So far, our list of those responsible for the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol includes Donald Trump, his staff and advisors, the Capitol Police and other authorities, and the rioters themselves. Before we return to those who share responsibility for the riot, there are some who have been widely accused of triggering it who did not.

Prime among the them are the Republican Senators and Representatives who had stated that they would vote against certification. This was not the first time that members of Congress had opposed certification of a Presidential election; notably, Democratic members of Congress did so after both the 2000 and 2004 elections. In both cases, as with Republicans in 2021, the stance represented a symbolic objection to aspects of the election that the members felt were problematic and needed to be addressed. No riots were triggered when the Democrats engaged in the move, and there was no reason for Republicans to hesitate to do the same. Nor is there any reason to believe that the yo-yos who rushed the Capitol would not have done so absent the announcements of the 150 GOP members who said they would withhold their approval. As with much of the over-heated accusations against Trump, the claim that the objections of the GOP Senators and House members fueled an “insurrection” is a deliberate distortion by Democrats and the left-biased media as a political strategy

Another group being fingered in the concerted effort to use the riot to further several partisan agendas, the primary one being to somehow allow Democrats to hold power, is that opinion-wielding pundits, blogger and podcasters pushed a “big lie” that the election results were fraudulent, inflaming pro-Trump fanatics. A Times piece pushing this position began by stating,

Weeks before the 2020 presidential election, the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck outlined his prediction for how Election Day would unfold: President Donald J. Trump would be winning that night, but his lead would erode as dubious mail-in ballots arrived, giving Joseph R. Biden Jr. an unlikely edge.

“No one will believe the outcome because they’ve changed the way we’re electing a president this time,” he said.

None of the predictions of widespread voter fraud came true. But podcasters frequently advanced the false belief that the election was illegitimate, first as a trickle before the election and then as a tsunami in the weeks leading up to the violent attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to new research.

Wait a minute: Beck was exactly right! Mail-in ballots were dubious, and remain so. Nobody knows, still, how much voter fraud there was, only that there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate it. And the opinion that the election was “illegitimate” is exactly that: an opinion, and one that many predicted would be rampant if the fearmongering over the pandemic prompted legislatures and governors to allow a voting method that did not have and could not have the integrity of in-person voting.

The study the Times piece was based on “analyzed nearly 1,500 episodes, showing the extent to which podcasts pushed misinformation about voter fraud.” The definition of “misinformation” the study employed was that of the self-identified liberal think-tank, The Bookings Institute, which is on the mailing list of Democratic Party mouthpieces just like the Times is. The remedy for this proliferation of “misinformation,” according to Brookings and the Times? Can’t you guess?

The new research underscores the extent to which podcasts have spread misinformation using platforms operated by Apple, Google, Spotify and others, often with little content moderation. While social media companies have been widely criticized for their role in spreading misinformation about the election and Covid-19 vaccines, they have cracked down on both in the last year. Podcasts and the companies distributing them have been spared similar scrutiny, researchers say, in large part because podcasts are harder to analyze and review.

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Hopeful sign #1: On this date in 1962, in the middle of the Kennedy administration, now hailed as the dawning of a new liberalism, the iconic folk group known as the Weavers’ appearance on “The Jack Paar Show” was cancelled because the four members refused to sign a loyalty oath. The Weavers had been blacklisted during the Red Scare (they were, in fact, Communists), but it is impossible to imagine an artist being required to sign a loyalty oath today. That’s progress. Of course, an artist today is at risk of being “cancelled” for not mouthing sufficiently woke sentiments to satisfy the left’s social media mobs. That is definitely NOT progress.

(I don’t  believe 2022 is “high noon for democracy,” but that is definitely the message both political parties and their ideological allies are pushing to begin the new year.)

1. More hope...the New York Times readers aren’t as brain-washed as I thought they were. The Times reader poll to name the top books published during the 125 years of the Times Book Review supplement chose as #1 Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird.” This occurred despite the increasing drum-beats from Woke World to declare the classic racist, mainly because its iconic hero, lawyer Atticus Finch, teaches his daughter that it is important to try to understand people who think differently than you do, including racists, and that even those with racist beliefs can be good people.

I would have assumed that Times readers would have fully assimilated that narrow view of Lee’s masterpiece; clearly they did not. Also encouraging is the third place ranking of George Orwell’s “1984,” which I would argue is the single most important book for students to read in 2022….maybe for everyone to read.

2. But then there is this: Here was the Tournament of Roses Parade float yesterday called “Vaccinate the World”…

Sometimes I wonder if the idea is to make as many Americans as possible afraid of the vaccines. Here we see a scary robot nurse wielding a giant hypodermic needle, as another needle almost as big as she is lies on the floor. Who approved this thing? Continue reading →

Was 2021 a more ethical year than 2020? The question reminds me of the debate in “Stand By Me” over whether Superman could beat Might Mouse in a fight. I’d name 2020 as more unethical because of the George Floyd freak-out, the media support of rioting, the manipulation of the pandemic for political gain, the irresponsible closing of the schools, the unethical 2020 election, the defund the police movement, the corporate pandering (especially by the sports leagues) to Black Lives Matter, and the incompetent Trump legal team’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election as sufficient to give 2020 the nod, but not by much, and at this level of cultural rot, who cares? Both years were terrible, destructive, and likely to leave permanent scars.

Unless we are very, very lucky, I do not expect 2022 to break the trend.

1. About those “democratic norms” progressives are so concerned about…Chief Justice John Roberts delivered his year-end report on the state of the judiciary which almost nobody will read, but it was notable, other than for a long section singing the praises of his predecessor William Howard Taft, for this passage, buried deep in the nine-page document:

“Decisional independence is essential to due process, promoting impartial decision-making, free from political or other extraneous influence. The Judiciary’s power to manage its internal affairs insulates courts from inappropriate political influence and is crucial to preserving public trust in its work as a separate and co-equal branch of government.”

Perhaps he should have said more on the topic, but that easily could have crossed the line into partisan debate. For the main attacks on judicial independence have come against his own court, and onlt from one side of the political divide. Prof. Turley regarded Roberts words as a “denunciation,” which is an example of the professor seeing what he wants to see, but Turley does a good job of pointing out where the threat is coming from, writing in part,

We have been discussing the ramped up threats from Democratic leaders that the Court will either vote with the liberal justices on key issues or face “consequences,” including court packing….What Democratic members are demanding is raw court packing to add four members to the Court to give liberals an instant majority — a movement denounced by figures like the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer.

Last year, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass, and others stood in front of the Supreme Court to announce a court packing bill to give liberals a one-justice majority.  This follows threats from various Democratic members that conservative justices had better vote with liberal colleagues . . . or else.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., recently issued a warning to the Supreme Court: reaffirm Roe v. Wade or face a “revolution.”  Sen. Richard Blumenthal previously warned the Supreme Court that, if it continued to issue conservative rulings or “chip away at Roe v Wade,” it would trigger “a seismic movement to reform the Supreme Court. It may not be expanding the Supreme Court, it may be making changes to its jurisdiction, or requiring a certain numbers of votes to strike down certain past precedents.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also declared in front of the Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

For her part, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. questioned the whole institution’s value if it is not going to vote consistently with her views and those of the Democratic Party: “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.” [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren seems to be channeling more AOC than FDR. Roosevelt at least tried to hide his reckless desire to pack the Court by pushing an age-based rule. It was uniquely stupid. The bill would have allowed Roosevelt to add up to six justices for every member who is over 70 years old. Warren, like AOC, wants the Democratic base to know that she is pushing a pure, outcome-changing court packing scheme without even the pretense of a neutral rule.

Despite the fact that the Court has more often voted on non-ideological lines (and regularly issued unanimous decisions), Warren denounced the Court as an “extremist” body that has “threatened, or outright dismantled, fundamental rights in this country.” Those “fundamental” values do not apparently include judicial independence.

Did you know that Donald Trump and Republicans are a threat to democracy? Continue reading →

That Barbra Streisand—what a racist.

1. Incident at the Tower of London. Some idiot tourist parents let their kid run into the path of marching guards at the Tower. The guards knocked the boy down but deftly avoided stomping him…

…but a controversy erupted on social media with the usual “Think of the children!” hysterics claiming that the guards should have broken formation to go around the boy. Maybe stop, pick him up, and deliver him safely to his parents. Buy him an ice cream while they were at it. Tell him a story.

Let’s have a kid run in the way of a firefighter trying to put out a fire and see what happens. The guards were doing their jobs, and if the precedent were established that they had to stop for irresponsible tourists and their kids, it would become a game, like people making faces at the guards at Buckingham Palace. The parents in this case should be prosecuted, and if there isn’t a law that allows that, there needs to be.

I’m not going to mention that the child wasn’t hurt, because that’s moral luck; he easily could have been. If he had been hurt, the guards would have been blameless.

Why does everything make me think of Kim Potter lately? [Pointer: Steve O-in-NJ]

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