And the Pulitzer for Fake News Goes To…

Somewhat lost amid the indignation over Monday’s devastating Durham report, which focused mostly on the corruption within the FBI, was the rotten role of the mainstream press in all this. And placed neatly atop this dung heap of deceit, this monument to media malfeasance, are the twin Pulitzer Prizes for National Reporting that were awarded to The Washington Post and The New York Times in 2018 for their complicity in the Crossfire Hurricane operation more accurately known as the Clinton-engineered, Obama-enabled, FBI-executed Trump/Russia collusion hoax.

So shabby was the reporting that earned these two Trump-hating “news” organizations their Pulitzers, it might just as well have been written by Baghdad Bob or Joe Isuzu.

And sadly, but not surprisingly, both the Post and the Times are unrepentant. We know this because they’ve yet to return those tarnished Pulitzers, and because their coverage of the release of the Durham report speaks volumes.

Where the Post is concerned, we don’t even have to read beyond the first paragraph penned by its editorial board:

John Durham has at long last released his report on the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe, which conservative conspiracy theorists once anticipated would expose a “deep state” scheme to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump. But, despite some commentators’ efforts to portray the actual result of the four-year investigation as damning, the reality is that the Justice Department special counsel uncovered next to nothing.

“Next to nothing,” that is, except that the FBI is corrupt, the Democrat Party is dirty, and Donald Trump and his staffers are innocent of the charges that they colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. “Next to nothing” other than the deep state interfered in the 2016 election and provided the template for doing so again in 2020. “Next to nothing” besides the fact that Trump’s early presidency was hamstrung by a partisan investigation begun on totally false pretenses.

Not to be outdone, the Times’s Charlie Savage, who seems to be a surrogate for the paper’s MIA editorial board, led with a nakedly false headline: “After Years of Political Hype, the Durham Inquiry Failed to Deliver.” He followed that with a subhead soup of non sequiturs: “A dysfunctional investigation led by a Trump-era special counsel illustrates a dilemma about prosecutorial independence and accountability in politically sensitive matters.”

Nothing to see here, say the well-paid liars at the Post and the Times. Kindly move along, you smelly Walmart Trumpers.

Last summer, as our Nate Jackson reported, Donald Trump asked the Pulitzer Prize Board to rescind these two awards. As Trump rightly pointed out, “The coverage was no more than a politically motivated farce which attempted to spin a false narrative that my campaign supposedly colluded with Russia despite a complete lack of evidence underpinning this allegation.”

No dice, said the Pulitzer board, writing, “No passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.”

In the face of Special Counsel John Durham’s indictment of the FBI, and the inescapable conclusion that the Post and the Times published false information throughout their respective bodies of work, will the board now reconsider its decision? Will the Post and the Times reconsider their decision to keep these awards?

No, and no.

The saddest thing of all, though, is that there are still people out there — millions of them, in fact — who think that the political reporting of the Post and the Times is believable.

Then again, there are also people out there who think the designated hitter is legit, the WNBA is watchable, and the Obama administration was scandal-free.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/97397-and-the-pulitzer-for-fake-news-goes-to-dot-dot-dot-2023-05-17

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Biden Admin: Chocolate Milk Too Dangerous for Kids but Puberty Blockers Are Fine

As if President Joe Biden and his administration haven't already done enough to make life more difficult and usher in more hardship for the American people, his band of merry muck-ups are now setting their sights on school lunches and toying around with a ban on chocolate milk — as well as strawberry milk and other flavor alternatives — over concerns about added sugars.

Yes, the same administration that called it "outrageous" and "immoral" to prevent children from taking life-altering hormones to prevent puberty for the purpose of "transitioning" is worried that milk provided at school might have ill effects on their health.

This potentially devastating news for America's students came courtesy of a scoop in The Wall Street Journal this week on what the United States Department of Agriculture is weighing as it works on revamping federal standards for school-provided meals.

Via WSJ:

The issue has divided parents, child-nutrition specialists, school-meal officials and others. Supporters of restricting flavored milk say it has added sugars that contribute to childhood obesity and establish preferences for overly sweet drinks. But opponents, including the dairy industry and many school districts, say removing it will lead to children drinking less milk.

“We want to take a product that most kids like and that has nine essential nutrients in it and say, ‘You can’t drink this, you have to drink plain’?” asked Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, which represents 18 of the largest school districts in the country. “What are we trying to prove?”

[...]

The USDA proposed guidelines for school meals earlier this year, but held off making a recommendation on flavored milk, most of which is chocolate.

The agency said it is considering excluding flavored milk from elementary and possibly middle schools, or continuing to serve it to all grade levels. Under either scenario, flavored milk would have to comply with a new limit on the amount of added sugars.

“Flavored milk is a challenging issue to figure out exactly the best path forward,” Cindy Long, administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, said, explaining why the agency is weighing two options. “We really do want to encourage children to consume milk and we also recognize the need to reduce added-sugar consumption.”

Oh, so the USDA chickened out on making a decision on chocolate milk already, and now they're still hemming and hawing trying to decide whether students should have the choice of chocolate milk with their lunch. And even if they do have chocolate milk available, they're going to restrict how much sugar is in it?

The federal government is clumsy and ineffective at handling pretty much every aspect of Americans' lives into which it intrudes, and once again Biden is ready to put the USDA in a position of dietary lunch monitor. Where was this concern from the Biden USDA — or any federal agency over the past three years — for the health of America's children who were more or less locked inside their homes due to COVID? Playgrounds were dismantled, Jen Psaki bragged about how her kids weren't allowed to play with their friends, and the federal government did lasting damage to the rising generation's mental health without any similar level of concern nor any apology.

What about the Biden administration's embrace of radical transgender ideology that states it's a human right for young people — with or without their parents' consent — to begin taking often irreversible hormone treatments or moving toward mutilative surgeries? If your kid wants to begin taking hormones that will prevent them from going through puberty, the Biden administration isn't worried about long term effects. But if your kid wants to decide to have chocolate milk at lunch, well that's a huge problem with lasting negative health consequences that must be stopped. It's beyond absurd.

And when it comes to schools, the Biden administration should have reopened them rather than letting Randi Weingarten and her AFT union bosses keep schools locked down. The years of learning loss created by big government "help" will likely prove more damaging to a young student's longterm health and success in life than that same child having eight ounces of chocolate milk a few times a week.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/spencerbrown/2023/05/17/biden-considering-ban-on-chocolate-milk-in-schools-n2623260

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Danny Kruger is right: marriage is the bedrock of society

It didn’t take long for Danny Kruger to get jumped on for stating the obvious. His observation yesterday that ‘The normative family, the mother and father sticking together for the sake of the children, is the only basis for a safe and functioning society. Marriage is not only about you, it’s a public act to live for the sake of someone else’, would once have come into the class of things so obvious as to not need saying.

It tells you a lot about where we’re at now that this is daringly controversial, divisively edgy. But then once the social consensus was shared by all parts of the political spectrum – John Smith, Tony Blair’s predecessor as leader of the Labour party could have said every word without a qualm. Now it’s something probably Rishi Sunak wouldn’t say.

The normative family, the mother and father sticking together for the sake of the children, is the only basis for a safe and functioning society.

Marriage is not only about you, it’s a public act to live for the sake of someone else.

No surprises, really, about where the opposition is coming from. Alastair Campbell, wrote that ‘This is all very weird. Was on TV with Danny Kruger yesterday and he talked about a leftist agenda which meant absolutely nothing to me or Shami Chakrabarti who was also on the panel. It was like listening to a fantasy story…’

But then the real problem about mixing just with your own ideological kind is that you struggle to get your head round the idea that there’s a mass of people out there who don’t share your view of what’s normal. Campbell’s response tells you more about him than Danny Kruger.

Then there was the response of Sarah Owen, Labour MP for Luton and a party whip. ‘I do wonder if Danny Kruger has ever met anyone who has escaped an abusive marriage? Or the loved ones of victims who died in one? No one should have to “stick with” Domestic abuse.’

Look, there are hard cases that you can advance against any argument. There are people who abuse their spouses and it’s right to take this very seriously indeed. Kruger is surely not saying that people should ‘stick with domestic abuse’.

But, while there are clearly exceptions, this doesn’t undermine the truth that, on the whole, all things considered, marriage is a better environment for raising children than the alternative. There are any number of abusive parents at large who should by rights have their children taken into care, but it doesn’t undermine the notion that most parents have their children’s best interests at heart. Sarah Owen can express her concern for the victims of domestic abuse, but that doesn’t amount to an argument against Kruger’s point.

And then there’s the scientist and BBC host, Dr Adam Rutherford, who said this: ‘Big shout out to the single parents, gay parents, foster parents, people who adopt children, and people who separate for good and healthy reasons: you guys are not the basis of a safe society according to Kinder Küche Kirche Kruger.’

Of course there are any number of variants on the family norm but they don’t undermine the general case that married fathers and mothers make for a uniquely stable basis for raising their children. As it happens my own father was adopted at a day old – they didn’t go in for formalities back then in Ireland – and was, I’d say, better off with the mother and father who wanted him rather than the unmarried girl who didn’t, but that proves nothing.

Danny Kruger is right. In one respect I know he is; in another, I believe he is. His contention that ‘the father and mother sticking together for the sake of the children’ is an assertion that a child’s own father and mother are the best people to raise them. And I do think that having a mother and father is better than the alternative. You learn your cues about the opposite sex from your parents; if you grow up with two parents of one sex, you’re missing out on something crucial – an engagement with the other.

This isn’t to say that homosexual married parents aren’t loving: the figures available to date show that their children have equally good outcomes to those of heterosexual couples – see the exciting former Finnish PM, raised by lesbians. But the fundamentals matter too.

As for the contention that married couples are better for raising children than unmarried or single parents, the answer is borne out by all the research. See the very thorough report by Cristina Odone (which doesn’t distinguish between homosexual and heterosexual couples) for the Centre for Social Justice in 2020, here.

Or, if you just want the statistics on marriage as the best context for raising children, Cristina Odone provides those as well. I’d say it shows that Danny Kruger isn’t weird; just brave and unfashionable.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/danny-kruger-is-right-marriage-is-the-bedrock-of-society/

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Lazy British police charge the wrong man with murder

And tried to fit him up for it -- in the best police tradition

A police force has apologised to the man wrongly accused of murdering seven-year-old schoolgirl Nikki Allan in 1992.

Northumbria Police also said sorry to Nikki’s family for mistakes made in the original investigation and for the 31 years they had to wait before her real killer David Boyd was brought to justice.

The convicted sex offender, 55, was found guilty of murdering her in Hendon, Sunderland, on the evening of October 7, 1992 at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday.

His trial heard how he lured the girl to a derelict building where he smashed her skull with a brick before repeatedly stabbing her through the heart.

Today, the force released a letter it sent to George Heron apologising for how he was treated during the initial investigation.

Mr Heron wrongly stood trial for the offence in 1993, and was later cleared after a judge dismissed a false confession he made following days of “oppressive” questioning.

In the letter, Assistant Chief Constable Alastair Simpson wrote: “On behalf of Northumbria Police, I would like to apologise for the mistakes that were made in the investigation and I hope, as you express in your statement, that the conviction of Mr Boyd will finally bring closure on this matter for you and allow you to move on with your life.”

During the initial investigation Mr Heron was subject to “oppressive” questioning and denied having any involvement in the murder 120 times during three days of interviews, before he made some kind of confession.

After he was cleared, police said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with Nikki’s murder – despite the real killer remaining at large.

It is understood that Mr Heron had his face slashed while on remand in the 1990s. He then had to move away from Sunderland despite being cleared, and was taken in by a religious order.

Detective Superintendent Lisa Theaker led a complex re-investigation which began in 2017 and culminated in Boyd’s conviction.

She told reporters: “In terms of the earlier (1992) investigation, it’s been well publicised that the interviews that were conducted back in the day were oppressive and some of the evidence was misrepresented before George Heron ‘confessed’, and we know the judge excluded that confession.

“On a national scale, the way we interview people has changed massively.”

Ms Theaker said now the trial has finished, the team will be able to share information with Nikki’s mother Sharon Henderson and reassure her family that no-one else was involved with the murder.

Mr Simpson extended the apology to Nikki’s family, saying: “I am truly sorry for mistakes that were made in the 1992 investigation and I am sorry for the length of time it has taken to get justice for the family.

“I cannot imagine the impact on them over the course of the last 30 years, so I have offered to meet with Sharon and with other members of the family and I will be happy to say that to them when I meet them.”

During the decades that he evaded justice, Body indecently assaulted a nine-year-old in a park in 1999 and told his probation officer that he had a sexual interest in young girls when he was younger.

But Ms Henderson never gave up her fight to get her daughter justice and campaigned relentlessly. She met the then Chief Constable Steve Ashman in 2017 who agreed to a re-investigation.

The sex offender - who was 25 when he murdered Nikki - was later caught thanks to advances in DNA techniques which were able to extract new traces from the little girl’s clothes.

Outside court last week, Ms Henderson spoke of the “injustice” that “this evil man slipped through the net to murder Nikki when he was on their (police) files in the first place”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/nikki-allan-murder-police-apology-b2340651.html

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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