Diagosis: Malpratice

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My blogfather from nearly 20 years ago, Andrew Sullivan, on the many, many ways modern media fails Democracy in its slavish service to the left’s narrative.

It’s hard to come up with a single pullquote, but I’ll run with this:

I still rely on the MSM for so much. I still read the NYT first thing in the morning. I don’t want to feel as if everything I read is basically tilted through wish-fulfillment, narrative-proving, and ideology. But with this kind of record, how can I not? 

We need facts and objectivity more than ever. Trump showed that. What we got in the MSM was an over-reaction, a reflexive overreach to make the news fit the broader political fight. This is humanly understandable. It is professionally unacceptable. And someone has got to stop it.

I have a hunch most Americans won’t know the value of a conscientiously neutral media until the inevitable results of the lack of one become truly apparent…

…more than they are.

Great Job

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Not being able to reasonably expect your business not to get burned? That’s going to put a damper on a community’s sense of possibility.

Being afraid their children aren’t safe coming home from school?

“We have had students who have been walking home or walking to the bus stop and they have been robbed, and told to empty their pockets, hand over their cellphones,” Friestleben said. “I really would like to know what the public safety plan is. I don’t see it.”

This is not just a north Minneapolis thing. Washburn High School principal Dr. Emily Lilja Palmer also shared the post, and said that carjacking and robberies are up on the south side. She also added that the city is in crisis, and it’s hurting students. She said there are discussions currently happening about how to keep kids safe as they leave from winter activities in the dark.

But remember – the parents are the “domestic terrorists”.

If the City of Minneapolis doesn’t figure out what city government is for, Kyle Rittenhouse will seem like an episode of the Brady Bunch.

Time’s, Er, Up…

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“Feminist” organization “Times Up” – established with the help of progressive plutocrats with deep pockets in the wake of the “#MeToo” movement – has collapsed, very publicly, very messily:

The vast majority of Time’s Up’s remaining staffers were laid off Friday in what they described as a debacle that began with leaders revealing they gave the news to the Washington Post first and ended with board member Ashley Judd breaking down in tears.

The embattled organization, limping since its CEO and entire board resigned this summer, announced Friday that it would lay off the vast majority of its remaining staff. Leadership informed staff of the decision in a virtual meeting that started 15 minutes before the Post article made the pink slips national news.

Turns out that while Big Left doesn’t care about morality, there are certain levels of hypocrisy that even the left can’t stomach – sometimes, anyway:

The attorney and women’s advocate Roberta Kaplan resigned Monday as chair of the prominent #MeToo group Time’s Up over the over fallout from her work advising Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration when the first allegations of sexual harassment were made against him last year.

Kaplan cited her work counseling the administration last winter and her more recent legal work representing Melissa DeRosa, a top aide to Cuomo who resigned Sunday, nearly a week after a report by the state attorney general concluded that the governor had sexually harassed 11 women.

“Justice” means what they say it means. No more, no less, no different.

The Left Destroys Everything It Touches

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It’s a Dennis Prager line, and it’s utterly correct.

John Miltimore goes over the “why”, on two issues Democrats claim to hold dear in their platforms – affordable housing and hunger.

And shows that in the 18 states that Democrats control, housing is less affordable, that people are hungrier, and it is in fact their fault, since there is in effect no Republican opposition for them to, er, overcome.

Prefer your left-shredding in convenient video form, from that noted tool of conservative intellectual thuggery…

…, the New York Times?

No News Is Acceptable News

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SCENE: Mitch BERG is having a cocktail at a downtown Saint Paul bar when MyLyssa SILBERMAN, Reporter for National Public Radio’s Saint Paul bureau, covering the “Fake News” and “Diversity” beats, happens in.

SILBERMAN: Merg…

BERG: Er, hey, MyLyssa…

SILBERMAN: Last week, Kyle Rittenhouse was aquitted of domestic terrorism for shooting up a Black Lives Matter rally.

BERG: You got one fact correct in that sentence, so I guess that’s a start.

SILBERMAN: What if that would have been a black man? Leaving aside the fact that he’d be dead right now, for a moment, what would all of you white male gun owners be saying about it? Would your reaction be any different?

BERG: Funny you mentioned that. Last week – the same day of the RIttenhouse verdict, in fact – Andrew Coffee IV was acquitted of murder, and attempted murder of police, when he shot at a no-knock raid on his house. No cops were killed, but Coffee was up for homicide in the death of his girlfriend was shot 10 times by a SWAT team. He was acquitted, for exactly the same reasons Rittenhouse was. He was a felon with a gun, so he might get some time for that, but he had nearly exactly the same self-defense case as Rittenhouse.

And we started finally getting some details about the acquittal of Jaleel Stallings, who returned fire at cops who were firing rubber bullets from a van without announcing their presence; Stallings fired back until the cops identified themselves (and beat the crap out of him), and got acquitted – again, for exactly the same reasons that Rittenhouse was.

Both were in reasonable fear of immediate death. Both used appropriate force. Both met their states self-defense rules. Both were acquitted.

And gun owners – presumably including many of us “white males” – supported them, as the facts got out, in their self-defense claims – albeit not necessarily Coffee’s having his illegal gun…

SILBERMAN: Mitch, Mitch, you’re missing my point.

BERG: Which is…?

SILBRERMAN: I asked if you white male gun owners would support a black man with a gun defending himself.

BERG: And I gave you two where the answer was “yes”,and that major media seemed to avoid covering. Including NPR.

SILBERMAN: You gave me concrete examples. I asked an abstract question. Please give me an astract answer…

BERG: Yes, we would and do…

SILBERMAN: …that confirms my prejudices.

And SCENE.

Rittenhouse: Good News, Bad News

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I’ve had to spend a long weekend explaining to a lot of “progressives”: it’s entirely possible that not only are both of the following true:

  • Something can be a bad idea, legally and in common sense terms,
  • Self-defense is not only legitimate, but a very high hurdle to meet under the law in every state I’m aware of; that it’s a “license to kill” if you consider being arrested, spending two months in jail, having to bond for $2.5 Million to get released, spending 15 months in legal limbo, God only knows how much in legal bills, standing trial with a risk of two life sentences and a couple more decades to boot, and having to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder in case some depraved, entitled lefty narcissist decides to “even the score” to be a “license to kill”.

Most disturbing? Beyond the number of people who think that:

  • we should just ignore the law and make Rittenhoue an example because “we don’t want people wandering around defending themselves, or that
  • “crossing state lines” is a crime, or that
  • Kyle Rittenhouse was a “vigilante” for going to a riot with a gun, but Gage Grosskreutz wasn’t, or that
  • Rioting is sacrosanct protected speech?

…what could be worse?

This: I think both sides missed the most important lesson.

Which is, I believe, this.

Some Background: It is human nature to create order.

thout order, prosperity is impossible – and by “prosperity“, I don’t mean “his and hers Bentleys“, I mean living as something other than a subsistence farmer.

Without prosperity, freedom is academic. (And without freedom, order is tyranny, but that’s getting ahead of ourselves).

I’m no expert, but I think this is the real lesson of Kenosha that a lot of people on the right, and a lot more on the left, need to get.

We pay taxes to government – lots and lots of them. And providing “order” is the one unambiguously legitimate role of government.

And if government isn’t going to provide order, fairly and equally across society, in exchange for the burden of supporting it, and keep our businesses from getting burned, our cars from getting stolen, our kids from getting mugged on the way home from school?

People will start creating order for themselves. And one of these next times, it won’t be a 17 year old kid with more idealism than common sense and a loaner rifle.

It’ll be people who won’t run to the police to surrender when nasty nastiness happens.

It’ll be people who do their self-defense pre-emptively. People who don’t care about the high rhetoric and due process of the legal system.

People for whom shooting people isn’t something from video games; it’s something they do or did for their livelihood, either in the neighborhood or in Fallujah or Mogadishu or Helmand or somewhere in the Pine Barrens.

It’ll be people who keep secrets – you could even say, people who observe, and enforce, “codes of silence”.

Sounds like…the Mob? A Cartel? Omar’s crew from The Wire?

Weird.

Word Salad With A Side Of Crocodile Tears

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Madame Vice President [1] on the Rittenhouse verdict:

So – the woman for whom giggling about putting black men in jail for simple weed possession was pillow talk with Willie Brown, and who came out in favor of prosecutors hiding exculpatory evidence in death penalty cases, has been…

…sorry. Couldn’t finish that with a straight face.

[1] Keep checking back on this.

Pattern Recognition

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I don’t believe the doomsayers. In reply, they call me a science denier. Actually, I’m practicing a different kind of science – pattern recognition – which informs my analysis.

Most political hoaxes are based on the logical fallacy “Appeal to Authority.” The hoax follows a familiar pattern. Once you recognize the pattern, the hoax is obvious.

“There are only a few years left to save the planet from global climate change. No, you can’t see my data, you aren’t capable of understanding it. I am a climate scientist. You must trust me and do as I say.”

“The Second Amendment does not protect a personal right to bear arms. We know this because hardly anybody owned guns in colonial America. No, you can’t see my probate court data, you aren’t capable of understanding it. I am a historian. You must trust me and do as I say.”

“There is no evidence the election was stolen. No, you can’t see the ballot counting software, you’re not capable of understanding it. I am an election official. You must trust me and do as I say.”

It never works, of course. The truth leaks out eventually. Michael Mann’s climate change “hockey stick” graph has been thoroughly discredited. Michael Bellesiles’ probate court research was simply made up. Statistical analysis shows significant election fraud occurred. These were not cases of “science” being challenged or denied, they were cases of “science” being manipulated and distorted to promote a specific political agenda. Once it became clear the “science” didn’t say what the proponents claimed it said, the hoax was laid bare for all to see – all who were willing to see. Not everybody is willing to see.

And now this: “The Covid virus is deadly to everyone of all ages. Only the Pfizer vaccine can save you from it. No, you can’t see my data, you aren’t capable of understanding it. I am a medical doctor. You must trust me and do as I say.”

The funding and origin of the virus is shrouded in lies. Mortality statistics are inflated even as breakthrough cases are undercounted and vaccine adverse reactions are downplayed. Policies of lockdown, masks, social distance, mandatory vaccination are based on assertions, not evidence, backed by threat of prosecution and financial ruin, but only for those who lack political privilege.

The existence of the Covid virus is not a hoax. The panic response to the Covid virus is the hoax. This is not a medical problem. This is a political problem. We must begin treating it as one.

Joe Doakes

I hope the actual science finds a way to recover from this past two years.

Rittenhouse: Not Guilty On All Counts

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Live feed.

Count 1 (Rosenbaum): Not guilty

Count 2 (McGuinness) Not guilty

Count 3 (Jump Kick Guy) Not guilty

Count 4 (Huber) Not guilty

Count 5 (Grosskreutz) Not guilty

Strap in, Kenosha. It’s gonna be a bumpy night. :

And here’s hoping Rittenhouse follows Nick Sandman into civil court.

UPDATE: Judge Schroeder after the Jury left the room: “Motion of the defense is granted, the charges are dismissed with prejudice. Mr. Rittenhouse is released from the obligation of his bond”.

That was what you call “bouncing the rubble” .

Drunk Teenagers With Keys To Dad’s Bulldozer

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We’ll allow for a moment that ‘Medium.com”, when the subject is race, criminal/social “justice” or the economy, is like Tumblr for people with unsupportably high self-esteem .

With that being said, this happened this morning:

Now, for whatever reason it’s not loading for me at the moment, or I’d be llinking to it. I’ll try to catch it later today.

But if we’re judging by the headline?

As I noted last week, people are projecting their views of the rest of American on this trial -and while I pointed out that all “sides” were doing it, let’s be honest; it’s the left that’s making it into a cottage industry.

Two observations:

Pick Your Poison: If you thought Januarhy 6 was an epic assault on America, but don’t see the attempt to bully and intimidate jurors – the backbone of our justice system, as imperfect is it and they are – as something every bit as serious, you are an idiot.

Allow me to say it to your face.

Literally, if need be.

Rules for Radicals: And of course, chaos benefits the extremes – of both sides. Especially the extreme that has a plan and the political and social “infrastructure” to capitalize on and exploit the chaos .

In 1933, the German Communists supported President Von Hindsenburg giving Chancellor HItler – the leader of the Reichstag’s (Parliament’s) largest party, the Nazis – near compete control under an emergency powers decree. The Communists – with their direct action arm, Rote Fahne, which later became “Anti”-Fa – figured they had the political will and street power to capitalize on the chaos they saw ensuing .

They bet wrong.

Big Left, today, isn’t betting wrong. While “Red” America is proud of its traditions, and owns a hell of a lot of guns,there is no organization on the right that is waiting in any significant numbers, with a plan and people with their own willl to power, least of all a will to power that leads back to a Constitutional Republic.

The riot on January 6, stupid and illegal as it was, was never in any real position to alter the Constitutionally-mandated process.

Bullying the justice system? That most certainly is.

The Inmates Are Running The Asylum. And The Schools.

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Schools in Edina – once known as a good school district – are

Pictures of Normandale Elementary School in Edina show students eating their lunch outside with hats, coats and mittens on.

“Since the beginning of school, I learned that essentially if you brought a lunch from home, you were eating outside,” said Carissa Palm, the mother of a third-grader at the school.

The related article, from KSTP-TV, is too full of nauseatingly idiotic school administrator pullquotes, or, worse, “no comments”, to get through without yelling at the screen.

Government is the things we do together – stupidly and with the lowest common intellectual denominator in charge.

Unvaccinated Survivor

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Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

Had a rough weekend. Low grade fever, chills, sensitive skin, slept for hours. Finally got a lab test on Tuesday: positive for Covid. No Thanksgiving for me. You guys can split my share of the pie.

I’m fortunate to have a mild case. Four days of down time, about like we had in The Olden Days when somebody got the Flu, before Covid took over the entire world. Worked half a day yesterday and I’m “at work” today, sitting at my home computer pushing electrons around. Thank you, Lord, that I have an easy, indoor, sit-down job. This is why modern Americans survive at such high rates compared to other nations or historical times . . . I have paid leave, warm housing, plenty to eat. Prosperity does indeed save lives. If only the damned Liberals would quit trying to destroy it.

Joe Doakes

Get well soon, Joe.

And what you said about the left hosing everything up.

If There’s A Solution…

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…to the crime wave currently sweeping the Twin Cities, it’ll likely be when parts of the state with functional two-party systems start catching slopover.

Which may be happening:

Big Left and Big Media will spin this as racist, naturally – to them, suburbs = racism (says they, from their cozy strongholds in Crocus Hill, Kenwood and Edina).

And when enough exurban soccer moms get robbed at gunpoint, it won’t matter.

Trial And Error

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SCENE: Mitch BERG is walking through the Cub Foods on Larpenteur, gauging the level of shortage going on, when Avery LIBRELLE almost literally bumps into him.

LIBRELLE: Merg!

BERG: Aw, ssshhhhhure enough, it’s Avery. How are you…

LIBRELLE: People going places where people don’t know who they are, and might be angered by their presence, should stay home. It’s just provocation!”

BERG: Are you talking about the Rittenhouse Trial, or the Ahmad Arberry trial?

LIBRELLE: Clearly, the…

(Stops)

LIBRELLE: Um…the…er…

BERG: (Slowly steps away as the wheels grind slowly to a halt.

And SCENE

Does Anyone But Me…

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…get the impression that the members of the power-clique known as “the Squad” – AOC, Ayanna Presley, Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – got the way they are because they were the “Mean Girls” in Junior High, and either never grew out of it or recovered that inner character flaw when they got into power?

Not sure why that occurred to me…

The Anti-Kaepernick?

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Did the Boston Celtics bench Enes Kanter for dunking on the Chicoms?

What a difference a year and a few tweets slamming China for slave labor make. Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter has seen his playing time severely diminished after posting a series of social media messages attacking NBA partner China for oppressing its peoples, leaving some wondering if Kanter is being punished for his advocacy of freedom.

The Celtics are denying it.

The correct answer is “of course they are””.

I mean, isn’t that what Kaepernick saga taught us? Allegation = guilt?

(Note: I apologize to those of you who had “never, ever” in the “when will Mitch write anything at all about the NBA?“ pool.)

The Modern Conundrum

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I was told that if I voted for Donald Trump, school boards would be overrun with domestic terrorists.

And they were right.

“For those who got an issue with this critical race theory equity, this is something I fight for, for my children,” Austin reportedly said during the school board meeting . “How dare you come out here and talk about the things that my daddy and my grandparents went through,” listing things such as Jim Crow, lynchings, and the oppression…

“I’ll bring my soldiers with me next time … locked and loaded,” Austin stated as he was being escorted out of the meeting by officers. Plemmons reportedly questioned whether he had been addressing her, to which he replied, “locked and loaded.”

That’s “1,000 soldiers, locked and loaded”, coming out to defend Critical Race Theory…

…which does not exist.

Faith Noah More

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NOTE: This blog’s editing tool, “Word Press”, just keeps getting worse and worse. It ate the lede, literally, for this piece. We’ll try again.

I’ll cop to a certain amount of Schedenfreud, watching the array of reliably “progressive” and utterly un-funny late-night talk shows sinking beneath Greg Gutfeld.

Four years of Donald Trump made conventional late-night “comedy” indolent and lazy. Writers – many of them not very funny to begin with – seemed to think anything with Trump in the punch line would earn ’em a laugh. The “A-list” “talent” hosting these affairs – dismal talking heads like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, whose careers peaked at parodying “Red” media and watching women jumping on trampolines, respectively – aren’t helping much.

And few stories of of this decline make me happier than Trevor Noah’s Daily Show, which traded the (relative) wit and charm of Jon Stewart for…

…well, Trevor Noah. I’d normally tell a joke at this point at Noah’s expense, but it seems fitting to remain un-funny.

And between a lame host and “writing” that can’t quite find, well, any traction in any way, the Daily Show is sinking fast.

The “Daily Show” host is as reliably progressive as his peers, although he occasionally will smite his own side (at least far more than Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel). Still, his show’s most recent ratings snapshot isn’t bad

It’s abysmal

“Abysmal” may be charitable:

#Shrug.

How bad has it gotten?

Noah has sunk below the unctuous, priggish John Oliver. Below the hapless and abysmal Samantha Bee. Ahead of the pointless, Colbert-produced “Charlemagne Tha God”, and nothing more.

Will Hollywood learn?

It’s been 30 years, and newspapers still haven’t.