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."