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ProPublica Editor-In-Chief Who Stirred Up Clarence Thomas Smears Built His Career On False Insinuations

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If media outlets measure their success by public influence, then ProPublica is having a banner year. Since the investigative nonprofit published the first of five stories about Justice Clarence Thomas’ social connections, popular news outlets and the Democratic Party have made the series the most-discussed “scandal” of 2023.

Thomas’ friend Harlan Crow has become internet clickbait, which amounts today to a household name, and Democratic lawmakers have argued Thomas should resign. Through it all, another figure, whose past and present are equally important to the series, has remained remarkably free from scrutiny: Stephen Engelberg, the longtime New York Times reporter, founding managing editor, and then editor-in-chief of ProPublica who oversaw the Thomas investigation.  

This is a major elision. If Thomas’ career tells one kind of 30-year story, of a black conservative jurist in Washington, D.C., Engelberg’s tells another: a story in which, unlike Justice Thomas, his alleged transgressions are directly tied to his work. Since 1992, even in the judgment of some of his peers, Engelberg made his reputation by turning investigative reporting into an exercise in false insinuations and reputational slander at the expense of asking who’s abusing power and where power lies.

The two series that marked and failed to derail Engelberg’s pre-ProPublica career, Whitewater and the case of Wen Ho Lee, were early journalistic forays down this compromised path. Like the Thomas series, they were headline-grabbing investigations with outsized effects marred by questionable assertions that Washington players used for their own ends. They open

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A New York Times Staffer Stumbles On The Truth About The Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling

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Credit to Michael Barbaro of The New York Times for ever so gingerly happening upon the lesson Democrats should have taken from the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling, but didn’t. Or more likely, refuse to.

On Tuesday’s edition of the Times’ “Daily” podcast, Barbaro and Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak mulled over the ruling, and at the very end of the episode, Barbaro had his epiphany. “Another way to think about this ruling if you step way back,” he said, “is that it’s kind of the Supreme Court saying that when you elect a president, you have to accept, dear American people, that the Constitution gives them a tremendous amount of power and legal latitude to kind of do what they want …”

Barbaro was cooking. You could feel it.

He continued his revelation. “And we, the Supreme Court, are going to make it pretty hard to hold that president criminally responsible for their actions,” he said, “so, voters need to think really carefully about who they want to possess this level of immunity.”

I imagine Barbaro swelled with pride at having successfully followed that pure and true train of thought to its logical end. He did it! He really did it!

I just wish the rest of his peers in the media and the Democrat Party would do the same.

Immediately after the ruling, holding that a president carrying out his constitutional responsibilities can’t be held criminally liable for it once out of office (duh), Democrats and leftist triflers

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Michigan Lawmakers Ask Appeals Court To Find Democrats’ Election Amendments Unconstitutional

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Michigan lawmakers filed a legal brief on Monday requesting a federal appeals court consider their lawsuit against two Democrat-backed constitutional amendments they claim violate the Michigan and U.S. Constitutions.

“It is extremely important to have these constitutional questions adjudicated as rapidly as possible,” plaintiff and Republican Sen. Jim Runestad said in a Tuesday release from Michigan Fair Elections. “I am a firm believer in the Constitution. The people have a right to have this issue decided in a court of law, so everyone can have confidence that we are preserving civil rights and obeying the Constitution.”

Filed in September by 11 state GOP legislators against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and the director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections, the lawsuit in question contended that two, constitutional ballot amendments — one approved by voters in 2018 and the other in 2022 — violate the elections clause of the U.S. Constitution, which stipulates that the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”

In their original lawsuit, plaintiffs argued that the amendments to the Michigan electoral system are invalid because the U.S. Constitution says the power to implement such changes to state election laws lies with the state legislature. The legislators further claimed the Michigan Constitution provides state legislators similar powers.

Among the leftist-backed election practices added to the Michigan Constitution under the 2018 and 2022 initiatives are automatic and same-day voter registration, no-excuse absentee voting “during

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Politico Reporter Disguises PR For Left-Wing Political Group As Journalism

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Does political writer Heidi Przybyla work for Politico or a left-wing group funded by Arabella Advisors? Her recent stories make it hard to tell.

On Tuesday, Przybyla published what conservative radio host Erick Erickson characterized as a “press release” for a group called “Demand Justice.” The story, headlined, “Progressive advocacy group plans $10M offensive targeting Supreme Court,” chronicles the far-left operation’s multi-million-dollar campaign to undermine the last functional institution of the federal government.

“According to plans first shared with POLITICO, the group intends to spend $10 million by the end of this year on a range of activities, from conducting opposition research on potential Supreme Court picks to advocating for ethics reforms for the high court,” Przybyla reported. “It will also work to mobilize key constituencies affected by the court’s decisions, including women and young people, and to call out a network of far-right judicial activists that laid the groundwork for the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court.”

Left out of Przybyla’s reporting, however, as Erickson noted, “Demand Justice is a part of a multi-billion dollar dark money enterprise of the left called Arabella.”

Arabella is a colossal dark money group funneling anonymous donations to left-wing causes such as efforts to “defund police” and antisemitic protests. Last month, CBS called the group a “dark money juggernaut” with entities promoting “progressive causes, like climate change and marijuana legalization.”

“Lately, they have poured money into state ballot initiatives, particularly where there are competitive Senate or House seats, possibly as a way

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