It's best to squash their hopes early

Not the Bee: "Boston Public Schools just canceled advanced classes for high-performing students because too many of the kids who qualified were white."  

Extra - From Legal Insurrection.  

The JSF is a POS

Way back in 2003, PBS had a two-hour Nova documentary called "Battle of the X-Planes" about the competition between Lockheed Martin and Boeing in a bid for the next generation of fighter planes: the Joint Strike Fighter.  From an engineering perspective, it's a fascinating look into the progression of a project from concept to execution, and the documentary holds up well as a fight between two businesses for the largest contract in Department of Defense history.  Lockheed Martin won the bid and their X-35 became the F-35.

Well, here we are 18 years later: "Military admits F-35 is impossible to use, expensive, and an utter failure." 

I've mentioned that for a while I worked on a NASA program and got so disillusioned, so fast.  NASA would send out these newsletters that talked about how they had contractors (i.e. supplying jobs) spread out over a bunch of states.  ("It'd be a shame if you voted against those jobs, Congressperson").  Building the final product seemed to be an afterthought and the scheduled slipped and slipped and slipped.  For the record, this was not the Space Launch System but I mention it because NASAWatch had the same thoughts:

This is my favorite, by far: "The editorial board complains that SLS is "years behind schedule." If it had bothered to look, it would have realized that every major launch vehicle developed by NASA and by private industry ends up running years behind schedule." So in other words, its OK for NASA to propose schedules and then let the companies walk all over them and stick out their hands to say 'more money please' since everyone overruns. Who needs schedules or budgets, right? It is just taxpayer money anyway.

The problem here is that these large government programs morph into job programs and then there's no political will to pull the plug.

She's like a successful Jussie Smollett

Ace: "New York Times Reports on a Black Student Who Lied About Being Racially Targeted at Smith College, Claims A Lie Is Just Someone's "Deeply-Felt Sense of Personal Truth"  

This story broke in the summer of 2018 and it took almost three years for the truth to come out.  Great work, brave media firefighers.  

The government is here to help

Reason: "Democrats' COVID-19 Aid Package Would Quietly Eliminate the Tipped Minimum Wage as Restaurants Struggle To Stay Alive."  

It's funny because of the irony

Twitchy: "Maria Shriver says no president has assumed office with as clear a focus on Alzheimer’s disease as Joe Biden."  

Haha - no kidding!  

Joe Biden's Gulag Archipelago

We all saw this story developing months ago.  Hot Air: "Crisis Looms: Surge In Unaccompanied Minors Heading To The U.S.-Mexico Border."  So, of course, these kids need to be detained while Homeland Security figures out how to process their cases.

How would the media react?  Well, last week we saw that "tent cities" had magically transformed into "soft-sided facilities."  But how could they spin the obvious cage-like properties of shipping containers used to detain these unaccompanied minors?  Could they possibly reveal their complete hypocrisy by giving Sleepy Joe a pass?

Oh, they can, and they will.  Twitchy: "To the rescue! WaPo firefighter rides in to set the record straight once and for all about Joe Biden’s ‘kids in cages’."  Ackshually, they're "migrant facilities" don't ya know.  Ace has a complete rundown of "before and after" posts here: "Gimme Shelter: Biden Now Putting Kids in Cages "Shelters," and the Media Is Gushing About It!"  They're like super-fun clubhouses!

The new Paper of Record weighs in: "Compassionate Biden Moves Migrant Children From Cages Into Humane High-Security Metal Containment Cubes"

With so much room for activities.  Why is media trust in the tank?  Truly, it's a left-wing riddle wrapped up in a New York Times enigma, chased down the street by pitchforks.

Under Trump it was “kids in cages”...under Biden it’s a migrant facility for children 🤗🤗

Can’t imagine why trust in the media is at historic lows.
https://t.co/vW0rAJn7Mu

— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) February 23, 2021

Evergreen: The Left hates free speech

Reason: "Lawmakers to Cable Providers: Why Are You Letting News Channels Say These Things?" - "This misguided effort to combat "misinformation" is a brazen assault on free speech."  

Here in Western Massachusetts

PJ Media: "'Critical Race Theory' Costs a Brave Smith College Whistleblower Her Job."  

The ongoing press embargo

New Neo: "Biden and the Big COVID Lie"

The first point – an obvious one – is that there is no serious effort by the press to call Biden on anything he does or says. If Biden knows anything at this point (and he does still know quite a few things) he knows that. Here and there you may see some mild fact-checking, but the administration knows it has a general pass ... to make whatever claim it wants.

To be fair, the Washington Post fact-checker called out Kamala Harris for the exact same lie that Biden keeps repeating.  So that's something. 

Extra - Joe Concha: "We knew media would coddle Biden — here's why it's much worse."  

Move those goalposts

Hot Air: "Media Discovers: Presidenting In A Pandemic Is Unexpectedly Difficult."

Oh, do tell, do tell.  I was assured I only needed to wear a mask for 100 days.

"How does this keep happening?" - rake-stepping media

Axios: "Media trust hits new low."  This story reports that it's not just an American phenomenon: trust in the media is down around the world and "Mistrust of media is now a central part of many Americans' personal identity — an article of faith that they weren't argued into and can't be argued out of."

Haha, cry me a river.

The media is suddenly discovering that this Andrew Cuomo guy is a bad, bad man: 

It might be understandable that politicians who need to work with Cuomo didn’t want to challenge Cuomo’s behavior publicly. But where was the media while this “stuff of legend” played out? Shouldn’t they have been reporting this all along, and not just when Cuomo finally let it rip against a member of his own caucus?

The media had other priorities, obviously. They spent the last year lionizing Cuomo, hailing his leadership in the COVID-19 pandemic as a contrast to You Know Who in the White House. Cuomo spent the year getting feted by the glitterati, winning an Emmy for holding press conferences and going on tour bragging about how he beat the virus while covering up how his policies may have led to thousands of unnecessary deaths in nursing homes.

Yup.  Other priorities: "ABC 'World News Tonight' gives Cruz Cancun fiasco four times more coverage than Cuomo nursing home scandal."  

Extra - Daily Signal: "Cuomo Revelations Should Embarrass Media."  As if they were capable of embarrassment.

Also - Federalist: "Andrew Cuomo Didn’t Create The Myth Of Andrew Cuomo, Corporate Media Did" - "The myth of Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Master of Pandemics, Destroyer of Trump, Boyfriend of America didn't create itself: It was the creation of U.S. media."

Good

Prof. Reynolds in the NY Post: "Media’s censorious gatekeepers are mad — because they’re losing power."  

That didn't take long

Ace: "Kamala Harris Is Already Stepping In for the "Lid Called" Biden, Speaking to Foreign Heads of State."

So they know. They've been told, Dementia Joe just isn't up to it. He's an old cottonheaded puppet.

This is unconstitutional. Invoke the 25th Amendment and call a lid on Sundown Joe.

Didn't even make it one month.  

At least there's one news source we can depend on

Babylon Bee: "Democrats Vow To Follow The Science Of Whichever Union Donates The Most Money."

Sleepy time!

Viking Pundit, January 20th: "The media starts their 4-year nap."

The Hill, today: "Biden plays Mario Kart with granddaughter at Camp David."

Newsweek, today: "Joe Biden, Playing as Luigi, Wins in Mario Kart Race Against Granddaughter at Camp David."  

This "mostly false" fact-check aged well

In August 2020, Politifact handed down their verdict on this Michael Caputo tweet:

"Does the #DemConvention know @NYGovCuomo forced nursing homes across NY to take in COVID positive patients and planted the seeds of infection that killed thousands of grandmothers and grandfathers?"

Verdict: "Mostly false."  Probably because it was complicated. 

In light of recent evidence that it was totally true, the Federalist wants to know if Politifact will amend their original judgement: "PolitiFact Stays Silent On ‘Fact-Check’ Defending Cuomo’s Deadly Nursing Home Policy." 

Extra - Fox News: "Cuomo brothers accused of showboating while thousands of seniors died."  

Assemble the social workers!

NY Post: "Soaring crime is killing NYC’s subway system."

Fox News: "Minneapolis push to defund police backfires after residents complain of slow response times, increase in crime."  

Look at this Chicago Tribune headline: "‘Operation Safe Pump’: Chicago aldermen creating safe spaces to pump gas due to carjacking spike."  Carjacking up 135% in 2020 over 2019 numbers.

It's complicated

The media have two hard and fast rules for covering stories.  Rule #1 is that if a story is unflattering to Republicans, that's the story; if it's unflattering to Democrats the story is "Republicans pounce!"

Rule #2 is that when "fact checkers" are called to referee, those damaging stories for Democrats are either "complicated" or "totally false."  

Biden built the cages

Reason: "Biden Is Still Separating Families at the Border. Where Is the Media Outrage?" - "Buried in the news cycle around Biden's gesture, however, is that the updated guidance does not, in fact, stop family separations. It just tells the state to use discretion."

The Democrats and media (I repeat myself), who excoriated Trump for "tent cities," are now using the euphemism "soft-sided facilities".  Isn't that nice?

Improvisational jazz

Washington Examiner: "Biden never really had a plan for the coronavirus, and it's showing."  

This is a long thread of well-aged tweets

Twitchy: "Drew Holden takes a series of hammers to media and blue-checks who enabled Andrew Cuomo’s COVID19 reign of terror."  

Another lesson from Cuomo's book

New York Post exclusive: "Cuomo aide admits they hid nursing home data so feds wouldn’t find out." - "Governor Cuomo’s top aide privately apologized to Democratic lawmakers for withholding the state’s nursing-home death toll from COVID-19 — telling them “we froze” out of fear the true numbers would “be used against us” by federal prosecutors, The Post has learned." 

As noted before, the evidence was all there but the media wasn't interested in investigating Saint Andrew.

NBC News' Chief Washington Correspondent/Anchor

.@SenTedCruz says #ImpeachmentTrial is like Shakespeare full of sound and fury signifying nothing. No, that’s Faulkner

— Andrea Mitchell (@mitchellreports) February 10, 2021

What an idiot.

The new tolerance

Charles C.W. Cooke: "Our illiberal moment." - "Voltaire's apocryphal maxim “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” is in the process of being turned squarely on its head. Today, a more suitable rendering might read: “I disapprove of what you say, you are exiled, goodbye.”  

Cabin fever in the time of covid

I came across a discussion board post that was one of those "sign of the times" moments, and I wanted to share and say "I feel ya buddy."

Let me preface this by saying that I'm one of those Disney people.  I've been to Disney World nearly every other year since my kids were little and, once they got too big for rides, we've done Disney cruises.  Our last one was in November 2019, right before corona, and we had a fantastic time.  Since then, I've taken one week of vacation and that's because my boss said I had to take time or lose it.  I couldn't leave the state so we spent a week in September on Cape Cod.  It was OK, but just OK.

So I had a little chuckle at this poor soul on the Disboards DCL forum who was asked if he/she would put up with a long list of travel restrictions if it meant going on a cruise:

honestly right now, as someone who has worked straight through since March without a break, and leaves the house less than once a month, I would be ok with ALL of this. I haven't been further than 5 km from my house in months, and the only human contact I have is with my mom, who I live with. If this is what it takes to go on a cruise and to be somewhere other than my house, then so be it, when does check in open.

Haha - oh man.  I could totally put up with wearing a mask, socially-distanced activities, and even confinement to quarters at certain times.  But I wouldn't go if certain dining options were closed down such as the buffets or the premiere restaurants.  C'mon, man, you gotta eat.

Technically open

Reason: "Biden Airlifts the Goalposts on School Reopening: 1 Day a Week!" - "Administration wants to spend $200 billion hiring new teachers for closed schools that are bleeding students. What could go wrong?" 

Everybody knows that everything is fixed with more government spending.  

Let's talk about the GOAT

Tom Brady, man, Tom Brady.  He's the first quarterback to win both an NFC and AFC championship, first to win a Superbowl in three different decades, and the owner of this absolutely incredible statistic:

This woman is certifiably insane

Twitchy: "Columnist conflicted after ‘Trumpist next door’ plowed her driveway without being asked (this LA Times op-ed is ‘a thing to behold’)."  

If her house burned down, she would stay in the neighbor's home...but grudgingly and without absolution.

Extra - Rod Dreher: "The Snowplow Test."  "This Heffernan column is so revealing."  It sure is.

That doesn't apply to *me*, peasants

NY Post: "Pelosi docks $5K from pay of GOP Reps. Gohmert, Clyde over metal detectors."

Daily Caller: "House Republicans Say Pelosi Broke Her Own Rules And Bypassed Metal Detectors, Demand She Be Fined."  

San Fran sues itself

Associated Press: "San Francisco sues its own school district to reopen classes."

I'm unclear on how this happens.  Isn't the school district an extension of the city government?  Or is it considered some kind of independent entity?  I don't see why the government can't go all Reagan vs. PATCO on the teachers.

Least-surprising headline

Hot Air: "WaPo On Reconciliation: Let’s Face It, Biden Was Never Serious About Bipartisanship." 

Wasn't even there

This is pretty funny:

"AOC wasn't in the capitol. Wasn't even there. That was an important bit of information. Don'tcha think?"

- Lieutenant J.G. Daniel Kaffe

— Tech Ronin (@tchronin) February 4, 2021

Why is this even up for a vote?

Twitchy: "Senate passes amendment to prohibit stimulus checks from going to illegal aliens."

How would that even work?  You'd mail a check to a residence based on tax returns that were never filed with Social Security numbers that don't exist?

You're the real hero, mayor

FEE: "Local Kroger Stores Close as California ‘Hero Pay’ Ordinance Backfires - This result certainly wasn’t what local lawmakers intended, but it was actually quite predictable."

You'll never guess what happened next!  Oh, wait, yes you will.  

The Minneapolis Effect

The Volokh Conspiracy: "Explaining the Great 2020 Homicide Spike" - "While a new report released today by the Council on Criminal Justice downplays the role anti-police protests played in last year's unprecedented homicide spike, a decline in pro-active policing following the protests remains the most likely cause." 

Now it's safe to tell the truth about Cuomo

Following up on a New York Times article today titled "9 Top N.Y. Health Officials have quit as Cuomo scorns expertise" the Federalist torches the enablers in the media: "As Health Officials Resign, Cuomo Says He Doesn’t Trust The Experts - Nine top health officials in New York have resigned in recent months because Gov. Andrew Cuomo refused to listen to them."

In a strange way, Cuomo himself is a victim of the media here. They don’t care about him; they never actually liked him that much. They just used him to make the other guy look bad. Now, with Cuomo having served his purpose, his sycophants in the press are happily flaming him for clicks or a good headline. I can’t feel sorry for him; his choices were his own, but one can’t help wonder if they might have been a little different had the media been honest with us and with him.

What we are learning as Trump recedes from power and the media resumes some modicum of truth-telling is just how badly they lied to us for over a year now. People have been destroyed because of it. Now as the corporate press happily flicks the halo from atop Saint Andrew’s head with their finger, the truth is coming out. It is far too late. And the people of America, not just New York, have every reason to be very, very angry about it.

And as a cherry on top, here's notable non-partisan Chris Cillizza of objective CNN with a representative headline for Saint Cuomo: "Andrew Cuomo's Covid-19 performance may have been less stellar than it seemed."

Oh.  It's praising with faint criticism.  

Extra - The Corner: "Apparently now that Donald Trump is out of office, it is safe to take a clear-eyed look at the performance of prominent Democratic officeholders and speak honestly about it."  And perhaps correct the record on Republican officeholders.  

When demand outstrips supply

Legal Insurrection: "Less Than One Percent of 1,200 Reported Racial Incidents in Last Five Years at Michigan State Were Valid."