May 8, 2024

HEH. WHO COULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING?

Posted at 6:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WARNING: THE PUBLIC-HEALTH ESTABLISHMENT IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: Medscape Censors Science to Placate Activists. Medscape, which bills itself as “the leading online global destination for physicians and healthcare professionals worldwide,” posted medical-education programs on tobacco-harm reduction that included accurate information about nicotine vaping, the most promising tool yet developed for helping smokers quit. But then, despite an enthusiastic reception from the professionals who watched the programs, Medscape bowed to a campaign by anti-vaping zealots and removed the programs.

The result will be less-informed doctors and, presumably, more people smoking and dying. But to anti-vaping activists desperate to keep their jobs and funding, that smells like victory.

Posted at 6:26 pm by John Tierney

MARK JUDGE: Press Cowards’ Hypocritical Lament Over Media’s Lack of ‘Balls’ and ‘Swagger.’

“Very few owners have balls anymore,” former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown told [Semafor’s Max] Tani. “A very sorry fact for journalism.”

Tani’s piece was amplified by Jack Shafer at Politico. “Wounded and limping, doubting its own future, American journalism seems to be losing a quality that carried it through a century and a half of trials: its swagger,” Shafer wrote. “Swagger is the conformity-killing practice of journalism, often done in defiance of authority and custom, to tell a true story in its completeness, no matter whom it might offend.”

Veteran Washington Post newsman Kevin Merida, quoted by Shafer, says: “It’s harder to be confident, and exude that confidence in newsrooms—given the state of our industry. But leaders should find their inner swagger.” He continued, “I don’t like to generalize, as every newsroom is different. But cautiousness, lack of ambition, being too quick to abandon experiments or being afraid to try them, all are signifiers. To quote the immortal [hip-hop group] A Tribe Called Quest: ‘Scared money don’t make none.’”

Shafer hopes that “surely there is a path back from the milquetoastery of contemporary journalism to something approximating swagger.”

In reality, these would-be Mike Tysons are more like the quivering students in the movie School Ties—the ones who hide in their dorm rooms when they are called out by Brendan Fraser.

Tani, Shafer, and Merida may talk tough about mixing it up, but none of them, and none of their epicene peers in the mainstream media, have come within miles of reviewing, or even mentioning the evidence I produced in my book about 2018’s corrupt Kavanaugh hearings. In The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi, I show the way the left was attempting through extortion and bullying to end Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation and, potentially, my life. To ignore it as if none of what I’ve revealed is newsworthy or historically important is insane.

Just think of the media as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and this bias-by-omission makes perfect sense.

Evergreen:


Posted at 6:25 pm by Ed Driscoll

OUT: PRAY THE GAY AWAY. IN: Transing The Gay Away. “Gareth Roberts isn’t sure that ‘genderism’ will go away. At the end of Gay Shame, he presents two plausible scenarios. One depicts a world where queer theory and all its works and all its ways has gone down the long slide and all seems well. The other shows what things look like in the event of a genderist win. And in that world, the grim joke that emerged among staff at the Tavistock has come true. There are no gay people left.”

Posted at 5:00 pm by Glenn Reynolds

RIP: Steve Albini has died at 61: “It’s really impossible to sum up just how important Steve Albini has been to the past 40+ years of underground/alternative music, and impossible to say anything that hasn’t been said already. This is a monumental loss and Albini’s impact isn’t going anywhere. Rest in peace, Steve.”

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

HOW IT BEGINS:

How it ends:

Posted at 2:48 pm by Stephen Green

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Squad Rep Jamaal Bowman’s YouTube Page Is a Conspiracy Theorist’s Dream.

Old (internet) habits die hard.

When The Daily Beast revealed in January that Rep. Jamaal Bowman had promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories on his blog while working as a public school principal, the New York Democrat maintained it was just a bygone phase, and that his days of marinating in the nether-swamps of online paranoia were long over. But his personal YouTube account, where he continued to follow new channels and create playlists as recently as last month, indicates his taste for fringe content has endured into his tenure on Capitol Hill.

* * * * * * * *

Bowman has publicly identified himself in the past as a frequent YouTube user. At a panel discussion held at an Islamic center in the city of Yonkers in January, the Democrat described himself as “starstruck” to introduce the incendiary academic Norman Finkelstein, whom he said he knew from online videos.

“I watch them all the time on YouTube,” said Bowman, who subsequently had to denounce Finkelstein’s praise of Hamas’ bloody raid into Israeli territory on Oct. 7.

Sure enough, several of the pages Inner Peace follows—including DiEM25, Real News Network, Free Will, PoliticsJOE, TRT World—feature interviews with Finkelstein.

Moreover, a number of the accounts Bowman has subscribed to are of recent vintage: more recent, even, than his own ascent to power in 2020. For instance, one called Afripost—where recent video titles announce “Vatican Angry as PUTIN Declares Russia will Only Worship THE BLACK JESUS” and “African Historian Reveals hidden Secret: God did NOT CREATE WHITE: The Bible is all about BLACKS” (capitalization original)—was created in April of last year, just a few months after Bowman started his second term.

Afripost also frequently shares speeches by controversial Nation of Islam minister Louis Farrakhan, known for his antisemitic rhetoric. The most recent such video asserts, falsely, “BLACKS ARE THE TRUE J£WS [sic].”

Flashbacks:

● Three Democrats Attended Private Dinner With Iran’s President And Louis Farrakhan.

● Establishment Media Bury Obama-Farrakhan Photo.

● The deep meaning of Keith Ellison.

● Nation of Islam activists on Obama camp payroll. Former insider worried by senator’s connection to Louis Farrakhan, members of radical group.

Related: The Democrat Party’s Antisemitism Went Mainstream With Barack Obama.

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

OLD AND BUSTED: “I Heard You Paint Houses.”

The New Hotness?

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

YES. NEXT QUESTION? Did NYC Just Kneecap Airbnb? “I live in Bed-Stuy, too. When my large family visits, they typically stay at an Airbnb townhouse that’s 0.6 miles away from my apartment. I priced out how much they would need to spend for a comparable stay at a decent hotel—putting them two to three miles away, since Bed-Stuy has very few decent hotels — and it was double the price. Many others have chimed in with their personal stories of how short-term rentals have made trips to New York feasible for their families. If every visit becomes twice as expensive, why would anyone come to this rat-infested metropolis?”

Posted at 1:46 pm by Stephen Green