Kyle Rittenhouse should be acquitted, but he won’t be, because there are almost certainly two or three jury members in Kenosha who will vote for conviction no matter what the law or the evidence may be. Recall that it was Democratic voters who rioted in Kenosha, unleashing three nights of vandalism and arson because domestic abuser Jacob Blake got shot by a cop while violently resisting arrest. If you think it’s a bad thing for cops to shoot violent criminals, and if you think torching a used-car lot is an appropriate form of “peaceful protest,” you’re obviously a Democratic voter — the Kenosha riot was a Joe Biden campaign rally.
“This is case-closed self-defense. Democrats allow mob violence to rule the streets. Americans have the right to defend themselves.”
That’s what I said the day after the shooting, and I haven’t changed my mind, but the pro-riot/anti-police Democrats haven’t changed their minds either and, if there are just two or three Democrats on the Rittenhouse jury, that will be enough to block a “not guilty” verdict.
“Why did President Biden suggest that Kyle Rittenhouse on trial in Kenosha is a white supremacist?” Fox News’s Peter Doocey asked the press secretary this week during a news conference.
Psaki let out a loud, long sigh, as if it’s tiresome to be asked about an issue the Biden team previously was very eager to discuss.
“What I’m not going to speak to right now is anything about an ongoing trial, nor the president’s past comments,” responded Psaki. “What I can reiterate for you is the president’s view that we shouldn’t have, broadly speaking, vigilantes patrolling our communities with assault weapons. We shouldn’t have opportunists corrupting peaceful protests by rioting and burning down the communities they claim to represent anywhere in the country.”
The Biden campaign tweeted a video on Sept. 30, 2020, with the accompanying caption, “There’s no other way to put it: the President of the United States refused to disavow white supremacists on the debate stage last night.” The video includes images of Rittenhouse taken on the night of the riots.
(Hat-tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.) The prosecution of this case was a circus sideshow from start to finish, and if you wonder why crime is rampant in America’s cities, just think of how much effort went into prosecuting Kyle Rittenhouse, and how little effort — in fact, no effort at all — Kenosha devoted to keeping the dangerous criminal JoJo Rosenbaum behind bars. If Rosenbaum had been in jail, where he belonged, nobody would have gotten shot that night, but Kenosha turned Rosenbaum loose and, as Tucker Carlson said, JoJo “died as he had lived, trying to touch an unwilling minor.” I’m glad he’s dead.
Two years ago, police arrested 19-year-old Brooke Litchfield in Kentucky after she and a boyfriend were accused of brutally robbing a man who had posted on social media about receiving an inheritance:
Jefferstontown Police say Litchfield, [22-year-old James] Rice and another man went to HomeTowne Studios Louisville — an extended stay hotel — to hang out with a friend over the weekend.
That friend had recently inherited money and had posted about it on social media.
While the four were in the hotel, court documents say Litchfield asked the victim to take a selfie with her.
That’s when police say one of the men who came with her hit the victim in the back of the head and beat his face, knocking out his teeth and damaging his eye socket.
Officers say the hotel room was covered with blood.
They then took off with $3,500 in cash and a $1,300 necklace.
You might think that this would have landed Litchfield in prison for a long time, but instead she is now back in the news:
A woman is in jail after she was allegedly hired as a prostitute on Saturday along with another woman, whom she reportedly shot on accident when she was aiming at the client.
Police received a call around 6:30 p.m. about a man who had been robbed, and another call a few minutes later about woman who had been shot. They discovered that the calls were related.
Investigators say the man hired the two female prostitutes to come to his apartment.
An altercation apparently broke out between them inside the apartment, and one of the women allegedly pulled a gun and shot at the man.
However, police say, she missed and hit the other woman instead.
She then left to drive the injured woman to the hospital, who is said to have non-life-threatening injuries.
Officers arrested 21-year-old Brooke Litchfield in connection to the shooting.
She is being charged with robbery, assault, and wanton endangerment.
The other woman and the man are facing prostitution charges.
Everybody is now talking about the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, and the judge’s “don’t get brazen with me” eruption at the prosecutor, but there is a larger story that is being overlooked — namely, the media’s role in bringing about this politically motivated prosecution which they are now misreporting to their audiences. After watching CNN (so you don’t have to) on Tuesday, I turned the TV Wednesday to MSNBC and was struck by the fact that nowhere in their commentary did they mention that Joseph “JoJo” Rosenbaum was a convicted child rapist who had just been released from a psychiatric ward the day he was killed in the Kenosha riot.
This is the most important fact in the whole case.
Rosenbaum was a hardened criminal who spent more than a decade in Arizona prisons. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and after he showed up on the third night of rioting in downtown Kenosha, immediately confronted the armed men guarding the used car lot.
Now that it is confirmed Joseph Rosenbaum was one of the people shot and killed by alleged gunman Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, I filmed him earlier in the night taunting the armed civilians, saying, "Shoot me, n***a." pic.twitter.com/Nn2encm78Y
It was, of course, Andy Ngo who first reported Rosenbaum’s sex offender status, and Ngo further reported that both of the other two rioters shot by Kyle Rittenhouse also had criminal records. Anthony Huber, 26, who attacked Rittenhouse with a skateboard and was fatally shot, “has a criminal history that includes charges of battery & repeat domestic abuse,” Ngo reported. Gaige Grosskreutz, 26, who was seen on video pointing a pistol at Rittenhouse before being wounded in the arm, is “a member of the People’s Revolution Movement,” Ngo reported, and “has a criminal record that includes being intoxicated & armed w/a gun.”
Now, let’s ask what should be an obvious question: What are the odds that a guy opens fire at a mass gathering and all three of the people he shoots turn out to have criminal records? Doesn’t this tell you something about who is engaging in these “mostly peaceful” protests?
These facts were known, and widely reported in local media, in addition to conservative web sites. But if all you know about the news is what you get from CNN and MSNBC, you don’t know these things.
Perhaps the media think they are justified in ignoring Rosenbaum’s heinous criminal history because they don’t want to “blame the victim” — but JoJo Rosenbaum was the aggressor in this incident.
That’s crucial to understanding what Kyle Rittenhouse did, but social media companies have joined the effort to suppress this crucial fact, banning anyone who defends Rittenhouse. In a now-banned YouTube video from August 2020, analyzing the then-available evidence, one commentator explained how Rosenbaum got himself shot to death:
“That’s the ultimate ‘play a stupid game, win a stupid prize.’ You’re running, chasing somebody down. The person you’re chasing has a rifle. What did you expect?”
Everything we’ve learned about the case since then only confirms the verdict I delivered at the time: “Nobody would have gotten shot had it not been for the aggressive stupidity of convicted sex offender JoJo Rosenbaum. Once he had collected his stupid prize, the rest of the rioting mob decided they should join in on the stupid game of chasing the guy with the rifle.” Anthony Huber and Gaige Grosskreutz didn’t know what had happened (i.e., that Rittenhouse had shot Rosenbaum in self-defense) and chased Rittenhouse in the belief that the teenager was attempting to flee, when in fact Rittenhouse was trying to get back to where the police were. This all occurred during a breakdown of law and order, a riot in which Huber and Grosskreutz were participants, which had overwhelmed the ability of police in Kenosha. There were no police in the vicinity of the intersection of Sheridan Road and 63rd Street, where the criminal maniac Rosenbaum attacked Rittenhouse.
This morning, I turned the TV over to MSNBC and Morning Joe is full of hand-wringing about the prosecution’s failure in the case — they are literally trying to play the race card, saying that Rittenhouse would have been treated differently if he were black. But there was no element of race in the case — all three people who got shot by Rittenhouse were white, and in each incident, Rittenhouse fired in self-defense. In America, everybody has the right of armed self-defense; it’s in the Constitution and, while MSNBC audiences may not realize it, black defendants are often acquitted (or never face charges) in similar cases.
If I’ve got a gun, and you get shot after you attack me, it doesn’t matter that you were unarmed in the attack. That’s how the Second Amendment right to bear arms helps to prevent violence. You’re less likely to be assaulted if your would-be attacker has to consider the possibility that his attack may result in his own death. What happened in Kenosha, however, was that JoJo Rosenbaum — who, I remind you, had just gotten out of a psych ward that morning — did not behave as any sane person would behave. Like, if you or I happened to find ourselves in the middle of a riot, our first impulse would be to get someplace safe. If, during this hypothetical scenario, we encountered someone with an AR-15, the last thing we would have done (because were are not crazy) would be to shout obscene threats, charge after them, and try to grab their rifle.
Rosenbaum’s fiancée, Kariann Swart, testified Friday that Rosenbaum had been released from a hospital the day of his death, and was dropped off in Downtown Kenosha. Although it is not being shared with the jury, Rosenbaum had been in the hospital for mental health treatment after a suicide attempt. . . .
In her testimony, Swart said Rosenbaum walked to the hotel where she was staying. The couple had been homeless during portions of their relationship, at one point living in a tent, but had recently been staying in a hotel room. She estimated it would have taken Rosenbaum an hour to walk from the transit center where he had been dropped off by hospital personnel to her hotel. . . .
“We were talking about things we needed to work on in our relationship.” She said he seemed excited and happy, and was talking about changes he wanted to make in his life. “When he left he said he would see me in the morning.”
Not shared with the jury was why Rosenbaum, who had bipolar disorder, was not able to stay with Swart. He was out on bond for domestic battery, and had a no contact order with Swart. She told him to stay away from the area where there had been rioting.
“I did explain to him that things had gotten bad the last few days because he had not been in town the last few days and I did tell him explicitly not to go downtown,” Swart said.
“He was out on bond for domestic battery.”
Do you think anyone watching CNN or MSNBC knows any of this? Certainly, they’re not going to get it from CNN or MSNBC. As I have previously said, nobody would have gotten shot that night if not for Rosenbaum’s deranged behavior. Rosenbaum was out on bond for beating his girlfriend, and violated a no-contact order by going to see her after he got out of the psych ward. She “explicitly” warned him to stay away from the riot downtown, but JoJo went there anyway.
No one watching coverage of the Rittenhouse trial on MSNBC or CNN is going to learn these important facts about Rosenbaum, which are being excluded from the courtroom because they are not directly relevant to the legal question of Rittenhouse’s guilt or innocence. But if the jury is not allowed to hear testimony on these matters — Rittenhouse didn’t know anything about Rosenbaum, and therefore this could not have been a factor in his decision to pull the trigger — it is certainly crucial to understanding the context of what happened that night.
The same authorities who allowed “mostly peaceful protesters” to take over the streets of Kenosha — the shootings happened on the third night of riots in the city — were also responsible for a criminal justice system that failed to keep Joseph Rosenbaum behind bars. For that matter, the pretext for this riot, the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake, was further evidence of systemic failure by the authorities:
The cops involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake — which touched off a fresh wave of angry, anti-police sentiment across the country — were attempting to arrest him for violating a restraining order stemming from an alleged sexual assault, The Post has learned.
Blake, 29, was forbidden from going to the Kenosha home of his alleged victim from the May 3 incident, and police were dispatched Sunday following a 911 call saying he was there.
The responding officers were aware he had an open warrant for felony sexual assault, according to dispatch records and the Kenosha Professional Police Association, which released a statement on the incident on Friday.
Why wasn’t Jacob Blake already behind bars? If we are to take liberals seriously when they talk about “violence against women,” shouldn’t something be done about the way perpetrators like Jacob Blake are being turned loose to terrorize their victims? But instead, now we have liberals implicitly arguing for a catch-and-release policy for domestic abusers, and demonizing cops as “racist” because one of the perps got shot.
The reason liberals are able to engage in such self-contradictory beliefs — violence against women must be punished, but don’t keep domesetic abusers in jail or send cops after them, if they happen to be black — is because the mainstream media won’t point out the contradictions and, in many cases, the media refuse to even acknowledge the relevant facts.
Viewers of CNN and MSNBC are never confronted with evidence or logic that would contradict the preferred liberal narrative of events. Joe Scarborough this morning was ranting about Rittenhouse being “aggressive,” simply because the kid was carrying a rifle, as if firearms possession does not deter aggression. The entire rationale of the Second Amendment — the ability of armed citizens to preserve the peace — was central to the events in Kenosha. The armed citizen not only is able to defend himself as an individual, but this ability also extends protection to others, by deterring would-be aggressors. Why do you think burglars and thieves generally avoid rural areas of “red” America?
In rural America, nearly every homeowner has firearms, and the thief from Baltimore would be a fool to seek victims in Carroll County. The violent crime rate in Baltimore is 18.76 (per thousand residents) compared to 3.76 in Westminster, the Carroll County seat.
The deterrence effect of firearms possession is very easy to understand — criminals prefer unarmed victims — which is why JoJo Rosenbaum’s mental health issues and criminal record are crucial to explaining what happened in Kenosha. Rosenbaum clearly saw Rittenhouse was armed, but evidently underestimated Rittenhouse’s ability to use his weapon effectively. Oops! Too bad for you, JoJo. You guessed wrong.
CNN and MSNBC viewers will not be informed about this essential context, because the Democrats who run those networks don’t want their audiences to be fully informed. Whenever facts contradict the liberal narrative, the facts will be ignored. Sic semper hoc.
Is it any wonder that CNN and MSNBC are losing the ratings contest?
The University of Alabama survived a scare Saturday against LSU, coming away with a hard-fought 20-14 victory to keep alive the Crimson Tide’s hopes of another trip to the college football playoffs.
LSU stopped Alabama’s running game — something that is cause for concern going forward — and forced the Tide to rely on quarterback Bryce Young’s passing arm. The sophomore did well enough, throwing for 302 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions, but it was close.
During the fourth quarter, my brother Kirby needed an extra dose of his heart medicine. Fortunately, the ’Bama defense stepped up.
Sophomore linebacker Will Anderson Jr. put on a tackling seminar, with 12 tackles, including 8 solo tackles, one solo sack and another shared with fellow linebacker Christian Harris. In the fourth quarter, when LSU drove more than 70 yards to threaten Alabama’s lead, senior tackle Phidarian Mathis came up with a sack which caused what looked like a fumble, but was ruled an interception. In another key play late in the first half, Harris broke up an LSU pass, tipping the ball into the air where it was intercepted by junior safety Jalyn Armour-Davis:
That pickoff gave the Tide possession at the LSU 39, and Young then hit three of his next five passes, connecting twice to Jameson Williams before hitting John Metchie III for the touchdown.
Just by the way, as my brother commented during last night’s game, Jameson Williams — a junior transfer from Ohio State — has been a “godsend” for Alabama. If he can avoid injury, Williams bids fair to follow DeVonta Smith’s path to the Heisman Trophy and first-round NFL pick. Here he catches a 58-yard touchdown bomb from Bryce Young:
— Boom or Bust: The Draft Show (@BoomOrBustDraft) November 7, 2021
Now I should perhaps mention that Kirby is not a Bryce Young fan. Although Young is listed as six feet tall, that’s three inches shorter than Mac Jones, and Kirby thinks Young, whom he calls our “midget quarterback,” is in reality no taller than 5-10. Regardless of that, even a three-inch difference in height is very significant, in terms of a quarterback’s ability to see over the onrushing defensive linemen, who tend to be very tall, and Young’s limitations are obvious enough to anyone who seriously studies the videos. Young hits most of his passes toward the outside, perhaps because of his difficulty in seeing receivers in crossing routes over the middle. While this factor may not prevent Alabama from making another run at the national championship, I think it could reduce Young’s future value in the NFL.
But of course, this is getting way ahead of where Alabama is right now. Their one loss to Texas A&M won’t hurt the Tide in terms of making the playoffs, because A&M is 7-2 (their two losses to Arkansas and Mississippi State) and will move up in the rankings this week. However, a second loss would be fatal to ’Bama’s playoff hopes. The Crimson Tide have two remaining regular season games, against Arkansas (6-3) and archrival Auburn (6-3), and if Alabama struggled against a 4-4 LSU team, how will they do against two arguably superior opponents? This is headache enough for Tide fans, but even if ’Bama manages to win those two games, then they would have to face No. 1 Georgia in the SEC title game. And my God, have you seen Georgia this year?
The Bulldogs average 38.4 points and 180 rushing yards per game. Alabama averages more points per game (43.0), but fewer rushing yards (152.7). Beyond that, Georgia’s defense has been phenomenal, allowing just 59 points in nine games — 6.55 points per game — while Alabama has given up 179 points in nine games, 19.88 average points per game.
Of course, Jesus warned his disciples against borrowing tomorrow’s troubles, and it is therefore un-Christian of Alabama fans to be looking ahead to Georgia, when we know that the Tide will have their hands full against Arkansas next Saturday and Auburn in the Iron Bowl. We must be faithful to Christian teaching, and take them one game at a time, without fretting about a possible apocalypse against Georgia.
It all comes down to the defense, I believe. Alabama returned nine defensive starters from last year’s national champions, but so far this year, they haven’t produced the kind of signature performance that many fans expected. Maybe this win over LSU is a good omen for the future.
But there I go again, borrowing tomorrow’s troubles. Forgive me.
Tonight I’m watching CNN (so you don’t have to) and they’re trying to sell the Virginia gubernatorial election as a “toss-up,” but they just reported their own exit-poll results which look very bad for Democrat Terry McAuliffe. We shall see what happens.
UPDATE 7:40 p.m.: Official totals as of 7:30 p.m. ET:
About 40% of precincts now reporting, and it continues to look encouraging for Youngkin. CNN’s John King was just pointing out higher-than-usual turnout in some rural “red” counties. Fingers crossed.
UPDATE 8:15 p.m. ET: Official totals as of 8:10 p.m. ET:
About 46% of precincts now reporting. It is expected there will be about 3 million votes cast in Virginia, and we still have less than half the vote, so we can be cautiously optimistic, with the emphasis on “cautiously.” The final vote is probably going to be very close.
UPDATE 8:30 p.m. ET: Official totals as of 8:20 p.m. ET:
About 52% of precincts now reporting. Still looking good, but remember that if there will be about 3 million total votes, the winner will have to get at least 1.5 million, so there’s a long way to go.
UPDATE 9 p.m. ET: Official totals as of 8:50 p.m. ET:
About 68% of precincts now reporting. Again, to point out the simple math, if we estimate a final vote total around 3 million, McAuliffe would have to get nearly 70% of the remaining votes to win. Which is theoretically possible, of course, if Democrats resort to the usual tricks of dumping in truckloads of “extra” ballots at 3 a.m.
UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET: I’ve switched the TV to MSNBC, where Nicolle Wallace is on the verge of tears. Official totals as of 9:20 p.m. ET:
About 78% of precincts now reporting. Strong turnout in rural Virginia, plus “flipping” a few key suburban areas, appears to have yielded a victory for (alleged right-wing Donald Trump puppet) Glenn Youngkin.
UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: If my arithmetic is correct, and the estimate of about 3 million total votes in Virginia is also correct, then Youngkin only needs to get about 35% of the remaining vote to win.
UPDATE 9:35 p.m. ET: The meltdown on MSNBC is hysterical. Watch Nicolle Wallace go on about “The Big Lie” and the “deadly insurrection” of January 6, as if ordinary voters in Roanoke and Newport News are as obsessed with that as the people in the liberal media echo chamber:
NORFOLK, Va. — Eutopia Hall didn’t realize she had neglected to sign the bottom of her mail-in ballot for governor until the county board of elections returned the document to her, asking her to complete it. But as she sat looking at the paper, she wondered if it was even worth a second trip to the mailbox.
So little had changed since she cast a ballot for Joe Biden in 2020, she said, that “I started to not even press the issue.” Her job and community were still mired in pandemic restrictions. An increase in the child tax credit had brought a few more dollars into her home, but it was eaten up by costlier prices for gas and food and seemingly everything else, and a year after high hopes of significant change in her family’s situation, things seemed stagnant. “I don’t think a lot of people have a lot of faith in Biden, like they were expecting at first,” said Hall, a 42-year-old nursing assistant. “I think it’s more of a bigger division than it was before. I thought it was gonna get better once the vaccines came out because there was so many people complaining about covid and wanting a cure, but then they came out with a vaccine nobody wants to take. Nothing has changed and we’re just stuck in the same place.”
A year ago, Biden won Virginia by 10 percentage points, riding a wave of antipathy toward President Donald Trump to place the commonwealth solidly into the Democratic column. But with the eyes of the political world back on Virginia for statewide elections on Tuesday, Biden’s sinking popularity has emerged as a key factor dragging down hopes of another party victory and making the state look, once again, more like a battleground than a Democratic stronghold.
A new Washington Post-Schar School poll of likely Virginia voters, which found Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin in a toss-up race for governor, found that 53 percent disapprove of Biden’s job performance, while 46 percent approve.
Regardless of the final outcome Tuesday, the tight race in what many had believed to be a safe blue state underscores the extent to which Americans hold souring views of Biden looms over his party ahead of next year’s congressional midterms and the 2024 presidential election.
Interviews with nearly two dozen voters in this southeast Virginia region about three hours’ drive from D.C. found a profound sense of frustration that people haven’t seen benefits of Democratic control trickle into their lives or their wallets.
Tia Scott, of Norfolk, said her family has been pinched by rising prices everywhere, even as it gets harder to find a job that makes ends meet.
“The cost of living has been high, the cost of food is going up, and gas prices too, and jobs are still laying off people, saying it’s about covid,” said Scott, a 35-year-old customer service representative and mother of three girls. “I voted for Biden. Really, I was going to vote for anybody but Trump. But it seems like it was all talk. Now I see all the ads were just ads. Just because you say you can do all that stuff on an ad doesn’t mean you can do it.”
Particularly troubling, some said, is that nearly a year after a coronavirus vaccine was approved, mitigation efforts and covid restrictions remain a part of everyday life, the economy doesn’t seem to be working for the most vulnerable, and intraparty infighting has stalled progress promised by Biden and the Democrats.
The naïveté is remarkable. These people were apparently so full of Trump hatred that it never occurred to them to question Biden’s competence, or examine his campaign promises soberly. And notice that Eutopia Hall, who I presume to be African-American, says “they came out with a vaccine nobody wants to take,” which is an interesting assertion, coming as it does from someone employed in the healthcare field. The media keep pretending that Republicans are to blame for “vaccine resistance.”
“Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” McAuliffe told a modest crowd outside a Fairfax brewery Monday night at his final rally. “He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.”
That was a lie. Trump wasn’t in Virginia and he never campaigned with Youngkin, though he did make the case for the GOP candidate — “fantastic guy!” — during a brief “tele-rally.”
Thirty miles away, at the Loudoun County Fairgrounds, a crowd several times the size of McAuliffe’s was waiting for Youngkin to take the stage. You got a hint of why McAuliffe was desperate to manufacture the fake Trump event. While McAuliffe has boundless energy — “Sleep when you’re dead!” he likes to say — his Monday audiences in Richmond and Fairfax, where we caught up with him, were modest and listless.
Youngkin’s were large and rollicking, with many of the trappings of a MAGA rally — a similar dad rock playlist, hats and flags and T-shirts paying homage to the former president — but, to the great disappointment of Democrats, not Trump himself. . . .
McAuliffe’s final message was almost entirely negative, focused on tying his opponent to Trump.
WATCH: President Joe Biden mentions Donald Trump's name 25 times while campaigning for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe. pic.twitter.com/A8K8SunOSs
“In the context of journalism, here, we are dealing with a new kind of ‘lead’ — the Symbiotic Trapezoid Quote. The Columbia Journalism Review will never sanction it; at least not until the current editor dies of brain syphilis, and probably not even then.
“What?
“Do we have a libel suit on our hands?
“Probably not, I think, because nobody in his right mind would take a thing like that seriously — and especially not that gang of senile hags who run the Columbia Journalism Review, who have gone to great lengths in every issue during the past year or so to stress, very heavily, that nothing I say should be taken seriously.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, “Fear and Loathing in Washington: The Boys in the Bag,” Rolling Stone, July 4, 1974 (collected in The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time)
The Patriots won Sunday, and it was sloppy as hell, but it was still a win.
Mac Jones was inconsistent, and New England was plagued by mistakes — a key fumble and penalties, including one that nullified a touchdown run by Damien Harris — and yet somehow they managed to defeat the Chargers 27-24. This was a must-win game, and they won it, bringing their record to 4-4 on the season, thus putting themselves in the middle of the AFC playoff chase with nine games to go in the season.
The real keys to Sunday’s win were two interceptions by Adrian Phillips, one of which he turned into a go-ahead touchdown, and outstanding special teams play by Gunner Olszewski, who had four punt returns for 80 yards, helping the Patriots in terms of field position. Finally, there was a 14-play, 54-yard drive in the fourth quarter that chewed up seven minutes before ending in a field goal that put New England ahead 27-17. That kind of clock-consuming, ball-control offense is underappreciated in the era of high-scoring razzle-dazzle football, but it enabled the Patriots to go home with a “W,” and that’s what really counts.
The thing about being a football fan is that, in identifying with a team, you share their fortunes. When I decided to become a Patriots fan — because they drafted Mac Jones from Alabama — Roll Tide! — I didn’t stop to think of the emotional toll that might be involved in this new fandom. When New England started the season 1-3, I was mortified. Being born and raised a ’Bama fan, I’m not accustomed to losing, and since Nick Saban took over in Tuscaloosa, thank God, there hasn’t been much losing. It’s an “off year” for Crimson Tide fans when we don’t win the National Championship, and it’s a disaster if we lose as many as two games in a season. Alabama fans would be burning Saban in effigy if the Tide ever started the season 1-3, so you can imagine how embarrassing it was for Mac Jones (and for me) to begin their season so badly. Yet there were glimmers of hope amid the gloom, and after New England blew out the Jets 54-13, it was possible to see them with a path to the playoffs if — and it seemed like a big “if” — they could beat the Chargers.
Baby, just look at this beautiful Jones-to-Agholor pass:
Critics keep saying Mac Jones has a “weak arm,” and I’m like, what? If you pay attention to that play, you see that Mac is on his own 33-yard line when he throws it, and Nelson Agholor catches it at the Chargers’ 19-yard line — that pass went 48 yards in the air, and notice that Mac was throwing under pressure from the Chargers’ rush. “Weak arm,” my ass.
Sometimes the best way to start a story is with a weird digression. Don’t even bother trying a “lead,” but instead plunge off into something that seemingly has nothing to do with your main topic — “the Symbiotic Trapezoid Quote,” as Thompson called it. My theme here is about teamwork and loyalty, and the inspiration was Ace of Spades ripping into AllahPundit for trying to spin the McAuliffe “tiki boys” stunt:
And it was stupid for the leftwing partisan AllahPundit to attempt to cover for his Palz on the Left and claim that this was just an innocent attempt at street theater which inadvertently turned into a hoax.
Recently AllahPundit claimed the story that Florida now had the lowest covid rates in the country — remember, bloggers at Hot Air “claim” stories on a first-come, first served basis — just so he could attack DeSantis by claiming it was hypocritical that DeSantis did not take the blame for Florida’s higher August covid rates but is taking credit for their lowest-in-the-nation October rates.
AllahPundit somehow doesn’t notice that it’s equally hypocritical for AllahPundit to have spent all August attacking DeSantis for higher Florida covid rates but now refuse to grant him credit for the low October rates.
Or that it is hypocritical of AllahPundit to blow off surging covid rates in the blue states of New England, where they have forced vaccinations and masking and all the wonderful coercions his frightened Karen heart craves.
But this is now typical of the alleged conservative blog Hot Air — it runs the same sort of opinion pieces that you’d find on Salon.
Which isn’t much of a surprise, given that in 2017, Salon named AllahPundit as one of the 25 conservative bloggers worth reading.
Their other picks? Lincoln Project pedophile-enablers Rick Wilson and Stuart Stevens, and actual Lincoln Project pedophile John Weaver.
Former “conservative” blogger Jen Rubin, and former “conservative” fundraiser Ana Navarro.
As well as Noted All-Around Conservative Expert Tom Nichols, and Jon Podhoretz and S.E. Cupp.
As well as Noted Cvckshed Resident Bill Kristol, and Noted Bulwark Writer and Alanis Morrissette Lookalike Tim Miller.
Steven Hayes of The Dispatch. And David Frum.
You can read the whole thing. Lately, Ace has been ripping Allah at least once a day, five days a week, and I fondly recall the days — circa 2007 or so — when it seemed like Ace was just kind of nudging around with Allah, like buddies playing the dozens, but more recently it has become apparent to me that Ace really hates Allah’s guts. And why?
Because AllahPundit is not, and really never has been, a team player.
Like football, politics is a team sport. Just turn on CNN sometime, and see them all shaking their media pompoms for Team Democrat. We know what team they’re on, and we want to beat that team. The whole point of conservative journalism is to do a Mark Gastineau-style sack dance on the faces of those dishonest liberal media hacks.
Even if being on Team GOP is inevitably a disappointment — always being forced to swallow some worthless “bipartisan compromise” arranged by Mitch McConnell and/or an army of corporate lobbyists — it’s usually the best we can do, and a damned sight better than the catastrophes that happen whenever Democrats are running the show. Whatever any conservative’s complaints may be about Trump, you can’t fault him for his full-throttle assault on the “fake news” media, and for this is for nothing else he deserved our loyal support.
As Ace ran down that “Salon 25” list, placing AllahPundit in the company of weasels like Tom Nicols and Rick Wilson, it raised the question in my mind: “In what sense was AllahPundit ever a conservative?” In the Charles “Little Green Footballs” Johnson sense, perhaps?
There’s a freaky acid flashback, eh? Months at a time now go by without LGF ever crossing my mind, but now that it has . . .
Oh, the terrible DANGER posed by “racists” cheering for the Braves!
Exactly what has Charles ever done that would qualify him for recognition as a Friend of Indigenous Peoples? That’s the really annoying thing about these people — they think they deserve praise as Humanitarian Philanthropists merely for the act of going on Twitter and calling Republicans “racist,” as if this demonstrated their courage.
CNN’s ratings are in the tank and nobody reads LGF anymore, because this kind of phony Courageous Stand Against Racism stuff is boring.
And as Ace points out, what’s the rationale for Salem Media Group (SMG) to keep publishing the Democrat Trojan Horse that is AllahPundit? How is that justified, from a business perspective? SMG originated as a Christian radio network, but AllahPundit’s an atheist.
Then, on the other hand, when you think about how soi-disant “conservative” Christians like David French have baptized liberalism, so to speak, as a function of their #NeverTrump obsession, I guess AllahPundit’s atheism isn’t really disqualifying. But his #NeverTrump tendency has definitely put him in the same basket as the rest of the “Conservatives for Biden” crowd. Byron York assesses the damage:
He promised to deal with the COVID pandemic, and the pandemic came back with a vengeance. He promised to improve the economy, and growth has slowed, with inflation becoming a critical concern. He promised to restore America’s place in the world and then led a disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He promised to fix President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and instead brought chaos to the border. Of course his job approval rating is going down. How could it not?
You can read the whole thing. My point is that the market doesn’t seem to be demanding whatever it is AllahPundit is supplying.
Closet liberalism, masquerading as “conservative” punditry, may have had an audience once upon a time, but that time is clearly over:
Republican Glenn Youngkin leads over former governor Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia gubernatorial polls one day before the heavily-watched election.
Youngkin shows a two-point lead over McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race poll with likely voters, conducted by Insider Advantage and first reported by FOX5. The poll found that 47 percent will be voting for Youngkin. The poll is bad news for McAuliffe, whom only 45 percent of respondents said they would vote for in tomorrow’s race.
Two percent of the respondents said they would be voting for another candidate, Princess Blanding. Additionally, six percent were “undecided.” . . .
Matt Towry, from Insider Advantage, told FOX5 that his company noticed a “shift” towards Youngkin. He added that this election would have everything to do with getting voters to turn out.
“McAuliffe is a very gifted politician. He knows how to turn out his vote. Youngkin is obviously coming on strong. So, it’s going to be down to the wire,” Towry added.
Regarding the six percent who said they were undecided when asked, Towry noted that “they don’t plan on voting” and “most of the vote is already baked into these numbers.”
Can we trust these polls? Will the Democrats in Virginia come up with one of those ballot-harvesting “miracle” wins with a 3 a.m. truckload of absentee votes to give McAuliffe the margin of victory? We can’t rule it out, and there are probably corpses of Democratic voters in Oakwood Cemetry awaiting their electoral resurrection Tuesday. But we cannot allow this possibility to discourage Republican voters — living, breathing, legal residents of Virginia — from actually voting. Maybe the fix is in, but Virginia Republicans have to vote as if the machinery of Democratic vote fraud weren’t going to nullify their ballots. Keep in mind that Biden beat Trump by 10 points in Virginia, so for this election even to be close is something of a miracle. If Youngkin manages to pull off an upset here, it will send shock waves across the nation. And maybe, just maybe, it will drive a stake through the heart of #NeverTrump.
Shove it down their throats and do a sack dance on their faces.
Do you recognize those mug shots? All of them are the same guy — Walter Wallace Jr. of Philadelphia — who was 27 years old when his lifelong criminal career came to an abrupt end last October. Police were called to the Wallace family home for a domestic disturbance, and Walter was shot dead after he charged at the cops with an 8-inch knife:
Police were called dozens of times in recent months about problems at Walter Wallace Jr.’s home, and had responded twice on Monday to reports of disturbances at the West Philadelphia house before two officers answered a third call and shot him as he approached them with a knife, according to law enforcement sources.
What happened during those earlier visits — including which officers responded and how much they knew about Wallace’s mental health problems — remained unclear Tuesday. Asked at a news briefing, Commissioner Danielle Outlaw declined to offer details about any prior contact police had with Wallace, saying the incident remained under investigation.
But the confirmation of previous visits, by sources not authorized to publicly discuss them, raised questions about the police response to what Wallace’s relatives have described as a mental health crisis.
Despite this, Philadelphia taxpayers will pay Wallace’s family:
The city of Philadelphia has agreed to settle a wrongful-death suit filed by the family of a Black man whose fatal shooting by the police last year was recorded on video and prompted widespread protests.
The man, Walter Wallace Jr., 27, had mental health issues and was holding a knife when he was shot by two Philadelphia police officers on Oct. 26, 2020.
The settlement between the city and Mr. Wallace’s family was finalized this week, according to Kevin Lessard, a city spokesman, who said the city was not releasing the figure “without a Right to Know request due to a direct request from attorneys representing the family.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the city agreed to pay the family $2.5 million. . . .
TWO-POINT-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS!
A city spokeswoman said on Friday that, in response to Mr. Wallace’s death, the city planned to equip and train all uniformed police officers with Tasers. The city this year budgeted $13.9 million to pay for the Tasers.
“In addition, Mr. Wallace Jr.’s death emphasized the urgent need for additional support for those with behavioral health challenges and their families,” Mr. Lessard said, adding that the city “can and will do better to address Philadelphia’s inequities in our criminal justice and health systems.”
So, in addition to paying $2.5 million — TWO-POINT-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS! — to the family of the knife-wielding maniac, Philadelphia taxpayers will also shell out nearly $14 million to equip the police with tasers, even though it is unlikely a taser would have stopped Wallace.
All of this, because the state of Pennsylvania somehow couldn’t find room for this dangerous lunatic who had been perpetrating violent crimes on a regular basis since he was arrested in 2006 for assaulting a teacher when he was only 13 years old. Saying he had “mental health issues” is a way for the media to pretend that Wallace was a helpless victim, rather than a lifelong criminal. What are police supposed to do?
More than 1 in 5 people fatally shot by police have mental illnesses, according to a Washington Post database of fatal U.S. shootings by on-duty police officers. Since 2015, when The Post launched its database, police have fatally shot more than 1,400 people with mental illnesses. . . .
Last month the journal Annals of Epidemiology said in an analysis that police are more likely to shoot and kill unarmed Black men who show signs of mental illness than white men who exhibit similar behaviors.
WALTER WALLACE JR. WAS NOT UNARMED! HE CHARGED AT COPS WITH AN 8-INCH KNIFE! PLEASE STOP LYING ABOUT IT!
Excuse me if I seem a bit worked up. Maybe I should ignore the media. Otherwise, the news might drive me crazy and, as everybody knows . . .
