The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

‘Family Demands Answers’

Posted on | February 8, 2021 | Comments Off on ‘Family Demands Answers’

Mychael Johnson’s life of crime ended last March after he and an accomplice stole a car and led Tallahassee police on a chase. When police broke off the pursuit, allowing the sheriff’s department helicopter to track the stolen car, Johnson’s accomplice tried to carjack another motorist. The chopper pilot radioed this information to dispatch and, because of the clear danger to the public, police resumed the pursuit. Driving at speeds upward of 80 mph, Johnson lost control and crashed into a light pole, then fled the vehicle on foot. Johnson again attempted to carjack a motorist, but was stopped by Officer Justin Davidson. A physical struggle between Johnson and Davidson ensued, during which Johnson attempted to take Davidson’s pistol from his holster. Fortunately, backup arrived, and Officer Zackri Jones fired one shot to Johnson’s head.

We know all these facts now, because there was a complete investigation and we have video that proves what happened. At the time of the incident, however, it was just “police say” in the media stories, and in April, the local ABC affiliate ran this headline:

Family demands answers after Tallahassee
officer-involved shooting in March

How many times must I explain this? There is no “right” to steal cars in America, nor is there any “right” for a car thief to fight the police when they try to arrest him. Mychael Johnson committed at least four felonies during the course of that pursuit in Tallahassee, and if he had been able to get hold of Officer Davidson’s weapon, he might have added murder to his list of offenses. Nevertheless, some people in the media felt the need to amplify the voices of the fools in the car thief’s family:

A local family is demanding answers after a Tallahassee Police officer shot and killed one of their loved ones last month.
Investigators say officers caught up with 31-year-old Mychael Johnson during an attempted carjacking on March 20.
According to the incident report, they tried to stop him in the vehicle and Johnson lost control and crashed.
Officers say Johnson resisted arrest. That’s when an officer shot him.
His family says they recognize Johnson wasn’t perfect and had some run-in’s with the law before, but he needed help.
They’re asking for copies of the video recorded that night.
His sister, Mildred Richardson, said she doesn’t believe what police say happened.
“My brother was my best friend,” said Richardson. “That was my protector. I just know that there was another way for the whole situation to be handled, and it wasn’t for him to be killed. Not like that.”

Ma’am, if you want an answer, here it is: Your brother was a thug. He lived a thug’s life and he died a thug’s death. The citizens of Florida are safer because that cop shot your thug brother in the head.

Let’s talk about how he had a “few” run-ins with the law:

Court records show Johnson has been arrested numerous times since 2007 on multiple drug related offenses involving marijuana and cocaine. In addition to facing charges for possession of a firearm by a felon and robbery, Johnson also twice was arrested for fleeing or attempting to elude officers.

Why wasn’t Mychael Johnson in prison, where he belonged? If we’re going to “demand answers,” that’s the real question to ask. Why are criminals being turned loose to prey upon law-abiding citizens? Is this somebody’s perverse idea of “social justice”? We’re going to combat “systemic racism” by letting dangerous thugs terrorize the public?

You can watch the video — it was a “good shoot,” as they say. The assertion “that there was another way for the whole situation to be handled” is simply mistaken. Unless the citizens of Leon County, Florida, are willing to have carjackers just waltz away without consequences, what are cops supposed to do? We have a rapidly growing problem of violent crime in America, homicide jumped 50% or more in many major cities last year, and this anti-police mentality is a huge part of the problem.




 

Category: Crime

Rule 5 Sunday: Hedley Lamarr Presents The Teutonic Titwillow, Lili von Shtupp!

Posted on | February 8, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Hedley Lamarr Presents The Teutonic Titwillow, Lili von Shtupp!

— compiled by Wombat-socho

One of the greatest roles played by a great comedic actress, Madeline Kahn. The German femme fatale sent to seduce Sheriff Bart in Blazing Saddles earned Kahn one of her two Oscar nominations, the other being for a similar role as Trixie Delight in Paper Moon.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Lili about to crush HedyHedley’s heart like a bug.

Ninety Miles From Tyranny: Hot Pick Of The Late Night, The 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode #1253, Morning Mistress, and Girls With Guns. 

Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Second Amendment Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: The Next Three Days, Porgy & Bess, Julie London, The Dig, La Forza Del Destino, Dialogues Des Carmelites, La Cenerentola, Separated At Birth, The Marriage Of Figaro, Christopher Plummer RIP, Ariadne Auf Naxos, Tosca, and MAGA Marjorie Taylor Greene.

A View From The Beach: Getting Fit with Jennifer Nicole Lee, Election 2020: Congress Cancels Marjorie Taylor Greene, Fish Pic Friday – Melayna Denmark, Tattoo Thursday, But He Seemed Like Such a Nice Young Man, Just One Word: Plastics!, Chain of the Golden Horn, Fauci: No Evidence for Double Masking Effectiveness, Your Monday Morning Stimulus and Sunday Sunrise.

Proof Positive’s Vintage Babe Of The Week is Veronica Hamel, and Viertes Programm debuts with Gloria Talbott.

Thanks to everyone for the luscious links!

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Shop Sex & Sensuality Gifts




Category: Rule 5

Catch-and-Release: How Liberals Destroyed Law and Order in California

Posted on | February 7, 2021 | Comments Off on Catch-and-Release: How Liberals Destroyed Law and Order in California

Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy Adam Gibson, 31, was killed last month in a shootout with Robert Calderon, 46, a lifelong criminal:

He had a combined nine felony and misdemeanor cases out of Sacramento County dating to 1993, Superior Court records show. The cases generally involve drugs and stolen vehicles. His most recent local case, a felony, came in 2012. He was sentenced to 16 months in state prison for vehicle theft.
Calderon reported a history of mental illness and said he had been treated by a Sacramento doctor in 2013 for drug-induced psychosis, according to court papers filed in 2016 in Oklahoma.
He also has a decades-long criminal history that includes vehicle thefts in Sacramento and near Lake Tahoe, according to records. Calderon also reportedly fled law enforcement at one point.
In June 2016, he pleaded guilty in Custer County, Oklahoma for methamphetamine possession and felony destruction of property after he ransacked a Hampton Inn hotel room and destroyed a microwave cart.
He was sentenced to four years in prison. On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections told The Bee that Calderon had completed his sentence and was no longer on parole. Online records say he was discharged in November, 2017.

Calderon was killed in the shootout that killed Deputy Gibson, one of three such incidents in the same county during a span of four days.

After writing Saturday about a car thief who killed a man in San Francisco (“Catch-and-Release: Career Criminal Arrested in Deadly San Francisco Crash”), I began to wonder why this is happening.

Something has gone terribly wrong in California over the past decade, but I hadn’t followed the news closely enough to understand exactly what explained the rampant lawlessness in the state. However, for the past few months, to relax and take my mind off politics, I’ve gotten in the habit of watching police videos — car chases and bodycam video from shootings — on YouTube. Anyone familiar with this topic knows that Los Angeles is the car-chase capital of the world. At least once a week, it seems, TV news viewers in Southern California watch helicopter camera footage with the guy in the chopper narrating while the cops pursue suspects.

Usually, it’s a stolen car, or robbery suspects, or someone wanted on an arrest warrant. Why are these chases are so frequent? What is going on in California that so many criminals are out on the street? Curiosity eventually led me to the answer, after I researched the background on one notorious chase a couple of years ago. Police got a report that a man in a car was beating a woman in the passenger seat:

A domestic violence suspect with a woman in the passenger seat of a sedan led law enforcement officers on a three-hour chase Wednesday [April 24, 2019] through Los Angeles and Orange counties before he pulled into a shopping center and ran into a 99 Cents Only store, where he was taken into custody at gunpoint.
The passenger in the Honda Accord was later seen being helped into an ambulance after the chase, which began about 5:15 p.m. in the area of Firestone Boulevard and California Avenue in South Gate. A witness flagged down an officer in the area to report a man striking a woman in a car.
The driver took off when an officer spotted and approached the vehicle, South Gate Police Department Capt. Darren Arakawa said. During the chase, the woman was seen struggling with the suspect, who was reported to be a parolee at large, and a few times opened the passenger-side door, but did not get out as the car kept moving.
On Thursday, South Gate police identified the suspect as Alexis Leondardo Avinai, a 29-year-old felon on post release community supervision.

What is “post release community supervision”? If this explains one car chase, it might explain a lot more, so I kept Googling and found this:

Since 2008, Avina has served three prison terms for three separate felony convictions for weapons violations, and in the first incident, assault with a firearm, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Two years ago, after completing his most recent term, he was placed on Post release community supervision (PRCS) by the Probation Department for Orange County, where he was living. Under the AB 109 realignment passed in 2011, felons convicted of certain crimes are eligible for PRCS, instead of supervision by state Parole.
Since 2017, Avina has been cited in Los Angeles Country for a misdemeanor drug violation, and also for driving under the influence. The cases became more serious when he failed to appear as scheduled in court for both cases, and bench warrants were issued, according to Superior Court records reviewed by NBC4.
As it happened, Avina resolved both of those cases — without jail time — with a plea bargain when he finally appeared in court in West Covina on Wednesday — only hours before the pursuit.

There is a word for this: insanity.

California has always been kind of crazy, but now they’ve completely lost touch with reality, when a guy with three felony convictions for weapons violations, who then violates parole and skips court for two years, is turned loose after a plea bargain. The denouement of the Alexis Avinai story came last September, when he was sentenced to nearly seven years in prison, but what is this about “AB 109 realignment”?

After a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that California’s overcrowded prison system needed reform, the passage of former Governor Jerry Brown’s AB 109 in 2011 transferred responsibility of future “non-violent, non-serious, and non-sex” offenders to county jails, not state prisons. Those who were released were supervised by county parole.
California Proposition 47, which passed in 2014, reduced a host of felonies to misdemeanors, including personal use of illegal drugs, forgery, writing a bad check, and other thefts under $950 (even for repeat offenders); a felony conviction was allowed “if [the] person has [a] previous conviction for crimes such as rape, murder, or child molestation or is [a] registered sex offender.”
California Proposition 57, passed in 2016, gave early release for non-violent offenders, but the initiative failed to define who qualified as a “non-violent” offender. Hundreds of thousands of drug-addicted offenders on the streets are failing to receive mental health or drug treatment, and many are violent and merit incarceration.

Now do you see why thousands of dangerous criminals like Alexis Avinai and Robert Calderon are roaming the streets of California? Is it any wonder that car thieves are leading police on pursuits through L.A. on a weekly basis? Is anyone surprised that people are being killed by lifelong criminals who never should have been let out of prison? One politician in California who understands this is Assemblyman Jim Cooper:

Cooper released a statement Tuesday condemning the state’s “soft on crime laws” and blaming these recent incidents on the premature release of convicted felons.
“Under the PCRS Act of 2011, felons who commit crimes as egregious as assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence are released into our communities with little to no monitoring due to the lack of resources at the county level,” Cooper said. “I’ve said this before, California’s decade of soft on crime laws are endangering the public and our first responders. Victims’ rights groups and legal experts have all warned that California’s criminal justice reform laws such as AB 109 and Proposition 57 would lead to increased crime and risks to the public’s safety, as well as to our law enforcement officers.”
Cooper continued, “Felons that have been convicted of serious violent crimes such as assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence should never be released under minimal supervision under parole. These parolees should be heavily supervised by the CDCR. Counties were never equipped to supervise violent felons. The families of the officers injured and killed in two separate incidents in just four days deserve better, our communities deserve better.”
Cooper said that lawmakers need to prioritize the safety of the public.
“California continues to release violent criminals onto our streets that have no regard for our laws because they know they will face little to no consequences,” Cooper said. “California lawmakers must stop prioritizing the release of violent criminals and instead prioritize protecting the public’s safety.”

You may be surprised to learn that Assemblyman Cooper is a Democrat and a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus. However, he spent 30 years as a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Deputy, and he understands that “soft on crime laws” are destroying California.

Near the end of Saturday night’s edition of The Other Podcast, I discussed the craziness in California with John Hoge and Dianna Deeley, both of whom had the good fortune to escape California alive. Alas, for others, “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

 




 

Category: California, Crime

FMJRA 2.0: White Collar Holler

Posted on | February 7, 2021 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: White Collar Holler

— compiled by Wombat-socho

SOTD by the legendary Stan Rogers.

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Rule Five Sunday: Jane Russell
Harsh Brutus
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Deep Dark Depression, Excessive Misery
Bacon Time
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?
Harsh Brutus
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

A Tale of Two Car Thieves
357 Magnum
EBL

Lincoln Project: ‘Sunk in a Swamp of Complete Moral and Personal Cowardice’
EBL

Who Is an ‘Extremist’?
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

The ‘Nationalist’ Kafkatrap
Dark Brightness
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.01.21
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.03.21 (Afternoon Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

AOC’s Fake Victimhood Narrative
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.04.21 (Afternoon Edition)
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

You Can’t Say ‘Rigged’
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

In The Mailbox: 02.05.21
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Top linkers for the week ending February 5:

  1.  EBL (13)
  2.  (tied) A View From The Beach and 357 Magnum (10)
  3.  Proof Positive (5)

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Category: FMJRA Award

Catch-and-Release: Career Criminal Arrested in Deadly San Francisco Crash

Posted on | February 6, 2021 | Comments Off on Catch-and-Release: Career Criminal Arrested in Deadly San Francisco Crash

Jerry Lyons, 31, had spent his entire adult life committing crimes. He had dozens of arrests in California — attempted robbery, burglary, evading police, driving a stolen vehicle, weapons charges, drug charges, shoplifting, trespassing, etc. — but kept getting turned loose until Thursday, when he finally killed somebody. Sheria Musyoka, 26, was an immigrant from Kenya who had graduated from Dartmouth and moved to San Francisco with his wife and three-year-old son. Lyons was behind the wheel of a stolen car when he killed Musyoka:

Two months before Jerry Lyons was accused of plowing a stolen truck into eight cars on Thursday, killing a pedestrian and injuring three others, he was arrested in San Francisco for a remarkably similar crime — only it didn’t result in any deaths or injuries.
The Dec. 3 arrest was just one of scores of previous cases in San Francisco and San Mateo counties spanning the 31-year-old’s entire adult life.
It began around 2:15 a.m. when a California Highway Patrol officer at Alemany Boulevard and Sickles Avenue watched a driver run a red light, stop in the intersection, pull an illegal U-turn, drive over a traffic median and begin weaving between two lanes, officials said.
The officer discovered the vehicle was stolen, pulled it over and arrested Lyons at the scene. He was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol and driving a stolen vehicle without a license. At the time he was on supervised release for a theft case.
The district attorney’s office said Lyons was sentenced to a 60-day jail term for violating his supervised release. Prosecutors, though, requested blood toxicology results before filing new charges.
When the results came back on Jan. 22 — after Lyons was back on the street — a spokeswoman for the office said “We began working with CHP to pursue a DUI charge and awaited his arrest.”
But unfortunately, Lyons wasn’t arrested before allegedly barreling through a red light at another San Francisco intersection — this time with deadly results.
Shortly before 8 a.m. Thursday, police said Lyons slammed into multiple vehicles at Lake Merced Boulevard and Higuera Avenue, killing a pedestrian and injuring three others. . . .
Three other victims, two women and a man, were hospitalized and expected to survive.
Lyons was booked Thursday night on suspicion of gross vehicular manslaughter, felony hit-and-run, driving under the influence, and other charges. The incident was the violent cap to the suspect’s more than decade-long rap sheet.
Before the December arrest, records show Lyons was arrested in October in San Francisco on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle, receiving stolen property and drug charges. It’s unclear if the district attorney’s office took any action on the case.
Lyons had six other cases in San Francisco dating back to 2007. They include charges of attempted robbery, burglary, evading police, driving a stolen vehicle, weapons charges, and others.
In San Mateo County, Lyons has faced more than 20 charges, including shoplifting, trespassing and drug charges. He was charged with driving under the influence on Jan 5. between when he was released from San Francisco Jail and Thursday’s deadly episode.

Let’s recap: While out on “supervised release” on a theft conviction, Lyons was arrested Dec. 6 driving under the influence in a stolen car. Within a month, however, he was back on the streets and arrested again for driving under the influence on Jan. 5. You might think that two DUI arrests in less than a month would be enough to put somebody in jail and keep them there, but this is California, where the “catch-and-release” policy turns criminals loose as soon as they’re arrested.

Remember, this is the state that elected Kamala Harris to the U.S. Senate. All the sane people left California a long time ago, and the entire state is now basically an open-air lunatic asylum, with murderous psychopaths roaming around looking for victims to rob, rape or murder.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! In a new post this morning, I examine “How Liberals Destroyed Law and Order in California.”




 

Category: California, Crime

Former GOP Staffer Arrested in Truly Disturbing Child Pornography Case

Posted on | February 6, 2021 | Comments Off on Former GOP Staffer Arrested in Truly Disturbing Child Pornography Case

Ruben Verastigui, 27, was arrested Friday in Washington, D.C., on charges of distributing child pornography. When I say that this case is “truly disturbing,” you can just trust me, or you can go read this Twitter thread that includes some excerpts from the arrest affidavit.

Truly disturbing.

In 2014, the former chief of staff for Sen. Lamar Alexander committed suicide after being arrested for videos of “nude young boys.”

Ruben Verastigui? Well, if he were to jump off a bridge, it would save taxpayers the cost of keeping him in prison the rest of his life.

In somewhat related news, the former chairwoman of the New Hampshire GOP has quit the Lincoln Project in the wake of revelations about sexual harassment by one of the project’s founders.




 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 02.05.21

Posted on | February 6, 2021 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 02.05.21

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Well, I guess I’m just not going to get caught up on this week’s linkagery, and next week doesn’t look good either. That’s life in the tax mines at this time of year. Usual deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Would You Act In Defense Of A Stranger? also, COVID Lies From The CDC
EBL: Trump Lives Rent-Free In Their Heads, also, Christopher Plummer, RIP
Twitchy: Kurt Eichenwald Takes On Nancy Mace To Defend Occasional Cortex, Gets Rekt, also, Ana “Gordita” Navarro Tries Attacking Van Jones For Taking Pic With Candace Owens, Gets Whupped
Louder With Crowder: David Hogg Pillow Update – This Genius Can’t Find A Union Pillow Factory
Vox Popoli: The Never Learn, also, They “Saved” The Election
Stoic Observations: In Defiance Of Categories
According To Hoyt: Reducing An Occupied Country
Monster Hunter Nation: Gun Runner Release Updates, also, Using A Goofy Review To Show How Collaborations Work

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Neither Madge Nor Liz
American Greatness: America’s Political Prisoners First, also, The Limits Of “Free Speech”
American Power: Occasional Cortex Moans About “Revictimization”
American Thinker: First Steps For Surviving What’s Coming, also, It’s A Big Club, And You Ain’t In It
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Climate Hypocrite News, also, Rule Five Second Amendment Friday
Babalu Blog: Cuban Dissident Arrested for Denouncing Abusive Culture Minister, also, “Cuba Expert” Advice To Biden Based On Factual Inaccuracies & Omissions
BattleSwarm: Reinstatement Of Austin Camping Ban Makes May 1 Ballot, also, LinkSwarm For February 5
Beyond The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American (Thursday) (Friday), also, INVASION OF MARS BEGINS NEXT WEEK
Cafe Hayek: Down Down Under, also, Economic Reality Isn’t Optional
CDR Salamander: Return To Transformationalism, also, Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: To Preserve Our Constitutional Republic, States Need To Nullify The Biden Administration’s Unconstitutional Acts, also, Blue States Without Trump Are Like Belichick Without Brady
Don Surber: Democrats Represent 19 Of The 20 Wealthiest Congressional Districts, also, Why Dick Cheney’s Daughter Lost Her Party
First Street Journal: President* Biden Acts Like He Cares About American Workers, But It’s Just An Act
The Geller Report: Video Shows Late Night Deliveries Of Thousands Of Illegal Ballots To Detroit’s TCF Arena, also, Muslim Brotherhood Supporter & Non-Veteran Confirmed As Head Of VA
Hogewash: Spinning The First Draft Of History To Fit The Narrative, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Hollywood In Toto: The Dazzling Robin Williams Role We Missed, also, Why The Borat Sequel Has All The Oscar Buzz
The Lid: Biden’s Reopening Illegal Alien Detention Center For Kids That Trump Closed
Legal Insurrection: Remember When Biden Promised $2000 (Not $1400) Stimulus Checks? also, Biden’s EPA Pick Says The Rest Of The Country Can Learn From California
Nebraska Energy Observer: When The Left-Leaning Are Rational, also, The Sound Of Freedom
Power Line: Democratic Governors Have Devastated Their States, also, The Deep Secret Of Electric Cars
Shark Tank: Deutch Singles Out Greene, But Has Nothing To Say About Omar & Tlaib
Shot In The Dark: Nineteen And Life
STUMP: GameStop Follies – Hedge Funds, r/wallstreetbets, and Public Pensions
The Political Hat: Woke Education – Woke College Majors, Woke Business, & Woke Dentistry, also, Why Proportional Representation For Congress Is Unwise
This Ain’t Hell: Navy Task Force To Change Ship Names That Honor Confederacy, also, Valor Friday
Transterrestrial Musings: Space Force Journal, also, Campus Diversity Efforts
Victory Girls: SecDef Orders Stand Down To Combat Extremism, also, Left Admits 2020 Election Was “Fortified” The Democrat Way
Volokh Conspiracy: SCOTUS Removes Border Wall Case From Oral Argument Calendar
Weasel Zippers: COVID Cases Mysteriously Fall 50% Since Election, also, MSNBC Discusses Using Drone Strikes Against “Extremist” Americans In America
The Federalist: How Biden’s Energy Policies Will Decimate American Jobs For No Good Reason, also, The QAnon Takeover Of The GOP Is A Leftist Fantasy
Mark Steyn: When Free Speech Becomes A Right-Wing Fetish, also, The Post-Political World

Amazon Warehouse Deals




Category: Linkagery

You Can’t Say ‘Rigged’

Posted on | February 5, 2021 | Comments Off on You Can’t Say ‘Rigged’

One of the things you learn, if you spend as many years in the news business as I have, is that the news is not random. That is to say, the question of what stories will appear on the front page of the New York Times is not merely a matter of what happened the day before, because all kinds of things happen every day, and there is only so much space on the front page of a paper. Actual choices have to be made, by human beings called “editors,” to determine what’s front-page news, what gets stuck back on Page A14, and what never gets reported at all.

The process of deciding what is “news” is not random, as I say, even though some events are of such unquestioned importance that they must be at the top of the front page. If you picked up any American newspaper on Sept. 12, 2001, this was rather obvious, but such historic events are rare, and on most days the question of what goes on A1 leaves a fair amount of leeway to the editors to make their own choices. There may be one or two stories of such unquestioned importance that they must be on the front page, but when it comes to the rest — Story 3, Story 4, Story 5, etc. — the editors have more room to exercise discretion.

Trust me, there is often a lot of internal disagreement over such things. When I was at The Washington Times, some reporters would get very angry if a story they had pitched for A1 didn’t make the cut. It was generally the policy that A1 would have at least one Metro story, and on most days also there would be something from Sports or Features on the front page, so that out of a total of seven or eight front-page stories, the National desk would only get five or six. Well, if Bill Gertz had a story about the Chinese military that he felt deserved to be on A1, he’d get rather peeved — and understandably so — if his story was bumped back to Page A3 so that we could have, say, a feature about Georgetown University basketball on the front page. It happens.

Human beings make decisions about what counts as front-page news, and there is a certain amount of selectivity involved. You know who figured this out? Matt Drudge. The story is that when he was working as the overnight clerk at a 7-Eleven in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., he would read all the newspapers to pass the time in the wee hours when there were no customers. Reading the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Washington Times, the New York Post, USA Today, etc., back-to-back every day for weeks on end, Drudge began to notice the different choices reflected in the content of the papers. From that insight sprang his subsequent approach to aggregating news at the Drudge Report (which, alas, he seems to have turned over to a gang of liberal dimwits in the past couple of years). Thanks to the Internet, all of us now have more access to different sources than was possible for most people back when Drudge was reading all those newspapers at 7-Eleven, so there is more widespread understanding of how media bias operates.

“Why is this story national news?”

That’s the question you have to ask, whenever a crime story makes it to CNN or to the network evening news broadcasts. Because America is a very large country, with more than 325 million people, the vast majority of crime in the United States is strictly “local news.” There were more than 16,000 murders in America in 2019, which works out to about 45 murder per day. How many of those murders even get mentioned on CNN? Not many. So when something like the Trayvon Martin shooting or the death of George Floyd becomes national news — hourly updates 24/7 on CNN — this means that a decision was made by someone. These stories didn’t just coincidentally become national news. On the day that George Floyd died, about 40 other Americans were shot to death, but none of those other deaths were deemed newsworthy by CNN.

Everybody today is talking about this Time magazine story by Molly Ball, which looks an awful lot like a secret plan to rig the election, but you’re not allowed to say “rigged” or “stolen,” because if you do, you’re an “extremist” and potentially a terrorist. Ace gives the story a thorough fisking here, and my podcast partner John Hoge also takes notice.

This story is nearly 7,000 words, which is a lot to chew on, but here’s one part that attracted my attention:

The racial-justice uprising sparked by George Floyd’s killing in May was not primarily a political movement. The organizers who helped lead it wanted to harness its momentum for the election without allowing it to be co-opted by politicians. Many of those organizers were part of Podhorzer’s network, from the activists in battleground states who partnered with the Democracy Defense Coalition to organizations with leading roles in the Movement for Black Lives.
The best way to ensure people’s voices were heard, they decided, was to protect their ability to vote. “We started thinking about a program that would complement the traditional election-protection area but also didn’t rely on calling the police,” says Nelini Stamp, the Working Families Party’s national organizing director. They created a force of “election defenders” who, unlike traditional poll watchers, were trained in de-escalation techniques. During early voting and on Election Day, they surrounded lines of voters in urban areas with a “joy to the polls” effort that turned the act of casting a ballot into a street party. Black organizers also recruited thousands of poll workers to ensure polling places would stay open in their communities.
The summer uprising had shown that people power could have a massive impact. Activists began preparing to reprise the demonstrations if Trump tried to steal the election. “Americans plan widespread protests if Trump interferes with election,” Reuters reported in October, one of many such stories. More than 150 liberal groups, from the Women’s March to the Sierra Club to Color of Change, from Democrats.com to the Democratic Socialists of America, joined the “Protect the Results” coalition. The group’s now defunct website had a map listing 400 planned postelection demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as Nov. 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.

Do you see that these dots connect in a non-random way? And do you understand how the news media was part of this coordinated operation?

Notice also that Molly Ball says the George Floyd riots were “not primarily a political movement.” Well, what does “political” mean? You’re not supposed to ask such questions. That’s the important thing about the media narrative, is how skepticism is basically forbidden. Ordinary citizens are not supposed to notice the strings by which the puppet-masters manipulate the story, and don’t you dare point out the political objectives toward which the media narrative is aimed:

In three consecutive presidential elections — 1980, 1984, and 1988 — the Republicans won landslide majorities. In order to win back the White House, the Democrats began examining the demographic composition of the electorate, looking for some cleavage point by which they could break up the Reagan–Bush majority. Poring over exit-poll data and convening focus groups, the Democrats went to work, and with Bill Clinton as their candidate assembled a new coalition.
Part of the Clinton message strategy — and one that Democrats have exploited ever since — was to accuse Republicans of representing forces of hate and division and saying they are to blame for the suffering of victims of oppression. This message has been ably reinforced by the Democrats’ allies in the news media. Who was it, after all, that decided to replay the video of L.A. cops beating Rodney King over and over on CNN until eventually Los Angeles erupted in the worst race riot in recent U.S. history? That episode helped Clinton win the 1992 election, and are we to suppose that this was merely coincidental? Likewise the summer-long wave of racial violence that began with protests over George Floyd’s death last May — just another election-year coincidence? Or is it the case, as I rather suspect, that CNN and other Democrat-controlled media operations are not just randomly choosing local crime stories to turn into national controversies? . . .

Read the rest of my latest column in The American Spectator.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!




 

Category: American Spectator, Crime, Election, Media Bias
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