: I don't buy that at all. What we're looking at is possibilities of obstruction of justice, public corruption, abuse of power by this administration in these documents, most of which have already been requested by other entities, whether it was the Mueller commission or others. These documents will either reveal that there are things wrong, or they might reveal there's nothing to see here.

There's definitely, absolutely the possibility that there might be something there or not.  We're sending out dozens and dozens of requests for information, and one of them might bear fruit, but don't call it a fishing expedition.

That's not entertainment!

Hollywood in Toto: "Captain Marvel drowns in victimhood, dull action."

Movies like “Wonder Woman,” “The Terminator” and “Aliens” showcased powerful women. They packed a feminist punch without ever suggesting a lecture. They entertained first and foremost. The culture absorbed their subtle messages on their own.

“Captain Marvel,” down to the eye-rolling musical choice of No Doubt’s “Just a Girl,” cares far more about lecturing audiences than entertaining them.

And boy, does it show.

Brie Larson is tired of your mainsplaining and the Hollywood patriarchy.  Here's a clip of Larson dressing down Tom Hiddleston for oppressing her with his lookism and judgementalship at her totally appropriate sartorial choice.

Now on the cover of the "Rolling Stone"

Washington Free Beacon: "Leading Jewish Groups Demand Anti-Semitic Omar Be Removed From Foreign Affairs Committee" - "Jewish groups slam Omar's anti-Semitic language, ties to groups advocating terrorism."

Flashback - Atlantic: "The Women's March Has a Farrakhan Problem" - "The group refuses to be accountable for a high-level alliance with an open anti-Semite."

Author of phony dossier clams up

Why so reticent, Chris?  The Hill: "Christopher Steele cancels remarks on disinformation at conference."  "Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum, who was set to moderate the panel Steele would have taken part in, told Politico that he got "cold feet" and backed out on advice of his counsel."

Begun the sneaker wars have

I was thumbing through the Boston Globe sports section and there's a half-page ad from Skechers featuring a split Nike sneaker and the tagline "Just Blew It."  Heh.

Save the nukes

Minuteman: "Going nuclear."

One thing I'd like to add to Tom's review on the benefits of nuclear power.  It seems counter-intuitive but the burning of coal releases much more radiation into the atmosphere than atomic power because of radioactive isotopes in the coal. 

Buh-bye Liz

The Bulwark: "Is Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign Already Over? - Except for the shouting, yes."  I wanted to highlight this one part:

For Liz Warren, everything is a “fight.” 

Her’s isn’t a presidential campaign, it’s “the fight of our lives.” Her mission is a “fight that began in the streets,” a “fight for big structural change” and, she repeatedly assures us, “I’m in that fight all the way!” She dropped the progressive’s “F-bomb” a total of 26 times in her announcement speech.  

OMG, yes, she's always fighting and fighting the fight against those who need to be fought.  The other joke I make that she alternates between "the rich and the powerful" and "the wealthy and well-connected" depending on what day it is.