Bear with me, but I must admit that some liberal initiatives can actually begin with some kernel of honestly noble intentions.

Take, for example, the #MeToo campaign.

Let me be perfectly clear by saying that anyone, man or woman, who would dare to use a position of power to sexually exploit someone is an utter and complete piece of garbage. There is absolutely no defense for that type of exploitation.

But like most things leftists get their grubby paws on, things quickly went awry with #MeToo.

Despicable people began to realize that they could weaponize sexual assault allegations to do almost irreparable political or personal damage to people.

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It’s a terrifying worst-case scenario that leftists clearly didn’t even consider when generating momentum for #MeToo.

The biggest problem with #MeToo is the leftist notion of automatically believing the victim before any due diligence is done.

Victims should always be allowed to speak out. Anyone with a shred of decency should at least admit that.

But after an accusation is made, there must be a thorough and fair follow-up to it. Otherwise, we run the risk of destroying someone’s life over little more than an unsourced accusation.

That is, unequivocally, not how the American judicial system should work. But that does beg the question of what an appropriate punishment for someone who would peddle a false accusation should be.

According to this report by the Post Star, it’ll get you arrested.

Per the police reports obtained by the the Post, Nikole P. Tucker, a 20-year-old student at the State University of New York (SUNY) Adirondack, allegedly claimed to have been forcibly raped by a man.

Unfortunately for Tucker, after an investigation, police determined that the sexual encounter was consensual based on text messages. Tucker was promptly arrested and charged with misdemeanor counts of falsely reporting an incident and making a punishable false written statement.

Tucker admitted the entire ruse was fabricated when confronted with evidence according to the Post. Police had also determined that the two had met through an online dating service.

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Tucker was ultimately released pending prosecution.

While justice seems to have been served in this instance, it should be worrisome to all civic-minded Americans that this is hardly an isolated incident.

A male student at the University of Cincinnati had his name dragged through the mud for years while he tried to prove his innocence against false claims. He only recently was awarded $47,000 and had his record expunged of the accusation after a lengthy legal battle.

The veracity of sexual allegations must always be investigated, no matter what lunacy the far left may peddle. The case of Nikole P. Tucker is only the latest proof of that.

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The New York Times released yet another hit piece about President Donald Trump on Friday, but White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the story “absurd.”

The newest hit piece published by The Times claimed that FBI officials began investigating Trump for suspected ties to Russia after he fired former FBI Director James Comey.

“Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him,” the report said.

If there is just a hint of truth to this report, it shows the unhinged paranoia of some FBI officials: As early as 2016, they wanted to pin “Russia collusion” on Trump without any evidence.

“But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry,” The Times’ report continued.

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It’s abundantly clear to open-minded people today that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, so the president obviously didn’t fire Comey for any nefarious Russian purposes.

In a statement to the press Friday afternoon, Sanders explained that Comey was fired because he’s a “disgraced partisan hack.”

“This is absurd,” she said. “James Comey was fired because he’s a disgraced partisan hack, and his Deputy Andrew McCabe, who was in charge at the time, is a known liar fired by the FBI.”

.@PressSec responds to @nytimes report that the FBI opened an inquiry into whether Trump was secretly working on behalf of Russia: pic.twitter.com/sAzRn7TIMJ

— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) January 12, 2019

Since being fired, Comey has endlessly railed against Trump’s administration instead of disappearing into the background.

Comey also has promoted his own book to profit off the controversy.

Sanders is right; Comey is a partisan hack.

But Sanders wasn’t the only one who slammed Comey — Trump also took shots at him.

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Trump described “Lyin’ James Comey” as a “total sleaze” in a tweet Saturday morning.

Wow, just learned in the Failing New York Times that the corrupt former leaders of the FBI, almost all fired or forced to leave the agency for some very bad reasons, opened up an investigation on me, for no reason & with no proof, after I fired Lyin’ James Comey, a total sleaze!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2019

It’s time to put this absurd Russian witch hunt to rest.

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I know some of our readers won’t touch anything with a liberal provenance, but I have a very soft spot for the comic “Doonesbury.” Granted, Garry Trudeau and his most famous creation have both become a kind of self-parody as the artist has aged, but reading some of the comics during its heyday can make me laugh in spite of my vehement disagreement with the point.

Of my favorite Trudeau creations is Roland Burton Hedley, a vainglorious reporter so credulous and lacking in self-awareness he’ll pretty much report anything without realizing how imbecilic it makes him — and the narrative he’s trying to push — look.

My favorite gag involved him doing a report on campus student life; one of the protagonists, trying to get Hedley to believe that the mild-mannered liberals on their commune were irredeemable hedonists as part of a joke, is able to pass off a lilac bush as their own personal marijuana plant.

In the world of “Doonesbury,” Hedley was, when I last checked in with the comic, working at Fox News — because of course he was. In the real world, I get the feeling he’s working at CNN and his name is Jim Acosta.

Acosta has had more than one Hedley moment, and I’ve made the comparison before. However, what he managed to do Thursday in McAllen, Texas, was truly a work of Hedleyean art.

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Acosta was part of the press pool accompanying President Donald Trump down to the border, where the president had a press conference as part of his push for wall funding. He posed in front of seized drugs, weapons and ill-gotten cash, along with law enforcement officers and families of victims.

It was a photo op, and the president admitted as much, but it was an effective one. If Trump is going to have a photo op, however, CNN’s well-coiffed Hedley impersonator is going to have his own as well. After all, if you’ve ever watched a presidential press conference with Jim Acosta present, you know who Jim Acosta thinks the real star is.

For his photo op, Acosta strutted along the border, giving a monologue about just how anodyne life really was there.

“As we’re walking along here, we’re not seeing any kind of imminent danger,” Acosta said in the second half of his 35-second video.

“There are some other businesses behind me, along this highway,” he added. “There’s a gas station, a Burger King and so on. No sign of the national emergency that the president’s been talking about. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty tranquil down here.”

I found some steel slats down on the border. But I don’t see anything resembling a national emergency situation.. at least not in the McAllen TX area of the border where Trump will be today. pic.twitter.com/KRoLdszLUu

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) January 10, 2019

So, you may have noticed I was coy about the first half of the video. Remember what I said about lack of self-awareness? I’m sorry, Mr. Hedley — you’ve got nothing on Jim Acosta.

In trying to make the case against a border fence, Jim Acosta noted that it was “pretty tranquil down here” in front of a border fence.

“I hope the American people aren’t lost on the irony that he’s standing behind a wall saying it’s peaceful. Because there’s a wall. Think about that, right? The irony there,” Mark Morgan, former head of the Border Patrol, told Fox News.

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When I went with President @realDonaldTrump to the border today I never imagined @Acosta would be there doing our job for us and so clearly explaining why WALLS WORK. Thanks Jim! https://t.co/7wC4rdEsZ2

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) January 10, 2019

The National Border Patrol Council’s spokesman for agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, meanwhile, said that Acosta ought to stick around when there wasn’t a press pool around and it wasn’t daylight.

“What he fails to realize is he’s out there with cameras during the day. Everything is pretty nice and calm during the day,” Chris Cabrera told Fox News. “If he sees it as so safe out there, why doesn’t he just pitch a tent by the river and hang (there) for a couple of days and get back to us on how safe he feels?”

Cabrera noted another irony: “CNN put on their news feed, not two weeks ago, ‘border crisis.’ Now there’s not a border crisis. We catch the equivalent of one of those caravans they talk about per week in McAllen. We see 5,000, 7,000, 10,000 a week just in our area. Those are people turning themselves in and people trying to get away.”

It’s worth noting even Acosta realized how tin-eared and self-defeating this video was. Along with the video, he tweeted: “The steel slats don’t run the entire length of the border in the McAllen area. We found one part where there is a chain link fence. Occasionally migrants come through, but residents say their community is quite safe.”

Right. Which is why he chose to do the video in front of the slatted fence.

How’s that lilac bush, Roland?

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If the Democrats thought blocking border wall funding with a partial government shutdown was the right hill to die on, they were sadly mistaken. Their lies about border walls have been exposed, and thus so have they.

This had led some in the party to think twice about being part of the herd.

While House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who declared the border wall “immoral,” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer try to keep the Democrats in line, cracks are starting to show.

The Washington Free Beacon compiled numerous examples of Democrats speaking out in favor of a border wall.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York said, “There are areas along the border where there are currently fences that are put up or barriers that are put up that need to be enhanced.”

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Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark echoed that sentiment, saying, “I think there are parts of the border that would benefit from repairing fencing and other barricades that already exist there.”

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland took it a step further, saying, “Certainly you need barriers and we support barriers.”

But there is even more to this story of Democrats showing some unwillingness to continue with the battle that Pelosi and Schumer seem so dead set on fighting.

According to The Hill, some Democrats have even stated their support for President Donald Trump declaring a national emergency so the government shutdown can finally come to an end.

For example, while Virginia Rep. Don Beyer is hoping for “another creative solution” to the problem, he said, “Right now it looks like the only way out that people are talking about.”

Beyer said he isn’t all on board, but “it does seem like a way for him to reopen the government and yet save face. And I’m not against him saving face.”

Speaking of “saving face,” Beyer’s suburban D.C. district is home to many workers affected by the shutdown.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin also represents a district in the Washington suburbs impacted by the shutdown. He said he’s not sure a national emergency declaration is a good fit for what is going on at the border but it might be the best way, under current circumstances, to bring an end to the shutdown.

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“I would much prefer if this whole debate over the wall were relocated from the political branches, where the president has been promising to hold his breath until his face turns blue, to the judicial branches, where we can have some kind of calm dissection of the actual circumstances on the ground at the border,” Raskin said, according to the Hill.

“If this is what it takes for the president to reopen the government of the United States, then most people will say, ‘So be it. Let him attempt his administrative emergency workaround to the Constitution and the Congress,’” Raskin said. “This might be the best of the bad lot in terms of the options left to us.”

Even some in Hollywood are abandoning support for the wall battle. One notable example is the outspoken leftist and singer Cher. Her Twitter feed is filled with Trump bashing, but on the government shutdown, she seemed to echo the president to a degree in telling Pelosi to end the battle.

In a tweet Wednesday, Cher called the House speaker a “hero” for her stance but said, “REAL PPL ARE REALLY SUFFERING‼️ … LET HIM HAVE HIS F-NG MONEY!!”

Many would see the Democrats as “heroes” if they ended the shutdown. They could use their willingness to give in on this as a “See, we compromise and work with the other side” talking point.

If they did so, everyone would win. The wall would get funding, the shutdown would end, and the Democrats could stop having to do damage control that everyone sees through on why they are against the wall funding.

Trump has made it clear he is not going to roll over on this issue. He has everything to win by standing firm. Meanwhile, the Democrats have everything to lose by continuing to test his resolve by fighting him on this particular issue.

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Former wrestling Champion-turned Hollywood superstar Dwayne Johnson criticized the contemporary “snowflake” generation of young people, arguing that “if you are not agreeing with them then they are offended.”

In an interview with Britain’s Daily Star, the Fast and Furious star said that this generation’s penchant for being offended is taking humanity backward.

“I don’t have to agree with what somebody thinks, who they vote for, what they voted for, what they think, but I will back their right to say or believe it. That’s democracy,” the Jumanji star said. “So many good people fought for freedom and equality – but this generation are looking for a reason to be offended.”

Dwayne Johnson went on to argue that the propensity of many young people to take offense is only taking humanity backward rather than forward.

“If you are not agreeing with them then they are offended — and that is not what so many great men and women fought for,” he explained. “We thankfully now live in a world that has progressed over the last 30 or 40 years. People can be who they want, be with who they want, and live how they want. That can only be a good thing — but generation snowflake or, whatever you want to call them, are actually putting us backwards.”

The 46-year-old actor has long expressed an interest in political debate and has previously revealed how he is considering a run for the presidency. Last year, he argued that America needs a return to leadership of people who have a comprehensive understanding of American history and politics, as well as prior political experience.

“What I’m sensing now is that we have to pivot back to people who have a deep-rooted knowledge of American history and politics and experience in policy and how laws get made. I think that pivot has to happen,” Johnson said in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I think in a lot of people’s minds, what Trump has proved is that anybody can run for president. And in a lot of people’s minds, what he’s also proved is that not everybody should run for president.”

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.